Free The Merlin Effect by T. A. Barron Page B

saved might even have been around when the
Resurreccíon
went down.”
    “Sure,” said Terry, “and maybe he’s also the whale who swallowed Jonah.”
    Isabella locked into his gaze. “Maybe.”
    “Nonsense! I suppose the next thing you’ll tell us is that Jim’s lost ship will rise again, as the legend says.”
    “Its name is
Resurreccíon
,” said Isabella softly.
    “This is absurd,” declared Terry. “Do you really expect us to believe that there is some sort of fountain of youth down there?”
    “Not a fountain of youth. Not exactly. More like a fountain of…creation. A place that breeds new life in things.”
    “Enough.” He retrieved his tweezers. “I’m going back to work. You people can waste your time if you want to.” He dove again into the mass of cables and circuitry attached to the terminal.
    Jim, deep in thought, lifted his foot off the desk. “Creation,” he muttered, rubbing his beard. “Do you really think that’s possible?”
    “Theoretically, yes,” replied Isabella.
    Focusing on a point somewhere beyond the walls of thetent, he said in a hushed voice, “Imagine…a power like that. What it could do. What it could mean.”
    For a time, they were silent. The tent flap fluttered in the salty breeze, snapping like a flag in a storm.
    A moment later Terry tugged on Jim’s sleeve. “Give me a hand here, will you? Hold these two cables in place while I check the current.”
    The historian jolted, then rose from his chair. As Isabella and Kate looked on, Jim and Terry labored to make the final adjustments and connections. They tossed questions and commands back and forth as latches clicked, hinges squealed, keys tapped.
    At last, Terry straightened up, walked over to the computer, and announced, “Now or never.”
    He flicked a switch on a jerry-rigged control panel and pressed
Enter
on the keyboard. The computer hummed steadily but gave no other indication that anything was happening. Then, with a subtle flash, an image started to appear on the screen.
    At first a hazy patch coalesced near the bottom of the screen, looking like nothing in particular. A few wavy lines formed above, tilting at steep angles. Numberless dots appeared, then receded, along the left side, as though something was moving in and out of focus.
    As the group watched, the image on the screen wavered. It seemed to grow less, rather than more, recognizable.
    “What is it?” asked Kate, perplexed.
    “Whatever it is, it’s useless to us,” observed Terry. “Something is malfunctioning.”
    “And we don’t have time to find it and fix it,” added Jim in a somber tone. “If only we…wait a minute. What’s
that?
”
    Terry started to adjust the controls, then froze, staring at the screen.
    Collectively, they held their breath as the resolution on the screen swiftly deepened. The patch near the bottom took on the dense, curved shape of a great hull. The wavy lines solidified into three masts, two straight, one broken near the base. The dots grouped themselves to the left of the masts, drooping like tattered sails.
    “My God.”
    “It’s…the
Resurreccíon.
”
    Then, inexplicably, the picture began to shimmer, like a reflection in a quiet pool that is disturbed by a stone. All at once, the lines grew fuzzier, the solid places grew lighter.
    Terry immediately banged several commands on the keyboard. “What the devil?” he cursed, pounding ever more vigorously.
    To no avail. The image of the ship slipped steadily away. Within seconds, it melted to a ghostly shadow, then abruptly disappeared. The screen stared at its viewers, completely blank.
    “How could that happen?” demanded Jim. “Is something disconnected?”
    Terry shook his head slowly. “Can’t be. The terminal is still operating.”
    “Then what’s wrong?”
    “Don’t know,” muttered the geologist, activating the computer printer. “Maybe what we saw was captured in the memory.”
    After a long pause, a page emerged from the printer.