Earth(28)

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"Susan!" I shouted across the deck.

She turned, putting her finger to her lips. "She's still asleep," she whispered as soon as I was close enough, gesturing to a snoring lump at her feet.

I lowered my voice to a whisper. "Do you still have the Chalice? I want to try again."

"Right now?"

I looked at her. "We're running out of time."

Bee's eyelids fluttered. She was dreaming. Hopefully about something good.

"Maybe not this close to her, but somewhere high – I feel like the higher the better."

Susan nodded to the captain's bridge on the other end of the deck. "How about on top?"

"Looks good to me."

"Here." She removed the Chalice from her belt and wrapped it in one of the smaller blankets surrounding Bee. "I know I don't have to say it, but—"

"But you'll say it anyway," I interrupted.

"Be careful."

As I took the wrapped Chalice her nose crinkled. "You smell like potatoes."

"Thanks." My mouth tipped up in a smile. I darted off like a teenager with the keys to mom's car.

I poked my head into the captain's deck before scaling the ladder to the top. I sighed, Arnold was at the wheel. "Hey, First Mate." I cleared my throat. I really didn't know what to call him. "Er… Arnold. If you hear anything up top, it's just me. I need some privacy."

He smiled. "Well, hell. Feel free to hang out in here. I won't bother you none."

"Oh, thanks. But I'm going to try to…meditate. It'll be easier alone." I took my leave.

"I hear ya, I hear ya," his voice floated out before I could close the door. "Oh hey, Kaitlyn!"

I poked my head back in, sighing. I’d almost gotten away. "Yes?"

"Did you know the Antarctic has their own nuclear power station? McMurdo Power Station on Ross Island. You can build these things away from the population."

I frowned. "Antarctica? That anywhere near Heard and McDonald Islands?"

Arnold smiled. "Yes, actually. The nuclear reactor was shut down early 70's, but the infrastructure is still there."

He went on, citing the potential for various nuclear reactors located in desolate areas. I tuned his voice out. One of Shawn's bases of operations was awfully close to that reactor. That couldn't have been a coincidence. Was that his plan? To run the world on nuclear?

"…take Russia for example," Arnold continued, unabated. "They built the first floating nuclear station. It's not in danger of earthquakes like Fukushima, and in a worst case scenario, the entire station could be sunk. Cold sea water cools the core and prevents atmospheric release." He paused, laughing. "I don't mean to talk your ear off on the matter, but that McMurdo plant—"

"How would they transport energy to the rest of the world?" I asked, interrupting him.

"What?" He looked dumbfounded.

"Floating stations are a good idea, but you still have to bring danger to nearby populations in order to transfer the power. How do you safely transport energy to the population with Antarctic nuclear stations?" I asked again.

"Well…you could…I mean I would just…" he stuttered out no solutions.

"You think on it. Listen, I need to get my meditation done before Bee wakes up." The door swung shut behind me and I scurried up the ladder before he could protest.

Positioning myself in the middle, I waited a few minutes to make sure he wouldn't follow me up. I unwrapped the Chalice partly, balancing it in front of me without touching it.

"Equal them, but don't better them," I said to myself. My conscience sneered. At least not to their faces.

I took a deep breath and grasped the cup with both hands.





Chapter 18





Righting the Wrong





"Sir?" David asked, pen poised over a notebook. Both highly prized processions, as they were hard to come by these days.

"Don't call me…never mind." Shawn sighed, putting a few handfuls of dirt into the bowl he held. If they hadn’t gotten it by now, they never would. "We're going to St. Louis via river. I'll need you to find several motorboats and gas, and anything else that is sea-worthy that we can slap a motor on. Much of it is upriver."

"Yes, sir." David wrote furiously in his notebook.

"Bottle up what you can of the well water – and do the same for anything edible in the gardens."

David paused writing, then cleared his throat. "Sir, the water source has dried up."

Shawn sighed again, standing up and wiping his hand on his pants. "Just do what you can. Oh, and David?"

"Yes sir?"

"There is a man tied up in the basement of the capital building. Send word to the Wiccan camp. They'll go release him, and we'll be long gone."