Medusa

“Have you checked out the canyon where the lab was prospecting for jellyfish?” asked Campbell.

“Yeah. It’s a few hundred yards from the site. I dove down into it a couple hundred feet. The canyon goes down forever. Saw a few blue medusae floating around, but that was it. I could dive deeper, but I’ve heard that the definition of insanity is repeating the same useless action over and over.”

“Come up for air, then,” said Campbell. “We’ll call the Concord and fill Captain Dixon in-Hold on, Joe. Call for you coming through the NUMA net. I’ll put it through.”

After a moment or two, a female voice came over Zavala’s earphones.

“How’s your search going, Joe?”

“Hi, Gamay, nice to hear from you. I’ve picked a piece of the support ship off the bottom, but that’s it. How about you?”

“We may have something,” she said. “We tried to contact Kurt but the call wouldn’t go through, so we tracked you down under the sea. Paul and I came across the coordinates for a place called Trouble Island. It’s about a hundred miles from the lab site. It may be where the crew of the Princess underwent their miraculous cure. Not sure how it relates to the missing lab, but maybe it will help.”

“Give the captain the info,” he said, “and I’ll come up and check things out.”

“We’re on our way back to Washington,” she said. “Call if you need anything at this end.”

Zavala thanked Gamay and Paul, then pointed the nose of the submersible toward the surface and powered the thrusters. A crane was waiting to hoist it from the water onto the deck of the NUMA ship.

Zavala popped the hatch, climbed out, and made his way to the bridge. Captain Campbell was poring over the chart table. He pointed to a speck on a chart of Micronesian waters.

“This is the atoll closest to the position your friends gave me,” Campbell said. “Doesn’t look like much, and, as you can see, it’s within a red rectangle, which means it was searched visually. What do you think?”

Zavala pondered the captain’s question, then said, “I think I need to talk to an expert.”

A few minutes later, he was on the line with the NUMA navigational unit that supplied the agency’s worldwide expeditions with up-to-date navigational information.

“Let me see if I understand,” said the map expert, a soft-voiced young woman named Beth. “You’re looking for a Pacific island that is no longer on the charts and you don’t know if it even existed in the first place.”

Zavala chuckled softly.

“Sorry,” he said. “This must be like looking for a nonexistent needle in a very big haystack.”

“Don’t be discouraged, Joe. I like a challenge.”

“Any chance the island might have been noted on a British Admiralty chart?”

“It depends,” she said. “The Admiralty charts were ahead of their time when it came to accuracy, although the earlier ones were privately produced and had lots of errors. The Admiralty certified some maps that shouldn’t have been.”

“You’re saying that an island could be on some charts but not others?”

“Absolutely! The charts and atlases of the nineteenth century showed more than two hundred islands that never existed.”

“How could that happen?”

“Many ways. A land-starved mariner might mistake a cloud formation for an island and record its position. Figuring longitude was also a problem. Someone might mark a real island in the wrong place. Con men created phony islands to push get-rich-quick schemes. The next guy in the neighborhood looks at his chart and sees empty sea where an island should be . . . Now, tell me what you know about your phantom island.”

“I know that it was real,” Zavala said. “An American whaling ship stopped there in 1848. But the island is not on any modern map. There’s an atoll fairly close by, though.”

“I’ll start by looking for an 1848 chart or one close to it,” she said. “Next, you’ll want to compare it to Pacific Chart 2683.”

“What is so special about it?”

“It’s the gold standard of Admiralty charts. The British Hydrographic Office knew that the Admiralty maps were getting out of whack. Accurate charts were essential for the Navy and commercial interests. So, in 1875, the Admiralty brought in a chief hydrographer named Captain Frederick Evans to purge the phantom islands from all their charts. He got rid of more than a hundred islands in the Pacific alone. The corrected chart was designated with the number 2683.”

“Then it’s possible that the island never existed?” he asked.

“Possibly. But islands can disappear. Your island might have sunk into the sea after a volcanic eruption, an earthquake, or a flood. There is historical precedent: the island Tuanah supposedly sank with its inhabitants. And there are other reported cases on record. It could be a reef or rock below the surface now, and even a satellite wouldn’t pick it up. You’d have to get in for a close look.”

“Where do we start?” Zavala asked.

“A lot of this stuff is online,” Beth replied. “The British Library has the biggest collection of Admiralty charts. I’ll go there first, and then I’ll take a look at the UK’s National Archives. If I have to go to the Royal Geographical Society or the Maritime Museum at Greenwich, it might take a while. When do you need this information?”

“Yesterday,” Zavala said. “Lives may depend on what we find.”

“Are you joking, Joe?”

“I wish I were.”

After a brief pause at the other end of the line, Beth said, “Like I told you, I love a challenge.”

Zavala wondered if he had been too dire and tried to lighten the mood.

“Are you married or engaged, Beth?”

“No. Why?’

“In that case I would like to buy you di

“Wow! Who says you can’t meet eligible men in the map division? Gotta go. ’Bye.”

Zavala clicked the phone off and made his way to the NUMA helipad. The helicopter was fitted out with pontoons that allowed it to land on water. Zavala gazed at the helicopter lost in thought, then went back to the ship’s bridge.

“I’ve got another favor to ask,” he said.

“We’ll do whatever we can to help,” Captain Campbell said.

“I’ve got a NUMA map expert looking into the history of the atoll the Trouts found the coordinates for. If she comes up with any leads, I’d like to borrow your helicopter to check them out.”

“I’ll make sure it’s fueled and ready to go whenever you need it.”

Zavala thanked Campbell, and went down to the supply shed on the main deck. He had set aside an emergency life raft and was wondering if he needed additional gear when his phone trilled. Beth was calling back.

“I’ve got it!” she said.

“That was fast,” he said.

“Pure luck. I found what I was looking for in the British National Archives. Their stuff is on a database, categorized according to time period. What’s your e-mail address?”

Zavala gave Beth the information, and, before hanging up, made sure he had her personal phone number so he could call to set up a di

Zavala made his way to the ship’s communications center and borrowed a computer. He called up his e-mail address and seconds later the British Admiralty chart of 1850 filled the screen. He studied the chart for a moment, especially the dot labeled Trouble Island. Then he clicked the mouse. Pacific Chart 2683 appeared.

He put the earlier chart side by side with the corrected one. The circles on the corrected chart designated the position of nonexistent islands that the Admiralty hydrographers had removed. Trouble Island was not circled, but the name had been removed and the dot designated it as an atoll. Some time between 1850 and 1875, Trouble Island had become an atoll.

Zavala made a phone call to a NUMA colleague who specialized in old sailing ships and got an estimated sailing speed for a fully loaded whaler. Zavala then leaned back in his chair, laced his hands behind his head, and put himself in a ship captain’s place.