The shimmer was more pronounced. It appeared hazy, slightly more mirage-like . . . but it was definitely there. It was real.
She gave the binoculars back to Simmons as a few of the others congregated around them. They seemed as bewildered as he was. She darted a look behind them. Finch had the skycam’s arms clicked into place while Dalton was double-checking the second camera’s harness and settings, both of them keeping an eye on the sighting. She noticed the captain coming out on deck. Two crew members hurried to join him. Gracie turned to the others. “None of you have any idea what we’re looking at here?”
“I first thought it might be a flare,” one of the other crew members said, “but it’s too big and too bright, and it’s just there, you know? I mean, it’s not moving, is it?”
The sleek noise of air being whipped around startled them just momentarily. It was a sound they’d heard earlier that day, when Gracie and Dalton had used the small, unmanned remote-controlled helicopter to get some panoramic establishing shots of the ice shelf.
Dalton shouted, “We’ve got liftoff,” over the whirr of the skycam’s rotor blades.
They turned to watch it rise. The Draganflyer X6 was an odd-looking but brilliant piece of engineering. It didn’t look anything like a normal helicopter. It was more like a matte-black alien insect, something you’d expect to see in a Terminator movie. It consisted of a small central pod that was the size of a large mango and housed the electronics, gyroscopes, and battery. Three small collapsible arms extended out from it horizontally, at twelve, four, and eight o’clock positions. At the end of each arm was a whisper-quiet, brushless motor, each one driving two parallel sets of molded rotor blades, one above it and another underneath. Any type of camera could be fitted to the rig under its belly. It was all powered by rechargeable lithium batteries, and the whole thing was made of black carbon fiber that was incredibly strong and yet super-light—the Draganflyer weighed less than five pounds, high-definition video camera with a helicopter-to-ground link included. It gave great aerial shots with minimal fuss, and Dalton never traveled anywhere without it.
Gracie was watching the black contraption rise above the deck and glide away slowly, heading toward the ice shelf, when a female voice yelled out, “Oh my God,” and Gracie saw it too.
The sighting was changing again.
It flared up again, then dimmed down from its outward rim inward, shrinking until it was barely a tenth of its original size. It held there for a couple of tantalizing seconds, then slowly flared back to the way it was. And then its surface seemed to ripple, as if it were morphing into something else.
At first, Gracie wasn’t sure what it was doing, but the second it started changing, something deep within her knotted. The sighting had clearly come alive. It was shapeshifting, twisting into itself, but always within the confines of its original envelope. It was taking on different compositions with alarming speed, all while keeping up its barely noticeable rotation, and they were all perfectly symmetrical, almost as if it were a kaleidoscope, but less angular, more rounded and organic. The patterns it took on melted from one to another continuously at an increasing, dazzling rate, and Gracie wasn’t sure of what they were, but they reminded her of cellular structures. And in that very moment, she felt a deeply unsettling sensation, as if she were staring at the very fabric of life itself.
The small gathering froze, equally dumbstruck. Gracie glanced over at them. A whole range of emotion was etched across their faces, from awe and wonder to confusion—and fear. None of them was debating what it could be, not anymore. They just stood there, rooted to the deck, eyes fixated on it, their only words brief expressions of their amazement. Two of them—an older man and woman—crossed themselves.
Gracie saw Dalton check on the fixed camera, making sure it was still capturing the event. He held the skycam’s remote control unit, which was suspended from a neck strap, at waist level, his fingers expertly controlling both joysticks.
She caught his gaze and moved her mike down. “This is . . . Jesus, Dalton. What’s going on?”
He looked up at the sighting. “I don’t know, but . . . Either Prince has a new concert tour coming up, or someone’s spiked our coffee with some serious shit.” Dalton could usually see the humor in anything,