The Covenant of Genesis Read Online Free PDF Page B

fnarr, fnarr - to our cabin . . .’
    ‘Maybe later, Eddie,’ she said, pulling his hands away. ‘Come on, I need to talk to Captain Branch and start a sonar survey.’
    Chase rolled his eyes as she strode from the room. ‘Right. Because there’s nothing sexier than a sonar survey.’
     
    Nina leaned against the railing on the Pianosa ’s deck, watching the red and white de Havilland Otter floatplane nudge up to the L-shaped floating pontoon dock extending out from the ship’s starboard side. Chase waved at her from the co-pilot’s seat.
    She waved back, then headed for her lab. It had taken some time to persuade Captain Branch - a stickler for adhering to the exact letter of a contract, nothing more, nothing less - to allow the floatplane to be used for anything other than its agreed purpose of bringing in fresh food from Jakarta over the course of the ten-day expedition. But she eventually got her way . . . with the promise of some extra money from the discretionary budget going his way.
    The Otter had been outfitted with a small ‘dunking’ sonar array, then spent the next few hours making short hops along a rough spiral course out from the ship. At each landing, Chase lowered the sonar into the water to scan the surrounding sea bed. In theory, if any of the results matched the reading from the dig site, there was a good chance they would find more of the mysterious bricks, perhaps even their source.
    In theory. There was an equal chance that the search would uncover absolutely nothing.
    Chase entered, carrying the tubular sonar array. Behind him, holding the sonar’s data recorder, was Bejo, one of the Indonesian members of the crew. He was still in his late teens, and growing up on one of the vast archipelago’s many islands meant that he had spent almost as much of his life in boats as on land.
    ‘How was the trip?’ Nina asked as Chase returned the sonar to its large metal box.
    ‘Pretty good. Hervé even let me hold the controls. For about a minute.’
    ‘I thought I heard terrified screams,’ Nina joked as Bejo put the recorder on a table. ‘Thanks, Bejo.’
    ‘No problem, Mrs Nina,’ Bejo said cheerily.
    ‘Please, I told you,’ she said as she connected the recorder to one of the lab’s computers, ‘I’m not “Mrs” anything. Not until next May, anyway.’
    ‘Ah! I see, then you will be Mrs Eddie?’
    ‘No, nonono.’ Nina wagged a finger. ‘Then he’ll be Mr Nina.’
    Bejo erupted with laughter. ‘Mr Nina!’ he cried, pointing at Chase. ‘I like that, that is funny.’
    ‘Yeah, hilarious,’ Chase rumbled. He joined Nina at the computer. ‘See you later, Bejo.’
    ‘And you . . . Mr Nina!’ Bejo left the lab, his laughter echoing down the corridor.
    ‘Cheers for that,’ said Chase, batting Nina lightly on the back of her head. ‘Now I’m going to be “Mr Nina” for the rest of the bloody trip.’
    ‘Ah, you don’t mind really. Because you lurve me.’ She nudged him playfully with her hip.
    ‘Yeah, I need to get my head checked sometime. So what’ve we got?’
    Nina was already working. ‘Let’s see, shall we? Okay, this is the dig site.’ An image appeared on the screen, blobs in various shades of grey against a black background. ‘It’s a composite of four readings - only objects that stay stationary in all four show up, so we don’t have to worry about fish confusing things.’ She zoomed in and indicated one particular group of objects. ‘These are the bricks you found.’
    ‘We didn’t dig up that many,’ Chase noted. ‘How deep can the sonar read?’
    ‘Up to two feet - it depends what’s on the sea bed. If it’s just sediment, any more bricks should show up clearly. Okay, let’s see what you found.’
    The first composite image came up. Nina examined it, zooming in on everything that gave a strong sonar return, but found nothing resembling the regular forms of the bricks. By the time she had finished, more images had been processed, ready for