Jason, though, noted another oddity. He lifted his camera and examined the device from all angles. “It stopped filming. The visuals were clear, then started waving, before going dark.”
Gray crossed to a wall. He pressed a palm against it, then removed a spoon from his pocket. It was tarnished nearly black. Elle recognized the same patina from the pots and pans at the campsite. He must have pilfered the utensil before the team left.
He placed the spoon against the wall and pulled his hand away. It remained in place. “Lodestone,” he said, turning to face the group. “This entire cavern has been carved out of a magnetite vein.”
Jason stared down at his camera. “Those energies must’ve knocked out the electronics.”
“It’s likely affecting us, too,” Harper warned.
Elle searched the chamber. “But why build this room out of lodestone?”
Gray crossed to the divot in the floor. “To be a place of healing. People have long believed that magnetism can cure disease, relieve pain.”
Harper joined him. “Don’t be so dismissive, commander. There are many proven therapeutic benefits from magnetism. Treating headaches, depression, high blood pressure, insomnia, even multiple sclerosis.”
As Gray took this in, his face returned to that pinched, thoughtful look. He stared toward the exit, likely picturing the dioramas that led them here.
Elle kept her attention in the room, on the collection of two-faced pots, showing the strange plants on one side, and whales on the other.
As she did, she was suddenly thunderstruck.
Gray turned toward her, maybe hearing her gasp.
“All those carvings in the tunnel,” she said. “I think they’re ancient flow charts. Showing how these people manufactured a product that they harvested fromwhales.”
“Andplants,” Gray added. “Considering where this all led, to a place of healing, I believe they were recording recipes for the production of a medicine.”
Elle turned to one of the room’s pots. “Which once done, required combining the two medicines to create a final elixir.”
Gray stared over at the trough in the floor. “The final treatments must have been performed here, in this magnetic chamber, leaning on the energies of the room to enhance the elixir’s effects.”
Seichan joined him. “Even if you’re right, whatdiseasewere these ancients treating?”
Gray turned to her, as if the answer were obvious. “Old age.”
Anna covered her mouth, then lowered it, as she clearly made the connection, too. “All those stories about the amazinglongevityof the Hyperboreans. While not immortal, it’s said they lived to extraordinary lengths.” She stared around the room. “Could it be true?”
“Are you asking if the medicine worked?” Gray shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how the harvested essence of a whale and a plant, combined with magnetism, could achieve such a result.”
The ship’s medical doctor raised a hand. “I may know.”
All eyes turned to her.
“I’ve always been fascinated by ancient remedies, especially among the northern people. The Inuit, the Dorset, the Sámi, even Omryn’s people. But I’m still a Western scientist. Last year, I came across a research paper from the University of Rochester in New York regarding the longevity of whales, specificallyBalaena mysticetus.”
“The bowhead whale,” Elle said.
Harper nodded. “It’s why the paper caught my attention, especially considering the oceans I travel through.”
“What did the study show?” Gray asked.
“As I mentioned, the bowheads can live for up to two hundred years. The Rochester study discovered thesourceof this astounding longevity. It was because bowheads possess a unique set of genes that suppress cancer. The genes miraculously repair damaged DNA, the leading cause for most cancers. The reparative agent is a strange protein—CIRBP—that’s produced by those genes. After this discovery, those same scientists have been trying to find a way of engineering those genes into us. Trials with mice have already been partially successful.”
“And you think these ancients stumbled into a successful way of doing that?” Gray asked.
Harper shrugged. “The tribes out here, living a hard life, cut off and isolated, had to develop innovative strategies to survive. Many of their native remedies required complicated formulations—producing pharmaceuticals that baffle modern medicine, yet have shown to be effective.”
Omryn nodded at this.
