Ian, Mike, and Theresa baited up a series of hooks of various sizes and weighted the lines. They opened the inner collection door and shoved the long metal lines and baited hooks inside. The lines, almost two hundred feet long, were attached to the winch of the internal mechanical arm. They closed the door and pressed the button, which allowed the compartment to slowly flood. It was a tense moment as they watched the tube fill with water from their monitor, each praying that the inner door wouldn’t blow off in their faces and flood the entire deck before it could be sealed off from the rest of the ship.
“I just thought of something,” said Ian. “That water is over a hundred degrees. That bait fish is gonna boil and come apart out there.”
“It’s only a hundred closer to the vent. The ship’s thermometers are amidships. At the bottom here, we’re a hundred feet further away. I bet it’s no more than fifty or sixty down on the seabed.”
“Well, that beats thirty-four,” said Theresa. “We’ll record the temperature of whatever we pull inside.”
They opened the outer door once the compartment was flooded and the telescopic arm extended far outside. Mike played with the controls on the robotic arm and released the baited hooks, which floated down to the ancient sea floor. They watched what the infrared cameras were showing on their monitors, stunned at the amount of activity that appeared from nowhere.
“Little fuckers can smell food a mile away,” said Mike to himself as he watched what looked like albino eels slither through the water like white ribbons. Small lights appeared on their screens as deepwater predators used their phosphorescent lures to attempt to attract whatever they were smelling. When they could no longer wait, they attacked the bait and opened their enormous mouths, sucking in huge chunks of the oily bluefish.
“Jesus,” said Theresa quietly. “I thought we’d be sitting here for hours or days trying to catch a fish. I had no idea there was so much life down here.”
“It’s the black smoker. Gotta be,” said Mike. “I was on a submersible before. There was nowhere near as much activity. This is bizarre. Give it another minute and we’ll reel it in.”
Ian hopped up and grabbed a specimen containment tank. “Remember, if the specimens blow up all over the lab, Theresa has to take off her clothes.”
“You were the one that had to get naked, not me. As I recall, Mike was dying to see you in the buff,” said Theresa.
“You’re both narced,” said Mike. “I’m reeling them in now.”
The three of them watched the monitor in amazement as three albino eel-looking creatures and two large anglerfish were reeled into the tube. They sealed the outer door and pressed a button to start the decompression sequence that would allow them to attach the collection tank. Following the same procedure they had practiced when they caught the yellowtail, they watched the alien specimens flow into their tank. The thermometer on the tank read seventy degrees.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ! What the hell is that?” moaned Ian as he watched the water in their collection tank turn into a milky slime.
“Hagfish. Shit. They’re gonna ruin the other specimens.”
“Hagfish?” asked Ian.
“Yeah. Eptatretus stoutii. We call ’em slime eels. One fish can produce enough slime to fill a bucket. It’s a protective film, and it smells awful. They make a cocoon out of the shit when they sleep or if they feel threatened. I guess they didn’t like being put in the tank next to the fangtooth. I really wanted to get a chance to see one of them alive. Damn, I can’t see shit in there now.”
True enough, the tanks were so filled with goo that the cameras inside couldn’t penetrate the slime to capture images of the fish. They were simply looking at the inside of a milk container.
“So much for experiment number one,” said Theresa. “We’ll see if we can depressurize the tank for a day or two and try to open it up then. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky,” She looked at Ian. “And no—you aren’t getting lucky if I’m wrong.”
***********
Ted walked into the lab on the lower deck unexpectedly. “Skipper says you caught some fish?” he asked.
Theresa smiled, her good nature glowing in the artificial light. “Sure did! Some nasty eels and a fangtooth.”
“Fangtooth?” asked Ted.
Ian pulled out a fish identification book he had been looking through. He held up a page that showed something out of a horror movie. The fangtooth, Anoplogaster cornuta, is a deepwater predator whose tooth-to-body size ratio is one of the largest differentials in the ocean. While only about six inches long as an adult (with fangs over an inch long), they can easily eat sea creatures almost their own size with their huge mouths. Ted eyed the picture and smiled.
“A mouth and stomach with a tail,” he said. “Looks alien.”
Ian smirked. Ted was always equating everything to his Mars mission that would never happen. “Yeah, I guess so. But there’s so much about the deep water we don’t know. Shame we waited so long to really commit to exploring our own planet. Every day will be a new discovery down here.”
Ted’s face proved the comment wasn’t lost on him. He kept his cool. “What about the eels?”
“Friggin’ nasty,” chimed in Mike from across the lab. “Slimed the whole friggin’ tank.”
“You’re so Jersey,” said Theresa with her usual smile.
“Yo—what exit?” asked Mike. She wasn’t a Jersey girl and had no idea what his parkway reference meant. He turned back to Ted. “Those eels—Eptatretus stoutii, what we call slime eels—they eat their prey from the inside out.”
“Charming,” said Ted.
“Sounds like my mother,” said Ian.
Theresa made a squeamish face. “I’m not up on my slime eels—you serious?” she asked, her face contorted as if it hurt.
Mike looked at her and cocked his head. “You seriously wanna know?”
“Of course. I do worms—not so much up on my fish.”
“The slime eels aren’t known to be predatory parasites. They usually go after dead or dying fish. We’re not a hundred percent sure, which is one of the things I hope to learn down here. They attach themselves to an injury site on a fish—like a hole or cut in the skin. Once there, their jawless mouths bore through the fish right into its guts. It starts by eating the intestines and organs first, then the meat. Leaves a bag of bones when it’s done. Fishermen pull them up sometimes inside of dead fish by accident. And if the fisherman is really lucky, the little fucker will slime all over his catch and ruin everything. One little hagfish is good for a couple of gallons—hence the fucked-up tank.”
Ted interrupted him. “Do you have to curse every five seconds?” he asked, perhaps trying to show Theresa what a gentleman he was—or how astronauts were classier than fish geeks.
“Fuckin’-A right I do. Those little bastards slimed our observation tank. You wanna clean it out when it depressurizes?”
“No thanks,” he muttered as he walked over to the tank and tried to peer into the milk. Occasionally something fluttered against the glass, still hooked on the line and in a foul mood, but lost in the white milk-like slime water. “You guys have fun.” He turned back to the group. “Are you going to be able to get any sea life off the black smoker?”
“I’d love to,” said Theresa. “The tube worms are my specialty. If we can get some samples from the side of the smoker, I’ll be thrilled.”
“I spent a lot of time studying the bacteria inside the worms at NASA,” said Ted. “Anyone who knows anything about them can’t seriously question whether life exists on other planets. They thrive in superheated sulfur, poisonous gases, and heavy metals. Zero sunlight. Almost zero oxygen. Pitch darkness. Pick a planet—there’s life out there.”
“Too bad about the Mars mission,” said Ian.
Theresa and Mike shot him a surprised look. He really was being a prick to Ted.
“I’m sure the information gathered here will be a great help in the Mars mission,” Ted said with a cold stare. “And if it weren’t for the Mars mission, this ship could never have been built. The alloys, the computers and sonar—everything on this tub is a hybrid of our work at NASA, so don’t think you’re such hot shit, fish-boy.”
Ted turned back to Theresa, trying to cool off. “When you have time later, I’d like to discuss the black smoker with you.” He shot Ian a look and left the lab.
“Yo, man—that was cold,” Mike said to Ian.
“Fuck him. I had to listen to his shit for two months before this mission when we were working together on the lab design. He’s all about NASA. Well, he’s underwater, not in space—so he can kiss my Scottish ass.”
“Tell us how you really feel,” said Mike sarcastically.
“Well, he’s right about the black smoker,” said Theresa quietly, not wanting to argue with Ian, who was obviously in a pissy mood. “The life that exists on the smokers defies all commonly held logic about life on Earth. Being accidentally placed on a smoker was very fortunate. We can gather a ton of new information.”
“Yeah, maybe Ted can swim over and pick you a worm,” said Ian.
“I think you are being nasty to him for no reason,” said Theresa. “The guy is brilliant.”
“Yeah, with his own agenda, too. I don’t trust him,” said Ian. His accent was thick, and the others always had to strain to catch every word. “Anyway—the hell with him. Let’s try and depressurize the tanks and get the specimens out before they’re all dead from that slime.”
“The eels will be fine in their own slime. The fangtooth may suffocate, though. The eels will be easier to save anyway—they have no swim bladder. The fish has a gas-filled bladder—open it too early and it may burst.”
“So what do you want to do?” asked Ian.
“Just let the pressure-relief valve slowly do its thing. We should wait until tomorrow at least. I think either way, the fish dies—but maybe we can examine the eels alive.”
“You can play with those nasty things. I think I wanna fish for something else!” said Ian.
Theresa chimed in, “Next time we go fishing, let’s use the ACD unit on the other side. It’s the side closest to the smoker. I’d love to try and snag some tube worms.”
“She’s so low maintenance. Most chicks want flowers—just give her a gooey worm and she’s happy,” said Mike.
She stuck her tongue out playfully. “And they aren’t gooey. Unless you pull them out of the tube.”
“I know there’s a dirty joke in there somewhere,” said Mike.