"Mr. Ortiz, are you in contact with the station?"
"Yes, Captain. They just now uploaded some revisions to the topo file for that part of the seafloor."
Bridger settled into his command chair. His hand brushed against the targeting and fire console on the right arm. They were all inactive now, but the feel of them—so close—reminded Bridger of the tremendous firepower that the seaQuest carried.
"Sir," Ortiz said, "do you want the updated topo on the VR screen or—?"
"No, Lieutenant. Can you project a holo image overhead?"
There was a brief pause, and then a chunk of the ocean floor was suspended in front of Bridger, looking as if he could reach out and touch it.
"Mr. Ortiz, where's the station?"
"Captain, since the station has been classified, we don't have its layout. But they have told us their coordinates... which I can highlight—"
And then one of the folds in the craggy, uncompromising vent area was highlighted in red.
"And where is the vent field?"
"In that valley, sir. It opens to a field of volcanic chimneys, sir."
The section behind the resort area also became tinged in red.
Bridger had two thoughts:
First, this was one hell of a big vent area. The largest vent area he had heard about was only ten acres, and this one had to be easily three, four times that size.
And his second thought was that they couldn't have picked a more difficult area for the seaQuest to operate in. The station looked as if it were hidden in the rocky folds of the seafloor. It was surrounded by nasty sharp-edged volcanic ridges, mountains, and jagged, upthrust points of rock.
The seaQuest was no little ship. It would take some careful navigating...
"Doesn't look too pretty, eh, Captain?"
Chief Crocker came up beside Bridger.
Bridger looked down from the holographic image of the topo. "No, Gator. In fact, I can't remember seeing such a nasty area."
Crocker leaned close to the Captain, as if he didn't want anyone else on the bridge to hear.
"Excuse me for saying so, Captain, but while the ship's still pretty new to you—well, I'd take it real easy."
Bridger laughed. "Don't worry, Crocker. I'm not about to bang up the UEO's pride and joy."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"But—I do think I'd better get her down, and approach this"—he looked at the topo—"mess level on."
Ford stood by the communications module, talking to Bachmann. "Mr. Ford. Let's bring seaQuest down a bit."
Ford turned to Bridger. "Sir?"
"Blow forward and rear ballast, and trim forward dive planes to take her down 30 degrees, Mr. Ford."
In less than a second. Navigation started carrying out his orders, and Bridger knew that this massive ship, this underwater city, was swimming deeper now, cutting farther into the blackness of the deep ocean.
He barely felt the tilt set by the dive planes.
"Captain," Ford said, "I'll check the currents. There's a lot of strange stuff kicked up by the storm."
Bridger nodded. "Good idea, and Mr. Ortiz? Deploy WSKRS, and see that—"
"Captain—" Bridger heard a yell, and then steps from behind, someone running from the starboard passageway. He spun around in his chair to see Lucas running toward him with a sheaf of papers in his hands.
"Captain—whoa, you better take a look at these."
Bridger looked up to see everyone on the bridge watching him, curious—everyone a little on edge, not knowing what this was all about.
"As you were, gentlemen," and Bridger took the hard copy from Lucas.
Noyce studied Harpe's face on the screen just as he was sure Harpe was studying his.
Bill Noyce had been brought into this party with the joint UEO/Azores station a "done deal"—the vent field already discovered and Harpe backing research, in exchange for certain proprietary rights.
Now Noyce wanted to know exactly what those rights were.
"Mr. Harpe, I had expected to hear from you about my previous requests."
Harpe looked stolid, unflappable. "Requests? You mean, Admiral, about the timetable of events at the station? I'm afraid—"
Noyce had received some direct reports from the station, but the UEO's communications people told him that a steady stream of two-way contact had been going back and forth between the station and Harpe WorldWide.
"Mr. Harpe—what exactly happened to that sub?"
Wrecked, its two-man crew dead. That's all Noyce knew.
Harpe smiled. "I'm afraid that's the million-dollar question, Admiral. In fact, that's why it's so good that your seaQuest is sailing there right now. My people..."
Noyce shook his head. How the hell had they gotten into bed with this lizard?
"... haven't had the opportunity to examine the sub." Harpe looked irritated by the question. "With over a half dozen people dead. Admiral, and—who knows—more on the way, surviving has been their number one priority."
Noyce cleared his throat. Enough of this. "Harpe, as of now, I want all communications with the station to go through the UEO's link. And that also means communications from any HW employees at the station—"
Harpe shook his head. "Admiral, are you ordering me—?"
"I'm telling you that there will be no more private communications between you and the Azores station. Everything—all messages, all contact—goes through UEO headquarters starting now. And it will remain that way until we know what happened."
Harpe looked as if he were going to explode out of his seat, but then—after a beat—a composed smile returned to his face.
"Certainly, Admiral Noyce. Whatever you say is best." He paused. "My only interest is the safety of the people at the station."
Noyce, who had girded himself to battle Harpe, felt as if he had been suddenly left swinging at the wind.
It had been too easy, he thought. Much too easy...
Something wasn't right. But for the moment, Noyce didn't have a clue what it could be.
Geoffrey Harpe sat perfectly still for a moment. The way Noyce had spoken to him made Harpe want to smash something, perhaps pick up one of his clay statues front the Malay Peninsula—a priceless work a thousand years old—and throw it to the marble floor.
He sat for a second, breathing steadily, calming himself.
Then he spoke to his own faceless communications network, which had been monitoring the audio and the visual contact with Noyce.
"Was that enough?" Harpe said.
"Computer imaging reports that it was plenty, Mr. Harpe. They're working on the program now."
Harpe nodded. "And they got enough..." He waved his hand—what was the word? "... sibilants, blends, whatever—?"
"Mr. Harpe, the initial check shows that they have everything needed, and it should be ready to run..."
C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, Harpe thought, don't disappoint me.
"... in one hour."
Harpe smiled. That was plenty of time.
A few minutes ago Noyce had been acting the big boss.
And in one hour, he’ll be my puppet, Harpe thought gleefully.
Ah, the wonders of modern living.
"Do you mind if we HoloVid this?" Lianna Hays said, as if it were only a formality. Her camera operator, in T-shirt and dungarees, was chewing gum, and Terry saw that he was already taping.
Terry thought of saying no. No, I don't want to have my face flashed on the EarthNet news feeds, translated into sixty-odd languages, downloaded into a couple of million private data bases, the words cut, sliced, trimmed, examined...
Anyone with a decent voice stress analysis device would be able to know that she was lying.
But if she refused to cooperate, well then they'd know that she was hiding something.
"Is this a live feed?" Terry asked.
Lianna Hays smiled, her face expressing shock. "Oh, no. This will be uploaded later."
Terry chewed her lip. "Can I get a look at it... before you send it out?"
Lianna raised her eyes. "Look at it?"
"Only to check if I say anything that might embarrass the UEO." She had a brainstorm. "It wouldn't look good for you if something I said unguardedly went out over the Net, something that threatened security."
Lianna smiled, a professional recognizing a well-played move. "Why certainly. Jim can let you check the footage when we're done. Now then..."
Terry took a breath.
Hays faced the camera. "I'm talking with Ms. Terry McShane of the UEO. Ms. McShane is one of the heroes of the terrorist threat to the resort." Then Hays turned to Terry. "Ms. McShane, it was certainly lucky that you were at SousMer when this terrible thing occurred. Can you tell us what exactly you were doing there?"
Terry licked her lips. Let's try not to look too guilty here. "I, er, was having a short vacation before returning to my duties at UEO headquarters."
Terry looked away from Hays and right over at the camera. She thought that she could feel it zooming in, probing, an insistent, cool, objective eye that could read her like a book.
"How convenient," Hays said. "I thought that the resort was only for the most wealthy... I guess"—now Hays looked out at the camera, her smirk as big and broad as she could make it—"I was wrong."
Then she turned back to Terry. "You weren't the guest of anyone, someone else at the resort...?"
Terry shook her head. No, your Honor, I wasn't.
Terry relaxed a bit, seeing where Hays was going with this. She was looking for an illicit affair, a wealthy, well-placed paramour. Maybe it would be good to lead her down that road.
Terry shook her head coyly. "I was on vacation...
Akira Shimura held up an electronic syringe. The digital readout told him how many cc's of the antibiotic were in the thin, gunlike barrel.
He caught Darwin looking up at him.
"More medicine, yes, Darwin. But you are getting better. And soon, I can put your communication unit back. You'd like that?"
Darwin shifted in the tank. He was eager, Shimura thought, excited at the thought of talking again.
Or—
Shimura looked at one of the dolphin's eyes, which appeared wide, desperate. And Shimura stopped.
"What is it, Darwin?" Something was bothering the dolphin. But what could it be? Was it pain? Was Darwin in pain? Had he missed something?
Then Shimura got this terrible feeling that Darwin knew something, that Darwin was—
He looked at that eye, so large and expressive—
Darwin was scared.
Shimura brought the electronic syringe down and quickly injected the dolphin. Then Shimura used his good hand to brush Darwin's skin, stroking it, soothing it...
"Soon, Darwin. Soon I'll let you talk again. I want to be sure there's no chance of infection." He ran his hand from the dolphin's great bulb-shaped head back to the tail fin. "Soon," Shimura cooed...
Darwin looked as if he couldn't wait.
Bridger looked up at Lucas.
"How did you get this? No—don't answer that. It's probably better if I don't know. Unfortunately, I don't have a clue what to do with this"—the Captain rattled the papers—"stuff."
Bridger got out of the command chair. "First, I want to show it to Westphalen. And can you get back on-line and keep digging? Who knows? You might get lucky."
"My machine's still digging even as we speak, Captain."
"Great." Bridger started toward the aft elevator, heading down to Westphalen's lab. But then he stopped quickly and turned.
"You did good, kid."
"It must have been terrifying, Ms. McShane, facing those terrorists in the resort's dive area. Can you tell us what that was like?"
"Actually, Commander Ford was the one who cornered them. I only tried to help."
Hays grimaced slightly, and Terry saw that she wasn't happy with the answer. But—so far, so good—no terribly embarrassing moments. And she had to be done soon.
"Yes—well, I'm sure Commander Ford will also give you a lot of the credit. But I'd like to ask one last question."
Terry relaxed. The ordeal was almost over.
"What exactly are you here for, on the seaQuest?"
McShane took a breath.
She nodded her head, and smiled. Then, very evenly, she said, "I'm afraid I can't answer that question because of security reasons—other than to say that it's a routine part of my job."
Lianna Hays tilted her head and made a moue of disappointment. "Oh, that's too bad. Then"—Hays turned and looked at the camera—"I guess we'll all have to speculate, won't we?"
Hays waited a beat and then said, "Cut."
She extended her hand to McShane. "Why, thank you for—"
But McShane brushed past her, imagining how the interview would play out on the nightly news.
Kristin Westphalen shuffled through the papers that Bridger had handed her. She shook her head, and then started shuffling through them again.
Finally, she looked up at Bridger. "What is this, Captain Bridger, some kind of joke?"
"I don't think that they were meant to be seen by anyone not inside the UEO."
Bridger wasn't surprised that Westphalen was impressed. The pages detailed the amazing history of the research station—and an even more amazing future.
Now Bridger wanted Westphalen to explain to him what it all meant as they got closer to the station.
"Educate me," Bridger said.
"Okay—see this here." Westphalen pointed to the first page of the dense printout. "That's material we already know, the location of the hydrothermal vent site, the variations in the creatures, nothing too extraordinary there. But look down here."
Bridger nodded. He knew what Westphalen was pointing at.
"This is a reference to a report on the body chemistry of the new worms, now dubbed Riftia pogonophosa Azores. Someone obviously got one of these new worms on board—dead it seems—and then took it apart."
"And—?"
"Don't play dumb with me, Captain. I know your work on the island with the biochemistry of coral groups and ocean-borne bacteria. I read your monograph on red tide."
"The folks at Nature didn't like it. They tore it apart."
"Yes, professional jealousy, I suspect. But it was quite good. So, you know what this means? This new worm, like the other tube worms, is locked in a symbiotic relationship with a bacterial parasite. Only in this case, the bacterial colony completely controls the creature. God, according to this analysis, it can even use the creature to obtain what it needs for nutrition, whether the hydrogen sulfide toxins, or—"
Bridger nodded. The implication of the report was clear. "They seem to say that the bacterial colony could live in other creatures, could get nutrients from—"
Westphalen nodded. "Yes, anything alive. Anything at all. You know, if someone had asked me, I would have said that the area should have been quarantined. Without knowing more, this could be one very dangerous organism. Something has kept it locked in that trench, a bizarre biological variant left over from the first million years of evolution perhaps—and now we're going to give it a second crack at existing on the planet?"
Westphalen flipped to the next page. "Look. Here. There were even warning signs. They experimented with the bacterial colony, the colony creature that controlled the worm. God, they should have seen that it posed a great threat."
Bridger took a breath. "I suspect commercial interests dominated the decisions. Look at the next page."
Westphalen laughed and read the name. "Harpe WorldWide Enterprises." The scientist looked up. "Makes sense. Sure, it would be a heavy expenditure for the UEO by itself. Especially for a top secret, fully equipped deep-sea research station. Harpe made it all possible."
"Harpe hoped to gain something out of the deal."
"Oh, you're only too right there, Nathan. A creature like this could be the ultimate biological weapon. If the UEO didn't want to develop it, I bet they were scared enough to learn what could stop it if someone else did."
"And Harpe?"
"If he wasn't out to sell the biotechnology of the creature, you can be sure that he'd get all the information, and the commercial uses. Perhaps in industry, in destroying toxic waste, in medical research. There certainly could be big money in this..."
"Enter Dr. Richard Ernst?"
"Well, yes, I bet he's being brought down to take over the project."
"A paleobiologist?"
"Well, you can see, that's only one of his specialties. But on this case, it makes sense. What they're dealing with is a primitive, violent form of life. It's an alien biology, Nathan. If someone can help them... control it, it would be Ernst."
Bridger made a mental note to talk to Ernst. The time for charades was over.
Westphalen looked at other sheets of paper in Bridger's hand. "What are those, Captain?"
Bridger shook his head. "Nothing. I had Lucas do a check on Terry McShane." He paused—and then lied. "It's nothing..."
Bridger's mind was racing with what he had to do. Contact Noyce, confront him? Find out what the status of the station was, and—talk to McShane.
But there was one more question for Westphalen.
"Kristin, tell me. Your best guess. What's going on down there? What is Ernst's role?"
Bridger wanted to add, and what the hell should I do?
Westphalen paused, looked at the pages again.
"Best guess? Well, Nathan, I'd say they've got a problem down there, a problem that they hope Dr. Richard Ernst can help them with." She looked right at Bridger. "What if one of these things got loose? Bet that would turn the station into a madhouse, panic in the streets—out of control."
Westphalen handed the pages back to Bridger. "After all, Captain, imagine if one of those worms got into seaQuest. Imagine what that would be like..."
That was something Bridger had already imagined.