"Do you believe this stuff?" Lucas said.
Bridger's eyes were locked on the incredible scene. He watched the video image swirl about the room as the station's camera operator suddenly became more concerned with backing the hell away.
But someone yelled, "Tape this. Get this on tape!"
From a distance, the camera steadied and zeroed in on the tank.
The woman doing the dissection grabbed the parasite from the worm with the manipulator arm, holding it.
"Unbelievable," Terry said. "I don't—"
But the thing inside the worm split into two; a free piece of it again smacked against the glass, and Bridger heard the crack.
"Whoa!" Lucas said. "This is way too cool."
I have to talk to that boy, Bridger thought. He evaluates all of life's experiences as though they're a big-budget special effects scene.
"It's getting out," Terry said.
Bridger looked over at Ernst. The scientist didn't say a thing—but he was riveted by what he watched on the screen.
"This is something else," Bridger said, "eh, Dr. Ernst?"
Another smack, and the glass cracked. How strong was the thing?
And why did it want out so badly?
What Bridger saw next was the most incredible thing he'd ever seen...
Bar none.
It got out.
And MacInnis supposed he should have given an order of some kind. But they were in the lab, and this was completely unexpected.
Some people ran, because the thing that fell to the floor, the parasite, the piece from inside the worm, was alive, moving on the floor...
The pressure should have killed it; the host worm certainly looked dead, but the thing inside it was alive.
It's just a colony creature, MacInnis told himself. It can't think; it can't even live independently.
Yet it moved like a fast slug—
It moved toward one of the biotechnicians. The man screamed and stood there as if he couldn't move.
The thing was only a foot away when Rodriguez was there, holding a fire extinguisher. He shot it at the creature, and under the icy cloud of C02, the thing stopped moving.
Then MacInnis spoke. "Get it the hell out of here. The whole thing. Get it off the station..."
The cold froze it, stopped it from moving.
Just like that movie, he thought. The Blob... Didn't they freeze that and dump it in the Arctic?
Was the parasite dead?
MacInnis didn't know. He only knew that he wanted it off the station prontissimo.
That should have been enough warning. But everyone thought they knew what they were dealing with...
"Any comments, Dr. Ernst?"
The tape ended, and the scientist spun around in his chair.
"You saw the tape," he said flatly. "You know as much as I do."
Bridger laughed. "No—not as much as you do, Dr. Ernst. I'm not an expert in the field of—what is it?—paleobiology. I can only tell you that I've never seen anything like that before."
Now Ernst laughed. "And neither has anyone else. Captain Bridger. Unless you count what they found in Antarctica."
Finally the man seemed interested in talking.
"Antarctica?"
"About ten years ago. A giant fossil. First, it was thought to be an early predecessor of the tube worms. I mean, you must realize that until the hydrothermal vents had been discovered in the eighties, no one even knew such bizarre creatures existed."
"And what did they find in Antarctica?"
"A giant worm, immense, like the trunk of a redwood. Something tremendous. It was fossilized, stone... but inside was the blueprint for a creature that can only be described as 'alien.' Our best guess was that this worm was easily one billion years old. But inside were the telltale signs of other creatures, trilobites, prehistoric arthropods of all kinds. Their body chemistry complete, absorbed into the worm."
Ernst took a breath.
"The creature was the ultimate parasite... We could only be happy that it was extinct."
"And it's the same worm?" Lucas said.
Ernst shook his head. "Not exactly, but so close that it was vital that I see it."
"What do you know about the sub accident?" Bridger said.
Ernst smiled. "About as much as you do, I'm afraid. Something happened down there to one of the subs. I assume we'll find out when we go inside the station."
"We're not going in," Bridger said.
"What?"
"We're not entering the station." Bridger stood up. "I'm going to the bridge now to contact the UEO and tell them what I think is going on down there. I'm sure we'll he ordered to quarantine the station."
"But we have to—"
Bridger turned away from Ernst and spoke to Lucas. "Good work, Lucas. Let me know if you find anything else."
Bridger started for the door.
"Nathan—Captain, can I walk with you?"
He turned to see Terry McShanc, looking rattled by the afternoon movie. "Sure."
They walked out together.
That should have ended it, MacInnis thought.
This new worm, the parasite, was dangerous, and they should have stayed the hell away.
But both Marty Abbado and Jennifer Stern had argued with MacInnis for a sub trip to the burrows of the worms, to see them up close.
"We're not going to be yanking them out," Abbado said. "What could happen?"
At the time it seemed like a good idea to MacInnis. Everyone would want to know more, the UEO, Harpe... and this was a safe way to do it.
So he let them take Li'l Bugger out to the vent field. MacInnis watched their progress on the VR screen, listened to them chatter while they went over to the cliff, home to the worms, the hundreds of burrows in the cliff wall...
They were only going to observe.
It was Marie Thibaud who first seemed apprehensive.
As Li'l Bugger navigated the field of smokers, snaking its way past the plumes of poisonous gasses and superheated water, Marie and MacInnis watched the screen.
The sub's camera picked up the giant clusters of albino clams and overgrown mussels, more the size of pumpkins than mussels, and then weirdly shaped crabs scuttling amid them all, looking for food.
They saw another creature there too, a giant isopod, looking like a sow bug, only of immense proportions, over three feet long—an armored tank in the vent field as it crawled on the volcanic sand.
The sub turned into the section of the vent that led to the cliffs.
"They shouldn't go there," Marie Thibaud said.
"They're only observing," Morton Dell said.
"No reason to get alarmed," Abbado answered from the sub. "We're not bringing any samples back to the station."
As they reached the field, MacInnis grew more anxious, wondering whether this was a good idea.
The sub stopped. He heard Marty and Jennifer talking, discussing how the worms seemed to slip in and out of their burrows, as if they were merely overgrown barnacles, acting like filter feeders.
"They look harmless," Abbado said.
It was the last word from the sub.
"I thought you might be upset at the third degree I was giving you," Bridger said to Terry. "I didn't mean to come down so hard—"
But Terry grabbed his arm, stopping him. "No. It's me who owes you an apology."
"What?"
"I'm not here to study the seaQuest’s crew... and how they interact."
Bridger waited.
"Ernst is Harpe's man. In fact, half the station scientists work for Geoffrey Harpe in one way or another. And the UEO and Admiral Noyce had their suspicions about what Harpe would do with this 'discovery'..."
"But you said you hadn't seen the tape before."
"That's true. But I was told that the discovery had implications..."
"Implications?"
"Whatever was inside the worm, if harnessed, could become an incredible biological weapon. Imagine what it could do if it was put in a water supply."
"Who'd be crazy enough to use it?"
"Someone who could control it. Enter Dr. Richard Ernst."
"If it could be controlled."
Terry nodded. "That's why Noyce wanted me on hoard, to watch Ernst. And Admiral Noyce told me—"
"That if I knew Harpe was involved in the station, I wouldn't go."
Terry nodded.
Bridger smiled. "Then, we're finally on a level playing field now. I know what's happening, I know who you are, and—I hope—I know what's waiting down at the station."
There was a pause. Terry's hand was still on his arm.
The passageway was empty; the only sound was the gentle hum of the ship.
Bridger looked at her, and the years seemed to fade away, as if it were yesterday.
"I'd better—" he started to say.
Terry leaned close and kissed him, a long, full kiss, pressing against his lips. And when they stopped, he took her hand and smiled.
"Maybe, when this is all over, you'll come to San Francisco with the ship."
"I'd love it," she said.
"Still no response from the seaQuest, Mr. MacInnis."
What was the problem? MacInnis wondered. They should be preparing to come down, to get everyone off. What was going on?
He bet they were wondering why they weren't using the main sub bay. I should have made up a better story, MacInnis thought. But he couldn't tell them that they couldn't use it because it was in one of the closed wings.
Closed... because...
The others were in there.
The ones who saw the Li'l Bugger when it was brought back, the manipulator arms twisted, the thick Plexiglas windows smashed open, and the crushed bodies of Marty Abbado and Jennifer Stern ripped open as if something had gone digging inside them.
They were dead. The sub smashed. It had been recovered where it had drifted away from the burrows...
That's what they all thought.
We were so stupid. So—
"Mr. MacInnis, something's wrong!"
MacInnis looked up to the board.
In one of those sealed wings there was a blink, a light, moving out, past one of the doors.
"That's impossible," MacInnis said.
Someone in one of those wings had gotten out, and had entered one of the other ends of the spokes, near the engineering lab.
"Looks like nothing's impossible anymore, Mac," Morton Dell said.
They stood there—watching as first one, then two, then more lights crossed into another section of the station.
"Seal that section," MacInnis said, screaming, hearing how he was losing it. His hand rested on the gun. Then he whispered... "Contact seaQuest again..."