God—now, what in the world is that?
Harry Gooding pulled back on the stick of the minisub. The sub slowed and finally hovered over the left side of the energy plant.
He rubbed at his chin, feeling the stubble, and then he reached out to aim an exterior spotlight down at the wall of the plant.
Damn—there's something stuck on the side of the wall there, Harry thought. Stuck right to the side of the plant. Something small, and round—
Harry spoke to himself.
"Some kind of fish. That's what it is." He nodded. "It must be some kind of sucker fish."
Gooding wasn't terribly knowledgeable about SousMer's neighbors a mile down. There were times when he had to pilot his sub through a bunch of tiger sharks and he'd go into a cold sweat... thinking that the sharks would circle his mini-sub and chew right through the metal and plastic.
His coworkers joked, "Don't worry, Harry—one taste and they'll spit you right out."
Very funny—still, Harry didn't like the sharks.
I wonder, he thought... can I get the sub a bit closer? Scare the thing off?
Harry Gooding grabbed the stick and, giving the twin rear props a bit more power, tried to edge close to the energy module. He gained a few feet and then—damn, he had to back off, afraid of ramming the wall.
That would be great, he thought, terrific, smash into that wall, dent it, and good-bye, Harry Gooding.
He ended up with the sub pretty much where he had started from. Once again, he trained the light on the object stuck to the underside of the module's wall.
It's some kind of animal, that's what it is.
Still—
If he filed a report, a team would have to come out and do a close-up examination. And, thought Harry, I'd have to be on that team.
"Go on," he said to the sucker fish. "Get the hell out of here." He blinked, half-expecting the fish, the ray, whatever it was, to dart suddenly away to the safety of one of the nearby labyrinths.
"Go bite one of the tourists."
A light started blinking on his console, signaling that he'd reached the halfway point of his fuel.
Gooding nodded. "It's nothing," he said, and he peeled away, putting the object behind him...
"Mrs. Ferro, you haven't touched your salmon. Not hungry tonight?"
Mary looked over at her dinner companion, Dr. Richard Ernst. The young scientist had been attentive to her since his arrival at SousMer yesterday, and tonight her slinky dress only assured that his attentions would continue.
Mr. Ferro sat across from her, still wolfing down the shrimp and oysters. He was having no difficulty pulling off his part.
"The salmon really is excellent," Ernst said, and Mary felt the flirtatious undertones to his repartee. "It's... delicious."
She smiled, playing along with him. The previous night, at the lavish cocktail hour, Ernst had told her about his area of expertise—paleobiology and underwater microbial colonies.
How fascinating...
Still, this role worked well—the bored, beautiful wife married to a wealthy ingrate... flirting with the handsome scientist.
With more time, she could have made even more interesting use of the scientist. But—a pity—the clock was running.
Mary saw Cutter, her erstwhile husband, reach for a glass of champagne. She cleared her throat, and when he took no notice, Mary spoke:
"Honey, don't you think that you've had enough?"
And, just about to sip. Jack Cutter stopped and glared at his "wife."
Mary looked away, feigning embarrassment.
Then she looked over to the woman sitting close to her husband. A pretty woman, in her late thirties, with short blond hair and intelligent blue eyes. Her name was Terry McShane, and she said she was a writer.
And Mary Knox, with that sense that had more than once saved her life, knew that McShane was lying. It was the one thing that made her uneasy tonight.
She saw the way McShane looked around the grand dining room, taking in the glittery guests in fancy clothes, people eating the succulent salmon while hungry sharks swam past the side portholes. There were happy executives with wives, husbands, mistresses, or rent-a-hunks on their arms, dancing to the smooth string orchestra playing every sappy song from the past forty years.
Mary looked at Terry McShane and knew—she wasn't here on vacation.
So what was she here for?
"Care to dance?" Ernst asked Mary. "I mean," he said loudly, "if Mr. Ferro wouldn't mind."
Cutter, ever the bon home, waved her away, only now starting to sloppily dig into his main course.
On the dance floor, Ernst held her close, then closer-and Mary felt herself wishing that her stay at SousMer might last just a hit longer.
"This you have to see."
Bridger waited. Lucas Wolenczak, resident computer tech and cybernet surfer of seaQuest, had begged Bridger to come to the communication station. Bridger noticed that Lucas was still wearing his 2014 World Champion Marlins cap. The boy was loyal if nothing else...
"Thought the cap was gone... until the Marlins started winning again?"
Lucas looked up at Bridger and said, in perfect seriousness, "You gotta believe, Captain. But wait a minute."
Darwin was swimming back and forth in the main tank near the communications center. From here, the dolphin could swim to passageways leading to everywhere from the moon pool to the science labs.
The dolphin looked mighty eager, Bridger thought, as if he were about to be tossed a tub of herring.
"You got Darwin excited." Bridger watched Darwin, still not used to the fact that the dolphin could communicate albeit in short sentence fragments. "Do you know what Lucas is up to, Dar?"
Bridger heard a series of trill-like cheeps, and then the speaker, the computer translating the signals.
"We have surprise for you."
Bridger laughed. "Good, I could use a nice surprise."
Lucas hit some buttons on the side console, and he was immediately connected with the main bank of Cray-Apple Vbs. "I made some modifications to Darwin's communication program."
"I was impressed enough with what Darwin could do..."
"Okay—just a minute. There," Lucas said. "He's ready."
"Ready for what?"
Lucas turned to the dolphin. "Darwin, do you see any problem with our current course?"
Darwin flipped around excitedly. "There is a storm... It has changed direction."
"What? How could he—"
Lucas grinned. "Let's check up on him."
Lucas hit some keys, and a VR display window above the dolphin showed a live satellite picture of the Caribbean, sretching from Cuba on down past Aruba. And there, sitting off to the east, was a nasty-looking swirl.
"Looks like the tropical storm started developing after you set your course, Captain. Though at the klicks we're making, we'll probably beat it to the Canal. If you hurry..."
"Yes, but how did Darwin know about the storm?"
Darwin did a loop, obviously pleased with himself.
"That's my modification... Darwin can access the ship's computer system, anything from navigation and targeting to getting information from EarthNet, including the latest from the LAGEOS satellites."
Darwin chirped, and the speaker carried the translation, the synthesized voice that Bridger now accepted indisputably as Darwin's... "I can see the ship."
"And he understands what he sees?" Bridger asked.
"He's a very quick study."
Bridger nodded. Well, that should make Darwin even more helpful. But there was something that worried Bridger.
"Great. Go play now, Darwin."
The dolphin vanished down the clear Plexiglas tube that fan to the science wing.
It worried Bridger... Was this too much to dump on Darwin? Darwin had said, "I like it here... want to stay." And that was one of the reasons Bridger had taken the command.
But maybe Darwin didn't know what was good for him.
"Sir—"
Bridger turned and saw his exec, Lieutenant Commander Ford, standing behind him.
"We got a download about a hurricane system beginning at 20 degrees south and 110 degrees east, heading north at 30 klicks—and the system's picking up speed, sir."
Lucas looked at Bridger, the computer whiz kid grinning broadly.
"I already know. Commander. All ahead full on our present course, and we'll probably beat the bumpy weather."
Ford looked confused, but he saluted and returned to the bridge. And Captain Bridger patted Lucas's shoulder and left for his cabin.
It wouldn't hurt to catch forty winks.
He still missed his naps back on the island, when the afternoon sun grew hot and civilization was a thousand miles away...
On cue, Cutter started talking loudly. Mary saw him looking around.
"Oh, dear," she said, close to Dr. Ernst's ear. "I'm afraid my husband's about to make a scene."
Ernst whispered back into her ear.
"Can I escort you somewhere?"
A stingray glided overhead, its white underbelly catching the brilliant light of the dining room.
Mary looked up at Ernst and smiled. "No. I'm afraid I better go back—"
But then Cutter was standing there, slurring his words.
"D-do you mind? I-I'd like to dance with my wife. If—you wouldn't mind."
Mary gave Ernst's hand a squeeze, reassuring, promising, and then backed away.
"Adam, please. You've had too much to drink and—"
Cutter wobbled back and forth as if the stationary resort were really a liner wobbling in the stormy Atlantic.
"So—you don't want to dance with me, with your own husban'?"
Mary looked at Ernst, and then at the other people at her table, all of them looking on with sympathy.
"We'd better go back to our suite. I think—"
She took Cutter's arm and he yanked it away. But Mary was able to grab his elbow again and whisper to him, soothing him. At least, that's what it was supposed to look like...
She walked Cutter, wobbling, drunken, out of the dining room, the men eyeing her while the women counted their blessings.
They were in the main hallway of SousMer.
"Okay, good work. Cutter. I think you can straighten up now."
"Whas a mata? C'mon, baby, give me a little kiss..." Cutter laughed, leaning into her.
"Stop it. We're on schedule. Let's keep it that way."
And immediately Cutter was sober. "You're no fun anymore."
"Ready?" she said.
Cutter nodded.
Together they walked down the hallway and followed the elegant stairs that curved under another large porthole, showing the sea outside.
They came to another hallway with sleek metal walls, and as rehearsed, they followed that to the Olympic pool and the exercise room.
A burly attendant was closing up poolside chairs.
That's unexpected, Mary thought. No one should be here now... but it wasn't a big problem.
The attendant looked up when he saw the two people enter the pool area. "Sorry, folks. But the pool is closed for the evening."
Mary smiled, walking closer to the man. "That's okay. We're just exploring."
The man smiled. "I'm afraid that you have to leave. I'm only cleaning up here. It's actually—"
Mary smiled. She reached into her handbag and pulled out an stun gun, an odd-shaped gun that looked more like a hand weight. The man looked confused, probably not recognizing exactly what she had in her hand.
So, she thought, he'd be surprised. The gun could stun or kill, depending on the setting.
This one was set to kill.
Mary pulled the trigger, and it fired an electrically charged dart right at the attendant's chest. It hit, and the man's eyes bugged out. He tumbled backward into the pool.
"God—was that necessary?" Cutter asked.
Mary turned to him. "Don't wimp out on me, Jack."
She hurried past the pool to the expansive exercise area filled with machines, and into a storage room filled with chemicals and towels.
Inside the room, Cutter threw the light switch. They moved quickly now—Mary was glad that this was just as they had rehearsed it.
Except for the dead man in the pool... Oh, well, even the best plans have to be changed.
And, just as the VR plans of the resort had shown, there it was...
A metal grate on one wall.
"There you go, Cutter. Get moving."
Cutter easily popped the grate out, ripping the wire mesh free from the screws that held it to the opening.
"This opening looks kind of small," he said.
"The plans show that there's plenty of room."
Cutter nodded, and then dug into his coat pocket. He pulled out a small greenish packet. The explosive looked like Plasticine, a colored doughlike substance. The organic explosive had been undetected by SousMer's security system... They could have sneaked pounds of the stuff into the resort.
"And the timer?" Mary said.
Cutter dug into his other pocket and pulled out a small round object the size of a tiny watch battery. The microchip contained the timer and the igniter, a small program to set off the explosive.
Cutter grinned. "All set."
"Then get going," Mary said, and she turned to keep watch while Cutter crawled into the hole.
Harry sat in the staff cafeteria, watching one of the overhead VidDisplays. The cafeteria VR screens weren't state-of-the-art, but still the sitcom had a nice 3-D feel to it.
One of the other maintenance people, Billy Carullo, sat down next to him, his tray loaded with two semibeef cheeseburgers and what might have been honest-to-God onion rings.
"Hey, I saw this one," Carullo said. "The husband says he lost his access code, but his wife thinks he's buying presents for a girlfriend. Duh..."
Harry looked at Carullo. "Thanks for the story, Carullo. Guess I don't have to watch it now."
"Oh, hey man, sorry." Carullo held out his platter of onion rings. "Want one?"
Harry shook his head. "Hey, Carullo. Tell me, you ever go outside and see something, some fish or something, stuck to the side of one of the tanks?"
Carullo took a giant bite of one of the mostly-soy burgers, catsup and melted cheese drooling from the side.
"What? What are you talking about?"
Harry looked around. It wouldn't be great if a supervisor overheard this conversation. "You know, did you ever see some kind of sucker fish thing, stuck to the side—?"
Carullo laughed, his mouth still full.
"Hey, I don't know what you're talking about." He paused before his next bite. "You saw something out there, something stuck to one of the modules?"
Harry nodded. "I-I think it was a fish."
"And you didn’t report it to Systems Management?"
Harry chewed his lip. "I didn't think it was anything. I didn't want to make us go out there... for some dumb fish..."
Carullo shook his head. "Buddy, if I were you, I'd let whoever's on duty know that you forgot to mention something from your last go-round. And I'd do it now."
Harry nodded, trying to think of an excuse, wondering if this would mean that he'd be fired. Then it would be back to hiring out free-lance to some of the wildcat deep-sea mines. Bad hours, dangerous conditions, and worse pay.
But Harry didn't know that that would be the least of his problems.
Mary waited...
She heard a sound by the locked doors that led from the pool out to the pool bar and game room. But the pool bar was closed—and no one came into the closed pool.
Good thing too; otherwise she'd have had to kill someone else.
She leaned next to the grating and heard Jack grunting, crawling toward the engineering wing of the resort, the place where the power was managed, where the air was processed—the heart of the resort.
Then, after a while, she couldn't hear Cutter anymore. There was more waiting, and then, again, more grunting, until Mary could lean in and see Cutter wriggling out backward.
She backed away and let him slide out.
"Everything okay?"
Cutter was red-faced from the exertion.
"I put it right next to the engineering room grate. It will blow the damn place to pieces."
His grin had a stupidity to it that Mary found repellant.
"Good—let's get to a VidScreen and watch the show. It's almost time..."
They left, ignoring the attendant floating facedown, as if he were studying the bottom of the pool.