The entrance hatch to the sea shuttle closed—and automatically locked. A green light came on on the control panel.
"Captain, we're cleared to disengage from the docking bay."
Bridger turned back to Ernst and Terry sitting behind him. "If you're strapped in, we'll be leaving. You can watch our progress on the monitor above you."
"Captain," Ernst said, "how long will this take?"
"Not long at all. Dr. Ernst. Mr. Maklin, let's get moving."
Maklin took the control stick and Bridger felt the shuttle moving. The hatch windows were already under, showing the brightly lit water of the seaQuest's moon pool.
But as Maklin turned the minisub around, Bridger saw the channel that led to the sea opening, and the vent field waiting outside.
Julio Rodriguez held the electron-mag gun tightly in his hand. He stood by the sealed door and thought:
There's no way someone's coming through that door. And if they do, they'll be toast.
He had the gun set to kill. Quickly, instantly, painlessly. Not that he cared.
Rodriguez looked at the sealed bulkhead door. The only way it could be opened was if someone at the communications center released it.
Rodriguez took a step closer to it.
If the lights on the control board were to be believed, the others were just on the other side. The others, the infected ones...
What the hell were they doing? he wondered. Standing there, waiting for something to happen? As Rodriguez waited, he thought of the seaQuest waiting outside, and how he'd breathe so much easier once he was out of this hole, this trap.
A drop of sweat fell off his brow. It's not that hot, he thought.
Why am I sweating?
And then he heard a noise from behind the door.
The shuttle cleared the sea doors smoothly, and Bridger went from looking at the monitor to looking at the front port.
The research station was almost lost amid the twisting caverns and valleys that girded the vent field.
A few more lights on the station's exterior wouldn't hurt, Bridger thought. As it was now, it barely stood out in the blackness.
But the station's lights still illuminated the nearby smokers, and the shuttle's lights picked up one of the WSKRS probes hovering nearby. Inside seaQuest, Bridger knew, everyone was watching their progress.
"Lieutenant, can we aim a camera into the field?"
"Yes, sir."
Bridger turned back to Dr. Ernst. "Doctor, where did they find this new specimen?"
Ernst leaned forward, looking at the scene in the front port, and then the monitor. The scene on the monitor flipped, and now there was a close-up view of the murky field.
"It's hard to tell. Captain Bridger. But the seafloor in these caverns is dotted with smokers. Up to now, we've never seen anything quite like it. There's tremendous heat all through there, incredible volcanic activity. But the burrow to the new worms, the Riftia Azores, is through there."
Ernst pointed at a spot lost in blackness.
And Bridger guessed that he wouldn't be getting much of a look at the worm field. No, not without going closer. He glanced back at Terry. She was looking at the monitor—and she seemed nervous. Perhaps, Bridger thought, I should have insisted that she stay on the ship. The hell with the UEO, the hell with Noyce—
He smiled at her, and said, "Still glad you came?"
"Wouldn't miss it for the world."
Nathan laughed.
Westphalen released the VR probe, and it started traveling some three hundred meters behind the shuttle. Of course, Westphalen knew that the WSKRS probe would pick up the VR probe, but she banked that Ortiz would be focused on the station.
Westphalen raised the two data gloves in front of her goggle-covered head, and—out in the deep ocean—she saw he VR raise its manipulator arms. And there was this giddy feeling, a rush of excitement as she felt herself merge with the probe.
Then, by moving her fingers, she turned the probe to the right.
And there was the vent field...
As the shuttle continued toward the research station, Westphalen was engulfed by the blackness of the vent area, the dark shadows of the vent columns, and the terrible excitement of venturing into an unknown world.
MacInnis touched Marie Thibaud's shoulder.
"I-I'd like to leave you here while I meet the seaQuest people."
Thibaud nodded. "What if—if they refuse to take us?"
MacInnis shook his head violently. "No, there's no way they'd do that. They have to take us. They couldn't leave us down here. It would be murder."
MacInnis looked up at the board, the lights gathered by the locked bulkhead.
"It's as if," Marie said, "they think that they'll be able to get in."
MacInnis licked his lips. "I have to go meet the shuttle. If anything happens, tell me."
She nodded, and MacInnis left.
The VR probe sailed past a smoker. A digital readout in the goggles recorded the increasing temperature... 200 degrees, 300 degrees... and still climbing.
Westphalen made the probe cut to the left, closer to one of the canyon walls. The probe was tested to 500 degrees-still it wasn't a good idea to push it to its limits.
Strangely, Westphalen felt as if she were there, that she was floating in the vent area. She took a breath, as if the water threatened to drown her, cutting off her air.
The probe's light was a high-powered tungsten lamp invented for deep-sea use by Canada's Can-Dive crew. It weighed nothing, but it cast a tremendously powerful beam that cut through the darkness.
She could aim the lamp by simply moving another finger, and now she checked the seafloor directly below the probe. She saw some giant sea stars, spindly echinoderms often found at vent areas.
There, crawling over one of the sea stars, she spotted! an albino crab holding something ragged in a claw. A bit of fish, some squid, part of another crab—it was too hard to tell.
The crab stopped scuttling, and it looked up at the probe—at Westphalen. Its black eyes seemed to pop out of its shell as it studied her.
It raised its free claw.
"Going to grab me, are you?" Westphalen said.
She thought that she was easily high enough, but—just to be safe, she raised the probe, and—
She bumped into something. The rattle, and the sound of a clunk made her feel as if she had been crawling under a table and quickly stood up.
She looked up—and the probe "looked" up.
There, scurrying away, looking more like an eel, was a vicious-appearing needle-nosed fish, a good ten feet long with a narrow mouth that ended in a nasty snout filled with teeth.
The needle-nose curled in on itself, its pride bruised, perhaps considering whether it should attack the probe.
Westphalen raised her arms.
"Better not come after me," she said, "or I'll grab you with these!"
She made the probe's claws open and shut, and the needle-nose, after a brief pause, shot away.
Westphalen turned her attention back to the view ahead.
She was nearing the center of the field. The cliff wall, the place where the strange Riftia Azores lived, was directly ahead.
She checked the temperature on the meter inside the goggles—320 degrees—and climbing.
Westphalen continued into the field.
"Captain, the docking area is on the left of the screen. It's actually a supply hatch, but the sea shuttle should fit fine."
Right, thought Bridger—but looking at the station, so quiet, so still, he didn't buy the idea that the main sub door was jammed.
Something's wrong down there, he guessed—and we don’t know what it is.
"Take it slowly, Mr. Maklin. Nice and easy."
"Attention, seaQuest shuttle craft. We are ready for docking procedure."
Bridger saw a small sea door open at the south end of the station. The angle of entry looked awkward, maybe dangerous—
"Is that okay. Lieutenant? Can you get through there?" Bridger asked.
"Yes, sir—should be no problem if I take it slowly."
Bridger nodded, and he looked back at Ernst. The man with the secrets, Bridger thought.
And. if we're lucky, the next few minutes should tell the story.
Rodriguez leaned close to the sealed bulkhead. There was all this noise behind there. What the hell were they doing? he wondered.
He picked up his radio.
"MacInnis, what are they doing? I'm hearing all this—"
"MacInnis isn't here, Julio. He's gone to meet the sub."
"Marie, what's it show on the board? They're doing... something in there."
Rodriguez waited. C'mon, tell me what's going on.
He held the gun tightly, almost wishing she'd see someone, one of them walking toward him, and he could pull the trigger. Zap!
"There's nothing, Julio. Nothing except— Oh, God. Oh—"
Rodriguez froze. Now, wasn't this great? Wasn't this a great thing to hear?
He felt his gut go tight. The noise sounded different.
"Marie," he yelled into the radio, "what is it—what—"
And Rodriguez heard the sound around him...
410. 420 degrees...
Westphalen almost imagined that she could feel the heat, The probe was good to over 500. Have to remember that, she told herself there was nothing to worry about.
She passed a field of ordinary rift worms—if you could use the word "ordinary" to describe anything that towered twenty feet or more and looked like an alien forest, a nightmare dreamed up by Lovecraft.
The probe sailed right over the field of worms.
An alien life form, that's what they were, Westphalen thought. Life not as we know it. Something that feeds on poisons!
The chemical synthesis of food... Perhaps, Westphalen wondered, there had been a time when these two life forms battled for supremacy on the planet—chemosynthesizers versus photosynthesizers, and the loser took the darkest, deadliest piece of real estate on the planet.
And—
The probe passed a rocky cliff—and something changed.
Westphalen caught her breath and stopped the probe. The view was incredible. Here was an immense underwater canyon, the floor filled with smokers, rows of chimneys gushing forth poisonous sulfide hydroxide. The combined smoky cloud made a giant layer, a covering that gathered at one end of the cavern—
Hiding whatever was at the other end.
Right now Westphalen felt as if she didn't want to go down there. It wasn't real. She was safe inside the seaQuest.
Then why don't I feel safe?
But she made the probe inch forward, slowly forward, then down, closer to the chimneys, closer to the mouth of the cavern and the burrows hidden under the cloud.
Surprisingly, the shuttle easily navigated the station entrance. Bridger went back to Terry.
"Can you stick with me once we're inside?"
Terry looked over at Ernst, making sure that he was occupied, looking out the front screen.
"I have to watch him," Terry whispered. "But I'll be careful."
"Captain, we're ready to surface."
"Okay, Mr. Maklin. Let's enter the station."
Noyce looked at Wilson. "What's wrong? How do we simply 'lose' contact with the seaQuest, Captain?"
Gerry Wilson stood in front of Noyce, looking confused. "Admiral, they're checking it down in TeleCom—but everything else seems fine, except for the link to the sub. Perhaps the problem's there."
"Perhaps... perhaps... Christ, get your butt down there and tell them I want to be linked to seaQuest now."
Admiral Noyce was left in the dark, left to imagine what was happening.
Marie Thibaud looked at the board... The lights were moving first one, then two—
As if they were slowly getting through the locked door. "What's happening?" she said. The communications officer shrugged.
"I don't know, we show all the doors locked, nothing is happening—"
Morton Dell walked up to the board, looking at the lights "Oh, I'd say that something is happening." He turned to Marie. "They're moving, Marie. And, unless I'm wrong you'd better tell MacInnis that our friends from seaQuest will be in for a bit of a surprise."
Yes, Marie thought. MacInnis will have to be told. But first she'd have to tell Rodriguez to get out of there.
"Julio," she said. "Rodriguez, are you still there? Look, we've—"
Rodriguez instinctively backed away from the door, listening to Marie's voice.
"The board shows them moving there. They seem to be getting through—"
Rodriguez shook his head. No, no one's getting through. He was staring at the sealed door. No one is moving! He took another step backward.
"That's impossible. I don't see anyone. Your machine's wrong. No one's getting through. There's no way—"
Then—a sick moment—he heard the sound again. A little skittering noise... first to the side, then above him, and—
Now he knew where they were.
Westphalen plunged into the black cloud. She activated a guidance system on the probe that would keep it from ramming into rocks. But she'd still have to keep a close watch on the temperature gauge herself.
She had the probe do a chemical analysis of the water. And there were the usual suspects—the H2SO and other chemical toxins—but now there was something else. There was carbon...
At first, the probe displayed the presence of only trace elements of carbon. Then the numbers started climbing.
Free-floating carbon was a sign that something organic had been in the water and was now dead, destroyed, burned—it was hard to tell.
The cloud turned to complete black, and the probe's powerful light illuminated nothing. And Westphaien felt as if she were swimming in the murky water.
Again, she hit something—a chunk of something that smacked into the 360-degree lens of the probe and then pushed it away.
But it was impossible to see what it was in the blackness.
Then—the cloud appeared to thin.
The probe's light carried for a few centimeters, then as the fog cleared, she could see for more than a meter or two.
The fog cleared further, and Westphaien finally saw the burrows.
The shuttle popped to the surface, and the water ran off its sleek bubble top as if it were a swimmer popping to the surface.
It didn't look as big as MacInnis had imagined. Was it big enough to get everyone off? Would they have to make two trips? Was there going to be a problem...?
The radio at the service bay came to life.
"MacInnis, they're breaking out. The board shows them getting out!"
It was Marie. They were breaking out—now—just as the sub arrived.
"Marie—s-start bringing people down here." Yes, that was the best idea. Get people down to the shuttle now, and make the seaQuest people take them on.
MacInnis grabbed his gun.
And if I have to, I'll use this, he thought.
"Get them down here!" he yelled.
The hatch to the shuttle started opening, a spaceship from another world.
MacInnis waited.
Ford walked away from the communications console, back to Navigation.
He didn't like this standing around, waiting. And it wasn't only because EVAs were his job. Bridger was still new to the ship. Maybe he was out of practice, out of touch.
What kind of risk was he putting them in by doing this?
Ford looked at the monitors, wishing that there were cameras inside the station, that they had visuals running and that he could see Bridger as he made his way into the station—
Doubting the man—
"Wait a minute. What the—" Bachmann said.
Ford looked over at Bachmann. "What is it, Mr. Bachmann?"
"I'm getting a live sound feed, from inside the station—"
"So, what's the—"
"Listen—it's coming from inside the sealed modules of the station."
Then the voice, a new voice, filled the bridge.
And—Ford thought—the temperature dropped another twenty degrees.