Into the Drowning Deep

by Mira Grant

  The man stopped at the center of the stage, folding his hands behind his back. The woman stopped in turn, still a few feet behind. When the crowd did not immediately fall silent, he cleared his throat. Microphones in the ceiling picked up the sound, amplifying it until it was audible in every corner of the large room.

  Everyone stopped talking except the two signing women. They continued to argue until the lights flashed. They lowered their hands and turned toward the stage.

  “Welcome to the Melusine,” said the man. Behind him, the woman in the floral dress signed in rapid translation. She was a sign language interpreter, then, presumably there for the sake of the two women.

  “I will be your captain for this voyage; my name is Marcus Peterman,” said the man. “You can call me Captain, or sir. I am responsible for everything pertaining to the safety and operation of this vessel, and in those areas this voyage is entirely under my command. For all other purposes our sponsor, Imagine Entertainment, will be directing our journey. The woman behind me is Hallie Wilson, who will be providing sign language interpretation during our voyage. Should you need her to assist you for any reason, please make your request through the Wilson twins, as she is primarily here to help you communicate with them.”

  The redheaded women waved to the people around them, unnecessarily identifying themselves as the Wilson twins.

  Captain Peterman continued: “Most of you are sailing with us for the purpose of continuing and completing personal research. Any contracts you have are between you and Imagine. I will not be assisting with the interpretation of those contracts. My crew is not available to assist with your research, although they will be glad to help with any problems relating to the well-being of this vessel. Like you, we are employed by Imagine. Unlike you, we are here to make sure everything goes smoothly, and that you return safely home.” He didn’t need to mention the Atargatis. The ghost of that earlier voyage was all around them. The Melusine was a haunted house. She had been since the day she’d been commissioned.

  “Meal schedules will be posted daily outside the dining halls. Your food preferences, allergies, and dietary restrictions have been logged. Kosher food is being prepared in a separate section of the kitchen which has been cleaned to rabbinical standards. Gluten-free food is being prepared in a closed room to minimize risk of cross contamination. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. And welcome, all of you, to the Melusine.”

  Everyone applauded. It seemed like the thing to do. The captain left the stage while they were clapping, and Theodore Blackwell took his place. The clapping stopped. Some people looked confused; others wary. Theodore Blackwell was a known quantity around Imagine, James Golden’s cold right hand. If he was here …

  “Greetings,” he said. The amplifying effect that had carried Captain Peterman’s voice to the back of the room picked up his, making it impossible to ignore. Hallie remained behind him, hands flashing as she relayed his every word. “I am Theodore Blackwell, and I will be on this voyage with you as a spy for Imagine.”

  A nervous ripple passed through the room, half laughter and half gasp. Theo smiled.

  “Come now,” he said. “You can’t think I’d try to hide it, can you? You’re some of the smartest people in the world. Top of your respective fields—although admittedly, some of you are working within a field of five. In those cases, all five members are probably on this vessel. Good luck figuring out who’s on top.”

  This time the laughter was more sincere.

  “We sail to answer a great mystery of the modern maritime age: what happened to the Atargatis? The question is deeply personal for many of us. The answer will not heal our wounds, but it may begin the process of healing. We will hopefully answer a greater, older mystery at the same time: are we alone on this planet? Elephants, dolphins, even crows have exhibited signs of what we recognize as intelligence, but they are not our equals. They aren’t the elves or fairies or, yes, mermaids of legend. If we can find a mermaid, if we can prove these lovely ladies of the sea are more than just stories, we can answer a question humanity has been asking for millennia. We’re not just here to right a wrong. We’re here to make history. Thank you for making it with us.”

  This time, the applause was sustained, accompanied by a few cheers and whistles. Ray captured it on camera, Olivia standing silent next to him. She lived in crowds but she didn’t like them; they were too large and chaotic for her to find them comfortable. Give her a camera and a script and she could change the world. Give her something like this and she withdrew.

  Jillian wasn’t clapping either. She watched the stage through narrowed eyes, arms crossed. She didn’t think most of the people around her realized they were already moving. The Melusine was large enough to be steady on the water, and her engines were advanced enough to be almost imperceptible. Jillian had been on more than her share of ships, and she knew what the vibration in the soles of her feet meant.

  Why didn’t Imagine want us to know that we were pushing off? she wondered. What don’t they want us to see?

  Theodore was speaking again. She took advantage of the room’s distraction to step back, out the nearest door, and slip away.

  Almost everyone was gathered in the assembly room: the few crew members in the ship’s halls were easy enough to avoid. No one tried to stop her as she made her way up the stairs, down the hallway, and finally onto the deck.

  The dock was dwindling in the distance, far enough behind them that she couldn’t have swum back to safety if she’d wanted to try. A few trucks that hadn’t been present when she’d gone inside were parked there. It was too far for her to make out the logo on their sides. She pulled out her phone and snapped a few pictures anyway, getting a long shot before blowing up her lens to the greatest magnification possible and taking a series of pictures of what she hoped would prove to be the logo. Imagine was hiding something. She wanted—no, she needed—to know what it was.

  Even at her phone’s greatest magnification, the logo was barely the size of an eraser head. She zoomed in as much as she could, reducing it to a smear of meaningless pixels. Nothing.

  Nothing … except for the fact that she was on a vessel filled with scientists, some of whom worked with advanced visual processing software for the sake of getting clear shots of creatures that lived half a mile below the surface of the sea. Someone would be able to tell her what she’d just taken a picture of, and why Imagine didn’t want them to see it. It was just a matter of finding someone with the appropriate equipment and convincing them to help her out. That wasn’t going to be any problem at all.

  Theo, on the other hand … Theo knew her. He knew she didn’t trust Imagine as far as she could throw it; that in fact, part of her motivation for coming on this trip was keeping Imagine from burying any results that it didn’t approve of. He’d be watching her like a hawk. Anything she was going to do would need to be done while he wasn’t looking. That meant finding allies, and quickly, among the people he’d helped to hand-select—many of whom viewed her as either crackpot or competition, if not both.

  “Isn’t this going to be fun,” she murmured, to the sounding sea, and turned to go back inside.

  The speeches were over when she returned to the main room. About half the people were gone, while the rest circulated around the buffet and the open bar. Drinking heavily on the first night of a long voyage seemed like a bad idea to her—although, to be fair, drinking heavily later on could interfere with getting actual work done, whereas now, it would just mean the world’s least pleasant hangover. Maybe the boozehounds had the right idea.

  The two redheads were among the people remaining. They had resumed their silent argument, their hands flashing so fast that it was like the world’s most aggressive game of patty-cake. Jillian stopped a few feet away, watching them talk. ASL was a beautiful language. It was also a language she didn’t want to sneak up on; the idea of being accidentally slapped in the face by a particularly vehement point didn’t appeal.

  The tra
nslator in the floral dress was nearby. She offered Jillian a friendly nod.

  “Hi,” said Jillian. “I know I’m supposed to talk to them, not you, when I’m talking to them, but do you know how I can get their attention without getting punched by mistake? I want to say hello. I don’t want to visit the infirmary.”

  “They’re not fighting that hard,” said the translator.

  One of the two redheads began making a violent, repetitive sign directly in front of the face of the other.

  “They don’t usually hit strangers,” amended the translator. “Hang on.” She signed something complex, holding her hands up so the redhead she was facing could see.

  They both dropped their hands—ending the discussion midsentence, as it were—and turned to Jillian. Jillian waved. The two redheads waved back.

  “Hello,” said Jillian. “I’m Dr. Jillian Toth. I just wanted to say hello and find out what you’re going to be doing on this voyage.”

  The first redhead signed something rapid while the translator said, “We know who you are. I’m Holly Wilson. I’m an organic chemist. I’m going to be doing surface and depth analysis at the Mariana Trench, to determine whether there’s something unusual going on with the chemical makeup of the water.”

  Jillian recognized science simplified for the layman, and she didn’t push. Organic chemistry was so far from her own field that it was an essentially alien discipline. She could make Holly explain—scientists were usually eager to do just that, and she’d been working in academia long enough to know how to phrase her questions, to make it seem like she really cared—but it would be a waste of both their time.

  “I’m Heather Wilson,” signed the second redhead. “I’m a submersible operator.”

  Jillian blinked. “Really?”

  Heather scowled. “Why are you surprised? Is it because I’m deaf?”

  “No, it’s because I’m claustrophobic,” said Jillian. “What sort of submersible?”

  “I have a one-body Minnow pod,” signed Heather, shoulders relaxing. “It’s configured to my body weight and specs, and all systems are designed with visual signaling prioritized. It talks to me better than a hearing person’s could ever talk to them. I’m rated for depths of up to twenty-five thousand feet, although my equipment can handle depths up to forty thousand. I’ll be going down once we reach the Trench.”

  Holly’s hands flashed. “You know forty thousand feet is pushing it. You’re not going into the Challenger Deep.”

  Heather shrugged.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” said Jillian. “May I ask an etiquette question?”

  “Better asked than assumed,” signed Holly. Both of them laughed.

  “Is your translator related to you?”

  The twins exchanged a look before Heather signed, “Why do you ask?”

  “Because her name is ‘Hallie,’ and she looks somewhat similar.” Substantially taller—Hallie had nearly a foot on the twins—and with clearly artificially blonde hair, but similar, especially in the face.

  “Hallie?” signed Holly.

  “I’m their older sister,” said Hallie. “You’re allowed to talk to me, as long as you’re not ignoring Holly and Heather. I’m also on this ship as a scientist.”

  “What kind?” asked Jillian.

  “I’m an acoustician and sign language expert.”

  “The mermaids!” Jillian slapped her forehead, an exaggerated gesture she hoped would make her seem bumbling and harmless. She wanted to make friends with these people. She wanted them to trust her. “I’ve seen the videos. There are shots where it looks like they’re communicating via some sort of sign language.”

  “I’ve seen them too,” said Hallie. “It doesn’t just look like they’re communicating. They are communicating. They have a language. If I can get more footage, I’ll be able to start learning it. I’ve already picked up a few signs.” Her hands were never still; she was constantly translating for her sisters. It was impressive. She probably had a grip of steel.

  “I look forward to seeing your results,” said Jillian.

  Holly signed something, looking suddenly shy. “I’ve read your book three times. Could we get a picture?”

  “Of course,” said Jillian.

  Holly handed her phone to Hallie, and the twins clustered to either side of Jillian, striking a quick, practiced pose. They were so tiny it made Jillian feel like a giant, an orca swimming among dolphins. She smiled, and the camera clicked, and it was done. The twins returned to their original places, Holly taking the phone back to check the picture, while Heather resumed signing.

  “It’s a pleasure to be working with you,” was the translation.

  Jillian, who recognized a dismissal when she heard one, nodded. “Same. I’ll see you around the ship.” She turned to go, and nearly walked straight into Theo.

  “Walk with me,” he said, offering his arm.

  There was no way out. “Of course,” she said, fighting to keep her tone from turning grudging, and slipped her hand into the bend of his elbow.

  Theo led her across the room to a doorway she hadn’t noticed before. There was an elevator on the other side. It had been waiting; the doors opened as soon as he pressed the button, and it was a matter of seconds before they were descending deeper into the body of the Melusine.

  “I should have known you’d notice when we got under way,” he said, in a conversational tone. “I would have warned you, but you seemed displeased enough by my presence that I didn’t want to push my luck when we were close to shore.”

  “Why? Were you afraid I’d throw you overboard?”

  “The thought did cross my mind.”

  “Your mind knows me too well.” Jillian pulled her hand out of the crook of his arm, eyeing him suspiciously. “What are you doing here, Theo? How did you get your doctors to approve this?”

  “I’m not an invalid, Jilli,” he said. “I was for a little while, but those days are long past. I’m perfectly sound for a sea voyage, as long as I take my medication and monitor my physical activity. This vessel is fully accessible. There are elevators in place of stairs to get from level to level, ramps graded for wheelchair use on the main decks—we could use the Melusine for a chronic illness convention and not worry that any of the attendees would be unable to take advantage of the opportunity.”

  “There are so many ‘if’s in that sentence,” said Jillian. “If you take your medication. If you monitor your physical activity. What will you do if what happened to the Atargatis happens again? You can’t run.”

  “If what happened to the Atargatis happens again, none of us will be in a position to run.” The elevator stopped with a faint chiming sound, accompanied by a single strobe of the overhead light. Catching Jillian’s confused look, Theo smiled and said, “For the Wilson twins. Of course we wanted the ship to be fully accessible anyway, and we knew we’d need at least one sign language interpreter to work on the mermaids’ language. Finding one who was not only a scientist, but traveled with a pair of deaf siblings who worked in oceanographic fields, was like winning the lottery. If these mermaids are intelligent, we’ll learn to communicate with them.”

  “Before or after they swallow our faces?”

  “One hopes before, but beggars never can be choosers.”

  The elevator doors opened. Theo stepped out, with Jillian close behind him, her eyes going wide and round with awe. He smirked, saying nothing. Let her take a moment to drink it all in. Once she had, perhaps she’d be better prepared to talk like a reasonable person.

  Many of the passengers aboard the Melusine were aware of the pool on the lower level that sampled and purified water. It had been included in the description of the vessel, advertised as part of the ship’s exercise facilities. It was unsafe to swim in the open sea, and the decks that would have been used for pools and waterslides on a cruise ship were devoted to research stations and docking ports. With the number of swimmers in the crew, some sort of compromise had been necessary.


  Knowing something existed and seeing the scope of it were very different things. The pool was easily two-thirds the size of the room above, large enough to be used for anything short of Olympic conditioning. “Twenty feet at the deep end; three at the shallow,” said Theodore. “Salt water, of course, but purified to such a point that it should be fairly mild against the eyes. The hot tub is freshwater. Taken from the same source, but desalinated before heating. We use the same desalination pumps for our drinking water, so we’ll know instantly if anything breaks down. The water cycles constantly. We could all pee in the pool at once and it would be gone in under a minute.”

  “What a charming image,” murmured Jillian. Her eyes flicked from wall to wall, taking in the dimensions of the space. The docking area for the submersibles took up one corner, slicing off a section of the room; the showers occupied another. That didn’t account for certain quirks in the layout.

  Theo waited patiently. Jillian had been a genius when they’d met in college, and she’d grown more brilliant with each passing year. The bitterness that had accompanied her growth was a sad consequence of being a bright light in a dark world. If any of the people on the Melusine would suspect and then divine the pool’s secret, it would be her.

  “This room’s too small,” she said finally. “The pipes on the ceiling connect to the purification system but not to the pool. What are you doing with the extra space, and where is the water going?”

  “Two minutes,” he said fondly. “I knew you were still the brilliant woman I married. This way.” He started across the strip of dry floor between the pool and the locker area. There were no privacy walls; if people wanted to use the facility, they needed to be comfortable with nudity or change in their quarters. It was a small but necessary evil: by omitting changing rooms, the ship’s designers had blocked Imagine from placing cameras in the pool area. Most filming licenses still refused to grant consent for even nonsexual nudity.