by Mira Grant
At the moment the tub was empty, and every available space in the cabin was piled with military-grade weapon cases. Michi held a tablet, scrolling down the list of their inventory, while Jacques moved around the room, verifying her list.
“Grenade launcher?”
“Yes.”
“Grenades?”
“Yes.”
“How many tranquilizer rifles do we have?”
“Six: three set for human-sized targets, two for walrus, and one for orca.” Jacques smiled, fast and feral. “We can sedate anything that comes as far as the surface, and with the punch on these things, surface is a negotiable term.”
“Excellent. Rated for shark?”
“All of them.” Their tranquilizers were a proprietary blend developed by a multinational fishing concern that needed to be able to sedate and live-capture large sharks without making a fuss about it. People were so oversensitive to the supposed overfishing of sharks—as if it wasn’t the height of hubris to decide humanity needed to be put into the position of custodian to the world’s apex predators? God had made man to fight and defeat His other creations. Why else would He have made his chosen children physically weak but mentally strong? In the battle between man and shark, the shark should always have won. That it didn’t proved only that man was intended to be victorious, and should be allowed to kill whatever he could before he, in turn, was killed.
These tranquilizers didn’t fuck around with animal safety. No chemists had monitored their effects on heartbeat or respiration. Something shot with one of these bad boys would go down hard, and would either get back up again or not, depending on its individual biology. Kill the weak, preserve the strong. Create a challenge for the next generation. What was the point of winnowing the world, if not to make a better fight for the children?
“What’s the status on the security teams?”
Michi smiled, slow and feral. Jacques felt his heart flutter, the way it always did when she looked at him like that. There had been times when he’d despaired of ever meeting a woman who understood the hunt. Now that he had her, he was never going to let her go. They would die together, gored by a bull elephant or torn to pieces by a pod of hippos, and he would go out with a smile, content that he’d spent his time on Earth in the company of his opposite and equal, something he would never have thought possible.
“They’re ready to go at our word,” she said. “Blackwell understands he can’t stop us. This is, as they say, the cost of doing business.”
Jacques nodded. “Good. Let’s get ready. If the last contact was anything to go by, the fish-women will surface when the sun goes down. That’s when the fun begins.”
“Then we have a few hours,” said Michi, with a meaningful glance at the small slice of bed not covered by boxes and bullets.
Jacques opened his arms. She set her tablet aside, and went to him.
The news was filtering out to the rest of the Melusine. Many would have said there was no such thing as privacy on a ship like this one, that any information would inevitably be shared by all, simply because it couldn’t be avoided. They would have been wrong. There were secrets aplenty on the Melusine, kept close to the chests of those who held them. But something like this, the loss of one of their own caught on camera for a viewing audience that numbered in the dozens … that couldn’t be concealed. No matter how much it would have helped things to keep Heather’s death hidden until a response could be formulated calmly and clearly and without emotion getting in the way.
That was never going to happen. Heather was dead, and mermaids were real, and the ship’s population was split between sorrow and elation, the two seemingly inimical states sometimes sharing the same shadow, the same skin. Even those who’d known and liked Heather couldn’t fully swallow their joy. Mermaids were real. The mission was already a success. Anything they discovered from here was only going to enhance their scientific value—and they’d be able to write their own tickets after this. They’d be able to set their own price.
Fear was a tight undercurrent through everything, but it was tempered with relief. No one could have missed the security teams moving along the decks, checking everything, and the shutters were there if anything truly bad happened. Imagine would protect them.
Dr. Jillian Toth, the world’s foremost expert on mermaids, the woman without whom the Atargatis would never have been able to set sail, stood on the top deck. She wore a thick sweater, and her hair was a tangled mess, whipping around her ears, tying itself into elaborate knots that would be easier to cut out than to comb. Her eyes were fixed, not on the water, but on the horizon, and the distant, drawn-out promise of safety.
Footsteps beside her warned her that she was no longer alone. “This is my fault, you know,” she said.
There was a pause before Theo asked, “How did you know it was me?”
“You limp. Not always, but when you haven’t taken your medicine, you limp. And you wouldn’t have taken your medicine if you were calling James to tell him the bloodbath was getting under way.” Jillian looked from the ocean to her estranged husband, expression all but daring him to contradict her. She was itching for a fight, dying for something to give her an excuse.
Theo had been married to her for more than twenty years. He knew better than to give her what she wanted. (Oh, once, he would have risen to the bait, a fish willingly pursuing the hook; he would have thrown blame in her face until she started biting down on it, and they would have screamed at each other for hours, until they were both exhausted, until they could start to see the pathway out of their problem and into a solution. But that time was in the past, when they’d been better at loving each other, and worse at getting in one another’s way.)
“Why do you say that?” he asked, mildly.
“Because I try not to lie to myself when I can help it. To the rest of the world, sure, but to myself? That’s a bad business. Better not to start.” Jillian turned back to the water. “All of this is my fault.”
“Did they elect you God when I wasn’t looking? I suppose that would be a paradox, if you think about it. God is a middle-aged biology professor who exists in God’s own creation, only to go back to the beginning and make it for herself. Although I’ll be honest. If you’re God, I want to have a talk with you about my accident.” Theo joined her at the rail. Where her eyes were fixed on the horizon, he fixed his on the roiling sea. “Having a little fight is no reason to try to crush me to death with the hull of a whaling ship.”
Jillian’s laughter was bitter. “Sometimes I would have told you differently.”
“But those times, you didn’t have phenomenal cosmic power.” Theo leaned over to nudge her shoulder with his own. “Why is this your fault, Jilli?”
“Because I’m the one who said there was truth behind the legends. I’m the one who insisted there was something to find, until some damn programming director listened and convinced your boss I might be right, or at least that I might be amusing. Without me beating the drum, the Atargatis never sailed. Without the Atargatis, we never sailed, and if we never sailed, then Heather isn’t dead. All of this comes back to me.”
“Everything comes back to someone. If Lani shoots a man, is that on us? Is it on our parents? How far back do we follow the consequences of free will?”
“Until the guilt goes away.”
“Then we’re going all the way back to the apple every single time. Do you really want that kind of responsibility?”
For a long moment, Jillian said nothing at all. Finally she leaned to the side until their arms were pressed together, holding each other up, and said in a soft voice, “We’re out of time. You know that, don’t you? The sun’s going to go down, and whatever damned secret plan you’re trying not to tell me about—whatever made you bring those dolphins, and those bastards with their overly large guns—is going to start, and a lot of people are going to die. A lot of people are going to die. Maybe even us.”
“Maybe,” Theo agreed noncommittally. “But we got to s
ail together one more time. Wasn’t that worth the risk?”
“For you and me? Maybe. For everyone else on this godforsaken vessel?” Jillian shook her head. “It never was. It never could have been. And this is all my fault.”
This time Theo didn’t contradict her. They stood together, and watched the sun sink lower in the sky, creeping inch by dreadful inch toward sundown.
ZONE THREE: APHOTIC
There are some challenges that are worth risking everything.
—Heather Wilson
Nothing is worth the risk of being lost at sea.
—Dr. Holly Wilson
It is the belief of this commission that the “mermaids” sighted in the vicinity of the Mariana Trench are not, in fact, representatives of a previously unknown genera of fish or marine reptile, but are instead a previously unknown form of deepwater dolphin or manatee. This would explain all documented aspects of their physiology, without contradicting known science as regards these creatures.
It is further the belief of this commission that if there is any veracity to the claims that disappearances in the area are due to these “mermaids,” the disappearances are more likely to be the fault of sailors or onlookers becoming confused by the sight of something so unexpected, and falling consequentially overboard. There is simply no possible way a purely oceanic species could be attacking something so far out of their natural environment without damaging either the vessel or themselves. The mermaid, whatever she truly is, is a myth and a treasure, and cannot be held accountable.
—From the newsletter of the International Cryptozoological Society
Mankind needs the mermaid to explain why we left the sea in the first place. If you look at the aquatic ape theory—discredited what, six times now? But it keeps coming back, like a bad penny veiled in a sheet of bad science—we should have been the masters of our watery abode. We should have been kings of the sea. Orcas and leopard seals and other aquatic predators exist, but so do lions, bears, all manner of terrible things on the land; they should not, on their own, have been enough to drive us from our home. Sharks exist, implacable, cold blooded, and terrible. That’s true. At the same time, I’m not going to stand here and tell you the crocodile is any real improvement. Everything that threatens us in the sea has its counterpart on land, with less of the gravity-defying freedom the water offers. So what could have driven us away?
Nothing more nor less than an equal. One whose mastery of the waters outpaced our own, and left us with the choice to flee as predators, or to live as prey …
—Transcript from the lecture “Mermaids: Myth or Monster,” given by Dr. Jillian Toth
CHAPTER 14
Western Pacific Ocean, the Mariana Trench: September 2, 2022
The shell had been strange but not unknown, no, not unknown; shells had come before. Some had been left to pass unmolested, watched as they drifted downward, doing whatever it was shells did. They never cracked themselves open, but extruded limbs and tentacles, snatching small things foolish enough to wander into reach. There had been close calls before, when one of the youngest thought to go and see the shell, consumed by childish curiosity, but those close calls had always ended with strong arms around weak shoulders as the shell drifted past in blissful ignorance. There was no point to starting a fight with the unusual, which didn’t even smell of food, when it could be avoided.
Ah, but that had been long ago, before the waters changed. The fish had dwindled in number season on season, until the rich feeding grounds were all but gone, replaced by nothing to fill a belly or strengthen an arm. Half the young had been consumed to sustain the mature. Virtually all the old had been consumed as well, swimming into the deepest dark and not surfacing again. There were appetites to be sated, no matter how cold the water became, no matter how strange the sea turned. As long as there were bellies, they would need to be fed. As long as there was life in the sea, there would be teeth. The past shells had drifted through a sea full of life on their unknowable shell errands. This one had dropped into a sea filled with death.
It had been desperation as much as territorial rage that led them to attack the shell, to drive it downward, looking for the crack in its surface. Still, it might have escaped, had not the noise and unusual activity attracted the attention of one of the eldest, who had risen, majestic, from the depths, and driven the shell down, down, down into the dark, where it had cracked and spilled its contents into the waters, delicate and delicious and already dead. The eldest had devoured the shell’s inhabitant almost before it could be seen, but it had been seen, oh yes, it had been seen, and it had been recognized. They knew this thing, and others like it. They had seen this thing before.
Where there was one of these things, there were always others. The delicate, delicious things that died so easily never traveled alone. Their schools varied in number from few to many, but they never traveled alone.
Deep beneath the waves, the hungry turned their eyes upward, toward the promise of plenty, and began to prepare.
News of Heather’s death had spread throughout the ship: there was no one aboard the Melusine who didn’t know they’d suffered their first fatality. That was a cold comfort, especially given that most of the scientists, however hard they tried, were more interested in the circumstances of Heather’s death than in the reality of it.
Was it true she’d died trying to cross into the Challenger Deep? Trying to flee from it, actually, but yes, that had been her intent.
Was it true that she had managed to capture clear, unedited footage of the aquatic entities they were here to find? Yes, before they killed her.
Was it true the entities had attacked? Heather was dead, and her bones were never going to be recovered—was that true enough? How dead did she have to be before people stopped asking the question?
Well, what had she done to provoke them? Because mermaids were beautiful mermaids were peaceful and gentle and kind, mermaids were fairy tale creatures given flesh, and who cared about the Atargatis video? Who cared about the blood already on their hands? Heather must have done something.
Because if Heather hadn’t done something, they would need to consider the fact that they were floating in the middle of open waters, sitting ducks for anything that might decide to surface and begin the slaughter. The crew was already preparing for the worst, doubling and then tripling security patrols, while the scientists tried to go about their business as if they weren’t moving toward the end of the world.
Holly had stopped making eye contact when people spoke to her, taking refuge in their assumptions and prejudices about the deaf. If she couldn’t see them she couldn’t “hear” them, and maybe they’d stop talking. When that didn’t work she retreated to her cabin and closed the door, sequestering herself from a world that wanted to talk endlessly about her sister’s death without ever pausing to acknowledge that her sister, her twin, the other half of her heart, was gone.
Hallie had followed Holly for a little while, until it became clear that she wasn’t welcome either: for this short time, she had been lumped with the rest of the world as “not Heather,” and wasn’t going to get anything out of her surviving sister but motionless hands. She was used to silence. Heather and Holly laughed and grunted and made all the other sounds that came with being mammals—Holly snored something awful, which had always struck Hallie as funny—but they didn’t do it on purpose. A refusal to sign, on the other hand … that was something new, and painful, and too much to be borne.
She had left a note on the whiteboard they used for long-term communications, letting Holly know she’d be in the cafeteria if she was wanted, and then she had fled the room where the ghost of one silent sister haunted the survivor. Some things hurt too much. Some things needed to be delayed as long as possible.
Their parents were never going to forgive her. They’d always tried to treat the twins the same way they treated Hallie, supporting instead of coddling, encouraging them to experience the world in their own way and on their own terms, but
Hallie knew damn well that her parents would always consider the twins her responsibility. No one who responded to the birth of deaf children by turning their eldest child into a translator—a transformation Hallie appreciated, even enjoyed, but hadn’t been given much of a vote in—was going to accept that three daughters had gone out and only two had come back.
Assuming any of them came back. The mermaids were real, the mermaids were below the ship, and the Melusine was making no move toward leaving. This was what Imagine had been hoping for. This was the worst-case scenario described in their contracts, in the fine print that said that even in the event of injury or loss of life, the mission would be carried out to the best ability of the surviving crew. Heather’s bones would be picked clean and scattered long before Hallie and Holly made it home.
Maybe that was better. Maybe they could get through the worst of the mourning and return to shore ready to start the process of healing, recovering, getting better.
“And maybe somebody has a bridge they’d like to sell me,” muttered Hallie, picking up her empty mug and heading for the coffee machine. She’d already had five cups of coffee. Caffeine thrummed in her veins, bright and stimulating and almost enough to chase off the loose-limbed lassitude that threatened to rise and overwhelm her. She needed to stay alert. For Holly, in case her sister needed her.
“Dr. Wilson!”
The sound of her name was surprising enough that she jumped, slopping coffee over the lip of the mug and onto the skin of her hand. She sucked a breath through her teeth as she turned. That Canadian man, the hunter, was behind her. As always, he was dressed in khakis, like he thought this was a safari, or the goddamn Disneyland Jungle Cruise, and not a sea voyage to the ends of the known world. He even had a slouch hat, pushed back on his head so as not to muss his perfectly groomed hair. Who did that? Who went around dressed like the GQ idea of the big game hunter?