by Greig Beck
He fired, and the green beam hit its target dead on, puncturing the hard shell of its back, and burning right through to the deck.
The tough bug curled into a ball, as a cloud of blood and meat detritus was ejected from the circular wound in its body. It fell from the deck, floating down to the ooze, with several of its kin following a free meal.
“No problem.” Mironov smiled as he targeted more of the giant isopods as they crossed his kill zone, where they were either punctured or sliced in half. A cloud of milky fluids began to fill the water. In the silt at the bow of the ship, the mud churned as an orgy of cannibalism ensued.
Mironov switched the mic back on and sat back. “Okay, Dr. Williams, our nosy neighbors are now occupied. Continue.” His eyes followed the cloud of isopod fluids as it was swept in among the forest of giant sea fans.
“Yes, sir.” Williams emerged holding the long oxygen cylinder by one of the rungs of its casing like a long suitcase. Once he was free of the hold, he engaged his propulsion, and came floating back toward them.
Blip.
“Wait a minute,” Brenner said. “Nautilus just picked up something on sonar.”
Jack leaned forward onto the console. “Hurry it up, Francis.”
“Huh, what’s wrong now?” A note of concern crept into Williams’ voice.
“Nothing important, we just want you back here.” Mironov switched off the mic and turned to face Jack. “Let him do his job. He’s already had one scare, and we don’t want him dropping that cylinder, we might not have the time to recover another one. Right, Cate?”
“Uh … no, he’s right, Jack. Sam must get that air.” Cate agreed. “Just … hurry him up.”
Blip, blip.
Jack stared out through the sloping windows. “Is it what we think it is?”
“Can’t tell, but it’s coming in along the bottom … weird though; it’s coming really slow, and the signature profile keeps changing.” Brenner put the cups over his ears and concentrated. He shook his head. “Can’t get a proper reading. It keeps moving in and out of the sonar shadow.”
He looked up, frowned, and then pointed. “Going to come at us from that direction.”
Cate turned to where Brenner was indicating. The huge sea fans, a dozen feet tall like stands of palm trees, scooped at the red water while the occasional smaller creature darted in and out of kelp-like weed, and small crustaceans busied themselves picking at anything that took their fancy.
Blip, blip, blip …
“Can’t see a thing,” Cate whispered, feeling her heart rate speed up like the sonar pulse.
“Still 500 feet out, but moving real strange. It’s paused, as if waiting for something.” Brenner’s forehead creased as he listened and moved his eyes across multiple screens.
“Or watching us,” Jack said. “And what do you mean, strange?”
“Slow, and not a solid signature like our big fish.” Brenner shook his head. “I can’t work it out.”
“I’m at the Alvin. Where do you want it, Sam?” Williams hung onto the side of the small submersible, and used his free arm to perform an awkward salute to its occupants.
Cate watched as Sam waved back, and moved closer. Andy vanished behind a bulkhead compartment. “Underneath us, you’ll notice a door. We’re going to equalize pressure, and then open it. Place the cylinder inside, and we’ll pump the water out to receive it.” She laughed softly. “You, sir, are my new champion.”
“All in a day’s work, ma’am.” Williams floated underneath the small craft.
Blip, blip, blip, blip …
“Moving again – a couple of hundred feet out.” Brenner looked up. “We should see it by now.”
“We have to warn Francis,” Jack said.
“No, not yet, he’s nearly finished his task.” Mironov slid across, taking control of the laser once again. The muscles in his jaws worked. “We still can’t get proper aim, and can’t rotate the barrel as the arms are still warped and locked onto the Alvin.”
He opened the comms. “How are you getting on, Dr. Williams?”
“Nearly done here, boss.” The man was breathing heavily again. “Just – easing it up – into – Alvin’s pressure chamber.”
From the cockpit, they heard the sound of metal clanging, and then a grunt.
“Done. It’s all yours, Sam.”
Blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip …
Brenner grimaced at the closeness of the sonar pulses and turned, but Mironov held up a hand.
“Okay, you’d better back up a step,” Sam addressed Williams. “We’re flushing the chamber now.” From Sam’s end there was a hissing for several moments followed by a ping.
“Got it, you beautiful man. Andy, help me here. We’re going to plug this in and breathe easy … literally, ha-ha!” Sam chuckled and Andy whooped. “Going off-line for a while to fix this.” The line closed, and both Sam and Andy vanished.
Mironov lurched forward. “Dr. Williams, Francis, return to the Nautilus immediately, with haste.”
“I’m okay, plenty of air and power. Coming back.”
“Urgently please. It seems you are about to have company.” Mironov’s eyes narrowed.
“Say again, ah, another crab or bug?” Williams said hopefully.
“Unlikely, buddy, even though it’s coming across the sea bottom, rather than swimming, its signature is all wrong.” Brenner checked again. “I suggest you get back, now. It’ll be coming out of the sea fan forest on your three o’clock any second.”
Blipblipblipblipblipblip …
“It’s here.” Brenner lifted his eyes from the screen.
Silence fell in the Nautilus cockpit.
The lonely figure of Williams in his floating metal suit had appeared from under the Alvin and was soaring toward them.
“What was that?” Cate leaped from her seat. “Something, there, at the base of the Archimedes.” She craned forward, looked one way then the other. “Shit, it’s gone.”
“There’s nothing there. Might be the weird light. It’s dappled and throwing lots of shadows.” Jack was also standing now. “What did it look like?”
Cate stared, unblinking. “Like, just a lump, but moving, flowing sort of.”
“Mr. Brenner?” Mironov stroked his closely trimmed silver beard as he also stared from the Nautilus window.
“Nothing, it’s either not registering, or …” he straightened. “It’s right underneath us.”
“There, there!” Cate almost pressed her nose and finger against the glass.
Sure enough, something was easing out from behind the sunken bow of the Archimedes. Before their eyes, the thing seemed to grow into a mountain of flesh, and then the bulbous head inflated. It slid and glided along the bottom, until it was underneath the comparably tiny figure of Williams.
“Oh, fuck, no. That’s some sort of octopus,” Brenner said.
“The size,” Jack breathed. “It’s not possible.”
“Shoot it!” Brenner yelled.
Williams sailed on. But then he slowed and used the jets to ease around one way, then the other as though confused. Beneath him, like the growing trunk of a tree, a tentacle lifted up toward him and almost lovingly encircled his leg.
* * *
Williams felt a trickle of perspiration run down his forehead and come to rest on his eyebrow. He jerked his head inside the helmet and forced the drip to change course and run down the side of his face instead of into his eye.
He let his eyes wander over the vista; it was a weird sensation. The warm, red-tinged water was like nothing he had ever experienced in his life, and he knew he never would again. But the looming darkness beyond reminded him that he was in a place that humans should not be, and it inhibited his enjoyment of the wondrous experience.
He grinned. He was already in the record books – the first person to ADS suit-dive below 21,000 feet. For that matter, he was also the first below 5000, 10,000, 15,000, and every number in between.
He slowed the s
uit for a moment as his neck prickled. He was warm and dry in his floating suit of armor, but the downside was he couldn’t hear a damn thing unless it was loud or close by. Other than his eyesight, all he could rely on was his diver’s sixth sense.
He used the suit to slowly spin one way, then the other. The red gloom surrounding him was near endless, and the dark emptiness beyond held a thousand ominous shadows.
The ole spidee sense is tingling today. He chuckled a little nervously. Let’s just get this over with, he thought, and turned in the water, putting the jets on full. But instead of gliding toward the Nautilus at around five knots, he gently stopped dead in the water.
“Huh?” Inside the suit he felt nothing. Williams finally looked down.
“Jesus Christ!”
* * *
“Shoot it, shoot it!” Brenner yelled.
“We can’t rotate the laser to reach that angle. Even then, he’s right in front of the Alvin,” Mironov said, transfixed.
The octopus held on, and then gracefully threw up another tentacle, which crept along the metal shell of the suit. It tapped and pressed against the joints, seals and plate sections.
“It can’t possibly know what Williams is, and is probably only reacting to his lights or his motion,” Mironov said.
“Don’t be so sure.” Cate knew what the octopus was doing; most cephalopods have taste receptors at the end of their tentacles, as well as sensitivity well beyond that of human fingers. “It might feel the hard shell, but still sense Williams’ life signs within it.”
Williams bobbed and swayed as he deployed the propulsion jets but they were no match for the muscular strength of the thick tentacles that held him.
The flesh mountain rose up, and magnificent circles and blotches started to flare on its body.
“It’s reacting to him; becoming excited,” Jack said.
“But just like the crab, it can’t break that suit,” Mironov said.
One of the tentacles wrapped around Williams’ arm and another his leg. The tentacles tightened and then it started to pull.
“Jesus, get this thing off me!” Williams screamed.
Then came a chilling noise – the sound of metal compressing.
“Oh god, the strength of that thing must be titanic.” Cate rose slowly. “Forget about it breaking in, it might be able to simply pull him apart.
Mironov nodded. “Williams, I want you to vent some air; see if that’ll throw it off.”
Immediately there was a blast of gas from near his helmet, and the tentacle arms unwrapped from his limbs and pulled back. Williams immediately pirouetted and started to sail toward the Nautilus again.
The effect of Williams’ escape was instantaneous – the tentacles shot out, and easily caught him again. The bulbous head, with two massive disc-shaped eyes, floated up, and brought him closer. Williams was like a doll being held by a giant alien as the octopus examined him closely. The eye was the size of a garage door, and the creature held him near it for several seconds.
The pupils of an octopus were just slits, like that of a goat. Cate was terrified just watching, and couldn’t imagine what Williams must have felt, staring back into that orb. She knew that octopus vision was exceptional, but what was truly dangerous was their intelligence – they were inquisitive, voracious, and smart.
“It’s examining him.” Cate’s eyes were wide. “We need to—”
The giant octopus quickly tugged him down beneath itself, and the sound of Williams’ scream echoed around Nautilus’ cabin. They heard scraping and grinding.
“It’s trying to use its beak to break in,” Jack mumbled.
In another moment, it lifted Williams back out to examine him again. They could all see the gouges along the once pristine shine of the ADS suit.
Williams sobbed, but cleared his throat. He was puffing heavily. “Tried to bite through, but thank god it couldn’t. The mouth, like a beak, was as big as I am.” He sniffed. “It’s bent some of the plating, but couldn’t break it.” There was more whimpering. “I’ve got to get loose. You’ve got to get me loose.”
“Try venting air again,” Mironov said.
Immediately Williams released another burst of oxygen, but this time the octopus held on, having quickly learned that the jet of air bubbles wasn’t a danger to it.
Tentacles wrapped around the trapped man again, and Cate could see the muscles begin to flex. She knew that octopuses had evolved striated muscles that were hundreds of times stronger than land-based animals, and coupled with their intelligence, made them one of the most formidable predators in the Earth’s oceans.
The huge tentacles wrapped around, twisted, and then pulled away to gain a better purchase somewhere else. Then they simply repeated the assault, continually trying to find a weakness.
“We’ve got to get him out,” Jack said. “Sooner or later it’ll find an imperfection in the welds or joints.”
“He’s right,” said Cate. “He’s a crab in a bottle.”
“Huh?” Brenner frowned.
Jack nodded. “Just recently in the Marine Education Centre in New Zealand they placed a crab in a jar that was sealed tight with a screw lid. They then tossed it into a tank with a small octopus. After studying it for a while, eventually the octopus worked out that by twisting the lid, and exerting enormous pressure, it was able to unscrew the top and get at its prize.” Jack looked up. “It took only fifty-seven seconds.”
“Oh shit.” Brenner paled.
The octopus unwrapped one of its limbs from the ADS suit and once again brought Williams closer to its eye, and then it delicately used the tip of its tentacle to tap against the clear faceplate. Williams screamed.
“Don’t do that,” Cate whispered. “Play dead, please, play dead.”
Mironov gripped the laser controls. “I’m firing.”
“You’ll hit the Alvin, or us,” Brenner said. “We can’t rotate it to target.”
“Risk versus return – we may at least distract it. I’m firing anyway.” Mironov moved the laser barrel as far as he could and initiated the beam. The green rod of light shot out, and struck the side of the Archimedes. He released it and recalibrated, moving the barrel the fractions of inches available to him.
Williams screamed again. This time a single tentacle had wrapped around his helmet, and several coils around the length of his body. The bulky suit provided plenty of angles for it to gain purchase. Once again the octopus’s muscles stretched and flexed.
“Oh god no – noooooo!” Williams’ voice dissolved into a breathless panic, and then there came the sound of tortured metal. Williams’ scream was long and terror-filled.
There was an explosion of bubbles from within the tentacle mass. Then a cloud of dark matter appeared. The tentacles unwrapped momentarily, and the Nautilus crew could see that the suit helmet had been torn from its body.
“It’s over.” Jack fell back into his seat.
Brenner threw up on the floor but Cate couldn’t tear her eyes away. The tentacles still gripped the suit and one delicately reached inside to scoop at the pulp it found.
Cate finally fell back in her chair, and put a hand over her mouth. She pounded her fist down on her thigh. “Fuck it!” she yelled.
“He’s gone,” Jack said.
Mironov continued to stare.
Cate wiped her face and mouth, and turned to see the octopus playing with the suit, having scooped out all the sustenance it could. It continued to toss it, let it float for a moment, and then recatch it like some sort of monstrous playful puppy.
“I hate this place,” Brenner’s voice was small.
From beneath them, inside the Alvin, there came the sound of a metallic clank, and then swearing over the comm.
“Sam.” Cate spun to Jack. “They don’t know.”
More clunking as Sam and Andy were obviously working with the oxygen canister, that would have been a significant weight onboard. The sound was being telegraphed from the hull of the Alvin through to them … a
nd out into the open water.
The octopus dropped the now empty suit, and this time let it float to the bottom. It glided closer to the noise.
“Oh shit no, it hears them.” Cate lunged for the comm. system. “Sam, do you read?” She licked her lips. “Sam, come in please, urgent.”
CHAPTER 35
The Anastasia, lower engine deck
Peter Cain crouched beside the intake system valve. The foot-wide diameter pipe was where the fresh seawater was pumped in to cool the main propulsion engine in the Anastasia’s huge central coolers. If the water was ever turned off while the engine was running, it would rapidly overheat, and then its systems would automatically shut down.
Or if the valves were left open, then the rush of water would very quickly flood the engine and engine room – the result would be anything from engine shut down, right up to the vessel being inundated and sinking.
Cain knew that if the alarms were disabled, and also both the bilge and crash pumps damaged, then in no time they’d all be swimming home.
He had no problem with that. Firstly, raw water intakes were notorious for breaking down – corrosive seawater does that to everything after a while. Secondly, the Anastasia had lifeboats, so no one should really be in danger. But his goal was to stop the ship, and if Gaia determined that someone might lose their life, well, then that was just fate. He smiled; besides, he knew that whatever happened, history was on his side.
Cain had already disabled the alarms, and also both pumps, so he only had one job left to do. He opened the intake valves to full, and then used a small band saw to cut through the handle at its base, rendering it impossible to close. He whistled as he worked. The sound of the engine masked the rush of water, and it’d be at least an hour before anything was noticeable.
He straightened, still smiling. Job done; Captain Olander would be proud. He pulled out his phone and turned it around so he could take a selfie, grinning next to the broken intake valve.
He sent the picture to Olander and then continued to whistle all the way back to his bunkroom.