by Peter Watts
"Help! Get me in!" He kicks furiously towards Beebe.
Nobody answers.
"My helmet! My hel—" The crack isn't just growing now: it's squirming, twitching laterally across the corner of the helmet bubble like— like—
Yellow featureless eyes staring in from the ocean. A black hand, silhouetted in Beebe's halo, reaching for his face—
"Ahhh—"
A thumb grinds down on the crack in Scanlon's helmet. The crack smears, bursts; fine gory filaments smudge against the acrylic. The back half of the hairline peels off and writhes loose into the water, coiling, uncoiling—
Dying. Scanlon pants with relief. A worm. Some stupid fucking roundworm on my faceplate and I thought I was going to die, I thought—
Oh Christ. I've made a complete fool of myself.
He looks around. Brander, hanging off his right shoulder, points to the gory remnants sticking to the helmet. "If it ever really cracked you wouldn't have time to complain. You'd look just like that."
Scanlon clears his throat. "Thanks. Sorry, I— well, you know I'm new here. Thanks."
"By the way."
Clarke's voice. Or what's left of it, after the machinery does its job. Scanlon flails around until she comes into view overhead.
"How long are you going to be checking up on us?" she asks
Neutral question. Perfectly reasonable.
In fact, you've got to wonder why nobody asked it before...
"A week at least." His heart is slowing down again. "Maybe two. As long as it takes to make sure things are running smoothly."
She's silent for a second. Then: "You're lying." It doesn't sound like an accusation, somehow; just a simple observation. Maybe it's the vocoder.
"Why do you say that?"
She doesn't answer. Something else does; not quite a moan, not quite a voice. Not quite faint enough to ignore.
Scanlon feels the abyss trickling down his back. "Did you hear that?"
Clarke slips down past him to the seabed, rotating to keep him in view. "Hear? What?"
"It was— " Scanlon listens. A faint tectonic rumble. That's all. "Nothing."
She pushes off the bottom at an angle, slides up through the water to Brander. "We're on shift," she buzzes at Scanlon. "You know how the 'lock works."
The vampires vanish into the night.
Beebe shines invitingly. Alone and suddenly nervous, Scanlon retreats to the airlock.
But I wasn't lying. I wasn't. He hasn't had to, yet. Nobody's asked the right questions.
Still. It seems odd that he has to remind himself.
* * *
TRANS/OFFI/230850:0830
I'm about to embark on my first extended dive. Apparently, the participants have been asked to catch a fish for one of the Pharm consortiums. Washington/Rand, I believe. I find this a bit puzzling— usually Pharms are only interested in bacteria, and they use their own people for collecting— but it provides the participants with a change from the usual routine, and it provides me an opportunity to watch them in action. I expect to learn a great deal.
* * *
Brander is slouched at the library when Scanlon comes through the lounge. His fingers rest unmoving on the keypad. Eyephones hang unused in their hooks. Brander's empty eyes point at the flatscreen. The screen is dark.
Scanlon hesitates. "I'm heading out now. With Clarke and Caraco."
Brander's shoulders rise and fall, almost indiscernibly. A sigh, perhaps. A shrug.
"The others are at the Throat. You'll be the only— I mean, will you be running tender from Comm?"
"You told us not to change the routine," Brander says, not looking up.
"That's true, Michael. But—"
Brander stands. "So make up your mind." He disappears down the corridor. Scanlon watches him go. Naturally this has to go into my report. Not that you care.
You might, though. Soon enough.
Scanlon drops into the wet room and finds it empty. He struggles into his armor single-handed, taking an extra few moments to ensure that the helmet bubble is spotless. He catches up with Clarke and Caraco just outside; Clarke is checking out a quartet of squids hovering over the seabed. One of them is tethered to a specimen canister resting on the bottom, a pressure-proof coffin over two meters long. Caraco sets it for neutral buoyancy; it rises a few centimeters.
They set off without a word. The squids tow them into the abyss; the women in the lead, Scanlon and the canister following behind. Scanlon looks back over his shoulder. Beebe's comforting lights wash down from yellow to gray, then disappear entirely. Feeling a sudden need for reassurance, he trips through the channels on his acoustic modem. There: the homing beacon. You're never really lost down here as long as you can hear that.
Clarke and Caraco are running dark. Not even their squids are shining.
Don't say anything. You don't want them to change their routine, remember?
Not that they would anyway.
Occasional dim lights flash briefly at the corner of his eye, but they always vanish when he looks at them. After an endless few minutes a bright smear fades into view directly ahead, resolves into a collection of copper beacons and dark angular skyscrapers. The vampires avoid the light, head around it at an angle. Scanlon and cargo follow helplessly.
They set up just off the Throat, at the borderline between light and dark. Caraco unlatches the canister as Clarke rises into the column above them; she's got something in her right hand, but Scanlon can't see what it is. She holds it up as though displaying it to an invisible crowd.
It gibbers.
It sounds like a very loud mosquito at first. Then it dopplers down to a low growl, slides back up into erratic high frequency.
And now, finally, Lenie Clarke turns her headlight on.
She hangs up there like some crucified ascendant, her hand whining at the abyss, the light from her head sweeping the water like, like—
—a dinner bell, Scanlon realizes as something charges out of the darkness at her, almost as big as she is and Jesus the teeth on it—
It swallows her leg up to the crotch. Lenie Clarke takes it all in stride. She jabs down with a billy that's magically appeared in her left hand. The creature bloats and bursts in a couple of places; clumps of bubbles erupt like silvery mushrooms through flesh, shudder off into the sky. The creature thrashes, its gullet a monstrous scabbard around Clarke's leg. The vampire reaches down and dismembers it with her bare hands.
Caraco, still fiddling with the canister, looks up. "Hey, Len. They wanted it intact."
"Wrong kind," Clarke buzzes. The water around her is full of torn flesh and flashing scavengers. Clarke ignores them, turning slowly, scanning the abyss.
Caraco: "Behind you; four o'clock."
"Got it," Clarke says, spinning to a new bearing.
Nothing happens. The shredded carcass, still twitching, drifts toward the bottom, scavengers sparkling on all sides. Clarke's hand-held voicebox gurgles and whines.
How— Scanlon moves his tongue in his mouth, ready to ask aloud.
"Not now," Caraco buzzes at him, before he can.
There's nothing there. What are they keying on?
It comes in fast, unswerving, from the precise direction Lenie Clarke is facing. "That'll do," she says.
A muffled explosion to Scanlon's left. A thin contrail of bubbles streaks from Caraco to monster, connecting the two in an instant. The thing jerks at a sudden impact. Clarke slips to one side as it thrashes past, Caraco's dart embedded in its flank.
Clarke's headlight goes out, her voicebox falls silent. Caraco stows the dart gun and swims up to join her. The two women maneuver their quarry down towards the canister. It snaps at them, weak and spastic. They push it down into the coffin, seal the top.
"Like shooting fish for a barrel," Caraco buzzes.
"How did you know it was coming?" Scanlon asks.
"They always come," Caraco says. "The sound fools them. And the light."
"I mean, how did you kno
w which direction? In advance?"
A moment's silence.
"You just get a feel for it after a while," Clarke says finally.
"That," Caraco adds, "and this." She holds up a sonar pistol, tucks it back under her belt.
The convoy reforms. There's a prescribed drop-off point for monsters, a hundred meters away from the Throat. (The GA has never been keen on letting outsiders wander too far into its home turf.) Once again the vampires leave light for darkness, Scanlon in tow. They travel through a world utterly without form, save for the scrolling circle of mud in his headlight. Suddenly Clarke turns to Caraco.
"I'll go," she buzzes, and peels away into the void.
Scanlon throttles his squid, edges up beside Caraco.
"Where's she off to?"
"Here we are," Caraco says. They coast to a halt. Caraco fins back to the droned squid and touches a control; buckles disengage, straps retract. The canister floats free. Caraco cranks down the buoyancy and it settles down on a clump of tubeworms.
"Len— uh, Clarke," Scanlon prods.
"They need an extra hand back at the Throat. She went to help out."
Scanlon checks his modem channel. Of course it's the right one, if it wasn't he wouldn't be able to hear Caraco. Which means that Clarke and the vampires at the Throat must have been using a different frequency. Another safety violation.
But he's not a fool, he knows the story. They've only switched channels because he's here. They're just trying to keep him out of the loop.
Par for the course. First the fucking GA, now the hired help—
A sound, from behind. A faint electrical whine. The sound of a squid starting up.
Scanlon turns around. "Caraco?"
His headlamp sweeps across canister, squid, seabed, water.
"Caraco? You there?"
Canister. Squid. Mud.
"Hello?"
Empty water.
"Hey! Caraco! What the hell—"
A faint thumping, very close by.
He tries to look everywhere at once. One leg presses against the coffin.
The coffin is rocking.
He lays his helmet against its surface. Yes. Something inside, muffled, wet. Thumping. Trying to get out.
It can't. No way. It's just dying in there, that's all.
He pushes away, drifts up into the water column. He feels very exposed. A few stiff-legged kicks take him back to the bottom. Slightly better.
"Caraco? Come on, Judy—"
Oh Jesus. She left me here. She just fucking left me out here.
He hears something moaning, very close by.
Inside his helmet, in fact.
* * *
TRANS/OFFI/230850:2026
I accompanied Judy Caraco and Lenie Clarke outside today, and witnessed several events that concern me. Both participants swam through unlit areas without headlamps and spent significant periods of time isolated from dive buddies; at one point, Caraco simply left me on the seabed without warning. This is potentially life-threatening behavior, although of course I was able to find my way back to Beebe using the homing beacon.
I have yet to receive an explanation for all this. The v— the other personnel are presently gone from the station. I can find two or three of them on sonar; I suppose the rest are just hidden in the bottom clutter. Once again, this is extremely unsafe behavior.
Such recklessness appears to be typical here. It implies a relative indifference to personal welfare, an attitude entirely consistent with the profile I developed at the onset of the rifter program. (The only alternative is that they simply do not appreciate the dangers involved in this environment, which is unlikely.)
It is also consistent with a generalized post-traumatic addiction to hostile environments. This doesn't constitute evidence per sé, of course, but I have noted one or two other things which, taken together, may be cause for concern. Michael Brander, for example, has a history which ranges from caffeine and sympathomimetic abuse to limbic hot-wiring. He's known to have brought a substantial supply of phencyclidine derms with him to Beebe; I've just located it in his cubby and I was surprised to find that it has barely been touched. Phencyclidine is not, physiologically speaking, addictive— exogenous-drug addicts are screened out of the program— but the fact remains that Brander had a habit when he came down here, a habit which he has since abandoned. I have to wonder what he's replaced it with.
* * *
The wet room.
"There you are. Where did you go?"
"Had to recover this cartridge. Bad sulfide head."
"You could have told me. I was supposed to come along on your rounds anyway, remember? You just left me out there."
"You got back."
"That's— that's not the point, Judy. You don't leave someone alone at the bottom of the ocean without a word. What if something had happened to me?"
"We go out alone all the time. It's part of the job. Watch that, it's slippery."
"Safety procedures are also part of the job. Even for you. And especially for me, Judy, I'm a complete fish out of water here, heh heh. You can't expect me to know my way around."
"...."
"Excuse me?"
"We're short-handed, remember? We can't always afford to buddy up. And you're a big strong man— well, you're a man, anyway. I didn't think you needed baby-sit—"
"Shit! My hand!"
"I told you to be careful."
"Ow. How much does the fucking thing weigh?"
"About ten kilos, without all the mud. I guess I should've rinsed it off."
"I guess so. I think one of the heads gouged me on the way down. Shit, I'm bleeding."
"Sorry about that."
"Yeah. Well, look, Caraco. I'm sorry if baby-sitting rubs you the wrong way, but a little more baby-sitting and Acton and Fischer might still be alive, you know? A little more baby-sitting and— did you hear that?"
"What?"
"From outside. That— moaning, sort of—"
...
"Come on, C— Judy. You must've heard it!"
"Maybe the hull shifted."
"No. I heard something. And this isn't the first time, either."
"I didn't hear anything."
"You d— where are you going? You just came in! Judy..."
Clank. Hiss.
"...don't go..."
* * *
TRANS/OFFI/250850:2120
I've asked each of the participants to submit to a routine sweep under the medical scanner— or rather, I've asked most of them directly, and asked them to pass the word on to Ken Lubin, whom I've seen a few times now but haven't actually spoken to yet. (I have twice attempted to engage Mr. Lubin in conversation, without success.) The participants know, of course, that medical scans do not require physical contact on my part, and they're well able to run them at their own convenience without me even being present. Still, although no one has explicitly refused my request, there has been a notable lack of enthusiasm in terms of actual compliance. It's fairly obvious (and entirely consistent with my profile) that they consider it something of an intrusion, and will avoid it if possible. To date I've managed to get rundowns on only Alice Nakata and Judy Caraco. I've appended their binaries to this entry; both show elevated production of dopamine and norepinephrine, but I can't establish whether this began before or after their present tour of duty. GABA and other inhibitor levels were slightly up, too, left over from their previous dive (less than an hour before the scan).
The others, so far, haven't been able to "find the time" for an exam. In the meantime I've resorted to going over stored scanner records of old injuries. Not surprisingly, physical injuries are common down here, although they've become much less frequent as of late. There are no cases of head trauma on record, however— at least, nothing that would warrant an NMR. This effectively limits my brain chemistry data to what the participants are willing to provide on request— not much, so far. If this doesn't change, the bulk of my analysis will have to be based on behavioral
observations. As medieval as that sounds.
* * *
Who could it be? Who?
When Yves Scanlon first sank into the abyss he had two questions on his mind. He's chasing the second one now, lying in his cubby, shielded from Beebe by a pair of eyephones and the personal database in his shirt pocket. For now, he's gone mercifully blind to plumbing and condensation.
He's not deaf, though. Unfortunately. Every now and then he hears footsteps, or low voices, or— just maybe— the distant cry of something unimaginable in pain; but then he speaks a little louder into the pickup, drowns unwelcome sounds with barked commands to scroll up, link files, search for keywords. Personnel records dance across the inside of his eyes, and he can almost forget where he is.
His interest in this particular question has not been sanctioned by his employers. They know about it, though, yes sirree they know. They just don't think I do.
Rowan and her cronies are such assholes. They've been lying to him from the start. Scanlon doesn't know why. He'd have been okay with it, if they'd just leveled with him. But they kept it under wraps. As though he wouldn't be able to figure it out for himself.
It's bloody obvious. There's more than one way to make a vampire. Usually you take someone who's fucked in the head, and you train them. But why couldn't you take someone who's already trained, and then fuck them in the head? It might even be cheaper.
You can learn a lot from a witch hunt. All that repressed-memory hysteria back in the nineties, for example: so many people suddenly remembering abuse, or alien abduction, or dear old grandma stirring a cauldron of stewed babies. It didn't take much, no one had to go in and physically rewire the synapses; the brain's gullible enough to rewire itself if you coax it. Most of those poor bozos didn't even know they were doing it. These days it only takes a few weeks worth of hypnotherapy. The right suggestions, delivered just the right way, can inspire memories to build themselves out of bits and pieces. Sort of a neurological cascade effect. And once you think you've been abused, well, why wouldn't your psyche shift to match?