Submerged

by Seanan McGuire

  Just like waking up: I’m in the white chamber on Europa. Smooth rounded walls like a drained pool, only here they extend over the ceiling in a shallow dome. The black transmission node looks like a turkey popup timer stuck in the ceiling.

  I go through the checks: power, uplink, sensors, motors.

  Everything checks out. I signal the all clear, like giving a thumbs up in my mind.

  Beneath me the hatch starts to slide. A sliver of black appears and grows into a yawning hole underneath me.

  The descent begins.

  Miraculous. Astonishing. Whatever. I know the engineers blew through a ton of Mountain Dew getting the builder bots to bore the hole. There’s a humming in my bones. It’s like a waterslide, only it takes twenty minutes.

  Like every time, submersion is a surprise. Water flows over the mech. Sensors recalibrate, sonar pings. Here at the top of Europa’s ocean it’s like staring down into a flooded cathedral, the sense of a vast roof closing you in.

  The armature clunks when it releases the mech and then I’m sinking.

  My mission today: scrape some samples from the designated section of the shelf, same as every other dive.

  Laurent and Melanie don’t brief me on how the mission is faring compared to what they hoped and I don’t pry into it. Not what I’m paid to think about. But this place is pretty empty.

  The ice ceiling extends in every direction, knurled like the underside of pack ice.

  It fades as I descend, then I’m in that dark clear place where I know I’m falling, because the instruments are clear on that, but I couldn’t show you one piece of evidence to prove it. Oh, I know the shelf’s down there, it just takes a while to drop nineteen kilometers.

  And that’s nothing. Laurent told me parts of Europa’s ocean go down to ninety or so kilometers. They chose this site for its shallow shelf, and they’re still mapping it out, expecting to find an edge.

  The floor starts to ghost in. The mech sees it as brown. Who knows what color it really is.

  For fourteen dives, that’s been Europa. A white ceiling, then a couple of hours of falling down to a brown floor, and me dutifully extending the collector scraper and gathering smears of mud.

  I swipe a sample into one of the specimen trays. Smoky plumes of mud swirl in the currents I’m creating.

  Something moves out there.

  I go still.

  I could review the mech recording to confirm what I think I saw. But I don’t like the idea of taking my attention off my surroundings.

  Then I see it again.

  It’s moving along the bottom, about a hundred meters away. Slithering and crawling all mixed together. It humps up and then swings pairs of limbs and flattens out.

  On the front of its body there’s a dome. Like half of a big melon.

  I’m not feeling anything much as I watch this thing, not at first. I’ve seen a lot of creepy crawlies back on earth.

  It’ll be a while before Laurent and Melissa even know what I’m seeing, much less have a chance to give me any instructions. But we did cover this: I’m to leave living things alone.

  So I stay still.

  But this guy is walk-sliding in my direction.

  As it comes closer, I make out more details. There’s a loose scarf of tissue hanging under its melon. Like a humpback whale’s throat, for instance. Something that can get big, for swallowing.

  I don’t relish that thought, but if it ate this mech, I’d just wake up in the pod back home, whereas swallowing this piece of hardware would probably kill the creature. Sharp edges. Plutonium core.

  So I make a small, slow motion. Turn the mech just a bit. Trying to announce my presence.

  The creature freezes. Half a second later, it goes hazy, like the mech’s sensors can’t exactly see it any more.

  Then it leaps up. It’s blurry now. It spreads its limbs and a membrane stretches between them. The combination—the way its outline wavers and shimmers, and the way it jumped up, and the way its membrane stretches between the curve of its limbs—turns it from a fascinating natural object to a nightmare of the depths.

  I get a twisting jolt of pain in my head.

  Though I tried to avoid learning how any of this stuff worked, the training did include some key points. One thing that’s…problematic…is when my brain gets startled and wants to execute some basic, primitive protective behavior. That jolt of pain is what they said that would feel like. My consciousness trying to get out of Dodge.

  After hanging there above me for a few seconds, the creature’s membranes ripple and it swims away from me.

  I stay still. The creature’s escape has roiled curtains of mud up from the seafloor. I wait for them to settle. Partly trying to calm my mind, partly because I’m trying to analyze what happened. And partly because I’m scared stiff.

  On dozens of late-night boats, drinking beer and putting away equipment, I’ve bragged: I don’t get scared on dives. That’s a tourist thing. I’ve got a handful of stories I tell to impress folks about the most embarrassing thing a scared tourist has done on one of my dives. Got a lot of laughs over the years with the story of the guy who crapped himself when a rock he was examining turned out to be an octopus.

  The mud has settled. Protocol is clear: get back to the base station and upload. The video and all the other readings have already been transmitted, but for redundancy’s sake the mech needs to get there with its onboard recordings, too.

  I check that all the sample containers are shut, and all the scrapers and other probes properly stowed. Running through the routines loosens me up. Helps the fear subside. I lift off of the bottom. A cloud of silty brown spreads out below me.

  The sensor package shows the armature hanging up there as a green reticle.

  I glance down, worrying that creature could have lingered, could be following.

  Since I’m looking down, when the mech slows, I don’t immediately know why. Then I look up and I see, and I get that tingly itchy shock that tells me my mind just tried to wake up.

  I’ve run into a net. Some kind of fiber woven into a network of squares, and it’s stretched above me, holding me down.

  I flip over and burst downward, then glance behind. If I can see the extent of the net I can sprint out from under it—

  I hit another net. The mech shakes. I’m surrounded by net, all around, closing at a point off to one side. Shocks of pain jolt my head in waves.

  A shape appears, like one of those Star Trek ships when they turn off the cloaking device.

  The sensor package paints this thing a powdery white, shading over to blue in places. Insectile body segments form a meaty chain, and from each segment limbs stick out. Toward the bottom they flatten out like spatulas, but up toward the top they get longer, finer, like a spider’s legs.

  It’s using these long limbs to hold the net.

  Six of these things float around me, watching me struggle. Some hold the net.

  They’ve got similar membranes stretched between their limbs as the creature I ran into earlier, and they use these to stay in place, so it’s like being surrounded by drapes swaying in a light breeze. The net handlers, when they need to maneuver, use their paddle-limbs as well, flicking their tails in a way that reminds me of playful dolphins.

  I stop trying to get out.

  I allow myself to watch, to record their graceful movements.

  They cinch the net around me until I’m bound up tight.

  Something birdlike about their heads. As if they were glancing at each other in quick slashes of motion.

  One lets a little slack into the net, reaches in, grasps something on the head of the mech, and twists. The scene jerks.

  Red indicators flash.

  That thing has snapped off the antenna. Comms back to the surface are gone.

  It lets the antenna go. Just a spiraling bar of priceless composite disappearing down to the bottom.

  Then they start talking to each other.

  Not in English, obviously. The sou
nds they’re making register as spiky waves on the mech’s display. They’re gesturing like my family talking politics at Thanksgiving.

  One of them, a big, bulky one like a linebacker, keeps pointing at me.

  Another one, longer, keeps swaying side to side. I think of him as Scar from the Lion King, with a sinuous way of moving. I bet whatever he’s saying, it’s convincing.

  The way they talk blends together from speaker to speaker. I guess it would have to be that way, the way water carries sound. Would every conversation be like taking your part in one of those songs, those rounds kids sing at school pageants?

  They reach a decision.

  I don’t understand how, but they unfasten the net almost instantly.

  The linebacker grabs the mech in a pair of its segmented arms. Examines me.

  Then lets me go.

  They fade to shadows and are gone. I don’t mean they swim away. They become transparent.

  Meaning, I know they’re still there.

  My instinct tells me to play dead. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do. But my instinct is the only one with any suggestions, so I do what it says. Floating down, down, down through the water.

  The mech’s going through its fault-checking routines and its auto-repair procedures. This thing was built with a bunch of redundancies and backups, just like you’d expect for something that cost tens of billions of euros to get in place.

  A yellow warning indicator flashes.

  The backup comms link could fire off a data burst to the base station link. I’m about to get out of range. And that presents a quandary.

  The seconds are counting down.

  I could do what’s called an emergency exit, meaning I exit the mech and commence the process of returning to Earth. Wake up from the dream. Only, if I did that, the mech would be difficult or impossible to recover. Without the ability to see the base station, it would not be able to autopilot back. Perhaps, with time, it could repair or reroute systems, or search methodically. The plutonium battery lasts a long time.

  Probably it would be correct procedure to exit. But something hangs on my mind. The mech’s got the recording of the conversation, and that kind of data would make the scientists go nuts.

  Never in my life, I tell myself, have I bailed on a dive. But that’s not strengthening my resolve.

  I think of Melanie and Laurent. Think of them seeing me wake up, or else receiving a set of data on alien communication.

  It surprises me to feel generosity welling up. Well, why the fuck not? I’ll wake up anyway. Probably with a blank in my memory where these events should be.

  I transmit the recording.

  Then I stay very still. The mech descends through black, alien water.

  * * *

  The way those creatures disappeared, their camouflage, means they could be around right now, watching, waiting. Confirming the mech is dead.

  Or they could be long gone, back to wherever they live, to discuss the encounter in more detail.

  The mech can run for years. That’s not the problem.

  I can’t stay down here for years. It’s been a little less than an hour. The shocking twinges of anxiety are coming faster.

  After I heroically sent the recordings, during my descent, it dawned on me that I might have made a mistake.

  I have no way to leave the mech now. I’m trapped.

  It’s getting harder to ignore thoughts like: Who am I, now, given that they’ve probably woken me up already back in Brussels?

  A fragment of a dream?

  Another twinge sets the mech quivering. Little curls of fine silt twist up into the water, floating on gentle currents.

  I’ve learned a lot today. I thought I never got scared on dives. Turned out, I’d just never been on a dive scary enough. Every set of shakes that jolts the mech pushes me toward an idea. I have to move. I have to get back to the base.

  But those things could be there. What if they see me?

  That’s a diverting question. The first time, they tore off the antenna and let me go. Why the antenna? I don’t know. If they did track my fall, and if they are watching, what would it reveal if I moved?

  They must be making assumptions. Based on their frame of reference. What would it do to one of them, tearing off one of the antennae?

  I have no idea. All the theorists and researchers who might be able to answer a question like that are back in Brussels, excitedly texting each other to come in, to look at this new data they just received. I’m just the diver.

  Another jolt.

  The mech’s sensor package lets me see 360 degrees, all the way around, but I still have to focus my attention, so, even though the mech’s head doesn’t move, I am very much peering around as I draw the mech’s arms up and into the chest. I roll onto my front and push the torso up.

  The layer of soft silt is about two inches; beneath that is a thicker mud.

  My movement tosses up particles, like swatting a carpet under bright sunlight.

  I try to prevent panic from making my motions wild.

  With a slow, steady kick of the mech’s tail, I raise the front part out from the bottom. I bring the propellers up slowly. Begin to ascend. Look up.

  The base should be a green reticle, far up there, a pinhole in the cathedral ceiling.

  Scanning, left, right, up, down. No reticle. I couldn’t have drifted far enough to be out of sight of the hole.

  I accelerate. Ascending, I run the mech’s diagnostic program.

  The self-repair has been attempting to reconfigure to restore long-range antenna functions. In the midst of such repairs, the entire suite of nav functions is offline.

  And could I have found out about this while I was lying on the seafloor? Absolutely. I guess that fearlessness I was so proud of also kept me from learning how to deal with the effects of being afraid. Like its impact on decision making.

  Nothing for it now. I keep the props spinning and focus on getting to the ceiling. Maybe the creatures stay near the seafloor.

  Minutes pass, with me staring up, waiting for the vaulted dome of ice to ghost in from the darkness up there.

  Something flickers off to one side. I snap my attention to it.

  One of the creatures becomes visible there, maybe twenty feet away. No, closer. Ten feet. But it’s smaller than the others.

  It sings a chirruping line of sounds at me. Its antennae lean together, then twitch out. The gesture looks inquisitive, like it’s raising its eyebrows.

  The sample collectors are flat, like butter knives. But butter knives are still knives. I extend them all.

  No way I’m letting this one tell its friends about me. I don’t know what they’ll do, but I need to get out of here.

  The creature just draws its arms back, all down its long, segmented body. Like a spider would, encountering something unexpected.

  Two more shapes flicker, and then there are three creatures. All smaller than the ones I ran into earlier.

  So now I’m outnumbered. The only hope is to surprise them, act fast, get one, then maybe sprint up while the other two are confused.

  I hesitate. The briefings didn’t go into detail about what to do if one ran into sentient life. Just get away, was the guidance. Bring back the data.

  They wouldn’t want me attacking one of the things, though. I’m pretty sure of that.

  But I remember lying down there, waiting, unsure what was floating there in the dark. I flex out the sample collectors into claws. Or the nearest I can make them.

  One of the creatures, the one on the left, springs jagged mandibles open at the top of its uppermost segment and jets toward me.

  The one in the center calmly, but quickly, jets over to block its friend.

  They exchange urgent sounds, the water humming and hissing with their conversation.

  The center one has that habit of twitching its antennae in toward each other, then out again. So I start thinking of him as Twitchy.

  Twitchy makes some sounds at
me, then stops. Its friend drifts back, still focused on me, but not making any moves.

  Twitchy holds out one of its limbs, a long one with three finer extensions. The same manipulators the ones with the net had used to draw their net closed and to tear out the antenna.

  It extends its spiny fingers in a claw, then relaxes and curls them into a fist.

  It repeats the gesture.

  It waits. Twitch of antennae.

  The friend who tried to rush me has plump segments and shorter limbs, so I think of him as Michelin. Michelin screeches out a string of sounds, then rushes me again.

  All this time the third one has been silent and still. But it moves now, reaching out to grab hold of a couple of Michelin’s arms. It turns Michelin and holds him.

  Twitchy points at my two hands, slowly, and then makes the fist closing gesture.

  I withdraw the sample collectors into the mech’s hands.

  Twitchy chirps some sounds, then points at the mech, and points up. Antennae twitch.

  I point to myself, the mech’s chest, then point up.

  Twitchy turns to address its friends, then turns back to me, points at me, then at itself, and then, with two fingers, up.

  It jets upward.

  I follow.

  As we swim up I keep glancing back. Michelin floats rigid, gripped by the third creature’s long spine-like fingers.

  The ceiling shades into being above, first like a silk scarf floating on the breeze, then more solidly. Curvaceous swells of ice curl like inverted sand dunes.

  Twitchy brings me to the borehole. I grab hold of the armature.

  The creature just floats there. Holding the armature releases some of the tension I’ve been feeling.

  Twitchy is watching me.

  I hold one of the mech’s hands up above my head, extend two sample collectors, spread them apart, then snap them together.

  Twitchy starts back, then relaxes. It reaches out two of its spine arms, one on either side, and then extends its manipulator ends out wide, then slowly closes them.

  I can’t say anything to it. I don’t even really know what we just said. I climb into the armature, lock in, and begin the ascent.