The upwards surge of water lessened a little, and they were able to gain control of the sub to some degree by using maximum downwards thrust. As the sub drew level with the ledge from which the tentacle was hanging down, they saw a large round construction, and it was from this that the tentacle reached out into the inky waters below.
Kal and the crew recognized the sphere and the tentacle for what it was at the same time, with a combined gasp of disbelief. It was a spherical deep water pressure vessel, with the remains of its lowering hawser still attached, and not the fearsome submarine creature they had at first thought it to be. The sigh of relief was quickly extinguished by the implication of what they had found.
The little sub edged closer to the ledge, and that was when they saw the pseudopodia like extrusions which appeared to have grown out of the rock, and were holding the sphere in place on the ledge. The surface of the sphere was heavily corroded, and must have been down here for a long time, but who had it belonged to? The original miners? The other people who had built the giant water pump?
They let the sub rise up a little, until it was level with the next ledge, and there for all to see was another large device shaped not unlike their own sub, but bigger and similarly locked in place by a tangle of rope like growths.
Some of the ledges were empty, but every now and again they saw the remains of other attempts made by someone, to fathom out the secrets of the hole in the ocean floor. Just above the sub, they could see another large ledge jutting out into the water, and let the sub drift up and over the lip.
The sub was slowly edged in towards the surface of the rocky wall at the back of the ledge, to see if there were any signs of the rope like things which had anchored the other artefacts to the rocky shelves.
It was at this point that the surface of the ledge disgorged a vast mist like curtain of bubbles which surrounded the sub, and it began to sink towards the surface of the rock.
Maximum horizontal thrust was applied, and the little sub picked up speed, clearing the ledge and shooting out into clear water just in time.
The curtain of micro fine bubbles died away, and they could see a series of pod like growths which had begun to extrude themselves from the back wall of the ledge.
Kal tried to explain that the bubbles would have lowered the buoyancy of the water, so causing the sub to drop, but obviously the crew had already worked that one out, but patiently listened to Kal’s explanation just the same.
They sent the sub up higher in the vast column of water, keeping it in the centre as much as possible to see what else had been caught in the bubble curtains.
There were several other alien attempts at plumbing the depths of the under sea cliff, but all had succumbed to the bubble taps which had been set on the ledges.
Whether any had escaped to return to the surface they had no way of knowing, but it seemed strange that there were no other people extracting the rich resources of this planet, apart from themselves. Was there something else which they hadn’t noticed, that kept the others at bay?
They were just about to recall the little sub, when looking at one of the screens they saw an eye looking back at them.
It looked like an eye, round and with an iris in the middle, and as they watched, it moved slightly. They panned the remote camera back a little and saw several other eyes, all looking directly at the sub.
Kal couldn’t help a cold shiver going down his back, as the realism of the scene overcame his knowledge that it was only a picture. The crew estimated the eyes must be about two metres across, so how big was the creature which owned them? Or was it one giant organism which lived within the rock, and had many extension eyes dotted about the walls so as not to miss anything edible.
Kal suggested that they could bring the sub back, collect a large bundle of the towering sea growths, and release it on one of the ledges to see what would happen, but the crew didn’t seem too interested in that experiment, as they had probably already assumed what would become of the bait.
The sub was sent up a little higher, but the ledges seemed to be empty of any artefacts, alien or otherwise, except one which had a huge collection of very large white stick like objects on it protruding from a mass of entangling growths, and they assumed that might be the remains of one of the giant sea creatures which they had encountered earlier.
Slowly and carefully they withdrew the sub, returning it to its cradle on the main ship, and then backed away from the opening in the underwater cliffs.
No sooner had they begun to move back, when there was a huge surge in the surrounding water, and they had to use full power to resist being sucked into the opening. Something within the cliffs didn’t want to lose a potential meal, and was making a Herculean effort to prevent their escape.
Slowly they gained distance from the cliffs, and the pulling power of the hole lessened, enabling them to turn away and cruise along beside the towering mass of rock, keeping a careful lookout for any more openings.
After about half a kilometre, the frond like growths of the sea plants appeared again, and a few large and peculiarly ugly swimming creatures came to see what the intruder in their midst was all about.
Another bald patch of the seabed was coming up ahead, and they swung away from the cliffs as another large threatening hole came into view.
Gradually the sea plants began to populate the undulating sands beneath them again, but as they went further into the prolific growing masses of waving fronds, the size and luxuriousness of the plants increased until the ship had to increase power considerably to force its way through.
A break in the densely growing mass came into view, and they halted the forward movement of the ship until they had ascertained what had caused the lack of the foliage.
Ahead was a hole in the seabed, nearly three times the length of the ship across. A murky turbulence in the water indicated that there was a rising current from below, and the cloudiness was probably due to dispersed minerals and other fine matter being swept up, and dispersed into the surrounding sea. The rising water was probably loaded with nutrients, which would account for the extra growth of the plants near the hole.
If water was being forced up from the hole, it must be sucked down somewhere else, and that was something they would have to look out for. There were a multitude of creatures living in among the towering plant life around them, but nothing large enough to threaten the ship.
Gently the ship was edged forward so that the forward sensors could measure the velocity of the water flow, and they were surprised to find that it was a lot faster than they had expected it to be, and too dangerous for them to enter.
A vast amount of water was on the move, bringing up with it a copious quantity of material from beneath the seabed.
Somewhere down there, huge tunnels must exist, and they must be expanding all the time as material was being scoured from their sides.
The big ship carefully skirted around the gaping hole in the seabed, and then forced its way out through the swirling fronds and back into relatively clear water. So far, they had been lucky, and not fallen prey to any of the horrors of the deep, but now they would have to be even more vigilant because of the down draft holes.
The turbulence detectors, which worked on the principle that a beam of light would be distorted by water moving in a direction other than that of the ship, were turned up to maximum sensitivity, in the hope that they would give adequate warning of any down flow into the holes in the ocean floor which fed the massive up surge. The ship had now moved in towards the cliffs again, but kept a respectable distance from them just in case there were any more caverns.
The undersea plants littered the floor of the ocean for as far as they could see, but then they came across what appeared to be a track made through the plant growth on the ocean bottom.
It was as if something had killed or removed all the plants, both large and small, for a width of about twenty metres.
The bare sea floor track began at a cavity in the cliff f
ace, and led out across the undersea plain.
The crew moved the big ship in towards the cavity, and then sent the little sub in for a closer look. The forward light beam lit up the hole in the cliff face to reveal a round chamber some fifteen metres in diameter, the inner surface of which was pock marked with thousands of small holes, which in turn went back into the rock much further than the sub’s light could reach.
At the entrance of the cave, there was an amount of broken rock, which looked as if it had been forced out from the face of the cliff by some internal force. The track began right outside the cavern, with a cleared semicircular apron of seabed, and then continued off into the distance.
The crew decided to follow the bare sand to see what had removed all the growth, and to make the whole operation a little safer, they sent the little sub on ahead by several hundred metres.
Some six kilometres into their journey, a large area of the seabed had been disturbed, great gouges in the normally smooth surface indicated that a struggle of some sort had taken place, and possibly led to the demise of whatever had made the tracks.
As the main ship came alongside the disturbed sandy bottom, they could see a faint track going off at an angle, and decided to follow that. Before long, the track was back to its normal width, and they assumed that whatever had made it, had now fully recovered from whatever mishap it had experienced earlier on, and had resumed its normal feeding pattern.
In the distance, the detectors picked up some movement in the water, and speed was reduced, while the little sub was sent on ahead. As it sped along following the bare sand trail, they could see from the main ship a large hemispherical gelatinous mass where the track ended.
They had found the trail maker. Slowly they edged the big ship up towards the mountain of jelly-like substance, but there was no reaction from it as the sub approached.
The little sub was sent in and halted a few metres from the surface, and through the optical relay system, they could see quite a lot of detail of the translucent jelly mound.
The outer skin was a little more opaque than the internal workings, which could be seen clearly enough by increasing the light output of the high powered beam lamps.
The increase in light seemed to worry the creature somewhat, who responded by darkening it’s skin in the area of high light intensity, so the power was turned down until they could see the inside while the outer layer cleared to its normal level of opacity.
The sub was moved around to the leading edge of the creature, to see how it removed the marine growths from the sea bottom. Although the detail was not as clear as it would have been in ideal conditions, it seemed that there were several long lines of rippling lips right across the front width of the creature.
These worked synchronously to roll and fold anything it came across, passing it from one line of lips to the next, the plants being gradually ripped out of the sand and passed back to a bag like structure within, where they faded from sight as they were dissolved in some form of digestive juice.
The creature was certainly efficient, as it left nothing behind it as it scoured the ocean sands.
The little sub was brought right up to the surface of the creature, and gave it a gently nudge. As there was no reaction, they increased the power, and the sub bumped into the jelly like mass with considerable force.
Still no response, except that the sub sank into the surface for half a metre or so, and was then pushed out again.
Another ramming produced a better result. The surface of the blob darkened, and a pod like lump formed. Beneath the pod shaped extension, there could be seen fine veins or tubes, which seemed to materialize out of nowhere.
The pod extended itself until it was nearly touching the sub, and then the end exploded in a silent burst, a black liquid jetted towards the sub, causing the water to boil and froth as it passed through it.
The expulsion of the liquid must have been quite forceful, as the sub was pushed back a few metres before it was brought under control by its driver.
It wasn’t until much later that they found the front end of the sub had been seriously corroded, and put it down to the encounter with the jelly creature. As there was little point in annoying the creature any more than was necessary to provoke a reaction to see what it was capable of, the ship was swung back towards the undersea cliffs, the little sub going on before as a precaution against unpleasant surprises, of which they were sure there were more.
There were several other fields of knobbly metallic lumps encountered on the way back to the cliffs, and a few samples were gathered from each by the sub, for later analysis.
Kal thought they may be pure metal, as he had heard of this phenomenon before on other worlds, and it had proved a very efficient way of mining, if what you were mining was what you wanted in the first place.
The cliffs loomed in the distance, and the big ship turned to run parallel with them, keeping a safe distance as before.
At one point on the cliff face, they could see what appeared to be a jet of air or gas escaping. It blasted out horizontally to then curve upwards, the bubbles expanding a little as they rose and the pressure of the water above dropped.
Kal’s first thought was oil, this being the gaseous portion which was escaping through a fault in the strata. The sub was sent to collect a sample of the gas, as this could be a source of fuel if they could tap into it easily.
And then he remembered just how deep they were, but when he mentioned this to the crew, they didn’t seem put off the idea by the depth so much as locating it again.
It was decided to surface the big ship, find the point where the gas reached the surface, and try and get a fix on their actual geographical position.
The big surprise was when they neared the surface, and found the top of the cliff was only a few hundred metres below the surface of the sea. A fix was taken, although Kal didn’t understand how they did it, but they seemed to be satisfied with the result.
The long journey home began, the ship travelling on the surface of the ocean so that they could all get a good breath of fresh air. They had gone about halfway according to the navigator, when rolling towards them was a vast bank of mist or cloud. Warning bells rang in Kal’s head.
It seemed harmless enough, and they knew they could always submerge if anything threatened the ship, so they just ploughed on into it. The first unwelcome effect was a deep wailing noise which came from nowhere in particular, but was all pervading, setting Kal’s teeth on edge, and causing not a little discomfort to the crew.
As they penetrated deeper into the cloud, the temperature dropped considerably, and most of the crew, including Kal retired below. This left only four of the team on the upper deck, whose curiosity had got the better of them, and were determined to find out what was causing the strange noise and the coldness.
The forward view screen then relayed to those safely inside that curiosity can carry a very heavy price, especially when not augmented with sensible caution.
What could well be mistaken for enormous sheets of dirty grey green coloured leather, but about half a metre thick, lay floating on the surface of the water.
From each crinkled surface there arose a thin cord for about five metres, and attached to the top of each cord, a three metre balloon-like object bobbed and wobbled with a life of its own, although there was little breeze.
Dangling down from the balloon, several thin whip-like tendrils writhed about, sometimes intertwining among themselves, but generally giving the impression that they were feeling the air around them.
As the ship moved forward, the bows ploughed into the leathery mass, and the keening noise grew in intensity to the point that the four crew remaining on deck clapped their hands over their ears, and bowed their heads in agony.
The nearest balloon ejected a stream of vapour from its side and swung over the deck, the tendrils twisting around the unfortunate crewman for a split second, before retracting back up to the balloon.
The crewman crumpled to
the deck, senses stunned, and in a writhing heap, and then slid sideways on the curved surface of the vessel to land on the leather pad to which the balloon was attached.
The surface instantly erupted into a series of flaps and engulfed him. It was all over in a second or so, and the second crewman followed suit a split second later. The other two were a little further back than the first two victims, and made a mad dash for the hatch shielding, cowering behind it as the balloons moved by on either side of them.
Several balloons jetted in their direction, but missed the target as the crewmen were detected too late, being protected by the shielding and the ships movement carrying them forward and so out of the balloon’s reach.
As they cleared the cloud, the hatch was opened and a trembling couple of crewmen descended into the ship, badly shaken and looking quite stunned.
It later transpired that the numbing material in the tendrils had spattered onto them, but as they had only been exposed to a small dose of the liquid, they were only partly non compos mentis.
The crew were clearly saddened at the loss of their friends, but to their credit they didn’t go berserk and take it out on the leather pads, as they were only doing what they did to survive, probably under difficult conditions.
But then the new race didn’t have the same sort of reaction to things which Kal was used to, and he had to admit, it was a better attitude to life really.
They continued on their way home, with little else to cause any excitement, except for another cloud on the horizon, and they quickly side-stepped that one.
The big ship docked, the samples were unloaded and sent to the metallurgists, and life got back to normal, after the usual evening feast and storytelling. Kal had been right insofar that the nodules found on the ocean floor were indeed metal, and almost pure.
Lumps of manganese had been found before on an expedition way back in the days of the Star Search, but it was the ship’s locators which had found them, not a bunch of adventurers in a metal fish, scuttling about on the floor of an alien ocean.
The Inosculation Syndrome Page 29