“We’re still recording?” Mara asked.
“Yes. We’re close now. Temperature is spiking… 80 degrees C. Pressure at 1,270 psi. You getting this?” Reese asked.
“Yes, and we should see more soon,” Mara answered with anticipation. “You both getting those light flashes still?” she asked.
“Affirmative,” Julian said. “I’ve got sweeping whiteish-to-bluish lights emanating from below and appearing to travel away from us,” he said.
Mara nodded in agreement, forgetting that Julian couldn’t see her with his headset on. She was in an intense state of concentration.
“Less than thirty meters to the bottom,” Reese repeated.
“Keep your eyes out for anything, both of you. We don’t know what we’re looking for,” Mara said.
They kept a steady gaze on the camera feeds. It was quiet at the bottom… eerily quiet. The water looked as clear as it had at any point along the descent. It was pristine, undisturbed, motionless. The cameras continued recording, a steady red blinking light on each of their headsets indicated all video feeds were perfectly functional.
“C’mon, show us what you got,” Mara said to herself. “There, look. What is that?” she asked. She was jumpy, expecting to find anything, even an ordinary rock exciting.
“I think we’re finally seeing the bottom,” Hanson commented from behind. He had stayed in position, and continued to watch the feeds from the wall monitors.
Mara suddenly remembered that Hanson was behind her. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m watching,” he answered.
Mara thought for a moment, but decided to welcome his involvement, especially considering it was he who would rescue the sub if the chord became entangled.
“Affirmative. Seeing the bottom,” she responded.
The cameras were picking up some relief on the ocean surface beneath the submersible. They were close enough to start seeing details on the bottom. There were protrusions, stones and rocks, and cavities. The rocks were slowly passing the camera and were helping the scientists gauge speed and direction. The rotors kicked up some detritus from the ocean floor and swept it around the vehicle, muddying the water behind them.
“Look at that dark spot ahead,” Mara said. “Is that an opening? Looks like a hole or pit. Maybe that’s our vent?” she asked Julian.
“Could be. I can’t tell if anything is coming out of it” he said. “It’s a depression, some kind of surface feature. Let’s see if there are more.”
“You see that structure?” Mara asked. “Sixty degrees port. Look at the branching structure,” she told him. It was one of several protrusions that seemed to grow from the volcanic sediment.
“I’ll get us down for a closer look,” Reese said. She maneuvered the submersible downward and then laterally to come in beside the structure.
“Careful, keep an eye behind you,” Mara added. “We don’t want to get caught up on anything or get the cable tangled.”
“Got it,” Reese responded.
Mara swept her head one-hundred and eighty degrees looking for obstacles, and the cameras onboard followed her movement to show her what she was looking for. Her monitor indicated no obstructions.
“We’re clear aft,” Mara said.
“Yeah, ok. Hey, look at that light,” Reese said.
“Yeah, I see it. What is it?”
“I don’t know. I see… it’s more lights,” Reese answered, hesitating.
“That’s not our cameras or the sub, is it? Could it be a reflection?” Mara asked. “I want to eliminate any chance we’re chasing our own shadow.”
“No. We’re seeing that as it is,” Reese said.
There were more large branching structures surrounding the depression ahead. The structures were huge, branching upward from the base like a tree; clear and translucent. They reflected the lights of the sub to them like a million mirrors. The large branching structures looked like they were made of crystals, great towers of crystal.
Then they saw them. Upon the great branching structures were throngs of bug-like creatures. They were tiny, and they were emitting light from their bodies. They flashed their lights around the crystals.
The scientists studied their headsets. The more they looked, the more they noticed the small flashing lights all around them. The visors were picking the signatures up now, flickering, moving, blinking, strobing. Different colors were appearing all around, blues, oranges, yellows, greens, violet. They came from all directions.
“It’s bio-luminescence,” Mara whispered. “My God. Look at all of them,” she said again to herself. The others heard her but said nothing, each of them captivated by what they were seeing, and perfectly silent.
They stared into their headsets like curious children. The small points of light seemed to come out of nowhere. They coalesced in front of the cameras like they were conjured from the ocean water. Their numbers swelled until there had to be millions of them.
Suddenly the lights, the creatures themselves, were crawling across their cameras and their screens. They revealed themselves to the sub and reacted to the motions of the cameras, to the sub itself, as if they were toying with it, examining it. They came out of hiding to look and to study, curious about their foreign intruder and its intentions.
Mara heard Hanson mumble something, and she heard him say they reminded him of bugs. He was as mesmerized as the scientists as he stared into the monitors. Mara barely acknowledged him by tilting her head toward him.
Some of the creatures were crawling right across the camera lenses. They could start to see them better as they revealed themselves and came into the open. The animals were small shrimp-like creatures. They had a segmented body, and multiple legs they could use for propulsion. Mara could see they possesed eyes at the ends of short antennae. The bodies themselves were crystal clear. The luminescence within their abdomen was multiples of orders in magnitude than anything she had ever witnessed on Earth. The light show they were producing was incredible.
Various colors darted and danced around the vicinity of the sub. Like fireflies they went in and out of sight, with many different colors and rhythms. Mara was already wondering if the different lights she was seeing indicated different species, or maybe they had different meanings. “Maybe they were used for communication?” she thought. She was already formulating theories, her mind racing as she observed as much as she could.
She couldn’t take her eyes off them. She was looking for any clues that could help decipher the meaning or intent of the creatures. She was taken aback by the sheer numbers when she panned around. “My God. Look at all of them,” she said again, not realizing she was repeating the line.
She started to take deep, rapid breaths, unable to control her breathing. The experience being here was overwhelming. Her heart raced. “They’re everywhere,” she whispered loud enough for the others to hear her.
The dance of lights surrounded the submersible. It continued as far into the distance as the cameras could image. Waves of light arced below them. There were pulsing, strobing, and undulating waves of color traveling around the sub. The creatures would move in and out of the camera views. Their signatures would race from one camera only to be picked up by the next. They rendered the scientists speechless. It was rhythmic, hypnotic, and it played before them as if it were a symphony of light, a visual celebration of color. It was spellbinding, in a word.
Mara had to shake herself to keep her thoughts focused on her duties. It was becoming hard to concentrate. She took off her headset and visor and took a few deep breaths to calm herself and regain focus. She blinked her eyes behind her mask to try and shake the images. She wanted to use her own eyes to look again at the drill chamber, and to formulate a baseline from which to continue observing. She realized her vision was already fatigued, and she needed a rest.
Hanson stood behind he
r. He was watching the monitor as captivated as Mara. She turned to him with her headset off, and their eyes met. There was a brief exchange of expressions. They shared a knowing glance that this was a unique moment in science and history, and the animosity between them had momentarily been forgotten.
“You want a look? she asked. “You really should see this.”
Hanson reached a hand for her visor without looking away from the monitor, afraid to miss anything. She helped put the headset over his helmet, doing the work for him. He remained fixated on the images, and then finally he saw them in the headset with the high-definition binocular display.
The immediate expression on Hanson’s face caused Mara to laugh. There was an instantaneous, unconstrained, joyous expression. He broke into a slack-jawed smile, completely overtaken by what he was seeing. The three-dimensional readout and peripheral ability of the headset had brought an entirely new layer to the experience for him. He turned his head to look around, and the cameras on the sub revealed the panoramic view for him.
Mara watched. He was lost in childish wonderment. He reached with his hand to touch the structures, momentarily forgetting he was experiencing it through a headset.
“No touching!” she shouted, and she slapped his hand down. Julian and Reese both laughed when they heard it. The entire crew was lost in jubilation. It was hard to contain their excitement.
Hanson was amazed by the scenery, and Mara was enjoying watching him absorb the moment. She couldn’t help being touched when she saw his reaction, and she felt a smile come across her face. She was more than content to share this with him — with anyone who wasn’t used to experiencing the sense of discovery she had always enjoyed.
How many expeditions had she been on without someone to participate with her? It made her feel good to share the sense of wonder that she had while performing her work. She was reminded through Hanson’s eyes why she had wanted to be a scientist at all; why she wanted to do this work in the first place.
She had seen this kind of reaction before. There was an innocence when something wonderful was revealed to a person who had otherwise never experienced or expected it, a momentary suspension of doubt. It was the acceptance of something so incredible and unbelievable, but certainly real, that made the impossible seem possible, and she could see this effect on Hanson’s face. There was a palpable sense that anything could be real. Mara and Hanson shared that feeling without a word. For the briefest of moments, they were children, watching the impossible, and believing in magic. They both knew that their world, and their perceptions of it, would forever be altered by their experience.
Hanson did not want to give the headset back, but he realized there was work that needed to be done. He said nothing as he removed it and returned it to Mara. She could tell that he had wanted to say something to her as he handed her the headset, but for some reason he didn’t — or maybe there weren’t words.
She placed the headset upon her helmet and went back to work. “Take us closer to the crystal structures, I want to see what that is,” she instructed.
Reese guided the control stick, tapping, turning, a quick bump on the trackball once, then more tapping again when needed. Her concentration was limitless, focused completely on the cameras and the feeds, her hands working while her eyes focused on the images she was seeing. The lights continued to distract her from the task at hand, but she remained focused on the sub and the mission.
EUNICE neared one of the large branching structures. Lights from the creatures were strung along it like the stars in the Milky Way. They flashed at the sub in a rainbow of colors. Bursts of light would fire, one by one, and at different rhythms and durations. Some were steady, and some pulsed. A collective burst would fire, and a wave of light would be sent throughout the field of branching objects. The wave of light would emanate from the center of the structure and then travel up and through each of the branches, arc away into the distance, and then sometimes up into the sea.
It was a communal celebration of light, each of the creatures participating in a magnificent opus of color. All of them seemed to be part of it. They were working in harmony to create the display, and for what purpose, Mara desperately wanted to know.
She devised her theories as she worked and studied it through her visor. She worried about her limited time. There was so much to see. She suddenly began thinking of the daunting task to decipher the meanings of the light pulses, all the crystal formations. Any or each of them were likely a clue, or an important piece of a puzzle to solve.
The submersible descended closer to the branching structure beneath. “Was it an animal-like coral? A natural geological feature? Maybe it was another creature all its own?” Mara was delighted just to be seeing this and asking questions. She knew she would never forgive herself if she didn’t find the answers. Her excitement at formulating theories was overtaking her ability to direct Reese.
“Look at the size,” she said. “What do you think that is, Julian?”
“I don’t know. Looks like a crystal deposit,” he answered. “Massive though… That wouldn’t exactly be unexpected near a volcanic vent. Lots of dissolved minerals.”
The sub neared one of the larger branching structures. It was a towering form of clear crystal shapes. Branches of the crystallized material jutted out in all directions. Some of them were larger than others, some of them extremely intricate and delicate. Mara noted they had the uncanny resemblance to a gothic cathedral. The intricacy, the detailed features, and the large buttresses; just like the stained glass, sharp angles, and slender structures and voids of a giant cathedral. The features were as large and strong, and as delicate as any of the great churches of Europe.
The smaller structures nearby were the size of houses. They dwarfed the sub. The cameras could make out structures in the distance even larger than the ones nearby.
With every pulse of light that emanated from the creatures the structure would somehow capture it, channel the light, then send it outward in different directions. Sometimes the signal was amplified, and sometimes it was diminished. The structures were being used as some form of amplification or to manipulate the light.
It was like watching a great computer processor at work, or the neurons of a brain. Like a hive of neural pulsations, the signals emanated from one creature, were distributed through the branches, and then were sent across vast areas of the sea to the next structure, only to be captured by another set of creatures. It was a stupendous creation however they were formed, and it was utterly captivating to witness it in action.
“We need to test that material. Get some samples of the structure. Remember we might not have that much time. Look at the intricate arrangement there… it’s beautiful,” she said to them. “I hate to disturb any of it.”
Bursts of light continued to fire in and around the structures. They stretched as far as the cameras could see.
Reese began to work on the collection systems. She concentrated on working the arms and tools that stretched out beyond the sub.
“Ok, we need to get our bearing here. I want to know temperature, depth, distance, etcetera. We need to try and map this out. See if you can mark this location somehow so we can start to work our way out,” she said.
“I think the vent can act as our marker. Let’s work our way out from there in a spiral pattern,” Reese said.
“Good idea, and take samples. I want as many of those creatures we can get. Make sure you get a bit of those branching structures into the sub and to the lab.”
“Ok. getting started,” Reese agreed.
“Do you see anything you want samples of, Julian?” Mara asked.
Julian answered Mara’s question, directing his instructions to Reese. “Reese, if you can get samples of the fluid coming from the vent that would be great. Note the temperature at time of capture if you can. Also, samples of any surrounding base material would be good. I want to know w
hat it is that is building up around the vent,” Julian instructed.
Reese worked the submersible around the larger of the structures. She took off her headset and put a glove on her right hand with several wires attached. It was a remote control for the collection arm. Reese only had to mimic with her hand what she wanted the arm on the sub to do. She placed her headset back on her head and got to work with her collection instruments.
She reached out her arm and directed the sub to clip some of the branching structure. She did this repeatedly, reaching out and joining her fingers to her thumb to direct the collection mechanism on the sub.
The arm on the sub followed her commands. It broke off some of the very intricate crystals, but with some moderate work.
Several of the illuminated creatures came along with the branching structure as the arm followed Reese’s commands. They rode the branch of crystal into the sub. They were captured in the sample boxes and stored for transport to the lab. A couple of the creatures darted away at the final moment, suddenly afraid of the submersible.
Reese picked out another branch and pulled at it, again taking samples of the creatures who rode along on the crystal and into the collection boxes. She continued this as Mara studied their reactions. She was taking notes, writing furiously, afraid of forgetting anything.
Mara’s mind would not stop as she watched and studied the creatures. They seemed to utilize the structures both to display their lights and to amplify it, or channel it. When the creatures acted communally, firing all at once, the effect they created spread outward in all directions and was magnificently beautiful.
It appeared as if the creatures had reached a surge of excitement that engulfed the entire ecosystem, compelling them to act in unison. “But what of the meaning of the lights?” Mara wondered to herself. “If it was a form of communication, what were they saying? What kind of information was being transferred? What would creatures need to communicate? Was it food? What was the food source? Were these creatures the prey, or the preyed upon? If they were the prey what would eat them and where were the predators?”
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