“Nearing waypoint two,” said Garza.
As he passed the bow, the water suddenly became dark again, the seafloor almost too far away for the headlights to reach.
“Reaching waypoint two.”
Once again the DSV came to a smooth hover.
“We’re going to make a second pass,” Garza said, “to the north and offset from the ship along its deck side. Proceed to waypoint three.”
For this scan, the DSV would be close to the seafloor, scanning the wreck sideways. Gideon maneuvered to the waypoint and began the scan.
This was more dramatic, driving only thirty feet above the seafloor, looking at the wreck sideways. Because the two pieces of the ship were lying on their sides, Gideon was now looking down on the decks, which had been slightly accordioned by the impact with the seafloor.
“What’s that?” Gideon suddenly asked. He could now barely make out a thin, thread-like line, lying on the seabed and twisting off into the darkness.
“We see it,” said Garza. “All right, slow down. Divert from the pre-programmed path and get closer to it.”
Gideon eased the DSV over until it was positioned about ten feet above the thing. He peered at it through the viewport. “Is it a wire from the ship?” he asked.
“No,” said Garza. “It’s too long. Get a little closer, please.”
Gideon worked the joystick and the DSV lowered to within five feet of the cable. It was smooth, featureless, pencil-thin, and the same gray color as the seafloor it was lying on. Now that he was closer to the bottom, he could see other, similar cables lying on the seafloor, some partially buried, some appearing and disappearing in the muck, all snaking off in one vague direction into darkness.
“Did you notice they’re all heading in the direction of the meteorite?” said Gideon. “I’d like to follow these.”
A brief silence. “We don’t advise that,” said Garza. “Finish up the survey; we can examine it later.”
“My survey of the Rolvaag is complete. Since I have to go that way anyway, I’d really like to follow these.”
More silence. No doubt they were conferring topside, out of his hearing. “Very well,” said Garza. “Go slow and do not—I repeat—do not enter any cloud of silt, if there is one, or approach any venting structures. Stay well away from anything that looks unusual or unnatural.”
“Roger.”
Gideon turned Ringo and began following the narrow snake-like cables lying on the seafloor. For some reason they gave him the creeps.
And then, through the forward viewport, Gideon could see a large, indistinct, looming form start to take shape.
“Do you see that…?”
“Yes,” said Garza in a clipped tone. “And we’re losing you in the sonar cloud.”
“But the water is totally clear.”
“We see what you see.”
Gideon instinctually slowed the DSV to a crawl. His sonar screen dissolved into a wash of noise. However, the submersible’s headlights now picked up the form ahead, outlining it with clarity.
“Oh, my God,” he murmured.
Looming ahead out of the darkness was a gigantic, tree-like thing: a grotesque, ribbed growth rising from the seabed, with a fissured, bark-like surface. It towered so far above him that the top of it disappeared into blackness, out of the range of his lights. It went on and on and on.
“Go no farther,” said Garza, but Gideon had already stopped the DSV.
There was silence topside. Gideon stared. The loose bundles of cable he’d followed ran along the seabed until they reached the vast growth, combining together and running into its base like a root. Gideon could see a vast number of other, similar appendages converging in from other directions as well, going into the base of the structure.
“Holy shit,” Gideon said.
Garza spoke again, his voice uncharacteristically tense. “Time to return to the surface.”
“I’m going closer.” Gideon eased the joystick forward.
“No, you’re not.” A message popped up on the DSV control screen:
CONTROL TRANSFERRED TO SURFACE
The craft stopped responding to the joystick. He heard a clang as the iron ballast was released and the sub began to rise.
“Hey—!”
“Sorry,” said Garza. “We’re bringing you up.”
But now Gideon was rendered speechless as the submersible rose and the enormous size of the thing became fully revealed. He was rising at an angle, away from the tree, and just when its central trunk started to divide into what appeared to be clusters of branches, the thing disappeared into the murk, out of range of his lights.
“Thirty-nine minutes to surface,” came Garza’s tight voice.
As blackness reasserted itself around the viewports of the DSV, Gideon could only imagine the consternation now taking place in mission control.
12
GLINN CALLED A meeting for one o’clock, barely giving Gideon enough time to change out of his sweaty clothes and shower. When he arrived in mission control it was already packed; it seemed that everyone who was anyone on board ship was there, every chair was taken, and in the back it was standing room only.
Garza was seated on stage with Glinn; as Gideon entered, Glinn beckoned to him and he joined them.
To his surprise, a scattering of applause greeted his arrival on stage, which became general. He quickly sat down, embarrassed.
Wasting no time, Glinn gestured for a wireless mike and spoke into it. “This debriefing is called to order.”
At the sound of his cool, neutral voice, an instant silence fell.
“Most of you have already heard about this morning’s recon dive by Dr. Crew. I’m sure I speak for everyone in saying that he is to be congratulated for a successful mission.”
Another round of applause. Gideon noticed Lispenard, sitting in the front row. He expected to see anger and disapproval on her face. Instead, he saw an expression he didn’t quite understand.
“The purpose of this meeting,” Glinn went on, “is to briefly review footage and data from that recon, and then open the floor to ideas, analysis, and discussion. Finally, we will address the next steps to be taken.”
He gestured to the tech in the A/V booth and the main screen came to life. The assembled company watched in silence as an edited version of Gideon’s reconnaissance played on the screen, with the communications dialogue included. At the end of the reel came a series of magnified stills of the huge thing he’d discovered and the tendrils that snaked away from it.
“And now,” said Glinn as the footage ended, “I’ll share with you a few additional images. The first are sonar readings of the organism, collected on the recon.”
This was followed by a series of images similar to the cloud observed previously—ever-shifting pixels of sonar noise.
“And here are some sonar readings from the creature. It generates sonar—in other words, it makes a low, continuous noise—in the two-hertz range, far below that of human hearing. Here is a computer-generated image of its sonar fields.”
The images showed an eerie, glowing, blurred outline of the thing, with streamers coming off it.
He continued with some additional images in various modes, and then paused, looking around the room. “Very well. I’m going to open the floor to anyone who has anything to say, or any questions to ask. This free-flowing discussion will last thirty minutes, so be succinct.”
A bunch of hands went up. Glinn pointed to the back. “Prothero?”
Why, Gideon thought, call on him first? He was likely to hijack the discussion.
Prothero rose. “Okay, it’s pretty obvious to me what’s going on with the sonar.” He looked around. “Nothing wrong with the equipment, by the way. That Baobab’s got a surface that looks like bark. You saw that? So I took a close look at it, under magnification, and right away I noticed that it has a remarkable mathematical quality: it scatters sonar almost perfectly. In other words, the Baobab’s invisible to sonar. And I can also tell you why.”