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Gideon nodded.

“The two black boxes are vital. One contains all data and communications to and from the ship’s bridge. The second stored the CCTV video from security cameras set up throughout the ship. If we can recover both, we’ll have a detailed picture of the ship’s last moments. We know exactly where they’re located: in the electronics hub on the forecastle deck. With the Rolvaag lying on its side, you’ll have to enter the hull, make your way through the wreckage of the hold and beyond to a point underneath the forecastle deck, then cut through the deck to reach the electronics hub. The route has been fully programmed into your DSV, but we don’t know the condition or layout of the interior, so once you enter the hull you’ll have to use your own judgment. The John has a cutting torch on its mech arm. It’s AI-assisted, so there’s no fear of making a mistake. Questions?”

“Not at the moment.”

Glinn shifted, turning toward Alex.

“Since we can’t map the, ah, Baobab with sonar, we’ll scan it using visual light and LiDAR. That’s your job. The LiDAR is a green-wavelength laser capable of penetrating sixty feet of water. We need to know the extent of this thing—not only the trunk, but its branches as well. Also, what are those tendrils Gideon saw on the ocean floor, and how far out do they go? And do they go to anything in particular?”

Gideon, looking at Alex again as Glinn spoke, found his mind wandering back to the previous night. He quickly squashed the vivid images that rose in his mind. Given his own precarious medical condition, he thought, what was he doing, getting into a relationship like this? Following the awful events that had transpired during their time on the Lost Island in the Caribbean, Glinn had healed amazingly well—and Gideon still held out some hope he might also be cured of his condition. Or was that just wishful thinking? As of yet, there was no evidence that anything had medically changed—no evidence that he might have any longer than nine months left to live. Was he becoming an old softie, or did this really feel, already, like more than a shipboard romance? What the hell should he do? Once again, he made a mighty effort to tune back in to Glinn, who was now talking to Garza.

“Manuel, you will undertake a high-resolution sonar and LiDAR scan of the Rolvaag and the surrounding seafloor, extending out a radius of half a mile. I also want you to do a five-mile transect, starting at the Baobab and going out, to see how far the dead zone extends.”

Glinn looked at the three in turn. “Finally, all three DSVs today are equipped with science baskets. If you see something interesting, notify mission control. We will use the UQC to look at it and decide whether it can be picked up and brought to the surface. If so, you’ll use your mechanical arms to place it in the science basket. The operation of the arm is simple and it, too, is AI-assisted, so previous experience is not required.”

He ran through a few more details, then finished with a simple: “Let’s mount up.”

Gideon climbed his submersible’s ladder up to the sail hatch. He stood there a moment, looking at the other two, watching as Alex gave him a smile and a wave, then lowered herself gracefully through the hatch. A moment later he grasped the bar and stepped into his own hatch, climbing down the miniature ladder into the personnel sphere. Unlike the previous day, he felt calm and confident.

Ten minutes later, Gideon once again found himself staring through the forward viewport at a swirl of silver bubbles as John was lowered into the water. He heard the clank as the DSV was released and watched through the viewports as he drifted down into the infinite, darkening blue.

15

OUT HIS RIGHT and left viewports, Gideon could see the yellow gleam of lights from his two companion DSVs, drifting down at approximately the same rate. He could hear the faint hiss of the air tanks and CO2 scrubbers. During the forty-minute trip to the bottom, he eventually lost them in the blackness. After a long, boring ride he picked up their lights again as they slowed, nearing the bottom.

His first waypoint was a spot fifty meters from the split hull of the Rolvaag, at an altitude of thirty feet off the ocean floor. The autopilot gently brought him to the waypoint, the sub coming to rest. Gideon looked about, rotating the sub and peering into the gloom. He could see, a few hundred yards to his left, the blurry cluster of lights from Alex’s DSV, Paul, also hovering thirty feet above the seabed. Through the forward viewport he saw a similar cluster of lights from George.

Following protocol, he made contact using the UQC. “John, at waypoint one, calling Paul.”

Paul here, I read you. At waypoint two.”

John, calling George.”

George here, I read you. At waypoint three.”

These names, Gideon thought, were starting to feel a little silly.

Glinn’s voice came in, from control, inflected with digital distortion. They were all on the same channel, and they now made their way through a set of safety checklists and review of the search protocols.

“Commence the mission,” said Glinn at last.

Gideon moved the central joystick, aiming the autopilot toward the Rolvaag. The engines hummed and the craft moved forward, approaching the wreck, headlights illuminating the gaping, petaled hull. Inside, he could see what looked like a forest of twisted metal beams.

He felt not a little twinge of claustrophobia at the thought of going in there.

On a flat-panel to his right, there was a schematic of the wrecked ship. This was overlaid by a blinking red dot, indicating his location. The black boxes appeared on the panel as a small orange target. The ship was huge; judging from the schematic, he would have to travel almost two hundred yards from the point of entry.

As he moved toward the gaping hull, the little red dot moved on the screen. In the background, he could hear Alex on the common frequency, speaking to mission control while she maneuvered Paul toward the Baobab. Manuel’s voice came through as well as he circled the area, surveying the ship and surrounding debris field.

Gideon, Glinn had told him, when you’re inside the Rolvaag, you’ll be temporarily cut off—not just from mission control, but from the other DSVs.

During the briefing, Gideon had learned that the normally open hull of the former supertanker, the Rolvaag, had been modified: it was webbed with struts and beams that braced the so-called cradle intended to hold the twenty-five-thousand-ton meteorite. Some of the beams, and the cradle itself, had been made of wood, because wood was a more flexible and giving material than steel, and the EES engineers had determined it would hold up better to the rolling of the ship in a storm, should they encounter one. They had indeed encountered a storm, a terrible one, made worse by the lack of engine power and damage to the ship inflicted by the pursuing Chilean destroyer. The rocking of the meteorite had eventually weakened the cradle and caused it to break loose, followed by an explosion that split the ship in two just as it was starting to sink. The source of this explosion had never been determined, but the theory was that the meteorite had reacted with the seawater.

As he moved toward the vast, wrecked area of the gigantic hold, the voices of George and Paul began to dissolve into digital static.