“That got its attention. Creature is on the move,” Blake said. “Coming fast — real fast — brace.”
They waited, but there was nothing. As Alex had hoped, the creature had raced right by them to save its eggs.
“Now, give it all you’ve got. Let’s get through that hole.” Alex paced as Blake pushed the lever forward to maximum, pushing every ounce of energy into the rear propulsion, and willing his own strength into the turbines for good measure. The submarine kicked forward, speeding away under the dark water.
Alex saw the blue glow of the hole approaching, and counted down the seconds. Come on, give us some luck, he prayed, urging the machine on. From deep within his head, he could feel a sense of anguish and pain emanating from the cold mind of the creature. He tried to shut it out, but the distress came at him in waves.
Alex put his head down, concentrating on the blue glow ahead. As the echoes of the creature’s misery dimmed, he finally felt it morphing into something much more hard-edged; hate.
No one spoke. Everyone was focused on Blake and Casey’s screens and panels. Soong and Shenjung just stayed seated, waiting and listening for the sound of something huge settling on the skin of the vessel.
“Gonna be tight.” Casey’s teeth were clamped together.
“Exit coming up,” Blake said. “500 feet, 450, 400, 350… say a prayer ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to thread the needle. 200 feet, 150, 100…” Nothing else existed but Blake’s voice.
Time slowed, and then stretched. Alex looked to Aimee, and her eyes locked with his. In the ice-blue gaze and the tiny uptilt of her lips, he saw resignation, perhaps to fate, but also trust. He hoped it was not misplaced.
“Hold onto your asses-ssss…” Blake yelled through gritted teeth as scraping and grinding sounded against the hull. They bounced hard to the left, something popped, and metal squealed from somewhere back in the bowels of the vessel. The makeshift crew held on as they passed through the hole in the wall.
“Yeah.” Casey leapt from her chair, high-fiving herself in an overhead clap.
There were sighs of relief and cheers as the submarine sailed out into more open waters. Alex leaned forward onto his knuckles and exhaled, realizing he had been holding his breath.
Aimee grabbed his arm, holding on. “You know it will follow us,” she said softly.
He half turned, feeling a sense of resignation. “I wish I could say it won’t.” He straightened. “But I can’t.” He pressed the comm. button connecting to Rinofsky. “Rhino, stand by on all tubes.”
“Whoa.”
Sam Reid turned at the sound of the scientist’s voice.
“That’s weird,” Sulley said.
“What’s up, sunshine?” Schmidt pushed his chair back.
“Got something?” Sam wandered over and stood behind Sulley’s chair.
“Yeah, but something that shouldn’t be there. A big object, but really weird. It’s giving back a metallic signature.” Sulley’s fingers flew over the console.
Metallic signature — Sam’s hopes skyrocketed.
“You been putting too much sugar in your tea again?” Schmidt leaned over the young scientist. “Could be some sort of high concentration of ore in one of the cliff walls — anything from platinum, nickel, copper to gold down here. Let me see that.” He straightened, frowning. “That is weird.”
Sam put one large hand on Sulley’s shoulder. “Please tell me yours is the only probe down there?”
From behind, Bentley scoffed. “Of course we damn well are, Reid. We must be picking up some sort of manganese node amalgamation or the like.”
“That’s what I thought, but it’s moving, and damned fast… and that background signal is getting stronger,” Sulley responded.
Sam folded his arms, grinning. “Follow it.”
CHAPTER 61
Cate paced in the small bridge room, having to maneuver around the huge Rinofsky who had just joined them. She strained to draw the most minute details from her memory.
“I don’t know where it was exactly. I was kinda focused on staying alive.” She stopped and turned. “The best I can guess is that it was close to where we came up on the beach. There was a column of cool among the tropical water mass — a cold water vortex; it might not even show up above the water.”
“No idea if we can pick up temperature variations. Might be able to, but haven’t really read the manual.” Blake shrugged. “Doing the best we can.”
Alex nodded. “We’ll find it, we have to.” He looked at Aimee and Cate, and also motioned Soong and Shenjung closer. “We haven’t got a lot of time. You guys are the brains trust. If we can’t detect the temperature variation, and can’t really see it, then how else can we detect it?” Alex looked along their faces. “Water movement; like a current? Color; would it be full of debris, or less debris?” Alex paced. “What about density, could it…”
“Wait… density,” Soong said. “This might be a way. Ocean water has different densities. The colder the water, the heavier it is; the hotter the water, the lighter it is.” She turned to Cate. “When you passed through the column, did you rise or fall?”
Cate nodded. “We dropped… dropped down about fifty feet in a few seconds. And it got real cold.”
“Good.” Soong nodded. “Cold water is heavy water; it sinks.”
Shenjung put his arm around her and beamed.
“Density, we might be able to pick up,” Blake said. “We can ping it, maybe listen for some sort of soft echo or at least a distortion.”
“Do it,” Alex said.
“Where?” Blake half turned.
Cate cast her mind back to the dark water. “I think we were around half a mile offshore.”
“Then let’s take a trip along the coast,” Aimee said.
Blake nodded and just slightly turned the U-shaped wheel.
“Franks, give me external acoustics. Let’s see if we can hear anything out there.” Alex paced.
Casey flicked some switches and suddenly the room was filled with the sound of surging water, and the pips and squeaks of a large ocean… a large living ocean.
Cate listened intently, frowning as she concentrated. The sounds danced at the edge of her memory — things that could have been whale song, but weren’t. That could have been triggerfish, dolphin squeak, or even the click of crustaceans, but were all slightly different from what she had heard in the past. These creatures she was hearing were things that no one in her lifetime, or a perhaps a million lifetimes, had ever heard. Or maybe nothing had heard them ever, if evolution had taken them in a myriad different directions.
“Boss, got something up ahead. Just registering a change in density. Not solid, but just on the scope.” Blake raised his eyebrows. “It feels right.” He switched the sound to the console and small pings, just audible, came from his panel.
“Let’s take a look,” Alex said, continuing to pace.
There came a louder ping from the console that brought everyone’s heads around.
“Ah, shit.” Blake leaned in closer. “Got another bogey, big signature this time. Coming at us fast.” He turned, grimacing. “And from where we just came from.”
“Put the pedal down,” Alex said.
They felt the surge as the vessel picked up speed. Jennifer looked like she was praying.
“Still gaining on us, doing fifty knots now. Impossible speed.”
“Not for this thing,” Aimee said softly.