Deep Fathom (17 page)

Working the sub's external manipulator arms, he grabbed the hook and dragged it to one of the plane's engine sections. Then he lowered the cable's end and placed it against the metal nacelle.

“Okay,” he called up. “Energize!”

On his signal, he watched the cable's electromagnetic terminal flip and attach to the engine's side.

“Fish is hooked. Haul away!”

Jack backed his sub with a whine of thrusters. He watched the slack in the cable tighten; then the engine cowling slid from the silt.

Jack swung around. The graveyard was now almost half cleared. Only smaller pieces and sections of fuselage and wing remained. Under his sub, he passed over a large chunk of landing gear, its tires collapsed under the pressure. Another day or two and nothing would be down here.

As he spun the sub in a slow circle he noted movement off to his left. A school of hatchet fish flashed past the bubble of his submersible. He had been noting more and more denizens of the deep attracted to the light and noise of the salvage operation: long pinkish eels, scuttling crabs, and one
six-foot-long dogfish. Off to the left, he watched a vampire squid shoot out of a crumpled nest of debris and snatch a passing hatchet fish. In a flick of tentacles, it vanished away.

These were his only companions. Swiveling his sub's twin lamps, Jack observed the tall, flat-topped seamounts towering just at the edge of his light's reach, giants looming over the wreckage. Closer, a forest of twisted lava pillars enclosed the space. From his sub's hydrophones, the subsonic whistles and high-pitched clicks of the living sea called to him, a lonely sound.

As he waited, a twinge of isolation struck him. Down at these sunless depths, it was as if he had traveled to another world.

Sighing, Jack swung back around. He had a duty to perform and could not be distracted with stray thoughts. In another twenty minutes the pair of winch cables would drape back down once again, awaiting his help to snatch more wreckage. Until then, he turned his attention back to his own investigation.

He edged his sub toward the center of the debris field. Out of the silty gloom the crystal pillar appeared, glowing with the warmth of his reflected xenon lamps. The clear crystal shone with veins of azure and rose hues. Over the past days, he had recorded the spire from every possible angle, again saving it all to a secret DVD disk for review by his team. By now George had compiled a complete copy of the strange etchings on the crystalline surface.

Jack brought his sub near the pillar. Since the first exploratory dive, he had experienced no further radio interference or difficulties with his sub. The strange emanations had never returned. Jack was almost ready to admit that the odd sensation may have been due to something mundane, like a glitch in the
Nautilus
's systems.

Hovering before the pillar, he reached out with his manipulator arm. Charlie had been hammering at him to try and clip a sample of the crystal. Jack reached with his titanium pincer and touched the pillar. From his hydrophones he heard a slight tinkle as metal struck crystal.

As the sound struck his ear, Jack felt every hair stand on
end, as if his body had become a living tuning fork. His skin tingled, his sight wavered, and the world began to spin. He felt as if he were going to pass out. He suddenly could not tell which way was up. It was as if he were weightless, in space again. His ears rang, and distantly he heard voices calling to him, as if down a long tunnel—garbled, in some strange language.

Gasping, he slammed his foot hard on the right pedal, driving his submersible away from the crystal. As he broke contact, Jack snapped back into his own seat, back into his own body. The tingling sensation vanished.

“—hear me? Jack!” Lisa yelled in his ear. “Answer me!”

Jack touched his throat mike, needing some physical contact with the world above. “I'm here, Lisa.”

“What are you doing?”

“Wh-What do you mean?”

“You've been off-line for forty minutes! The Navy was about to launch one of their ROV robots to search for you.”

Jack drifted away from the pillars. He widened the focus of his lights and saw the salvage cables hanging ahead.
How had the Navy hauled up the two plane sections so fast?

He glanced at his clock. Only two minutes had passed since he'd hooked the tail fin and engine section to the cables. How was that possible? Frowning, Jack remembered the glitch Lisa had noted after his first dive.

“Lisa, what time do you have topside?”

“Three-fourteen.”

Jack stared at the sub's computer screen. The digital clock was thirty-eight minutes slow.

“Jack?”

“I…I'm fine. Just another communication glitch.” He glided toward the cables. Had he blacked out?

Lisa's voice came back tentative, full of suspicion. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Lisa, nothing to worry about. I'm going for the next pieces.”

“I don't like this. You should head up now.”

“I can handle it. I've got green lights across the board. How are you reading now?”

Lisa's voice returned reluctantly. “Receiving you fine now.”

A new voice interrupted. It was Admiral Houston. “Your doctor is correct, Mr. Kirkland. You had everyone in a panic topside.”

“It's just a glitch, sir.”

“I don't care. This mission is over for today.”

Jack's grip grew hard on his controls. He glanced back at the crystal spire. His initial panic at the strange event had burned down to a deep-seated anger. He was determined to find out what had happened. “At least let me hook up these last cables. They're already down here.”

Along pause. “Okay, Mr. Kirkland. But be careful.”

Jack nodded, though no one could see him. “Aye, sir.”

He swept his submersible up to the first cable and checked the computer screen for his next two targets—a cracked section of fuselage and a chunk of landing gear. Grabbing the cable's end, he dragged it over to the curved section of fuselage wall. He noted a portion of the plane's lavatory was still attached to the inside surface. Working rapidly, he attached the magnetic hook and called topside. “Ready on cable one.”

The technician acknowledged, “Hauling away.”

Jack swung toward the second winch line. As he turned the radio buzzed in his ear. It was Robert on the
Deep Fathom
. Jack was surprised to hear from the marine biologist. “Jack, I've got movement down there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something large just cleared the trough between two seamounts northwest of your position and is coming your way.”

Jack frowned. For something to show up on sonar at this depth, it must be huge. “How big?”

“Sixty feet.”

“Jesus…what is it? A submarine?”

“No, I don't think so. Its outline is too fluctuant, its movement too sinuous. Not artificial.”

“So, in other words, a sea monster.” Jack remembered the
serpent that had startled him in the hold of the
Kochi Maru
. “Is it another orefish?”

“No, too thick.”

“Great,” he mumbled. “How far off now?”

“A quarter klick. But it's picking up speed. Damn, it's fast! It must be attracted to your lights.”

“Can I outrun it?”

“No. Not without a larger head start.”

“Any suggestions?”

“Play dead.”

“Say again.”

“Settle to the seabed, turn off lights and motors. Abysmal sea life is attracted to sound, light, even bioelectric signatures. Turn everything off and you should be blind to whatever is coming.”

Jack was not comfortable with this choice. As a former SEAL, he was trained for action, for a more proactive means of defense. But without an assault rifle and grenade launcher, he would have to listen to the expert here. Jack settled the
Nautilus
's skids to the silty seabed.

After a short pause he flicked off the battery switch. The xenon lamps winked off. The constant whine of the thrusters went silent. Darkness swamped over the tiny sub. Even the internal lights dimmed and died.

His own breathing seemed so loud in the tiny space. His eyes strained for something to see. Distantly, he thought he could pick up flickers of winking lights. Was it just his eyes playing tricks? Bioluminescence? Ghost lights?

Robert whispered in his ear, “Don't communicate. It might be able to focus on you. We'll try pinging from above to scare it off.”

“Where—”

“Quiet! It's just clearing the last ridgeline. It's huge! Here it comes!”

Jack held his breath, afraid even that would be heard. He craned his neck, searching the darkness around him. His eyelids were stretched wide.

“He's circling the area. Damn, what is it?”

Jack felt a trickle of sweat roll off his nose. The sub's cabin had grown humid. Without the carbon dioxide scrubbers working, he knew he had maybe thirty minutes of air before it became stale. He could not play possum forever.

Suddenly, he sensed something large move over him. He saw nothing, but something primal in his brain set off alarms. Jack's heart hammered. Fresh sweat broke out on his forehead, and he fought to see anything around him. What was out there?

“He's on top of you,” Robert whispered.

The sub shoved a few inches across the silt. But Jack knew nothing had touched the tiny craft. The dragging movement was from the wake of something large sweeping past, close, the dead sub buffeted by its passage.

The
Nautilus
rolled onto one skid, twisting around slightly, caught in the wash of another wake. Jack froze, lifting both palms to brace against the acrylic dome. How big was this thing? The sub spun for two heartbeats more, then crashed again to the seabed with a screech of metal on metal, the left skid landing on a chunk of wreckage.

The sub now rested at a tilt, teetering slightly on the uneven perch.

“It's sticking near you, Jack. Our sonar pinging is not scaring it off.”

Jack saw nothing beyond his own nose, but sensed something circling out there, stalking him. He breathed silently through clenched teeth.

Then he felt the sub move, tip forward. He heard something rasp across the acrylic dome, wet leather drawn over glass. The sub fell onto its side, and Jack sprawled, hanging in his straps. Before he could shift into a better position, something struck the sub, hard this time.

Jack was jarred into the seat harness, choked by the straps. The sub flipped and ground across the seabed. He heard something tear free from the framework.

Luckily, the sub settled back upright on its skids. Jack straightened. The damn thing out there was playing with him. Like a cat toying with a mouse.

He grabbed his controls. Before he was torn apart by
whatever was out there, he meant to fight. With his thumb, he flicked on the power. Spears of light lanced out. The darkness was driven backward. Closer, the whine of the battery-powered thrusters filled the space.

“Jack, what are you doing?”

“Where is it?”

“It's right
next
to you!”

He sensed the movement before seeing it. He twisted to his left. A huge black eye, the size of a garbage can lid, opened in a wall of flesh. Jack bit back a gasp. The eye blinked against the glare of the sub's lights.

The monster was lying beside the tiny sub, dwarfing it. Jack caught more movement. He craned his neck farther. Behind the sub's stern, a tangle of tentacles rose, twisting and churning as the behemoth awoke from its initial shock at its prey's brilliant display. Jack remembered the vampire squid snatching a hatchet fish, and now sympathized with the tiny fish.

Slamming both pedals, he shot his sub forward and away.

“Don't run!” Robert yelled in his ear.

“Who's running?” Jack hissed tightly. He spun the sub around, nose pointed at the gigantic beast. Grabbing the manipulator controls, he raised the sub's titanium arms and flexed the pincers. They could crush stone.

The creature rolled, tentacles scrabbling and twisting around toward Jack.

“What is it?”

“Video feed is fuzzy, but I think it's an
Architeuthis
,” Robert said. “A giant squid of the cephalopod family. Only a few have ever been found. And those were dead, dragged up in the nets of deep trawlers. Nothing this big has ever been seen.”

The beast shied slightly from the direct lances of the sub's xenon lamps. One tentacle, thick as a sewer pipe, came probing low along the seabed.

Jack backed away, all thrusters on full—but he wasn't fast enough.

The snaking limb shot toward him, slapping a wide blow.

The sub bounced, its nose driven up. Jack's forehead
struck the acrylic dome. With stars dancing across his vision, he fought the control pedals but found the submersible unresponsive.

At first he feared he was out of power. Then he noticed a platter-sized sucker clamped onto the acrylic dome. He was caught, trapped in its grip. The tentacle wound around the sub, drawing him toward the mass of the beast. The seals around him groaned with the strain.

Ahead, the creature was fully revealed in his lights. Eight muscular arms and two longer tentacles coiled out from its pale body. Its skin was almost translucent, its flattened head flanked by lateral fins. Its two longer tentacles probed the sub, dragging toothed suckers across its titanium frame.

The vessel suddenly jolted. His lights swung. Jack spotted the beaked mouth of the monster opening and closing—only a yard away. Through the hydrophones, he could hear the grind of its maw.

Swearing under his breath, Jack shifted the manipulator arms. He maneuvered the pincers and snatched at the nearest tentacle. The titanium grips tore into the leathery tissue. Black blood bloomed out.

Before Jack could savor his attack, the
Nautilus
was flung away, tumbling end over end. He released the manipulator controls and braced himself, tried to slow his tumble with his thrusters' foot pedals, but it was no use. The
Nautilus
struck the seabed, gouging a trough in the silt. Jack's shoulder bore the brunt of the impact. The sub lay on its side.