CHAPTER 38.
“I hate this silence,” Helen said. The too-cool interior of Zarathustra, its vertical and thus alien orientation, and especially the not-knowing were beginning to wear on her, even through the fascination of where she was and what she was learning.
“We’re still alive to hear the sound of silence,” Joe pointed out. “That’s a good thing. And I can give you some more good news.”
“What’s that?”
Joe pointed up. “Well, we knew they detonated the charges—we saw some of that on the relay before it went dead. And I just did some test flashes, and according to the calculations it’s still going into empty air—or rather, vacuum—at about the same level as before. Which means they didn’t completely bury us.”
“That does sound like good news,” she admitted, but she couldn’t ignore the nagging nervousness. “They could have buried us enough to make the whole rescue impossible, though, couldn’t they?”
“Maybe,” Joe conceded reluctantly. “Though as long as they can reach us at all there’s still a chance. I admit they really do need space to work Athena, and if Athena hits Zarathustra—even a glancing blow—we’re probably done. And the vibrations of impact were pretty big, so they did bring down one hell of a lot of the ceiling.”
That sparked a thought. “I wonder…” She grabbed up the camera and carefully made her way down to the bottom. “Dim the lights a bit, would you?”
Joe complied. “What’s up?”
“Well, it’s effectively always black down here, so any living creatures would either have to make their own light, or they’d have to sense things by other means, just as deep-sea creatures on earth do,” Helen answered, trying to let her eyes adapt to the blackness below. “One of the most common senses would be acoustic or vibration sensing. And any kind of unusual vibration would probably be worth investigating—it might be a new food source, unless the type of vibration seemed dangerous. So all the activity up there, culminating in the huge vibrations involved in collapsing the cavern—”
“—might draw something to investigate. Yeah, I see.” Joe glanced up. “But the quakes have got to make a lot of vibrations too, so why would our—comparatively tiny—activity be different?”
“Patterns, Joe,” she said. Was that…something? It was very hard to tell, sometimes, if you were seeing anything. Everything from the other tiny creatures moving across the glass to the annoying “floaters” inside her own eye could seem for a moment like distant, phantom objects barely visible against the velvet darkness. “The exact pattern of the sounds will be like a fingerprint.” She smiled. “Remember, I’m married to Mister Sensor himself, he’s given me lots of lectures on the subject of detecting particular signals. Animals are very, very good at discriminating between various signals, and I’m sure that the acoustic or vibration signature of a deliberately detonated and collapsed cavern is a lot different from that of a general earthquake.”
Something is moving. She triggered the camera. “I think we have company coming, Joe.”
Joe Buckley did not have an enthusiastic expression at the thought of something unknown being on its way to visit, and—to tell the truth—she wasn’t entirely happy about it. But on the other hand, there wasn’t much either of them could do about it, so she might as well at least record it. “What, exactly, is coming?”
“I haven’t any real idea, Joe. I just know it’s a lot larger than anything we’ve seen before.” The undefinable shape disappeared into the unrelieved gloom. Then it reappeared again, from its original direction, but this time she thought it was just a tiny bit closer. I don’t know if I like that. It reminded her of something, and as she watched it vanish again and slowly reappear from another direction, this time definitely closer, a faint luminescence outlining what seemed to be a long winged cylinder, she realized that its motions were very much like those of a deep-ocean shark, slowly examining some unknown object in its patrol area.
“How much larger?”
“I’m not sure, it’s hard to tell without any sense of scale.” She thought for a moment. “You know, I’ll bet we could get a sense of scale if your computers are up for some instant triangulation.”
Joe raised an eyebrow. She glanced back down, saw the unknown creature disappearing again. “If you flash both side rear lights at max power, and take an image from both rear cameras, you’d get two shadow-cones going off from it which would give you a really good…”
“…stereo match, yes I would. You’ll become one of us engineers yet, Helen. That kind of image comparison’s built right into Zarathustra’s autonomic nav circuits. Let me just tweak the parameters a bit…Okay. Next time it shows up, tell me when and I’ll hit the lights for a split second; close your eyes so it doesn’t blind you, you want to still be dark adapted afterwards.”
“Got you.” She watched closely, waiting.
Once more the unknown swam lazily into view, the vague luminous outline hinting at undulation and texture. “Hit it, Joe!”
She closed her eyes; even so, the blaze of light was momentarily dazzling. She blinked her eyes clear. “Joe, did you get it?” There was no sign of the phantom creature visible now.
“Got it. Range was…a hundred meters away. The visible part of the thing covered eight degrees, which means it was about fourteen meters long.”
“Jesus. That’s almost as long as a T-Rex.”
“And ugly, too,” Joe said. “Take a look at—oh, SHIT!”
Helen looked back down and leapt backward reflexively, smacking herself into the forward port.
Flashing in multiple colors, in patterns sharp and clashing, the creature was rushing up from the depths. The flash…it must have seemed like a challenge or a threat. The winged-torpedo shape, something like the body of a squid but tripartite, a familiar body plan indeed, the same body plan that had got her into this mess, the thing was several times longer than Bemmius Secordii had ever been. Backward pointing spines covered its exterior surface, which in the lowered glow of the rear lights seemed nobbled, gray-green and tough like rhino hide. It broke off the charge only ten meters from Zarathustra, and the wash of its passage made the whole ten-ton rover wobble. In that moment it had snapped at the water, a threat-gesture that exposed a three-sided mouth with black cutting planes and shredding points farther in. Short, thick grasping tentacles writhed at each corner of the mouth, and at the base of each tentacle glittered a small, but unmistakable yellow-green eye.
“Dammit, that’s pissed it off. What do we do now?”
Helen had no idea. On the one hand, lighting it up had triggered the problem; on the other, if they didn’t do it again that might be taken as a sign of weakness. Compound the error or be too cautious? Still…the thing had other senses. “Wait and hope, Joe. We’re not living, and this thing might be able to tell that in a few minutes.”
“Maybe, I guess.” She saw him strapping into the seat. “You’d better get braced, though.”
She had already had the same thought; even so, she had barely grabbed one side of the seat straps when the thing tore through the water at them again, this time missing Zarathustra by less than five meters, the short tentacles lashing out at closest approach and nearly brushing the rover’s side. “What the hell can we do?”
Joe’s face was grim, reflected in the curved forward port. “Improvise.”
As the thing appeared again, Joe engaged the drive, spun the wheels quickly; the force against the water bounced Zarathustra upward and sideways, and at the unexpected movement the monster balked, sheered off at the last minute. She shuddered as she heared a rumbling shriek and realized the exterior microphones had just transmitted the thing’s vocalization of anger.
This time it arrowed in from the side, coming in to grasp the entire rover, tentacles whipping out, curling around the rear end of Zarathustra.
The jolt nearly gave her whiplash as the creature let go, thrust the rover away and ran with a screech of obvious pain. “Ow…What happened?”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Joe chuckled. “Grabbed the radiators, that’s what happened. Bet he’s sucking his burned little tentacles and wondering what that was.”
Helen wondered if it was over, now. But she remembered studying about apex predators. It depended on what type you were dealing with, and exactly what instinctual triggers you set off. She was suddenly very afraid she knew what was coming next.
And there it was, looming up, cruising at speed along the very top of the ice. We’re a rival, something challenging it in its section of this huge ocean, and once a duel like this happens it won’t back down unless we beat it in some way it understands.
The thing curved around, circled once, then shrieked another challenge and lunged.
But at that same time she saw Joe make a convulsive movement in the control chair.
Both manipulator arms, rated at a ton and a quarter lift capacity, lashed outward. One of the reinforced carbonan arms tore straight through one of the Europan monster’s grasping tentacles; the other smashed directly to the side of the open mouth, shattering two of the cutting plates—and plunging into the yellow-green eye.
It wasn’t so much a sound as a red-hot dagger slammed through both her eardrums, and Zarathustra rang like a bell with a final smashing impact. But the thing was fleeing, trailing phosphorescent blood, yielding the field to this immobile yet painfully dangerous foe.
“Good work, Joe.”
He grunted. “I hope so. As long as he doesn’t have any friends.” He indicated a light on the control panel. “And as long as our friends don’t take too long.”
She could see the slow amber blink, and a sinking lead weight seemed to form in her gut. “What is it?”
“Outer lock seal,” he said. “I’m not showing any water in the lock yet…” he continued, “but it’s damaged somehow. In some ways, we’d better hope it’s going to start leaking soon.”
She stared at Joe, puzzled. “Um…why?”
“Because one of the other ways it could have been damaged is to have the door warped enough that it won’t open.”