Out Of Their Depth
(This was a short story [edit: copyright 2003 by me] stored on another site; it appears that LiveJournal is a safer place.)
Though the sky was nearly dark, mountains glittered redly in the distance. Everywhere, the deepening pink glow reflected on the plains overlaid all natural colors. At the assembly site, artificial lighting had been set up, bitter and sharp in contrast with the somber background.
The crew bustled, making last minute adjustments. Short gantries and cranes surrounded and obscured an unusual device-a tubular twelve-meter shape with rounded ends, mostly smooth from this distance, but ribbed lengthwise and on the curves at each end. The object seemed small, until a white-suited technician appeared at one of the thick cable bundles connecting it to surrounding equipment - the tube’s diameter was over twice the technician’s height. It was not much more impressive than a reinforced pressure tank and had few exterior markings.
This construct had a name, though-Questor-and it had occupants.
And a problem.
“Questor, we’re showing a temperature anomaly on your PTP-are you tracking this?”
Del Maris had just seen this as well. “Roger, Control, we’re looking at it now.” He shook his head-scratch this project, and the next attempt would be a very long time coming. Del made brief eye contact with Jason in the right seat, getting a grim look in return.
Del keyed the internal circuit. “May, the primary thermal plant is acting up. Take a look, please.”
“On it now.”
No more than thirty seconds passed. Del continued his instrument scan and procedures. They were on hold at three minutes to initiation, but even hold times had checklists. Motors and equipment fans hummed, but the primary sound inside was that of liquid flowing through the surrounding hull.
May Watts’ voice ended the anxious wait. “It was actually no major problem. We had been on hold longer than anticipated at seventeen minutes; the PTP’s main pump had been offline during that time for the standard fallback pressure test. The pile stabilized sixty degrees higher on the backup pumps, and was still coming down from that. It never exceeded nominal parameters.”
Jason Ellison was already calling up the temperature curve on his side of the display, Del saw. He touched a key. “Control, did you copy?”
“Roger, Questor-and we had just worked this out ourselves.”
Del grinned in spite of the palpable tension. And was that a snort in the background? “All right, Control. Recommendations?”
“None, Questor. We will complete the pre-positioning, then resume the countdown. We’re reading your systems nominal at this point.”
“Except for ...“
“... and the PTP temp should be nominal before we resume countdown.”
“Uh, roger Control.”
Historical significance weighed heavily on the three inside. Del sensed this in his team, and knew the pressure well. They did not want to abort unless there was no other rational choice. They didn’t want to “screw the pooch” either, as the old expression went. But a delay might not kill them.
A change in the light distracted him. Though the thick viewport above his panel, he saw one of the work-lights being pulled back. Control crackled in his ear once again.
“Stand by for C3 cable disconnect.”
Del paused only a moment, glancing at Jason and receiving a shrug. Glancing over his right shoulder down the long passageway, he saw May look up from her instruments and give him the “thumbs up” sign.
Ah, well. We’re on.
“Go for cable cluster three disconnect, Control.”
The next minutes flowed by in smooth succession; there had been many months to practice these drills. Finally:
“Questor, we are prepared to continue the count at T minus three minutes.”
“We are go for countdown, Control. Wish us luck.”
“Um, good luck and safe journey, Del, May, Jason. We’ll be waiting.”
There was a brief confusion as Del and crewmates replied simultaneously.
“Questor, we are go at three minutes.”
Above Del, the mission clock began to change once again.
Outside, Questor was now illuminated only distantly by the work floods. The equipment and scaffolding had been pulled back tens of meters, and the few other support vehicles were also backed safely away. A dim yellowish glow could now be seen from one end, and at a few other points along the exterior, passing the soft interior light to the outside.
Three minutes passed.
There was no change at first; despite the high level of tension, the beginning of this mission was not at all an obvious event.
Ah, something happening: Gradually, the entire craft began to glow, beginning with the ribs running over the ship. And from the standpoint of the observers, it appeared to slowly recede in the distance. After a few more moments, this illusion was revealed to be the Questor merely sitting lower on the flat surface. The crimson surface brightened, but was not unbearable to look at.
And in that solid surface, over the space of about two minutes, the Questor nosed down and ... sank.
Jason now seemed to be in his element, though no human could be practiced at this stunt. Del continued to monitor his own board while stealing glances at the viewport. He now was looking down to do this, as his console and seat had rotated to accommodate Questor’s unusual attitude. At first, the material illuminated by the interior lights (and recorded, Del knew, by banks of cameras) seemed to be a featureless gray. From time to time, a striation of some darker shade slid past. This helped; only the gentlest of rocking gave any real feeling of movement.
Questor slid down at about a 45 degree angle, cocooned in a liquid bubble melted by its exterior heaters. Only meters behind them, the liquid solidified once again, and one hardy technician was already venturing onto the smooth spot where the ship had rested minutes before.
Del’s habitual instrument scan picked up the first activity of the ELF monitor. Normal radio communication was long gone, as expected, but the extremely low frequency band would allow them to talk to the surface. As long as they were patient. He busied himself elsewhere, letting the message build up.
“QUESTOR: STATUS?”
Del grinned wryly. “NOMINAL,” he sent, watching as the cursor paused on each character playing it back to the surface.
“Wait, stop!” Jason’s excited voice startled Del.
“What? What?” came tensely over the intercom. May was startled, too.
Del scanned anxiously, looking for an out of tolerance system to shut down. Jason on the other side of the cabin was waving anxiously-then stopped. “Never mind.”
“WHAT?” came from Del and May at the same time.
Jason looked abashed and annoyed at the same time. “That was no striation, it was a strand of ... something.”
Del frowned. “We couldn’t have stopped that fast, anyway. Play the images back.”
It almost seemed that Jason hadn’t considered this. He keyed one of the large displays on his side. “Take a look, both of you.”
“Just a minute,” May said. “What circuit?”
“Video Three.” Del keyed one of his own displays.
Jason manipulated his controls - but without the mission timestamp on the video, this was barely obvious. Grey on gray, an occasional stripe moving past.
“There.”
The image stopped on a slightly curved streak across the lower left of the display, then moved forward. The streak crept past-but not quite uniformly. Distortion from the surrounding fluid? Was it a “connected strand”? Hard to tell.
The image stopped again, and a thin rectangle appeared over part of the “strand” as Jason prepared to zoom in.
Much closer now. And it was ... still ambiguous. Poor lighting, the dark color of the material, and the amorphous shapes. He realized he was hoping for something as obvious as a clump of seaweed, some organized life down here. This looked more like droppings from organized life, at best.
They were continuing down, reading their position only by inertial guidance. No global positioning system available here. Del kept the surface apprised: “DEPTH 2200 METERS. STILL GO. SAW INTERESTING MATL, NOT DRAMATIC.”
More than a minute later, “ROGER” echoed back from the surface.
Questor was equipped for samples, and was of course reading temperature, pressure, and content as they descended. Even if the manipulators could be deployed in this mode, would these ... things withstand being grabbed?
Jason almost whimpered as, occasionally, other “strand-things” slid past, some disintegrating as they got close. He was reviewing video in different spectrums, none of which looked compelling to Del. At the same time, Jason’s head oscillated back to the viewport-he did not want to miss anything.
Infrared was useless, so far. Even Questor’s viewport surfaces were generating tremendous heat.
“DEPTH 7800 MTRS. ALL GO.” He watched this being transmitted only a moment, then returned his attention to the depth readout. “May, ready for the 7900 hold?”
“Roger, Del.”
Del could not remember the cool but professional May Watts calling him anything but “Dr. Maris.” Del glanced over his shoulder, despite himself-then up the narrow passageway. May’s station and rows of instruments were tilted just as his were; the angles from his viewpoint were peculiar indeed. She remained intent on her displays.
Del had quickly gotten out of the habit of calling his power engineer “Dr. Watts.”
The mission clock passed 03:58:00.00 - it hadn’t seemed like four hours. Questor’s peculiar mode of operation-melting and sinking in the resulting melt-kept their speed well under a meter per second. And they weren’t going straight down.
Del watched the depth gage. All right, there was the trigger point. “Depth 7890, folks. Reballasting.”
He operated controls, selected menu options-this part was not so different from a submarine after all. Over several seconds, Questor came level.
“Main plant standing down,” came from the intercom-unlike Jason, May could barely be heard except through Del’s headset.
They didn’t bump, exactly. They just oozed to a stop. 7902.3 and steady.
Time to report in.
“QUESTOR AT PLANNED STOP 7902 MTRS. SYSTEMS NOMINAL. CHECKLIST AND REST COMMENCING.”
After a moment, he added, “SO FAR SO GOOD.” The first letters were still being sent.
Ten uneventful minutes later, they had completed the partial turndown of Questor’s reactors and some other systems. Del, for the first time in almost seven hours, crawled out of his seat and stood up. The headroom accommodated his height easily, but he knew the burly Jason at just under two meters towered over him.
Jason stood up as well, with a caution born of long experience. May was coming forward from her well-looked-after charges, and her petite frame did not threaten the ceiling height. She pulled a wall-mounted retracting seat out and down, and sat on the pad. “What did you think you were looking at, Jason?” she asked, not ungently.
Jason was not ready to sit back down. He stretched his arms out, an impressive display in its own right. “I’m not sure. Got excited, I guess.” Del always considered Jason’s voice normal enough, but it certainly was too high-pitched for the size of the fellow. It was still not what he expected.
They talked over the inconclusive strands, and how readily they seemed to fall apart. Jason objected. “At the temperature of our cocoon, anything organic would be dissolving.”
Del glanced up at outside temperature readings; dropping, but still hundreds of degrees higher than what they expected was ambient here. “We’ll have a phase change soon-I don’t know what we’ll see, but it probably won’t look like that.” The uniform dark gray in the viewport seemed to take no offense.
They strung their hammocks with practiced ease, but Del slept only in catnaps. Finally, the gentle alarm sounded, just as Del had been on the verge of getting back to his console. Sleep discipline did not come easy to him.
This time, as they stirred in the cabin, there was no trace of movement of the ship. Del brought the lights back up, and the viewport seemed even darker than before. Del waited for his eyes to adjust, and his impression remained. Looked like a storm brewing outside, or a bad case of fog indeed.
They were closer to “welded in” than “socked in”, but at least that could be fixed.
“QUESTOR PREPARING TO RESTART. DEPTH TO PHASE CHANGE?”
They were three minutes into the power-up checklist before an answer came back: “WE MAKE 8330 MTRS YOUR POSITION. GODSPEED, QUESTOR.”
Once they got going, a little over ten minutes. Del preset a delta readout on a slaved depth meter, which changed to -427.8, and then keyed his mike. “Team, depth circuit 2 shows Control’s best estimate of the breakthrough depth.”
Jason reached forward on his side; Del knew May was doing the same thing back in her domain.
The checklist chased the intervening minutes away. “Thirty seconds to shell power-up.”
“Nominal, standing by,” May answered.
“Go for life sciences,” Jason said a moment later.
This time, there were no outside observers. Gradually, the glowing Questor moved in the grip of the kilometers of solid pressing down on them. Del adjusted controls, and the nose slowly dropped once more. They were off again, at an old man’s walking pace.
“Coming up on interface, estimated fifty meters. Look sharp,” Del said.
“At what?” replied Jason. At that moment, a strand, perhaps larger than the others, smeared itself on the viewport and actually left a bit of a stain for a moment. Jason jumped to his cameras, and wouldn’t have heard Del rebuke him anyway. Del shrugged.
All hands watched that depth readout wind down to zero. And then back up. At plus 38 meters, Questor rocked slightly, and three stomachs informed their owners that the pace downward had accelerated.
They were through-and the viewport was now completely black except for Questor’s own reddish glow at the edges. Time to shift gears.
“May, we’re clear. Stand down on external heat, and rig for maneuvering, please.”
The glow faded, cooled rapidly by the chilled liquid outside. Soon, several thick hatches, barely visible before, slid inward and aside. Small fins and propellers protruded, valves became visible; Questor was a true submarine at last.
Del worked his controls. The now reduced noise of the reactor pumps was joined by thrumming from two propellers tasting strange waters. The ship now moved at his direction, rather than May’s. He leveled out.
“Control check good; we’re moving well. Life science, what’cha got?”
Jason sounded distracted. “Constituents same as before; I’ll need to do detailed comparisons, of course. Don’t swim in it.”
“Ready for exterior lights?”
“Oh, yes. Camera check ... good. Let ‘er rip.”
Beams penetrated Questor’s new environment, but not very far. Del was disappointed, yet this looked like a biological layer. “Murky, hmm?”
“Seems that way. May, can you get samples?”
“... Done.” These would be brought back up, if all went well.
They descended through a muddy snowstorm. Del busied himself with his scan, and messages topside.
“Aah!”
“Jason, what?”
“Did you see that?” Jason’s voice was now definitely too high.
“No. What?” Del heard May echo the same sentiment.
“Something ... swam past. Big.”
“How big? What did it look like?”
“Big,” shot back Jason unhelpfully.
“Jason, snap out of it! Get me a camera view; you’ve still got video three active. Let’s look at it.”
“Roger. Uh, sorry. It was on external twelve, aft starboard. I’ll grab it.”
“I understand your excitement, believe me. But this is what we were trained for, and we came a hell of a long way to have this opportunity. Be professional.”
Seconds later, the video display was tracking again with the view from a camera at the back right side, looking sideways. There was indeed something there-but it looked only like the wake of some object, not like an organism. Just a sudden change in the muddy swirl pattern. Visibility was what, three meters at most? Couldn’t have been that big. Still, an amoeba here would be startling enough.
Del pondered the gray-black swirl in the main viewport for a moment, diffracting Questor’s powerful lights so quickly. Then the lights, and the swirl, disappeared. No, not quite-the “water” outside was suddenly so clear that there was nothing to reflect the searchlight beams back, except for rare specks in the water. Jason was leaning forward and looking up; Del followed suit, and could still see a seething undersurface above, reflecting dimly now in overhead lights. 13,240 meters, he noted.
Del switched modes on the interior lights, plunging the cabin into near darkness punctuated by hundreds of instrument faces and video displays-and even the displays darkened to improve night vision.
As his eyes adjusted, Del realized with a start that some of the specks were not just reflecting his lights. There were whole dim constellations of points in the distance, flowing from one arrangement to another. A school of illuminated fish. Del watched these for a moment, and was surprised to note the ones on the left side winking out. He could make out no shapes, just those points of lights.
“Jason, can we go to infrared?”
“I’ve been watching the hull temps; we’re at the upper temperature range now. I’d try it.”
“Do it. On vid four, please.”
The display came up. Disappointing; large blotchy warm areas on the left and center, artifacts of the skin temp, probably. No points to the right, though-those lights might not be heat sources at all.
The blotches were getting larger, covering much of the display now. And ... undulating?
Del looked up just as a scream was torn from Jason. Something was now visible in the forward beams. Del’s shocked first impression was of a school of hundred-pound channel catfish from the canals of his youth in Louisiana. Ten? Fifteen of them? And more than a hundred pounds. A dark frill surrounded a large mouth in the front, and these shapes kept coming. They could be nearly the size of Questor. And Jason was taking a breath, finally, which May taking up the slack demanding information. All she had back there was the infrared.
“Jason, shut up! May, go to visible spectrum forward on vid one. We have ... visitors. Big fish, it seems.”
Del abruptly realized that these things were on a collision course. “Hang on, I’m getting out of their way.” He grabbed controls, dove steeply, vented gas from a forward ballast tank to speed the process. “Life sciences, give me camera six overhead, visible spectrum on vid three. What are they doing?”
Jason was leaning forward, trying to see and afraid to see. “Jason, work your cameras!”
Technically, Del could do this from his station, but his hands were full. Jason fumbled for a moment, then seemed to pull together enough to get the view patched in.
The “school” was visible, passing serenely overhead. Curious motion - those long tails almost moved like a flagellum on a sperm cell. The group spread out somewhat as they passed through the bubble stream from Questor’s still-venting ballast tank - the bubbles glittered in the clear medium. Perhaps the bubbles were distasteful. Nitrogen gas; Del filed this away.
And Jason screamed again. This was getting tiresome. Del’s scan took in viewports and each of the videos on his side. Nothing alarming. Del had views of each camera, and something ... slammed into Questor from behind. They tilted left. Alarm lights spread across the instruments, and an anguished grinding whine replaced the thrumming of propellers. May’s shouts competed with Jason’s incoherent noise.
Another violent lurch, this time to the right, and they were dragged backward.
The controls were out of action, Jason was panting and useless, but Del needed to see what was going on. He punched video control for aft views. “May, how are your systems.”
“We’re on backup pumps. Main’s out. I’ve got power for most systems, but we can’t do hull at this point. I’ll run diagnostics on the main-maybe we did have a problem topside. But whatever hit us didn’t do us any favors.”
Del had an aft down view going now, hoping to see one of the propellers. The screen was black-but not utterly so. He was getting a signal, and a dim glow from one side suggested that an exterior searchlight still on. Questor lurched again, and Del realized that he was looking down the ... throat? ... of one of the “catfish”. He shuddered, but at the same time a detached scientific part of him wanted to see what this thing looked like inside.
The thing’s mouth was apparently big enough to encompass the nearly five meter span of Questor’s aft end. Del thought for a moment, and linked this display to a ship circuit. “May, Jason, take a look at vid five. Don’t be, uh, alarmed, but one of these things was trying to swallow us and seems to be kind of stuck.”
Nothing came back from May over the headset, but Jason was staring at him wide-eyed. He’d seen this thing approach. Yeah, that would be startling, Del thought.
After a minute, during which the ship continued to lurch occasionally, May spoke up. “What do we do about it?”
Del had been thinking furiously, and tapping out a brief report for Topside. A shame that the ELF transmitter was too impossibly slow for pictures.
“Can you override the hull hatch interlocks to run the heaters?”
“I can, for up to three hatches. We’ve got fourteen open aft, and I don’t think we can close many of them.”
“Then I’m open to suggestions. Jason?”
Nothing. Del turned to look. “Jason?”
Jason looked stricken, and only shook his head. His eyes closed as the ship jerked sideways slightly.
“What?” Del asked.
“Say again?” came from May, who could not see Jason from her station amidships.
“Jason, you were trained for this. I need you.”
“Not ... this.”
“DAMMIT, JASON!” Del’s fist reached out and slammed down on the padded armrest of Jason’s chair. Jason’s eyes snapped open and he cringed, now seemingly more afraid of Del than of the monster gripping them.
“Jason, I NEED YOU to snap out of this. We have a ship emergency, and you’re in it, sport. I you want to live to tell this fish story, you damned well better get it in gear NOW. Understand?”
“What ... do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know yet, other than keep monitoring our environment. Hell, if we extended an aft sampler, we’d get a live tissue sample. I don’t think he’d even notice; he seems to have tangled our props badly.”
Jason suddenly grinned, creating a mixed impression of madness for a moment. “Uh... tickle him?”
“You think the sampler would? Our external manipulators are forward; we can’t reach back that far.”
“No. Gas him. Did you see the herd scatter?”
Irrelevantly, Del frowned at “herd” for a group of swimming creatures, but yes, they seemed not to like the bubble stream at all.
“What’s he suggesting?” May said.
“When we maneuvered to get away from the school, we vented nitrogen from a forward tank. The catfish didn’t seem to like it. Jason thinks we should vent the aft tank and give him a snootful.”
Several seconds passed before May’s answer. “Sounds all right. It’s hard to imagine how we could make this thing much madder than being a house-trailer-sized pill stuck in its throat.”
“Okay, we’ll try it. Check your harnesses.” Not that they needed a reminder. Aft tanks-five and six-venting...now.
Whoa! A bucking bronco, or slamming over boulders in an off-road vehicle. Del stole a glance at Jason, who seemed grim and scared but not panicking. That it was his idea seemed to help.
“May?”
“Holding on. Glad we ... oof ... don’t have chandeliers.”
Perhaps ten seconds had passed. Then the motion changed; a rhythmic circular movement as if Questor were being used as a jump-rope handle. Del remembered the spinning tails; this fellow was probably in full-reverse.
And then they were free. Just in time; Del was sorely regretting the lack of sea-sickness bags.
From the strangled noise in the headset, it was too late for May.
He glanced back, and pitied his engineer. But his inner ear wasn’t done with him yet; the aft was now dropping rapidly as the too-heavy ballast tanks had their say. Del’s head snapped around, focusing intently on ballast controls as the nose continued to rise. The effect was exaggerated in his mind.
“I’ll ... get us stabilized. Blowing aft tanks.”
Maybe not. Red lights on both aft vents. In the exposed ports, apparently some part of their unwelcome hitchhiker had fouled these as well. What now?
Del gulped; his stomach was still struggling, and the rotating stations were not designed for this extreme nose-up attitude. He needed straight-and-level, fast.
All right. He vented forward tanks, and the angle immediately decreased. Within a minute, he was able to trim level-at the cost of dropping at about two meters per second. Bottom clearance? No problem; no return on the passive, so it was a thousands of meters away at least. Hull pressure should be fine, but they’d taken some abuse.
“May? How are you?” Del felt almost well enough to risk a look, but not quite.
“Gah! Better ... thanks.” Spitting sounds over the headset. “I’ve made a mess here, but I’m fine.”
“Jason?”
The answer was almost chipper. “Doing fine, now.” Damn, he did look happy. Del shook his head.
“Let’s do a full systems check, and see what other damage we took.”
They continued to descend, once again able to marvel at constellations of moving lights in the distance.
Power was good; life support good, most of their equipment was still intact. The aft vents were still fouled, but judicious power while watching through a camera cleared one of their propellers. The minutes ticked past, joined to hours.
They could see heat sources from time to time, perhaps more “catfish”, but none approached.
Del voiced what all must have been thinking. “We still have the emergency release pod. Its little plant and heaters will get it to the surface, eventually. I’m not ready to turn it loose, though. And we have positive buoyancy. We’ll just be a little steeper than usual.”
May sounded almost amused. “As long as we don’t go through the tumble dry cycle, it’ll be fine.”
“All right. I’m for continuing down; we’ve got plenty of margin on the hull as long as Charlie didn’t squeeze too hard.”
“Seems okay. The embedded stress sensors are nominal. And I rolled that recording back-we were never squeezed hard. Good thing Charlie was more catfish than shark.”
Del decided not to tell May about his brief experience noodling channel cats as a youth. You reched into their mouths, and ... that skin grew back, anyway, finally.
“What do you think, Jason?”
Jason’s expression was neutral, but his gesture was a thumbs-down.
“What’s the problem?”
“No problem, I’m set. And thumbs-down to the Romans means ‘let him live’. Besides, we came here to go down and see.”
There was nothing to do, really. They were already on their way.
“I’m going to risk an active scan, although it might attract some attention. I’d like to see where the bottom really is. Any objections?”
There were none.
It took nearly a minute to build up the image on the display; mostly flat floor, but a low sloping seamount was nearly below them. They would touch down at the perimeter unless they changed their path. That touchdown was some time away, however; more than 11,000 meters below them, at a depth of almost 45,000 meters. Forty-five kilometers down. Del glanced at the viewport again, and the hull.
They broke out sandwiches, and passed the time taking readings and chatting. Lots of life in the water, but by now this was no surprise. Del’s report took about ten minutes to put together. He could imagine it coming in over the space of more than an hour topside, being agonized over a character at a time. Good for them; it would build character.
Questor seemed to have passed below the layer of moving lights, but the water was still clear enough; few particles showed in their beams. Jason grumped about the lack of electron microscope on board. He could do chemistry or spectrometry, but not gene sequencing. If they had genes.
As they approached 44,000 meters, roughly the level of the seamount’s peak, tension increased. Passive scans could pick up distance readings, using subsonic rumbles in the water itself.
The light-bearers were visible again, closer but still too far for details. Curiously, they flowed toward the mountain. Afraid of Questor? Now they could see it; the low regular peak rising past their window nearly two kilometers away. And they could see the lights, winking out as they reached-entered?-the seamount.
Jason was chatting about the probable instincts of the light-bearers when the first shock hit.
Del grabbed controls; it wasn’t bad-they had been treated more harshly by Charlie the Catfish. Another shock followed. “Seaquake, it seems. Shall we head away from the mountain?”
May said “Can we hold our depth here?”
“Not level, but yes.” He bent to it; soon they were nose high but stopped, about a hundred meters from the seafloor. Waves of bubbles rose past; Del expected to hear them, despite the hull thickness.
“Jason, get me a camera view of our touchdown point, please.”
“I’ll put it on video five.” Jason’s first attempt looked the wrong direction; the angle of the ship made this tricky.
“Directly below us is toward the bottom edge, here. Not much illumination, but see those clouds of mud?”
May commented first. “Those clouds are ... pretty regular, aren’t they?”
Indeed they were. They billowed about an arc that swept near Questor’s intended grounding point.
Del saw something else. “See that, ah, groove?”
“Yeah, I missed it before,” said Jason. “Doesn’t look safe; we should motor elsewhere.”
“Agreed.”
May spoke again. “Look at the groove!”
They’d seen it, Del thought, but when he looked-it was much larger than even seconds ago. And the clouds of mud were disappearing into it. Del’s glance up and out of the viewport showed only the tip of the seamount, but something was wrong. “It’s rising. The seamount is lifting!”
Majestically, this entire mass rose up into their view, headed for the surface of Europa and points beyond. And already, the surface of what had seemed to be a mountain was starting to glow redly as it rose toward the kilometers of ice above.
Other oceans to explore?
Though the sky was nearly dark, mountains glittered redly in the distance. Everywhere, the deepening pink glow reflected on the plains overlaid all natural colors. At the assembly site, artificial lighting had been set up, bitter and sharp in contrast with the somber background.
The crew bustled, making last minute adjustments. Short gantries and cranes surrounded and obscured an unusual device-a tubular twelve-meter shape with rounded ends, mostly smooth from this distance, but ribbed lengthwise and on the curves at each end. The object seemed small, until a white-suited technician appeared at one of the thick cable bundles connecting it to surrounding equipment - the tube’s diameter was over twice the technician’s height. It was not much more impressive than a reinforced pressure tank and had few exterior markings.
This construct had a name, though-Questor-and it had occupants.
And a problem.
“Questor, we’re showing a temperature anomaly on your PTP-are you tracking this?”
Del Maris had just seen this as well. “Roger, Control, we’re looking at it now.” He shook his head-scratch this project, and the next attempt would be a very long time coming. Del made brief eye contact with Jason in the right seat, getting a grim look in return.
Del keyed the internal circuit. “May, the primary thermal plant is acting up. Take a look, please.”
“On it now.”
No more than thirty seconds passed. Del continued his instrument scan and procedures. They were on hold at three minutes to initiation, but even hold times had checklists. Motors and equipment fans hummed, but the primary sound inside was that of liquid flowing through the surrounding hull.
May Watts’ voice ended the anxious wait. “It was actually no major problem. We had been on hold longer than anticipated at seventeen minutes; the PTP’s main pump had been offline during that time for the standard fallback pressure test. The pile stabilized sixty degrees higher on the backup pumps, and was still coming down from that. It never exceeded nominal parameters.”
Jason Ellison was already calling up the temperature curve on his side of the display, Del saw. He touched a key. “Control, did you copy?”
“Roger, Questor-and we had just worked this out ourselves.”
Del grinned in spite of the palpable tension. And was that a snort in the background? “All right, Control. Recommendations?”
“None, Questor. We will complete the pre-positioning, then resume the countdown. We’re reading your systems nominal at this point.”
“Except for ...“
“... and the PTP temp should be nominal before we resume countdown.”
“Uh, roger Control.”
Historical significance weighed heavily on the three inside. Del sensed this in his team, and knew the pressure well. They did not want to abort unless there was no other rational choice. They didn’t want to “screw the pooch” either, as the old expression went. But a delay might not kill them.
A change in the light distracted him. Though the thick viewport above his panel, he saw one of the work-lights being pulled back. Control crackled in his ear once again.
“Stand by for C3 cable disconnect.”
Del paused only a moment, glancing at Jason and receiving a shrug. Glancing over his right shoulder down the long passageway, he saw May look up from her instruments and give him the “thumbs up” sign.
Ah, well. We’re on.
“Go for cable cluster three disconnect, Control.”
The next minutes flowed by in smooth succession; there had been many months to practice these drills. Finally:
“Questor, we are prepared to continue the count at T minus three minutes.”
“We are go for countdown, Control. Wish us luck.”
“Um, good luck and safe journey, Del, May, Jason. We’ll be waiting.”
There was a brief confusion as Del and crewmates replied simultaneously.
“Questor, we are go at three minutes.”
Above Del, the mission clock began to change once again.
Outside, Questor was now illuminated only distantly by the work floods. The equipment and scaffolding had been pulled back tens of meters, and the few other support vehicles were also backed safely away. A dim yellowish glow could now be seen from one end, and at a few other points along the exterior, passing the soft interior light to the outside.
Three minutes passed.
There was no change at first; despite the high level of tension, the beginning of this mission was not at all an obvious event.
Ah, something happening: Gradually, the entire craft began to glow, beginning with the ribs running over the ship. And from the standpoint of the observers, it appeared to slowly recede in the distance. After a few more moments, this illusion was revealed to be the Questor merely sitting lower on the flat surface. The crimson surface brightened, but was not unbearable to look at.
And in that solid surface, over the space of about two minutes, the Questor nosed down and ... sank.
Jason now seemed to be in his element, though no human could be practiced at this stunt. Del continued to monitor his own board while stealing glances at the viewport. He now was looking down to do this, as his console and seat had rotated to accommodate Questor’s unusual attitude. At first, the material illuminated by the interior lights (and recorded, Del knew, by banks of cameras) seemed to be a featureless gray. From time to time, a striation of some darker shade slid past. This helped; only the gentlest of rocking gave any real feeling of movement.
Questor slid down at about a 45 degree angle, cocooned in a liquid bubble melted by its exterior heaters. Only meters behind them, the liquid solidified once again, and one hardy technician was already venturing onto the smooth spot where the ship had rested minutes before.
Del’s habitual instrument scan picked up the first activity of the ELF monitor. Normal radio communication was long gone, as expected, but the extremely low frequency band would allow them to talk to the surface. As long as they were patient. He busied himself elsewhere, letting the message build up.
“QUESTOR: STATUS?”
Del grinned wryly. “NOMINAL,” he sent, watching as the cursor paused on each character playing it back to the surface.
“Wait, stop!” Jason’s excited voice startled Del.
“What? What?” came tensely over the intercom. May was startled, too.
Del scanned anxiously, looking for an out of tolerance system to shut down. Jason on the other side of the cabin was waving anxiously-then stopped. “Never mind.”
“WHAT?” came from Del and May at the same time.
Jason looked abashed and annoyed at the same time. “That was no striation, it was a strand of ... something.”
Del frowned. “We couldn’t have stopped that fast, anyway. Play the images back.”
It almost seemed that Jason hadn’t considered this. He keyed one of the large displays on his side. “Take a look, both of you.”
“Just a minute,” May said. “What circuit?”
“Video Three.” Del keyed one of his own displays.
Jason manipulated his controls - but without the mission timestamp on the video, this was barely obvious. Grey on gray, an occasional stripe moving past.
“There.”
The image stopped on a slightly curved streak across the lower left of the display, then moved forward. The streak crept past-but not quite uniformly. Distortion from the surrounding fluid? Was it a “connected strand”? Hard to tell.
The image stopped again, and a thin rectangle appeared over part of the “strand” as Jason prepared to zoom in.
Much closer now. And it was ... still ambiguous. Poor lighting, the dark color of the material, and the amorphous shapes. He realized he was hoping for something as obvious as a clump of seaweed, some organized life down here. This looked more like droppings from organized life, at best.
They were continuing down, reading their position only by inertial guidance. No global positioning system available here. Del kept the surface apprised: “DEPTH 2200 METERS. STILL GO. SAW INTERESTING MATL, NOT DRAMATIC.”
More than a minute later, “ROGER” echoed back from the surface.
Questor was equipped for samples, and was of course reading temperature, pressure, and content as they descended. Even if the manipulators could be deployed in this mode, would these ... things withstand being grabbed?
Jason almost whimpered as, occasionally, other “strand-things” slid past, some disintegrating as they got close. He was reviewing video in different spectrums, none of which looked compelling to Del. At the same time, Jason’s head oscillated back to the viewport-he did not want to miss anything.
Infrared was useless, so far. Even Questor’s viewport surfaces were generating tremendous heat.
“DEPTH 7800 MTRS. ALL GO.” He watched this being transmitted only a moment, then returned his attention to the depth readout. “May, ready for the 7900 hold?”
“Roger, Del.”
Del could not remember the cool but professional May Watts calling him anything but “Dr. Maris.” Del glanced over his shoulder, despite himself-then up the narrow passageway. May’s station and rows of instruments were tilted just as his were; the angles from his viewpoint were peculiar indeed. She remained intent on her displays.
Del had quickly gotten out of the habit of calling his power engineer “Dr. Watts.”
The mission clock passed 03:58:00.00 - it hadn’t seemed like four hours. Questor’s peculiar mode of operation-melting and sinking in the resulting melt-kept their speed well under a meter per second. And they weren’t going straight down.
Del watched the depth gage. All right, there was the trigger point. “Depth 7890, folks. Reballasting.”
He operated controls, selected menu options-this part was not so different from a submarine after all. Over several seconds, Questor came level.
“Main plant standing down,” came from the intercom-unlike Jason, May could barely be heard except through Del’s headset.
They didn’t bump, exactly. They just oozed to a stop. 7902.3 and steady.
Time to report in.
“QUESTOR AT PLANNED STOP 7902 MTRS. SYSTEMS NOMINAL. CHECKLIST AND REST COMMENCING.”
After a moment, he added, “SO FAR SO GOOD.” The first letters were still being sent.
Ten uneventful minutes later, they had completed the partial turndown of Questor’s reactors and some other systems. Del, for the first time in almost seven hours, crawled out of his seat and stood up. The headroom accommodated his height easily, but he knew the burly Jason at just under two meters towered over him.
Jason stood up as well, with a caution born of long experience. May was coming forward from her well-looked-after charges, and her petite frame did not threaten the ceiling height. She pulled a wall-mounted retracting seat out and down, and sat on the pad. “What did you think you were looking at, Jason?” she asked, not ungently.
Jason was not ready to sit back down. He stretched his arms out, an impressive display in its own right. “I’m not sure. Got excited, I guess.” Del always considered Jason’s voice normal enough, but it certainly was too high-pitched for the size of the fellow. It was still not what he expected.
They talked over the inconclusive strands, and how readily they seemed to fall apart. Jason objected. “At the temperature of our cocoon, anything organic would be dissolving.”
Del glanced up at outside temperature readings; dropping, but still hundreds of degrees higher than what they expected was ambient here. “We’ll have a phase change soon-I don’t know what we’ll see, but it probably won’t look like that.” The uniform dark gray in the viewport seemed to take no offense.
They strung their hammocks with practiced ease, but Del slept only in catnaps. Finally, the gentle alarm sounded, just as Del had been on the verge of getting back to his console. Sleep discipline did not come easy to him.
This time, as they stirred in the cabin, there was no trace of movement of the ship. Del brought the lights back up, and the viewport seemed even darker than before. Del waited for his eyes to adjust, and his impression remained. Looked like a storm brewing outside, or a bad case of fog indeed.
They were closer to “welded in” than “socked in”, but at least that could be fixed.
“QUESTOR PREPARING TO RESTART. DEPTH TO PHASE CHANGE?”
They were three minutes into the power-up checklist before an answer came back: “WE MAKE 8330 MTRS YOUR POSITION. GODSPEED, QUESTOR.”
Once they got going, a little over ten minutes. Del preset a delta readout on a slaved depth meter, which changed to -427.8, and then keyed his mike. “Team, depth circuit 2 shows Control’s best estimate of the breakthrough depth.”
Jason reached forward on his side; Del knew May was doing the same thing back in her domain.
The checklist chased the intervening minutes away. “Thirty seconds to shell power-up.”
“Nominal, standing by,” May answered.
“Go for life sciences,” Jason said a moment later.
This time, there were no outside observers. Gradually, the glowing Questor moved in the grip of the kilometers of solid pressing down on them. Del adjusted controls, and the nose slowly dropped once more. They were off again, at an old man’s walking pace.
“Coming up on interface, estimated fifty meters. Look sharp,” Del said.
“At what?” replied Jason. At that moment, a strand, perhaps larger than the others, smeared itself on the viewport and actually left a bit of a stain for a moment. Jason jumped to his cameras, and wouldn’t have heard Del rebuke him anyway. Del shrugged.
All hands watched that depth readout wind down to zero. And then back up. At plus 38 meters, Questor rocked slightly, and three stomachs informed their owners that the pace downward had accelerated.
They were through-and the viewport was now completely black except for Questor’s own reddish glow at the edges. Time to shift gears.
“May, we’re clear. Stand down on external heat, and rig for maneuvering, please.”
The glow faded, cooled rapidly by the chilled liquid outside. Soon, several thick hatches, barely visible before, slid inward and aside. Small fins and propellers protruded, valves became visible; Questor was a true submarine at last.
Del worked his controls. The now reduced noise of the reactor pumps was joined by thrumming from two propellers tasting strange waters. The ship now moved at his direction, rather than May’s. He leveled out.
“Control check good; we’re moving well. Life science, what’cha got?”
Jason sounded distracted. “Constituents same as before; I’ll need to do detailed comparisons, of course. Don’t swim in it.”
“Ready for exterior lights?”
“Oh, yes. Camera check ... good. Let ‘er rip.”
Beams penetrated Questor’s new environment, but not very far. Del was disappointed, yet this looked like a biological layer. “Murky, hmm?”
“Seems that way. May, can you get samples?”
“... Done.” These would be brought back up, if all went well.
They descended through a muddy snowstorm. Del busied himself with his scan, and messages topside.
“Aah!”
“Jason, what?”
“Did you see that?” Jason’s voice was now definitely too high.
“No. What?” Del heard May echo the same sentiment.
“Something ... swam past. Big.”
“How big? What did it look like?”
“Big,” shot back Jason unhelpfully.
“Jason, snap out of it! Get me a camera view; you’ve still got video three active. Let’s look at it.”
“Roger. Uh, sorry. It was on external twelve, aft starboard. I’ll grab it.”
“I understand your excitement, believe me. But this is what we were trained for, and we came a hell of a long way to have this opportunity. Be professional.”
Seconds later, the video display was tracking again with the view from a camera at the back right side, looking sideways. There was indeed something there-but it looked only like the wake of some object, not like an organism. Just a sudden change in the muddy swirl pattern. Visibility was what, three meters at most? Couldn’t have been that big. Still, an amoeba here would be startling enough.
Del pondered the gray-black swirl in the main viewport for a moment, diffracting Questor’s powerful lights so quickly. Then the lights, and the swirl, disappeared. No, not quite-the “water” outside was suddenly so clear that there was nothing to reflect the searchlight beams back, except for rare specks in the water. Jason was leaning forward and looking up; Del followed suit, and could still see a seething undersurface above, reflecting dimly now in overhead lights. 13,240 meters, he noted.
Del switched modes on the interior lights, plunging the cabin into near darkness punctuated by hundreds of instrument faces and video displays-and even the displays darkened to improve night vision.
As his eyes adjusted, Del realized with a start that some of the specks were not just reflecting his lights. There were whole dim constellations of points in the distance, flowing from one arrangement to another. A school of illuminated fish. Del watched these for a moment, and was surprised to note the ones on the left side winking out. He could make out no shapes, just those points of lights.
“Jason, can we go to infrared?”
“I’ve been watching the hull temps; we’re at the upper temperature range now. I’d try it.”
“Do it. On vid four, please.”
The display came up. Disappointing; large blotchy warm areas on the left and center, artifacts of the skin temp, probably. No points to the right, though-those lights might not be heat sources at all.
The blotches were getting larger, covering much of the display now. And ... undulating?
Del looked up just as a scream was torn from Jason. Something was now visible in the forward beams. Del’s shocked first impression was of a school of hundred-pound channel catfish from the canals of his youth in Louisiana. Ten? Fifteen of them? And more than a hundred pounds. A dark frill surrounded a large mouth in the front, and these shapes kept coming. They could be nearly the size of Questor. And Jason was taking a breath, finally, which May taking up the slack demanding information. All she had back there was the infrared.
“Jason, shut up! May, go to visible spectrum forward on vid one. We have ... visitors. Big fish, it seems.”
Del abruptly realized that these things were on a collision course. “Hang on, I’m getting out of their way.” He grabbed controls, dove steeply, vented gas from a forward ballast tank to speed the process. “Life sciences, give me camera six overhead, visible spectrum on vid three. What are they doing?”
Jason was leaning forward, trying to see and afraid to see. “Jason, work your cameras!”
Technically, Del could do this from his station, but his hands were full. Jason fumbled for a moment, then seemed to pull together enough to get the view patched in.
The “school” was visible, passing serenely overhead. Curious motion - those long tails almost moved like a flagellum on a sperm cell. The group spread out somewhat as they passed through the bubble stream from Questor’s still-venting ballast tank - the bubbles glittered in the clear medium. Perhaps the bubbles were distasteful. Nitrogen gas; Del filed this away.
And Jason screamed again. This was getting tiresome. Del’s scan took in viewports and each of the videos on his side. Nothing alarming. Del had views of each camera, and something ... slammed into Questor from behind. They tilted left. Alarm lights spread across the instruments, and an anguished grinding whine replaced the thrumming of propellers. May’s shouts competed with Jason’s incoherent noise.
Another violent lurch, this time to the right, and they were dragged backward.
The controls were out of action, Jason was panting and useless, but Del needed to see what was going on. He punched video control for aft views. “May, how are your systems.”
“We’re on backup pumps. Main’s out. I’ve got power for most systems, but we can’t do hull at this point. I’ll run diagnostics on the main-maybe we did have a problem topside. But whatever hit us didn’t do us any favors.”
Del had an aft down view going now, hoping to see one of the propellers. The screen was black-but not utterly so. He was getting a signal, and a dim glow from one side suggested that an exterior searchlight still on. Questor lurched again, and Del realized that he was looking down the ... throat? ... of one of the “catfish”. He shuddered, but at the same time a detached scientific part of him wanted to see what this thing looked like inside.
The thing’s mouth was apparently big enough to encompass the nearly five meter span of Questor’s aft end. Del thought for a moment, and linked this display to a ship circuit. “May, Jason, take a look at vid five. Don’t be, uh, alarmed, but one of these things was trying to swallow us and seems to be kind of stuck.”
Nothing came back from May over the headset, but Jason was staring at him wide-eyed. He’d seen this thing approach. Yeah, that would be startling, Del thought.
After a minute, during which the ship continued to lurch occasionally, May spoke up. “What do we do about it?”
Del had been thinking furiously, and tapping out a brief report for Topside. A shame that the ELF transmitter was too impossibly slow for pictures.
“Can you override the hull hatch interlocks to run the heaters?”
“I can, for up to three hatches. We’ve got fourteen open aft, and I don’t think we can close many of them.”
“Then I’m open to suggestions. Jason?”
Nothing. Del turned to look. “Jason?”
Jason looked stricken, and only shook his head. His eyes closed as the ship jerked sideways slightly.
“What?” Del asked.
“Say again?” came from May, who could not see Jason from her station amidships.
“Jason, you were trained for this. I need you.”
“Not ... this.”
“DAMMIT, JASON!” Del’s fist reached out and slammed down on the padded armrest of Jason’s chair. Jason’s eyes snapped open and he cringed, now seemingly more afraid of Del than of the monster gripping them.
“Jason, I NEED YOU to snap out of this. We have a ship emergency, and you’re in it, sport. I you want to live to tell this fish story, you damned well better get it in gear NOW. Understand?”
“What ... do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know yet, other than keep monitoring our environment. Hell, if we extended an aft sampler, we’d get a live tissue sample. I don’t think he’d even notice; he seems to have tangled our props badly.”
Jason suddenly grinned, creating a mixed impression of madness for a moment. “Uh... tickle him?”
“You think the sampler would? Our external manipulators are forward; we can’t reach back that far.”
“No. Gas him. Did you see the herd scatter?”
Irrelevantly, Del frowned at “herd” for a group of swimming creatures, but yes, they seemed not to like the bubble stream at all.
“What’s he suggesting?” May said.
“When we maneuvered to get away from the school, we vented nitrogen from a forward tank. The catfish didn’t seem to like it. Jason thinks we should vent the aft tank and give him a snootful.”
Several seconds passed before May’s answer. “Sounds all right. It’s hard to imagine how we could make this thing much madder than being a house-trailer-sized pill stuck in its throat.”
“Okay, we’ll try it. Check your harnesses.” Not that they needed a reminder. Aft tanks-five and six-venting...now.
Whoa! A bucking bronco, or slamming over boulders in an off-road vehicle. Del stole a glance at Jason, who seemed grim and scared but not panicking. That it was his idea seemed to help.
“May?”
“Holding on. Glad we ... oof ... don’t have chandeliers.”
Perhaps ten seconds had passed. Then the motion changed; a rhythmic circular movement as if Questor were being used as a jump-rope handle. Del remembered the spinning tails; this fellow was probably in full-reverse.
And then they were free. Just in time; Del was sorely regretting the lack of sea-sickness bags.
From the strangled noise in the headset, it was too late for May.
He glanced back, and pitied his engineer. But his inner ear wasn’t done with him yet; the aft was now dropping rapidly as the too-heavy ballast tanks had their say. Del’s head snapped around, focusing intently on ballast controls as the nose continued to rise. The effect was exaggerated in his mind.
“I’ll ... get us stabilized. Blowing aft tanks.”
Maybe not. Red lights on both aft vents. In the exposed ports, apparently some part of their unwelcome hitchhiker had fouled these as well. What now?
Del gulped; his stomach was still struggling, and the rotating stations were not designed for this extreme nose-up attitude. He needed straight-and-level, fast.
All right. He vented forward tanks, and the angle immediately decreased. Within a minute, he was able to trim level-at the cost of dropping at about two meters per second. Bottom clearance? No problem; no return on the passive, so it was a thousands of meters away at least. Hull pressure should be fine, but they’d taken some abuse.
“May? How are you?” Del felt almost well enough to risk a look, but not quite.
“Gah! Better ... thanks.” Spitting sounds over the headset. “I’ve made a mess here, but I’m fine.”
“Jason?”
The answer was almost chipper. “Doing fine, now.” Damn, he did look happy. Del shook his head.
“Let’s do a full systems check, and see what other damage we took.”
They continued to descend, once again able to marvel at constellations of moving lights in the distance.
Power was good; life support good, most of their equipment was still intact. The aft vents were still fouled, but judicious power while watching through a camera cleared one of their propellers. The minutes ticked past, joined to hours.
They could see heat sources from time to time, perhaps more “catfish”, but none approached.
Del voiced what all must have been thinking. “We still have the emergency release pod. Its little plant and heaters will get it to the surface, eventually. I’m not ready to turn it loose, though. And we have positive buoyancy. We’ll just be a little steeper than usual.”
May sounded almost amused. “As long as we don’t go through the tumble dry cycle, it’ll be fine.”
“All right. I’m for continuing down; we’ve got plenty of margin on the hull as long as Charlie didn’t squeeze too hard.”
“Seems okay. The embedded stress sensors are nominal. And I rolled that recording back-we were never squeezed hard. Good thing Charlie was more catfish than shark.”
Del decided not to tell May about his brief experience noodling channel cats as a youth. You reched into their mouths, and ... that skin grew back, anyway, finally.
“What do you think, Jason?”
Jason’s expression was neutral, but his gesture was a thumbs-down.
“What’s the problem?”
“No problem, I’m set. And thumbs-down to the Romans means ‘let him live’. Besides, we came here to go down and see.”
There was nothing to do, really. They were already on their way.
“I’m going to risk an active scan, although it might attract some attention. I’d like to see where the bottom really is. Any objections?”
There were none.
It took nearly a minute to build up the image on the display; mostly flat floor, but a low sloping seamount was nearly below them. They would touch down at the perimeter unless they changed their path. That touchdown was some time away, however; more than 11,000 meters below them, at a depth of almost 45,000 meters. Forty-five kilometers down. Del glanced at the viewport again, and the hull.
They broke out sandwiches, and passed the time taking readings and chatting. Lots of life in the water, but by now this was no surprise. Del’s report took about ten minutes to put together. He could imagine it coming in over the space of more than an hour topside, being agonized over a character at a time. Good for them; it would build character.
Questor seemed to have passed below the layer of moving lights, but the water was still clear enough; few particles showed in their beams. Jason grumped about the lack of electron microscope on board. He could do chemistry or spectrometry, but not gene sequencing. If they had genes.
As they approached 44,000 meters, roughly the level of the seamount’s peak, tension increased. Passive scans could pick up distance readings, using subsonic rumbles in the water itself.
The light-bearers were visible again, closer but still too far for details. Curiously, they flowed toward the mountain. Afraid of Questor? Now they could see it; the low regular peak rising past their window nearly two kilometers away. And they could see the lights, winking out as they reached-entered?-the seamount.
Jason was chatting about the probable instincts of the light-bearers when the first shock hit.
Del grabbed controls; it wasn’t bad-they had been treated more harshly by Charlie the Catfish. Another shock followed. “Seaquake, it seems. Shall we head away from the mountain?”
May said “Can we hold our depth here?”
“Not level, but yes.” He bent to it; soon they were nose high but stopped, about a hundred meters from the seafloor. Waves of bubbles rose past; Del expected to hear them, despite the hull thickness.
“Jason, get me a camera view of our touchdown point, please.”
“I’ll put it on video five.” Jason’s first attempt looked the wrong direction; the angle of the ship made this tricky.
“Directly below us is toward the bottom edge, here. Not much illumination, but see those clouds of mud?”
May commented first. “Those clouds are ... pretty regular, aren’t they?”
Indeed they were. They billowed about an arc that swept near Questor’s intended grounding point.
Del saw something else. “See that, ah, groove?”
“Yeah, I missed it before,” said Jason. “Doesn’t look safe; we should motor elsewhere.”
“Agreed.”
May spoke again. “Look at the groove!”
They’d seen it, Del thought, but when he looked-it was much larger than even seconds ago. And the clouds of mud were disappearing into it. Del’s glance up and out of the viewport showed only the tip of the seamount, but something was wrong. “It’s rising. The seamount is lifting!”
Majestically, this entire mass rose up into their view, headed for the surface of Europa and points beyond. And already, the surface of what had seemed to be a mountain was starting to glow redly as it rose toward the kilometers of ice above.
Other oceans to explore?