Abyss Deep (24 page)

“Perhaps. But I'm . . . concerned. The
Walsh
is not armed, and we still have a hostile submersible down there someplace . . . plus some very large creatures that have already attacked us.”

“
I
am going,” Montgomery said, and the tone of her voice blocked any thought of argument. “It's why I came on this godforsaken mission in the first place!”

“Me too,” Ortega said. “We're still guessing about conditions more than a few kilometers down. This will be an unprecedented opportunity.”

“I would suggest two Marines,” Kemmerer said. “Myself and one other, preferably a pilot. Plus a ­couple of Corpsmen as technical staff.”

“Why Marines?” Walthers wanted to know. “They won't be able to shoot, can't threaten the bad guys or scare off the Gucks. Nobody will be able to board the
Walsh
without opening her up, and under those pressures, that would instantly kill everyone on board. In fact, they won't be able to do anything but take up space.”

“Point,” Kemmerer said. She sounded disappointed.

O
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D'deen, one of the M'nangats, printed out in our in-­heads. I
F THERE IS INDEED A
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.

“Just one of you?” Montgomery asked. “Or all three of you?”

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.

That seemed a cold-­blooded way to look at the situation. But then, D'deen, I remembered, was the life donor of the triad . . . the equivalent of a male in human reproduction. For millennia in human society it had been the male who risked his life in warfare, with the idea of protecting women—­the egg bearers and life bearers—­back home. It wasn't that different with the Brocs.

“We still need a mission commander,” Kemmerer said. “A military commander.”

“Why
military
, for God's sake?” Montgomery said. Her face wrinkled in what I swear was disgust. “Like Mr. Walthers said, you won't be able to shoot anything down there . . . or threaten it. This is a civilian research operation. . . .”

“A civilian research operation under the aegis of a military mission,” Kemmerer said firmly, “and one, I will remind you, facing hostile military forces. We need someone down there capable of making key military judgments and command decisions.”

“
Jesus!
” Garner exclaimed over the link. “What the fuck will it matter?”

“Chief Garner is right,” Walthers said. “You won't be able to give orders to the Marines from up here. If anything goes wrong down there, we won't even know about it.”

“Not quite true, Captain,” Kemmerer told him. “
Walsh
has a bail-­out sphere, right?”

“Well . . . yes . . .” Walthers said with obvious reluctance.

“If the
Walsh
is destroyed, even if she's completely crushed, the bail-­out sphere will break free and pop to the surface. And it can carry a complete log recording of everything that happens down there.”

The bail-­out sphere, in essence, was a one-­man escape capsule, a sphere of ultradense collapsed matter with space enough inside for one or, just possibly, two, embedded within the submersible's hull just aft of her crew compartment. It would still be a long shot, of course. If the sphere popped up underneath the ice—­a good chance of that—­the ­people at the surface base or on board
Haldane
might never hear its emergency transmissions.

I pulled down a set of engineering stats to check. Okay . . . the sphere
did
have through-­ice capability. If it was trapped beneath an ice ceiling, it could release nano from an external unit that would chew through the ice in order to send up a radio antenna . . . but there
were
limits. The ice would have to be less than about a kilometer in thickness for that to have a chance of working.

Most of the ice on Abyssworld's nightside was between ten and a hundred kilometers thick.

“I think you will all agree that this
is
a military situation,” Kemmerer went on, “and that it may require trained military judgment. If whatever we encounter down there is, in my judgment, a military threat, I will be able to communicate that to the surface, even if the Walsh is destroyed.”

“With respect, ma'am,” Gunny Hancock told her, “your place will be here with the rest of the Marines, not gallivanting off on your own with the civilians.”

“Command prerogative, Gunny.”

“There's no such thing, ma'am. Your responsibility is to the entire unit . . . and to the mission.”

“Then who do you suggest?”

He grinned at her. “Why, me, Lieutenant. Who else?”

“He does have FO experience, ma'am,” Thomason pointed out. FO—­Forward Observer—­was a military specialty involving sneaking in close to an enemy and passing information back to the artillery, air, or space units that could actually do something about it.

And in any case, that's the way of it in the military. Any officer worth the cost of his or her training knows you rely on the experience, the training, and the judgment of your noncommissioned officers—­NCOs like Gunny Hancock or Staff Sergeant Thomason or Chief Garner. The gunny could assess any military threat we encountered in the abyss and make suggestions as well as a lieutenant could, and probably a hell of a lot better. The lieutenant would be in a better position to evaluate the threat from her office in the base topside, or on board
Haldane
, and give the appropriate orders to the Marines under her command.

The various naval officers didn't count. Walthers was needed topside to command the ship, and the other officers under his command all were specialists, each running his or her own department. They were needed topside as well . . . and none had the type of combat experience necessary to make command judgments of the sort Kemmerer and Hancock were talking about.

“Very well,” Kemmerer said. “You've made your point. But we still need a pilot.”

“The AI will serve that function,” Walthers said.

“I'd like a
human
pilot if we can . . . a drone driver for preference.”

“How about ET2 Lloyd?”

I didn't know the name. I looked it up on my in-­head, from
Haldane
's personnel roster, and found her quickly enough. Gina Lloyd. She was a Navy ET, an Electronics Tech Second Class in
Haldane
's flight squadron. She wasn't a fighter pilot like the Marines flying the two Star Raiders, but was part of the research vessel's flight control staff who teleoperated various recon drones, fueling remotes, and robotic vessels from the
Haldane
's combat command center.

“Is she linked in?” Kemmerer asked.

“I'm here, ma'am,” a woman's voice said.

“Do you want in on this craziness? It's volunteers only.”

“Wouldn't miss it, ma'am.”

“Okay,” Kemmerer said. “Last but not least, which Corpsmen?”

“I think only one, ma'am,” Hancock told her, “not two. With Harris in cold storage and Chief Garner hurt—­”

“I'm not hurt bad. I could—­”

“ . . . and Garner needed up here to run tech-­support and sick bay,” Hancock continued, ignoring him. “That leaves—­”

“I'll go,” I said, cutting in. “I have some experience with deep diving.”

There was no objection from either Dubois or McKean. I wondered why there wasn't an objection from
me
.

“Carlyle would be my first choice, Lieutenant,” Hancock said. “He's piloted a submersible . . .
and
he's been in first-­contact situations before.”

I wasn't sure my stint of duty running a tether-­teleoperated remote beneath the ice of Gliese 581 VI-­e would count for something like this, but I
did
carry a lot of data in my in-­head RAM on pressure and exotic high-­pressure chemistry. I guess that counted for something. And apparently, so did talking to a wounded Qesh pilot on Gliese 581 IV.

But in any case, wasn't this why I'd signed on with the Corps? Not just giving first aid to wounded Marines in the field, but learning new wrinkles in exobiology and alien biochemistries.

And we couldn't get a whole lot more alien than a hundred kilometers down.

In any case, it was first-­contact work that I loved the most.

“Damn it, I outrank E-­Car,” McKean said. “I should go!”

“They're both nuts, Gunny,” Dubois said. “If you want expendable . . .”

“It's Carlyle,” Hancock said, with a tone of
that's final
in his voice.

“Young Carlyle's understanding of cuttlewhale biology,” Ortega said, “and
especially
insights into the possibility that there is another intelligence behind the cuttlewhales . . . that alone recommends him.”

Hancock grinned at me. “You should've kept your big mouth shut, E-­Car.”

“Hell . . . getting to look at exotic high-­pressure ice?” I said. “How could I pass up an opportunity like that?”

I was suddenly remembering just how much I hated ice.

But then . . . in the oceanic abyss of this watery world, I'd actually be about as far from the surface ice as it was possible to get.

“Very well,” Lieutenant Walthers said. “Drs. Montgomery and Ortega as mission specialists. D'deen as Galactic cultural liaison. HM2 Carlyle as technical specialist. ET2 Lloyd as pilot. And Gunnery Sergeant Hancock as operational CO and military liaison and forward observer. That's six. Are we missing anything?”

“I think,” Hancock said, “that we're good to go.”

“Y
ou be careful down there, Hero,” McKean told me. We were standing on the ice, clad in our Mk. 10s, as the dayside wind hissed and whined around us.

“Yeah,” Dubois added. “What's the matter with you, anyway? Didn't anyone tell you never to volunteer?”

“I'm a slow learner, I guess.”

“Well, watch your tail down there.”

“At least you won't have to worry about Kirchner,” I told him. I hesitated, then added, “You have the records I sent you?”

“Yeah. You know you could get in a
lot
of trouble doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“An enlisted guy prying into the medical records of an officer?” McKean said, shaking his head. “Checking up on him . . . keeping covert records of his behavior? That's heavy shit, my friend.”