Far From The Sea We Know (33 page)

“Yes, because you’ve already decided,” she
added.”

He smiled but didn’t reply.

Just before dawn, the
Valentina
arrived at the perimeter of the
Honey Pot
site, and a Navy
sub chaser simply passed them through. There was no outward sign
that things were different after they crossed over into the
circle.

Matthew was back in Penny’s cabin, dead
asleep. She had considered rousing him, but he still seemed to need
more rest. Almost everyone else was awake and working in quiet
anticipation. No one spoke to her or even seemed to notice her as
she walked the decks. It was as if she were looking at it all
through a window with glass so thick that nothing would ever touch
her.

They had entered the circle obliquely and
now turned east. The rising sun illuminated the radar mast behind
her, then the length of the bridge, like a slow moving fire. The
first rays finally reached her on the foredeck and cast her shadow
backward, like a giant compass needle telling them to turn back.
Only three days before, she had picked out a circle from a few
discrepancies in a pile of sonar scans. Now, she wished she
hadn’t.

No one else seemed to think much about the
danger they might be sailing into. Well, Chiffrey did, thought
Penny, but he always framed the risks as potential threats to
national security, not as the immediate perils of closing in on
something they knew nothing about. Nothing, except that it had
touched most of them in ways they could not fathom.

To calm herself, she gazed out on the
endless water of the Pacific Northwest. The waves moved like grass
rolled by a gentle wind across a prairie. For a moment she let
herself forget everything and become lost in the spell of the
undulating sea. On that prairie-sea, it was as if the tales of
far-off hills and mountains were only fables for the easily
deceived.

The rumble of the
Valentina’
s engines
powering down meant they were finally there: the center of the
circle. A few errant sea birds wheeled overhead, but everything
else seemed the same.

An hour later, Penny was still on the
foredeck, drinking lukewarm coffee and waiting, for what she wasn’t
really sure. Malcolm rushed up with anger and despair, like
siblings locked in bitter rivalry, battling for control of his
face.

“We’re screwed, that’s what!” he said, and
planted himself in front of her as if there were no need to say or
do anymore.

Andrew had dropped the
Valentina
’s
speed down to a crawl, and they had been slowly cruising back and
forth, checking the bottom. The sonar gave no indication of
anything unusual, but that had been expected. Penny had hoped they
would be able to take their time and open the curtain on whatever
was down there gradually, maybe even letting it reveal itself when
it was ready. But looking at Malcolm now, she saw her hope drifting
away like a toy boat on an outgoing tide.

When she didn’t respond, he finally said,
“Why would anyone want to steal…” Hands on hips, he shook his head
muttered, “My fault, should have double checked…”

“What are you talking about?” Penny
said.

Becka was nearby, checking some of the new
gear. She overheard and said, “Malcolm, calm down and—”

“Calm down? You know what this means?”

“No,” Penny said, “because you haven’t
told
us what happened yet. Details, please.”

Malcolm gazed back and forth between Penny
and Becka, his brow so deeply furrowed that it appeared to have
gone into permanent spasm. He let out a big breath.

“The ROVs, okay?” he said. “Important parts
have been removed. And the few spares we had, well, when I last
checked them, I thought we were good, but whoever it was just
stuffed the boxes with junk, so they’re gone too. I should’ve
checked. Maybe we could have gotten more on the resupply, but now
it’s too late. We’re here, and the ROVs are useless, dead. Without
them, we’re blind.”

“Did you check the minisub?” Becka asked as
she got to her feet. “Malcolm? Did you have a look at the
Bluedrop
?”

“No, I was so…you know…Why would anyone take
those parts? There are more valuable things around, I mean, if
you’re going to go swipe something, there’s—”

"Excuse me for stating the obvious," Penny
said, “but that’s not why they were taken.”

“Go tell the Captain,” Becka said to
Malcolm. “Now. You have to. I’m going to have a look at the
Bluedrop
.” She ran toward the aft deck. Malcolm watched her
go and without looking back at Penny ran off, hunched-over, in the
general direction of the bridge.

A short time later, they stood on the aft
deck looking at the minisub where it rested in its cradle. The
famously misnamed
Bluedrop
was painted bright yellow, and
its design was the result of years of refinement by her father.
Originally, it was to be used on this trip to shoot video of gray
whales feeding on the bottom of the Bering Sea and to survey the
current levels of their food source.

“It’s okay as far as I can tell,” Becka
said, emerging from the hatch. “I went through the whole preflight,
twice, plus the master list from the original build. We looked at
every other thing we could think of and found nothing wrong.”

“Good to hear,” Andrew said. “Still need a
sea test to be sure.”

Her father nodded agreement. “This is
encouraging. All is not lost.” He looked around the gathering. “We
are now right at the epicenter. So far, no problems. Also
encouraging. All seems normal except those sea birds. Wouldn’t
expect to find them out here, or at least so many.” He gazed up at
the sky

“Dad,” Penny said, “you’ve got a saboteur
onboard.”

“And that is most definitely
not
encouraging. Does anyone know where Lieutenant Chiffrey is?”

“He’s talking to someone on his
sat-phone.”

“I think we need to meet with him and look
at how we might best continue. Becka? Can you get the
Bluedrop
ready for testing?”

“Right away,” she said.

“Get a few hands on it,” Andrew told her.
“As many as you need.”

That afternoon, after the sea tests on the
Bluedrop
had been conducted, Penny went to the media lab to
look at the video again. She got there to find Becka and Chiffrey
already watching it. Their heads almost touched as they peered at
the screen.

“Am I interrupting?” she said.

“No, no,” Chiffrey said. “Just viewing the
clip again. Becka, as you might know, has extensive experience
evaluating underwater video. Join us, please.”

“I thought you'd be working on the
Bluedrop
,” Penny said

“I was,” Becka replied, “and it passed
everything I could throw at it. Then Malcolm wanted to install some
diagnostic gear to quadruple check something, so I decided to have
another look here.” She glanced at her watch. “He must be done by
now, so I should be getting back.”

Pausing in the hatchway, Becka aimed a smile
and a little wave at Chiffrey. After she was gone, he looked at
Penny. “You want to see it, right? Just a sec.”

She didn’t say anything.

They watched the video a few times, finally
leaving on the screen the enhanced still image of the final
feature, the cave-like opening.

“Going back to an earlier premise you and
some others put out,” Chiffrey said, “just being undetectable on
sonar does not prove hostile intent, but I am convinced the effect
is deliberate, a ‘stealth’ effect if you will, to make us think
there is nothing there.”

“So what? It’s hiding, Camouflage is a
common survival strategy in the plant and animal world.”

“Camouflage can be a passive weapon.”

“Hiding from danger is not aggression.”

“Sorry, but it can be. Camouflage in one
form or another, and its cousin, misdirection, is always a part of
an offensive strategy. The famed element of surprise used in
virtually every war. Hiding your ass until the right moment, so
your enemy is caught unaware, can make the difference between
victory and defeat. Sure, it could be a nicey-nicey we have down
there. Maybe you’re right, maybe it’s just trying to stay out of
harm’s way. Or it could be waiting for the right moment to rip our
throats out for lunch. Apologize for putting it so crudely, but
this is a point you really have to get.”

“It’s much too early to be drawing that kind
of conclusion.”

“If it’s too soon for conclusions, how about
we draw some inferences?”

“Such as?”

He held up his hand and started counting
fingers. “One, there is intention behind its efforts to obscure its
existence. Two, a keen intelligence is at work here, perhaps even
surpassing our own, if judged by the capabilities we have
witnessed. Three, the dome, or whatever it is we saw on the ROV
video, is almost certainly connected to Matthew’s whale.”

“Please stop calling it ‘Matthew’s
whale.’”

“Fine, but that connects to my final point.
This dome is almost certainly the prime source for all the unusual
occurrences since the
Honey Pot
. What happened around the
dome and the whale was way too similar to call it coincidence.
Sure, I don’t really have the facts behind the connection, but I’d
bet my left hand on it.”

“I won’t completely disagree with anything
you’ve stated, as long as you use ‘intelligence’ in the broadest
sense.”

“As broad as the wide Missouri, if you like.
But it all comes down to one question. What is the
intent
?”

“It may not ever be possible to assess
intent.”

“Almost word for word what Becka said a
while ago. She didn’t see any signs of malevolence, no hostile
agenda at all. Sees it as beneficent until proven otherwise. Part
of her rapture-of-the-whales experience, apparently.”

“I’m not saying there is no danger,” Penny
said. “Quite the opposite, but we should make no trouble where
there is no trouble.”

Chiffrey smiled and moved back to his
country boy speech rhythms. “My old Grampy used to say, ‘bees are
busy at their business, and if you don’t want to get stung, don’t
be
their business.’ Good one, huh?”

“Life just does what it does. It’s not
personal. By definition, it’s just natural.”

“You see this as natural? Part of our world
that somehow we overlooked?”

“So far. Until someone comes up with
something better.”

“Then what sort of life? Am I supposed to
accept that thing down there as just some kind of overqualified
mollusk?”

“We’re simply shocked because our conceit
won’t allow us to believe that something else in our living world
might equal or even surpass us. To deal with it, we’re making it
some kind of ‘other.’ Either a benevolent supernatural force or a
dark enemy calculating our doom.”

“I get it,” he said, but nodded too quickly.
“So tell me, why does this thing suddenly choose now to make itself
known?”

“Maybe it didn’t. It might have been around
forever, but an event of some kind, maybe even something we did,
low-frequency sonar or whatever, caused it stress and led it to
move out of its usual territory.”

“
Attack of the Creeping Coral
or
something? Come on.”

“You can be a real ass, you know? One minute
you’re telling us how deadly serious this all is and the next
you’re back to your lame jokes. By militarizing the situation,
you’re running the risk of provoking the very thing you least
want.”

“We wouldn’t do anything without just
cause.”

“Really? You, or someone above you, are
likely to create that cause, bringing in all these attack and
defend scenarios.”

“Well, it’s ‘defend and attack,’ for one
thing, but as long as we are talking assumptions, we can’t assume
this phenomenon is
not
personal. Just as we shouldn’t assume
that it is hostile, we shouldn’t assume that it ain’t. I have to
insist on that, especially after two Navy ships get their props
sheared, and the power goes dead on another just when things were
getting interesting. Not personal? Don’t know yet. Not dangerous?
Adrift on the open sea certainly could have been for those
ships.”

“You’re just arguing against yourself.”

Her father appeared in the hatchway. “Pardon
me for interrupting,” he said, before entering. “Couldn’t help
hearing the end of that. One thing to keep in mind, Lieutenant, is
that we are the invaders here.”

Chiffrey looked at him for a moment. “On
that, I’ll have to disagree, Doctor.”

“To clarify, I mean in the context of the
sea not being our natural habitat, especially the undersea. The
good news here has to be that no one has been hurt.”

“Well, I hope that continues to be the
case.” Chiffrey got up from his stool, walked to a porthole and
looked out. “Doctor Bell, I’d like to ask you something. From what
I’ve been hearing from Penny and a few others, I gather that there
is a theory this phenomenon could be some kind of intelligent
marine species we somehow never noticed all these years.
Correct?”

“It’s possible.”

“What I witnessed goes way beyond what would
be considered ‘possible.’ If I was just reading the reports in an
office somewhere, I wouldn’t believe any of it.”

Her father furrowed his brow. Silence hung
in the air and somehow continued despite his words. “We should be
open to the possibility that, though intelligent, it may not be
anything like
our
kind of intelligence.”

“Hard to imagine.”

“Exactly my point. It may have nothing like
the kind of agenda we can grasp. It may be so far outside our own
experience that we could
never
understand it.”

Chiffrey looked unconvinced.

“Only thinking out loud,” her father said.
He smiled. “Not making the case, at least not yet.”