Beyond the Ice Limit

by Preston, Douglas

  Gideon stared at him. “Removed? Not crushed?”

  Brambell ran a hand across his bald head. “It appears the brain was removed before the skull was crushed—otherwise there would have been traces of it on the inside of the skull, neural matter forced into the fractures. But no—there’s no trace of gray or white matter anywhere in the remains. Not even microscopic traces. The Baobab seems to have…well…”

  His face collapsed into confusion.

  “Eaten it?” Garza completed the sentence.

  Listening, Gideon heard himself tense up.

  “That’s what I thought at first. But if it was going to be absorbed as nourishment, why remove it intact? And I have no doubt it was removed. What happened to it after that, I don’t have a clue—eaten, absorbed, whatever.”

  “Scanned?” Gideon heard himself ask.

  Garza turned sharply. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Her brain was removed intact,” Gideon said. “Why? Maybe the creature wanted to interrogate it, download its contents—that would be a good reason to take the brain out undamaged.”

  “Improbable,” said Garza. “To say the least.”

  “Think about Alex’s final message. Let me touch your face. She was in contact with something. She spoke—or, at least, her brain did.”

  “If your theory is true,” said Garza, “how did she speak? She had no mouth—her body was crushed.”

  Gideon winced inwardly. Don’t remind me. He tried to stay focused, to think through the problem logically. “Her brain, removed intact, spoke through the creature. Let me touch your face. Her brain was in contact with something, but her brain was confused, disoriented. I mean, it had just been removed from her body.”

  Garza’s face displayed broad irritation. He shook his head. “Good God, if this isn’t pure science fiction.”

  There was a long silence. Glinn, as usual, took everything in while displaying an impassive face. Maybe Garza’s right, Gideon thought: maybe it is science fiction. It sounded pretty ridiculous in retrospect. But he wasn’t going to give Garza the satisfaction of admitting it.

  “And there’s another little thing,” Brambell said after a moment.

  Glinn raised his eyebrows.

  “It seems someone swiped part of the specimen from exo lab. The four lab assistants kept a log of all sections removed, but there’s a large piece missing—and no one seems to know where it went. Did any of you by any chance take a piece without logging it?”

  Garza turned an accusatory stare on Gideon.

  “Not me,” said Gideon. Garza was proving to be a bigger pain in the ass than usual this morning.

  “None of us would have done anything that irresponsible,” said Glinn crisply.

  “Well,” said Brambell, “the lab might have made a mistake in its initial measurement of the tentacle. Or maybe they forgot to log a removal.” He cleared his throat. “Or perhaps the whole thing is a smokescreen to conceal unprofessional behavior. I say this because those four gentlemen had a party last night in the lab—when I passed the lab just now on the way here I found the remains of a bash, the four of them fluthered and washing the barroom floor, so to speak.”

  “You mean, passed out?” Garza asked.

  “That is precisely what I mean. The only one conscious was Frayne—if you can call it conscious—and it was he who told me of the missing piece of tentacle.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Speak of the devil.” And Brambell turned as Frayne himself approached. His lab coat was stained with purple, and he stank of wine. He looked like hell. Frayne didn’t strike Gideon as the partying type—but there he was, obviously hung over.

  Glinn stepped aside as Garza turned on the man. “What the hell’s this?” he demanded.

  Frayne began explaining, in a bumbling sort of way, that they’d had a bit of a sangria party, but nothing outrageous—

  Garza cut him off with a gesture. “What about the missing specimen?”

  At this, Frayne launched into a complex, rambling explanation, claiming it had happened long before the party, wasn’t their fault, they kept impeccable records, someone had probably stolen it for a souvenir, and anyway they really hadn’t drunk all that much…

  “You know the rules,” said Garza. “No drinking once the ship came on station. I’m docking you a week’s pay. And because you’re the chief assistant, I want you to report to the brig for twelve hours—and to get some sleep.”

  “Brig?” The man looked devastated. “You mean, jail?”

  “Yes. Brig. Jail. I’ll have a security detail meet you there.”

  “But—”

  Garza stared hard at him until the man wilted and slunk off. Then he turned to Glinn. “This sort of lapse in discipline is like poison on board ship. I hope you agree with me.”

  A faint incline of the head indicated Glinn’s agreement. And then, after consulting his watch, he turned to Gideon. “We’d best wrap this up,” he said. “You and I are needed in Prothero’s lab.”

  36

  GIDEON CROWDED WITH several others into the small, messy lab. It was like an electronic cave. An acrid smell of solder and burnt electronics hung in the stuffy air. Prothero was sitting at a rack of computer and audio components, cables dangling everywhere, wearing a dirty Hawaiian shirt, half unbuttoned. His concave, white chest, covered with a scattering of wiry black hairs, was hideous.

  Standing to one side was Prothero’s assistant, the tall, thin, elegant woman named Rosemarie Wong. She looked exactly like Prothero’s antithesis. Gideon wondered how she could stand working with him.

  “Sorry there’s no place to sit,” said Prothero, gesturing at two chairs, both stacked high with stuff. “I keep telling you I need a bigger lab. This one sucks.”

  Glinn ignored the comment. “Dr. Prothero, tell us what you’ve found.”

  Prothero began hammering away on a keyboard. “In a word: we did it. We translated the message from the Baobab. Hey, Wong? Play the tape.”

  She keyed up a tape and moments later the song of a blue whale came through, followed by the sound that had been generated by the Baobab. Prothero talked at length about the nature of blue whale language.

  Gideon felt himself getting increasingly vexed. “So what does it mean?” he finally interrupted.

  “I want to warn you: the message is kind of strange.” Prothero rolled his eyes dramatically. “The thing said—” He hesitated—“Kill me. Kill me.”

  “How sure are you of this hypothesis?” asked Glinn.

  “I’m pretty damn sure. If you’d let me explain…” And explain Prothero did, again at length, playing the tape one more time, and then playing other recorded blue whale sounds, elucidating in self-congratulatory tones how they’d broken down the sounds, deduced the meanings, verified their findings.

  Gideon, despite his skepticism, found himself impressed—but not convinced. When Prothero was finished, he asked: “So why would the creature be begging us to kill it? Especially after destroying one of our DSVs?”

  Prothero shrugged. “That’s for you guys to figure out.”

  “How do you know it’s not just mimicking blue whale sounds it heard?”

  “Blue whale speech travels a hundred miles or more in water. So this thing’s been hearing all sorts of blue whale vocalizations. Why would it repeat just this one? No, my friend, it’s communicating with us.”

  The “my friend” part especially grated on Gideon. “If this is communication, it makes no sense.”

  “Maybe it’s confused,” said Prothero, shrugging. “Maybe it’s like the guy who goes to France and makes an ass of himself trying to speak the language.” He brayed loudly.

  “We’re dealing with an alien life-form,” said Glinn. “Possibly an alien intelligence. It doesn’t surprise me we wouldn’t understand its first attempt to communicate.”

  Gideon shook his head, then glanced at Wong. She was keeping her cards close. “What do you think, Rosemarie?”

  Wong
gave a little cough. “I think Gideon may be right. It may just be playing back sounds, like a parrot.”

  Gideon felt gratified. His opinion of Wong and her intelligence rose still further.

  “Well, if science were a democracy, I guess I’d be wrong then,” said Prothero, adding: “But it ain’t—and I’m right.” And he laughed again, raucously.

  At that moment the warrant officer, Mr. Lund, appeared at the door. “Dr. Glinn?”

  “I was not to be disturbed.”

  “We’ve got an emergency. The Baobab—it’s starting to become active.”

  37

  BY THE TIME Glinn and Gideon arrived in the control center, it was a hive of activity. Glinn took his position at the central command console and Gideon stood to his right, at the secondary console. Chief Officer Lennart came up smartly, carrying an iPad.

  “Brief me,” Glinn asked quietly.

  “Very well. About twenty minutes ago, the surface sonobuoys began to register some unusual sounds coming from below. They were very similar to the types of P-waves that come from small temblors on the ocean floor, around one point five to two on the Richter scale. When we mapped the sources, we found they were clustered around the Baobab, but not coming from it.”

  “Is it on the ship’s net? Bring it up.”

  Lennart hit some keys on the console keyboard and a seismic map appeared.

  Glinn frowned, staring at it, Gideon looking on. “Seems to form a roughly circular pattern around the creature.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell how deep the temblors originate?”

  “Shallow. At least, by seismic standards: a few hundred feet below the seafloor. But as we monitored, we noticed the temblors appear to be going deeper, and occurring farther away from the creature—basically, in a spreading and deepening ring.”

  “As if the thing was extending its root system?”

  “Perhaps. And that’s not all. As you know, we dropped a camera and anchored it to the seafloor, trained on the Baobab, monitoring it in green light. We’ve seen no unusual activity—until now. We’ve just begun to see some movement of the creature itself.”

  “What kind of movement?”

  “A swaying motion in the branches. Very slow. And the mouth, or suction hole, has extended itself several times while inspiring and expelling large amounts of seawater. The amplitude of the two-hertz sound it emits has gone up.”

  “I want a detailed analysis of the temblors,” Glinn said. “With three-D mapping in real time.”

  “Very good.”

  There was a sudden commotion to the right, and a technician came running up. “A DSV, George, has just gone missing.”

  Glinn frowned. “Missing? Aren’t they under lock and key—and alarmed?”

  “The thief evaded electronic security.”

  “Who was it?”

  The technician spoke into his headphones, then listened. “They’re not sure, but it might have been a lab assistant named Frayne.”

  “Frayne?” Gideon asked. “Isn’t he in the brig?”

  The man listened for another moment. “He never arrived at the brig. They’ve had a detail looking for him, but it seems he managed to sneak down to the DSV hangar. They’re reviewing security video now…yeah, it’s definitely him.”

  “Was he still drunk?”

  “They don’t seem to have information on that. Wait…They’re saying he smelled of liquor.”

  “How did Frayne get the DSV in the water?” Gideon asked. “It takes a crew to launch.”

  “He seems to have had help. We’re still figuring that one out. Again, they’re reviewing the tapes, trying to determine exactly what happened.”

  “Where’s he taking the DSV?”

  “Straight down, it seems. Fast. No response on any frequencies.”

  “Prepare John right away,” Glinn said. Then he turned to Gideon. “Get over to the hangar deck. You’re going down after him.”

  38

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Gideon was in the water, watching once again through the forward viewport as the DSV sank into blue darkness. They hadn’t gone through the usual safety checklist, but John had been used so recently that they assumed—correctly, Gideon hoped—that one was unnecessary.

  It was unbelievable—Frayne, drunk and joyriding a ten-million-dollar mini sub. If it was indeed joyriding. But what else it might be, Gideon couldn’t even hazard a guess. Revenge? Some crazy suicide mission to kill the creature?

  Gideon was descending at the maximum allowable rate, with the control room monitoring his DSV through the wired connection to the surface. He might have to drop the wire if extensive maneuvering were involved on the seafloor, but for now he had a good connection to the ship. Which, at least, was a comfort: they were seeing everything he was, in real time, as well as monitoring his mini sub and its life-support systems.

  The viewport had now turned black. A few bubbles flared white as they passed upward through the light of the DSV’s headlamps. He had a sonar lock on George: it was about three thousand feet below him, but he was catching up quickly. Frayne, he knew, was a rank novice in DSV handling, and he was no doubt having difficulty maneuvering. At the rate he was descending, he calculated he’d catch up with Frayne a few thousand feet above the seafloor.

  Looking through the viewport, he strained to get a visual on George’s lights. But he knew it was fruitless; he wouldn’t see them until they were about five hundred feet apart.

  What the hell he was going to do when he caught up with Frayne was still being discussed in mission control. If he wasn’t able to persuade him to turn around and return to the Batavia, there were various options—but all of them were difficult and dangerous. The technicians above were trying to prioritize and work them out, step by step.

  There was no manual on this one.

  The interior of the sub felt particularly claustrophobic. He hadn’t had time to psychologically prepare himself for the descent—hadn’t even had time to change his clothes. He had dressed for the cool morning air of the south, and he was now hot and sweaty, his shirt itching around his collar. He watched as the meters ticked off on the depth gauge. He was six hundred meters from the bottom; any moment, and George should come into sight.

  And there it was: a blurry blob of light directly below him.

  “Got a visual fix,” he reported.

  “Keep descending,” Glinn’s voice crackled through his headset. “Try to match his rate and come up beside him.”

  “Copy.”

  The blob began to resolve itself into a wavering cluster of lights. Gideon increased his descent rate slightly into the red, impatient to catch up before they reached the bottom. God only knew what Frayne was planning to do, and he wanted to stop him well before they came within the purview of the creature.

  Now the outlines of George began to materialize.

  “Hail him,” said Glinn.

  Gideon turned up the gain on the UQC. “George, this is John. Acknowledge.”

  Nothing.

  He repeated the call. Still no response. He was catching up fast, and now he paused to slow his own descent, to position his sub to ensure it was not directly above George but safely to one side.

  “Frayne? Do you read?”

  No answer.

  “Hey, Barry! It’s Gideon Crew. Can you hear me?”

  Silence.

  “Look, Barry, can we please talk? What’s going on?”

  Now he was only about thirty meters above George. He could see the clear outline of the DSV, see the dull red glow from the viewports, see the mech arm folded up in descent position. He slowed still further as the two mini subs closed in until he was almost matching its speed. In a moment he’d be able to look directly into George. God, maybe Frayne was unconscious, passed out.

  He finally drifted level with George and peered through the side viewport. He was surprised to see Frayne, not passed out, but looking perfectly normal, working the controls with focus and calm.

  An
d the man didn’t look in his direction. Not even a glance.

  Gideon waved. “Hey, Barry. Look at me, will you please?”

  No recognition that the man had heard.

  Gideon glanced at the depth monitor. They were closing in on the bottom. If he didn’t stop soon, the AI would kick in and slow him down; so would the AI of George. Neither submersible would be allowed to slam into the seafloor.

  “Frayne? Can you hear me?”

  No response.

  Gideon switched to a private frequency to speak with mission control. “Can he hear me?” he asked.

  “He certainly can. And he can hear us, too. We know his UQC is on and at full gain.”

  “It’s as if he’s a robot.”

  “We can see that.”

  “Can’t you transfer control to the surface and just bring his DSV back up, like you did to me?”

  “He’s got the override sequence,” Glinn told him. “We don’t know how. Nobody is supposed to have it but me, Garza, and the maintenance technicians.”

  “Jesus, what a balls-up.” Gideon shook his head. They hadn’t even given the sequence to him. He’d take that up with Glinn later.

  “Okay,” said Glinn. “Listen closely. If he won’t respond, the technicians here say there’s a way for you to disable George.”

  A schematic image of George flashed on his screen. Glinn’s voice went on, cool and even. “We want you to use your science arm for a simple procedure. His DSV has six thrusters. Insert the end of the arm into each thruster, wrecking the blades. They say you’ll only need to disable three to leave George DIW. Then we can attach a tow cable and haul it up.”

  “There’s no other way besides wrecking the thrusters?”

  “Everything else that’s vulnerable is protected by the outer hull. What we’re suggesting is simple and foolproof. We’re temporarily modifying the AI on your DSV so that it can be done—otherwise, it would be prevented.”

  “Roger. Will do.” Now he saw, out the lower viewport, the faint outlines of the seafloor, just coming into illumination. At the same time he felt the autopilot begin to slow the sub.