Suddenly, they stopped. A sound was rapidly increasing through the water, as though some creature was approaching them from out of the plant cover, screaming as it came. They watched as two creatures approached, swimming in frantic haste. The larger of the two was a coelashark, only a quarter of the size of the one they had already seen, and it was hotly pursuing another, still smaller, which was making the noise. The victim had lost its tentacles, and some dark fluid flowed like smoke from a puncture in its side, but it never slowed in its desperate flight outward toward the rim of the crater. As the flouwen watched, both little coelasharks virtually exploded, hit full on by the huge predator that had circled back. The screams stopped, and nothing was left of the encounter but the languid motion of the satiated coelashark, and the rapidly dissipating trace of the dark film of liquid.
*Good hunting, two at once like that,* said Little Red in admiration. The flouwen resumed their advance.
The seabed above which they were slowly floating was rough, and littered with small rocks. A small and furtive movement among them caught Little White’s attention. Carefully he slowed and brought his sonar to a focus on the pebbles. The little scuttling creature was now still and indistinguishable from the stones all around. Patiently, silently, the flouwen waited. There were a few tiny shiftings among the litter, and then several quick darts, as the strange living rocks jetted a brief distance, and then sat immobile.
#Little pebbles squirt,# observed Little Purple aloud. #Squirting pebbles look almost like real rocks.#
Little Red gave one of the squirting pebbles an exploratory prod. It dug itself into the seabed with such speed and force that in less than two seconds it had disappeared.
*Probably good to eat,* said Little Red. *For somebody.* As they continued towards the warmth, more and more of the little animals became visible. Acting faster this time, Little Red used a pseudopod to capture one of the squirting pebbles and stuffed it in a sample bag to take back to Katrina.
Tiny fronds were the next form of life to appear to the flouwen. They too became more numerous as they advanced from cold water to warm, and they also became larger. Soon they spotted clumps of tough and spongy grasses. The blades were thick, varying in color from palest blue to a rich forest green, and were as resilient as leather. At David’s urging, the flouwen gathered samples and bagged them. Nestling concealed within the largest clumps, only leaving when Little White disturbed them, were a variety of small, worm-like creatures. They wriggled frantically when thus disturbed, and raced to dive without hesitation into the next available tussock.
As the water temperature continued to rise, the fronds of the plants became thin and flat, and extended into many-lobed leaves, waving gently in the drift of the tide. The roots of some of these were digging into the seabed rock, where they apparently hardened, forming fragile-looking, lacy structures which looked like coral, and were every bit as hard. The flouwen, after careful inspection and bagging of a representative sample, stayed warily clear of these, but continued to probe busily into the heart of all the weedy plants along the way. Out of one, thus dislodged, shot a very small coelashark, but its precipitous dive into the next cluster was a mistake; apparently the denizen of this neighbor was another coelashark, just slightly larger than the first. Instantly the two babies were locked in combat. Little Red, curious, interfered in the fray by holding the larger firmly to the seabed; the tiny one, with this advantage, promptly bit through the throat of its adversary with dispatch, and began to eat as fast as possible, hauling the victim down into the grass clump with savage, twisting jerks.
The surrounding water was now slightly less clear. Little Purple had dutifully recorded a description of the opacity, and comments began to come back in over Babble from David, who was listening intently from his post on Dragonfly.
“Possibly a type of plankton, clouding the water. Better take a sample of seawater for Katrina to look at.”
The seabed was becoming more thickly covered now also, and even the gentle passage of the aliens disturbed swirls of unidentifiable muck. The thick and spongy grasses began to give way to large areas of taller weeds of several different sorts. One of these showed long flat leaves, two or three centimeters thick, nearly twenty centimeters wide, and tens of meters long. They swayed heavily in the currents, pushing against other weeds which rose like vertical snakes, a couple of centimeters in diameter. The dense forests of these bottom-dwelling plants obscured the floor of the ocean, but the flouwen were able to see many tiny creatures, of varying shapes, moving within their shelter. The heat had increased greatly and the flouwen were getting uncomfortable. Little Purple’s laconic descriptions continued, and up above, David mentally pictured the seaweed growths below.
“How tightly are the plants fastened to the seabed?” he asked. “Try to pull one free, Little Red.” Little Red tugged at one of the slender stalks, and it came free with suddenness, dislodging several of its broader-leaved neighbors in the process. It took some effort on the part of the flouwen, but they managed to tear off samples of both plants which were small enough to fit into the sample bags. The uprooting action had revealed several darting shapes, frantically rushing into hiding.
*Three little coelasharks, chasing whole group of tiny swimmers. Swimmers all move together, blue on one side, green on the other.* David recognized the pattern of schooling fish, although whether or not these bi-colored creatures were fish at all was unknown. The flouwen watched with interest as the coelasharks tore into the little group, decimating it until a desperate burst of speed shot the remaining members of the school out of sight. Little Red managed to capture one of the injured swimmers in a sample bag.
#I can see hot water plumes from central vents now,# said Little Purple, picking up the doppler-shifted return signal from the rapidly rising turbulences. #Getting too hot. Lots of weeds here. We not go closer but swim around vent.# The flouwen turned, to keep the vent to one side of them, and pushed through the water between the waving tendrils and leaves. From time to time they stopped, and descended, to push the plants firmly apart and take samples of the animal and plant life. Each time they found they had disturbed numerous small creatures; however, as Little Purple reported, they no longer saw any little coelasharks.
*Little flippy things. More little squirting rocks, much smaller. Lots of little worms.*
#Water getting warmer again, change direction,# reported Little Purple, while his suit and Babble automatically recorded the new position.
*Big rocks here, less weed, lots of small rocks piled up.* Little Red dislodged the top of the nearest heap of stones. They rolled downwards, and the familiar shapes of life appeared momentarily, revealed and vulnerable until they found new hiding places within the crevices and crannies of the mound.
#Still no little coelasharks,# mentioned Little Purple.
“Try moving into slightly cooler water,” suggested David. “Perhaps the hotter temperature is too much for them.” The flouwen moved out, and wandered around and among the vents irregularly spaced about the field. As they reported, the teeming plant life nearest the vents only concealed the tiniest sorts of animals; only in the cooler depths could they find the larger animals, like coelasharks.
“Perhaps as they get larger,” David mused out loud to Joe. “Their surface to volume ratio shrinks, and they find it harder to keep their insides from getting too hot, so they need to stay in cooler water.” At David’s suggestion, the flouwen headed out again to cooler water. They found only a few animals, and just two coelasharks, well hidden in holes within some large rocks. One of the coelasharks, nearly thirty centimeters long, obviously resented their intrusion, but was too cowed by their much larger size to launch an attack. It took out its frustration by attacking one of the other animals that the flouwen had disturbed, a large flat ribbon-like creature. It chased the ribbon-fish outward into the clearer, cooler water away from the vent field, the flouwen watching the chase with their sonar. Suddenly, the coelashark turned tail and dove for its hole un
der its rock, while behind it the weak sonar return from the ribbon-fish was replaced with a very large return signal. All of this was carefully relayed to David, who was becoming alarmed.
“You’ve got inside the big coelashark’s territory, that’s good,” he said calmly. “Now the tricky bit may be getting yourselves out. With your suits intact.” The flouwen paused to consider what he had said. Unafraid on their own account, they recognized the desirability of preserving the well-engineered suits. Shirley had assured them that the glassy-foil was nearly impossible to cut or tear, and had shown that a knife-point could not penetrate it, but the flouwen were not anxious to try it out on coelashark teeth.
^This way?^
#Straight up?#
*Between two vents?*
David caught only hints of the consultation going on below. Decided now, the flouwen moved smoothly and steadily off at an angle, following the trace of slightly cooler water that flowed off between the warm areas of two of the active vents. They were unsuccessful in their attempted escape. The giant coelashark spotted them, and screaming belligerently, it attacked; “My territory! You are my food! You cry from fear — and I shall kill you now, tear out your guts, spill your blood, rip open your throat…”
^All yell at head now!^ Little White commanded to the other flouwen as the creature rushed at them. Shaping their bodies into shallow dishes, they each generated a high pitched sonar scream that shot through the thin glassy-foil fabric of their suits into the water, and was focused onto the head section of the approaching coelashark.
The fury of the coelashark was swept away on the piercing, destroying wave of sound that blasted from the flouwen, focussing on the flesh of the animal, exploding its eyes, numbing its brain, and vibrating chunks of flesh from its lips. Quickly, the flouwen surged past the dazed coelashark into cooler waters and paused to send sonar pulses back to see if it was recovering from the attack. They saw, apparently appearing from nowhere, three medium-sized coelasharks converging on the remnants of the predator. Biting and swallowing with savage speed, they spared no time or breath for speech until the giant coelashark had been ripped into large chunks. The three then turned on each other. Powerful tails flipped agile bodies, tentacles jabbed at eyes with pointed stones, and finned feet struggled to maintain each animals’ equilibrium, while the jaws lunged and tore, searching for a vital hold. The flouwen watched dispassionately as, by chance, two of the sharks managed each to get a firm grip on the third. Within seconds they had torn it practically in two. The larger of the two then struck with speed and power at the throat of the other. The smaller one was not much smaller, however, and was quick to respond. Two tentacles deflected the thrusting jaws for an instant, and although they were bitten off close to the body, the smaller animal had gained a precious chance. All four fins, on the ends of the stubby legs, swirled and pushed to send the coelashark shooting backwards, into the warmer water, where it slid hastily into a crevice and hid. The victor coelashark seemed about to pursue, then hesitated, and hung irresolutely in the water, turning it’s large head first toward the three flouwen, waiting and watching, and then towards the escaped and hidden enemy. Tentatively, it advanced in the direction of the flouwen, thrusting its sharp stone before it, but a warning blast of sound from them stopped it.
“My territory now! All food in this territory is mine!” There was a hint of triumph in the voice, and Little Red was curious enough to communicate with the killer.
*You have won?*
“You know it! You saw it! I have killed and eaten those two! No one is left is bigger than I am! I rule this area now, and any who show themselves I will devour! That goes for you too, whoever you are! Whatever you are!”
Little Purple said peaceably, #You cannot harm us, and we do not wish to harm you. We have only come to see how you live.#
“And it’ll be the death of you!” screamed the coelashark, advancing once again. A repeat of the sonar warning interrupted the action, and the coelashark hung back, screaming threats and insults. The three flouwen began to move with deliberate slowness into the cooler waters away from the coelashark, which stayed where it was, still raging. When they were out of sight, the flouwen sent a sonar signal back, and found that the coelashark was swimming off at a tangent. A few more minutes of observation at that distance told the flouwen that the creature was circling, first slowly and then with increasing confidence, the vent field which fed that area with it’s life-giving heat and mineral-laden water.
“It’s about time for us to come and pick you up,” said David from the Dragonfly. “I’ll see you shortly at the spot where we left you off.”
The flouwen, with their sample bags full, headed silently back in the direction from which they had come, Babble paddling noisily behind, trying to keep up.
CHAPTER 08 — VISITING
With the flouwen launched, George was anxious to proceed with a visit to Windward City. The humans worked quickly to ready themselves and the Dragonfly for departure, while leaving no trace of their visit upon the icy shore but their tracks in the snow. With considerable satisfaction, Deirdre helped Richard and the Christmas Branch stow the ropes and telescoping poles they had used to lower Babble into the water into the belly hold of the airplane.
“That’s the way it should be, it is that,” said Deirdre, as she climbed into the airlock and turned to look back around. “Nothing taken and nothing left. Come, observe, report, and leave — clean and scientific!”
Richard took one last walk around the airplane to make sure they had picked up everything. Suddenly, a strong jolt ran through the ice, knocking him off his feet. It was followed by a loud rumbling crack coming through the air that sounded somewhat like a distant giant breaking a tall tree in two like a match stick. Richard picked himself off the ground and ran for the airlock where Deirdre was waiting for him, his feet unsteady as the ice beneath them tilted back and forth slowly.
“The ice shelf we’re on has just turned into an iceberg! Let’s get out of here before it decides to turn turtle!” He leaped into the open door.
“I’m in, Arielle!” shouted Richard. “Take off and get to altitude!”
Before the outer airlock door had completely closed, the large electrically driven fan engines in the wing roots of the airplane had started spinning, and Arielle coaxed the Dragonfly into the air like an overladen rocket.
Once they were safely high above the ice and held up by the VTOL fans, Arielle smoothly shifted from fan lift to jet thrust, and the airplane climbed in altitude and away from the icy shore edge along the open water of the warm lake where the flouwen had submerged. Richard looked back out the small porthole in the outer airlock door. He could now see a jagged line of open water where once there had been solid ice connecting their landing spot to the shore.
“A nice big flat ice floe,” he remarked. “I guess we weren’t really in danger after all.”
Arielle turned the Dragonfly until they were headed directly towards the distant cloudy blur of Manannan geyser, with its thick telltale column of condensing moisture rising kilometers into the air. Through the clouds could be seen a rooster-tail spray of windblown water droplets from the geyser in the middle. The boiling jet was half a kilometer high and growing higher with each geyser pulsation.
Shirley, at the science console, looked at a graph of the predictions for the tidal forces on her screen. “Zuni is approaching conjunction while Zouave is not far behind. Not a true triple conjunction — more like a two-point-seven-tuple conjunction. The ocean surface should rise about nine meters in the next two hours, then drop again.” Richard, still dressed in his suit underalls, strode down the narrow corridor, swivel-hipped past David’s console chair, and stood looking over Shirley’s shoulder, sipping on an algae-shake he had picked up from the galley imp.
“The rising tide is probably what caused that ice floe to break off,” he said. “We should now get plenty of action from Big Berth … Manannan. There’s going to be a lot of hot water thrown up into the ai
r in the next few hours.”
“That’s not good,” said George from the co-pilot seat. “Those are ripe conditions for causing a plane to ice up.”
Arielle was already alert to the problem, and the small pilot kept constant check on the icing indicators, while changing course to take the plane well to windward of the distant geyser. As they left the small open lake where they had put the flouwen, and moved toward Manannan’s much larger lake off in the distance, the crew were examining and commenting with fascination upon the changing terrain. Although David could have observed from his console by watching the color video input from the visual imagers set in the eye-like side domes of Dragonfly, he went forward to the flight deck where he could look out Arielle’s side cockpit window from the jump seat behind her.
“Look at that jade-colored one — with the paler ones on either side!” David’s ability to see the slightest variations in color helped him to delineate the regular patterns unfolding below. Deirdre, finished with her shower, and back in her trim brown coverall, came forward with Foxx to take the jump seat behind George.
“They’re definitely triangular, d’you see?”
With the clue, the humans all began to pick out the repetition of shape, even though some of the blue-green fields were so closely alike in color that distinction was difficult. Richard and Shirley, their heads close together as Richard stared over Shirley’s shoulder at her console screen, enjoyed trying to pick out the boundaries of each irregular formation, while simultaneously enjoying their own closeness. Richard was supporting himself on his hands placed close on either side of Shirley’s console table. The heavy warmth of Shirley’s breasts brushing against his forearms as she reached to bring up new views to the touchscreen, recalled casual liaisons of years past, and Shirley, relaxing in this carefree moment, delighted in reminding Richard. Up front, oblivious, George and Deirdre commented on the increasing number of icerugs visible below.
Ocean Under the Ice Page 19
