Everyone buckled their harnesses. Katano flipped the switch and the tug of zero-gravity hit, trying to gently pull them out of their seats.
Entry was always tough, but over time the ships had been designed to handle it better, and these days it was only a little rough. They could see the flames going past the nose, but these flames were different.
“They’re grey,” Schreiber said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Miraculously, Adams didn’t reply. Conason looked over at him. He had a rapturous expression, and his lips were moving. So he was praying. Silently, for once. Conason would take that gladly.
They were through entry far faster than anyone expected, but Katano was ready and she pulled them up from the dive position to allow the Neptune Ten to begin its within-atmosphere orbit. Their orbit was high enough that the only potential issue would be if Planet Nine had giant, active volcanoes.
The ship jerked. “What’s going on?” Conason asked, as a feeling of being far heavier than he’d ever been weighed on his body.
“We’re being pulled down,” Katano said, voice tight.
“Adjusting for stronger gravitational pull,” Schreiber added. “Hold on.”
Conason consulted the readings. “Sensors picking up no above-ground formations or activity. Team?” Various assents—if there was something aboveground on Planet Nine, they weren’t near it. Meaning, hopefully, they weren’t going to smash into anything, as the Neptune Ten was definitely descending faster than planned.
“No readings of geological formations,” Adams confirmed. “Which makes sense—Yuggoth is all water, at least from above. Its cities are underwater. So no worries, Commander—we’ll be fine.”
“Really?” Conason couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his tone. “And you know this how?”
“Because it’s in the texts. Oh, how wonderful it’s going to be to see the Old Ones and awaken them! They’re calling us to them, that’s why we’re dropping so quickly.”
“Uh-huh. Science, Josh. We’re on a mission, a scientific one. We’re being pulled down by a stronger gravitational field than expected, meaning this planet has more mass than our calculations indicated. Now, let’s see what’s actually below us before we hit it, shall we?”
“Stabilized,” Katano said, relief clear. “We’ve compensated.”
“Turning high beams on now, Commander,” Schreiber said, as the Neptune Ten leveled out. The crew chuckled, mostly from relief—this was one of Schreiber’s little jokes, since high beams were as archaic a thing as the original stories Adams had based his life on. But the chuckles quickly changed to gasps.
There was nothing but lead-grey as far as they could see. Lead-grey water.
* * *
They circled the planet again, several times, in a variety of directions. But it was the same in every direction—nothing but water. Water that was moving, like waves moved on the oceans of Earth.
In one sense, this presented no issues. The Neptune Ten was as at home deep underwater as it was in space. However, the water was opaque and sensors weren’t giving them any readings. There could be anything under the surface, and that anything could include mountains and volcanoes and other geologic dangers. The Neptune Ten was an amazing ship, but she wasn’t invincible.
“How is there water here?” Katano asked. “Water, not ice?”
“The core of this planet must be superheated in some way,” Rothstein said. “I can’t come up with anything else that makes sense. Kathi, what do you think?”
Schreiber shook her head. “Your scientific guess is as good as mine right now. We need to investigate to determine more.”
“Janelle, let’s get your first robots going,” Conason said. “Hopefully they’ll tell us something.”
“I’ll need to reprogram them for dropping into water,” Rothstein said as she unbuckled herself and shoved out of her seat. “The gravity here is really hard to take, Commander.”
“It will be fine once we’re underwater,” Adams said, before Conason could reply. “We’ll all feel more buoyant. All those who live on Yuggoth do so underwater.”
No one bothered to make the effort to respond to Adams now. Rothstein just rolled her eyes at Conason, then dragged herself out of the command section.
“Do we hover or continue circling?” Katano asked.
“Can we get any underwater readings at all from here?” Conason countered.
“None,” Schreiber said. The rest of the crew confirmed they had nothing.
“Then one place is as good as another,” Conason said with a sigh.
* * *
“Commander, robots are reprogrammed and ready to launch,” Rothstein said finally. “I’m sorry it took so long—every movement takes more effort.”
“Not a problem, Janelle,” Conason said. “Ready when you are.”
“Airlock opening in three…two…one…first wave robots are launched.”
The console indicated an issue. “Janelle, why is the airlock still open?”
“The doors won’t close, Commander. I’m getting into my suit, taking breathing crystals with me just in case.”
“Robots are underwater,” Phillips said. “Heading down fast. Faster than normal, Commander.”
“Pull on the ship is increasing,” Schreiber said. “We need to move higher, if we still can, or we could be pulled apart.”
“We can’t risk the delay,” Conason said. “Let’s see if Josh is right.”
“Switching to submarine mode,” Katano said. “Janelle, don’t go into the airlock.”
“Too late,” Rothstein said. “I’m already in. Just give me a second to—”
Conason waited a moment. “To what? Janelle, what’s going on?”
Her reply was a scream, loud and terrified, but cut off quickly.
Conason and Phillips didn’t hesitate. They were both out of their harnesses and moving out of command section as fast as they could go, which wasn’t nearly as fast as normal. Phillips was in the lead; Katano’s voice was on the com. “Commander, we have to switch to submarine mode in thirty seconds or less.”
“Call it out,” he shouted as they continued towards the airlock. They should have made it in less than fifteen seconds—they were all in top physical condition and they did drills to ensure that all of them could react and arrive quickly should there be a hull breach, a problem with the airlock, and so forth. But Katano was on twenty-five by the time they got there.
“I don’t see any sign of her.” Phillips moved aside so Conason could take a look through the porthole.
There was nothing in the airlock, but the door was open. Conason squinted. “It looks like the door was ripped off its hinges.”
“Twenty-nine,” Katano said. “Going to submarine mode now.”
“All crew into gear,” Conason said as the ship’s internal systems altered to protect the crew from pressurization. They wouldn’t be able to open the inner airlock door now, regardless of who or what was out there. He could only hope that Rothstein’s gear had held up.
While he and Phillips got into their exploration suits, designed to protect them from all elements, be they planetary or in space, he watched through the porthole. They were underwater fast, the spotlights still on, beaming out from all around the ship. There was more visibility underwater, but not much. Unfortunately, he still didn’t see Rothstein.
“No sign of Janelle,” Schreiber said, voice tight. “She wasn’t hooked into the ship’s monitoring system when we lost contact with her.”
“Keep monitoring,” Conason said as he verified that the inner airlock door was sealed tightly. Then he and Phillips headed back to the command section, Adams passing them on the way to the gear. He looked grim.
“We’ll find Janelle, safe and sound, I’m sure,” Conason said gently.
Adams shook his head. “She’d better not get to see them first.”
Phillips and Conason kept going. “He’s an asshole,” Phillips commented.
“He
’s just having a religious experience and it’s affecting him. I’d confine him to quarters but I think we’re going to need all hands, if only to find Janelle.” He wanted to say that he didn’t expect to find more than her body, but that was negative and you didn’t inspire or lead well by being negative.
Conason and Phillips relieved Schreiber and Katano while they got into their gear. Conason turned the ship around slowly, he and Phillips searching for Rothstein. Nothing.
Adams came back before the two women. “We need to dive down deeper.”
“I hate to agree, but I don’t see Janelle anywhere, so it’s likely she’s gone deeper.”
“I doubt we’ll find her,” Adams said. “I thought about it, and I believe that she will be seen as our first offering. This is good. The Old Ones may be pleased with us. But the pressure will be less the deeper we go.”
“Why would that be?” Conason asked, trying to keep the anger he felt at Adams’ cavalier attitude about Rothstein’s fate from his voice. “The pressure will increase the closer we get to the planet’s core.”
Adams shook his head. “Things are different on Yuggoth.”
The women returned before Conason could argue. Phillips’ expression said he was as appalled as Conason. Katano and Schreiber’s expressions said they’d heard Adams’ comments, too, but they took their places silently as Conason and Phillips returned to their seats. As they did so, the four of them exchanged looks that all said the same thing—Adams might very possibly be out of his mind.
“Diving slowly,” Katano said.
“Following the path of the robots,” Schreiber added.
“Sensors set to search for human remains,” Adams said. Several throats cleared loudly. “Or life.”
“Carry on.” Conason stared out the command window, hoping that they’d find Rothstein’s body and that it would be intact.
* * *
Thirty long minutes passed. In that time, they saw nothing that could be construed to be Rothstein or parts of her, and they also didn’t catch up to the robots. Adams was mercifully silent, for which Conason was sure the rest of the crew were grateful, though Adams was correct—the feeling of being pushed or pulled down was less as soon as they were fully underwater and lessened the deeper they got.
“Gravitational pull is now similar to Earth’s,” Schreiber said. “That should be impossible.”
“I think I see something,” Phillips said, before Adams could share again that things were different here. “Ahead of where we are.”
Katano brought them out of the dive they were in and leveled off. They headed for what Phillips might have seen. They didn’t have to go far for the spotlights to illuminate what he’d spotted—what looked like a giant bridge made of stone.
Katano slowed the ship to a standstill and they stared. The bridge was huge—taller than any structure Conason had ever seen. Larger than anything humanity had ever built.
“Is that…is that blacker water flowing underneath?” Katano asked finally.
Schreiber adjusted the front spotlights to aim for the black. It surely looked like it was flowing, and not with whatever current there might be. “Perhaps it’s like Earth’s East Australian Current?” Phillips suggested.
“‘The black rivers of pitch that flow under those mysterious cyclopean bridges,’” Adams quoted reverently. “‘Things built by some elder race extinct and forgotten before the beings came to Yuggoth from the ultimate voids. See them and go mad.’”
“I still feel sane,” Katano snapped. “Annoyed, frightened, worried about Janelle, ready to kick your ass, Josh, but sane.”
“Then maybe you’re our Dante or Poe, the one who will stay sane enough to tell the tale,” Adams replied calmly. “If any of us do.”
“Look!” Phillips shouted. “That looks like some of the robots.”
Something was coming towards them, from under the bridge, over but not on the river of pitch. Conason berated himself for thinking of it as Adams had described, but he couldn’t help himself. And Phillips was right—whatever was coming did reflect the spotlights in a way that seemed metallic.
More gasps, these of horror. The thing was indeed the robots, all the robots, joined together with Rothstein.
She was naked, her protective suit and space jumpsuit gone. Her limbs were splayed out spread-eagle, and the robots had warped themselves around her in a way they hadn’t been designed to do—as if they’d tried to protect her, had failed, and had been fused with her in some weird, impossible way. Her hair flowed around her head; her eyes were wide and bugged out, her mouth wide open.
“She’s breathing,” Phillips said. “Somehow. She must have gotten the crystals up her nostrils in time.”
Sure enough, there were bubbles coming out of her mouth that indicated that the underwater breathing crystals were working. “I can’t believe she’s alive,” Conason said.
“I don’t think that, whatever that is, is Janelle anymore,” Schreiber said.
Rothstein beckoned to them, then turned around and headed back the way she’d come, seemingly without swimming or even really moving her limbs.
“Captain?” Katano asked quietly.
“Follow her.”
Rothstein led them under the giant bridge, then under another and another, until they were able to see more than bridges. There were buildings here, gigantic, made of stone, but designed by something clearly not human. Towers and terraces, bas-reliefs depicting things with tentacles and more limbs than any creature so far found in the Solaris System. Many things with huge claws and gaping maws filled with teeth that looked somewhat like a shark’s, if that shark was ten times the size of a Great White.
“There are no windows,” Phillips said. “Did you notice that?”
“We need to get out of here,” Schreiber said, in the calm voice someone used to prevent themselves from panicking. “Immediately, if not sooner. This looks exactly like what Josh has quoted over and over again.”
Adams didn’t reply. Conason looked around to see if he was praying or as horrified as the rest of them. “Where the hell is Adams?”
“We have a breach in the airlock!” Katano said. “Water coming in!”
“Close the hatch!” Phillips shouted.
“Crystals in, helmets on, suits activated first!” Conason bellowed. “That’s an order!” Everyone did what he said, their helmets locked just in time. The water came rushing in before Phillips could close the command section’s hatch. The interior lights went out and they were in darkness, the exterior lights all they had.
Someone took Conason’s hand. He reached out and found someone else’s hand. “Testing, testing,” Katano said as she squeezed his hand. “Sound off. Melissa Katano, present.”
“James Conason, present.” He squeezed the other hand.
“Kathi Schreiber, present.”
“George Phillips, present. We’re all together.”
“Joshua Adams, present.”
“Josh,” Conason said, “where the hell are you?”
“Waiting for my audience.” He sounded rapturous. “Janelle and the robots were accepted as sacrifice. I am the first to speak to the Great One.”
Something more than huge, and resembling a Great White in the same way the teeth in the bas-relief did, swam slowly towards them, mouth opened wide. There were more layers of teeth than Conason could count, all looking razor-sharp and deadly.
“Is that coming to eat the ship?” Katano asked, in a tone that said she knew that it was and wanted someone to tell her she was wrong.
“Yes, and we’re leaving,” Phillips said urgently. Schreiber tugged on Conason’s hand and he followed, pulling Katano behind him. Presumably Phillips was leading them out, which was the only choice, and possibly only chance, they had.
The only saving grace was that the water was easy to move through, less like swimming, more like walking through something viscous. They were able to move more quickly than they had while in orbit.
Conason wanted t
o say goodbye to his ship, but there was no time. They reached the airlock hatch, the hatch that shouldn’t have opened underwater, and exited as fast as possible. “Move away from the ship,” Conason said. “That thing is huge and it’ll hit us if we’re too close.”
“The Dagon is not taking you,” Adams said. “You have nothing to fear.”
“But the fear of your crazy religion itself being true, you mean,” Katano muttered.
Conason agreed, but now wasn’t the time. “Josh, where are you?”
“The Messenger is fetching you to bring you to the Great One,” Adams replied.
Apparently Rothstein was the Messenger. This close it was clear that while the body might be breathing somehow, whatever had been Rothstein was gone. She found them in the last of the Neptune Ten’s light, each robot at the end of her limbs grabbed each of them, then she dragged them through whatever this ocean truly was.
Conason looked over his shoulder and saw the creature engulf their only hope for escape and survival.
He turned back, ready to do his best to destroy whatever he could of this hellish world.
* * *
The Messenger that had been Rothstein dragged them along through the darkness, though, after a while, it wasn’t all that dark. An odd sort of phosphorescence sprang up, allowing Conason to see where they were: in what looked like a giant city made for monsters. Which, he had to admit, was probably exactly where they were.
There were things here, most of them not moving, other than with what appeared to be breathing. They looked to be asleep, if monsters such as these slept. Tentacles, claws, blobs of gelatinous flesh, horrifying things that didn’t bear description, and more. They littered the place.
After what seemed like hours, they were dragged into what Conason thought might be a temple, if the pictures of the big thing with tentacles was correct.
“I’ve seen Josh’s texts,” Schreiber said quietly. “The pictures are very accurate to what we’re seeing here. I think we’re going into the Temple of Cthulhu.”
“He’s not real,” Phillips said staunchly. “This is likely a group hallucination and we’re going to wake up safely inside the Neptune Ten and laugh about whatever it was we all ate.”
Submerged Page 20
