by Steve Alten
Eventually, the progression of gorges had led the pliosaur to the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.
As the Lio cruised the seafloor, the hydrodynamic pressure of its movements perpetually channeled water over the external nares of its directional nostrils and across its palatal grooves. Passing through the nasal ducts, the seawater was “tasted” by the organ’s olfactory epithelia, eliciting an intoxicating potpourri of scents and chemicals, the likes of which the creature had never experienced.
Locking on to the pungent traces of mammal sweat and urine, the Lio altered its course, abandoning the canyon as it headed northwest into Fisherman Bay.
* * *
The elephant seal was a twelve-foot-long, forty-three-hundred-pound adolescent bull. It had spent the afternoon playing the polygamist to its herd of thirty-seven cows, mounting two. Hungry from the energy expenditures of copulation, it gyrated across the rock-strewn beach on its pectoral fins and undulating rolls of blubber, making its way down to the sea.
The male paused at the shoreline to scan the foam-laced shallows. The presence of the hyperactive seals was reassuring, but the bull knew that both its desired prey and the predators that stalked its kind resided well beyond the breakwater.
The tall, black dorsal fins belonged to orcas, which hunted in pods farther out in the bay. Being air-breathers, the killer whales preferred to hunt near the surface and rarely dove deeper than a hundred feet. On rare occasions a lone juvenile male might venture close to shore in an attempt to bull-rush an elephant seal wading in the shallows. But the maneuver was easily spotted, and the bull risked beaching itself.
Great whites were always a threat, the rogue hunters preferring to launch a bite-and-flee attack from below. For the elephant seal, the key to surviving these hunting excursions was to get deep as quickly as possible and bottom-feed. Fortunately, evolution had endowed the mammals with a thick layer of blubber and sinuses in their abdomens that were capable of storing large volumes of blood and oxygen. Combined with the increased concentrations of myoglobin in their muscles, bull elephant seals could remain underwater for up to two hours while diving more than seven thousand feet—far deeper than any orca.
The sea was rough, the eight-foot swells concealing any telltale fins.
Wading in up to its thick neck, the rotund behemoth ducked beneath the waves, shedding the confines of its two tons of ballast. Engaging its hindquarters—an undeveloped tail ending in a pair of five-fingered webbed feet—it quickly slipped beyond the breakpoint as it followed the seafloor to deeper water. It paused to empty its bladder and mark its territory before searching the bottom for food.
Its whiskers quickly detected vibrations coming from beneath the silt, its proboscis flushing out a two-foot-long squid.
The bull had slurped its meal down its gullet when a frenzy of movement suddenly surrounded the giant pinniped as half a dozen harbor seals shot out of the gray-brown mist and passed overhead before disappearing again into the ether.
Uncertain if the seals were being chased or just playing, the bull moved off. For twenty minutes, it continued to scour the silt for telltale propulsion trails, until it detected a presence circling the periphery … something large.
Whipping its lower limb up and down, it attempted to distance itself from the unseen predator, its senses unable to determine the species.
Whomp!
The Lio’s open jaws snapped down upon the strange creature’s tail with ten thousand pounds per square inch of bite-force. The four-inch fangs jutting out from the upper jaw beneath its snout punctured the elephant seal’s soft flesh, while the curved posterior teeth acted as a ratchet, pulling the thick wad of blubber into its mouth.
Hot blood gushed down the pliosaur’s gut, sending the Liopleurodon into a frenzy. Twisting sideways, it rolled over like a crocodile, ripping loose a foot flipper and thirty pounds of energy-restoring fat.
The wounded elephant seal wiggled its way free, writhing in pain and trailing gobs of blood as it struggled to reach the surface.
* * *
“It’s an elephant seal. Looks like a young bull—”
The four divers jumped as the opening riffs of Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy” pumped out the keel’s underwater speakers.
“It’s struggling as if it’s hurt.”
“It is hurt. That black stuff’s blood.”
Andrew flipped the switch on his communicator back to Channel-1, raising his voice to be heard over the blurred heavy metal singer’s vocals. “Sally, we’ve got a wounded elephant seal down here; there’s blood everywhere.”
“That’s excellent. Was it a great white?”
“Stand by, it’s swimming toward the cage.” Crouching as low as he could, Andrew pressed his face mask to the aluminum bars as the wounded mammal struggled to ascend. “Must have been a great white; the bite radius is huge. Half its tail is missing.”
The harbor seals swarmed in and out of view as the music continued pumping out of the underwater speakers, the agile sea mammals anxious, as if they were being stalked from all sides.
“Running … on our way. Hiding … You will pay—”
Judson was the first one to see the great white, his eyes drawn to movement as the fifteen-foot male’s triangular snout emerged from the mist. Its spine arched, its black eyes rolled back in its head as it accelerated with a flick of its caudal fin, grazing the elephant seal as it struck the cage with the impact of an SUV hitting a golf cart.
The four divers cried out. The aluminum bars were bent, but miraculously remained intact.
“Everybody okay?”
Judson wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist, grabbing Andrew with his free hand. “Why did it attack the cage?”
Andrew switched over to Channel-2. “Say again?”
“Maybe the music screwed up its sensory array,” Rebecca offered.
“Here comes another one!” Teresa pointed below as a second male appeared from out of the murk. As it rose on a forty-degree plane, its jaws widened to reveal a hideous band of gums above a row of triangular teeth that clamped down upon the elephant seal’s gushing lower limb, sending the wounded mammal into convulsions.
“Dying … One thousand deaths—”
—as a third great white, this one an eighteen-foot, thirty-six-hundred-pound female, circled in and out of the gray periphery, making its presence known.
“There is no escape, and that’s for sure—”
Rebecca screamed as the elephant seal forced its head inside one of the rectangular openings of the cage, its proboscis suctioning her mask, prying it away from her face.
“This is the end, we won’t take anymore.”
Judson ripped the yellow air hose free, guiding it into his wife’s mouth as divers and beasts disappeared behind a cloud of blood.
“Say good-bye to the world you live in. You’ve always been taking, but now you’re giving.”
Andrew wheezed to catch a breath. His back was pinned against the rattling metal cage, his chest crushed by the wounded mammal, its twisting torso now filling his entire field of vision, its girth blocking the entire upper half of the aluminum frame, sealing off their escape.
Teresa was curled in a ball on the other side of their prison, her blue airline pinned behind an unyielding wall of blubber. Inhaling a final deep breath, she separated the hose from the bottom of her mask and shoved her head out of the nearest two-foot-wide rectangle of aluminum to make her escape—
—her eyes widening in horror as the largest of the three great whites suddenly charged the cage, just missing her as it clamped its triangular teeth upon the exposed remains of the elephant seal’s gushing hindquarters, the female’s fluttering gill slits so close to the chef that she could have shoved her fist into one of them. She could only hold on as the shark shook the dying mammal from side to side, causing the tortured elephant seal to buck like a bronco, its gyrations popping loose the bolts supporting the four sides of the aluminum frame.
Andr
ew grabbed the closest section of cage and used it as a shield as he kicked for the surface. A dark silhouette appeared overhead, forcing him to halt his ascent. Looking down, he saw Teresa trailing fifteen feet behind. He waved for her to join him—
—never seeing the big female that struck him from behind, his impaled lungs belching air and blood into his mask as the shark’s jaws crushed his upper torso in one savage bite and release.
Teresa screamed into her mask, her eyes wide as she swiveled around in circles before paddling and kicking furiously. Reaching the surface, she reached her hands out of the water—
—two of the musicians dragging her onto the boat.
Judson attempted to lead his wife away from the collapsed cage, only both of their air hoses were entangled in the aluminum hatch. Inhaling several deep breaths, he pulled out his hose again, thankful for the plug that sealed his mask. Freeing his wife’s line, he took her by the hand and kicked for the surface, the sea above them a purple haze of bleeding body parts and circling sharks. Air was up, but so was death, and so he swam as hard as he could in the direction of the music, praying they could make it to the other side of the yacht before they drowned … or were eaten.
Without her mask, Rebecca was effectively blind. He kept his head on a swivel, looking right, left, behind them, and up.
Looking down, he saw the creature rise out of the mist.
At first he thought it was a crocodile … until a stroke of its powerful forelimbs revealed the Lio’s identity and its intended meal … his wife.
No.
For fifteen years Rebecca Bass had been his doctor and his nurse, his lover, companion, and provider. This nightmarish ending was not going to happen … not on his watch.
Reaching the yacht’s keel, Judson pulled her up, slinging her toward the surface. Instead of following after her, he grabbed hold of one of the underwater speakers, using his free hand to pull off his swim fins. With his lungs screaming for air, he braced both feet against the bottom of the boat, his eyes locked on the Liopleurodon as it ascended with frightening speed, its jaws opening as it homed in on his wife—
Now!
Thrusting away from the keel with every ounce of strength left in his body, Judson launched himself directly into the creature’s path, propelling his head and right shoulder into the monster’s widening mouth while wrapping his left arm around its snout to prevent it from going after his wife.
Caught with its jowls stretched open, the Lio could not generate enough torque to bite down upon the strange life-form jammed inside its mouth. It tried to shake it loose, but the animal’s tentacle refused to let go.
Unable to channel water into its gullet and gills in order to breathe, the pliosaur panicked, diving into the depths.
With every twist and shake of its skull, a hundred two-inch-long, stiletto-sharp ivory teeth bore their way deeper into Judson McCurdy’s flesh. On the verge of losing consciousness from the pain and lack of air, he felt the monster dive, and knew Rebecca was safe.
And then he smiled as a strange calm passed over him … the pain of life vanishing with his pulse, his soul slipping free of its physical bonds long before the nightmare of nature delivered his carcass to the bottom of Fisherman Bay.
PART TWO
NIGHT
We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the game.
—Randy Pausch
Peking University
Beijing, China
Considered by many to be the top educational institute in China, Peking University is made up of thirty colleges and twelve departments that offer ninety-three programs to its undergraduates. Honoring the region’s history, the sprawling campus features Oriental gardens and landscaping, waterways, and traditional Chinese architecture.
The event was being held on campus at an auditorium inside the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology. The star of the lecture remained hidden from view behind a red velvet curtain; the first three rows were reserved for dignitaries and members of the press.
Professor Jiang Wei was greeted by a standing ovation as he crossed the stage and stood behind the podium. “Thank you. Much has been written about the find on Sarigan Island, leading to both conjecture and debate. Did we discover a new species? Was the immense size of this reptilian creature simply an adaptation necessary to survive the warm-water abyss of the Mariana Trench, or perhaps the deeper, more isolated habitat of the Panthalassa Sea?
“The answers to these questions, and many more, were provided by the fossilized remains of the predator and its prey … so, without further delay…”
The curtains parted, revealing an immense serpent-like skeleton. The head was as large as a cement truck, its jaws hyperextended open an astounding thirteen feet, sporting a pair of curved upper and lower fangs, each tooth in excess of eighteen inches. The skull was anchored thirty feet off the ground so that the rest of its vertebrae angled downward before twisting off to the right, where the pliosaur remains were wedged in tight, approximately forty-five feet from the jowls. From here the skeleton completed several S-shaped curves across the stage.
Workers wheeled the lectern to one side, allowing photographers and guests to snap iPhotos and videos. Dr. Wei permitted the chaos to go on for several minutes before retaking control of the room.
“Please … if everyone could be seated. I heard a few colleagues ask if these are the actual skeletons unearthed at Sarigan. The answer is no. This is a replica created from casted molds. As to its size, from snout to tail the creature measured forty-seven meters … approximately one hundred fifty-five feet. We conservatively estimate its weight to have been forty-five to fifty tons. The way it appears on stage matches the angle at which it was situated when it was discovered and excavated from the cave. Our working theory is that it captured its prey in the abyss, then retreated to land by way of this sea cave when its meal became lodged in its gill slits, preventing it from breathing. Unable to regurgitate, it eventually suffocated—a fate experienced by Florida pythons that swallow and attempt to digest an entire alligator whole.
“To the first question … is the animal a snake? Beyond its physical appearance, we found multiple similarities with Titanoboa cerrejonensis and concluded the animal was indeed a snake. As to the identity of its last meal, that animal has been confirmed to be a pliosaur that measured approximately eleven meters. Unfortunately, the snake’s gastric juices burned through many of its prey’s identifying characteristics, making it difficult to discern whether it was a Kronosaur or Tylosaur—either of which can only be explained from a timeline perspective using our working theory that has the snake entering the Panthalassa Sea in order to feed. Further, the presence of gill rakers aft of the creature’s skull is a physical adaptation shared by many of the marine reptiles purported to inhabit the Panthalassa. As such, we officially name our species Titanoboa Panthalassic.
“As evidenced by the presence of the adult female Liopleurodon that escaped the Panthalassa several years ago, an increase in size and girth appears to be a necessary adaptation for survival in this prehistoric sea. Therefore, we have concluded that Titanoboa Panthalassic is not a new species, but most likely a deep-water adaptation, rendering Titanoboa Panthalassic a subspecies of Titanoboa cerrejonensis.
“Finally, we come to the two questions that the public wants answered most: Could these monstrous snakes still be alive? And if so, are they a threat to humans? With the existence of the Panthalassa Sea, the answer to the first question must be yes. As to the second, the age of these fossilized remains coincides with the formation of the Mariana Islands—a volcanic event that ultimately sealed the Panthalassa Sea from the Mariana Trench. Therefore, if Titanoboa Panthalassic still exists today, it is sealed within a purgatory that meets not only its needs, but ours as well.”
South Florida Bone Marrow/Stem Cell Transplant Institute
Boynton Beach, Florida
Jonas circled the Bethesda Health City medical complex once before locating Building C. He p
ulled the rental car by the front curb and waited as Danielle climbed out to assist Terry into the complex, then he parked. They had arrived in South Florida two days before after spending a week in Philadelphia while his wife had undergone tests at the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, supervised by Dr. Michelle Briggs.
“Tell me about your symptoms, Mrs. Taylor.”
“I’ve lost some weight. My husband and daughter keep pushing me to eat, but I can’t … my stomach always feels full.”
“What you’re feeling is the tumor in your liver pushing against your stomach. It’s also irritating the lower lobes of your right lung.”
Jonas nodded. “Her lung has to be drained every three days. Yesterday, the technician removed seventeen hundred cc’s of fluid—nearly enough to fill a half-gallon container. But we keep telling her that she has to eat … the weight’s falling off of her—”
“I’ve lost my sense of taste, which doesn’t help. I suppose not eating has made me feel weak.”
“Mrs. Taylor, when you were younger, did you go out in the sun a lot?”
“Not a lot, and I always wore protection, sun block forty-five.”
“Have you started any treatments?”
“Not yet.”
“In reviewing your pathology, the cancer most likely originated from the melanoma they removed from your face five years ago. It was actually a very low-risk melanoma; when the pathologist measured it from the top of the skin down to the underlying skin, it was determined to be point-two millimeters deep. This type of melanoma is a lentigo maligna melanoma, which I was hoping it was going to be, in that it’s the kind we’re working on treating. It tends to appear on the parts of the body that have chronic sun exposure.
