It helped that there were apparently local superstitions about Imagine, and the Atargatis. People had always disappeared in the waters over and around the Mariana Trench, but those disappearances had increased in number since the first, failed attempt to confirm the existence of mermaids. Yachts had been found drifting, no crew or passengers present; fishing boats had washed up on shore with holes in their bellies and nothing in their holds. That alone had been enough to guarantee them relative solitude.
At the surface, the waters here looked like the waters everywhere else in the world. The scientists clinging to the decks of the Melusine sampled the water as they passed over it, analyzing the organic compounds present, charting the levels of pollution. (More comprehensive readings were being taken by the ship itself, as she cleansed hundreds of gallons of water hourly, pumping them in, purifying them, and pumping them out again. Some of the chemists were concerned about this throwing off their readings. Others felt that this afforded an excellent excuse to sunbathe until they reached their destination, lying on deck chairs and reading lurid novels on their tablets. Both groups were correct, in their own way.)
Jacques and Michi continued fishing off their stretch of deck, but they weren’t the only ones sampling the bounty of the sea. Several scientists whose work wouldn’t begin in earnest until they reached the Trench had taken to fishing off one of the lower decks, making a competition of who could bring in the most, or the strangest. The kitchen staff had proven remarkably tolerant, as long as the scientists frying fish on their stoves were willing to clean up after themselves. It seemed as if the Melusine was a hot point of life and vitality in an otherwise empty world.
That could not have been more incorrect. The Melusine floated at the very top of the photic zone, in the pelagic, or open sea. The farther she got from shore, the more packed with life the water became. They had sailed well away from the polluted “dead zones” that popped up near the shore; they’d even sailed outside the range of the worst of the radiation from the 2011 Fukushima disaster, which had left great swaths of the Pacific between Japan and California tainted. The waters here were as close to clean as remained in the world, and were getting cleaner as the Melusine sailed.
They were also getting deeper. With no continental ridges to shove against each other, forming submerged mountains technically taller, if not higher, than anything in the dry world, the seafloor was free to reach depths no unprotected human would ever see. The fish that thrived here were ancient, strange, and, all too often, unknown. Mankind’s exploration of the oceans had been going on for centuries, yet had barely scratched the surface, leaving much of the depths uncharted. This trip would hopefully change that, in some small ways … if the people made it back alive.
On the deck of the Melusine, a scientist yanked on her rod too hard and too fast, causing the line to snap. While she cursed and her compatriots laughed, the green bumphead parrotfish she had been trying to reel in swam straight down, away from the light, away from the threat posed by sharp hooks that fell from the surface of the water. It was not an intelligent creature; it moved out of instinct, fleeing what it couldn’t comprehend. It wouldn’t have been in these waters at all had it not blundered into a current that its dim instinctual memory told it should not have existed; the sea was changing too quickly for the long, slow knowledge of the fish to keep pace.
Adult parrotfish could survive easily at depths of up to thirty meters, well below what any of the casual fishermen aboard the Melusine were capable of reaching. The fish swam until all was darkness, until it felt it was safe. Then it stopped, hanging in the water, going still as stone as it waited for signs of danger. It wasn’t sure which way to go. Instinct would eventually see it safely back to the shallows, but eventually was not now, and while it was not a clever creature, it knew enough to be afraid.
Light flickered below it. Light meant the sun, the surface, and the warm shallows of its youth, where it had been small and swift and surrounded by the bodies of its cohort. Parrotfish didn’t have nostalgia as mammals measured such things, and it had abandoned those shallow waters of its own volition, following instinct into deeper places where it could reach its full growth. It was still a schooling fish, preferring the company of others of its kind, but it no longer swam in such teeming numbers. That was for the young. Still, light was a temptation. The parrotfish swam downward, following the light.
The water around it cooled, slowly enough that the unwary parrotfish didn’t notice. It was following the light. Every instinct it had told it that this was safe, this was the way home. It was not a deepwater fish, to understand the risks of bioluminescence, the things that could hide behind a glittering glow. It was already at the very bottom of its natural range, and it was still swimming downward.
An adult bumphead parrotfish can weigh more than a hundred pounds. This one tipped the scales at slightly over seventy, larger than a human child. But when the thin, strong hands reached up from below and dragged it down, it didn’t break away. It couldn’t. It had gone too deep. The water roiled for a moment with its struggles, then was still as the hunter that had claimed it dove down, deeper still, heading home.
The bubbles created by the parrotfish’s final moments broke the surface as the fish never would, obscured by the Melusine’s wake, and quickly lost.
Two more shutter tests were performed, both at midnight, when fewer passengers would be awake to notice.
Both failed.
CHAPTER 10
Western Pacific Ocean, above the Mariana Trench: September 2, 2022
The Melusine sat motionless in the water, held in place by heavy chains and suspended anchors. The seafloor was so far beneath them that traditional anchors would never have worked; they had to depend on counterweights, and hope no storms blew up while they were here.
As Olivia had predicted, the deck had transformed into a veritable science city as soon as the ship came to a stop: workstations and lab benches had popped up almost instantly. Most were clustered near the rails, barely leaving space for people to move, while those who didn’t need immediate access to the sea—and who had been too slow to race up and stake out their space—were packed near the walls, grumbling about their luck. Fishing lines hung from every deck, attached to sensors and microphones and lures as often as they were attached to hooks. The business of science was getting under way.
(Every level of the ship was getting into the act. The swimming pool had been closed to human use, becoming a “tidal pool” where live-caught fish could be deposited for study. Vacuum tubes attached to the bottom of the ship were extended, pulling in still more fish and depositing them in the pool. There had already been an incident involving someone’s prized squid and a deeply confused juvenile great white. More such incidents were expected, and indeed, highly anticipated; several of the scientists who didn’t care for the sun had brought their computers down to the poolside, treating the pool as their private aquarium.)
After four days in place, the easy parts were over. Now was when the serious work could begin. The fact that very few of them were actually looking for mermaids was almost inconsequential; with this much oceanography happening in a narrowly focused area, if there were mermaids out there to find, they were going to be found.
Tory paced the lowest public deck, watching the RIBs being prepared for launch. Each of the rigid inflatable boats had the capacity to hold six people joyriding or four people doing serious science—although with so many conflicting kinds of science being done, most boats had been reserved by groups of two or three. The sign-up sheets had gone out to the passengers the night before, and she and Luis had been lucky enough to get their names at the top of the list.
“What is taking so long?” she asked, for the fifth time.
“I’ll sedate you,” said Luis. “I know how to set your microphones. If I set your microphones while you have a nap, no one will ever know, and if they did know, they wouldn’t blame me.” He was leaning against the rail, expression remarkably calm.
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Tory stopped pacing to glare. “You had six cups of coffee with breakfast this morning. I watched you.”
“Yes, but what you didn’t watch was my good night’s sleep, or the incredible sex I had before going to bed. We should have gone to floating science camp years ago. You know what gets oceanographers horny? Being in the middle of the ocean. It’s amazing.”
“You’re a pig.”
“I am not. I’m a gentleman.”
“Who did you sleep with?”
“I’m not going to kiss and tell,” he said, mock-affronted. “And besides, it was nobody you’d be interested in. I stay away from the kind of girls you like. They’re always so high-strung. Which brings us back to you needing to calm down. Go to the hot tubs tonight and see if you can find someone to give you a backrub.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe that lady in white. Olivia? She’s hot.”
“She works for Imagine.”
“They’re the ones who say to imagine the possibilities.”
“Room on your boat for one more?”
They turned toward the voice, Luis pushing away from the rail while Tory tensed, clearly fighting the urge to resume pacing. Dr. Toth was walking toward them, her valise in one hand. She was wearing a black peasant top that left her shoulders bare, and looked less like a scientist at work than a tourist getting ready to go for a pleasant sail.
“I didn’t want to pilot solo, and by the time I’d gotten around to trying to find a team, most of the RIBs were full,” she continued. “I won’t get in the way, and what I need to do isn’t disruptive.”
“What do you need to do?” asked Tory. It was impossible not to sound wary. Most of the scientists aboard the Melusine had come to an understanding about their research and results: “publish or perish” was still a driving motive for many of them, and no one wanted to see their hard work appearing under someone else’s name.
“Water samples.” Dr. Toth held up her valise. “If there are mermaids in the area, and they’ve been coming to the surface to hunt, there should be some signs in the water. We know some of what to watch for from the Atargatis incident, and I have theories about the rest.”
“The ship does water sampling throughout the day,” said Luis. “The winches are going, like, constantly.”
“Yes, and I’ve been watching those results, but I want some surface readings. I think the sheer size of the vessel is probably keeping the mermaids at what they consider a safe distance while they decide what to do with us. Remember that the Atargatis didn’t have any immediate sightings, and the Danvers didn’t have any confirmed sightings at all. Just lights on the water.” The Danvers had been a military ship. Her crew had been the ones to find the Atargatis drifting. The Danvers had remained for several days, searching for survivors, only to move on when the sailors began reporting strange, unsettling lights in the water. None of the reports had said anything about mermaids.
“So you think they’re watching us?” Luis glanced over the rail. The water was very dark and very clear at the same time, like looking through a window into infinity. A cold hand seemed to run along his spine, sending chills all through him.
“Mr. Martines, I know they’re watching us. The only question is from how far away.” Dr. Toth smiled thinly. “I’ll ask again: is there room on your boat?”
“There is, as long as you’re willing to remember that we’re the ones who signed up for it; we don’t move on until we get the readings we need, and we come back when we say it’s time to come back.” Tory took a step forward. “Is that acceptable?”
“That’s dandy,” said Dr. Toth.
The RIBs were almost ready. Tory, Luis, and Dr. Toth lined up for the first available boat, climbing in when motioned to do so by the crew. As the only one of them who’d grown up using vehicles like this one, Tory took the helm, listening intently as a crewman gave her a quick rundown of the controls. They were mostly as she’d expected; boats this size didn’t really allow for a lot of customization, not without losing their easy interchangeability and flexibility. Push the throttle to go forward; pull back to reverse; turn the “wheel” to turn the RIB. There were no brakes. To stop accelerating, she would stop pushing forward.
“If there’s an emergency, hit this,” said the crewman. He indicated a flat red button set off to one side, well out of the range where it might be hit by ordinary motion. “That will alert the ship that there’s a problem, and activate your tracking beacon. We’ll be able to send someone to intercept you. Please reserve for actual emergencies.”
“Running out of beer doesn’t qualify?” quipped Luis.
The crewman leveled a flat look on him. He shrank back in his seat.
“No,” said the crewman. “If we thought you were taking this vehicle out for recreational purposes, we’d need to request you leave. There’s a long list of people who want the RIBs for actual research.”
“We don’t have beer,” said Dr. Toth, settling on the RIB’s rear bench. She placed her valise between her feet, anchoring it with her ankles. “We are boring scientists, off to do boring science things. Thank you for helping us get under way, Marty.”
The crewman offered her a dry smile. “I have to go through the prelaunch checklist with everyone, Professor. You know that.”
“I do, but since I believe we’ve heard all the salient bits, can’t you give us a little push and trust us to come back in one piece?”
His smile faded. “In these waters, I don’t trust that about anybody. You be careful out there, Professor. You too, kids.” He took a step back before Tory or Luis could object, turned to the woman manning the crane controls, and hollered, “RIB six is ready for launch!”
“Confirmed!” the woman shouted back. “All hold!”
Shouts of “All hold” ran up and down the deck as the other crewmen acknowledged the launch. The pulleys activated, and the RIB was lifted into the air, sliding over until it hung suspended above the water. It was a twenty-foot drop at most; they would probably have been fine if the clamps had simply let go. Wet, but fine. Instead the pulleys whirred and the RIB was lowered slowly and deliberately toward the water. When they were a foot or so above the surface, the clamps released, surrendering their magnetic moorings on the prow and stern of the inflatable boat. The drop was negligible, barely lasting long enough for the passengers to notice. Then they were afloat, finally separate from the great body of the Melusine.
After the stability of the Melusine, the rocking of the RIB in the water was almost a shock. Tory laughed, delighted. Luis made an unhappy face.
“This, right here, is why I took a Dramamine before we launched,” he said. “There’s something wrong with you.”
“I could say the same,” said Tory. “Everybody seated?”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” said Dr. Toth. Her tone was dry as dust, but she was smiling. Like Tory, she seemed to be taking pleasure in the motion of the small boat, enjoying it in a way that would have seemed impossible to someone who hadn’t grown up effectively at sea. Children of islands and the coast went one of two ways: they learned to fear and respect the water, or they learned to live for it.
Tory hit the throttle and the RIB rocketed away from the Melusine, out into the wide blue world.
On the Melusine’s lowest deck, a similar departure was being prepared—similar in that someone was planning to leave the ship for something smaller, less secure. Different in every other way.
Heather was dressed in a skintight wet suit. Knowing this moment was coming had kept her away from the dessert tables at the dinner buffet, had kept forcing her into the pool right up until it became an aquarium, and still drove her to the gym on deck three. Her Minnow was calibrated to her body weight and size, sensitive to within a five-pound range, and could refuse to launch over any discrepancy. It was a safety function, and while she was capable of overriding it if necessary, the pod’s systems made a record of every override, and too many of those could endanger her funding.
Holly helped her sister che
ck the closures on her wet suit, and tried not to think about the fact that its coloring—charcoal gray and electric orange, with bright blue running stripes—was designed to make her body easier to spot if something went wrong and she wound up floating to the surface of the water, unprotected, unable to light a signal flare. They had had their arguments about Heather’s choice of profession; had started having them when they were teenagers and Holly realized what she wanted was the lab, while what Heather wanted was the world.
(People who thought they were identical simply because they shared a face and a height and a hairstyle weren’t paying close enough attention. Heather had been swimming competitively since the age of twelve, and had the muscled arms and lithe build that came from her athletic choices. Holly, in contrast, was slim instead of sinewy, and often needed to ask her sister to open jars or lift boxes for her. They knew their differences inside and out, had been charting them since the day they began to deviate from their simple synchronicity. Let them be taken as identical in the eyes of the world. They could never fool each other, and that was all that mattered.)
‘I wish you wouldn’t do this,’ signed Holly.
‘I’m on this ship because I can do this. Imagine hired me to do this.’
‘I thought you were going to go down after they’d already checked the water. To make sure it was …’ Holly waved her hands helplessly for a moment, not signing, just expressing her frustration. ‘Safe. They were supposed to make sure it was safe.’
‘Lots of people have gone diving here. Some of them have even gone into the Challenger Deep. None of them were eaten by mermaids.’
‘None of them were here looking for mermaids, and none of them have been here since the Atargatis.’
Heather sighed.
It was true there had been no major dives in the area since the loss of the Atargatis. Most research funding was happening in places that were being harder hit by climate change and pollution: the Mariana Trench was remote enough not to be of major interest to the private concerns currently making up the bulk of the research opportunities. There had been a few small private dives, usually funded by skeptic organizations seeking to debunk the Atargatis film, but none had gone deeper than thirty meters, and none of them had found anything.