Peter Watts - Starfish

Brander waves one hand dismissively. "We've been doing okay with five." He shuts down the library and stretches. "Anyone seen Ken, by the way?"

"He is just outside," Nakata says. "Why?"

"I'm with him next shift; got to set up a time. His rhythm's been a bit wonky the past couple of days."

"How far out is he?" Clarke asks suddenly.

Nakata shrugs. "Maybe ten meters, when I last checked."

He's in range. There are limits to fine-tuning. You can't feel someone in Beebe from as far as the Throat, for example. But ten meters, easy.

"He's usually further out, isn't he?" Clarke speaks softly, as if afraid of being overheard. "Almost off the scope, most times. Working on that weird contraption of his."

They don't know why they can't tune Lubin in. He says they're all dark to him too. Once, about a month ago, Brander suggested doing an exploratory NMR; Lubin said he'd rather not. He sounded pleasant enough, but there was something about his tone and Brander hasn't brought the subject up since.

Now Brander points his eyecaps at Clarke, a half-smile on his face. "I dunno, Len. Do you want to call him a liar to his face?"

She doesn't answer.

"Oh." Nakata breaks the silence before it can get too awkward. "There is something else. Until our replacement arrives they are sending someone down for, they called it routine evaluation. That doctor, the one who—you know—"

"Scanlon." Lenie is careful not to spit out the word.

Nakata nods.

"What the hell for?" Brander growls. "It's not enough we're already shorthanded, we've got to sit still while Scanlon has another go at us?"

"It's not like before, they say. He's just going to observe. While we work." Nakata shrugs. "They say it is completely routine. No interviews or sessions or anything."

Caraco snorts. "There better not be. I'd let them cut out my other lung before I'd take another session with that prick."

"'So, you were repeatedly buggered by a trained Dobermans while your mom charged admission'," Brander recites in a fair imitation of Scanlon's voice. "'And how did that make you feel , exactly? "

"'Actually I'm more of a mechanic , " Caraco chimes in. "Did he give you that line?"

"He seemed nice enough to me," Nakata says hesitantly.

"Well, that's his job: to seem nice." Caraco grimaces. "he's just no fucking good at it." She looks over at Clarke. "So what do you think, Len?"

"I think he overplayed the empathy card," Clarke says after a moment.

"No, I mean how do we handle this?"

Clarke shrugs, vaguely irritated. "Why ask me?"

"He better not get in my way. Dumpy little turd." Brander spares a blank look at the ceiling. "Now why can't they design a smart gel to replace him ?"

TRAN/OFFI/210850:2132

This is my second night in Beebe. I've asked the participants not to alter their behavior in my presence, since I'm here to observe routine station operations. I'm pleased to report that my request is being honored by everyone involved. This is gratifying insofar as it minimizes "observer effects", but it may present problems given that the rifters do not keep reliable schedules. This makes it difficult to plan one's time with them, and in fact there's one employee — Ken Lubin — whom I haven't seen since I arrived. Still. I have plenty of time.

The rifters tend to be withdrawn and uncommunicative — a layperson might call them sullen — but this is entirely in keeping with the profile. The Station itself seems to be well-maintained and is operating smoothly, despite a certain disregard for standard protocols.

When the lights go out in Beebe Station, you can't hear anything at all.

Yves Scanlon lies on his bunk, not listening. He does not hear any strange sounds filtering in through the hull. There is no reedy, spectral keening from the seabed, no faint sound of howling wind because he knows that, down here, no wind is possible. Imagination, perhaps. A trick of the brain stem, an auditory hallucination. He's not the slightest bit superstitious; he's a scientist. He does not hear the ghost of Karl Acton moaning on the seabed.

And now, concentrating, he's quite certain he hears nothing at all.

It really doesn't bother him, being stuck in a dead man's quarters. After all, where else is there? It's not as though he's going to move in with one of the vampires. And besides, Acton's been gone for months now.

Scanlon remembers the first time he heard the recording. Four lousy words: "We lost Acton. Sorry." Then she hung up. Cold bitch, Clarke. Scanlon once thought something might happen between her and Acton, it was a jigsaw match from the profiles, but you wouldn't know it from that phone call.

Maybe it's her, he muses. Maybe it's not Lubin after all, maybe it's Clarke.

"We lost Acton." So much for eulogy. And Fischer before Acton, and Everitt over at Linke. And Singh before Everitt. And—

And now Yves Scanlon is here, in their place. Sleeping on their bunk, breathing their air. Counting the seconds, in darkness and quiet. In dark—

Jesus Christ, what is—

And quiet. Everything's quiet. Nothing's moaning out there.

Nothing at all.

TRANS/OFFI/220850:0945

We're all mammals, of course. We therefore have a Circadian rhythm which calibrates itself to ambient photoperiod. It's been known for some time that when people are denied photoperiodic cues their rhythms tend to lengthen, usually stabilizing between twenty-seven and thirty-six hours. Adherence to a regular twenty-four hour work schedule is usually sufficient to keep this from happening, so we didn't expect a problem in the deep stations. As an added measure I recommended that a normal photoperiod be built into Beebe's lighting systems; the lights are programmed to dim slightly between twenty-two hundred and oh seven hundred every day.

The participants have apparently chosen to ignore these cues. Even during 'daytime' they keep ambient lighting dimmer than my suggested 'nocturnal' levels. (They also prefer to leave their eyecaps in at all times, for obvious reasons; although I had not predicted this behavior, it is consistent with the profile.) Work schedules are somewhat — flexible, but this is to be expected given that their sleep cycles are always shifting in relation to each other. Rifters do not wake up in time to perform their duties; they perform their duties whenever two or more of them happen to be awake. I suspect that they also work alone sometimes, a safety violation, but I have yet to confirm this.

For the moment, these unorthodox behaviors do not appear to be serious. Necessary work seems to get done on time, even though the station is currently understaffed. However, I believe the situation is potentially problematic. Efficiency could probably be improved by stricter adherence to a twenty-four hour diel cycle. Should the GA wish to ensure such adherence, I would recommend proteoglycan therapy for the participants. Hypothalamic rewiring is another possibility; it is more invasive, but would be virtually impossible to subvert.

Vampires. That's a good metaphor. They avoid the light, and they've taken out all the mirrors. That could be part of the problem right there. Scanlon had very sound reasons for recommending mirrors in the first place.

Most of Beebe— all of it, except for his cubby— is too dark for uncapped vision. Maybe the vampires are trying to conserve energy. A high priority, sitting here next to eleven thousand megawatts' worth of generating equipment. Still, these people are all under forty; they probably can't imagine a world without rationed power.