Peter Watts - Starfish

Still. It seems odd that he has to remind himself.

TRANS/OFFI/230850:0830

I'm about to embark on my first extended dive. Apparently, the participants have been asked to catch a fish for one of the Pharm consortiums. Washington/Rand, I believe. I find this a bit puzzling— usually Pharms are only interested in bacteria, and they use their own people for collecting— but it provides the participants with a change from the usual routine, and it provides me an opportunity to watch them in action. I expect to learn a great deal.

Brander is slouched at the library when Scanlon comes through the lounge. His fingers rest unmoving on the keypad. Eyephones hang unused in their hooks. Brander's empty eyes point at the flatscreen. The screen is dark.

Scanlon hesitates. "I'm heading out now. With Clarke and Caraco."

Brander's shoulders rise and fall, almost indiscernibly. A sigh, perhaps. A shrug.

"The others are at the Throat. You'll be the only— I mean, will you be running tender from Comm?"

"You told us not to change the routine," Brander says, not looking up.

"That's true, Michael. But—"

Brander stands. "So make up your mind." He disappears down the corridor. Scanlon watches him go. Naturally this has to go into my report. Not that you care.

You might, though. Soon enough.

Scanlon drops into the wet room and finds it empty. He struggles into his armor single-handed, taking an extra few moments to ensure that the helmet bubble is spotless. He catches up with Clarke and Caraco just outside; Clarke is checking out a quartet of squids hovering over the seabed. One of them is tethered to a specimen canister resting on the bottom, a pressure-proof coffin over two meters long. Caraco sets it for neutral buoyancy; it rises a few centimeters.

They set off without a word. The squids tow them into the abyss; the women in the lead, Scanlon and the canister following behind. Scanlon looks back over his shoulder. Beebe's comforting lights wash down from yellow to gray, then disappear entirely. Feeling a sudden need for reassurance, he trips through the channels on his acoustic modem. There: the homing beacon. You're never really lost down here as long as you can hear that.

Clarke and Caraco are running dark. Not even their squids are shining.

Don't say anything. You don't want them to change their routine, remember?

Not that they would anyway.

Occasional dim lights flash briefly at the corner of his eye, but they always vanish when he looks at them. After an endless few minutes a bright smear fades into view directly ahead, resolves into a collection of copper beacons and dark angular skyscrapers. The vampires avoid the light, head around it at an angle. Scanlon and cargo follow helplessly.

They set up just off the Throat, at the borderline between light and dark. Caraco unlatches the canister as Clarke rises into the column above them; she's got something in her right hand, but Scanlon can't see what it is. She holds it up as though displaying it to an invisible crowd.

It gibbers.

It sounds like a very loud mosquito at first. Then it dopplers down to a low growl, slides back up into erratic high frequency.

And now, finally, Lenie Clarke turns her headlight on.

She hangs up there like some crucified ascendant, her hand whining at the abyss, the light from her head sweeping the water like, like—

— a dinner bell , Scanlon realizes as something charges out of the darkness at her, almost as big as she is and Jesus the teeth on it—

It swallows her leg up to the crotch. Lenie Clarke takes it all in stride. She jabs down with a billy that's magically appeared in her left hand. The creature bloats and bursts in a couple of places; clumps of bubbles erupt like silvery mushrooms through flesh, shudder off into the sky. The creature thrashes, its gullet a monstrous scabbard around Clarke's leg. The vampire reaches down and dismembers it with her bare hands.

Caraco, still fiddling with the canister, looks up. "Hey, Len. They wanted it intact ."

"Wrong kind," Clarke buzzes. The water around her is full of torn flesh and flashing scavengers. Clarke ignores them, turning slowly, scanning the abyss.

Caraco: "Behind you; four o'clock."

"Got it," Clarke says, spinning to a new bearing.

Nothing happens. The shredded carcass, still twitching, drifts toward the bottom, scavengers sparkling on all sides. Clarke's hand-held voicebox gurgles and whines.

How— Scanlon moves his tongue in his mouth, ready to ask aloud.

"Not now," Caraco buzzes at him, before he can.

There's nothing there. What are they keying on?

It comes in fast, unswerving, from the precise direction Lenie Clarke is facing. "That'll do," she says.

A muffled explosion to Scanlon's left. A thin contrail of bubbles streaks from Caraco to monster, connecting the two in an instant. The thing jerks at a sudden impact. Clarke slips to one side as it thrashes past, Caraco's dart embedded in its flank.

Clarke's headlight goes out, her voicebox falls silent. Caraco stows the dart gun and swims up to join her. The two women maneuver their quarry down towards the canister. It snaps at them, weak and spastic. They push it down into the coffin, seal the top.

"Like shooting fish for a barrel," Caraco buzzes.

"How did you know it was coming?" Scanlon asks.

"They always come," Caraco says. "The sound fools them. And the light."

"I mean, how did you know which direction? In advance?"

A moment's silence.

"You just get a feel for it after a while," Clarke says finally.

"That," Caraco adds, "and this." She holds up a sonar pistol, tucks it back under her belt.

The convoy reforms. There's a prescribed drop-off point for monsters, a hundred meters away from the Throat. (The GA has never been keen on letting outsiders wander too far into its home turf.) Once again the vampires leave light for darkness, Scanlon in tow. They travel through a world utterly without form, save for the scrolling circle of mud in his headlight. Suddenly Clarke turns to Caraco.

"I'll go," she buzzes, and peels away into the void.

Scanlon throttles his squid, edges up beside Caraco.

"Where's she off to?"

"Here we are," Caraco says. They coast to a halt. Caraco fins back to the droned squid and touches a control; buckles disengage, straps retract. The canister floats free. Caraco cranks down the buoyancy and it settles down on a clump of tubeworms.

"Len— uh, Clarke," Scanlon prods.

"They need an extra hand back at the Throat. She went to help out."

Scanlon checks his modem channel. Of course it's the right one, if it wasn't he wouldn't be able to hear Caraco. Which means that Clarke and the vampires at the Throat must have been using a different frequency. Another safety violation.

But he's not a fool, he knows the story. They've only switched channels because he's here. They're just trying to keep him out of the loop.

Par for the course. First the fucking GA, now the hired help—

A sound, from behind. A faint electrical whine. The sound of a squid starting up.

Scanlon turns around. "Caraco?"

His headlamp sweeps across canister, squid, seabed, water.

"Caraco? You there?"

Canister. Squid. Mud.

"Hello?"

Empty water.

"Hey! Caraco! What the hell— "

A faint thumping, very close by.

He tries to look everywhere at once. One leg presses against the coffin.

The coffin is rocking.

He lays his helmet against its surface. Yes. Something inside, muffled, wet. Thumping. Trying to get out.

It can't. No way. It's just dying in there, that's all.