Far From The Sea We Know (44 page)

Chiffrey looked weary. “This is nothing more
than a shot in the dark.”

“You’ve grown surprisingly cautious lately,”
she said, narrowing her eyes as she stared at him. She didn’t want
to talk about her dream and the drawing, so just added, “I assumed
you’d think this was a great idea.”

“I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

Her father looked at her and said, “Your
mother will not be happy, but your company will be welcome. And at
least I’ll be able to keep my eye on you.” He smiled at Chiffrey.
“It is our decision, Lieutenant. We have our course set.”

Chiffrey still appeared doubtful. “This is
not really a plan.” To Penny he added, “It’s worse than what you
were accusing me of not so long ago. Being chum in the water just
to see what bites.”

Before she could reply, her father said,
“‘Change changes everything.’ It’s what we have. Get the warships
to move back. I’m convinced it will increase our chances of
success. Put it to them that way.”

“I’ll put in the strongest request I can.
The fact that you are going down again will put some weight behind
it. How about forty klicks from the center? All except the ships
searching for the missing subs, and only as long as we remain
unprovoked. Is that sufficient?”

“Of course, we don’t know. And I appreciate
even that, but must there always be a loophole, Lieutenant?”

Chiffrey seemed almost sad. “Whatever you
may believe, no one is looking for a fight. A decision to use force
will not be taken lightly, I assure you. When can you go?”

“If the crew gets to work now, the
Bluedrop
can launch at five tomorrow morning.” Her father
scowled. “And that means getting up at four. Though it may not be
easy, get some sleep, everyone.”

She woke up in her bunk, breathing hard.
Another dream, but all the details forgotten save one: Matthew had
been there. She grabbed her alarm clock and saw immediately that
she hadn’t set it right. Four-thirty, and the light of dawn was
already glimmering on the rim of the porthole. The Bluedrop would
be launched in half an hour. Damn!

She leapt off the bunk, splashed water from
a bottle onto her face, and started to dress while scanning the
other bunks. All empty.

Why hadn’t anyone woken her? Why—

There was a knock on the door.

“I’m up. I’m…thanks.”

“Penny, the mission’s been canceled.”

She flung open the door. Chiffrey looked
startled for once as she glared at him. “What!”

“You’d best have a look yourself,” he
said.

His eyes flickered down for a moment and she
brought together the front of her unbuttoned shirt.

“Just come,” he added. “It will be quicker
than trying to explain.”

“I’ll be there in three minutes.” She
slammed the door shut and immediately began yanking on her
still-tied sneakers, not caring about the pain from the scraped
flesh. She finished tucking in her shirt as she ran along the
companionway and up the steps to find what seemed like the entire
crew on deck, gazing in reverence at the
Bluedrop
’s shiny
yellow hull. It was still sitting on its cradle and the crane was
not even hooked up. She slowed her approach. Her father turned her
way, a twinkle in his eye.

“Our friend below seems to have other ideas
about how we will spend our morning.” He sighed softly. “Pity they
couldn’t have let us know last night. I really could have used more
sleep.”

She slid in between them all and looked at
the
Bluedrop
.

“What’s the problem?”

“You don’t see?” her father answered.

She looked again, but it seemed fine.

“The hatch, Pen.”

“Where…oh, no.”

The hatch was gone.

Only a few days ago, she had stood with
Emory, helping him open it, straining on the wheel with all her
strength. Now the hatch was simply not there anymore, and she could
barely see where it had been. She stepped forward, climbed a
stepladder and ran her hand over the area. Warm. It was as if the
opening in the hull had grown over, healed like a wound, yet
leaving no scar. Even the texture of the paint matched. The color
seemed almost the same, yet when she really looked at it, oddly
different. She looked at Andrew.

“Found the people on watch asleep,” he said,
answering her unspoken question. “They remember nothing.”

Her father shook his head. “And we can’t
hold them responsible. They were clearly rendered unconscious,
perhaps the same way we were while down in the
Bluedrop
.”

“This can’t be a coincidence,” Penny said.
“The dome knew we were coming.”

“Would seem that way,” Andrew said.

“You think this is a message for us?”
Chiffrey asked her father. “As in, ‘stay away or you’re next’?”

“I don’t detect aggression here at all.
Quite the opposite.” He glanced up at where the
Bluedrop
’s
hatch had been. “I’m not sure what the entire strategy is, but part
of the reason for this may be to prevent us from getting hurt. And,
I’ll have to say, the means were concocted with a fair dose of
humor as well.”

Penny looked at him, surprised only for a
moment, then it was as if a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle had fit
together all on their own. Not for Chiffrey, though. He looked
incredulous and was puffing up for a speech.

“You’ll have to excuse me for being a bore,
Doctor,” he said, “but I’m having trouble finding the humor in the
loss of two attack submarines and their crew.”

“If that truly happened, Lieutenant, I would
be the first to call it a terrible tragedy, but I’m still betting
against it.

“The propellers.” Everyone looked at Andrew.
He was leaning against the
Bluedrop
’s crane and looking
squarely at Chiffrey. “In the photos you brought, the propellers
were found in the middle of the Pentagon courtyard. Dead center.
One on top of another, the five blades pointing to the five
walls.”

Her father laughed. “Yes, in some kind of
logic, perhaps the perfect place for them. The same with the
divers. They went down to see what had happened to those same
propellers and emerged later as poets and prophets, at least from
what you’ve told us, Lieutenant. Whether they were spouting the
ravings of madmen or the wisdom of the enlightened, perhaps we’ll
know one day. But it all is beginning to strike me as resembling
something out of the Odyssey. And as long as we’re on Greek
classics, what about Lorraine, our TV news reader, turned sibyl and
seer?”

“You’ll have to excuse me, Doctor, as I’m
afraid I still can’t quite make out the humor,” Chiffrey said, “but
that is an insight I’d love to explore another day. Thing is, we’re
running out of time. What’s next?”

“Don’t you understand?” Her father looked up
a moment as if beseeching heaven. “We are dealing with a totally
different kind of intelligence, another order entirely. Although
some of the actions taken toward us may seem almost nonsensical at
times, there is a pattern here if we could but see it. One thing
does seem abundantly clear and that is that we are not welcome
closer to the dome. So at this point, I see nothing wiser than
simply standing by.”

“If I tell Command the dive is cancelled,”
Chiffrey said, “let alone why, and then say our reaction to that is
to just wait and see, they will immediately go to plan B, which
means you all get pulled out of here. So while we’re standing by,
you might as well start packing—ah, Malcolm? What’s up?”

Malcolm had been trying to plug some
diagnostic equipment into an electrical port on the
Bluedrop
but, after half-stumbling over a cable while lugging a tool box,
had suddenly dropped it and run over to the railing, his mouth
opening and closing like a dying fish. He gazed out to sea,
shielding his eyes with cupped hands until he noticed some
binoculars that had been left nearby. He brought them up to his
face as if trying to screw his eyes directly into the lens casings.
“It’s smooth and shiny,” he said. “Purplish red, shot through with
green.” He put down the binoculars and turned to face the others, a
triumphant smile playing on his face like that of a truant.

Penny could make it out now, although not in
such detail. It was about a hundred and fifty meters away, bobbing
in the waves.

“A whale carcass?” Chiffrey asked. “The
color and all, maybe we’re just seeing the top?”

“Don’t think so,” Becka said. She twisted
around toward the bridge and shouted, “Over there!” to Emory, who
was behind the wheel. Andrew gave a confirming hand signal to the
bridge and the
Valentina
began coming around to the new
heading.

As they got closer, Andrew motioned Emory to
slow down, then gave him the thumbs-up sign. “Get the Zodiacs in,”
he said to Becka. “And bring your diving gear. We’re going to get
wet.”

Penny insisted on being in one of the boats,
and no one protested. Andrew sat in front of her. Mateo was
piloting, and as she briefly wondered why, the cook nodded his head
at Andrew to indicate that he had been asked.

They motored over slowly, keeping the
bulbous shape to their starboard. It bobbed up and down with the
waves, buoyant enough to float half out of the water. They came
alongside, and found the surface of the thing to be as smooth and
perfect as blown glass. It was a slightly elliptical sphere, almost
two meters long. The violet-tinged surface was translucent to a
depth of several centimeters. The thin veins of green that spidered
through this outer layer and into its depths reminded her of
nerves. When she looked closer she saw other colors embedded in the
green: warm blues, intense yellows, and a little film of fiery red
here and there that seemed to disappear when she looked directly at
it. Then she remembered where she had seen this before. Of course.
The tendrils that emanated from the transceiver on the deck of the
Valentina
’s bridge.

Andrew, in his diving gear, was sitting so
still that he might have been meditating. Then, without a word, he
tipped backward into the water and immediately went under.

Mateo cut the engine. “She is an egg. I see
before.”

“What?” Penny asked.

“In a dream. Long time ago. I was child.
Yes, same dream every night until I forget. Only till now, I
remember.”

Mateo returned her steady gaze without a
hint of self-consciousness. He was telling the truth. Memories of
her own dream came back to her, the apparition, the colors…

Malcolm was directly opposite the object, at
the helm of the other Zodiac. Becka was with him, pulling on the
rest of her gear. “I’m going in,” she said to Malcolm. “Be ready to
power us out of here if necessary, please.” He vigorously nodded
his agreement, yet smiled at her as if the most wonderful thing was
happening.

Perhaps it was.

Penny couldn’t help getting her hopes up and
was suddenly envious of Becka, who was preparing to go in with
snorkel and mask. Becka pulled on her fins, spit in the mask and
rinsed it out, then strapped it to her face and flipped over the
side. Penny could see her orienting under the water and then
kicking over to the mass before coming to the surface. Andrew must
be on the other side, judging by the bubbles, but she couldn’t see
him.

“What do you think?” Malcolm asked. “The
crane with a sling? We’ve used it to bring up small whales, so it
shouldn’t have any problem with the weight. The egg wanted to be
found.”

“How do you know that?” she asked, but he
said nothing. “Listen, Malcolm, listen to me. It may lack an
internal support structure. More than anything else, it looks like
a jellyfish to me not an egg. If we try craning it into the holding
tank, it may not be able to support its own weight out of the
water.”

Malcolm idled down the engine to its lowest
speed, and said, “It
wants
to be taken. You know that.”

“A little patience is all I’m suggesting.”
She peered at it, trying to focus on every detail, but could see no
sign of movement. “If it’s alive, it may need to remain right where
it is to stay healthy.”

“That should be possible to check,” Malcolm
said. He looked over at Becka who was swimming around looking very
closely at the surface. “Hasn’t eaten her yet. Good sign.”

“Mateo,” Penny said, “could you move in just
a little closer?”

He didn’t hesitate, but first stopped the
engine, then stood up and used an oar to scull his way over. She
stretched out her hand and touched the surface of Mateo’s
‘egg.’

“It’s warm. Somehow, no surprise.”

“Like just cooked,” Malcolm answered,
nodding casually.

Malcolm had also moved in closer and, after
simply gazing at it for a moment, touched the surface.

“Yeah, warm like a great lovely soft-boiled
egg.”

She was staring at him, wondering exactly
what he was thinking, when Andrew broke the surface near Becka. He
pulled the mask away from his face. “We’ll need the net.” He saw
the concern on her face and added, “A purse net, much larger than
this. Close it on the bottom and keep it open on top. Containment
in the sea.”

“The net has floats along the edge,” Becka
added, “and we can keep it loosely alongside the ship as if it were
in its own lagoon.”

After some back and forth discussion, Emory
maneuvered the
Valentina
around so its stern was pointing to
their new arrival and then slowly backed toward them using only the
forward maneuvering props. The net was rigged to the crane and
lowered down to Becka and Andrew who were still in the water. With
help from those in the Zodiacs, they managed to slide the open net
over the silky shape and close off the bottom. They placed extra
fenders around to prevent scraping against the dive platform.
Andrew then signaled to slowly move the ship into a slightly better
position with respect to the prevailing wind. Emory gave a little
reverse and rudder and they drifted around, then he reversed the
process until they came to a dead stop.