MEG: Nightstalkers (27 page)

“It’s a subglacial canyon that was discovered a few years ago. The trough is located a mile beneath the ice shelf. It’s fifteen miles wide, runs east for more than one hundred and eighty miles, and probably flows intae Lake Ellsworth. Geologists believe the trench was formed about 80 million years ago when Antarctica broke away from the rest of the planet’s super continent.”

Zach powered off the laptop. “Whit I want … whit I
need
is for us tae acquire blood and tissue samples from the
Livyatan melvillei.
Each subglacial lake possesses a unique mineral content. I need tae ken if the whale inhabited the lake I was in. I brought a variation of a harpoon gun used tae tag great whites in the field. The dart’s sensors will analyze blood gases and tissue samples and download the information tae me laptop. We can rig the device tae one of the Manta subs. One shot from a safe distance and we’ll ken where this whale has been.”

“That’s all well and good,” Jonas said, “but you still have to find the damn thing.”

“These creatures have spent the last fifteen million years living in darkness. The whale will hunt by night and return tae Lake Ellsworth by day in order tae avoid the light. Mac loaded thirty-five sonar buoys aboard the
McFarland
. We’ll deploy them around the Ronne Ice Shelf, locate and tag the
Livyatan melvillei,
and then we can be on our way.”

21

Macquarie Island
807 Nautical Miles from the Coastline of Antarctica

Macquarie Island is located approximately halfway between New Zealand and the Antarctic coast in an area of the Southern Ocean known for its gale winds and stormy seas. The landmass was discovered by an Australian seal hunter in 1810. For the next hundred years the island’s vast population of penguins, fur seals, and elephant seals were hunted nearly to extinction. Macquarie became an official wildlife preserve in 1933, ending the trade.

Only twenty-one miles long and three miles wide, Macquarie consists of two volcanic elevations connected by a narrow isthmus at sea level. The only humans on “Macca” today are scientists working at the Australian Antarctic Division station.

*   *   *

The
Liopleurodon
was weak; it had been six days since its last feeding. The battle along the surface had taxed its energy, with its reserves going to the unborn offspring growing impatient within its womb.

Like a salmon seeking familiar waters in which to spawn and perish, the Lio continued its journey into the colder latitudes, struggling in its alien environment.

Moving just above the ocean floor at six knots, the hundred and twenty-two foot pliosaur remained in a catatonic state somewhere between sleep and cruise control. Hunger directed its senses, self-preservation its menu. Whales were out; the effort required to stalk, ambush, and kill anything larger than a lone calf now beyond its capacity. Bursts of speed were necessary to chase after schools of fish; sharks and squid gave it a wide berth.

Too weak to feed, the largest predator ever to inhabit the sea was slowly starving to death.

Moving south past New Zealand, the pliosaur followed the steeply descending sea floor into the Puysegur Trench, a 20,700-foot cleft in the South Tasman Sea. The sudden increase in water pressure eased the creature’s burden, escorting it over the next five hundred miles to the south where it intersected with an even deeper fissure—the Macquarie Trench.

*   *   *

The Australian Antarctic Division’s research station on Macquarie Island consists of more than a dozen buildings of various shapes and sizes, erected on a quarter-mile-wide stretch of beach bordered to the east and west by the Southern Ocean and to the north and south by snow-peaked mountains.

Sharing this small landmass with its human visitors were the Macquarie natives.

Eight hundred thousand royal penguins waded in the surf like beachgoers on the fourth of July. Albatross occupied the skies, searching the sea for food, their nests sequestered in the crags of the island’s volcanic rock. Fur seals stayed close to the water, ceding the prime coastal real estate to Macquarie’s largest residents—the elephant seals.

Several thousand two-ton females covered the narrow isthmus, each twenty- to forty-member harem polygamized by a single bull, the largest of which measured twenty feet and eight thousand pounds. Shielded from the extreme cold by a thick layer of blubber which held large volumes of blood, the mammals possessed an abundant storehouse of oxygen. Combined with sinuses located in their abdomens, which stored blood and oxygen and increased concentrations of myoglobin in their muscles, the bull elephant seals could remain underwater for up to two hours while diving more than seven thousand feet, their smaller female counterparts a third that time and distance.

*   *   *

The thirty-two foot sea craft moved into deeper waters as six-foot swells and thirty-knot winds attempted to push it back onto the narrow stretch of beach. The bone-chilling blast forced marine biologist Brandon Cornatzer to lower his binoculars and remove his wool Philadelphia Eagles hat to pull out its retractable ski mask.

And this is considered summer
 …

The New Jersey native tugged the mask in position over his face and once more looked through the binoculars, refocusing his gaze upon the elephant seals occupying the isthmus to the east.

Most of the plump brown bodies lazing along the shoreline were females. Having given birth to their pups back in October, a new mating ritual had begun. The mature bulls had come ashore first, followed by the cows who were then divided into harems. It had been a week since the orgy had wound down; twenty-three days since the pups had started weaning—activities that kept the cows on land, preventing them from feeding.

Brandon Cornatzer could hear two of the dominant males barking at one another from across the beach head, each bull in excess of seventeen feet and seven thousand pounds. Fastened around the mammals’ blubbery chests was an underwater tracking device attached to a neon-orange harness and a series of underwater cameras.

Brandon’s associate, Tom Beckendorf, stepped out from the protective confines of the bridge. “Anything?”

“Humphrey and Nixon are still jabbering at each another. The females are getting antsy; I’d bet my frozen left testicle that today is the day.”

As if on cue the mammals rose up in progressive waves and charged clumsily across the beach into the olive-green shallows.

“Here we go!” Brandon followed Tom inside, taking his place at a laptop connected to a bank of computer screens. Typing in a command caused the monitors to flash on, revealing two distinct scenes.

The monitors labeled
Humphrey
were herky-jerky land shots following the chaotic exodus of undulating blubber. The monitors under
Nixon
revealed an underwater ballet of brown bodies dispersing through the shallows. Brandon zoomed in on a cow as she caught a two foot manta ray in her jowls, two other females chasing after a small shark.

With a silent splash Humphrey entered the sea. The forward camera was blocked by a flurry of bubbles and dark flippers moving along the surface, the belly-cam offering a dazzling view of elephant seals torpedoing above a backdrop of white sand which quickly yielded to patches of volcanic rock and the deep blue depths.

The elephant seals continued trekking east to the Macquarie ridge, a volcanic fissure formed twelve million years ago where the region’s three tectonic plates converged. The ridge separated the deep waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans, its basalt magma flow responsible for the creation of Macquarie Island.

Over the next three hours the boat shadowed the two bull elephant seals and their harems, the mammals diving eight hundred to a thousand feet to feast on schools of squid.

And then, as Tom watched on sonar, the bottom seemed to drop away, disappearing into darkness.

“Tom, take a look—the bulls are leading the cows into the sea trench. Wonder what they’re after?”

“Better switch over to the night-vision lens.”

“Humphrey just passed eighteen hundred feet and his cows are staying with him.”

“Females usually don’t venture that deep, do they?”

“Must be something special down there … and there it is!” Brandon zoomed in on a slope of white goo, which hung from an escarpment on the chasm wall like a massive snow drift.

There was no telling what species the baleen whale had been or how it had died. At some point the carcass had sunk, the remains of its fluke catching on a crevasse where it remained suspended, beckoning a feast.

Hundreds of six-foot-long hagfish moved in and out of the cavern that had been the whale’s mouth, the eel-like denizens devouring the beast’s internal organs from the inside. Dozens more had stripped off the cetacean’s hide, exposing thick bounties of blubber.

The elephant seals swarmed upon the carcass, devouring blubber and hagfish like a busload of hungry seniors at an all-you-can-eat Las Vegas buffet.

Tom joined Brandon at the monitors, the two marine biologists mesmerized by the visuals. Over the next hour the elephant seals fed in shifts, the cows returning to the surface every fifteen to twenty minutes to breathe, their spots at the banquet quickly replaced by another female.

The bulls refused to surface, their presence serving to divide the bounty between the harems. Every so often two of the males would fight over a section of meat, one skirmish involving Humphrey and a juvenile bull, the latter quickly ceding its claim to the bigger mammal.

And then a blip appeared on sonar—a gargantuan life form that was rising slowly from the 23,000-foot depths.

“Jesus, what the hell is it?”

Tom stared at the object. “I don’t know, but it’s as big as a submarine.”

“A blue whale?”

“Not that deep.”

“A Megalodon?”

Tom looked at his colleague. “Way too big, thank God. It’s probably just a school of squid.”

“Tom, what if it’s a school of Humboldt squid? Those predators will tear the elephant seals apart.”

“Christ, you’re right. How deep are they now?”

“Twenty-six hundred meters and change. They’re coming up nice and slow, hugging the chasm wall so they don’t scare the elephant seals off.”

“Clever creatures.”

“They’re also bioluminescent; if they are Humboldts then we should see them soon.”

“Two hundred meters.”

“Nixon senses something; he’s diving to take a look.”

The two scientists watched, holding their breath as the bull descended, the camera angles limited to the rock face and the underside of the elephant seal’s jowls.

Suddenly Nixon veered away from the wall, swimming rapidly into open water for three chaotic seconds before both monitors were enveloped in darkness.

Nixon’s bank of monitors went static.

“What the hell just happened?”

“If I didn’t know any better I’d say Nixon was just eaten.”

“Jesus, what the hell could devour a four-ton elephant seal in one bite?”

“Tom, maybe you ought to move the boat?”

“Look at Humphrey!”

The bull was ascending fast, the monitors revealing multiple angles of cows fleeing for the surface.

“Start our engines; get ready to haul ass!” Brandon exited the bridge and hurried out on deck. The sun had set, the southern sky laced with emerald-green curtains generated by the aurora australis. The ocean reflected the heavenly light, yielding to dozens of elephant seals, which broke the surface in a state of panic. Most of the snorting beasts headed north, others swam in frenzied circles, more than a few striking the boat.

Brandon leaned out over the starboard rail. What the hell was down there?

*   *   *

The
Liopleurodon
had taken the large bull in one succulent bite, the elephant seal’s high fat content quickly re-priming the pump of its depleted energy reserves, stimulating its central nervous system. With a rapid sweep of its fore fins it attacked the herd, each furious snap of its jaws catching three or four cows at a time, its six-inch stiletto fangs bursting the mammals’ bodies like piñatas filled with hot blood.

The pliosaur went berserk, eating its way to the surface.

Through the haze of its feeding frenzy, it detected a challenger hovering along the surface.

Rapid contortions of its muscular tail powered the enraged creature past the fleeing elephant seals. The Lio’s monstrous mouth hyperextended open as it struck the boat’s keel, its momentum launching its upper torso and the vessel straight out of the water. Unlike a Megalodon, the pliosaur’s jaws were designed to snatch, not crush. Twisting sideways, it fell back into the water, slamming the fiberglass craft bow-first into the sea.

Tom Beckendorf was thrown into the inverted galley, buried beneath a rolling avalanche of equipment.

Brandon Cornatzer was flung overboard, the frigid temperatures shocking his system. He struggled to the surface, his deflated lungs barely able to draw a breath, his tearing eyes widening in time to see what appeared to be the silhouette of an impossibly large crocodile rolling on top of his boat.