Then, gradually, he was aware of something else—a glow behind the lights.
“Can you turn off the wing lights a sec?” he asked.
“Right.”
The outside lights died, and for a moment, Jeff saw only a Stygian blackness as deep and as opaque as any at the bottom of a deep-buried cavern.
Then, gradually, as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness again, he thought he could make out a faint, background glow. It was hard to see, and it vanished completely when he tried looking straight at it. But with averted vision, he became increasingly aware of a pale, blue-green glow in the deep distance.
“Water temperature’s up,” Carver said. “Five point eight Celsius, and rising. My God. Look at that!”
It looked like a wall, a billowing, fuming wall of black ash rising slowly, blurred by distance. Jeff thought of pictures he’d seen of sandstorms in the Sahara or on Mars, or of a forest fire spewing black smoke into the sky.
“What is it?”
“Black smokers,” Shigeru said, his voice softened by awe. “Big black smokers. Ah, I don’t think we want to get too close.”
“Damned straight we don’t,” Carver said. “Outside temperature now eleven point one, and climbing. I didn’t know it got this hot on Europa!”
“It is possible that the water temperature will get considerably hotter,” Shigeru said. “At this pressure, the water can’t boil. That glow suggests the water being expelled into the ocean is extremely hot.”
“As in molten lava hot,” Carver said. “I’m giving that area a wide berth.”
The Manta banked gently to port, toward the south. The smokers appeared to be strung out in a chain, running roughly northeast to southwest. The Manta swung left to run parallel to them, looking for a way around. Carver switched the outside lights back on.
“Life,” Shigeru said, pointing. “Undeniably life.”
The bottom was alive. Where it had been completely barren before, the bottom was smothered now in waving, shifting forests of fronds, some ten meters long. Something like a vast, diaphanous bell pulsed and wiggled in the glare of the Manta’s lights.
“What is that?” Jeff asked. “A jellyfish?”
“I have no idea,” Shigeru replied. “If it is, it’s a dozen meters across—longer than this submarine. Fantastic!”
“Major?” Carver said. The light ahead was stronger now, an odd, intense blue.
“Yes, Chief?”
“I still can’t find a way through those smokers, and we’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?”
“This new heading, sir. It’s taking us straight to the Singer.”
Damn. He’d wanted to avoid the alien construct.
“I think,” Carver said slowly, “I think that might be it up ahead.”
Jeff peered through the port at the black towers silhouetted against that impossible blue light, and knew that the SEAL was correct.
TWENTY-ONE
26 OCTOBER 2067
Manta One
Between the Cadmus and Asterias
Linea, Europa
2245 hours Zulu
The city illuminated the night, holding it at bay with a pale, wavering blue-green luminescence that back-lit soaring towers, the sweep and curve of arches, the rugged thrust of slab-sided buildings the size of mountains, the prickle of antennae all but lost among vaster structures of incomprehensible purpose.
“I’d…uh…better take us up,” Carver said.
“I think you’d better,” Jeff replied, his mouth dry. It was impossible to judge scale in this alien setting. What he was looking at could have been a large and complex spacecraft seen from meters away, or a city the size of Greater New York, seen from an altitude of kilometers. Much of it appeared to be submerged in the seabed.
“Is that…is that…it?” Jeff asked, awed.
“The Singer?” Shigeru nodded. “The sonographs we’ve taken don’t do it justice.”
“Is it a ship? Or a city?”
“Maybe both. Or neither. How can we know?”
“Okay.” Jeff said. He managed a weak grin. “Is it alive?”
Shigeru looked at him, startled. “That, Major, remains to be seen.”
“Even on VR, I don’t think I’m seeing the entire thing,” Carver said. “It measures at least twelve kilometers across. Can’t get decent infrared. The water absorbs those wavelengths. Sonar, though, seems to indicate an even bigger structure—but it’s soft, almost mushy.”
“Soft? What do you mean?”
“I think what he is seeing,” Shigeru said, peering out the porthole again, “is that most of it is covered with moss.”