1391: >>…communication…sense…touch…talk…know…<<
2703: >>…alone…so alone…<<
Chorus: >>Nononono WE are here!…<<
0001: >>Reintegratel We must reintegrate!<<
Chorus: >>Nononononono…<<
1391: >>…need to know…to feel…<<
1450: >>…reaching out…<<
538: >>Reintegration incomplete…failure…failure…<<
Manta One
Between the Cadmus and
Asterias Linea
Europan Ocean
2330 hours Zulu
With her MHD drive humming at full throttle, the Manta climbed steadily clear of the alien sprawl of the structure lying on the Europan seabed. With the possible and apparently accidental exception of Kaminski’s collapse, it had not seemed to notice the flyspeck submarine at all.
Another hour passed, surrounded still by the eerie wailing of the Singer. The Marines in Manta One were quiet now, lost in their own thoughts or trying, somehow, to get some sleep. Kaminski, at least, seemed to be getting better. The REM beneath his eyelids had ceased, and he was breathing more easily.
There was one piece of good news in the gloom. Manta Two made herself known with a single, low-powered sonar chirp. Manta One responded, careful to keep the pulse wattage low enough that it wouldn’t be detectable by listening hydrophones at the Chinese base, and the two moved onto converging courses. Within another hour, they were close enough to acquire one another’s navigation lights, and fifteen minutes later, a direct ship-to-ship laser communications channel had been opened.
Jeff exchanged quick briefings with Lieutenant Biehl. Like Manta One, Manta Two had turned south to avoid the line of black smokers; she, too, had encountered the alien construct on the ocean floor. No one aboard had been affected by the ELF waves, however—thank God.
The plan had been for the two submersibles to stay widely separated. After the encounter with the Singer, however, they made a tacit agreement to stay together. The Europan Ocean seemed far vaster, and far stranger than it had twelve hours earlier, when they’d first slipped beneath its black surface.
Another three hours passed. Jeff tried to catch some sleep, stretched out on the viewing couch, but sleep eluded him. His suit was growing wearily uncomfortable, with intolerable itches he couldn’t scratch, and raw patches spreading at every pressure point: shoulders, wrists, waist, groin, knees, ankles. Worst of all, he was aware of the growing stink within the closely enclosed Manta, mingled smells of fear and sweat.
His own fear centered on the unit. After what they’d seen back there, after Kaminski’s scream and collapse, would they still be able to fight? Peterson had put it best earlier, in an overheard conversation with Nodell and Wojak. “You know, I get the feeling that we’re like soldier ants fighting over a piece of the backyard, and we just now got our first glimpse of a human, the guy who really owns the place.”
“So?” Nodell had said. “He ain’t said nothing. As long as he leaves us alone—”
“As long as he doesn’t reach for the bug spray,” Wojak said.
Morale was definitely shaken. The long silences said as much—even the lack of grumbling as suits grew uncomfortable, muscles grew stiff, and stomachs grew empty. The danger was that one final straw would bring the whole morale structure of the unit crashing down.
And the terrifying, even humiliating encounter with the alien artifact was more Sequoia than straw.
Kaminski woke up with a start around 0300 hours. “Jesus! Where…” he looked around the compartment, eyes staring. “God…what a dream.”
“Hey, Frank,” Jeff said, kneeling next to his seat. “How you feeling, Marine?”
“Like elephants have been stampeding in my head.”
“Elephants are extinct, man,” Wojak said.
“Not in my skull, they aren’t. Not yet, anyway.” He looked at the glowing numeral on the back of his hand. “What time…Je-sus! What the hell happened?”
“As near as we can tell,” Jeff told him, “The Singer has been putting out extremely long radio waves that are interacting somehow with the computer implants in your brain, making them vibrate at a low frequency, too low to be heard by the human ear. Infrasonics. Probably had you feeling pretty jumpy.”
“Like itching powder on the brain. Well…it’s nice to know there’s an explanation for stark, unremitting terror coming out of nowhere,” he said. “I thought I was having panic attacks, and couldn’t figure out why. What was it? A weapon?”
“Don’t know yet. I don’t think so, though. That…that thing down there was big enough to swat us like a fly. You were the only one affected. I think it was accidental.” Jeff was worried by the hollow look in Kaminski’s eyes. “What is it? You still hurting?”