“Stop!” I commanded.
In one motion, the inertial navigator spun up the motors to stop my spinning.
“Thanks, Chief, that worked,” I said, not knowing if he could still hear me.
For the next few moments after my dizziness faded, I memorized the voice commands before saying anything else. But I knew the words were there on display if I needed them.
“Rotate to port ninety degrees,” I tried first.
That command turned me counterclockwise toward the open bay door facing into the darkness ready to proceed.
“Forward one knot,” came next. I already knew that command worked; it had just slammed me into the opposite wall.
Gently the suit’s propulsion motors edged me from the sanctuary of the lighted pod bay into the dark ocean blacker than a moonless midnight. I looked down and saw the lights from the SeaPod and Briscoe moving slowly downward toward the crawler base under the Pod Bay 1 where Edwards had crashed.
“Where is it?” Briscoe’s voice crackled weak from his distance but growing stronger.
“It’s supposed to be wrecked on the front port wheel right under Pod Bay 1. Remember?” Williams replied.
“Yes. I saw it there before but it’s not where I remember it being. How could it have moved? It was intertwined in those wheel spokes.”
“Let me turn my floods toward it. Give you more light. Must be there somewhere.”
My voice-controlled approach went perfectly using the heads-up vocabulary list at first then I relied on memory for the final maneuvers. I arrived with them still hovering over the crawler’s front wheel.
“I’m here, Chief. Above to your starboard.”
I could see his floods point upward toward me as he leaned back looking up.
“Got you in my view, Marker. Join me down on the floor. The SeaPod’s wreck is gone from the wheel. Must have drifted off.”
“Heading down. Give me a sec.”
Moving down toward the ocean floor I found the Exosuit’s backpack propulsion system gave me a freedom I had never before experienced. At first, I was leery of its simplicity; after all I was accustomed to diving in a fifty-ton structure needing a large diving ship for support. Now there was nothing between my body and the unthinkable crushing pressure at a thousand meters depth but a jointed aluminum shell a half-inch thick weighing in at around three-hundred pounds fully equipped.
“Hi Chief. What’s the problem.”
“There you are,” Briscoe said turning toward me. His intercom blasted my ears.
“Yep. Got here as soon as I could.”
He pointed his arm toward the base as he rotated shining his floods toward the wheel.
“I know you didn’t see it last night but there was a SeaPod stuck in the spokes of that wheel right there.”
“In those bent spokes?”
“Yes. I hadn’t noticed that before but they are bent. So that’s where it was. I thought so.”
Over our heads, Williams had moved SeaPod 1 to shine its forward floods down on the wheel.
“So where the hell is it fellows?” she asked, her intercom booming through my ears.
Briscoe awkwardly bent over in his suit and retrieved a small rock from the silt. Then raising it over his head he dropped it and watched it drift downward. It fell several inches away from his drop point toward Discovery One’s aft.
“The current carried it that way,” he said pointing toward the rear of the station. “Must have broken loose last night when we felt that big bump.”
Watching from above, she questioned him.
“How could that have happened, Briscoe? You and I tugged on it. And even with all our horsepower we couldn’t break it loose. How could a current do that? It would have moved the whole station.”
“Let me look over there again, Lieutenant,” he said.
“Come with me, Marker, I need your eyes.”
Following him back to the crawler’s base, I noticed a tiny object reflecting my floods. That wouldn’t have been too unusual on the street but reflecting from the deep-ocean floor covered with silt it was nearly impossible.
“What is that shiny thing, Chief?” I asked pointing downward.
He reached down and grasped a short metal rod between his pincers. In the light from the hovering SeaPod, I could see it. About a quarter inch in diameter and four inches long it was hollow and had discolorations at one end. He held it up to his floods and turned it over examining it.
“Hmm,” he finally said, “I’ll have to take it inside to examine it but if I were a betting man I’d say it’s a cutting rod just like the ones in the cutting rig on your SeaPod’s robot arm.”
“Lieutenant?” he asked, “Are you still holding that cutting torch in your claw?”
“Let me look.”
Glancing up, I saw the manipulator arm move its claw to the front of the bubble and then return to its cradle.
“Yep, still got it. Need it down there?”
“No. And I don’t think I will. The SeaPod has already been cut loose.”
“What? You sure?”
“Not positive but I’m holding a cutting rod right now. Unless you dropped it someone else did.”
“Put it in your pouch and bring it in. See anything else? How about the wheel? Is it usable?”
“Marker, examine the wheel for structural damage. I’m going to look around here for more debris. Maybe find some cutting slag.”
On his departure, I moved back to the massive tractor wheel, forced to walk with an unnatural robotic motion. Now that I had filled the suit’s ballast and achieved negative buoyancy, I could stroll the ocean floor as long as my movements matched the swivel joints’ restrictions.
Out the corner of my eye as I stared up at the mangled spoke I noticed a small flickering bluish light off in the distance moving with an erratic pattern but definitely moving.
“Hey guys,” I called out, “I see a faint glow moving in the distance out forward from the crawler base. Anyone else see it?”
“Is it blue?” Williams asked.
I turned to face it and lost track of the bogey. “Now it’s gone. Just dimmed out.”
“Kill your floods, Marker” Briscoe said from somewhere near me. “Too much light pollution to see it.” I couldn’t see him but his intercom signal was loud and clear.
Quickly scanning the heads-up vocabulary, I found the command:
“Floods off.”
Immediately I submerged myself into total darkness with only my helmet’s dim help-screen glow and Briscoe’s floods hitting my eyes.
“It’s back. Still moving randomly but growing larger… and yes it is blue.”
Williams’ intercom squawked.
“All right everyone kill your floods. I want to see this light.”
I had experienced the blackness of the midnight zone before but there was always a visual anchor near me: a comforting shadow or glow. Now there was nothing but a tiny flickering blue glow out at the edge of my perception.
Seconds passed and then Williams’ intercom blared out a cackling laugh before she spoke.
“It’s an anglerfish! That’s its photophore you’re seeing. We call them the fireflies of the midnight zone. See them all the time down here. She’s just fishing for a meal and not very far away either. They’re less than a foot long.”
I breathed a sigh of disappointment thinking I had discovered a link to the recent mysterious events. It was just a fish but an unusual one that I had never seen.
“Floods on.” I commanded.
Briscoe still behind me in the distance blared, “Turn off those floods, Marker. I’ve got something very strange over here.”
“Floods off. What do you have Chief? And where are you anyway?”