Caraco: "Behind you; four o'clock."
"Got it," Clarke says, spinning to a new bearing.
Nothing happens. The shredded carcass, still twitching, drifts toward the bottom, scavengers sparkling on all sides. Clarke's hand-held voicebox gurgles and whines.
How— Scanlon moves his tongue in his mouth, ready to ask aloud.
"Not now," Caraco buzzes at him, before he can.
There's nothing there. What are they keying on?
It comes in fast, unswerving, from the precise direction Lenie Clarke is facing. "That'll do," she says.
A muffled explosion to Scanlon's left. A thin contrail of bubbles streaks from Caraco to monster, connecting the two in an instant. The thing jerks at a sudden impact. Clarke slips to one side as it thrashes past, Caraco's dart embedded in its flank.
Clarke's headlight goes out, her voicebox falls silent. Caraco stows the dart gun and swims up to join her. The two women maneuver their quarry down towards the canister. It snaps at them, weak and spastic. They push it down into the coffin, seal the top.
"Like shooting fish for a barrel," Caraco buzzes.
"How did you know it was coming?" Scanlon asks.
"They always come," Caraco says. "The sound fools them. And the light."
"I mean, how did you know which direction? In advance?"
A moment's silence.
"You just get a feel for it after a while," Clarke says finally.
"That," Caraco adds, "and this." She holds up a sonar pistol, tucks it back under her belt.
The convoy reforms. There's a prescribed drop-off point for monsters, a hundred meters away from the Throat. (The GA has never been keen on letting outsiders wander too far into its home turf.) Once again the vampires leave light for darkness, Scanlon in tow. They travel through a world utterly without form, save for the scrolling circle of mud in his headlight. Suddenly Clarke turns to Caraco.
"I'll go," she buzzes, and peels away into the void.
Scanlon throttles his squid, edges up beside Caraco.
"Where's she off to?"
"Here we are," Caraco says. They coast to a halt. Caraco fins back to the droned squid and touches a control; buckles disengage, straps retract. The canister floats free. Caraco cranks down the buoyancy and it settles down on a clump of tubeworms.
"Len— uh, Clarke," Scanlon prods.
"They need an extra hand back at the Throat. She went to help out."
Scanlon checks his modem channel. Of course it's the right one, if it wasn't he wouldn't be able to hear Caraco. Which means that Clarke and the vampires at the Throat must have been using a different frequency. Another safety violation.
But he's not a fool, he knows the story. They've only switched channels because he's here. They're just trying to keep him out of the loop.
Par for the course. First the fucking GA, now the hired help—
A sound, from behind. A faint electrical whine. The sound of a squid starting up.
Scanlon turns around. "Caraco?"
His headlamp sweeps across canister, squid, seabed, water.
"Caraco? You there?"
Canister. Squid. Mud.
"Hello?"
Empty water.
"Hey! Caraco! What the hell—"
A faint thumping, very close by.
He tries to look everywhere at once. One leg presses against the coffin.
The coffin is rocking.
He lays his helmet against its surface. Yes. Something inside, muffled, wet. Thumping. Trying to get out.
It can't. No way. It's just dying in there, that's all.
He pushes away, drifts up into the water column. He feels very exposed. A few stiff-legged kicks take him back to the bottom. Slightly better.
"Caraco? Come on, Judy—"
Oh Jesus. She left me here. She just fucking left me out here.
He hears something moaning, very close by.
Inside his helmet, in fact.
TRANS/OFFI/230850:2026
I accompanied Judy Caraco and Lenie Clarke outside today, and witnessed several events that concern me. Both participants swam through unlit areas without headlamps and spent significant periods of time isolated from dive buddies; at one point, Caraco simply left me on the seabed without warning. This is potentially life-threatening behavior, although of course I was able to find my way back to Beebe using the homing beacon.
I have yet to receive an explanation for all this. The v— the other personnel are presently gone from the station. I can find two or three of them on sonar; I suppose the rest are just hidden in the bottom clutter. Once again, this is extremely unsafe behavior.
Such recklessness appears to be typical here. It implies a relative indifference to personal welfare, an attitude entirely consistent with the profile I developed at the onset of the rifter program. (The only alternative is that they simply do not appreciate the dangers involved in this environment, which is unlikely.)
It is also consistent with a generalized post-traumatic addiction to hostile environments. This doesn't constitute evidence per sé, of course, but I have noted one or two other things which, taken together, may be cause for concern. Michael Brander, for example, has a history which ranges from caffeine and sympathomimetic abuse to limbic hot-wiring. He's known to have brought a substantial supply of phencyclidine derms with him to Beebe; I've just located it in his cubby and I was surprised to find that it has barely been touched. Phencyclidine is not, physiologically speaking, addictive— exogenous-drug addicts are screened out of the program— but the fact remains that Brander had a habit when he came down here, a habit which he has since abandoned. I have to wonder what he's replaced it with.
The wet room.
"There you are. Where did you go?"
"Had to recover this cartridge. Bad sulfide head."
"You could have told me. I was supposed to come along on your rounds anyway, remember? You just left me out there."
"You got back."
"That's— that's not the point, Judy. You don't leave someone alone at the bottom of the ocean without a word. What if something had happened to me?"
"We go out alone all the time. It's part of the job. Watch that, it's slippery."
"Safety procedures are also part of the job. Even for you. And especially for me, Judy, I'm a complete fish out of water here, heh heh. You can't expect me to know my way around."
"…."
"Excuse me?"
"We're short-handed, remember? We can't always afford to buddy up. And you're a big strong man— well, you're a man, anyway. I didn't think you needed baby-sit—"
"Shit! My hand!"
"I told you to be careful."
"Ow. How much does the fucking thing weigh?"
"About ten kilos, without all the mud. I guess I should've rinsed it off."
"I guess so. I think one of the heads gouged me on the way down. Shit, I'm bleeding."
"Sorry about that."
"Yeah. Well, look, Caraco. I'm sorry if baby-sitting rubs you the wrong way, but a little more baby-sitting and Acton and Fischer might still be alive, you know? A little more baby-sitting and— did you hear that?"
"What?"
"From outside. That— moaning, sort of—"
…
"Come on, C— Judy. You must've heard it!"
"Maybe the hull shifted."
"No. I heard something. And this isn't the first time, either."
"I didn't hear anything."
"You d— where are you going? You just came in! Judy…"