Chapter 2 #2
I froze. There was no way I could have heard a word inside my head. And not simply a word: a name, transmitted with a surprised, almost yearning lilt. The “voice” was male — that, too, I immediately knew, even though I had no idea how it was possible.
While my diagnostics assured me nothing was wrong with me, I couldn’t explain what was happening. There was nothing in the mission procedures that covered any occurrence like this. I was at the bottom of the sea, and apparently I wasn’t alone.
Don’t be afraid!
Unsurprisingly, these new words didn’t reassure me at all, but they did break the physical paralysis I’d been in.
I whirled in place, looking around wildly, while sediment swirled through the water and small fish scattered.
I thought I saw motion near one edge of the wrecked ship, but whatever it was, if it even was anything, was gone before I could lock on it.
This was too much, and I decided that whatever was wrong with me was something I could deal with back on the ship.
I pushed off from the seabed, heading toward the surface.
I couldn’t go as fast as I would have preferred, since I had to account for the pressure decrease, but the required stops along the way gave me time to calm down and try to analyze what had happened.
I wasn’t sure why, but as soon as the Nautilus reestablished contact with me, I had already decided I wasn’t going to say a word about what I had experienced.
Part of it was because I was worried they might think I was malfunctioning or perhaps slipping into some form of psychosis.
I knew that wasn’t the case: what I had experienced, strange as it was, must mean something beyond a failure of my mental faculties.
No doubt that’s what all delusional people told themselves, but I knew I wasn’t imagining things.
I couldn’t say why that was true, but it was.
Which of course touched on the other part of why I decided to keep things to myself, even going to the extent of using my waiting time while decompressing at depth going through my video logs and making sure there was nothing on them that would betray me.
Fortunately, even my wild spin looked as though I’d merely been startled, which was easy enough to explain by the fact that I was out of contact with the ship.
What I had experienced would almost certainly qualify as “out of the ordinary” by Mr. Mercer.
I neither liked nor trusted the man, so I wasn’t about to let on that I might have stumbled upon whatever it was he was looking for. Whatever that was.
As I reached the final decompression stop, I was close enough to the ship for optical comms. Dr. Gail came on circuit. “Corbin! What happened? We lost connection to you for several minutes.” She actually sounded worried.
I couldn’t speak under water, but I could respond via my CPU.
“I encountered a metal ship. Apparently it blocked transmission paths between myself and the Nautilus. I attempted to reestablish communication but was unsuccessful, therefore I am returning to base per operational parameters.”
“Understood.” She sounded relieved. “Once you have returned and reacclimatized, we can debrief.”
“Yes, Dr. Gail.”
Reacclimatized meant flushing my systems of sea water -- not a fun or attractive process — as well as reconnecting my leg prosthetics so I could walk. This took several minutes, but that was fine. It gave me time to be certain about my decision to keep my experience to myself.
Nearly an hour had passed before I was able to make it to the briefing room.
My video and logs had of course been uploaded immediately upon reaching the ship, which should have given Mr. Mercer ample time to review and release them.
I had signaled to Dr. Gail that I was on my way, so she and Mr. Mercer were waiting for me when I entered.
“A disappointingly short first mission,” Mr. Mercer said before I’d even seated myself.
“It happens,” Dr. Gail said quickly, giving me a look that she probably meant to be reassuring. “Corbin followed procedure. They lost comms, attempted to reestablish them, then returned to the ship when that proved impossible.”
“I saw nothing of import in your video logs,” Mercer continued, addressing me directly. “You saw nothing of interest?”
“On the contrary, there was a great deal of interest,” I replied calmly. “A reef of that size and health is definitely noteworthy, especially considering the radioactive waste that contaminated the region to the northwest. I would welcome the opportunity to continue the exploration.”
“That’s not what I’m looking for.” Mercer frowned at me, obviously frustrated. “I don’t care about the reef.”
Dr. Gail jumped in before I could make any more injudicious comments.
Probably wise of her, since Mercer was really starting to annoy me with his demands and games.
“If you don’t mind, Mr. Mercer, I’ll keep on with Corbin’s debrief and send you a transcript when we’re finished.
Perhaps there will be something in it of more value to you. ”
Mercer made a dismissive sound, but then he waved his hand. “Fine, keep going.” With that, he rose and left the room abruptly.
My surprise must have shown on my face, but Dr. Gail shot me a warning look. I kept quiet until the door had closed behind him. Then Dr. Gail held up a finger, and I saw her take a small box from her lab coat. She pressed a button on the top of it, and then she sat it on the table between us.
Intrigued, I looked at it, then glanced at her with a brow raised in inquiry. She sighed, shaking her head.
“This device is broadcasting a debriefing we had a few months ago, also concerning a reef, to override our current discussion. It should cover us if Mercer decides to download the recordings rather than relying on my report,” she said, frowning in annoyance.
“I hate to have to resort to skullduggery. I’m a damned scientist, not a treasure hunter or a bureaucrat.
But I need to make you aware of a few things before you go back down there, Corbin.
Things that a colleague sent me late last night when he learned about our mission. ”
“Oh?” I found this fascinating. The last five years had been nothing but routine explorations, broken up occasionally by my visits to a United Solarian Alliance Earth private island that was meant for vacationing scientists and constructs.
I watched the news, of course, mostly to keep up with developments on the off-Earth colonies like United Solarian Alliance Mars, but other than that, I was very focussed on my work.
I don’t know if my dedication was something I’d had before, or if it had been programmed into me after my accident.
I tended to think it was more the former: I felt drawn to the sea in a way that I’d learned was unusual for most humans.
“Yes.” Dr. Gail sighed, running a hand through her short, greying hair, betraying her agitation.
Then she looked at me directly. “I want you to know that I had refused this mission, despite the presence of the reef. We already knew it was down there and seemed to be doing well enough on its own. But I was overruled.” Her lips twisted.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t have a choice. It was either accompany you or be replaced by another handler. ”
That was a surprise. “But I was told to treat this as an unexplored area.”
“Yes, you were. Which is something I argued against, but unfortunately Mr. Mercer is in absolute control and there isn’t anything I could do about it. At least not officially.”
Her smile was grimly satisfied; apparently she was glad to have found a way around Mercer’s order.
“I see.”
“I don’t think you do, Corbin, but I’m going to explain.” She leaned in closer and lowered her voice. “This is the last mission of the Nautilus for Ocean Colonization. USAE is scrubbing the program due to political pressure to concentrate on subterranean rather than suboceanic human habitats.”
“But why?” The question slipped out before I could stop it. I was surprised that something the USAE had invested in so heavily was being halted so suddenly.
She shrugged. “There is a large coalition among the countries with the most land area and highest populations to keep working on weather modification programs to make the surface more hospitable in general. There is concern that with the amount of out-migration, Earth will no longer be a factor before too long. While the existing ocean habitats are populated and stable — and, frankly, far more pleasant than most of the surface or subterranean ones — there is declining interest in them from the population. USAE can’t afford to build habitats no one wants to live in. ”
I could see the reasoning. Ocean habitats were expensive, even though they were self-contained, generated their own power and produced their own food.
Only a certain type of person could stand living in one, away from sunlight; strangely enough, the same personality type could survive in an orbital habitat or under a dome on a moon like Luna or Europa.
No doubt the out-migration businesses were competing strongly for the same humans the subocean businesses were, and apparently the subocean contingent was losing.
I wasn’t even upset at the thought of less disruption under the oceans; they were recovering from the CC more quickly than the land was, which was important for the planet. But it did leave me with a few questions.
“Then what is Mercer’s angle in all this?” I asked, puzzled.
“That man is a low-level bureaucrat who has risen to the top of USAE Ocean Colonization, an agency that will soon be irrelevant in the political sphere. He doesn’t care about the oceans or even about people.
He cares about making his mark to further his career, and he thinks he found a way.
We are contracted to his agency, and therefore, he can call the shots.
” Her disgust was obvious. “Unfortunately, he might be correct, which puts me in a quandary. So I’m going to leave it up to you. ”
“How so?” I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.
“Mercer is convinced there is something connected to this reef that will make his career. He will lose power soon, so he’s desperate for something, anything, to keep his power from being lost when funding is pulled at the end of this year.
It doesn’t mean much for you and me, honestly.
Ocean Research will continue, but for the next two weeks, he can make us jump through his hoops. ”
It was starting to make sense. “So you think I should stall for the next two weeks, go through the motions of cataloging the reef until his time runs out?” I asked quietly.
I could see why she wouldn’t want this conversation to get out, if she was basically asking me to violate my orders.
Frankly, I was in full agreement with her.
No wonder I hadn’t liked Mercer — low-level jerks with power were little more than parasites.
To my surprise, she grimaced. “I wish it were that easy,” she replied.
“But it’s not. There’s something you really need to know, Corbin.
The real reason I didn’t want us to be involved in this.
There have been three previous missions to this reef, and in each of them, the construct or mechanical doing the investigation has either gone missing, or been destroyed.
The last one was only two weeks ago — and that time, the entire ship was lost with nearly all hands. ”