Beyond the Ice Limit

17

ALEX LISPENARD WORKED her DSV controls, circling the trunk of the Baobab from a distance of about forty feet. The trunk was massive, far larger than even the largest sequoia: around sixty feet in diameter, and covered with a rough, bark-like surface of crude, parallel vertical grooves.

As her spotlight probed the trunk, she could see it was vaguely translucent, almost like a cloudy jellyfish, of a pale-greenish color like sea glass. Within, she could see the blurry outlines of what appeared to be internal organs, folded tubes and sacs that made no sense, looking like no terrestrial organism she knew of. There were also some round globules with a yellowish tinge, along with spidery networks of darker, reddish strands. The entity’s flesh was scattered with shining flecks and spots that drifted around in slow motion, like snow in a snow globe. It was simultaneously beautiful and grotesque. From this vantage point, seeing the complexity inside, it appeared to her more animal than plant, or perhaps something in between. And yet so far she had seen nothing that looked like sensory or feeding organs. Nor did it seem to have a mouth or anus.

At any rate, she was getting everything on video and LiDAR. They would have plenty of time to examine the images and scans topside and try to determine how the creature lived, how it fed, what it needed to stay alive—assuming, of course, it was alive.

She continued her slow circuit, maintaining a spiral pattern in order to create a three-dimensional digitized model of the thing. In another loop she would have reached the point where the branches forked out—not like a tree, but all at once, to form a kind of starburst pattern like a sea anemone.

Sea anemone…once you got past the scale of the thing, she thought, it did vaguely resemble a sea anemone—although the branches looked rigid, not like the flexible tentacles of an anemone, and Alex saw no signs of stinging cnidocytes on them.

At the very base of the fork, she noted something unusual: a dark, oval shape deep inside. It was the size of a large watermelon, and it looked out of place to her somehow, as if it didn’t belong with the rest of the creature.

“Control, this is Paul,” she said. “I see something unusual at the fork in the trunk. Something dark.”

A brief pause. “Okay, we see it,” came the voice of Chief Officer Lennart.

Alex wondered briefly what had happened to Glinn. “It doesn’t look like the surrounding tissue. Request permission to take a closer look.”

“Permission denied.”

Alex swallowed her momentary irritation. She wondered how Gideon would react to such an order.

At the thought of Gideon, a small smile formed on her face. Then her lips set once again in a straight, determined line.

The sub came around, the autopilot accomplishing its complex spiraling maneuver without effort. She had reached the forking section of the trunk.

As the DSV rose above the fork, she looked down and, at last, saw what could only be a mouth: a round opening, three feet in diameter, surrounded by what appeared to be three sets of clear, rubbery lips. It was flexing rhythmically, as if pumping water in and out.

“I think we just found its mouth,” she said. “And from what I can see, it’s very much alive.”

“Stay well away,” warned Lennart.

“It looks like it’s sucking in water—filter feeding.”

The pulsing, rubbery, huge, translucent lips were truly disgusting. Alex shuddered.

Now the sub commenced another autopiloted loop above the mouth, taking in the sudden coruscation of branches. She could see, deep below the mouth, the dark melon-shaped object she had noticed earlier.

“Hey, I think that dark shape I mentioned earlier is something it swallowed.”

More scanning.

“Wait…the mouth stopped flexing.”

“Noted.”

“It’s gone still.”

“Back off to two hundred feet,” said Lennart sharply.

“Roger.” Lispenard touched the joystick and sent the sub on a radial away from the mouth.

Suddenly she felt a lurch. An alarm went off in the sub and a flashing message appeared on the main screen.

WARNING: STRONG CURRENT DETECTED

She instinctively knew what it was, and a quick glance at the hideous mouth confirmed it. The orifice had expanded grotesquely, the lips protruding, the whole thing sucking in water at an abruptly increased pace. She grabbed the joystick and gave it full reverse, the engine thrumming up fast, arresting the forward movement of the sub.

“Get out now!” she heard Lennart say in her headset. “Back away, full power!”

This was what she was already doing—but now the mouth ballooned further, the lips stretching, and the current increased. The sub shook and rocked in its effort to pull free. Lispenard pushed the joystick sideways and rotated the sub, trying to exit the current diagonally. For a moment it seemed to work; the sub jerked violently sideways and almost broke free, but then the mouth gulped more water, swelling like an enormous toad, snagging her once again in its suction.

“Not free yet!” She struggled to keep the sub stable in the vortex created by the flow of water, the mouth seeming to loom ever bigger. Such a huge current had been generated by the suction that now a curtain of silt was rising in plumes from the ocean floor—or was it caused by the motion of the roots?

As the sub began to spin, she slammed the joystick sideways, trying to break free of the maelstrom—to no avail.

“Emergency eject!” Lennart said. “Trigger the eject!”

Alex reached for the red eject lever, but was thrown back by an unexpected lurch. And then the mini sub was suddenly swallowed in a green, milky globe of light, the creature’s translucent tissue flaring in the headlamps. She both heard and felt a wet, sucking sound, and she could see the tissue flecked with bright specks, flexing and contracting horribly, as the thing swallowed her whole.

“I’m inside,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice even.

“Use the arm torch—cut your way out,” was the last message she heard before the UQC ceased working, the acoustic connection crackling out into digital hiss.

She activated the arm and tried to extend it, but the pressure of the thing’s internal tissue blocked any movement. She tried a second time, pushing the joystick all the way forward, but now multiple alarms were going off, warning messages flashing everywhere.

Screw this. She activated the acetylene torch, the flame flaring into life. The effect was instantaneous: a sudden, jerking reaction, along with a low booming groan, and then she managed to pull the emergency eject, designed to jettison the titanium personnel sphere from the sub housing, inflate the ballast tanks, and send it screaming to the surface.