Fragment

12:44 P.M.

Nell and the technicians stared over Otto’s shoulder as the video feed broke up.

“Damn, we lost them!”

“Keep trying,” Nell urged.

“Their com array must be damaged.” Otto checked the camera overlooking one of StatLab’s microwave dishes. “It’s definitely not on our end.”

“OK,” Briggs said. “That’s it! I want all hard drives packed and ready to go when the Sea Dragon gets here, people. All euthanized specimens need to be sealed in sterilized specimen cases. No live specimens are to leave the island under absolutely any circumstances. No pets! And no souvenirs!”

The men inside the rover heard nothing but a blizzard of white noise on the radio.

“Yeah, their com array’s definitely down,” Quentin said.

Andy nodded. “Lichenovores must have gotten to it.”

“Clovores, you mean.”

“Oh right.”

“How’d you guys like to get a look inside the lake?” asked the driver, who still seemed reassuringly gung ho, despite being cut off from the lab.

Quentin glanced at Andy, arching his eyebrows. “You can actually do that?”

“Sure can!” the driver said.

“Bitchin’!”

“We should call the Enterprise now,” Zero said.

“Right after this, we will,” Pound agreed. “Let’s make sure to tape this for the President, OK?”

Bugs were starting to swarm around the rover as an ROV deployed from the end of one of the robot arms, maneuvering down into the lake on a thin, Day-Glo orange tether.

The driver used what looked like Xbox controls to steer it and flick on its headlight, illuminating the black water. The crew watched the ROV’s camera view on a screen above the forward window.

The small vehicle buzzed down into the depths.

“How deep can it go?” Andy was giddy.

“About three hundred feet,” the driver said.

“Awesome.” Quentin grinned at Andy.

A huge animal, like an overgrown fairy shrimp, appeared on the screen, paddling in the inky darkness, and suddenly a wondrous world of Cambrianesque creatures materialized on the screen around it.

Segmented creatures of fantastic designs crossed the camera’s view like apparitions: spiked saucers, horned boomerangs, finned champagne glasses, a Christmas tree with kicking legs.

“Omigod,” Quentin breathed. “Stephen Jay Gould, eat your HEART OUT, baby!”

“It’s the Burgess Shale come to life.” Andy sounded shell-shocked.

“We were right!” Quentin said.

“Wow, OK, guys, keep talking. Are you getting all this?” Pound asked Zero.

Zero looked up from his videocam. “We should move. We shouldn’t stay-”

Even as he spoke, he was cut off by a huge BOOM!

The rover lurched, and then they heard another BOOM!

The rover pitched forward and a third of the front window plunged into the water.

“What the hell just happened?” Pound yelled.

“Oh shit,” the driver said.

“We can still drive, right?” Pound said.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” the driver said.

“We can still drive, though… right?” Zero asked.

The half-tracks bore into the wet bank of the lake as they backtracked, but the front axles of the blown tires gripped the steep bank like anchors and the vehicle sank lower as it dug in. Then they suddenly stopped functioning. Red lights flashed on the control panel.

The driver looked at them. “Uh… that would be a negative.”

“We’ve got half-tracks, for Christ’s sake-why can’t we just power out of here, man?” Zero asked.

“This is a prototype-it was designed to terminate functionality in the event of any malfunction that might cause damage to equipment worth millions of dollars.”

“Inflatable rubber tires?” Andy screeched. “I thought this thing was a Mars rover!”

The driver shook his head. “It’s experimental. And those tires are ten-inch-thick steel radials, for Christ’s sake! I don’t understand how both of them could blow like this.”

Quentin looked out the side window and saw the shredded rubber above water. “Oh shit, it’s smoking!”

Zero videoed out the right window. “Same on this side.”

“We may have run over some clovores.”

“What?”

“Animals that eat clover and probably use sulfuric acid to dissolve it,” Quentin told Pound. “The acid inside them may have eaten away our tires, I guess.”

“Shit!” the envoy snapped. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“You were the one in such a huge frickin’ hurry!” Quentin shouted.

Andy jabbed a finger at the driver. “He said we can radio for a transport!”

“Radio the ship for a transport now,” Zero said.

The driver nodded and flicked on the radio. “Kirk to Enterprise, Kirk to Enterprise.”

He glanced up at the others, who were glaring at him. “It’s my NAME, OK?” He clicked the radio again. “This is XATV-9, do you read, Enterprise?”

White noise.

“Do you read, Enterprise? This is XATV-9…Kirk to Enterprise?”

Kirk looked up at the rest of them, shrugged.

“Keep trying!” Pound urged.

“But don’t say ‘Kirk to Enterprise,’” Andy said.

Zero put the camera in his lap, popped out the memory stick, slid it into his pocket, snapped the flap, and hung his head down over his lap. Laughter gently rocked his body. “Why did I trust you idiots?” he moaned.

“Don’t worry,” Kirk told them. “We can just sit tight. Sooner or later they’ll send a transport.”

A shrieking alarm sounded; blue lights flashed at the rear of the rover.

“Now what?” Andy yelped.

Kirk looked puzzled. “The smoke alarm!”

He squeezed between them and rushed to the rear of the rover to disable the blaring siren. Looking up at the ceiling, he shook his head grimly.

“What?” Pound demanded. He squeegeed the sweat off his forehead with the side of his hand, like a windshield wiper.

“Hey that’s funny,” Kirk said.

“What’s funny?” Zero said. “I need a laugh.”

Kirk pointed at the roof. “Something seems to be burning through the hull here…”

“Ha ha.”

“What’s the hull made of?” Quentin asked.

“Superhardened plastic, so there’s no way any impact could-”

“Oh shit.” Quentin looked at Andy.

“You guys better take a look at this.” Zero pointed at the ROV monitor.

Large shadowy creatures stirred on the screen just beyond the range of the ROV’s headlights.

“Jeez, we were right!” Quentin crowed.

“Right about what?” Pound’s voice cracked.

“Giant mantis shrimp-that eye must be attached to an animal as big as a saltwater crocodile!”

The ROV appeared to shine its spotlight on the football-sized compound eye of a slumbering leviathan.

“Call off the ROV now!” Zero said.

Kirk killed the light. He reversed the winch on the ROV’s cable, zipping it up at top speed.

Andy and Quentin cringed as the camera pulled away from the creature. Pound sagged in relief.

“Good man,” Zero said softly.

Through the partially submerged window of the rover they had an above-and-below view of the black lake as a chevron of ripples headed toward them across its surface.

More ridges appeared on the water, moving parallel to the first.