The Creeping Kelp

July 24th - In the Air Again

The Colonel arrived soon after.

“Your ride is waiting, folks. I hope you’re ready.”

He led them back up through the fort to the esplanade. The chopper was there already. When they got in, they were given lifejackets and headsets, the wearing of which made Noble feel like an extra from a war movie.

“The team’s carrying enough ordnance to blow away a town,” the Colonel shouted from the doorway, “And we’ve retrofitted some weed-killer backpacks with acid.” His face contorted with something that looked like rage. “Kill this bastard. Wipe it out, before it does the same to us.”

He closed the door on them and they felt the chopper buck and sway as it lifted away from the fort. Suzie wasted no time in unpacking a laptop and firing it up, searching for streaming video news. She was able to use a small set of headphones, but Noble had to rely on the pictures. No sound was needed. The pictures told the story all too well.

Carnage and panic.

Noble looked away, his attention caught by a movement across the chopper. The far side from where he and Suzie sat was occupied by a row of marines, all now engaged in checking equipment and weaponry. They looked calm, deadly, and efficient and gave Noble a feeling of reassurance that they weren’t on a wild goose chase.

The C.O. looked to be a Lieutenant he’d seen around, Mitchell, a Welshman, a man of no more than thirty, who looked too young to be commanding a dozen hardened soldiers. But it looked like the men all knew their officer and respected him, for when it was obvious he was speaking to them in their headsets, they all paid attention and there was no talking back, no shows of bravado.

Suzie nudged him in the ribs, bringing his attention back to the screen. The Minister hadn’t been able to keep a lid on the story about the kelp’s origin. Noble knew that neither he nor Suzie had spoken of it, so either it was the Minister himself or someone in his office. Either way, he’d fallen on his sword and news pictures showed him outside a huge house, looking stern and grim over the headlines that spoke of his dismissal. What Suzie wanted him to see came next. It was grainy, in black and white, but it was obvious what he was looking at.

A tall, studious looking man who could only be Professor Rankin, stood, centre-stage, and waited for the Brass to move into their place along a harbour wall before speaking. Although Noble couldn’t hear what was being said, he could see the defiance and pride in every move Rankin made.

Rankin dragged on a chain. The lid of a box that sat in the harbour started to open, slowly at first. Tentacles found the edges and tore. A chunk of metal flew like a discus, passing less than three feet over the head of the assembled dignitaries. The kelp came out of the box like a greyhound from a trap, expanding as it came into a roiling mass eight feet wide and near again as thick.

It completely ignored a net full of fish. Instead, it threw out a writhing forest of tentacles… straight towards Rankin.

The screen froze, showing a mass of tentacles seemingly suspended in the air, small moist eyes wide open along their length.

“Well, the secret’s out,” Noble said.

Suzie smiled thinly.

“A wee bit too late. Anyway, it makes no difference to our mission. All it means is they’ll have someone apart from us to blame when this is all over.”

If it’s ever going to be over.

Noble was thinking about the presence he’d felt in his mind, the thing that seemed to be inside the rotting keel of the cargo ship. It hadn’t felt like something from the Second World War. It had felt older—far older, a presence that had always been there, dreaming, waiting for the stars to turn in their course for the right time for it to rise and lay claim to its domain.

He laughed at his own bombast, then got embarrassed when he noticed several of the marines were looking at him as if he were mad.

Maybe I am.

He was remembering the Spanish Captain’s words, over four hundred years old, but more pertinent than ever.

There is no pain in the dream, no fear, no hunger, just the sweet forever of the dead god beneath. There is a spot where a dead god lies dreaming. We will find him and join him there.