Dead Space Martyr Part 17

Moresby blinked, coughed. "Give me a minute to steady myself," he said, and groped a bottle off the floor beneath the bed.

"You don't need any more," said Altman. "Come on, get up."

"Who are you to tell me what I need?" asked Moresby. He tried to stand up and nearly fell. "I'm a Moresby, by G.o.d, a descendant of ..."

He was still babbling out his pedigree while Altman dragged him down the hall and thrust him, fully clothed, into the shower, turning the cold tap all the way open. A moment later, Moresby was shouting. Ten minutes later, he was dressed in dry clothes and subdued. He was pale, was sweating a sour smell, and his hands were still shaking, but he was more or less presentable.

"You're all right?" Altman asked.

"Just nerves," said Moresby. "I'll be all right once I'm down there."

Altman nodded.

"You won't tell anybody, will you?" said Moresby, refusing to meet his gaze now.

"Hendricks doesn't want me to," he said. "If it was up to me, I would."

He led Moresby to the submarine bay, where Markoff was planning to pa.s.s them in review before leaving. The submarine pilots were already there, the bathyscaphe transferred.

"You stay here," said Altman.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to find Hendricks."

It might have been different if he'd found Hendricks sooner, or if the other submarine pilots had kept an eye on Moresby. Or if Markoff had come right away, before Moresby had had time to have second thoughts, but it took almost half an hour for him to arrive. As it was, Hendricks and Altman made it back just a few moments before Markoff, and it wasn't until he'd started speaking that Altman realized Moresby was nowhere to be seen.

Markoff took the review very seriously. He wore a freshly pressed dress uniform and was flanked by two guards on either side. He thanked the pilots and crews and technicians for their efforts, reminded the other two submarine crews that they would stand by on the freighter in case anything went wrong and the bathyscaphe failed to rise. As for the bathyscaphe, if for any reason Hendricks and Moresby- He stopped. "Where's Moresby?" he asked.

Hendricks looked around. "He was here just a moment ago, sir," he said.

In the end, two guards discovered him. He'd managed to find a bottle somewhere and had downed a good bit of it. Drunk, he had fallen from one of the lifts and broken his neck. It's my fault, It's my fault, Altman thought. Altman thought. I should have watched him more carefully. I should have watched him more carefully. He looked over and caught Hendricks's eye, realized that Hendricks was thinking much the same thing, was blaming himself. He looked over and caught Hendricks's eye, realized that Hendricks was thinking much the same thing, was blaming himself.

Markoff, however, didn't react at all, and rejected out of hand Hendricks's request to put the dive off for a day out of respect for the dead. "Just as well," he said when the body was brought to him. "That way we'll be sure to get the geophysical readings right. Sound all right to you, Altman?"

He had to repeat it twice before Altman realized he was being addressed. "Fine," said Altman, trying not to stare at the body, at the way the head hung at an odd, impossible angle.

They took a boat to the freighter in silence, the bathyscaphe being towed behind. Once there, the guards held the bathyscaphe steady as they loaded on.

"I'm still a little shaky," said Hendricks. "I lived with Moresby, after all. If it's all the same with you, I'll let you drive."

Though a little shaky himself, Altman was happy to have the distraction of working the instruments. He eased them slowly down. Before long they were resting steady on the ocean floor.

"How deep are we?" asked Altman.

"Not nearly as deep as we'll be in the center of the crater," said Hendricks. "Two thousand meters, I'd guess."

"Have you ever been this deep before?"

Hendricks shook his head. "Almost," he said, "but not quite."

It was peaceful there, thought Altman, soothing almost, like they had come to the end of the world. He liked listening to the quiet whir of the air recirculators, liked watching the dark, almost empty world outside.

35 A week later, they arrived, and everybody was eager to get to work. They started by taking readings from the surface, from a launch that rose and fell with the swell of the waves. Field was with him at first, taking readings of his own and double-checking Altman's, though he became greener and greener as the afternoon went on. He spent the last hour of the day hanging over the launch's side, retching.

By the next morning, a groaning, vomit-flecked Field had been s.h.i.+pped back to the floating compound and it was just Hendricks and Altman. They brought the bathyscaphe down a thousand meters and took their readings there, waiting for confirmation from Markoff to descend farther. When it came, they went down to two thousand meters and repeated the process.

"Seems straightforward," said Altman.

Hendricks shrugged. "More or less," he said. "Only problem is that down this deep, communication gets erratic. It's hard to know if they'll receive the data we're sending."

"We might be cut off?" asked Altman.

"It comes and goes," said Hendricks. "Really nothing to worry about as long as nothing goes wrong."

Through the front observation porthole, Altman thought he could see pinp.r.i.c.ks of light from the excavation below, from the robotic diggers. But it was too far away to make anything out. "We could go down to three thousand meters, take readings, and then come back up," said Altman. "We've got more than enough air for it. You're the boss. Up to you."

Hendricks said, "Have you heard the stories about the other bathyscaphe?"

"I've seen the vid," Altman said.

"What do you think happened?"

"I don't know," said Altman.

"Doesn't it worry you at all?"

"I don't know," said Altman. "I want to know what happened, but I'm not worried exactly. Does it worry you?"

Hendricks nodded. "Let's take it slow. There's no point in rus.h.i.+ng things," he said. "On the other hand, if I'm reading the data right, the pulse signal is starting again."

"Really?" said Altman, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. "Are you certain?"

Hendricks hesitated, then nodded slowly. "It's very slight-I caught it at two thousand meters but not at one thousand-but it's there."

"What does it mean that it's back?" asked Altman. "Maybe we should keep going down after all. Who knows how long it will last? We need to record it while it's still broadcasting."

But Hendricks had one hand cupped over his earpiece. "Too late," he said. "They're ordering us back up."

They looked at each other a long moment. "You said yourself that communications are intermittent," said Altman. "How will they know we got the message?"

Hendricks shook his head. "If we don't get the okay to go down to three thousand meters, we're to go back to the surface anyway. That's protocol. If we disobey, what do you think the chances are of them letting us near a bathyscaphe again? We can't do it."

A half dozen counterarguments fired through his head and then quickly dissolved. Hendricks was right. They had no choice. The signal would have to wait.

A contingent of guards was waiting for them by the time they opened the hatch and stepped out in the submarine bay. They were hustled down to the command center, which was already occupied not just by Markoff but also by a half dozen researchers, all of them part of Markoff's inner circle. Not men from Chicxulub. They looked stern, serious.

"The pulse signal has started again?" asked Markoff. "You're sure about this?"

"Why the h.e.l.l wouldn't we be?" said Altman. "The instruments don't lie." He gestured at the other researchers. "But you apparently wanted a second opinion. Why don't you ask them?"

"It's much weaker than it was before," said one of the men.

"We noticed," said Altman.

"Maybe it's not the same signal after all," said another. "Maybe it's static and feedback from the MROVs and robotic units that are handling the excavation."

"Just barely possible," said Altman. "But not at all likely. It's the same signal."

"Did you feel anything unusual? Sense anything strange?" asked Markoff.

Altman shook his head. "No," he said.

"What about you, Hendricks?"

"I don't know, sir," said Hendricks.

"You don't know?"

"When I reached two thousand meters, I started to feel a little strange. It felt like a premonition or something."

"Stevens," said Markoff, and one of the researchers came forward. He was distinguished looking, but had a relaxed, kind face. "Take Hendricks and work up a full psychological profile. If you get any sense of a problem, you're authorized to take him off duty. If he looks fine to you, we'll have both of them in the bathyscaphe first thing tomorrow."

That night Altman's dreams began again. He woke up drenched in sweat in the middle of the night and found he could not move. He was jittery, little flashes of light going off behind his eyelids, and he had a sense of dread that refused to leave him. It took a long time for him to become aware that he wasn't back at his house in Chicxulub, but when he did, the imagined shape of the room around him became amorphous and vague.

His heart began to pound heavily, and he could hear the blood in his ears. The s.p.a.ce around him remained undetermined in the darkness. It was like he was in a place that wasn't a place at all, like he was suspended in a void. He tried again to move but still couldn't. Am I still dreaming? Am I still dreaming? he wondered. he wondered.

And then, only very slowly did he realize where he might be, in the floating compound, that sound just beside him the sound of Ada breathing in her sleep.

And suddenly he found he could move again. He got up, drank a gla.s.s of water, and got back into the bed again. Ada moaned in her sleep. He wrestled with trying to fall back asleep, when he heard a knock on his door.

It was Stevens.

"Altman, isn't it?" he whispered.

"Yes," Altman said.

"Can we go somewhere to talk?"

Altman slipped into his pants and a s.h.i.+rt and tiptoed out of the room, following Stevens down the hall. The man keyed an empty lab open, ushered Altman in.

"What's this about?" Altman asked.

"You haven't noticed anything unusual about Hendricks, have you?" asked Stevens.

"Is anything wrong?"

"Nothing wrong with the scans," said Stevens. "Nothing wrong with the tests either. But there's still something bothering me. I can't quite put my finger on it. He seems normal, stable, but different different somehow." somehow."

"He seems the same to me," said Altman.

"Maybe it's just the pressure," said Stevens. "Maybe he's nervous. But it feels like he's holding something back."

Altman nodded.

"Since you're going to be alone with him in the bathyscaphe and the one to suffer if things go wrong, I thought I'd talk to you about it."

"I don't know what to say," said Altman. "He seems fine to me. I've never had any problems with him on a dive, never sensed any nervousness. I trust him. No," he said. "I'm not worried about him. In fact, I'm a lot less worried about him than I'd be being confined in the bathyscaphe with many of the other people in this facility."

Stevens nodded. "We want to be careful," he said. "You can understand that, considering what happened with the last bathyscaphe. We don't want anything going wrong. All right," he said, "I'll tell them we can move ahead."

36 "No reason to be nervous," Hendricks said. "It's just like any other day."

Altman got the feeling that he was saying it to try to convince himself. "No worries," he said. "It'll be a piece of cake."

They went down to one thousand meters, the sickly sea life at first present and then slowly dwindling. Then two thousand, the sea becoming more and more deserted, but still a few flickers of life, the photoph.o.r.es of a viperfish pa.s.sing and spinning away into the darkness. A bony fangtooth, caught briefly in the lights, looking like a half-formed thing. A bathyscaphoid squid that resembled a disembodied head made of gla.s.s.

At 2,700 meters, they could make out the lights below, no more than pinp.r.i.c.ks in the darkness. Slowly they grew larger. Altman was still watching them when he heard a whimper behind him.

He turned. Hendricks was pale and stiff faced. Tears were dripping slowly from his eyes. He didn't seem to notice them. Oh G.o.d, Oh G.o.d, thought Altman, thought Altman, something's wrong. Maybe I was wrong to tell Stevens to let Hendricks go ahead with the dive. something's wrong. Maybe I was wrong to tell Stevens to let Hendricks go ahead with the dive.

But even then he didn't feel nervous for himself, only worried for Hendricks. Hendricks would never do anything to hurt him.

"What's wrong?" Altman asked.

"I don't want to die," he sobbed.

"You're not going to die," said Altman. "Don't worry."

"Hennessy and Dantec. What happened to them? We're not meant to be down here, Altman. I can feel it."

Altman slowed the bathyscaphe until it was descending almost unnoticeably. "If you want to go up, we can go up," said Altman in a level voice, trying to make Hendricks look him in the eye. "I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do. But now that we're here, we should take the readings. You don't mind doing the readings, do you?"

Hendricks took a deep breath, blinked his eyes, seemed to grab hold of himself. "Yes," he said. "I'm good at the readings. I can do that. I need something to do."

He let Hendricks busy himself with the machinery while he continued to ease the craft down. Hendricks began, running through them rapidly, Altman checking his work. The signal pulse was there, much stronger at this level. They should measure it again at two thousand feet on the way back up, Altman thought-maybe the signal was growing even stronger.

Then Hendricks tried to measure it again. This time there was nothing; the signal pulse was gone. Altman took a reading himself just to make sure. Same result. He tried yet again and it was back.

So, Altman thought, the signal was pulsing on and off, sometimes there, sometimes not. Maybe a problem with the transmitter, some irregularity or corrupted circuit. Or maybe it was deliberate. Maybe it was sending them a message.

He glanced over at Hendricks. Was he going to be able to hold it together? Should he try to get him up to the surface as quickly as possible?

"Good, Hendricks," Altman said. "These are excellent readings. Let's change our strategy for a moment. Instead of trying to record the level synchronically, let's take a diachronic profile and see if we can figure out what the pulse is doing over time."