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She remembered her earlier conversation with William Byrd and his concern about the state of the world’s reefs.
This is why I was brought here.
She didn’t want to disappoint him. Though, in truth, that was only a small part of her motivation. She had always had a love and fascination with the ocean. It was her refuge and playground.
Back in Barbados, her father had been a hot-tempered Puerto Rican, prone to sudden angry outbursts, who had used his fists as much as his tongue to express his frustration. Her mother would do her best to shield Phoebe, sending her off when those storms grew too fierce. Phoebe had found solace and peace underwater, where the anger of the world grew muffled. She would stay down as long as possible, holding her breath, trying to get as deep as she could on a single lungful—what would later be called freediving.
After she and her mother had finally fled the abuse and settled in Southern California, Phoebe had kept close to the sea, taking up the sport with more seriousness—even earning a scholarship to help pay for her schooling.
She continued to practice the sport, still finding joy in the solitude.
She stared out at the dark depths beyond the station.
Only now I’m diving much deeper.
“Pheebs?” Jazz turned to her. “What do you want to do?”
Phoebe shook off her reverie, blaming it on her exhaustion. She pointed to the screen, to the unusual specimen. She was anxious to learn its secrets.
“Jazz, draw us closer. I want to pick out the best branch to sample.”
“No problem, boss.”
Jazz slowed and expertly nosed the ROV up to a dense cluster of branches and hovered the vehicle in place—or at least, tried to do so. “There’s a pretty strong current. Do you want to perform the sample collection while I hold the ROV steady?”
“Will do.” Phoebe shifted next to her friend. She squeezed over to the bank of controls that operated the ROV’s claws, cutters, and collection equipment. She reached a fingertip to the monitor and circled a few branches of coral glowing on the screen. “Zoom in right here.”
Jazz manipulated a lens toggle. A dense field of the emerald-green polyps swelled into view.
After some fine-tuning, Jazz flinched. “Boss, I think you might’ve beenwrongaround this being a species of black coral.”
Phoebe grimaced, hating to be mistaken, but realizing Jazz was likely right. “From a distance, I was so sure,” she mumbled. “The skeleton of this coral is jet black. And up close, you can even see thorny spikes along its bark, typical of such species.”
“But you can’t ignore the polyps themselves,” Jazz warned. “Just count their arms. These each haveeight. Just like little octopuses.”
“Whereas black corals only havesix.” Phoebe sighed her concession on this point. “Still, it’s intriguing. Maybe we’ll learn more once we collect a sample.”
“It could be a new species,” Jazz said.
“Let’s hope so.”
Phoebe reached a claw toward a polyp-packed branch. As the jaws neared the stalk, dozens of the polyps unfurled long, thin threads. They stretched a foot long and battered at the approaching steel claw.
“Sweeper tentacles,” Jazz said with clear amazement.
Phoebe moved closer, equally astonished.
Many species of coral came armed with such weapons. But their tentacles were never this long. Sweepers, like this, were used to hunt prey beyond the reach of a polyp’s tiny circlet of arms. They were notoriously tipped with a potent nematocyst, a venomous stinger for stunning prey. Sweepers were also employed as a means of territorial aggression, to ward off the encroachment of any other coral.
“Whatever species this is,” Jazz said, “it’s clearly not keen on us sampling it.”
Phoebe shifted the claw closer. “We’ll remove just the tip of this stalk. It can’t begrudge us that.”
As the claw’s cutter touched the coral, a flurry of motion drew a gasp from both women. Polyps burst out of their calcified nests, escaping like a startled flock of birds. Once free, they sped across the water with tiny spasms of their bodies and twirls of their arms. Several even attacked the claw, grabbing hold and clinging tight.
“What the hell?” Jazz asked. “Nocoral does that.”
Phoebe squinted and noted a few polyps hadn’t made their escape from the coral. Before they did, she quickly snapped off the branch and vacuumed the twig and its last few residents into a self-sealing sample jar.
