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Kowalski butted in. “What military?”
“It’s too dark to make out any details. It could be nothing.”
Kowalski frowned, knowing better.
It’s never nothing.
“Have topside keep us updated,” Byrd said. “Let them also know we’re instituting an evacuation down here.”
Jarrah’s eyebrows rose, but he simply nodded, turned on a heel, and headed out.
Byrd faced the room. “I think you’re all right. Until matters calm down, it’ll be safer up top for everybody.”
Kowalski doubted this. His stomach gave a sour churn—and he trusted his gut. He checked his watch, knowing there were others who also needed to be warned.
He faced Haru. “What about the team diving into the trench?” He pictured Monk and the others. “Maybe you should let them know that the place could explode at any moment.”
As if affirming this, the station gave another hard shake. Equipment rattled on tables, glassware tinkled, the floor trembled.
They all waited out the quake.
Once it ended, Kowalski started to speak—when another jolt struck.
Followed by another.
Kowalski pointed to the lab’s radio. “Do it now.”
16
January 23, 11:07P.M.NZDT
Pacific Ocean, six hundred miles NE of Auckland
Phoebe leaned forward in her seat. The thrusters thrummed outside, driving theCormorantover the shining landscape below. It was as if they were gliding over a rainforest, only one that had been painted and daubed by a wild artist wielding a palette of phosphorescent oils. Everywhere, the coral jungle flickered and flashed, tracing through its depths with metallic fire.
Bryan had cast off another five kilograms of ballast to draw the vehicle to within a few yards of the wonderland. He had also deployed theCormorant’s gull wings, transforming the DSV into its namesake.
Lights blazed from the vehicle, casting down and ahead.
At the back, Adam was monitoring a screen that displayed a scan from the onboard sub-bottom profiler. The hope was, by scanning this low in the water column, that they could finally discover the true bottom of the Tonga Trench.
“Anything?” Monk asked.
Adam nodded. “We’re picking up the sea floor. It’s roughly five hundred meters below us. Past all that coral.”
Datuk bounced a knee in excitement. “That depth would match the deepest part of the Tonga Trench.”
“And the bottom continues to steadily drop.”
Phoebe stared below her knees, wishing her eyes were as good asthe profiler at penetrating the forest. It was difficult to discern much through the dense canopy. Though, it did appear that the emerald-green polyps grew larger deeper down, steadily increasing in size. The population across the canopy’s surface must be the youngest, the most juvenile of the colony.
She had also noted that the larger polyps below seemed to be the source for most of the forest’s bioluminescence. Their younger siblings did not seem to possess this property. She knew coastal corals formed a symbiotic relationship with microscopic algae, called zooxanthellae, which photosynthesized sunlight to provide sustenance for both. She wondered if there could be a similar mutualism going on here, only with a bioluminescent alga. Or could there be some internalized chemical reaction that developed as the polyps aged?
So many mysteries...
As they continued across the forest, something caught her eye. A large shadow appeared to be following theCormorant, flowing deep through the forest, sweeping around the massive trunks of coral. She had caught glimpses of it before, but she couldn’t tell what it was. It could even just be a trick of shadows from the passage of their lights. Its presence was only notable as a dark bulk that occluded the bioluminescence, like a storm cloud passing over stars. Even now, she wasn’t sure if it was truly there.
Still, it made her wonder.
