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She straightened her back. “I will do my best.”
“I have no doubt of that.”
Byrd finally sighed loudly. “I will leave you to get fully settled, Dr. Reed. But I look forward to chatting with you again.”
Before he could step toward the central stairs, a low rumble echoed through the station. Outside, the anchor cables swayed, but the five tiers ofTitan Station Downbarely moved as its rows of thrusters, all computer coordinated, compensated for the shaking.
Still, the other scientists gathered closer, shying from the ring ofwindows.
Even Byrd’s bodyguard reached a hand toward his charge.
But the Aussie stepped aside and raised an arm, along with his voice. “Just a minor sea quake, everyone. Nothing to worry about. We’re in a tectonically active region. This is the sixteenth—no, seventeenth—tremor we’ve recorded since we started this project. Such quakes are expected and have been fully accounted for by Titan’s design team.”
As the tremor subsided, Phoebe was the only one to step back to a window. She gazed out. Beyond the glass, the sea life looked as unimpressed by the shaking as Byrd. The fluffed-up sand was already sifting back down.
She tested a palm against the glass, feeling the slight thrum of the stabilizing thrusters but nothing else. She stared beyond the reach of the red lamps to the darkness beyond, toward the likely epicenters of the recent tremors. She pictured where this sea shelf dropped away into an interconnecting maze of deep trenches: the Solomon trenches, the New Hebrides, and farther out, the Tonga and Kermadec trenches. They marked the broken tectonic line where the Pacific Plate ground under the Indo-Australian Plate.
While the Mariana Trench to the north got more publicity and attention—being the world’s deepest—it was only a thousand meters deeper than this chain. Because of their second ranking, these trenches had never been given as much scientific attention.
Until now, she hoped.
One of the reasons she wanted to join the Titan Project had been its proximity to those trenches and how it tied to her latest research. Deep-sea coral had been well documented in beds two miles under the sea. But no one truly knew if they thrived deeper, and if so, what they might look like or how they survived. Answers to those mysteries could be found in the neighboring maze of trenches.
She glanced back to William Byrd, who had been stopped by a trio of researchers before he could leave. It sounded like he was still reassuring them, speaking about all the troubleshooting and shakedown testing that the station had undergone.
She let him drone on, remembering instead his statement from a moment before, about how 99.9 percent of the ocean remained unexplored. There must bedeeper-growing coral out there somewhere.
She turned back to the window.
And I will find them.
With her palm still on the glass, she felt a tremor that started in her hand and vibrated up her arm. Outside, the seabed shivered, casting up sand, shaking that vast forest. The sedate sea life flashed away with flickers of fins and tails. An army of crabs abandoned their scavenging and skittered away from the reef. Octopi and squids jetted off into the darkness, leaving behind a panicked fog of ink.
Her eyes widened, and her breath caught, stifling the warning in her throat.
Before she could exhale, the sea floor bucked under the station. The anchor lines thrashed violently. Two of them ripped away. Overhead, fire doors slammed shut between the levels, isolating each tier. As the station twisted and jolted, the rest of the cables were jettisoned with bubbling blasts from their attachments to the floating structure.
Once loose,Titan Station Downspun slowly like the top that it was—until the thrusters finally compensated and drew them back to a steady hover.
Phoebe glanced to the others. A few of the researchers had been thrown to the floor by the jarring of the station. William Byrd remained on his feet, likely due to the firm grip of his bodyguard.
The Aussie attempted a laugh, but it came out forced. “That was more of ashakedowncruise than I had hoped you’d experience, but as you can see, even under such a severe jolt, all is well.”
Overhead, the fire doors slowly sighed open between the levels. An all-clear klaxon chimed throughout the station.
“As I told you,” he assured them with a big smile, “there’s nothing to worry about.”
Still, his grin looked far less sure than it had a few moments before.
Phoebe turned back to the window. As the quake faded, the seabed settled. The sands sifted down and revealed the reef again, which appeared mostly intact. A couple of taller tree corals had snapped at their bases and crashed down into the sand. But that seemed the worst of the damage.
Still, she waited and maintained her vigil.
After a full five minutes, a cold wave of dread shivered through her.
None of the other free-wheeling pelagic life had returned, as if still avoiding this area.
She winced, suddenly worrying.
