Chapter 9: (v.4) Chapter 9

May 10, 2049

MV Wanderer

19.192N 152.655E

Today was a day of replenishment. A different cargo carrier hove into sight just after dawn and hailed the Wanderer.

The overhead speaker on the bridge crackled once, then announced, “Wanderer. Wanderer. This is the motor vessel Southern Cross. How do you read?”

The Officer of the Deck unclipped the mic and returned the call. “Southern Cross, Wanderer. Read you five by.”

“Roger, Wanderer. Estimate rendezvous in approximately forty minutes. Ready to receive supplies?”

“Roger that. Been waiting for fresh stuff. We’ll ensure towed equipment is out of the water. Stopping engines now.”

“Copy, Wanderer. Out.”

The OOD turned to a messenger. “Compliments to the captain. Request permission to stop engines. Inform him the replenishment ship is closing.”

“Aye, sir!”

Three minutes later, the intercom beeped. “Bridge. Captain. Permission granted. I’ve checked with the wet lab. They will haul in their sensors immediately. I’ll be there shortly.”

“Aye, sir.”

Ten minutes later, the captain appeared. “How close now, OOD?”

“He’s slowing. Estimate fifteen to twenty minutes before we’ll be ready to start cross-decking.”

“Consumables and parts only? No personnel, so we send the RHIB?”

“Correct, captain. I have the deck crew readying the crane now.”

“Good. Carry on.”

“Aye Aye, sir.”

As the captain passed the radio rack, he picked up a handi-talkie before going out on the port wing. The other ship was now close enough for him to make out figures on their bridge. He raised the radio to his lips. “A welcome sight, to be sure. Our crew thanks you, Captain Bell.”

“Just a little Aussie hospitality and food, Davis. We should be ready to transfer soon.”

“Thank you, Art. How’s the family?”

“Just fine. Little Art is entering primary school next year. Lisa has a girl being built in the yards.”

Captain Taggart laughed. “Well, good luck to the both of you. Talk to you later. Over.”

“Thanks. Out.”

Two hours later, after the Southern Cross had dropped below the horizon, Eileen received permission to re-employ their drones and trailing sensors as Wanderer got underway once more.

* * *

The wet lab bustled with activity as the techs bent to their tasks once their sensors were at the correct depth. After calibrating and starting the equipment, Team Two settled down to another day of listening and watching for anything out of the ordinary beneath them.

Team Three, composed of Jess, Terry, and Jean, who were on duty when the first anomaly appeared, were doubtless sleeping. Ahmad, Ben, and Jean-Claude made up Team One, and would take over the watch after the evening meal.

At 21:40, the side-mapping sonar beeped. Ahmad scooted his chair over and glanced at the display. “Another seamount forming to starboard. Doesn’t look too big. Allie, see if you can spot anything on camera two.”

“Right-o,” she said in her British accent. “Checking now.” After a few minutes of operating the visual controls of the remote video, she reported. “Nothing in sight here. Visibility is next to nil.”

“Okay. Write this up, Chris, as Anomaly Two. Depth is 1851 meters, with a sharp point and no plateau. We’ll let the day crew know when we’re relieved.”

“Okay.”

They reestablished their routine within minutes and the evening continued.

* * *

Back and forth, Wanderer cruised for more long days, occasionally logging points of interest, but finding nothing out of the ordinary.

Eileen lounged on her small couch, engrossed in a novel. For once, she wasn’t elbow deep in the mundane world of an administrator, self-imposing a leisure day. She’d finished the last required report and fired it off to the shore establishment. The next one came due in twenty-four hours.

She had a cup of tea at her elbow and a plate with a day old donut next to it. Turning a page, she picked up the doughy ring and took a bite, followed by a sip of the sweetened liquid.

The 1MC popped to life, followed by the shrill whistle of a bosun’s pipe. “This is a drill! Fire! Fire in Machinery Two. Aft Damage Control provide. This is a drill.” Silence followed by a decisive click.

A cutaway view of the ship formed in Eileen’s mind. She’d been aboard long enough to know where the fire was located. Machinery Two was a small compartment beneath the main deck, to the port of midships. As often as the navy practiced, she knew they’d have it “out” in no time. She reflected on how nautically oriented she was now and chuckled, returning to the world of her novel.

May 16, 2049

MV Wanderer

17.121N 152.890E

Section two of the watch in the wet lab sat up in their chairs, startled by the side-scan sonar warning sounding yet again.

Robin jumped up and checked the display. “Another seamount. Just big enough to trip the alarm. Sides are tapering off.” A repeat alert sounded. “Wait. Contour is rising once more. Looks like a bunch of them.”

“Better alert Doc Kemper,” Allie said, as she picked up the interphone and pressed buttons.

After two buzzes, Eileen answered, “What?”

“We seem to be entering a field of small seamounts. They aren’t on our charts. Should we investigate?”

“Yes, Allie. Get the ROV launched. I’ll be right there.”

Eileen held the cradle down, then released it to buzz Kirby Peterson’s cabin.

“Yes?”

“Kirby. Eileen. We need to launch the ROV as soon as possible. Lots of seamounts down there. Can do?”

“Sure. She’ll be underway soon.”

“Great. See you in the lab.”

As Eileen approached the door to the wet laboratory, Kirby joined her, wiping his hands on a towel. “Got her in the water five minutes ago. Should be diving nicely by now.”

“Good work.” She opened the door, and both entered.

There was a group huddled around the ROV monitor screen, at the moment only a deep shade of bluish-green dotted here and there with bubbles and bits of plant life.

Eileen spotted it first. “Hey. Over there to the right. What’s that?”

The camera swiveled on command to show a huge turtle swimming leisurely.

Chris gave a low whistle. “Wow. Pretty deep for him isn’t it? We’re at eight-hundred meters.”

The screen tilted as the pilot angled the ROV toward it. The closer it got, the more defined the picture became until Kirby spoke. “Green Sea turtle. Chelonia Mydas.Big one, too.”

“Didn’t know they went this deep,” Robin said.

“Sure. They’ve been known to travel as deep as twelve-hundred meters.”

The ROV closed in on the swimming creature and slowed to his pace, keeping within ten meters of him. He never stopped his pokey travel.

“See those two striped fish next to him?” Eileen asked.

“Yeah.”

“If that’s a super old turtle, they’re probably his herring aids.”

Various jibes of mockery commenced—most notable was the “Boo” from Kirby. “If you keep that up I’ll send you to your room.”

“Sorry.” Although she wasn’t. “Just tuna me out,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Go on down,” Kirby ordered.

“Yessir,” the pilot responded, pressing his controller forward.

The ROV motored along, angling below the plodding turtle.

Before the evening meal, the wet lab crew had logged over twenty-seven small, pointed seamounts before recovering the ROV to recharge its batteries.

May 23, 2049

MV Wanderer

16.760N 153.137E

Pong! Deedle!

Pong! Deedle!

“Somebody check on that, I have my hands full of printer toner to deal with,” Jess, the watch supervisor, exclaimed.

“Got it,” Terry replied, silencing both the side-scan sonar and the Magnetic Anomaly Detector equipment. He peered at the MAD screen. “This is weird.”

Jean leaned over his shoulder. “What is?”

“Good-sized metallic return coming up to starboard. Kind of fuzzy, though. Right at the limits of detection.” He glanced at the other screen. “Side-scan says it’s bulky and almost five-hundred feet high.”

“Better log this one as Anomaly Three,” Jess advised as she wiped her hands with an alcohol-soaked rag. “Damn toner. Gets all over everything.”

When the MAD gear stopped tracking, they saw the object was close to a kilometer long.

* * *

After a course reversal, the lab personnel awaited the return of the “mysterious metal thingy,” as they called it among themselves. They had almost eighty-five nautical miles to go.

A sizable crowd filled the room. Eileen sat in a padded chair, watching the MAD screen intently while sipping a cup of tea. Kirby was in position beside her, munching a stale sticky bun. The other two members of the section kept their eyes on the remaining screens, particularly the side-scan and depth indicators.

Deedle!

The MAD went off first, followed a few seconds later by the sonar. As everyone watched, the displays formed what appeared to be a completely flat plain of a seamount with rounded edges.

Halfway through the mapping process, Eileen picked up the phone. “Bridge? Doctor Kemper. Could you hold us stationary right here. We have to check out something.” Pause. “Good. Thank you.”

The subliminal hum from the engines lessened as the crew throttled them back. The gentle rocking of the ship changed to a fore-and-aft movement as the following seas alternately raised and lowered the stern.

The scientific and technical people remained baffled, even after extensive testing. Speculation ran wild. Theories flew around rapidly, only to be nixed at once by others. Every person knew something completely different lay beneath them at severe depths, but instruments aimed at it gave conflicting results.

“We know it’s some kind of metal, don’t we?” someone asked.

“Perhaps,” replied another. “But, why doesn’t it show more than just a weak return? It’s huge. Our instruments measure it at a kilometer across.”

“If it were moving, or rotating, wouldn’t that throw the readings off?” Eileen asked.

Kirby Peterson cupped his chin with a palm. “Might.”

“So how do we account for the increased magnetic flux and the slight rise in gravity over it? Wouldn’t that fluctuate also?”

“Maybe it’s Dark Matter,” one of the science fiction enthusiasts said.

“Or, Anti-matter,” another said.

The cluster of techs argued back and forth for a minute or two, trying to tie the earlier suggestions to some of the test results. Nothing they could point to indicated this was the right solution.

Kirby raised a finger and smiled. “Maybe it’s Doesn’t Matter.”

Eileen wrinkled her nose at him. “Huh? Doesn’t Matter. What’s that?”

“That’s matter that won’t react to anything at all, therefore it doesn’t matter.”

Most groaned at his suggestion, and two threw balled up paper at him.

He held his hand out to the side and said, “Hey. Lighten up, guys. Its gotta be something, that’s for sure. How about we send down a UAV or better yet, the HOV?”

Eileen snickered. “Just itching to pilot your submersible, huh?”

“You bet.”

“Not until we can pin something more definite on this . . . thing down there.”

Next day

Aboard HOV

16.364N 153.139E

Excitement rising, Eileen stood on the afterdeck in her utility suit, ready to climb aboard the Human Operated Vehicle with Kirby Peterson, the pilot. She held a printout of the object they’d found on the sea floor following its discovery the previous night.

Measurements revealed it was round, a kilometer across, metallic, and a hundred-fifty meters tall. It rested inacompletely flat pocket of smooth seabed at five-thousand ninety-one meters (19000.0 feet).

Kirby appeared at the hatch and waved. “All checked out. Climb in and we can take the plunge.”

Eileen needed no further prodding. With a feeling of anticipation she’d never felt before, she clambered up the hull and dropped through the hatch, tugging the cover closed and dogging it behind her. “All aboard, captain.”

“Did you bring the snacks?”

She held up a paper bag. “Yup.”

“Good. This is going to be a long one. Where do you want to start?”

“I guess we set a placemark and then cruise along the side. If it’s really round, we’ll get back to the same spot. Right?”

“Hope so.”

With a smile, Kirby gathered the thrust controls in his left hand and fed the motors power. His right pushed the control stick forward. They began their descent, the surrounding sea darkening until it was completely black, at which point he snapped a switch and bright lights illuminated their surroundings.

“Now comes the good part,” he said, lifting the cover to a red switch.

“What do you mean?”

He grinned at her. “Secret equipment. Remember?” A shaft of blue-green lanced out from the front of the HOV when he toggled a lever. He moved another controller, and the beam swept from right to left and back, then up and down. “A better underwater laser than ever before,” he said with pride. “I helped build it.”

“Sure clears away the view, doesn’t it?”

“Yep.”

They remained silent as the HOV continued to dive. Kirby aimed the light, which he’d nicknamed Boogie Beam, down to catch the first glimpse of the object.

“Passing four-thousand meters,” Eileen reported.

Around them, the HOV groaned and pinged as the pressure from the depth increased. Built with the finest technology available, it could reach almost eight-thousand meters.

“Four-thousand Five-hundred.”

“Aye.”

At five-thousand meters, the surrounding sea turned a shade of brown. Eileen frowned. “Strange. Why would the seabed be stirred up?”

“Got me. Could it be a quake or strong current?”

She checked an instrument. “No current to speak of other than one running nearly vertical up from the bottom, which is weird.”

“Whoa!” Kirby exclaimed, pointing at the viewport. “Check this out!”

Ahead was a surface with regularly-spaced bumps arranged in circular patterns. When he aimed the special light at them, they appeared to glow, fading once the beam moved away.

“I’m dropping a marker here,” Kirby announced, hitting a button.

* * *

Two hours later, they spotted the marker in the distance.

“Well, your map was right. The thing is round and exactly a kilometer across and as thick as we figured,” Kirby said, easing the controls to a dead stop and hovering.

“I’m still intrigued by the big square opening we found back there. Remember?”

“Yeah. I wondered about that. With my science fiction upbringing, I’d call it a docking port or something like it.” He checked readouts. “We have another hour left before we have to start back up. Want to check it out?”

Eileen thought for a moment. “Okay with me.”

Kirby reactivated the drives, spun around, and retraced their course back to the one defining element of this puzzling object.

“Here it comes,” he said, pointing into the gloom.

“Follow the crack all around,” Eileen ordered.

“You got it.”

On the opposite side, they closed in on a small box with two buttons with obvious lightsside by side.

“What the heck…” Kirby began, then his jaw snapped shut.

They both stared at what was clearly a control panel for the door they’d found.

One button was labeled “OPEN” and its light was dark. The other control, marked “CLOSE” had a corresponding light which glowed violet.