Leviathan, p.24
Leviathan, page 24
Jack cursed under his breath. “Might mean we’ve lost it.”
“But you don’t think so.” She turned to him.
“It might mean the buoy and lights finally broke free. Or the creature ate it.” He sighed. “I’ve got everything crossed because, whatever it is, it’s now invisible to us.”
Cate groaned, and then after a few moments sat forward. “So what’s the plan seeing we don’t have the lure anymore, and might not have lured the Megalodon?”
“Our mission is over.” Jack spoke over his shoulder. “We can’t do a thing for the people that have been beached. We have no weapons and no way to pick up passengers, other than cramming one extra person into the rear of the sub.”
Jack momentarily looked down at his controls. “So the plan is still the original plan. We head for the cave mouth leading out of here and we link up with Sonya.”
“How’s the energy level?” she asked.
Jack checked the battery storage. “Not as good as I’d like. We’re not using the thermal systems for warmth so we’re saving on that. In fact –” He pulled back on the wheel and the submersible gently rose in the water. “– we’ll take it back to the surface and pop the lid. That way we can switch off the circulating air and save even more power.”
“Is that wise?” Cate asked. “Means from below we’re visible on the surface. And we’ll generate a wake.”
“If we had a full charge I wouldn’t. But worst case is we run out of power before making land.” He glanced back at the controls again. “As long as we don’t need to push it we should be fine. However, we’ll need to stop and let the batteries recharge soon.”
Seconds later they breached, and Jack opened the canopy.
“Let’s just get out of here. I want to see the sky again.” Cate looked up at the blue glowing ceiling. She noticed that whatever was causing the luminescence was thicker in some places than others. She also thought she saw it moving and undulating, like seaweed in a gentle current. Or maybe because something was moving through it.
Her mind started to conjure images of living things launching themselves down from up there to try to land on them. She shivered and blew air through her pressed lips.
“Okay back there?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, no, I just . . .” She sighed loudly. “I just wanna go home.”
“Me too,” he replied. “And we will. Our job is done here.”
From somewhere out in the darkness, there came that telltale whooshing noise and the sound of water falling.
“That’s a whale spout,” Cate said, “I’m sure of it now.”
They sat in silence, just listening for the sound to repeat. Then the submersible moved sideways in the water, and Jack grabbed the wheel to stabilize them. “Whoa there.”
“What was that?” she asked.
“Crosscurrent, I think. I’m shutting the canopy.”
“A crosscurrent?” She gently pushed at the back of his head. “Really?”
“Probably. Maybe,” he replied. “I just wish this baby had more electronic eyes and ears. I hate driving blind in the dark.”
The submersible was moved in the water again, this time from the opposite side.
“I felt that,” Cate said softly.
“Yep. Still there.”
“Another crosscurrent?” she asked, already knowing it undoubtedly wasn’t.
“Dive or no dive?” he asked.
“Take it down a hundred feet,” Cate replied. “Might give us a little more protection from an ambush from below and we won’t be outlined against the blue lights from overhead.”
“Good a plan as any.” He pushed the small wheel forward and they submerged.
Jack leveled off at a hundred feet and they moved through the underground sea like a tiny spaceship in the dark void of space. After a while he shook his head. “I can’t keep flying blind. I’ve got to take a look now and then or we’re liable to run into something when I’m traveling at top speed. I’m not even sure how deep it is here. We could bottom out.”
“I don’t like it,” Cate replied. “But I don’t see we have any choice. Maybe flick the beams on and off, strobe-like, to try to break up our pattern.”
Jack flicked on the lights and Cate shrieked.
The proximity alert screamed in the small cockpit. Right beside them, so close they could have reached out and touched it, was an enormous body. It was dark, maybe blue-black, with a few speckles of white, and heavily scarred with a few crusted barnacles making it seem as ancient as time itself. As it moved past them the eye appeared and swiveled to look in at the tiny creatures inside the plastic and steel bubble.
“That’s not a meg’s eye,” Jack whispered. “Or any sort of shark’s eye.”
“Whale. Livyatan,” Cate said in little more than breaths. “I knew it.”
The eye was the size of a manhole cover and was shaped more like a human’s eye. It wasn’t the soulless black orb of the Megalodon shark, but instead, there almost seemed intelligence there.
“What’ll we do?” Cate said.
“Nothing. We just keep going forward and minding our own business.” Jack slowly turned away from it. “This is probably the creature that took the bait, so . . .”
“I get it,” she said. “Let’s hope it’s not looking for more of those tasty, soft human things.”
It veered into them, and the sub jostled in the water. “Hey!” Jack wrestled with the controls until he got the submersible aligned again. “Come on, big fella, we’re just a floating speck minding our own business here.”
The creature began to rise beside them, and for a moment they were close to the mouth. It was long, huge, and the teeth were tusks – each around two and a half feet long.
“Yeah, that’s our lost whale,” Cate replied.
“Is it mama?” Jack asked.
“If it is, I hope it remembers what we did for junior.”
Jack continued to stare. “I never knew the carnivorous whales got this big.”
“Like I said, raptorial whales. And they’re not this big now.” Cate almost breathed the words as the massive creature lifted toward the surface to leave them behind. “But they were once.”
“The Livyatan,” Jack said.
“Correct.” Cate craned her neck to watch it vanish in the darkness.
Their tiny submersible was buffeted by the turbulence from the sweep of its massive paddle-like rear fin.
“About nine million years ago a species of sperm whale evolved that was one of the largest predators to ever exist on our planet. Livyatan melvillei. The name was inspired by the Leviathan sea monster. It rivaled, and probably competed with, the Megalodon.”
“It’s a monster,” he said. “And here it is, alive and kicking.”
“Remember, we once thought Megalodons were extinct.”
“There have always been monsters – you just have to know where to look.” Jack half turned. “Maybe they’ve been out there the whole time. There are always stories of boats being attacked or sighting huge, oversized whales. They’re probably smart enough to avoid us.”
“The thing is, sure it was an apex predator that preyed on other whales, seals, and even Megalodon, but from what I remember of fossil remains, they only grew to about sixty-five feet. That creature looked bigger. A lot bigger.” She sat back.
“I thought about eighty to ninety feet, give or take a few barnacles on the tail fluke,” Jack said.
“Looked about right,” Cate replied. “Maybe we were too small or uninteresting to eat.”
“Here’s hoping.”
They continued in silence for another fifteen minutes before Jack half turned again.
“Why was it bigger?” he asked.
“Good question,” she replied. “Probably gigantism, where a very large body size is an important trait to achieve or maintain competitive superiority.”
She looked out the window at the dark water, but only saw her own reflection. She thought she looked pale. And frightened.
There was something else she remembered from her research days. “There’s a biological rule applied to some aberrations, giants, called Foster’s Rule, or Island Syndrome, whereby creatures trapped in a limited environment grow huge. It helps them compete more effectively. Also, territorialism can play a part. A study on islands determined that bird and reptile species that were territorial tended to be larger on the island compared to the mainland. In territorial species, larger size makes individuals better able to compete to defend their territory.”
“Maybe somewhere there’s a hidden island with giant humans.” Jack briefly looked over his shoulder with raised eyebrows.
“After seeing this place, who knows. But the fact is, evolution favors the bigger, stronger species.”
“Yep, and here we are, just a couple of unevolved, normal-sized human beings in a land of giants.” He chuckled.
“Yeah, but we’re the ones with the big brains.” She grinned. “Most of us.”
He laughed. “Flatterer.”
“It makes me wonder though.”
“Wonder what?” Jack asked.
“Makes me wonder what else down here has been subjected to the same rules of gigantism. Maybe the Megalodon and the Livyatan aren’t even the biggest baddest things in here.”
“I’m not even going to give that any thought.” Jack exhaled. “I don’t think my already tattered nerves could take it.”
The propellor rotation slowed a little and their console lights dimmed. A warning light blinked.
“Ah, shit no,” Jack said under his breath.
“That can’t be good.” She craned forward.
“It’s not. Remember when I said we’d be fine as long as we didn’t push it?” He half turned. “We just pushed it trying to outrun mama whale. The power is about to give up on us.”
“How long will it take to recharge?”
Jack exhaled through puffed cheeks. “A full charge will take six to eight hours. But we should be fine with a half charge.” He looked about. “Find me one of those little islands. That’ll be perfect.”
CHAPTER 28
Meena and her six crew members headed down along the coastline. The rock shelf had ended a few hundred yards back, and now they edged along a line of crumbled rock that had fallen from the cliff wall maybe thousands of years ago.
There were small waves here that moved differently – they were full and didn’t break in any shallows, making her think the water was deeper. But it was impossible to tell as the sea remained as dark and ominous as ever.
The small group walked in a line, with one of their mechanics, Gino, out at the front by a few paces, then Meena, then came Kathleen and Benjamin, Aaron, and then Phillipa, and finally Rachel. It was a good and spirited team, she thought. Aaron was one of their best engineers, Kathleen was the ship’s medical officer and a pragmatic thinker, and the rest were all positive personalities and physically fit.
Meena still had the thermal vision goggles in her pack and held her flashlight in her hand but hadn’t switched it on. It was just light enough to see from the overhead blue glow, but there were shadows everywhere, which she didn’t like.
She had told everyone to stay well back from the water, but now they needed to cross one last length of boulders that went right to the water’s edge, and there seemed to be a surf running here.
“Stop,” she said, and Gino turned.
Behind her the team caught up and also waited.
“What is it?” Gino asked. “Have we gone far enough?”
“No, not yet. There’re no safe camping sites I can see here.” Some of the group were already looking a little tired. “Let’s take five.”
A few people sat down and spoke among themselves, and a few wandered off, exploring. Kathleen seemed focused on the rock wall at the rear of the platform and after a few minutes headed toward it.
“Meena,” she called out.
Meena looked to her, but the medical officer just motioned her closer. When Meena arrived she noticed that Kathleen’s lips were pressed into a thin line.
“I think we have a problem.” She pointed. “Check this out.”
Meena looked from the woman to the wall. She walked along the rock face but saw nothing out of the ordinary – there were a few crustaceans clinging there, some seaweed, and a few tiny many-legged creatures that resembled long crabs.
“I don’t get it.” She turned. “What am I looking for?”
“Oh you’re looking at it, all right, but you just don’t see it.” Kathleen stepped even closer. “See this here?” Her finger nearly touched a shellfish clinging to the rock like an eight-inch oyster. “That’s a tidal bivalve. And right here is a form of seaweed that can tolerate drying for short periods but is usually in water.”
“Oh, oh, oh.” Meena shook her head.
“Now you’re getting it.” Kathleen lowered her hand.
“This is a tidal zone, and it’s low tide.” Meena stepped back. “Just how high will it go?”
Kathleen lifted her gaze. “I’m seeing discoloration up to about seven feet.” She turned. “We need to find somewhere a lot higher, or we’ll all be swimming in a few hours.”
Meena stepped back, taking in the tide line. Kath was right, the entire rock shelf would be underwater. And her priority to keep them safe was to avoid the water.
“Okay, then we have no choice.” She turned away. “We need to climb this pile of rubble and see what’s around the headland.”
“One more thing?” Kathleen said.
Meena turned. “Give me some good news this time.”
Kathleen hiked her shoulders. “What about the others at the raft?”
Meena looked along the rock platform toward where she had left their four other crew members, as if she could see them from this distance. She shook her head. “We don’t have time to check on them. At least they’ve got a boat. We don’t.”
“We might not be back until the next low tide,” Kathleen added. “Should we send a runner to tell them?”
Meena thought it over. It would be good to give the other crew members a heads up. But the risks were starting to pile up.
“No, we can’t split our teams further. Besides, that Russian guy is probably lurking somewhere, so I couldn’t send a single person back, it’d need to be two or three people. And we don’t know what we’re yet to face.”
“Yeah, I get that. I agree with all your decisions.” Kathleen nodded and then walked away from the rock face. “That means we’ve got about six hours before the tide turns again.”
Meena looked up. “I don’t even know if it’s night or day anymore.”
“It’s night, at least outside,” Kathleen said. “No wonder we’re all beat.”
“Yeah, but we need to find somewhere safe before we break for camp – somewhere dry, sheltered, and defendable. How hard can that be?” Meena turned away and clapped her hands once. “Okay, people, we need to keep moving. This is a tidal zone, and if we stay here when the next high tide rolls in we’re underwater.”
“What about the others?” Gino stood.
“They have a boat, and four good brains. They’ll be fine. They’ll be able to float, we can’t. So let’s get going.”
Gino gave a cheerful salute, turned, and moved quickly along the rocks.
They headed toward a huge rockfall cutting off their shelf from what was beyond, and Gino began to scale up some of the larger rocks. At the bottom of the pile the stones were slimy and made for a treacherous climb. The upside was that it glued the rocks together so there was no debris coming loose.
Gino was the best climber, but it still took him twenty minutes to reach the top. He stood there, hands on his hips, turning slowly.
In a few more minutes Meena and the others had joined him. He turned to her. “Am I dreaming? Is that what I think it is?” He began to laugh.
“A forest.” Meena snorted in disbelief. “Underground.”
Kathleen grabbed her arm. “It’s big. We don’t know what lives in there.”
Meena nodded. “I know, I know. But we can’t stay on top of these boulders, and the shoreline there looks above the tidal zone.” She turned. “If things go to plan, then Sonya will be initiating the distress beacon anytime now. Then a day for a location plane, followed by a rescue ship in a few more days. All up, we’ve got to prepare for being stranded here for nearly a week.”
“And if things don’t go to plan?” Kathleen asked.
“Then we might be here until someone finds us.” Meena half smiled. “Whenever that might be.” She took a few steps and then paused to look back. “Coming?”
Kathleen nodded. “Sure. At least it’s above the high-tide line.”
***
Gino, Meena, and Kathleen leaped from the rocks onto dark, sandy soil. A few moments later they were followed by Benjamin, Aaron, Phillipa, and Rachel.
They continued for a few minutes more before finally stopping on a grassy plain just before the stand of tree-like growths.
“No one goes anywhere by themselves,” Meena said. “Everyone stays in twos or threes.”
“We aren’t the first ones here.” Rachel pointed to the ground where there were a couple of parallel drag marks.
“I’m betting that was the raft the Russians made to get to the Sea Princess.” Kathleen followed the tracks with her eyes. “They cut the wood from in there.”
“So what’s the plan?” Gino said.
“Survival mode,” Benjamin replied. “We have some supplies, but we need to find alternate food and water sources.”
“Plus shelter.” Aaron looked up. “Though I doubt cold or rain is going to be an issue here.”
“Good suggestions,” Meena said. “Anyone here know any forest-craft?”
There was silence for a few moments, before Phillipa raised a hand. “I used to go camping with my dad. We went hunting and fishing.”
“Then you’re it.” Meena smiled. “We need to find the best places to hunt, gather food, find shelter, and make fires.” She clicked her fingers. “Gino and Benjamin, you’re collecting wood. Aaron and Phillipa, scout for possible best places to hunt or trap game. If you find a stream, then fish is good.”
