As they descended, those tiny geometric planes would begin to open, one at a time, shooting out even tinier tubes that would take samples of the surrounding water. Each sample would be held in isolation within the body of the probe, allowing Alexandra to analyze them at her leisure. She had seven probes, all told, each representing several thousand dollars of materials, and several hundred hours of design and engineering work—and even that hadn’t been enough. Her testing tubes had sharp edges, for one thing, because there hadn’t been time to grind them all down without damaging their structural integrity.
And it would all be worth it, if she could find something that would confirm her belief that truly deep waters—like the water in the Mariana Trench—had a different chemical and biological makeup than water found in the relative shallows.
The sun never pierced the Mariana Trench. Many metals and chemicals were actually heavier than water, and would be inclined to sink, while the deep-sea currents would keep them from ever settling fully to the bottom. It was a good theory. It was a theory with both military and practical applications—a better understanding of the composition of deep water would allow for quieter submarines, more effective communications, while private concerns would want to analyze those chemicals, find uses for them and ways to recreate them in the lab—but until she could prove it, she might as well have been chasing, well, mermaids.
Alexandra blinked, and then laughed to herself. Here she was, along with every other scientist on the Atargatis, laughing at the Imagine Network’s viewers for seeking proof of mermaids, while they were doing the exact same thing. Sure, new types of algae and unidentified deep water proteins were slightly different than women with fish tails, but it was the same in theory. They all wanted to find something no one knew for sure existed.
The probe hit the water, seemed to float for a moment, and then sank rapidly out of sight. The wire that was keeping the probe connected to the Atargatis and to Alexandra’s command computer spooled out easily, behaving for once exactly as it had been intended to. She resisted the urge to punch the air with joy, and moved instead to sit at her tiny portable desk and monitor the probe’s descent.
The expedition was finally well and truly underway, for all parties involved.
Like most vessels of its size and class, the Atargatis was designed to anchor in shallow waters and estuaries, not in the middle of the open sea. Upon reaching its assigned destination, the Atargatis came to a stop, dropping six anchor chains. These chains did not reach the bottom; while they provided drag, they did not prevent all drift. Instead, the crew depended on constant monitoring and personnel awareness to remain in position. Meanwhile, the passengers began doing exactly what they had been contracted to do: they began interacting with the sea.
Inside of a day, the Atargatis disrupted the local ecosystem with vibrations, minor but unavoidable pollutants, scientific testing and sampling, and human bodies, bringing with them the chemical taint of modern life.
If there was anything at all in those waters, it was inevitable that it would be found.
—from Modern Ghost Ships: The Atargatis, originally aired on the Imagine Network, December 2017.
Part III
Voices of the Sea
The probe sank through the levels of light in the water, swiftly leaving the sun behind. Once it reached a depth of twenty meters, the first of the sampling plates opened. A tube darted out, filled with five milliliters of water—approximately a teaspoon’s worth—and retracted, allowing the plate to slide closed again. This process repeated every meter as the probe continued to descend.
Soon, even the shadow of the Atargatis was no longer apparent. There was only the darkness, and the slowly growing pressure of the water surrounding the probe itself. The sampling tubes that emerged in deeper water were thicker, squatter, less susceptible to snapping off or collapsing. They still removed only five milliliters at a time, keeping the weight of the probe from increasing too quickly.
There were no cameras on the little machine. Some of the more sophisticated equipment had video capabilities, but those probes would not be going down for a few more days: not until Alexandra was sure of her target areas. So when the faint green glow appeared from beneath the probe, there was nothing to record it. It grew closer, reflecting off the metal. The probe continued to drop, and the glow grew brighter, drawing closer.
A metal testing tube shot out, retrieved its water sample, and retracted. The glow’s source drew closer still, and extended two webbed hands to grasp the spherical surface of the probe, tugging it off course as it examined the intruder in its environment. A panel in the side of the probe slid open. A testing tube shot out, punching through skin and muscle as easily as it had punched through empty water. The source of the glow jerked away, dropping the probe as it rocketed backward in the water, retreating from the source of the pain.
A small beacon inside the probe began to blink, signaling that it was encountering unusual amounts of turbulence, and could be compromised. Far above, Dr. Alexandra MacMillan looked at the readouts on her screen, shook her head, and made a rational decision. Her hands danced across the keyboard. The winch attached to the cord connecting the probe to the Atargatis began to turn, and bit by bit, the intruder was withdrawn from the edge of the Mariana Trench.
Alien eyes watched the strange metal object as it floated upward. There was blood in the water. Their home had been invaded.
They would respond.
Most of the scientists aboard the Atargatis were clustered around Alexandra’s equipment as she fed the tiny vials of seawater into the appropriate slots on her spectrometer. There was an element of professional curiosity at play, and also an element of grim self-interest. Her work had been the first to start, because her work required only the presence of the Pacific Ocean. Once she had her first results, they would all be able to start sending down targeted probes of their own, measuring a thousand different conditions, looking for ten thousand different outcomes.
Only Sonja Weinstein hung back, her arms folded across her breasts and her curly brown hair tangling in the sea breeze. Anne was standing nearby, having dispatched Kevin to shoot footage of the testing process. It would be edited down and remixed for the documentary, of course, turning the slow, meticulous march of science into something better suited for prime time television.
“Why aren’t you watching the water analysis?” asked Anne, glancing toward the normally standoffish cetologist.
Sonja snorted. “Please. She wouldn’t let me attach a recording device to her precious probe. Said it would throw off the balance. When you’re sending down a sphere that takes random water samples, you don’t have balance. You have a bath toy. I’m here to look for whales and dolphins and other animals big enough to be made into plush toys. Nothing she’s going to find in a water sample is going to interest me.”
“Why such a narrow focus?”
“Because that’s what I study, for a start. More than that, because that’s what people are going to come away from this looking to exploit.” Sonja suddenly turned on Anne, looking down her long Petrarchan nose at the shorter, slimmer television host. “I’m on this ship because I actually do believe that there’s something out here, and more, I believe that whatever it is, it’s going to need protection once we prove that it exists. Humanity destroys the things it loves. Something mysterious and unique enough to be the source of mermaid legends? We’re going to be all over destroying that.”
Anne stared at the other woman, wishing she could somehow summon a camera and retroactively get that entire speech on film. Cautiously, she began, “Do you think you’d be willing to do that again if—”
“Sorry, honey, not going to let you edit me into the team crank,” said Sonja said, not unkindly. “I don’t say anything that could get me buttonholed when the cameras are pointed my way. Having strong feelings doesn’t actually make you stupid, as it turns out.”
“I guess that’s true,” said Anne. She allowed her gaze to drif
t back to the little cluster of scientists. “You’re really not curious?”
“I’ll be honest. If it’s smaller than a sea lion, I really don’t give a fuck.”
Jonny’s voice was uniquely piercing. “Is that blood?”
Anne pushed away from the rail and ran toward her cameraman, only dimly aware that Sonja was hot on her heels. The scientists—so calm only a few seconds before—had erupted into motion. At the center of the storm was Alexandra, holding up a test tube containing a few drops of a thick, reddish substance.
“It can’t be blood,” said Anton, apparently as much to contradict Jonny as anything else. The substance in the test tube certainly looked like blood. “For that probe to bring up anything but water, there would have needed to be something blocking the panel when it opened. Given the size of the ocean, the odds of that happening are astronomically small.”
“But they’re not zero,” said Anne, pushing her way into the shot. She composed her face as she moved, so that when she finally stepped into frame, she looked curious, eager, and above all, professional. “So you’re saying that there’s a chance that we could be looking at blood from some undiscovered creature living deep in the Mariana Trench?”
All the scientists aboard the Atargatis had known that this moment was coming: the moment where they would have to speak to their findings on camera, thus committing themselves to being part of this ridiculous mockery of science. There was still a moment of startled silence as they realized that the moment was actually upon them.
Then, in a tone that implied she would rather have been doing anything else, Alexandra said, “That is correct. I’ll need to analyze this to try to determine what it came from, and whether it’s blood at all—it could be an iron-rich current, as demonstrated by the Blood Falls at Taylor Glacier, or even a strain of deep water algae. It’ll be a little while before we can say for sure.”
“I can test for algae,” volunteered Jonny immediately. If Alexandra’s sampling had brought up something he could use, he wasn’t going to wait to get his hands on it.
“I will test for similarities to known marine mammals,” said Sonja.
Alexandra, faced with either sharing her first round of sampling data or looking like a prima donna on camera, chose the easier route. She had always preferred to work with collaborators when possible. It was simpler, and making friends was preferable to making enemies, if there was a choice. “I’ll divide the sample and we’ll run our tests.”
“How long before we know?” pressed Anne.
“Science doesn’t rush,” said Alexandra, with a broad smile that looked almost as practiced as Anne’s. “We should have preliminary results in a couple of hours, and those will tell us which avenues are worth pursuing. Check back in the morning and we’ll be able to tell you whether it was blood, and whether it came from a mammal.”
“Wow,” said Anne. She somehow managed to infuse the single syllable with enough wonder to power an entire second grade field trip to Disneyland. “Just think. You may have accidentally brought up the first piece of proof of mermaids living in the Mariana Trench.”
“I doubt it,” said Alexandra. “Coincidence has its place in science, but things aren’t normally that easy. If there’s something down there for us to find, it’ll be harder to spot than this.”
The ladies of Blue Seas frolicked in the water off the side of the Atargatis, rolling and twisting in the deep, buoyant blue. Some of them had never been in open ocean waters before, and were sticking close to the guide rope that Jessica and Sunnie—their purple-haired “den mother,” and the mermaid among them with the longest career—had run between the rope ladder and the end of their safe zone, some twenty yards from the ship. To go any further than that would be to risk accident, and the Blue Seas mermaids were very safety conscious. Their insurance premiums required it.
Being a professional mermaid took skill, dedication, and a lot of hard work: it wasn’t just a matter of slapping on a neoprene tail and jumping into the water. Every woman in the troupe was a certified lifeguard, and had taken and passed at least three different diving certification programs. Several of them could hold their breath for up to five minutes underwater, and all of them knew how to breathe in via an oxygenated tank. Free diving was a requirement for any mermaid who wanted to go below ten feet. It wasn’t easy. Nothing good ever was.
For the women of Blue Seas, it was all worth it for moments like this one, when there was nothing but the sea and the feeling that they could fly. They cut through the water like knives, slicing downward, slashing upward, sometimes with enough force that they actually managed to twist out of the water before falling back down again, dragged under by gravity. They lacked the fluid grace of dolphins, but came as close as it was possible for humans to come.
“We’ve been in the water for an hour,” called Sunnie. “This is the fifteen-minute warning. We need to get out before we start getting tired.”
“Aww,” said the other girls, in semi-unison.
“Don’t ‘aww’ me,” said Sunnie. She grinned. “We’re here, and we’re going to be here for the next two weeks. So we get out, we dry off, and tomorrow, we do it again—but tomorrow we can stay in a little bit longer. It’s all about adjusting to our environment.”
Teal stuck her tongue out at Sunnie. “I don’t want to adjust to our environment. I want the environment to adjust to me.”
“I’ll tell the ocean to get right on that,” said Sunnie, and splashed the smaller mermaid. Teal splashed back, and in a matter of seconds, all the mermaids were occupied with splashing each other and laughing, giddy at relief over finally being off the ship and in the sea. The logistics just hadn’t worked out to let them swim while the Atargatis was in motion, and with the camera crews all over the decks, they’d been banned from the ship’s pool and other workout facilities.
Only Jessica, hovering at the edge of the group, didn’t join in with the others. She frowned, looking down at the water around her. She could see the blue scales at the top of her tail, and as her eye followed them down, they grew darker and finally disappeared, swallowed up by the vastness of the sea. Anything could be down there. Anything at all.
Gradually, the others stopped horsing around. There was a momentary silence before Sunnie called, “Jess? You okay over there?”
“It felt like something brushed against my tail.” Jessica looked up. “I’ve been trying to see whatever it was, but the water’s too deep. I can’t even see my own flukes.”
“There are fish and stuff around here, right?” asked another of the mermaids. “Like, these are pretty unpolluted waters. You could find just about anything out here.”
“Okay, Marie, when we get back on board, I want you to find a dictionary and look up the definition of ‘unhelpful,’” said Teal, splashing the other mermaid. “Jess, it’s fine. It was probably just a fish or something. You’re bigger than it is. It’s not going to mess with you.”
“I guess,” said Jessica uncertainly. “I think we should go back.” She looked down at the water again. It seemed like she could see more of her tail now, which was impossible. There wasn’t enough light for that.
“You’re right,” said Sunnie. “Come on, everyone. Let’s get back on the ship.” She turned and swam away, trusting the others to follow her. They did. Obedience was drilled into them as part of their training: a mermaid who couldn’t listen to instructions was a mermaid who was putting everyone around her in danger.
Jessica lagged at the back of the group, glancing down as she swam, trying to figure out why it seemed like she could see further than she should have been able to. The ocean gave her no answer, and then Sunnie was there at the bottom of the rope ladder, ready to help Jessica climb, and the mysterious lightness of the water was forgotten.
Night found the Atargatis alive with lights and motion. Interns manned the stations on the deck, watching as Dr. Hale’s underwater soundings came back and gradually coalesced into a map of the sea floor. Alexandra had dropped
two more probes before retreating to the well-lit confines of the main cabin. Both probes were on half-mile wires, and would descend to the absolute limits of their tolerance before they began reeling themselves back in. If there were any alarms, the interns would be able to handle them.
The rest of the scientists were already in the cabin when Alexandra arrived, as were Anne and Kevin, lurking and waiting for something interesting to happen. Alexandra barely noticed that he was filming. The cameraman had become such a constant that he didn’t seem to matter anymore.
Dr. Sonja Weinstein squinted through her microscope and said, “It’s definitely blood.”
“It was definitely blood five minutes ago,” said Jonny. “Now you’re just rubbing it in.”
“You’re just upset that it wasn’t algae,” said Sonja. “Learn to lose gracefully.” She lifted her head from the scope and turned to make a note on her clipboard.
“Since you’re all making off with samples from my deep water probe, I think I’m the one who should be giving notes about losing gracefully,” said Alexandra. “Is there anything interesting about the blood? Apart from it having been collected from the bottom of the bathypelagic zone? We know there are fish down there. This isn’t setting any new scientific records.”
“It’s definitely fish blood; I won’t be able to tell what kind without full genetic sequencing, which is a little much for one random sample,” said Sonja. “If Imagine wants to pay for it, we can do it when we get back to shore, but I don’t have that sort of equipment aboard. I’ll be dropping my microphones in the morning. If there are whales or other cetaceans around here, I can pick up their calls and we can start winnowing down the list of things they’re likely to be hunting for in these waters.”