"Ever worked one of these?" he asked.

Altman shook his head.

He opened the cartridge. "Darts go here," he said. "Cartridge snaps in and out. There are CO2 cartridges in the grip, but you don't need to worry about changing those; we'll handle it. You pull this bolt back," he said, drawing back a lever on the gun's side, "and set the safety like this. It's easy to thumb off. As long as the bolt's back, it'll shoot. Aim for flesh." cartridges in the grip, but you don't need to worry about changing those; we'll handle it. You pull this bolt back," he said, drawing back a lever on the gun's side, "and set the safety like this. It's easy to thumb off. As long as the bolt's back, it'll shoot. Aim for flesh."

"It won't go through clothing?"

"I didn't say that," said Markoff. "It'll go through clothing, but clothing means more chances of something going wrong. Aim for flesh. Or, if you're not much of a shooter, just try to push it up against the person's chest before you fire."

He handed the tranquilizer over to Altman, who held it awkwardly.

"The dart contains a strong sedative. It'll take a few seconds to take effect," Markoff said. "It'll hurt going in but probably not enough to slow a maniac down much. You sure you don't want a real gun?"

Altman shook his head.

"You leave in fifteen minutes," Markoff said.

Hurriedly he tracked down Ada and told her what was happening.

"I don't want you to go down there again," she said.

"It doesn't affect me." He kissed her again. "Besides, I have no choice."

"But after what happened to Hendricks ..."

"I handled that all right, didn't I? We're still both in one piece, aren't we?"

She covered her mouth with one hand. "You haven't heard?" she said.

"Haven't heard what?"

"Hendricks is dead. He killed a nurse, tore her apart. They had to shoot him."

Stunned, he collapsed onto the bed. He didn't trust himself to speak. Even more so than Moresby, this had been his fault. Maybe if he'd turned back when Hendricks had first wanted, it wouldn't have happened. How many deaths would be on his conscience before it was all over?

Ada was lying beside him, stroking his forehead. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry." And then, "Michael, don't go."

He shook his head. "I have to go," he replied. "I have no choice." Turning away from her, he climbed out of the bed and made his way heavily down to the submarine bay.

PART FIVE

COLLAPSE

41

He took two trips and had to use the tranquilizer gun once. The first trip reprogrammed the MROVs, switched them over to robotic self-control, and the digging progressed at a tremendous pace, but he had to tranquilize the technician accompanying him before they reached the surface.

The man gave him a fair amount of advance warning, growing more and more irritable and then finally lashing out. He waited to tranquilize until he was absolutely sure he was violent and as a result almost waited too long. Indeed, the man was trying to choke him to death as the tranquilizer took effect and his hands slowly relaxed and he collapsed.

The other trip, strangely enough, was with Stevens, the psychologist, who applied electrodes to both his and Altman's heads, reading changes in their brain waves as they descended.

"So I guess this means Markoff agrees with me that Hendricks's mental problems might have been caused by the signal," Altman asked.

Stevens smiled. "How can I know what Markoff thinks, Mr. Altman?" he answered.

Altman stayed ready the whole time, one hand on the tranquilizer gun, but like him, Stevens didn't seem to suffer any adverse affects. He just stayed crouched over his equipment, looking up at Altman from time to time and smiling.

"Learn anything?" asked Altman.

"Yes, I did," said Stevens. "But I'd learn more if one or the other of us had an attack. I don't suppose you'd like to oblige me, would you?"

Altman shook his head.

"I didn't think so," said Stevens. "Maybe another time, then."

The next trip consisted of himself and a jovial engineer named David Kimball descending to retrieve the driller bathyscaphe, though Altman wasn't briefed until they were already on the way down.

"It'll be simple," said Kimball, patting a large chrome-plated machine that had been bolted to the console just for this trip. "Just a matter of a few minutes. All we have to do is direct an electrical pulse at the bathyscaphe."

"What'll that do?" asked Altman.

"It'll release the latches for the ballast chambers," said Kimball. "This will cause the ballast to rush out. After that, the bathyscaphe will rise on its own."

"Sounds easy enough that a robot could do it," said Altman.

"A robot could do it," said Kimball. "But Markoff thought it'd be better to have us do it."

"Why?" asked Altman.

"I don't know," said Kimball. "He didn't say."

In case anything goes wrong, Altman added in his head. Altman added in his head.

When they reached the ocean floor, they continued to move downward into the inverted cone that the robotic excavators had created. Having completed their tasks, the units now stood motionless, strange statues in the darkness. The bathyscaphe descended, the cone slowly tightening on them.

He brightened the lights and turned on the vid cameras. Altman glanced over at Kimball. He seemed like he was doing all right, though he looked a little distracted, slightly jumpy. Nothing to worry about yet, Nothing to worry about yet, thought Altman, but just to be safe, he checked to see that the tranquilizer pistol was c.o.c.ked and ready. thought Altman, but just to be safe, he checked to see that the tranquilizer pistol was c.o.c.ked and ready.

"You been down here before?" Kimball asked.

Altman nodded. "Nothing to worry about," he said.

"They showed me the vid," he said. "You seen that?"

"Yes," said Altman.

"I had no idea," said Kimball. "Do you think it'll be as bad as it looks?"

"Yeah," said Altman.

They fell silent. Down below, they could see something, a vague shape that slowly became clearer.

It was a huge structure, two tapering pillars twisting sinuously around each other and rising to a point. It seemed to be made of stone, but there was no doubt in Altman's mind that it was constructed rather than a natural phenomenon. Coming closer just confirmed it; it was covered with symbols, weird hieroglyphics unlike anything he had ever seen. They covered every inch of the object, winding downward around its body and up to the twin horns of the thing. It was ma.s.sive and gave off the impression of great age. At once beautiful and vaguely menacing, it was completely alien. It had not, Altman knew immediately upon seeing it, been built by human hands. Why had it been built, and how? The stone showed no breaks or cracks or joints, as if it was a single gigantic piece. And the shape: it reminded him of something. But what was it?

And then suddenly he knew. "The tail of the devil," whispered Altman.

"Holy s.h.i.t," said Kimball, awe in his voice.

The symbols were either luminescent or catching the bathyscaphe's light in a very particular way. He checked the displays. The pulse signal was negligible at the moment. Probably a good thing, Probably a good thing, he thought. he thought.

"Do you think it's safe to get close?" asked Kimball.

"What is it?" wondered Altman aloud. "Who made it?"

He moved the bathyscaphe slowly around just above it, filming it from all angles. It was the most impressive thing he had ever seen. Then he zoomed the camera in closer to record some of the symbols. He would have kept doing it, but Kimball's nerves were rising.

"This is freaking me out. Let's get the other sub and get out of here," Kimball said.

There it was, sunken at the base of the artifact. Altman descended farther, got as close to it as he could and shone the light into the observation porthole.

Even from that vantage, the inside of the cabin was a nightmare-blood spread over the windows and the walls, smeared in odd patterns. He moved the lights quickly away before Kimball could get a better look.

He played the lights along the side of the craft, looking for signs of damage, but the air seal seemed intact. In theory, it should rise, albeit slowly.

"Ready?" he asked Kimball.

"Ready," Kimball said.

Altman moved around until there was no danger of hitting the Marker and then fired the pulse. It struck the driller bathyscaphe full on, an eerie electric glow fizzling along its hull. Then its ballast chambers began to empty, the lead pellets pattering down and raising a cloud of silt. Slowly it began to rise. He watched it come, pa.s.sing just a half dozen meters away from them, and move upward. It tilted and a disembodied arm rolled against the observation porthole.

Ready or not, he thought, and then their own bathyscaphe started up in pursuit. he thought, and then their own bathyscaphe started up in pursuit.

42 This is getting to be a habit, Altman thought, carefully easing the chunk of rock out of the core sampler. n.o.body seemed to notice. They were all too preoccupied with the interior of the bathyscaphe itself, the wash of blood and gore inside, the rotten, damaged bodies. Markoff quickly had the area quarantined, but not before Altman had gotten away with the sample. Altman thought, carefully easing the chunk of rock out of the core sampler. n.o.body seemed to notice. They were all too preoccupied with the interior of the bathyscaphe itself, the wash of blood and gore inside, the rotten, damaged bodies. Markoff quickly had the area quarantined, but not before Altman had gotten away with the sample.

Now he took it to his bedroom to examine it. He was certain it was from the artifact itself. It was seemingly ordinary rock, but one that he couldn't identify. The bit he held had an indentation on it, where something had been carved or inflicted on the rock, but it was too small a sample to give a clear sense of what it was.

Sneaking into an unlocked lab at night, he tested it. The substance was not unlike granite but harder, almost as hard as corundum. One face was smooth; he could see where the rest had been cut, was surprised the cutters hadn't burned out. Within the rock he found mineral veins that struck him as too regular to be natural. But if they weren't natural, what were they? In the end, puzzled, he decided to a.s.sume they were natural formations: there was no technology that he was aware of that would allow someone to manipulate solid rock in this way.

Whatever had happened to the others in the bathyscaphe, what Markoff had been able to determine about it, Altman was never told. Once quarantined, the bathyscaphe disappeared and was never seen again. No doubt Markoff and his inner circle had a.n.a.lyzed it to death. Altman was eager to see the rest of the vid from Hennessy, but his request to Markoff was met with silence.

Now that the bathyscaphe was up, the floating compound was frantic with preparations to raise the artifact itself. It was impossible to have a conversation that didn't turn to the monolith lying down at the bottom of the crater, and people seemed both excited and incredibly nervous. Whatever it was, whatever was down there, could change everything, and they would be the first to come into contact with it. The signal had returned but seemed to be broadcasting differently now, intermittently, on and off, in fairly regular bursts. Some researchers speculated it was a distress call, though who or what was in distress n.o.body dared guess. Perhaps it was a result of a failing piece of technical equipment, the artifact itself faulty or breaking down. It was, after all, very, very old. And many believed, Altman among them, that it was old enough that it couldn't possibly be of human origin, that the artifact was clear proof of alien life.

"If you'd seen it," he told Markoff in his debriefing, "you'd agree with me. There's nothing human about it."

The pulse signal was now interfering with radios and vids, creating a static communication wave and fuzzing images. Often when he descended in the bathyscaphe Altman was out of touch very quickly because of the interference, and stayed out of touch for a good part of the trip. He was piloting descents daily, with several members of Markoff's inner circle, all of whom showed no signs of cracking. He questioned whomever he was with, trying to find out anything he could. Mostly they were closed-lipped, but every once in a while they let something slip.

A scientist called him in from the hall while he was walking past a lab and, thinking he was someone else at first, began asking him questions about a winch mechanism. Was it really enough? Would it lift the thing? And what about the cable? What sort of cable would you need for something like that?

Altman played along as long as he could, finally admitted he didn't know what he was talking about.

"You're not Perkins?" the scientist asked.

Altman shook his head.

"Never mind," said the scientist, retreating quickly into his lab. "Forget I said anything."

Showalter, too, was almost as much on the outside as Altman, though he knew geophysics well enough that he was somehow consulted.

"Always just bits and pieces," Showalter confessed to Altman in a low voice over coffee. "They think if they give me just a little, I won't be able to figure it out. That'd be true if it was just them, but their colleagues sometimes consult me as well. I know more than anybody realizes."

"And?" asked Altman.

"I think we're very close to bringing it up," said Showalter. "Almost all the theoretical problems have been solved. A few more tests and they'll just be waiting for an okay."

Ada had made friends with the medical team, even helping out informally when she was needed. And she was needed more and more. In the floating compound, Ada told him, reports of scientists and soldiers beset by insomnia and hallucinations were on the rise.

"According to Dr. Merck," she claimed, "he's never seen anything like it. Violent incidents of all kinds are on the rise, nearly double what they were just a few months ago. The suicide rate has skyrocketed and the a.s.sault rate has climbed considerably."

"It's a tense time," said Altman, playing devil's advocate, the role Ada usually would play. "Maybe that's all it is."

"No, you were right. It's more than that," said Ada. "Even Merck thinks so. There are signs of widespread paranoia, people having visions of dead relatives, and more and more people speaking in a trancelike state of 'Convergence,' without being really able to explain what that meant exactly once they were themselves again. Everyone is on the verge of paranoia or panic. G.o.ddammit, you've got me thinking like you."

Altman nodded. "Then my nonscientific inquiry was right," he said. "Everyone is on edge. Something is going on."

"What do you think it means?" Ada asked him.

"What does it mean?" said Altman. "If you ask me, it means were f.u.c.ked."

43 Altman was on yet another descent, this time with a researcher by the name of Torquato, someone from Markoff's inner circle. He had with him a simple black box, homemade, with a single k.n.o.b on it and a needle readout. The technology was old enough that it could have been made in the twentieth century. As they descended, Altman tried to make idle conversation to pa.s.s the time.