"I'd like to think I would," he said.

"What do you mean you'd like to think you would? What kind of answer is that?"

"I mean yes, of course I would."

"There," she said. "That's better."

She ran her fingers through her hair and twisted it so it fell behind her shoulders, then got up and went into the bathroom. He turned to the screen and quickly typed: Strange phone call this morning, just after 3 AM AM, asking me if I'd intercepted something. Thought he was talking about the signal from the center of Chicxulub, but when I hinted at that, he rushed to get off the line. Maybe a transmission of some sort, but what, I don't know. Anybody else get the same call?

He waited a minute, staring at his screen until Ada came out and climbed back into bed. Then he logged out and shut the system down, climbing in next to her. Probably nothing, Probably nothing, he told himself. he told himself.

"You promise me you'd tell me?" she said, sleepy again now.

"Yes," he said.

A few minutes later, he realized she was asleep. He lay in bed, eyes open, staring up at the darkened ceiling. It was a long time before he was able to fall asleep as well.

In the morning, logging on, he discovered all three of the others had had the same call, all well after he'd had it. Ramirez first, then Showalter, then Skud, which suggested that maybe the person making the calls was simply moving alphabetically down a list. They were all as puzzled as he was. Ask around, Ask around, Altman wrote back. Altman wrote back. Find out if other people had it, and what they make of it. Find out if other people had it, and what they make of it.

By noon, they had the answer. Every scientist in Chicxulub they'd contacted had been called. Most of them had no idea what was going on, chalked it up to a crank call or the work of some paranoid. But Ramirez had finally talked to someone who seemed to know.

"He's talking about the vid broadcast," a man named Bennett said, a geologist and amateur radio enthusiast. "I figured it out right away. He called, all cryptic, fishing for something but not wanting to give away what. I said, 'You mean the vid broadcast?' He pretended not to know what I was talking about, got me to describe it, then he thanked me very politely and hung up."

Bennett had only part of the vid, a few brief seconds, something he'd come across broadcasting on not just one band but several, and so, out of curiosity, he'd recorded it. There were about three seconds of static, followed by five slightly distorted seconds of someone talking, followed by eight seconds of static. A few other people, said Bennett, had gotten other bits of it, and someone at DredgerCorp seemed to be gathering copies of all the bits. Why, he didn't know. Bennett was pretty sure it was a hoax, somebody's idea of a joke. But how they'd got it to seem like it was being broadcast from the center of Chicxulub, he didn't know. Probably a transmitter on a boat or- "It was broadcast from where?"

"Somewhere near the center of Chicxulub crater," he said. "All part of the hoax, I'm guessing."

"Can I have a copy?"

"Why not?" he had said. "The more, the merrier." He spun it over.

It was a strange doc.u.ment-a man, naked, his body covered in symbols written in a substance that seemed to be blood, staring with a strange grin into the camera. "understand it-" he said, "destroy it-" And then static.

Altman watched it again. There wasn't much to it, just a few seconds. Maybe Bennett was right and it was a hoax, but there was something about the man's expression, the tightness of his features, the dead, mad emptiness of his eyes, which made Altman feel that it was not. Where was he? He watched it again. It was a small, confined s.p.a.ce, the walls, too, smeared with symbols written with the same substance as was smeared on the man. Something at one point cast a reddish glare under the man's chin, when he bobbed forward. The lighting was industrial, harsh and unfriendly. "Understand it-destroy it," the man said. I'm still working on understanding it, I'm still working on understanding it, thought Altman. thought Altman. To be frank, I'm not even sure what To be frank, I'm not even sure what it it is. is.

He leaned back in his chair, his elbows on the chair's arms, his fingers tented in front of his face. Maybe a hoax, he thought, but maybe not. What if we take it all seriously? What if we try to put it all together? What will we come up with? What if we take it all seriously? What if we try to put it all together? What will we come up with?

A signal pulse from the center of the crater, something that hadn't been noticed before.

A gravity anomaly, also something new.

A suspicious freighter, not exactly over the center of the crater, but not far from it.

On the deck of the old freighter, a brand-new industrial submarine hoist. Also military or ex-military personnel on board.

Evidence of either seismic activity or of drilling, either in or very near the center of the undersea crater.

A vid, sent out on multiple channels, apparently broadcast from the center of the crater. On it, a man in a confined s.p.a.ce, apparently mad, covered in odd runes, saying "understand it-destroy it."

It all seemed connected, and it all came back to the crater. Something happening at the heart of the crater that someone-probably DredgerCorp, since they were doing the asking, but maybe others besides them-was very, very interested in. Interested enough to start a drilling operation, probably illegal, to try to see what it was or to try to remove it.

That might also explain the vid fragment, Altman realized. What if the broadcast was from a submarine? He shivered slightly.

The problem was that that only raised bigger questions.

He sighed. It'd be easier, he realized, to think of it as just a hoax and stop worrying about it. Only he couldn't think of it as just a hoax. The more he thought about it, the more he pondered it, the more he thought it must be real.

He brooded, hesitating. Your move, Michael, Your move, Michael, he told himself. What would be the best way to flush out the secret? he told himself. What would be the best way to flush out the secret?

In the middle of the afternoon, he hit upon an idea. It wasn't the best idea, but it had the beauty of being simple, and it was the only thing he could think of likely to have quick results.

He put a copy of the vid onto his holopod and slipped it back into his pocket. "Done for the day," he said to Field.

The man looked over, his expression like that of a dead fish. "It's only two thirty," he said.

Altman shrugged. "I have a few things to look into."

"Suit yourself," said Field, and turned back to his holoscreen.

Fifteen minutes later, Altman had a hat pulled low over his face and was sitting in the lobby of the town's youth hostel, using its single ancient terminal-a pre-holoscreen model. The deskman cast him a lazy glance and then ignored him. He wasn't paid enough to care who used the computer.

He spun the vid from his holopod to the terminal and then spent some time making sure he hadn't left a trail. Then he went onto Frees.p.a.ce and created a dummy account. It could be traced back to the monitor, he knew, but there was nothing he could do about that. It couldn't, in any case, be traced directly to him.

He prepared a message: DredgerCorps' Illegal Doings in Chicxulub, DredgerCorps' Illegal Doings in Chicxulub, he typed into the subject line, and then captioned the vid, he typed into the subject line, and then captioned the vid, Last Words from a Submarine Tunneled Deep into the Heart of Chicxulub Crater Last Words from a Submarine Tunneled Deep into the Heart of Chicxulub Crater. He stayed for a minute thinking and then added, A Retrieval Mission Gone Wrong. A Retrieval Mission Gone Wrong. He then proceeded to copy the vid to every scientist he could think of in Chicxulub, himself included, and to a select few beyond. He then proceeded to copy the vid to every scientist he could think of in Chicxulub, himself included, and to a select few beyond.

There, he thought. he thought. That should get their attention. That should get their attention.

That evening he told Ada what he had done, explained to her what they'd found out, what he thought it meant. He thought she'd tease him, tell him that he was making something out of nothing because he was bored. Instead, she just crossed her arms.

"You're such an idiot sometimes. Don't you realize it could be dangerous?" she asked.

"Dangerous?" he said. "What, you think they'd try to kill me for revealing some industrial secret? This isn't a spy movie, Ada."

"Maybe not, but you're acting like it is," she said. "Secure Web site, gangs of scientists, secret subs, signals that shouldn't exist. And then this video." She shivered. "A madman covered in symbols drawn in blood. Doesn't that make you think it might be dangerous?"

"What?"

"How do I know what 'it' is?" she asked, shaking her hands at him. "The thing at the heart of the crater might be dangerous. Or the people who want to retrieve it might be dangerous. Or both."

"But-" he said.

"It's just-" she said, and then stopped.

She lowered her head and stared at the tabletop. He watched her hug herself, as if she were cold. "I don't want to see you hurt or dead," she said quietly.

She was motionless for long enough that he thought the conversation was over. He was about to get up and get a beer when suddenly she started speaking again.

"You have all your data," she said in a very steady voice. "You've put it together and made it mean something."

"I might be wrong," he said.

"That's not what I'm getting at," she said. "Just be quiet and listen, Michael. You scientists have only one way of looking at the world. I've got data of a sort, too, and it's just as troubling."

She started to lay it out for him, slowly weaving it together as if it were a story. The signal pulse began at a certain moment, she said, and from that moment on, everything was different. He knew it as well as she did. "Do you remember when you started having bad dreams?"

"I've always had bad dreams," he said.

"But not like these," she said. "b.l.o.o.d.y, apocalyptic, end-of-the-world stuff every night?"

"No," he admitted. "Those are new."

"Everyone is having them, Michael. Even me. And I'm not normally p.r.o.ne to nightmares."

She had noticed how distracted and ill-rested everyone seemed, from the townspeople to her colleagues. She was trained to notice things like that, so she'd started asking around. Did you sleep well last night? Did you have any dreams? Did you sleep well last night? Did you have any dreams? n.o.body was sleeping well. n.o.body was dreaming anything but nightmares. And when she could get them to remember when the nightmares started, it always corresponded to when the signal pulse had begun. n.o.body was sleeping well. n.o.body was dreaming anything but nightmares. And when she could get them to remember when the nightmares started, it always corresponded to when the signal pulse had begun.

"That's just the start," said Ada. "Do you know how many times over the past week you've told me that you had a headache? Dozens. Do you know how many times you've clutched your head and winced, but not said anything about it to me? Dozens more. And you're not the only one," she said. "Everybody is having them. Before the signal pulse, hardly anyone was having them. Now everybody is. Coincidence? Maybe, but you have to admit it's strange."

"All right," he said. "I admit it."

"Don't be a smart-a.s.s, Michael," she said. "This is serious. I've spent months investigating the rituals and legends of this region, and before that I spent years reading other people's reports on them. The thing about the legends is that they've been basically the same for hundreds of years."

"So?"

She reached out and cuffed the side of his head. "I thought I told you not to be a smart-a.s.s," she said, her dark eyes flashing. "They're no longer the same. They changed drastically once the pulse symbol started."

"s.h.i.t," he said.

"The villagers are having nightmares, Michael," she said, "just like us. But while our dreams are only thematically similar, theirs are very specifically alike. They're all dreaming of the 'tail of the devil,' which, as I mentioned the other day, is what the word Chicxulub Chicxulub means. Coincidence?" means. Coincidence?"

Altman just shook his head. "I don't understand it," he said.

"I've noticed here and there, traced in the dust or freshly carved into the bark of trees, a crude symbol like two horns twisted together. When I asked what it was, people ignored me. When I kept asking, finally someone told me, almost spitting the word: Chicxulub Chicxulub."

She got up and went to the fridge, pouring herself a cup of distilled water. She drank it down and then poured another cupful, sat back down. She reached out and put her hand in his palm. He squeezed it.

"I don't know how it all fits together," she said, "nor how it meshes with your own data. Maybe it's all just weird coincidence. But all of it taken together makes me think that whatever is at the bottom of the crater is something that wishes us harm."

"You make it almost sound like a living thing," he said.

"I know it's not very scientific," she said. She took her hand back, rubbed her temple with it. "Ah, another headache," she said, and gave a wry smile.

After a moment, she went on. "The people of the town seem to have a whole mythology about this 'tail of the devil.' I don't know if the mythology has always been there or if it's something that's only recently developed. Certainly I'm only starting to notice it now.

"The only one I can get to talk about it in any detail is the town drunk, and he talks only if I ply him with booze. He claims there are stories that have been pa.s.sed down from generation to generation, about a huge forked object thrust deep into the middle of the ocean. This, he told me in a mix of Spanish and Yucatec Maya, is all that remains of a great devil who surrendered his dominion upon the earth to dig down to the depths and rule over h.e.l.l. His tail got caught and is still there, perhaps still alive. Some believe that this devil may still be attached to it.

"If you touch the tail, they say, you make yourself known to the devil. If the devil knows you, he will try to claim you. If you destroy more than you create, you make yourself known to the devil. 'You and your people,' the drunk told me when he was deep in his cups, 'you are known to the devil,' and then he made that strange symbol at me, a kind of curse, twining his index and middle fingers together."

She stopped and drank the rest of the water, leaving the cup on the table. "After that, he refused to say more," she said. "I tried to coax him to go on, offered to buy him more drinks, but he just shook his head. He was, he finally admitted, afraid that the devil might hear him."

They sat silently for a moment, staring at each other.

"Maybe there's a logical explanation," said Altman.

"For the stories?"

"For all of it."

"Maybe," said Ada. "But I don't know. I could, I suppose, argue that these stories are an odd mixture of Mayan and Christian belief. Maybe if I dug deep enough and thought long and hard enough, I'd have a theory about how they developed. But there's still something there, a genuine warning and sense of fear that my heart tells me we should be listening to. I love you, Michael. Promise me you will at least try to listen."

26 "We've tracked down around a dozen or so people who saw the vid broadcast," said Tanner. He'd managed to get a few hours of sleep, though his head still ached and he felt like his eyes had been rubbed with sandpaper. "Of those, about half got mostly static. The others got more. Of those, about half recorded it. But we knew that already as we used their recordings to augment our own."

"Besides you and the technicians in DredgerCorp, who else has seen the version you showed me?"

"n.o.body," said Tanner. "I'm sure of it."

The Colonel furrowed his brow. "Take a look at this."

He spun the holofile to Tanner. It was a communication sent from someone with the alias "Watchdog." DredgerCorps' Illegal Doings in Chicxulub, DredgerCorps' Illegal Doings in Chicxulub, the caption read. The body of the message consisted of a short bit of typed text- the caption read. The body of the message consisted of a short bit of typed text-Last Words from a Submarine Tunneled Deep into the Heart of Chicxulub Crater. Retrieval Mission Gone Wrong-and a vid.

He opened the vid, saw Hennessy's blood-covered body and face, watched his strange smile and brief speech. Oh, s.h.i.t Oh, s.h.i.t, he thought. The worst has finally happened. The worst has finally happened.

"Who sent it?" he asked.

"This copy was sent to Lenny Small," the Colonel said. "The list of other recipients is several pages long, mostly scientists in Chicxulub, but a few others as well."

"That vid's originally from Sigmund Bennett," said Tanner. "He recorded it."

"Do you think he's the one disseminating it?"

Tanner shook his head. "He's not the type. One of my men talked to him-it was pretty clear he thought it was a hoax. He probably didn't even think twice about it, probably just sent it to someone else because he thought it was interesting or weird. I'll have someone speak to him and find out who else he showed it to."

"Don't bother," said the Colonel.

"Don't bother? But you said-"

"Too many people have seen it already," he said. "There's no point in killing anybody now. That's more likely to hurt than help."

Tanner let out a deep breath. He was glad to know he wouldn't be asked to kill anybody. "What do we do, then?"

"We come clean," said the Colonel.

"We come clean?" Tanner felt his stomach drop out. "That's not what DredgerCorp does. Shouldn't we run this by Small?"

"Small's not running the show," said the Colonel. "I am."

"This is a disaster. I'll tell you now," Tanner said, face flushing red. "I'm not going down with the ship. I'm not willing to swallow the blame on this one. I'll fight it all the way."