Artifact by Kevin J. Anderson & F. Paul Wilson & Janet Berliner & Matthew Costello

Author:Kevin J. Anderson & F. Paul Wilson & Janet Berliner & Matthew Costello
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thrillers, General, Fiction, Energy development, Action & Adventure, Astrogeology, Suspense, Mystery & Detective
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2005-11-29T04:57:17+00:00

24

The few things Peta knew about sharks rushed into her mind, like life preservers bobbing to the surface after a wreck. The most relevant thing she remembered was that most sharks didn’t want to have anything to do with mankind—or womankind. Even the supposed man-eaters, the great whites, the tigers, and worst of all a rogue hammerhead separated from its pack, dined infrequently on humans.

Eyes locked on the shadowy form of the shark as it grew larger, Peta kicked back. She knew she was sucking her air mixture too heavily. Nitrogen would start building up. That’s not a good thing, she told herself, but there was this bigger problem….

The shark that was coming right at her. A blue shark, she guessed, acting completely out of character.

She had two choices: stay perfectly still and hope the shark did a flyby, or do something to make it reconsider its current course. Preferring the latter, she reached down to her thigh and pulled out the rusty dive knife.

The shark was only meters away, resolute in its intent.

Peta held the knife with the handle facing away from her, blade pointing toward her. She pulled her arm close, holding the knife in tight.

There was a theory among divers that hitting a shark on the nose sharply made it back up. Especially, so the theory went, if it really didn’t have you in mind for dinner. If it did, the theory was probably useless.

A meter away the shark, a gray bullet now, rocketed right at her chest, its eyes expressionless black dots.

For a moment she thought her arm was moving too slowly to catch it, but the handle miraculously hit the shark directly on its piglike nostrils. If she survived, she’d be sure to tell the experts what they could do with their shark theories.

The creature didn’t stop. If anything, the handle acted like a jolt of energy. The blue shark rammed her hard, the force of it shoving her to the side and knocking her regulator from between her teeth. A giant bubble of air exploded from her mouth.

She did a sidearm recovery of her regulator, popped it in her mouth, and sucked in the mixture. When she looked up to find the shark, she saw it trailing away, as if its eyes hadn’t seen her at all. A crazy undersea driver, a hit-and-run expert sailing on to his next victim.

Peta hung in the water for a moment to take stock of the damage. Her buoyancy control vest looked as if it had been shredded by the abrasive skin of the shark, but she realized that it had looked the same way when she’d put it on. Undoubtedly, the result of a zillion tourist dives. Otherwise, she was fine, and she was wasting time she didn’t have.

She continued her dive down to the hole. To Simon.

Just past 120 feet, she found the bottom.

She was very close to where the drill had entered the seabed. Swimming by, she noticed that the test well itself had been sealed with concrete.

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