Ocean Under the Ice by Forward Robert L. & Forward Martha Dodson

Author:Forward, Robert L. & Forward, Martha Dodson [Forward, Robert L. & Forward, Martha Dodson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780595166213
Google: y7sJAAAACAAJ
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2000-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 07—SUBMERGING

Quietly and rapidly, the flouwen submerged, luxuriating in the slow surge of the ocean around them. As the humans had promised, the signals from Babble soon became only an occasional faint blip of sound at regular intervals—easily ignored. The three quickly discovered that swimming in the strange suits was a different matter altogether from the freedom to which they were accustomed. However, they soon adapted to the new sensation.

*Takes work, to swim in this bag,* grunted Little Red.

^But, being more compact, the glide is longer,^ demonstrated Little White, forging ahead. The blobby, awkward-looking shapes increased their pace with practice, and with powerful lunges headed towards the depths.

Although the light filtering down from the surface provided a weak amount of illumination, the superb sonar of the flouwen gave them a bright and clear picture of their surroundings, the highly flexible glassy-foil fabric of the suits allowing the sonar pulses from their bodies to penetrate into the water. Little Purple, emulating one of his favorite humans, commented frequently on what they were “seeing” as they swam along. His observations were converted by David’s software algorithm into a high reliability communications code, and redundantly transmitted over a number of channels by the sonar transmitter on Little Purple’s chestpack back to Babble, to be transmitted up through the commsat links to Joe on Dragonfly, who devolved the code to reconstruct the message and pass it along to David, while copies were sent to Josephine on Victoria and James on Prometheus.

#Water getting warmer. No sign of anything moving. Tide is moving against us. Wait. A funny echo…#

*Big!*

^Stop!^

The three flouwen attempted to stop simultaneously. Their normal techniques, however, failed in the clumsy suits, so that instead of the easy cessation of motion they expected, there was a collision of the three, which distracted them. By the time Little Red had stopped blaming the other two, the large distant echo had vanished, but the three explorers now proceeded more slowly, surveying all the areas around them.

#Sea bottom now in range. Large crater down below. Not deep. Full of plants. Inside crater hear bubbling sounds of vent field. Water getting warmer as we go nearer. Funny echo again.#

Little Purple stopped transmitting, and all three stopped seeing around them with their sonar pings, and instead switched to looking through the lenses built into their helmets. Down below them, illuminated by the reddish light trickling down from the surface above, a large and powerful form undulated around the rim of the crater, sleek and silent as a snake. It was a giant coelashark, larger than either a human or a flouwen.

#Big. Four legs, with fins on the ends. Four tentacles, stubby too, coming from beneath, below mouth. Tentacles carry sharp stone. Moves in s-curves, sideways.#

The coelashark’s attention seemed to be concentrated on the warmer, plant-choked waters inside the crater, and it did not notice or pay attention to the silent bulk of the three aliens above it. The coelashark moved slowly, effortlessly, but with a steady rhythm that seemed in no way idle; it was watching the plants for something, and waiting with a purpose.

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