Chapter 30

Research Vessel Isabella

Seventy-Six Miles East of Madagascar

The small research vessel rocked gently on the passing swells as the evening deepened. Aside from a pair of crewmen on the bridge and another acting as duty engineer down below, most of the crew were asleep or having a late meal.

Only the science lab remained fully active as Gamay and Chantel ran tests on the samples they’d retrieved from the depths. Paul watched over them like a nervous supervisor, asking numerous questions and getting irritated looks when he needed elaboration to understand the answers.

At one point Gamay stood abruptly, almost headbutting him on the chin as he was trying to read the computer over her shoulder. She offered a withering stare. “Paul, if you don’t find something else to do, we’re going to need couples counseling.”

“Can’t help it if I’m curious,” Paul said. “It’s like you’ve discovered an alien life-form.”

“Be curious from over there,” she said, pointing to the far side of the small compartment. “Or better yet, go for a walk. I promise to brief you as soon as we’re done.”

“Fine,” Paul said, “but I don’t want to hear any complaints the next time I tell you to do something else while I’m watching the World Series.”

Gamay smiled. She vaguely recalled asking him to weigh in on new silverware during the bottom of the ninth. “Deal.”

Paul grabbed a windbreaker and left the compartment.

As he went out the door, Chantel chuckled. “At least your husband is interested in your work.”

“Too much sometimes,” Gamay said. “Now, where were we?”

“You were suggesting we need to perform a DNA analysis, but I’m afraid we don’t have that kind of equipment on board. But look at this.”

Using a strainer, Chantel plucked one of the luminescent orbs from a murky sample jar that had been filled with whale blubber and was now nothing more than oily liquid. The sphere, which had grown to the size of a billiard ball, revealed something dark curled up inside. “They’re not colony organisms at all. They’re eggs.”

Gamay reached for a scalpel. “Let’s see what’s inside.”

Chantel lowered the orb into a small dish as Gamay donned a pair of goggles and pressed the blade against the exterior of the sphere. At first the skin dimpled, turning concave rather than opening. She pushed harder and the sphere popped like it had been pressurized from the inside. A small amount of liquid hit Gamay’s safety goggles, while the rest spread out inside the bowl.

Wiping her goggles, Gamay looked closer. Slithering back and forth in a soup of yellow goo was an inch-long grub that resembled a mealworm. As it wriggled and turned, features began to appear. Tiny legs tucked under the body stretched, miniature claws wriggling. A set of fins—flattened and wet—began to spread out from its back. Finally, a head that had been tucked under the body unfolded. The “fish” was very insect-like, complete with compound eyes, stubby antennae, and powerful mandibles more at home on a stag beetle or a murder hornet. And yet its body looked like it belonged to a fish. It shimmered with iridescent blue scales.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Chantel asked.

Gamay was at a loss. She adjusted the light to see it more clearly. Under the glare of the spotlight the grub began to flop around like a fish on a dock. With a snap of its body it popped out of the bowl and onto the table.

“Grab it!” Gamay said.

Chantel tried to cover the grub with the strainer, but the slippery little thing shimmied off the table and onto the deck, where it wriggled its way under the table.

Both women pulled back, looking for the escaped larva. “This is how the killer bees got started,” Chantel cried out, half joking.

“Where is it?” Gamay asked.

They pulled the table aside to find the grub squirming its way across the floor at a surprising pace. As it neared the wall it hopped once again, only to slam into the bulkhead and topple over backward, stunned by the impact.

Righting itself, it looked up toward the overhead light and then—to Gamay’s horror—launched itself into the air, buzzing loudly on its set of wings.

“Oh crap, it can fly,” Gamay called out, ducking.

The airborne grub buzzed around drunkenly, its navigation sorely lacking for anything but haphazard turns. It smacked headfirst into the wall and then the lamp and then dove for Gamay’s hair.

This was a crucial mistake.

Gamay smacked the thing out of the air with a backhand that would have made a karate master proud. It careened across the compartment, smashed into a cabinet door, and dropped to the floor.

Without a second thought Gamay stomped on it, crushing the thing with an audible crunch and twisting her foot back and forth just to be sure she’d done it in.

“Apocalypse averted,” she said with a grin.

Chantel broke into an embarrassed laugh and then looked sheepishly away. She felt silly for the moment of hysteria, but not completely. “We should probably examine another one of those eggs, but this time let’s use a tank with a lid on it.”

“Excellent idea,” Gamay said. She looked under her boot. There wasn’t much left. “You pick the next one, and whatever you do, never tell Paul that I screamed.”

—

While they worked in the lab, Paul was out on deck. It was a quiet night. The sky was clear, without a hint of wind, and the stars were bright and numerous. The swells passing under the boat seemed both lazy and large.

Gazing at the sea, he noticed a soft glow emanating from the water off the port side. It was a faint yellow-orange color that reminded him of a diver using lights to see with. Only, the light wasn’t confined to a single location; it stretched all along the side of the ship.

Looking toward the stern, Paul found the same faint glow behind the Isabella . It was brighter and more intense in that direction, perhaps because of the limited amount of lighting at the stern.

Paul leaned over the rail and looked straight down. For a moment he wondered if someone on board was running an underwater lighting system, then he saw blobs of floating gel appear on the surface. They were popping up everywhere like bubbles in a glass of champagne.

A handful turned to hundreds. Hundreds turned to thousands, and then tens of thousands. Soon they were everywhere, surrounding the vessel like drifting kelp. They slid up and down as the swells passed underneath, creating the equivalent of a psychedelic light show.

Gamay’s got to see this , Paul thought.

He turned to go, but a spitting and popping sound caught his ear. Looking back out over the rail he saw what looked like moths emerging from the water. They took to the air, beating their wings noisily. At first a few, then by the thousands.

They swirled up at some unspoken command, racing toward Paul and the ship from all directions. Paul backed away, swatting at them, closing his eyes and covering his face. He stumbled away like a blind man, pushing through the swarm in search of the nearest door.