Dragon

Stacy and Plunkett both stared into the darkness beyond the sphere. A weird rat-tailed creature swam into the dim light coming from inside Old Gert. It had no eyes, but it made a circuit of the sphere, maintaining a distance of two centimeters before it went on about its business in the depths.

Suddenly the water shimmered. Something was stirring in the distance, something monstrous. Then a strange bluish halo grew out of the blackness, accompanied by voices singing words too garbled by the water to comprehend.

Stacy stared entranced, while Plunkett’s skin crawled on the back of his neck. It had to be some horror from the supernatural, he thought. A monster created by his oxygen-starved brain. There was no way the approaching thing could be real. The image of an alien from another world crossed his mind again. Tense and fearful, he waited until it came nearer, planning on using the final charge of the emergency battery to switch on the outside lights. A terror from the deep or not, he realized it would be the last thing he’d ever see on earth.

Stacy crawled to the side of the sphere until her nose was pressed against its interior. A chorus of voices echoed in her ears. “I told you,” she said in a strained whisper. “I told you I heard singing. Listen.”

Plunkett could just make out the words now, very faint and distant. He thought he must be going mad. He tried to tell himself that the lack of breathable air was playing tricks on his eyes and ears. But the blue light was becoming brighter and he recognized the song.

Oh, what a time I had with Minnie the Mermaid 

Down at the bottom of the sea. 

I forgot my troubles there among the bubbles. 

Gee but she was awfully good to me.

He pushed the exterior light switch. Plunkett sat there motionless. He was used up and dog-weary, desperately so. His mind refused to accept the thing that materialized out of the black gloom, and he fainted dead away.

Stacy was so numbed with shock she couldn’t tear her eyes from the apparition that crept toward the sphere. A huge machine, moving on great tractorlike treads and supporting an oblong structure with two freakish manipulator arms on its underside, rolled to a stop and sat poised under the lights of Old Cart.

A humanlike form with blurred features was sitting in the transparent nose of the strange craft only two meters away from the sphere. Stacy closed her eyes tightly and reopened them. Then the vague, shadowy likeness of a man took shape. She could see him clearly now. He wore a turquoise-colored jumpsuit that was partially opened down the front. The matted black strands on his chest matched the dark shaggy hair on his head. His face had a masculine weathered, craggy look, and the mirth wrinkles that stretched from a pair of incredibly green eyes were complemented by the slight grin on his lips.

He stared back at her with a bemused interest. Then he reached down behind him, set a clipboard in his lap, and wrote something on a pad. After a few seconds he tore off a piece of paper and held it up to his view window.

Stacy’s eyes strained to focus on the wording. It read, “Welcome to Soggy Acres. Hang on while we connect an oxygen line.”

Is this what it’s like to die? Stacy wondered. She’d read of people going through tunnels before emerging into light and seeing people and relatives who had died in the past. But this man was a perfect stranger. Where did he come from?

Before she could match the puzzle pieces, the door closed and she floated into oblivion.

8

DIRK PITT STOOD ALONE in the center of a large domed chamber, hands shoved into the pockets of his NUMA jumpsuit, and studied Old Gert. His opaline eyes stared without expression at the submersible that sat like a broken toy on the smooth black lava floor. Then he slowly climbed through the hatch and dropped into the pilot’s reclining chair and studied the instruments embedded in the console.

Pitt was a tall man, firm muscled with broad shoulders and straight back, slightly on the lanky side, and yet he moved with a catlike grace that seemed poised for action. There was a razor hardness about him that even a stranger could sense, yet he never lacked for friends and allies in and out of government who respected and admired him for his loyalty and intelligence. He was buoyed by a dry wit and an easygoing personality—a trait a score of women had found most appealing—and though he adored their company, his most ardent love was reserved for the sea.

As Special Projects Director of NUMA he spent almost as much time on and under water as he did on land. His main exercise was diving—he seldom crossed the threshold of a gym. He had given up smoking years before, casually controlled his diet, and was a light drinker. He was constantly busy, physically moving about, walking up to five miles a day in the course of his job. His greatest pleasure outside his work was diving through the ghostly hulk of a sunken ship.

There was the echo of footsteps from outside the submersible, footsteps crossing the rock floor that had been carved smooth under the curved walls of the vaulted roof. Pitt dewed around in the chair and looked at his longtime friend and NUMA associate, Al Giordino.

Giordino’s black hair was as curly as Pitt’s was wavy. His smooth face showed ruddy under the overhead glow from the sodium vapor lights, and his lips were locked in their usual sly Fagan-like smile. Giordino was short, the top of his head came just up to Pitt’s shoulder line. But his body was braced by massive biceps and a chest that preceded the rest of him like a wrecking ball, a feature that enhanced his determined walk and gave the impression that if he didn’t come to a halt he would simply walk through whatever fence or wall happened to be in his path.

“Well, what do you make of it?” he asked Pitt.

“The British turned out a nice piece of work,” Pitt replied admiringly as he exited the hatch.

Giordino studied the crushed spheres and shook his head. “They were lucky. Another five minutes and we’d have found corpses.”

“How are they doing?”

“A speedy recovery,” answered Giordino. “They’re in the galley devouring our food stores and demanding to be returned to their ship on the surface.”

“Anyone brief them yet?” asked Pitt.

“As you ordered, they’ve been confined to the crew’s quarters, and anyone who comes within spitting distance acts like a deaf mute. A performance that’s driven our guests up the walls. They’d give their left kidney to know who we are, where we came from, and how we built a livable facility this deep in the ocean.”

Pitt gazed again at Old Gert and then motioned a hand around the chamber. “Years of secrecy flushed down the drain,” he muttered, suddenly angry.

“Not your fault.”

“Better I left them to die out there than compromise our project.”

“Who you kidding?” Giordino laughed. “I’ve seen you pick up injured dogs in the street and drive them to a vet. You even paid the bill though it wasn’t you who ran over them. You’re a big softy, my friend. Secret operation be damned. You’d have saved those people if they’d carried rabies, leprosy, and the black plague.”

“I’m that obvious?”

Giordino’s teasing look softened. “I’m the bully who gave you a black eye in kindergarten, remember, and you bloodied my nose with a baseball in return. I know you better than your own mother. You may be a nasty bastard on the outside, but underneath you’re an easy touch.”

Pitt looked down at Giordino. “You know, of course, that playing good samaritan has put us in a sea of trouble with Admiral Sandecker and the Defense Department.”

“That goes without saying. And speaking of the devil, Communications just received a coded message. The admiral is on his way from Washington. His plane is due in two hours. Hardly what you’d call advance notice. I’ve ordered a sub readied to head for the surface and pick him up.”

“He must be psychic,” mused Pitt.