Primordial

Chapter 22

Aston took his time returning to Merenneito. He told himself he was merely maintaining the illusion that he’d gone out to do some thorough inspection of promising spots along the shoreline. The truth was, he was in no hurry to get back to the ship. Holloway was insufferable, Laine an oddball, and Slater an enigma. He couldn’t escape the feeling there was something suspicious about her late-night wandering.

When he drew within sight of the ship, he saw Holloway out on the deck. The man was excitedly doing a piece to camera, waving his hands about and talking rapidly. Though Aston couldn’t make out the words, he could tell the tone was upbeat, bordering on manic. Just the sound of Holloway’s voice set his teeth on edge.

“Think about the paycheck,” he told himself. “He’s paying you to put up with his crap. You can do that.” He hoped it was true.

He stopped rowing some ten feet out so as not to ruin the take with splashing and watched as his momentum carried him in. Carly moved along the side and turned the camera to him as he bumped up against the Merenneito’s dive platform and hopped aboard.

“Did you get any good shots?” Slater called down, presumably keeping up the ruse for Holloway’s benefit. She rested her arms on the deck rail and, as she leaned forward, Aston couldn’t help but notice the curve of her breasts. The memory of the night they’d spent together stirred something deep within him, but he forced it down.

“Did you hear me?” she asked. “Any results from your work on shore?”

Aston couldn’t bring himself to play along, still furious at the bemusing reception he’d got from Rinne. He managed a shake of his head, a wave of his camera, and a tight smile before heading up to the deck. What did it matter how he came across? Slater’s production people would edit the footage to craft each person’s image just so. He wondered if he’d even recognize himself when the program aired.

“Okay, everybody, let’s head to the bridge!” Holloway called out. “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

Carly moved at the periphery, filming the crew as they gathered around the table. Holloway’s enthusiasm grated on Aston’s nerves, but he tried to ignore it. Slater cast him a sidelong glance and raised an eyebrow. Aston shook his head slightly, mouthed, later.

“So Joaquin has found something very interesting,” Holloway said, after ensuring the camera was on him. “It took several hours of painstaking searching, all morning in fact, but we’ve located a part of the lake here where the salinity is sky high!” He jabbed a finger at their map.

“Sky high?” Aston asked. “Really?” Even if they did find a connection with the sea, the salinity should be noticeably higher than that of the lake water in other spots, but not substantial by any stretch.

“Hardly,” Joaquin admitted. “But it’s high, especially as this should all be fresh water.”

“And not far from where you spotted those skates,” Makkonen put in.

“You’re taking a renewed interest in our endeavor here,” Aston said to the old captain. “And here I thought we were just an annoyance to you.”

Makkonen grinned. “I’ve been ferrying all kinds of people around this lake for decades and they’ve all largely bored me. For the first time, you lot are presenting me with something I’ve never seen before.”

“A man is never too old for surprises,” Holloway declared, like it was some great wisdom.

Joaquin broke the moment of uncomfortable silence. “I’ve compared the salinity in several locations and there are quite a few spots where it’s not entirely fresh water. But this location is positively brackish. We’re about to do some close sonar to see if we can spot the channel.”

“That’s what I was just explaining on camera,” Holloway said. He turned to Makkonen. “Captain, if you please.”

The Merenneito rumbled into life and Makkonen started the familiar grid pattern to get a detailed sonar map. The crew busied themselves, gathering the data, making print outs, but generally killing time until the results were in. It took less than an hour.

“That’s a pretty big space.” Laine’s flat tone hid his emotions. Did he consider the size of the channel a good thing or bad?

The printout showed a three-dimensional representation of the lake bed, with a wide channel like a deep scar in the bedrock heading in toward the shore. Several other channels and grooves in the rock ran nearby, but the central chasm was impossible to ignore.

“Must be twenty meters… sixty feet deep at least as it carves into the bedrock there,” Aston said, pointing. “And probably the same width, getting deeper as it goes back.”

“Then it channels away underground,” Slater said. “How far out is that, where the channel goes under?”

Laine made some measurements. “One hundred and eighty-three feet from the shoreline,” he said. “Starting at a depth of seventy-two feet before it drops away.”

“And we’re right in the middle of the high-salinity area Joaquin found,” Holloway said. “So it’s fair to assume that underwater cave leads to a passage that itself leads all the way to the Gulf of Bothnia.”

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Aston said. “Geology is a fickle thing. It’s almost certainly not a single passage to the ocean.” He held up a hand to stay any argument and went on. “It could be, but it’s more likely to be a whole network of fissures and caverns, some possibly rising up above the water level, others branching into dead ends or running deeper and rejoining different chasms.”

“Rising above the water level?” Slater asked.

“Sure. This area is hilly. It’s entirely possible there are caves out there, far from the lake, that lead down to underwater passages that would eventually, should you be able to follow them, lead you into the water somewhere around here. Maybe even right out in the middle of the lake.” At the raised eyebrows around the table he tried to explain further. “Imagine a complicated three-dimensional piece of lace, all thin, interlocking filaments. Underground cave systems are like that, going up and down, back and forth. Often the passages become nothing more than cracks in bedrock, sometimes they open out into huge caverns, either dry or water-filled. Sometimes the fissures or caves collapse and change their own geography, and so on.”

“But you don’t see many the size of what we’ve got here, do you?” Holloway’s implication was clear — if the creature were real, there must be at least one passage large enough for it to traverse.

Aston nodded, tapped the map again. “This is a big channel, no question. And there’s salinity, so somewhere it must connect with the ocean. Also, the salinity is high, as you noted, so it seems it’s unlikely to be too convoluted a route. But it might not be as simple as following some underwater highway directly out to the sea.”

“But it might be that simple,” Holloway said, with a wide grin. “Right? It could be exactly that. You know, the simplest explanation, as they say.”

Aston sighed. “Yes, it could be.” He was weary of reminding Holloway that the scientific method didn’t stop with hypothesis.

“So we need to find out,” Laine said. “Who’s up for a dive?”

Silence descended and Laine laughed. “I don’t blame you. Me either!”

“I’d like to know more about what we’re getting into before we consider diving,” Aston said. “Underwater channels like we’re hypothesizing can be particularly dangerous. You can get lost or stuck, damage your equipment, or a dozen other things.” He paused and forced a grin. “Besides, if we are getting close to where some giant monster with loads of sharp teeth lives, I certainly don’t want to swim into its mouth. But we absolutely do need to learn more.”

“So what is our next step?” Slater asked. “I feel like we’re on the cusp of something here.”

Holloway turned to Joaquin. “Time to rev up the view.”

Joaquin nodded and went off below decks.

“The view?” Slater asked.

“Acronym,” Holloway said. “V-U-E. Victor Underwater Eye. Victor’s my middle name.” The billionaire inclined his head, mock humility. “Yes, I named it after myself, but only as a bit of fun. Just wait. I think you’ll like what you see.”

A few moments later Joaquin returned pulling a hand trolley on which sat a large metal box, some five feet long and three feet deep. Carly moved in with the camera as Joaquin parked it by the table and flipped open the half dozen catches holding it closed. Inside sat a tiny submersible, about three feet long, with shielded propellers, a rudder between them, and a domed, clear glass nosecone. Behind the glass was an array of camera lenses and lights. More lights were mounted on the back of the thing and a short, stiff, rubber-coated antenna rose from its back like a pointed dorsal fin. It had Victor Underwater Eye stenciled on either side in a swirling cursive script.

“I take it this is a remote camera of some sort,” Aston said.

“Of course,” Holloway said, clearly very pleased with himself. He retrieved a large remote control device from a side panel of the submersible’s case. It had double thumb sticks for directional control and a bristling array of switches, lights and small readout panels. He held it up so Carly could focus in on it. “You control everything from this, and the ‘eye’ can be linked into the wireless systems on board to relay images in a live stream. Battery-powered, with a run time of around three hours, depending on how much you utilize the lights and so on.”

Aston shook his head in admiration. It was exactly what they needed. “I’ll be damned. That’s a fine piece of kit. And so small!”

“State of the art!” Holloway said. “I just knew we’d end up having to explore places we’d be reluctant to dive. So the VUE here can be our trusty scout.”

“It’s ready to go?” Slater asked.

“Yep! So let’s do it.” Holloway led them out onto the deck, leaving Joaquin to tow the VUE behind.