The water was murky, a cloudy greenish-brown that provided only a few feet of visibility. Even Angela, only perhaps five feet from him, was nothing more than a shadow against the curtain of particulate matter that had turned the ocean into what one of his fellow biologists quaintly termed “a big bowl of ick.” It was one of the trade-offs they endured for being able to dive so close to the mysterious Monterey Canyon. The cold waters allowed for a greater diversity of marine life, but it came with a price, namely, the food that fed so much of that diverse life. Every upwelling from the canyon brought with it great sweeping drifts of microorganisms that covered everything in a living veil, much like, Ben always imagined, the dust storms that tormented the prairie states. Divers unaccustomed to it, and even some who were, often convinced themselves that sea monsters, both real and imagined, lurked behind this scrim and refused to dive when the visibility was low.

Ben himself had experienced several times the unsettling sensation of being bumped by something unseen while passing through the shadowed water. While the likely culprits were the seals and sea lions abundant in the local waters, it was easy to see how a more active mind might go immediately to far more gruesome possibilities. He was pleased, therefore, to see that Angela seemed to be at ease in the conditions. She had been a diver for less than a year, and her experience prior to arriving at the station had been limited to the warm, clear waters of Hawaii. But she had learned quickly and was now Ben’s most able assistant.

At about twenty feet they suddenly dropped into near-perfect visibility. It was momentarily startling, as if someone had thrown open a window shade. The pinnacle, which had heretofore been obscured, sprang into view, a massive tower of rock not a dozen feet from where Ben and Angela floated. Had he not been expecting it, Ben might have found himself chilled by the realization that the sea could hide such a monstrous secret from him. As it was, he greeted the pinnacle like an old friend, which is what it was.

They continued their descent, stopping at eighty feet. The protocols of diving required them to begin their dive deep and move gradually to shallower water, where the air in their tanks would last longer and where the nitrogen that built up in their blood at depth could be off-gassed safely. Because they could stay at that depth for only a short time, Ben immediately began to search for documentable subjects. A quarter way around the pinnacle, he saw a flash of light from Angela’s strobe and silently congratulated her on her efficiency.