Dmitry smiled in the red-green darkness. “A little pressure is good – makes diamonds, yes?”

“Look – there’s a light out there,” Abby said, pointing out of the front window.

The group turned as one, immediately seeing the dot of blue light in the darkness. It hovered for a moment, like a star in the night sky before beginning to close in on them.

“More bioluminescent fish, I’ll wager,” Jack said.

As they approached, the thing hovered again, seeming to watch them. It lengthened, and they saw that the blue glow ran the length of an eel-like body, with dots of blue, and a bulb at one end.

“Light it up,” Jack said.

Yegor flicked a switch and the ring of lights around the front window threw a pathway out into the dark. The fish was an eight-foot silver ribbon with a hair-like tail. But the other end of the fish was where the nightmare began.

“Jesus,” Greg said softly.

It had a box-like head that seemed all boney and angular. Large, bulging black eyes and a massive needle-filled mouth with the teeth seeming way too large for the jaws that hung open like a trap. Extending out over its mouth was another bulb, a lure, which had been flaring blue until the light had landed upon it.

The thing whipped its tail and vanished.

“Oh wow,” Abby said. “Nightmare.”

“Deep-sea dragonfish,” Mironov said. “Member of the Stomiidae family – but this species is quite a way up. They usually permanently live out their lives at about ten thousand feet… and they’re rarely over a foot long.”

“Everything is bigger down here.” Greg pushed long hair from his forehead.

“Why not?” Cate put her water bottle down. “This place has had hundreds of millions of years all to itself. Bigger things do better in the game of competition. And if the environmental conditions remain static, and no new species are inserted, then there’s no reason for anything to die out. The existing species just continue to grow.”

“And it’s also free of us nasty, predatory human beings,” Abby said.

“Yeah, like we’re the scary things down here,” Greg scoffed.

Cate used the back of her hand to dab at perspiration on her forehead. “If this thing usually lives at ten thousand feet, why was it up here?”

Jack shrugged. “Might just be another adaptation. Or something chased it out of its normal hunting ground.”

“Thank you, Jack; like that just settled my nerves.” Greg got to his feet and tried to pace, but there was only room for a few steps before he had to turn. His head struck a pipe above, ringing through the submersible. “Ouch.”

“Sit down, and be quiet,” Cate said. “You’re making us all nervous.”