Way up on one of the port towers, something dark and fleshy assaults the light.
Joels checks the camera icons: all zoomed, pointing up and left. Preteela, conserving O2, has retired her patter while the whitecaps gape. Fine. They want more mindless piscine violence, give 'em more mindless piscine violence. Ceratius angles up and to port.
It's an anglerfish. She bashes herself repeatedly against the floodlight, oblivious to Ceratius' approach. Her dorsal spine lashes; the lure at its end, a glowing worm-shaped thing, luminesces furiously.
Preteela's back at his shoulder. "It's really doing a number on that light, isn't it?"
She's right. The top of the transponder is shaking under the impact of the big fish's blows, which is odd; these beasts are big, but they aren't very strong. And come to think of it, the tower's shaking back and forth even when the angler isn't touching it…
"Oh, shit." Joel grabs the controls. Ceratius rears up like something living. Transponder glow drops off the bottom of the viewport; total darkness drops in from above, swallowing the view. Startled shouts from the cargo. Joel ignores them.
On all sides, the dull distant sound of something roaring.
Joel hits the throttle. Ceratius climbs. Something slaps from behind; the stern slides to port, pulling the bow back after it. The blackness beyond the viewport boils sudden muddy brown against the cabin lights.
The hull thermister spikes twice, three times. Ambient temperature flips from 4°C to 280, then back again. At lesser pressures the Ceratius would be dropping through live steam. Here it only spins, skidding for traction against the superheated water.
Finally, it finds some. Ceratius ascends into welcome icewater. A fish skeleton pirouettes past the viewport, all teeth and spines, every vestige of flesh boiled away.
Joel looks back over his shoulder. Preteela's fingers are locked around the back of his seat, their knuckles the same color as the dancing bones outside. The cargo are dead quiet.
"Another thermal?" Preteela says in a shaky voice.
Joel shakes his head. "Seabed cracked open. It's really thin around here." He manages a brief laugh. "Told you things could get a bit unstable."
"Uh huh." She releases her grip on Joel's chair. Fingernail imprints linger in the foam. She leans over, whispers "Bring the cabin lights up a bit, will you? Sort of a nice living-room level—" and then she's headed aft, tending the cargo: "Well, that was exciting. But Joel assures us that little blowups like this happen all the time. Nothing to be worried about, although they can catch you offguard."
Joel raises the cabin lights. The cargo sit quietly, still ostriched into their headsets. Preteela bustles among them, smoothing feathers. "And of course we still have the rest of our tour to look forward to…"
He ups the gain on sonar, focusses aft. A luminous storm swirls across the tactical display. Beneath it, a fresh ridge of oozing rock disfigures the GA's construction grid.
Preteela is back at his elbow. "Joel?"