The bulkheads of the ship were colonized with decades of sea life. Nothing at this depth lay barren for long. Everything was a surface for an organism to bind to, a niche to inhabit, a shelter from predators. For ocean life, everything was an opportunity. The ship was more alive, sunk here, than it ever was when in service.

Then Ha saw it. A mottled form at the corner of the screen, more movement than shape. It had been blending with the bulkhead. It separated and moved off.

There you are.

Ha had been thinking, after the beach, of abandoning this project. Of turning her back on it all. She had been thinking of asking to be sent back to her writing, her research grants. The slow routine of science. The long, comforting evenings in conversation with Kamran, sealed off from the world.

A glimpse of the creature was enough to push that from her mind. No. She wasn’t going anywhere.

There you are.

And as if in answer to the thought, the octopus came into the submersible’s view again. Altantsetseg had the craft in a holding position, panning its camera across the walls of the chamber. The chamber had been a storage hold: the space was basically empty of equipment.

“Angle the camera down,” Evrim said. “Slowly—try not to make any sharp movements.”

Altantsetseg’s fingers flexed and the submersible’s beams played across a bulkhead. There was movement at the edge of the screen—a piece of the floor that came alive and crawled away.

“Pan right.”

The beam played across the encrusted surface of the bulkhead. More movement: something flashed past the camera, above it and close.

It came into view.

The octopus was standing, the tips of its arms the only things in contact with the floor of the chamber. As in the video before, it was in the full “Nosferatu” pose—tall, its mantle vertical above its head, its arms and web spread. The threat pose. And like before, the octopus, easily as tall as a human being, was almost white.

Speak to me.

The octopus began to make passing cloud patterns on its skin. The patterns started on its mantle and moved downward between its eyes and onto its web, where each symbol paused a moment before fading and being replaced with a new one, even slower than they were in the earlier film Ha had watched.

It is trying to be understood. Like a native speaker, speaking slowly to a foreigner.

“It wants to communicate,” Ha said aloud. “It’s trying to make the submersible understand. Look how intentional the sequence is.”

“Yes,” said Evrim. “I see it. Slower, even, and clearer than before.”

“It’s enunciating.” Without looking down at her terminal, Ha was sketching the symbols she could catch in the sequence. Later she would be able to go over all of it in detail.

The same symbol was repeated, at intervals: