He wondered what it felt like down there. It had to be plenty bad. He knew they were all having those dreams and that dark, cryptic sense of déjà vu. The crew up top were experiencing that stuff, too. Everyone was. Anderson wasn’t sleeping much. He claimed his bed was uncomfortable. But that was utter bullshit and Orr knew it. The accommodations on the LSB were first-rate—kid should’ve tried the beds in Sealab III. Hell.

No, it wasn’t his bed.

No more than it was Orr’s bed that made him wander the decks of the LSB at odd hours. It was the dreams, the headaches, that sense of being watched. The first night, Anderson had cried out in his sleep, but claimed he could not remember what he dreamed about. Again, bullshit. Orr liked to tell himself he couldn’t remember those dreams either, but he remembered most of them. God help him, but he did. He didn’t talk about them either because maybe talking about them was validating them, admitting they were real and that they scared the shit right out of him.

Last night, Anderson had knocked on Orr’s cabin door, wanting to know what the admiral wanted. But Orr didn’t want anything. Anderson claimed he’d heard his name called.

Thing was, he probably had.

Orr was certain he’d heard his own name called more than once in a shrill, reedy sort of voice that was almost like a buzzing sound. And maybe Anderson didn’t know who was calling him, thought maybe he was hallucinating, but Orr knew better. What was watching them and what was calling them was hiding out there in the darkness. On two separate occasions now, he’d thought he’d seen forms moving about out on the LSB’s boat deck. Weird, amorphous sort of shapes that he caught out of the corner of his eye which faded into the gloom when he tried to get a good look.

Oh, they were here, all right.

Same things the hydrobot had filmed below five years before. Down in this black, sepulchral tomb beneath the Vordog ice-dome, they were very much alive, only they did not like to be seen. They were out there even now, staying just beyond the deck lights in that swirling, noxious-smelling mist that clung to the surface of the lake. If you looked into the fog long enough, you would begin to see them as Orr had and even if you did not see them, you would most certainly feel their minds out there, worrying at the edges of your thoughts like psychic buzzards.

He stood up, wiped the sweat off his palms, tapped out his pipe.

Yes, it was bad up here on the surface…but below? Dear God, it must have been like waiting in the womb of hell itself…

5
THE HABITAT