The Neptune Habitat was an 80-ton, double-lock pressure vessel split into two sections: Entry Lock and Main Lock. Each had independent life control systems and could be separately pressurized in case of trouble. Comparing it to Sealab or Hydrolab was like comparing a German V2 rocket to a starship. It was a feat of engineering. As long as the compressors and generators kept operating on the LSB above, the team could have stayed down there six months. And even without the umbilical, the Neptune was self-supporting for several weeks.

Entry Lock was the smaller portion of the module.

It contained the wet porch and moon pool, storage for dive equipment, even hot showers and a whirlpool tub. Entry also had bathrooms, computer work stations, lab space, and life support. Main Lock was much larger. Here were the sleeping quarters, galley, labs, rec room, and the huge bubble viewports. Everything that could possibly be needed.

With the hardsuit diving systems, or Exosuits as the Navy called them, you could come in and out of the water with no decompression. This was a wonderful advancement from the days of hyperbaric chambers and awful saturation dives where you had to breathe Heliox, a helium-based mixture of gases.

Everything was in place.

Everything was ready.

And now it would begin.

6
DÉJÀ VU

Although nobody had seen the bogies yet, Bell knew, it did not mean they weren’t there. That was his gut feeling on the matter and nothing could convince him otherwise. Javonivic, of course, was not convinced that the creatures still existed. She was quick to espouse her theory that the ones that the hydrobot had filmed five years before might have died out. She was grasping at straws, but that was pure Javonivic. Though she was tough and as experienced as any DSU diver, she could not shake her maternal instincts which were hopelessly optimistic. She mothered the team and refused to accept the fact that there was something out there that could swat them like flies.

“And even if they are there,” she said as the four of them lounged in the Main Lock of the Neptune module, “what difference does it really make? We haven’t seen them. Maybe they’re afraid of us. Maybe they just want to keep away.”

Hubbs laughed. “Why in the hell would they be afraid of us, lady? Haven’t you heard the spin down here at the Pole? Those things created life on this planet, they created us. I can’t believe we’d scare them anymore than germs on a Petri dish.”

“Why not?” Murphy said. “Frankenstein was afraid of what he created. And you got to admit, people, the human race is a lot scarier than a guy made out of dead parts.”

Javonivic smiled, ran a hand through her red buzzcut. “Well, there you go again citing rumors and hearsay and urban legends. Conspiracies. I’ll grant you that the aliens were here—”

“Bogies,” Murphy said. “Bogies.”