The city looked very much like something insects would build, barren and harsh and almost militaristic. The way it was honeycombed with holes and passages reminded him of the webby lairs of funnel-web spiders. No beings with hearts or souls would have designed something like this. A hive. A grotesque alien hive that looked very much like some vast biomechanical machine out of H. R. Giger, a terrible organic and mechanistic hybrid that had been rotting and rusting away at the bottom of that ancient lake for millions of years, waiting to be activated.

And that was at the core of the fear that Bell felt looking upon it: that it would suddenly wake up.

Orr killed the images, looking at the pale faces of his divers. “It…ah…seems to have an odd effect on anybody who looks at it. It got me the first time I saw it, people. And I’m not too big of a man to admit it scared the shit out of me and gave me nightmares for a week.”

“I think I’m having ‘em right now, sir,” Hubbs said in all seriousness.

Nobody laughed at that.

They were all feeling it deep inside, as if the image of that monstrosity had dredged up half-remembered phobias from the settled, undisturbed sediment at the very bottom of their souls. Something about it made you see things you should not see and feel things you should not feel. It overwhelmed you with anxieties and night terrors that reached out to you from the very dank cellar of the race.

Orr cleared his throat. “I don’t know what you people will see below. I really don’t. All I know is that at six sharp tomorrow morning, the four of you are going down there.”

3
BOGIES

Orr didn’t bother to mention all the psychobabble claptrap that the Navy psychologists told him could be expected from any human beings that looked upon the city—things like extreme anxiety responses and group psychosocial terrors. He didn’t think he needed to. He respected his people and had hand-picked them for the job. This bunch were the rocks of the DSU, a group known for its iron nerve. No, he didn’t need shrinks to tell him what he already knew: that the human race in general had an instinctual fear of those goddamned sunken ruins.

That much was obvious.

He had been there when the Lake Vordog dive project was originally discussed. The spooks from ONI and NSF looked like they’d been ready to piss their pants every time the photos were shown. And he had not blamed them.