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Altman was on yet another descent, this time with a
researcher by the name of Torquato, someone from
Markoff’s inner circle. He had with him a simple black box,
homemade, with a single knob on it and a needle readout.
The technology was old enough that it could have been
made in the twentieth century. As they descended, Altman
tried to make idle conversation to pass the time.
“You’re what,” he asked, “some kind of scientist?”
Torquato shrugged. “You could call it that,” he said.
“Geophysics?” asked Altman. “Geology? Volcanology?
Something more theoretical?”
“It’s hard to explain,” claimed Torquato, “and not very
interesting.”
But Altman was interested. He was descending into the
heart of the crater with a man who was being deliberately
vague. Something was up.
“So what brings you down here today?” he asked, trying
to sound casual.
“A few measurements,” said Torquato.
“What’s the box about?” Altman asked.
“This?” responded Torquato, pushing at the box with his
thumb. “Oh, it’s nothing.”
A few more questions and Altman gave up. They
descended in silence down to the artifact and held position
just above it. Robotic units had dug out under its base and
were well on the way to netting it, the net itself attached to a
series of cables that would eventually be hooked to larger,
stronger cables on the freighter. The artifact would be
reeled in, with the help of the nascent field of kinetic
technology. It was to be secured and then brought through
the water doors into the floating compound.
Beside him, Torquato gave the single knob on his box a
counterclockwise twist. The needle immediately came to
life, engaging in a rhythmic and regular movement along its
graph. Torquato grunted, jotted something on his holopad.
“What is it?” asked Altman.
“Hmm?” said Torquato. “Did you say something?”
When Altman started to repeat the question, Torquato
interrupted. “Take the bathyscaphe lower,” he said.
“How much lower?”
“Halfway between the top of the object and its base,” he
said.
Carefully Altman nudged it down. The black box’s needle
he saw continued to bounce, but its rhythm and scope
changed.
“That’s good,” said Torquato. “Now, can you slowly circle
around, staying just at this level?”
“I can try,” said Altman. He started moving the
bathyscaphe slowly around the monolith, casting glances
from time to time at the box.
When Torquato noticed him looking, he cast him a
withering look and from then on shielded the readout with
his hand.
“You’re here to drive,” he said. “Nothing more.”
“Look, buddy,” said Altman. “I’m not stealing any secrets
here. I have no idea what that thing does. I’m just trying to
pass the time.”
Torquato didn’t bother to answer. Exasperated, Altman
turned away, focusing on trying to bring the bathyscaphe
within a few meters of the monolith without touching it.
When he looked back, Torquato was still covering the
readout with his hand. Asshole, he thought.
Torquato’s turn was different from that of the others, much
more abrupt, little if any warning. One moment he was
sitting there, shielding the black box’s needle display with
his hand, and the next he had attacked.
How he’d undone the restraint on his leg, Altman hadn’t
been able to figure out at the time, though later he
discovered it had been cut, whether by Torquato or
someone else, he never could be certain. In a flash,
Torquato was free, and that was all that mattered. Altman
tried to get the tranquilizer gun out and fire a dart, but
Torquato had been too quick, and when he reached for it,
he found the holster empty, the pistol aimed at him instead.
He dived to the side, but the pistol had already fired, and
there it was, the dart sticking out of his arm.
He reached down and, with effort, plucked it out. His
tongue already felt thick in his mouth. Torquato was talking
to him, he suddenly realized, though he was a little less
clear on what he was saying. He blinked and Torquato
blurred out of focus, only slowly coming back in again. The
man was speaking incomprehensibly, endlessly, about the
necessity for Convergence.
Altman made an effort, bit the inside of his mouth until it
bled, succeeded in focusing.
“You’ve been here again and again, just beside it,” he
said to Altman, stroking his cheek. “Yet you have felt
nothing. Don’t you hear it calling to you? Won’t you
answer?”
When he regained consciousness, it was to find himself
pressed up against the observation porthole, the
bathyscaphe pushing up against the artifact with the motor
still running until it was tilted on end. There were repeated
banging noises coming from somewhere, punctuated by
long moments of silence.
“It’s stuck,” he heard Torquato’s voice mutter. And then,
“I’m trying, I tell you, I’m trying.”
Trying to what? Altman wondered.
The banging started again. Altman slowly pulled himself
up, standing on the porthole. The cabin felt extraordinarily
warm, stuffy. He scaled the side of the console and stood
on it. The oxygen recirculator had been disabled, was
nothing but a mass of tangled metal, sparks flying off it. He
was careful not to touch it. No wonder the air felt stuffy. How
long had he been out? He looked down at the console until
his eyes found the chronometer. It, too, had stopped.
The ladder leading to the hatch was directly above him,
horizontal along the ceiling, and he could see Torquato’s
feet sticking out of the passage.
The banging started up again.
Oh, shit. Altman realized, his limbs instantly going heavy:
He’s trying to open the hatch. He’s trying to flood the
bathyscaphe.
He clambered onto the sideways chair, nearly fell when it
swiveled. There was a brief groan, and for a moment he
thought it was going to come unbolted from the deck, but it
held. Carefully he put both feet on the chairback and stood.
From there, he could almost reach the fixed metal ladder.
He steadied himself, reached as far as he could, but his
fingers just grazed it. He’d have to leap up, hope that his
fingers caught the rung and held it the first time, so that he
wouldn’t come down with a crash and alert Torquato.
The banging started again, Torquato screeching along
with it. Altman jumped, caught the rung. He flailed his leg
up, managed to get his ankle around the side rail of the
ladder as well. The banging stopped.
He hung there motionless, hoping Torquato wouldn’t turn
around.
“It’s stuck!” he shouted, apparently at nobody. “I’m trying, I
tell you!”
Holding on to the ladder, Altman tilted his head back until
he could see Torquato there, upside down. He was lying flat
in the passage, a metal bar in one hand, a strut maybe,
something stolen from the remains of the oxygen
recirculator. His knuckles were bloody, and Altman could
see symbols like those on the artifact, painted here and
there along the passage in blood.
Torquato tugged on the wheel, then gave a little cry of
frustration. He raised the bar and started striking the hatch
again, at the hinge. The pressure was too great, Altman
realized with relief. Unless he loosened a hinge or blew the
hatch from the control panel, the seal might hold. Much
more worrisome, though, was the lack of air.
Torquato stopped, breathing heavily. “A cleansing,” he
was muttering. “Yes, a cleansing. Start again, new and
fresh.”
He began pounding again. Carefully, Altman started
along the ladder, back into the passage. As he got farther
up, he had to bend his arms, pull himself up closer to the
ladder so as not to brush Torquato’s back. By the time
Torquato stopped again, Altman was hanging directly over
him, their bodies less than a foot away from each other.
Altman could smell the man’s sour sweat.
He held his breath, staring at the ladder a few inches
from his face, the muscles in his arms starting to cramp.
Torquato kept muttering to himself, laughing softly under his
breath. Altman heard the sound of him scrabbling at the
hatch, the cry of frustration, then the pounding began again.
He let go of the ladder and pushed off it hard at the same
time, crashing down onto Torquato’s back. It hurt like hell.
He tried in the confined space to scramble around to face
him, but Torquato was trying to get up, too, and for a
moment his face and chest were pressed against the
ladder. With a shout he pushed down as hard as he could
and Torquato collapsed underneath him. He started to turn
around again, knocking his shoulder against the ladder,
and made it this time. Torquato was half-turned over now
and groping for the metal bar, which had fallen and was
under him.
Altman grabbed his head by the hair and brought it down
hard. Torquato was bellowing now, struggling, trying to slip
back and out of the passage. Altman wrapped his legs
around him and held on, trying to keep him there, slamming
his face into the floor again. Torquato had the bar now and
was trying to get it up, but his arm was still pinned beneath
him. He turned his head as far as he could, trying to look at
Altman, and Altman saw his collapsed cheekbone and
orbit, the blood that was washing over his eye. He slammed
his head down again, and then a second time, until the bar
slipped from Torquato’s fingers and his body went slack.
Altman lay there on top of him for a while, holding him by
the hair, trying to catch his breath. Knocking against the
walls, he turned Torquato the rest of the way over, faceup.
His face was a mess, the nose and cheekbone broken and
in a pulp. He held his ear close to his mouth. His breathing
was shallow, but it was still there.
Now what? thought Altman. What do I do with him? He
could tie him up, as he had done with Hendricks, but there
was always the chance he would break free. And there was
the bigger problem, the lack of oxygen. With the oxygen
recirculator broken, he probably didn’t have enough air to
make it to the surface for one person, let alone two.
Am I a killer? Altman wondered. Am I the kind of person
who is willing to kill someone so as to stay alive himself?
He ran it through his mind again, considered other
alternatives, but couldn’t come up with anything. It was
either Torquato or him. Torquato, he told himself, would
have died anyway if he’d gotten his way and managed to
open the hatch, so the choice was either both of them dead
or just one of them dead.
He looked at the bloody face below him. He’d done that.
Maybe he’d had no choice, but in any case, he’d done it,
was responsible for it. And was about to be, he realized,
responsible for more.
He reached out and put his hands around Torquato’s
throat. It was sticky with blood. He let his hands lie there,
then very gently began to squeeze.
At first he thought it would be easy, that Torquato would
simply slip from unconsciousness to death without waking.
But after a moment, Torquato’s eyes suddenly sprang
open. Altman squeezed harder. Torquato’s arms began to
flail and shake, striking Altman’s shoulders and arms. He
arched his back, knocking Altman into the wall of the
passage, but Altman held on, squeezing tighter.
In the last moment before he died, a light came into
Torquato’s undamaged eye that Altman couldn’t help but
see. Human, pleading. He closed his own eyes to it and
turned his head to the side. Gradually, he felt Torquato’s
movements slow and stop. When he finally opened his eyes
again, Torquato’s eyes had rolled back in their sockets. He
was dead.
He dragged himself out of the passage, climbed down the
wall and onto the console. There, he reversed the screws,
bringing the bathyscaphe backward and away from the
artifact. It slowly righted itself, Torquato’s body spilling out
of the hatch passage and onto the floor.
Altman climbed off the console and to the chair to start
the bathyscaphe rising. The lead-pellet release was
jammed, the panel all around it scarred from where
Torquato had dented it. The craft started to rise, pellets
slowly dribbling out, but not as fast as he’d hoped. Chances
were he’d reach a certain water density and then the craft
would stop moving entirely and he’d hang there suspended,
slowly dying.
He recorded an SOS message and then sent it to loop
and broadcast, asking them to come for the bathyscaphe,
to make it rise as quickly as possible. Whether they’d get
the message soon enough, he didn’t know. He recorded
another message for Ada, telling her he loved her and that
he was sorry, just in case he didn’t make it.
It was getting very warm. He wasn’t getting enough air.
He wondered if the best thing was to go to sleep. He’d use
less air that way. He contemplated getting down on the floor
of the submarine, thinking the air might be better down
there.
But he just stayed slumped in his chair, staring at
Torquato’s remains.
And then suddenly, he saw Torquato’s hand move.
Impossible, he thought. He’s dead.
He swiveled his chair around so that he could see him
better, watching carefully. No, he was dead, he wasn’t
moving, how could he?
And then the hand moved again.
Hello, Altman, Torquato said.
“Go back to being dead,” Altman said to him.
It’s not as easy as that, said Torquato. I need you to
understand something first.
“Understand what?”
“This,” said Torquato, and leapt forward.
Torquato flew up on him, choking him. He tried to pry his
hands off, but they were digging too firmly into his neck. He
latched his own hands on to Torquato’s neck, squeezing
with all he had; then he blacked out.
He came conscious to find his hands around the neck of a
corpse. It was rigid and cold, had been dead a very long
time. What is going on? he wondered.
He tried to stand up to get away from the corpse, but
couldn’t. He moved his fingers away and rolled off, lying just
beside it. He hoped he was close to the surface, but there
was no way to tell from here.
Suddenly he saw something strange. A woman. She
looked a lot like Ada, though it wasn’t her. It was obvious
when he looked close. But maybe it was her mother, back
when he had first met her, before she had cancer.
But that’s impossible, he thought. Ada’s mother is dead.
I’m hallucinating again, he thought. Just like with
Torquato.
Hello, Michael, she said.
“Aren’t you dead?” he asked.
How can I be dead if I’m here with you?
For a moment he wanted simply to accept what she was
saying, but then found resistance welling up within him.
“Who are you, really?” he asked. “Why am I hallucinating
you?”
Ada’s mother didn’t answer either question. I’ve come to
give you a message, she said. About the Marker.
“What’s the Marker?”
You know what it is, she said. You’ve come near it again
and again, but somehow you’ve resisted it. She crossed
her index and middle fingers, held her hand toward him.
“Tail of the devil,” he said. “The artifact, you mean.”
She nodded. You need to forget about it. The Marker is
dangerous. Above all, you need to leave it where you
found it.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” said
Altman. “What do I have to do with the Marker?”
Not just you, she said, and spread her arms wide. You.
Whatever choices are made will affect all of you.
She cocked her head in a manner very similar to the way
Ada often did. A tremendous pressure built rapidly in his
head; then it was gone.
“What’s the message?” asked Altman.
Convergence is death, she said. You must not give in
to the Marker. You must not allow it to begin
Convergence.
“What does that mean, Convergence?
It means you shall finally begin, from the new
beginning.
“The beginning of what? And just me?”
She again spread her arms wide. You, all of you, she
said. Then, for a moment, she seemed almost exactly like
Ada in a way that he found very disturbing. I love you,
Michael, Ada’s mother said. I’m counting on you. Please
help me stop it. Please don’t fail.
And then, as quickly as she had appeared, she was
gone. He tried to get up again, fell back. The world around
him was growing dark, as if seen through a black veil.
Slowly it grew darker still, and then, suddenly, it was gone.
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