Echo by Jack McDevitt Page B

head, and stored the image so it wouldn’t reappear. Eventually, he hesitated over one, enlarged it, and put his finger on it. He touched a control pad, and numbers showed up on a sideboard. He leaned forward, studied the image, considered the numbers, and nodded. “There it is,” he said.
    “You sure?” asked Alex.
    “Well, not absolutely. Can’t be positive till we go down and look. But it’s the right configuration.”
    “Can we see inside it?” asked Alex.
    Bailey shook his head. “Negative.”
    “Okay, Kira,” said Audree. “Let’s go.”
    Kira’s fingers danced across the controls, the tone of the engines changed, the soft hum of power in the bulkheads became more audible and, somewhere, hatches locked. The Shanley eased down onto the surface. We floated for a few moments. Then the water was washing over us, and we began to submerge.
    Bailey kept the image on-screen. Kira flipped a switch, and external lights came on. A few fish showed up. “Everybody stay seated,” she said. Her eyes flicked across Bailey, who stared steadily at his monitors. There were more fish. Something big and blubbery passed us on my side. The water got dark.
    Bailey read off the depths as we went. “Four hundred.”
    “Five hundred.”
    “In case you’re wondering,” Audree said, “we’re locked on the container.”
    Bailey had a better picture by then. He asked Alex whether it matched the package the two men had carried out of the condo. It did.
    Pressure built in my ears as we descended. We were going down at a steep angle, and every now and then the bulkheads creaked. I wondered how deep the Shanley could go. Four kilometers sounded pretty far down, but I assured myself Audree wouldn’t take any risks.
    She was enjoying herself. She took full advantage of the opportunity to show off her position for Alex. Her demeanor had changed somewhat. Her voice had taken on a note of authority, and she submerged herself—forgive the pun—in overseeing the operation. Not that she did any micro-managing. She was far too smart for anything like that. But there was never any doubt who was in charge of the operation.
    We hit thirty-seven hundred meters and began to level off. Gradually, the lights picked up the bottom and played against the mud. Something darted past us.
    “It’s dead ahead,” said Bailey. The tension between him and the pilot had not abated, and I was thinking there should be a rule against people who were emotionally involved with each other being on the same crew. At least when they were operating an APV.
    “There it is,” Kira said. I didn’t see anything, but Bailey’s panel was beginning to beep.
    “I got it,” he said.
    The lights picked it up. A rectangular gray container. It was about two feet high, lying on its side. Audree looked over her shoulder at Alex.
    “That’s it,” he said.
    It lay half-buried.
    “It’s yours, Kira,” said Bailey. He tried to get some warmth into his voice.
    “I have it,” she said. “Everybody stay seated, please.” We drifted slightly to port. The packing case vanished beneath us, then was picked up by a new set of scanners.
    Kira shut down all forward motion, although the currents continued to push against us. “Morley,” she said.
    Morley was the AI. “Yes, Kira?”
    “Initiate retrieval.”
    Four robotic arms appeared. They locked onto the case and lifted it out of the mud.
    We heard a hatch open. Moments later, it closed. “Retrieval completed, Kira,” Morley said.
    Audree smiled at Alex. “Let’s go topside.”
     
    We had to wait until we were on the surface to get at the case. The lid was cracked, and the box had filled with water. “Probably happened when it hit the surface,” Kira said.
    Alex and Bailey turned it on its side and dumped the water out of it. Then Alex found a catch, released it, and removed the lid. My angle wouldn’t let me see, but I heard him grunt. He reached in, pulled out some blanket that had been used for packing. And