Annihilation (Star Force Series) by B. V. Larson Read Free Book Online Page B

oceans were tremendous. As we drew closer, our readings indicated that the third moon—Yale—had the deepest oceans of the three, and that it was even more alien than we’d thought. Yale had no land at all.
    Submarines can’t normally go deeper than a few thousand feet due to the tremendous pressure. The requirement for breathable gas inside creates such a difference in pressure that the hulls of most subs will collapse if they continue to sink.
    On Earth, our oceans are about thirty thousand feet at their deepest. But the oceans of Yale were deeper still. Our instruments measured the rocky bottom, and detected it at some two hundred thousand feet down in places.
    At that depth, there is so much pressure that water transforms into alternate states. Back on Earth I’d been accustomed to ice, steam and liquid water. But when you stack up water deeply enough, with enough crushing weight, it takes on new physical properties. It becomes solid, and hotter. A type of “hot ice” develops. Our Fleet eggheads told me about it with a strange light in their eyes.
    The pleading transmissions had come from Yale, as well as the strange readings we were getting now. The oceans there were a full six degrees hotter than they’d been a week ago. And still, there was no discernible reason for any of these changes.
    When we were only nine hours out from orbit, Marvin came to consult with me. He seemed to be in a state of agitation. He couldn’t stand still. His metal tentacles slapped at the deck like fish in the bottom of boat. It was very distracting, but I’d seen this behavior before. Marvin was excited about something.
    “What is it, Marvin?” I asked him. “You look like you’re about to pee your pants.”
    “Reference unclear. I do not urinate. In fact, I have few liquids in my structure, with the possible exception of lubrication reservoirs. Are you suggesting I’ve sprung a leak, Colonel? Or is this somehow an apt reference to my findings?”
    I chuckled. “It’s an idiom. I’m suggesting you’re excited and agitated.”
    Cameras studied me. “You can infer that from my behavior?”
    “Yes. Now, tell me what you want. I’ve got a lot of data to go over.”
    “That’s exactly it, sir. I think there’s something in the data we’ve missed.”
    He finally had my full attention. “Tell me about it.”
    “It all came from my previous geological studies concerning the smaller celestial bodies in this system. Remember when we flew into the system and scanned it? I’ve been comparing that data to the current scans we’ve been reading since our arrival in the Thor system.”
    “What have you found?”
    “It’s very interesting. There’s a discrepancy on my readings of the third moon, Yale. A variation in measurable mass.”
    I frowned. “In mass ?” I asked. Suddenly, I understood his earlier remark about me making an apt comment. He meant the world had really sprung a leak. “So…the planet is smaller than it was before?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    “What could be causing such a change?”
    “A leak, of course.”
    I stared at him for a moment, finally catching on. I turned to the screens and flipped through maps and models.
    “You’re telling me their oceans are draining away,” I said. “How long has this been going on?”
    A camera snaked over my left shoulder and gazed down at the table with me. I knew it was only Marvin’s way of seeing something from my perspective. He did this from time to time, peeking over people’s shoulders with one of his many eyes. It helped him to understand what we were talking about when discussing visual input, because he could study what we were seeing. Most found it disconcerting, but I understood why he did it and it didn’t bother me. Marvin’s visual input was different from the human norm. He had many more eyes—variable numbers of them, actually. And he could be looking at several things at once. Unlike humans, who were built to visually study one part of