Page 88 of My Tiny Giant
“P REPARE FOR DEPLOYMENT ,” a mechanical voice sounded outside of our transparent capsule.
The familiar mixture of excitement and trepidation coursed through me as the countdown began.
The voice was muffled, filtering through the walls of the capsule. There were no speakers inside here. We had no microphones either.
The narrow capsule was shaped like the body of a fish, flattened from the sides, with only enough space for me to recline in the middle. It had been positioned at the back of the transport ship that currently hovered over the Tragulian ocean. Only the trap doors in the ship's floor stood between us and the surface of the water.
Agan was sitting on top of my thighs, holding his helmet. My helmet lay further down, on top of my legs. We both were dressed in the dark-violet diving costumes, slim and fitted, hard but flexible, made from a similar material as the capsule.
“Go.”
The doors opened, and I grabbed Agan’s arm instinctively. The capsule was swiftly lowered down on a cable.
Instead of the jungle, the green water glistened beneath us as far as the eye could see. We were right over the location of the fescods’ Mind deep below.
I caught a glimpse of the swells rolling across the ocean before the cable disconnected and the capsule hit the surface. It landed flat on its side, yanking me sideways. Then, the weighted bottom of it sank in first, pulling the capsule into an upright position.
Agan squeezed a finger of my hand that I had wrapped around his bicep, and I forced myself to loosen my grip, afraid I might be hurting him. He patted my hand soothingly.
The green ocean of Tragul got its vivid color from the microscopic organisms on its surface and the way the sunlight reflected off them. The minerals dissolved in the water made it change its color as we sank deeper.
The green had gradually disappeared and the rich yellow took over. It turned to dark orange the farther we went. Then, the real darkness started to set in.
Agan and I weren’t allowed to speak. We had no electronic devices either in the capsule or on our suits. Even our thoughts might betray our presence to the bizarre alien being that communicated via brain waves and was believed to sense other types of waves as well—electronic, electric, possibly magnetic or even the sound ones.
The silver hats, shaped similarly to a ski mask, covered our heads. The cut-outs in the front allowed only for our eyes and noses to be exposed, covering our mouths, probably to help us fight any temptation to speak.
The darkness outside turned absolute. After a while, I no longer sensed even the movement of the capsule, feeling as if suspended in vacuum. The eerie sensation grew more unnerving, until a frayed edge of panic moved in.
I breathed faster, consuming more of our limited supply of oxygen.
Agan unclenched my hand from his arm then placed it into his lap, gently but firmly massaging it. Whether he wanted to comfort me or calm his own nerves, the rhythmic movements of his fingers proved soothing. I tried to regulate my breathing in sync with the gliding of his hand over mine, as if my entire existence narrowed down to that one point of contact between us—the touch of our hands through the two layers of gloves between them.
I knew the descent to the bottom was supposed to take us one hour and about thirty-five minutes. However, it felt as if an eternity had passed, suspended in the absolute darkness, before a glow from the abyss lit up the water around us.
The light from deep below filtered through the mass of orange water, giving it an eerie rusty tint, the color of dried blood. I chased the morbid comparison away, gathering my thoughts. Like always during a mission, my focus narrowed down to the present moment, my mind no longer straying past planning the next minute or two ahead.
The glow brightened the deeper we went, the orange-red changed to deep magenta, then to light pink. It concentrated in a sphere below us—a pulsing bundle of light, enclosed in a hard mesh of ancient bone that was stronger than any metal currently known to the various species of the Galaxy.
Large, dark shapes floated over it, breaking up the light—fescods , the Mind’s personal guards.
A little while later, our capsule finally touched the very bottom of the vast ocean of Tragul. A cloud of fine red sand rose, slowly spreading through the water in wisps.
With a light pat on my hand, Agan turned around to face me. I let go of his arm, reaching for my helmet behind him. My gaze crossed with his.
Standing up on my thighs, he suddenly yanked the mask away from his mouth. I sucked in a quick breath, worried he wanted to say something. I wished to hear his voice, more than anything at that moment. No one knew for sure, however, if the Mind could recognize a speech pattern in the sound waves. We had been instructed to keep silent.
Agan leaned closer, tugging down my mask too. Then his lips met mine in a brief, desperate kiss. It ended way too soon. He pulled away, his intense gaze lingering on my eyes for a few endless seconds.
A brief kiss and a long look—before diving into the danger from which there might be no return...
I couldn’t allow myself to think that way. A paralyzing fear would lead me to death more surely than the enormous mass of water above us or the dark shapes floating over the murderous light out there.
A sudden shudder rocked the capsule. Then a fine mesh of cracks spread along its surface, like an instant spider web.
This was not supposed to happen.
Alarm spiked in Agan’s eyes. Yanking his mask back in place, he tossed me my helmet with both hands then put his on.