While the rest of the crew was rounded up like animals by the strangers brandishing their electric weaponry, Apollo and I were the ones to be granted the honour of being held tight. Evidently whatever manner of creatures these suits concealed it wasn’t immune to the obvious.
Though the hands clasped around our wrists were firm, they had a strangely yielding quality, as though the thick canvas gloves were forcing an inhuman limb into a shape it was never meant to take and almost couldn’t bear to maintain. Apollo looked over at me, and where I expected to see the reassuring calm that I had previously associated with her I instead saw a fear that chilled me down to the marrow. Then for the first time I too felt that fear creep into my heart as I realised that we were not following the strangers marshalling the rest of the crew down towards the cell, but being pulled inexorably deeper into the greenish light of the passageways further from the great chamber that held the Beacon.
“What- What is all this about?” I said, summoning all my courage and managing to sound slightly more fearsome than an enraged otter. The blank glass visor was, of course, impassive. Except – was that a slight turn? I had succeeded in provoking at least a small response. They were not, after all, made of stone.
I decided to change tack. “Where are they taking us?” I asked Apollo.
“I’ll tell you when we get there,” she said. “I’m as lost as you at the scale of all this.”
“The scale? Not the kidnapping? The undersea creatures?”
Apollo looked sheepish, as much as it is possible to look sheepish while being aggressively frog-marched through a submersible. “I thought you’d figured that out. The reason I was on that boat in the first place was because I had heard something like this was going on.”
“Hence why you were so comfortable being taken prisoner by us,”
“Hence indeed. You were right in the hotspot, so it seemed as if only a matter of time before you were swallowed up as well.”
“How did you know that whatever it was, it wouldn’t just kill us?” I said, expecting no answer. None was forthcoming.
“I’m not in the habit of going to my own death,” she said eventually. “I wouldn’t have come if I wasn’t sure.”
“And now? Are they going to kill us?” I asked. “You were dead anyway!”
The outburst would have stopped me in my tracks, had I had the choice. As it was I dragged my feet a little as the strangers continued to pull us along, impassive.
“Nobody comes back from this place, whatever it is. I intend to change that. First, we need to escape.”
These words were met with a clap along the head from one of the waxy canvas gloves of the strangers. “So you do understand our language,” said Apollo. “Interesting.”

The new line of investigation was cut short by our arrival in a large open chamber, hemispherical in shape, lit by a single huge white light which hung from the apex of the hemisphere like a miniature sun. The white light stung after such a long period in the dinge and dank of the rivetted passageways, bringing tears to the corners of my eyes. Still I fought to take in as much as I could of the chamber, knowing that any information, any detail, could be the crucial point in my escape.
The hemisphere was made of the same blank panels of dull grey metal as every surface of the ship, but where the nooks and niches of the passageways had been coloured by the inevitable stains of oil, dirt and rust that an old machine like this accumulated like the battle-scars of a war against time, the metal here was as smooth and carefully-maintained as if it had been installed an hour previously. We were being led out onto a gantry-mezzanine that circled the upper half of the hemisphere. Through the grille of the floor I saw strangers going about their obscure business, carrying tools and strange devices into and out of narrow tunnels that their besuited bulk barely fit through, and I found myself wondering if the Whale was of their make. Surely they would have made it a more comfortable fit, had that been the case. From time to time one would look up at us – bending its whole body skywards to face that horrible visor at us like an unblinking cycloptic eye.
“I have a working theory of what they want to do with us,” said Apollo, nodding to the centre of the hemisphere, directly under the huge light. Open there, without so much as a guard rail, there was a circular hole, about ten feet in diameter. After a seperation of about a foot below the rim, I saw dark water in waves.
“A water tank? Do they mean to drown us?” I asked.
“It could be.” Apollo said, looking around with no small amount of urgency. “You can’t do this to us!” she said suddenly, struggling hard against the restraint of the stranger’s gloved hands. She managed to wrestle free for a moment, grabbing me and trying to pull me free as well. This violent burst of activity lasted moments before she was grabbed and dragged back, and we were continued on our path.
In the inner pocket of my overcoat, I felt an unfamiliar presence.
“Why?” Apollo asked. “Research? Religion?” she probed. “… Food?” The blank glass faces of the strangers remained as icy as ever.

The water was freezing cold when I smashed into it. I tasted salt and realised that this was more than just a tank. With my eyes closed tight I reached into the pocket of my overcoat and removed the object Apollo had planted there. I felt a mouthpiece, a mask. With every fibre of my being I had to fight the instinct to keep my mouth shut tight and forced the breather in there. I fumbled blindly, trying to find the vent to get the water out of my mouth. I depressed the little button and an explosion of bubbles came flooding out of the front of the mask. Now breathing normally, I steeled myself and opened my eyes.
My fears were instantly confirmed. As the water stung and burned my eyes I could see through the murk clear to the seabed. Glass domes set into the bottom of the metal expanse above lit the sandy floor with a golden glow. They had thrown us straight into the sea. I looked over at Apollo, struggling not to screw my eyes up, forcing myself to breathe naturally. She had her own breather in her mouth. I saw that her eyes were protected from the water by a pair of compact goggles. I gestured to my own eyes, and she shrugged with what seemed like a genuinely apologetic expression. I returned the gesture – “what now?”
For a long while she didn’t respond, looking around pensively. Then she pointed upwards, towards the glowing domes. The two of us swam upwards, back towards the metal expanse of the Whale’s hull, and Apollo tried to grab hold of the dome. Her fingers lost purchase instantly, sliding off the smooth surface as if it were oiled. I peered past the bright light at the centre of the dome and saw strangers huddled over it. They seemed to be watching us. There was something in the way they stood, the way they seemed to acknowledge one another. Were they laughing at us? I turned around, looked in all directions. If the breathers didn’t perturb them one bit, then drowning was not the fate we were consigned to.
I saw it first, a sprawling black limb extending from the seabed. I might have mistaken it, indeed I had mistaken it, for some undersea plant, were it not for the way it snaked towards us now. The whole sea floor was beginning to shake it seemed, to kick up great swathes of sand. I grabbed Apollo and pointed towards the hole we had been thrown into. She nodded, like me recognising a foe we had no hope of facing. We swam as fast as we could towards the bright opening, as strangers rushed about above. A huge steel bulkhead began to roll over the opening, as they had realised our move quickly.
Apollo broke the surface first, grabbing the edge of the bulkhead and pulling herself up. I wasn’t far behind, but as she extended her hand to me to help I saw a stranger bearing down on her, electric prod poised to strike.
“Look out!” I gasped, the breather falling from my mouth, lost in the water below, and Apollo turned and drove a powerful kick into the stranger’s belly, sending it staggering back. The door was nearly closed now, and I was only half in. I felt something brush against my leg, and the sudden burst of adrenaline-fuelled horror gave me just enough strength to extract myself in time. I lay there, clothes dripping, eyes streaming, while Apollo fought. I could just barely see enough to make out that she was winning as I floundered on the metal bulkhead, dragging myself like a mudskipper towards the grip of a discarded prod.
Scrambling to my feet, I swung the prod wildly at any blurry shape that came near me.
“Stay back! Stay back or I’ll fry you!” I spat at a lumbering shape. The sight was beginning to return to my eyes, and I watched as Apollo swept the leg out from under a stranger before shocking it with a prod in each hand simultaneously. She fought ferociously.
Before too long the strangers grew unwilling to move in. They stood warily around the gantry-mezzanine, watching us. Although I hadn’t been involved in much of the fighting, I endeavoured to hold my prod in as threatening a fashion as I could while still spluttering seawater.
“They respect power,” Apollo said, almost to herself. “They worship it.”

The crew of the Beacon was led back to the ship, along with the prisoners from Trireme, under Apollo’s command. Though she had done little to endear herself to them above the water, the sailors thanked her warmly for her actions below.
“We could always use the likes of you,” one said, shaking her hand. “It’s been a pleasure.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Apollo said. “I’ve swallowed more than enough seawater for one lifetime.” She wouldn’t be joining us on the Beacon. She had other business, she said, and would have to stay below with the strangers under her command at least for a while.
The Whale was surfacing now, and the ship making ready to go free from the enormous metal jaws. I looked at Apollo, standing on the dock and watching the strangers make their final touches to the repairs. She saw me on the deck and nodded. I nodded back, a small acknowledgement of our strange adventure together.
There was a tremendous, earth-shaking – or sea-shaking – groan as light began to stream in through the opening mouth of the Whale. Within the walls, the mechanisms turned, and soon it was open wide enough to accommodate even the tall masts.
“Dear God, what a work,” said Moran. “What a machine!”
“Pull in the gangplank!” called Viol, and it was done in a bustle of activity.
We began to move off, and the last I saw of Apollo Ridley, she was waving goodbye.