Nor was there visible change offshore, either. No bubbling and heaving, no seething disturbance of the halcyon surface. But below …
Instead of being recycled by the station’s own cooling plant, the heated seawater of the Port Hardy Fusion Station was being returned directly to the ocean. Water that mollified terrible energies was forced out half a hundred nozzles in Davy Jones’ locker. Disruption and a great upweiling commenced on the abyssal plain below. Water and nutrients rose as the sun set.
Bacteria and phytoplankton floated delirious in the sudden confluence of sunlight and nutritive material from the depths. Multiplication and growth took place exponentially, until the sea resembled a thick soup.
Sun retired and moon clocked in for a night’s work. Up with the moon came the zooplankton: minute Crustacea, tiny crabs and shrimps with unpronounceable names, miniature fish larvae—all intent on a morphean orgy of feeding.
And orgy it was, for tonight food abounded in unnatural concentration. Brilliantine specks of life shot hysterically through the murky waters, reproducing and growing with nonhuman desperation. A million billion translucent monsters swam, all wriggling antenna and claws and phosphorescent eyes.
To the north, a few quarter-meter-long shining fish impinged on this cauldron of infinitesimal life, darted into it, and gorged themselves. Others nearby noticed the change in feeding pattern, turned, and followed.
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WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . ..
Still others further north, leaders of schools small and great, came also.