Helen Scales - The Brilliant Abyss

Also available in the Bloomsbury Sigma series:

Sex on Earth by Jules Howard

Spirals in Time by Helen Scales

A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup

Breaking the Chains of Gravity by Amy Shira Teitel

Suspicious Minds by Rob Brotherton

Herding Hemingways Cats by Kat Arney

Death on Earth by Jules Howard

The Tyrannosaur Chronicles by David Hone

Soccermatics by David Sumpter

Big Data by Timandra Harkness

Goldilocks and the Water Bears by Louisa Preston

Science and the City by Laurie Winkless

Bring Back the King by Helen Pilcher

Built on Bones by Brenna Hassett

The Planet Factory by Elizabeth Tasker

Reinventing the Wheel by Bronwen and Francis Percival

Making the Monster by Kathryn Harkup

Best Before by Nicola Temple

Catching Stardust by Natalie Starkey

Seeds of Science by Mark Lynas

Eye of the Shoal by Helen Scales

Nodding Off by Alice Gregory

The Science of Sin by Jack Lewis

The Edge of Memory by Patrick Nunn

Turned On by Kate Devlin

Borrowed Time by Sue Armstrong

The Vinyl Frontier by Jonathan Scott

Clearing the Air by Tim Smedley

Superheavy by Kit Chapman

Genuine Fakes by Lydia Pyne

Grilled by Leah Garc.s

The Contact Paradox by Keith Cooper

Life Changing by Helen Pilcher

Sway by Pragya Agarwal

Bad News by Rob Brotherton

Mirror Thinking by Fiona Murden

Our Only Home by The Dalai Lama

First Light by Emma Chapman

Ouch! by Margee Kerr and Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

Models of the Mind by Grace Lindsay

For Josh, Sam and David

Contents

Deep-sea biologists form an inspiring and close-knit community of scientists, who are also explorers and the principal advocates for this distant, vital realm. Among them my particular thanks go to Craig McClain, Clif Nunnally, Shana Goffredi, Greg Rouse, Bob Vrijenhoek, Anela Choy, Alice Alldredge, Karen Osborn, Steven Haddock, Julia Sigwart, Andrew Thurber, Nicolai Roterman, Mackenzie Gerringer, Marcel Jaspars, Kerry Howell, Mat Upton, Louise Allcock, Maria Baker, Malcolm Clark, Kevin Zelnio, Andrew Thaler, Daniel Jones, Erik Simon-Lled, Frdric Le Manach, Alan Jamieson, Thomas Linley, Nils Piechaud, Adrian Glover, Diva Amon, Maggie Georgieva and Michelle Taylor. Thank you also to the captain and crew of the research vessel Pelican and the staff of LUMCON, who looked after me so well during my visit to Cocodrie as part of LUMCONs short-term visitor programme, especially Virginia Schutte, Amanda Rodriguez and Tiffany LeBoeuf. My greetings and gratitude for being such good company afloat in the Gulf of Mexico to Emily Young, River Dixon, John Whiteman, Granger Hanks, Mac Winter, Catalina Rubiano and Sarah Foster. For discussions about the future of the deep sea, my thanks to Anna Heath and Jim Pettiward at Synchronicity Earth and Matthew Gianni of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.

My career as an author was first sparked and nurtured by my agent of many years, Emma Sweeney, and this book, too, began with her boundless support, enthusiasm and creativity, and I was very sad to see her retire while I was writing The Brilliant Abyss . However, Im thrilled her place is now taken by Margaret Sutherland Brown, who has so fabulously cheered this book past the finishing line. My tremendous thanks to George Gibson at Grove Atlantic, who took the chance to leap into the deep with me and bring this book to life, and also Anna MacDiarmid, Angelique Neumann and Jim Martin at Bloomsbury. And my continued thanks and gratitude to Aaron John Gregory, who has created yet more fabulous artwork to accompany my words.

Much of this book was written by the sea in a little stone house called Meriel, and maybe one day Ill write about her. To my family and friends, thank you, always. You have seen me through writing enough books that I now have to use my fingers to count and remind myself how many there are. This time around, my heartfelt thanks and appreciation go especially to Ayna Bogdanova and Dorian Gangloff, for all your companionship and support, for the shared waves and snacks delivered to my doorstep when I needed them most. Thanks to Liam Drew for helping me see when my words can be better. Kate, you are my oceanographic ninja and so much more. And my love to Ivan, and thanks for sharing a life thats wrapped up in books.

Standing on the mid-deck of the research vessel Pelican , I stayed well out of the way while I watched proceedings unfold below. The 35-metre ship had left port a day and a half before and wound its way in the dark night through the salt marshes of southern Louisiana and out into the warm, rolling waves of the Gulf of Mexico. Immediately, my world had shrunk. I was one of ten marine scientists on board to run a series of studies in the deep sea, alongside eleven crew who ensured the smooth running of the ship. We all gathered in the galley at mealtimes and sporadically to watch TV. There was also a small research lab, plus several staterooms, a grandiose term for the cramped, four-person cabins, where I had a coffin-like bunk, which I learned to roll into and out of. There was also a shared bathroom, or head, as mariners are supposed to call it, with a sturdy horizontal bar to grab onto and hold yourself steady in a heaving swell. Waking up on the first morning, all that was visible outside, stretching to a horizon that encircled the ship, was the Gulf and its waves. Soon enough, though, the view would begin to reach much further.

The vital machine was hanging from a crane above the back deck, waiting to be sent into the deep. Roughly the size of a small car, the deep-diving submersible was built around a tubular metal frame with bright yellow floats and an impressive payload of electronic gadgets and sensors strapped all over it. At the front end, two close-set glassy eyes gave the submersible the endearing face of an anxious robot. Those were the stereo camera lenses that would become our eyes in the deep. It had a pair of arms too. One was fancy, with seven-way jointed movements that would mirror the gestures of a skilled human pilot controlling it from the ship. The second was operated by push buttons, giving it the simple instructions to rotate, grab and let go. A long, ridged plastic tube, like a vacuum cleaner pipe, known as the slurp gun, could be used to gently suck up things from the deep and bring them back to the surface. A series of small propellers would manoeuvre the submersible up and down, left and right. And a cable as thick as my wrist connected it to a quarter-tonne stack of electronics, the clump weight, which in turn was connected via a very long cable to the ship, supplying power and instructions to the sub and relaying video footage in real time of everything it was seeing. There was no room inside for a human. All personnel would be staying on the ship.

Four people wearing yellow hard hats were hanging on ropes looped around each corner of the submersible, and like animal tamers, they wrestled it under control as it swung across the deck and over the side of the ship, where it dangled expectantly in midair. If it had been a living animal, it would have known what was coming and strained at its leash, eager to return to the place where it feels most agile and free. Then the crane dipped its head and lowered the sub down until it floated on the sea surface and, in a satisfying sigh of bubbles, wallowed a short distance away from the ship. Looking down from my vantage point, I watched as the enormous winch clicked into gear and began to unspool the cable, lowering millions of dollars of sophisticated hardware into the deep.