The Abyss - Large Print Author:Orson Scott Card They call themselves the "Builders of Memories"... — They got here before high-grade telescopes and radar, but even they don't know how long ago that was, or how long the voyage took. When you live four miles under the sea, why keep track of the seasons? And when you can't die, there's no reason to count how long you've ... more »lived.
They really only became aware of us when the poisons of industrialization, spewed into the oceans, started making them sick. Driven by necessity, the peace-able creatures studied us and concluded we were a monstrous, dangerous species. They were content to let us kill ourselves off; until the Nuclear Age, that strategy worked. But a nuclear, holocaust would destroy even the aliens' way of life, and they could not allow that to happen.
When a U.S. Trident submarine suddenly spins out of control into the depths of the Cayman Trench, the Navy dispatches a SEAL team and the crew of Deepcore -- an underwater oil-drilling station -- to salvage the sensitive nuclear codes on board.
A mission that will profoundly change each of them. For it is there, within the heart of the Builders of Memories' own world, that the aliens attempt contract with the surface dwellers...in a last, desperate attempt to understand "those-who-kill-each-other-on-purpose."« less