by Greig Beck
Stop it, he demanded of himself. Mironov engaged the tiny propulsion jets and turned around to look back at his beloved craft. He sighed; she was beautiful. He could only watch as there came the popping sound of the rivets blasting apart followed by sprays of gas bubbles from all around the flattened front of the submersible as the head separated from the body.
All beauty was transient. Who said that? he wondered.
“Valery, can you hear us?” Cate asked.
“Loud and clear.” He could see them bunched in the sloping windows. They waved, and he waved back. “Looking good on disengagement. I’ll meet you over at the Alvin.”
He pirouetted in the water, and glided toward where the Alvin lay on the seabed like a giant discarded toy. A few long-bodied shrimp and things that looked like spindly centipedes were investigating its hull. They flicked madly away as he approached.
Mironov turned again and waved the Nautilus over. He backed up a few dozen feet as the Nautilus’ escape pod maneuvered clear of its body. It was like watching some massive underwater creature shedding its head. Shedding its head and brain, he thought.
The pod retained the flattened slope at the front, but was now squared off at the rear. Like the suit, it only had small propulsion jets and a top speed of only a few knots. Mironov never actually thought he’d need it.
He turned and waited and then half smiled as he saw the crew inside: Jack Monroe and Michael Brenner at the controls, Cate had now taken over his seat, and Thomas Andrews was seated behind in hers. All of them watched him, and Andrews lifted a single hand to wave.
He slowly spun in the water to face the Alvin. Inside he saw the two occupants, busy at their controls. Hopefully working on popping their pod as well. Though it would mean they’d be cramped in an unmaneuverable bubble, at least it presented a much smaller signature to their surroundings and any interested predators. The other reason to leave the Alvin superstructure behind was that it was not as technologically advanced as the Nautilus pod, and couldn’t shut down its systems and run silently. It was the tiny pod, or nothing.
There was a deep clunk from the Alvin and the front bubble eased itself free. It hovered momentarily before it began to ascend. Mironov had to move quickly and immediately jetted toward them.
He grabbed it by the rim that ran around its outer edge, and stared in through the glass. The young woman was pale, sweat-soaked, but still managed a weak smile and a wave. Beside her, with hair as red as his face, was Andy. He raised a hand to give Valery an A-OK sign – so far, it seemed they were still in good spirits.
Mironov held up one metal muscled arm, and then began to drag them back toward the Nautilus pod. As he stared in through the glass, he saw that Andy suddenly looked past him. Mironov felt cold hands on his neck and he longed to turn about, but that would mean releasing the Alvin and rotating the entire suit, as his facemask was only clear at the front, with titanium plating at the rear.
Ignore it, there’s nothing there, he thought. It’s just my nerves. Besides, if there is a monstrous Megalodon shark looming up behind me, it’ll be all over in seconds.
But Andy was still staring at something. The red head pointed. Unless it isn’t a shark, a small voice whispered in the corner of Mironov’s mind.
Damn it, he released the Alvin, cursing under his breath and spun around – nothing – no tentacle monstrosity, no giant crabs, no isopods; nothing but sea fans, tubeworms, and endless dark water.
Then the first strands alighted on him. Mironov looked down at the gossamer threads on his arm, and then followed them upwards. Hanging above him, like some sort of obscene weather balloon, was an enormous jellyfish fifty feet across. Underneath its fringed bell, tiny lights were flashing in among the skirt’s fringe.
Mironov noticed that flashes of light erupted most where the threads were sticking to him. He also noticed other threads that were trailing close to the red silt sea bottom had managed to alight on some of the strange crustaceans, which immediately curled into balls or shuddered from shock or pain. Mironov guessed that the jellyfish was shooting its deadly nematocytes into their bodies. He knew that the harpoon-like cells could carry immensely powerful toxins, and obviously it was trying to do the same to him.
The massive bell tried to lift off and drag him away, and Mironov used the muscular strength of the suit to rip and tear the creature’s threads away. The bell lifted off with its weird crustacean prizes, but left behind flashing specks on his suit – he’d need to be careful on the surface, as they’d probably shock or stun him if he touched them.
He eased back around, grabbed the Alvin again, and guided it backwards.
The Nautilus pod then used minor bursts from its front jets to ease in and stop just a dozen feet from the Alvin’s nose. Mironov prepared the cable for attachment. Though the smaller pod had a steel loop welded to its nose for a cable attachment, the Nautilus had been designed to be sleek and turbulence-free – so there were no external protrusions at all. The only thing he had to work with was one of the broken remote arms – it’d have to do.
Mironov eased in closer and used the assisted strength of the ADS suit to drag the two submersibles together. He then attached one eye-hook to the front of the Alvin, and the next he managed to wedge in and around the half extended arm of his craft.
Good as it gets, he thought. The Alvin and the Nautilus pods were now facing each other and attached. He raised one metal hand to each of them.
Cate clapped soundlessly, and Jack grinned and nodded. But both Andrews and Brenner looked concerned, as each would have known he was stuck outside. Turning to the Alvin, Mironov saw through the glass bubble that both crewmembers looked relieved, and maybe just hopeful, if not tired and wet with perspiration – more from nerves rather than the heat, he assumed.
Behind him he heard the superstructure of the Nautilus power up, and he turned in the water to watch it begin its final voyage. His beautiful, but now headless, craft moved away slowly at first, but then accelerated. It would travel along the length of the trench, which was 1700 miles from one end to the other. It would only stop when it hit something, or it exited the artificial pressure bubble down here and then was crushed by the real pressure, or it was attacked. It didn’t matter to Mironov which one occurred, as long as it happened far away from them, with the shark following or involved.
“Goodbye, my beauty; we barely knew each other.” He held up a hand as the Nautilus vanished into the red gloom.
He stared after it for several seconds, before jetting to the side of the pods and clambering up on top of the Alvin. He curled his metallic gloved hand around one of the struts, and locked it down.
Mironov pointed a finger upwards. “Let’s go.”
“You were never coming back in here, were you?” Cate’s voice was drained of emotion. Her face matched what she was feeling.
Mironov gave her a crooked smile, as Jack rose behind her to place a hand on her shoulder.
“I’ll be right here all the way.” He pointed upwards again. “And now, we must hurry.”
The Nautilus pod switched off its propulsion, which it was using to keep itself and the Alvin pod in place, and gradually they let buoyancy take over. The tethered pair began their slow rise to the surface over 21,000 feet above their heads.
“Remember,” Mironov whispered. “Movement and noise at a minimum, when communicating, whispering will suffice. Mr. Brenner you are permitted to count us down … and, ah, also let me know if anything interesting begins to show on sonar.”
“Yes, sir,” the young man said. “So far, I can see the Nautilus heading away at thirty-five knots, and nothing else on the screen. We’re launching from 21,880 feet and counting down.” There was a grin in his voice. “Already risen ten feet.”
Not good, Mironov thought. The rise would be slow, hopefully not too slow. The red glow still engulfed them and weird fish glided closer to inspect the strange creature looking like two bubbles tied together with a shining silver and red protuberance sitt
ing astride it.
Something snake-like and nearly twenty feet long, with a mouth crowded with needle teeth, materialized out of the dark and came to within a dozen feet of Mironov. It stared at him with fist-sized milky discs. Its body was nearly transparent, and he marveled at its ferocious appearance. The jaws gaped open, and it began to glide closer.
“Don’t even think about it, you’ll lose those nice teeth, my friend.”
He shooed it away, and with a single flick of its eel-like tail it was gone. After a few more moments, most of the other spectators decided there was nothing edible and gave up, with the remaining oddities perhaps transfixed by the internal lights still winking red, green or white inside the submersible pods.
Lights, Mironov thought.
“I suggest that once again any unnecessary lighting be switched off, now.”
Immediately both cockpits of the submersibles went dark. There were just pinpricks of green emanating now from both, which would have been necessary equipment that was being utilized. From within the Nautilus pod, he could just make out shadows, except for Brenner’s green face, with the sonar screen still in use. And then most of the minor lighting also winked out, as he saw shadowy figures throwing objects or clothing over other console surfaces.
Inside Mironov’s helmet, there were a few tiny lights, but it was impossible for him to do anything about them, and his helmet lights were already off. The light emanating from his suit and the pods would have been less or as much as a few deep-sea creatures that used bioluminescence – hardly interesting for a giant predator of the deep. He was satisfied.
“Hold the phone, people,” Brenner said urgently. “I’ve just picked up another signature following the Nautilus; big, fast, got to be our shark.”
“Thank god,” he heard Jack say. “Let’s hope the Nautilus gives it a good run for its money.”
“Fly fast, but not too fast,” he heard Cate add.
Brenner continued to update them on the pursuit, but so far everything was going to plan. The Nautilus sped away, and the huge sonar shadow was right after it. Time passed as he stared out into the darkness, and it was only when he roused himself from an almost trance-like state that he noticed that the water surrounding them was now inky black. He looked over the side – a long way down, there was just a slight blush of color.
“Depth, Mr. Brenner?” he asked.
“Now at 19,000 feet, sir,” Brenner said.
Looking down at the soft red glow behind them, it was easy for him to imagine that they were lifting off from some fiery planet’s surface. When he studied it, he saw the long red gash that was the rip in the ocean floor – the doorway to Hades that led to raw magma, and this world’s heat and light source.
He bet that around him the water was cooling rapidly. He hadn’t felt it yet as he assumed the suit was compensating, but he prayed that the heat would be generated upward, and also the pressure turbulence. He assumed it rose as a column otherwise his suit would be packed down to the size of a tuna can in seconds.
The heat rose, and thankfully it took the pods with it. He stared out into what felt like a night sky, with no moon, but lots of tiny stars twinkling in the distance. It was silent, restful, and in a few more moments he began to lose himself again in its peacefulness.
Mironov shook his head. The warmth and security of the suit was deceptive, and he needed to stay alert. He turned to look into the pods and saw the pale, strained faces of his crew, and also those of Sam and Andy in the Alvin.
“Eighteen thousand feet,” Brenner intoned.
There was no way for him to gauge exactly how fast they were rising, and if it wasn’t for Brenner counting down, he might never have known they were rising at all. There was nothing to test it against or compare it with.
From out of the darkness, a colossal squid with a body thirty feet long and trailing tentacles perhaps a further thirty feet kept pace with him. Its silver disc of an eye swiveled and watched, calculating, deciding if they were worth the trouble or not. One long attack tentacle with a tear-shaped club snaked out, and gently laid itself on the hull of the Nautilus beside him. Mironov marveled at how it probably had the strength of several men, but its touch would have been feather light.
He also knew that it had sensory organs in that tentacle tip, so was actually tasting the metal. It paused to stare, but this time at Mironov.
Man and beast locked eyes, and after a few seconds, Mironov raised an arm. He wished they could communicate, and perhaps the creature was trying, but their worlds, and their minds, were too far separated by evolution. In another few seconds it pulled back, and then jetted away like a phantom.
Out in the darkness lights blinked on and off, and he felt he was like a tiny comet in the center of a universe. He barely heard Brenner counting down from 17,000 to 16,000 to 15,000 feet, and then onto ten.
“Valery?” Cate whispered. “Okay out there?”
Mironov smiled. “Yes, my dear. All is good here.” He was thankful for her rousing him. The biggest threat was boredom – and if that was all he had to contend with, he was thankful.
He first became aware of the change when he felt the bone-numbing cold enter right through the skin of the suit, and he felt the warmth of the suit’s internal heaters come on.
“Brenner, have we entered a current?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, a strong one, twenty knots. It’s going to push us sideways. If it continues all the way to the top, we’ll end up miles from where we started.” Brenner sounded frustrated.
“Yes, we will.” It was worse than that. Mironov turned to the darkness. The current was pushing them in the direction that the Nautilus had sailed off in.
“We can’t do anything about the current. But I can feel the cold now, so it means we’re leaving behind the thermal column from the deep vent.”
“Then that’ll mean—” Cate began.
The skin of his ADS suit popped and groaned around him.
“—we’re out of the low pressure zone,” she finished.
“Yes, yes, I feel it now.” He could feel and hear it – he lifted his hand – and then he could see it. The suit’s titanium fingers actually looked slightly wrinkled, and there was a sound like steel in a vice. He had tested the suits to a depth of 5000 feet, but he was just under near double that. He closed his eyes. We’re close now. He began to pray. It was all he had left.
“Signatures merging.”
Mironov jerked upright at the sound of Brenner’s breathless voice.
“Second signature closing rapidly.” Brenner’s voice was high and excited. “It’s hard to tell, but looks like they’re only a few hundred feet apart now.”
“How far away are they … from us, I mean?” Mironov said softly.
“Ten point four miles,” Brenner said.
Damn, he thought. They should be further away. The damn current had them chasing the Nautilus.
Please, give us some more, just a little more, Mironov pleaded into his mind. “Tell me when they merge,” he said.
“Pursuit signature accelerating – closing, closing … merged,” Brenner said.
“Silence, please.” Mironov faced the direction he knew the Nautilus had traveled. He waited. Seconds. More seconds. But nothing came.
There was no explosion, sound of distant thunder, or even soft pop. He exhaled.
“Nothing,” he said.
“I didn’t hear an explosion,” Cate said morosely.
“We should have heard something,” Jack said. “Delving back to my physics days, I know that sound travels much faster through a solid than a gas. In fact, about four times faster and farther in water than it does in air. All those torpedo explosives, if they detonated, we should have heard something.”
“Maybe not,” Cate said hopefully. “Remember the current. Maybe it dragged the noise away from us.”
“That’s true.” Mironov clutched at the suggestion. He licked lips that had suddenly gone dry. “How much longer to surface, Mr. Brenner?”<
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“Seven thousand feet – rate of rise is slowing, as we are still in the current and moving horizontally as fast as we’re moving vertically.”
Mironov nodded. “We can make it.” He exhaled. “Keep a close watch for me now, Mr. Brenner. For … you know.”
“Yes, sir, I know. Will do. Sonar is currently empty in all quadrants.”
“Good, good.” Mironov reached up to touch the warhead strapped to his chest.
* * *
Michael Brenner grimaced and squeezed down hard on his wrist. He knew his hand was swelling, he could both feel it and see it pressing against the bandage. Worse, he worried about whether there had been some sort of venom in the quill that had stuck him, as his head throbbed mercilessly, and from time to time his vision swam.
He grimaced again as another wave of pain washed over him. He checked the sonar again, blinking to clear his vision. He must do his job; Mr. Mironov needed him, counted on him.
He looked up and recoiled from the window. “The shark!”
Jack and Cate swung to him, eyes wide, but he just chuckled and looked away shaking his head.
“What the hell?” Jack fumed.
There was nothing there.
“The heebie-jeebies.” He grinned, and put his swollen hand underneath the console to keep it from sight. They all had other priorities, more important than his dumb hand. He blinked again, feeling nervous all the time now. Please don’t let it affect my mind, he prayed. Not now of all times.
CHAPTER 39
The Anastasia, all stop – Peter Cain’s Private Cabin
Peter Cain chuckled softly as he watched music videos on his phone. It had taken the Anastasia’s engineers six hours to shut off the seawater intake by rigging a makeshift new valve in another section of the flow pipe. Then they burned further hours manually pumping out the ship, and drying down the engines. He felt warm all over, knowing he had done everything Olander had hoped he would do.