"Mr Purser, are you all right? Are you able to walk?" McCormack enquired of the senior officer.
"Yes, Captain," the purser said unsteadily.
"Then heed my words. Ladies and gentlemen," he said, his voice increasing in volume and natural authority, carrying along the packed corridor, "my fellow officers and I are going to have to determine what has happened, how badly the ship is damaged, and what can be done to resolve this situation. But do not worry, ladies and gentlemen, for let me assure you, even as I speak, rescue crews will have been scrambled and will be on their way to aid us. It will not be long before we are able to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.
"For the time being, I would be grateful if you could repair to the VIP dining room and wait there until I have been able to appraise myself more fully of the situation. Then I will be able to let you know more, once I know more myself, as well as what will need to happen next."
"This way, ladies and gentlemen," the purser announced, waving the now standing passengers towards the end of the corridor, "if you would care to follow me?"
Dumbstruck and bewildered, the anxious guests would readily obey that one calm voice of authority and so, looking like forlorn, lost children, they traipsed after the purser, Ulysses and Nimrod among them.
Captain McCormack's face alone betrayed the seriousness of their situation. Ulysses thought he looked paler and more drawn, his brow more lined, than he had done even immediately after the ship had begun to sink and then, subsequently, come under attack.
"What's going on?" Carcharodon demanded impatiently. "I demand you tell me what is going on!"
"Mr Carcharodon, if you will just -" McCormack began.
"What the hell has happened to my ship!"
"I will come to that in time -"
"And why are we being kept here?" Carcharodon went on, fuming. "We should be making for the Ahab!"
"Mr Carcharodon!" the Captain bellowed. Ulysses had never once heard the usually calm captain lose his temper before, but it certainly did the trick, silencing the irascible billionaire. "If you will just give me a minute," McCormack went on - his tone already becoming calmer and more controlled again, although his face was still flushed red from his angry outburst - "I was just about to inform yourself and our guests of the direness of our current situation."
Captain McCormack took in every one of the faces gathered around the table where, what seemed like a lifetime ago now, they had once enjoyed a sumptuous banquet. His slightly manic expression was a counterpoint to their watery-eyed anxiety. He was not a man to use such words as "the direness of our current situation" lightly.
Ulysses, finding his old instincts kicking in, icily calm and as much focused on finding a resolution to their desperate situation as McCormack, took in the faces of those gathered in the dining room as well. In many ways it was a very different party from that which had partaken of dinner at the captain's table.
There was no air of formal decorum now. Some sat at the empty table, others stood, yet more paced the room before the great viewing bubble, beyond which now lay nothing but darkness and the silty sea-bed, their anxiety finding an outlet in repetitive physical action. Some were dressed for dinner or dancing, and a few looked like they had been caught preparing for bed, nightclothes now covered by hastily donned dressing gowns. The other difference was that there were others in attendance who had not been invited to the formal supper, including Ulysses' own manservant Nimrod, and various members of McCormack's staff.
They were all there, all the great and the good who had dined together that night before the Neptune had ever descended to the undersea marvel that was Pacifica, and their associated hangers-on who had joined them as the sub-liner headed for the ocean depths. Those who had not been among the initial party to make their escape attempt, had been collected from their rooms at Miss Celeste's behest, Carcharodon's PA acting instinctively in her scrupulously organised way. Sixteen in all, as well as Captain McCormack, the purser and an, as yet, unnamed ensign, there were also present the ship's disconsolate owner Jonah Carcharodon, his obviously shaken PA Miss Celeste, Dexter Sylvester of Umbridge Industries, still in dinner dress, his usually immaculate hair now just as dishevelled as his clothes, his undone bow tie loose about his neck. Professor Maxwell Crichton was there too, nervously sipping from a hip flask, shooting furtive glances at those around the room as he did so.
In one corner sat the scared-looking engaged couple, Constance Pennyroyal dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief as John Schafer did his best to comfort her, an embracing arm around her shoulders. For once, Constance's aunt didn't seem at all interested in how close the two sweethearts were to one another. Instead her attention was fully focused on Ulysses' side of the room. In fact, he was convinced that Miss Birkin was spending as much time shooting him anxious glances as she was paying attention to what the captain was saying.
Lady Denning sat perched on another chair, her posture perfect as ever befitting one of her position and title in society - whether she had come to acquire it by birth or marriage irrelevant now - an almost disdainful look on her face. She certainly wasn't going to let something as minor as the Neptune sinking fluster her carefully composed demeanour. Major Horsley was pacing the room impatiently, face red as a turkey cock, muttering crossly to himself, while the travel writer Haugland stood leaning against an aspidistra plinth taking long draws on a cigarette, drumming his fingers on the marble pedestal in clear annoyance.
The ship's chief medic was there too. Looking as ashen-faced as ever, Ogilvy sat in a corner of the room, nervously crossing and uncrossing his legs, his face twitching in fraught excitement, his hands incessantly fiddling with the tassels of his dressing gown, unable to sit still.
And then there was Ulysses himself, with the spotlessly attired Nimrod in attendance, the injury he had received in the attack on the ship incongruous next to such immaculate formality.
The one person missing from the original dinner party group was, of course, the wretched Miss Glenda Finch.
Sixteen out of a crew and passenger manifest totalling close to three and a half thousand. If Captain McCormack's VIP guests were all here, where were the rest of the passengers and crew? How many, if any, were still alive, trapped elsewhere within the sunken vessel, and how many more were still to die before help came? Would any of those within the dining room make it out alive, to recount their version of events to a hungry press?
The captain appeared to have become tongue-tied, as if he didn't know where to start.
"Well, man? We're waiting!" Carcharodon riled, finding his voice again.
"Captain, I think it's only right you tell us everything. Don't try to hide anything from these people," Ulysses said, taking in the scared and uncertain-looking occupants of the dining room with an expansive sweep of an arm. "Things surely can't get any worse."
"Can't they?" Captain McCormack harrumphed, almost laughing at the direness of the situation.
"Please, Captain. Just start from the top."
"Very well. Here's how it is." McCormack paused and took a deep breath. "The Neptune has come to rest right on the edge of the Marianas Trench. All engines are either flooded, on fire, or have been crippled by whatever it was that attacked us. We've lost contact with the Bridge and there's no contact with Engineering either. There are hull breaches on several decks and it looks like Steerage is already entirely flooded. We are still taking on water at the front of the ship, which is what's hanging over the abyss, so it's only a matter of time before those decks still dry also flood and we tip over into the trench. If that happens we're all dead."
Gasps of shock sounded around the room.
Captain McCormack slumped forwards in his chair, his head in his hands.
"If you don't mind me asking, captain, how are you privy to such exact information, if you can't communicate with your officers on the Bridge?" Ulysses asked.
McCormack sat up again, the effort almost seeming too much for him. He looked exhaust
ed and took another deep breath before speaking again.
"Throughout the ship there are communication relays that allow us to connect to different parts of the vessel. Although there's no response from the Bridge, we have been able to communicate with the Neptune AI. It's the artificial intelligence that's been able to tell us what's happened elsewhere within the ship."
"Then, might we be able to ask it some other, more specific questions?"
"More specific than the damage report I've just relayed to you?" McCormack asked, sounding bewildered, as if just waking from some nightmarish dream.
"Captain," Ulysses said, taking pains to keep his voice calm and on a level, "it's obvious that if the ship's filling with water we can't stay here. We're either going to drown in this sumptuous dining room or tip into the Marianas Trench and be crushed like a tin of sardines."
"What about the rescue teams you said would be on their way by now?" Miss Birkin challenged.
"They won't reach us in time," McCormack announced with a sorrowful sigh.
"But there must be a way off this ship!" Ulysses pressed.
"Must there?" the captain looked at him with those oh-so-tired eyes of his. "According to the AI the lifeboats have either already been used, were damaged during the attack so that their release mechanisms won't fire, or are inaccessible."
"Inaccessible? What do you mean, man?" Major Horsley blustered.
"I mean, Major, that unless you're prepared to swim the length of the ship underwater to get to them, they're inaccessible!"
"Look, there must be a way we can get these people out of here," Ulysses said, trying again to sound encouraging and optimistic as he addressed the resigned McCormack. "Let me help you. Together we'll find a way."
"For God's sake, McCormack, if he says he can help, let him!" Carcharodon commanded. There was no doubt who thought of themselves as really being in charge.
"Very well," the captain finally agreed, slowly rising to his feet. "Follow me."
Ulysses followed the disconsolate captain out of the dining room and along the corridor to where it widened out before various sets of lift doors. On the wall next to them was a plaque bearing a cutaway plan of the ship: Ulysses had seen their like at various points around the vessel. What he hadn't noticed before, however, was the comm-link panel, which was not surprising, seeing as how it was hidden behind the image of the ship's trident logo in the bottom right-hand corner of the plaque. Captain McCormack accessed this now and keyed an enamelled button beneath.
"Neptune, this is Captain McCormack. Do you read me, over?"
There was a moment's silence and then, announced by a buzz of static, there came the softly-spoken voice of the ship's state-of-the-art artificial intelligence. "I read you, Captain McCormack. Good evening again, captain. How can I be of assistance to you now?"
"We need your help, Neptune."
"I will be only too happy to oblige, captain," the analytical engine stated with what sounded like utter sincerity. "How may I be of service?"
"I'm going to hand you over to Mr Quicksilver."
"Ah, Mr Ulysses Quicksilver, guest suite 14B. Good evening, how may I help you?"
Ulysses leant towards the comm panel, suddenly feeling ridiculously self-conscious.
"Er, Neptune. Um, hello."
"Hello, Mr Quicksilver," the comm crackled.
"We need your help to find us a way off this ship."
"But why?"
"Because otherwise we're going to drown."
"My passenger and crew life-support and welfare sub-routines have already calculated that at least ninety-nine per cent of all passengers and crew are already dead."
"Yes, but there are at least sixteen of us that are still alive, and who would like to keep it that way!" Ulysses riled. "Now, as I understand it, there are no operable lifeboats accessible from this location."
"That is correct, sir."
"But there must be another way off the ship?"
"Oh yes, sir."
"Really?" Ulysses said, surprised despite himself. "Captain, did you ask if there was another way off the ship?" he asked, turning to the equally surprised McCormack.
"Well, I asked as to the number and viability of the lifeboats, yes."
"So 'no' then. Neptune, do tell us more."
"Mr Carcharodon's private submersible vehicle the Ahab and its sister craft the Nemo, sir."
"I see. And where would they be located?"
"Within the sub-dock, sir, on Deck 15."
"You might as well wait here to drown," McCormack said, directing his comment at Ulysses, "if you're planning on taking one of those things out of here."
Ulysses turned on him. "Why? Why shouldn't we?"
"Those things are private runabouts, they're not designed for these depths. Like as not they won't survive for long out there, down here. They won't take the hydrostatic pressure."
"Really?" Ulysses was unable to hide his disappointment.
"Not a hope."
"But they don't have to last for long," Ulysses said, the old child-like excitement returning, "at these pressures I mean. We load up the subs, take them out and head up. Straight up, back to the surface."
"And what about whatever it was that attacked us?" McCormack pointed out. "Chances are it's still out there. Look what it's done to the Neptune. A couple of small-scale submersibles won't have a hope."
"Glass is always half-empty with you, isn't it?"
"I'm just being realistic."
"Yes, you are, damn you. We really are caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea, aren't we?"
"That's what I've been trying to tell you."
"Take the subs to the surface and we may well meet whatever it is that's out there waiting for us. Stay here, the ship fills with water and all we've got to look forward to is a burial at sea in Davy Jones' Locker."
Ulysses thought for a moment.
"If there was just somewhere we could hole up until the rescue teams could get to us, anywhere but here," he mused.
"I have located such an environment," the Neptune AI announced calmly.
"What?" Ulysses and McCormack both exclaimed together.
"My sensor arrays have located an undersea facility two hundred yards away at the edge of the oceanic trench. No life signs, although life-support systems are still operable."
"I don't bloody believe it!" Captain McCormack swore.
"I told you there was a way!" Ulysses declared proudly. "Neptune, is the sub-dock accessible from this location, without having to pass through any flooded sections of the ship, I mean."
The AI was quiet for a few seconds as its cogitator relays processed the information it was still receiving from its many and varied sensor detection devices positioned around the ship. "Yes. It is possible to reach the sub-dock without passing through any flooded sections of the superstructure."
"Then that's how we'll do it!" Ulysses declared, flashing the astonished captain a manic grin. "We're getting off this ship!"
CHAPTER TEN
Full Fathom Five
"Ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests," called the purser over the anxious hubbub that had taken hold of the dining room, "pray silence for the captain."
One by one, the assembled anxious VIPs turned to see Captain McCormack standing at the door to the dining room, with Ulysses Quicksilver at his shoulder. An expectant hush descended over the gathering, every one of those present desperate to hear how the captain was going to get them out of this waking nightmare.
McCormack opened his mouth, as if he was about to speak, when Jonah Carcharodon leapt in with an angry: "Well, man? Spit it out! How are you going to get us out of this mess?"
The captain cast his eyes down at the trident-patterned carpet at his feet and took a deep breath. Standing at his shoulder, Ulysses willed him to speak, although held off from saying anything for the moment.
"Ladies and gentlemen," McCormack began, "Mr Quicksilver and I have re-assessed the situation and we believe that we have f
ound a way off this ship."
Gasps of surprise came from around the dining table. "About bloody time," Major Horsley muttered, none too subtly.
"In consultation with the Neptune AI we have devised a way through to the sub-dock on Deck 15 at the bottom of the ship. For the time being it would seem that the sub-dock is still secure and no wetter than it should be. As a result, it is expected that at least one, if not both, the submersible vehicles secured there will still be operable."
"What and then take them out into the open ocean where God's knows what is waiting for us?" the twitching Dr Ogilvy suddenly exclaimed.
"It's suicide," Professor Crichton said darkly.
"Quite possibly, professor," McCormack agreed, "which is why we're not going to the surface."
"What?" Now it was John Schafer's turn to question the captain's plan.
"The Neptune's sensor arrays have detected an undersea base nearby. We're going there."
"How wonderful!" Constance Pennyroyal suddenly exclaimed, blinking tears from her almond eyes. "Salvation!"
"Well, we hope so, Miss Pennyroyal."
"What do mean, captain?"
"Well, it has an intact, breathable environment and we should be able to wait it out there until the Great White Shipping Line's rescue crews can get to us."
"What is this place you're planning on taking us to, Captain McCormack?" Thor Haugland asked, exhaling cigarette smoke from his nose.
"As I say, it's an undersea base, partially intact. Beyond that I can't tell you any more at this stage."
"What?" Dexter Sylvester said, running a hand through his oily black hair. "You mean, you're not taking us to any recognised facility?"
McCormack paused before answering. "It's not one that appears within any of the Neptune's data files."
"So we're leaving the ship in some old tub to go to a semi-intact underwater facility that you've never even heard of and, I take it, that probably isn't even manned at this time?"
"You could put it that way."
Sylvester looked appalled in the face of the captain's frank honesty but was patently flummoxed as to how to respond.
Leviathan Rising Page 10