The Abyss

by Orson Scott Card

  Except he had dropped something. He looked back. Beany's plastic bag was floating on the water, caught in the current from the moonpool, bobbing directly in front of Cab Three as it slid toward the hatch. Hippy scrambled through the hatch back into the sub bay, caught up Beany's bag, then dove back through and out of the way a split second before Cab Three slammed against the hatch.

  Wilhite barely noticed Hippy getting out. He was scrabbling at the rim of the pool, trying to get out. The water was so cold, his fingers were so numb, that he couldn't get a firm purchase on the deck, couldn't climb up.

  Then Deepcore lurched again. Cab Three rolled over, straight toward Wilhite. He put his hands up, as if he could save himself by holding the twelve-ton submersible out of the water. It fell into the pool, shoving him down, plunging him deep into the water. He was under the rig. He tried to hang on, to climb back up into the pool, but he couldn't. His fingers were too cold to hold onto anything. The water held him as the rig swept on. He stayed behind. But he never realized he'd been left. Hypothermia had him unconscious before Deepcore had finished passing over him. Before he even had time to drown.

  Deepcore hurtled down the slope to the lip where the crane had hesitated, then rolled over, off the cliff. This time, though, the structure was up to the strain. Deepcore was so massive and its center of gravity was so low that when it reached the lip, it held. Teetered there, yes but it held.

  Somewhere down below, the crane was arrested in its downward plunge. Pieces of it fell away, but much of it still hung on the end of the umbilical. When Deepcore refused to give way, to follow it down, the crane's momentum was transferred from vertical to horizontal. It swung like a pendulum.

  Far above, Deepcore groaned with the strain of the swinging umbilical. Again, though, it held. Deepcore wasn't going to fall over into the abyss. It was in a shitload of trouble, but the rig wasn't going to die yet. Not completely.

  In the living quarters, Perry had sealed the hatch to his module. So far so good - but he knew he wouldn't be safe there. Too much seawater was spraying in from above him. He had to get the roof hatch open, climb up to level three. Lindsey Brigman may be a bitch to work with, but she designed a good rig - there was always a way out.

  The overhead hatch was too high to reach. He'd have to stand on a bunk. Only at the moment he started to climb, Deepcore reached the edge of the cliff and jerked to a stop. The strain opened a vertical seam in the wall. Water gouted into the module, tipping over the bunk, knocking Perry down. The water was so cold it nearly stopped his breath, but he struggled to his feet, clambered up onto the bunk frame.

  Now he could reach the hatch. He tried to turn it, but it wouldn't go. All these hatches had checked out at turnover, when they came on duty. It must have been the twisting of the frame when Deepcore stopped that jammed it. If he could just twist hard enough.

  But he couldn't get the leverage. The water kept rising, higher, higher. The hatch wouldn't budge. And finally, with the water pressing him against the roof, he stopped trying to turn it. He was hanging on, that's all, as the cold slowed down his blood, made his fingers so thick and clumsy that he couldn't hold on anymore.

  He hovered in the water as the compartment filled to the top, his arms and legs drifting lazily with the last remnants of turbulence, like gentle breezes in the water.

  Lindsey fought her way down to the compressor room, spraying seawater, making some headway against the fire.

  Through the smoke she saw the door that had blown off the battery room. There was somebody under it.

  Catfish came down the ladder. Lindsey handed him the hose. "Hold it on me!" she told him.

  With the stream of water keeping the worst of the flames off her, she made it to the hatch. It was Monk lying there, not completely unconscious, feebly trying to move, to wriggle out from under the slab of metal. Lindsey grabbed him, dragged him out of the way of the flames.

  When she was far enough back from the flames that she didn't need the spray on her, Catfish ran in, picked up Monk, tossed him over his shoulder, and headed up the ladder. The infirmary was in the same trimodule, one level up, and so far there wasn't any flooding here.

  Lindsey picked up the hose, kept putting out the fire. She looked through the flames into the battery room. On the other side of that compartment was the toolpusher's office - Bud's room. Beyond that, another ladderway and then the long corridor down to the drill room. Bud had promised Finler that he'd go down there. Was he there now? Had the fire blown off a hatch on the other side, too? Could Bud have been in his stateroom, trying to save something? I save one of these goddamn SEALS, and maybe Bud's on the other side of the fire, lying under a hatch the same way, only I'm not there, I won't pull him out.

  Grimly she stayed in place, directing water on the flames. If I go off chasing everything I imagine might be happening, I'll be worse than useless. Do my job, Bud'll do his, everything will work out OK. Please God.

  Down in the drill room, Finler and Dietz and McWhirter had the fires under control, the flooding stopped until the last brutal jolt and the twisting as the crane swung on the end of the umbilical. Then they found out what flooding was. The water rushed in like it was coming over the top of a dam. It jammed them into the machinery; they tumbled head over heels. But finally they got to their feet, scrambled away through the water; nothing to do but get out, try to find some part of Deepcore that was intact.

  But the big automated door was already closing, its motors sliding it shut like a bank vault door. Slogging through water, they didn't reach it until it had closed.

  They pounded on the door. They looked through the window into the corridor beyond, desperate for help. There was no one there to hear them, no one to activate the door from the other side. They pressed their hands, their faces against the tiny round window as if they could push their way through.

  That was when Bud finally came running down the long corridor to the drill room. He saw the closed door. Saw hands, someone's head.

  There was no way he could open the door from this side. The motor would keep forcing the door closed until it was shut off. The only way to do that was to cut the pneumatic hose, which was on the other side of the door.

  "Cut the line to the motor!" Bud shouted. "Cut the hose! I can't open the door from this side!"

  They didn't hear him. Or they didn't understand. Or panic had taken over, and they weren't rational enough to do anything but pound uselessly at the window. And so Bud stood there, outside in the corridor, knowing how to save them, only inches away from them, and yet powerless to act. It was the worst thing in the world, to watch somebody die like that. How many times had he seen Junior drowning in his dreams? Always just out of reach. Always where Bud couldn't do a thing to help him. Just like now.

  Suddenly the bulkhead next to him gave way. A freezing torrent thundered in. It blew him off his feet. He knew what would happen next. The automatic door at the end of the corridor would immediately start to close. If he didn't get there first, it would be his face and hands pressed hopelessly against a tiny window.

  He got up, splashed through the water. He was luckier than the others - the break wasn't as large, so the corridor wasn't filling up as fast as the drill room had. Still, the water slowed him so much that he didn't reach the door soon enough. Desperately he reached out, stuck his hand into the gap, tried to hold it open. There was no chance. He didn't have the strength.

  The door closed on the fingers of his left hand. He braced himself for the agony of having them crushed. But it didn't come.

  The door was still open. Something was holding it just wide enough for his fingers. It was his ring. The harder-than-steel wedding band Lindsey had given him. The door could bend it a little - he could feel the pressure on his finger - but it couldn't break it or crush it. Nor could he slide his finger out - the ring had bent just enough that it locked over the bone of his knuckle. He couldn't pull free.

  The water was filling up behind him - but some was leaking through the
gap in the doorframe. The notch at the top was large enough for him to see through. This was no damn good for anybody. He was going to die here, and he knew that was right, that's the way it worked underwater, sometimes you ended up on the wrong side of a hatch and to save the lives of the people on the other side, that door had to stay closed and you had to die. But this door wasn't doing its job of holding back the water, either. He was going to die and the rest of the rig wasn't going to be one whit safer because of it.

  He yelled. "Hey! Hey!" Again and again, refusing to give up. Somebody had to hear him.

  It was Catfish. He and Sonny pounded down the ladderway, down the corridor to the other side of the automatic door. Catfish mashed at the Open button. Nothing happened. Sonny, always more direct, wedged a crowbar into the narrow opening and tried to pry the door.

  None of this was going to work, and Bud knew it. "Cut the hose! Cut the pneumatic hose!" Finally they heard him over the noise of the water spurting through the crack in the door. Catfish whipped open his jackknife and slashed the hose on the door actuator.

  Bud immediately felt the pressure ease up on his ring. Now Cat and Sonny could force the door open fairly easily. Too quickly, in fact - Bud was blown through in a torrent of water, knocking Sonny back against the pipes in the corridor. One of Sonny's arm bones snapped from the force of the blow.

  The corridor was filling up fast. "All right," yelled Bud, "let's go go go go go!"

  Catfish saw that Sonny was holding his arm, dazed with pain. "Sonny, you all right?"

  "Come on, move it! Go go go go go!" They plunged through the next hatch into the ladderway. "Get the hatch!" shouted Bud. Catfish shoved it shut, turned the crank. There was no leak here. Bud slumped against the wall. They'd sealed off the water. As commander that's all he was supposed to care about. But shit, he wasn't Coffey, he didn't pretend not to feel anything but officially sanctioned feelings. He was damn glad to be alive.

  He looked down at the ring on his finger. A tiny band of metal. It would never come off now, but that was fine. He kissed it emphatically.

  "You all right? Everybody OK?"

  Yeah. They were OK.

  First thing they did was send out Big Geek and Little Geek to survey the damage, see if any of the other modules had held, if there were any other survivors, what their remaining assets might be. They had this asset: They were alive, perched on the very edge of the chasm of hell.

  From the inside, Bud could figure out this much: They had dim emergency lights. They had the command module and the side of the rig with the mess hall, the food, the infirmary. The other side was gone, flooded out. They'd lost Wilhite of the SEALS, Perry, Finler, Dietz, and McWhirter of the crew. Jammer had slept through the whole thing, still in his coma in the infirmary. Sonny had his arm in a splint and a sling, but he was still useful; he could get around, so Bud had him on the UQC, trying to contact the Explorer. Monk's leg was broken - it had to be the medical specialist who was pinned down in the infirmary. Everybody else was more or less healthy. All of them were shaky, some were scared shitless, some were grieving over the dead, others were glad to be alive and ashamed of being so glad.

  And Beany. The rat was alive and crawling around on Hippy's shoulders.

  Bud came into the control room. He felt the deaths more than anybody, because he not only grieved for his friends, he also felt responsible for them. He had let them down. He had watched some of them die, and hadn't done a damn thing for them. Never mind that there was nothing he could have done. No, there was something be could have done. He could have told McBride and Kirkhill and that military guy - Martini, DeMarco - told them to go stuff themselves. Told them that this was a goddam drilling rig, not a military craft. If he'd done that, if he'd done what Lindsey told him he should have done, then all these people would be alive. In fact, they'd be coming off shift tomorrow. Waiting for the new crew to pressurize, then climbing into the chamber and depressurizing for three weeks. Bored silly. Bored out of their minds but alive.

  Sonny was still chanting into the UQC to topside. "Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Deepcore Two. Do you read me, over?"

  He'd been at it for a long time already. If they were going to answer, if they could hear at all, they'd have answered by now. Probably the hurricane was right overhead. Probably they were so far out of range that calling for them was a joke. What could they do, anyway, till the storm passed?

  "Benthic Explorer, Benthic Explorer, this is Deepcore. Do you read me, over?"

  Bud went over to him. The flashlight he was carrying made shadows dance on the walls. "Forget it, Sonny. They're gone."

  Sonny stopped, slumped in his chair. But after a pause he went right back to it. "Mayday, mayday, mayday - "

  Bud put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, they're gone."

  Now Sonny got the message.

  "Are you OK?" Bud asked.

  Sonny held onto the mike in his hand like it was a magic charm - if he fondled it enough, it'd give him what he wanted. "I just want to get out of this. I want to see my wife one more time."

  Bud understood then. Sonny wasn't calling because it was practical. He was calling because if he stopped then that would mean he was giving up hope. Give the guy a chance to get himself back together. In the meantime, let him do what he has to do. "All right then, you better keep trying."

  Sonny began to chant again. "Mayday mayday mayday, do you read me, over."

  Bud went on down the corridor to the infirmary, finding his way with his flashlight. Here and there an emergency light marked a path but it was dark.

  He went to the bed where Jammer lay, still in his coma. Touched Jammer's head. "Hey, Jammer," he whispered. "What did you see down there?" He pulled the blanket up over him. It was getting colder in here.

  Bud heard a soft cry from the other room. For a moment it was as if Jammer had answered him. But it was the SEALS. He pushed the door open and looked in. Coffey and Schoenick were setting Monk's leg, putting a splint on. Coffey looked up when Bud stuck his head into the room.

  "Did you find your buddy?" Bud asked him.

  "No," said Coffey.

  They locked eyes for a moment. Bud bit back the words that came to mind. Either Coffey already knew why all this happened, in which case Bud didn't need to say anything, or he was too damn stubborn to believe it, so why should Bud bother? Still, he couldn't keep his judgment out of his eyes. You did this, Coffey. I said yes back at the beginning, but the deal was that I had the say-so about safety, and you knew it. If you'd kept the bargain, your boy here wouldn't be groaning in pain, and that other kid wouldn't be dead in the water somewhere, so deep even the fishes wouldn't find him.

  Bud turned wordlessly away. Behind him, Coffey took a few steps toward the door. "Brigman," he said.

  Bud stopped, turned partway around. "What?"

  "I was under orders. I had no choice."

  Bud heard the words, but he knew better. My father was a Marine noncom, Coffey. I know all about orders. I also know that a commander has discretion. If you had waited half an hour for One Night to unhook the umbilical back when it was possible, you could have spent all the time since then doing whatever your mysterious mission was. If you'd said so, DeMarco would have gone along. You always have a choice.

  Still, he knew that it was tough for Coffey to admit he'd been wrong. And that's what his words meant - an admission that it was his actions that had caused all this. Caused the death of his own man, too - Coffey must feel that as keenly as Bud felt the deaths of his own crew. They had that much in common, at least. So he didn't reject what Coffey said. He lingered long enough for Coffey to know he'd been heard, heard and not refuted. Then he left the infirmary.

  He headed down the ladder toward the machinery room. He saw Catfish, welding a weak point. But it was Lindsey that Bud was looking for. She was the one who knew every wire, every damn electron on those wires.

  She was dragging a length of cable through the knee-deep water, getting set to hook it up with some wires on
the wall. The water on the floor was cold and unpleasant, but it wasn't dangerous anymore - it was the stuff that had splashed from the moonpool, having settled at the lowest point in Deepcore.

  He looked at her for a few moments. This was Lindsey at her best, working on something that took up her whole attention, building something. God, she was beautiful. And she was alive. Covered with grease, cold and filthy, but alive. If he'd lost her, if she'd been in one of the flooded compartments, if he had to think of her floating somewhere in the cold black ocean, he couldn't take it, he'd lose it all right then. Hell, I thought I'd lost her before, when she left me. I grieved like it was the end of the world. What did I know then? Even if she isn't with me, she's still in this world, and that makes it worth living in myself.

  But he couldn't stand there looking at her forever. "What's the scoop, ace?" he said. He did a damn good job of keeping the emotion out of his voice.

  She didn't stop working to answer him. "I can get power to this module and sub bay if I reroute these busses. I've got to get past the mains, which are a total meltdown."

  "Need some help?"

  "Thanks. I'll handle this." She thought of something else he needed to know. "There won't be enough to run the heaters. In a couple of hours this place is going to be cold as a meat locker."

  "What about O2?"

  "Brace yourself. We've got enough for about twelve hours if we close off sections we're not using."

  That wasn't good enough. "Well, this storm's going to last longer than twelve hours."

  She thought for a second. "I can maybe extend that. There are some storage tanks outboard on the wrecked module. I'll have to go out and tie onto them."

  Maybe that would be enough, maybe not. They didn't have to discuss it. They'd do all they could to last as long as they could, and if that wasn't enough, then it wasn't enough. There were so many absolutely sure ways to die that hadn't come true, Bud wasn't about to complain about the possibility of dying twelve hours from now. Twelve hours was like a whole second lifetime.