Which is why, on my first dive to that wreck, I set myself up with Turtle, the most experienced member of the dive team after Squishy.
The skip ride over is tense: those two have gone beyond not talking, into painful and outspoken silence. I spend most of my time going over and over my equipment looking for flaws. Much as I want to dive this wreck—and I have since the first moment I saw her—I’m scared of the deep and the dark and the unknown. Those first few instances of weightlessness always catch me by surprise, always remind me that what I do is somehow unnatural.
Still, we get to our normal spot, I suit up, and somehow I make it through those first few minutes, zip along the tether with Turtle just a few meters ahead of me, and make my way to the hatch.
Turtle’s gonna take care of the recording and the tracking for this trip. She knows the wreck is new to me. She’s been inside once now, and so has Karl. Junior and Jypé had the dive before this one.
The one thing I don’t like about this wreck is the effect it has on our communications. The skip doesn’t have the power to send into the wreck, for reasons I don’t entirely understand. We’ve tried boosting power through the skip’s diagnostic, and even with the Business’s diagnostic, and we don’t get anything.
If there’s trouble when we’re inside, the skip can’t notify us. That didn’t bother me as much when I piloted the skip, but the very idea bothers me now that I’m about to go inside.
It’s clearly an issue of control for me. If I’m diving, I’m no longer in charge. But I tell no one about my personal worries, even though they know the communications problem. I simply try to set the worries aside.
I’ve assigned three corridors: one to Karl, one to J&J, and one to Turtle. Once we discover what’s at the end of those babies, we’ll take a few more. I’m a floater; I’ll take the corridor of the person I dive with.
Descending into the hatch is trickier than it looks on the recordings. The edges are sharper; I have to be careful about where I put my hands.
Gravity isn’t there to pull at me. I can hear my own breathing, harsh and insistent, and I wonder if I shouldn’t have taken Squishy’s advice: a ten/ten/ten split on my first dive instead of a twenty/twenty/twenty. It takes less time to reach the wreck now; we get inside in nine minutes flat. I would’ve had time to do a bit of acclimatizing and to have a productive dive the next time.
But I hadn’t been thinking that clearly, obviously. I’d been more interested in our corridor, hoping it led to the control room, wherever that was.
Squishy had been thinking, though. Before I left, she tanked me up with one more emergency bottle. She remembered how on my first dives after a long layoff, I used too much oxygen.
She remembered that I sometimes panic.
I’m not panicked now, just excited. I have all my exterior suit lights on, trying to catch the various nooks and crannies of the hatch tube that leads into the ship.
Turtle’s not far behind. Because I’m lit up like a tourist station, she’s not using her boot lights. She’s letting me set the pace, and I’m probably setting it a little too fast.
We reach the corridors in at 11:59- Turtle shows me our corridor at 12:03. We take off down the notched hallway at 12:06, and I’m giddy as a child on her first space walk.
Giddy we have to watch. Giddy can be the first sign of oxygen deprivation, followed by a healthy disregard for safety.
But I don’t mention this giddy. I’ve had it since Squishy bowed off the teams, and the giddy’s grown worse as my dive day got closer. I’m a little concerned—extreme emotion adds to the heavy breathing—but I’m going to trust my suit. I’m hoping it’ll tell me if the oxygen’s too low, the pressure’s off, or the environmental controls are about to fail.
The corridor is human-sized and built for full gravity. But it seems bare. There are no obvious safety devices.
To me, that shows an astonishing trust in technology, one I’ve always read about but have never seen. No ship lacks emergency oxygen supplies spaced every ten meters or so, although this one does. No ship lacks communications equipment near each door, although this one does.
The past feels even farther away than I thought it would. I thought once I stepped inside the wreck—even though I couldn’t smell the environment or hear what’s going on around me—I’d get a sense of what it would be like to spend part of my career in this place.
But I have no sense. I’m in a dark, dreary hallway that lacks the emergency supplies I’m used to. Turtle’s moving slower than my giddy self wants, although my cautious, experienced boss self knows that slow is best.
She’s finding handholds, and signaling them for me, like we’re climbing the outside of an alien vessel. We’re working on an ancient system—the lead person touches a place, deems it safe, uses it to push off, and the rest of the team follows.
There aren’t as many doors as I would have expected. A corridor, it seems to me, needs doors funneling off it, with the occasional side corridor bisecting it.
But there are no bisections, and every time I think we’re in a tunnel not a corridor, a door does appear. The doors are regulation height, even now, but recessed farther than I’m used to.
Turtle tries each door. They’re all jammed or locked. At the moment, we’re just trying to map the wreck. We’ll pry open the difficult places once the map is finished.
But I’d love to go inside one of those closed-off spaces, probably as much as she would.
Finally, she makes a small scratch on the side of the wall and nods at me.
The giddy fades. We’re done. We go back now—my rule—and if you get back early so be it. I check my readout: 29:01. We have ten minutes to make it back to the hatch.
I almost argue for a few more minutes, even though I know better. Sure, it didn’t take us as long to get here as it had in the past, but that doesn’t mean the return trip is going to be easy. I’ve lost four divers over the years because they made the mistake I want to make now.
I let Turtle pass me. She goes back, using the same push-off points as before. As she does that, I realize she’s marked them somehow, probably with something her suit can pick up. My equipment’s not that sophisticated, but I’m glad hers is. We need that kind of expertise inside this wreck. It might take us weeks just to map the space, and we can expect each other to remember each and every safe touch spot because of it.
When we get back to the skip and I drop my helmet, Squishy glares at me.
“You had the gids,” she says.
“Normal excitement,” I say.
She shakes her head. “I see this coming back the next time, and you’re grounded.”
I nod, but know she can’t ground me without my permission. It’s my ship, my wreck, my job. I’ll do what I want.
I take off the suit and indulge in some relaxation while Squishy pilots. We didn’t get much, Turtle and I, just a few more meters of corridor mapped, but it feels like we discovered a whole new world.
Maybe that is the gids, I don’t know. But I don’t think so. I think it’s just the reaction of an addict who returns to her addiction—an elation so great that she needs to do something with it besides acknowledge it.
And this wreck. This wreck has so many possibilities.
Only I can’t discuss them on the skip, not with Squishy at the helm and Turtle across from me. Squishy hates this project, and Turtle’s starting to. Her enthusiasm is waning, and I don’t know if it’s because of her personal war with Squishy or because Squishy has convinced her the wreck is even more dangerous than usual.
I stare out a portal, watching the wreck grow tinier and tinier in the distance. It’s ironic. Even though I’m surrounded by tension, I finally feel content.
~ * ~
NINE
Half a dozen more dives, maybe sixty more meters, mostly corridor. One potential storage compartment, which we’d initially hoped was a stateroom or quarters, and a mechanic’s corridor, filled with equipment we haven’t even begun to catalogue.
I spend my off-hours analyzing the materials. So far, nothing conclusive. Lots of evidence of cobbling, but that’s pretty common for any ship—with FTL or not—that’s made it on a long journey.
What there’s no evidence of are bodies. We haven’t found one, and that’s even more unusual. Sometimes there are skeletons floating—or pieces of them at least—and sometimes we get the full-blown corpse, suited and intact. A handful aren’t suited. Those are the worst. They always make me grateful we can’t smell the ship around us.
The lack of bodies is beginning to creep out Karl. He’s even talked to me in private about skipping the next few dives.
I’m not sure what’s best. If he skips them, his attitudes might become ingrained, and he might not dive again. If he goes, the fears might grow worse and paralyze him in the worst possible place.
I move him to the end of the rotation and warn Squishy she might have to suit up after all.
She just looks at me and grins. “Too many of the team quit on you, you’ll just have to go home.”
“I’ll dive it myself, and you all can wait,” I say, but it’s bravado and we both know it.
That wreck isn’t going to defeat me, not with the perfect treasure hidden in its bulk.
That’s what’s fueling my greed. The perfect treasure: my perfect treasure. Something that answers previously unasked historical questions—previously unknown historical questions; something that will reveal facts about our history, our humanity, that no one has suspected before; and something that, even though it does all that, is worth a small fortune.
I shake every time I think about it, and before each dive, I do feel the gids. Only now I report them to Squishy. I tell her that I’m a tad too excited, and she offers me a tranq that I always refuse. Never go into the unknown with senses dulled, that’s my motto, even though I know countless people who do it.
We’re on a long diving mission, longer than some of these folks have ever been on, and we’re not even halfway through. We’ll have gids and jitters and too many superstitions. We’ll have fears and near emergencies, and God forbid, real emergencies as well.
We’ll get through it, and we’ll have our prize, and no one, not any one person, will be able to take that away from us.
Only I’m not sure we will get through it. Not after what happened this afternoon.
I’m captaining the skip. Squishy’s back at the Business, taking a boss-ordered rest. I’m tired of her complaints and her constant negative attitude. At first, I thought she’d bring Turtle to her point of view, but Turtle finally got pissed and decided she’d enjoy this run.
I caught Squishy ragging on J&J, my strong links, asking them if they really want to be mining a death ship. They didn’t listen to her, not really— although Jypé argued with her just a little—but that kind of talk can depress an entire mission, sabotage it in subtle little ways, ways that I don’t even want to contemplate.
So I’m manning the skip alone, while J&J are running their dive, and I’m listening to the commentary, not looking at the grainy, nearly worthless images from the handheld. Mostly I’m thinking about Squishy and how to send her back without sending information too, and I can’t come to any conclusions at all when I hear:
“… yeah, it opens.” Junior.
“Wow.” Jypé.
“Jackpot, eh?” Junior again.
And then a long silence. Much too long for my tastes, not because I’m afraid for J&J, but because a long silence doesn’t tell me one goddamn thing.
I punch up the digital readout, see we’re at 25:33—plenty of time. They got to the new section faster than they ever have before.
The silence runs from 25:33 to 28:46, and I’m about to chew my list off, wondering what they’re doing. The handheld shows me grainy walls and more grainy walls. Or maybe it’s just grainy nothing. I can’t tell.
For the first time in weeks, I want another person in the skip with me just so that I have someone to talk to.
“Almost time,” Jypé says.
“Dad, you gotta see this.” Junior has a touch of breathlessness in his voice. Excitement—at least that’s what I’m hoping.
And then there’s more silence … thirty-five seconds of it, followed by a loud and emphatic “Fuck!”
I can’t tell if that’s an angry “fuck,” a scared “fuck,” or an awed “fuck.” I can’t tell much about it at all.
Now I’m literally chewing on my thumbnail, something I haven’t done in years, and I’m watching the digital, which has crept past thirty-one minutes.
“Move your arm,” Jypé says, and I know then that wasn’t a good fuck at all.
Something happened.
Something bad.
“Just a little to the left,” Jypé says again, his voice oddly calm. I’m wondering why Junior isn’t answering him, hoping that the only reason is he’s in a section where the communications relay isn’t reaching the skip.
I can think of a thousand other reasons, none of them good, that Junior’s communication equipment isn’t working.
“We’re five minutes past departure,” Jypé says, and in that, I’m hearing the beginning of panic.
More silence.
I’m actually holding my breath. I look out a portal, see nothing except the wreck, looking like it always does. The handheld has been showing the same grainy image for a while now. 37:24
If they’re not careful, they’ll run out of air. Or worse.
I try to remember how much extra they took. I didn’t really watch them suit up this time. I’ve seen their ritual so many times that I’m not sure what I think I saw is what I actually saw. I’m not sure what they have with them, and what they don’t.
“Great,” Jypé says, and I finally recognize his tone. It’s controlled parental panic. Sound calm so that the kid doesn’t know the situation is bad. “Keep going.”
I’m holding my breath, even though I don’t have to. I’m holding my breath and looking back and forth between the portal and the handheld image. All I see is the damn wreck and that same grainy image.
“We got it,” Jypé says. “Now careful. Careful—son of a bitch! Move, move, move—ah, hell.”
I stare at the wreck, even though I can’t see inside it. My own breath sounds as ragged as it did inside the wreck. I glance at the digital:
44:11
They’ll never get out in time. They’ll never make it, and I can’t go in for them. I’m not even sure where they are.
“C’mon.” Jypé is whispering now. “C’mon, Son, just one more, c’mon, help me, c’mon.”
The “help me” wasn’t a request to a hearing person. It was a comment. And I suddenly know.
Junior’s trapped. He’s unconscious. His suit might even be ripped. It’s over for Junior.
Jypé has to know it on some deep level.
Only he also has to know it on the surface, in order to get out.
I reach for my own communicator before I remember there’s no talking to them inside the wreck.
“C’mon, Son.” Jypé grunts. I don’t like that sound.
The silence that follows lasts thirty seconds, but it seems like forever. I move away from the portal, stare at the digital, and watch the numbers change. They seem to change in slow motion:
45:24 to
… 25 to
…2…6…
to
…2………7…
until I can’t even see them change anymore.
Another grunt, and then a sob, half muffled, and another, followed by—
“Is there any way to send for help? Boss?”
I snap to when I hear my name. It’s Jypé and I can’t answer him.
I can’t answer him, dammit.
I can call for help, and I do. Squishy tells me that the best thing I can do is get the survivor—her word, not mine, even though I know it’s obvious too—back to the Business as quickly as possible.
“No sense passing midway, is there?” she asks, and I suppos
e she’s right.
But I’m cursing her—after I get off the line—for not being here, for failing us, even though there’s not much she can do, even if she’s here, in the skip. We don’t have a lot of equipment, medical equipment, back at the Business, and we have even less here, not that it matters, because most of the things that happen are survivable if you make it back to the skip.
Still, I suit up. I promise myself I’m not going to the wreck, I’m not going to help with Junior, but I can get Jypé along the guideline if he needs me too.
“Boss. Call for help. We need Squishy and some divers and oh, shit, I don’t know.”
His voice sounds too breathy. I glance at the digital.
56:24.
Where has the time gone? I thought he was moving quicker than that. I thought I was too.
But it takes me a while to suit up, and I talked to Squishy, and everything is fucked up.
What’ll they say when we get back? The mission’s already filled with superstitions and fears of weird technology that none of us really understand.
And only me and Jypé are obsessed with this thing.
Me and Jypé.
Probably just me now.
“I left him some oxygen. I dunno if it’s enough….”
So breathy. Has Jypé left all his extra? What’s happening to Junior? If he’s unconscious, he won’t use as much, and if his suit is fucked, then he won’t need any.
“Coming through the hatch
I see Jypé, a tiny shape on top of the wreck. And he’s moving slowly, much too slowly for a man trying to save his own life.
My rules are clear: let him make his own way back.
But I’ve never been able to watch someone else die.
I send to the Business: “Jypé’s out. I’m heading down the line.”
I don’t use the word help on purpose, but anyone listening knows what I’m doing. They’ll probably never listen to me again, but what the hell.
I don’t want to lose two on my watch.
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