“We won’t go back quite that far in time, Mr. Wells,” Delores said. “Firing lines are enough sentimental journeys for one day. But I am satisfied to perceive you are aware of your naval history.”
“Aye, Commander. New heading. She’s on the right oblique. Her port thirty degrees.”
“Come about. We’ll chase her a short while. Only somewhat with—cancel that order.”
“Commander.”
“A wounded bear is more dangerous. I don’t want her getting a lucky hit at this point. Storm’s letting up a bit. We’ll stand down for now. Regroup in strategy later. Let’s get our heading back to Standhope.”
“New, that is, I say again, old, heading set, Commander. “Steady as she goes, Navigator. All ahead one-half. As storm abates, come to three-fourths.”
“One-half, aye.”
“Damage report.”
“None of significance. We’re in good shape.”
“Steady as she goes, aye.”
“Track all echoes and ghost images, this time, Mr. Wells. Mr. Foxworth.”
“Aye, Commander,” Jessica Foxworth said. The ‘Mr.’ honorific was still employed by many in the Navy, irrespective of the seaman’s actual gender. Harris and Jerrolds returned to the bridge. They breathed hard. So did they all.
“Good shooting, Seamen.”
“I think I got 3 or 4.”
“I counted 3 in the drink.”
“OK, don’t break out the champagne yet,” Delores said. “That was her initial contact. She’ll be back. You’re entitled to a briefing. Some of you came in after … Mr. Wells. Schedule a full briefing at Standhope. Captain’s table.”
“Aye Commander.”
“First firefight?”
“Aye.”
“Aye, Commander.”
“Don’t worry. It will not be your last. You did well. Just don’t rest on laurels. The second time you can get careless if you do.”
The Starr found its heading again and plowed through the storm. It began to abate, as the captain had noticed. The waves waned down, crests under eight feet. The rain still poured in sheets, but more straight than at a severe angle. Delores sat at the command control, peering out the window. She didn’t express it, but she couldn’t help wondering how the hell did the son of a bitch know how to find us? Been something very strange about this operation from the get-go. There’s more to come. You don’t have to be a John Paul Jones to have that feeling. These were her thoughts for the moment. Then she considered her charge.
“Any signal on sonar with the Ex-Gee profile?”
“Negative, Commander. I’m picking up what may be a, stand by one, is a pod of whales. It’s fading, though. They must be sounding over 20,000 fathoms. I didn’t think they could go down that far.”
A seaman brought her a hot cup of coffee. Not much of the original armament, but it would be good to have trained personnel. Fresh scrubs. They acquitted themselves well. Still, after they arrived at Standhope, she would request from CINCPAC a contingent of SEALs, she thought. Damn. Where the hell did that fucking sub go?
“Keep on it, Mr. Foxworth. Any signal. Even if, well, any signal.”
“Copy that, Commander.”
Babysitting nerdy scientists on their damn fool’s errand. Eisenhower was right about the military industrial complex. And this coffee’s cold besides. Well, it was a good fight, anyway. That’s something. God, I love adrenal highs.
Sometimes in deepest darkest night, when driving one’s car down deserted county roads or rural highways, shadows move within shadows. Yet a few hours yearn until the first grey-rose of dawn peeks in the east and only those astute realize the grackle bounding of stag, does, and fawns, have rippled the curtain of blackness by the side of the highway.
That was how things appeared now to Jennifer as the intrepid little ship sped on in the close impenetrable blackness of the fathomed sea. Its flood lamps and CCTV monitors showed less now, as even deeper she reached.
“I think he’s still following us.”
“Is he gaining?”
“Negative. If anything, the opposite. Signal’s getting weak and intermittent.”
“Maybe we can do a flyby and get out of here before …”
“What is it Susan?”
“No. Nothing. Shouldn’t we … Hodges.”
“Go ahead.”
“Could we launch a torpedo at him?”
The military professional was taken aback at the scientist’s suggestion. More and more he was becoming convinced this was a special woman. But surely, she, an educated woman, would not consider a pre-emptive strike when not called for. At least so far. And he suddenly knew that he had to be careful, he thought. Twenty thousand leagues under the sea, so to speak, was no place to lose one’s wits for any reason. At once his experienced military and naval operations computer brain went into its analytic mode. He regarded his instruments and indicators. He came up to look at the front console banks blinking blue, white, red before the two women, illuminating their faces in primary light.
“Not at this distance. They’d detect it far in advance. At this depth the casement would implode. They’d engage evasive maneuvers or send decoys to detonate. It would be an exercise in futility. In point of fact, it would make them happy, for it would disclose further to them our speed, range, azimuth, and location.”
“Still it might slow them down.”
“Too many uncertainties for the percentages, Sus—Dr. Arthknott.”
“Very well, Hodg—I mean, copy that.”
Jennifer caught at once the little interplay. Hodges was becoming less formal; Susan was beginning to employ military terminology. And had she been mistaken when checking their pressure and depth gauges, did she not see reflected in the glass, for a moment, when Hodges came up to look over their gauges, his hand linger a bit on Susan’s? Inside the sub it was close, humid. She recalled now that just before they slipped their surly bonds, compelling the ship into the ocean, Susan had fallen a bit and Hodges had caught her. Now she recalled they hadn’t broken their accidental embrace so soon. Jennifer looked over at her friend. The scientist’s hair, the once taut bun, was askew, frizzing all about, and hanging down. Her eyes were glistening like she had never observed. Well, had there ever been a stranger or less expected spot for romance than the darkest most encapsulated place on earth and only inches and technology separating them from tons of pressure in all its dimensions and implications?
Suddenly she was aware Susan saw something.
“There. Ahead. No. Yes. There.”
Jennifer turned to look forward. Hodges came up. “That reddish glow?”
“You see it?”
“We all see it,” Jennifer said. “Yes! That’s it. It’s still there. How much time?”
“Four minutes, possibly three. Fifty-five minutes of fuel left in the verniers; we need to conserve them for the main event.”
“We can conserve now. No need to fire. We’ll be there in two minutes,” Susan said. God. Look at her! My God. Look at that.”
“Holy St. Maria!”
“Hodges?”
“Looks like we’re coming out of the Utah mountains with Las Vegas on the horizon.”
Soon enough the Ex-Gee fairly stopped about 100 yards out from the vent. Reddish-yellow bubbles, flecked and streaked at the top of the columnar stream in a deep green, hissed out of a hole in the earth about two and a half times the size of the ship.
“She’s a bit smaller than we saw on the robot video,” Jennifer said.
“But she’s large enough,” Susan said. “We can fit. I’ll circumnavigate her. Cameras.”
“Activated.”
Susan propelled the vessel all about the vent, a deep sea volcano spewing forth steam of a chemical soup the same consistency as the day the earth was born, so old and so ancient that even time ha
d lost contextual meaning.
“What is that? Over there, four degrees starboard. What are those?”
“Mr. Hodges, you’re seeing animal life few have ever witnessed. Less people than have been in space, possibly less than have walked on the moon. And then only by robot video. We are the first to arrive here. To see it as it unfolds. We should name it after ourselves.
“The Arthknott-Littleton-Hodges Explosive Event Life Vent. We’ll publish it that way.”
Hodges smiled. He thought he smiled to himself. Who’d had ever thought an old salt-SEAL seaman soldier would have a scientific phenomenon named after him? His father had not matriculated past tenth grade. One day he left the family. He did not return home to his wife and children. There was a rumor of another woman in another town.
He, Hodges, had to go to work to support his brothers and sisters. Their mother worked, and once the children were older, and on track to jobs or education of their own, he joined the marines. The military had been his escape, where he found the fathers he had been missing. Now he glanced about. Jennifer, Ms. Littleton, smiled back, He must have smiled outwardly as well and she had seen him. She had a knowing smile, he realized. Susan continued, somewhat reducing to her lecture voice.
“Sulfur, silicon, methane-based creatures attached to the vent rocks. We don’t know how they generate. Look, see, they’re not there, then they’re there. Those white blankets all around them are infinitesimally huge colonies of bacteria. Remember I discussed them earlier. If we’re lucky, we can see— yes, there!”
“Where?”
“I see it. Down there, Hodges. Coming out from the third crack. Worm-like tubule creatures. See how the bacteria go in and out, like corpuscles in osmosis. But it’s not osmosis. We don’t fully understand.”
“Seems like I hear a lot of that.”
Susan laughed, nay, giggled. Jennifer looked at her again. A girlish giggle at over 30,000 fathoms in the midst of a violent volcano spewing forth substances yet beyond our ken. Well, maybe it wasn’t so inappropriate after all. In a way, what better place than an immense amniotic sac containing and nurturing the emergence of new life? Still, it was something Jennifer would remember all her life, the image of a renowned scientist acting like a sophomore high school girl in the throes of her first true love (second, I guess, if you count that jerk who was still pursing her in a malevolent manner) whilst traversing so deep underwater the waters themselves may be the primal waters from the distant age when water formed upon the planet.
“Oh just typical scientist talk, silly.”
Silly, Jennifer thought. Silly. Good Lord, they’d start hitting each other next. Then, Jennifer started to worry. They were down by themselves. The ship performed well, sure, better than she had hoped or dreamed. True, the hull pressure gauge was a bit high, but it was within parameters. Her real worry now, if Susan’s palsy started … albeit she had to admit it seemed to improve the deeper they had dived. Suddenly she saw it.
“Susan.”
“Yes. I’m coming around. Say no more.”
“Can you go around to the other side and hide behind that outcropping back there?”
“Hodges?”
“Our friend’s found his way. I don’t think he can pick us up with this turbulence between us. Now we’ll just activate the sonar shielding we need at least for a while. I’m sure he’s scanning already. Long as we’re on this side, I can see him coming on our over-the-top bounce technology, and I think we can keep him confused until we can sort it out. Good thing Barnstone agreed to it.”
“He was concerned about weight distribution, sacrifice of some scientific hardware,” Susan said. “At this point, let me guess, the Pentagon convinced him that both elements could be on board with little or no loss of mobility in the sea or in the hostile environment.”
“See? And everybody’s happy,” Hodges said. “Let’s see, I make it he’s about two miles out. ETA ten minutes.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I know what you were thinking: You want to find the best place and go in now.”
“We, it—”
“It’s no good,” Hodges said. “We need our full compliment of crew. We need to link up with the Starr at Standhope. But you’re afraid he’ll go in first.”
“You’re going to stop him?”
“Like you said, slow him down. Jennifer, you’re on torpedo launch. Right here. Remember? This, then, remove the safety covers, wait for my command, then, turn key and push. Remember, we’ve all cross-trained. If our fish hold for even five seconds before imploding, it will be a good screen.”
“I know what to do.”
“Good woman. Sorry. Copy that. But only on my command. He’ll see us and may turn and fire himself. He knows now he can’t outmaneuver us. OK. Good. Here. Right here. Settle behind this huge red rock.”
“Oh my!”
“What is it Susan?”
“Look at it undulating. It’s not a rock. It’s creatures gathering as they extrude. They pile on, pile up over the opening they emerge from,” Susan said. “This has never been observed before. Perhaps they continue to receive nutrient exchange from underneath. We need to get a closer look, take some measurements, readings.”
“That’s a negative. Cancel that. It is too late to change our guarded position. It is amazing at that. Truly aston—But our strategy calls for us to stay. There will be at least one more time, remember,” Hodges said. “But it will have to do for our defense for now. Four minutes Jennifer. Can you up the sensor scope three degrees? I need a range of sight lock-in. Good. Hold it. There. Positions calculated. Target locked. He’s there. Slowly edge around now. Careful. Not too close. We don’t want to hit the rocks. Jennifer, remember. Do not fire in the direction of the vent unless it’s absolutely necessary to save us.”
“Got it. Understood. Roger that. Copy that.”
“You’re doing fine, Jennifer. Damn, those bubbles are huge. And they’re yellow. Yellow-red bubbles, from sulfur and methane, right? Maybe we can use them for a few more seconds of camouflage. Now, remember, the angle has to take the torpedo away from the vent. I can’t risk an explosion caving in the phenomenon.”
“Got it. I mean, copy that. All nav coordinates locked in. What a view! It’s OK. I’m ready.”
She believed her, trusted her once more. Jennifer noted her mentor had transmuted; she was sharp, businesslike again. Susan’s first love and hope would always be the vents, Jennifer thought. She could separate her attraction to the man and perform her duties; and she had to ignore the science of the vent to survive this excursion.
Well, and hadn’t she changed? Look at her, a soldier in an undersea battle. She shook a little, a palsy, then she got control. She felt fear, she knew. Somehow, though, closest as she had been for some years to death, she never felt more alive. Even the cells of her flesh seemed electric, she saw so clearly, heard so acutely, like that time she escaped from under the raft, nearly drowned, then lived. Lived! This magnificent gift of life truly was everything. It began here!
Hodges barked his orders. It seemed he was ahead of them all somehow. He seemed to be able to draw an immediate synthesis between his military strategy and the scientific approach.
“No problem. OK, ladies. Here we go. It’s rock and roll time. Come around in. That’s it.”
“He’s turning. He’s seen us.”
“Steady, steady now.”
“Hodges!”
Like a groaning older woman rising against her will to go out for the morning job, the Starr turned and found her new heading. In the distance, but in their visual field they could see it, the sun cut a swath of bright yellow-white rays across a friendlier sea, dazzling off the waves with a glorious glistening. The rain fell to earth light now, almost a drizzle. Joanne Foxworth looked back out the port side window. A dark wall of cloud still appeared on the horizon, but not as
ominous as before. Indeed, already, like a saving grace description from the Biblical text, a sliver of sun seemed to sever the cloud and rays of magic radiated from the once angry heavens upon the earth, upon the firmament of the waters.
She was special forces. A specialist in radar at the SEAL training base on Coronado Island. They had taught her sonar. She had become proficient. She didn’t know how she made it through Bcd/s camp. After all, most of the men had dropped out. Five times at least she thought she drowned, and four of them wished she had. Maybe that was how she made it through with her calluses split in half, walking (swimming) pneumonia, and endless tours hauling in portage her boat back. But, albeit in a purgatory daze, she found and re-found her comrades and they somehow got their boats through and graduated.
She volunteered for the mission. They all did, of course. She wasn’t sure yet about Delores. She hadn’t been from the beginning.
She never liked women commanders, knowing it was an old prejudice based on little objective reality. Since the daring maneuver of the Starr in battle and her quick strategic thinking and victory at the engagement, somewhat like her boat, she was starting to come around. Delores’s cunning was no longer a secret. She’d remember that, keep the matter in mind. For she had one too. After all she had gone through, she had not been given combat command. She still had doubts, of course. It would always be the same story. Damn. Those idiots running the enemy boat.
Then something of beauty so magnificent it affects every person on earth and has since persons have been on the earth, caught her eye. She was the first to see it, the first to be in awe, for somewhere out there, pastel colors of blue-red-yellow-green coursed across the vault of the heavens.
“Look everyone. It’s a rainbow. A full one.”
They turned, these battle hardened and well-trained troops and gazed at the optical phenomenon. Solid bands of primary pastel colors graced and bridged across the firmament of the heavens. It was large, extended to the horizon, and well formed.
Deeptide Vents . . . of Fire Page 13