Deeptide Vents . . . of Fire

by Donald Ray Schwartz

  The Ex-Gee continued to the lowest depth any human occupied submersible had been. Even the Alvin and the ship on its previous adventure had not come so deep for so long and so close to where the interior of the earth belched its magnum-generated substances into its higher realms. Now the waters were fully black, blacker than black, for no sun’s rays could penetrate this distance. Only the burning, churning, bubbling brimstone cloud gave heat and thus some illumination, as though flashlights and torches diffused through a cold dark night of wet and fog.

  “Commander. Pressure gauge in high end of yellow scale. Point one off red. It’s too deep, Commander.”

  “Specs and ops systems check. We’ve come too far down, Dr. Arthknott. It’s time to consider an abort.”

  “She’ll alleviate, Commander Delores.”

  “Do you hear the bulkheads moaning, groaning? The bolts will start flying off soon. Now say again, Dr. Arthknott.”

  Susan noticed the two women were on formal terms again. “I say again she’ll alleviate once we’re in. That’s the concept.”

  “Concept. I’m responsible for three other lives.”

  “As am I. We’ve come too far.” Later, as the story was told Jennifer realized she was the only one who understood the gallows play on words. Too far to abort, not to abort. She aborts, she aborts not, she abor—only there were no flower petals down there. A fathom too far, this way, that way.

  “Systems check complete. Within parameters.”

  “Pressure,” Delores said.

  “Climbing,” Magruder said.

  Susan looked at her instruments, at the electronic and thermal imaging. She was still adamant. “We can’t turn back now. Look at those visual readings. It’s exploding with methane, silicon, and sulfuric life. Sending out robots at this time.”

  “Wait. I’ll, dammit, Arthknott.”

  “Robots away,” Magruder said. “Entering vents. Telemetry and visuals coming in. My God. Look at that.”

  “It’s alive! It’s alive! It teems with life,” Delores said.

  “It is so beautiful,” Susan said.

  “That’s it. Camera’s gone,” Hodges said. “They lasted fourteen seconds.”

  “So beautiful.”

  “X0. Sonar.”

  “Sonar, aye. These readings are amazing. The thing must be 110 yards long and 60 wide.”

  “Like a football field.”

  “Bridge, Sonar.”

  “Sonar, X0, aye.”

  “X0. New signatures, two smaller signatures entering the target.”

  “The robots. Understood, Sonar. Any others, wide range scan?”

  “Aye sir. Tuned on multi-phase oblique bounce sequence return.”

  “Report, Sonar.”

  “There’s a submersible behind the highest rock formation on grid, mark eighteen degrees left, elevation at vent level, twenty meters. Sonar to X0.”

  “Copy that. Weapons. Dispatch missile capsule array, laser sight, at Sonar’s coordinates. At will. We can’t fire; not with the Ex-Gee close and going in. But we can rattle their cage.”

  “Weapons. Missile capsule array Sonar’s coordinates aye. Coming up, X0. Capsule array away, I say again, capsule array away.”

  “ETA.”

  “On self-propelled. Memory guidance lock in effect. ETA on my mark, eleven minutes.”

  “Damn. It’ll be too late.”

  “Depth encapsulated Torpedo?”

  “Negative. We blow the Ex-Gee out. Or in, destroy the whole works.” Corvales paused. He pondered the moment. All hands were silent. On the bridge they looked at him. The air was heavy within as the sea without. “Weapons.”

  “Weapons aye.”

  “Send out torpedo decoys.”

  “Captain.”

  “I think they’ll have some good sonar. We only picked them up from our harmonic bounce. They know what they’re doing, whoever they are. But I’m gambling they can’t yet distinguish between the fake fish and the real thing. I’m hoping they’ll think six torpedoes are heading their way. It may give the Ex-Gee the time she needs.”

  “X0. Weapons.”

  “Weapons, X0. Set coordinates to follow the capsule array. Launch six decoys. At will.”

  “Weapons aye. Coordinates programmed in memory lock. Guidance affirm. Decoys away.”

  “Copy that. Maintain all stations. All hands. Steady as she goes.”

  Down into the open pit of the lower realms, their arcs defining the helix-shape they sought, descended the man-made object. Far beyond time, in this flaming arena materials and marvels that developed helix-shaped proteins yearned for air and water, prepared to utilize these elementals even prior to encountering them in the space of the swirling primeval soup covering the rocks and channels that was the womb-birth of their creations.

  For the first time since that so far long ago time of molecular burst of birth, the fragile descendants, as removed from the birthing place as time itself floated in their encapsulated object of their own creation poised to return at last. The pre-diluvian fire-cracks in creation itself had, as it must, produced life as it attracted life. Now, life’s offspring, earth’s children, the inheritors of dominion of the planet and its diversified forms, faced death straight in the eye, preparing to spit in its inflamed retina.

  Cosine angles and polar coordinate curves had been measured. Now Magruder guided the small ship into the breech, as a bullet following a laser sight. Susan let him know if the angles were too severe. They calculated in haste. They adapted. Their machines calculated and adapted. Delores fairly screamed when the pressure entered the red zone. She wanted to abort. Magruder mentioned that were he to abort the angle margins, the stress could disintegrate the ship. Then, of a sudden, while the argument hinged on whether to pull out at the next valley of the curve, Hodges saw it.

  “Commander, weapons. Rear recon measure. We’ve got a bogey visitor. Signature—Stand by. Coming in. Memory compare—Damn! It’s our old friend. Damn! He’s closing. ETA two minutes. How? Calibrating ascent-descent ratios. Damn! He must have hidden behind the high rocks on the leeward side.”

  “Carstairs. Fucking bastard.”

  “Susan. Focus. Can we target rear torpedoes?”

  “Bastard.”

  “Dr. Arthknott. Damn it! Hodges, damn it!”

  “Copy rear targeting torpedoes. It’s affirm. Locking now. Battery activated. Guidance activated. Come on. Come on. Locked! Fuck! We’re lit. He’s locked on to us. Wait. He stood down.”

  “Angle of intent we passed the last curve value. He’d blow us into the hole and destroy it. That’s not what he wants,” Magruder said.

  Susan had a brief flash of thought. But she never finished her sentence, and the thought died too. “How did you know what he wa—”

  “He’s coming around. Calibrating. I think he means to paint us, off and on and follow our descent angle.”

  “We’re entering the threshold. There’s no turning back now. My God. Look at those readings. Watch out. She’s banking.”

  “Stabilize. Compensate. Draw wings in ten degrees.”

  “Copy that. It’s too violent. We’ll crash into the threshold rocks.”

  “Fire verniers alternative side. Damn, what is—port. Fire port verniers. Three seconds. Auto pilot design alpha huron. Now dammit!” Susan screamed to Magruder.

  “She’s turned in. Turned in.”

  “Aggressor ship aborted. She turned about. But that’s impossible!”

  “Steady now. Steady as she goes. What is it Hodges?”

  They could barely hear themselves speak, the violence of the turbulence was so huge. And something else. A great knocking in all patterns of the hulls, as if fire itself was attempting to bang its way into the capsule.

  “Heat index rising. 90°; 105°; 109°.”

  “You don’t say
.”

  “Torpedoes coming at them. That’s why she turned,” Hodges said.

  “Impossible,” Magruder said.

  “Unless,” Hodges said. “Unless the Nebraska launched—”

  Then, all images disappeared from Hodges’s screen. He turned. All he could see were his three shipmates ensconced and illuminated upon their skins a great glowing red-yellow, as if they were embers in the midst of roaring flames. He was reminded of Mather’s sermons, in which he always called himself an ember plucked from the flames, for indeed he had been rescued as a child from a burning house. But the analogy, he realized at once, was false. We four, he suddenly knew, were dry fuel cast into the fires of hell itself.

  Hodges wondered, as he had from the beginning, if there really was any way out.

  It was as if the mystical essence of the spirit of the living flames incarnate glowed and glimmered upon what they imagined still to be their flesh.

  They yelled. They screamed. They screamed over the screeching roar of a horror they had each attempted to envision but had not possibly imagined. They could barely hold their bodies in one place, and even less assuredly the ship. Somehow they discerned that the vernier on the port side could compensate and grant them passage through the threshold. The ion pulse had silently, efficiently flowed into effect, seemingly unconcerned about the fire-heat. Later they would realize time and again it was this device that had saved them.

  They knew they headed down; or down and up were suddenly the same. They felt they were rising. Alternatively as they slipped the bonds of ocean’s amniotic sac, they felt they rose up; they felt they descended. Then, suddenly, as a spelunker snakes through the initial opening up, down, and around rock, then fairly falls into an open cavern, they knew they were through. The bubbling reduced. The screech-floom of flame metamorphosed into a low muffled roar.

  The ship’s navigation still somehow worked.

  “Susan. Commander.”

  “Weapons.”

  “Negative. At 115° and rising. 116. 118 …” He knew they knew it. Who could not feel sick and dying with such heat?

  “Increase compressor.”

  “She’s in the red zone now.”

  “Delores. Damn it. Just do what I say this once. For the love of God, if God be down here, burn the fucking thing out. We’ll flame up inside ourselves.”

  “My God. Look at our pictures. The lateral aux back-up cameras are still working. That extra shielding …”

  They gazed at their main screens. Red-yellow hues all about them danced, a pattern of fire and bubbles of flame never witnessed by eyes capable of comprehending.

  “It’s the world as she was, the planet at the time of its creation. We’re in the middle of the beginning of the universe,” Susan said.

  The ship shook. The ship quivered. Minions of white floating snow-like objects passed before them. Minions of red tubules against the yellow and blue fire red line flashed-swirled about them. Bubbles of steam within fire, a pillar of fire cloud carried them up, or to the side or down, for they were no longer certain.

  Susan continued. “Life forms all. Methane. Sulfur. Compounds of living rock rising out to the waters to live and change. See. See! Observe! They form bonds. They, they, wait a minute, wait, yes, look, helter-skelter, they hook, they link. There! See how that part cuts in, how it cleaves the weak bond, then bounds up both loose ends. My God! The top section cuts loose, slides along the binding edge, and inserts further down. Transposon activity at the very heart of creation! Real-time evolution even before there’s anything to evolve. Don’t you see? Don’t you see it? It’s so obvious now. It was part of the original design!”

  Delores and Magruder looked at her. Her eyes were aflame, impossibly brighter than the brightest flame without. Their lungs breathed in searing heat. All panted like dogs on an August Mississippi farm.

  “One hundred twenty-one degrees. Sweet Jesus’ Mary. One hundred twenty-four. My God. My God. I can’t breathe. Can’t feel my flesh.”

  “My skin is no longer skin. It’s fluid, a running river of flesh, I …”

  “We’re losing all our water weight. We’ll start dying from dehydration in another minute or two. Drink. Drink. Drink. We’re got to get out or …”

  “Verniers ion left 137°, my mark. Now dammit!”

  “Susan. We’ve got to back out on our memory arc line trajectory.”

  “There’s no time for that. Do you want a chance at life? Mark! Mark! Mark! Now! Now!”

  Somehow Hodges turned. Sweat poured over, drenched his eyes and ears like huge steady sheets of an all-day rain. Before he passed out, he managed to program in the coordinates and the rocket flowed. His last thought: He hoped the outer hull at the rocket propulsion chamber exit hadn’t melted fully. He prayed. He passed out.

  He thought he might be able to open his eyes. He tried. His lids stuck together, as though glue had been poured between them. He rested. Perhaps he should try again. At last his lids parted, with a strange squeak. Once more he saw.

  Susan bent over him. She hooked up his IV for hydration. He did not feel the vein prick. He wondered why. Soon he would figure out they were no longer on earth. That was why he did not feel the vein prick.

  The ship floated in a lolling, rocking motion. Calm. Peaceful. At one and at peace with the world. He felt cooler. Susan’s hair frizzled down, matted and somehow loose at the same time. She had removed her clothes but for her sleeveless T-shirt and skivies. When she leaned over him, her breasts swayed in a similar motion as the ship. She was charming.

  God, he was lost in the body and mind of a mad scientist. He looked down.

  She had removed his clothes as well.

  Diffused white lights formed red-yellow halos defining gem-shine circlets about her mated, frizzed, and hanging loose hair all about her head. She looked so beautiful. If only he could move. He found he could not.

  He thought: This must be heaven. All the talk about coming back or meeting with loved ones, it was all so much talk, nonsense. Obviously he now knew one was stuck with the people one was last with. That was it. Of course, he hadn’t been in heaven long. Perhaps people could visit one another in their assigned capsules or pods. Well, it didn’t matter. After all it would not be so bad to be with Susan for eternity. Even eternity and time and infinity itself had to have transference to nothingness. He was suddenly pleased with himself. Being with Susan had made the books he read and had been confused about make sense. She had a way of explaining things to him that clarified it all somehow. Was there any other couple in the world whose languid pillow talk concerned the truth and projections of science? But if he was in heaven, why did he need an IV? He understood. In heaven, they needed to start out a person with something a man or woman was familiar with. Then they eased you into it. That was it.

  “You’re my angel, I guess.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you. And pardon my French, but our asses ain’t quite cooked yet. Look out the window.”

  “Window? How in --” Hodges sat up, a tiny incline. A thick, black-gray dead weight, like lead, pressed deep into his mind. He fell back in his chair.

  “I can’t.”

  “Give it a minute. Let some more of this drip filter into your veins, arteries, capillaries, to bathe the cells. That’s it. You’re doing fine. Tough guy.”

  She removed her shirt. Her perfectly formed breasts that no one else knew about glistened and seemed to regenerate a life of their own. The ugly duckling transformed into the beautiful swan, he thought. His swan. His intelligent, beautiful swan. But it was useless, hopeless. All they could do as lovers now was die together. When it came down to it, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad after all. Maybe it was time. The truth was, he had already enjoyed his share of narrow escapes. Yet one more seemed unlikely. Still, one thing he had learned; there was always a chance, and a man or a woman had to take it or surely die.


  She wiped his brow. He thought of his mother wiping his brow in a memory so long ago distant and until now lost, he had not thought of it again until this moment. Susan, like his mother so long ago squeezing the cloth, the drops dripping back into the bucket, squeezed her shirt. Wetter than before she worked at getting it back on, but that just wasn’t going to happen. She just threw it down on the floor. She now left nothing to anyone’s imagination. How could no one else have seen how beautiful the woman was, hiding it all these years?

  “Susan. There’s some things I need to say. We—”

  “Shh.” She put her fingers on his lips. “There’ll be time. Up there. On the surface. Here. Try again. Let me help.”

  The first woman to realize he wasn’t just a dumb hulk. Maybe he was feeling better after all; for he allowed his thoughts to tell himself a silly little joke. The woman was intelligent in more than one way. The private self-joke elicited a slight smile. Yes, he improved. Already he could feel some of his strength, his power, as he had referred to it for a while, return.

  “Well, a little smile. I think you can make it up now.”

  He sat up. He turned. He found he could fight off most of the blackness in his mind. He looked up. Susan had opened the Plexiglas sheath. Cool ocean water swirled about them, bubbling gently. Beyond, it stretched toward a horizon, channeling and churning into steam. He turned to the pressure and temperature gauges. Pressure gauge in yellow, closer back to green; temperature gauge read ninety-one. Still hot, but now tolerable, yes, very much better. She wiped his brow again.

  There was at last a hint of coolness in the cloth, an essence of heart-felt coolness and comfort only women’s hands can provide. It was an odd thought: He knew he was about to die, he felt about the worst he had ever felt, and he was suddenly happier than he had ever been in his life, so full of joy he thought his heart would burst, and not from the hostile environment.

  “We made it back? No. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “No. No one has. Until now. The horizon edge, the event horizon of water and fire. We’re still down in it. Got a long way to go. And only twenty-six minutes to figure something out.”