by Adam Roberts
‘If modern science is wrong, and our globe is truly filled with water,’ Boucher pressed, ‘—and if we have somehow made our way to that interior ocean, well it would not be a stationary mass, would it? The earth turns, and its diurnal spin would twist any interior body of liquid into a permanent, three-dimensional whirlpool. Rather than simply plunging directly down, perhaps we have rather been following a spiral, down through the fluid gyre?’
‘An ingenious theory,’ admitted Jhutti. ‘Although an unlikely one. Our motion has continued with a downward vector without interruption. Were we caught in a vortex, there would be palpable shearing vectors, motions to the side. Quite apart from the fundamental unlikelihood of any such inner whirlpool of water going undetected by modern science.’
‘There must be some explanation,’ insisted the captain.
‘Indeed there must,’ agreed Lebret. ‘I have no desire to contradict the lieutenant, but it seems to me that even a spiral descent must come to an end long before a hundred thousand kilometres.’
‘So?’
‘So, we must address the possibility that ours is … is no longer a terrestrial location.’
The six other men on the bridge looked from one to the other; several shook their heads. ‘Impossible,’ declared Boucher. ‘Permit me to invoke Occam’s razor once more. Any possible explanation must, even if unlikely, be possible.’
‘I do not pretend to be able to explain how the transition occurred – or where we now find ourselves. But I am emboldened to go further in my speculations.’
‘Please do, Monsieur Lebret,’ instructed the captain.
‘I suggest we have slipped from our material dimension into another.’
‘Another dimension?’ snapped Cloche. ‘Meaningless pseudobabble! Explain yourself.’
‘There is one datum I can adduce, I believe,’ said Lebret, scratching his beard with his left hand and manoeuvring a cigarette out of its case with his left, ‘to support my theory. The pressure! Let us agree, for the sake of argument, to trust our instrumentations, and agree that we have passed through a continuous column of water – for surely we are surrounded by water, and have been this whole time – to a “depth” of one hundred thousand kilometres. Were such a prodigious depth possible in any terrestrial location, the pressures at the bottom would be … quite unimaginable! Millions of tonnes per square centimetre, enough to crush the water itself into a supersolid. Probably enough to crush the atoms into a nuclear furnace. We ought, according to everything we know of the physical sciences, we ought to be sailing through the heart of a burning star, not an ocean! Whatever else is happening to us in our strange voyage, it is not that!’
‘Then what, Monsieur?’
‘Indulge me, my friends,’ said Lebret. ‘Imagine that we have passed through some … portal. Imagine that we have moved from the finite Atlantic into an infinite ocean. A body of water literally without limit.’
The others considered this bizarre suggestion. ‘This is your earlier theory … that we have passed from life to death?’ demanded Cloche.
‘By no means,’ said Lebret, an uncharacteristically sombre expression on his face. ‘I consider our plight material, not spiritual. But I ask you – if we imagine a body of water infinite in extent in all directions – what would the water pressure be within it?’
It was such a strange, and unexpected question, that at first nobody offered to answer it. Eventually, however, Jhutti stirred himself.
‘A strange speculation! I would say,’ Jhutti said, speaking slowly as if working it out as he went along, ‘that at every point an infinite quantity of water would press down. That, in brief, were such a body of water to exist (and I do not concede for a moment that it ever could) then the water pressure within it would be … infinite too. Water could not exist under such a circumstance. Indeed, matter could not exist like that, in any form.’
‘With all respect due to your eminence and intellectual capacity, I cannot agree,’ said Lebret, smiling. He then said something rapidly in Punjabi, before going on in French. ‘Water at the bottom of the Mariana trench is crushed by the weight of water, not its mass. Weight is a function of gravity. I am not proposing a vast planet surrounded by a vast ocean – an oceanic Jupiter, or something of that sort. Such a thing would not fit the circumstances in which we find ourselves.’
‘Jupiter – or say rather Neptune,’ murmured Ghatwala.
‘No – I am proposing an infinite ocean. Imagine it! In such a location there would be no place in which the pressure could build up, for there would be nowhere for the mass of water to bear down upon. Do you see?’
‘I am not sure,’ said Jhutti. ‘An infinite ocean strikes me as a rank impossibility. Where would all the water in such a place come from?’
‘Well – if it comes to that,’ returned Lebret. ‘We might ask – where does all the matter in our actual universe “come from”?’
‘These are questions beyond observational science,’ said Jhutti, a little primly.
‘In which case …’ drawled Lebret, complacently.
But Jhutti was not finished. ‘Even if I accepted so outrageous a supposition as your infinite universe of water,’ he said. ‘I do not believe the medium would remain uniformly dissipated. Surely it would coalesce into innumerable gravitational centres?’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Lebret. ‘For such a cosmos would be governed not by the simple gravitational mechanics of agglomerative matter, but by the infinitely more subtle and complex equations of fluid dynamics – and (since our measurements confirm that the temperature of the fluid is as high as 4°C) Brownian motion. Any whirlpool or tourbillon would be as likely to disaggregate as aggregate the medium.’
‘No—no—’ Jhutti said. ‘You do not give enough credit to the inescapable, agglomerative powers of gravity itself.’
‘I might wish, Monsieur,’ said Pierre Boucher, scratching the pockmarked lunar expanse of his great white brow, ‘that you talk in ordinary French …’
‘I repeat,’ said Jhutti, ‘that the existence of such an entity – an infinite universe comprised wholly of water – is mere supposition. There is certainly no evidence that we have entered into such a place. How could we have done so? By what means?’
‘Say rather,’ said Lebret, ‘by what portal? For as to the existence of some sort of portal, at least, we must all agree. In the world with which we are familiar, our rapid descent should have terminated in the ocean floor. It did not. Logically, therefore, we somehow passed through – or beyond, or behind, or in some other dimensional relation to – that brute physical reality.’
‘I have another objection to Monsieur Lebret’s ingenious theory,’ put in Dilraj Ghatwala. ‘For we are all of us standing upon the deck of this bridge, under the influence of gravity. How could that be, in the bizarre universe you suggest?’
‘Ah!’ said Lebret, seemingly pleased. ‘That, Monsieur, is a very good point! And I concede without blushing that I am not certain of the answer. But I can at least think of a number of ways in which it can be explained. Some portal – I make no apology for reusing the word – had granted us egress. Presumably it has also allowed in a quantity of water. The release of water, at the immense pressures of the Atlantic bottom, into a vast reservoir of water at what are evidently much lower pressures must perforce have been after the manner of a great jet. What if the Plongeur were rolled about, and what we perceive as gravity is in fact the acceleration imparted to us by the force of this spout? Or what if – more fancifully – the portal has somehow allowed in gravity itself from our world?’
‘Preposterous!’ exclaimed the usually polite Jhutti, unable to contain himself further. ‘Gravity is not a fluid, to be released like a stream from a water pistol! And we could hardly have experienced an acceleration of one gravity continually, smoothly, without turbulence or interruption for three days straight! If we had, then by now we would be travelling at …’ he performed a rapid mental calculation, ‘… at nearing one hundred and
fifty thousand metres per second!’
But Lebret lost none of his good humour. ‘Good points, all,’ he conceded. ‘In which case, there must another explanation! One thing only is certain – we need to explore. We must continue our journey through this strange new medium, and not return too precipitously to France.’
‘Enough,’ said the captain. ‘None of this helps me make the decisions required by command. Shall I send a seaman out in a suit, and hope he can fix the ballast tank intakes? I must regain control of my own ship! That is the most important thing. Everything else is secondary.’
‘Indeed, sir’ said Boucher, smartly.
‘Very well,’ said Cloche. ‘Let me make plain, gentlemen, my broader strategy: regain control of my vessel, in order to retrace our trajectory. Into whatever bizarre place we have sunk, it must be possible to return the way we came.’
‘You are the captain,’ Lebret observed.
‘Thank you for noticing, Monsieur Lebret!’ returned Cloche, sarcastically.
‘I would only note, sir,’ Lebret added, with the slightest hint of insolent emphasis on the honorific, ‘that if my hypothesis is correct, then ascent or descent will be equally fruitless. The chance of finding the precise point at which we passed from the mundane ocean to this strange new location – if it be infinite – is mathematically: zero. We can never again return home. We shall sail these endless, unlit waters until our food gives out and we starve – or until we grow insane with confinement and kill one another.’ He smiled a weird little smile.
‘Sir,’ said the captain, with asperity. ‘For the second time upon this voyage I am compelled to rebuke you for pessimism. Morale is as important in maintaining the good running of a ship as discipline – and both are more vital than any amount of technological know-how or fanciful theorising! I must insist you refrain from giving voice to sentiments liable to depress and discourage the crew.’
‘But we must be realistic, Captain,’ said Lebret. ‘And plan for every eventuality. Let us try and find a refuge in this new place, and not yearn hopelessly after the return home.’
The captain snapped, ‘You are dismissed, sir! Please return to your cabin!’
Languidly, Lebret complied.
7
LEAVING THE PLONGEUR
Cloche summoned de Chante, Avocat and Capot to the bridge and asked for volunteers; but none of the three men came forward. ‘Come, come!’ chided Cloche. ‘You don’t want me to ask Pannier, surely?’
‘He’s drunk,’ said Capot, running fingers through his greasy, rust-coloured hair. ‘And Castor is chief engineer, too important to risk on such an undertaking – I see. You’ve gathered the three of us because we are the most dispensable; and you don’t know what hell-monsters lurk in the water outside.’
‘Monsieur!’
‘We all know, Captain – we all know what’s happened. We’ve been sucked alive into Satan’s hell, and you’re looking for a volunteer to swim out and meet the demons.’
The captain stood up from his chair. ‘Sailor!’ he said, sternly. ‘I am undecided as to whether I shall shoot you for insubordination or lock you in the brig!’
Capot had gone white. ‘Might as well shoot me, Captain,’ he returned. ‘We’re all doomed to a drawn-out death sailing through this godless cess-pit for evermore. I’d rather get it out of the way.’ His voice was level, but his hands were visibly trembling.
Cloche slowly unbuttoned the flap on his holster and brought out his pistol. He levelled this at Capot’s head. ‘Sailor,’ he said. ‘You may have given up hope, but I have not. And luckily for you it is my will that matters. Lieutenant! Lock Matelot Capot in the brig. Avocat!’
‘Captain?’
‘Suit up. Get Castor to help you. You’re going outside to take a look at the ballast tank intakes, and see what must be done to fix them.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I want my vessel brought back under my control!’
Boucher led Capot away, and Cloche re-holstered his weapon. ‘Messieurs,’ he announced. ‘We have drifted, and sunk, for long enough. It is time to take charge of our destiny!’
Below the observation deck (the steel shutters still closed upon the oval porthole), down a blue-painted metal ladder, was a compact chamber from which, via an airlock, egress from the vessel could be effected. This space contained two cupboards, in each of which hung a thick, rubber diving suit and tanks of compressed air.
Down into this place climbed de Chante, Avocat and Lebret. Matters did not get off to a good start: de Chante opened one cupboard, and one of the vessel’s freak breezes blew suddenly up, making the empty arms of the suit flap and thrash, as if warning Avocat away. The motion was so unexpected that Avocat yelped in fear and recoiled flinching.
He rebuked himself for his foolishness. Lebret and de Chante dragged the heavy rubber outfit from its space, and wrangled it down as Avocat clambered inside. Sensing that his nerves were jangled, Lebret attempted to keep the diver’s spirits up. ‘Have no fear, Monsieur,’ he said, lighting them both a cigarette. ‘You are certainly safer in this ocean – whatever it is, and wherever we are – than you would be in the South Seas or the Mediterranean. There will be no sharks to trouble us here.’
‘You think so, M’sieur?’
‘I am certain. We know the water is not excessively cold; we know that it is ordinary water – we are breathing it, after all. I have even tasted it! The sonar shows nothing – no shoals of strange fish, no leviathans. It is a huge swimming pool, nothing more.’
‘I hope you’re right, sir.’
Avocat’s helmet was fixed around his skull, the light embedded above his faceplate switched on and the air supply checked and double-checked. Finally, a yard-long spanner and a long-handled hammer were strapped to each leg, and he was helped through into the airlock. The door closed with a chunky sound, and the handle spun through two complete revolutions. Through the little window, no broader than a handspan, it was possible to see the water swirl in until the entire chamber was full.
The exterior hatch swung open and Avocat ventured into the unknown.
De Chante remained below; Lebret climbed back up and joined Castor and Cloche in the forward hull where the main ballast tanks were located. ‘If we can only get air back in our ballast tanks,’ growled the captain, ‘then it won’t matter that regaining the control of the propeller seems to have been no use in arresting our descent. We can begin to ascend, retrace our path.’
‘There’s also the question of the vanes, Captain,’ said Boucher.
‘The vanes, yes,’ grumbled Cloche. ‘But ballast tanks first! A submarine without functioning tanks is just an iron bar dropped in the water.’
They waited. Distant clanging and knocking could be heard.
‘There!’ said Lebret, putting his head on one side like a dog. ‘Avocat has reached the inlets. He is effecting repairs!’ A series of distant, muffled noises of metallic percussion could be heard.
Suddenly the whole vessel shook, rotating a metre to the left. Then it rolled back through to right itself. Some mechanical arrangement of the vessel’s workings audibly caught, and with a whir of motors the vent on the starboard ballast tank began to close. ‘I’m inflating the tanks now, Captain,’ cried Le Petomain.
The men in the slant space began spontaneously to cheer.
The downwards angle of the deck began to right itself. In moments, the slope of the decks reduced considerably. The vessel was not perfectly horizontal, but the angle was agreeably reduced.
‘It is done!’ cried Cloche, uncharacteristic delight distorting his face. ‘Once the vanes are sorted, we will have full control of our craft and can arrest this interminable descent! We can turn our trajectory about, and return to the surface!’
Lebret shook his head, slowly, with a sly smile on his face – as if to say that the captain’s optimism was sadly misplaced.
The banging stopped. ‘Is our descent slowing?’ Cloche demanded.
‘A little, sir,�
�� said Le Petomain.
‘Assemble the men in the mess!’ ordered Cloche. ‘Get Pannier to bring out some bottles! We must celebrate!’
‘We are still descending, though, sir …’ Le Petomain said.
But Cloche appeared not to hear. ‘Once the vanes are repaired,’ he announced, ‘we shall start our ascent. And if Avocat could repair the main tank vents so easily, then the vanes should be a simple matter!’
‘Sir—’ Le Petomain said again.
‘A drink!’ Cloche bellowed. ‘Celebration! Soon we shall return home, my comrades!’
Boucher hurried along the now-horizontal corridor and went through to the kitchen. He found Pannier immediately – once again dead drunk, slumped unconscious on his knees with his face on the seat of a chair, in a parody of prayer. The lieutenant didn’t waste time tutting; he rummaged through the stores until he found two bottles, and a corkscrew, and came back through to the mess.
From below climbed de Chante, and Avocat in his rubber suit, shinily wet. The diver was the only man not grinning.
‘Bravo Avocat!’ yelled somebody.
But the diver merely shook his head.
‘Cheer up man,’ instructed Cloche. ‘You have done a great thing!’ He pulled on a cork and it emerged from the bottleneck with a gloopy noise. But he was clumsy, and spilled a portion of the wine – a freak breeze caught the droplets and spattered them upwards at the ceiling. Cloche, cursing, put his thumb over the top.
‘I’m sorry, Captain,’ said Avocat, glumly.
‘No matter! Most of the bottle remains!’
Avocat shook his head again. ‘I don’t mean the wine.’ The breeze was certainly flowing vigorously around the cabin (although, oddly, it did not chill the skin). But when Avocat lifted his arm to rub his face, droplets were lifted from the wet rubber and flew about the space.
The diver stood to attention. ‘Captain – I’m sorry,’ he announced, stiffly, ‘sorry to have failed to complete my mission. I have let you down!’