CV

51

At twelve hundred hours, when the shift changed, Bliss dropped in at the Control Center for a look around before lunch. Ferguson was just being relieved by Deputy Womack; the new comm officer was Peter Gann. At twelve-fifteen. Bliss was on the point of leaving when Womack sat up straight and said, “Chief, you’re not going to believe this, but we’ve got another lifeboat-door signal. It’s the same one as before—Lifeboat Fifty-three.”

Bliss said nothing. Now what? Could somebody have got out through the empty tube? What would be the point of that? Or—oh, God—could somebody have got in? “See if you can shut the door,” he said.

Womack shook his head. “It’s still telling me the door is open. Maybe just a malfunction?”

“No. It isn’t. Try opening the door, then closing it.”

“I’m getting a status signal—door opening.”

“Close it.”

“Door closing." After a moment Womack turned. “Still the same signal—it isn’t shut.”

Bliss looked at the clock. How long had it been since the signal came on? Five seconds, ten? If they were really there, what were they doing now?

Under their wetsuits, the five men were dressed in white skivvies and shorts. They took Navy Colts from their pouches and belted them on. Martinez stood guard at the entrance to the lifeboat bay; the rest, with Hamling in the lead, set off up the corridor at a trot.

“Down to plus one seventeen, Mr. Womack.”

“Plus one seventeen? Yes, sir.” After a moment he said, "Chief? If that door’s really open, we’ll flood the Boat Deck.”

“I know,” said Bliss.

When the next surge came, an inch of water flooded into the lifeboat bay where Martinez was standing. Instead of washing out again, the water rose. Suddenly there was a clangor of alarm bells. Martinez saw the watertight door descending just in time to grab an air bottle and shove it underneath.

In the corridor, the fluorescents abruptly went out, replaced by the sullen yellow glow of emergency lights. Life rafts dropped from the ceiling and swung at the ends of their cords.

Ahead of the four frogmen, a watertight door was descending. Handing broke into a splashing run toward it, but he was too late. The flood reached the closed door and kept on rising.

“Let me sit here, if you don’t mind, Mr. Womack.” said Bliss. "You and Mr. Gann watch the foretop screens, please.” Bliss sat down at the console and called up a Boat Deck status display. Watertight doors were down at both ends of Corridor Y where it intersected with cross corridors, but the door at the entrance of the lifeboat bay was not closed. A real malfunction, this time, or had they jammed it with something? The water level in the corridor was just over two feet.

“Copter in sight, Chief,” said Womack suddenly.

Bliss felt a sudden paradoxical relief. That meant, at least, that he had not made a grotesque misjudgment.

Submerged, Sea Venture was like a whale, a shape as portly and to all appearance ungraceful as Bliss himself. Only Bliss, perhaps, fully realized how delicately trimmed she was, how easy it would be to make her dance.

He did a mental sum. The isolated section of the corridor was eighty feet long and ten feet wide, ergo eight hundred square feet, times two made sixteen hundred cubic. That was about a hundred thousand pounds of water—fifty tons. Was that enough? Probably, but he wanted to take no chances. Bliss reached out and turned the depth control to plus one twenty-six. Sea Venture descended gently another foot. Now the sensors showed three feet of water in the corridor.

He glanced up at the monitors. The little speck of the helicopter was plainly visible.

Bliss overrode the interlock and began to pump water out of the port-side trim tanks. He watched the clinometer, feeling the vessel tilt almost imperceptibly under him. One degree; two. It couldn’t be much more, or he’d be having a lot of old people falling over and breaking their hips. He adjusted the depth control again to positive one hundred twenty-nine. Sea Venture began to rise.

Womack said, “Chief, the helicopter—!”

Bliss glanced at the monitor. It was close, but there was still time. “We must rise before we can descend,” he said. In the Boat Deck screens, he could see a torrent of water pouring into the ocean. The green light on the panel that indicated the lifeboat-bay door turned abruptly red. The obstruction must have been swept away. Instantly Bliss typed in another override and raised all the watertight doors. The torrent continued. In the screens, Bliss saw five men struggling in the water. When the rush of water stopped, he lowered the doors again and turned the depth control to plus ten.

Sea Venture gently slipped under the surface, all but its upper works, as the helicopter soared closer. A few minutes later, Bliss had the satisfaction of seeing the copter lower a sling to pick up the frogmen.