Dive to Oblivion

9

To get the day started off properly, Lisa Tanner made certain to prepare a hearty breakfast. Back in New Zealand, this was a custom that her mother had passed on to her, and Lisa took it most seriously. Today’s menu was no exception. She started off with thick Cream of Wheat. Then she served grapefruit sections and prunes, followed by blueberry waffles, bacon, and piping hot Irish breakfast tea, flavored with milk and honey.

Though space inside Starfish House was at a minimum, the designers had wisely paid special attention to the kitchen. Lisa had lived on her share of boats in the past, and her current galley was more than adequate.

And how many kitchens could offer the spectacular view that she currently enjoyed?

As she stood by the sink, scrubbing clean the morning’s pots and pans, she was able to gaze from a strategically placed porthole and catch sight of the many fascinating creatures that made the surrounding reef their home. Earlier in the morning, she spotted a family of brightly colored angel fish, several red-skinned snappers, a squirrel fish, and even a passing moray eel.

Presently, her visitor was a familiar, six-foot-plus, narrow-bodied creature with large eyes, and a huge gaping jaw, that displayed a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.

The barracuda, called Uncle Albert, seemed to know precisely when mealtime was over and the table scraps were to be gathered. The alert fish had initiated its unrelenting patrol just as Lisa began her cleanup.

And back and forth it continuously swam, only inches from the kitchen porthole.

“That was a delicious breakfast, mon amie,” commented Pierre Lenclud behind her, in his deep voice.

As the Frenchman placed his plate in the sink, his gaze was also drawn to the porthole and their waterborne visitor.

“You’d better do something about your friend out there. Lisa, before it goes and takes its frustrations out on one of us.”

“Uncle Albert can sure be a real pest sometimes,” she observed while gathering the remaining table scraps into a bowl.

“But I guess that’s the price we’ve got to pay to have our very own living garbage disposal.”

“Back home in Rouen, where I grew up, we once had a pig that squealed its head off every evening after dinner.

The only way my father could shut it up was to throw it the leftovers. Mon amie, it’s funny how that technique never failed to do the trick.”

As Lisa picked up the bowl of scraps and turned for the ready room, Uige came flying into the kitchen and landed squarely on Lenclud’s shoulder. The parrot peered down at Lisa, and in its best squawking voice, vented its curiosity.

“Awk, where ya goin’? Where ya goin’?” “Come on, mon petit, “said Lenclud to Uige.

“Lisa’s got her work to do, as we have ours. For we have a date in the library to begin the supply requisition. You wouldn’t want me to forget to order your birdseed, would you, my fine feathered friend?”

Uige didn’t dare utter a word of protest, and Lenclud grinned and left Lisa with a warning.

“Don’t forget to watch those fingers out there, mon amie. This mission wouldn’t be the same without your culinary magic.”

Taking this as the compliment that it was meant to be. Lisa headed for the adjoining arm of Starfish House, where the diver’s ready room was located.

Ivana Petrov and Tomo were in the process of strapping on their scuba gear here, and Lisa barely paid them any attention as she put down the bowl of scraps and proceeded to zip off her coveralls. This revealed a lean, well-built body, covered by the briefest of bikinis.

She reached out for a mask, rubbed some spit into its inner glass plate, then dumped the contents of the bowl into a mesh net, and walked over to the open hatch.

“Thanks for feeding Uncle Albert before we started to look appetizing to him,” remarked the Russian, who was making final adjustments to her weight belt. “It’s too bad you’re the only one he’ll accept food from, or we’d save you from getting wet.”

“Actually, I sort of look forward to my morning dip,” said Lisa.

“Where are you two off to?”

“Tomo and I are headed for Habitat One to inventory supplies and do maintenance. Then while Tomo checks his aqua farm I’m going to see how Karl Ivar is doing with Misha.”

Lisa responded to this while climbing down the ladder.

“Please try to drag our hard-working Norwegian friend back for lunch. Dr. Petrov. He was up and out of here at the crack of dawn, long before I could even put the kettle on.”

Lisa took a deep breath, and initiated the short climb down into the warm, soothing water below.

With the net full of scraps firm in her grasp, she pulled herself up to the shark proof grill that protected the hatch, and struck one of the tubular steel bars several times with the net’s metal handle. This improvised chow call had immediate results. Uncle Albert came shooting over to the side of the grill, and Lisa wasted no time carefully emptying the contents of the net into the water before him. In a matter of seconds, the leftovers were history, and Lisa climbed back up through the hatch, barely winded.

“Can you imagine that ungrateful brute?” she said as she pulled herself out of the water and grabbed a towel.

“He didn’t even say thank you.”

This remark caused the two divers to laugh, and it was Ivana Petrov who led the way into the water.

“See you for lunch with Karl Ivar in tow. Comrade.”

Once Ivana was through the hatch, the barracuda was nowhere to be seen, and she felt a bit more relaxed as she floated beside the habitat and made some final adjustments to her equipment. Tomo soon joined her, and together they slowly made their way to the onion shaped dome positioned beside the similarly shaped, but larger hangar.

A collection of cables snaked out from the bottom hatch of this all-important structure. These life-support cables serviced both Starfish House and the hangar, and conveyed air, water, and power — all the vital elements that allowed the Mir habitat to be self-sufficient.

Ivana startled a group of spiny-finned wrasse that had been nibbling on the algae that was growing on one of Habitat One’s telescopic legs. Tomo was a good distance behind her, inspecting one of the cables, and she took a moment to survey the coral clearing before climbing up into the dome’s hatch.

Like yellow welcoming beacons, lights shined from Starfish House’s portholes. A funnel-shaped column of exhaust bubbles shot out of the roof and rose to the surface, where the distinctive hull of the Academician Petrovsky could be seen bobbing in the distance. It was somewhat reassuring to know that this well-equipped support ship was near should they need help. But in another way, the gently rolling hull seemed to belong to an alien world that she was no longer part of.

A stingray gracefully swam by, followed by a school of fast-moving mullet. These were the rightful inhabitants of Ivana’s present world, where humans were outsiders.

She suddenly felt small and insignificant, and wondered what her father would think of this amazing underwater world. It was because of him that she had become a scientist, and he had always been a source of support and inspiration..

How powerless she had felt when she learned that he had cancer. And then only months later, the state further tore apart his life, by forcing him to retire and sending him into exile, merely for expressing his opinion.

Whereas the human world could be cruel and unfair, the sea seemed a far cleaner, more understanding place. Its laws were those of nature, where species killed not for political or economic gain, but for survival.

Her father had been a visionary in many ways. Just as he foresaw the very composition of matter, he also anticipated the demise of the party that had subjugated their homeland for too many years. Unfortunately, he spoke out before the transfer of power was completed, and lost the chance to participate in Russia’s second revolution in a single century.

As soon as she completed her work with the habitat project, she promised herself that she would take the time to visit her parents. She had so much to share with them. And as she gazed out at the magical underwater world around her, she prayed that she could find the proper words to express herself.

It was Tomo’s presence beside her that redirected her thoughts back to their current duty. Turning her gaze away from the clearing, she followed her co-worker up the ladder that led into Habitat One’s interior.

The same compressed air that kept the water out of the dome’s open hatch, allowed them to remove their air hoses and their scuba tanks. The muted hum of machinery greeted them, and Tomo switched on the main bank of overhead lights, illuminating the equipment from which this constant noise emanated.

“I’m going to check the gauges,” informed Tomo.

“Then I’ll help you with the inventory, before we get on with the routine equipment maintenance.”

“That’s fine with me. Comrade,” replied Ivana, as she followed a narrow latticed-steel catwalk past the electric generator. The energy produced by this powerful unit also ran the nearby hydrolysis unit, as well as the air compressor, which constantly pumped out a carefully monitored mixture of oxygen and helium.

She stopped beside the equipment locker, where the materials needed to maintain their life-support systems were stored. Because of space limitations, many of the substances kept there had to be continually restocked from above. Fuel to run the generator, oxygen, helium, and a variety of spare parts and fresh foodstuffs, had to be sent down from the Academician Petrovsky on a regular resupply schedule. Thus there was a limit to the extent of their self-sufficiency.

They envisioned a future underwater city that could run totally on its own resources. The Mir habitat was but a forerunner of such a futuristic ecosphere, that would grow its own food, synthesize its air from water, and tap the forces that determine the tides, in order to create the energy needed to sustain such an active community.

This was the reality that Ivana was working for, and her hard work was a necessary precursor of things to come.

A clipboard with a pen attached to it hung from a nail, and Ivana picked it up and entered the date and time on the inventory sheet. She then stepped into the locker and began counting the various supplies that were stored here. She was well into this process, when Tomo joined her.

“Sorry that I took so long. Doctor. The pressure gauge on the air pump was registering in the red. The compressor itself was in the normal range, so my first guess was a stuck needle.”

“Were you able to repair it?” asked Ivana, who had been in the midst of counting how many tanks of helium that they had left.

“That I was, Doctor, without even having to go to the tool box. It’s amazing what a sharp, well-placed blow with your knuckles can fix these days.”

The Russian chuckled.

“Even with all this hightech gear, the old-fashioned ways can often be the best.”

“How’s the supply situation, Doctor?”

Ivana recorded the results of her latest count before replying.

“It looks like we’re finally going to need machine oil, and a couple of extra tanks of helium. We might as well order some air filters while we’re at it, and another water-purification test kit.”

“Doctor,” said Tomo.

“If you’d like, I could finish the inventory and do the rest of the maintenance. I know that you’re anxious to find out how Karl Ivar is getting along.”

“I’d appreciate that. Comrade,” returned Ivana, who wasted no time handing her co-worker the clipboard.

“I guess my preoccupation with Misha shows.”

“I know how much getting the mini sub operational means to you, Doctor. I could just imagine what it would be like, if something happened, and I wouldn’t be able to visit my aqua farm anymore. I’d be heartbroken.”

“Thanks again. Comrade,” she said as she turned for the catwalk.

“As they say in America, I owe you one.”

Less than five minutes later, she was entering the water once again, with her air tanks strapped securely to her back. With a quick flutter of her flippered feet, she began her way over to the hangar. Halfway to her goal, as she was passing over a massive, brain-shaped clump of coral, she spotted an unwelcome trio of eight-foot long visitors swimming directly towards her from above. It only took a single look at the splash of white that colored their triangular dorsal fins to identify them as white-tipped sharks.

The white-tip was an aggressive species, that along with its cousin the great white shark, posed the greatest outward threat to man. It could not be taken for granted, and because it was obvious that the sharks had already classified her as potential food, she had to proceed with the utmost caution.

Armed with only a diver’s utility knife, strapped to her calf in a plastic sheath, Ivana swam straight down to the clump of coral. She used the coral to protect her back, and looked on worriedly as the sharks continued to close in.

They were huge, evil-looking creatures, with dull gray skin that held several hitchhiking remoras. With instinctive cunning, they began circling the clump of coral in ever-tightening bands until Ivana could almost reach out and touch them. She felt a bit foolish as she reached down to pull out her knife. Doubting that she’d even be able to pierce their rawhide-tough skin, she knew that her only chance to scare them off would be a well-placed blow to the nose, eyes, or underbelly.

Commandant Lenclud had warned them about going out alone. But she had been impatient to find out how Karl Ivar was coming along so she failed to heed his advice, and now she was about to pay the ultimate price for her mistake.

The sharks seemed to sense that their prey was helpless.

The largest of the threesome actually bumped Ivana with its tail, and then made a wide, sweeping turn, that signaled a final attack was imminent. With only seconds left to live, she wondered if she should try to make one valiant last effort to reach the hangar.

Though it was less than fifteen yards away from her, there was no chance of her getting to it safely. She decided to make her final stand right where she was.

The largest of the sharks had completed its broad turn, and was now coming straight at her, meaning business. Ivana regrasped the knife in response, and was all set to use it, when a swift-moving, torpedo shaped object came spiralling out of the depths and smacked into the shark’s exposed underbelly. The stunned white-tip lay momentarily motionless in the water, and Ivana saw that her unlikely savior was none other than Dolly, the bottlenose dolphin.

Dolly used her snout to get the message across to the remaining sharks, and soon all of them were in the midst of a hasty retreat to safer waters. Ivana couldn’t believe her good fortune. She held out her hands to hug Dolly, before following her protector to the shelter of the hangar.

She swam through the hatch and surfaced, with Dolly close at her side. Barely taking the time to yank the air hose from her mouth, she once more reached over to give the dolphin another hug. Dolly responded with an animated burst of whistles and clicks. This racket quickly gained the attention of Karl Ivar, who was seated beside the hatch, with a collection of loose parts surrounding him.

“Hey, what’s all that noise about. Dolly?” complained the grinning Norwegian.

“Karl Ivar, you’ll never believe what just happened out there,” managed Ivana between breaths.

“Dolly just saved me from a group of white-tips!”

“You don’t say,” he thoughtfully replied as he stood, helped Ivana out of the water, and directed his next remark to Dolly.

“So my friend, you are good for something else than delivering the mail and eating mullet.”

“I’ll say she is,” said Ivana, who accepted a plastic bucket from Karl Ivar. Several hand-sized mullets floated inside this container, and she pulled one out by its tail and gratefully fed it to Dolly.

“Dolly’s been keeping me company all morning,” revealed Karl Ivar.

“Luckily for you, she decided to go out for a stroll. Otherwise, you might never have been here to witness Misha’s rebirth.”

This matter-of-fact comment caused an expectant smile to turn the corners of Ivana’s mouth.

“Does that mean that you’ve finally figured out a way to repair the diving saucer. Comrade?”

Karl Ivar returned her warm smile with one of his own.

“I guess it does, though we won’t know for certain until the adapter that I’m currently working on is completed.”

“That’s wonderful news, Comrade! Because like Misha, I too feel reborn, with this second chance to return to the depths of the Andros trench, and find out just where our mysterious roadway leads to.”

Ivana Petrov would have had extra cause to celebrate, if she had known that her father was a mere sixty feet above her, in the wardroom of the Academician Petrovsky, studying a bathymetric chart of the same trench that she soon hoped to return to. With Admiral Igor Valerian anxiously peering over his shoulder, Andrei traced the rugged walls of the trench, following it southward until it eventually merged into the black depths of the Tongue of the Ocean.

“The spot you picked seems suitable enough,” said Andrei with a heavy sigh.

“Though I still find it incredible that you had the audacity to try the device on an unsuspecting target. At the very least, you could have waited until the prototype was perfected.”

“There was no time for such a luxury. Doctor,” replied Valerian.

“You military types are always in such a mad rush,” observed Andrei disgustedly.

“And now look what it got you, absolutely nothing for all your efforts.”

“I wouldn’t exactly go that far. Doctor,” said Valerian, his good eye gleaming.

Not certain what the silver-haired naval officer was referring to, Andrei looked up from the chart and watched as Valerian pulled a photograph from the file folder that he held. He then handed this snapshot to Andrei, who identified the subject matter as a single, surfaced submarine.

“She’s the Lewis and Clark,” revealed Valerian.

“Launched in 1964, this American Benjamin Franklin class vessel was recently retrofitted to carry sixteen Trident C-4 missiles. As you very well know, the Trident is accurate enough to have hard-kill capability. When one considers that each of these missiles can carry up to eight 100-kiloton MIRVED warheads, all of which are able to hit targets almost anywhere in the rodina, what you have pictured before you is a potent first strike weapons platform of the most dangerous sort.”

“So this is the unfortunate vessel that was your guinea pig,” reflected the physicist. “Unfortunate vessel?” repeated Valerian as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Open your eyes, Doctor! This warship has only one purpose, to strike our homeland a crippling preemptive blow, should the imperialists so desire.”

“I hardly think that such a first strike would be in America’s best interest anymore,” offered Andrei, who handed the photograph back to Valerian.

“But that’s the subject of an entirely different argument. Right now, my only concern is that innocent submarine that you attacked without provocation. Does anyone know what happened to it?”

“All that we can say for certain. Doctor, is that it didn’t end up in Vladivostok as we planned. The Americans have recently released a news story saying that the ship was lost with all hands off the coast of Florida, while on routine patrol. But we know that this is an utter fabrication. The U.S. Navy knew precisely where that sub was located when they lost contact with it, and so far, they haven’t even bothered to send out a single rescue ship to scan the waters of the Andros trench.”

“Then I wonder where in the world it could have ended up?” reflected Andrei, while searching his own mind for an answer to this question.

“As long as we have one less Yankee guided-missile submarine on patrol, that’s all I really care about,” said Valerian, who pulled yet another picture out of the file folder and handed it to his guest. Andrei looked down at an artist’s rendering of a submerged submarine with a torpedo shooting out of its bow tube. The vessel had a sleek, teardrop-shaped hull, with its hydroplanes protruding from the hull itself, and not out of the sail, as was customary with the majority of American submarines.

“I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen a vessel quite like this one before,” admitted Andrei.

“Join the crowd,” said Valerian with ever-rising passion.

“For this is an artist’s conception of SSN-21, or as it’s better known, Seawolf. The first entirely new class of attack submarine in the U.S. fleet in over twenty years, Seawolf’s sensors are reported to be over ten times as effective as those on its predecessor, the ever-capable 688 class. It also carries an incredible weapons load, and is outfitted with a newly designed reactor, and the state-of-the-art in computerized firecontrol systems. When it sets sail on its maiden voyage, sometime in the next couple of weeks, Seawolf will be the most formidable undersea warship that the world has ever known.

“Our country’s own naval architects hoped to field a submarine in the near future to compete with Seawolf. But the breakup of the Union and our grim economic situation make such an expensive R&D project virtually impossible. Thus the only way for us to get our hands on Seawolf’s advanced technology is to borrow it. And to carry out this important task, the rodina is relying upon you, Andrei Segeyevich. For the sake of the continued safety of the homeland, you’ve got to help us fine-tune the device that your own genius invented over five decades ago. To do otherwise will guarantee the Americans complete domination of the seas for generations to come, an extremely dangerous situation that can’t be allowed!”

Not appearing the least bit affected by Valerian’s passionate plea, Andrei put down the picture on the wardroom table, immediately beside the open chart.

“So you want me to help you steal Seawolf. What makes you think that I could have any more success controlling the device than your own technicians?”

“Come now. Doctor. They are only flunkies. You’re the mastermind behind the project, whose visionary genius will allow us to pull this thing off.”

“And if I decide not to help you?” dared Andrei defiantly.

Valerian squared back his shoulders and answered directly.

“Then not only would you be a traitor to your own people, but you’d be endangering the lives of the brave men and women who are currently living on the sea floor beneath us.”

This comment caused a pained expression to cross the physicist’s wrinkled face.

“Are you trying to blackmail me. Admiral, by threatening to harm my daughter?”

“Why of course not. Doctor,” replied Valerian, with the sincerity of a snake.

“I was just thinking of what could happen to those aquanauts, if we tried to repair the device without you, and it were to malfunction once more. There’s no telling what it could do to them.”

The physicist suddenly looked very old, and very tired.

“Extortion is the way of the criminal, Admiral.

It’s also a clear indicator of how very desperate you and your co-conspirators must truly be. If I were any younger, I’d fight to expose you with every means at my disposal. But I’m old and sick, and only want to live out what little remaining time I have left, with my loved ones beside me. Guarantee the safety of my Ivana, and I promise you that I’ll do what I can to get the device functioning properly.”

Taken aback by the ease with which Petrov capitulated, Valerian felt both relief and joy.

“This is a decision that you will never regret. Comrade. Once our mission is successfully completed, you will be hailed not only as the savior of the Motherland, but also as the greatest scientific genius to walk this planet since Albert Einstein. Your place in history will be assured!”