Dive to Oblivion

11

Dr. Andrei Petrov felt tired and drained of all energy.

Ever since arriving on the Academician Petrovsky he had been seasick, and his nausea persisted regardless of what medication the ship’s physician tried. Adding to his discomfort was the intense tropical heat. The humidity never seemed to slacken, and the sweat poured out of his overheated body, making his clothing damp and uncomfortable. Sleep proved all but impossible, and his appetite was limited to quenching a thirst that he could never seem to satisfy.

To make matters even worse. Admiral Valerian was constantly badgering him. The one-eyed naval officer thought nothing of disturbing him in the middle of the night, to ask the most foolish questions. Because he still feared for his daughter’s life, the physicist didn’t dare incur Valerian’s wrath. He thus answered Valerian the best he could, and prayed that the man would honor his side of their bargain.

Andrei spent his first full day of work studying a thick stack of blueprints. These mechanical drawings showed the manner in which the teleportation device had been designed and constructed. Though the theory appeared sound, he questioned the adequacy of the power source, and with Admiral Valerian close at his side, he was given authority to enter the ship’s reactor compartment.

A small, water-cooled nuclear reactor had been placed in an auxiliary compartment beside the moon pool It was of similar design to the reactors used in space, and much to his surprise, he found it producing sufficient power to run the series of submerged, electromagnetic generators that lined the trench below.

Satisfied that this wasn’t the cause of the malfunction, he returned to the control room, to begin an intensive check of the operational system’s software. This was a time-consuming process, and Andrei often worked late into the night, with a computer keyboard and monitor screen his only companions.

He had just completed an exhausting twelve-hour long analysis of the device’s magnetic flux. Satisfied by what he uncovered, Andrei refilled his thermos with cold water, and walked out onto the boat’s fantail in an effort to clear his mind and get some fresh air.

It was well after midnight, and the temperature was still in the mid-eighties. A dank, humid wind blew in from the east, and Andrei stretched his sore back and peered up into the star-filled heavens. It was while tracing Orion’s belt that he heard a deep, resonant voice break from the shadows.

“For someone who has grown up knowing the fresh, cool pine-scented breezes of the taiga, this place is a godforsaken hellhole,” bitterly reflected Admiral Igor Valerian.

A hand broke from the nearby darkness where these words originated, holding a liter bottle filled with a clear, white liquid.

“Here, try some of this,” Valerian added.

“It’s guaranteed to quench a dry throat and fill your heart with fond pictures of the motherland.”

Andrei took the bottle, and sniffed its contents. The familiar scent of clove-flavored vodka filled his nostrils.

Well aware that this was his Anna’s favorite drink, he put the bottle to his lips and swallowed a healthy mouthful. The spicy liquor coursed down his throat and filled his belly with a fiery warmth that momentarily calmed his queasiness.

“This nectar is our only contact with the rodina,” said Valerian as he stepped from the shadows and took the bottle from Andrei.

“It proves that the gulf that separates us is not so great after all.”

Valerian’s breath was heavy with alcohol, yet he displayed none of the outward signs of drunkenness as he walked over to Andrei’s side and took a swig from the bottle. The physicist waved off his offer for another drink, prompting an emotional outburst on the part of Valerian.

“What’s the matter, Doctor? When a fellow countryman offers you his bottle, he’s sharing his life’s blood!”

“I appreciate the offer,” replied Andrei a bit sheepishly.

“But I’m really not feeling all that good.”

“Then vodka is just what the doctor ordered,” returned the veteran, who softened his tone upon sensing the seriousness of his guest’s physical discomfort.

“I understand from our medical officer that you’re having trouble sleeping and are experiencing a serious loss of appetite,” added Valerian with an almost brotherly concern.

“You must get your rest. Comrade, and feed yourself to keep up your strength.”

“I never was much of an eater,” replied Andrei as he turned his gaze back to the sparkling heavens.

“And as for sleep, an hour or two is all I really need to keep going.”

“Your work habits are most impressive, Doctor. So tell me, how did today’s analysis go?”

Andrei hesitated a moment before responding.

“As far as I can tell, the software program appears to have been installed properly. That means the problem has to lie with the generators themselves.”

“I feared that would be the case,” returned Valerian.

“Can they be repaired without conveying the equipment back to the surface?”

“That depends on the location of the fault. The only way to find out for certain is for me to go down there and personally inspect the equipment.”

“Then let’s get on with it. Doctor. I can have our diving saucers ready to descend within the hour. Have you ever travelled into the depths on a mini sub Comrade?”

Andrei shook his head that he hadn’t, and Valerian continued.

“Well then, you’re in for a great adventure.

As a scientist, I’m sure you’ll find the experience most enlightening. It’s just too bad that because of security concerns, we can’t allow you to drop in and visit your daughter.”

The mere mention of Ivana caused Andrei’s spirits to lighten.

“You know, sometimes I almost forget that she’s only sixty feet away from me. Though for that matter, she might as well be on the moon.”

“All of us are proud of her achievements. Doctor.

She is a shining example to the world of the type of brilliant scientist the rodina is capable of producing.

Without her presence down below, this entire mission wouldn’t be possible.”

There was a bitterness in Andrei’s tone as he responded to this comment.

“If only Ivana knew that you were using the Mir habitat program as a cover for a military operation. Knowledge of such a thing would sicken her.”

“Can you be so sure. Doctor?” retorted Valerian.

“After all, she is a loyal citizen of the rodina. As such, she’s most aware that it was because of military might that our country has been free from the sword of the invader for the past five decades. One has only to look at history to know that this hasn’t always been the case. Thus for her own children to grow up in peace and prosperity, this mission is an absolute necessity.”

“I just pray that something doesn’t go wrong, and that the Americans do not learn of our duplicity,” said Andrei.

“Such a discovery would most likely lead to the very war that you’re so worried about getting involved in.”

“And that’s why we decided to call you in. Doctor, so that such a horrible thing won’t happen. So let’s get moving. Time is of the essence, and there is yet much work to be completed if our efforts are to be successful.”

With heavy step, Andrei returned to his stateroom to prepare for his underwater excursion. He took a cool shower, then changed into some dry clothing. On the way to the moon pool he stopped in the galley for a sandwich and some tea. Anxious now to solve the problem that he had been called halfway around the world to attend to, he continued aft, to the rectangular pool of water lying within the ship’s inner hull. Igor Valerian waited for him here, along with a young, blond-haired naval officer, wearing the blue-and-white striped tunic of the spetsnaz.

“Dr. Petrov,” greeted Valerian.

“I’d like you to meet your driver. Lieutenant Yuri Antonov.”

Andrei accepted the commando’s firm handshake and looked down at the pair of diving saucers floating beside the catwalk. The vessels were painted bright yellow, and were outfitted with an articulated manipulator arm and a dual set of bow-mounted mercury-vapor spotlights.

“I understand that this will be your first trip in a submersible,” said Antonov to his passenger.

“Have no fear. Comrade. Though a bit cramped for space, our saucers are perfectly safe and in tip-top operational order.”

“That’s certainly reassuring to hear,” replied Andrei, who was beginning to have second thoughts about this entire excursion.

Quick to sense the physicist’s misgivings. Valerian stepped to the moon pool edge and pointed towards the lead saucer’s open hatch.

“Shall we get on with it, Comrades?”

With a light, deft step, Yuri Antonov stepped down onto the saucer’s upper hull. Andrei followed, quick to grab the commando’s hand when the mini sub began bobbing beneath them.

“Take good care of our very special guest. Lieutenant,” offered Valerian.

Responding to this lighthearted comment with a salute, Antonov carefully guided the whitehaired scientist over to the hatch.

“Follow me,” he instructed as he proceeded to climb down into the narrow opening.

Andrei did as he was directed, and before disappearing into the saucer’s dimly lit interior, he took a last look at Admiral Valerian.

“May your journey be a successful one,” offered the one-eyed mariner with a wave.

Andrei nodded and continued with his short climb downwards. Following his escort’s lead, he lay down prone on an elevated mattress, occupying the right portion of the saucer. Antonov was positioned to his left, with a steel ballast tank between them.

The commando addressed the switches and dials of the control panel. As the oxygen recirculation system was started up, a jet of cool air blew down from the ceiling. The echo sounder began operating with a monotonous ping, and Andrei’s gaze was drawn to his individual porthole when the spotlights activated with a loud click.

“Alpha Two, this is Alpha One, do you read me?” questioned Antonov into a miniature chin-mounted microphone.

“Alpha One, this is Alpha Two. We copy you loud and clear,” a static-free male voice announced from an elevated intercom speaker.

“Very good. Alpha Two,” replied Antonov.

“I am rigged for dive and ready to descend.”

“We’ll be right behind you. Alpha One,” returned the amplified voice.

Yuri Antonov took a deep breath and looked to his right.

“Here we go. Doctor. Are you comfortable?”

“I’ll be fine, young man,” answered Andrei.

“Doctor, I’m going to need you to pull down that series of three levers situated to the right of your porthole.

Please begin with the one closest to me.”

Andrei did as instructed, and the saucer filled with the gurgling sound of onrushing ballast. There was a sinking sensation, and as the mini sub water jet engines activated with a muted growl, the rounded bow angled downwards. A curtain of bubbles veiled the view from his porthole at first. But soon this disturbance-cleared away, affording him an unobstructed view of the sea below.

They were racing into the depths now, with their mercury-vapor spotlights cutting a golden swath through the black waters. With his anxieties forgotten, Andrei peered out in wonder at the passing vista. They cut through a virtual wall of translucent jellyfish, their long ghostly tendrils billowing in the current. A curious sea turtle swam by, followed by a school of quick-moving mackerel. This was indeed a magical world, and the oldtimer understood why his daughter had been drawn to making the seas her exclusive study.

Displaying an almost uncanny intuition, his blond haired driver expressed himself while making a slight adjustment to the external hydraulic piston maneuvering jets.

“The admiral tells me that your daughter is Dr. Ivana Petrov. I had the honor of meeting her last month, when the team of aquanauts arrived to transfer down to the Mir habitat. She seemed like quite an interesting lady.”

“That she is,” replied Andrei proudly.

“Have you gotten a chance to visit the team since then?”

“No, I haven’t. Doctor. One of the conditions of the U.N. charter is that we stay away from the habitat area except for emergencies. And I’m happy to say that so far, we haven’t been needed.”

“How have you managed to keep your operation from the team of United Nations observers aboard the Academician Petrovsky?” asked Andrei.

“It would seem that one of them would be bound to stumble upon the machinery needed to control the teleportation device sooner or later.”

“Actually, it’s been quite simple to deceive them, Doctor. The reactor room, and all below-deck spaces aft of the galley have been placed off limits. So far, the observers have been content to go about their business, with absolutely no suspicions whatsoever.”

A cloudy layer of swirling sediment suddenly veiled the view from the porthole, and it was Antonov who alertly identified it.

“That’s the deep scattering layer, sir. It’s over thirty feet thick, and is comprised of microorganisms that rise towards the surface with nightfall.”

“I’ve heard of such a thing from my daughter. She described it as a vast pasture of plankton, and now I know why.”

At a depth of four hundred and ten feet, Andrei was instructed once more to pull down one of the ballast levers. The added weight was needed to carry them through the denser, cooler waters making up the lower portion of the thermocline.

“Alpha Two, this is Alpha One, how do you read me, over?”

Antonov’s hail generated a crystal clear response from the saucer that followed in their baffles. Content to sit back and enjoy this once-in-alifetime experience, Andrei focused his line of sight out the porthole.

A trio of huge groupers swam by, as well as a graceful, fan-shaped manta ray.

They finally reached bottom at a depth of nine hundred and seventy-six feet. The other diving saucer made a rendezvous with them at this point, and side by side they proceeded due south, down the gently sloping floor of the Andros Trench.

Andrei spotted what appeared to be a fractured rock roadway embedded in the sediment of the sea floor. Of course, such a structure had to have been constructed by the hands of mother nature. Yet he carefully followed its meander all the same, as they continued their descent to a broad shelf of rock.

From the cover of this formation, Antonov angled the spotlights downwards, illuminating two thick rubber cables that extended from the blackness above.

“The generators are positioned below this shelf,” explained Antonov.

“This is the narrowest portion of the trench, and any vessel wishing to transit into the Tongue of the Ocean has to pass this spot.”

“You must have had quite a job transferring the equipment into these depths, Lieutenant.”

“That we did, sir. We depended solely on the saucer’s articulated manipulator arms to transfer and connect the components. Altogether, it took us over one hundred trips to complete.”

“I congratulate you on your dedication,” remarked Andrei.

“And so that your tireless efforts will not be in vain, let’s begin our inspection at the power cable coupling. Then we’ll initiate a low-level test to determine if the magnetic field is properly resonating.”

It was with the greatest of anticipation that Ivana followed Karl Ivar down into Misha’s hatch. They had spent most of the day reassembling the parts that the Norwegian had worked hard to redesign. Stopping only for a quick dinner, the team returned to the hangar to complete the job. It was well after midnight when the last part was snapped into place. A quick test showed that the batteries were holding their charge, prompting Ivana to accept Karl Ivar’s invitation to accompany him on a test run.

After several days of frustrating inaction, it was good to be under way once again. Karl Ivar was at the helm as they left the hangar and streaked over the coral clearing where the habitat was situated. From her porthole, Ivana could see the yellow lights glowing from inside Starfish House, and the long tendril of bubbles rising from the domed roof of Habitat One.

A variety of colorful fish darted past their spotlights, as Karl Ivar guided Misha towards deeper water.

Only when their echo sounder showed them directly over the Andros Trench, did the Norwegian initiate a series of steeply angled, high-speed turns. With his eyes never leaving the voltage meter, he opened the throttle wide, then closed it until they were travelling at a bare crawl.

“So far, so good,” said the Norwegian in his usual curt manner.

“You’re an absolute mechanical genius. Comrade,” complimented Ivana.

“I seriously doubted that I’d ever be able to reinitiate my exploration of that road network.”

“If you’d like, why don’t we continue this test run on the floor of the trench,” offered Karl Ivar.

“Our charge remains strong, and that’s as. good a place as any to monitor the success of our repairs.”

“I’m willing if you are,” replied Ivana, an expectant grin covering her face.

Without further ado, Karl Ivar pushed forward on the joystick, and Misha’s bow angled sharply downwards.

A hushed silence prevailed as they sliced through the deep scattering layer and penetrated the thermocline. Confident in her pilot’s abilities, Ivana worked the ballast levers as ordered, and spent the rest of her time gazing out the porthole. It seemed to take only seconds to complete their dive, and soon Misha’s spotlights illuminated a familiar pattern of fractured stones lying on the trench’s bottom.

“We’re lucky that the sediment hasn’t shifted,” remarked Ivana.

“Now the big question remains, how far south does this network extend?”

“Shall we find out?” returned the Norwegian, who briefly glanced over at his passenger and playfully winked.

The depth gauge dropped below nine hundred and eighty feet, as Karl Ivar guided Misha further down the sloping gradient. The jagged walls of the trench that lay on each side of them were veiled by the black void that persisted beyond the meager illumination of their spotlights. The side-scanning sonar unit allowed them to skim the sea floor at full throttle, without the fear of collision.

Amazingly enough, the stone roadway continued to lead them on an unerring course, due southward.

Though several portions of the thoroughfare were covered by sand and mud, for the most part it was clear of debris.

Ivana couldn’t believe their good fortune, and there was no doubt in her mind that this pathway had to have been laid by the hands of an ancient people. With the faint hope that it would lead them to an archaeological find of vast proportions, she looked on as Karl Ivar alertly pulled back on the throttle.

“Sonar shows an obstacle ahead,” he explained as the diving saucer slowed to a bare quarter knot of forward speed.

“I’ll redirect the spotlight and see if I can illuminate it,” volunteered Ivana.

Thirty seconds passed before her efforts paid off.

Strewn on the sea floor before them were dozens of immense boulders. They nearly covered the portion of roadway on the sea floor below.

“This debris appears to have fallen from the walls of the trench,” theorized Ivana.

“It must have been deposited here during a seaquake.”

Karl Ivar cautiously guided Misha through this jumbled maze of jagged rock. Once on the other side of the debris field, the road was again visible, and they continued following it, all the way to a broad rock shelf. The trench appeared to drop off abruptly, and Karl Ivar disengaged the throttle and inched Misha forward utilizing the saucer’s thrusters.

It proved to be the Norwegian who first spotted the alien lights glowing from the depths on the far side of the rock shelf. Instinctively, he reached up to switch off their own spotlights, and then guided Misha gently to the smooth rock bottom.

“What ever is the matter, Karl Ivar?” questioned the confused Russian.

“We’ve got company!” he breathlessly revealed.

Following the direction of his pointed right index finger, Ivana scooted over to peer out his porthole.

And it was then that she too saw the flickering pinpoints of light in the distance.

“But that’s impossible!” she protested.

“Misha is the only vessel capable of exploring these depths.”

“Think again,” retorted the Norwegian, who watched as an exact duplicate of Misha was momentarily illuminated by the lights of yet another diving saucer.

Ivana also spotted the bright yellow mini sub which all too soon disappeared behind the distant walls of the trench.

“Those are the diving saucers from the Academician Petrovsky!” she exclaimed.

“But I thought that they were supposed to be inoperable.”

“Maybe those new parts arrived from Russia after all,” offered Karl Ivar.

“Not a chance, Comrade. And even if they did. Admiral Valerian should at the very least have informed us of this fact. I wonder what they’re doing down there.”

“Shall we go and see?” asked the Norwegian.

With her suspicions aroused, Ivana guardedly responded.

“Can you maneuver us in such a manner that we can check them out without being seen ourselves?”

“I believe that’s well within the realm of possibility,” returned Karl Ivar, who readdressed the joystick, while slightly adjusting their trim.

Without the assistance of its spotlights, Misha crept forward. The side-scanning sonar unit allowed them to proceed in this clandestine manner, until they were at the very edge of the drop-off itself. Approximately fifty feet below them, the two diving saucers could be seen hovering before a flat wall of rock. One of the mini subs was in the process of using its articulated manipulator arm to work on a large piece of machinery that was positioned on the rocky shelf. A pair of thick black cables was attached to this piece of equipment.

The cables appeared to extend all the way up to the surface, and it was Ivana who voiced her concern for both of them.

“Something is not right here, Karl Ivar. The U.N. charter that we’re currently operating under, guarantees us the exclusive use of these waters. The Academician Petrovsky’s diving saucers were only to be utilized in the event of an emergency aboard the habitat. Thus they have no business being here.”

“Do you want me to try to get us closer. Doctor?”

“No, Karl Ivar, I’ve seen enough already. Let’s return to the hangar and inform the others. I believe that this is one case when discretion is definitely the best policy.”

The trip back to the habitat seemed to take an eternity.

During the entire ascent, Ivana’s thoughts remained focused on the sighting that they had just witnessed.

She knew enough about the man who was ultimately responsible for the deployment of the diving saucers to have reasons for her suspicions. Admiral Igor Valerian had been a strange choice to command the Academician Petrovsky from the very beginning. He was a veteran cold warrior, whose hard-line leanings were well known, and he was nothing but an anachronism. She wouldn’t put it past him and his twisted cronies to try to use the habitat program as a cover for a clandestine military operation of some kind, though she didn’t have the slightest idea what the operation could be.

Having lived under the shadow of such paranoid doubts and fears for most of her life, Ivana could only pray that there was a logical explanation. But until she learned otherwise, she would proceed with the utmost caution. This was a survival tactic that her father had taught her, after his own life was ruined by those coldhearted Communist ideologies in the vein of Igor Valerian. Such dangerous men belonged to the Russia of the past. Responsible for the slaughter of untold millions of innocent persons, they were anathema to the spirit of humanity. Though she had hoped that their day was over, the evil had followed her even here, to the floor of the Atlantic. Yet this time, she would be ready for them.

They returned to the hangar without further incident, and after stowing away Misha, they hastily donned their air tanks for the short swim back to Starfish House. Even though it was well past midnight, all of their fellow teammates were waiting for them in the habitat’s central dining room.

“Mon Dieu,” worriedly greeted Pierre Lenclud as they stepped out of the ready room.

“When you didn’t return from your trial run, we thought that something horrible had happened to you.”

“I’m sorry that we were the cause of any concern,” replied Ivana.

“But when we found Misha operating perfectly, we decided to return to the bottom of the trench and continue exploring the roadway.”

“I was hoping that would be the case,” returned the relieved Frenchman.

“Did you find the front gates to Atlantis?” asked Lisa Tanner in a lighthearted manner.

Ivana shook her head.

“No, Comrade, we didn’t find the fabled lost city, though we did make a discovery that has much more immediate significance.”

Pausing for a moment, Ivana scanned the faces of her rapt audience before continuing.

“While tracing the road network beyond our previous survey point, we came upon a precipitous drop-off, that appears to funnel directly into the Tongue of the Ocean. It was Karl Ivar who first spotted the lights belonging to another underwater submersible here. He wisely switched off our own spotlights before we were discovered, and it became apparent that a pair of vessels were working the walls of the trench before us.”

“What kind of vessels, and where could they have come from?” interrupted Lenclud.

The Russian took a deep breath and directly answered him.

“The two submersibles that we discovered were exact duplicates of Misha, meaning that they had to have originated from our support ship, the Academician Petrovsky”

“But I thought that the saucer fleet was grounded until spare parts were flown in from Russia,” interjected Lisa Tanner.

“That’s indeed what we were led to believe,” said Ivana.

“But now we know differently.”

“I wonder what such a thing could mean?” reflected Lenclud.

“I’d like to know exactly what they were doing down there in the first place?” offered Tomo.

Karl Ivar stepped forward and voiced himself.

“It looked to me that they were working on some sort of heavy equipment that had been previously positioned alongside the walls of the trench.”

“Heavy equipment, you say?” quizzed Lenclud.

“That’s right, Commandant,” answered Ivana.

“We caught them working on this machinery with their articulated manipulator arms, and we even spotted what appeared to be a dual power cable extending to the surface.” “Now that is interesting,” said Lenclud, who stood and began pacing.

“The Academician Petrovsky’s sole purpose is to act as our support ship. Because this machinery that you discovered is in no way related to the habitat program, what we have here is a flagrant violation of the U.N. agreement under which we operate.”

“I feared just such a thing when I learned that Admiral Igor Valerian had been assigned to command the Academician Petrovsky,” remarked Ivana.

“He’s much too experienced for such a routine assignment.”

“But what could they be doing down there?” asked Lisa Tanner.

“That’s immaterial,” replied Lenclud.

“They have no authority to launch those diving saucers, unless the purpose is directly related to the mission of this habitat.” “And since it isn’t,” continued Ivana.

“I’d say that Admiral Valerian is involved in a little extracurricular activity that most likely has military implications.”

“Is there any way to stop them?” questioned Lisa.

Lenclud thoughtfully stroked his chin before answering her.

“Since it would be much too dangerous to return to the site with Misha, our safest course is to inform Dr. Sorkin, the head of the United Nations observer team aboard the Academician Petrovsky. He will be in the best position to find out precisely what those saucers were doing down there.”

“If you’d like, I’ll draft the letter,” volunteered Lisa.

“Dr. Sorkin is a personal friend of my family. He’s also from Auckland, and is not the type of chap who’s easily deceived.”

“Very well, mon amie,” replied Lenclud.

“Begin this letter at once, and we’ll have Dolly deliver it with the morning mail.”

Senior Lieutenant Viktor Ilyich Alexandrov routinely began his morning watch with a comprehensive walk-through of the ship. His tour of inspection started in the Academician Petrovsky’s engine room.

The vessel’s diesel-electric drive, single-shaft engine had seen little use since arriving in the Bahamas.

While at anchor, the 3,600 shaft-horsepower engine was used solely to operate the ship’s thrusters, and power its electrical and life-support systems. So that the engine-room crew would have something other than routine maintenance to do, Alexandrov had ordered them to clean and paint their compartment.

This unpopular directive was initially received with the usual moans of complaint, but as loyal Russian sailors, his men eventually buckled down and got on with their duty.

The results were noticeable as the senior lieutenant entered the engine room and scanned its interior. The bulkheads shone like new, with a coat of fresh white paint, and even the engine was wiped clean of grease and grime. Making a mental note to pass on a job well-done to the which man Alexandrov headed forward, to the adjoining reactor room.

To gain access to this restricted portion of the ship, he had to input his security code into a bulkhead mounted keypad. Once this series was properly keyed in, the door slid open. He quickly entered, and the portal was sealed shut behind him.

A single white-smocked technician currently sat behind the central control panel. Before him was a complicated assortment of dials, gauges, digital readout counters, and switches. Alexandrov could see from the temperature gauge that the reactor wasn’t critical. To bring it on line, all the operator would have to do was trigger one of the compact pistol switches that were directly connected to the control rods. As the rods were slowly removed, the uranium-235 fuel elements would begin interacting, causing the coolant to be heated.

The resulting steam would then power the turbine, creating an abundance of power to operate the series of magnetic generators placed on the sea floor beneath them.

“How are you doing this morning. Comrade?” asked Alexandrov.

“Fine, sir,” returned the reactor operator as he recorded the assortment of data visible on the console in a log book.

“I understand that you were on duty during last night’s low-level test,” continued Alexandrov.

“Did all go smoothly?”

“That it did, sir. During the entire sequence, we generated barely a tenth of the power that we’re capable of producing. Were the results satisfactory?”

“Dr. Petrov is still working to determine the actual results,” revealed Alexandrov.

“So stand by. There’s a good chance that we’ll have to repeat the test, sometime this afternoon.”

The technician nodded and returned to his log, while Alexandrov exited by way of the forward hatchway.

This brought him directly onto the catwalk that surrounded the moon pool The only evidence of the adjoining reactor consisted of the twin rubber cables that protruded from a hole cut into the bulkhead, just on top of the waterline. The cables extended into the depths below, and he was fully confident that they would be ready to relay all the power needed.

Both diving saucers lay securely moored alongside the forward portion of the moon pool Two technicians were attending to them, and as Alexandrov walked over to check the condition of these vessels, a sudden disturbance in the water beside him caught the corner of his eye. He looked to his left, and watched as a bottienose dolphin broke the surface of the moon pool The sleek grey creature had a latex strap wrapped around its snout, and attached to the strap a small, steel pressure cooker.

With a deft movement of its head and neck, the dolphin deposited the pressure cooker upon the steel-laticed catwalk, directly in front of Alexandrov. The senior lieutenant was no stranger to this efficient creature, who saved wear and tear on their mini subs by acting as a messenger between the support ship and the habitat below.

“Well, Comrade Dolly, what have you brought us?” remarked Alexandrov as he walked over to grasp the object that the dolphin had conveyed from the depths.

Dolly reacted with an excited outburst of whistles and clicks. Ignoring this high-pitched chatter, Alexandrov prepared to open the pressure cooker to see what lay inside. Yet Dolly was not about to go unnoticed, and the dolphin stood up on its tail, then dove beneath the water and shot to the surface, leapt through the air, and came down in a frothing splash that quickly gained Alexandrov’s attention.

Now finding himself with his uniform partially soaked, Alexandrov redirected his line of sight back to the moon pool “All right. Comrade, I hear you loud and clear. Let’s see what kind of treat Viktor can find for you.”

An ice-filled bucket of mullet sat on the forward portion of the catwalk for just this purpose. Alexandrov picked up the largest of the partially frozen fish by its tail, and held it out, high above the water.

“Come and get it. Comrade,” he teasingly offered.

Not to be denied. Dolly circled the entire moon pool After disappearing beneath the surface, the dolphin spiralled upwards in a graceful leap, snatched the mullet in its mouth, and fell back into the water with a resounding splash.

Satisfied that the insistent marine mammal would leave him alone now, Alexandrov turned his attention back to the pressure cooker. The lid was tightly sealed, and it took a bit of effort to unscrew it and pull the rubberized gasket apart. It opened with a loud, popping noise, and he reached inside and removed a large manila envelope that contained several supply requisitions and a sealed letter addressed to Dr. Harlan Sorkin, the head of the U.N. observer team. Marked Personal and Confidential, this piece of mail immediately caught the naval officer’s attention. Yet before delivering it, he decided to share its presence with his superior officer.

He found Admiral Valerian in his stateroom, in the midst of a shave. The one-eyed veteran still used an old-fashioned, pearl-handled straight razor, which he honed to a fine sharpness on a rawhide strop. Clad only in a T-shirt and his skivvies. Valerian greeted his guest while staring into the mirror and carefully scraping the shaving cream from his neck.

“To what do I owe the honor of your presence this early in the morning. Senior Lieutenant?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you. Admiral. But I found an unusual item in the habitat’s morning mail.”

With several dextrous strokes of his razor. Valerian completed his shave. He then took the time to wipe his face dry with a terry-cloth towel before turning to impatiently address his guest. “So Senior Lieutenant, just what is this unusual item that you speak of?”

Alexandrov pulled out the letter that he had taken from the mail envelope.

“This is the item, sir. It’s addressed to Dr. Sorkin, and is marked personal and confidential.”

Valerian roughly grabbed the letter, and wasted no time picking up his razor and cleanly slicing open the envelope. It held a single sheet of white paper that he hastily skimmed, then slowly reread.

“You’ll never believe it. Senior Lieutenant. But it seems that our brave aquanauts have managed to stumble upon our secret. Somehow they got their diving saucer operational, and as fate would have it, witnessed our submersibles at work on the bottom of the trench last night.”

Alexandrov appeared genuinely shocked by this revelation.

“Does this mean that our operation is over?”

“Why of course not!” replied Valerian firmly.

“It’s only going to demand a bit more resourcefulness on our part. Let me see their supply requisition. I have a feeling that calamity is about to strike the inquisitive occupants of Starfish House.”