Dive to Oblivion

19

Ivana Petrov couldn’t believe their good fortune.

The American DSRV was like a gift from heaven, and it was with few regrets that they left Starfish House for the safety of this unique undersea vessel.

A thin, bald-headed sailor dressed in blue coveralls welcomed them aboard the submersible named Avalon. Primarily designed to rescue other submarines, the Avalon was constructed around a central sphere, where the rescuees were to be held. The craft was operated from a small, two-man cockpit.

The team’s leader, Pierre Lenclud, was the first to be invited to visit the control compartment. While the Frenchman scooted down a tunnel-like access way to meet the Avalon’s commanding officers, Ivana and her teammates settled themselves into the main sphere.

The air was blessedly sweet, and it was wonderful not to have to rely on their scuba tanks to breathe. The sphere operator proved to be a colorful character, who appeared to have taken an immediate liking to Lisa Tanner. He apologized for not having any food for them, though he did manage to pull out a large thermos filled with coffee. Then, with only a single cup available, the steaming hot brew was passed around for all to share.

Ivana was in the process of enjoying a sip from this communal mug when Lenclud crawled back into the sphere. The Frenchman looked drawn and tired, and he gratefully accepted the coffee from Ivana and softly addressed her.

“They’d like to see you next, mon amie.”

With Lenclud’s help, she entered the narrow access way from which he had just emerged. Crawling forward on her hands and knees, she didn’t have to go far until her head and upper torso emerged into a cramped, dimly lit compartment, designed much like a space capsule.

She found herself positioned between two seated men, who were surrounded by glowing gauges and instruments.

Both appeared to be middle-aged, and dressed in identical blue coveralls.

“I understand that you’re Dr. Ivana Petrov,” said the heavyset man seated to her right.

“I’m Commander Thomas Moore. Welcome aboard the Avalon.”

“It’s good to be here,” replied Ivana, who noted that Moore didn’t wear a baseball cap like his square-jawed associate.

“Dr. Petrov,” continued Moore.

“Commandant Lenclud mentioned that your emergency might have been prompted by a discovery that you made on the bottom of the trench beneath us. Was the machinery that he told us about by any chance connected to a dual power cable that extended towards the surface?”

“It certainly was. Comrade. In fact, I saw this cable with my very own eyes.”

Moore seemed satisfied with her answer and probed still further.

“If we were to continue to the floor of the trench, could you show it to us?”

“I’d be happy to. Comrade. But under our current circumstances, isn’t such a visit dangerous?”

“Not any more than staying around here,” returned the quick-talking American, who instructed her to give his tight-lipped co-worker a description of the exact portion of the sea floor where her discovery had been made.

Thomas Moore pulled out a detailed bathymetric chart, and the two Americans shared a muffled conversation before Moore readdressed Ivana.

“Hang on. Doctor. We’re going down.”

She braced herself with a hand placed behind the back of each seat, and she watched as the pilot expertly manipulated his joystick. The DSRV’s rounded bow angled sharply downwards in response, and she sensed a certain urgency guiding the Americans onwards.

“Dr. Petrov, are you aware of the fact that your father is currently aboard the Academician Petrovskyf And that he could very well be responsible for that machinery that we’re going down to inspect?” revealed Moore on a spur-of-the-moment impulse.

Moore’s intense glance never left Ivana’s face as it lit up in pained confusion.

“But my father can’t be up there. He’s in forced exile!”

“He’s aboard that support ship all right. And from what I understand, that machinery could belong to a device that your father invented over five decades ago.”

Ivana’s expression turned to horror, and Moore prepared to set the hook.

“Dr. Petrov, do you know anything about your father’s work in the field of antimatter? Is it true that he actually invented a device that could make solid objects invisible, and then teleport them to different locations?”

“This can’t be happening,” she managed, her voice trembling with emotion.

“He promised the world that he’d never put his theories into practice. He knew better than anyone that if such a device were to fall into the wrong hands, the resulting danger to mankind would be too great to contemplate.”

Stunned by the reality of this shocking revelation, Thomas Moore knew that Admiral Proctor’s suspicions had been correct. Now he had to destroy this device, before it was responsible for more tragedy.

“Torpedo has just broken the three-thousand-yard threshold, sir,” reported a very worried Tim Lacey.

“It’s com in right down with us.”

Walden was standing almost directly behind the helm, tightly gripping a ceiling-mounted handhold when he received this bad news. Still in the midst of a spiraling dive, the Rickover’s bow was steeply angled downwards, making the mere act of standing almost impossible.

“Let’s try a couple of snap turns. Chief,” suggested Walden.

“And make ‘em crisp.”

“You got it. Captain,” returned the COB, who passed on additional instructions to the helmsmen.

The deck rolled over hard on its left side, while continuing the descent. Then like a jet fighter in a dogfight, the Rickover abruptly changed course, causing the deck to cant over in the opposite direction.

“What’s our sounding?” called out Walden forcefully.

“That last turn put us almost directly on top of the trench, Captain,” informed the navigator.

“We’ve got a good thousand feet of water between us and the bottom.”

Since they had already descended well over seven hundred feet, the sea floor was just at the outer limit of their crush depth. Not wishing to push their luck too far, Walden conveyed his strategy to all within voice range.

“I want to take us all the way down to fourteen hundred feet before pulling us up. I know we’re going to be close to the walls of that trench, but that’s where I want to lead that damn torpedo!”

A tense, somber atmosphere prevailed inside the Pantera’s attack center, where Alexander Litvinov and his secondin-command anxiously stood behind the senior sonarman. Also in the midst of a desperate crash dive, the Pantera had just broken through the thermocline, at a depth of four hundred and twenty feet.

“Why not try another series of roll turns. Captain?” offered Yuri Berezino in a bare whisper.

“Noise alone won’t lose this pesky Mk48, Yuri,” remarked Litvinov.

“But if we can combine it with speed and depth, then we stand a real chance of escaping this threat.”

“Torpedo continues to close,” said the bearded sonarman in a dull monotone.

“Isn’t there any way of losing it?”

“Easy, Misha,” cautioned Litvinov, who reached out to massage the back of the technician’s neck.

“We have plenty of ocean beneath us to play with, and many things can happen to that torpedo along the way.”

“I curse that damn zampolit for ever getting us in this fix!” swore the sonarman.

Litvinov calmly replied while increasing the pressure of his massage.

“Come now. Comrade. Quit getting your blood pressure worked up for such an insignificant matter. The Pantera shall see us to safety, and then we’ll let a firing squad take care of our dear political officer.”

“What do you mean he refused to activate the power grid?” screamed Igor Valerian in a near rage.

“He must do as ordered!”

The Academician Petrovsky’s senior lieutenant rather sheepishly responded to this outburst. “So I told him. Admiral. But he just sat there, and said that it would be much too dangerous to recharge the system.”

“The good doctor will soon enough learn the meaning of danger. Comrade,” returned Valerian bitterly.

“For now he has provoked a whirlwind!”

Squaring his shoulders with this remark, the one eyed veteran stormed out of his cabin, with his secondin-command close on his heels. With a brisk, angry stride. Valerian raced down the long central passageway that took him past the engine room. Not stopping to return the greetings of the group of men huddled around the moon pool he hurriedly entered his security code into the keypad beside the sealed aft hatchway.

In his mad rush he entered the wrong sequence, and had to wait for the system to reset itself before he impatiently tried it again. This time he succeeded, and the door popped open with a loud click.

The laboratory where Dr. Petrov had been working was located beside the reactor compartment. Its door was closed, and Valerian burst into the room without even bothering to knock. He found the silver-haired physicist huddled over a samovar of tea, and the admiral wasted no time venting his wrath.

“Andrei Sergeyevich Petrov, I demand that you prepare the system to be activated at once!”

Senior Lieutenant Alexandrov entered the lab in time to hear Petrov calmly voice himself.

“You can demand all you want. Admiral. But it will make little difference to me. I will not activate the power grid until the design faults that I recently discovered are rectified.”

Valerian was surprised by this revelation.

“What design faults are you talking about, Doctor?”

“That is the reason that I was sent here, wasn’t it, Admiral?”

Halting a moment to stir his tea, Petrov added, “After a careful analysis of the data that I collected during my visit to the floor of the trench, I believe I know why your initial experiment failed. The fault lies not with the magnetic generators, as we first suspected, but with the electrical source that powers them.”

“Whatever do you mean. Doctor?” questioned Valerian in a calmer tone.

Petrov took a sip of his tea before answering.

“My calculations indicate that we will need an additional power surge of at least ten percent to ensure complete success. Only then will the dematerialized object end up at the target location.”

Valerian appeared relieved by what he was hearing.

“That’s easy enough to correct. Comrade. All we need to do to produce this additional power is operate our reactor at full capacity. That should generate the ten percent additional surge that you say is needed.”

“As you very well know. Admiral, such a thing is much too dangerous. The reactor on board this ship is not designed to run at full capacity. We risk a partial meltdown or even worse.”

Valerian abruptly changed tactics, and replied with a gentle almost brotherly concern.

“Unfortunately, we have no choice. Comrade. There is no time to install a new reactor, and for the sake of the rodina’s future security, we must make do with our present capabilities.”

The wall-mounted telephone began ringing, and Senior Lieutenant Alexandrov answered it. A brief conversation followed, after which he hung up the handset and briefed his superior.

“That was the which man Admiral. He reports that the signature of the 688 is quickly approaching the capture zone. It will be within range in another three and a half minutes. He also indicates that radar has picked up a small surface vessel in the area. It is believed to be a fishing trawler.”

“That radar sighting is not important at the moment, Viktor Ilyich,” returned Valerian.

“What concerns me is that we are about to lose an opportunity to try the system before Seawolf puts to sea. Please Doctor, I implore you. Supervise this final test, and I promise you that I will scrap the entire project if it should fail.”

“That will mean absolutely nothing if our reactor explodes,” retorted the physicist. “But it won’t!” replied Valerian.

“I wish that I could share your optimism. Admiral.

But I’ll tell you what. If you agree to see to it that the U.N. observer team immediately leaves the ship, I will attempt a single full power surge. After fifty years of merely pondering a theory, I too am curious to finally see if it belongs in the realm of reality or not.”

Valerian’s face broke out in the warmest of smiles.

“Of course I’ll agree to this condition. And thank you, Comrade. I guarantee you that you won’t be disappointed.”

From the open bridge of the Sunshine, Al peered through a pair of binoculars, and took in the large ship that lay motionless in the water due south of them.

This vessel was painted white, and had sleek, modern lines. Though it displayed no deck guns, Al sensed that it was a military ship of some sort, and he decided to give it a wide berth when it came time to pass it.

A gull cried harshly from above, and Al put down the binoculars. The rich scent of incense filled the gentle sea breeze with an alien odor, and he slowly redirected his gaze to his boat’s fantail.

His two passengers remained seated at the card table, with their hands tightly linked, and a thick, white candle flickering between them. Al had seen wise women like Dr. Elizabeth before, while growing up in the swamps of Okeechobee. His mama had called them healers, and Al would never forget visiting one such elder who spoke in strange, frightening tongues and was known for her love spells that she wrote out in gator blood.

Still not certain why the two white women had gone to the expense of chartering his boat, Al left the bridge and headed aft. The setting sun did little to relieve the oppressive tropical heat, and as he slowly walked out onto the open stern, the large black cat sprinted between his legs. He watched as this creature excitedly leaped up onto the gunwales, and stared down into the sparkling blue depths with eyes wide with wonder.

“Even Isis knows what’s going on in the water beneath us,” said Dr. Elizabeth, her voice unnaturally deep and guttural.

“I tell you, it’s nothing less than the battle between good and evil!” “But what about Peter?” asked Mimi Slater, her tone tinged with worry.

“Will we be able to contact him?”

Al watched as Dr. Elizabeth proceeded to take off the straw hat that she had been wearing, and throw it on the deck. Then with a reverent slowness, she looked into the powdery blue sky and spoke forcefully.

“With the coming of the equinox, the Tuaoi stone shall awaken. The crystal capstone will be activated, and the link reestablished between Mother Earth and its cosmic swan. Woe to those who attempt to divert the force for their own selfish gain. For we are witnessing a struggle as old as man himself. Only if the powers of the white light prevail, will the lovers be reunited to sanctify this greatest of all victories.”