Flood

26

The Endurance was a modern European research vessel, constructed in Italy and fitted out in dockyards in northeast England and Scotland. Her superstructure was studded with sensors, radar dishes and comms domes, and an ungainly drill derrick that towered over the hull. She was solid, sleek, streamlined, as gray and anonymous as the sea itself. Now she was serving as a support ship for the Trieste, which would be strapped to the deck during the cruise like a geeky toy submarine in a theme-park exhibit.

Endurance sailed roughly south from Iceland, following the line of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge-which, once Iceland was out of sight, would be invisible until they reached the next Ridge islands to protrude from the ocean, the Azores. The crew, many of them recruited by AxysCorp from the oil companies, kept working throughout the cruise. The purpose of the expedition was to explore the deep subsurface of the ocean, the layers beneath the seabed. So they had sonar and radar which probed at sub-sediment layers, and periodically they launched overboard a device like a mechanical porpoise packed with more sonar gear.

The most interesting work was the drilling. The ship would halt, held in place against the current by a computer-controlled array of propellers, and the oilmen all turned into roughnecks, adopting roles like “tool pusher” and “drill superintendent.” They used their drilling derrick to sample the deep subsurface directly, hauling up meter after meter of mud, cores replete with data for the sedimentologists. They got on with this work on a sea that surged constantly, restless, its turbid gray flecked with mud drawn up from the deep ooze below, a sea that was troubled even when the weather was calm.

And down in the science lab, under the foredeck, the sedimentologists swore as they sleeved their layered cores in Mylar, sliced them in two, used electromagnetic wands to test water concentrations, and picked out minute samples of rock types and living things, fine, unrepeatable work performed in conditions like a funfair ride.

Lily had crossed the Channel a few times, caught ferries to the Isle of Wight, Arran. She was no sailor, save for some dinghy work during her survival training with the USAF. The surging North Atlantic was a shock to her. None of the five “hydronauts”-Lily and Gordo, Thandie, Gary Boyle and a thirty-year-old meteorologist pal of Thandie’s called Sanjay McDonald-was ever at ease, even Thandie who was the specialized oceanographer among them. You couldn’t rest, you slept badly, and when you ate you couldn’t always keep it down. Mostly they used up their time helping out the roughnecks with their drilling.

In fact, Gordo told Lily, it would be a relief to take the Trieste down into the depths; at least beneath the waves you could get a little peace for a few hours.

Once they were away from Reykjavik and out of Nathan Lammockson’s direct control, Gordo took it on himself to draw up a manning rota for Trieste to reflect the science priorities and the need to rotate the crews to give them a break. Thandie and Gary were actually both capable of driving the Trieste themselves, so there were overlapping pools of four pilots and three scientists to make up each dive crew’s complement of two, a pilot plus a scientist. As a result it wasn’t until the fourth dive that Lily was to pilot the Trieste, and Gordo paired her with Thandie; tactfully he didn’t explain his reasoning, but as Thandie was the most experienced of the scientist-pilots it made sense.

On her designated day, Lily went up on deck. It was a warm, blustery morning, under a blanket of rolled-up gray cloud; in fact they had arrived not too far north of the Azores, at around forty degrees north. But Lily, like Thandie, was bundled up warm in her AxysCorp-issue thermal underwear, coverall and parka, with a Mae West over the top; she had a Russian fur hat and gloves tucked in her pockets. Where she was going, she was assured, it was cold.

She watched as cables were attached to the Trieste, and a derrick raised her into the air to swing her out over the ocean. Roughnecks working in pairs hauled on cables fore and aft to steady the boat. And Lily got her first good look at the ship that was about to become hers.

Around fifteen meters long, the Trieste had a stubby, roughly streamlined shape something like a conventional submarine. At either end were air-filled ballast tanks. But most of her hull was filled with flotation tanks full of gasoline, a hundred thousand liters of it, and Lily could see the release outlets of the heavy iron-ballast hoppers protruding from her keel. Her propellers were fixed to her upper deck.

And under the main hull hung the observation gondola, the pressurized sphere within which Lily and Thandie would be descending kilometers into the ocean.

Thandie approached Lily, waddling in her own Mae West. She was grinning. “So, virgin, you OK with this?”

“Ready to do it right.”

“Christ, you sound like the space cadet. You’ll love it, believe me.”

Awkward in their life jackets, they clambered down a steel ladder to an orange inflatable, manned by a single crewman, waiting for them on the ocean surface. The crewman gunned his engine to take them the few meters to the bathyscaphe.

When they reached the Trieste she was rolling alarmingly, and the boat bobbed just as vigorously. Thandie showed off. She just stood up, got her balance, and stepped over the half-meter or so to the bathyscaphe. Lily, sooner safe than spectacular, was happy to grab hold of the crewman’s hand, then Thandie’s, as she made her own way across.

And then, as the mooring arm was released and the ship bobbed free, they gave a last wave to the watching crew and scientists on the deck of the Endurance. Gordo gave them a crisp salute. Gary stood beside him, watching silently. It struck Lily how odd it was to see that familiar face here, in circumstances that could hardly be more different from their long confinement in Barcelona.

Lily and Thandie climbed down through the access tunnel to the gondola. The tunnel ran vertically through the body of the bathyscaphe, cutting between two of the gasoline tanks. Lily had gone through this during her training with Gordo, and knew the drill. At the bottom of the tunnel she had to lower herself feet-first through a hatch into the gondola itself. The hatch more than any other component showed the bathyscaphe’s age, its handles rubbed smooth by decades of wear.

Once they were both in, Thandie pulled the hatch closed. “Christ,” she said. “This tub always stinks of gasoline. Let’s get it done.”

They shucked off their Mae Wests, settled at their stations and ran through a quick checklist of their essential systems. They would be kept alive by oxygen cylinders and a modern carbon dioxide scrubbing system, cylinders, fans, pumps, filters, derived from similar technology used on the Space Station. When the scrubbing system started up there was a wheezing noise, like the hum of the fan on an old-fashioned desktop computer. Lily confirmed that the propulsion system, the steerable propellers set on the upper hull, was functional. And Thandie checked that the external sensors were working, the TV cameras, a sample-collection pump system, a pod of down-pointing sonar and radar to explore the deep subsurface. There was a kind of robot arm which could be used to manipulate objects outside the hull.

As they worked, the gondola, fixed to the keel of the rolling hull, swung sharply back and forth. The bucket seats had harnesses, and Lily strapped herself in. But the rolling made it hard to work the controls, even to read the display screens, and her stomach churned. But she was most definitely not going to throw up in here. Thandie whistled as she checked over her equipment, deliberately nonchalant.

The gondola was a sphere only about two meters across, equipped with a couple of bucket seats, a small chemical toilet and a provisions bag. Opposite the hatch, looking downwards, was the single window, a solid block of Plexiglas set into the ten-centimeter-thick steel walls. There was actually a lot more useful room in here than there had been back in the 1950s. The interior had been stripped out and remodeled with modern instruments and controls; the scuffed walls were plastered with foldable screens.

But still the gondola felt very cramped to Lily. She could see why Gordo had taken to the work so easily; spacecraft like the Soyuz were just as confining. Lily was a flier, used to small cabins maybe but usually surrounded by infinite space. She wondered how well she was going to cope with the containment inside this steel coffin with kilometers of ocean piling up above her, and absolutely no way out.

Finally Lily tested the comms system. Gordo was acting as what he called “capcom” today; it was reassuring to hear his voice. They had a long-wavelength radio link, and also a backup hydrophone link, although at the depths they would reach it would take several seconds for a sound wave to pass through the water to the support ship on the surface above.

All was confirmed ready, by Lily, Thandie, Gordo and the Endurance crew. Lily tapped a screen.

The ballast tanks fore and aft flooded, and the Trieste dropped. Just for a moment there was a surge, like a fast elevator descending. But that soon smoothed out, and so did the rolling; already they had left the surface waves behind them. Lily glanced through the window. Looking down she saw nothing but a bluish glow, and random particles of murk.