Kitabı oku: «At depth», sayfa 11
— Captain, p… please, permit me to stay.
Captain De Bont said nothing, only stroking the back of his assistant’s head — a man who had served him faithfully for many years. He patted the First Officer on the shoulder, already feeling his own shirt dampening from Morgan’s tears.
— Now you, don’t lose heart out there. Prove that you are my man.
Morgan suddenly raised his head and directed his reddened eyes at the Captain’s impassive face, who added:
— Prove that you are part of my team. Reach your destination safe and sound. Then I will know that your service under my command was not in vain.
Sobbing, Morgan snapped to attention, loudly clicked his heels together, then brought his hand to his temple and shouted at the top of his voice:
— YES SIR!
Having saluted, the First Officer climbed into the second bathyscaphe, where Hector was already waiting. Kayla and Henry were seated in the first.
Captain De Bont waited until the transparent dome of the second bathyscaphe closed, then hit the button on the wall panel. The launch bay doors in the hull’s bottom began to slide open. Henry and Morgan, meanwhile, started the engines, preparing for submergence. Everyone cast glances at the Captain, who waved his hand and finally motioned for them to focus on what lay ahead. The launch bay was open. Ahead was a pool of ocean water.
The glare spilling into the water from the hangar made it impossible to see anything. At this depth, darkness still prevailed. Somewhere out there under the water, very close, the Profondosaurus was swimming. Its presence was palpable. The Captain experienced a strange sensation. Something was wrong. The water did not ripple; it maintained a strange state: a perfectly smooth, level surface. Not a single oscillation. What was it? The result of the gamma radiation? Or was it him?
Seated in the bathyscaphes, they looked at the Captain, who first gestured a safe ascent, and then commanded them not to delay their submergence.
Henry pressed the release button, and the bathyscaphe rolled down the launch rail into the pool. Second by second, the bathyscaphe descended, sinking deeper and deeper into the water. Henry and Kayla looked at the Captain until the very last moment, until a horizontal strip of water cut off their view. The first bathyscaphe was gone. Morgan pressed the button, and the second craft rolled down the launch rail, splashing down into the hangar pool. Guiding the bathyscaphe, Morgan carried out a command he issued to himself: «Attention to the Officer!» The ichthyologist, who had not served a day in the military, followed the First Officer’s example and also saluted Captain Luther De Bont. Only after fully submerging did Morgan align the bathyscaphe with the submarine, turning toward the bow.
The Captain watched the crew depart and pressed the button to close the launch bay. But something went wrong. As the hatch began to seal, Captain De Bont suddenly noticed something flash underwater, and in the next instant, something resembling the tip of a black fin, the thickness of a few human fingers, darted out. A few more seconds passed, and then something underwater executed a powerful tail-fin movement, blasting a massive fountain of water into the hangar.
Knocked off his feet, the Captain scrambled and hurried to the central compartment.
It twirled around the alien body as if performing a dance, moving so tightly that its carapace almost pressed against the alien. The Profondosaurus was ready to embrace the Amphibia like a lover. It circled around the stern, feeling serene, energized, charged, and utterly blind to everything else. The submarine’s stern had become the center of the creature’s universe, the source of life. The gamma radiation had transformed into a torrent of voices that called and begged it not to leave. But it had no intention of doing so. It was ready to stay close until the end of time.
What was that? It seemed to the creature that the alien was a female. Something flashed past its right eye, which was still forty percent sighted. The Profondosaurus sank a little deeper and looked beneath the female’s belly. It was not mistaken. She had just released two cubs into the world. It could not allow aliens to breed here. This was its territory, and it had to defend it at all costs. And then there was this attractive radiation. Perhaps the radiation began with the onset of the birth and might now cease? It must be assumed that a male is currently wandering somewhere in search of the female. If this is truly the case, he could appear at any moment. It needed to be ready. In the meantime, it was necessary to eliminate the cubs.
The bathyscaphe’s instrument panel featured a display showing the image from a night vision camera installed in the tail. The flashing jaws of the Profondosaurus appeared on the screen.
Without shouting or escalating the panic, Henry and Morgan followed the Captain’s instructions. First, they jettisoned the lead-plate ballasts, which significantly reduced the craft’s total mass. As a result, the water began to push the object — whose mass was now substantially less than its own — toward the surface. The bathyscaphes shot sharply upwards. Kayla felt something creak beneath the hull, and less than a second later, the bathyscaphe took off like a mad Shuttle, causing her to let out hysterical screams. With every cell of her body, she felt herself literally sucked into the chair, her hips pressing tighter and tighter against the seat upholstery as the craft gained vertical momentum. The ascent speed reached twelve meters per second.
The Profondosaurus actively worked its entire skeleton, noticeably closing the distance. As it approached the first target, it opened its seven-meter-long mouth, lined with sharpened teeth. Morgan noticed how the image in the night vision camera began to disappear into the Profondosaurus’s jaws until it dissolved into a black spot, and a second later, he realized that the edges of the gaping mouth were starting to appear alongside the craft’s flanks. The First Officer sharply yanked the control stick and swerved the bathyscaphe aside. The Profondosaurus’s jaws slammed shut, biting through the water. Morgan and Hector heard the monster’s teeth scrape tangentially along the craft’s hull with a screech — a deafening, ferocious grinding sound that made them want to cover their ears with both hands, causing Morgan to nearly lose his grip on the stick. Slipping out of the monster’s mouth at the final moment, the bathyscaphe pitched slightly. Having barely missed its target, the Profondosaurus lunged forward with even greater speed.
His lungs worked at their limit, pumping oxygen at full capacity. Their effectiveness was already diminishing under the influence of gamma radiation, though this was not yet overtly noticeable. Everything was still ahead. Captain De Bont increased the bow trim to forty degrees and set full speed, plunging back into the depths of the Atlantic.
In the absolute darkness of the Atlantic waters, death followed close behind them.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
In moments when you expect your end, every second floats by like a bottomless eternity, agonizingly stretching the anticipation of your demise.
THUMP!!! THUMP!!! THUMP!!!
And with every thud, the sound of the approaching threat grew stronger.
The First Officer had already evaded the monster’s open jaws four times with a slight movement of the control stick. Morgan and Hector began to believe that no one was waiting for them in heaven today. They were quick enough to evade the danger, but too late for the flight to the heavens. They would have to return their tickets and postpone their departure to serenity indefinitely. Three times they had been on the brink, allowing the predator to rake the bathyscaphe’s hull with its sharp fangs.
And it was thoroughly sick of it!
The Profondosaurus executed a sharp turn, arching to the limit its own skeleton would allow. Then it uncoiled like a spring, and its gigantic tail sliced through the water, slamming into the bathyscaphe. The blow struck the starboard side.
Henry and Kayla were ascending nearly level with the second craft. It was dark in the deep. But they still managed to make out something in the faint flashes and reflections of metallic objects caught in the edges of the spotlights’ glare. They glimpsed the monstrous tail flash past. An explosion of bubbles. Scattered wreckage. And then, at the very edge of the spotlight, traces of a cloud of blood and fragments of human remains appeared — remains that were first shredded by the Profondosaurus’s tail fin, and then, after the destruction of the bathyscaphe’s gondola, were instantly flattened by the immense water pressure.
— C-O-M-E O-N!!! — Captain De Bont roared at the top of his lungs, guiding the Amphibia back into the depths. He was increasing the distance, hoping the monster would soon return to him for the radiation, like a gazelle returning to a pasture where a cheetah lies in wait. For the moment, however, the cheetah was desperately rushing toward the bottom.
The center of gravity shifted, causing the bathyscaphe to slowly rotate during its ascent. The spotlights swung their beams around, encountering no objects. The night vision camera located in the tail was also blind.
— Wh… where is it? — Kayla repeated, gripping the seat belts with both hands.
The Engineer focused on the view. Not detecting any movement, he speculated aloud:
— It’s possible that the source of radiation began to move significantly farther away, and it has returned to the deep.
Kayla always knew that when words like «possibly,» «not excluded,» «maybe,» and everything of that nature were spoken, you couldn’t trust a single word. If you relaxed, the assumed safety would collapse like a house of cards, and life would turn into a thriller: you take a sigh of relief, when suddenly…
The seven-meter-long open jaws of the Profondosaurus slammed down onto the bathyscaphe’s gondola from above, attempting to bite through the layer of ultra-strong plastic and the titanium frame surrounding its edges. Kayla’s screams were no longer isolated. Henry joined her, letting out a short, loud, and utterly visceral curse, conveying the full measure of the sudden terror that had seized him. Under the pressure of the jaws, from which double rows of sharp teeth protruded, the plastic shell of the bathyscaphe cracked. The gondola proved to be slightly too large, and the plastic sphere slipped out of the Profondosaurus’s clenching jaws. The bathyscaphe recoiled a couple of meters to the side, continuing its ascent. The crack in the gondola began to widen.
The cubs of this female possessed suspiciously hard scales. The second continued to drift through the water, making no movements, yet developing an impressive speed. Very strange individuals. The second cub slipped out of its jaws at the last moment. The Profondosaurus intended to make another lunge, but suddenly noticed that it was getting cold around him. The water temperature had dropped again. If it did not return to the source of warmth, which was hidden in the female’s body, it risked losing bodily sensitivity, leading to immobilization, a complete failure of the nervous system, and being pulled to the bottom like a stone. And then, darkness would come.
The cub had to be abandoned. It needed to catch up with the female before its blood circulation deteriorated. It was a matter of survival.
The Profondosaurus retreated to the deep.
Captain De Bont felt sweat streaming down his face. Breathing became increasingly difficult. His limbs were trembling. And none of this was due to exertion. It was the effect of the gamma radiation, which grew stronger with every minute. Sonar signaled the approaching object. Luther opened all the valves of the bow and stern ballast tank groups. The Amphibia’s hull resistance to the water became much less, and the dive speed increased by several more meters.
If any of the bathyscaphes managed to escape destruction, the crew’s rescue remained a matter of time. So now he could descend as far from the surface as his vital forces allowed.
Captain De Bont looked at the instrument readings. The current depth was insufficient. The main thing was to save the strength to press one single key. The rest was no longer important. Driven by the thirst for warmth, the Profondosaurus was closing the distance.
The crack was widening. A thin but powerful stream of water sprayed inside. The on-board computer’s voice rang out from the speakers:
— Attention! Depressurization detected! Depressurization detected!..
— Miss Fox! — Henry shouted, trying to reach the panic-stricken Kayla. — Miss Fox! Look at me! Focus on me! Take a deep breath! — Henry placed his right hand on Kayla’s nearest shoulder and continued to instruct: — Try to move less! We must conserve our oxygen supplies! Deep breath! Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. That’s it.
Henry then moved quickly to retrieve the one-liter nitrox cylinders that were secured between the seats. As soon as the Engineer took the cylinders in his hands, he felt a suspicious lightness in the right one. He took a closer look. The latex gasket on one of the cylinders was compromised. It was empty.
The distance was shrinking with every second. Captain De Bont continued to sit in his chair, relentlessly monitoring the depth readings. He had to take the Amphibia as far away from the bathyscaphes as possible.
A strange sensation filled the tip of his left little finger. Luther touched the finger. His fingernail began to peel away.
— Alright! Miss Fox, listen carefully! — Henry said, trying to shout over the noise of water spraying through the crack in the bathyscaphe’s gondola. — Try to move less! Soon the water will engulf us, and there will be no air left here! We’ll have to breathe from the cylinder! The second one is empty! So we’ll take turns breathing! Try to move less! Agreed!
Kayla gave several sharp nods in agreement.
— Good.
They were left alone in the entire ocean. And that was not hyperbole. Now, self-control and composure determined their chances of survival. The water was rising, and the ascent rate gradually slowed due to the increasing mass. The bathyscaphe passed the nine-hundred-meter mark and continued its climb.
The biologist tried her best to steady her breathing, realizing that the remaining time for their path to the surface depended on it. She expanded her chest wide, watching Henry continuously, who was doing the same.
The water was rising and already touching their chins.
In a restrained tone, Henry uttered:
— Calm down, Miss Fox. Calm down. That’s it. Good. Breathe. Breathe.
A split second before the water reached his lips, Henry managed to throw out:
— Now take a deep breath, and hold it.
The deep-sea monster was already circling the stern, consuming the product of the decaying nuclear reactor. Captain De Bont felt a fierce fever. His mouth was dry. His left eye clouded over. But the depth was still only six and a half thousand meters. So it was too early to press the «red button.» Luther’s body was still fighting the radiation.
Henry brought the nitrox cylinder to Kayla’s lips and slightly turned the valve. The oxygen-rich gas began to flow into her lungs. She soon signaled she had inhaled enough, and the Engineer immediately closed the valve, waiting until the oxygen in his own lungs was depleted and he, too, needed a fresh breath.
Another curving line appeared on the crack. The depth was eight hundred meters. The ascent speed had slowed to ten meters per second.
They stared strictly ahead, making no unnecessary movements, their eyes fixed on the depth sensor.
Outside, even through the immense water pressure and the submarine’s battered hull, the satisfied groans of the Profondosaurus, like an animal’s snarl, could be heard. His left arm began to tremble. His little finger, which had lost its nail, shook especially violently. The fever grew more and more intense. Luther fought with all his might to remain conscious. His focus was on the depth readings and the «OK» key, which Henry Mills had indeed converted into the red button. And this was not hyperbole.
The bathyscaphe crew members were taking their ninth breath of nitrox. Henry checked the needle showing the cylinder’s level: it was sixty-eight percent full. Then he checked the instrument readings. They were at a depth of seven hundred and ten meters. The nitrox reserves were being depleted very quickly — over thirty percent had been spent in less than two hundred meters. They still had three and a half times that distance to cover. These supplies would not be enough for them.
Kayla took another breath and closed the valve herself, returning the cylinder. Henry did not move. His gaze was fixed on the dashboard, where the readout displays were gradually failing as water seeped into the circuitry. The pressure inside the gondola was increasing.
Henry brought the closed mouthpiece to his lips, and a few seconds later, handed the cylinder to Kayla. She opened the valve, inhaling a new portion of nitrox, and suddenly noticed Henry convulse violently. Salty ocean water rushed into his respiratory tract, filling his lungs. He had forfeited his turn, giving his share of the nitrox to Kayla and maximizing her chances of survival.
Panic returned. Her pulse quickened. Kayla’s breathing became rapid, and the oxygen reserves in her lungs began to be used up faster.
Captain De Bont was in a slight delirium. His body was filled with heaviness. Blood accumulated in his mouth. Luther parted his dry lips, and the blood, thin as water and pale scarlet in color, flowed onto the floor. The Captain continued to monitor the depth readings, murmuring aloud:
— One, two, three, four, five. We’ll go digging while alive. We won’t sleep till the break of day. The corpses we must count away…
At a depth of two hundred and ten meters, the bathyscaphe ceased its ascent. The pressure inside the gondola was mounting, and Kayla was already beginning to feel its effects. She did not dare to leave the bathyscaphe. The external pressure was far more severe; she could have simply been crushed.
She looked at Henry’s immobilized body and imagined herself the same in a few minutes. Not understanding why or how it might help her, she nevertheless tried to even out her breathing and slow the consumption of the nitrox, of which less than ten percent remained. She didn’t know why, but she suddenly wanted to do this after looking at Henry. He had asked her to: breathe evenly, move less, and conserve oxygen.
— …The first was shot. The second was strangled. The third was drowned. I’ll be the fourth. And the fifth will be… you.
A grim smile appeared on the face of Captain Luther de Bont. He raised his hand to the key. His index finger hovered over the «red button.» The Amphibia XXI had completed its final mission, reaching a depth of seven thousand eight hundred and ninety meters. The last words Captain De Bont spoke as a farewell, he uttered while looking at the Profondosaurus on the large screen:
— Welcome back home.
In Captain Luther de Bont’s entire service, this was the most powerful salvo. This salvo instantly disabled all systems, the main one being the Profondosaurus’s pulse.
The monstrous surge of energy incinerated every particle of it, right down to the bones. The explosion of the nuclear reactor shook gigantic volumes of water at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and its traces rapidly expanded in all directions.
Staying inside meant a quick death, and going outside meant dying too quickly. This was precisely the case where there was no choice. The outcome in both scenarios promised to be grim. Kayla’s pulse quickened again. She inhaled and exhaled faster and faster.
The pressure inside the bathyscaphe increased a little more, and the craft began to sink. The depth began to grow. Meter by meter, Kayla moved away from salvation, surrendering more and more to the embrace of death. A feeling of fear consumed her from within, forcing her to breathe more frequently and deeply, and to move as much as possible. Movement is life. That’s what everyone says. But there are cases when even an unnecessary movement of a little finger brings one closer to doom, literally depleting vital resources.
In a panic, Kayla screamed, releasing a stream of bubbles, and then absorbed another dose of nitrox, which evaporated in vain as she let out a cry of despair muffled by the thickness of the water. Just as her scream was unheard, her tears dissolved into the water. Kayla didn’t truly understand whether she was crying or not. Her mind was confused. Nitrox supplies were nearing exhaustion. Little by little, carbon dioxide began to penetrate her lungs: Deadly lightness. Vague images drifted through her mind. Something resembling a conceived fetus which, as birth approaches, turns into a monster having lost all semblance of a human body. A submarine flashed before her eyes. It sailed somewhere far beyond the boundaries of the universe, where the source of doom for the entire human race resides. And in all this, Kayla was assigned some special, outcome-determining role.
One spotlight failed. The pressure and temperature sensors failed. The bathyscaphe continued to descend into the depths.
During the voyage, Kayla had pondered what would happen if their expedition resulted in a lethal outcome for the entire crew. Reasoning as a biologist, she had concluded that, essentially, nothing terrible would happen. Every person, before birth into this world, lives in amniotic fluid. We all emerge from water, and there is a degree of logic in returning to it. But when the matter comes down to personal experience, all theory and rationalism collapse in an instant, forcing one to revert to judgment born of natural instincts and reflexes.
The second spotlight’s beam failed. Complete darkness descended outside. The depth nearly reached three hundred meters. The internal lamps began to flicker. The heating system had failed. Cold water enveloped her entire body. Shivers ran deep into her bones. Any movement consumed oxygen. Yet, lack of movement guaranteed rapid frostbite of the limbs.
Now Kayla had no doubt. She was crying. The gigantic, endless ocean consumed her tears, which imperceptibly dissolved within it.
One cannot subsist on theory alone — Kayla had once said this, responding to Stephen Frost’s offer.
Jerking her finger, Kayla discovered that the valve on the cylinder was slightly ajar. She opened it, and breathing became a little easier. The nitrox reserves were negligible.
Suddenly, something struck the bottom of the bathyscaphe. Kayla was certain that something had gone wrong aboard the Amphibia and that the Profondosaurus had returned for her. But the sensation was strange — like an earthquake. The bathyscaphe was being violently propelled. Kayla averted panic when she noticed that the depth readings were rapidly shrinking. It was a blast wave that was dissipating as it neared the surface. It had caught the piece of metal and plastic, sweeping it along. The bathyscaphe spun with furious force. Kayla managed to close the valve on the cylinder before it was wrenched from her hands.
At the moment of the bathyscaphe’s next rotation, as the power of the blast wave subsided, Kayla noticed some flickering light outside, and then looked at the dashboard. A split second before the sensor failed, the depth read three meters.
As if receiving a second wind, Kayla roused herself, unbuckled her seat belts, and reached for the entrance hatch. She channeled all her remaining strength into trying to move the hatch handle. The handle rotated smoothly. But the hatch cover itself remained stuck fast. The internal light flickered again, and only then did Kayla notice a small deformation at the edge of the entrance hole: the dent left by the Profondosaurus’s jaws.
The bathyscaphe was sinking. The depth increased to eight meters. The oxygen reserves in her lungs were exhausted, and Kayla began to paddle down in search of the cylinder. One last gulp. With a renewed burst of strength that could hardly be called fresh, she once again lunged toward the hatch cover. Another attempt to turn the handle further failed. Out of frustration, Kayla grabbed the round handle with both hands and began to shake it. A faint creak sounded. Something was fundamentally wrong with the hatch. The cover was being restrained from the opposite side. The handle was fully unscrewed. She just needed to push.
The depth was twelve meters. Even the water could not muffle this creaking. Kayla instinctively wanted to grit her teeth from the strain, but pressed her lips together just in time. Her strength was clearly lacking. If Henry had been in her place, he would have long since shoved that cover away. But he had already given too much. With a grinding sound, the cover began to yield, and the gap gradually widened. Kayla found a purchase for her foot and now leaned on it with all her weight. The creaking went from intermittent to incessant.
Fifteen meters. That was the distance separating Kayla Fox from the surface. As soon as the gap was large enough for her body to squeeze through, Kayla rushed out.
How desperately she lacked oxygen. She paddled with her last breath, fighting the numbness in her limbs. The oxygen in her lungs was depleted. Trembling ran from her head to her calves. Sensitivity in her feet and palms began to fail. It felt as though the cold was creeping into her bone marrow. Her fingers were so chilled that Kayla didn’t even feel her hand begin to emerge from the water into the air.
Her head literally burst out of the water, and her lips parted wide as she took the deepest, most welcome breath of her life. That gulp of oxygen proved as priceless to her as life itself. But her numb limbs prevented her from staying afloat stably. Her body slipped back underwater. A couple of seconds later, Kayla resurfaced, and this time she managed to open her eyes, turning her panicked gaze to the clear, starry night sky. She breathed non-stop, greedily gulping air. Her throat became scratchy. Kayla coughed up the remaining salt water that had gone inside. She looked around, taking in the sheer darkness and the reflection of the crescent moon.
Kayla remembered. But she could barely feel her fingers, and this greatly complicated the task. She tried to grip the fourth tooth on the upper left jaw with her fingers. The tactile functions of her tongue remained intact, so Kayla decided to count the teeth with her tongue, and after she reached the fourth, she began to guide her fingers around her oral cavity until her tongue felt contact with her index finger and thumb. She squeezed the bionic implant, as much as her chilled skin allowed, and began to twist it clockwise. Unscrewing the cap from the thread, Kayla activated the beacon that had been implanted in all crew members a week before departure.
The signal was sent.
But where was she? She hadn’t inquired about the Amphibia’s coordinates when they transferred to the bathyscaphes. How much longer could her body withstand this cold? With every second, sensitivity decreased and staying afloat became increasingly difficult. Her shoulders and head trembled. For the umpteenth time, she slapped the water with her hand because her body stopped obeying her and she was being pulled down.
Suddenly, Kayla heard voices. A bright, blinding spotlight emerged from somewhere. A low male voice kept repeating the same thing:
— Ei! Você ouve!? Nadar aqui! Nadar aqui!
But Kayla didn’t understand Portuguese.
