Abyss

head for Eve to begin.

“Thank you for coming out here today for what I think is the first step toward America’s energy independence,” she began. “An important step. A necessary step.”

She and Don had worked on her presentation last night in his cabin, and she felt as if she’d begun on the right note, and she paused for effect — important, he’d assured her — and a deep basso boat horn close by to the west suddenly cut the silence.

Everyone looked up, and other boat horns joined in, a few at first, but then tens and dozens of them, surrounding the platform, the volume rising and falling like a chorus on the wind.

Don had told her to expect this. “Don’t let it fluster you,” he’d told her. “You’re the Nobel doc in charge. You’re trying to do something positive. The freaks don’t stand for anything, they’ll be here only to destroy what they can’t understand.”

“Shall we continue this inside, where it’s a little less noisy?” she shouted.

“No,” one of the newspaper reporters shouted, getting to his feet. “We understand what you’re trying to do and why. And we understand what’s at stake — not just the money, but the climate control issue you’ve talked about for the last year or two.” He swept his hand toward the edge of the platform over his shoulder. “Were you expecting this demonstration, and what do you say to the Reverend Schlagel’s charges that you’re playing God?”

“If the reverend is right, maybe I should just wave my hand and make them all miraculously disappear,” she said, and she regretted the remark the instant it popped out of her mouth.

“Is that what you want?” the Fox reporter asked.

It was exactly what she wanted, but she shook her head. “Of course not, as long as they don’t try to interfere with my work.”

“Like now?” the network reporter relentlessly followed up, and the other media people were curious enough to let him continue.

“A little humility every now and then wouldn’t hurt,” Don had warned her.

Gail had moved to the rear, behind the cameramen, and she shrugged, only this time the gesture wasn’t indifferent, it was sympathetic. Eve nodded.

“I have a big mouth that tends to get me in trouble,” she said. “What I mean to say is that I welcome scientific criticism, not attacks based purely on emotion or popular opinion that has been manipulated.”

“Is that why you were given the Nobel Peace Prize and not physics?” the Time magazine reporter asked.

The cacophony of boat horns seemed to be closing in on the rig, making it nearly impossible to hear or be heard on deck, and Eve wanted to shout back at the smug bastard. At the top of her lungs. This was the twenty- first century, goddamnit, not the Dark Ages. Yet a paleobiologist friend of hers told her recently that more than half of all Americans did not believe in evolution — they thought Darwin was a crock. Talk about Dark Ages. Sometimes it seemed to her as if the country was slipping backwards, the lights were really starting to go out. The age of exploration and discovery had given way to the new age of religious intolerance and war. Worldwide jihad.

She couldn’t help herself. “Why are you here?” she shouted.

“You’re front-page news, Doc,” one of the reporters said. “You and your God Project.”

* * *

The news conference, more like a circus with her as the chief clown, ended shortly after that remark. Most of the reporters were only mildly curious about the equipment in the control room, and the work that would be done as soon as the GE-built impellers were barged down to Hutchinson Island and attached to the platform. The depths and exact positions of the generator augers in relationship to the continuous micro-changes in the speed and angle of axis of the Gulf Stream at each particular location, which could affect the electrical output and any given moment, would be monitored. It was unknown at this point if a mechanism to change the depth and angle of incidence for each impeller would have to be designed and installed. Also unknown were the effects of salinity and temperature, or especially the opacity of the water, which might change the parts per million of biological organisms present at any given depth. With an intake diameter of twenty-five feet, a density differential could exist between the tops and bottoms of the impellers, which could affect efficiency.

Hundreds of other measurements would be taken from more than one thousand sensors, in the impeller blades themselves, on the internal bearings and gears inside the generators, on the electrical output — not only the amperage developed, but the consistency. How steady an output could be expected on a 24/7 basis for an entire year? Would this project act like solar cells, which produced energy that was subject to extreme fluctuations depending on how much dust landed on the solar panels, how many clouds were in the sky and how fast they moved, and at what latitudes the panels were located?

“There are a lot of variables,” Eve told them. “It’s what this stage of my experiment is all about.”

“What precautions have you taken to avoid another accident like the one last year in which a man was killed?” the French newspaper reporter asked.

“Better seals and redesigned fail-safes,” Eve answered matter-of-factly, though she was bitter. It was no accident, and everyone in her lab knew it, but there was no proof. No way ever of discovering the proof unless they could find the impeller that had fried its cable and now lay somewhere at the bottom of the ocean. But no one was looking, nor were there plans or money for such a search. So it was an accident.

“What comes next?” Tomi Nelson, who wrote for Scientific American, asked. She and the reporter from the Smithsonian had been the only two really more interested in the science and technology than the men in Schlagel’s opposition. But then they weren’t as interested in spot news as the others.

Don, who’d been missing for the briefing, had come in just as the question was asked. “If all goes well, and nothing bites us in the butt, we’ll hook up to the grid ashore and start giving Sunshine State Power and Light free electricity,” he said, coming around to where Eve stood facing the media people. “Sorry I’m late, Dr. Larsen.”

Press kits, including the bios of Eve and Don and everyone on the team, along with the science including diagrams, a little bit of math, some economic projections, and the long-range weather effects they were aiming for, had been sent ahead of time, so introductions weren’t necessary.

“I meant beyond that, Dr. Price,” Nelson asked. “What’s the next stage, or are you planning on going directly into production?”

“How many oil platforms do you expect it will take?” the Japanese reporter interrupted impolitely. “Excuse me, but do you think your environmentalists will object?”

“Let me answer both questions,” Eve said. “No more oil platforms, this one is just a tool for us to generate needed data. After we’re finished here, we’ll anchor the four impellers and their gen sets fifty feet beneath the surface and continue sending electrical power ashore. There will be no rig, and therefore no environmental issues.”

“And before anyone asks, because of the design of the impellers we will not be making sushi in the Gulf Stream,” Don said, and he got a few chuckles.

The boat horns had been blaring nonstop for about a half an hour, so that it had become mostly just background noise. But the Washington Post reporter nodded toward the windows. “Thad Schlagel promises to follow you all the away to Florida. What effect will that have on your work?”

“We brought earplugs,” Don said. “Anyway the extra publicity when we start giving away free electrical power won’t hurt.”

“If it works,” the Post reporter said.

Defloria and Gail came to the door. Eve introduced them as the tour guides, and although the reporters from Scientific American and Smithsonian wanted to stay and ask more questions, they also wanted to see the rest of the rig, and Eve promised to do follow-ups with them afterwards.

When they had cleared out, Eve took Don aside. “Where were you?” she demanded. She didn’t like being deserted.

“I’m sorry but I had to get the hell out of the way, I didn’t know what I’d say if I got started.”

And Eve came down a little. “I don’t blame you,” she said. “But it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.”

“Except for the noisemakers.”