Polar Shift

Austin made a face. 'No mermaids, if that's what you mean. Lots of flat ooze with hard sediment mixed in here and there, boulders, dips and depressions, school fish and sea clutter. No sign of our ship-or any ship, for that matter.'

Adler shook his head in frustration. 'You wouldn't think it would be so damned difficult with all these electronic gizmos to find a vessel that's longer than two football fields put together.'

'It's a big ocean. But if any ship can find the Belle, it's the Throckmorton' Austin said in reassurance.

'Kurt's right. The instrumentation on this ship can tell you the color of a tube worm's eyes at a thousand fathoms,' Zavala added.

Adler chuckled. 'Deep-ocean biology isn't my area of expertise, but I wasn't aware those remarkable creatures had eyes.'

'Joe is exaggerating, but only a little bit,' Austin said with a smile. 'The stuff available on the Throckmorton makes a strong case for those who argue that humans can explore the deep ocean without getting their feet wet. Instead of being crammed into a submersible vehicle, here we are sipping coffee while the side-scan fish does all the work for us.'

'And what do you think, Kurt?'

Austin pondered the question. 'There is no doubt that someone like Joe can build an underwater robot vehicle that can be programmed to do everything but bring you your newspaper and slippers.'

A brilliant mechanic as well as engineer, Zavala had designed and directed the construction of numerous underwater vehicles, manned and unmanned, for NUMA.

'Funny you should mention that,' Joe said. 'I'm working on a design that will do all that and mix a damned good margarita too.'

'Joe makes my point.' Austin gestured at the screens lining the walls of the survey center. 'But what's missing in the comfortable confines of this room is the hunger for the one quality that will keep the human race from atrophying like an unused limb. Adventure.'

Adler smiled with pleasure at having made the right decision in going to NUMA for help. Austin and Zavala were obviously sharp-minded scientists, knowledgeable in arcane areas of ocean research. But with their athletic bearing, quick humor and good-natured camaraderie the two NUMA men seemed like throwbacks. They were more like eighteenth-century swashbucklers than the seagoing academics he was used to, with their fussy intensity and taciturn personalities. He lifted his coffee mug in a toast.

'Here's to adventure,' he said.

The others raised their mugs. 'Maybe it's time we had a wave scientist on the Special Assignments Team,' Austin said.

An urgent buzzing from the sonar monitor cut short Adler's laughter.

Austin set his coffee aside and stepped over to the sonar screen. He watched the display for a few seconds. His lips widened in a smile and he turned to the professor. 'You said earlier that you'd like to assess the damage to the Southern Belle before you tell us about the theories you've been toying with.'

'Yes, that's right,' Adler said. 'I'm hopeful that I can learn why the Belle went down.'

Austin swiveled the screen so that the professor could see the spectral image of a ship lying on the ocean bottom five hundred feet below.

'You're about to get your chance.'

The sea had wasted no time taking over ownership of the Southern Belle.

The ship caught in the powerful spotlights of the remote-operated vehicle was no longer the magnificent vessel that had once plowed across the ocean like a moving island. Its blue hull was covered with a greenish gray growth that gave the ship a shaggy-dog appearance, as if it had grown fur. Microscopic organisms had taken up residence in the seaweed, attracting schools of fish that nuzzled for food in the nooks and crannies of what had become a huge incubator for marine life.

The ROPOS ROV had been launched from the Throckmorton's A-frame stern soon after Austin had notified the bridge that the sonar scan had picked up the ship's image. The vehicle was around six feet long, three feet wide and high, and shaped like a seagoing refrigerator. Despite its boxy shape, the ROV's design had gone far beyond the 'dope on a rope' function of the earlier remote vehicles. It was a moving ocean laboratory capable of a variety of scientific functions.

The ROV carried two video cameras, twin manipulators, sampling tools, sonar and digital data channels. The vehicle was attached to the ship by a fiber-optic tether that provided communication and the transmission of live video and other data. Driven by a forty-horsepower electric motor, the ROV had rapidly descended the nearly five hundred feet to where the ship lay on the bottom in an upright position.

Joe Zavala sat at the control console piloting the boxy undersea robot with a joystick. Zavala was an experienced pilot who had logged hundreds of hours in helicopters, small jet and turboprop aircraft, but controlling a moving object hundreds of feet away required the deft hand of a teenage video game addict on the controls.

Keeping an eye on the video picture in front of him, Zavala guided the ROV as if he were sitting inside it. He used a firm yet gentle hand on the joystick, giving the vehicle subtle commands to compensate for shifts in current. With each move of the joystick, he had to be careful that the ROV didn't get tangled in its umbilical.

The mood was somber in the crowded remote sensing center. Crew and scientists had squeezed into the room after word of the Southern Belle's discovery had spread throughout the ship. The silent spectators gazed at the ghostly images of the dead ship like mourners at a funeral bier.

Reality had set in after the initial excitement of the ship's discovery. Those who follow the sea know that the solid deck under their feet rests on an undulating liquid foundation of ocean water that is as treacherous as it is beautiful. Everyone on the Throckmorton knew that the sunken ship had become a tomb for its crew. All were aware that they could suffer the same fate. There was no sign of the men who had gone down with the Southern Belle, but it was impossible not to contemplate the last terrifying moments of the cargo ship's doomed crew.

Totally focused on his task, Zavala brought the ROV down to deck level and ran it over the deck from bow to stern. Normally, he would have to be careful that the vehicle didn't get tangled in the masts and radio antennae, but the Belle's deck was as level as a billiard table. The camera picked up ragged metal stubs where the cranes and booms used to handle cargo containers had been snapped off like toothpicks.

As the ROV soared over the aft end of the ship, its lights picked out a large rectangular opening in the deck.

Zavala murmured an exclamation in Spanish. Then he said, 'The deckhouse is gone.'

Austin was leaning over Zavala's shoulder. 'Try searching the area immediately around the ship,' he suggested.

Zavala worked the joystick, and the vehicle rose higher above the deck. It moved around the ship in an expanding spiral, but there was no sign of the deckhouse.

Professor Adler had been watching the show in stony silence. He tapped Austin lightly on the arm and led him to the far end of the room, away from the crowd clustered around the ROV monitor.

'I think it's time we talked,' the professor whispered.

Austin nodded and returned to the control console. He told Joe he would be in the ship's recreation room, then he and the professor left the survey center. With the rest of the ship's complement working or watching the pictures of the Belle, they had the rec room to themselves. It was a comfortable space, with leather furniture, a television set and DVD, movie cabinet, pool table and Ping-Pong table, some board games and a computer.

Austin and Adler settled into a couple of chairs. 'Well,' Adler said, 'what do you think?'

'About the Belle? You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce why it went to the bottom. The deckhouse was blasted off.'

'We have the satellite pictures showing wave activity. There's no doubt in my mind that she was hit by one or more killer waves far bigger than anything we've seen before.'

'Which brings us back to your theories. You were reluctant earlier to talk about them. Has finding the ship changed your mind?'

'I'm afraid my theories are out of the ordinary.'