to intercept the boy. As he did, he understood why Will was having to fight so hard to get to the bottom. He and the boy had not only abandoned their fins, they had dumped all of their lead weight. Even with their BCs deflated, their bodies were ultrabuoyant now.
Tomlinson screamed through his regulator as he waved the flashlight to get the kid’s attention. Then he pointed the beam at his own body, hoping Will would swim toward him instead of the air bottles. At that same time, Tomlinson ascended briefly to get a better start, then somersaulted downward.
He got both feet against the ceiling, the buoyancy of his body pressing him solidly against the rocks. He pushed off hard toward the boy only to feel the ceiling crumble as he thrust away. It killed his momentum, and Tomlinson began drifting upward again no matter how hard he stroked and kicked, and he soon banged hard against what was left of the limestone ceiling.
By God! He wasn’t going to let it end like this!
Tomlinson jammed the flashlight into his vest, pushed off harder and tried to swim downward in the sudden gloom, but he couldn’t fight his own buoyancy. He soared upward, and his tank, then his head, banged off the ceiling. An instant later, something kicked Tomlinson hard in the jaw, knocking off his mask.
Without clearing his mask, Tomlinson felt around until he got a grip on the top of the kid’s air bottle. He pulled Will toward him while simultaneously thrusting his own regulator toward what he hoped was Will’s face. Hands found Tomlinson’s hands, yanking the regulator away, as the two of them floated along the ceiling like zeppelins, then thudded hard against the rocks.
Holding his breath, Tomlinson cleared his mask, then found his flashlight. He pressed the button and was relieved to see Will’s face inches from his own. The kid was sucking air, his eyes wide but not wild. Will was still in control, his attention focused inward until he’d taken enough breaths for his brain to function.
As Will passed the regulator back to Tomlinson, the kid’s expression read
Buddy-breathing, Will handled the exchange as if he had been doing it all his life. Talk about grace under fire! Tomlinson wanted to hug the kid. Maybe . . . just maybe . . . he would in a few minutes, as a final gesture of respect and farewell, because, after passing the regulator back to Will, Tomlinson checked his own gauges.
His tank was redlining, almost no air left. They might have five minutes tops, but probably far less with the way the boy was now drinking down the gas.
When Will pushed the regulator toward Tomlinson. Tomlinson refused it by holding up a hand. He steered the mouthpiece back toward the boy, as he allowed his body to relax, feeling his heart decelerate as his brain nibbled at the air within him.
Very slowly, Tomlinson shined the light toward the bottom. Because of the rocks he had kicked free, the water was murky, but he could see the two miniature tanks. He could also see that they were now partially covered by rocks that had fallen from the ceiling.
Tomlinson reached for his dive slate and wrote:
As the boy shook his head no, Tomlinson realized that it was a stupid question. Both Spare Air bottles had to be full or they wouldn’t have sunk.
Tomlinson swung the light toward the roof of the chamber. What he saw gave him hope. The hole into the snow globe, where he had seen bones and artifacts, was now as wide as a drainpipe. When he’d pushed off from the ceiling, he had kicked some of the limestone free.
Tomlinson took another look at his gauges. The depth gauge was inexact at this depth, but it read
My God, the sky was so damn close! Their own familiar world, rich with air, was only a few feet away.
Tomlinson accepted the regulator from Will. He took two long, slow breaths, thinking about what they should do next. Obviously, they should follow the passage upward—but should he go after the extra air bottles first?
Yes. He had to.
After Tomlinson had passed the regulator back to Will, he held up an index finger, then used the flashlight to illuminate the opening above them. It was close, only a few yards away. He let the kid see him smile, wanting to communicate
Man, it felt good to be free of that damn cumbersome vest!
Taking his time, Tomlinson put the flashlight in his teeth and breast-stroked to the bottom. In slow motion, he anchored one hand to a slab of limestone, gathered both bottles, then allowed his body to drift upward. As he ascended, he twisted open a valve on one of the bottles and took an experimental breath.
The spare bottles didn’t contain much. A couple minutes of breathing time in the small bottle and maybe five or ten minutes in the larger bottle. They were for emergencies only—like now, for instance.
When Tomlinson was beside Will again, he exchanged the bottle for his own regulator. Tomlinson waited to be sure the kid was comfortable breathing from the miniature tank, then motioned for him to follow.
Using his hands to pull himself along the top of the chamber, Tomlinson returned to the opening into the snow globe. Once again, he peered up into the geode-round room, where the water wasn’t so clear now but still clear enough. He could see the broken chunks of pottery, the turtle carapace, the elegant vase that had been resting on its side half buried in white coral sand for who knew how many thousands of years.
The hole into the chamber was wide enough to wiggle through, yet he hesitated. Tomlinson understood why he was reluctant without having to explore his own irrational response.
Or . . . maybe it wasn’t so irrational. If the karst vent they were following dead-ended here, then they, too, were dead. Tomlinson much preferred the inexplicable to the inexorable. The unknown offered hope at least.
There was no avoiding the reality of what lay beyond, though. It was their only option, so he pushed himself through into the room, using a minimum of movement not only to conserve what little air he had remaining but also because he hated the idea of corrupting this idyllic pure space with silt—the murk of his own presence.
Tomlinson kept his legs together as if they were tied. He kept his arms at his sides. He used only his fingers to propel and guide his body as he floated into the room.
Will Chaser didn’t hesitate, but he’d spent enough time by now to know that even the smallest movement in an underwater cave destroyed visibility. Kick too hard with a fin, stir the water with a free hand, and a cloud would form instantly and suck the light from his eyes.
Darkness. It was something else Will Chaser knew about.
Will mimicked Tomlinson’s spare movements. He used his left hand to hold the air bottle to his mouth and he used the fingers of his right hand to propel himself crablike into a space that was illuminated in corridors of white by Tomlinson’s flashlight.
That was the image that came into Tomlinson’s mind as his hand reached upward toward the ceiling of the snow globe. If this was to be their end, this was a fitting place. It was an ancient room where a people had vanished into time and space before them. When he was close enough, Tomlinson touched the rock barrier gently,
The limestone felt solid—but that didn’t mean much as Tomlinson knew too well. Using his flashlight, he moved along the top of the chamber hoping to find another opening. The room was small, the ceiling uniform. There was no opening that he could see.
This isn’t what Tomlinson had expected. Until this instant, Tomlinson had believed, in some deep, private space, that they would find a way out. Not that he knew a lot about the topography of caves—he didn’t. It was more of an intuitive belief that, once again, good luck and good karma would steer him to safety.
Tomlinson was an enthusiastic skin diver but a reluctant scuba diver. He preferred the simplicity of minimal gear—mask, snorkel and fins only. He disliked the straitjacket constraints of scuba. An aluminum tank whacking him in the back of the head whenever he attempted a bit of spontaneous underwater ballet was irritating.
However, he had logged many hours diving wrecks—usually with Ford. It was through Ford that Tomlinson had been introduced to the small community of scuba loonies—tech-freak athletes, he thought of them—who lived to explore Florida’s underwater caves. His information on the subject had come from this small, devoted group of
