show, Kane and his backers had far more lucrative plans for this dear submersible.
“Today, gentlemen and ladies,” Swigart announced from the controls, speaking to the surface as well, “Today we will find out if anyone among us finds that 12, 500 feet of freezing salt water is not to your liking. Make history, eh? But first we make sure Maxi-million here is happy with the cold and the pressure. Ingles, time to replace the gas oxygen with the liquid environment.”
David punched at the computer console to give Max the order to flood herself from the Perflourocarbon tanks, and the liquid air rained down over everyone, fast filling the sub as she submerged. In essence, they were all about to drown within the confines of the small ship unless they fell back on their training and swallowed hard.
Swigart switched off the standard atmosphere recycling/re-circulating system and reminded, “You gotta breathe the liquid air now people, cause there’s no air-air left behind once Max is filled with the liquid stuff.”
A few groans and grunts responded.
“Respect your training, divers. Vital signs on… shoulder-mounted cameras on.” He had to shout over the sound of the liquid air filling the elongated aerodynamically-shaped sub.
“See you on the other side,” David added from his console.
Between David and Swigart, they had over five hundred hours diving, but only one hundred using this technology. Among all the divers present, they had just over eight hundred dives using the liquid air technology; however, no one had ever taken it to the depths they were headed toward now.
The outer hull formed of titanium could withstand the pressure, especially as the unusually squareish sub would be exerting pressure against pressure—having been filled with the oxygenated perfluorocarbon. Cameras, batteries, ballast tanks, tanks marked OPFC-413, electronic housings, viewing ports, her cross-shaped nose viewing port with its huge panorama of whatever spread before them for piloting and viewing—all of it would implode in less than seconds if a single protocol was improperly followed, or if they had a system failure. Aborting the mission could prove just as dangerous; it would cause the iron ballasts to be dropped, resulting in their rising at too accelerated a pace which could cause cracks in the hull if not outright leaks, and possible death before reaching the surface. Still it was a preferential way to go, and at least there would be remains—something left to bury.
Mad Max also had a built in failsafe system to save itself by jettisoning over half of its weight by separating much as a space ship separates in flight. That is to say Maxi-million, which was actually worth billions to Kane and all investors, could save itself. Unfortunately, no one knew what a separation and instant rise to the top would do to the humans inside her despite all the experiments with monkeys and mice. In fact, such animal testing had pretty much convinced everyone that most likely such a rapid ascent would kill them all unless their suits held. On the other hand, the expensive sub itself could be salvaged.
“All in-board electronics and sensors looking good,” David assured everyone moments before they would all be momentarily ‘drowned’ as the oxygenated perfluorocarbons would be filling their lungs. They had already dropped several hundred feet so any light from
Everything around and inside Max was being recorded on discs, including every word spoken—and all of it was being transmitted back to
Inside Max, the light source was limited to panel lights on the consoles, and while it grew colder and colder within, it also grew darker and darker within the cabin. After less than three minutes, the altimeter told David they were at 1200 feet—in total darkness surrounding the sub. The abysmal darkness took on a life if its own just the other side of the hull and bubble viewing window.
Max moved through the sea like a Great White shark in its sleekness but more accurately in the manner of a squid. As she dove, her passengers continued to be hit by the liquid oxygen spray from above. The sub was now two-thirds full of liquid air, filling up in what appeared certain death for them all as it poured over them and filled the space, rising to their necks within minutes. The last of the air pocket at their heads fast disappeared to hem in every seated diver, braced now for filling their lungs with the liquid form of oxygen. No time for contemplation, but a quiet, calming meditation on nothingness they all knew would help in the transition.
“Microphones and cameras!” came Lou’s last order.
The microphones were of the contact variety, fitted to a neck brace to which the masks attached, the contact point being the throat, precisely at the larynx. The mics could work without the headgear as a result here within the sub where they needed no mask, even with the divers submerged in liquid. With the hardware built into the dive suit, David and the others had but to plug the mic into a port on the inside of the neck collar. It was a computer that interpreted their throat microphones.
Once they were on the other side of what was termed ‘the small death’, they’d quickly come to, then place the mouthpiece for the liquid air bak-pak, as it was commonly called to the on position, along with the helmets needed on the outside, and its camera, and vital-sign monitoring equipment carried by each diver.
Divers no longer required bulky helmets and suits at these depths thanks to the liquid air, which equalized to the pressure which marine life enjoyed. The only difference was that the divers breathed clear oxygenated fluid and not sea water, but the Navy was working on that, moving toward true ‘Aquanaut’ fashion. For now they must use their packs which lasted up to four hours in hundreds of feet of water but no one knew for certain how long they might last or fail to last under the tremendous pressures here, pressures that would require divers to take deeper, longer breaths as they worked. While it was true that under normal conditions, a single lungful of liquid air had been proven to last an hour, this was two and a half miles down. It was all experimental from here.
They had dropped at high speed to 5000 feet below the surface and were still dropping.
With everyone suited up entirely now, head gear on, cameras, lights mounted on each diver, microphones operational, for the brief moment each in turn went under, breathing in the liquid air. For the half second time that they took undergoing the ‘small death’, Max had violently lurched as if hit by some powerful force from outside.
The impact had sent Kelly and Steve Jens almost off their seats. In fact, it snatched all eight people inside the sub to one side or the other. When David came to at the same time as Lou, they knew instantly they’d been knocked off course by something large that had taken a strike at the sub—either a swordfish, a Great White, or something larger still. The pilot and copilot now spoke through their com-links as they simultaneously assessed damages and worked to bring their vessel back on course.
“Why didn’t we see whatever it was that hit us on sector-sonar?” asked David, a metallic quality to his voice attributable to the computer which decoded the garbled sounds of speech over vocal chords in a liquid atmosphere rather than a gas atmosphere.
“It would appear sonar is gone—it went offline along with the feed from
“What? When?” came a chorus of questions.
“A few minutes before we all took the plunge.”
“Whatcha mean, gone?” David was incredulous.
“It’s shut down is what I mean—not working.” Lou worked at the controls for the sector-sonar but it was no use.
“Damn thing went off before we were struck, Bowman, now shut up; gotta think. Without sonar, we could crash right smack into
Indeed, save for their running lights, they found themselves in a world of dark.
“Who in the hell wants us all dead?” asked Bowman.
David suspected Kelly might well have continued her efforts at sabotage, acting as a modern-day Declan Irvin. That this tampering might well be a last ditch effort to kill either the mission or thwart the thing that one of them had become. Could it be her plan to end the life of this monster once and for all at the cost of far fewer lives than in 1912?
But David had no desire to go down with it and certainly not to careen into
He turned and glared at Kelly and saw the truth in her eyes. You are your ancestor, he thought but did not say.
