The Deep

“I’m glad you dressed formal for your trip to Orange Grove,” Treece said.

Coffin spat sea water over the side and wiped his nose. “Buggers. Told me not to use their elevator; told me it was private property. I told ’em to call my solicitor.” He laughed. “Rode down with the nicest piece of flesh I’ve seen in years. I fell deeply in love; almost got engaged.”

Treece swung the boat seaward. On the way to the reef, he briefed Coffin about Cloche’s threat and about the diving gear that had cleared customs that morning.

When he told Coffin that he wanted him to stay aboard, Coffin protested, but Treece convinced him, praising his supposed skills with firearms and his rapport with complex machinery.

They anchored behind the second line of reef.

“Once we get everything fired up,” Treece said to the Sanderses, “we’ll go down. I’ll take the air gun. David, stay on my left. You ever see an air lift work?”

“No.”

“There’s a tube alongside it that forces compressed air up through it. Creates a kind of vacuum and sucks up the sand. It can buck like a bastard, so stay clear, and don’t get your hands too close to the mouth or it could drag your fingers up inside and cut the crap out of them. It’ll clean sand off the bottom faster’n you can believe. When we uncover ampules, you pick them out as quick as you see them. I’ll have to be bloody careful not to let ’em get sucked up with the sand, or they’ll smash in the gun. And you,” he said to Gail, “stay on his

left. You won’t be able to see a damn thing down there beyond about two feet, so don’t wander. Here.”

He gave her a canvas tote bag. “He’ll pass you the ampules as he gathers them; you put ’em in there. When the bag’s full, you tap him, he’ll tap me, and you’ll lug it up. Don’t come up without telling me;

I need time to move the gun. If I get too far ahead of you, the sand’ll cover the ampules before you can gather ’em. If anything goes wrong, Adam’Us shut off the compressor. It’ll get hard to breathe right away, but you can probably get one more breath out of it. Come up as close to the bow as you can and hug the boat. You’re hard to see up there, and if there’s anybody aboard wants to do you dirt, you’ll have at least a couple breaths before you have to go down again.

Okay?”

“Okay,” said Sanders.

“I…” Gail hesitated.

“Say it,” Treece told her. “Get it out now.

I don’t want you springing surprises on me.”

“I don’t like that…” She pointed at the Desco masks and coils of yellow tubing. “It scares me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Claustrophobia, I guess.

I can’t stand the thought of being… tethered. If someone turned off the compressor, I think I’d have a stroke.”

“C’mon,” Sanders said.

“It’s the truth,” she said. “I can’t help it.”

Treece said, “No problem. Rather have you comfortable than all jeebly and upset. Use a tank. We’ve got plenty.”

“Thanks.”

“Anybody got anything else to say, say it now.

Once I fire up that beast, you won’t be able to hear yourselves think.”

“You want wet suits?” Sanders asked.

“Aye. We’ll be down a long time. The water’s warm, but not that warm. After an hour, you’ll be shedding body heat like feathers.” Treece took a screw driver from a tool box, primed the compressor, and touched the screw driver to two contact points on the starter motor. Sparks jumped from the contacts, and the compressor roared to life.

Sanders went below. The cabin of Corsair looked like a divers” flea market. Coils of rope and chain hung from the overhead. Two salt-spotted fishing rods rested on bulkhead brackets. In one corner there was a tangle of old regulator hoses, the rubber cracked and rotten. Tools-hammers, chisels, screw drivers, wrenches-littered the bunks. There was no door on the compartment that housed the head; for toilet paper, a Sunday newspaper supplement had been shredded and tacked to the bulkhead. Sanders found a heap of wet suits, masks, and flippers. He sorted wet-suit tops and bottoms, trying to make matches for himself and Gail. Beneath the pile, he saw a rusty knife and a rubber sheath with straps designed to bind it to a diver’s calf. He put the knife in the sheath and took it and the wet suits topside.

Gail was threading two-pound weights onto her belt. He gave her a wet suit and said, “What do you normally use, six pounds?”

“Yes.”

“The suit’ll double your buoyancy. You might dump those twos and load up with three or four fours.”

Gail nodded. She saw the knife in his hand.

“What’re you planning to do with that?”

“I don’t know. Dig in the sand. I found it below.”

Treece threw the aluminum tube overboard. It lay on the water for a moment, churning the surface, then slowly sank, trailing the coil of pink tubing behind it. A stream of bubbles popped to the surface.

Treece yelled to Sanders. “Throw that coil over to port. I’ll put mine over starboard. Keep ’em from snarling right off.”

Sanders threw the yellow coil over. It floated, and air bubbled from the face mask. He mounted a harness on a scuba tank, checked the regulator, and helped Gail into the straps. Then he strapped the knife onto his right leg, added ten pounds to his own weight belt, and buckled it around his middle. He wiggled his feet into his flippers and said, “I guess I’m ready. It feels strange: no tank, no mask.”

Gail said, “Throw me the sack when I get myself together, okay?”

“Sure.”

Gail rolled backward off the gunwale. She cleared her mask and held up a hand. Sanders leaned over the side, gave her the handles of the canvas bag; she waved and dove toward the bottom.

Treece went over next, then Sanders-jumping beside the coil of hose, retrieving the mask, and slipping it over his head.

As Sanders lacked downward, he sorted out his feelings about diving with the Desco apparatus. His field of vision was much greater than with an ordinary mask; he could see his nose. The air hissing in front of the opening above his right eye felt cool. It was nice not to have a rubber mouthpiece in his mouth; he found he could talk to himself. But he was also aware of a faint tug at his head. He looked up and saw the rubber coil snaking down behind him. He saw Treece’s air hose leading across the bottom toward the reef, and he followed it.

Treece was waiting at the mouth of the cave, holding the aluminum air lift well above the bottom.

Even underwater, it emitted a loud noise, like a strong wind rushing between buildings.

When David and Gail joined him, Treece positioned them beside the cave. He made a circle of thumb and forefinger and looked at them. He said, “Okay?” The word was thick and indistinct, but the meaning was clear. They responded with the “okay” sign. Treece touched the mouth of the air lift to the sand.

Instantly, sand vanished from the bottom. It looked to Sanders like a speeded-up film of a vacuum cleaner working on a pile of cigar ashes. In seconds there was a hole a foot wide and half a foot deep.

Sand and pebbles were blown out the back end of the tube, causing a dense, blossoming cloud. The tide was running to the right, tending to carry the cloud away from them, but the wave action on the reef fought the tide, and soon Sanders found he had to lie on the sand to see the hole.

The tip of an ampule showed through the sand, quivering against the force of the suction. Sanders grabbed the ampule and passed it to Gail. She set it on the bottom of the bag.

The hole was deeper now, and suddenly a side gave way. Sand rose in Sanders’ face. Through the fog he saw a shower of glimmers; he reached into the hole and closed his hand around several ampules.

Treece raised the air lift, letting the sand settle so Sanders could see to collect the ampules. Then Treece moved the tube a few feet to the right and started another hole. Right away, he was in a field of ampules, some clear, some yellow, and a few amber.

Gail moved closer to Sanders, taking the ampules from his hand as carefully as possible, setting them, one by