“Not from that depth,” said Sandecker promptly. “Big John is pressurized to one atmosphere, the same as we’re standing in at sea level. The outside water pressure down there is thirty-three times heavier. Even if we could supply them with high-tech dive gear and a helium-oxygen gas mixture for deep-water breathing, their chances are nil.”
“If the sudden increase in pressure as they left Big John didn’t kill them,” Giordino added, “decompression sickness on the way to the surface would.”
“So what does Pitt have up his sleeve?” Morton persisted.
Giordino’s eyes seemed to peer at something beyond the r head. “I don’t have the answer, but I suspect we’d better t of one damn quick.”
16
THE STERILE GRAY expanse gave way to a forest of oddly sculptured vents protruding from the seafloor. They rose like distorted chimneys and spouted hot-365 Celsius-clouds of black steam that was quickly smothered by the cold ocean.
“Black smokers,” announced Plunkett, identifying them under the probing lights of Big John.
“They’ll be surrounded by communities of sea creatures,” Pitt said without removing his eyes from the navigational display on his control monitor. “We charted over a dozen of them during our mining surveys.”
“You’d better swing clear. I’d hate to see this brute run over them.”
Pitt smiled and took manual control, turning the DSMV to avoid the strange colony of exotic sea life that thrived without sunlight. It was like a lush oasis in the desert, covering nearly a square kilometer of seafloor. The wide tracks of the intruding monster skirted the spewing vents and the entwining thickets of giant tube worms that gently leaned with the current as though they were marsh reeds swaying under a breeze.
Plunkett gazed in awe at the hollow stalks as the worms inside poked their delicate pink and burgundy plumes into the black water. “Some of them must be a good three meters in length!” he exclaimed.
Also scattered around the vents and the tube worms were huge white mussels and clams of varieties Plunkett had never seen before. Lemon-colored creatures that looked like puff balls and were related to jellyfish mingled with spiny white crabs and bluish shrimp. None of them required photosynthesis to survive. They were nourished by bacteria that converted the hydrogen sulfide and oxygen overflow from the vents into organic nutrients. If the sun was suddenly snuffed out, these creatures in their pitch-black environment would continue to exist while all other life forms above them became extinct.
He tried to etch the image of the different vent inhabitants in his brain as they disappeared into the silt cloud trailing behind, but he couldn’t concentrate. Sealed tight in the lonely cabin of the mining vehicle, Plunkett experienced a tremendous wave of emotion as he stared into the alien world. No stranger to the abyssal deep, he suddenly felt as isolated as an astronaut lost beyond the galaxy.
Pitt took only a few glimpses of the incredible scene outside. He had no time for distractions. His eyes and reflexes depended on his reaction to the dangers shown on the monitor. Twice he almost lost Big John in gaping fissures, stopping at the brink of one with less than a meter to spare. The rugged terrain often proved as impassable as a Hawaiian lava bed, and he had to rapidly program the computer to chart the least treacherous detour.
He had to be especially careful of landslide zones and canyon rims that could not support the vehicle. Once he was forced to circle a small but active volcano whose molten lava poured through a long crack and down the slope before turning solid under the frigid water. He steered around scarred pits and tall cones and across wide craters, every type of texture and contour one would expect to find on Mars.
Driving by the sonar and radar probes of the computer instead of relying on his limited vision under the DSMV’s lights did not make for a joy ride. The strain was beginning to arrive in aching muscles and sore eyes, and he decided to turn temporary control over to Plunkett, who had quickly picked up the intricacies of operating Big John.
“We’ve just passed the two-thousand-meter mark,” Pitt reported.
“Looking good,” replied Plunkett cheerfully. “We’re better than halfway.”
“Don’t write the check just yet. The grade has steepened. If it increases another five degrees, our tracks won’t be able to keep their grip.”
Plunkett forced out all thoughts of failure. He had complete confidence in Pitt, a particular that irritated the man from NUMA to no end. “The slope’s surface has smoothed out. We should have a direct path to the summit.”
“The lava rocks hereabouts may have lost their sharp edges and become rounded,” Pitt muttered wearily, his words coming slow with the edge of an exhausted man, “but under no circumstance can they be called smooth.”
“Not to worry. We’re out of the abyssal zone and into midwater.” Plunkett paused and pointed through the viewing window at a flash of blue-green bioluminescence. “Porichthys myriaster, a fish that lights up for two minutes.”
“You have to feel sorry for him,” Pitt said tongue-in-cheek.
“Why?” Plunkett challenged. “The porichthys has adapted very well. His luminescence is used to frighten predators, act as bait to attract food, as a means to identify his own species and, of course, attract the opposite sex in the total blackness.”
“Swimming in a cold black void all their lives. I’d call that a real drag.”
Plunkett realized he was being had. “Very clever observation, Mr. Pitt. A pity we can’t offer midwater fish some sort of entertainment.”
“I think we can give them a few laughs.”
“Oh, really. What have you got in mind?”
“They can watch you drive for a while.” He gestured to the control console. “She’s all yours. Mind you keep a tight eye on the monitor’s geological display and not on jellyfish with neon advertising.”
Pitt slouched in his seat, blinked his eyes closed, and looked to be asleep in a moment.
Pitt came awake two hours later at the sound of a loud crack that came like a gunshot. He immediately sensed trouble. He came erect and scanned the console, spying a flashing red light.
“A malfunction?”
“We’ve sprung a leak,” Plunkett informed him promptly. “The warning light came on in unison with the bang.”
“What does the computer say about damage and location?”
“Sorry, you didn’t teach me the code to activate the program.”
Pitt quickly punched the proper code on the keyboard. The readout instantly swept across the display monitor.
“We’re lucky,” said Pitt. “The life-support and electronic equipment chambers are tight. So is the shielded reactor compartment. The leak is below, somewhere around the engine and generator compartment.”
“You call that lucky?”
“There’s room to move around in that section, and the walls are accessible for plugging the entry hole. The battering this poor old bus has taken must have opened a microscopic casting flaw in the lower hull casing.”
“The force of the outer water pressure through a hole the size of a pin can fill the interior volume of this cabin in two hours,” Plunkett said uneasily. He stirred uncomfortably. The optimism had gone out of his eyes as he stared bleakly at the monitor. “And if the hole widens and the hull collapses…” His voice dropped off.
“These walls won’t collapse,” Pitt said emphatically. “They were built to resist six times the pressure of this depth.”
“That still leaves a tiny shaft of water coming in with the power of a laser beam. Its force can slice an electric cable or a man’s arm in the wink of an eye.”
“Then I’ll have to be careful, won’t I?” Pitt said as he slipped out of his chair and crawled toward the aft end of the control cabin. He had to maintain a constant handhold to keep from being thrown about by the swaying and
