Arctic Drift

“Who says the Americans don’t belong in the Arctic after all?” he said to Case, then slipped on his parka and left the building.

* * *

Thirty-five miles to the southwest, Captain Bill Stenseth examined a local meteorological forecast with studious concern. An imposing man with Scandinavian features and the build of an NFL linebacker, Stenseth had weathered storms in every ocean of the world. Yet facing a sudden blow in the ice-studded Arctic still made the veteran captain of the Narwhal nervous.

“The winds seem to be ratcheting up a bit in the latest forecast,” he said without looking up from the document. “I think we’re in for a pretty good gale. Wouldn’t want to be those poor saps hunkered down on the ice,” he added, pointing toward the radio.

Standing beside Stenseth on the ship’s bridge, Rudi Gunn suppressed a pained grin. Sailing through the teeth of a powerful Arctic storm was going to be anything but pleasant. He would gladly trade places with the ice camp members, who would likely sit out the storm in a warm hut playing pinochle, Gunn thought. Stenseth’s preference for battling the elements at sea was clearly the mark of a lifelong sailor, one who never felt comfortable with his feet on the shore.

Gunn shared no similar propensity. Though he was an Annapolis graduate who had spent several years at sea, he now spent more time sailing a desk. The Deputy Director for the National Underwater and Marine Agency, Gunn was usually found in the headquarters building in Washington, D.C. With a short, wiry build and horn-rimmed glasses on his nose, he was the physical opposite of Stenseth. Yet he shared the same adventurous pursuit of oceanographic challenges and was often on hand when a new vessel or piece of underwater technology was sea- tested for the first time.

“I’d have more pity for the polar bears,” Gunn said. “How long before the storm front arrives?”

Stenseth eyed a growing number of whitecaps cresting off the ship’s bow. “About an hour. No more than two. I would suggest retrieving and securing the Bloodhound within the next thirty minutes.”

“They won’t like returning to the kennel so soon. I’ll head down to the operations room and pass the word. Captain, please let me know if the weather deteriorates any sooner than predicted.”

Stenseth nodded as Gunn left the bridge and made his way aft. The two-hundred-foot research ship was rolling steadily through a building sea, and Gunn had to grasp a handrail several times to steady himself. Nearing the stern, he looked down at a large moon pool cut through the vessel’s hull. Surface water was already sloshing back and forth, spilling onto the surrounding deck. Stepping down a companionway, he entered a door marked LAB, which opened up into a large bay. At the far end was a sectioned area with numerous video monitors mounted on the bulkhead. Two technicians sat tracking and recording a data feed from underwater.

“Are they on the bottom?” Gunn asked one of the technicians.

“Yes,” the man replied. “They’re about two miles east of us. Actually crossed the border into Canadian waters, as a matter of fact.”

“Do you have a live transmission?”

The man nodded and passed his communication headset to Gunn.

“Bloodhound, this is Narwhal. We’re seeing a rapid deterioration in the weather conditions up here. Request you break off survey and return to the surface.”

A long pause followed Gunn’s transmission, and then a static-filled reply was heard.

“Roger, Narwhal,” came a gruff voice with a Texas accent. “Breaking off survey in thirty minutes. Bloodhound, over and out.”

Gunn started to reply, then thought better of it. It was pointless to argue with the pair of hardheads at the other end, he thought. Yanking off the headset, he silently shook his head, then sank into a high-back chair and waited for the half hour to pass.

24

Like the canine it was named for, the Bloodhound scoured the earth with its nose to the ground, only the ground was two thousand feet beneath the surface of the Beaufort Sea and its nose was a rigid electronic sensor pod. A titanium-hulled two-man submersible, the Bloodhound was purpose-built to investigate deepwater hydrothermal vents. The submerged geysers, which spewed superheated water from the earth’s crust, often spawned a treasure trove of unusual plant and sea life. Of greater interest to the men in the NUMA submersible were the potential mineral deposits associated with many hydrothermal vents. Discharged from deep under the seabed, the vents often spewed a mineral-rich concoction of small nodules containing manganese, iron, and even gold. Advances in underwater mining technology made the thermal vent fields potentially significant resources.

“Water temperature is up another degree. That ole smoke-stack has got to be down here somewhere,” drawled the deep voice of Jack Dahlgren.

Sitting in the submersible’s copilot seat, the muscular marine engineer studied a computer monitor through steely blue eyes. Scratching his thick cowboy mustache, he gazed out the Plexiglas view port at a drab, featureless bottom starkly illuminated by a half dozen high-intensity lights. There was nothing in the subsea physical landscape to indicate that a hydrothermal vent was anywhere nearby.

“We might just be chasing a few hiccups from down under,” replied the pilot. Turning a sharp eye toward Dahlgren, he added, “A bum steer, you might say.”

Al Giordino grinned at the jest of the much younger Texan, nearly losing an unlit cigar that dangled from his mouth. A short, burly Italian with arms the size of tree trunks, Giordino was most at home riding a pilot’s seat. After spending years in NUMA’s Special Projects group, where he had piloted everything from blimps to bathyscaphes, he now headed the agency’s underwater technology division. For Giordino, building and testing prototype vessels such as the Bloodhound was more of a passion than a job.

He and Dahlgren had already spent two weeks scouring the Arctic seabed in search of thermal vents. Utilizing prior bathymetric surveys, they targeted areas of subsurface rifts and uplifts that were outgrowths of volcanic activity and potential home ground for active thermal vents. The search had been fruitless so far, discouraging the engineers, who were anxious to test the submersible’s capabilities.

Dahlgren ignored Giordino’s remark and looked at his watch.

“It’s been twenty minutes since Rudi gave us the callback. He’s probably a sack of nerves by now. We probably ought to think about punching the UP button or else there will be two storms facing us topside.”

“Rudi’s not happy unless he has something to fret about,” Giordino replied, “but I guess there’s no upside in tempting the weather gods.” He turned the pilot’s yoke left, angling the submersible to the west while keeping it hovering just above the seafloor. They had traveled several hundred yards when the bottom became flecked with a succession of small boulders. The rocks grew larger as Giordino noted that the seafloor was gradually rising. Dahlgren picked up a bathymetric chart and tried to pinpoint their position.

“There looks to be a small seamount in the neighborhood. Didn’t look too promising to the seismic boys for some reason.”

“Probably because they’ve been sitting inside a climate-controlled office for too many years.”

Dahlgren set aside the chart and gazed at the computer monitor, suddenly jumping up in his seat.

“Hot damn! The water temperature just spiked ten degrees.”

A slight grin spread across Giordino’s face as he noted the cluster of rocks on the seabed growing in size and mass.

“The seafloor geology is changing as well,” he said. “The profile looks good for a vent. Let’s see if we can trace the water temperature to its core.”

He adjusted the submersible’s path as Dahlgren read out the water temperature readings. The higher temperatures led them up a sharp rise in the seafloor. A high mound of boulders blocked their path, and Giordino drove the submersible upward like an airplane, ascending nose first until they cleared the summit. As they descended down the opposite side, the scene before them suddenly changed dramatically. The gray, drab moonscape transformed into an iridescent underwater oasis. Yellow mollusks, red tube worms, and bright gold