Stepping back into the control cab, Riches hit a wall of heat and the smell of sweaty men mixed with the stale nicotine coming off Podkapayev and the interpreter. The room was dark to help the operators see the screens, and the aircon had been turned off to preserve the precious voltage. The atmosphere inside was tense again, and looking at the screen Riches could see why. They were already close to catching the second, rubbery line. Gold’s back was up against the wall, his arm protruding into the middle of the cabin beneath the robotic control, snatching as though trying to grab something from mid-air in slow motion.
At last the claws closed around the tube and Gold slowly drew his hand closer to him and across to his right. Deep beneath them Scorpio’s manipulator mirrored the motion and swung across to the jaws of the cutter arm. There were a couple of missed attempts at fitting it inside, then the line was in the jaws.
Nuttall flicked the switch. The cutter arm juddered once more as the hydraulic blade slid forward in its housing, and then suddenly there was a burst of gas and a cloud of bubbles exploded from the cutter and fled for the surface.
Everyone exchanged glances, except for Podkapayev, who remained intently focused on the screen. That was no cable. That was a gas hose of some sort, and not an old one either. Under that kind of pressure the gas – whatever it was – would have found some way to escape if it had been there for any length of time. It seemed to Riches that the Russians had not just been inspecting the hydrophone array as they’d claimed. Perhaps they had been working on it, topping it up with air to keep it buoyant and the antennae taut.
No wonder that Podkapayev was looking uncomfortable. Everyone knew how dangerous it was to use a rescue craft for maintenance work. Their whole design was for short interventions, and they contained no provision for getting in trouble themselves. To operate one without backup was asking for trouble.
Gold and Nuttall remained totally focused on their task, and were already lining up for the third rope. Just over an hour after the very first cut, the third rope was severed. They were working with methodical efficiency, and Riches began projecting forward. At this rate, they should be done within another hour.
Sunday, 7 August
SS + 68 h 15 mins
Huddled in the damp, frozen chamber of the submersible, Gennady Bolonin was having to fight hard to prevent his body from starting to shiver uncontrollably. Once started it would be difficult to stop and might spread to others. Given that they didn’t know how much longer they’d be down there, an outbreak of shivering could be lethal; it would use up their remaining oxygen three times faster.
Bolonin could see the writing on the wall. The glistening eyes of contained terror had long ago been replaced by dull, blank stares. When the vomiting had started, he’d looked over at Lepetyukha. The captain might have been dead, but suddenly his chest began a heaving, hollow-bellied cough as his damaged lungs tried to find fresh air.
There was none. The acrid smell of vomit was now overlaid with a fug of urine. They were using sealable bottles for their liquid waste, but the weaker the men got, the more frequently they missed or spilled them. The used cans of V-64 could only be imperfectly sealed, and nauseating, acrid tendrils of excrement stink were filling both their nostrils and their subconscious.
At last Lepetyukha glanced back at Bolonin for long enough for the engineer to nod. The significance was not lost on the Captain.
They had used seven of the V-64 emergency air regeneration canisters they’d had on board. They’d eked the chemical out for as long as they possibly could. Now only one remained. Once this was opened, the psychological crutch of having an unopened canister in reserve would be gone. Once the chemicals in this canister were spent, they were on a slow march down the road to death. As the carbon dioxide level rose, the headaches and nausea they were already suffering from would worsen and they would then lapse into unconsciousness followed quickly and unknowingly by the end. But there was no choice. If it wasn’t opened now the crew would start dying anyway, and Lepetyukha’s nod affirmed he saw that too. They hadn’t changed a cylinder for 18 hours – already a Navy record.
Lepetyukha’s rheumy, bloodshot eyes swivelled slowly, trying to find Milachevsky. He grunted the young pilot’s name. Huddled against the horror in mind as well as body, Milachevsky didn’t respond until his name was spoken a second time.
Lepetyukha didn’t lift a finger, but swivelled his eyes slowly over to the remaining canister. Milachevsky understood, and began plotting his movements to pull himself within reach of the cylinder. Every lift of his arm felt as demanding as climbing one of the volcanoes that surrounded Petropavlovsk, and contemplating a sequence of such movements was daunting. But he set his jaw and began. When he at last reached the canister he squatted against the curved steel, closed his hand over the valve and twisted. The grip slid past his skin without shifting. He couldn’t summon enough strength to hold it tight enough to crack the seal.
Taking both hands, Milachevsky tried once again. Focusing all his attention on his hands, he managed to break the valve’s bond with the canister. Slumped against the wall, Milachevsky placed the V-64 carefully on the deck, and began to gather the energy for his return journey. Through his throbbing headache, he imagined he could feel the ache in his head lessen as the chemicals in the canister drew carbon dioxide from the air. The pain lifted slowly, but alongside the relief came realisation. His mind was becoming capable of thought once more, not just deadened reactions, and that thought brought dread. Once this canister was finished there would be no others to open. This time the slow suffocation would be final.
Sunday, 7 August
SS + 68 h 45 mins
With continual communication between the control cabin and the deck crew, taking up umbilical slack and spooling out a little more, the movement caused by the swell and KIL-27’s wandering was all but cancelled out. Nuttall and Gold were in a zone of total concentration, barely having to talk to each other as they worked together to move in on the dwindling number of cables.
Podkapayev was nodding enthusiastically as Scorpio neared the fourth cable. Nuttall jockeyed the stick forward, compensating heavily for what he was presuming to be the strange effects of the low voltage, when something caught his attention from the corner of his eye. On the panel to the right of the joystick, a red light had started flashing on and off. Gold had also seen it in the same moment.
‘Oil level alarm,’ said Gold loudly, but to himself. This was exactly what he’d dreaded – something going wrong at this critical stage. The alarm indicated that the main termination box compensator was losing oil. There was no way of knowing how fast. The box – where the umbilical met the ROV itself – was filled with oil to keep seawater away from the electrical connections. Gold was running through the possible causes of a leak. Was the oil being forced up the umbilical, as it might if Scorpio hadn’t dived deep for a while? Was one of the bolts not tightened properly during their frantic efforts to get everything up and running again? Did something get trapped in the seal? Or was it just a false alarm caused by a fault in the circuit, one that could mean the difference between life and death if he chose to take it seriously. There was no way of telling without inspecting Scorpio.