“That’s obviously artificial,” Carter said. “Not biological.”
Jayden was already reaching for the radio. They continued to watch in the same direction while he keyed the transmitter. The light was visible again, moving sporadically from where Carter first noticed it to their left, very slowly.
“Deep Voyager to Topside, come back…” While Jayden waited for the reply, he turned to Carter. “Could it be an ROV from our ship?”
“Why wouldn’t they have told us they were deploying one again? More likely, it’s an ROV from the mystery newcomer ship.” They continued to watch as the lights would disappear from sight behind solid walls, and then reappear. It seemed as though the light was filtering through multiple walls, not just one, where the holes and tears had to line up just right for it to be visible to them in the Purser’s Room.
Johnny’s voice invaded the stunned silence in the sub cabin. “Topside to Deep Voyager, we read you. What’s your status? Over.”
Jayden kept his eyes on the dark walls, looking for the lights, while he replied into the comm system. “Systems are good, we’re about ready to head back out. But we see lights down here. Did you deploy an ROV or AUV? Over.”
Johnny’s reply was immediate. “That’s a negative, Deep Voyager. Our vessel, that’s R/V Deep Pioneer for anyone who might be listening over this frequency, did not, I repeat did not deploy a submersible vehicle of any kind after you began your dive, over.”
Carter’s voice was low but clear in the cabin: “Uh-oh. Well whoever it is, they’re heading in our general direction.”
“Copy that, Topside. We still can’t say for sure, but there sure seems to be some kind of craft down here. We’re still seeing the lights, inside the ship coming our way now. They must have deployed something from the Transoceanic, over.”
Carter interjected in the cabin before Johnny’s radio reply. “If it’s from Transoceanic, how’d they get down here so fast? It’s only been maybe an hour-and-a-half and it takes about twice that to get down here.”
“And they got down inside the Titanic already? Johnny’s voice was incredulous, while Carter smiled and nodded. “That’s what I’m saying!” he told Jayden.
Jayden shrugged as he spoke into the mic. “If they used the thrusters on the way down, at the expense of using more battery power and therefore having a shorter bottom time—”
“That would explain it,” Carter said. Then Johnny completed the sentence for him over the radio.
“They might do that if they wanted to get down on the wreck as fast as possible, but why?”
Jayden keyed the mic and asked, “Have you been in contact with that ship yet?”
“We’ve been in contact with it,” Johnny said, “but they haven’t responded back yet.”
Carter motioned for the transmitter and Jayden gave it to him. “Co-pilot here, Topside. Maybe just physically pay them a visit with a tender vessel — send some guys over on one of the inflatable boats with a megaphone and shout up to them, over.”
“Not a bad idea, co-pilot. I’ll bring it up with Cliff Jameson and we’ll take it under advisement. Meanwhile, you better work on getting your butts back outside that wreck. Over and out.”
No sooner had they ended the radio call than the mysterious lights were visible again up ahead, but not so far away this time.
“Let’s get that other safe and get out of here.” Carter flipped the spotlight on his side back on. Jayden activated the floodlights and then his own spotlight, casting the room into temporary unnatural brightness once again.
“So back to this, I’m going to try to flip the safe over so I can grab the bracket on the back.” They heard the mechanical whirring noise as Jayden put the external manipulator arm into motion.
“The lights are definitely getting closer,” Carter said.
Jayden’s response was a sustained hum of the mechanical arm as he kept it engaged while trying to flip the safe. “Here goes… gonna have to bump the whole sub up a foot or so….” He reached a hand over to the vertical thruster control on the console while the other remained on the grab arm joystick. The sub rose slightly in the Purser’s Room while remaining in the same position relative to the floor. With it came the grab arm, and then the safe.
“It’s off the bottom,” Carter said.
“Rotating the arm now.” Jayden manipulated the thruster arm until the safe was tipped up on its side. Then he lowered the sub back down a foot until the safe settled onto the floor again in its new orientation. “Now to get the claw grip on the bracket mount.” He worked on controlling the arm and claw grabber so that it would grip the safe’s bracket, as Carter had done with the other safe. Meanwhile, Carter watched for the mystery craft somewhere nearby in the bowels of the ship. Their own lights made it difficult to see, but he thought he could discern illumination coming through the gaps in the walls. If that’s what it was, it was even closer to them now.
“Come on Jayden, not to put the pressure on you, but we really need to get a move on.”
“Got it!” The genuine excitement in Jayden’s voice was unmistakable. “Let me test it… Okay, now I’m going to pick it up and swing it in closer to the sub. Make sure yours is in all the way in, too. We want to maintain as low a profile as possible on the way back out of the ship.”
“Good to go on my side. No desire to make this my final resting place, so, let’s make like a tree and leave, shall we?”
Jayden’s reply was to turn the back of the sub toward the room exit while hovering in place. Then he did a final systems check, as well as a visual check of the two safes that now hung by one grab arm on each side of the sub. “It’s good we have two safes, because they’re heavy enough that if there was only one, we’d have uneven weight distribution.”
“It also means we’re that much heavier and will need to use that much more battery power on the return trip,” Carter pointed out.
“Ouch,” Jayden said before putting the sub into reverse motion toward the exit with a tap of the horizontal thrusters. When the sub glided to a stop in front of the doorway, they repeated the process they had used to enter the room, but in reverse, with Carter checking for clearance and Jayden adjusting the sub’s angle of attack. When they had it right, Jayden tapped on the thruster controls to send the sub out through the doorway in reverse into the hallway.
“Definitely a tighter squeeze this time with the safes sticking out,” Jayden said as he worked to align the sub within the relatively tight confines of the hall. He radioed Topside to inform them they were out of the Purser’s Room with two “packages” and now on their way out of the Titanic. Johnny’s reply was a routine confirmation, with no news of the Transoceanic.
Everything set, Jayden boosted them down the hallway, back the way they had come, while Carter once again checked their progress against the schematic diagram. “End of the hall we squeeze back into the Smoking Room,” he reminded Jayden, who nodded while continuing to take their sub steadily down the hall.
Carter decided that for now the spotlight wasn’t necessary and so he turned it off to save battery power. As soon as he did he thought he saw lights up ahead blink off, but it happened so fast he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a trick of the light or his eyes adjusting to the sudden lack of the bright spotlight. Jayden bumped one of the safes into the wall and had to reverse once and straighten back on track, but other than that it was smooth going until they reached the end of the hall.