“C.W., what’s your status?” McKenzie asked.
“Stand by,” the young Californian called back. “Ah, I think I’m okay. I can do an emergency cut on my tether as long as Alan knows to come pick me up.”
“Temperature’s up three degrees,” Jervis warned.
Mercer keyed his mike. “C.W., when this deposit erupts, you’re going to be right above it. Are you sure you can hold on?”
“Yeah, I’ve locked the arms around a strut. I’m not going anywhere.”
Outside Bob’s cocoon of steel and composite materials, the water began to vibrate, and what little visibility they had vanished in a storm of fine silt. At first there was no sound, but quickly a bass tone built into a steady roar.
“Temp’s up another three.”
“Stay up-current of the tower and bring us to seven hundred feet,” Mercer ordered, banking that the plume of gas about to explode from the seafloor would drift away from them.
“Affirmative.”
With a suddenness no one expected, the ocean bottom vanished in a billowing smog that grew like the mushroom cloud of a nuclear detonation. The methane hydrate deposit, a massive pocket of frozen hydrocarbons, vaporized in a swelling cascade as warm water pumped from the top of the tower raised it to its boiling point. The leading edge of the gas raced for the surface, spinning in a maddened burst of energy like a giant tornado.
The sub was caught at the outer limit of the diffused eruption. Jervis had dumped ballast for the ascent and had the thrusters tilted down to help propel the craft toward the surface. Her rate of climb dropped once the frothy water engulfed the little sub.
“Damn,” Alan spat and increased thrust, mindful of the electrical charge remaining in the batteries.
“C.W., you’ve got to cut your tether,” Mercer shouted. “Jim, the deposit’s erupting. Get the Surveyor away as fast as you can. Head west against the current, otherwise you’ll be engulfed like the Smithback. Alan and I are trying to get into position if C.W. gets into trouble.”
“Once I’m off the tether, I lose communications.”
“I understand,” Mercer said. “We’re pushing Bob to reach your depth.” Outside the sub’s dome, the water surged and fizzed as though boiling.
“Rate of ascent down to fifty feet a minute and slowing,” Alan said.
“Can you dump more ballast?” asked Mercer, hating that for the duration of the dive he was nothing more than a passenger.
“Not if we want to hover at seven hundred to help C.W.”
“What about getting us farther from the main part of the gas plume?”
“If I change the vector on the thrusters, we’ll probably start falling. I’m afraid we’ll have to wait it out. Shit, we’re at neutral buoyancy.”
As hellish as the view from the sub was, what C.W. saw from inside the ADS was worse. The sub had been caught at the periphery of the eruption. He was right in the middle of it. So much methane had been released that at times he was engulfed in enormous sacs of the deadly gas. Stranded inside the bubbles, he could see water sluicing from his helmet like rain from a windshield. Then the bubble would pass and he’d be slammed again by the tremendous pressure of the sea. Several times he lost his footing and the suit’s metal claws that were his hands scraped against the tower strut.
At the surface, the scene was no better. McKenzie had relayed Mercer’s orders to the bridge with no time to spare. The helmsman had slammed the throttle handles to full ahead and twisted the ship with her dynamic positioning thrusters so she was pointed to the west, upstream from the tower. No sooner had she begun to move than the first hint of the gas reached the surface. It was just a mild disturbance of dirty water, a localized phenomenon that would have been overlooked as a downburst of wind disturbing the sea.
But then more and more methane broached. Seething geysers of water shot thirty, forty, fifty feet in the air. It was as though the sea was dissolving. A dive buoy that hadn’t been retrieved during the emergency maneuver sank away as the water lost density. The Surveyor became sluggish. Gas pockets were displacing the seawater she needed to remain afloat. She squatted low, with swells running just a few feet from her gleaming rails. More and more gas appeared. And then the steady eastward current began to carry it away. The ship found clean water and floated higher, the red stripe of her Plimsoll line clearly showing along her flanks.
Mercer’s quick warning had saved them from the same fate as the USS Smithback. For he and Alan, the dice were still rolling. And the plucky little submersible was falling deeper into the abyss.
NEW YORK CITY
The SoHo loft was on an upper story that allowed golden light to stream through the tall, arched, cast iron framed windows. The bright rays made the wooden floor look aflame. The walls were exposed brick and the furniture was kept to a minimum — a futon couch, a low table, several large pillows strewn haphazardly about. The loft was one large room. The bathroom, with its stand-up shower, was screened by swatches of fabric hanging from the high ceiling. The kitchen was little more than a nook smaller than the galley on a modest sailboat.
The figure posing in the middle of the room was covered in sweat. The thermostat was at maximum. She stood on a thin mat, her back arched until her fingertips brushed the floor behind her. She was completely nude, and her small breasts shifted as she stretched. She bent farther and could press her knuckles to the mat. She flexed the supple muscles in one leg and slowly raised it, shifting her weight to her hands. She balanced on her fingers, her body completely still, not a tremor or any other outward sign of exertion. After holding there for several seconds, she continued to slowly ease her leg around until it slid between her arms and she settled on the mat in a gymnast’s split. She bent forward, resting her head on her slick thigh.
Her next move was to scissor her legs together, arch herself once again and slowly somersault back to her feet, her cheek pressed to her knees. She’d been practicing for an hour, yet her sweat smelled clean and sweet.
She dropped back to a split, rotated her leg around so both were in front of her, then lifted her backside from the floor with her knuckles. When she had enough clearance, she tucked her legs against her chest and used the flat muscles of her stomach to rotate around her arms and press herself into another handstand. And then she scissored her legs in a violent maneuver at the same time she allowed her pose to collapse. She landed flat on the floor, both heels touching the back of her head, her body as taut as a finely drawn bow.
“I would almost think you were doing this for my benefit, Tisa.”
She dropped with a start and quickly reached for the silk robe thrown over the futon. She hadn’t heard him enter the apartment. She recognized the voice immediately, the softly affectionate tone. Her cheeks burned with shame. She stood facing away from him and pulled the robe tighter around her body She slipped her glasses from the pocket before turning to him. The man at the door was three years older than she but looked like her twin. Yet where her mouth was sensual, his looked petulant. Her wide eyes were inviting; on him they held an insolent cast. Where she was demure, he looked emboldened and arrogant. She would have preferred being spied on by a stranger rather than her half brother, Luc.
“I remember watching you practice when you were a child. The things you could make your little body do.”