"So there is a medical problem."
"Of course. The installation was completed two months ago, and the reclamation project is fully under way. However, in the last couple of weeks, several of the inhabitants of Deep Storm have been manifesting unusual symptoms."
"Caisson disease? Nitrogen narcosis?"
"More the former than the latter. But let's just say you are uniquely qualified-both as a doctor and as a former officer-to treat the affliction."
"And my tour of duty?"
"Your tour of duty will be, in effect, as long as it takes to diagnose and treat the problem. My best guess is you'll be with us for two to three weeks. But even if you were to effect a miracle cure, you'd still be at the Facility a minimum of six days. Not to go into details, but because of the tremendous atmospheric pressure at this depth we've developed a unique acclimatization process. The upside is that it allows people to operate at depth with significantly greater ease than in the past. The downside is that the process for entering or leaving the station is quite lengthy. And, as you can imagine, it can't be rushed."
"I can imagine." Crane had seen more than his share of fatal cases of decompression sickness.
"That's all there is, actually. Except of course to remind you again that, even if you decide against the assignment, you are under a strict code of secrecy never to mention your visit here or to reveal what has passed between us."
Crane nodded. He knew Asher had to be evasive. Still, the lack of information was irritating. Here he was, being asked to give up several weeks of his life for an assignment he knew next to nothing about.
And yet he had no ties preventing him from spending a few weeks on Deep Storm. He was recently divorced, without kids, and at present trying to decide between two research positions. No doubt Asher knew this, too.
An unimaginably important discovery. Despite the secrecy-or perhaps because of it-Crane felt his heart accelerating at the mere thought of being part of such an adventure. And he realized that, without even being aware of it, he'd already reached a decision.
Asher smiled again. "Well, then," he said, "if there are no more questions, I'll terminate the video feed and give you some time to think it over."
"That won't be necessary," Crane replied. "I don't need to think over history being made. Just point me in the right direction."
At this, Asher's smile grew broader. "That direction would be down, Peter. Straight down."
3
Peter Crane had spent almost four years of his life inside submarines, but this was the first time he'd ever had a window seat.
He'd killed several hours on the Storm King platform, first submitting to lengthy physical and psychological examinations, then hanging about the library, waiting for concealing darkness to fall. At last he was escorted to a special staging platform beneath the rig, where a Navy bathyscaphe awaited, tethered to a concrete footing. The sea heaved treacherously against the footing, and the gangplank leading to the bathyscaphe's access hatch had redundant guide ropes. Crane crossed over to the tiny conning tower. From there, he climbed down a metal ladder, slick with condensation, past the pressure hatch, through the float chamber, and into a cramped pressure sphere, where a very young officer was already at the controls.
"Take any seat, Dr. Crane," the man said.
Far above, a hatch clanged shut, then another, the sound reverberating dully through the submersible.
Crane glanced around at the cabin. Aside from the empty seats-arranged in three rows of two-every square inch of the walls and decking was covered by gauges, ducts, tubes, and instrumentation. The only exception was what looked like a narrow but extremely massive hatch set into the far wall. A smell hung in the close space-lubricating oil, dampness, perspiration-that instantly brought back his own years wearing the dolphins.
He sat down, put his bags on the adjoining seat, and turned toward the window: a small metal ring, studded around its circumference by steel bolts. He frowned. Crane had a submariner's innate respect for a thick steel hull, and this porthole seemed an alarming, needless luxury.
The sailor must have noticed his look, because he chuckled. "Don't worry. It's a special composite, built directly into the hull. We've come a long way since the old quartz windows of the Trieste ."
Crane laughed in return. "Didn't know I was being so obvious."
"That's how I separate the military from the civilians," the youth said. "You used to be a sub jockey, right? Name's Richardson."
Crane nodded. Richardson was wearing the chevrons of a petty officer first class, and the insignia above the chevrons showed his rating was that of operations specialist.
"I did a two-year stint on boomers," Crane replied. "Then two more on fast attacks."
"Gotcha."
A distant scraping sounded from above: Crane guessed it was the gangplank being withdrawn. Then, from somewhere amid the tangle of instrumentation, came the faint squawk of a radio. "Echo Tango Foxtrot, cleared for descent."
Richardson grabbed a mike. "Constant One, this is Echo Tango Foxtrot. Aye, aye."
There was a low hiss of air, the muffled whisper of propellers. The bathyscaphe bobbed gently on the waves for a moment. The hiss grew briefly louder, then gave way to the sound of water flooding the ballast tanks. Immediately, the submersible began to settle. Richardson leaned over the controls and switched on a bank of exterior lights. Abruptly, the blackness outside the window was replaced by a storm of white bubbles.
"Constant One, Echo Tango Foxtrot on descent," he said into the mike.
"What's the depth of the Facility?" Crane asked.
"Just a shade over thirty-two hundred meters."
Crane did a quick mental conversion. Thirty-two hundred meters was over ten thousand feet. The Facility lay two miles beneath the surface.
Outside the porthole, the storm of bubbles slowly gave way to greenish ocean. Crane peered out, looking for fish, but all he could see was a few indistinct silvery shapes just beyond the circle of light.
Now that he was actually committed, he felt his curiosity swelling. As a distraction, he turned to Richardson. "How often do you make this trip?" he asked.
"Early on, when the Facility was coming online, we were making five, sometimes six trips a day. Full house each time. But now that the operation is nominal, weeks can pass without a single descent."
"But you still need to bring people up, right?"
"Nobody's come up. Not yet."
Crane was surprised by this. "Nobody?"
"No, sir."
Crane glanced back out the window. The bathyscaphe was descending rapidly, and the greenish cast of the water was quickly growing darker.
"What's it like inside?" he asked.
"Inside?" Richardson repeated.
"Inside the Facility."
"Never been inside."
Crane turned to look at him again in surprise.
"I'm just the taxi driver. The acclimation process is much too long for me to do any sightseeing. One day in and three days out, they say."
Crane nodded. Outside the window, the water had grown still darker, and the surrounding ocean was now streaked with some kind of particulate matter. They were descending at an accelerating rate, and he yawned to clear his ears. He'd done his share of crash dives in the service, and they'd always been rather tense: officers and crew standing around, grim faced, while the sub's hull creaked and groaned under the increasing pressure. But there was no groaning from the bathyscaphe-just the faint hiss of air and the whirring of instrument fans.
Now the blackness beyond the porthole was absolute. He peered down into the inky depths below. Somewhere down there lay a beyond-state-of-the-art facility-along with something else, something unknown, waiting for him beneath the silt and sand of the ocean floor.