“Here we go. Comrade,” she said as she tightly grasped the joystick.
The ballast pumps activated with a muted whine, and Misha sank straight downwards. With a flick of her wrist, Ivana pushed forward on the joystick, and the saucer shot out through the hangar’s telescopic legs.
Lenclud switched on the powerful, mercury-vapor spotlights and carefully monitored the echo-sounder.
The monitor screen filled with the gently sloping outline of the trench below, and down they plunged into the blackened depths.
A manta ray gracefully swam by the porthole, followed by an immense hammerhead shark, with eyes the color of burning, red hot coals. At a depth of two hundred feet, they passed through a milky layer of seawater some thirty feet wide, and it was the Frenchman who identified it.
“We’re penetrating the first deep submergence layer.”
“It wasn’t here during my last dive into the trench,” commented Ivana.
Lenclud was quick with his reply.
“That’s because your dive didn’t take place at night. That’s when the myriad of microorganisms that comprise the DSL ascend from the great depths, where they live during the daylight hours.” “What’s the reason for this movement?” asked Ivana.
“Would you believe that marine biologists still don’t have a definite answer to that question? My personal belief is that it has something to do with feeding patterns.”
“Well, there’s one brute who’s certainly doing his fair share of feeding,” observed Ivana, in reference to the monstrous whale shark that lazily swam by the porthole.
One of the largest fishes in the sea, the whale shark lived off the microscopic plankton, which it strained from the sea through its gill rakes. To do this, it had to keep its massive jaws wide open, therefore appearing much more vicious than it was in reality.
“I once rode on the back of one of those monsters,” revealed Lenclud.
“Mon amie, that was a ride that I’ll never forget!”
A moment of reflective silence followed, and Misha continued its descent, only to come to an unexpected halt at a depth of four hundred and three feet. Again, it was Lenclud who offered an explanation as to what was occurring outside.
“I bet it’s the thermocline that’s stopped us. This means we’ve reached the spot where the warm surface waters meet the cooler depths, and Misha is now floating on top of this denser, cold layer. Take on some ballast. That should get us moving once more.”
Ivana activated the ballast pump, and several hundred gallons of additional seawater poured into the diving saucer’s ballast tanks. Then all that was needed was a quick flick of the joystick for them to continue their dive.
With each additional foot of depth, the temperature inside the mini sub continued to drop, going from ninety degrees to seventy in a matter of seconds. Fortunately, for the comfort of the vessel’s two operatives, this was the extent of the temperature drop. And it was several minutes later when they finally hit bottom, at a depth of nine hundred and seventy-six feet.
The spotlights were angled downwards slightly, to illuminate the sea floor. Twelve-inch-long nimertine worms were burrowed into the mud, their tapering bodies rippling in the gentle current. Also clearly visible were large brown sea urchins, colorful sea stars, and a gigantic grouper, that was easily as big as the entire mini sub “I’ve heard stories about groupers like that swallowing unlucky divers whole,” reflected Lenclud.
“Some even say that it was a grouper that swallowed Jonah, and not a whale as reported in the Bible.”
“Are those lobsters out there in the distance?” asked the Russian, who made a minor course change to bring them closer to an outstretched line of shuffling, claw less crustaceans, that extended as far as the eye could see.
“Mon Dieu, what a wondrous sight!” exclaimed Lenclud.
“Those are the local variety of spiny lobster all right. This must be some sort of mating ritual. Let’s record it on the video camera.”
Ivana reached up to activate the camera that was mounted on the rounded nose of the mini sub between the two forward portholes. They followed the lobsters for over a quarter of a mile before losing them in a jagged, rock-strewn ravine.
Almost reluctantly, they were forced to turn the diving saucer due south at this point, back to the relatively flat, sloping gradient of the trench.
“Wait until Tomo sees these video pictures,” commented Lenclud.
“Surely we should be able to farm such a vast collection of lobsters. What a delectable way to satisfy the planet’s insatiable hunger for protein!”
Ivana was in the process of unfolding a detailed bathymetric chart, displaying the contour of the sea floor beneath them. With a red grease-pencil, she circled the approximate location of their current position.
This put them well into the northern extremity of the geological feature known as the Andros Trench.
This mile-wide channel-like gorge continued in a southerly direction, where it steadily deepened, until merging with the vast three-thousand-foot-plus depths of the Tongue of the Ocean.
“We should be close to the place where I first discovered the formation,” reported Ivana, who gently pulled back on the joystick causing Misha to slow to a bare crawl.
Sand covered the sea floor here, and they continued due south, to a spot where the current had swept bare a wide swath of sediment. Ivana anxiously switched off the engine, and the mini sub hovered only inches from the bottom and an interconnected network of flat, rectangular stones. Ivana made a minor adjustment to the saucer’s spotlights, and Lenclud peered out the porthole and expressed himself.
“So this is it, mon amie. You know, it does look like a cobblestone roadway.”
“Every time I lay my eyes on it, I think the very same thing. Comrade.”
“Could it indeed be naturally fractured bedrock that’s responsible for this phenomenon?” asked the Frenchman.
“It’s certainly possible,” answered Ivana.
“But if it is, nature has sure done an amazing construction job.
Wait until you see how far it extends.”
They proceeded to follow the stone roadway for a good mile. Though much of the thoroughfare was covered by sediment, other sections were clearly visible, and displayed the same exact workmanship. As wide as a two-lane highway, the smooth stone pavement was uniformly composed of rectangular sections, each of them two feet in length, and one foot wide. It appeared to be laid out on a precise north-south axis, with an ultimate destination somewhere in the Tongue of the Ocean.
Yet long before they could determine this fact for certain, an electronic warning tone began sounding from inside the cramped confines of the diving saucer.
Ivana hurriedly scanned her monitor screen, and in a matter of seconds determined this alarm’s source.
“So much for Russian engineering. I’m showing a partial failure in the new alternator that Karl Ivar just installed. Our battery charge has just gone critical.”
“Will we be able to get back to the hangar?” questioned the concerned Frenchman.
Ivana answered while reaching out to lighten the sub by releasing a substantial portion of its seawater ballast. “Don’t worry. Comrade. Our emergency battery pack has more than enough power to get us back home. Although I’m afraid we’ll be forced to postpone any further exploration of this mystery until a later date.”
Ivana yanked back on her joystick, and the diving saucer angled sharply upwards. Their new course put them on a northwesterly heading, as they steadily climbed the steep walls of the Andros Trench, to reach the relatively shallow coral clearing where the Mir habitat was situated.