With a light, deft step, Yuri Antonov stepped down onto the saucer’s upper hull. Andrei followed, quick to grab the commando’s hand when the mini sub began bobbing beneath them.
“Take good care of our very special guest. Lieutenant,” offered Valerian.
Responding to this lighthearted comment with a salute, Antonov carefully guided the whitehaired scientist over to the hatch.
“Follow me,” he instructed as he proceeded to climb down into the narrow opening.
Andrei did as he was directed, and before disappearing into the saucer’s dimly lit interior, he took a last look at Admiral Valerian.
“May your journey be a successful one,” offered the one-eyed mariner with a wave.
Andrei nodded and continued with his short climb downwards. Following his escort’s lead, he lay down prone on an elevated mattress, occupying the right portion of the saucer. Antonov was positioned to his left, with a steel ballast tank between them.
The commando addressed the switches and dials of the control panel. As the oxygen recirculation system was started up, a jet of cool air blew down from the ceiling. The echo sounder began operating with a monotonous ping, and Andrei’s gaze was drawn to his individual porthole when the spotlights activated with a loud click.
“Alpha Two, this is Alpha One, do you read me?” questioned Antonov into a miniature chin-mounted microphone.
“Alpha One, this is Alpha Two. We copy you loud and clear,” a static-free male voice announced from an elevated intercom speaker.
“Very good. Alpha Two,” replied Antonov.
“I am rigged for dive and ready to descend.”
“We’ll be right behind you. Alpha One,” returned the amplified voice.
Yuri Antonov took a deep breath and looked to his right.
“Here we go. Doctor. Are you comfortable?”
“I’ll be fine, young man,” answered Andrei.
“Doctor, I’m going to need you to pull down that series of three levers situated to the right of your porthole.
Please begin with the one closest to me.”
Andrei did as instructed, and the saucer filled with the gurgling sound of onrushing ballast. There was a sinking sensation, and as the mini sub water jet engines activated with a muted growl, the rounded bow angled downwards. A curtain of bubbles veiled the view from his porthole at first. But soon this disturbance-cleared away, affording him an unobstructed view of the sea below.
They were racing into the depths now, with their mercury-vapor spotlights cutting a golden swath through the black waters. With his anxieties forgotten, Andrei peered out in wonder at the passing vista. They cut through a virtual wall of translucent jellyfish, their long ghostly tendrils billowing in the current. A curious sea turtle swam by, followed by a school of quick-moving mackerel. This was indeed a magical world, and the oldtimer understood why his daughter had been drawn to making the seas her exclusive study.
Displaying an almost uncanny intuition, his blond haired driver expressed himself while making a slight adjustment to the external hydraulic piston maneuvering jets.
“The admiral tells me that your daughter is Dr. Ivana Petrov. I had the honor of meeting her last month, when the team of aquanauts arrived to transfer down to the Mir habitat. She seemed like quite an interesting lady.”
“That she is,” replied Andrei proudly.
“Have you gotten a chance to visit the team since then?”
“No, I haven’t. Doctor. One of the conditions of the U.N. charter is that we stay away from the habitat area except for emergencies. And I’m happy to say that so far, we haven’t been needed.”
“How have you managed to keep your operation from the team of United Nations observers aboard the Academician Petrovsky?” asked Andrei.
“It would seem that one of them would be bound to stumble upon the machinery needed to control the teleportation device sooner or later.”
“Actually, it’s been quite simple to deceive them, Doctor. The reactor room, and all below-deck spaces aft of the galley have been placed off limits. So far, the observers have been content to go about their business, with absolutely no suspicions whatsoever.”
A cloudy layer of swirling sediment suddenly veiled the view from the porthole, and it was Antonov who alertly identified it.
“That’s the deep scattering layer, sir. It’s over thirty feet thick, and is comprised of microorganisms that rise towards the surface with nightfall.”
“I’ve heard of such a thing from my daughter. She described it as a vast pasture of plankton, and now I know why.”
At a depth of four hundred and ten feet, Andrei was instructed once more to pull down one of the ballast levers. The added weight was needed to carry them through the denser, cooler waters making up the lower portion of the thermocline.
“Alpha Two, this is Alpha One, how do you read me, over?”
Antonov’s hail generated a crystal clear response from the saucer that followed in their baffles. Content to sit back and enjoy this once-in-alifetime experience, Andrei focused his line of sight out the porthole.
A trio of huge groupers swam by, as well as a graceful, fan-shaped manta ray.
They finally reached bottom at a depth of nine hundred and seventy-six feet. The other diving saucer made a rendezvous with them at this point, and side by side they proceeded due south, down the gently sloping floor of the Andros Trench.
Andrei spotted what appeared to be a fractured rock roadway embedded in the sediment of the sea floor. Of course, such a structure had to have been constructed by the hands of mother nature. Yet he carefully followed its meander all the same, as they continued their descent to a broad shelf of rock.
From the cover of this formation, Antonov angled the spotlights downwards, illuminating two thick rubber cables that extended from the blackness above.
“The generators are positioned below this shelf,” explained Antonov.
“This is the narrowest portion of the trench, and any vessel wishing to transit into the Tongue of the Ocean has to pass this spot.”
“You must have had quite a job transferring the equipment into these depths, Lieutenant.”
“That we did, sir. We depended solely on the saucer’s articulated manipulator arms to transfer and connect the components. Altogether, it took us over one hundred trips to complete.”
“I congratulate you on your dedication,” remarked Andrei.
“And so that your tireless efforts will not be in vain, let’s begin our inspection at the power cable coupling. Then we’ll initiate a low-level test to determine if the magnetic field is properly resonating.”
It was with the greatest of anticipation that Ivana followed Karl Ivar down into Misha’s hatch. They had spent most of the day reassembling the parts that the Norwegian had worked hard to redesign. Stopping only for a quick dinner, the team returned to the hangar to complete the job. It was well after midnight when the last part was snapped into place. A quick test showed that the batteries were holding their charge, prompting Ivana to accept Karl Ivar’s invitation to accompany him on a test run.
After several days of frustrating inaction, it was good to be under way once again. Karl Ivar was at the helm as they left the hangar and streaked over the coral clearing where the habitat was situated. From her porthole, Ivana could see the yellow lights glowing from inside Starfish House, and the long tendril of bubbles rising from the domed roof of Habitat One.
A variety of colorful fish darted past their spotlights, as Karl Ivar guided Misha towards deeper water.
Only when their echo sounder showed them directly over the Andros Trench, did the Norwegian initiate a series of steeply angled, high-speed turns. With his eyes never leaving the voltage meter, he opened the throttle wide, then closed it until they were travelling at a bare crawl.