Bubbles of gas continued to trickle up through his fingers, obscuring his view of the prize within. He yawned, vaguely aware that the periphery of his vision was starting to go dark, and went to work breaking another of the boards free. The panels had been assembled without fasteners, utilizing a tongue-and-groove method, and after he had loosened one segment, the rest popped free with very little effort. In a matter of seconds, the contents of the box were plainly visible.
Kismet yawned again, struggling to keep his eyes open. He felt extraordinarily drowsy and found the trail of bubbles ascending from the cask to be almost hypnotic. "Got to stay awake," he muttered to himself, hoping that the sound of his own voice would do the trick. Hypoxia was taking him to the brink of consciousness. If he could not hold on for just a few more minutes, he would die without seeing the object of his quest, the reason for his sacrifice. Blinking away the somnolence, staying awake by a sheer act of will, he took the golden artifact into his arms.
It was much heavier than he expected, but he succeeded in raising it out of the cloud of air bubbles and into full view. Despite the fog that clouded his mind, he felt a shudder of excitement and incredulity as he held aloft the Golden Fleece.
It appeared as nothing more than a lambskin, heavy with gold. The wool was indistinguishable, matted with glowing metal flakes of varying size. Kismet estimated that it probably weighed at least a hundred pounds. Curiously, the Fleece continued to issue bubbles of gas, no larger than the effervescence in a glass of soda water. Though tiny, the bubbles, which seemed to trickle from every surface of the golden artifact, formed a veritable swarm. Kismet tilted backwards to get a look at the starboard side of the hold, where the globules were collecting into a great mass.
Inspiration crashed over him like a wave.
Hovering over his head was a pocket of gas, growing larger by the second. He could not explain how that atmosphere had been stored, or perhaps generated within the Golden Fleece. Nor did he pause to consider whether the gas was poisonous, or whether he would be able to survive a pressure change if he attempted to breathe it in. In the fugue of carbon dioxide poisoning, he was unable to conceive of such notions.
Casting aside what vestiges of caution remained, he dropped the Fleece into its cask and seized his air hose. He kinked it in his left hand, and then sliced it in two with the razor sharp edge of his kukri. The long end, still connected to the compressor, trailed impotently away like a decapitated python. Kismet took the remaining end, still bent double in his hand, and thrust it up into the growing air pocket. As he did, he relaxed his hold, which allowed the hose to open and the gas pocket to flow into and mix with the stale air in his helmet. He detected no immediate change. His tunnel vision did not brighten, yet neither did his delirium increase. He didn't smell anything noxious in the confines of his helmet, but then he knew that most gases, even the poisonous ones, were odorless and tasteless. In the absence of any other alternative, he continued to take deep breaths, hoping against hope that the gas pocket held breathable air.
He glanced back down at the Golden Fleece. The fizz of bubbles continued to trickle from it without interruption. Kismet knew that what he was witnessing could not be the result of trapped air; the volume of gas that had ascended exceeded the total volume of the crate. The only other explanation was that the Fleece was somehow producing the atmosphere he now breathed.
He vaguely recalled Harcourt's words that fateful day in his office; that the gold — or rather ubergold—layer on the helmet shard could pull electrons out of the air. He knew that water was simply a combination of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, both of which existed separately in a gaseous state, but bonded together in a liquid molecule that could be broken by the application of an electrical current The Fleece was evidently doing exactly that, electrically breaking the molecular bond of the water and separating its gaseous constituents.
Kismet gazed once more at the air pocket over his head, amazed that he was breathing in atmosphere produced by a talisman of ancient legend. Hydrogen, the lightest of all elements, occupied the uppermost reaches of the air pocket, leaving him with a layer of almost pure oxygen, which was even now mixing and diluting with the carbon dioxide he had exhaled.
That he was able to put this chain of reasoning together was evidence enough that he was recovering. How exactly the ancient object was able to perform that miracle remained a mystery, which even under the best of circumstances he feared he would be unable to resolve.
Though the Fleece had given him a second chance, he still felt like a man living under a death sentence. He could breathe again, and probably had a virtually inexhaustible air supply, but he was trapped on the sea floor. If he left the safety of the enclosure, he would at best have a few minutes of breathable air in his helmet, hardly long enough to make a free ascent. Moreover, the suit was too heavy to permit him to swim free, and even if he could, such a journey would carry the risk of decompression sickness. He could not remain here indefinitely, yet there was no way for him to reach the surface. Marooned in the wreck of the golden ship, Nick Kismet gazed at the object of his quest and began to despair.
Captain Severin tossed the severed and useless hose to the deck. Anatoly tightened his embrace on Irene, fearful that she might further endanger them by lashing out against their tormentor, but she did not move or say anything. She merely choked back her sobs and kept her head down, denying the Russian sailors a look at her tears.
"A most unusual way to catch fish," repeated Severin, mockingly. "I hope you have better success in the future. However, I must now order you to raise your anchors and leave this area. Whatever activity you were truly engaged in is finished, and tragically it would seem."
"We'll go," rasped Anatoly. "Now get off my boat."
Severin nodded, gesturing for his first officer to begin the egress. "Do svidania, Petrovna," he sneered, boarding the launch. "Give my regards to your poor, sick fiancé."
Anatoly watched them go, aware that his boat would remain under the shadow of the destroyer's artillery emplacements until he obeyed the Russian captain. He tenderly released Irene, turning her so that he could see her face.
"He's gone," she whispered.
"There's nothing we can do for him. He took a great risk; he knew this might happen. We must save ourselves."
Fifty yards away, as the captain of the Boyevoy was heralded back onto the deck of his ship, a great splash signaled the deployment of a marker buoy.
"We must leave here," urged Anatoly. "Can you help me?"
She nodded.
"I need you to bring up the forward anchor." He brought her to the motorized capstan and briefly showed her how to operate the device. "I must haul in the nets and start the engine. Can you do this?"
In a haze of grief, Irene nodded again. Kismet was gone; nothing else mattered.
Kismet bent the remnant of his air hose in his fist. He had no intention of giving up. He had been prepared for that eventuality before entering the enclosure, but discovering the Fleece had changed everything. If he was not going to suffocate quickly, then neither was he about to settle for a protracted death by thirst or starvation. There had to be a way for him to reach the surface and he was going to find it.