The little yellow private submarine hit the water with a slight jolt, resting on the surface for no more than a couple minutes before sinking into oblivion beneath the waves.
Sam Reilly gripped the joystick in his right and gently pushed it forward.
The submersible’s multiple electric thrusters immediately started to whine and the Orcasub, slipped farther under the waves, at a measly 6 knots.
It was three weeks after Sam and Tom had arrived, unexpectedly to their own funerals, after everyone had presumed they had died on board the Maria Helena or the imploded USS Omega Deep, both men were back at the edge of the submerged 8th Continent.
The very same place where everything had started when the Omega Deep had first sighted a little yellow Orcasub, and Commander Bower had made the catastrophic decision to follow the submarine.
Sam maneuvered the sports submarine, kind of a cross between an airplane and a two-seater submersible, the machine flew with precision, gliding its way through the narrow valley. They had set a course along a south to southwesterly direction along the remnants of an ancient submerged valley.
The submarine’s exact dimensions were: 20 feet of length, beam 14 feet — with a 7-foot wingspan — and a height of 5 feet. There were two glass bubble domes positioned forward and aft of each other, where a single pilot and copilot were housed. The overall shape of the submersible was sleek, like a sports-car, or more accurately, a sports underwater airplane, with narrow wings and a V-shaped tail-wing. The two wings even had two large thrusters fixed to each wing, like jet-engines on an aircraft.
It was identical to the one that Commander Bower had tracked nearly six months earlier. Sam pulled back on the joystick, and the little submersible rose out of the higher cliffs of the nearly three miles wide valley, leveling out after its rapid ascent, across an ancient waterfall.
Emerging onto the tabletop of the 8th Continent.
The ancient river opened up to a shallow underwater tabletop, covered in vivid and impressive coral gardens. It was a unique tropical playground that didn’t belong anywhere near where they were. Coral reefs provided homes for tropical fish, sponges, mollusks, giant manta rays, sea turtles, and giant clams. The diversity of form and color was the sort of thing that inspired humanity to explore beneath the waves in the first place.
A small pod of dolphins raced beside their submersible, swimming upside down and by its side.
Sam said, “Someone looks like they’re enjoying their day.”
“What’s not to enjoy?” Tom replied. “They live in an undersea paradise.”
The depth of the tabletop was roughly fifty feet, with a narrow chasm. Sam gripped the joystick, easing the Orcasub up to a depth of 100 feet.
Sam said, “We’re approaching the place.”
“I see it,” Tom replied. “It’s at your 3’Oclock position.”
“Got it.”
Sam slowed the Orcasub, as he approached the end of the chasm, taking it to a stop at the mouth of a large underground chamber, roughly twenty feet high by thirty feet wide. He switched on the submarine’s overhead lights, which shined like two little bug-eyes from the top of the sub. The cave formed out of the mouth of a small rocky outcrop on the coral tabletop, like a monolith.
“You ready?” Sam asked.
Tom said, “Yeah. Take us in.”
Sam dipped the joystick forward, and the Orcasub’s propellers whined as he edged her through the mouth of the opening.
The tunnel descended steeper until they were at a completed dive. At 160 feet, the rocky passageway appeared to level out, before ascending again.
At 140 feet the passageway opened, and seawater ceased. The submarine surfaced into a gigantic, air-filled grotto that extended so far back, that neither Sam nor Tom could see where it ended. A giant light filtered through the top of the cavern, like the rays of the sun, glistening on the spectacular white beach.
Sam eased the Orcasub forward, until she became gently beached on the sandy beach. Confident that the submarine was securely grounded, Sam disengaged the hatch and climbed out. He removed his MP5 submachinegun and slung it over his shoulder.
He had no intention of taking any chances.
The wooden remains of a 16th century Dutch Fluyt with its distinctive pear-shaped hull — most likely used in early exploration of the southern seas — rested high up in the sand.
Toward the southern end of the beach, a Lockheed Model 10 Electra American twin-engine, all-metal monoplane, rested in near perfect condition, like the main feature of a rare antiquities museum.
Sam recognized the aircraft instantly.
And who wouldn’t have?
The airliner had been developed by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in the 1930s to compete with the Boeing 247 and Douglas DC-2. The type gained considerable fame, not just for her renowned reliability, but as the one that was flown by Amelia Earhart on her ill-fated around-the-world expedition in 1937.
Tom pointed at the plane and whistled. “How do you think something like that ended up in here?”
Sam shrugged. “It might have crashed nearby and been washed inside.”
“No way,” Tom dismissed the explanation without hesitation. “Impossible.”
“Why?”
“Look at the tracks.”
Sam ran his eyes across the tracks in the level, white sand. They started nearly 100 feet away, digging deep into the sand, and then turned 180 degrees, as though the pilot had set up for another takeoff.
The mystery made Sam grin. “All right. So, I suppose the more relevant question is how did an aircraft land on a beach that’s now nearly 80 feet under water?”
“The island used to be above ground, but rising sea levels changed all that?” Tom teased, knowing it was impossible.
“Not 80 feet…”
“Maybe the aircraft landed, and then, later, a volcanic event brought the beach to the bottom of the sea?”
“The volcanic event’s a possibility, but it does little to explain why the tracks in the sand are still here, and the aircraft itself shows no sign of water damage.”
“What about a vortex?”
Sam grinned. “What?”
“You know, like a type of whirlpool that intermittently sucks aircraft and boats alike deep into its confines, never to release them again.”
Sam shrugged. “That’s insane.”
Tom said, “Come on, let’s have a look inside.”
It was a short walk, across the sandy beach to the wreckage of the antique aircraft.
Sam opened up the hatch toward the middle of the fuselage and made his way carefully to the cockpit.
Sam squinted, shining his flashlight into the barren cockpit.
There were no skeletons inside.
Instead, there was a single aviator jacket lying casually across one of the seats. Sam picked it up to examine. Sam felt his heart race. There, at the lapel were the letters, A. M. Earhart.
Sam expelled a deep breath of air and tried to remove the jacket, but something was preventing it from coming free. He leaned in and found what was causing the jacket to become snagged.
It was a Kodak 620 Duo camera.
Chapter Sixty-One
Sam secured the 1930s era camera and what appeared to possibly be Amelia Earhart’s aviation jacket inside the Orcasub, unwilling to risk losing or damaging either item. He had no idea about the recovery of such photos but was certain there would be a historical specialist who would be capable of printing the photographs stored inside.
“Strange place,” Sam said.
“I’ll say,” Tom replied. “When you’re ready, shall we penetrate farther, and see what this place is really hiding?”