They took a large lifting bag and put about 20 pounds of dive weights in it. Leclerc attached a large snap link to the bag and lifted it up. “I think it will jam on the wire.” He said.
Babin looked at it. “I agree. Take most of the weight out. We just need to make it negative. If it flutters in the water it will take longer to go down but I think that will stop it from snagging up.”
Leclerc tipped the bag up and the weights fell on the deck. He picked up a four pound weight and dropped it in the bag then rolled the bag up to get the air out.
He reached out and snapped the link around the barge’s winch cable then let go.
The bag hit the water and stayed there unrolling on the surface and sinking very slowly. Once water had covered one end it sank faster and started to descend. Leclerc watched it go down through the clear water. The yellow bag was quite visible as it went down the wire.
Babin leaned over the side and watched. “Is it still moving?” she said.
“Barely.” Leclerc answered.
She picked up a dive belt and threaded a few weights onto it then reached out and passed it around the lift cable. She put the end of the belt through the buckle and pulled it tight until it was almost snug on the cable, then dropped it into the water.
The weights hit the surface and went down the cable. Babin and Leclerc watched until the weights hit the lift bag’s snap link. They saw the bag change shape in the water and get smaller.
“Alright,” Babin said. “I wonder if the sonar can track that.”
The loop of cable floated slowly down through the water column like a large leaf falling from a tree in still air. It floated to one side, tipped down and floated to the other side.
Above it, the dive bag and weight belt passed a manta ray cruising off the top of the wall. The ray changed course slightly to avoid the suspicious fish and went on its way, its massive wings beating slowly.
When Babin asked the sonar operator if he could see the weights, he laughed. “That’s what? About the size of a parrot fish?” He shook his head. “Sorry.” he added. “There’s way to much other noise from the wall to pick that out.”
In the Pheia there was a lot of discussion about how long the wire falling from the surface would take to arrive.
“Let’s just wait until we are sure it should be here before we go out.” Morrison said. “We don’t need to be out there wasting gas waiting for it.”
“So, how long is that?” Stephens asked.
“I have no idea.” Morrison answered.
“You guys ever do math at school?” Kate asked.
“Sure.” Stephens answered here. “Adding and stuff like that. And I can count all they way to twenty in Spanish.”
Unperturbed, Kate continued. “We’re somewhere around 750 feet from the surface. Maybe a bit more since we sank down some. Let’s say it falls at a leisurely one foot per second. That’s…… Bueller…… anyone? That’s 750 seconds. Divide by 60 gives us about 12 minutes and change. We’ve been talking about it for longer than that. It’s either up there on the roof or it’s not coming.”
Nobody spoke. The divers just got up and started putting their suits on.
“I suppose you think you’re pretty smart?” Washington asked with a big smile on his face.
“Damn right I am,” Kate said grinning at him.
Kate watched them disappear down into the water then moved to the portal and waited for them to come past. She saw bubbles and a fin off to the side. With nothing to do she wandered over to the console and tapped the screen a few times to go through the system status pages.
It all looked horrible. There were so many things wrong but the gas system was OK. And so long as it stayed that way they should be on the surface in a couple of days.
It was unfortunate, she thought, that the Pheia had sunk at least 150 feet below where it had been at its high point. That was half a day right there if they were going by the book.
And that made her wonder about exactly how much gas was in her body. They had this guideline of 300 feet per day that she had been following but did they really need to go that slow?
Kate tapped on the console some more until she found the bio-medical pages that Dr. Ford had added to the system. There were the names of all the crew members who might go into the water as part of the expedition. It was yet another reminder that they were dead and she almost moved off the page but something kept her looking.
“Oh, what an idiot.”
Next to each name was a link labeled “Bio.”
Kate found her own name and tapped on the link.
A box popped up: “No signal”
She had totally forgotten about the bio pills. If she had some of those she might be able to measure her gas saturation level directly. That would tell her if she could go up faster.
Where were the pills? Almost certainly in the storage room somewhere. But what if they had gotten wet?
“They are designed to be swallowed,” she thought. “Some seawater isn’t going to affect them. I hope.”
She decided that the pills might give her a way to get to the surface faster and that was worth another dive.
Kate walked over to her gear, checked she had enough gas, and started to suit up.
As Morrison swam up above the top of the Pheia he moved over to the wall and started following the pinnacle up. Fifty feet below the top he saw the loop of wire and the clamps.
“Target in sight,” he said over the comm system.
As he swam closer, he saw the wrench Leclerc had attached. “Thoughtful,” he said to himself.
Morrison decided to deal with the rigging of all the support lines first. There was no point in detaching the Pheia from the pinnacle until the crew cylinder was secured.
The collection of coils of wire and clamps that Babin had sent down looked confusing until Morrison noticed the dive slates. Each cable set had a slate tied to it and on the slate was a diagram of where that wire went. That made Morrison smile. He thought he would be buying Babin and Leclerc some beers when this was over.
Rigging the support wires between the cylinders went quickly. They were simple to attach and adjust. The lengths were about right but they couldn’t tension them until the lift cables were re-set and the Pheia was hanging from the winch line.
When all three support cables were in place they moved back to the pinnacle to set up the cable that would suspend the Pheia when they cut it free from the wall.
Between them they carefully removed the first clamp. They used that to attach one end of the coil of wire to the main lift cable above the pinnacle. Then they removed the rest of the clamps one at a time putting them into a gear bag. Washington held the cable as Morrison and Stephens removed the last clamp. The cable dropped loose over the pinnacle.
“Let’s do the top first.” Morrison said.
Washington replied “Rog,” and pulled the lose end of the cable up a few feet. They attached it to the uphaul with three clamps.
When the clamps were tight, Morrison removed their safety clamp and bagged it. Stephens pulled the cable loop and swam away from the wall unrolling the cable as he went.
Williams cut the cable ties that held the comms line to the winch cable and maneuvered the comm line so that it wouldn’t get pulled apart when they cut the hab free. When Stephens got to the end, he let go and the cable drifted down slowly in the clear water towards the Pheia.
The three divers followed it down towards the Pheia making sure it had no kinks in it.
The cable had fallen straight down the side of the pinnacle. Morrison judged it’s end was right about the same level as the top of the Pheia.