“You gonna see what that is?” Morrison asked.
Kate stood up from the pile holding a bar of chocolate. She hadn’t seen any for days and was looking forward to devouring it.
“Sure.” She said and walked over to the console just as a second alarm went off.
The console screens had lots of red pages from the previous problems so it took Kate a while to find what was causing the alarm. She was about to say something when Stephens beat her to it.
“We’ve got a leak. Look.” He was pointing to the water level by the ladder. It was at least an inch higher than it had been.
Kate scanned the gas system pages. “I don’t understand. The gas cylinders are all much the same as they have been for ages now. It must be leaking from somewhere else.”
Stephens picked up the marker Kate had used to make her buddy list by the ladder. He bent down and made a line where the water was and wrote the time next to it.
They were all standing now, looking at the water.
“Are you sure it’s come up?” Morrison asked.
“Yeah. I’m sure. There was a slight mark on the metal from the oils on the surface. It’s gone now.”
They all grouped behind Kate and watched as she scanned through the screens.
“How deep are we?” Morrison asked her.
She changed screens and looked at the depth indicator. “320 feet.” She said.
Morrison looked at his team. They both nodded at him.
“Can you tell where the leak is and how fast it’s leaking?” he asked Kate.
The screens flashed by as her fingers tapped on buttons and menus.
“The overall hab pressure is dropping. Not fast, but it’s dropping.”
Stephens went back to the ladder and looked at his mark. “It’s covered the mark I just made. I’d say it’s come up half an inch in, what, five minutes?”
Kate glanced over at him. “That’s not too bad. That ladder hole is pretty small diameter compared to the compartment. At that rate we’d have hours before it was even knee deep.”
Stephens looked at the water again. “Are you sure? It seems to have moved up pretty fast to me.”
As they were discussing how serious the leak was, a slightly larger wave made its way under the support barge. The cable tightened as before but it pulled just hard enough to cause the small hole in the pipe between the cylinders to open to a pencil-sized hole.
In the ops room, another alarm went off. Kate looked at the gas generator screen and saw that it was no longer able to keep up with the leak rate. It was running continuously now. Other screens showed that the gas mix was being supplemented from the helium tank.
Morrison tapped her on the shoulder. She looked at him with obvious fear in her eyes. “Let me talk to the surface.” He said.
Kate stepped aside and Morrison pushed the talk button. “Surface. This is Morrison. Over.” His voice sounded calm and professional.
Someone replied but the voice wasn’t recognizable.
Morrison continued. “We have developed a leak. We have a limited amount of time left before we need to evacuate. We need to have you lower the deco rigs to 200 feet and we need you to do it now. Over.”
He let go of the talk button and looked at the others. “Let’s get all the gear checked out.”
Stephens and Washington walked away without a word. Morrison turned to Kate. How much gas do you have?”
“I have about one and a half tanks up here and there are at least two full ones on the rack in the moon pool room.”
“How long does one tank last you?”
“I don’t know really. I’ve only done light work down here. Maybe an hour or so.”
Kate did the math.
“So I’ve got maybe three to four hours of gas to go up 150 feet. Right?” she asked Morrison.
“You’re the math whizz. I doubt we have that much so I’m going to ask you to do something you won’t like.”
Kate thought he meant to share the gas she had or buddy breathe or something like that. She was wrong.
“I am going to take Washington and Stephens and use our gas to get to the deco rigs. We’ll have to go up faster than I’d like but we have no choice.”
Kate was about to say something but Morrison held up his hand.
“You will not follow us at the same rate. You will ascend at one foot per minute or thereabouts. That should bring you up level with us and the deco tanks in around three hours. Can you do that?”
“Sure, but you guys can’t go up that fast.”
“We have no choice. We’ll get ready, then wait in here until we absolutely have to leave – all of us I mean. No sense in going before we need to.”
Kate couldn’t understand how he could stay so calm. The other two had still not said a word. They were going over their gear at the other side of the room. She looked at the piles of stuff all over the floor. “I have an idea.” She said.
She picked up a pack of syringes containing Ford’s HPNS meds. “You should at least each use one of these. They are designed to help suppress the symptom of HPNS and I happen to know that there is also some part of the mix that has to do with bubble formation. I don’t know the details but it can’t hurt.”
Morrison took the pack of syringes. “Where?”
“In your butt.” Kate actually laughed.
He took one out, pulled off the cap and plunged it into his buttock all in one move.
“Not much of one for arguing are you?” Kate said.
He threw the pack over to the others. “Your turn.”
They each injected themselves then brought the pack back to Kate. It had one syringe left in it. She took it out, pulled down the top of her pants, hesitated a moment then, injected herself. “Can’t hurt me either. I hope.” She added.
Things on the surface were frantic. Williams was coordinating the efforts but there was little he could actually do. They rigged a longer line to lower the scuba systems that were at 50 feet down to 200. It took some time to find enough gas line to extend the hookah rig, but they got it down to 50 feet. Williams had no idea if this was good enough and left to call the medical center on Grand Cayman to warn them again that they might need their decompression chamber.
The hole in the pipe connecting the Pheia’s cylinders enlarged more as the motion of the cylinders further weakened the pipe.
In the ops room, the water had risen to everyone’s knees. They had all put on dive suits but left the tops open. They looked like a set of misfit fishermen lost in a trout stream. Stephens had been drawing lines on the wall with times next to them. It was obvious to everyone that they had perhaps an hour before they needed to leave.
“We’re going to freeze.” Kate said.
“Yes, we are.” Morrison answered. “No avoiding that I’m afraid.”
Kate had already put on a second pair or sweat pants under her dive suit and two sweat shirts that the divers had brought with them. She was worried her suit would be too tight. No circulation wasn’t going to help with the heat problem.
Washington rummaged through the gear they had brought with them and held up an orange colored plastic bag. “Ta da!” he said. “Hand and foot warmers.”
Kate recognized them from ski trips.
Washington ripped open the bag and threw a set of hand warmers and two sets of foot warmers to Kate. She grabbed them awkwardly in her arms.
“Don’t drop those.” Washington added smiling.
She opened the packs and stuffed the heaters into her pants and her shirt sleeves. She saw that there were only a few left. “What about you guys?” she asked.
“We’ll share what’s left. We’ll be on the deco rigs up higher than you. We’ll be fine.”