“OK. I’m up for that.”
Kate knew Chas liked her but since they had to work together at the institute occasionally, she had tried to gently discourage him. But in her experience, men were not easy to discourage gently. It usually took a more brutal technique and then they got all pissy.
For the rest of the day, most of the crew tried to get used to living in the hab. Space was tight but it was manageable so long as everyone behaved themselves and tried to be polite and considerate.
For George Carver this was an interesting situation. Most of the people he studied had the opportunity to walk away from his analysis sessions. In this case his subjects were captive in a large tin can. He also had an interesting mix of ex-military types and academics which in the sci-fi world equated to a mix of matter and anti-matter. He thought there would be at least a few people who couldn’t maintain their composure if the right situation arose. It promised to be an interesting trip. He was slightly anxious himself about being pressurized and injected with Dr. Ford’s miracle drugs but he had made his decision to be a part of the expedition months ago. And it was far too late now to back out.
When they had arrived in Grand Cayman, Carver had been surprised by the heat and smell as they exited the airplane down the steps to the runway. He had not been to the Caribbean before. The combination of the hot air and the humidity had him sweating before he’d walked the short distance to the immigration room.
Once inside, he’d felt better. It was a lot cooler but packed with people. The lines to the two open immigration desks were full. Some of the people he recognized were from his flight but there must have been another flight that had landed before them.
He had scanned the line that snaked back and forth in front of him to the immigration officer. Several of the Pheia crew were together and comparing immigration forms. He could hear the discussion clearly. Martin was telling Duncan and the other divers that they could not put down the Cayman Trench as their place of residence while on the island. He had arranged with the Cayman government to use the hotel they were staying in tonight as their official residence address while in Cayman.
Carver watched the discussion. The divers thought it was all rather funny but he could see Martin getting annoyed. Martin was ahead of them in the line and went up to the booth first.
Carver watched as the official looked at Martin’s papers and handed them back. He could see Martin pointing to the divers and saying something. The official waved him on and said “Next.”
Duncan stepped up to the counter and handed over his documents.
“Good afternoon Mr. Duncan. What is the purpose of your visit?”
“I’m with the expedition team.”
“And how long are you staying in Grand Cayman?”
“Just tonight. Then we will be under the sea for two weeks.”
“Yes. That was my understanding. Where are you staying tonight? You are presumably not sleeping in the Cayman Trench?”
The immigration official had a completely passive face and Duncan could not read the man at all.
“We’re in a hotel in Georgetown somewhere.”
“You need to fill that information in on your form. Please go and do that then rejoin the back of the line.”
“Really?”
The immigration didn’t respond to Duncan. He looked at the line and said “Next.”
Duncan grabbed his paperwork and walked back to the line. “Don’t bother. This dick wants hotel info on the form.” he said to the others.
The dive team made their way back to the counters at the back of the room and worked on filing out the forms.
The rest of the crew had passed though immigration, found their bags, and gone though the cursory customs check to the hot sunshine outside.
Carver wasn’t the only one wondering how things would play out. Kate was actually glad to get into the Pheia but Cayman had looked like it might be a nice place to hang out if she were on vacation. Getting to the hotel the day before had been interesting. As she lay on her bunk, staring at the ceiling she recalled the trip from the airport.
A large local man in a t-shirt with a dive flag on it had been holding a sign that said “Pheia Expetition”.
Kate had been tempted to tell him that his sign was spelled wrong, but decided not to.
They had all piled into a slightly rusty bus. The air conditioning was running full blast but once the whole crew was crammed into the seats with bags on their laps it was still very hot.
Chas had been squashed between Kate and Boris.
“Why are we not moving?” Chas had asked.
“No idea.” Kate had said.
Boris had seemed very relaxed. “This is like Russia. We will move when the driver is ready. Nothing except large bribe can affect that.”
Kate had stared at him. “I doubt Russia is this hot.” she had said.
“No but situation is same.”
When they had passed through the center of Georgetown, the streets had been packed with tourists. There were three giant cruise ships in the harbor. The driver hardly slowed down for the numerous pedestrians trying to cross the street. He had simply said, “Good place to buy Rolex or t-shirt.”
Kate had glanced at her own dive watch, an Invicta she had bought online. It looked a bit like a Rolex submariner but was about 100 times cheaper. She had looked at the shops which all seemed to offer t-shirts, jewelry and coral. She hated the idea that coral was pulled from the sea to be sold to tourists. Some islands like Mauritius had been almost completely denuded of corals because of the tourist trade.
When they had arrived at the hotel about half an hour later, it had taken forever to get everyone registered and issued room keys. Kate was beginning to understand the term: Cayman time. The staff had seemed polite but in no hurry to do anything.
Kate came back to the present and rolled over to look at the wall clock. They had been underwater for several hours now but she had no real sense of time. The lack of daylight and the constant, quiet sounds of the hab gave no indication of the passing of time. They had a week of this before they got to the work site at the bottom of the trench.
She sat up, dug into her backpack and pulled out her Kindle. At least there was time to read.
Descent
The entire crew had assembled at Dr. Martin’s request in the operations room. It was crowded with them all in there at the same time. Martin stood on a large black Pelican case someone had helpfully placed in front of the control desk.
“Is everyone here?” He scanned the small room. Duncan, Perez and White were all at the back of the room around the hatch to the moon pool room below. Perez was giggling. “I sure hope nobody farts” he said to White. “We’ll die for sure.”
“What was that? Perez, did you say something?” Martin asked.
“Uh, no, not really”
“OK, then. Let’s get started. I’m sure you are all pleased that the Pheia has no way to project Power Point slides so I won’t be able to stand up here and insult you all by reading them to you.”
Kate grinned at him. She’d always hated Martin’s slide presentations. He always had too many bullet points on each slide and insisted on reading them verbatim to the audience. She was slightly curious as to how he’d manage to get through the briefing without them.
Martin continued: “As you all know we have begun the first part of the descent. The surface barge will lower us at a rate of about 500 feet per day until we get to 2,500 feet which is a little over half way to the floor. At that point we will do a complete systems check and another test dive. If everything goes well, we’ll disconnect from the umbilical and continue with powered descent at the same rate until we are just above the floor. We will stay close to the wall all the way down. I’m afraid that the trip will be quite uninteresting and the view from the portals will become rather drab as we go below the coral level and get to see mostly rock and the occasional debris from the many wrecks that have happened in these waters.