“I — ” Kaz struggled to think rationally despite his terror. “I don’t think he’s trying to eat us. It’s more like he’s fighting us, pushing us away.”
“Protecting his territory, almost,” Adriana added.
“That’s impossible,” challenged Star. “Sharks don’t live at seven hundred feet, do they?”
“They shouldn’t,” replied Vanover. “No food for them this deep. But old Clarence, he’s never been your average hunk of seafood. I’m going to set us down on the bottom. Play dead. See if he’ll leave us alone.”
He worked the joystick, and the submersible banked away from Clarence’s next assault. As the ballast tanks expelled air, the vehicle fell abruptly, stabilized, and dropped again, catching the edge of the shelf a few hundred yards past the shipwreck. It bounced once and then plowed to a lurching halt in the wet mud and sand.
Inside the cabin, the shaken crew of five waited breathlessly. What would Clarence do now?
The big shark circled them at a distance, its streamlined eighteen-foot body blinking in and out of the reach of Deep Scout’s floodlights.
Go away, thought Kaz, trying to will his message through the pressurized bubble. Once was a fluke, but now you’re stalking me!
The speaker crackled to life, and they all jumped. “Scout, this is topside. Braden, I’m reading you at a dead stop at seven-oh-three. Just checking to make sure that’s where you want to be.”
Clarence was closer now, still orbiting them, crescent tail sculling lazily. “It’s a long story, topside,” the captain replied. “But we’re okay here. Out.”
“Are we okay?” Dante asked nervously.
The shark approached from the left, sizing up the submersible with glassy, dispassionate eyes. The mouth was slightly open now, and they could see past the ranks of razor-sharp knives clear into the beast’s gullet. And then, without warning, the great predator turned on a dime and disappeared into the blackness.
No one spoke. No one dared. It was almost as if saying the words aloud — he’s gone — might bring the monster back upon them. For several minutes, there was no sound but the hiss of oxygen, punctuated by the pinging of Deep Scout’s beacon.
Vanover picked himself up off the deck. “Now, let’s see if we can snag ourselves a piece of treasure.”
“Yeah!” cheered Dante. “We’re still right on schedule! Come on, baby, give us some gold.”
The others ignored him. They had noticed what Dante had not — that while the captain vigorously worked the controls, nothing was happening.
Vanover continued to fill the ballast tanks with air, but the submersible did not lift off the ledge. “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh?” echoed Adriana. “What do you mean, uh-oh?”
The captain spoke into the microphone. “Topside, this is Scout. I’ve got two full ballast tanks, but she won’t budge off the bottom. Can you see any problems from your end?”
The small speaker crackled with the reply. “Negative, Braden. All your readings are normal. Are your thrusters functioning?”
“That’s a yes, topside. Request permission to abort mission and drop weights for a quick ascent.”
“Abort the mission?” repeated Dante. “But we need a piece of the treasure to take to court!”
“Forget the treasure,” Kaz said sharply. “It won’t do us much good if we’re stuck under seven hundred feet of ocean.”
The submersible shuddered as the heavy lead weights dropped to the mud of the shelf. The interns held their breath. Deep Scout didn’t budge.
It was the first moment that Star felt real fear. The incident with Clarence had been unnerving, but she had known all along that no shark, not even an eighteen-footer, could penetrate the submersible’s husk. But to be trapped on the seafloor in a titanium coffin — that was far more terrifying. Oh, sure, a heavy salvage ship could reach them with a crane eventually. But such vessels were slow and ungainly. It would take hours, even days, to get one in place above them.
She posed the question, although she dreaded the answer almost as much as the awful fate it would surely foretell. “Captain, how much air do we have left?”
“Just under eleven hours,” he replied. “That’s if you believe the instruments. And according to them, we should be on the surface by now.”
“You mean we’re stuck here?” cried Adriana. “For how long?”
“Anything more than eleven hours may as well be forever,” Star pointed out.
“What about these?” asked Dante, indicating a rack of six miniature compressed-air tanks. “We’re not stuck. We can swim out!”
Star shook her head. “Not from seven hundred feet. The pressure’s more than twenty atmospheres at this depth. Popping that hatch would be suicide. The water would come in hard enough to crush us.”
“So there’s nothing we can do?” Adriana couldn’t believe it. “We just wait around to suffocate?”
“Nobody’s suffocating,” said Vanover through clenched teeth. He fired the rear thrusters, struggling to point the vehicle’s snub nose upward. There was a loud grinding sound; the sub shuddered. And then Deep Scout lurched clumsily off the muddy shelf, beginning a slow, angled climb.
The cheering in the tiny cabin was deafening.
“Quiet!” barked the captain. Into the microphone, he said, “Topside, this is Scout. We’re going to need divers in the water. Repeat: divers — as many as you can spare. This is not a drill.”
“What’s wrong, Captain?” asked Star. “You fixed the problem. We’re on our way up.”
Vanover pointed to the temperature gauge on the data screen. It read 44.7 degrees Fahrenheit. “The temp should be going up as we climb into warmer water.”
Adriana regarded the readout. “It’s not changing.”
“The probe is in the belly of the sub, behind two fiberglass plates,” the captain explained. “I think those plates separated, and we scooped up a load of mud when we landed on the shelf. That’s why the temp is staying low — it’s packed in cold mud.”
“The shark!” Kaz exclaimed suddenly. “Clarence must have separated those plates when he rammed the hull!”
“However it happened,” Vanover went on, “it wouldn’t take more than half a ton of muck to throw off our whole ballasting system. Deep Scout’s a simple boat. She sinks when she’s heavy; she rises when she’s light. The thrusters are just for maneuvering.” He took a deep breath. “We’re not going to make it all the way to the surface on thruster power alone.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Star stared at the captain in alarm. “There must be something we can do!”
“Everybody strap on an air tank,” Vanover ordered. “I’m going to bring her as high as she’ll go. When the thrusters start to fail, I’ll blow the hatch, and we’ll swim for the surface.” He turned to the microphone. “Topside, did you catch any of that?”
“Affirmative, Braden,” crackled the speaker. “My divers are dressing out right now.”
Star showed the others how to strap the small wing tanks to their arms. It’s unreal, she thought to herself. I’m so scared I want to throw up. And yet, outwardly, she seemed totally unruffled, dispensing calm, efficient advice to her companions. “When we’re about to crack the hatch, pinch your nose and blow, like you’re clearing your ears on a dive. Otherwise, the pressure jump will bust your eardrums.” She affixed the last cylinder to the captain’s burly arm.