The cargo hold stood to the right of the screen. He swivelled the bow camera thirty degrees to starboard. It showed up scattered chunks of debris. Then he found the ravine, a black gash in the earth running north-south, the ends disappearing beyond the range of the camera.
‘There’s only one way to do this,’ Derham said aloud. He leaned forward, tapped at the controls and brought up a management screen on one of the monitors. In the bottom-right corner was a set of parameters… speed, depth, position and half a dozen other stats. Inputting a series of command codes, he overrode the entire automated piloting system, and running expert fingers over the keypads, he transferred control to manual and focused on the bow camera.
The submarine was remarkably manoeuvrable. He brought it round so that it sliced through the water horizontally sixty yards above the ocean floor, then he slowed the vessel to a sedate twenty knots. On the view screen the terrain streamed past, the compacted sand and shingle a muddy grey in JV2’s powerful beams.
Derham was approaching the ravine. He knew the team had used a nano-carbon bridge to cross it… assuming they had reached that far. JV2 would have to be set down on the far side of the crevasse and he would have to use the bridge to reach the cargo hold.
Using the sonar Derham could tell that he was closing on the location of the nano-carbon bridge. One hundred yards west… fifty yards. He guided the sub to port. The sonar told him the bridge was now ten yards away… five.
He reached it and circled slowly, adjusting the camera under the vessel and changing focus so he could get a clear image. Then he saw it, the tattered ends of the nano-carbon bridge, shredded lengths stretching down out of sight into the ravine.
Panning the cameras, he tried to find clues, bodies, anything that could tell him what had happened. On the second sweep he caught a glimpse of some metal shards.
He adjusted a toggle on the control panel and rose ten yards. Realigning the camera, he could make out the shape of the cargo hold. According to a set of stats in the bottom right of the screen, it was 106 yards west of the ravine.
Moving JV2 slowly over the ocean floor, Derham checked the sonar, adjusting it to probe the sand. The computer displayed a map of the seismic make-up of the terrain between the ravine and the cargo hold. It appeared as a series of curved lines a little like contours on an elevation map. The information was incomplete but more accurate than anything they had pictured from the surface.
Pulling back on the throttle so that JV2 drifted in the current, Derham leaned forward to study the flowing lines on the monitor. He ran a finger along the glass tracing the contours and analysing the stability of a patch of ocean floor about twenty yards square. He stopped and stabbed the screen.
‘There!’ he said aloud, and knew even this, the most stable spot around, could easily be a deadly place to put down. But there was no choice. This was life or death. If there was any chance of rescuing the team from JV1, he had to land there.
Flicking the toggle on the panel, he turned to port, punched in a set of nav figures and pulled away from the crevasse, one eye on the camera showing the sand.
The landing was a masterclass in manoeuvring the JV2 and it came to rest with an almost imperceptible bump. On the screen, Derham could see the outline of cargo hold 4. The monitor told him it stood precisely thirty-seven yards to port.
46
Lou got to his feet and looked around.
The cargo hold was about three yards to a side. The air was breathable, but they had no idea how long it would last. As soon as the suits were deactivated they began to feel the temperature drop. The water outside was close to freezing point.
Some of the sensor and comms systems of the LMC suits were functioning even when the main systems had been powered down. Lou tapped the screen on his arm and scrolled down.
‘Radiation levels are high, but we can survive for a while. Luckily most of the remaining radiation is alpha and beta particles which can’t get through the skin of the cargo hold. There is some residual gamma ray radiation.’
‘How long, Lou?’
He double-checked. ‘The radiation would get us first… forty minutes, maybe forty-five until we get a fatal dose. The cold? I reckon a bit longer. The air? Anyone’s guess. Or maybe the whole thing will collapse first.’ He looked around at the corroded hold. ‘Take your pick.’
‘Some choice! How long do the suits need to recharge?’
‘No idea. I think we’re in completely uncharted territory now, Kate.’
The air stank of rust and rotting organic matter. Three of the walls were lined with hundreds of lockers and safety deposit boxes. Some of these had corroded; doors hung off rusted hinges exposing crumbling contents; ragged papers and other detritus lay scattered across the rusted metal floor. The hold creaked, old brackets and joints feeling the strain of a century spent at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
‘God, this place feels so creepy,’ Kate commented as they walked over to the nearest wall of boxes. ‘I never imagined I could feel claustrophobic on the ocean floor!’
They could just make out some numbers attached to the doors of the security boxes: 13BS… 28BS. Kate turned towards the right adjacent wall and scanned along the rows and columns of boxes until she could make out a number.
‘37AS,’ she called over to Lou and crouched to study some of the lower boxes. Eventually she found another label — 56AS — straightened and surveyed the boxes higher up. Lou came over and they took an end each.
‘Got it,’ Lou called. Kate joined him. He was pointing at a row about shoulder height. ‘16AS.’ He ran a hand along the box fronts. ‘21AS… Too far.’ He stopped, backtracked. ‘This must be 19AS.’
The hold shook. Kate started to fall and grabbed at Lou. He put his right hand against the wall of boxes to steady himself. A loud grinding sound came from their left.
‘It’s not happy!’ Lou commented.
‘Come on.’ Kate stepped forward and tried the handle of deposit box 19AS. It was stuck fast. ‘Typical!’
Lou rummaged in a pouch on the belt of his suit and lifted out a small plastic cylinder. Depressing a button on the side, a blade shot from one end. He leaned in towards the door of the box and slipped the blade along the edge.
The hold shuddered again. The knife slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. Kate stumbled, made a grab for the wall of deposit boxes and landed on her front.
Lou ran over.
‘You OK?’
She nodded and tried to stand. ‘Ow! My God!’
‘Here,’ Lou said and helped her up.
Kate tried to put weight on her left leg and screamed in agony.
‘Sit,’ Lou commanded. ‘Stay still.’
Another massive jolt far more violent than the last reverberated around the walls. It went on for several seconds.
Lou froze. ‘Shit! It really isn’t happy!’
A horrible crunching sound came from the corner of the cargo hold. Kate swivelled round and they both saw the wall start to distort, water cascading down one corner of the hold.
‘It’s going!’ Lou screamed and dived to the floor next to Kate. ‘Pull up your helmet!’ He was tugging his on. ‘Reactivate the suit, Kate.’
‘But…’
Lou had his helmet on and locked. Kate couldn’t move.
‘KATE!’ Lou grabbed her helmet and pulled it into position, flicked the clasp and stabbed at her wrist control panel. Pulling back, he did the same to his own keypad. The suits made low hissing sounds; a row of lights on each arm flicked on, blinked orange and then green. The liquid metal carbon expanded rapidly.