Ice Fire: A Jock Boucher Thriller (15 page)

“We have to see that doesn’t happen,” Perry said. “Take care of it as you see fit.”

“You know what you’re saying.”

“I said do it.”

Cantrell returned to his office. He had his own orders to give.

The sub was out of its hangar and had been moved on its tracks toward the stern and the crane. Boucher was hustled into it, his two deep-sea companions waiting. Mae sat in the pilot’s seat.

“You didn’t tell me you were in charge of this,” Boucher said to her.

“You may call me Captain,” she said. “Sit there,” she commanded. “That’s your monitor. You see what we all see. That’s your porthole. You have to get your forehead right against that pad to see out. That’s it.”

As she spoke, the hatch above them was lowered and sealed. She continued. “We breathe our own air, over and over. This”—she pointed to a stainless steel tube just over a foot long—“is our CO
2
scrubber. It takes the carbon dioxide out of our exhaled breath, and traps it with the CO
2
absorber. We’ve got oxygen tanks here.” She patted them. “They’re essential to supplement our own air. Here’s our air quality monitor. Too much CO
2
, I open the tank and add oxygen. Toilet procedures have already been explained to you. Here’s your bottle. I won’t peek, promise. Here we go.”

They were lifted, then swung away from the stern and lowered into the water. Still attached, they floated for an instant. With the radio phone, Palmetto announced they were ready. Boucher watched through his porthole. It was about the size of a snorkeling mask and, with his head pressed against it, felt like one. He saw the bubbles as the sub submerged. They sank into water that seemed bluer below than it had on the surface, but that began to change. It was like a sunset on a cloudy day. The water became darker and darker till it was black.

“I’m testing the lights,” Mae said. Shafts of illumination cut through the void for only an instant. Test successful, the lights were extinguished to conserve energy. The black void was total, then
suddenly Boucher saw what looked like a heaven filled with stars: pinpoints of light flashing on and off.

“Phosphorus,” Mae said. “We’re about a thousand meters down.”

“That was fast.”

“We told you. Time passes quickly on the way down, especially on your first trip. It’s the return that can seem slow. You can keep looking, but there won’t be much to see till we’re on the bottom. Relax. If you want some music, there’s a CD player, a headset, and a collection of disks. It’s a diverse collection, a little bit of almost everything.”

The head of Rexcon’s research team received the approval he’d prepared for. With great care and expertise—for which he congratulated himself—he had planted detonators in the subsea soil to prepare the essential element of the process they were employing, the blasting of the surface of the ocean floor. His orders were relayed by phone. He recognized the voice of Bert Cantrell. His orders: “Detonation approved. Proceed.”

W
E’RE APPROACHING THE SEABED
,” Mae said. “Depth sixteen hundred meters. I’m switching on the outside lights.”

All eyes were on the three separate monitors as the ocean floor seemed to rise up to meet them. There was no visible sign of life. What the shafts of light revealed could have been barren desert, but for what looked like bubbles floating a few feet above the surface. Then the bubbles began to change shape. Mae maneuvered a light at one and it vanished, then reappeared in a different color, a translucent pink. Boucher watched as two of the bubbles made contact and became one; whether one popped or the two merged, he couldn’t say. He turned to his porthole and as he did a transparent squidlike creature over three feet long fluttered in and out of his field of vision, inches away from the shell that protected them from the crushing pressure at this depth.

“We are on the side of the Carolina Trough,” Mae said for Boucher’s benefit. “It’s pretty flat right here, but there’s a steep drop off our starboard side. Ready for a little prospecting, Bob?”

“You bet.” As fascinating as the marine life was, the prospect of finding the energy source that had absorbed him for much of his adult life meant more.

“Do you think we’ll find any at this depth?” Boucher asked.

“Lake Baikal is sixteen hundred meters at its deepest point. If the Russians found hydrate at that depth, we should too,” Palmetto said.

But after an hour, they’d found nothing—except of course some of the most extraordinary life-forms on the planet, including flatworms the size of a man, one of which crawled all over them, blocking portholes and covering them with a slime that distorted vision till it peeled off and floated away like a sheet of cellophane.

“I’m going to descend, climb down into the trough a ways,” Mae said. “What do you think, Bob, another thousand meters?”

“Might not take that much. I never really expected to be able to just pick methane hydrate up like shells on the beach, but now that we know it can be done, maybe we’ll get lucky.”

It took them almost another hour, and the discovery was credited to Mae.

“Bob. Over there. Lower right-hand corner of your monitor, maybe twenty yards away. Do you see those mussels and tube worms on that mound?”

“Yes. They use methane like a food source. The tube worms may be connected to the hydrate too.”

“Okay, I’m heading over there. It’s right on the edge of that ledge, but there’s enough space to set down. We’re going to park on the ridge,” Mae explained for Boucher’s benefit. “It’s easier to use the arms when we’re at rest, and easier to get the sample into the vacuum chamber invented by none other than your illustrious submariner, Bob Palmetto.”

Boucher looked up from his monitor at the man sitting so close to him.

“I did manage to do something beneficial with those twenty years,” he said.

“He’s being modest,” Mae said. “He’s got thirteen patents on deep-sea mining equipment and he’s donated royalties on all of them to the Institute. Okay, we’re on the bottom. Extending arms.”

The controls were levers and handles below the principal monitor at her station. The elbow joints of both arms were flexed and the titanium appendages reached straight out as if offering an embrace. Then the “hands” dropped, fingers pointing down. They were lowered to the ocean floor. The fingertips raked the bottom to feel the surface. It was rocky sand, not too hard-packed, near-perfect consistency for collecting samples. The arms were lifted, turned, and placed over the grayish lump that lay on the surface. It looked to be about the size of a volleyball. The fingers were manipulated to form a claw and lowered over the object. The claw was tightened, fingertips digging into subsea soil.

“Are you sure that’s methane hydrate and not just a rock?” Boucher asked.

“It’s too soft to be a rock. See how the claws scraped it? Definitely methane hydrate. It’s a piece that broke off the mound where the tube worms are feeding. Grab it,” Palmetto said.

The fingers closed. The hands were raised. The clump was bigger than a volleyball. It was almost two feet in diameter.

“Hot damn,” Palmetto said. “We beat the Russians with that one. Their sample was just over ten pounds. This one is twenty if it’s an ounce.”

“Worth the trip?” Mae asked.

“Mae, a new industry is beginning with this sample. The world has a new source of energy that will last us for centuries.”

“If you’ve known it was here, Bob, why have you waited till now?”

“You want to help with that one, Judge?” he asked Boucher. “Go ahead. She has a right to know.”

Boucher spoke, his low monotone almost hypnotic in their tiny egg resting on the deep-sea floor.

“Mr. Palmetto invented a process for the extraction of methane hydrate twenty years ago. His discovery was stolen from him, and several people involved were murdered. He’s been keeping a low profile until recently, out of concern for his life.”

“That’s just a part of the answer, Mae,” Palmetto said. “We can’t afford to be dependent on imported crude oil any longer. The whole damned Middle East could go up in flames tomorrow and the world crisis would be devastating. We must develop this energy source that’s right at our doorstep. It can’t wait. I found out those who stole from me are planning to utilize my process and they don’t appreciate the dangers. I’ve made substantial improvements in the last two decades. They do something stupid and it could set this viable source of energy back another twenty years. I must make it known what’s here and how we can safely exploit it.”

No one spoke. Keeping the devil from this deep blue sea would demand restraints that had not always been imposed, at least not uniformly, in this field of human endeavor.

For the next several minutes, the arms were manipulated with almost surgical precision, placing the sample in the container designed for this purpose. Actually, the sample was too large and pieces broke off as it was stowed, but finally it was in and the vacuum container was closed. Uniform pressure would be maintained as the sub rose to the surface.

Mae was in the process of returning the mechanical arms to their locked position when the sub was blasted off the subsea surface. Its front end rose up as if it were trying to stand, then it fell over backward. The three inside were thrown back and landed in a heap on top of each other. Whether their concussions were from hitting
their heads or from the sound waves, which sped through water faster than through air, the three were knocked unconscious. They tumbled over and over, down and deeper into the Carolina Trough, reaching the limits of pressure their tiny cocoon could withstand, before the sub stopped.

Boucher regained consciousness, of a sort. He thought he had opened his eyes but was unsure. He could see nothing, not a single indicator light from a single piece of equipment. He thought he was moving his fingertips, but was unsure of that too. He could feel nothing. Of one thing he was sure: he was thinking, therefore, if Descartes could be believed, he was still alive. But for how long? How long had he been unconscious? He tried to breathe but could take only short, shallow breaths. The oxygen was running out, carbon dioxide building up.

His left arm was pinned under something. He extended his right, feeling along his side. Palmetto was underneath him. He knew it was Palmetto below because Mae was on top of him. That was a certainty. She was lying facedown right on top of him, her cheek nestled against his neck. Also, she had worn corduroy slacks and he could feel the ribbing of the material. He rubbed his hand along the textured cloth. It brought back a memory. As a young boy he’d inherited a hand-me-down pair of corduroy pants, his first pair of long trousers. He had hated them because they were too hot to wear on the bayou and too big for him. But as summer changed to fall he grew into them and discovered their inestimable benefit—they were indestructible. Sliding in the dirt, climbing trees; they saved him from skinned knees, and saved his butt from beatings because they didn’t tear. He heard a soft whisper.

“Jock, would you please stop rubbing my ass?”

“Mae! Are you all right?”

“Well, you’re making me horny, so I guess I am. How’s Bob?”

“I don’t know. I think he’s underneath me.”

“There’s nowhere else he could be. I’m going to try to move.”

He felt her weight lifted off him. He heard her as she groped her way in the dark. There was the sound of switches and buttons being pushed, but nothing happened. Finally, there was the soft whirr of a small motor, maybe a computer’s cooling fan. A red light came on. It was like a homing beacon. Mae found another switch, and another indicator light came on. With this limited illumination, she was able to find the magnetized penlight she kept at her workstation. She started checking gauges, starting with air. “Jesus,” she whispered. Boucher heard the whoosh of oxygen escaping from the tanks.

“Another two minutes and we would have been asphyxiated,” Mae said, “or frozen. Damn, it’s cold in here.”

It took another entire minute before Boucher could draw a full breath. He lifted himself up.

“Shine the light on him,” he said.

Mae directed the beam. He lifted Palmetto’s head and felt blood on his hand. He pressed the neck for a pulse, feeling nothing at first, then just the slightest hint. “He’s alive, but he’s hurt.”

“Sorry. I can’t help. We’ve got to get out of here. We fell over two thousand meters. We’re at our maximum depth. We fall any farther and . . .” There was no need to finish the sentence.

Mae turned off the oxygen and engaged the backup batteries. It took several minutes, but finally there was light. From the position of the equipment it was apparent that the sub was on its side. She contorted her way to the pilot’s porthole and took a look out. “My God,” she said.

Boucher pulled his sweater off, made a pillow, and placed it under Palmetto’s head. Mae was still staring out, so he went to the other porthole.

“I can’t make out anything,” he said.

“You’re looking straight down. We’re on another ledge, I guess. I can’t see what’s holding us up.” She reached for the radiophone.

“
Beagle,
this is
Lucy.
Over.” She heard her transmission echo. Three seconds later came the response.

“
Lucy,
this is
Beagle.
What happened down there and how are you? Over.”

“My God,” Boucher said. “It sounds like they’re in here with us.”

“Yeah, our communications are great,” Mae said. “We’ve spoken to the International Space Station from three miles deep.

“
Beagle.
We don’t know what happened. It might have been an earthquake. We have fallen into the Carolina Trough and are now at our maximum depth. We’re lying on our side against the trough. Running low on oxygen and battery power, and air quality is poor. The CO
2
scrubber isn’t working properly. I don’t know whether I can jettison ballast to begin ascent from this position. Over.”

There was a long minute of silence.

“
Lucy,
you have no choice. You must begin ascent. Over.”