Into the Abyss (Tom Swift, Young Inventor) (10 page)

Somewhere down there was my dad, using up his last hours of oxygen along with the rest of his crew. And here I was, only now breaking the surface in my last-ditch attempt to save them.

On my wrist, inside my watch, was Q.U.I.P—hopefully, fully recovered from his salt-water bath. Through the
Verne-o
’s communications system, I would be in contact with the
Nestor
at all times.

Still, I felt as alone as I’d ever felt in my life.

I tried not to think about my dad. It would be more than an hour before I made it all the way to the sea bottom. Even when I got there, my craft would be tethered to that steel cable, so its movements would be limited—making it harder to search for the Jules Verne-1.

Before it lost contact with the
Nestor
, the
Verne-1
had already placed one of its seismic sensors. It had been on the move, hunting for a spot to place the second one, when the earthquake struck.

The submersible could have traveled far from its original launch spot. How would I find the
Verne-1
if it wasn’t in sight when I reached the bottom?

I would have to communicate my intended movements to the crew back on the
Nestor
, so it could maneuver the ship along with me, making sure the cable had enough play and didn’t snap. If it did, there’d be no way to tow the
Verne-1
back up to the surface.

I remembered Captain Walters’s last words to me: If the storm hit, as predicted, they might not be able to maneuver with me. They might even have to cut the cable. That scenario spelled doom for my dad and his crew.

My dad’s last audible word had been “avalanche.”
At least it sounded like that. Was the
Jules Verne-1
buried under rock and mud? Was the crew even alive?

I couldn’t think about it any longer. I stared out the prototype’s porthole at the incredible creatures of the sea, trying to make the time pass more quickly.

A manta ray was the first thing I spotted. I thought about how, with its twin fins breaking the surface, it would look like a pair of sharks, swimming together to someone surfing or swimming. Totally terrifying. But manta rays are pretty gentle creatures, as long as you don’t irritate them or step on them.

A school of striped bonito whisked by again and again. I thought it was an endless stream of fish, until I realized they were circling past my porthole over and over again.

They were chased off by a seven-foot-long white-tipped shark. And then about a dozen bluefin tuna cruised past—probably also hunting the bonito. In the sea, as on land, life eats life in order to live.

Tom? Do you read me?”

It was Bud’s voice, emanating from the speaker built into the prototypes control console. Equalizer lights blipped up and down, registering the timbre
and pitch of his voice. The system was built to make adjustments to the human voice, to compensate for the distortion of deep-ocean pressure.

“I’m here,” I said. “Man, you’re missing some show.”

“What do you see?” Yo talking now.

Just then, a sperm whale swam slowly by, accompanied by her calf.

“If I told you, you’d just be jealous.”

“I already am, dude,” Bud said.

“Come on,” Yo added. “Share.”

“Okay,” I said.

And I did. It kept all of our minds off the danger of this mission—but soon, as the prototype sank deeper into the mid-ocean zone, there were fewer and fewer fish to talk about.

It was dark in these depths, except for the ship’s searchlight, which played back and forth across a narrow slice of the view. Anything outside its range was blanketed in total blackness.

“I see a—I see a giant squid!” I yelled.

“Wow!”

“Just kidding, Yo. Stay with me though—there’s one out there somewhere, I’m sure.”

“I just can’t believe a word you say, Tom Swift,” Yo muttered.

“Quit messing around, huh?” Bud said. This is serious business.”

As if I needed reminding. “Okay, okay.”

Just as I said that, the weirdest creature I’d seen yet floated past my porthole. It looked like a red eel, except it had a crown like a rooster and a big, bright red fin across its top. Below, it trailed two long fins—which acted as bait to draw prey closer. And it was bioluminescent.

Chasing the two “bait” fins was a school of see-through fish with glowing skeletons.

“Well?” I heard Yo say.

“Never mind,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

Q.U.I.P’s tiny radar dish rose from the center of my wristwatch and swiveled toward the porthole. “It’s a roosterfish,” Q.U.I.P said. “And those are hatchet fish.” He uses his radar as his “eyes”—and it serves him pretty well, too.

Thank you,” I said, “Mr. Know-it-all.”

Thank
you
,” said Q.U.I.P, missing the humor in my voice.

The cable kept unwinding, lowering me deeper and deeper beneath the surface of the sea. My gauges told me that I was now at four thousand feet.

It was taking
forever
to get to the bottom! At any moment, my dad could be breathing his last! Couldn’t they lower me down any faster?

Of course I knew they couldn’t—not without risking snapping the cable or damaging the prototype. Still, it was agonizing.

Outside the porthole, there now appeared an even weirder fish. Only two inches long, it looked like a sharp-toothed lizard sitting on a rock, except that the rock was a part of its body. “Okay, Q.U.I.P,” I said. “What is that?”

The tiny radar dish swiveled at the porthole again. Q.U.I.P beeped softly, computing the data that was coming across its optical sensor. “Chiasmodon niger. It can swallow prey up to twice its size.”

I looked again at the “rock” underneath the “lizard.” Obviously, it was the fish’s stomach.

“Fierce,” I said.

“Fierce indeed.”

“What?” Yo’s voice came over the speaker. “What now?”

“I couldn’t even begin to describe it,” I said. “But the prototype is capturing digital video the whole time. You can watch it later—when this is all over.”

If I ever get back to the surface,
I thought.

“How’s the weather up there?” I asked.

“Raining,” Bud said. “We’re starting to rock again.”

“You okay, Yo?” I asked.

“Don’t talk about it,” she said. “Let’s stick to the mission, huh?”

Good idea. Only there wasn’t much I could do between now and when my ship hit the bottom.

“Why don’t we just give it a rest for a while?” I said. “I’m tired of talking.”

“Whatever you say,” Bud said.

I sat there in silence, watching the watery world go by in my submersible’s searchlights. I couldn’t stop thinking about my dad. I wished I’d invented a time machine, so I could make this descent go faster!

The minutes ticked by, and the wait was agony. My submersible had passed through the sunlit zone (from 0-660 feet down), the twilight zone (660-3,300 feet), and the dark zone (3,300-13,200 feet). I was now in the deep abyss, and it was as dark as
anyplace on Earth—except, of course, for the narrow beam of light created by my ship’s searchlights.

Still the
Verne-o
and I sank downward. Now, out the porthole, I could see a steep volcanic cliff. I knew from the charts we’d studied with my dad the night before that it marked the side of a seamount at the edge of the abyssal plain.

The cliff had jagged edges of newly formed lava rock. Everywhere there were ledges of sand and rubble that looked ready to cascade downward at the slightest shake of the Earth’s crust.

I could just picture one of them falling onto the Jules Verne-1.

No—can’t think about that,
I told myself.

My console started beeping, and I scanned the monitor. A jagged green line marked the ocean bottom, a blinking, sinking green light was my tiny ship. The two were getting closer … closer … and …

BANG!

My ship hit the bottom with a thud and a shudder. For a second, I was sure that the groaning sound I heard was the
Verne-o
’s titanium shell buckling from the impact.

But no. After a moment all was silent except the
beeping of the monitors, measuring oxygen flow, power usage, and carbon dioxide levels.

I was at the bottom.
Finally!

I stared out the Swiftglass porthole at the cloud of sand stirred up by my ship’s landing. Slowly, it began to clear.

Nothing.

No Jules Verne-1. Just flat, empty sea bottom.

Now
what was I going to do?

I flicked on the prototype’s holographic ground scanner. In seconds, a 3-D image of the sea bottom around me displayed itself.

This was helpful, but only a little. The scanner could only see what I could illuminate by playing the sub’s searchlights over the surrounding terrain. The searchlights were adjustable, but they could only take in fifteen degrees at a time—a very narrow slice of pie.

Where the holographic scanner helped was in collecting the slices as I swiveled the lights, and then, using smart technology, assembling them into an entire three-hundred-sixty-degree, 3-D landscape.

The beauty of having this virtual, holographic landscape in front of me was that I could manipulate
it, so that I got the view of the sea bottom from above, seeing past obstacles like rocks and ridges.

It was something I could never have done by myself from inside the vehicle—and something I hoped would help me spot the
Jules Verne-1
.

The ocean bottom was rocky—craggy, even—and mostly covered in black, mucky slime. The only natural light came from the bioluminescent creatures that live down here on the abyssal plain, eating whatever bits of food float down from above.

Eyeless shrimp were hovering outside the sub’s two portholes, which had been flattened out by the ocean pressure. On the surface, they bulged outward.

The holographic image seemed to show a ridge of rubble rising from the sea bottom at the far end of my horizon. Above it hovered the cliff I’d seen while being lowered down here.

Could that pile of rubble be covering the Jules
Verne-1
? I sure hoped not—but it was definitely worth a look.

My sub-to-surface video monitor blinked on.
Nestor
was remotely opening the link—draining my crafts precious power to check and see if I was all right.

“I’m fine,” I said, “but we’d better not waste energy.”
I wanted to conserve every drop of power my ship had left, so I could use it to save my dad and the others.

I could see Bud, Yo, and the captain hovering over their monitor. They all wore worried faces.

“You look green,” Yo said.

“It’s just the light in here—the glow of the monitors.”

“Oh. So … you’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Any sign of the
Verne-1
?” the captain asked.

“Not just yet—but I do have a reading I want to go check out.”

“Fine. We’ll play out the rest of the cable for you—we’ve still got about two hundred feet.”

That ought to be enough,” I said. “I can at least get close to the spot.”

Tom,” the captain added, “that storm’s getting worse, and fast. We don’t have much time to get this done.”

“I understand,” I said. “We’d better shut the link now. I need to conserve power.”

“Okay, then,” he said. “We’ll check back with you in a little while.”

I waited for the rest of the cable to play out, then
maneuvered my craft toward the mound of debris in the distance.

My holographic display changed, shifting to reflect my sub’s position. The virtual view was better than staring out the porthole into the dim depths, where everything tended to flatten out.

My tiny submersible had been designed to use as little power as possible. Its hydrogen cell was small and lightweight—the only way it would fit on a craft as tiny as the
Verne-o
. And that meant the ship could only travel at five miles an hour—a speed that seemed impossibly slow right now. Especially since I could only spend four hours down here—three hours outside the
Verne-o
, using the air in my tanks, and one hour inside it (not counting going down and coming up)—before the
Verne-o
itself started running out of air, and I had to head back to the surface.

It was a drop-dead timetable—I couldn’t stay down here any longer than that, even if my mission wasn’t complete.

I floated past translucent, jelly-like creatures, fish that looked prehistoric but had no eyes (who needed
them in this totally dark realm?),· and pulsating, hairy worm-like things. I wasn’t sure if they’d ever been seen by human eyes before.

Too bad the video link was shut down. If it had been switched on, the scientists back on the
Nestor
would have had a good time looking for new deep-sea species. But this was a rescue mission, and every ounce of power had to be conserved.

I passed close to a rock “chimney”—an undersea volcanic vent. It was belching black smoke straight from the earth’s core into the murky water. Attached to its sides were tube-like creatures that looked a little bit like sea cucumbers, but I knew that these animals fed off the sulfurous minerals that belched out of these “black smokers.”