Текст книги "Dragon"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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“His name is Dirk Pitt,” Giordino helped him.

“Okay, Pitt. How does he expect to make it topside—swim?”

“Not from that depth,” said Sandecker promptly. “Big John is pressurized to one atmosphere, the same as we’re standing in at sea level. The outside water pressure down there is thirty-three times heavier. Even if we could supply them with high-tech dive gear and a helium-oxygen gas mixture for deep-water breathing, their chances are nil.”

“If the sudden increase in pressure as they left Big John didn’t kill them,” Giordino added, “decompression sickness on the way to the surface would.”

“So what does Pitt have up his sleeve?” Morton persisted.

Giordino’s eyes seemed to peer at something beyond the r head. “I don’t have the answer, but I suspect we’d better t of one damn quick.”

16

THE STERILE GRAY expanse gave way to a forest of oddly sculptured vents protruding from the seafloor. They rose like distorted chimneys and spouted hot-365 Celsius-clouds of black steam that was quickly smothered by the cold ocean.

“Black smokers,” announced Plunkett, identifying them under the probing lights of Big John.

“They’ll be surrounded by communities of sea creatures,” Pitt said without removing his eyes from the navigational display on his control monitor. “We charted over a dozen of them during our mining surveys.”

“You’d better swing clear. I’d hate to see this brute run over them.”

Pitt smiled and took manual control, turning the DSMV to avoid the strange colony of exotic sea life that thrived without sunlight. It was like a lush oasis in the desert, covering nearly a square kilometer of seafloor. The wide tracks of the intruding monster skirted the spewing vents and the entwining thickets of giant tube worms that gently leaned with the current as though they were marsh reeds swaying under a breeze.

Plunkett gazed in awe at the hollow stalks as the worms inside poked their delicate pink and burgundy plumes into the black water. “Some of them must be a good three meters in length!” he exclaimed.

Also scattered around the vents and the tube worms were huge white mussels and clams of varieties Plunkett had never seen before. Lemon-colored creatures that looked like puff balls and were related to jellyfish mingled with spiny white crabs and bluish shrimp. None of them required photosynthesis to survive. They were nourished by bacteria that converted the hydrogen sulfide and oxygen overflow from the vents into organic nutrients. If the sun was suddenly snuffed out, these creatures in their pitch-black environment would continue to exist while all other life forms above them became extinct.

He tried to etch the image of the different vent inhabitants in his brain as they disappeared into the silt cloud trailing behind, but he couldn’t concentrate. Sealed tight in the lonely cabin of the mining vehicle, Plunkett experienced a tremendous wave of emotion as he stared into the alien world. No stranger to the abyssal deep, he suddenly felt as isolated as an astronaut lost beyond the galaxy.

Pitt took only a few glimpses of the incredible scene outside. He had no time for distractions. His eyes and reflexes depended on his reaction to the dangers shown on the monitor. Twice he almost lost Big John in gaping fissures, stopping at the brink of one with less than a meter to spare. The rugged terrain often proved as impassable as a Hawaiian lava bed, and he had to rapidly program the computer to chart the least treacherous detour.

He had to be especially careful of landslide zones and canyon rims that could not support the vehicle. Once he was forced to circle a small but active volcano whose molten lava poured through a long crack and down the slope before turning solid under the frigid water. He steered around scarred pits and tall cones and across wide craters, every type of texture and contour one would expect to find on Mars.

Driving by the sonar and radar probes of the computer instead of relying on his limited vision under the DSMV’s lights did not make for a joy ride. The strain was beginning to arrive in aching muscles and sore eyes, and he decided to turn temporary control over to Plunkett, who had quickly picked up the intricacies of operating Big John.

“We’ve just passed the two-thousand-meter mark,” Pitt reported.

“Looking good,” replied Plunkett cheerfully. “We’re better than halfway.”

“Don’t write the check just yet. The grade has steepened. If it increases another five degrees, our tracks won’t be able to keep their grip.”

Plunkett forced out all thoughts of failure. He had complete confidence in Pitt, a particular that irritated the man from NUMA to no end. “The slope’s surface has smoothed out. We should have a direct path to the summit.”

“The lava rocks hereabouts may have lost their sharp edges and become rounded,” Pitt muttered wearily, his words coming slow with the edge of an exhausted man, “but under no circumstance can they be called smooth.”

“Not to worry. We’re out of the abyssal zone and into midwater.” Plunkett paused and pointed through the viewing window at a flash of blue-green bioluminescence. “Porichthys myriaster, a fish that lights up for two minutes.”

“You have to feel sorry for him,” Pitt said tongue-in-cheek.

“Why?” Plunkett challenged. “The porichthys has adapted very well. His luminescence is used to frighten predators, act as bait to attract food, as a means to identify his own species and, of course, attract the opposite sex in the total blackness.”

“Swimming in a cold black void all their lives. I’d call that a real drag.”

Plunkett realized he was being had. “Very clever observation, Mr. Pitt. A pity we can’t offer midwater fish some sort of entertainment.”

“I think we can give them a few laughs.”

“Oh, really. What have you got in mind?”

“They can watch you drive for a while.” He gestured to the control console. “She’s all yours. Mind you keep a tight eye on the monitor’s geological display and not on jellyfish with neon advertising.”

Pitt slouched in his seat, blinked his eyes closed, and looked to be asleep in a moment.

Pitt came awake two hours later at the sound of a loud crack that came like a gunshot. He immediately sensed trouble. He came erect and scanned the console, spying a flashing red light.

“A malfunction?”

“We’ve sprung a leak,” Plunkett informed him promptly. “The warning light came on in unison with the bang.”

“What does the computer say about damage and location?”

“Sorry, you didn’t teach me the code to activate the program.”

Pitt quickly punched the proper code on the keyboard. The readout instantly swept across the display monitor.

“We’re lucky,” said Pitt. “The life-support and electronic equipment chambers are tight. So is the shielded reactor compartment. The leak is below, somewhere around the engine and generator compartment.”

“You call that lucky?”

“There’s room to move around in that section, and the walls are accessible for plugging the entry hole. The battering this poor old bus has taken must have opened a microscopic casting flaw in the lower hull casing.”

“The force of the outer water pressure through a hole the size of a pin can fill the interior volume of this cabin in two hours,” Plunkett said uneasily. He stirred uncomfortably. The optimism had gone out of his eyes as he stared bleakly at the monitor. “And if the hole widens and the hull collapses…” His voice dropped off.

“These walls won’t collapse,” Pitt said emphatically. “They were built to resist six times the pressure of this depth.”

“That still leaves a tiny shaft of water coming in with the power of a laser beam. Its force can slice an electric cable or a man’s arm in the wink of an eye.”

“Then I’ll have to be careful, won’t I?” Pitt said as he slipped out of his chair and crawled toward the aft end of the control cabin. He had to maintain a constant handhold to keep from being thrown about by the swaying and pitching of the vehicle as it lurched over the broken terrain. Just before reaching the exit door, he leaned down and lifted a small trapdoor and switched on the lights, illuminating the small confines of the engine compartment.

He could hear a sharp hiss above the hum of the steam turbine but couldn’t see where it was coming from. Already there was a quarter meter of water covering the steel walk matting. He paused and listened, trying to locate the sound. It wouldn’t do to rush blindly into the razor-slashing stream.

“See it?” Plunkett shouted at him.

“No!” Pitt snapped nervously.

“Should I stop?”

“Not for anything. Keep moving toward the summit.”

He leaned through the floor opening. There was a threatening terror, a foreboding about the deadly hissing noise, more menacing than the hostile world outside. Had the spurting leak already damaged vital equipment? Was it too strong to be stopped? There was no time to lose, no time to contemplate, no time to weigh the odds. And he who hesitated was supposed to be lost. It made no difference now if he died by drowning, cut to ribbons, or crushed by the relentless pressure of the deep sea.

He dropped through the trapdoor and crouched inside for a few moments, happy to still be in one piece. The hissing was close, almost within an arm’s length, and he could feel the sting from the spray as its stream struck something ahead. But the resulting mist that filled the compartment prevented him from spotting the entry hole.

Pitt edged closer through the mist. A thought struck him, and he pulled off a shoe. He held it up and swung it from side to side with the heel out as a blind man would sweep a cane. Abruptly the shoe was nearly torn from his hand. A section of the heel was neatly carved off. He saw it then, a brief sparkle ahead and to his right.

The needlelike stream was jetting against the mounted base of the compact steam turbine that drove the DSMV’s huge traction belts. The thick titanium mount withstood the concentrated power of the leak’s spurt, but its tough surface had already been etched and pitted from the narrow onslaught.

Pitt had isolated the problem, but it was far from solved. No caulking, no sealant or tape could stop a spewing jet with power to cut through metal if given enough time. He stood and edged around the turbine to a tool and spare parts cabinet. He studied the interior for a brief instant and then pulled out a length of high-pressure replacement pipe for the steam generator. Next he retrieved a heavy sledge-type hammer.

The water had risen to half a meter by the time he was ready. His makeshift scheme just had to work. If not, then all hope was gone and there was nothing he and Plunkett could do but wait to either drown or be crushed by the incoming pressure.

Slowly, with infinite caution, he reached out with the pipe in one hand and the hammer in the other. He lay poised in the rapidly rising water, inhaled a deep breath, held it a moment, and then exhaled. Simultaneously he shoved one end of the pipe over the entry hole, careful to aim the opposite end away from him, and immediately jammed it against the angled slope of the thick bulkhead shield separating the turbine and reactor compartments. Furiously he hammered the lower end of the pipe up the angle until it was wedged tight and only a fine spray escaped from both top and bottom.

His jury-rigged stopgap may have been clever, but it wasn’t perfect. The wedged pipe had slowed the incoming flood to a tiny spurt, enough to get them to the summit of the guyot, hopefully, but it was not a permanent solution. It was only a matter of hours before the entry hole enlarged itself or the pipe split under the laserlike force.

Pitt sat back, cold, wet, and too mentally drained to feel the water sloshing around his body. Funny, he thought after a long minute, how sitting in ice water he could still sweat.

Twenty-two grueling hours after struggling from its grave, the faithful DSMV had climbed within sight of the seamount’s summit. With Pitt back at the controls, the twin tracks dug, slipped, then dug their cleats into the silt-covered lava rock, struggling up the steep incline a meter at a time until finally the great tractor clawed over the rim onto level ground.

Only then did Big John come to a complete stop and become silent as the surrounding cloud of ooze slowly settled on the flattened top of Conrow Guyot.

“We did it, old man,” laughed Plunkett excitedly as he pounded Pitt on the back. “We jolly well did it.”

“Yes,” Pitt agreed tiredly, “but we’ve still one more obstacle to overcome.” He nodded at the digital depth reading. “Three hundred and twenty-two meters to go.”

Plunkett’s joy quickly vaporized. “Any sign of your people?” he asked seriously.

Pitt punched up the sonar-radar probe. The display revealed the ten-kilometer-square summit as empty and barren as a sheet of cardboard. The expected rescue vehicle had failed to arrive.

“Nobody home,” he said quietly.

“Hard to believe no one on the surface heard our blasting music and homed in on our movement,” said Plunkett, more irritated than disappointed.

“They’ve had precious little time to mount a rescue operation.”

“Still, I’d have expected one of your submersibles to return and keep us company.”

Pitt gave a weary shrug. “Equipment failure, adverse weather, they might have encountered any number of problems.”

“We didn’t come all this way to expire in this hellish place now.” Plunkett looked up toward the surface. The pitch-black had become a twilight indigo-blue. “Not this close.”

Pitt knew Giordino and Admiral Sandecker would have moved heaven and earth to save him and Plunkett. He refused to accept the possibility they hadn’t smelled out his plan and acted accordingly. Silently he rose, went aft, and raised the door to the engine compartment. The leak had enlarged and the water level was above a meter. Another forty minutes to an hour and it would reach the turbine. When it drowned, the generator would die as well. Without functioning life-support systems, Pitt and Plunkett would quickly follow.

“They’ll come,” Pitt said to himself with unwavering determination. “They’ll come.”

17

TEN MINUTES PASSED, twenty, as the dread of loneliness fell over them. The sense of being lost on the sea bottom, the unending darkness, the bizarre sea life that hovered around them—it was all like a ghastly nightmare.

Pitt had parked Big John in the center of the seamount and then programmed the computer to monitor the leak in the engine compartment. He peered warily at the display screen as the numbers showed the water level creeping to within a few centimeters of the generator.

Though the climb to a shallower depth sharply relieved the outside water pressure, the entry flaw had enlarged, and Pitt’s further efforts could not stem the growing flood. He evacuated air to offset the increased atmospheric compression caused by the rising flood.

Plunkett half turned and studied Pitt, whose strong craggy face was quite still, as firmly set as the eyelids that never seemed to flicker. The eyes seemed to reflect anger, not at any one person or object, but anger simply directed at a situation he could not control. He sat frighteningly remote from Plunkett, almost as if the British oceanographer was a thousand kilometers away. Pitt’s mind was armored against all sensation or fear of death. His thoughts sifted through myriad escape plans, calculating every detail from every angle until one by one they were all discarded in the shredder inside his brain.

Only one possibility stood a remote chance of success, but it all depended on Giordino. If his friend didn’t appear within the next hour, it would be too late.

Plunkett reached over and thumped Pitt’s shoulder with one big fist. “A magnificent try, Mr. Pitt. You took us from the deep abyss to almost within sight of the surface.”

“Not good enough,” Pitt murmured. “We came up a dollar long and a penny short.”

“Mind telling me how you planned to do it without the convenience of a pressure lock to escape the vehicle and a personnel transfer capsule to carry us to the surface?”

“My original idea was to swim home.”

Plunkett raised an eyebrow. “I hope you didn’t expect us to hold our breath.”

“No.”

“Good,” Plunkett said, satisfied. “Speaking for myself, I’d have expired before ascending thirty meters.” He hesitated and stared at Pitt curiously. “Swim, you can’t be serious?”

“A ridiculous hope bred of desperation,” Pitt replied philosophically. “I know better than to believe our bodies could survive the onslaught of extreme pressure and decompression.”

“You say that was your original idea. Do you have another—like trying to float this monster off the bottom?”

“You’re getting warm.”

“Lifting a fifteen-ton vehicle can only be accomplished in a vivid imagination.”

“Actually, it hinges on Al Giordino,” Pitt answered with forbearance. “If he’s read my mind, he’ll meet us in a submersible equipped with—”

“But he let you down,” said Plunkett, sweeping an arm over the empty seascape.

“There has to be a damn good reason for it.”

“You know and I know, Mr. Pitt, no one will come. Not within hours, days, or ever. You gambled on a miracle and lost. If they do come to search, it’ll be over the wreckage of your mining community, not here.”

Pitt did not reply but gazed into the water. The lights of the DSMV had drawn a school of hatchetfish. Silver with deep bodies and flattened on the sides, slender tails wavered in the water as rows of light organs flashed along their lower stomachs. The eyes were disproportionately large and protruded from tubes that rose upward. He watched as they swirled gracefully in lazy spirals around the great nose of Big John.

Slowly he bent forward as if listening, then sank back again. “Thought I heard something.”

“A mystery we can still hear over that blaring music,” Plunkett grunted. “My eardrums have ceased to function.”

“Remind me to send you a condolence card at a later date,” said Pitt. “Or would you rather we give up, flood the cabin, and end it?”

He froze into immobility, eyes focused on the hatchetfish. A great shadow crept over them, and as one they darted into the blackness and vanished.

“Something wrong?” asked Plunkett.

“We have company,” Pitt said with an I-told-you-so grin. He twisted in his seat, tilted his head, and looked through the upper viewing window.

One of the NUMA Soggy Acres submersibles hung suspended in the void slightly above and to the rear of the DSMV. Giordino wore a smile that was wide as a jack-o’-lantern’s. Next to him, Admiral Sandecker threw a jaunty wave through the large round port.

It was the moment Pitt had wished for, indeed silently prayed’, for, and Plunkett’s great bear hug showed how gladly he shared the moment.

“Dirk,” he said solemnly, “I humbly apologize for my negative company. This goes beyond instinct. You are one crafty bastard.”

“I do what I can,” Pitt admitted with humorous modesty.

There were few times in his life Pitt had seen anything half as wonderful as Giordino’s smiling face from inside the submersible. Where did the admiral come from? he wondered. How could he have arrived on the scene so quickly?

Giordino wasted little time. He motioned to a small door that shielded an exterior electrical receptacle. Pitt nodded and pressed a button. The door slipped open into a hidden slot, and in less than a minute one of the articulated robotic arms on the submersible connected a cable.

“Am I coming through?” Giordino’s voice burst clearly over the speakers.

“You don’t know how good it is to hear your voice, pal,” answered Pitt.

“Sorry we’re late. The other submersible swamped and sank on the surface. This one shorted its batteries and we lost time in repairs.”

“All is forgiven. Good to see you, Admiral. I didn’t expect your honored presence down here.”

“Cut the apple-polishing,” Sandecker boomed. “What’s your status?”

“We have a leak that will close down our power source within forty or fifty minutes. Beyond that we’re in good shape.”

“Then we’d better get busy.”

With no more wasted conversation, Giordino maneuvered the submersible until its bow was on the same level and facing the lower broadside of the DSMV. Then he engaged the manipulator arms mounted on the front below the control sphere. They were much smaller than the arm system on Big John and more intricate.

The sub’s modular arms were designed to accommodate several types of hand mechanisms and operate them hydraulically. The left hand was attached to the arm by a rotating wrist, which in turn was connected to three fingers with sensors in their tips that could identify any material from wood and steel to plastic, cotton, and silk. Under the operator’s delicate touch, enhanced by a computer sensory system, the fingers could dexterously thread a small needle and tat lace or, if the occasion demanded, crush rock.

Smoothly the robotic arm unraveled a hose running from a small tank to a large rod with a hole running through its center core.

The right arm’s wrist was fitted with a series of four circular metal-cutting discs. Each disc was serrated with a different edge and could be interchanged depending on the hardness of the material it was slicing.

Pitt peered at the left-hand assembly curiously. “I knew the discs were stored on board the submersible, but where did you find the oxygen cutting equipment?”

“I borrowed it from a passing submarine,” Giordino answered without elaboration.

“Logical.” There was a tired acceptance in Pitt’s voice, unsure whether his friend was stroking him.

“Beginning separation,” said Giordino.

“While you’re cutting us free I’ll pump up our air volume by a couple of atmospheres to compensate for the extra weight from the leakage flow.”

“Sound idea,” agreed Sandecker. “You’ll need all the buoyancy you can build. But mind your pressure safety limits or you’ll run into decompression problems.”

“Decompression schedules will be monitored by our computer,” Pitt assured him. “Neither Dr. Plunkett nor I look forward to a case of the bends.”

As Pitt began pumping compressed air into the control and engine compartments, Giordino jockeyed the submersible so that both arm and hand manipulators could operate independently. The hand with the three articulated fingers positioned the fat welding rod against a bolt that ran through a mounting brace. The rod held a positive charge while the DSMV was negative. A bright arc suddenly flared when contact was made between the rod and bolt. As the metal glowed and melted, oxygen spurted through the hole in the rod, dispersing the buildup.

“Arc gouging,” Pitt explained to Plunkett. “They’re going to sever all mounts, drive shafts, and electrical connections until the control housing breaks free of the main frame and track mechanism.”

Plunkett nodded in understanding as Giordino extended the other arm until a spray of sparks signaled the cutting discs were attacking their target. “So that’s the ticket. We float to the surface as pretty as an emptied bottle of Veuve Cliquot-Ponsardin Gold Label champagne.”

“Or a drained bottle of Coors beer.”

“First pub we hit, Mr. Pitt, the drinks are on me.”

“Thank you, Dr. Plunkett. I accept, providing we have enough buoyancy to take us up.”

“Blow the guts out of her,” Plunkett demanded recklessly. “I’d rather risk the bends than certain drowning.”

Pitt did not agree. The excruciating agony divers had suffered over the centuries from the bends went far beyond man-inflicted torture. Death was a relief, and survival often left a deformed body racked with pain that never faded. He kept a steady eye on the digital reading as the red numbers crept up to three atmospheres, the pressure at roughly twenty meters. At that depth their bodies could safely endure the increased pressure squeeze, he estimated, in the short time remaining before nitrogen gas began forming in their blood.

Twenty-five minutes later, he was about to rethink his estimate when a growing creaking noise reverberated inside the compartment. Then came a deep grinding that was magnified by the density of the water.

“Only one mount and a frame brace to go,” Giordino informed them. “Be prepared to tear loose.”

“I read you,” replied Pitt. “Standing by to close down all power and electrical systems.”

Sandecker found it insufferable that he could plainly see the faces of the men across the thin gap separating the two vehicles and know there was every likelihood they might die. “How’s your current air supply?” he asked anxiously.

Pitt checked the monitor. “Enough to get us home if we don’t stop for pizza.”

There came a screech that set teeth on edge as the control compartment shuddered and tilted upward, nose first. Something gave then, and suddenly the structure acted as if it wanted to break free. Pitt quickly shut off the main generator power and switched over to the emergency batteries to keep the computer and speaker phone operating. But all movement abruptly stopped, and they hung frozen above the tractor’s huge frame.

“Hold on,” came Giordino’s reassuring voice. “I missed some hydraulic lines.” Then he added, “I’ll try to stay close if I can, but should we spread too far apart, the phone cable will snap and we’ll lose voice contact.”

“Make it quick. Water is gushing in through some of the severed lines and connections.”

“Acknowledged.”

“See to it you open your exit door and get the hell out fast when you hit the waves,” Sandecker ordered.

“Like geese with diarrhea,” Pitt assured him.

Pitt and Plunkett relaxed for a few seconds, listening to the sound of the cutting discs chewing through the tubing. Then came a heavy lurch followed by a ripping noise, and they began slowly rising from the top of the seamount, leaving the tractor chassis with Big John’s torn cables and melted debris dangling behind them like mechanical entrails.

“On our way!” Plunkett roared.

Pitt’s mouth tightened. “Too slow. The incoming water has lowered our positive buoyancy.”

“You’re in for a long haul,” said Giordino. “I judge your rate of ascent at only ten meters a minute.”

“We’re lugging the engine, reactor, and a ton of water with us. Our volume barely overcomes the excess weight.”

“You should rise a little faster as you near the surface.”

“No good. The water intake will offset the decrease in pressure.”

“No worry over losing the communication cable,” Giordino said happily. “I can easily match your ascent rate.”

“Small consolation,” Pitt muttered under his breath.

“Twenty meters up,” said Plunkett.

“Twenty meters,” Pitt echoed.

Both pairs of eyes locked on the depth reading that flashed on the display screen. Neither man spoke as the minutes crawled past. The twilight world was left behind and the indigo-blue of deep water paled slightly from the approaching filtered light from above. The color green made its first appearance, and then yellow. A small school of tuna greeted them before flashing away. At 150 meters Pitt could begin to make out the dial on his wristwatch.

“You’re slowing,” Giordino warned them. “Your rate of ascent has dropped to seven meters a minute.”

Pitt punched in the water leakage numbers. He didn’t like what he read. “Our flood level is redlined.”

“Can you increase your air volume?” asked Sandecker, concern obvious in his voice.

“Not without a fatal dose of the bends.”

“You’ll make it,” Giordino said hopefully. “You’re past the eighty-meter mark.”

“When our ascent drops to four meters, grab on with your hand assembly and tow us.”

“Will do.”

Giordino moved ahead and angled his vessel until the stern was pointing toward the surface and he was looking down on Pitt and Plunkett. Then he set his autopilot to maintain a reverse speed to maintain the same ascent speed as Big John’s housing. But before he could extend the robotic arm, he saw that the DSMV was falling back and the gap was increasing. He quickly compensated and closed the distance.

“Two meters a minute,” Pitt said with icy calm. “You’d better link up.”

“In the process,” Giordino anticipated him.

By the time the sub’s articulated hand system had managed a viselike grip on a protruding edge of wreckage, the compartment had come to a complete halt.

“We’ve achieved neutral buoyancy,” Pitt reported.

Giordino jettisoned the sub’s remaining iron ballast weights and programmed full reverse speed. The thrusters bit into the water and the sub, with the DSMV housing in tow, began moving again with tormented slowness toward the beckoning surface.

Eighty meters, seventy, the fight to reach daylight seemed as if it would never end. Then at twenty-seven meters, or about ninety feet, their progress stopped for the final time. The rising water in the engine room was coming in through new openings from newly ruptured pipes and cracks with the force of a fire hose.

“I’m losing you,” Giordino said, shaken.

“Get out, evacuate!” cried Sandecker.

Pitt and Plunkett didn’t need to be told. They had no wish for Big John to become their tomb. The manned housing began to descend, pulling the submersible with it. Their only salvation was the inside air pressure, it was nearly equalized with the outside water. But what fate gave them, fate snatched back. The flood couldn’t have picked a worse time to short out the emergency battery system, cutting off the hydraulic power for the exit hatch.

Plunkett frantically undogged the hatch and fought to push it out, but the slightly higher water pressure was unyielding. Then Pitt was beside him, and they put their combined strength into it.

In the submersible, Giordino and Sandecker watched the struggle with mounting fear. Negative buoyancy was rapidly increasing and the compartment was beginning to drop into the depths at an alarming rate.

The hatch gave as though it was pushed through a sea of glue. As the water surged around the frame and into the compartment, Pitt shouted, “Hyperventilate, and don’t forget to exhale on the way up.”

Plunkett gave a brief nod, took a quick series of deep breaths to eliminate the carbon dioxide in his lungs, and held the last one. Then he ducked his head into the water gushing through the hatch and was gone.

Pitt followed, overventilating his lungs to hold his breath longer. He flexed his knees on the threshold of the hatch and launched himself upward as Giordino released the robotic hand’s grip, and the final remains of the DSMV fell away into the void.