Abduction

CHAPTER FOUR

“No contact,” Suzanne said in response to Donald’s question whether the sonar echo sounder showed any unexpected obstacles beneath the Oceanus. Even though they were bobbing around in open ocean, part of the predive check was to make sure no other submarine craft had surreptitiously moved under them.

Donald took the VHF radio mike and established contact with Larry Nelson in the diving van. “We’re clear of the ship. Oxygen is on, scrubbers are on, hatch is closed, underwater phone is on, grounds are normal, and the echo sounder is clear. Request permission to dive.”

“Is your tracking beacon activated?” Larry’s voice questioned over the radio.

“That’s affirmative,” Donald said.

“You have permission to dive,” Larry said with a small amount of static. “Depth to the well head is nine hundred ninety-four feet. Have a nice dive.”

“Roger!” Donald said.

Donald was about to hang up the mike when Larry added, “The DDC is nearing depth so the bell will be starting down ASAP. I’d estimate the divers will be at the site in half an hour.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Donald said. “Over and out.” He hung up the mike. Then to his fellow submariners he added, “Dive! Dive! Vent the main ballast tanks!”

Suzanne leaned forward and threw a switch. “Venting the ballast tanks,” she repeated so there was no chance for misunderstanding. Donald made an entry on his clipboard.

There was a sound like a shower in a neighboring room as the cold Atlantic water rushed into the Oceanus ’s ballast tanks. Within moments the craft’s buoyancy plummeted, and once negative she silently slipped beneath the surface.

For the next few minutes both Donald and Suzanne were totally occupied, making sure all systems were still operating normally. Their conversation was restricted to operational jargon. In a rapid fashion they went through most of the predive checklist for the second time while the submersible’s descent accelerated to a terminal velocity of a hundred feet per minute.

Perry occupied his time by looking out the view port. The color went from its initial greenish blue to rapidly advancing indigo. In five minutes all he could see was a blue glow when he looked upward. Downward it was dark purple fading into blackness. In stark contrast, the interior of the Oceanus was bathed in a cool electronic luminosity from the myriad monitors and readout devices.

“I believe we’re a little front heavy,” Suzanne said once all the electronic equipment had been checked.

“I agree,” Donald said. “Go ahead and compensate for Mr. Bergman!”

Suzanne threw another switch. A whirring noise could be heard.

Perry leaned forward between the two pilots. “What do you mean, ‘compensate’ for me?” His voice sounded funny even to himself. He swallowed to relieve a dry throat.

“We have a variable ballast system,” Suzanne explained. “It’s filled with oil, and I’m pumping some of it aft to make up for your weight forward of the center of gravity.”

“Oh!” Perry said simply. He leaned back. As an engineer he understood the physics. He was also relieved they weren’t referring to his timidity, which his self-consciousness had irrationally suggested.

Suzanne turned the variable ballast pump off when she was satisfied with the boat’s trim. Then she turned around to face Perry. She was eager to make his dive to the seamount as positive as possible. Once they were back on ship, she hoped to present him with a case for conducting purely exploratory dives on the guyot. At the moment, the only time she got down there was to change the drill bit. She’d had no luck persuading Mark Davidson of the value of research-inspired dives.

Adding to Suzanne’s anxiety was the widespread rumor that the drilling operation would be scrapped because of technical problems. Sea Mount Olympus would be abandoned before she could get a closer look. That was the last thing she wanted, and not only because of her professional interests. Just before leaving on the current project, she had what she hoped was the final breakup of an unhealthy, volatile relationship with an aspiring actor. At the moment returning to L.A. was the last thing she wanted to do. Perry Bergman’s sudden appearance on-site was serendipitous. She could take her case right to the top.

“Comfortable?” Suzanne asked.

“I’ve never been more comfortable in my life,” Perry averred.

Suzanne smiled despite the obvious sarcasm in Perry’s response. The situation was not looking good. The Benthic Marine president was still tense as evidenced by his gripping the arms of his seat as if he were about to leap out of it. The books that she’d made the effort to bring were lying unopened on the floor grate.

For a moment Suzanne studied the taut president whose eyes looked everywhere but into hers. What she could not tell was whether Perry’s anxiety was from apprehension of being in the submersible or just a reflection of his basic personality. Even on her first meeting with the man six months ago, she had found him a mildly eccentric, vain, and nervous guy. He was obviously not her type in addition to being short enough for her to look directly in the eye in her tennis shoes. Yet despite having little in common with him especially since he was an engineer-cum-entrepreneur and she a scientist, she trusted that he’d be receptive to her arguments. After all, he’d already responded positively to her request to bring the Benthic Explorer back to Sea Mount Olympus even if it was only to drill into the supposed magma chamber.

Sea Mount Olympus had been Suzanne’s main preoccupation for almost a year, since she’d stumbled on its existence by switching on the side-scan sonar on the Benthic Explorer out of boredom when the ship was heading back to port. Initially, her curiosity only involved her inability to explain why such a massive, apparently extinct volcano had not been detected by Geosat. But now, after making four dives in the submersible, she was equally fascinated by the geological formations on its flat crown, especially since she’d only been afforded the opportunity to explore in the immediate vicinity of the well head. But then the most intriguing fact emerged when she took it on herself to date the rock that had been brought up with the broken drill bit.

To Suzanne the results were startling and a lot more intriguing than the rock’s apparent hardness. From the seamount’s position near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, she expected the rock sample’s age to register in the seven-hundred-thousand-year range. Instead it had tested to be around four billion years old!

Knowing that the oldest rocks ever found on earth’s surface or on the ocean floor were significantly less ancient than this figure, Suzanne had thought that either the dating instrument was out of whack, or she’d made some stupid procedural error. Unwilling to risk ridicule, she decided to keep the results to herself.

With painstaking care she spent hours recalibrating the equipment, and then running additional samples over and over. To her disbelief, the results were all within three or four hundred million years of each other. Still believing there had to be a dating instrument malfunction involved, Suzanne had Tad Messenger, the head lab tech, recalibrate it. When she ran the sample again, the result was within a few million years of the previous one. Still in doubt, Suzanne reconciled herself to waiting until she got back to L.A. so she could use the university lab’s equipment. Meanwhile the results were hidden away in her ship’s locker. She tried to reserve judgment, but her interest in Sea Mount Olympus soared.

“We have hot coffee in a Thermos aft if you’d like some,” Suzanne said. “I’d be happy to get it for you.”

“I think I’d be happier if you stay at the controls,” Perry said.

“Donald, how about turning on the outside lights for a moment,” Suzanne suggested.

“We’re only passing through five hundred feet,” Donald said. “There’s nothing to see.”

“It’s Mr. Bergman’s first open ocean dive,” Suzanne said. “He should see the plankton.”

“Call me Perry,” Perry said. “I mean, why be formal while we’re packed in here together like so many sardines in a can?”

Suzanne acknowledged Perry’s offer of informality with a smile. She was only sorry he so clearly was not enjoying the trip.

“Donald, as a favor to me, turn on the lights,” Suzanne said.

Donald complied without further comment. He reached forward and snapped on the external halogen lamps on the port side. Perry turned his head and glanced out.

“Looks like snow,” he said.

“It’s trillions of individual plankton organisms,” Suzanne explained. “Since we’re still in an epipelagic zone, it’s probably mostly phytoplankton, or plant plankton that can carry on photosynthesis. Along with the blue-green algae, those are the guys who are at the bottom of the entire oceanic food chain.”

“I’m glad,” Perry said.

Donald switched the lights off. “No sense in using up valuable battery power with that type of reaction,” he explained to Suzanne sotto voce.

In the ensuing darkness, Perry witnessed twinkling bursts of muted neon green and yellow sparkles. He asked Suzanne what it was.

“That’s bioluminescence,” Suzanne said.

“Is it the plankton?” Perry asked.

“It could be,” Suzanne said. “If so, it would probably be dinoflagellates. Of course, it could also be tiny crustaceans or even fish. I’ve put a yellow bookmark in the marine life book marking the bioluminescence section.”

Perry nodded but made no attempt to pick up the text.

Nice try, Suzanne thought glumly. Her optimism about ensuring Perry’s enjoyment sagged appreciably.

“ Oceanus, this is Benthic Explorer,” Larry’s voice sounded in the acoustic phone speaker. “Suggest a course two hundred and seventy degrees at fifty amps for two minutes.”

“Roger,” Donald said. He quickly made the course adjustment with the joysticks and changed the power output to the propeller to the suggested fifty amps. He then noted the changes on his clipboard.

“Larry has plotted our position by tracking our pinger and relating it to the bottom hydrophones,” Suzanne explained. “By powering forward while descending we’ll reach bottom directly at the well head. It’s like we’re gliding to the target.”

“What will we do until the divers arrive?” Perry asked. “Just sit and twiddle our thumbs?”

“Hardly,” Suzanne said. She forced another smile along with a shallow laugh. “We’ll unload the drill bit from the tray along with the tools we’re carrying. Then we’ll back off. At that point we’ll have about twenty to thirty minutes to explore around the site. That’s the part I think you are going to truly enjoy.”

“I can’t wait,” Perry said with the kind of sarcasm Suzanne was beginning to dread. “But I don’t want you doing anything out of the ordinary on my behalf. I mean, don’t try to impress me. I’m already impressed enough.”

Suddenly the monotonous pinging of the sonar changed. The sub was nearing the bottom, and the forward short-range sonar had a solid contact. The tiny screen showed the well head and the pipe snaking down from above. Donald jettisoned several of the descent weights and the craft’s gliding plunge slowed. He then began a careful adjustment of the variable ballast system to achieve neutral buoyancy.

While Donald was busy pumping oil, Suzanne reached behind her and turned on a small CD player. It was part of her master plan. All at once the sound of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring filled the sub’s interior. Taking the music as a cue, Donald leaned forward and switched on the outside lights.

Perry’s eyes widened as he glanced out the view port. The planktonic snow had all but disappeared, and the clarity of the icy water was more than he imagined. He was able to see for several hundred feet, and what he saw left him flabbergasted. He’d expected a flat, featureless plain similar to what the bottom looked like on his dive off Santa Catalina Island. At most he thought he might see a few sea cucumbers. Instead he was gazing at a misty tableau the likes of which he’d never imagined: huge, dark gray, columnar forms with flat tops dotted the landscape, jutting up in a stepwise fashion like the frozen pistons of an enormous engine. The haunting shapes extended out as far as Perry could see. A few long-tailed, big-eyed fish lazily darted in and around them. On some of the rock ledges sea fans and sea whips waved sinuously in the current.

“Good God!” Perry exclaimed. He was mesmerized, especially with the dramatic music in the background.

“Rather exceptional, eh?” Suzanne said. She was encouraged. Perry’s reaction to the scenery was his first auspicious response.

“It looks like some ancient temple area,” Perry exclaimed.

“Like Atlantis,” Suzanne suggested. She was intent on milking the situation for all it was worth.

“Yeah!” Perry blurted. “Like Atlantis! Jeez! Can you imagine bringing tourists down here and telling them that it was Atlantis? What a freaking gold mine this could be.”

Suzanne cleared her throat. Bringing tourists down to her precious seamount was the last thing she wanted to see happen, but she appreciated Perry’s enthusiasm. At least he was engaged.

“Current is less than an eighth of a knot,” Donald said. “Coming up on the well head. Prepare to off-load the drill bit.”

Suzanne swung around to attend to her duties as copilot. She powered up the servos for the manipulator arms. Meanwhile Donald set the Oceanus down expertly on the rock floor. While Suzanne prepared to lift the drill bit and tools from the submersible’s tray, Donald used the UQC phone.

“On the bottom,” Donald said. “Off-loading the payload.”

“Roger,” Larry said in reply over the speaker. “I guessed as much when I heard Suzanne’s music. Is that the only freaking CD she has?”

“It’s the best one for the scenery down here,” Suzanne interjected.

“If we make any more dives I’ll loan you some New Age CDs,” Larry answered. “I can’t stand that classical stuff.”

“Am I looking at basaltic dikes out here?” Perry questioned.

“That’s my guess,” Suzanne said. “Have you ever heard of the Giant’s Causeway?”

“Can’t say that I have,” Perry said.

“It’s a natural rock formation on the northern coast of Ireland,” Suzanne said. “It looks something like what you’re seeing here.”

“How big is the top of this seamount?” Perry questioned.

“I’d estimate about four football fields,” Suzanne said. “But, unfortunately, that’s nothing but a guess. The problem is we haven’t had enough bottom time to explore the whole thing.”

“Well, I think we ought to,” Perry said.

Right on! Suzanne said to herself. She had to resist the temptation to yell out to ask if Larry and Mark had heard Perry’s comment over the UQC.

“Does the whole top of the mountain look just the same as it does here?” Perry asked.

“No, not entirely,” Suzanne said. “On the limited amount we’ve seen there are some areas of more typical undersea lava formations. On the last dive, though, we caught a glimpse of what might be a transverse fault, but we were called back before we could check it out. The mount remains largely unexplored.”

“Where was the fault in relation to the well head?” Perry asked.

“Due west from here,” Suzanne said. “Just about in the direction you’re looking right now. Can you see a particularly high row of columns?”

“I think so,” Perry said. He pushed his face against the Plexiglas to try to look slightly behind the sub. There was a row of columns at the edge of his visibility. “Would finding a transverse fault be significant?” he asked.

“It would be astounding,” Suzanne responded. “They occur up and down the Mid-Atlantic Ridge system, but finding one at such a distance from the ridge, and through the middle of what we assume is an old volcano, would be quite unique.”

“Let’s go take a look,” Perry suggested. “This place is fascinating.”

Suzanne grinned in triumph. She glanced at Donald. Even he couldn’t suppress a smile. He’d been sympathetic to Suzanne’s plan but had not been optimistic.

It took Suzanne only a few minutes to unload everything that Mark had stowed in the submersible’s tray. Once the material was lined up next to the well head, she folded the manipulating arms into their retracted position.

“So much for that job,” Suzanne said. She turned off the power to the servo links.

“ Oceanus to surface control,” Donald said into the UQC mike. “The payload has been off-loaded. What’s the status of the divers?”

“Compression is nearing depth,” Larry’s voice reported over the speaker. “The bell should be starting its descent shortly. ETA on the bottom, thirty minutes give or take five.”

“Roger!” Donald said. “Keep us informed. We are going to move due west to investigate a scarp we caught sight of on the last dive.”

“Ten-four,” Larry said. “We’ll let you know when the bell is lifted off the DDC. We’ll also let you know when it is passing through five hundred feet so you can take up an appropriate position.”

“Roger!” Donald repeated. He hung up the UQC mike. With his hands resting gently on the joysticks he jacked up the power to the propulsion system to fifty amps. He expertly guided the submersible away from the well head, careful to avoid the vertical run of pipe. A few moments later the Oceanus was slowly flying over the strange topography of the guyot’s top.

“What I believe we’re looking at here is a pristine section of the mantle’s crust,” Suzanne said. “But how and why the lava cooled to form these polygonal shapes is beyond me. It’s almost like they’re gigantic crystals.”

“I like the idea of it being Atlantis,” Perry said. His face remained glued to the view port.

“We’re coming up to the place where we glimpsed that fault,” Donald said.

“It should be just over that ridge of columns coming up,” Suzanne said for Perry’s benefit.

Donald cut back on the power. The submersible slowed as they cleared the ridge.

“Wow!” Perry commented. “It certainly drops off quickly.”

“Well, it’s not a transverse fault,” Suzanne said as she got a full view of the formation. “In fact, if it were a fault at all it would have to be a graben. The other side is just as steep.”

“What the hell is a graben?” Perry asked.

“It’s when a fault block falls in relation to the rock on either side,” Suzanne explained. “But something like that doesn’t happen on the top of a seamount.”

“It looks like a huge rectangular hole to me,” Perry said. “What would you say? About a hundred and fifty feet long and fifty wide?”

“I’d say that’s about right,” Suzanne said.

“It’s incredible!” Perry commented. “It’s like some giant took a knife and cut out a chunk of rock just the way you’d take a plug out of a watermelon.”

Donald powered the Oceanus out over the hole, and they all looked down.

“I can’t see the bottom,” Perry said.

“Neither can I,” Suzanne said.

“Neither can our sonar,” Donald said. He pointed to the echo sounder monitor. It wasn’t getting a return signal. It was as if the Oceanus were poised over a bottomless pit.

“My word!” Suzanne said. She was dumbfounded.

Donald gave the monitor a tap, but there was still no readout.

“That’s very strange,” Suzanne said. “Do you think it’s malfunctioning?”

“I can’t tell,” Donald reported. He tried changing the adjustments.

“Wait a sec,” Perry voiced tensely. “Are you two pulling my leg?”

“Try the side-scan sonar,” Suzanne suggested, ignoring Perry for the moment.

“It’s just as weird,” Donald said. “The signal is aberrant unless we want to accept the pit’s only six or seven feet deep. That’s what the side-scan monitor is suggesting.”

“Clearly the hole is a lot deeper than six or seven feet,” Suzanne said.

“Obviously,” Donald agreed.

“Hey, come on, you guys,” Perry said. “You’re starting to scare me.”

Suzanne turned briefly to face Perry. “We’re not trying to scare you,” she said. “We’re just mystified by our instruments.”

“My guess is there’s one hell of a thermocline just within the rim of this formation,” Donald said. “The sonar has to be bouncing off something.”

“Would you mind translating that?” Perry said.

“Sound waves bounce off sharp temperature gradients,” Suzanne said. “We think that’s what we have here.”

“In order to get a depth readout we have to descend ten or fifteen feet into the pit,” Donald said. “I’ll do that by decreasing our buoyancy, but first I want to change our orientation.”

With short bursts Donald used the starboard front thruster to turn the submersible until it became parallel with the long axis of the hole. Then he manipulated the variable ballast system to make the sub negatively buoyant. Gradually the submersible started down.

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Perry said. He was nervously looking back and forth between the side-scan sonar monitor and his view port.

The UQC speaker cracked to life: “Surface control to Oceanus. The bell is lifting off the DDC as I’m speaking. The divers will be passing through five hundred feet in about ten minutes.”

“Roger, surface control,” Donald said into the mike. “We’re about one hundred feet west of the well head. We’re going to check out an apparent marked thermocline in a rock formation. Communications might be interrupted momentarily, but we’ll be on station for the divers.”

“Ten-four,” Larry’s voice said.

“Look at the luster of the walls,” Suzanne remarked as the submersible sank below the tip of the huge hole. “They’re perfectly smooth. It almost looks like obsidian!”

“Let’s head back to the well head,” Perry suggested.

“Could this be an opening into an extinct volcano?” Donald asked. A slight smile flitted across his otherwise rigid face.

“That’s a thought,” Suzanne said with a laugh. “Although I have to say I’ve never heard of a perfectly rectilinear caldera.” She laughed again. “Our dropping down in here like this reminds me of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth.”

“How so?” Donald asked.

“Have you read it?”

“I don’t read novels,” Donald said.

“That’s right, I forgot,” Suzanne said. “Anyway, in the story the protagonists entered a kind of pristine netherworld via an extinct volcano.”

Donald shook his head. His eyes stayed glued to the thermistor readout. “What a waste of time reading such rubbish,” he said. “That’s why I don’t read novels. Not with all the technical journals I can’t get to.”

Suzanne started to respond but changed her mind. She’d never been able to make a dent in Donald’s rigid opinions about fiction in particular and art in general.

“I don’t mean to be a pest,” Perry said, “but I-”

Perry never got out the last part of his sentence. All at once the submersible’s descent accelerated markedly and Donald cried out, “Christ almighty!”

Perry gripped the sides of his seat with white-knuckle intensity. The rapid increase in downward motion scared him, but not as much as Donald’s uncharacteristic outburst. If the imperturbable Donald Fuller was upset, the situation must be critical.

“Jettisoning weights!” Donald called out. The descent immediately slowed, then stopped. Donald released more weight and the sub began to rise. Then he used the port-side thruster to maintain orientation with the long axis of the pit. The last thing he wanted was to hit up against the walls.

“What the hell happened?” Perry demanded when he could find his voice.

“We lost buoyancy,” Suzanne reported.

“We suddenly got heavier or the water got lighter,” Donald said as he scanned the instrumentation.

“What does that mean?” Perry demanded.

“Since we obviously didn’t get heavier, the water indeed got lighter,” Donald said. He pointed to the temperature gauge. “We passed through the temperature gradient we suspected, and it was a lot more than we bargained for-in the opposite direction. The outside temperature rose almost a hundred degrees Fahrenheit!”

“Let’s get the hell out of here!” Perry cried.

“We’re on our way,” Donald said tersely. He snapped the UQC mike from its housing and tried to raise the Benthic Explorer. When he had no luck, he returned the mike to its cradle. “Sound waves don’t come in here and they don’t go out either.”

“What is this, some sort of sonar black hole?” Perry asked irritably.

“The echo sounder is giving us a reading now,” Suzanne said. “But it can’t be true! It says this pit is over thirty thousand feet deep!”

“Now why would that be malfunctioning?” Donald asked himself. He gave the instrument an even harder rap with his knuckles. The digital readout stayed at 30,418.

“Let’s forget the echo sounder,” Perry said. “Can’t we get out of here faster?” The Oceanus was rising, but very slowly.

“I’ve never had trouble with this echo sounder before,” Donald said.

“Maybe this pit could have been some kind of magma pipe,” Suzanne said. “It’s obviously deep, even though we don’t know how deep, and the water is hot. That suggests contact with lava.” She bent forward to look out the view port.

“Could we at least turn off the music?” Perry said. It was reaching a crescendo that only added to his anxiety.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Suzanne exclaimed. “Look at the walls at this level! The basalt is oriented transversely. I’ve never heard of a transverse dike. And look! It has a greenish cast to it. Maybe it’s gabbro, not basalt.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to pull rank here,” Perry snapped with uncamouflaged exasperation. He’d had it with being ignored. “I want to be taken up to the surface, pronto!”

Suzanne swung around to respond but only managed to open her mouth. Before she could form any words a powerful, low-frequency vibration shook the submersible. She had to grab the side of her seat to keep from falling. The sudden quake sent loose objects flying to the floor. A coffee mug hit and shattered; the shards skittered across the floor along with pens that had fallen. At the same time, there was a low-pitched rumbling that sounded like distant thunder.

The rattling lasted for almost a minute. No one spoke although an involuntary squeak escaped from Perry’s lips as the blood drained from his face.

“What on earth was that?” Donald demanded. He rapidly scanned the instruments.

“I’m not sure,” Suzanne said, “but if I had to guess, I’d say it was an earthquake. There’s a lot of them up and down the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.”

“An earthquake!” Perry blurted.

“Maybe this old volcano is awakening,” Suzanne said. “Wouldn’t that be a trip if we got to witness it!”

“Uh-oh!” Donald said. “Something is wrong!”

“What’s the problem?” Suzanne asked. Like Donald her eyes made a quick circuit of the dials, gauges, and screens in her direct line of sight. These were the important instruments for operating the submersible. Nothing seemed amiss.

“The echo sounder!” Donald said with uncharacteristic urgency.

Suzanne’s eyes darted down to the digital readout located close to the floor between the two pilot seats. It was decreasing at an alarming rate.

“What’s happening?” she asked. “Do you think lava is rising in the shaft?”

“No!” Donald cried. “It’s us. We’re sinking, and I’ve jettisoned all the descent weights. We’ve lost our buoyancy!”

“But the pressure gauge!” Suzanne yelled. “It’s not rising. How can we be sinking?”

“It mustn’t be working,” Donald said frantically. “There’s no doubt we’re sinking. Just look out the damn view port!”

Suzanne’s eyes darted to the window. It was true. They were sinking. The smooth rock face was moving rapidly upward.

“I’m blowing the ballast tanks,” Donald barked. “At this depth there won’t be much effect, but there’s no choice.”

The sound of compressed air being released drowned out Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring but only for twenty seconds. At such a pressure the compressed air tanks were quickly exhausted. The descent was not affected.

“Do something!” Perry yelled when he could find his voice.

“I can’t,” Donald yelled. “There’s no response to the controls. There’s nothing left to try.”