Abduction

CHAPTER SIX

Suzanne was the first to recover enough from the terror of the precipitous descent to find her voice. Hesitantly she said, “I think we’ve stopped! Thank God!”

For a time that had seemed an eternity to its three terrified occupants, the submersible had fallen like a stone down the mysterious shaft. It was as if they had been sucked down an enormous drain in the bottom of the ocean. During the plummet the Oceanus had been totally unresponsive to the controls no matter which Donald Fuller manipulated.

Although initially the plunge had been straight down, the boat had eventually begun to spiral and even carom off the walls. One of the first such collisions destroyed the outside halogen lights. Another stripped off the starboard manipulator with a grinding crunch.

Perry had been the only one to scream during the ordeal. But even he fell silent once the helplessness of their situation had sunk in. He could only watch helplessly as the digital depth recorder whirred into the thousands. The numbers had flashed by so quickly, they’d become a blur. And when twenty thousand feet approached, all he’d been able to think about was the chilling statistic he’d heard earlier: the crush depth!

“In fact, I don’t think we’re moving at all,” Suzanne added. She was whispering. “What could have happened? Could we be on the bottom? I didn’t feel an impact.”

No one moved a muscle, as if doing so might disturb the sudden but welcome tranquillity. They were breathing shallowly in short gasps, and beads of perspiration dotted their foreheads. All three were still holding on to their seats for fear the plunge would recommence.

“It feels like we stopped, but look at the depth gauge,” Donald managed. His voice was raspy from dryness.

All eyes returned to the readout that only moments earlier had inexorably held their gaze. It was moving again, slowly at first but then rapidly gathering speed. The difference was that it was moving in the opposite direction.

“But I don’t feel any movement,” Suzanne said. She exhaled deeply and tried to relax her muscles. The others did likewise.

“Nor do I,” Donald admitted. “But look at the gauge! It’s going crazy.”

The readout device had returned to its previous furious whirring.

Suzanne leaned forward slowly as if she thought the submersible was precariously balanced and her movement might tip it over an edge. She peered out the view port, but all she could see was her own image. With the outside lights sheared off from collisions with the rock, the window was as opaque as a mirror, reflecting the interior light.

“What’s happening now?” Perry croaked.

“Your guess is as good as ours,” Suzanne answered. She took a deep breath. She was beginning to recover.

“The depth gauge says we’re rising,” Donald said. He glanced at the other instruments, including the sonar monitors. Their erratic signals suggested there was a lot of interference in the water, particularly affecting the short-range sonar. The side-scan was a bit better, with less electronic noise, but it was difficult to interpret. The hazy image hinted that the sub was sitting stationary on a vast, perfectly flat plain. Donald’s eyes went back to the depth gauge. He was mystified; in contrast to what the sonar was suggesting, it was still rising, and faster than it had been moments before. Quickly he reopened the ballast tanks, but there was no effect. Then he put the dive planes down and added more power to the propulsion system. There was no response to the controls. But they continued to rise nonetheless.

“We’re accelerating,” Suzanne warned. “Rising like this we’ll be on the surface in just a couple of minutes!”

“I can’t wait,” Perry said with obvious relief.

“I hope we’re not coming up under the Benthic Explorer,” Suzanne said. “That would be a major problem.”

Everyone’s eyes were riveted to the depth gauge. It passed through one thousand feet and showed no sign of slowing. Five hundred feet shot by. As it passed one hundred feet Donald said urgently: “Hold on! We’re going to broach badly.”

“What does ‘broach’ mean?” Perry yelled. He heard the desperation in Donald’s voice, and it sent a new chill through him.

“It means we’re going to leap out of the water!” Suzanne shouted. Then she repeated Donald’s warning. “Hold on!”

As the frantic whirring of the depth gauge reached a crescendo, Perry, Donald, and Suzanne once again grabbed their seats and held tight. Holding their breath they braced themselves for the impact. The depth gauge reached zero and stopped.

Immediately following that final click of the gauge, a loud sucking noise emanated from somewhere outside the craft. After that, comparative silence reigned within the sub. Now the only sound was a combination of the ventilation fan and an augmented but still muffled electronic whir of the propulsion system.

Almost a minute passed without the slightest sensation of movement.

Finally Perry breathed out. “Well,” he said. “What happened?”

“We can’t be airborne for this long,” Suzanne admitted.

Everyone relaxed their death grips and looked out their respective view ports. It was still as dark as pitch.

“What the hell?” Donald questioned. He looked back at his instruments. The sonar monitors were now filled with meaningless electronic noise. He turned them off. He also dialed down the power to the propulsion system, and its whirring stopped. He looked at Suzanne.

“Don’t ask me,” Suzanne said when their eyes met.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what’s going on.”

“How come it’s dark outside if we’re on the surface?” Perry asked.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Donald said. He looked back at his instruments. Reaching forward, he put power back to the propulsion system. The whirring noise reappeared but there was no motion. The craft stood absolutely still.

“Somebody tell me what’s going on,” Perry demanded. The euphoria he’d felt a few moments earlier had dissipated. They obviously were not on the surface.

“We don’t know what is happening,” Suzanne admitted.

“There’s no resistance to the propeller,” Donald reported. He turned the propulsion system off. The whirring died away for a second time. Now the only sound was the ventilation fan. “I think we are in air.”

“How can we be in air?” Suzanne said. “It’s totally dark and there is no wave action.”

“But it’s the only explanation for the sonar not working and the lack of resistance to the propeller,” Donald said. “And look. The outside temperature has risen to seventy degrees. We’ve got to be in air.”

“If this is the next life, I’m not ready for it,” Perry said.

“You mean we’re out of the water entirely?” Suzanne still had trouble believing it.

“I know it sounds crazy,” Donald admitted. “But it’s the only way I can explain everything, including the fact that the underwater phone doesn’t work.” Donald next tried the radio and had no luck with that either.

“If we’re sitting on dry land,” Suzanne said, “how come we haven’t tipped over? I mean, this hull is a cylinder. If we were on dry land, we’d surely roll over on our side.”

“You’re right!” Donald admitted. “That I can’t explain.”

Suzanne opened an emergency locker between the two pilot seats and pulled out a flashlight. Turning it on, she directed it out her view port. Pressed up against it on the outside was cream-colored, coarse-grained muck.

“At least we know why we didn’t tip over,” Suzanne said. “We’re sitting in a layer of globigerina ooze.”

“Explain!” Perry said. He’d leaned forward to see for himself.

“Globigerina ooze is the most common sediment on the ocean floor,” Suzanne said. “It’s composed mainly of the carcasses of a type of plankton called foraminifera.”

“How can we be sitting in ocean sediment and be in air?” Perry asked.

“That’s the question,” Donald agreed. “We can’t, at least not in any way that I know of.”

“It’s also impossible for globigerina ooze to be this close to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge,” Suzanne said. “That sediment is found in the middle of the abyssal plains. Nothing makes sense.”

“This is absurd!” Donald snapped. “And I don’t like it at all. Wherever we are, we’re stuck!”

“Could we be completely buried in the ooze?” Perry asked hesitantly. If he was right, he did not want to hear the answer.

“No! Not a chance,” Donald said. “If that were the case there would be more resistance to the propeller, not less.”

For a few minutes no one spoke.

“Is there any chance we could be inside the seamount?” Perry asked, finally breaking the silence.

Donald and Suzanne turned to face him.

“How could we be inside a mountain?” Donald asked angrily.

“Hey, I’m only making a suggestion,” Perry said. “Mark told me this morning he had some radar data that suggested the mountain might contain gas, not molten lava.”

“He never mentioned that to me,” Suzanne said.

“He didn’t mention it to anyone,” Perry said. “He wasn’t sure of the data since it was coming from a shallow study of the hard layer we were trying to drill through. It was an extrapolation, and he only mentioned it to me in passing.”

“What kind of gas?” Suzanne asked while her mind tried to imagine how a submerged volcano could become void of water. Geophysically speaking it seemed impossible, although she knew that on land some volcanoes did collapse in on themselves to form calderas.

“He had no idea,” Perry said. “I guess he thought the most promising candidate was steam held in by the extra-hard layer that was giving us so much trouble.”

“Well, it can’t be steam,” Donald said. “Not at a temperature of almost seventy degrees.”

“What about natural gas?” Perry suggested.

“I can’t imagine,” Suzanne said. “This close to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, it’s a geologically young area. There can’t be anything like petroleum or natural gas around here.”

“Then maybe it is air,” Perry said.

“How could it get here?” Suzanne asked.

“You tell me,” Perry said. “You’re the geophysical oceanographer. Not me.”

“If it is air, there is not a natural explanation that I know of,” Suzanne said. “It’s as simple as that.”

The three people stared at each other for a beat.

“I guess we’ll have to crack the hatch and see,” Suzanne said.

“Open the hatch?” Donald questioned. “What if the gas is not breathable or it’s even toxic?”

“Seems to me we have little choice,” Suzanne said. “We have no communications. We’re a fish out of water. We’ve got ten days of life support but what happens after that?”

“Let’s not ask that question,” Perry said nervously. “I say we crack the hatch.”

“All right!” Donald said with resignation. “As captain I’ll do it.” He stood up from his pilot’s seat and took a giant step over the central console. Perry leaned out of the way so that Donald could pass.

Donald climbed up inside the sail. He paused while Suzanne and Perry positioned themselves just underneath him.

“Why don’t you just undog it but not open it,” Suzanne offered. “Then see if you smell anything.”

“Good idea,” Donald said. He took Suzanne’s suggestion, grabbing the central wheel and turning it. The sealing bolts retracted into the hatch’s body.

“Well?” Suzanne called up after a few moments. “Smell anything?”

“Just some dampness,” Donald said. “I guess I’ll go for it.”

Donald cracked the hatch for a brief moment and sniffed.

“What do you think?” Suzanne asked.

“Seems okay,” Donald said with relief. He opened the hatch about an inch and smelled the damp air that flowed in. When he was satisfied it was as safe as he could determine, he pushed the hatch all the way up and poked his head out the top. The air had the salty dampness of a beach at low tide.

Donald slowly rotated his head through 360 degrees, straining his eyes in the darkness. He saw absolutely nothing but intuitively he knew that it was a big space. He was staring into a silent, alien blackness as frightening as it was vast.

Poking his head back inside the submersible, he asked for the flashlight.

Suzanne got it for him, and as she handed it up she asked what he’d seen.

“A whole lot of nothing,” he replied.

Reemerging from the hatch, Donald shined the flashlight in the distance. The mud stretched away in all directions as far as the light could penetrate. A few isolated mirrorlike puddles of water reflected back at him.

“Hello!” Donald called after cupping his hands around his mouth. He waited. A slight echo seemed to come from the direction of the Oceanus’s bow. Donald yelled again; a distinct echo came back in what he estimated to be around three or four seconds.

Donald climbed back down into the submersible after lowering the hatch. The others looked at him expectantly.

“This is the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.

“We’re in some kind of cavern that apparently was recently filled with water.”

“But now it’s filled with air,” Suzanne said.

“It’s definitely air,” Donald said. “Beyond that, I don’t know what to think. Maybe Mr. Bergman is right. Maybe we’ve somehow been pulled inside the seamount.”

“The name is Perry, for chrissake,” Perry said. “Give me the light! I’m going to take a look.” He took the flashlight from Donald and clumsily climbed the ladder up through the sub’s sail. He had to hook one elbow around the top rung and jam the flashlight into his pocket to raise the heavy, wedged-shaped hatch.

“My god!” Perry exclaimed after he had imitated Donald’s actions, including testing for echoes. He climbed back down but left the hatch ajar. He handed the flashlight to Suzanne, who took her turn.

When Suzanne returned the three looked at each other and shook their heads. None of them had an explanation although each hoped one of the others might.

“I suppose it goes without saying,” Donald began, breaking an uncomfortable silence, “we’re in a difficult situation to say the least. We cannot expect any help from the Benthic Explorer. With the series of earthquakes, they’ll naturally assume we suffered some kind of disaster. They might send down one of the camera sleds, but it’s not going to find us in here, wherever the hell we are. In short, we’re on our own with no communication and little food and water. So…” Donald paused as if thinking.

“So, what do you suggest?” Suzanne asked.

“I suggest we go out and reconnoiter,” Donald said.

“What if this cavern, or whatever it is, floods again?” Perry questioned.

“It seems to me we have to take the chance,” Donald said. “I’ll be willing to go on my own. It’s up to you if you want to join me.”

“I’ll go,” Suzanne said. “It’s better than just sitting here and doing nothing.”

“I’m not staying here by myself,” Perry announced.

“Okay,” Donald said. “We have two more flashlights. Let’s take them but only use one to conserve the batteries.”

“I’ll get them,” Suzanne said.

Donald was the first one out. He used the ladder rungs mounted on the side of the sail and the hull to climb down. The rungs were there to provide access to the submersible when it was in its chocks on the afterdeck of the Benthic Explorer.

Standing on the final rung, Donald shined the light down at the ground. Gauging how deep the Oceanus had sunk, he estimated the mud was twenty to twenty-four inches deep.

“Is something the matter?” Suzanne asked. She was the second one out and could see that Donald was hesitating.

“I’m trying to guess how deep the muck is,” he said. Still holding on to a rung, he lowered his right foot. It disappeared into the ooze. It wasn’t until the mud reached the lower edge of his kneecap that he felt solid ground.

“This is not going to be pleasant,” he reported. “The mud is knee-deep.”

“Let’s hope that’s our only problem,” Suzanne said.

A few minutes later the three were standing in the mud. Save for a slight glow emanating from the open submersible hatch, the only light came from Donald’s flashlight. It cast a meager cone of light in the utter blackness. Suzanne and Perry carried flashlights, too, but as Donald had suggested, they were not turned on. There was no sound in the vast dark space. To conserve the submersible’s batteries, Donald had turned off most everything in the sub, even the ventilation fan. He’d left on one light to serve as a beacon to help them find the sub again if they wandered too far afield.

“This is intimidating,” Suzanne said with a shudder.

“I think I’d use a stronger word,” Perry said. “What’s our game plan?”

“That’s open to discussion,” Donald said. “My suggestion is we head in the direction the Oceanus is pointing. That seems to be the closest wall, at least according to my echo.” He looked at his compass. “It’s pretty much due west.”

“Seems like a reasonable plan to me,” Suzanne said.

“Let’s go,” Perry said.

The group set out with Donald in the lead followed by Suzanne. Perry brought up the rear. It was difficult walking in the deep mud and the smell was mildly offensive.

There was no talk. Each was acutely aware of the precariousness of the situation, especially the farther they got from the submersible. After ten minutes Perry insisted they pause. They had not come to any wall, and his courage had waned.

“Walking in this muck is not easy,” Perry said, avoiding the real issue. “And it also stinks.”

“How far do you think we’ve gone?” Suzanne asked. Like the others she was out of breath from exertion.

Donald turned and looked back at the submersible, which was no more than a smudge of light in the inky blackness. “Not that far,” he said. “Maybe a hundred yards.”

“I would have said a mile, the way my legs feel,” Suzanne remarked.

“How much farther to this supposed wall?” Perry asked.

Donald yelled again in the direction they were going. The echo came back in a couple of seconds. “I’d guess somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred yards.”

Sudden movement and a series of slapping sounds in the darkness to their immediate left made them all jump. Donald whipped the light around and shined it in the direction of the noise. A stranded fish made a few more agonal flip-flops against the wet mud.

“Oh, my gosh, that scared the bejesus out of me,” Suzanne admitted. Her hand was pressed against her chest. Her heart was racing.

“You and me both,” Perry confessed.

“We’re all understandably on edge,” Donald said. “If you two want to go back, I’ll continue the reconnoiter myself.”

“No, I’ll stick it out,” Suzanne said.

“Me, too,” Perry said. The idea of returning to the submersible by himself was worse than forging ahead through the mire.

“Then, let’s move out,” Donald said. He started off again and the others fell in behind him.

The group slogged ahead in silence. Each step into the unknown blackness ratcheted up their fears and anxiety. The submersible behind them was being swallowed up in the darkness. After another ten minutes they were all as tense as a piano wire about to snap, and that was when the alarm sounded.

The short burst of sound crashed out of the stillness like cannon fire. At first the group froze in their tracks, frantically attempting to determine from which direction the alarm had come. But with the multiple echoes it was impossible to tell. In the next instant they were all slogging their way back toward the submersible.

It was flight in full panic; a mad dash for supposed safety. Unfortunately, the mud did not cooperate. All three tripped almost immediately and fell headfirst into the odious ooze. Regaining their feet, they tried to run again, with the same result.

Without a word to establish consensus, they resigned themselves to a slower gait. After a few minutes, their lack of significant headway made the futility of their flight apparent. Since there had been no surge of water refilling the cavern, all three stopped within steps of each other, their chests heaving.

The multiple echoes from the horrendous alarm died out and in their wake the preternatural stillness returned. Once again it settled back over the inky darkness like the smothering blanket in Perry’s nightmare.

Suzanne raised her hands. The muck, which she knew was a combination of planktonic carcasses and feces of innumerable worms, dripped from her fingers. She wanted desperately to wipe her eyes, but she didn’t dare. Donald, who was slightly ahead, turned to face Suzanne and Perry. Mud was streaked across the glass of his flashlight, reducing its effect so that he was lost in shadow to the others. They could just make out the whites of his eyes.

“What in God’s name was that alarm?” Suzanne managed. She spit some grainy debris from her mouth. She didn’t want to think of what it might have been.

“I was afraid it meant the water was returning,” Perry admitted.

“Regardless of what its actual meaning is,” Donald said, “for us it has an overarching significance.”

“What are you talking about?” Perry questioned.

“I know what he means,” Suzanne said. “He means that this is no natural geological formation.”

“Exactly!” Donald said. “It’s got to be a remnant of the Cold War. And since I had top-secret clearance in the United States submarine service, I can tell you it’s not our installation. It has to be Russian!”

“You mean like some kind of secret base?” Perry asked. He glanced around the black void, now more awestruck than frightened.

“That’s the only thing I can imagine,” Donald said. “Some kind of nuclear submarine facility.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Suzanne said. “And if it is, our future is suddenly significantly brighter.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Donald said. “First, it’s going to make a difference only if somebody is still manning the facility. If there is, then our next worry has to be how much they want to keep it a secret.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Suzanne admitted.

“But the Cold War is over,” Perry said. “Surely we don’t have to worry about that old cloak-and-dagger stuff.”

“There are people in the Russian military who feel differently,” Donald said. “I know because I have met them.”

“So what do you think we should do at this point?” Suzanne asked.

“I think that question has just been answered for us,” Donald said. He raised his free hand and pointed over the shoulders of the others. “Look over there, in the direction we were going before the alarm sounded!”

Suzanne and Perry spun around. About a quarter of a mile away a single door was slowly opening inward into the blackness. Bright artificial light spilled from the room beyond into the dark cavern, forming a line of reflection that extended to their feet. The trio was too far away to see any interior details, but they could tell the light was intense.

“So much for the question whether the facility is manned or not,” Donald said. “Obviously, we are not alone. Now the question becomes how happy they are to see us.”

“Do you think we should walk over there?” Perry asked.

“We don’t have much choice,” Donald said. “We’ll have to go at some point.”

“Why didn’t they just come in here and meet us in person?” Suzanne asked.

“A good question,” Donald said. “Maybe it has something to do with the welcome they are planning for us.”

“I’m getting scared again,” Suzanne said. “This is very bizarre.”

“I’ve never stopped being scared,” Perry admitted.

“Let’s go meet our captors,” Donald said. “And let’s hope they don’t consider us spies-and that they are familiar with the terms of the Geneva Convention.”

Straightening himself, Donald started forward, seemingly oblivious to the mud sucking at his feet. He passed his two companions, who had to admire his courage and leadership.

Perry and Suzanne hesitated for a moment before falling in behind the retired naval commander. Neither spoke as they resignedly trudged in his footsteps toward the beckoning door. They had no idea whether it would provide deliverance or further trials, but as Donald had said, they did not have any choice.