Deep Storm

35

The last time Crane had been on deck 7-less than five hours before-the scientific level had been in its usual state of orderly bustle. But now when he stepped out of the elevator, he found himself in the midst of sudden chaos. Alarms were blaring; shouts mingled with cries; marines, technicians, and scientists ran past him. There was a feeling in the air very much like panic.

Crane stopped a maintenance worker. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Fire," the man said breathlessly.

Sudden fear lanced through Crane. As a submariner, he had learned to dread fire underwater. "Where?"

"Hyperbaric chamber." And the man freed himself from Crane's grasp and ran off.

Crane's fear redoubled. Asher…

Without another thought, he tore down the hallway.

The hyperbaric suite was full of emergency response crews and rescue workers. As he pushed his way through the crowd, Crane caught the acrid scent of smoke.

"Doctor coming through!" he shouted, forcing himself into the control room. The tiny area was jammed with security personnel. Hopkins, one of the young medical technicians, was at the controls. Commander Korolis stood behind him. As Crane approached, Korolis glanced at him briefly, then returned his gaze to Hopkins without a word.

"What happened?" Crane asked Hopkins.

"Don't know." Sweat poured from Hopkins's forehead as his hands flew over the instrumentation. "I was down the hall in Pathology when the alarm sounded."

"When was that?"

"Two minutes ago, maybe three."

Crane glanced at his watch. It has been less than five minutes since Asher had telephoned him. "You've called in a paramedic team?"

"Yes, sir."

Crane looked through the glass partition toward the hyperbaric chamber itself. As he did so, he saw a gout of flame leap up the chamber porthole.

Jesus! It's still on fire!

"Why hasn't the water deluge system engaged?" he shouted at Hopkins.

"Don't know," the medic repeated, still feverishly working the controls. "Both the primary and backup extinguisher systems have been overridden somehow. They're not responding. I'm doing a crash depressurization now."

"You can't do that!" Crane said. "The chamber would have been at peak pressure!"

It was Korolis who answered. "With the sprinklers out, it's the only way to get the hatch open and extinguishers at the fire."

"The pressure in the chamber was set at two hundred kilopascals. I did it myself. You dump it suddenly, you'll kill Asher."

Korolis raised his eyes once again. "He's dead already."

Crane opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. Whether or not Korolis was right, they could not let the fire continue to burn: if it reached the oxygen tanks, the entire level might be threatened. There was no choice. Crane slammed his fist against the bulkhead in rage and frustration, then forced his way out into the waiting area.

Rescue teams were clustered around the entrance to the chamber, readying extinguishers and snugging oxygen masks over their mouths and noses. A small speaker above the glass partition to the control room squawked into life. "Full decompression in fifteen seconds," came the electrified voice of Hopkins.

The rescue crews checked their equipment, donned their masks.

"Decompression complete," said Hopkins. "Locks disengaging."

With a snap of electronic bolts, the entrance to the chamber sprang open. Immediately, heat and black smoke flooded into the waiting area. The stench of acrid smoke and burnt flesh suddenly became overpowering. Crane turned away involuntarily, eyes welling over with sudden tears. From behind came the sound of running feet, shouted orders, the sharp nasal gush of fire extinguishers.

He turned back. The extinguishers were still going. The crews were inside the cylinder itself now, and the dark plumes of smoke had been replaced by a thick fog of flame retardant. Stepping forward, he clambered into the chamber and forced his way past the rescue workers. Then he stopped abruptly.

Asher was lying on the floor, curled up around his laptop. Marris was lying nearby. They had crouched on the floor in an attempt to avoid the flames and smoke. A futile attempt: Asher's clothes hung in charred flakes from his limbs, and his skin was horribly blackened. His mane of gray hair had been burned away, and the bushy eyebrows singed to tiny curls.

Crane knelt quickly for a gross examination. Then he reconsidered. It seemed inconceivable Asher could have survived. Blood was flowing freely from his ears, but that was the only sign of movement. Barotrauma-the sudden loss of pressure-had ruptured his middle ear. And that would have been the least of the effects: the emergency depressurization would have caused massive gas embolisms, basically carbonating his blood. And the smoke inhalation, the massive third-degree burns…

The suddenness of this tragedy, the loss of a friend, the sheer waste of it all, staggered Crane; and yet part of him almost felt glad Asher was dead. The burns and the embolisms would have left him in unimaginable pain…

The emergency crews were receding now, the palls of fog rolling away. Fire suppressant dripped from every surface. Outside the chamber, Crane heard a scattering of voices as the paramedic team arrived. Gently, he laid a hand on Asher's shoulder. "Good-bye, Howard," he said.

Asher's eyes flew open.

For a moment, Crane thought it was muscle contraction, the nucleotide ATP running down after death. But then the eye fixed itself on him.

"Fluids!" Crane called immediately to the paramedic team. "I need massive saline, now! Ice compresses!"

Slowly-agonizingly-Asher raised a claw that was little more than singed meat on bone. It gripped Crane's shirt collar, pulled him close. The chief scientist struggled to move blackened lips; they cracked with the effort, weeping clear fluid.

"Don't try to talk," Crane said in a low, soothing voice. "Lie still. We'll get you to Medical, get you comfortable."

But Asher would not lie still. His hand tightened around Crane's shirt. "Whip," he said in a desiccated whisper.

An EMT came up behind Crane and, with gloved fingers, began pulling back Asher's charred clothing and prepping an IV. Another one bent over the still form of Marris.

"Relax," Crane told Asher. "You'll be out of here in a moment."

Asher's grip grew tighter still, even as his limbs began to convulse. "Whip…"

He let out a high-pitched gasp and shuddered. His eyes flew up in his skull; there was a gargling in his ruined throat. Then his grip relaxed, his arm slid to the floor, and he spoke no more.