Devil's Gate

11

AS HE STRODE THROUGH THE PASSAGEWAY of the NUMA vessel Matador, Paul Trout had to duck each time he came to a bulkhead and its watertight door. While anyone over six feet had to crouch at the bulkheads or risk a nasty whack of the head, Paul was six-foot-eight in bare feet, with wide shoulders and long limbs. He all but had to contort himself to make it through unscathed.

An avid fisherman who preferred the outdoors, Paul was simply not designed for the tight quarters found inside a modern vessel. Naturally, he spent much of his time in one ship or another, twisting himself into small machinery-filled compartments, bending his spine like a pretzel to fit into submersibles, or even just walking the inner passageways of the ship.

On another day he would have detoured outside onto the main deck before walking the length of the ship, but the Matador was currently operating off the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. It was winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and both the wind and sea were up already.

Climbing through another hatch, Paul reached a more spacious compartment. He peered inside. The dimly lit room was quiet, with most of the light coming from glowing dials, backlit keyboards, and a trio of high-definition, flat-screen monitors.

A pair of scruffy-looking researchers sat in front of the outboard monitors, while in between them, on a plate of backlit glass marked with a grid, stood a shapely woman with hands outstretched as if she were balancing on a tightrope. A visor covered her eyes and held her wine red hair like a band, while strange-looking gauntlets with wires running from them encased her hands. On her feet a set of high-tech boots sprouted wires of their own, all of which ran to a large computer a few feet behind her.

Paul smiled to himself as he watched his wife, Gamay. She looked like a robotic ballerina. She moved her head to the right, and the picture on the monitors moved similarly, bright lights illuminating a smooth, sediment-covered surface with a jagged hole in what had once been the hull of a British naval vessel.

“Gentlemen,” she said, “there’s the entry point of the Exocet missile that sank your proud ship.”

“It doesn’t look all that bad, really,” one of the men said, his English accent as thick as his beard.

The Sheffield was the first major British casualty of the Falklands War, hit by a French-made missile that didn’t detonate but still ignited fires that raged throughout the ship.

She survived for six days after the attack before sinking during an attempt to tow her to port.

“Bloody French,” the other Englishman said. “Probably just getting back at us for Waterloo and Trafalgar.”

The bearded man laughed. “Actually, they went to great lengths to tell us the weaknesses of these missiles, and that helped us stop them, but I’d have preferred if they’d been a wee bit more cautious about who they sold them to in the first place.”

He pointed to the opening. “Can you take it inside?”

“Sure,” Gamay said.

She moved her right hand and closed her fingers on an invisible control knob. A second later the sediment stirred up a bit, and the camera began to move closer to the gaping wound on the ship’s hull.

Paul glanced at one of the displays on the wall. In a visual depiction reminiscent of a First Person Shooter video game, he saw what Gamay saw in her visor: a control panel and various gauges measuring depth, pressure, temperature, and both horizontal and vertical orientation.

He also saw a second screen that displayed a view from several feet behind the vessel she was piloting. Again it looked like a video game on the screen, as a small, almost human-shaped robotic figure moved forward toward the shattered hull plating.

“Detaching umbilical,” Gamay said.

Much smaller than a standard ROV, and shaped more like a person than an undersea vessel, the figure was known by the incredibly awkward name Robotic Advanced Person-shaped Underwater Zero-connection Explorer. Because the acronym shortened to RAPUNZE, the test team had taken to calling the little figure Rapunzel. And this moment, when it disconnected from all surface connectivity, was considered Rapunzel “letting down her hair.”

Under normal circumstances, Rapunzel could release the mile-long umbilical cord that kept her connected to the Matador and operate on her own in environments where cords, wires, and anything else trailing could be a hazard. Powered by batteries that would last three hours untethered, she was propelled by an impeller located in what would have been her belly. Fully gimballed, it could be rotated three hundred sixty degrees in any direction, allowing her to move up, down, sideways, backward, or any combination in between.

Because she was human shaped, she could bend and move into places a normal ROV could not go. She could even shrink, retracting her arms and legs so that she took up no more space than a beach ball with a light and video camera on top.

By using the virtual reality setup and force-feedback boots and gloves, the designers made it possible to operate Rapunzel as if a human were down there doing the work herself. It was expected this would be a huge boon to the salvage world, keeping divers out of dangerous wrecks and allowing exploration into wrecks long considered too dangerous or too deep to get at.

Exploring the Sheffield was to be Rapunzel’s coming-out party, but something was wrong. A red warning light flashed repeatedly on one of the keyboards and also in the virtual cockpit. The umbilical would not disconnect.

“Let me try this again,” Gamay said, resetting the sequence.

Paul stepped in quietly. “Don’t mean to interrupt,” he said, “but I’m afraid Rapunzel has to come back home for dinner.”

“Is that my wonderful husband out there?” Gamay said, still fiddling with imaginary controls.

“It is. We have a storm brewing up,” Paul explained, his northeastern accent turning the word storm into something that sounded more like “stahm.” “We need to batten down the ship and head north before it turns into a full-blown gale.”

Gamay’s shoulders slumped a bit. It didn’t matter anyway, the umbilical would not release, and they couldn’t send Rapunzel inside the ship with the cords still attached. She pressed some other switches. An icon labeled “Auto Return” popped up on screen, and Gamay’s virtual hand reached out and touched it.

Rapunzel began to pull away from the Sheffield and then ascend through the depths. The LEDs on Gamay’s gloves and boots went dark. She took off her visor and blinked at Paul. She stepped toward him and almost lost her balance.

Paul caught her. “You all right?”

“It’s a little disorienting to come out,” she said. She blinked a few more times as if trying to refocus on the real world, then smiled at him.

He smiled back, still wondering how he’d been lucky enough to find someone so pretty and perfect for him.

“How was it?” he asked.

“Just like being down there,” she said. “Except I’m not wet and cold, and I can go have lunch with you while Rapunzel makes the fifteen-minute journey back up from the bottom.”

She reached over and kissed him.

“Umm-hmm,” one of the Englishman coughed.

“Sorry,” she said, turning back to them. “I’d say Rapunzel is going to be a huge plus for us. We’ll get the bugs worked out while the storm hits and then drop her down and try it again.”

“Actually,” Paul said, “we won’t. At least, not until October.”

“Weather getting too rough for you, old boy?” the Englishman asked. “When I was a kid, we’d go through this kind of chop in a motor launch.”

Paul had no doubt the man was telling the truth — he was a twenty-five-year vet of the RN before he’d retired a decade ago. He’d been on the Sheffield when it had taken that lethal hit.

“I guess it is,” Paul said, going with the thought. “We’re heading north. Once we’re through the storm, a helicopter will be coming in to pick you guys up. I guess it’s back to England from there. I’ll be sure they have tea on board.”

“Ha,” the bearded man said. “Very good of you.”

The two Englishmen stood. “I guess we saw what we came to see. Would love an invite when you come back.”

“Of course,” Gamay said. They shook her hand and moved off, making their way down the hall far more easily than Paul had come up minutes before.

Gamay eyed them. “Leaving a site because of a storm that will blow over in a few days?” she said suspiciously.

“Seemed a good excuse to give our guests,” Paul replied.

“What gives?” she asked. “And don’t lie to me, you’ll sleep alone tonight.”

“You know that tanker that went down the other day? Kurt was there when it happened, even rescued the captain’s wife.”

“Of course,” she said. “Trouble finds him.”

Paul laughed. Trouble did have a way of looking Kurt Austin up and coming to visit. Paul and Gamay had often been part of whatever followed. Seemed like this would be no exception.

“Well, there’s more to the sinking than the press has been told,” he explained.

“Like?”

“Pirates killing the crew and deliberately scuttling the ship,” Paul said.

“Doesn’t sound right, does it?” Gamay said.

“Nope,” he said. “Not to Kurt or Dirk, or even the insurance company. With their permission, Dirk has asked us to take Rapunzel over and take a look.”

Gamay took her robotic gloves off and sat down to undo her boots. “Sounds simple enough,” she said. “Why do you look concerned?”

“Because Dirk told me to be concerned,” Paul said. “He figures someone went to great lengths to hide whatever happened on that ship. And that being the case, whoever they are, they might get a little upset with the likes of us poking around.”

She reached out and took his hand.

“Do you think you can get Rapunzel inside a sunken ship?” he asked.

“Would have liked to finish the test,” she said, “but yes, I think we can get her inside.”