The Storm

CHAPTER 19

OUT OVER THE INDIAN OCEAN, MARCHETTI HAD PUT THE airship into a slight climb, brought it up to an altitude of a hundred feet and slowed it considerably. To make the design as sleek as it was required some compromises, one of which meant the craft didn’t have quite enough buoyancy to float without some forward motion providing lift.

As the engine cut out and they started drifting, the passengers grew nervous.

“We’re still sinking,” Gamay said. Seventy feet below the sea was calm and dark. If she was right and that darkness was related to the microbots swarming beneath the surface, she had no desire to land on it.

“Just a second,” Marchetti said.

He threw a lever, and compartments at either end of the airship sprang open like he’d popped the trunk and hood of his car at the same moment. The hissing of high-pressure gas followed, and two additional balloons sprang forth from the hatches. They floated upward, quickly filling to capacity with helium and snapping their tether lines taut. As they inflated, the sinking slowed and then stopped.

“I call them air anchors,” Marchetti said proudly. “We’ll deflate them once we get moving again. But in the meantime, they keep us from ending up in the drink.”

Gamay was relieved to hear that. Around her, Leilani and Paul both exhaled.

“I guess we should break out the sampling kit,” Paul said.

The airship stabilized at forty feet. By releasing small amounts of helium, Marchetti coaxed it down to five feet and then set its buoyancy at neutral.

“Close enough?” he asked.

Paul nodded as he climbed toward the aft platform with the telescoping sample collector.

“Be careful,” Leilani said, looking as if she didn’t want to go anywhere near the edge.

“I second that,” Gamay added. “It’s taken me years to train you. I’d hate to start over with a new husband.”

Paul chuckled. “And chances are, you’d never find one as handsome and debonair as me.”

Gamay smiled. She’d never find one she loved as much as him, that was for sure.

As Paul reached the edge, Gamay moved up beside him. Knowing what lay below, she wanted to strap him in like a lookout at the top of the crow’s nest, but there was no way to do it, and no real need.

They were in the gyre of the Indian Ocean, near its center, a spot sort of like the eye of a hurricane. Under normal conditions it was “the doldrums,” with no wind or waves to speak of.

The sea below looked oily and flat, the sun blazed down from behind them. It was remarkably calm. Only the slightest of breezes could even be felt, not enough to worry about as they drifted a few feet above the water.

Paul extended the pole and dipped the vial in the water, scooping up a sample. He pulled the vial free and held it over the water, allowing the excess to drip off before reeling it in.

Wearing thick plastic gloves, Gamay took the sample and wiped the outside of the vial with a specially charged microfiber towel that Marchetti said would attract and trap any microbots that might be present.

She didn’t see any residue, but the little suckers were small. A hundred could fit on the head of a pin.

She glanced at the water in the vial.

“It looks clear,” she said.

She capped the vial and placed it in a stainless steel box with a rubber seal, which she wrenched down tight. She put the towel in a matching container.

Gamay and Paul gazed into the waters down below the way people might look over the edge of a dock. A few feet out the water looked normal. But they’d flown over two miles of discolored ocean since the dolphins scattered. It made no sense.

“They’re not on the surface,” Gamay said, realizing the truth. “We can see them, looking straight down, but at any kind of an angle all we can make out is seawater.”

From the cockpit Marchetti agreed. “They’re floating just below. You’ll have to get a deeper sample. If you want, I can take us right down to the—”

“Let’s not do that,” Leilani said. “Please. What if we hit the water or something goes wrong?”

She was in the main part of the cabin, watching over the side but protected by the wall. She looked rather green.

“I’m pretty sure I can get them from here,” Paul said, being his usual accommodating self.

He laid down flat on the deck, his head and shoulders over the edge. He stretched out, using his long arms to great advantage and dipping a second sample vial in as far as he could.

Marchetti edged closer. Gamay did the same.

Paul pulled the sample out. It also looked clear. He dumped it out and tried to stretch even farther.

Leilani began protesting. “I don’t know about this,” she mumbled, sounding terrified. “Do we really want to bring those things on board?”

Kurt had said she was unstable. Now Gamay saw why. Gung ho to come with them and suddenly filled with fear.

“Somebody’s got to do it,” Gamay said.

“Maybe we could just call the Navy or the Coast Guard or something.”

“Hold my legs down,” Paul asked, “I have to take a deeper sample.”

Gamay crouched down and put her hands on the back of Paul’s legs, pressing down with all her weight. She heard Leilani muttering something and backing farther away as if the bots were going to leap out of the water like a crocodile and snatch Paul up.

Paul extended the pole and stretched as far as he could. He dipped it in maybe seven or eight feet. As he raised it above the surface, Gamay could feel the strain on his body. The sample looked dark.

“I think you got some.”

As Paul started to reel in the pole, Leilani started to tremble. She backed up another step.

“It’s okay,” Marchetti said, trying to comfort her.

Just then a loud bang shook the craft. It tilted to the side, and the back end dropped like a covered wagon that had lost a wheel.

Paul slid, hit the sidewall of the deck and almost went overboard. Gamay slid with him, grabbed his belt and wrapped her arm around a strut protruding from the deck.

Leilani screamed and fell but held on to the door of the cabin while Marchetti clung to the steering console.

“Hang on!” Gamay shouted.

“You hang on,” Paul called back. “I have nothing to grab.”

Another bang, and the airship leveled out, but with the back end down even farther, like a dump truck spilling its contents. Gamay held on with all her might. She was physically strong, but keeping Paul’s six-foot-eight, two-hundred-and-forty-pound body from sliding off the platform and dropping into the water was quickly taking its toll. She felt his belt cutting into her fingers.

Behind her, Leilani and Marchetti were trying to help.

“The balloon,” Leilani shouted, pointing to the sky.

Gamay glanced upward. The rear air anchor had come loose and was drifting up toward the heavens like a kid’s balloon lost at the fair. As a result, the airship was sinking toward the water tail first.

“Get us moving!” Gamay shouted.

“On it,” Marchetti said, rushing to the cockpit.

“Leilani, I need help.”

As Marchetti scrambled into the cabin, Leilani crouched beside Gamay and grabbed onto Paul’s leg. The ducted fans up front began to spin, and the airship began to crawl forward. As it did, the strain of holding on to Paul increased.

Gamay felt as if she were going to be ripped loose. She saw Leilani trying to get a better grip.

The airship began to pick up speed, but it was still dropping, the tail end only a foot or so from the water. Paul arched his body in a reverse sit-up to keep his face from hitting the sea.

As the speed picked up, the airship began to level off.

“Now!” Gamay shouted. She pulled with all her might, and, with Leilani’s help, they managed to slide Paul back up to where he’d begun, head and shoulders over the edge. She realized he was still holding the sample pole.

“Drop that thing!” she yelled.

“After going through all this?” Paul said. “I don’t think so.”

By now the speed of the craft was coming on, providing enough lift that Marchetti could level off completely.

As the ship climbed and then flattened, Gamay reeled Paul in and held him tight.

“Paul Trout, if you ever do something like that again, it will be the death of me,” she said.

“And me,” he replied.

“What happened?” he said, looking to Marchetti.

“I have no idea,” he said. “The anchor released somehow. It must have been a glitch or a malfunction of some kind.”

Gamay looked at Paul, thankful to have him with her instead of in the water with those things. It seemed they’d found a horrible bit of bad luck. Or had they?

She began to wonder about Marchetti’s crew. Otero and Matson had been bought. What was to stop any of the others from selling out? She kept the thought to herself, looked at the dark sample they’d recovered and tried to remind herself that aside from Paul there was no one she could trust implicitly.