Chapter 1
WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE Kent peered at the instrument panel, skepticism clearly showing on his face. He ran both hands through his short blonde hair and let go a heavy breath. One hand slid down to his face to scratch at six day old stubble. The other arm fell heavily to his side, banging the arm of his chair on the way down. "Ow! God, mother--" he exclaimed, clutching at the offending joint. He sighed again, rubbed his face, and took a breath. "Damn. What sector are we on, Jer?" "Thirteen, boss. We are showing no positive signs of any mineable deposits, no thermals, no gas emissions, and no bacterial traces. Instruments show we aren't likely to hit anything until grid 212, which are sectors... twenty through fifty." "I know what the damned sensors say, Jerry, I've been staring at the readouts for eleven hours!" "So have we, boss." "I know. Sorry. Just getting kind of cramped in here, you know?" "Yeah," answered Jerry as he took off his thick glasses and cleaned them with his shirt. "Cramped and hot." "And stuffy. Sarah, how's the air?" "Three hours, give or take. We're maintaining a thirty minute range to the feed, so that gives us a little over two hours before we have to beg off and plug in--Jerry, where's that put us?" Jerry put his glasses back on and keyed in some commands with his console. He stroked his graying red beard as the results scrolled across his screen. "It looks like we'll be around sectors thirty-one and thirty-two by then. Right around there." Kent glanced at his screen to confirm the details. "So we'll be well into grid 212. Ok, good, good. Sarah, what's the feed integrity looking like where we're gonna hit her up?" "Gimmie a sec." She brushed long black hair out of her face and flipped the screen switch on her console, then typed in a few commands. Blue light flashed beyond the portholes, dim survivor of the display from the magnetic storms up on the surface. The lightning was actually purple, but the red light never made it down this far. The deep whir of the submersible's engines droned on, nearly lulling in its monotony. Bulbs blinked, needles twitched, and the displays showed the same old barren stretch of lifeless, resourceless sand illuminated by their floodlights. "Today, Sarah," Kent said. "What, you in a hurry? We got a three hour wait, either way." "Not if the feed integrity is too low, we don't." "It won't be." "But what if it is?" "I said, it won't be." "Is that your intuition, or your instruments talking?" "Shut up, Jerry." Kent shifted anxiously in his chair and stared at the screen of his console, hoping against his better judgment that something would show up that the sensors had missed. "Sector fourteen. Sensors say there's a five foot drop coming. Adjust depth?" "No," Kent said, "five feet won't matter for visibility. There's nothing here anyway." Jerry leaned forward and rested his chin on the palm of his hand. "Don't be so negative, Will--" Sarah's console beeped and her eyes snapped back to her screen. "Got it! Feed integrity at rendezvous will be... thirty-three percent." "Jesus," Jerry muttered over the fingers on his face. "Dammit! God Dammit!" "I tried to tell you, Sarah." "I don't want to hear it, Kent," Sarah shouted. "Don't want to hear it? If I didn't tell you to run that analysis, we wouldn't have found out until we got there, which would have cost us time, and money, and--" "Like I would have waited that long to run it, what am I, stupid? And so what if you had to tell me, you're the captain, aren't you? Isn't that your job?" "Oh," Kent said, jumping to his feet. He jerked a thumb at his own chest. "Excuse me if I want a little bit of control over my own damned ship!" "You two ought to be married," Jerry said. "Shut up, Jerry," Kent and Sarah both shouted together. "Alright," Kent said, "take a breath. Everyone just take a breath. We're tired, and we're stressed... but we have a decision to make." "There's nothing to decide, boss. At thirty-three percent integrity in the line, we're looking at ninety minutes minimum before the scrubbers and filters make incoming air breathable and non-toxic." He stopped long enough to smooth his beard and lick his lips. "We need to head for the feed in the next hour, and that's if we want to push it. Forty-five minutes would be safer." "No, no that's not right," Sarah said. "'We won't be at the same rendezvous then, we'd be looking at a different integrity." "Sarah's right, Jer. We have three hours before we're out of air, right? So what's the feed integrity here? Run the numbers, Sarah." "Fine. Won't take long, it's close." Keys clacked, and strings of text scrolled down her screen. "So, what are you thinking, boss?" "I'm thinking I don't want the whole day to be a loss. If integrity is good enough here, we might be able to get another hour or so, then just turn around and slice the angles on the rendezvous. We can run at 1.5 speed until we hit sector twenty, that way we at least scratch the surface of 212 before turning around." Jerry folded his arms, clearly disapproving of the notion. "Sure, that could work. We would only need, uh, about sixty percent integrity to make clean air in under an hour. Give or take five percent. But--" "We got it", Sarah said, a note of triumph in her voice. "Feed integrity is seventy-two percent at the nearest possible rendezvous." "So that gives us, what, eighty minutes? Ninety?" "No good; ninety there is ninety back, boss. I say we just stick to an hour." "Come on, we can easily make at least eighty minutes both ways." "I'm telling you, it's not safe! If everything went according to plan, we would just make it, but we need a wider cushion. How many times we gonna have this argument, boss?" "Sure about that 'boss' part? Come on, Jer, this is the big money we're talking about. No one's ever been out this way with the kind of equipment we have, and there have been numerous reports of anomalous readings from nearby expeditions. There's something big here, guys! Something that will make us all extremely wealthy." "You pay him to keep us alive, Will, not to follow your orders, and not to make you money." "Us, Sarah, I said us." "Whatever. Rich and dead isn't any better than poor and dead. Sorry, I'm with Jerry on this one." Kent rubbed at his neck and sighed. "God, fine. You people have no ambition, I swear." "I have a very strong and serious ambition, Will: Keep breathing." "Yeah, yeah," Kent said, rolling his eyes. "Okay, so we go for one hour. Then we head back." ===_-_-_-_=== “Did you run thermals?” “I ran the thermals.” “And you checked for deposits?” “Yes, I checked for deposits.” “What about gases, did you scan for gases?” “Three times.” “And light imaging? Do you have any idea how many elements respon--“ “I ran everything! There’s nothing there, boss. There’s nothing.” Kent threw his clipboard to the ground. “What the hell, man!” They had been on their way back for around thirty minutes, now. Nothing. Despite making it to grid 212, all their expensive equipment had might as well have been screen doors for all it showed them. “I don’t understand. No one’s been out here with anything other than visual.” “These aren’t pristine waters, Will. We’re too close to the feed. You have to consider when it was built, we have no idea what kind of machinery was behind that or how they cleared the area, and we have even less ideas to what extent the sea floor was explored before then.” “She’s right, boss.” Kent kicked his clipboard across the floor and it deflected off of his console. “Yeah, I know! She is…” He stalked over to Jerry’s console, folded his arms and leaned in so that they were nearly face to face. “What about you, huh, Jer? Were you right? I mean, to be out in grid 212 and find nothing at all, well, that makes me ask myself if you didn’t make a mistake!” “You’re unbelievable, you know that? I don’t make mistakes, at least not like that I don’t.” “Really.” “Yes,” Jerry said as he stood up, “really.” He turned and walked towards the break room. “Where are you going?” “Where do you think, genius? I’m taking my break!” The door slammed shut behind him. Kent went back to his console and flopped down in his chair. He heard Sarah let out a long slow breath from her console. “Smooth, Will. We go at each other all the time, but now Jerry’s mad at you. Way to go.” “What about me, huh? I’m pretty pissed here too, I’m the one losing money. You two get paid either way.” “There’s always the next dive.” “It’s always the next dive, Sarah, never this one. I’m starting to feel like it’s a waste of time. I mean, if we don’t find something soon, what the hell have I been doing with my life?” “Hey, we’ll find it. The Ocean’s a big place.” “Not as big as it used to be.” “Not as full as it used to be, you mean.” Kent laughed a brief, humorless chuckle. “Yeah, of course that’s what I meant. It doesn’t get much bigger than the whole world, does it?” “Do you even know what you would do with all that money you’re trying so hard to get?” “Sure. I would never have to worry again, that’s one thing. But I have plans… upgrade to a higher floor, eat real foods whenever I want. Buy a better sky sim--a realistic one. Hell, maybe even get a penthouse in the Peaks Colony. I hear at some times of the year, there’s a view of real sky. It’s mostly stars, but it’s real, Sarah. I want to see that in my lifetime.” “Sounds nice.” “What about you?” “My share? Oh, I don’t know…” The amber light on Jerry’s console started flashing and beeping. Kent jumped up and slammed down the all stop button, then switched on the comm. “Amber light, Jerry, get in here!” The submersible lurched slightly, and the pitch of the engines dropped as they wound down. Sarah was already at Jerry’s console, checking the data. He caught up to her and leaned on the console for a better view. “Get me a visual.” “Working on it.” The door opened and Jerry ran in. “Move!” “Two seconds, Jer, Sarah’s getting a visual.” “She can do it from her own console, you want to know what this thing is or not?” “I want to see the damn thing first.” The display screen panned up and down along the featureless sand of the sea floor. “Where the hell is it?” “I don’t know, I’m having a hard time finding it. Jerry’s board is… weird.” “I’ll get your damn visual, just stop messing up my settings and move!" They made room for Jerry, and he went to work. Within seconds, various charts and graphs displayed on his monitors. “Now that I’ve locked on for a scan, I can get the camera there. Check your boards.” They did. Kent’s screen still showed nothing but sand. “We gonna have to dig, Jer?” “Looks like it, boss, but only a couple of feet. I’ll send out the arm.” “Yeah, do that. Hey, what sector is this?” “Uh… seventeen, boss. Extending arm. Man, these results are strange, guys.” “Why didn’t we hit it on the way out? And define strange.” “Well, we did. We just did a basic scan on the other side of the sector, ‘cause we were trying to make good time, remember? It wasn’t until we got to grid 212 that we got thorough. We sliced the corners on the way back, and hit this sector on the opposite side.” “Ok. And our strange sample?” “It looks like a deposit of some kind… probably an old meteor, or possibly a rift formation. A lot of basic elements are there; carbon, iron, sulfites, etc… but there are elements that aren’t recognized.” “Whoa, weird.” “Wait, what do you mean, unrecognized?” “What he means, Will, is that there’s this chart, right? And all the known elements are on it.” “I know about the damn table--what, you’re saying there’s elements in this thing that aren’t on it?” “Bingo.” “So… this is something rare then… right?” “Rare? Well, I’d have to get a good look at it to be absolutely sure it isn’t a sensor glitch or the like, but assuming it checks out, forget rare. This thing is undiscovered, whatever it is.” A light bulb seemed to go off over Jerry’s head then. Sarah started nodding. “How much would something like that be worth to the scientific community?” Kent tried to stifle a giggle, but between his exhaustion, how stressed he was, and this new excitement, he was finding it difficult. “Oh… lots.” “Are you telling me we’re gonna be rich, Jer?” “I think I am, boss. I think we are.” He did laugh then. “We’re gonna be rich!” They all laughed; they laughed, they shouted and cheered, they hugged each other. “I can’t believe it, man--Jerry, you are forgiven.” “Wait, what, I’m forgiven? Me? Oh, whatever, you know what, we’re rich, I don’t care, forgive me all you want.” Kent grabbed his coat and headed for the sample room. “Whoa, Will, where are you going?” “Downstairs, Sarah. I want to see it. Jerry, bring it up with the arm.” “Well, that is the plan, but you can’t be down there, boss. It has unknown elements, we have no idea the danger--” “I’ll wear a containment suit.” “William H. Kent,” Sarah admonished, her voice stern. “No. Listen to Jerry for once, this thing could have a lead layer hiding a pocket of acid for all we know.” “Regulations with unknown elements state we bring it in, boss. Until pros look at it, we can’t be in the same room. This is my job, damn it, let me do it.” Kent controlled an urge to slam his fist on the door. “Jerry… Jer, come on, man. You just redeemed yourself, don’t ruin it. Who’s gonna know?” “How about everyone I tell?” “Ok, you know what? For the sake of our friendship, I’m gonna forget you just said that. This is my ship, I’m looking at it, and I’m ordering you to bring it up. I don’t care if you’re paid to follow my orders or not; follow this one, or I’m not paying you for anything anymore.” Jerry sighed. “I’m following it under protest.” “Noted.” “Fine.” Jerry turned to his board and started manipulating the arm. Kent glanced at Sarah, but she was avoiding eye contact with him. He hoped she’d cool off in time. They both would, when they were cashing large checks for their share of the find. He went below to the sample room. ===_-_-_-_=== The containment suit was tight, and the air was even staler than the usual fare. Kent ignored that. He pressed a button, and the floor of the small cramped room opened up to reveal seawater below. The steel sample cage rose up on hydraulic lifters, filling a third of the room. He pressed another button, and the front panel of the five by five cage slid to the side, revealing a basket with mud and a large lump of rock. “You’re right, Jer, it looks like a meteor.” You’ve seen it, Jerry’s voice said over the comm., are you happy? “Not yet. I’ve been waiting too long for this to back down now.” Kent reached out and touched the surface of the deposit. He wasn’t sure he knew what his next thought was going to be, but whatever it was, he lost it. He felt a chill on his back, and his legs suddenly felt stiff. He tried to fight off disorientation, but his mind was spacey. “What just… what…?” Boss? “Jerry?” Look, I know this is important to you, but it’s not just yourself you could be putting at risk. Please let me at least run a few more tests before you just crack it open. Kent let go of the deposit and tried to shrug the weird feeling off. He hadn’t slept in a long time, his nerves were jumpy, and he was making bad decisions. His imagination had to be playing tricks on him. He was just tired, that was all. Maybe if he slept on it, he would have a better answer. Come on, boss, what do you say? Chapter 2 |
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