Readers may note that the
internal descriptions of the Seaview differ somewhat from what was seen
on the series, along with some of the equipment. This is deliberate. Rather
than wrestle with the myriad of inconsistencies in Irwin Allen’s design, I’ve
combined features from the design of the boat in the first season with elements
from the second season and integrated those with real world science and
technology appropriate to the time period of the mid 1970s. This story is part
of my Cross Currents series, but takes place before the events in Encounter
51.
Rapture of the Deep
By T. Storm
Lt. Commander Chip Morton,
executive officer of the research submarine Seaview, tapped the cover of
the exterior water temperature readout with his finger and frowned. The water
was far too warm for this three thousand foot depth. He looked over at Stu
Riley, who had been monitoring this station.
“Are you sure the sensor is
reading properly?”
The young blond haired seaman
nodded. “Yessir. I checked the backup sensor and it reads the same. That‘s when
I called you, sir.”
“Very well, Riley.”
Morton leaned over and picked
up the intercom hand-mike and clicked it. “Admiral, we’ve encountered a
temperature anomaly in the water.”
“Come to a stop. I’ll be down
to see what we’ve got.”
“Aye, sir.” Morton clicked
the mike again. “Maneuvering, come to a dead stop. Assume station keeping until
further notice.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” came the
reply over the intercom.
A motion at the other end of
the control room drew Morton’s attention. It proved to be the Seaview’s
tall dark haired captain, Lee Crane. He moved with easy catlike grace over to
the plotting table where the XO had been standing before the temperature
anomaly had been detected.
“Is there a problem, Mr.
Morton?” he inquired as he cast an experienced eye over the stations in the
control room. He really didn’t think there was; the crew was too relaxed for
the order to come to a stop to be the result of any kind of problem.
The tall blond officer shook
his head. “No, Lee. We’ve encountered a temperature anomaly in the water column and the Admiral wants to
investigate.”
Crane almost, but not quite,
rolled his eyes. Unlike some of Seaview’s previous missions, this one
had so far been rather tame - one might even say boring. He was about to make a
comment on it, but the hatch at the forward end of the control room opened to
admit Seaview’s designer and builder, Admiral Harriman Nelson. The
short, stocky red-haired officer moved briskly over to the station where Morton
stood with Riley. He peered at the temperature readout and raised his eyebrows.
Definitely above normal. He turned to Crane.
“Lee, I need some water
samples. I’ll be setting up in the lab to run analysis.”
As Nelson vanished back
through the forward hatch, Crane picked up the hand-mike by the chart table and
clicked it. “Missile room.”
“Missile room, aye.” The
voice that answered was the new Chief of the Boat, Francis Sharkey. Crane felt
a brief pang, still missing the familiar growl of the previous COB, Curly
Jones. He’d died suddenly of a heart attack just four weeks earlier and the
officers and crew were still adjusting to the change. “Chief, send Patterson to
the control room for a special detail.”
“Aye, sir.”
Morton had noted the fleeting
grimace on the captain’s face and sympathized. Despite Crane’s somewhat rocky
start as Seaview’s skipper, he and Chief Jones had come to respect one
another. Sharkey was a different kettle of fish altogether. He certainly didn’t
disrespect the captain, but the officer he seemed to have bonded with was
Nelson. That might have been a problem, but Morton had noted that Crane was
coming to depend on Seaman Kowalski in much the same way he used to depend on
Jones. Ironic, considering that Kowalski was the one that Crane had belted in
the chops during his attempt to sneak aboard the Seaview in an effort to
test the boat’s security back in the very beginning of his tenure as captain.
He gave himself a mental
shake and refocused on the problem at hand as Patterson entered the control
room from the aft hatch. The captain had turned to meet him.
“Patterson, the Admiral wants
some water samples.”
The brown haired seaman
simply nodded. “Did he say how many?”
“No, but I expect it’ll take
several. We’re going to be tracking an anomalous water plume.”
“I see, sir. I’ll get right
on it, Skipper.” He nodded to the captain and headed for the bow, where the
boat had several specially designed collectors for just this sort of task.
Listening to the
conversation, Morton had to suppress the urge to snort. A lot of people
mistakenly believed that Patterson was a little slow on the uptake because of
his calm and deliberating manner. The XO knew better. The young man had been a
Navy Seal - not an occupation for the weak of mind. He’d also accompanied the
captain on an couple of ONI missions. Nelson liked having him on the science details
because he could be depended on to not get fidgety during tedious time
consuming processes. More importantly, he wasn’t the sort to panic when things
got strange or even downright weird, something that happened all too frequently
aboard Seaview. There were times when Morton seriously wondered if the
boat wasn’t laboring under some sort of curse.
Having satisfied himself that
things were running smoothly, Crane caught Morton’s eye. “I’ll leave you to
your watch,” he grinned.
“Right, leave me with the
boring stuff,” Morton mock growled, eliciting a laugh from the other as he
disappeared through the aft hatchway. In truth, Morton was the one better
suited to such a mission - he had both the patience and the organizational
talent for dealing with the endless minutiae of scientific data. That was one
of the reasons they made such a formidable team - Crane was at his best in
situations that demanded instant decisions, while Morton kept track of the
details. It had been that way when they were roommates at the Naval Academy and
was a pattern they’d easily fallen back into when Crane was recruited to
replace the murdered Captain Phillips as Seaview’s skipper. They’d been
best friends at Annapolis and had kept track of one another through the years.
While Morton regretted the circumstances that had led to Crane becoming the
boat’s captain, he was glad to have his best friend as Phillip’s successor. It
wasn’t a job that he’d felt ready to take on at the time, though Nelson had
offered it to him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want his own command - he’d just
known in his own mind that at the time he didn’t have the experience for it
yet. Crane, on the other hand, had fast tracked and already had a previous
command under his belt.
There was also the issue of Seaview’s
nuclear arsenal. Granted that currently only four of the twelve silos had
actual war shots in them, but as far as Morton was concerned that was four too
many. It wasn’t an opinion he openly discussed with anyone however. Pacifist
tendencies would get him court-martialed, especially if that idiot Admiral
Tobin ever found out. Morton had discovered as he’d advanced in rank that he
didn’t have the attack dog mentality for the hunter-killer boats and had begun
to have serious moral qualms about commanding a boomer. Yet he loved submarines
and the sea. That was the main reason he’d accepted Nelson’s offer as Seaview’s
exec in the first place. She was supposed to be primarily a research vessel.
Morton caught himself
frowning at Riley as he broke his train of thought. The young man was looking a
bit pale, since Morton’s reputation for coming up with diabolical punishments
for crewmen who got out of line was legendary. He cleared his expression and
motioned the sailor back to his post as he headed back to the chart table. As
he turned away he could hear Riley’s sigh of relief that the frown hadn’t
really been aimed at him.
The tedious process of
plotting the perimeters of the mysterious water plume dragged into Bobby O’Brien’s
watch. The preliminary results on the chemical composition of the water had
raised Nelson’s eyebrows - he’d initially theorized that the plume had a
volcanic origin, but the trace elements and minerals suspended in the water
were inconsistent with that theory, for there was too much iron and magnesium.
There were also traces of ammonia, something that had surprised and intrigued
the admiral. Sonar had started picking up odd background noises coming from the
direction that the plume originated, but it didn’t sound like an underwater
volcano. Kowalski, who as senior sonarman was summoned to consult with the less
experienced operator on duty, admitted he’d never heard anything quite like it
- though he did comment that something about it reminded him of the old steam
radiators they’d had in the apartment building where he’d lived as a kid.
Nelson had gotten a
thoughtful expression when he’d said that and had gone back to the lab to dig
through his scientific journals to look for something. He’d come back a couple
of hours later with that excited expression in his eyes that made some of the
crew suppress groans. They were on to something scientifically exciting - and
that had on more than one occasion gotten Seaview and her crew into deep
trouble. Crane had spent his watch fidgeting, waiting for the other shoe to
drop, so to speak. Absolutely nothing had happened, except for a brief
anomalous contact at the bottom of one of the deep valleys here along the
mid-ocean ridge in the area known as the East Pacific Rise, some 500 miles
southwest of Acapulco, Mexico. It profiled like a submarine, but was at an
impossible depth, far below Seaview’s crush depth of 6600 feet. It had
vanished almost instantly and had not returned. The contact had provided a few
moments of tension, but had left them with another mystery. Kowalski, who was
on sonar, wondered aloud if it might not have been another plume, perhaps more
mineral rich and therefore denser. Nelson conceded the possibility and when the
contact didn’t return, attention was turned back to their original mission.
It was Morton’s watch again.
It had taken them nearly two days to finally pinpoint the area that was the
source of the plume. Not only was the temperature anomalous, the chemical
composition was downright toxic - or would have been in higher concentrations.
The water had traces of hydrogen sulfide, along with various metal sulfides and
metallic ions, especially of iron and manganese, as well as hydrogen, helium,
methane and carbon dioxide. They had spent the last several hours mapping the
area using sonar, magnetic anomaly detectors and even infrared imaging,
something that Morton had suggested since they were seeking a heat source.
The results had been
astonishing. They had discovered an area about the size of a football field
that seemed to have several individual hotspots pumping out vast quantities of
very hot, mineral laden water. Nelson had been ecstatic. He believed it to be a
geological phenomenon that had been theorized but never actually seen - the
deep-sea equivalent of a geyser basin, a small version of Yellowstone 8000 feet
below the surface of the sea.
Morton stood at the chart
table and pondered the problem. At this depth the only way to actually visit
the bottom here was in their little DSV, Sojourner. This would, however,
be her first working dive. They’d taken her deeper during testing, down to
18,000 feet, so it wasn’t the depth that worried him. No, what concerned him
was that this time the Admiral would be along for the ride. During testing it
had been only himself at risk, since he was Sojourner’s chief pilot. He
would have preferred that Nelson not come, at least on the first dive, but he
knew there was no chance of that. There would be no way Nelson would pass up a
scientific opportunity like this. He just had to be confident that the little
research sub was up to the challenge. The planning meeting he’d just completed
with Nelson and the support team had been cautiously optimistic, both about Sojourner’s
capabilities and the potential scientific discoveries awaiting them. No one
underestimated the potential danger though.
Morton looked at his watch.
It was time for him to go start prepping Sojourner for the dive. He
picked up the hand-mike and clicked it. “Captain to the control room.” The
words had no sooner left his lips than Crane entered through the forward hatch.
The captain had obviously been on his way when paged. Morton gave him a wry
smile.
“I’ve got the con,” Crane
told Morton, speaking the time honored words that passed responsibility from
one officer to another. Then he grinned and with a look of mischief in his eyes
said, “Now you can go play with your toy submarine.”
Morton humphed as the duty
watch hid smiles of amusement, knowing that Crane had a toy of his own. While
designing his brainchild Nelson had also designed two smaller vessels that
nested within the Seaview’s huge 620 foot length. One was a flying
submarine, known as FS1, which docked in a pressurizable bay in the bow. Crane
had fallen for the little saucer shaped craft the first time he’d seen her,
despite her unfinished state. He already had a pilot’s license - though he didn’t
know it initially, that was one of the reasons Nelson had insisted on him as
his choice to replace Captain Phillips. At the Admiral’s insistence, Morton had
gotten his pilot’s license as well, but as FS1 neared completion, the XO had
firmly insisted that at least two other crewmembers also qualify to fly her.
Kowalski had been an obvious choice, since he already held a private pilot’s
license. Until Sharkey had come aboard, the other pilot hadn’t been chosen.
Since the new COB had some flying experience, he was encouraged to get his
license and qualify as well. Morton didn’t want to get stuck shuttling people
around - he had too much to do aboard Seaview - and he had plans
involving Nelson‘s other creation.
The XO had been charmed by
the tiny DSV that was to be berthed just aft of the missile room in another bay
that also housed the diving bell and a minisub. Despite Nelson’s original plans
calling for one of the senior petty officers to be Sojourner’s chief
pilot, Morton had finagled the job for himself. It had amused Nelson no end,
but he had to admit that the blond officer had a master’s touch with the little
submersible and had made some impressive improvements to the design. It had
caused the DSV to be completed several months behind schedule, so that she
joined Seaview several months after FS1, but Nelson had agreed that the
delay was worth it. It had also given them the chance to learn how to operate
the launching bays using FS1 and work the bugs out of the equipment. After all,
no other vessel in the world launched her auxiliaries while submerged.
Overcoming the pressure problems had been a real challenge.
Morton drew himself up and
gave the captain a mock glare. “At least she’s a submarine, not a yellow UFO.”
“Ouch,” laughed Crane, “Touché.”
FS1 had on more than one occasion been responsible for UFO reports, so Morton’s
return jibe was right on target. “Okay, okay. You win… this round. Go tend your
little pet.” Morton grinned, threw him a salute and headed for the aft bay.
Arriving in the aft bay,
Morton found the techs busy with predive checks of electronics and equipment.
Everything was inspected and tested, then inspected and tested again. 8000 feet
down was no place to discover a problem. If they got into trouble, there would
be no way for Seaview to rescue them except with the diving bell. If Sojourner
landed on her side, or worse, upside down, then even that option would be
denied them. Morton greeted his support crew and was handed a clipboard with
the checklists. Under his supervision everything external was checked a third
time. Satisfied that everything to this point was in order, he slipped off his
shoes and pulled on a thick sweater, sweat pants and a pair of warm wool socks,
then hung his headset around his neck. Climbing up the ladder to the top of the
little sub, he slid down into the cramped pressure sphere and settled into the
pilot’s seat. It was rather like climbing into the cockpit of a fighter plane,
since Sojourner was but twenty-two feet long and the pressure sphere
that contained the cabin only six feet in diameter. Plugging in his headset he
began the final check of communications and internal systems.
He was nearly finished when
the light coming in the hatch was momentarily blocked. He looked up to see
Nelson climbing through the hatch, followed by Patterson, whom Morton had
trained as an observer and backup pilot. The two climbed carefully down,
watching to see that they didn’t step on him, then settled into their places
beside the small portholes on either side of the pressure sphere. Like him they
had removed their shoes and brought additional warm clothing. Nelson had also
brought a small tape recorder and a couple of sketch pads. Morton turned back
to his task and rapidly finished the systems check. He keyed the mike to notify
both the techs and Seaview’s control room that they were ready.
“Sojourner to control.
Systems check A-OK. Ready to seal the hatch.”
“Sealing the hatch,” came
back over the radio. Morton recognized the voice as Sharkey’s and briefly
wondered how Crane was taking having the man in charge of the aft bay instead
of Jones. Above his head the light dimmed as the hatch closed and was sealed.
At this point they were now self-contained, on internal power and air. There
was some jostling as the launching cradle lifted the DSV off the deck. It
paused momentarily as the techs checked out the last items and pulled the
locking pins that secured Sojourner in her cradle. The hoot of the
warning siren, notifying all hands in the launching area to clear out before
the bay was flooded, echoed dimly through the submersible. Initially the
pressure would only be equivalent to a depth of sixty feet so that divers could
enter the bay through an airlock and check the craft one last time for problems
before pressurizing to equalize with Seaview’s current depth of 1000
feet. Morton looked out as the water crept up the sides of the launching bay and
once Sojourner’s floodlights were covered, flipped them on. He could see
the two divers exit the airlock and swim towards them. As they approached he
recognized the pair as being Stu Riley and Bo Howard, one of the electronic
technicians. While they gave the exterior of the craft a through examination,
Morton and the others carefully checked the interior for leaks and made sure
the air scrubber was working. The noise of the scrubber blower and other small
motors tended to drown out speech, so Patterson and Nelson now donned headsets
to be able to clearly communicate with each other and Morton.
The ship was ready. Outside,
Riley gave him a thumbs up and he and Howard swam back to the airlock. Once
they were safely out of the launching bay, Morton keyed his mike again. “Seaview,
this is Sojourner. ID light is on, all leaks, dumps and grounds normal.
Scrubber is go, O2 is on. Begin pressurization.”
Sharkey’s voice responded. “Beginning
pressurization.”
Morton leaned back and
stretched. This process would take about ten minutes and observers would
carefully watch Sojourner to make sure that she didn’t develop any
problems as the water pressure was steadily increased. This was one of the
advantages to launching a DSV from a submarine - up to the point that they were
actually released, help was still readily available. The numbers on the face of
the depth gauge began to steadily mount. Once 1000 feet had been reached, the
bay doors dropped open and Sojourner hung suspended over the abyss.
“Request launch altitude and
permission to dive.”
The reply was only seconds in
returning. Crane’s voice came over his headset with the words, “Sojourner,
this is Seaview. Launch altitude is 7000 feet. Permission to dive
granted.”
“Roger, Seaview. Sojourner
diving.” Morton flipped the release switch and the small sub dropped smoothly
out of her cradle and began her slow fall towards the ocean floor. Above them
the cradle retreated and the bay doors closed. Seaview would follow them
down as deep as she could, but her test depth was only 5600 feet, so for the
last 2400 feet of the dive, Sojourner was on her own.
The tiny vessel sank gently
downward through an inky darkness that was broken only by the occasional flash
of bioluminescence and the lights of the Seaview as she spiraled down
with them. The temperature began to drop and condensation appeared on the walls
of the pressure sphere as the steel tried to chill down to match the exterior
water temperature that hovered only a few degrees above freezing. Morton
slipped on a knitted cap, pulling it down over his ears and headset. Patterson
and Nelson slipped on their sweat pants, sweaters and caps, but continued to
peer out the ports. The cameras were rolling as well, so that they would have a
complete record of the dive, but they could not be swiveled to record anything
seem by observers to the side. Strange creatures appeared outside the view
ports and vanished as the descending submersible left them behind. Most of them
appeared to be transparent, formed of gelatinous substances similar to
jellyfish, and adorned with iridescent lights. Some were delicate and filmy,
while others seemed to consist of long strings. A few looked almost like
miniature spacecraft, complete with running lights. Most of them had never been
seen before by human eyes. Nelson took notes at a furious pace, trying to make
a record of them all.
Finally there came a point in
the dive where Seaview had accompanied them as far as she could. Nelson
and Patterson watched her lights recede above them, growing dimmer and dimmer
until they were swallowed by the blackness of the abyss. Morton kept his
attention glued to the sonar - the bottom was coming up. “Admiral, Pat, the
bottom’s coming up. Tell me when you see it.” The other two directed their
attention downward and Pat soon spotted the rocky seafloor below them. Morton
dropped the descent weights and adjusted Sojourner to neutral buoyancy,
allowing her to hover in the water. It had taken them two hours to descend.
Checking his position, Morton
determined that the edge of the suspected source of the hot mineralized water
was about fifty feet ahead of them. He edged the joystick forward and put Sojourner
on a course for the nearest of the hotspots they’d mapped. He proceeded
cautiously, since he didn’t know if there might be smaller jets of water
waiting to surprise them. He eyed the rocky seafloor with suspicion. This area
was formed from pillow lava that had been extruded through rifts in the oceanic
crust. The presence of something analogous to a geyser suggested that the area
might still be active - plus there was a seismic history for this particular
area. Earthquakes were not uncommon. Getting caught too close to the bottom in
one could prove to be more than merely interesting.
As Sojourner
approached the target area, Morton began swiveling the floodlights back and
forth, looking for the safest path and making sure that nothing lurked on the
bottom to snag the little ship. It was on the end of one of those swings that
something off to the left caught his eye. He turned Sojourner to the
left and focused the lights on what he’d glimpsed.
“What the hell?!” Morton
stared in disbelief. At his outburst Nelson crowded up beside him to peer out
the front.
There before them, rising up
from the seafloor was something that vaguely resembled a cluster of crooked
chimneys growing out of a huge mound that sparkled metallically in the
floodlights. The largest of the group was nearly forty feet tall, towering
above the bottom. But the thing that held them transfixed was what appeared to
be black smoke billowing from the tops of the each of the chimneys.
Morton brought Sojourner
to a stop. “What is that thing?” he asked Nelson.
“My first guess would be a
vent of some sort. We need to get some water samples and temperature
measurements.” Nelson’s eyes were shining with enthusiasm. They’d already
discovered something that no one had expected.
“Okay.” Morton shook his head
and surveyed the array of external probes available to him. He selected the
temperature probe and sampler arm. Extending them, he gingerly eased the DSV
towards the top of the nearest vent. As the temperature probe drew closer to
the roiling black fluid, the numbers on the readout suddenly started spinning
off the scale. Before the startled Morton could react, he saw the tip of the
probe suddenly deform and the readout go blank. He snatched the probe tip out
of the stream with a heartfelt oath. Behind him he heard Nelson and Patterson suck
in their breaths. Turning the arm to bring the probe up close to the window,
the astonished men could see that the instrument had melted.
“Christ,” said Nelson,
staring at the remains of the probe in disbelief. Morton backed Sojourner away
from the smoking vent while they regrouped and considered the implications of
what had just happened.
“What’s the melting point on
the plastic we used in that probe, Admiral?” asked Morton.
“I don’t know exactly,”
responded Nelson slowly, “but the specs are in Seaview’s data base.”
Morton gave him a wry look. “Do
you want to be the one who breaks the news to Lee, or shall I? He’s going to be
upset with us.”
Nelson chuckled, knowing that
Morton had understated the case. “I’ll talk to him. After all, I sign his paychecks.”
“Better you than me,” grinned
the XO, as he switched Nelson’s headset over to the frequency to contact Seaview.
“Seaview, this is Sojourner,”
said Nelson.
“Admiral?” came Crane’s
puzzled voice through the headphone. “Is there a problem?”
“No, I just need you to look
up the specs on one of the probes. Can you pull up the primary temperature
probe and tell me what the melting point of the housing is?”
“What?!” Crane’s yelp carried
beyond the headset and made both Nelson and Morton squint with momentary pain.
“There’s no need to yell,
Lee. I can hear you perfectly well. Just do as I ask and I’ll explain later.”
He could hear grumbling at the other end of the line, but knew from the
background sounds that the captain was complying with his request. A few
moments later he came back.
“According to this the
plastic used in the housing starts deforming at about 350 degrees Fahrenheit
and liquefies at 420 degrees. Why do you need to know this?” Crane demanded.
“So we’ll have an idea of how
hot the water in these vents is,” Nelson told him baldly. There was a gasp from
the other end.
“What happened?” Crane’s
voice had taken on that steely note that meant trouble ahead. Nelson rubbed his
forehead and sighed. He hated it when his captain went stubborn on him.
“We found our first vent.
Chip put the probe in the discharge to check the temperature and it melted. It
would seem that the discharge is hotter than anyone, including myself,
theorized. Lee, we’re in no danger as long as we keep Sojourner out of
the direct outflow.”
“If you see it,” came back
Crane, clearly upset.
“Oh, we can see it alright,
Lee. The water coming out of this first vent looks like dense black smoke. You
can’t miss it.”
“In this one. But what about
the next one? Do you think they’ll all be black smokers like this one?”
Nelson blinked at the term
Crane used to describe the vent, then got a thoughtful look and wrote it down
on his notepad. He answered the captain slowly. “I’d be very surprised if they
were all identical, Lee. Geysers aren‘t.”
“Then you could stumble into
one and not know it until it was too late. I don’t like this, Admiral. This is
too dangerous. You should abort the dive now.”
“I disagree, Lee. We still
have the backup probe. We intend to proceed with great caution here.”
“Admiral…”
“My mind is made up, Lee. Sojourner
out.” There was a note of finality in Nelson’s voice that even Crane knew
better than to argue with.
“He’s going to want to kill
us both when we get back,” said Morton, glancing sideways at Nelson, who looked
totally unrepentant. He shook his head and turned back to their present
problem. “Just how hot do you think that water is, Admiral?”
Nelson’s look turned
contemplative. “Given just how quick the probe melted, I’d guess in excess of
600 degrees. We’re going to have to rethink our approach plan. We can’t afford
for Sojourner to get caught in one of those outflows. She’s not designed
to take that much heat.”
“No shit,” was Morton’s
muttered reply. When the admiral laughed, he realized he’d spoken out loud. Red
crept up his neck. “Oops. Sorry, sir,” he said, chagrinned.
“Don’t worry about,” said
Nelson, smiling. “It’s too small a space down here to stand on too much
ceremony.”
“Yes, sir,” said Morton,
though he was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of getting informal with a
four star admiral.
Behind them Patterson cleared
his throat. “Sirs, you might want to take a look at this.” He pointed out the
porthole. Nelson leaned over and looked.
“What in the world?” was
Nelson’s mystified comment. Morton pivoted the tiny sub to have a better look
and get whatever it was in the field of the cameras. His eyebrows climbed up
his forehead at what was revealed before them.
Clams. Hundreds of huge snow
white clams. Several of the nearest creatures snapped their shells shut at the
approach of the sub, making it was obvious that the animals were alive and that
this was not the bleached out remains of creatures long dead. A small white
octopus slithered across the clam bed, disturbed by Sojourner’s lights.
White crabs stalked majestically across the foreground, seemingly unperturbed
by the presence of the DSV and her passengers. Beyond, just in the fringes of
the light, was another chimney. This one however, had only a faint shimmer at
the top to indicate water was flowing out. But the most amazing thing was the
hairy appearance of the chimney itself. Nelson and Morton looked at each other
in puzzlement. Morton pushed the joystick forward and guided the sub in closer
to see was responsible for the peculiar appearance of the vent.
As they approached the hairs
resolved themselves into thousands of long, narrow tubeworms. They could see
the bright red tops of the animals moving in the faint current.
“Where did all the animals
come from?” The spoken question came from Patterson, but it was in the minds of
both Nelson and Morton.
“I have no idea, Pat,”
answered Nelson. “I’ve never seen or heard of any species like these before.”
His excitement began to mount. Just within the circles of Sojourner’s
floodlights were at least a half dozen species that were totally new to
science. Clearly something unusual was going on here. The prevalent thinking
was that all deep sea species depended on a slow rain of food from the surface
to survive, and so were widely scattered across the seafloor. That could not
begin to account for the immense concentration of life clustered around these
vents. There must be something about the vents that supported these colonies.
His forehead wrinkled in thought. The stuff spewing out of the vents had to be
toxic. The plume it formed certainly would be if it wasn’t so diluted. He
looked at the metallic glitter that covered the bases of the mounds that the
vent chimneys protruded from. Probably metallic sulfides of various sorts,
given the chemical composition of the plume. But the toxic nature of the
discharge didn’t seem to be bothering the creatures here - just the opposite
appeared to be true. He unconsciously rubbed his hands together, considering
the implications. They simply had to get samples of the sea life and the
mounds.
He looked at his watch. Sojourner’s
batteries were good for another seven hours, counting their return time. They
needed to allow two hours to get back to the Seaview, so he had five
hours of bottom time to try and get as much done as possible. He looked up to
find Patterson and Morton both watching him.
“What?”
The other two grinned at him.
“Kid in a candy store,” quipped Morton, drawing a laugh.
“And you two get to help me
stuff my pockets full,” grinned Nelson back. He was in the middle of a marine
biologist’s dream come true - a new environment complete with never before seen
life forms. He pulled up one of his drawing pads and began making quick
sketches to show Morton what specimens he wanted to collect.
The next few hours seemed to
rush by. Morton was kept busy as Sojourner’s grappling claw and siphon
tube plucked clams, mussels, tubeworms and other assorted creatures from the
seafloor and deposited them into collecting jars. Waters samples were
collected. Temperatures were taken, though Morton was careful not to insert the
backup probe directly into the discharge from any of the vents. They would have
to come back with a more robust probe to measure the water temperatures
directly. Chunks of the seafloor were deposited into a wire basket, along with
some slabs carefully pried loose from the lower slopes of several of the vent
mounds. They even discovered a fallen chimney and Morton was able to collect
several pieces. Two more vents were discovered. One gave off a blinding
snowstorm of white flakes that Patterson compared to a snow blower, while the
other jetted a roiling whitish smoky looking discharge. Since the first vent
had been named the black smoker this one was identified as the white smoker.
Patterson and Nelson took copious notes, drew sketches and talked endlessly
into the small tape recorder. Sojourner’s cameras rolled the whole time,
recording everything. Still photos were also taken, both from an outside camera
mounted below one of the floodlights and from inside through the portholes.
Somewhere along the way they
even found time to eat the sandwiches that had been packed aboard for them.
Morton surreptitiously snapped some interior pictures - Nelson sitting with his
drawing pad perched on his knees, a ham sandwich in one hand and the tape
recorder in the other, Nelson peering out the porthole looking like a kid on
Christmas morning, Nelson and Patterson comparing notes. They caught him at it
though and turned the tables on him, taking a picture of him in the pilot’s
seat, concentrating on delicately navigating the ship around the base of a
vent.
When the alarm dinged
indicating time to begin the ascent, it was difficult for the three men to tear
themselves away from the wonders they’d been exploring. Nelson looked longingly
out the porthole and sighed.
“It’s going to take multiple
dives just to thoroughly survey this one site,” he said, “and years to properly
study and analyze it. I have a feeling that what we’ve found here today is
going to revolutionize a lot of thinking in science, particularly in the fields
of biology and geology.” The other two nodded in agreement.
Tired, but with a feeling of
accomplishment, Morton set Sojourner on her ascent course to rendezvous
with the Seaview. The boat was still there at 5600 feet waiting for
them. Though too deep to safely take Sojourner back aboard, she kept
them company up to 3000 feet. At that point Crane insisted that the DSV be
taken aboard, though they were still deeper than what Nelson considered ideal
for docking. Morton maneuvered the tiny sub into her cradle. Robotic arms
clamped the DSV in place and the entire assemblage retreated within Seaview’s
hull. The bay doors closed and the process of depressurization began. By the
time Morton had the little vessel nearly powered down, the water had been
pumped from the bay and air pressure normalized with the rest of the boat. The
techs swarmed in, putting the locking pins in place to secure Sojourner,
then unlocked the hatch. Crane was waiting for them, arms crossed.
Nelson was first up the
ladder, pulling off his knit cap as he went. He waved the captain over as he
jumped down to join the techs removing the sample bottles and specimens from
their racks and bins, making sure that each was properly labeled as it came
out. Crane rolled his eyes, exasperated, but joined him. Patterson appeared at
the hatch and started handing out equipment and personal effects while Morton
finished the shutdown. With everything out, Patterson pulled off his excess
clothing and stuffed it into a sack before climbing down to join the Admiral as
he examined his treasures. Morton soon followed, having also shed his extra
clothing, but his chief concern was the melted temperature probe.
Morton walked around to the
front of the craft to examine the destroyed probe. No doubt about it, it was
well and truly melted. Nelson and Crane joined him in the inspection. Crane was
clearly disturbed by the sight of the damage.
“Admiral, you’ve got to find
some way of detecting those discharge plumes before you go back down again. If Sojourner
had gotten caught in one, it could have been disastrous.”
“As it happens, Lee, I agree
with you.” Nelson’s agreement took Crane aback. He’d obviously been prepared to
have to argue the case. “We’re going to take Sojourner back to the
Institute and do some refitting. As much as I’d like to continue the dive
tomorrow, it’s obvious that we don’t have quite the right tools for it yet.
Chip and I have some ideas, but they’ll take some planning to implement.” The
look of relief on the captain’s face warred with indignation.
“Then why didn’t you abort
the dive?”
“We needed more data. By
staying down and trying to collect as many samples as we could we got to test
out the systems. Now we know what works and where we need to come up with
something better.” Crane just shook his head, but had to admit the logic of it.
He just wished that Nelson hadn’t risked himself for the information.
“So what are you going to
change?” Now that he knew they weren’t going back down, Crane allowed himself
to relax.
“The temperature probes
obviously, but we also need to add another camera and a more powerful coring
drill. This one had a lot of trouble with the mounds, probably because of the
amount of metal in them. We’ll probably be a month or so working the bugs out
of our ideas and getting the equipment built.”
“Then we’re headed back to
Santa Barbara?”
“Unless you have a reason not
to.”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“Then set a course for home.
I’m going to the lab and get started working on these samples. Chip, you and
Pat are off duty, so go change and eat.” He turned and exited through the
hatch, pulling off his sweater as he went.
Crane and Morton looked at
each other. Nelson had just spent nearly nine hours cooped up in a six foot
steel ball with two other men and was still going strong. Morton shook his head
as he scratched at the stubble on his face.
“I don’t know how he does it.
He’s got more stamina than most people half his age. I’m more than ready for a
shower and a meal - then I’m hitting the sack. Maybe you can talk him into
stopping long enough to shower and eat.” He moved towards the hatch himself,
Crane beside him.
The captain shrugged and
smiled crookedly. “If I can’t, I’ll sic Jamie on him.”
“Oooo,” exclaimed Morton,
giving Crane a sideways look. “Dirty pool. He’ll find a way to get even if you
do.”
Crane grinned slyly. “Oh, I’ll
just tell him you did it.”
“What!? Lee! You snake!”
Morton’s yell could be heard at both ends of the corridor. Crewmen stopped and
listened, grinning. It wasn’t often that somebody managed to get the XO, but it
sounded like the skipper might just have succeeded.
***********
Epilogue: Six weeks later.
Morton looked out the view
port at the superheated black water boiling out of the chimneys of the vent
complex they’d named The Iron Sisters for the amount of iron pyrite the mound
below it contained. This time the probe that Sojourner was carefully
extending into the roiling stream was rated up to 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. He
watched the readout carefully, Nelson looking over his shoulder. 710 degrees.
Morton whistled in amazement.
“No wonder the first probe melted.”
“Indeed,” mused Nelson. They’d
checked the temperatures of some of the other vents first, since analysis of
the samples from the first dive had suggested that the outflows from some of
the others were mixed with varying amounts of sea water. Not only did that
dilute the chemical soup, it cooled the mixture - in one case down to around sixty degrees. They’d
found that the chemical composition of the discharge from the various vents
varied greatly as well. With only one site as an example it was uncertain
whether or not this was typical and if the color of the discharge was always an
indication of temperature and/or composition. There were also mysteries about
the sea life they’d collected. Most of the specimens had nothing that resembled
the normal digestive tract of ordinary marine species - but they were all full
of sulfur loving bacteria. Marine biologists the world over were having fits
over the creatures - and demanding more samples for study. Sojourner’s
dive was causing both excitement and consternation in scientific circles.
Enough so that other marine research
facilities were gearing up to hunt for more hydrothermal vents.
They were nearing the end of
the dive. As before, they’d filled the collecting jars and bins with specimens
and collected numerous water samples. Nelson looked out at the scene and
sighed. Even though this was only the second time he’d been here, this had
become one of his favorite places in the ocean. It was a truly alien landscape,
but he felt in his soul that it was a place that held great significance in the
overall scheme of things. He hated to leave, but he knew that they’d return at
every opportunity. This place had too many questions that had to be answered.
He clapped Morton on the shoulder.
“Let’s head back to Seaview, Chip.”
Yes, they would definitely be
back.
END