Dave wrenched the stick loose and screeched it against the inside surface of the pressure sphere. The metal end dug a shallow white groove in the acrylic. Not satisfied with that, he jabbed the stick into the sphere, scoring a pentagram of divots. He gave a doggy grin of delight, like a kid scrawling on walls with a Magic Marker. Then he delivered a frenzy of gouging blows, spittle and sweat flying.
I pushed back, ignoring the blood dripping onto my arm. Watching for an opening, I straightened and swung. He saw the punch coming and leaned. We scuffled like two kindergarteners. I bruised my knuckles against the top of the sphere, then connected solidly with the side of his jaw.
My hand exploded in pain.
Dave dropped the stick. It rattled to the bottom of the pressure sphere. He curled up like a bug in a killing bottle and moaned. Then he flung his head back, mouth agape, and gave the pitiful howl of a disappointed child. His hands jerked and shuddered.
Dave stopped howling and lay stiff and still.
The smell got worse.
I watched him warily, ready to fight again, then lost control, doubled over, and retched. There was only a little sour fluid in my stomach. It dribbled between my knees and under the seat. I noticed that the silvery air pocket beneath the sphere, trapped in the sub frame, was no bigger than the bubble in a carpenter’s level.
So much pressure.
I sat up, waiting for the sphere to split along the white gouge or punch through the divots.
The sub’s polite female voice spoke. ‘Please exert positive control to disengage autopilot.’
I did the calculations, weirdly precise in my panic. Two hundred and forty-four atmospheres outside. Twenty-four million seven hundred and twenty-three Pascals. Three thousand five hundred and eighty-five pounds per square inch. A four-door sedan parked on every square inch.
My head cleared. I wiped the blood from my cheek with the back of my hand and rubbed it against the fabric of my thermal suit. Training. Think.
I had my own control stick stowed beneath my chair. It could be pulled out, inserted into my chair’s socket, and engaged. I could take over Mary’s Triumph.
Dave let out a sigh and collapsed. He looked like one of those polyurethane foam mannequins ever-present in the galleys of ocean research vessels, carried to the bottom, squished in the deep and hauled back for laughs. I watched in horror. But he was just going limp, and that seemed worse: complete, total relaxation. His half-open eyes had a forgiving, indifferent gloss. They socketed in my direction as his head burrowed into his chest. Dave skewed over until the seat harness, still wrapped around his shoulder, brought him up short.
He looked dead.
Mary’s Triumph rotated above the seafloor. I reached beneath my seat and felt for the stick, detached it from its clips, raised it to inspect the connector, then tried to insert it into the control armature. Sweat spilled into my eyes. The stick wouldn’t go. I reached down with damp fingers and pinched the plastic plug away from the small socket. I was shaking so hard by then it took me almost a dozen tries to make the fit and push down hard enough to lock both the electrical and mechanical connectors.
I waggled the stick.
‘Autopilot control relinquished,’ Mary’s voice announced. ‘Shall we begin the return to the surface?’
I hadn’t been briefed on everything the autopilot could do; there hadn’t seemed any pressing need. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Yes. Please.’
I pushed on Dave with the tip of a finger. Inert. He had smashed the LCD screen and two of the smaller displays. It was the autopilot or nothing.
The sub still rotated.
‘Yes,’ I said, louder. ‘Go up.’
‘Answer clearly for voice activation.’
‘YES!’ I shouted. ‘GO UP!’
‘Beginning ascent to surface. Transmitting emergency signals.’
The water outside grew brighter. It was now a twilit gray. I wiped cold sweat from my eyes.
Dave stirred about ten minutes before we surfaced. I watched from my seat, ready to hit him again.
‘I feel sick,’ he moaned.
‘Sit still,’ I said.
He goggled at my bloody head. ‘Cripes, what happened?’
The good Christian was back.
‘You went nuts.’
His eyes looked sad, betrayed. ‘I did not,’ he said. ‘You tried to hit me.’
‘You broke your stick and gouged the sphere,’ I said. I wasn’t about to argue with the man, not after spending three hours trapped with him in a dark, stinking, wretched little ball.
Dave looked at the marks and divots. ‘We were collecting specimens,’ he said thickly.
‘Shut up.’
‘I can drive,’ he said.
‘You broke your stick. The autopilot’s in charge. Just shut up.’
Dave’s face showed guilt and disbelief.
We broke the surface and the beacons switched on automatically. Through the waves crashing over the sphere – just our luck, a rough sea – I tried to spot the mother ship. I couldn’t see a thing. Time to stand on top of the sub, by the mast, if only to get a breath of fresh air. I crawled back over the third, empty couch to undog the hatch.
‘It’s too rough out there,’ Dave said.
‘Screw you,’ I muttered, and crept into the tunnel, an L-shaped pipe barely two feet wide. Swearing, I knelt in the usual small puddle of water at the base of the tunnel, got to my feet, and crooked my arms to twist and spin more levers and wheels.
The hatch sighed and my ears popped. Spray showered down. I sucked in the cold sea air, incredibly sweet and alive. I searched for the Sea Messenger and found her at three o’clock, well over a thousand yards away.
I yelled into the wind and waved my arms. I didn’t dare crawl out any farther – Dave could close the hatch on me and take the sub down again. Lodging my leg, I held on to the mesh deck behind the pressure sphere.
Dave glared up at me through the bubble, still in his seat. He looked frightened. He was calling on the radio. That made sense, but I still wasn’t ready to forgive and forget. Sea Messenger should have been almost on top of us, responding to our emergency signal with her H-shaped crane lowered for retrieval and the rolling ramp extended like a tongue.
‘They aren’t answering,’ Dave shouted up through the tube. ‘Come back in and shut the hatch.’
‘No way!’ I shouted. ‘I’m staying out here.’
‘Look,’ he said, his voice hoarse and crackling, ‘This is a rough sea. If you’re staying out, get all the way out and shut the hatch or we’ll ship water and sink.’
The waves were pounding stronger than ever and the wind blew stinging spume off the whitecaps into my eyes. The ship’s lights were out and it was dusk. All the running and rigging lights should have been on, and the searchlights jabbing over the water, looking for us.
Nothing. Sea Messenger looked dead.
‘I’m going to bring us closer to the ship,’ Dave shouted. ‘And I’m closing the hatch, damn it!’
‘All right,’ I said. Reluctantly, I dropped down and dogged the top hatch. But I stayed in the tube, squeezing my back against