Tomlinson pointed to his own air bottle. Attached to it was a canister about the size of a small fire extinguisher. The canister was yellow with a manufacturer’s name, SPARE AIR, stenciled on the side. A single silicon mouthpiece was already fitted at the top.
Will had a similar reserve system attached to his tank, only the canister was bigger, but he hadn’t paid much attention when Ford had explained how to use the thing because the system appeared self-explanatory. Bite down on the mouthpiece, turn the knob and breathe. Nothing hard about that.
Will remembered Ford saying that Tomlinson’s bottle was only good for a couple of minutes. But how many minutes of air did his bottle contain? Ford had gone into detail but Will hadn’t listened.
Crap! Next time, I’ll carry extra lights, and I’ll by God pay attention.
Will reached to find his own dive slate and began writing out the question How much air in my . . . but Tomlinson grabbed his elbow and stopped him. The man was shaking his head, his eyes large and emphatic behind the glass of his face mask, as he grunted, “Ohooo ’ime.”
No time.
Tomlinson used his flashlight to rap on his dive slate, reminding Will to Get reserve bottle ready, then wiped the slate clean before helping Will free the bottle and position it inside his BC beneath his chin, ready to go when he needed it. Next, Tomlinson surprised him by giving Will his bailout bottle, too. Because he had no choice, Will held still while the man clipped the little tank to his BC.
Tomlinson wrote, Stop breathing, watch bubbles.
Will shook his head, letting his expression answer. Huh?
Tomlinson rapped his flashlight on the dive slate, telling Will, Do it!, then panned the light along the ceiling of the cavern, maybe ten feet above them, where icicle-looking spears of limestone were hanging down—stalagmites or stalactites, Will could never keep the terminology straight.
He stopped breathing, as he’d been told, and watched Tomlinson use the flashlight to explain. The light threw a circle of white that moved from the ceiling to the floor . . . from the ceiling to the floor . . . then to the ceiling again, but more slowly.
It took Will a moment to understand. Air bubbles, that’s what Tomlinson wanted him to see. Air bubbles were seeping out of the rocks beneath them, ascending until they collided with the top of the cavern. There, the bubbles congregated briefly, but then continued moving, tracing silver tracks toward what might have been a tiny opening in the highest part of the cave.
What did it mean? Was Ford somewhere beneath them? That had to be it. Where else could air be coming from?
As if on cue, Will heard a grinding, clanking noise from outside—faint, but it was the unmistakable sound of the biologist doing something, digging again possibly. Tomlinson held a palm up—Stop—and then attempted to signal Ford, but there was no response.
Seconds later, though, Will was startled by a muted roaring, a mechanized sound, like a cross between a leaf blower and heavy rain. It seemed to be coming from above them but far away.
Tomlinson explained the noise by scribbling Jet dredge on his slate.
Will nodded.
Less than a minute later, though, the thing stopped, and they heard Ford signaling. The hippie responded, banging his flashlight against his tank in a deliberate three-beat rhythm. An SOS maybe?
Possibly so, or maybe it meant nothing, but Will suspected it did because when the jet dredge started again Tomlinson grabbed his dive slate and wrote, Got to move now!
Move? There was nowhere to go!
Tomlinson made his case by shining the light on the ceiling, reminding Will about the stalagmites or the stalactites hanging down, their points sharpened by a couple thousand years of dripping water.
Crap!
If the ceiling collapsed on them, getting crushed was the least of their worries. Those stone stilettos could skewer them both.
Will nodded his head rapidly, saying, “Esss eely ’ucks.”
Yes, it did really suck. The cavern ceiling was covered with stone daggers. Where the hell could they go?
Up, as it turned out. Stay close to the ceiling, the stalactites couldn’t build up speed if they fell. Which was smart, Will had to admit.
Tomlinson was writing again and then held the slate up for him to read. Do what I do!
Will nodded.
Holding the flashlight in his left hand, Tomlinson let the dive slate swing to his side, then exaggerated his movements as he opened the weight pockets on his BC vest. He removed four rubber-covered chunks of lead and dropped them, one by one, at his feet, then pantomimed how to inflate his vest manually instead of using the valve connected to his tank.
Conserving air. That made sense, too. And they sure as hell didn’t need a bunch of lead to keep them on the bottom now.
Up. That’s where they wanted to go. Damn right, that’s where they wanted to go. The vibration of the jet dredge could cause those stone daggers to fall at any moment.
After Will had jettisoned his weights, Tomlinson used his thumb to signal toward the ceiling, then began inflating his own vest for real. The man became weightless, drifting upward as if levitating, and Will followed, allowing the image of astronauts to come into his head, lights piercing the blackness. It was the same tableau that had filled his mind while traveling I-75 with Hayes, in the backseat of the Lincoln.
Will remembered wondering, Why? It was a sensation so powerful that he had lost himself in the fantasy of being in a submerged cave, darkness all around. Now here he was, and it was all too real.
Outside, the leaf-blower sound of the dredge stopped once again. By then, though, Tomlinson was using one hand to fend off the rocky ceiling of the cavern while using the light to follow the path of their own bubbles.
Will gave the man room to work, first trying to steady himself by clinging to a spike of limestone—the thing broke off in his hand—then by purging air from his vest until he was less buoyant. He hovered below and behind the hippie, eight feet above the cavern floor, reminding himself, Stay calm, breathe slo-o-owly, as he watched Tomlinson move to the highest part of the cave.
Will was thinking Where the hell is Ford? when the sound of the jet dredge began again, then stopped seconds later. From beneath them came a random clanking noise, as if something was being dragged along the rocks under them, followed by a momentary silence.
Will thought, Why is Ford under us now?
Jesus Christ, what was the man doing? Didn’t he realize that they were almost out of air?
Tomlinson was tapping on his tank to get Will’s attention, waving for him to move closer, when they both heard a shuddering rumble that sounded like distant thunder. The sound grew progressively louder, vibrating through the cave walls. Soon, stalactites began dropping to the floor, the sharp stones clanking hard when they hit. The rumbling sound peaked, then faded, as if a train were passing. Then the rumbling stopped.
Scary.
A minute later, it got scarier. Tomlinson was using his flashlight to show Will what appeared to be a vent in the highest section of the cavern when a chunk of ceiling above them collapsed, brushing past Tomlinson’s shoulder as it fell. In that same instant, Will ran out of air.
It wasn’t gradual, as Will had expected. One second, he was breathing normally. The next second, the mouthpiece of his regulator felt as if it had been abruptly sealed shut. Will continued trying to suck air from the thing as his hands found the pony canister inside his BC. Use the largest bottle first, that seemed like the smart thing to do—and, besides, Tomlinson’s Spare Air bottle was clipped to a D ring, which would require more time to free.