He turned around to find that Renault had already left. Picking up his analysis bag, he stepped out of the cooler and closed the door behind him. He found Renault on the far side of the kitchen, talking to somebody wearing chef's whites. As Crane approached, Renault turned toward him.
"You are done," he said. It wasn't phrased as a question.
"Yes, except for a few questions I have about the cook who was taken ill. Robert Loiseau."
Renault seemed incredulous. "More questions? That other doctor, the woman, she asked so many before."
"Just a few more."
"You will have to walk with us, then. We are overdue at Receiving."
"Very well." Crane didn't mind-it would give him a chance to observe the transfer of foodstuffs from the Tub to the kitchens, set his mind at ease, remove this as a potential source of contamination. He was quickly introduced to the man in chef's whites-Conrad, the inventory officer-and to two other members of the kitchen staff carrying large food lockers. Then Crane fell in behind the small group, and together they left the kitchen and made their way down the echoing corridors to the elevator.
Renault was busy discussing a shortage of root vegetables with the inventory officer, and Crane had only managed to get in a single question about Loiseau by the time they arrived at deck 12.
"No," Renault said as the doors swept open and he stepped out. "There was no warning. No warning at all."
Crane had not been here since his arrival, but he remembered the way to the Compression Complex. Renault, however, struck out in the opposite direction, threading an intricate path through a maze of narrow corridors.
"The man is still comatose; we haven't been able to ask any questions," Crane said as they walked. "But you're sure nobody saw anything strange or out of the ordinary?"
Renault thought a moment. "I recall Tanner saying that Loiseau looked a little tired."
"Tanner?"
"Our pastry chef."
"Did he elaborate?"
Renault shook his head. "You will have to ask Monsieur Tanner."
"Do you know if Loiseau abused drugs of any kind?"
"Certainly not!" Renault said. "Nobody in my kitchens uses drugs."
Ahead, the corridor ended at a large, oval hatch, guarded by a single marine. Above was a sign that read ACCESS TO OUTER HULL. The marine looked at them in turn, examined a form that Renault passed over, then nodded the group through.
Beyond the hatchway was a small steel passage, illuminated by red bulbs recessed into thick housings. Another hatch lay ahead, closed and barred from the far side. The hatch clanged shut behind them. There was the sound of retractors being swung into place. Slowly, the echoes died away. As they waited in the dim crimson light, Crane became aware of a damp chill, and a faint, briny odor that reminded him of a submarine's bilge.
After a few moments there was another loud scraping noise, this time from in front of them, and then the forward hatchway drew back. They stepped into a smaller chamber. Once again, the hatch behind swung shut, locking automatically. The chill and the smell were more noticeable here. At the end of the chamber, a third steel hatch-larger and heavier than the others-was set. Huge, swinging bolts anchored the hatch shut, and it was guarded by a brace of armed marines. Several signs warning of danger and listing numerous restrictions were fixed to the chamber walls.
For a moment, they waited in silence while the marines again examined Renault's paperwork. Then one of them turned and pressed a red button on a console. A shrill buzzer sounded. With obvious effort, the marines swiveled each of the heavy bolts half a revolution, then together turned the hatch's massive wheel in a counterclockwise direction. There was a clank, then a hiss of escaping air, as the hatchway unsealed itself. Crane felt his ears pop. The marines pushed the hatch outward, then gestured for the group to proceed. The kitchen workers carrying the food lockers stepped through first, followed by Conrad and Renault. Crane fell into place behind them, ready with another question. But then he froze in the hatchway, staring straight ahead, question abruptly forgotten.
17
He was standing at the threshold of a vast, dim chasm. At least, that was his first impression. As his eyes adjusted to the low light, he realized he was on a narrow accessway, bolted to the exterior skin of the Facility. The sheer wall fell away behind and below him-freckled by a latticework of rungs-plummeting twelve stories into darkness, and for a moment he felt a wave of vertigo. Quickly, he grasped the steel railing. He realized dimly that one the marines was speaking to him.
"Sir," the marine was saying, "please step out. This hatchway cannot remain open."
"Sorry." And Crane hastily withdrew his other foot from the threshold. The two marines pulled the heavy hatch shut. From within came the rasp of bolts being fixed into place.
Still clinging to the railing, Crane looked around. Some distance ahead of him, and just barely visible in the faint light, rose a curved metal walclass="underline" the outer dome. Sodium lights were set into it at regular but distant intervals, providing the weak illumination. Looking upward, he followed the dome's rising curve to its apex, directly above the Facility. Metal tubes rose from the Facility roof to the underside of the dome: these, he assumed, were the airlocks that provided access to the bathyscaphes and the escape pod.
His gaze fell from the dome to the accessway on which he stood. It widened ahead of him, becoming a gentle ramp that spanned the deep gulf between the Facility and the dome. The rest of the group was already heading up it, toward a large platform fixed to the wall of the dome. He took a deep breath, then let go of the railing and began to follow.
The air was far chillier here, and the bilge smell more pronounced. As he walked, his feet clattered against the metal grid of the catwalk, echoing dully in the vast space. For a moment, he had a mental picture of where he was-at the bottom of the sea, walking on a narrow bridge between a twelve-story metal box and the dome that surrounded it, empty space between him and the sea bed below-but found it unsettling and tried to push it away. Instead, he focused on catching up to the group, which had by now almost reached the platform.
Conrad was behind Renault and the two kitchen staffers, and Crane trotted up beside him. "And here I thought Receiving would be some nice little room," he said, "with a television, maybe, and magazines on the tables."
Conrad laughed. "Takes some getting used to, doesn't it?"
"You could say that. I had no idea the space between the Facility and the dome was pressurized. I figured it was filled with water."
"The Facility wasn't constructed to operate at such a depth. At this pressure, it wouldn't last a minute on its own. The dome protects us. Somebody told me they work together, like the double hull of a submarine or something. I don't really understand it, to tell you the truth."
Crane nodded. The concept did make perfect sense. In some ways, it was like a submarine, with its inner pressure hull, outer hull, and ballast tanks between.
"I noticed a series of rungs on the outside of the Facility. What on earth are those for?"
"Like I said, it was built for much shallower water, where a protective dome wouldn't be necessary. I think those rungs were meant for divers to use when moving up or down the sides of the Facility, making repairs and such."
Glancing back, Crane noticed two large, tube-like struts that led, horizontally, from opposite ends of the dome to the Facility, at a point just slightly above its center. These, he realized, were what Asher had called pressure spokes-tubes open to the sea that were yet another device to compensate somehow for the massive pressure. From this distance, they did sort of resemble two spokes of a wheel. But to Crane, they looked more like a rotisserie spit onto which the Facility had been impaled. Compensation or not, he didn't like having the sea that close to the box inside which he was living.