“Late 1700s, by the looks of it,” Reinheiser said.
“Early 1800s, I think,” Del corrected. “I could tell you more if I could get to my quarters. I’ve got some books about old ships and-”
A bang sounded above them.
“The outer hatch,” Corbin observed. “Thompson?”
The men surrounded the ladder leading to the sub’s squat conning tower and Mitchell called over the intercom to the air lock. “Thompson, is that you?” he asked into heavy static.
The handle of the inner hatch began to turn.
“It better be Thompson,” Billy muttered grimly, casting a wary eye at the old ship and clutching a heavy wrench.
Water gushed in as the inner hatch opened and a pair of black leather boots dangled through the hole.
“I knew it!” Billy cried, and he whacked up at the legs.
“Hey!” came a startled cry from above.
Mitchell recognized the voice and grabbed Billy as the legs were pulled back up into the air lock. After some shuffling, Thompson stuck his head through the hatchway.
“Have you all gone crazy or something?” he asked of the startled faces below. Eyeing Doc Brady, he added, “Have I got something for you! You aren’t gonna believe this!” And he disappeared back through the hole.
After more shuffling, the dangling legs came through again. “Give me a hand with this guy, he’s waterlogged,” Thompson said. Stunned, Mitchell and Brady mechanically helped lower the body, that of a man in his thirties, dressed in a gray suit, complete with tails and a gold pocket watch.
“All he’s missing is the top hat and cane.” Corbin laughed, too overwhelmed by the unreality of it all, and too relieved to see Thompson to be apprehensive.
“Got that, too,” Thompson said. He slid down the ladder, a cane in one hand and a gray top hat on his head. “Well? What do you think?”
“It looks like he just died,” Corbin said.
“Very little decomposition,” Doc Brady agreed, but his attention was on Thompson and the seaman’s frenzied actions.
“Like that hull,” Reinheiser remarked.
“They’re all like that,” Thompson teased.
“What are all like that?” Mitchell demanded, having no patience for Thompson’s antics. “And what the hell took you so long?”
“All the ships outside are like that, sir,” Thompson replied. “You’ve got to understand, I had to look around.”
“Of course,” a calming Doc Brady said.
“I closed my eyes when I left the ship,” Thompson explained. “I really expected to die. But the gauges are right and the pressure wasn’t bad at all. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was an old schooner lying just off our tail. This guy was all tangled up in a rope on the capstan. I couldn’t believe it. I started swimming toward him and noticed that all around were these other ships!”
“How was the visibility?” Reinheiser interrupted.
“Not bad. A couple of hundred feet at least,” Thompson replied. “And at first I couldn’t understand that, either. By my figuring it’s nighttime up top, and even if it was bright daylight up above, how much would filter down a hundred feet? So where’s the light coming from?”
“Where indeed?” Reinheiser asked.
Thompson had the answer. “I saw these weird flashes up above us and I headed for the surface. But when I got closer I realized that there’s solid rock above us.”
“What?” Mitchell and Corbin asked together.
“Solid,” Thompson reiterated. “We’re in a giant cave. Back a couple hundred yards there’s a funnel going up into the ceiling-the light’s more intense there. I would have checked it out closer, to see if it opens up to the surface, but I couldn’t get near it; I kept getting shocks. Static, or something. I picked this guy up on the way back. I had to show you.”
“How does the Unicorn look from out there?” asked Mitchell.
“Bad,” Thompson replied. “Real bad, sir. There’s some holes midship, but that’s the least of it. She’s listing to port up here, but she’s listing to starboard in back.”
“Impossible!” Reinheiser argued.
“The middle of the ship got twisted,” Thompson continued earnestly, putting his clenched fists one on top of the other and turning them in opposite directions. “I’d figure at least a thirty-degree discrepancy between the two ends.”
“It’s a miracle we’re alive,” Reinheiser said.
Mitchell didn’t hear him. He just stared blankly ahead, dismayed by the now indisputable fact that his ship was gone beyond hope of repair.
But the brutal damage report didn’t daunt the others. Something very strange was going on and they were intrigued, especially Martin Reinheiser. At this point, at least, curiosity outweighed worry.
“I’ve got to get out there,” Reinheiser begged Mitchell, his voice almost a whine.
“I’d like to get back out, too, sir,” Thompson added. “I want a closer look at our damage.”
“And I want to get at those books in my cabin,” Del said, refusing to be left out of the excitement.
“No, you don’t,” Doc Brady cut in, still examining the corpse. “Thompson will get them for you. You’re staying here and getting healthy!” Del would have argued, but Mitchell’s outburst stopped him short.
“Do what you want!” the captain bellowed, his face contorted into an angry scowl. It was Mitchell’s turn to feel the hopelessness, to believe that nothing he did in this situation could make any difference. He knew the gloom would pass. The violence within him had been able to push all his hurts away since he was a child, but for now he just had to get away from the others. He turned on his heel and stormed out of the room.
The others blankly watched him go, confused by the solid captain’s sudden despair.
“He’s lost his ship,” Reinheiser observed, studying the tenseness of the departing captain’s stride, logging this newest revelation of Mitchell’s disposition.
“Help me get this body to the conference room,” Brady told Del, whose face drooped in disappointment. “All right,” Brady conceded. “Maybe I’ll let you go for a dive later.”
Del smiled. “Let me tell Thompson where the books are.” He bounded across the room, mesmerized by the potential adventure that awaited him outside the Unicorn, able to forget, for just a while, the carnage around him-and the inevitability of his own impending doom.
Chapter 3
To the Tick of a Different Clock
“WHAT DID YOU bring that for?” Mitchell grumbled.
Reinheiser glared at him from across the table. “From the Wasp,” he explained, holding up the untarnished belt buckle for the rest of the men to see and pointing to the upper-left-hand corner, which clearly showed the initials JB.
With that, the physicist pointedly turned away from Mitchell. “I took this from the ship’s captain, judging from the cadaver’s uniform,” he said. “If we can find any records of the Wasp, it might prove useful.”
“Always thinking, aren’t you?” Mitchell remarked.
Reinheiser ignored the comment, unsure whether he had been insulted or complimented. “I also positioned a microphone under the break in the cavern ceiling. The funnel narrows considerably, but remains, I believe, large enough to admit the sub. The black area at its top seems similar to the one we were observing before the storm hit.”
“You’re assuming that we were forced downward by the storm, through that hole,” Corbin said.
“We did go down,” Del insisted, unconsciously clenching his fist as if he was still grasping the chair. “And we were pushed right through that hole.”
“We must consider all of the possibilities,” Reinheiser said. “But whether or not we went through the hole, whether the break in the ceiling is indeed the hole or not, it deserves our attention. That funnel is generating some sort of electrical disturbances-pulses, if you will-that may prove important. With the sonar equipment, we might be able to find some pattern to the pulse intensity.”
“And then?” Mitchell asked, his tone still edged with frustration and dripping with sarcasm.