In the small mess on board the R/V Falling Star, McHugh sat with his usual crew. His hands clasping the ceramic mug of steaming hot coffee with the MacAlear logo, McHugh was deep in thought. Sevson sat picking at his scrambled eggs and sausage. Robison kept going over the checklist and the “Incident Sheet” which detailed the numerous nits encountered during the last twenty four hours of operation.
Robison wanted to make sure that this dive went smoothly; he was extremely pleased that the Incident Sheet was mercifully short and was comprised of mainly minor items. The three old friends had already fallen back to the unspoken routine that only time and seasoned friendships can long endure.
Robison had smuggled on board a reel to reel tape player and had Sevson, the electronics wizard, jury rig a direct current to alternating current inverter so that they could play some of their favorite music during the cruise.
As the three friends sat drinking their coffee, the old familiar beat of music played on and Gogi Grant sang, “…The Wayward Wind…Is a Rest-Less Wind…A Rest-Less Wind…That Yearns to Wan-Der…And He Was Born…The Next of Kin…The Next of Kin…To the Wayward Wind….”
Gogi’s voice and the lyrics evoked halcyon memories of cruises on the R/V Wayward Wind, the Fifties, and a happier, friendlier time.
“What do you think, Bob?” asked Sevson.
“I think if this turns out to be a dud, we’re in a heap of trouble. If it turns out to be something big, we’re in a heap of trouble,” replied Lieutenant Commander Robert McHugh, U.S.N.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” replied Sevson.
“Com’on guys, we’ve got work to do!” urged Robison, trying to get his old friends out of their funk and motivated.
“Yeah, let’s go,” agreed McHugh, downing the last of his coffee and briefly shaking as the caffeine hit his system.
The three friends walked out to the elevator platform where Mike, Anderson, and Carver were busy putting finishing touches on the various instrumentation systems.
On this first bottom dive, McHugh had made the decision that he and Robison would be the two observers to join Anderson and Carver. Dressed in blue coveralls and long johns, McHugh looked more like an automobile mechanic than someone soon to touch the bottom of one of the deepest parts of the Atlantic Ocean. Robison had a brown paper bag with him, the kind of brown bag you might get in a department store. Liu was already dressed in his wet suit.
The Squid looked glorious. It was hard not to fall in love with this sleek machine. As the crew stood around the Squid, Robison brought out his brown paper bag and with a flourish demanded everyone’s attention.
“On this solemn occasion, I think that it is appropriate to celebrate the maiden voyage of the Squid. Therefore, as the mother, father, progenitor and care-taker of the creature we call the Squid, I hereby declare her operational. As a small memento of this moment, I had some shoulder patches and hats embroidered with the Squid insignia for each of you and the other members of this mission.”
Someone produced a Polaroid camera and shot some photos of the momentous occasion.
The patch was beautiful. The royal blue patch was ringed with gold edging, the gold MacAlear logo was intertwined with the tentacles of a white Squid. Robison started to pass out the hats and the patches. Sevson stopped him, “Don’t you think it would mean more if the whole kit ‘n caboodle went to the bottom and then up?”
“Hey that’s a good idea, why didn’t I think of that?” said Robison.
“Because you’re a dumb shit, Robison.” explained Sevson with a grin.
Standing off to one side, in a loud stage whisper to Mike, McHugh growled, “Make sure none of that is charged to the United States Navy, Lieutenant Liu.”
Having said that, McHugh made sure he got his patch which he put into the left breast pocket of his coveralls and his hat which he put on his head with a broad grin.
The brief ceremony completed, the men fell to the tasks at hand. The crew of the Squid climbed on board the submersible and disappeared one by one through the conning tower and into the pressure sphere. Carver, the last of the four man crew to board the Squid, pulled the hatch closed and locked the hatch. Having donned his SCUBA tank and face mask, Mike plugged the cable for the intercom into the receptacle on the Squid.
“How do you read me?” inquired Mike.
“Loud and clear, champ!”
The launching sequence went flawlessly and quickly. Within what seemed only minutes, the Squid was committed to the deep, Mike and the two MacAlear technicians watched as the white color of the submersible gently disappeared into the darkness.
The pinging of the depth sonar increased in frequency as the Squid spiraled toward the bottom. The Squid settled gently on the soft bottom, stirring up a cloud of silt, undisturbed for centuries in the quietness of the Hatteras Abyssal Plain. Until the silt settled, there was nothing that the crew could do but wait. Anderson switched on the outside lights for a second, but all they saw was the reflection of the dust cloud.
The time gave McHugh and Robison an opportunity to revisit the topographical maps drawn by McHugh’s oceanographic team at Port Hueneme, California, from data collected by Nematode and the USS Marysville. The plan was for this team to reconnoiter the northern sector of the mysterious object. Liu and Sevson in a subsequent dive would explore the southern sector.
“From this map, it appears that we have landed about one half mile to the northeast of the object,” said Robison making some rough calculations based on the Squid’s descent time and current meter readings.
After the silt cloud had dissipated, Anderson adjusted his buoyancy and ever so slowly lifted off the bottom so as to not kick up any more silt. Taking his magnetic bearings, adjusted for the magnetic anomaly, Anderson headed the Squid southwest, toward the mysterious object that had long tantalized everyone on this mission.
Twenty minutes past and the forward scanning sonar picked up a signal that was unmistakably the object. As the object drew closer, Anderson turned on the outside flood lamps. McHugh and Robison reclined on the mats that served as cushions and looked out the forward portholes.
What they saw was a smooth, almost polished black curved surface that extended to the limits of illumination, as far as the eye could see. Anderson steered the Squid on a path that first ran along the edge of the object, it was like walking along a curved wall of black glass. He then steered the Squid up and over the object, again nothing but the same black glassy surface. There were no cracks, no seams, no doors, no windows, nothing. Walt conducted temperature, current, salinity, background radiation, and sonar tests — nothing.
The Squid stood off of the object and tried to measure changes in or fall off from any of the readings — nothing. Only the metastable helium magnetometer showed any indication of the presence of the object, the readings correlated with the earlier surface and over-flight data. Anderson and Carver used the depth sounding sonar to construct a profile of the object. The shape was that of a gigantic oval object, no seams, no bumps, no doors, no windows, no anything.
“Damn, that thing is just not real. Nothing real could be that smooth,” exclaimed a mystified McHugh.
“You know what you said topside, Bob?” said Robison.
“Yeah?”
“I think we’re in deep shit,” replied Robison.
Using the strobe lights and television camera, Robison took multiple shots of the smooth, grayish-black curved structure, the size of a football field. The height of the object was about fifty feet from the silt bottom; there was no way to determine how deep the object sat in the silt. Bathymetric readings from the USS Marysville suggested that the object sat in the center of what might have been an impact crater but the centuries had softened even that conclusion.