The wind was rising, and Alex could feel it trying to work its way to his skin. He ignored it, knowing it would be nothing compared to what was to come. Beside him, Cate shivered with several silver thermal sheets wrapped around her body, and another hanging over her shoulders. Underneath, she wore a black wetsuit, with goggles around her neck as well as small breathing tanks slung over her back.
“Gonna be snug,” she said and grinned through clamped teeth.
Alex bet it was either nerves or to stop them chattering. The woman has guts, I’ll give her that, he thought.
Schmidt pushed his head into Orca’s rear cavity, and yelled, “I removed some of the cladding to create a space for you. The bubble here was so the capsule would create neutral buoyancy and float midwater, this end up. That way the submersible would be able to launch in open water, and not end up buried in the silt on the bottom. There is a rim inside,” — he said, pointing — “you can use it to crouch on, but for the love of god, try and keep your big Yank feet off the end of the submersible. Though it’s toughened steel, if you bend any of the struts, we won’t be able to maneuver it.”
Alex ignored him, so Schmidt looked to Cate, his expression gloomy. “You know what to do, Cate.” He clasped her shoulder, the silver sheets crinkling. “Those thermal covers can take temperature extremes. Stay away from the walls, and you’ll be fine.” His eyes slid away before she could meet them.
Alex climbed in, and moved to the side so Cate could enter and then crouch in front of him. Both hung onto the side struts, and balanced on a metal rim above the probe’s fins. There were bracing bars on each side that they could use as handholds.
Bentley leaned inside. “It’s only little more than an hour, Cate, but it’ll be the longest hour of your life.” He smiled sadly. “It’ll be tough, but you can make it.” He turned to Alex, his expression hardening. “Keep her safe.”
Alex didn’t respond — he couldn’t — he knew what to expect down there. He would make no empty promises.
Bentley went to turn away but stopped, and instead grabbed Cate’s arm. “Cate, please, this is mad.”
“I’ll be fine.” She shrugged him off. “Whatever happens, learn from it.”
Bentley seemed to want to lean in further, but Alex held up a hand. “You heard the lady. Go back and do your job.”
Bentley’s jaws clenched momentarily. “Listen, the body of water you’ll find yourself in is about the size Lake Ontario — about two hundred miles long, by fifty wide. Also, a mile deep in places. It’s a bloody ocean, and it’ll be blacker than hell.”
Alex checked the tracker he had — the sub’s signal was faint, miles away, but it was there. He knew when he got down inside the ice and rock mantle, it would be a lot stronger. He looked up at the scientist. “There’s an air pocket above the water, and there’s dry land. So, as long as I can get to a shoreline, then I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be fine? I don’t give a damn about you, mister.” Bentley grimaced. “You know we have proof of life down there. And you know we’re not talking about some tiny shrimp or blind eel. The thing that knocked out our previous probe was big, real big, and you’ll be in the water with it.”
“I’m counting on it,” Cate said. “Just keep Orca’s onboard cameras rolling, and we’ll make history.”
Alex looked down at her and smiled. He admired her. The thought of dropping into the black water, miles below ice and rock, and knowing what was down there, must have filled her with dread — but she was going anyway.
“Let’s get on with it,” he said.
“Never met anyone in such a hurry to be sent to hell.” Bentley pulled his head out of the capsule. “Insane, the pair of you,” he shouted.
One after the other Schmidt, Timms, and Sulley either gave the thumbs-up, or knocked on the skin of the capsule. Sulley came back quickly and stuck his head in. “Wish I was going… ” he grinned, “… not.” He then sealed them in. Immediately there was total darkness. Alex heard Cate take a huge shuddering breath.
“Hey Hawk, I must be mad, you know.”
“You can only die once,” Alex said softly. “But it won’t be today. And by the way, it’s Alex.”
“Okay, thanks, Alex… and call me Cate.” She hunkered down.
Alex’s eyes were able to pick up the minutest particles of light, and his wristwatch numerals became little beacons, making everything an alien green. He saw her look up at him, her eyes blind in the dark.
There came a double knock against the outer skin of the probe.
“Here we go, ready or not,” she said with a tremor in her voice.
Alex reached down, pulling the thermal blanket up over her head. “Cover yourself. Try and leave no gaps at all, and do not touch the exterior of the capsule. Oh yeah, and breathe through your nose. That will at least cool the air down a little, so it doesn’t scorch your lungs.”
“What about you?” Her voice was muffled under the insulation sheets now wrapped tightly around her.
“Me? Do this every day.” He smiled and gripped the steel bracing tighter. Already, he could feel the bone-chilling cold through his gloves — against bare skin his flesh would have freeze-bonded to the steel.
Starting like the buzzing of an insect, and then growing in intensity, there came a small hum from below them. It reminded Alex of an electric drill starting up. He smiled again. In effect that’s what they were jammed into, a giant electric drill about to screw its way down through snow, ice, and rock to a hidden world miles below.
Alex remembered that the first stage of the process was to just employ the drill mechanism to move easily through the surface snow and ice. But when they entered the compacted ice zone, the dark ancient ice that was dark blue and as hard as stone, then the thermal-heating units would kick in.
It would be over in little more than an hour. He just hoped he could withstand it — a lot of lives depended on it. There came a jerk, a thump, and then a sensation of sliding.
“Going down,” Alex said, tilting his head back. “Next stop, the lair of the leviathan.”
“What?” A muffled voice, from down in front of him.
The cold became more intense, like a physical weight settling around them. Alex shut his mouth as his teeth began to ache. He screwed his eyes shut to ensure that the delicate membranes didn’t freeze solid in his head.
His skin began to prickle and sting, and he felt his arms and legs growing heavy. His body was pulling the blood away from his extremities as it automatically rushed to save the brain and internal organs.
His own body’s temperature burned hotter than a normal person’s, but he knew Cate would suffer if the intense cold continued for much longer, no matter how many thermal blankets she was wrapped in. He reached down to circle her body with an arm, the outer blanket crinkling as it became brittle.
The vibrations that were just a tickle beneath his soles now became a thump, then a grinding, as they struck the first of the dense ice sheets. Pleasant warmth wafted up towards Alex’s face as the huge silver bullet’s thermal engines kicked in.
He flexed his hands to get the blood flowing once more, and then adjusted his grip on the probe’s infrastructure struts. His feet were braced on a three-inch rim running around the interior. Cate was in a similar position, but was facing him, head down, and her smaller body was now folded into his. She was just a lump of silver sheeting. He looked at his wristwatch — already they had been traveling for twenty minutes. So far so good, he thought.