He sneezed hard, twice. Pressure effects were starting to tell on him.
“Should we inform the others?” he asked Petri, with a nod back toward Bird’s other two compartments, where the crying had settled down to low whimpers from a couple of younger kids.
She shook her head. “It will be quick, yes?”
Jonah considered lying and dismissed the idea.
“It depends. As we rise, the water pressure outside falls, so if air pressure inside remains high, that could lead to a blowout, cracking one of our shells, letting the sea rush in awfully fast. So fast, we’ll be knocked out before we can drown. Of course, that’s the least gruesome end.”
“What a cheerful lad,” she commented. “Go on.”
“Let’s say the hull compartments hold. This is a tough old bird.” He patted the nearest curved flank. “We can help protect against blowout by venting compartment air, trying to keep pace with falling pressure outside. In that case, we’ll suffer one kind or another kind of pressure-change disease. The most common is the bends. That’s when gas that’s dissolved in our blood suddenly pops into tiny bubbles that fill your veins and arteries. I hear it’s a painful way to die.”
Whether because of his mutation, or purely in his mind, Jonah felt a return of the scratchy throat and burning eyes. He turned his head barely in time to sneeze away from the window, and Petri.
She was looking behind them, into the next compartment. “If death is unavoidable, but we can pick our way to die, then I say let’s choose—”
At that moment, Jonah tensed at a sudden, jarring sensation—a snap that rattled the viewing patch in front of him. Something was happening, above and ahead. Without light from the Cleopatra domes, darkness was near total outside, broken only by some algae glow bulbs placed along the flank of the Pride of Laussane. Letting go of Petri, he went to all the bulbs inside the Bird’s forward compartment and covered them, then hurried back to press his face against the viewing patch.
“What is it?” Petri asked. “What’s going on?”
“I think …” Jonah made out a queer, sinuous rippling in the blackness between the two submarines.
He jumped as something struck the window. With pounding heart, he saw and heard a snakelike thing slither across the clear zone of bubble, before falling aside. And beyond, starting from just twenty meters away, the row of tiny glow spots now shot upward, like legendary rockets, quickly diminishing, then fading from view.
“The tether,” he announced in a matter-of-fact voice.
“They let go? Let us go?” A blend of hope and awe in her voice.
“Made sense,” he answered. “They were goners anyway.” And now they will be the heroes, when all is told. Songs will be sung about their choice, back home.
That is, assuming there still is a home. We have no idea if Leininger Dome was the only victim, this time.
He stared at the pressure gauge. After a long pause when it refused to budge, the needle finally began to move. Opposite to its former direction of change.
“We’re descending,” he decreed with a sigh. “In fact, we’d better adjust. To keep from falling too fast. It wouldn’t do, to reach safety down there, only to crack open from the impact.”
Jonah put the Sadoulite dad—Xerish—to work, pumping in the opposite direction, less frantically than before, but harder work, using compressed air to push out and overboard some water from the ballast tanks, while Petri, now experienced, handled the valves. After supervising for a few minutes, he went back to the viewing port and peered outside. I must keep a sharp lookout for the lights of Cleo Canyon. We may have drifted laterally and I can adjust better while we’re falling than later, at the bottom. He used the rudder and stubby elevation planes to turn the little sub, explaining to Petri how it was done. She might have to steer, if Jonah’s strength was needed on the propeller crank.
A low, concussive report caused the chamber to rattle and groan. Not as bad as the horrid thump had been, but closer, coming from somewhere above. Jonah shared eye contact with Petri, a sad recognition of something inevitable. The end of a gallant ship—Pride of Laussane.
Two more muffled booms followed, rather fainter, then another.
They must have closed their inner hatches. Each compartment is failing separately.
But something felt wrong about that. The third concussion, especially, had felt deep-throated, lasting longer than reasonable. Amid another bout of sneezing, Jonah pressed close against the view patch once again, in order to peer about. First toward the bottom, then upward.
Clearly, this day had to be the last straw. It rang a death knell for the old, complacent ways of doing things. Leininger had been a big, important colony, and perhaps not today’s only major victim. If thumps were going unpredictable and lethal, then Cleopatra might have to be abandoned.
Jonah knew very little about the plan concocted by Petri’s mysterious cabal of young women and men, though he was glad to have been chosen to help. To follow a rascal’s legend in search of new homes. In fact, two things were abundantly clear. Expeditions must get under way just as soon as we get back. And there should be more than just one, following Melvil’s clues. Subs must be sent in many directions! If Venus created other realms filled with hollow volcanic globes that can be seeded with Earthly life, then we must find them.
A second fact had also emerged, made evident during the last hour or so. Jonah turned to glance back at a person he had barely known, until just a day ago.
It appears that I married really well.
Although the chamber was very dim, Petri glanced up from her task and noticed him looking at her. She smiled—an expression of respect and dawning equality that seemed just as pleased as he now felt. Jonah smiled back—then unleashed another great sneeze. At which she chirped a short laugh and shook her head in fake-mocking ruefulness.
Grinning, he turned back to the window, gazed upward—then shouted—
“Grab something! Brace yourselves!”
That was all he had time or breath to cry, while yanking on the tiller cables and shoving his knee hard against the elevator control plane. Bird heeled over to starboard, both rolling and struggling to yaw-turn. Harsh cries of surprise and alarm erupted from the back compartments, as crates and luggage toppled.
He heard Petri shout “Stay where you are!” at the panicky Xerish, who whimpered in terror. Jonah caught a glimpse of them, reflected in the view patch, as they clutched one of the air-storage bottles to keep from tumbling across the deck, onto the right-side bulkhead.
Come on, old boy, he urged the little sub and wished he had six strong men cranking at the stern end, driving the propeller to accelerate Bird of Tairee forward. If there had been, Jonah might—just barely—have guided the sub clear of peril tumbling from above. Debris from a catastrophe, only a small fraction of it glittering in the darkness.
Hard chunks of something rattled against the hull. He glimpsed an object, thin and metallic—perhaps a torn piece of pipe—carom off the view patch with a bang, plowing several nasty scars before it fell away. Jonah half expected the transparent zone to start spalling and cracking at any second.
That didn’t happen, but now debris was coming down in a positive rain, clattering along the whole length of his vessel, testing the sturdy old shells with every strike. Desperate, he hauled even harder, steering Bird away from what seemed the worst of it, toward a zone that glittered a bit less. More cries erupted from the back two chambers.