Submarines really do manufacture their own oxygen, and their own water, from the sea that surrounds them. Ocean water is boiled and the vapor collected to desalinate it. And in the oxygen generators, high-voltage electricity is used to pry the H2O molecules apart, giving the crew its oxygen. When I reported to my submarine, these processes, along with nuclear power, seemed to me to be the most magical, the most Nemo-esque part of submarine engineering, and they still do. Which is probably why I find a way to work them into every book.
Escape trunks are very real. There are three of them on a Trident submarine, and Trident sailors spend a day or so learning how to operate them. They then spend the rest of their sea tours learning how to prevent accidents and fight casualties that might ever require such an escape. This training has a sense of urgency because no one expects the escape trunks to really work — the depths that modern submarines operate in are simply too great for this kind of egress. I once heard a chief say there was a secret procedure somewhere for using the escape trunk as a jail cell — submarines have no brig. I never saw the procedure myself, but if we had ever needed to lock someone up, this probably would have worked as well as anything.
There really is a surface-to-air missile designed for submarines to use against their nemesis, the helicopter. It is made by a German company, Diehl Defense, and was originally designed to work aboard the German Type 212 submarine. It doesn’t appear to actually be deployed aboard any operational submarines, but videos are available on the company’s website. The MOSS is real, too. The acronym stands for “Mobile Submarine Simulator.”
The Dyce Laboratory for Honeybee Studies at Cornell is very real, and looks much like I’ve described it here. And while it may sound like one of the most far-fetched things in the book, the “waggle dance” is also real, and is an amazing, wondrous method of communication between bees that scientists are still deciphering.
Eris Island is, alas, entirely imaginary.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks as always to my most dedicated editors: my parents, Ken and Laura Tucker.
Also thanks to Pete Wolverton, editor of my first novel, who remembered me and sent this project my way.
Finally, thank you to Brendan Deneen, a great editor and a great storyteller himself. This was the most fun I’ve ever had writing a book — let’s do it again soon.
ALSO BY TODD TUCKER
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Ghost Sub
Over and Under
Shooting a Mammoth
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TODD TUCKER attended the University of Notre Dame on a full scholarship, graduating with a degree in history in 1990. He then volunteered for the U.S. Navy’s demanding nuclear power program, eventually making six patrols on board a Trident submarine. In 1995, Tucker left the navy to return with his family to Indiana to pursue a career in writing. You can sign up for email updates here.