“How do they get in and out of the whale, Chief? Find anything back there?”
“Possibly. I found a smooth seam half way back that looks like it could be a wide hatch door. Maybe into a small floodable bay. Can’t tell until we open it.”
“Next question,” I said, “Can we fit that thing into one our docking bays?”
“Yeah maybe into Pod Bay 2, since the SeaPod’s gone. Diagonally maybe.”
“So what’s its length? About twenty-five feet nose to tail?”
“About that, I’d say.”
“Biggest diameter?”
He stretched out his suit’s arms to reach across the bubble.
“Measures about six feet across at the head.”
“Good. Let’s remember that when we get back. Bowman will surely want to bring it in.”
“Right. Ready to head back?”
“Yeah,” I laughed, “Only if we can avoid the Chef. I just hope he hasn’t restacked that pallet yet.”
We completed the dive and reentered the bay without any interference from the monopole. That surprised us and told me that its field was still contained around Pod Bay 2. I made a mental note of that to tell Bowman.
The mess clock on the wall showed 2355 hours or five till midnight as we entered the hall from the pantry. Saunders was nowhere to be found and the kitchen was dark but thoughtfully he had left a few MRE packs out on the counter.
We grabbed them, headed to the microwave, and waited as they heated.
“When are we going to tell Bowman?” Briscoe asked.
“As soon as he shows up.”
“Shouldn’t we tell Ivy we’re back?”
“No. She’s tracking us right now with biosensors remember?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, “Big sister in the sky sees all, knows all.”
Removing our MREs at the oven’s beep, we picked a table and sat down to eat but before I could take my first bite, Bowman entered the mess asking questions.
“What did you find out there? Williams thinks it might have been a sperm whale impact. It was tailing her all afternoon.”
“Well, she’s right, Dr. Bowman, but it was an Oriental whale,” said the Chief.
He cocked his head then stared at him inquisitively.
“Now, Mr. Briscoe, I know the cetacean genus fairly well but I’ve never heard of an Oriental whale. Explain.”
“Did you ever see the movie Jaws?” he asked.
“Yes. I remember seeing that when I was younger. Scared me to death. I had trouble building my sandcastles by the ocean while watching for Bruce, that animatronic shark. Scary movie.”
He paused then asked, “But what does that have to do with an Oriental whale?”
“That’s what crashed on the crawler’s base under Pod Bay 3. An animatronic whale with three Oriental pilots aboard, probably Chinese.”
Previously bending over our table, he sat down and leaned in close to us.
“Are you telling me there’s a whale-looking submarine crashed into our base? With Orientals inside?”
“Yes that’s exactly what we’re telling you, Dr. Bowman,” Briscoe answered. “But they’re all dead or at least they look dead. I think they passed too close to the monopole and it disabled their ship, powered it down. They appear to have suffocated in an airless cockpit without power for the fans and CO2 scrubbers.”
“Oh my God,” he said, “What a horrible death.” He shook his head with his eyes cast downward. Suddenly he jerked upright.
“Chinese? What in the hell are they doing around here? They must be spying on our operation. Can we bring their whale-ship into a docking bay? I have to find out what they know and what they’ve seen.”
“It’s a possibility but what are the dimensions of the empty Pod Bay 2?”
“Well it’s a quarter-pie shaped slice receding thirty feet under Quad 2, seventy-five feet around the outer wall with a twenty-foot-wide Pod Bay door, and twelve feet wide at the smallest inner wall by the ladder. It’s pretty big. Can it hold that thing, Mr. Briscoe?”
“Yes sir. Given those dimensions, it can. But how can we raise it into the bay?”
“Use two SeaPods one on each end. Grasp it in the manipulators and raise it as a team. Maybe use a third if you need to depending on it buoyancy. I’ll pilot that one. We have to get that thing on board before we leave. Think you can do that before we pull anchor at 1900 hours, seven p.m. your time? We always travel under the cover of darkness; hiding the floating laser beacon buoy and all.”
“Yes sir, we’ll try. Mind if Marker and I finish these wonderful MREs first?”
He stood ready to leave and glanced back.
“Yeah in your wildest foodie dreams.” Laughing he left the room.
We sat finishing our meals and discussed a retrieval plan. As we brainstormed, I told the Chief that I remembered seeing some flotation slings and balloons in one of the bays but I couldn’t remember which one.
“Yep, I’ve seen them too. They’re in Pod Bay 1 by the Exosuit racks,” he said. “Now you’re going to tell me you want to lift the sub with balloons and then shove it into a bay with a SeaPod? Is that the idea, Marker? Huh?”
“Basically, yes,”
“Quit goin’ genius on me, boy. You’re beginning to make me look dumb.”
At first, I thought he was angry but then the grin climbing his face gave him away.
“So do you think it’ll work. Chief?”
“You do realize you’re going to need some high pressure gas tanks to inflate those big balloons at a thousand meter depth.”
“Yep about 1500 psi tanks. Those will give a 600 psi differential pressure inside the balloons. Way more than enough to inflate them for our use. We’ve got those strapped to the walls in the Pod Bays for refilling the Exosuits. We even have tanks like that in the SeaPods just need a long hose.”
“Oh stop it, Marker. You win. Let’s go do it.”
I took several hours for us to rig SeaPod 1 with the balloon-tethered slings, air tank and hose but only minutes for the balloons to overfill and slip away from the underbelly of the whale-ship disappearing into the darkness above our heads. My plan had failed miserably.
“Next idea, genius boy?” the Chief asked over the SeaCom pointing his suit’s floods into my SeaPod’s cockpit.
“Well let me try to lift it with the manipulators, Chief. I have no idea how much that thing weighs or how much this pod’s thrusters will lift but I’m willing to give it a try. Hopefully its ballasts are near empty.”
I could swear I saw him roll his eyes through his thick face bubble and then he sighed into the intercom.
“Now Marker I thought I taught you better than that but I’m willing to give it a try. Come on down here. I’ll help slide your arms around it. But don’t make any sudden moves. You barely know how to drive that SeaPod.”
He was right. I had just self-taught myself how to maneuver the pod during the minutes spent diving down to him but it was a simple joystick control, something I was accustomed to in my prior mini-sub dives. I felt comfortable but was still cautious navigating around with the pod.
“Be right there,” I said.
Soon I was hugging the whale-ship from above at its midsection waiting for the Chief’s inspection of my manipulators’ positions. He had climbed on its back to check my grip when I accidentally bumped the joystick toward me.
Suddenly with a loud groan, the whale-ship lifted up and away from the crawler base with the SeaPod rising from the ocean floor.