“Look!” Silkwood screamed.
“It’s consuming the hull of that ship! Metal’s streaming into it like a plasma jet. The ship is spaghettifying! This can’t be happening!”
Briscoe his voice trembling and shouting yelled, “The ROV is gone. We’re going to crash into the hull of that sub and join that graveyard! Pull back, Marker! Stop this damn SeaPod.”
“I have it in full reverse, Chief! Can’t stop.”
“Purge the ballasts! That worked before!”
I punched the ballast icon and heard the air gasp into the tanks over sounds from the straining, smoking motors but we still drifted forward downward toward our doom.
“Ballasts blown, Chief! Still in its clutches.”
“Marker,” he screamed, “Check for a dead-weight ballast to release! Our DSVs have them. Break us loose from this Goddamn nightmare. Do it now!”
Coughing in the thickening smoke, I wiped my eyes clear and scanned the control panel searching for a ballast-release icon as the blinding light from the approaching object illuminated the cockpit’s smoke. Now feeling as if I was in a white-out snowstorm, I bent closer to the panel to see. I squinted through the blinding choking smoke and finally found an image of a tiny block of bricks hanging from a chain with a down arrow below it. That must be it I thought.
I pushed the icon and waited for something, anything to happen. Loudly with a forceful boom and a sharp upward jolt the ballast dropped, sending us up rising away from the menacing force.
“Thank God Marker! We’re free,” gasped the Chief, coughing and wiping his forehead. It took him seconds to stop shaking and speak again.
“Now get us back into the bay and out of this damned cockpit before we choke to death. Since we’ve regained some power the air scrubbers should work long enough for our return.”
I glanced at Silkwood sitting to my left. He was trembling with his hands over his mouth and his eyes still glued to the receding object’s glow.
“You all right, Dr. Silkwood?” I asked.
“No. Not at all,” he said. “My lifelong work, my beliefs, and my science have just been nullified by that thing. The entire world of theoretical physics will be changed by it. I’m still trying to convince myself that I really saw it and that my watch ran backwards.”
He inhaled shakily.
“We were on the event horizon of something magical yet terrifying. No one’s going to believe me.”
Then he sighed and looked over at me.
“Mr. Cross, can we possibly observe it in more detail without dying?”
“You tell me, Jonas. You’re the physicist. I’ve read about event horizons and the way I understand them is you might pass through them but you can never leave.”
“Now you see our problem, Dr. Silkwood,” the Chief agreed. “We have attempted to approach it for closer observation but since I stood over it yesterday it has grown stronger, absorbing everything around it.”
Distracted by the conversation I realized we were still rising and couldn’t stop. Futilely I struggled with the joystick twisting and shoving it as the motors groaned in response. Yet we drifted upward. Then from a speaker behind my head came a quiet warning message.
“Flood ballasts! Flood Ballasts! This vessel is an uncontrolled rise. Structural damage may occur if maximum speed is exceeded.”
Suddenly reminded of a step I had missed I touched the icon and cautiously waited. Within seconds, the ballasts burped and filled stopping our rise even without the dead-weight ballast.
With the SeaPod seemingly under control, I navigated downward back toward our bay. Down on my left I glimpsed the floods of another vessel traveling far below us.
“That must be Bowman with the Admiral and Williams,” I said.
Briscoe followed my gaze then jolted up in his seat.
“Must be. Oh, crap! They’re too close to the sub. Better warn them of the object’s increased range.”
“SeaPod 4, this is SeaPod 1 above you at one o’clock,” I said tripping the SeaCom switch. “Do not approach the object. Repeat, do not approach the object. Its field has grown much stronger. Very difficult to recover.”
Bowman’s stressed voice sifted through the static with a weakening signal, “Too late, Matt. We’re trapped in its field. Motors can’t break us free. Being drawn downward. Please take control of my station and treat it as your own. I know you can do it, Matt. And remember that I still love you as the big brother I never had. So sorry it had to end this way. Everyone’s screaming and crying in here. Can barely hear you.”
My heart sank and my stomach rushed into my mouth at his pleading tone. He had never before told me the way he felt but deep in my heart, I knew that we were best friends forever, brothers from different mothers.
“Blow your ballasts and drop your dead-weight load Dave,” I yelled into the microphone. “It’s the little orange icon in the lower right corner of your control panel. Looks like a load of bricks on a chain with a down-pointing arrow. Push it!”
Seconds passed without a response.
“That helped, Matt, but we’re still caught in its pull. If the motors don’t fail we might pull back but they’re already smoking. Say a prayer for us.”
“Hell, Dave I can do better than that. You know me. Hang on. Be there in a minute.”
Briscoe stared at me with huge eyes.
“You mean we’re going back into that hellish mire? Shouldn’t you at least consult us before putting our lives at risk?”
“Sorry Chief. You taught me never to give up. And, if I left them behind to die that’s exactly what I’d be doing. We’re going down there but not as close as before. I’ll extend the manipulator arms and grab their aft cross beam. Without our dead weight, we’ll have more pull. Then we’ll all tug together: do it with teamwork. Consider yourselves consulted.”
Silkwood said, “But- but—”
The Chief shushed him and shook his head no.
“Do not interrupt him, Jonas. This is how we divers roll. Now just sit back and enjoy the sights.”
Smiling at his support I veered the SeaPod back down toward Bowman’s pod. We were only twenty meters up and closing quickly. I scanned the control panel seeking an icon before I realized there would be joysticks for controlling the manipulators. Below the main navigation joystick, I found two smaller ones.
On their base some small instructions read Push to Extend, Pull to Retract and Twist for Claw Control. That’s all I needed to know to unfold them. Shortly they stuck straight out in front of the pod with their pincers open ready to grasp Bowman’s SeaPod.
“Keep your eyes on your watch, Silkwood. Chief, watch the power meter. If either of you thinks we’ve entered its horizon let me know; I don’t want to go in too far.”
Slowly very cautiously, I dropped the SeaPod in behind Bowman’s pod, edging the claws of both arms inch by inch around its aft bumper. We were both traveling together as one but I was bucking the thrust from his giant propellers pulling me forward. I had to will my hands to cease trembling as the pincers finally clanked against the metal crossbeam.
“Gotcha,” I yelled twisting the little joysticks, closing the claws over it.
“Time is slowing but not reversing yet,” announced Silkwood engrossed in my maneuvers.
“Careful don’t let go,” he said glancing rapidly between his watch and the manipulators’ grippers.
I tapped the SeaCom’s icon and announced:
“We’re connected up and set to go, Dave. I’ve got your tail. Give ‘er all the power you’ve got, Scottie. Back us up, Scottie.”
Returning through the intercom his next comment tickled me giving me hope.
“Aye, Aye Captain, I've giv'n her all she's got, an' I canna give her no more.”