"But you didn't actually see the cylinders?" Maggie asked.
"I'm not sure we were in the right cargo bay," Hannah said. "There were two more sections that we didn't get to."
Queet leaned down and studied the chart a little closer. "Just exactly how far down is it?"
"According to the vertical ANGMX, this portion of the stern is right at ninety-five feet. Since it's sitting in there at a forty-five degree angle, port to starboard, with the open end exposed, the whole thing is cantilevered out over the trench. If I computed it right, it's another ninety to a hundred feet down to the bottom of the trench. Maybe it's even deeper. The wall to the reef side of the trench is a sixty degree angle with a labyrinth of caves and caverns all the way down."
"What's keeping the old tub perched up there on the shelf, and what's the danger that it might topple off into the trench if we start poking around?"
Hannah gave me that special dirty look people save for other people who ask the very same question that's bothering them as well.
"I think that's a good possibility," she admitted.
The lady's answer didn't satisfy me. What you're really telling us is that if we go down there and start disturbing things, that hunk of junk could go tumbling on down into never-never land, right?"
"One hundred and eighty to two hundred feet is hardly never-never land, Mr. Wages," Hannah snapped. Her voice had the overtones of a teacher scolding a pupil who had spoken out of turn. "But the answer to your question is — yes. If that portion of the stern did slip down into the trench, it could make it doubly difficult to retrieve the cylinders — maybe impossible. Our biggest problem may turn out to be equipment. I'd have to do some more calculations to be certain.''
"All right, Ms. Holbrook, let's play 'what if'."
The lady's intense brown eyes darted from Queet to Maggie to Sargent and finally to me. She ignored Huntington. "Well, it could be a real bitch getting those cylinders up even under the best of conditions. Just from what little I saw down there, it looks as though we really need someone the caliber of your friend, Mr. Crompton."
I looked at Sarge hoping he had someone in mind, but he shook his head. There weren't many like Crompton.
"We really don't have any alternative," Maggie interjected.
"It may be a bigger risk than some of you are willing to take." I wanted each of them to know that they had an out. "Without someone like Crompton, and with what we've learned today, the name of the game has changed."
It was almost as if someone had given a silent signal. We began pulling on the wetsuits again and strapping on the gear. With one tank each, at a depth in excess of 80 feet, our diving time was restricted to no more than 30 minutes. Our collective inexperience was costing us since we had to build in safeguards. All in all, I figured we would be decidedly more efficient on our second effort. We had gained some advantages. The Garl was clearly marked, we knew the layout better — how to enter and exit — and we only had the two remaining lockers in the number three hold to search. I also figured that, with a little luck, our ugly six gilled intruder would be off somewhere else on the reef, amusing himself with other diversions.
Queet was left topside to operate the winches if we needed them, and Sarge was charged with keeping the Sloe Gin out of the coral and keeping an eye out for the Westmore police boats. Maggie and I switched roles on the assumption that it would be easier for me to move the cylinders if we located them. Maggie drew line and monitor duties. Hannah had the most diving experience, even though limited, and served as the lead dog. I rode drag. You could tell by the way the lady moved out that she had a helluva lot better idea how to get around underwater than I did.
We entered the Garl through the fracture in the hull near the split on the starboard side. It was a lot like plunging head first down a dark well. The world went from a comfortable and inviting blue-green to gray shadowed darkness. The halogen lights tended to distort objects, and I found myself dodging and ducking in a world where darkness had all the advantages.
In the 3-AB locker we found a bunch of rotting crates, and I took time to claw my way into one of them. The contents were once cans of something that had long since rusted through, and the whole thing looked like an elaborate practical joke — crates of cans of nothing.
We located several boxes of brass casings, a couple more that looked suspiciously like spare aircraft parts and two steel boxes the size of steamer trunks that were securely chained to each other. On the whole, it was pretty unrewarding. At the far side of the 3-AB we discovered a personnel hatch. It was dead bolted, and the rust had secured it permanently. Following Hannah's instructions, I swam to the cargo hatch at the top of the locker, through the hole in the bulkhead and into the adjacent locker. When the beam of my light was sucked up by the cloudy darkness, I found myself hesitating.
The big son-of-a-bitch hit me like a ton of bricks. I caught just a glimpse of him in the light — all mouth and motion with two big dead black eyes.
Suddenly I was somersaulting backwards, out of control. The halogen went one way and I went the other. The world went black. The light was either broken or had been inadvertently shut off. Either way I was in one hell of a fix. I slammed up against the bulkhead, trying to recapture my mouthpiece. I was in a gray world where he could see and I couldn't. Disoriented and damn scared, I was struggling to get myself reoriented. I couldn't risk any movement. While his sensing devices worked at these depths, mine didn't. I started taking inventory — mask, regulator, stabilizing jacket, emergency belt. One hand was inching out along the slimy metal surface, and the other was checking the peripheral gear tethered to my pack. The BC tube was still in place, and my back was either to the wall or the floor; I couldn't be sure which. There were some pipes on my right and a space between them. On my other side was a bulky object that felt like a box. I took a chance, reached out and found I had tumbled into a pile of crates. There was some kind of movement just above me, and I realized that the big bastard was cruising around directly over my head. He seemed to be swimming faster and faster, working all that menacing bulk into a frenzy.
The initial panic started to subside, and I began trying to summon up relevant data about sharks. Unfortunately, what I was remembering wasn't very helpful.
Directly above me the water was a somewhat less opaque shade of gray, a condition I immediately interpreted as meaning I had spotted the cargo door that I had come in through. There had to be some light refracting down, either from Hannah's light or light filtering down through a maze of passageways from the surface. Now there were two questions rattling around in my fevered brain. First, was that big bastard as confused and disoriented as me — and if so, could he figure a way out of there? Secondly, if he did know how to get out, why the hell wasn't he doing it? At that point it still hadn't occurred to me to be concerned about how much time I had left on my tanks.
The faint gray was slowly evolving into an eerie white-yellow. It had to be Hannah. She had watched me go over the bulkhead and I hadn't returned — nor had I given her the prescribed "everything's okay" signal. She was probably coming to find out what happened to me. Then all of a sudden I realized the danger to Hannah. If the lady poked her head over that bulkhead at the wrong time, the Prometheus team could be minus one very important member.
She did, and the gray world turned to darkness. The big ugly bastard went for her and slammed into the superstructure just below her. He had just missed.
There was the thunderous sound of a second collision, this one louder than the first. The grayish area momentarily blacked out a second time. The water went calm, and something seemed different. I stayed right where I was, wondering if my senses were deceiving me.