For a few moments nothing happened, then centimeter by centimeter Old Gert pulled herself up from the bottom, rising slowly as if pushed by the hushed breaths and pounding hearts of the three people inside her main sphere.
"Ten feet up," announced Plunkett after what seemed an hour but in reality was only thirty seconds.
Old Gert leveled out and they all dared to breathe again. Plunkett futilely kept trying to contact Jimmy Knox. "Jimmy. . . this is Plunkett. Talk to me."
Stacy stared so hard at the depth meter she thought the glass over the dial would crack. "Go. . . go,"
she pleaded.
Then their worst nightmare burst on them without warning. The sphere holding the electrical and oxygen equipment suddenly imploded. Weakened by its impact into the seafloor, it gave up its integrity and was crushed like an egg by the merciless pressure.
"Bloody hell!" Plunkett gasped as the sub dropped back into the silt with a jarring bump.
As if to drive home the terrifying reverse, the lights blinked out and snapped the sphere into a world of pure ebony. The malignancy of the stygian blackness is a horror only the totally blind experience. To those with sight the sudden disorientation curses the mind into believing unspeakable forces are approaching from beyond in an ever tightening circle.
At last Salazar's hoarse voice broke the silence. "Mother of Jesus, we're finished for good."
"Not yet," said Plunkett. "We can still make it to the surface by jettisoning the control sphere." His hand groped over his console until his fingers touched a particular switch. With an audible click the auxiliary lights came on and refit the interior of the sphere.
Stacy sighed with relief and briefly relaxed. "Thank heaven. At least we can see."
Plunkett programmed the computer for an emergency ascent. Then he set the release mechanism and turned to Stacy and Salazar. "Hold tight. It may be a rough trip topside."
"Anything to get the hell out of here," grunted Salazar.
"Whenever you're ready," Stacy said gamely.
Plunkett removed the safety peg from the release handle, took a firm grip, and pulled.
Nothing happened.
Three times Plunkett feverishly ran through the routine. But the control sphere stubbornly refused to detach from the main section of the sub. In desperation he turned to the computer to troubleshoot the cause of the malfunction. An answer came back in the blink of an eye.
The release mechanism had been twisted and jammed by the angled impact with the seabed, and there was no way to repair it.
"I'm sorry," Plunkett said in frustration. "But it looks like we st
ay until rescued."
"Fat chance of that," snapped Salazar, wiping the sweat that poured from his face with the sleeve of a down ski jacket.
"How do we stand on oxygen?" asked Stacy.
"Our main supply was cut off when the pod imploded," replied Plunkett. "But our emergency canisters in this unit and the lithium hydroxide scrubber to remove our exhaled carbon dioxide should keep us sucking air for ten to twelve hours."
Salazar shook his head and gave a defeated shrug. "Every prayer in every church of the world won't save us in time. It'll take a minimum of seventy-two hours to get another submersible on site. And even then it's doubtful they could lift us to the surface."
Stacy looked into Plunkett's eyes for some small sign of encouragement, but she found none. He wore a remote and distant look. She got the impression he was saddened more by the loss of his precious submersible than he was at the prospect of dying. He came back on track as he became aware of her stare.
"Raul is right," he said tautly. "I hate to admit it, but we'll need a miracle to see the sun again."
"But the Invincible," said Stacy. "They'll move heaven and earth to reach us."
Plunkett shook his head. "Something tragic happened up there. The last sound we heard was a ship breaking up on her way to the bottom."
"But there were two other ships in sight when we left the surface, Stacy protested. "It might have been either one of them."
"It makes no difference," Plunkett said wearily. "There is no way up. And time has become an enemy we cannot defeat."