"Why?" Plunkett challenged. "The porichthys has adapted very well. His luminescence is used to frighten predators, act as bait to attract food, as a means to identify his own species and, of course, attract the opposite sex in the total blackness."
"Swimming in a cold black void all their lives. I'd call that a real drag."
Plunkett realized he was being had. "Very clever observation, Mr. Pitt. A pity we can't offer midwater fish some sort of entertainment."
"I think we can give them a few laughs."
"Oh, really. What have you got in mind?"
"They can watch you drive for a while." He gestured to the control console. "She's all yours. Mind you keep a tight eye on the monitor's geological display and not on jellyfish with neon advertising."
Pitt slouched in his seat, blinked his eyes closed, and looked to be asleep in a moment.
Pitt came awake two hours later at the sound of a loud crack that came like a gunshot. He immediately sensed trouble. He came erect and scanned the console, spying a flashing red light.
"A malfunction?"
"We've sprung a leak," Plunkett informed him promptly. "The warning light came on in unison with the bang."
"What does the computer say about damage and location?"
"Sorry, you didn't teach me the code to activate the program."
Pitt quickly punched the proper code on the keyboard. The readout instantly swept across the display monitor.
"We're lucky," said Pitt. "The life-support and electronic equipment chambers are tight. So is the shielded reactor compartment. The leak is below, somewhere around the engine and generator compartment."
"You call that lucky?"
"There's room to move around in that section, and the walls are accessible for plugging the entry hole.
The battering this poor old bus has taken must have opened a microscopic casting flaw in the lower hull casing."
"The force of the outer water pressure through a hole the size of a pin can fill the interior volume of this cabin in two hours," Plunkett said uneasily. He stirred uncomfortably. The optimism had gone out of his eyes as he stared bleakly at the monitor. "And if the hole widens and the hull collapses. . ." His voice dropped off.
"These walls won't collapse," Pitt said emphatically. "They were built to resist six times the pressure of this depth."
"That still leaves a tiny shaft of water coming in with the power of a laser beam. Its force can slice an electric cable or a man's arm in the wink of an eye."
"Then I'll have to be careful, won't I?" Pitt said as he slipped out of his chair and crawled toward the aft end of the control cabin. He had to maintain a constant handhold to keep from being thrown about by the swaying and pitching of the vehicle as it lurched over the broken terrain. Just before reaching the exit door, he leaned down and lifted a small trapdoor and switched on the lights, illuminating the small confines of the engine compartment.
He could hear a sharp hiss above the hum of the steam turbine but couldn't see where it was coming from. Already there was a quarter meter of water covering the steel walk matting. He paused and listened, trying to locate the sound. It wouldn't do to rush blindly into the razor-slashing stream.
"See it?" Plunkett shouted at him.
"No!" Pitt snapped nervously.
"Should I stop?"
"Not for anything. Keep moving toward the summit."
He leaned through the floor opening. There was a threatening terror, a foreboding about the deadly hissing noise, more menacing than the hostile world outside. Had the spurting leak already damaged vital equipment? Was it too strong to be stopped? There was no time to lose, no time to contemplate, no time to weigh the odds. And he who hesitated was supposed to be lost. It made no difference now if he died by drowning, cut to ribbons, or crushed by the relentless pressure of the deep sea.
He dropped through the trapdoor and crouched inside for a few moments, happy to still be in one piece. The hissing was close, almost within an arm's length, and he could feel the sting from the spray as its stream struck something ahead. But the resulting mist that filled the compartment prevented him from spotting the entry hole.
Pitt edged closer through the mist. A thought struck him, and he pulled off a shoe. He held it up and swung it from side to side with the heel out as a blind man would sweep a cane. Abruptly the shoe was nearly torn from his hand. A section of the heel was neatly carved off. He saw it then, a brief sparkle ahead and to his right.
The needlelike stream was jetting against the mounted base of the compact steam turbine that drove the DSMV's huge traction belts. The thick titanium mount withstood the concentrated power of the leak's spurt, but its tough surface had already been etched and pitted from the narrow onslaught.