Deep Fathom

But Jack’s former commander had argued against such caution. “If Mr. Kirkland says he can safely explore the region, then I say let him.”

Even now Jack could remember the flare of pride at Mark Houston’s support. Without it, he wouldn’t be diving to this new depth.

With his other teammates clear, Jack worked the pedals of the Nautilus. He descended in a slow spiral, his eyes on all his monitors, the ping of his own sonar echoing in his ears. The space between the ping and its return were still spaced far apart.

…ping……………ping…

As he sank deeper, the waters grew darker around him. He flicked the battery switch and engaged the sub’s headlights. Cones of brilliance shot forward, disappearing into the infinite blue. Slipping past the two hundred meter mark, the waters became inky, as if he were descending through oil instead of water. Already Jack heard the telltale groan and tick of stressed seals as pressure built outside the sub. But this was just the beginning. At a depth of six hundred meters the pressure would grow to half a ton per square inch, enough to crush him to pulp in a heartbeat.

He reached to his computer monitor and tapped up the sonar model for this region of the seafloor. The detail was poor. Scans had revealed only an odd fuzzy detail of the seabed. Even side-scanning sonar had failed to make much headway. The topography of the seabed here was too folded and broken with hills, scarps, seamounts, and other seabed aberrations. Any hope of discovering a telltale sonar ghost of the airplane had long been given up. It would be up to him to search from here.

…ping…….. ping…

Jack began to feed his own sonar information into the computer model. Slowly the fuzzy detail began to focus. Details emerged. “Are you getting this?” he asked, touching his microphone.

Lisa answered. “It’s a mess down there. Be careful.”

As the sonar image grew crisper, he could make out a maze of gigantic seamounts and flat-topped guyots on the floor below. Deep canyons and troughs wound around these towering mounts. It reminded Jack of the Badlands of the American West, a maze of crisscrossing canyons and river channels through a landscape of windswept mesas and red rock. He had once taken a horseback trip through those wild lands. Even with a map, it had been easy to get lost. He suspected the same was true here.

The radio hissed for a moment, then Charlie’s voice came over the tiny speakers. “I don’t like what I’m seeing, Jack.”

“What do you mean?”

“Seamounts arise from volcanic activity. This dense clustering looks highly suspect to me.”

“Any seismic readings?”

A long pause. “Uh, no…it’s all quiet, but I still don’t like it.”

“Keep an eye out for me, Charlie.” Jack remembered what happened the last time he had ignored the geologist’s advice. A volcano opened up under him. He did not want to repeat the experience.

He continued to sink deeper in a widening spiral, slowing his descent. He watched his depth gauge climb from the four hundred mark toward the five hundred. Beyond the acrylic dome, tiny flickering lights caught his eye, drawing his attention away from his monitors. At first he thought it was just his imagination, then, as if he were caught in a snowstorm, a flurry of blue lights swelled and fluttered around his sub. Bioluminescent creatures, too tiny and transparent to see clearly.

“Coming up on life down here,” Jack said. He hit the video button, swiveling around to appreciate the storm as it rolled and churned away into the darkness. “How’s the new video feed?”

“Shaky, jittery…but we can make out pretty good detail.”

As quickly as they had appeared, the flock of organisms were gone. Darkness closed in again. Jack settled into his seat. The experimental video system had been loaned to them by the Navy and installed quickly, so others could monitor his progress. He glanced to his depth gauge. He was already nearing the six hundred mark.

…ping…ping…

The sonar echo narrowed. He had to be near the floor. He slowed his descent from a spiral to a gradual slope, gliding smoothly down, lights spearing forward.

“Jack!”

“Oh shit!” He saw it at the same time. He slammed the left pedal, tilting the sub and driving it in a sharp turn to the left. He just missed crashing into a tall gnarled pillar. It had appeared out of the darkness. Jack stabilized his sub, circled past the pillar and found himself in a forest of other twisted columns and spires. Some were spindly, only a hand span wide but tens of meters tall. Others were as thick as redwoods and towered just as high. He had almost crash landed into a stone forest.

Charlie’s voice was full of delight. “Get as much on video as you can.”

Jack had never seen their like. He rose a bit to avoid the densest patches, but still had to weave and wiggle around the larger pillars. “What are they?”

“Lava pillars! Fragile basalt columns formed where lava extrudes up tiny cracks in the mantle, then are cooled rapidly by the frigid waters.”

Jack tilted to view the twisted tangle below and watched a huge octopus climb through the tangle. Fish darted from his light.

Charlie continued, “We still don’t know much about them. They were only recently discovered.”

Jack edged past a monster column that had to be three meters thick and vanished up into the darkness over his head.

“But be cautious, Jack. As I was warning you before, this clustering of lava pillars suggests the region is unstable. A tectonic hot spot. Not a place you want to be hanging around. But I’ve got your back. Any blip on the seismic scale and I’ll send you an SOS.”

“Please do.” Jack cleared his throat. “Lisa, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, Jack.”

“How am I positioned in reference to the NTSB’s estimate of where Air Force One’s black box is pinging?”

A short pause. “I’m feeding your computer the newest data. You should be almost on top of her. About a hundred and twenty meters due north.”

Jack glanced to his compass. The needle jittered in a half arc back and forth. He futilely tapped the glass. It had been working perfectly ten minutes ago. “Lisa, you may have to guide me in verbally. The compass is malfunctioning. Can’t get a clear reading.”

“Fine. Turn the sub’s nose about thirty degrees, then go straight.”

Jack slowly turned the ship, estimating by using one of the pillars as a reference point. “How about now?”