Dead Sea Read Free Page B

brought that enormous Lion’s Mane jellyfish down here. The jellyfish and God alone knew what else . . .
    Which was precisely where Richard had reached in his thoughts when the giant sperm whale attacked.
    Richard’s first warning was that his sonar suddenly went wild again. His next was that
Salacia
’s warning system kicked in, flashing on to the monitors arranged above
Neptune
’s immediately in front of him. And his third was when the creature’s great square head came out of the shadows, heading across the video screens towards Nic’s vessel at breathtaking speed. At first, Richard thought the two underwater research vessels were being attacked by a submarine. All he could see was a great square steely-grey shape heading in at flank speed. Then he registered a trail of silvery bubbles rising from the upper edge of the cliff-like bow. A long, narrow jaw that gaped, lined with tusklike teeth. And a tiny eye caught the light, glinting.
    Richard thought,
My God! It’s Moby Dick!
‘Nic!’ he bellowed. ‘Look out!’
    The whale went for
Salacia
first, apparently because she was bigger, brighter and in the lead. But in fact
Neptune
was closer to the massive cetacean. Richard had only been holding the compressed-air controls at three-quarters. He jammed them both full open now, and watched
Neptune
gather speed and buoyancy in the readouts as she raced to the protection of her threatened sister.
    Providentially,
Neptune
still held the square of netting, and so the quick-thinking Richard was able to pull it across the whale’s face like a remote-controlled underwater toreador flirting his cape at a charging bull. The whale’s sonar – which, Richard realized, must have been interfering with his own – failed to read netting and the great square face charged straight into the bright strands which obligingly wrapped themselves around it, the lower end swinging into the gape of its mouth. Richard’s hands flew across the control console, making sure
Neptune
kept firm hold of the net while at the same time reversing the pressure so the vessel stopped rising and hung there, like a bright yellow bumblebee hovering beside a steel-grey locomotive.
    â€˜Nic,’ ordered Richard, his deep voice regaining a matter-of-fact calm as his hands worked feverishly, ‘get up and out as fast as you can.’
    Even as he spoke, the door behind him opened and he felt rather than saw Captain Chang step into the control room. ‘I see this on bridge monitor,’ she snapped angrily, as though Richard and Nic were playing with the whale simply to irritate her. ‘I do not believe what I see. You catching a
whale
there, Captain Mariner? You mad?’
    Richard would have answered her, especially as he understood the unspoken message –
you bring that monster near my command and there will be BIG trouble, gwailo!
– but there was never any realistic chance.
    Because the instant the net tightened,
Neptune
was off on a wild ride. Richard watched the readouts unreeling with dizzying speed as
Neptune
rode the leviathan down, then he frowned and began to ease air back into the buoyancy tanks, playing the whale in a way that
Poseidon
’s master angler Ironwrist Wan might have done. But seeking to distract the monster, keep it in play until
Salacia
was safe with no real thought of actually landing the thing. He was no mad Captain Ahab, after all, seeking to revenge the loss of his leg. And he had no intention of pulling the net off the Lion’s Mane jellyfish simply to leave it wrapped around a sperm whale if he could help it.
    Within moments Richard had lost sight of
Salacia
and was only able to track his companion using
Neptune
’s GPS system. His cameras showed only darkness above and below. More darkness off to the right. And on the left, the heaving flank of the massive creature he was lashed to. There was a brownish-grey wall of flesh, beginning to fold into