until finally it struck a mountainside, bounced and rolled in slow motion, throwing clouds of unseen silt and dislodging boulders that accompanied it into a stygian canyon. There, at last, it came to a halt, a heap of twisted steel.
* * *
In the rubble of the bow, the huge box, cast of bronze, sealed with rubber, denied penetration to the seeking sea.
The silt settled, time passed. Legions of infinitesimal organisms that patrolled the abyss consumed what was edible.
Calm returned to the ocean bottom, and the relentless cycle of life and death went on.
PART TWO
1996
LATITUDE 26 DEGREES NORTH
LONGITUDE 45 DEGREES WEST
5
ABSOLUTE darkness is rare on earth. Even on a moonless night, with clouds hiding the stars, the loom of civilization glows against the sky.
In the deep oceans, absolute darkness is commonplace. Rays of the sun, thought for millennia to be the sole source of life on earth, can penetrate less than half a mile of seawater. Nearly three quarters of the planet—vast plains, great canyons, mountain ranges that rival the Himalayas—are shrouded in perpetual black, broken occasionally by bioluminescent organisms that sparkle with predatory or reproductive intent.
Two submersibles hovered side by side like alien crabs—white-bodied, brilliant-eyed. The two five-thousand-watt lights mounted on their concave snouts cast a path of gold some two hundred feet in front of them.
"Four thousand meters," one of the pilots said into his radio. "The pass should be dead-ahead. I'm going in."
"Roger that," the other pilot replied. "I'm right behind you."
Propellers turned simultaneously as electric motors were engaged, and the first submersible moved slowly ahead.
Inside the steel capsule—only ten feet long and six feet across—David Webber half lay, half crouched beside the pilot and pressed his face to a six-inch porthole as the lamps picked up steep gray escarpments of dirt and rock that seemed to go on forever, as if descending from nowhere above to nowhere below.
Four thousand meters, Webber thought. Thirteen thousand feet of water, more or less. Two and a half miles. All that water above him, all that pressure around him. How much pressure? Incalculable. But certainly enough to turn him into a Pudding Pop.
Don't think about it, he told himself. If you think about it, you'll go apeshit. And this is not a good time or place to go apeshit. You need the work, you need the money. Just get the job done and get the hell out of here.
A few drops of condensation dripped from the overhead, landed on his neck, and he jumped.
The pilot glanced at him and laughed. "Wish I'd have seen it coming," he said. "I'd have screamed along with you, made you think we were buying the farm." He grinned. "I like to do that to first-timers, watch 'em go goggle-eyed."
"Nice," Webber said. "I'd have sent you my cleaning bill." He shivered and crossed his arms to rub his shoulders. It had been 85 degrees on the surface, and he had been sweating in his wool pullover, wool socks and corduroy trousers. But in the three hours it had taken them to descend, the temperature had dropped more than fifty degrees. He was freezing. He was still sweating, but now it was from fear.
"What's the water temperature out there?" he asked, not from genuine curiosity but because there was comfort in conversation.
"Thirty, thirty-two," the pilot said. "Cold enough to pucker your dickie, that's for sure."
Webber turned back to his porthole and rested a hand on the controls of one of the four cameras he had installed in movable housings bolted to the skin of the submersible. The boat was skimming the side of a canyon wasteland, an endless terrain of monochromatic rubble that looked less inviting than the surface of the moon. He kept reminding himself that his and the pilot's were the first human eyes ever to see this landscape, and his lenses would be the first to record it on film.
"Hard to believe things actually live down here," he
* * *
In the rubble of the bow, the huge box, cast of bronze, sealed with rubber, denied penetration to the seeking sea.
The silt settled, time passed. Legions of infinitesimal organisms that patrolled the abyss consumed what was edible.
Calm returned to the ocean bottom, and the relentless cycle of life and death went on.
PART TWO
1996
LATITUDE 26 DEGREES NORTH
LONGITUDE 45 DEGREES WEST
5
ABSOLUTE darkness is rare on earth. Even on a moonless night, with clouds hiding the stars, the loom of civilization glows against the sky.
In the deep oceans, absolute darkness is commonplace. Rays of the sun, thought for millennia to be the sole source of life on earth, can penetrate less than half a mile of seawater. Nearly three quarters of the planet—vast plains, great canyons, mountain ranges that rival the Himalayas—are shrouded in perpetual black, broken occasionally by bioluminescent organisms that sparkle with predatory or reproductive intent.
Two submersibles hovered side by side like alien crabs—white-bodied, brilliant-eyed. The two five-thousand-watt lights mounted on their concave snouts cast a path of gold some two hundred feet in front of them.
"Four thousand meters," one of the pilots said into his radio. "The pass should be dead-ahead. I'm going in."
"Roger that," the other pilot replied. "I'm right behind you."
Propellers turned simultaneously as electric motors were engaged, and the first submersible moved slowly ahead.
Inside the steel capsule—only ten feet long and six feet across—David Webber half lay, half crouched beside the pilot and pressed his face to a six-inch porthole as the lamps picked up steep gray escarpments of dirt and rock that seemed to go on forever, as if descending from nowhere above to nowhere below.
Four thousand meters, Webber thought. Thirteen thousand feet of water, more or less. Two and a half miles. All that water above him, all that pressure around him. How much pressure? Incalculable. But certainly enough to turn him into a Pudding Pop.
Don't think about it, he told himself. If you think about it, you'll go apeshit. And this is not a good time or place to go apeshit. You need the work, you need the money. Just get the job done and get the hell out of here.
A few drops of condensation dripped from the overhead, landed on his neck, and he jumped.
The pilot glanced at him and laughed. "Wish I'd have seen it coming," he said. "I'd have screamed along with you, made you think we were buying the farm." He grinned. "I like to do that to first-timers, watch 'em go goggle-eyed."
"Nice," Webber said. "I'd have sent you my cleaning bill." He shivered and crossed his arms to rub his shoulders. It had been 85 degrees on the surface, and he had been sweating in his wool pullover, wool socks and corduroy trousers. But in the three hours it had taken them to descend, the temperature had dropped more than fifty degrees. He was freezing. He was still sweating, but now it was from fear.
"What's the water temperature out there?" he asked, not from genuine curiosity but because there was comfort in conversation.
"Thirty, thirty-two," the pilot said. "Cold enough to pucker your dickie, that's for sure."
Webber turned back to his porthole and rested a hand on the controls of one of the four cameras he had installed in movable housings bolted to the skin of the submersible. The boat was skimming the side of a canyon wasteland, an endless terrain of monochromatic rubble that looked less inviting than the surface of the moon. He kept reminding himself that his and the pilot's were the first human eyes ever to see this landscape, and his lenses would be the first to record it on film.
"Hard to believe things actually live down here," he
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