The Diving Bundle: Six Diving Universe Novellas Read Free Page B

of Karl’s breathing, punctuated by an occasional “fuck” as he bumps something or moves slightly off-line.
    I don’t look at the images he’s sending back either. I know what they are—the gloved hand on the lead, the vastness beyond, the bits of the wreck in the distance.
    Instead, I walk back to the cockpit, sink into my chair, and turn all monitors on full. I have cameras on both of them and read-outs running on another monitor watching their heart and breathing patterns. I plug the handheld into one small screen, but don’t watch it until Karl approaches the wreck.
    The main door is scored and dented. Actual rivets still remain on one side. I haven’t worked a ship old enough for rivets; I’ve only seen them in museums and histories. I stare at the bad image Karl’s sending back, entranced. How have those tiny metal pieces remained after centuries? For the first time, I wish I’m out there myself. I want to run the thin edge of my glove against the metal surface.
    Karl does just that, but he doesn’t seem interested in the rivets. His fingers search for a door release, something that will open the thing easily.
    After centuries, I doubt there is any easy here. Finally, Turtle pings him.
    “Got something over here,” she says.
    She’s on the far side of the wreck from me, working a section I hadn’t examined that closely in my three trips out. Karl keeps his hands on the wreck itself, sidewalking toward her.
    My breath catches. This is the part I hate: the beginning of the actual dive, the place where the trouble starts.
    Most wrecks are filled with space, inside and out, but a few still maintain their original environments, and then it gets really dicey—extreme heat or a gaseous atmosphere that interacts badly with the suits.
    Sometimes the hazards are even simpler: a jagged metal edge that punctures even the strongest suits; a tiny corridor that seems big enough until it narrows, trapping the diver inside.
    Every wreck has its surprises, and surprise is the thing that leads to the most damage—a diver shoving backwards to avoid a floating object, a diver slamming his head into a wall jarring the suit’s delicate internal mechanisms, and a host of other problems, all of them documented by survivors, and none of them the same.
    The handheld shows a rip in the exterior of the wreck, not like any other caused by debris. Turtle puts a fisted hand in the center, then activates her knuckle lights. From my vantage, the hole looks large enough for two humans to go through side-by-side.
    “Send a probe before you even think of going in there,” I say into her headset.
    “Think it’s deep enough?” Turtle asks, her voice tinny as it comes through the speakers.
    “Let’s try the door first,” Karl says. “I don’t want surprises if we can at all avoid them.”
    Good man. His small form appears like a spider attached to the ship’s side. He returns to the exit hatch, still scanning it.
    I look at the timer, running at the bottom of my main screen.
    17:32
    Not a lot of time to get in.
    I know Karl’s headpiece has a digital readout at the base. He’s conscious of the time, too, and as cautious about that as he is about following procedure.
    Turtle scuttles across the ship’s side to reach him, slips a hand under a metal awning, and grunts.
    “How come I didn’t see that?” Karl asks.
    “Looking in the wrong place,” she says. “This is real old. I’ll wager the metal’s so brittle we could punch through the thing.”
    “We’re not here to destroy it.” There’s disapproval in Karl’s voice.
    “I know .”
    19:01. I’ll come on the line and demand they return if they go much over twenty minutes.
    Turtle grabs something that I can’t see, braces her feet on the side of the ship, and tugs. I wince. If she loses her grip, she propels, spinning, far and fast into space.
    “Crap,” she says. “Stuck.”
    “I could’ve told you that. These things are designed to remain closed.”
    “We