Rivers lingered before the cottage and watched the open door with not a small amount of trepidation. Many thoughts ran through his mind, but these were intrusions rather than considerations, for the situation was perfectly straightforward: his search, perceptual though it might have been, was over and the expectation or, more truthfully, the aspiration, of that search lay a few feet away inside those four walls; to enter was simplicity itself. However, it took some resolution to do so.
He had to force himself to limp to the door, his breath held for a moment, and look inside.
There was only one room and the light that filtered through its three grimy windows was dim and sepulchral. The floor was of stone slabs worn smooth, and a cooking range housed within a wide hearth faced the door. The lintel over this was blackened with peat-reek, as were the walls. Against a wall was a settle that might have doubled for a bed, and a small table and chairs stood beneath one of the windows. There appeared to be no frivolous comforts in this home.
Disappointed-yet oddly relieved at the same time-to find no one there, Rivers stepped through. There was a sour smell about the place that not even the draught from the open doorway could
t
dispel, a scent of age, although not decay, a blend of ashes from the hearth and the staleness of a cell. At first he thought the cottage might have been abandoned, but jars and pots, some full, others half full, on a shelf by the cooking range and raw vegetables lying on the table as if about to be prepared, told him otherwise. He scanned the room again, an exercise that took little more than three seconds, and saw no other human touches-no pictures or photographs, no books, no phone or radio. The austerity was chilling and Rivers couldn't help but think of the witch's cottage in Josh's dream and the horror that awaited the children inside. It was difficult to keep his imagination in check inside such a place.
He wasn't sure what to do-what he was supposed to do. Was he to wait here? Was he to go outside and look for whoever had guided-or lured-him to this lonely spot? He winced as sharp pain shot through his leg again and he stumbled over to the settle to take the weight off his knee. He sat there nursing the old wound, his eyes downcast, when a shifting of shadows across the floor caught his attention. He glanced up towards the window above the table and its clutter of mixed vegetables and saw the small light shining from outside, its glow muted by glass stained with old rain spots and dust. Rivers thought it was the sun coming into view until he realized the window faced west, away from the morning sun. Besides, the light was moving.
It sank to the centre of the window before becoming still, a little circle of light diffused by the dirt on the glass that nevertheless shone with a steady intensity.
Rivers rose and backed against the wall beside the fireplace, his head swivelling round to keep the phenomenon in view. He became aware of drifting shadows again, this time creeping across from the other side of the room. His head snapped around to discover another light shining through the opposite window. It hovered outside, seeming to watch him like some incandescent eye.
'What…' he heard himself say, the question taking no further form because his thoughts were in too much disarray.
And then, 'Oh Jesus…' he said when he realized another ball of light was descending just outside the open door to fill the entrance with a glare so blinding he was forced to shield his eyes from it. He pressed himself back against the wall as if to meld himself into it, to become an unobtrusive part of the stone and therefore unnoticed.
He blinked, not just against the blaze, but to clear his vision, for now there appeared to be something moving within the effulgence, a faint, insubstantial shape emerging, growing to become more material, looming up from behind the floating orb itself to move through it, then beyond it, becoming an indistinct silhouette in the doorway.
***
It was hours until sun-up, but the two men, Lieutenant Henry 'Hank' Whitesell and Scientific Officer Carl Fricker were alert and keen to go.
'Wind's freshened during the night,' the lieutenant advised Dr. Victor Brenman, the scientific director of the project, a man whose hair-deficient head was humbled before his lush curly beard, 'and the swells are getting meaner.'
'Where you're going, Lieutenant, it won't bother you.' Brenman turned to Fricker. 'How are you feeling this morning, Carl? A little better I hope.'
Fricker saw no reason to disguise his discomfort: Brenman knew him too well. 'I'd rather be beneath it than riding on top-and please don't make anything out of that statement, Hank.'
The lieutenant, a tall lean man who modelled himself on the young good-looking captain who played second banana to Richard Basehart's admiral in the old, old TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea still playing on some of the networks, grinned and raised his binoculars to study the lights of the Navy tug some distance away. Behind the vessel and attached by a few hundred feet of steel cable bobbed the Dauphin, a bathyscaph built four years ago to withstand all the pressure that the oceans could test it with. Its purpose today was to take Fricker and Whitesell into the abyss known as the Challenger Deep, one of the deepest underwater regions ever explored by man. The bathyscaph, Whitesell considered, would be more at home underneath those waves than rolling around on top, just like his companion Carl.
He rested the binoculars against his chest. 'Whaddaya say, Buddy? Ready to take the plunge?'
'You make it sound like a wedding,' Fricker replied, steadying himself as the ship pitched to starboard.
'Well, we'll be spending a long time together.'
'I'm not sure about this weather, gentlemen,' said the commander of the USS Quayle, on whose bridge the men had gathered. 'This wind is beginning to look real mean.'
'The latest reports tell us there's nothing untoward heading our way,' Brenman reassured him. Pressure from important quarters was on him to complete this mission with the minimum of fuss and delay, and a little rough weather was not going to deter him. He turned to his scientific officer. 'It'll take several hours for you to reach bottom, so I suggest you get under way as quickly as possible.'
'That suits me fine,' replied Fricker looking across at the lieutenant to see if he felt the same way.
'Sure,' said Whitesell. 'Let's get to it.'
They left the escort destroyer's bridge with a good-luck wave from Commander Jessel and made their way down to the lower deck, Fricker and Brenman using handrails to steady themselves wherever they could, the lieutenant striding along before them completely at ease. The waiting whaleboat pitched and tossed alongside the steel hull of the Quayle at an alarming rate.
At the rail Brenman pulled Fricker close. 'You're going down more than 38,000 feet so take it slowly and carefully. We don't know what you're going to find and we don't even know what to tell you to look for, but there has to be an answer to this, so keep your eyes peeled and take fresh footage at every five thous. Naturally that's just a guideline-film anything you feel might be important.'
'You got it.' Fricker wiped moisture from his spectacles, then turned to face the whaleboat that now was at least ten feet below him. He felt his stomach sink with the little craft itself.
Brenman clasped his shoulder. 'Good luck, Carl. Remember-it's a routine operation, but it might provide some invaluable answers. We've got to know what's making that stuff come up like this.'
From the desk, and even in the poor light, Fricker could see the billions of tiny plankton floating on the ocean's surface; individually, most were microscopic, virtually invisible, but massed together like this they formed an abnormal coating over the rough water. He nodded to Brenman, then felt the lieutenant take his other arm as the whaleboat rose up swiftly to meet them.
'Now!' Whitesell shouted over the boom of the water.
They leapt together into the rubber boat and were caught by the firm hands of its crew members. Fricker quickly sat and waved back at Brenman as the small craft veered away from the mother ship and headed through the swells towards the waiting bathyscaph. He pulled his Detroit Tigers cap down tighter and wiped spray from his glasses again. The rust-stained submersible they were approaching looked far too frail and unstable for the task that lay ahead, but in the six years he had travelled in such vessels not one had ever given him cause for alarm. Certainly leaks were not unusual, but inside pressure always took care of that.
Waiting for them on the Dauphin were Lieutenant Chris Nelligan, assistant officer-in-charge of the bathyscaph, and Joseph Bundy, its master mechanic, both of whom would carry out the topside work before the dive.
'Welcome aboard,' Nelligan called out as he extended a hand towards Fricker to help him transfer. 'Everything's shipshape, not a thing to worry about.'
Fricker clung to the conning tower and waited for Whitesell to join him. 'This weather gonna cause any problems?' he shouted to Nelligan.
The young lieutenant shook his head. 'None at all as it is. If it gets worse-and I mean a lot worse-we'll call you and you can haul yourself outa there. We'll be waiting right here for you, x marks the spot.'
'You're a prince, Chris,' said Whitesell, holding on to the conning rail.
'You know it, Hank. Take it easy down there.' He slapped Whitesell's shoulder. 'Don't go chasing mermaids.'
'Only the pretty ones. Everything in order, Bundy?'
'It'll hold.'
'Glad to hear it. After you, Carl.'
Fricker climbed into the conning tower and down the ladder of the access tube into the passenger gondola attached to the bottom of the bathyscaph. The smell of rubber and solvent wafted over him as he raised the sphere's hatch and slid through. Relieved to be out of the wind and spray above, he quickly scanned the instruments inside the cramped capsule, checking the batteries first, and then the bilges and the oxygen and air regenerators. Satisfied that all was well he switched on the tape recorder and announced the date and dive number, the operation's division and title, and his and Whitesell's name and rank.
The lieutenant soon joined him, squeezing his tall frame into the tiny compartment without a groan or grumble, eager to get on with the mission.
Bundy had followed him down the access tube and his head poked through the open hatch. 'Ready to go in ten minutes,' he said to them both. 'Have a pleasant day.'
'So long, Bundy,' bade Whitesell, preoccupied with checking the same instruments that Fricker had moments earlier. 'Thanks for doing a good job.'
'You're welcome, Lieutenant. Now don't go scratching my baby on any rocks down there.'
'We'll avoid 'em, don't worry. You set, Carl?'
'Ready.' Fricker reached for the steel hatch and all three of them, Bundy on the outside, lowered it into position. They heard bolts being tightened, and then the master mechanic shone a flashlight through the hatch's porthole to let them know it was secure. Bundy disappeared up the ladder to open a valve and within a few minutes the vertical passageway through the main body was filled with water.
That was the beginning of Fricker and Whitesell's isolation, for now they were entombed inside the sphere until the voyage was over. They listened as the ballast tanks were opened and two tons of sea water was allowed to flood the float. Above them, Nelligan and Bundy were already scrambling aboard the rubber boat that would speed them away from the sink area. The depth gauge needle began to move downwards and as the Dauphin sank deeper its rocking motion lessened. Fricker waited a few minutes before reporting in on the underwater telephone.
The descent was frustratingly slow, but necessarily so if the bathyscaph was to adapt correctly to the mounting pressure. At 300 feet it passed into the thermocline where the water dropped sharply in temperature and became denser. Their journey stopped for the moment because of the renewed buoyancy and the two men took the opportunity to discard their damp outer clothes and, caution being the by-word of such dives, re-check all the instruments. After a few minutes had passed, Whitesell released gasolene from the manoeuvring tank to get rid of the excess buoyancy and the dive continued.
Before long they had entered a zone of deepening twilight where colours became monochromic and distance was indiscernible. By 1,000 feet there was no light at all.
'Let's see what's out there,' Fricker said, switching on the forward lights and turning off those inside the cabin.
'Will you look at that shit,' said Whitesell in a low, amazed voice.
It was not unusual to see formless plankton streaming past at that depth, but this was different: there was almost a solid wall of minute aquatic animal and plant life rising past the observation window.
'I've never seen anything like this before,' said Fricker in hushed tones, his eyes alight behind his spectacles.
'We gonna grab some of this stuff?' Whitesell wanted to know as he moved closer to the glass.
'No need. We've collected enough from the surface to realize it's no different from any other plankton. What we'd like to discover is what exactly is causing this uncommon mass rush to the surface.'
'There's gotta be an upheaval down there.'
'If there is, it's not showing up on any of our surface instruments. Besides, this is not the only place that this is happening.'
Whitesell turned his head sharply. 'Say again?'
'Plankton's rising to the surface of other oceans and seas like this around the globe, it seems.'
'You're kidding me.'
'Uh-uh. Something's going on, Hank, that's got us all guessing. There has to be a reason, but so far we're baffled.'