Danger Below!

by John Blaine

  “You look hot,” Barby informed them.

  “We are,” Rick agreed. He and the others wore swim trunks, but they were sweating freely.

  “Well be cold soon enough,” Scotty informed them. “The water will be icy, and the heat will drain off quickly, even through the dry suits. We’re not really uncomfortable.”

  “Can’t they air-condition the chamber?” Jan asked.

  “It is air-conditioned,” Rick replied. “Dr. Hermann let the temperature rise because he wants to check whether we feel the cold sooner after being warm. He’s already measured divers who have gone out from lower temperatures.”

  “How does it feel to be a guinea pig?” Barby queried.

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  “Guinea pigs are well fed and comfortable,” Scotty told her. “So are we. It’s not bad, being a guinea pig.”

  The four in the chamber had been breathing a pure helium-oxygen mixture since breakfast time, and Dr.

  Hermann’s last analysis of their exhalations, made with a kit he carried, had shown no nitrogen residues.

  In the language of diving, the four were “saturated,” and were now under a pressure of 13,215 pounds per square inch, as compared with the normal 14.7 pounds per square inch at sea level. They felt no differently, except that the heliox mixture had a tendency to dry throats and mouths. The physician was compensating for the low humidity by introducing more water vapor into the chamber through a valve control.

  Both Rick and Scotty understood the reason for saturation and for bringing them down to working pressure in the chamber. With all body cavities, chiefly lungs, inner ear, and sinuses filled with neutral helium and oxygen at proper pressure, they could swim into the ocean pressure without danger from the pressure itself. They had learned during their early diving instruction that human tissue is very near seawater in density, and is virtually incompressible. Gas, however, is highly compressible, and the gas cavities in the body must have a pressure equal to that of the water, or a partial vacuum is created which can only be filled by tissues collapsing.

  Saturation meant being protected from the poisonous effect of nitrogen, and from the pressure. The amount of oxygen they received also was carefully regulated, because life-giving oxygen itself becomes poisonous under pressure if breathed in too-great quantities. The simple-appearing chamber in which they waited for the dive actually was a highly complex affair that permitted automatic gas-mixing according to pressure. After the dive, the chamber would return them to normal at a computer-regulated pace.

  “I wish we were going with you,” Jan said.

  Rick didn’t know how to answer. Roger Pryor had decided that having one or both of the girls in the pilot compartment was not in accordance with good practice on a working dive. But he had promised that they could actually make dives as a part of the planned publicity series, and that was really far more than either of the girls had expected.

  It wasn’t as much as Jan and Barby wanted, though. Rick knew that although both liked being girls, there were times when they resented being excluded from exciting activities just because they were girls.

  He and Scotty both sympathized, but were also a little relieved. They preferred not to have the girls exposed to real danger.

  Charley Martin, dressed in simple coveralls, looked through the port next to Jan and Barby.

  “Coming up on station,” he announced. “The sonar is scanning for the wreck now.”

  The sonar with which the Sea Beast was equipped could locate the drill rig precisely, Rick knew. Then, on the bottom, the sonoscope would give the pilot and observer an excellent picture with which to navigate. Until the precise depth of the wreck was located, the divers wouldn’t transfer to the submersible. It might be necessary to adjust pressure a little.

  Rick wasn’t as calm as his outward appearance indicated. It was pretty exciting, exiting from a deep submersible a quarter of a mile under the sea. He was apprehensive, not for his own safety, but because he was afraid he might not do an adequate job. He was to be chief photographer. Scotty would carry a camera, too, but principally for back-up. Barring some completely unforeseen accident, they would be Page 64

  safe enough.

  “We’re going to stay right with you until the Sea Horse leaves,” Barby announced.

  “And we’ll be looking in when you come back into the chamber,” Jan added.

  Dick Antell chuckled. He borrowed Rick’s microphone and spoke into it. “No wonder these two have such high morale.”

  “We mean you, too,” Barby told him.“And Dr. Hermann.”

  The physician smiled his thanks. “I think we’d better change our base of operations to Spindrift,” he told Antell.

  Out on deck, the bullhorn sounded.“All hands.

  We have located the rig at 1254 feet. No pressure change will be required. Prepare to launch submersible.”

  Dick Antell rose to his feet. “That’s us.Time to move.”

  A voice spoke in the chamber speaker.“Diver chamber at pressure. Transfer tube locked and pressurized. Go when ready, Dick.”

  Antell undogged the pressure-type door into the transfer tube and motioned.“You first, Doc. I’ll bring up the rear.”

  Dr. Hermann bent and crawled into the tube, which was about a yard in diameter. Scotty waved at the girls and followed. Rick winked at the two excited faces at the porthole, and went after Scotty. He crawled through the tube and emerged in the spherical divers’ chamber. He sat down on a canvas seat slung from the wall and saw that his dive mates were doing the same. Through the tiny porthole between the two spheres that formed the sub’s pressure compartments he could see Charley Martin’s head turn as he looked over at Roger Pryor in the observer’s seat. Rick guessed they were going through the pre-dive checklist. In a moment Charley picked up a microphone and spoke to the divers through a speaker at the front of the diving compartment.

  “Communications test. Do you read, Dick?”

  Antell spoke without getting up. A sensitive microphone above the speaker picked up his words.“Loud and clear, Charley.”

  “Okay. Sea Horse to Sea Beast Control. Come in, Bill.”

  “Loud and clear, Charley.”

  “How’s the target?”

  “We’re directly over it, holding station.”

  “Very well.Check all pressure seals.”

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  Dick Antell rechecked each of the locking dogs on the divers’ compartment door. “Dive door locked and sealed.”

  Roger Pryor reported, “Main hatch sealed.”

  There was a whine of electric motors starting up. “Electricalsystem check okay,” Charley reported. “All motors normal.” Then, “Mercury trim servomotor up to rpm. Hydro-trim controls normal. Stand by. We are flooding ballast tank. Droppable ballast signal is green. Lower us when ready, Sea Beast Control.”

  Rick felt an elevator-going-down sensation and saw green water rise past the outer porthole slightly below eye level. His pulse speeded.

  “Dropping umbilical,” Charley said. “Switch over to corn-channel on fivecount .Five, four, three, two, one, switch.”

  The voice quality from the Sea Beast changed perceptibly. “Do you read, Sea Horse?”

  “All normal,” Charley responded.

  “Flood outer fairing when ready, Charley.”

  “Flooding now.”

  Rick heard the gurgle of water all around him. Despite the submersible’s streamlined shape, only the two pressure spheres were watertight. The space between the spheres and the outer hull was flooded during a dive. The huge batteries on which the vehicle operated were protected by being submersed in oil. All else was designed to get wet.

  Presently the gurgle stopped, and Charley announced, “Stand by to clear lines. Sea Horse departing on ten count.” He counted down from ten, and on zero Rick felt the submersible move.

  “You are free of Sea Beast,” the tender’s voice stated. “Good trip, Charley and all.”

  “Thanks, Bill. We are diving on a
course of 92 degrees, going into helical descent pattern B in thirty seconds. Vector us as necessary.”

  Antell’s voice was loud in the steel sphere. “Let’s suit up, gang.”

  Rick noted that it was cooler already. He could feel the submersible banking like a plane as it went into the spiraling descent pattern that would bring them out close to the drill rig. He stood up and took his suit from the hook above his seat. It was patterned after the original Keller suit, created by the famous Swiss diver, Hannes Keller. Unlike his wet suit, it was complete. He put his legs into it through the long back zipper and fitted his feet into boots very much like shoes. The suit was easy to get into, thanks to a waffle-weave insulated lining. He pulled it up and pushed his arms through the sleeves, leaving the headpiece hanging on his chest.

  His weight belt, fitted to him in the Seafaring Industries’ tank, was hanging on the hook. He pulled it around his waist and locked it in place. Unlike the scuba weight belt, this one could not be taken off with the simple pull of a safety strap. It would be extremely dangerous to lose his weights and rise into lower pressure. If that happened, his saturated body would rupture under the pressure in his lungs and sinuses as deep-sea fish did when brought to the surface.

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  He sat down again, reached into the canvas pocket dangling from his seat, and brought out a tube of anti-fogging compound. Working carefully, he coated the inside of his face plate with it, smoothing it so that the thin layer would not produce distortion. The face plate was built into the headpiece, and covered his whole face like a porthole.

  Scotty grinned at him. “I still don’t believe it.”

  “You will very soon,” Dr. Hermann informed him. “Come here, Scotty. You can be first.”

  Scotty knelt before the physician, who affixed a series of electrodes, first rubbing the spots with a salt paste, then taping them in place with a pressure tape developed for wiring astronauts in the same way.

  Scotty received electrodes in four places on his head, two on his chest, and two under his shoulder blades. The wires were plugged into a connector inside his suit, just above his waist on the right side.

  Dr. Hermann took a connector that was hooked to an instrument panel and plugged it into the corresponding connector on the outside of the suit. He watched his instruments for a moment, then told Scotty, “You’re alive. My instruments say so.”

  “That’s a relief,” Scotty told him. “I wasn’t certain.”

  Rick was next. When the readings also proved him alive, Dick Antell took his turn. Then the three divers waited until Charley switched on their speaker again. “We’re at 1100 feet, all normal. We have the rig on the sonoscope, at about maximum distance. Get ready, divers.”

  “Suits on and wired,” Antell reported. “We’ll be ready when you are.”

  Charley’s voice had sounded amazingly deep through the speaker, and Rick knew he had been getting used to the quacky helium speech. Dick Antell sounded weird, compared with Charley. Of course Charley Martin and Roger Pryor were in normal pressure in the other sphere, but the communications system would have made them sound natural anyway, even had they been breathing helium.

  “Fins on,” Antell squeaked.

  The fins fitted over the shoes on the suit and locked into place with a stainless-steel snap.

  “Turn around, Rick.” The boy did so, and Antell zipped him up to the neck. “Okay, tanks on.”

  Antell zipped up Scotty, and Dr. Hermann zipped up Antell. The light cryogenic tanks were on the deck under the seats. Rick swung his to his back and secured the straps, then fitted the special regulator to a screw fitting on his headpiece. Scotty and Dick were doing the same.

  At the side of each diver’s seat was a spring-loaded reel of thick black cable. Inside the cablewas a steel-corded nylon safety line, and the bundle of wires that connected them to Dr. Hermann’s instruments and the sub’s communications system. The free end of the cable was in the shape of a Y. One arm of the Y had a stainless-steel safety snap; the other arm had the instrument connector and also carried the communications line. Dr. Hermann locked the safety snaps to their weight belts, plugged in the connectors, and screwed them down tight.

  “Coming up on the wreck,” Charley announced. “The sonoscope is a marvel. It’s like watching on TV.

  I’m going to put down on the deck. It’s canted a little, so when you emergego uphill.”

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  “Understood,” Dick Antell acknowledged.

  Rick sat down and picked up his camera. It was very heavy, but he knew it would become weightless once he was in the water. It wouldn’t lose its inertia, though, and he knew it wouldn’t be easy to steer.

  He rechecked the closure, then swung out the powerful lamps on their folding arms. The batteries were one reason for the weight.

  Dr. Hermann glanced at his instruments, then looked at Rick. “Nice, fast pulse, Rick. Shows you’re excited. How do you feel?”

  “Half scared, hah0 excited, and half hot,” Rick replied.

  “Good. If a diver isn’t operating at 150 percent I worry about him.You, Scotty? Your pulse is a shade under Rick’s, but your respiration is a bit higher.”

  “I’m half breathless, half frightened, and all hot,” Scotty answered.

  The physician grinned.“Normal reactions, both of you. Even Dick is operating at high speed, although he’s a bit more blase than you two.”

  The sub’s motors changed tone, slowed, speeded, slowed, then slowed even more. Rick felt the bump as the long support fairings under the boat settled to the deck.

  “Divers out when ready,” Charley stated.“All clear on deck except for the equipment that was there.

  Water temperature 39 degrees.A reception committee of one lantern fish, a monster two whole inches long. He’s studying Roger.”

  Dick Antell turned on Rick’s cryogenic unit, waited until the boy had pulled the headpiece into place, then completed pulling the waterproof zipper up tight. Rick continued to breathe normally, except that he was now breathing from his supply of liquid helium and liquid oxygen. Antell finished Scotty’s preparation, then Dr. Hermann completed Dick’s outfitting.

  The three divers sat down. Scotty held his camera on his lap, as did Rick. Dick Antell hung a fitted tool kit from his belt and picked up a length of stainless steel that could serve as a pry bar, a probe, or a spear.

  “Communications check,” Antell said. His voice was clear and normal in Rick’s ears because it passed through the wires into the ship’s system where the “helium honking” was changed to natural frequency.

  “I read you loud and clear,” Rick reported.

  “Same here,” Scotty said.

  “And I read you both,” Antell said. “Charley, did you read us?”

  The pilot’s voice came through Rick’s suit speaker. “All fine.”

  “All breathing normally?”

  “Yes,” Rick replied, and Scotty echoed him.

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  “Good. Open the hatch, Doc.”

  Rick drew in his breath as Dr. Hermann undogged the hatch, half expecting water to flood in. But it was like opening the door on a mirror. The water stayed at the edge of the sphere, the inside light reflecting from it.

  “Fit safety lines,” Antell ordered.

  Rick passed his line through the opening on top of a fitting in which the line could run freely on roller bearings. Scotty and Antell did the same.

  “Divers departing,” Dick reported.

  “Good hunting,” Charley replied.“Divers out at 1252 feet. Clock set at zero.”

  The three divers sat on the edge of the hatch, feet in the water. Rick felt his pulse rate increase and looked up at Dr. Hermann. The physician checked his instrument panel, grinned, and winked at Rick.

  Rick felt better. At least the speeding up of his pulse was normal.

  Dick Antell dropped into the water and stood on the deck of the drill rig, with only his head and shoulders projecting out of the well. He moti
oned to Rick, who dropped in, hugging his camera. Rick felt his fins hit the deck. Scotty joined him.

  “Let’s go,” Dick said, and submerged.

  Rick followed, moving left to keep his line clear. He was surprised to find himself in light, then remembered. The sub’s brilliant lights would naturally be on. Scotty joined them and took his place in the middle. From now on they would have to watch positions to avoid tangling the lines.

  “Follow plan,” Dick Antell instructed.

  The sub had landed facing the deckhouse from which Barby and Jan had collected coffee mugs. The plan called for moving across the deck, parallel with the deckhouse, then going down to the lower deck.

  Dick Antell had prepared the search plan, based on his knowledge of drill rigs. If sabotage had taken place, it would be around the controls or the buoyancy tanks, not on the drill deck.

  Rick switched on his lights as they left the sub’s illumination. The twin beams cut through the dark water.

  No light ever reached this depth. For the first time he felt the impulse to look behind him. He had to grin.

  He understood now what Antell had meant, and Scotty’s joke about the diver who disagreed with something that ate him became much less funny!

  CHAPTER XIX

  The Evidence

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  The divers reached the edge of the rig’s deck. Dick Antell said, “Hold here a minute.” He reached into his kit and brought out three roller units, which he spaced on the edge. They had magnetic bottom plates, and snapped into place on the steel. Each diver fitted his safety line into one of the units. The lines would now follow smoothly, passing over the rollers.

  At Dick’s command, the three finned over the edge. Rick’s brilliant beams were cones in the blackness.

  Around him, he suddenly realized, were little winking lights. He tilted his beam at the nearest, and a tiny fish sped into the sheltering gloom. He recognized it as a lantern fish.