by Alten-Steve
"The deployment was a success," Terry told him as they reached the freeway. "Even my father was happy." Masao Tanaka and the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute in Monterey had designed the UNIS systems for the joint project. Within two weeks of deployment the Institute's surface ship, the Kiku, was receiving a steady stream of data, and scientists on both sides of the Pacific were studying the information eagerly.
Then something went wrong. "Three weeks after the launch," Terry explained, "the Japanese called to say that one of the UNIS robots had stopped transmitting data. A week later, two more units shut down. When another one stopped a few days after that, my father decided we had to do something."
Terry looked at Jonas. "He sent my brother down in the Abyss Glider."
"D.J.?"
"He's the most experienced pilot we have."
"No one should descend that far alone."
"I agree. I told Dad that I should have gone with him in the other Glider."
"You?"
Terry glared at him. "You have a problem with that? For your information, I happen to be a damn good pilot."
"I'm sure you are, but at thirty-five thousand feet? What's the deepest you've ever soloed?"
"I've hit sixteen thousand twice, no problem."
"Not bad," admitted Jonas.
"Not bad for a woman, you mean."
"Hey, hey, I meant not bad for anyone. Very few humans have been down that deep. Damn, Terry, take it easy."
She smiled. "Sorry. It gets frustrating, you know. Dad's strictly old-fashioned Japanese. Woman are to be seen and to heard, that kind of attitude."
"So go on," said Jonas. "How did D.J. do in the Marianas?"
"He did well. He found the UNIS, filmed everything. The photo came from his video."
Jonas took another look at the photograph. It showed a UNIS submersible lying on its side at the bottom of the deep-water canyon. The sphere had been cracked open. Its tripod legs were mangled, a bolted bracket torn off, and the titanium skin of the sphere itself severely battered and scarred.
Jonas studied the image. "Where's the sonar plate?"
"D.J. found it forty yards down-current. He hauled it up — it's at the Institute in Monterey. That's why I'm here. My father would like you to take a look at it."
Jonas stared at her skeptically.
"You can fly up with me in the morning," she said. "I'm taking the Institute's plane back at eight."
Lost in thought, Jonas almost missed his driveway. "There — on the left."
She turned down the long, leaf-littered driveway, then parked in front of a handsome Spanish colonial buried in the foliage.
As Terry switched off the engine, Jonas turned to her and narrowed his eyes. "Is that all your father wants?"
Terry paused for a moment. "As far as I know. We don't know what happened down there. Dad thinks maybe you could help provide some answers, give us your professional opinion—"
"My professional opinion is that you should stay the hell out of the Mariana Trench. It's far too dangerous to be exploring, especially in a one-man submersible."
"Hey, listen, Doctor Taylor. Maybe you lost your nerve after so many years in retirement, but D.J. and I haven't. What the hell happened to you anyway? I was only seventeen when we first met, but I remember you being full of piss and vinegar."
"Terry, the Mariana Trench is too deep, just too dangerous."
"Too dangerous? What is it you're so afraid of, a sixty-foot great white shark?" She smirked. "Let me tell you something, Jonas, the data we collected in the first two weeks was invaluable. If the earthquake detection system works, it will save thousands of lives. Is your schedule so damn busy that you can't take a day to fly up to the Institute? My father's asking for your help. Just examine the sonar plate and review the video that my brother took and you'll be home to your darling wife by tomorrow night. I'm sure my father will even give you a personal tour of his new whale lagoon."
Jonas took a breath. He considered Masao Tanaka a friend, a commodity he seemed to be running short of lately. "When would we leave?" he asked.
"Meet me tomorrow morning at the commuter airport at seven-thirty sharp."
"The commuter... we're taking one of those puddle jumpers?" Jonas swallowed hard.
"Relax. I know the pilot. See you in the morning." She looked at him another moment, then walked back to her car. Jonas stood there, watching her drive away.
* * * * *
Jonas shut the door behind him and switched on the light, feeling for a moment like a stranger in his own home. The house was dead quiet. A trace of Maggie's perfume lingered in the air. She won't be home until late, he thought.
He went into the kitchen, pulled a bottle of vodka from the cabinet, then changed his mind. He turned on the coffeemaker, replaced the filter and added some coffee, then filled the slot with water. He ran the faucet, sucked cold water from the spigot and rinsed out his mouth. He shut off the water and for a long moment stood at the sink, staring out the back window into the darkness while the coffee brewed. It was black out there. All he could see was his reflection in the glass.
When the coffee was done, he grabbed a mug and the entire pot and went into the study.
Sanctuary. The one room in the house that was truly his own. The walls were covered with contour maps of the ocean's continental margins, mountain ranges, abyssal plains, and deep-sea trenches. Several fossilized Megalodon teeth littered the tables. Some stood upright in glass cases, others lay on stacks of notes like paperweights. A framed painting of a great white shark hung above his desk, and next to it an anatomical diagram of the creature's internal organs.
Jonas set the coffee mug down beside the computer, then positioned himself at the keyboard. A set of jaws from a twelve-foot great white gaped at him from high above his monitor. He punched a few keys to access the Internet, then typed out the web address of the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute.
Titanium. Even Jonas found it hard to believe.
NIGHT OWLS
Jonas gulped the hot liquid and waited for the menu to appear before him. He typed in the word: UNIS
UNIS
Unmanned Nautical Informational Submersible
Originally designed and developed in 1979 by Masao Tanaka, CEO of the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute, to study whale populations in the wild. Reconfigured in 1997 in conjunction with the Japan Marine Science Technology Center (JAMSTEC) to record and track seismic disturbances along the deep-sea trenches. Each UNIS system is composed of a three-inch-thick titanium outer shell. The unit is supported by three retractable legs and weighs 2,600 pounds. Each UNIS system is designed to withstand pressures of 35,000 pounds per square inch. UNIS communicates information back to a surface ship by way of fiber-optic cable.
UNIS INSTRUMENTATION:
Electrical Fields Mineral Deposits Salinity
Seismic Equipment Topography Water Temperature
Jonas reviewed the engineering reports of the UNIS systems, impressed by the simplicity of the design. Positioned along a seismic fault line, the UNIS remotes could detect the telltale signs of an impending earthquake.
Southern Japan had the misfortune of being geographically located on the convergence of three tectonic plates. Periodically, these plates grind against each other, generating about one-tenth of the world's annual earthquakes. One devastating quake in 1923 had killed over 140,000 people.
In 1994, Masao Tanaka had been desperately seeking funds to complete his dream project, a monstrous cetacean lagoon, or whale sanctuary. JAMSTEC had agreed to fund the entire project if the Tanaka Institute would provide twenty-five UNIS remotes to monitor seismic activity within the Challenger Deep. Three years later, the systems had been successfully deployed. But after a few weeks of transmitting critical data to the surface ship seven miles above, something had gone wrong. Now Masao Tanaka needed Jonas's help to discover the cause of the breakdowns.
Jonas took a long swig of coffee. The Challenger Deep, he thought to himself. Submarine expert
s referred to it as "hell's antechamber."
Jonas just called it "hell."
* * * * *
Twenty miles away, Terry Tanaka, freshly showered, wrapped in the hotel towel, sat on the edge of her queen-sized bed at the Holiday Inn. Taylor had really irked her. The man was obstinate, with strong chauvinistic ideas. Why her father had insisted that their team required his input was beyond her. Pulling out her briefcase, Terry decided that she needed to review the personnel file on Professor Jonas Taylor.
She knew the basics by heart. Educated at Penn State; advanced degrees from the University of California-San Diego and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Previously a full professor at the Scripps Institute and author of three books on paleontology. At one time, Jonas Taylor had been considered one of the most experienced submersible pilots in the world. He had piloted the Alvin submersible seventeen times, leading multiple explorations to four different deep-sea trenches in the 1980s. And then, seven years ago, for some unknown reason, he had simply given it all up.
"It doesn't make sense," Terry said aloud. Thinking back to the lecture earlier in the evening, she remembered the bushy-eyebrowed man who had practically accused Jonas of piloting an expedition into the Mariana Trench. Yet nothing in his personnel file indicated any trip into the Challenger Deep.
Terry put the file aside and powered up her laptop computer. She entered her personal code, then accessed the Institute's computers.
FILE NAME: MARIANA TRENCH
LOCATION:
Western Pacific Ocean, east of Philippines, close to island of Guam.
FACTS:
Deepest known depression on earth. Measures 35,827 feet deep (10,290 m), over 1,550 miles long (2,500 km), making the trench the deepest abyss on the planet and the second longest. The deepest area of the Mariana Trench is called the Challenger Deep, named after the Challenger II expedition that discovered it in 1951. Note: A 1 kg weight dropped into the sea above the trench would require more than an hour to reach the bottom.
EXPLORATION (MANNED):
On January 23, 1960, the U.S. Navy bathyscaphe Trieste descended 35,800 feet (10,911 m), nearly touching bottom of the Challenger Deep. On board were U.S. Navy Lt. Donald Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard. In the same year, the French bathyscaphe Archimède completed a similar dive. In each case, the bathyscaphes simply descended and returned to the surface ship.
EXPLORATION (UNMANNED):
In 1993, the Japanese launched Kaiko, an unmanned robotic craft, which descended to 35,798 feet before breaking down. In 1997, 25 UNIS robotic submersibles were successfully deployed by the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute along the Challenger Deep's seafloor.
Terry skimmed through the file. Nothing about Jonas Taylor here. She keyed in: Naval Exploration.
NAVAL EXPLORATION: (see) TRIESTE, 1960
SEACLIFF, 1990
Seacliff? Why hadn't the name appeared in the data above? She probed further.
SEACLIFF: ACCESS DENIED
AUTHORIZED U.S. NAVAL PERSONNEL ONLY
For several minutes, Terry attempted to gain access to the file, but it was hopeless. She felt a knot in her stomach.
She put the laptop away, thinking of tonight's lecture. Her first meeting with Jonas Taylor had been ten years ago at a symposium held at her father's institute. Jonas had been invited to speak about his deep-sea dives aboard the Alvin submersible. At the time, Terry was seventeen and had worked closely with her father, organizing the symposium, coordinating travel and hotel arrangements for more than seventy scientists from around the world. She had booked Jonas's ticket and met him at the airport herself. She recalled developing a schoolgirl crush on the deep-sea pilot with the athletic build. Terry looked at his picture again in her file. Tonight, Professor Taylor had appeared confident, yet, in a way, a little helpless. A handsome face, tan, with a few more stress lines around the eyes. Dark brown hair turning gray near the temples. Six foot one, she guessed, about 195. Still had the athletic build.
What had happened to the man? And why had her father insisted on locating him? As far as Terry was concerned, Jonas Taylor's involvement was the last thing the UNIS project needed.
* * * * *
Jonas woke up in his clothes. A dog was barking somewhere in the neighborhood. He squinted at the clock. Six a.m.. He was lying on the couch in his den, a ram of computer printouts scattered all around him. He sat up, his head pounding, his foot knocking over the half-empty coffeepot, staining the beige carpet brown. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes, looked up at the computer. His screen saver was on. He tapped the mouse, revealing a diagram of the UNIS remote, glowing on the screen. His memory came flooding back.
The dog stopped barking. The house seemed unusually quiet. Jonas got up, went into the hallway, walked down to the master bedroom.
Maggie wasn't there. Their bed hadn't been touched.
MONTEREY
Terry spotted him crossing the tarmac from the parking lot.
"Good morning, Professor," she said, just a little bit too loud. She smiled. "How's your head?"
Jonas shifted his duffel bag to his other shoulder. "Talk softer." He eyed the plane warily. "You didn't tell me it was... so small."
"It's not. For a Beechcraft." She was finishing her preflight checklist. The plane was a twin-turbo, with a whale logo and "TOI" painted on the fuselage.
Jonas set down his bag, looked around. "Where's the pilot?"
She put her hands on her hips and smiled.
"You?" he said.
"Hey, let's not start that shit again. Are you going to have a problem with this?"
"No, I just..."
Terry went back to her inspection. "If it makes you feel any better, I've been flying for six years."
Jonas nodded uneasily. It didn't make him feel better. It just made him feel old.
"Are you all right?" she asked as he fumbled with his seat belt. Jonas looked a little pale. He hadn't said a word since he'd boarded the plane.
"If you'd rather sit in back there's plenty of room to stretch out. Barf bags are in the side pocket." She smiled.
"You're enjoying this."
"I didn't think that an experienced deep-sea pilot like you would be so squirmish."
"Guess I'm used to being in control. Just fly the damn plane. Up front will be fine," he said, his eyes impulsively scanning the dials and meters on the control panel. The cockpit was a little tight, the copilot seat felt jammed up against the windshield.
"That's as far back as it goes," Terry told him as he searched for a lever to adjust the seat.
He swallowed dryly. "I need a glass of water."
She noticed his trembling hands. "The green cabinet, in back."
Jonas got up and struggled back into the cabin.
"There's beer in the fridge," she called out.
Jonas unzipped his duffel bag, found his dop kit, and took out an amber medicine bottle filled with small yellow pills. Claustrophobia. His doctor had diagnosed the problem after the accident, a psychosomatic reaction to the stress he had endured. A deep-sea pilot with claustrophobia was as useless as a high diver with vertigo. The two just didn't mix.
Jonas chased down two of the pills with water from a paper cup. He stared at his trembling hand, crumpling the cup into his fist. He closed his eyes a moment, then took a long, deep breath. When he slowly opened them and looked at the crinkled cup in the palm of his hand he was no longer shaking.
"You okay?" Terry asked through the door of the cockpit.
Jonas looked up at her. "I told you, I'm fine."
* * * * *
The flight to Monterey lasted two and a half hours. Jonas settled in and began to enjoy it. Above the coast of Big Sur, Terry spotted a pair of whales migrating south along the shore. "Blues," she said.
"Cruising to Baja," he added, staring down at the endangered species.
"Jonas, listen. About the lecture. I didn't mean to come off so harshly. It's just that Dad insisted that I find you, and frankly, I did
n't see the purpose of wasting your time. I mean, it's not like we need another submersible pilot."
"Good, because I wouldn't be interested if you did."
"Well, we don't." She felt her blood beginning to boil again. "Maybe you could convince my father to allow me to follow D.J. down in the second Abyss Glider?"
"Pass." He gazed out his window.
"Why not?"
Jonas looked at the girl. "First, I've never seen you pilot a sub, which is a hell of a lot different than flying a plane. There's a lot of pressure down there—"
That did it. "Pressure? You want pressure? Terry pulled back on the wheel and rolled the Beechcraft into a series of tight 360s, then sent the small plane into a nauseating nosedive.
The plane righted itself a 1,500 feet as Jonas puked across the dashboard.
THE REPORTER
David Adashek adjusted his wire-rimmed bifocals, then knocked on the double doors of Suite 810
. No reply. He knocked again, this time louder. The door opened, revealing a groggy Maggie Taylor standing behind it, wearing nothing but a white robe. It was untied, exposing her tan breasts.
"David, Christ, what time is it?"
"Almost noon. Rough night?"
She smiled, still half asleep. "Not as rough as my husband's, I'm sure. Sit." She pointed to a pair of white sofas that faced a big-screen TV in the living area.'
