The Abyss

by Orson Scott Card

  Catfish splashed down onto the shallow dive platform and reached to take Lindsey from Bud's arms. He carried her to the edge of the pool, handed her up to the others. They laid her out - her eyes were open, but they were dead eyes. Hippy forced a tube into her mouth, suctioned out the liquid that was in there.

  Bud ripped at his helmet, shed his breathing pack, knelt over her, dripping water onto her. "Is the de-fib ready? Hurry, Cat! Get those on her." He started pressing at the base of her breastbone, pushing down in short bursts, discharging water from her mouth.

  Hippy was chanting - "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God."

  Why was Catfish taking so long with the de-fib? Smearing conductive jelly on the pads, rubbing the paddles together - all by the book. All by the slow, leisurely book. Bud grabbed for it. Catfish wouldn't give it to him. "No, you got to have bare skin, or it won't - "

  Bud tore at the neck of her blouse, tore it open, laid her chest bare. Bud took the defibrillator pads and placed them, one at the center of the chest, one down along her side. "Is that right? Is this it?"

  "It looks right!" Hippy answered. "It looks right! I don't know!"

  One Night was saying something, Bud wasn't sure what she was saying. "What? What?"

  "I got it," she was saying.

  Jesus, then what are you waiting for? "Do it!" he shouted.

  "Come on, zap her," said Catfish.

  "Clear!" said One Night - the defibrillator was charged and ready. She hit the switch. Lindsey's body convulsed.

  It was a pure muscle reflex. When it was over, she was as dead as ever.

  "No pulse," said Sonny.

  Bud kept pressing on her chest, trying to get her heart moving inside. "Do it again, One Night. Zap her again!"

  "It's charging. It's charging. It's charging." Then: "Clear!"

  Bud pulled his hands away. Again Lindsey convulsed.

  Nothing.

  "Come on, baby," said Bud. "Aw, Christ." One Night was still at the machine, just sitting there, doing nothing. "Come on! Come on!"

  "Clear!" shouted One Night. They lifted their hands off Lindsey's body. One Night hit the switch again. Lindsey's back arched. She fell back, still.

  It was taking forever between jolts of electricity. If the de-fib would just do it faster, sooner, then maybe it would start her heart going again, every second between jolts was another second in which brain cells could die as her body warmed up. "Come on, One Night. What are you waiting for?"

  "No pulse!" said Sonny. In despair, thinking of his own wife, his own children, how he could not bear it if he were in Bud's place.

  One Night was reading her vital signs off the defibrillator - the pads acted as a makeshift EKG as long as they were pressed against her chest. "Goddam, it's flat, goddam, it's flat."

  Bud shoved One Night out of the way, put his hands at the base of her breastbone and pushed, breathing out the count as he did. He was trying for a heartbeat, trying to make it pump the blood if he had to hold it in his hands and squeeze it himself. Her ribs flexed under the pressure. If they broke that was going to be too damn bad. Better than being dead with ribs intact. One two three four five six. One two three four five six.

  "Breathe," somebody said.

  Hippy was holding the mask over her mouth and nose.

  One, two, three, four. "Breathe," said Bud.

  "No pulse."

  "Come on, baby. Come on." Over and over he said it, whispered to her, encouraged her. She didn't hear him. He kept on pushing at her chest, pushing, on and on.

  Catfish gently reached his hands out, laid them on Bud's wrists. "Bud," he said gently. "Bud, it's over, man. It's all over."

  Bud stopped pushing. Hippy's face was contorted with grief as he lifted the mask. The rest watched silently, in awe - at irresistible death, at Bud's agonized determination, at the pain they knew he was feeling, the pain they shared because they loved him, he was part of them, and they could know how much he loved Lindsey. They knew that this was tearing out a part of his soul and they couldn't do anything to soften it.

  "I'm sorry," said Catfish. Bud knelt there, looking dully at him. Catfish reached down and drew the sides of Lindsey's overshirt across her chest to cover her.

  "No pulse," said Jammer. With finality.

  Bud leaned over her; looking down into her face. He felt Catfish lay a hand on the back of his head, a comforting hand. But he didn't want comfort. He didn't want affection from his friends, consolation. He wanted Lindsey back.

  He brushed Catfish's hand away. "No!" He howled it. He wasn't saying it to Catfish or to any of them. He was saying it to Death, to God, to Fate, to the whole universe, and they better listen. "No, she has a strong heart, she wants to live!" He started pushing again. "Come on, Lins! Come on, baby." He pushed, pushed, then stopped and laid his mouth over hers, pinched her nose shut, forced his own breath down her throat. One, two, three times. Four. Then he got up and started pushing again. He paused a moment to rip his neck-dam off so it wouldn't hit her in the throat the next time he gave her air. Again he bent over her, put his lips over hers, breathed down her throat. Long, deep breaths. Take this air, Lins. Take it, use it. It's for you, dammit, use this, live with it, live.

  "Zap her again," he said. "Do it. Do it."

  One Night got the defibrillator pads into place. She was whimpering a little; it was unbearable, to keep doing this when Lindsey was obviously dead. Like some mad preacher praying over a steak, trying to bring the animal back to life. She did it for Bud, that's all, because he wanted it so bad. Kept her eye on the box, on the dials. The charge reached full. "Clear. Clear."

  Lindsey spasmed with the electricity. It didn't work. Bud went back to pumping, breathing into her. Then he stopped, leaned down close to her face. "Come on, breathe. Goddammit, breathe." It was her idea to do this, it was her idea and now she wasn't doing it, she wasn't doing what she said. He screamed at her, angry. "Goddammit, you bitch, you never backed away from anything in your life. Now fight!" He slapped her face, not hard, a stinging blow, a blow to wake her up, to call her back. "Fight!" Slapped her again. "Fight!" Again.

  He took her by the shoulders, shook her. "Fight, goddammit!" He was crying now, with rage. She was letting him down. She was giving up for the first time in her life and he wasn't going to stand for that.

  "Fight, fight, fight!" His voice was wearing out from shouting at her. He howled it, hoarsely, a long, painful cry. "Fight!"

  They'd sent thousands of volts through her body, they'd given her oxygen, they'd pumped and pushed at her, shoved air down her throat. None of it worked. But now, Bud screaming and crying at her, swearing at her, calling her names, quarreling with her - that was when they saw her eyes move on their own, her throat swallow, her chest give a little heave, a spastic little cough. Her hands clenched for a moment. It might have been an involuntary spasm of a dead body. But it wasn't. Bud knew that. "Lins. That's it, Lindsey. Come on back, baby." She turned her head like she was shaking it no. Then she coughed, sputtered. Breathed. Bud started laughing, couldn't help it, she was making it. He heard somebody else laughing, too. Delight. Did they laugh when Jesus raised the dead? Did Lazarus hear them laughing for joy when he came out into daylight?

  Hands touched him, his head, his shoulders. He lifted his face and laughed. She coughed again, gasped deeply for air.

  "Get her some air," said Hippy. He put the mask over her face. Now she sucked on it, pulled down oxygen. "Breathe into it."

  Her eyes opened. She was hearing them, she was doing it.

  Bud shouted at her again. This time for joy. "You did it, Ace!" She did what she said. She told him what to do back in Cab One, and he trusted her, he did what she told him, and then she came through on the other side, she held up her end of the bargain. She lived. He knelt over her, laughing and weeping. All of them laughing, crying. She'd gone down into death and come back out. Bud had pulled her out. Or she had held on to Bud's voice, his will, and pulled herself out. Or both.

  She was alive.
She was in the infirmary, not fully conscious yet. But there was still a warhead down wherever Big Geek got to, and the clock was ticking.

  "What can we do?" Bud asked the others. "Is there any way we can go down after it?"

  "Cab One?"

  "Wrecked," said Bud. "Ain't going nowhere."

  "Send Little Geek?"

  "To do what, say hi?"

  "Put some explosives on it. Blow up the warhead before it can do its nuclear thing."

  "We don't have anything on Deepcore that'll blow up at that depth."

  "What depth?"

  Hippy looked pretty sheepish. "I kind of set Big Geek to go down to twenty thousand. It's the maximum estimated rating. Plus a toughness factor."

  "Twenty thousand?"

  It was Monk who knew how it could be done. Or at least how it might be done. "Deep Suit," he said.

  "Can it go that deep?" asked Bud.

  "Maybe," said Monk. "It's the fluid breathing system more than anything. It makes it possible to take a lot more pressure. And it recharges the oxygen for a while. Gives you some more time to get down there."

  Twenty thousand feet. That meant going straight down for more than three miles. That was a long way even on land. In the water, pressurizing all the way, it'd take time. They didn't have much time.

  "The real problem isn't breathing anymore when you get that deep," said Monk. "It's the pressure on the cells in your brain. Pushes the synapses closer together. Your brain starts to short-circuit. You get hallucinations, memories, confusion. Spasms in your muscles. So I give you two anesthetics. The first one, it's mild but it's quick. It cuts down on the gag reflex and the panic when you start breathing the fluid up here. The other one's slower and a lot stronger. It starts taking effect, more and more, as you get down where you need it. Up here it would make you stupid and put you to sleep. Down there it might - just might - make you able to keep your mind together long enough to disarm the warhead."

  It was Monk's show. Bad as his leg was, he was the only one who knew about Deep Suit, the only one who knew about fluid breathing, and the only one who could tell Bud how to disarm the thing. Schoenick knew this stuff, more or less, but they couldn't trust him. He was still taped to a chair.

  So Bud listened, tried to memorize everything Monk told him. The others worked fast but carefully, following Monk's instructions, getting Deep Suit ready. Almost time to go. But he had time, just a couple of minutes, to go into the infirmary, see Lindsey one last time, talk to her if she was awake.

  He sat on the edge of her bed, holding her hand. That's all he meant to do. But she woke up as he sat there, opened her eyes, looked into Bud's face.

  When her eyes opened, he couldn't help himself, the tears started again. She took a couple of deep breaths. He knew how that hurt, to breathe after you'd had saltwater in your lungs. Not to mention how he'd bruised her ribs, pressing on them like that.

  She spoke. A painful whisper. "Big boys don't cry, remember?"

  He touched her hair, her cheek. "Hi, lady."

  "Hi, tough guy." She took a few more breaths. "I guess it worked, huh?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, of course it worked." He was whispering. "You're never wrong, are you?"

  She smiled at him. The last time he said that to her was in an argument, at the top of his voice. She liked it better, quiet like this, tender.

  "How you feeling, hmm? How you doing?"

  She tried to make a joke of it, but her little laugh didn't sound like a laugh. "I've been better." It was the worst thing she'd ever been through, holding on to him in the water, knowing she was going to die, breathing in the water, the worst terror she ever felt. If he hadn't been there with her. . . . But he was there, he held on to her, he brought her home. "Next time it's your turn, OK?" she said.

  He paused a long time. He wasn't taking it like a joke. "Yeah, well, you got that right."

  She told him how it felt to die. How she could see them as she lay there, how it seemed like they were rising up, getting smaller and smaller, farther away, as she sank down into death. And then she was looking down on them, as if she were outside, above, seeing the scene as if it were happening to someone else. And then Bud was screaming at her, and she didn't want to do anything at all, but he was making her do it, he was telling her what to do and even though it was so much easier to drift, to fall away, it made her so mad to hear him say she wasn't even trying that she tried, she came back. Came back and found herself inside her body, wracked with pain, but now unable to withdraw again, irrevocably bound up in a body that wanted to die. "But not as much as I wanted to live," she whispered. "Not as much as you wanted me to live."

  Then he told her about Deep Suit and where he was going in it.

  Hadn't it all ended when he kept her alive? Of course not. Coffey was gone, but the warhead was still at the bottom of the chasm. It might already have been destroyed or at least disarmed by the pressure - but then, it might not. Someone still had to go down and undo Coffey's last act. Yet she couldn't help feeling bitterly disappointed. She had been feeling oddly complete and content since she awoke, as if something that had long been unwired inside her had now been connected, the last circuit completed, so that emotional currents were flowing that she had never felt before. And now Bud was going down into waters so deep that even if he lived, it was likely he would suffer devastating and permanent brain damage.

  She was angry and afraid. If she could have put those feelings into words, they would have said something like this: No sooner had she found something good, something worth holding onto, than it was taken away from her. The first time she had ever trusted fate to be kind to her, she was being betrayed.

  Lindsey shouldn't have been out of bed yet, let alone standing there on the deck of the moonpool. But there was no way she was going to let him go without being there. Without hanging on the end of the F-0, talking to him all the way down.

  She winced as Monk put the scleral contact lenses in his eyes, covering the whole exposed surface. Monk explained that the lenses weren't to protect his eyes from the breathing fluid - it was so chemically inert that it might be less harmful than air. The value of the lenses was that they would act as tiny goggles, maintaining a thin bubble of glass at the pupils of his eyes. The incompressible glass bubbles would act as lenses, so his vision would remain clear all the way down and back. It was a very optimistic thought.

  Lindsey watched Bud put on the suit, muttering to himself the instructions on how to disarm the warhead. He got the shots, which calmed him down, made him a little logy. He sat there holding Beany on his hand, almost as a good luck charm - Beany had done this, after all, and lived through it. The rat stretched up and nuzzled Bud's nose. Then Monk gave him the oxygen mask to help him hyperventilate. He lifted Beany up; Hippy took the rat. Bud breathed deeply into the mask.

  Lindsey knelt in front of him, "Bud, you don't have to do this."

  He spoke through the mask. "Somebody's got to do it."

  "Well, it doesn't have to be you."

  "Who, then?"

  She knew the answer. Monk's leg was broken. Schoenick was so unreliable they didn't dare unbind him. She herself was too weak from the ordeal she'd just been through. Who else in the crew could be counted on to keep his head all the way down and do the job at the bottom? Maybe they could do it. Maybe not. But they all knew that if anybody could, it was Bud. So she looked at him, saying nothing except with her eyes. I don't want you to go. You could die down there, and this time nobody could bring you back. You could get down there and do the job and still not have enough oxygen in the system to get back up. I could lose you down there. I want somebody else to go. Anybody but you.

  He glanced down at the keyboard built into Deep Suit on the left sleeve. It was crazy, to have an F-0 connection and still have to type. He turned to Monk. "So I'll hear you, but I can't talk?"

  "The fluid prevents your larynx from making sound. Excuse me." Monk reached down between Bud and Lindsey, picked up the helmet. "It'll feel a little
strange." That was the most dishonest understatement Monk had ever made, but he knew that Bud knew the truth. It was for Mrs. Brigman's sake that he was softening the truth. Fluid breathing felt like hell. You would only want to do it on special occasions. Like saving the world.

  "Yeah, no shit. I got to warn you all, I'm a pretty lousy typist." He was punching the keys, trying them out. Then there was nothing else to wait for. He looked up at Monk, at Lindsey, at Monk again. "The moment of truth," he said. "Come on, let's go."

  They lifted the helmet over his head. "Easy," said Lindsey. Like she owned him. Like she didn't want him damaged. She gave them instructions as they put it on. Hell, she'd never put this helmet on, she had no experience, but she knew from looking at it exactly how it was supposed to go. It felt perfectly right for her to be in charge. That's who she was. The person in charge.

  The helmet was secure. She knelt there in front of him, looking up into the mask, into his face. She parted her lips to say something, then didn't say it. He heard it anyway. Once the fluid went into the mask she wouldn't hear his voice again until he came back up. Maybe never. She caught herself starting to cry, stopped, then realized she couldn't stop. He brushed the tear on her cheek with the back of his massive glove. He could be gentle even with those big white cartoon hands.

  He looked away from her, toward Monk, and spoke - loudly, so they could hear him through the mask. "OK, let's rock and roll."

  Monk reached around the front of the suit, opened the line.

  "Crack it," said Monk. Someone opened another valve on the back of the suit. The fluid started pouring into the helmet. Bud leaned forward, looking down at it collecting in the front of the mask. Monk was chanting to him, like a dentist trying to keep a kid calm while he's looking at the novocaine needle. "Relax now, Bud. Relax. Relax."

  But that was background. It was Lindsey, in front of him, who raised two fingers, pointed at her own eyes. "Bud." He looked at her. "Just watch me. Watch me. Watch me."