Voyage of the Devilfish

The six eight-inch ball valves in the high-pressure air lines were self-actuated by air pressure, the huge valves clunked open with a crash, then connected 4500 psi air in the air bottles with the seawater-filled forward ballast tanks. In an explosion of expanding air, the seawater was forced out of the tanks, making the Devilfish light forward. The room filled up with a vapor cloud as the blast of air noise slammed into Pacino’s eardrums. He pulled the aft emergency-blow lever up to the open position, the air noise got even louder. Now the aft ballast tanks, assaulted by the ultrahigh-pressure air, gave up their seawater. Seconds later the air bottles of the emergency blow system were empty of air, and all main ballast tanks of the Devilfish were empty of seawater. Pacino looked expectantly at the depth gage, waiting for it to click their depth up a foot. It was silent. Of course, it was dead… no electricity, the reactor down, the battery flooded and excreting chlorine gas. Pacino found a flashlight by the blow switches and turned it onto one of the back-up analog pressure gages, the primitive bourdon-tube type that didn’t need electricity to sense pressure. It showed them deep—740 feet; it would take a while for the gage to sense the ship rising. Pacino saw the first sign in the ship’s liquid-filled inclinometer. It took on a degree-up angle — they were on the way up. The water in the forward and aft bilges must be rushing aft, he thought, the angle inclining upward much faster than during a normal emergency blow. He hoped the upangle wouldn’t spill the air out of the ballast tanks and,

God forbid, send them back to the bottom. He shined the flashlight around the room, taking in the stunned faces behind the gas masks. Even if they made it through the hundred-foot-thick icecap, how in hell would he get them out of the ship? And if he did, what then? Concentrate on the control panel, he told himself. The depth gage read 690 feet. At last the ascent had started. Pacino sucked the stale dry air of the emergency system, waiting, waiting for…?

FS KALININGRAD

Vlasenko reached over for the release lever — gone, lost in the black water half-flooding the pod. He dived into the water, twice, and found it. He struggled back up to the control panel, took a long moment to find it again in the dark, pushed the lever into the retaining bolt and rotated the lever to release the pod. Again, nothing happened. Exhausted, frustrated, Vlasenko leaned back against the freezing bulkhead of the pod, then searched for the flashlight cradle. At least he could die with the lights on. It took a while but he found the flashlight bolted to a spot on the sphere skin, pulled it free and clicked on the switch. Its weak yellow light barely lit the pod. The pod shuddered — the control compartment finally collapsing and imploding from the depth. Vlasenko aimed the lantern at the depth gage—2100 meters and still sinking. And the pod’s interior-orientation still showed the ship pointed straight down, the wooden benches crazily vertical, a hatch on one side, another opposite it. The air in the pod was not as cold as before, with the four of them breathing into it, but it was stuffier. The water was agonizingly cold. Vlasenko decided there was no longer any hope. He felt like grabbing Novskoyy’s pistol and shooting himself. He glanced at the admiral. The pistol was gone, lost during the explosion. The pod hull creaked, starting to dimple, to give from the pressure, the titanium flowing. Undergoing creep deformation, the pressure outside too much. It wouldn’t be long now. The depth gage read 2375 meters. The ship, what was left of it, shuddered again and a long loud rumbling propagated through the water and steel, the last of it a ripping, tearing sound. The shock and vibration slammed Ivanov’s head into the dimpling titanium bulkhead. Drifting in and out of consciousness, the last impact knocked him out. The last remaining compartment of the Kaliningrad, the second, had imploded from the seawater pressure. Vlasenko shined his light at Ivanov and saw blood on his collar. He shook his head, and then a crazy curiosity, irrelevant under the circumstances, came over him… he wanted to know the crush depth of the pod. He directed the light at the depth gage again, expecting to see it read 2500 meters. Instead it read 1900. 7900. The pod was moving differently now, shaking and swaying — not the motion of the hull of the ship but of an escape pod on ascent. The last impact must have jarred the pod loose from the hull. He looked again at the gage. 1800 meters, then 1750 … they were rising quickly, even with the water they had shipped through the hatch. Vlasenko checked the gage. 1000 meters. They were rising like a bubble from the sea, soon they would be at the surface— The surface is thick ice cover.