Jaunt (40 page)

Now it was McKean’s turn to be speechless.

With a sudden surge of energy, Gilmour sat up in his seat, causing the two to forget for a moment their morbid preferences. “Neil....”

“What?”

“Something I just remembered Nicolenko telling me when I found him in that ship’s infirmary...he said he had retrieved every jewel buried in the trench....”

McKean shrugged. “So what? He’s a liar, you’ve said so yourself. We saw a lot of those jewels in that cargo hold, but that couldn’t have been all of them in light of the three massive chunks that fell two hundred years ago.”

“No, it’s not that....” Gilmour stood and paced around the conference table. “If he had found recovered all of them, why is the Confederation intent on mining that trench?

The jewels—Nicolenko was intent on telling me—are all recovered, leaving what?
Strela
is designed to obliterate matter, not push it aside like a giant scoop. So, there wouldn’t be anything left except the jewels, which would be so dense as to not be destroyed. But if the jewels are all gone, why are they still going? Something....” He paused, putting his index finger to his lips.

McKean picked up on Gilmour’s thought. “Is rotten. A smokescreen? Could they be mining the trench, hoping that we’ll stay a good distance away, that we’ll fear the power of their superweapon?”

“It’s a start. Still sounds too complex, even for Confederation subterfuge.”

“Damn, Gilmour,” McKean said after a moment of introspection, “what if they’re trying to uncover the trench, not disintegrate the earth, per se. Uncover the origin debris, the object that fell into the sea. But what else could be down there worth mining the place full of
Strela
s?”

“It’s the sunken object,” Gilmour blurted out, not allowing de Lis the luxury of addressing the assembled senior staff in U5-29. His spine straightened, Gilmour’s eyes met the eyes of every one of the seated staff members. “Nicolenko and the Confederation are banking that there are more jewels inside whatever object fell to the trench bottom. And I’m betting they’ve found remains as well with the jewels Nicolenko dredged up on the
Marinochka
.”

“Like the cryptid skull we found in Nepal?” Waters asked, not quite believing bodies could have survived a crash into the ocean.

Gilmour nodded. “I saw firsthand how much material they pulled from the shelf. Chances are there was more than one specimen to be found in all that debris.”

“That’s a good assumption, Agent Gilmour,” Dark Horse said, “but an assumption isn’t going to help stop them from removing billions of tonnes of earth.”

“No, but it does give us hope of discovering a psychology to their methods, Colonel.” Gilmour stared the lieutenant colonel down, then continued, “Especially if McKean and I are going down to the bottom to stop them. We have to be prepared for anything, sir.”

Caught off guard, Dark Horse was mute. Realizing the two agents had acknowledged and accepted—in their own way—the colonel’s assignment, he responded, “I understand, Agent Gilmour.”

“Well,” de Lis finally managed to sneak in, “looks like every objective I had planned to discuss has been agreed upon without me having to say a word. So, Agent Gilmour, what do you expect down there, on the ocean bottom?”

Pausing for a second to collect his various theories, Gilmour consulted his holobook.

“I’m not a scientist, as you all know, but I do have experience in deductive reasoning and thought, or else the good doctor here wouldn’t have recruited me to go to the deepest point on Earth. In light of all we have experienced together, my only conclusion—out of many myself, Agent McKean and my departed colleagues have entertained—is an object capable of interstellar transportation. Or, as they would say back in Washington, a spaceship. And I believe also that the Confederation has surmised this as well and wants their hands on it.” Gilmour pursed his lips. “Given this, it would be our duty to prevent them from doing so, or else risk losing the war, and possibly, our freedom and our lives.”

“Then allow me,” de Lis spoke again, tapping a button on his holobook, “to facilitate you in your duties, gentlemen.”

Richard de Lis’ index finger toggled the holographic interface of his holobook, highlighting the schematics his senior staff had drawn up of the revised hazard suits. The blue outline of a typical haz suit boot flashed, accompanied by a scrolling text box. “Stacia and I, with some assistance from Ivan and Crowe, have engineered a magnetic locking system on your suits’ boot heels, rendering them capable of clasping to any ferric surface you may come across.”

Gilmour nodded. “Impressive, but what of the instances when there is no other surface except for trench soil?”

“As you can see,” Crowe stated, “we’ve managed to achieve a gauss ratio of three per square micrometer, suitable enough to bond with the magnetic currents of subsurface magma channels, if need be.”

McKean slapped his holobook face down on the table. “That’s all well and good, Doctor, but what about the pressure down there? If there’re any minute leaks....”

“An excellent question, Agent McKean, one our staff has worked on the most since we first conceived this operation.” De Lis toggled another button on his holobook, bringing up a second schematic, which was then transmitted to the agents’ holobooks. “Your hazard suits can already withstand the temperature fluctuation, so that isn’t an issue. We have, however, to be candid, had more difficulty with maintaining the standard sea level atmospheric pressures inside the suits necessary for the human body’s proper functions.”

A low whistle was let out from McKean’s side of the table, but ignored by de Lis.

De Lis continued, “Several of our follow-up tests in U6’s atmosphere chamber with the modified spare hazard suit have proven fruitful, Agent McKean. We managed to consistently maintain sea level pressure up to levels exceeding three times the norm experienced in the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench. Needless to say, modifications on your haz suits are underway as we speak.”

“When can we expect them to be complete?” Gilmour asked.

“I’ve accelerated the process to fit into Colonel Dark Horse’s departure schedule...Stacia is forecasting within the next two hours.”

“Excellent.” Gilmour stood and tucked his holobook into his pocket. “That answers all my questions. I’m sure the colonel is eager to begin our mission briefing.”

“Quite,” de Lis said, still wearing a puzzled look on his face. Gilmour’s abrupt adjournment had shocked him, if nothing else than because de Lis had been warned by Dark Horse of the two agents’ initial objections to the deep sea mission. He watched in amazement as the agents exited U5-29. Turning to his staff, he said half-heartedly,

“Dismissed.”

A massive, grey-washed valley of ochre soil encompassed the sterile walls of the gallery’s holographic chamber, where Gilmour and McKean had assembled to receive their first true introduction to one of the least known regions of the planet, and where they might just end up spending the rest of eternity entombed.

Stepping before them, Dark Horse perforated the photonic construct of the cavernous gash with his torso and upper body, lending the briefing a bizarre preamble.

“This is the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench. Thanks to the allowances of our Global Security Network, these are live images reconstructed for us by Doctor Valagua.”

The pair studied the deep slopes of the undersea ravine, convinced Dante Alighieri himself had created this subsurface fissure to place his Divine Comedy within. Strange and unearthly caverns pitted the slopes of the valley’s walls, perhaps giving refuge to any number of unknown creatures and lifeforms; certainly a habitat contrary to the evolution of the human species as any possible.

Tapping a button on his holobook, Dark Horse set the holographic representation in motion, simulating a voyage through the mid-level layers of the valley at a leisurely twenty KPH. This visible region of the trench was roughly crescent shaped, and the holographic view twisted to the left as they progressed. All four men, Valagua included, where entranced by the nigh extraterrestrial splendor of the trench, much like a child is taken with the first glimpses of life beyond its limited experience. Further down the trench, the floor sloped ten or more degrees, revealing a field of hundreds of stalagmite-like columns, each ascending several meters into the water.

Gilmour furrowed his brow in curiosity, to which Valagua answered, “Those columns house hundreds of tubeworms, each capable of filtering kiloliters of seawater a second. I’d avoid them if I were you.”

The agents nodded slowly in rapt fascination. Their journey continued past the gradual slope, where the columns drifted away and were replaced by hundreds of boulders and smaller detritus, the artifacts of millennia of subterranean eruptions and subsurface collapses. Millions of years ago, lava flows had once dominated this section of the trench, carving out scores of vertical grooves from the walls of the valley which were later recycled as volcanic strata elsewhere on the planet’s surface.

The trench’s leftward crescent soon ended, beginning a long, narrow, straightforward stint. Now, for truly the first time, the agents were treated to the extreme depths and slopes of the trench valley. Pushing ahead, the severe V-cut of the trench was unmistakable, and the agents were aware of just how forbidding the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench was, second only to the Marianas as the deepest point on Earth.

Both men let out low whistles while the image rolled on, the vast slopes of the trench becoming so deep, even in the enhanced illumination provided by Valagua’s holograph, that the floor was nearly pitch black. Seeing this, Dark Horse touched a button on his holobook, brightening the holographic seafloor by a few lumens. Instantly, the seafloor’s lowest depths sprung to life with miniature fissures that released plumes of volcanic gases into the ocean water. Yellow and orange patches of material crusted over the tops of these open sores, the spreading sulfuric soot rendering the seafloor a sickening pall. Geothermal energy from the bowels of the Earth itself powered these smoldering chemical factories, the humble beginnings of life on the planet stoking thousands of fires, independently from the sun.

Like clouds of smog over an industrial complex, the plumes blanketed the trench, obscuring the site. Another punch on Dark Horse’s holobook cleared the plumes, once again demonstrating the seeing power of the Global Security Network’s satellites. Continuing past the colony of fissures, they scoped various ridges that had obviously collapsed within recent centuries, perhaps wiping out more ancient plume-emitting colonies. This region of fallen ridges endured for several moments, giving the agents reason to wonder if it would ever end.

Finally, after a right-hand turn led the trench into another crescent shape, the ridge collapse seemed to come to an end up ahead, whereupon the twenty-KPH flyby slowed to a crawl. Dark Horse then commanded, via holobook, the Global Security Network to zoom in threefold. There, about a third of a kilometer distant, lay a non-descript, fallen ridge shelf, not particularly distinguishable from the landslides they had glided past previously.

Dark Horse paused the holograph and pointed with an index finger, placing it squarely over the rock-strewn and broken ridge shelf. “That’s it.”

Raising an eyebrow, McKean looked to Gilmour. “Well—not really dramatic, is it?

Expected it to be like the
Titanic
or something.”

“It escaped detection all these years because it wasn’t,” Dark Horse reminded the indifferent agents. “Be thankful...your duty may be easier because so.”

Gilmour squinted in an attempt to gain a better grasp of the site. “Where...is it?”

Dark Horse tapped a button on his holobook, which highlighted a segment of the collapsed ridge in red, one of among seven or eight large pieces resting on the floor. The highlighted segment now flashed and was magnified fivefold behind the lieutenant colonel, so that it dominated the holographic chamber.

“Here,” he said, his index finger again pointing to the particular ridge segment. “If the Network is correct, the submerged object should be trapped between this ridge segment and the seafloor strata beneath, in approximately four to five massive chunks, the ridge segment itself covering an area approximately two-and-a-half square kilometers.”

Gilmour shook his head; it was the same amount of earth the Confederation had obliterated with their first
Strela
test, proving his hunch that the Confederation had planned on removing the submerged object all along.

Another change in the holograph, this time initiated by Valagua, brought up a subsurface spectroscopic scan of the site, coupled with lidar measurements, producing an image comprehensible by a layman. The site’s measurements and orientation were held in check, but the visual look of the ridge shelf was stripped away, revealing a rough, unfinished holograph, much like a primitive X-ray scan. An object, or objects, now, were clearly visible, each several dozen to a hundred meters in length, but no positive identification could be made, and none seemed to match any man-made construct. Several smaller pieces had settled around an impactor site, and the larger ones appeared to be half-buried within the seafloor strata. Whatever was down there wasn’t budging anytime soon.

“That’s going to be a helluva retrieval site,” Gilmour said, his eyes locked on the holograph. “Do you honestly think we can swim around in there and dig without stirring up the ridge?”

“Just keep the Confederation from planting those
Strela
s, and we’ll take it from there,” Dark Horse answered. “Your objective is to disable them, while the Navy’s is to confront the Confederation with conventional weapons and hope the Russians go home. Until then, we don’t need you two to be playing heroes anymore than need be. I’d just as soon blow their warheads up and forget the damned thing ever crashed.”