Jessica walked into the bridge with a coffee in her hands. “The relief column has arrived,” she said to Commander Lewis. “It’s morning.”
“Ya sure wouldn’t know it looking outside,” he answered quietly. “Gonna be strange to be in the dark for a year.”
Jessica, as the ship’s doctor, didn’t miss an opportunity to remind the crew about possible problems. She chimed right in without missing a beat. “You know, lots of people suffer from seasonal affective disorder. I’m going to talk to the crew about it. The tanning beds aren’t just about catching a tan. The beds will also help fight depression and anxiety after a few months of zero sunlight.”
“Thank you, Doctor—so noted. I’ve been underwater for extended periods before. I’ll be just fine.” He faked a polite smile. He stood up and stretched. “Wake me up before we reach the bottom. Everything looks fine so far.” He had no way of knowing the coordinates he was looking at weren’t the original ones—only that the ship was on course.
Jim walked out of the bridge to find his bed. It had been a long, boring shift without much to do other than stare out of a black window at nothing. The sonar contacts were becoming fewer, as most creatures didn’t venture so far down. The occasional whale and large fish were the only things that broke up the monotony.
Jessica took her chair at the bridge and ran through the screens to check the ship’s atmosphere. She was sure that the skipper had probably checked up on the MC a few times before, but there wasn’t much else to do. Tony surprised her when he walked in with coffee.
“What are you doing up?” she asked.
“Getting into sub mode. When I’m under, I tend to sleep a lot less, but with a nap every now and then. Without the sun and moon telling me when to sleep, I make my own time zone.”
“It’s not uncommon. In old experiments with circadian rhythms, subjects tended to sleep more frequently, but with less duration, when their exposure to natural light was disrupted,” she replied matter-of-factly.
He eyed her, trying to size her up. “You’re a navy doc, right?”
“USS Alabama. Ballistic sub. I’ve been around you nasty-ass sailors plenty.”
“Well, you’re not in the navy right now—so you can fraternize with us enlisted men now if you want to.”
“Only if I want to. So far, I don’t want to. How are you feeling?” she asked, keeping her professional demeanor, which Tony felt. He responded professionally.
“Feeling fine, thanks. No change from my baseline,” he added with a smile.
That brought a smile. “Good. Let me ask you . . . your wicked sense of humor—it cause problems in your career?”
“Best sonar man in the navy. I was given some ‘latitude.’”
She laughed. He probably wasn’t bullshitting her either. She had read his file, along with everyone else’s, before the mission. The man’s record was exemplary.
“What do you think about the equipment on this vessel?”
“Honestly? It’s amazing. Ted Bell is a NASA guy. This place is more spaceship than submarine. We never had equipment like this on any boat I ever served on. I bet this will all become standard issue in the next generation of subs. The visual stuff is amazing. I think back to the old movies where you got the skipper looking through a periscope, and then you look around this bridge at plasma TVs that show what’s out there up close and in the dark, and you shake your head. We’ve come a long way.”
“Let me ask you another question. What’s the longest you ever stayed underwater?”
“Classified, ma’am,” he said with a smile.
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
They stared at each other. “Okay. I know some subs have stayed under their entire three-month rotation. And some can double that if they bring extra rations. Let’s say, for example, you were submerged on a sub for five or six months. Did you ever see any problems among the crew?”
“Ahh, now I get your question. I thought you were just being nosy. Let me put it this way. It’s entirely possible for a US Navy submarine to stay underwater indefinitely, as long as we don’t run out of food. We make our own electricity, our own water from seawater, our own oxygen . . . anything we need. So in theory, I could have been down much longer than three months. In that time, I never saw anybody freak out, if that’s what you mean. But a lot of guys did suffer from depression, I think. By the time we got off, we were ready to get the fuck off, ya know what I mean?”
“But nothing extraordinary. Nobody snapped. Nothing like that?”
“No. These were all seasoned crew. Why? You afraid we’re all gonna snap after a few months?”
She smiled. It was a real smile that made her eyes crinkle in the cutest way. “It has crossed my mind. The sub is designed to operate at a little over one bar after we land on the ocean floor. It won’t be much different than being on land—but it is different. It will be an interesting observation. I’d like to interview you every month if it’s okay with you. Totally confidential. But I want to monitor your reaction to confined space over time.”
“You’re just trying to get me alone in your room,” he said with a toothy grin.
She laughed. “Dream on, big fella. And by the way, I’m used to being one of the few females aboard ship. I get a lot more attention under water than on top of it.”
“Yeah, right. You never got married? No boyfriend?”
“Divorced. Something about not being home for three months at a time that doesn’t lead to great relationships.”
“Well, how about a one-year relationship at twenty thousand feet?”
“You asking me to go steady already? We haven’t even reached the bottom yet.”
“I figured I’d better get my request in now before your dance card fills up. Five to two isn’t great odds.”
“Um-hmm.” She crossed her arms. “You married?”
“Divorced. Twice. Something about not being home for three months at a time that doesn’t lead to great relationships.”
“Yeah, I think I’ve heard that before. Maybe we can just have great sex and skip the relationship.”
“You know—I’m starting to really like you.”
“And I’m kidding. You have no shot.”
He grabbed his heart in mock anguish, but the truth was, he felt a bit crushed and it showed in his eyes.
“Well, maybe a little shot. But only after the six-month mark. I never kiss on the first tour.”
“I may have to swim in the locks at thirty-four degrees to keep under control.”
“Try Theresa. I hear she’s a slut.”
“For real?”
She laughed. “No. Not for real. I think the only slut aboard is you!”
The two of them sat together, alone in the bridge for over an hour. They enjoyed each other’s company, and each was glad the other was aboard. A year was a long time to be at sea. And whether or not it ever amounted to anything beyond flirting and joking, at least an attractive friend of the opposite sex would help pass the time. The computer screen lit up in mid sentence, and the MC started speaking in its gentle female voice.
“Multiple sonar contacts. Multiple sonar contacts. Fifteen thousand three hundred six feet and descending . . .”
Tony quickly started typing. Jessica watched his fingers fly over the keyboard, impressed with his ability to go from joker to chief petty officer in a split second. He tapped the keyboard slower as he tried to hone in on the contacts.
“They’re small, whatever they are.” He grabbed his mouse and selected a portion of his screen, then enhanced and zoomed in. The black ocean became bright green, and strange creatures seemed to glide effortlessly through the water by the thousands. They looked like squid or octopus, but they had coiled shells where a body should be. “Any clue what the hell they are?” he asked.
“Nope. Can you record this?”
Tony typed as he answered in the affirmative, and the computer recorded everything they were watching for the “fish geeks”—Theresa, Mike, and Ian—to examine later.
“Whoa! What the hell is that?” Tony exclaimed.
A large “thing” moved through the water, lit up like an electric neon sign. Its lights pulsed as it appeared to fly through the water, enveloping one of the small creatures.
“Jellyfish,” replied Jessica.
“Damn. Never saw one like that before! You see the lights on that thing? That’s wild.”
“After looking at what we just saw, I am wondering if we are underwater or in outer space.”
Hours later, the fish geeks would examine the video and conclude that a previously unknown species of nautilus had just been discovered. Known to migrate between the surface and depths of twenty-five hundred feet, nautiluses are a member of the class Cephalopoda. They resemble squid, but have chambered shells and up to ninety tentacles. They haven’t changed much over the last few million years. They had also never been known to occur at anywhere near the ship’s current depth before. The Challenger had already made its first discovery—and they hadn’t even reached the bottom yet.