“Okay, I hate to be the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on, but what’s a black smoker?” asked Jessica to anyone who would answer.
Mike walked over to where she was sitting and spoke quietly to her. “A black smoker is like a volcano underwater. It’s a crack in the Earth’s crust where superheated gas and liquid escape under tremendous pressure. The stuff pouring out is loaded with chemicals and heavy metals. When the superheated flow hits the thirty-four degree water, the chemicals and metals come out of solution and rain down on the seafloor, creating the mountain we’re sitting next to now.”
Ted listened quietly but couldn’t help himself. “It’s the primordial soup, Doctor.”
The crew turned to Ted’s voice.
He eyed his audience and chose his words carefully. “The sulfuric gases and heavy metals would be poisonous to any sea creatures living in the sunlit depths above—but down here, in the near freezing depths of the deep ocean, it creates an alien world full of creatures that can only survive here.”
“Impressive for a space guy,” said Ian.
“I did my homework,” answered Ted.
“And what about the outside temperature?” asked Tony. “When you were doing your homework on this ship, you ever run any scenarios where we’d be sitting at a hundred and three degrees instead of thirty-four?”
“I’m not a metallurgist, but I think the water temperature is only important as it affects water pressure,” he said.
“Yeah, well if you increase temperature, you increase pressure, right?” asked Tony, looking a bit shaken.
“We’re all sitting here just fine. No leaks. No problems. Just a slight change in scenery. I think it’s an excellent opportunity, actually. The diversity of life near a smoker will be much more interesting than the abyssal plain,” said Ted.
“He’s right there,” said Theresa. “As far as I’m concerned, we hit the jackpot. My specialty is annelids—the deep-sea tube worms. I wasn’t sure I’d see any on the plain, but here? This place will be loaded with them.”
Commander Lewis, who had been checking and rechecking their coordinates, was half-listening to the conversation when he interrupted. “Tony—you and I studied the landing zone for hours. There was no black smoker at this location.”
“Roger that, Skipper.”
“So where the hell are we?”
“It’s quite possible it wasn’t here when they did the sonar mapping six months ago. It may have erupted after the mapping was done,” said Ian.
“Very true,” said Theresa. “These things pop up all the time along the subduction zones. We’re very lucky.”
Ted smiled.
“We’re very lucky we didn’t get cooked,” said Tony, eyeing Ted.
The captain still wasn’t one hundred percent satisfied. “MC—is our present location correct according to our programmed coordinates?”
The MC responded. “Current location is approximately three feet west of target location, with corrections made for surface angle.”
“Pretty hard to bitch about three feet in the middle of the Pacific,” said Mike.
Commander Lewis scowled. It didn’t seem right, but like it or not, they had landed and were “home” for the next year.
“Well, that’s it, then. We’re here. We’ll deploy the first buoy with the following message—you ready Tony?”
Tony nodded and looked at his captain.
“Successful landing, but surface map was incorrect. We are located on the side of a black smoker in twenty one thousand three hundred and fifty-four feet of water. Water temperature is . . . ?”
Tony checked his gauge. “One zero four.”
“Temp is one zero four. Ship is functioning fine. We will send up the next buoy in thirty days.”
Tony finished typing and hit send. The data was sent to a solid-state disk inside a small exterior buoy that was jettisoned and immediately began its long trip to the surface. When it hit the surface, it would send a signal and the message would be collected by the ODSR office on the mainland. Unfortunately, communication over the next year was one way, with no means for anyone to contact the seven crewmen at the bottom of the ocean.
“So that’s it, people,” Jim said. “My main job was to get you all here and later bring you back up alive. I did the first part. Now we get busy with our individual assignments. You’ll work at your own pace, but we’ll debrief in one a week here on the bridge. My door is always open if you need me.”
Tony leaned back to Jessica, who was standing behind him. He whispered, “And mine’s always open for you, too.”
She smiled and punched his shoulder.
Ian piped up in his heavy brogue, “How about I make us a meal to celebrate our arrival?”
“Are you shittin’ me?” exclaimed Mike. “Who the hell ever heard of a Scotsman who could cook?”
“You think you could do better then?” he replied.
“Hell, yeah. I’ll cook. Meet in the galley in one hour.” He stood up and headed downstairs, Theresa walking behind him. He stopped when he saw her following him and gave her a questioning look.
“I just want to make sure you wash your hands,” she said.
“And I’m coming, too, to see what the big fuss is about a cook from New Jersey,” said Ian.
“It’s not about Jersey, my Scottish friend, it’s about Italy. Mom taught me well . . .”
After they left, Tony looked at Jessica. “Looks like the fish geeks are also the kitchen staff. Think they can make burritos and quesadillas?”
Jim sat at his console zooming out a few miles at a time, trying to understand how an abyssal plain turned into a black smoker in six months.