Chapter No. 8 The Furnace of the Abyss

Day Three: An overcast sky hung over the Galapagos Islands like a funeral shroud. In some ways it was a good thing; the two scientists didn't have a pesky glaring sun to contend with. They could easily survey the craggy landscape of Fernandina with a minimum of eyestrain.

But it didn't do much to lift their depression. The uninteresting gray of the shore blended with the dark rain laden clouds of the sky.

Even the seals complained, barking and shrieking their disgust, and the marine iguanas didn't appreciate the lack of warming sunlight. They had to contend with diving for their daily measure of algae on less than a full charge.

Despite being near the equator, the Galapagos Islands are not hot, a consequence of being in the wake of the Humboldt Current. As a matter of fact, the seas around the islands can be quite chilly, and a chill does nothing to sooth a man's—or a woman's--soul.

"Nice day, isn't it?" Eric said with a facetious smile.

"This day is as insidious as George's stares."

"Amen to that."

Margaret stared blankly at dark clouds swirling low to the horizon. "I just wish that George and the rest of them would cut us some slack." She turned back to staring at her husband's back. "Sometimes, I feel like I'm wasting what's left of my life."

"Geez, Love, you sound as if you're about to commit suicide. You can't expect the Institute people to show us love. They've got their own problems."

"I don't expect them to love me. All I want is a little respect."

"Now, you sound like Rodney Dangerfield.

She huffed. "You make everything into a joke. This is serious."

"I agree, Love, but I'm not going to let it drive me to suicide."

"I'm not going to kill myself, damnit!"

He turned to give her an apologetic look. "I was just kidding."

Her wild eyes flared. "See! You think everything's funny."

He turned away. "You're right. I'm Rodney Dangerfield."

She coughed up a suppressed snigger.

He turned to aim a soothing smile. "See. Doesn't that feel better?"

She rewarded him with a weak smile.

"I realize this isn't the best expedition we've been on, but it will get better. Trust me."

She shook her head. "My husband, the eternal optimist."

"It's the only thing to be on a miserable day like this."

She returned to gazing at the world outside the observation canopy. No matter how terrible the weather above, the sea below never changes, especially at a depth of fifty meters. Life down there has an inexorable quality.

"Maybe we should troll near the bottom," she said. "It's obvious that the creatures are not going to make an appearance today."

"Do you blame them?"

"Not really."

Eric activated the ballast control and advanced the bow planes. The minisub slipped beneath the surface and quickly fell into the blue-gray world of the depths.

The usual denizens of the deep seemed agitated. Hammerheads swam around with herky-jerky motions and schools of fish seemed confused, stopping and turning with violent suddenness. Even the plankton seemed more energetic than normal.
 
Margaret felt an unexpected shudder, as if a low-frequency vibration was coming through the minisub's titanium hull.

She poked a finger into her husband's back. "Is there something wrong with the motor?"

"The engine, Love. They call it the engine."

"Whatever. I felt a vibration. Maybe the shaft's bent."

Eric flicked a switch. "Let's see what the readouts say." After a few minutes of observing a computer flat screen and switching several controls: "Nothing wrong with the engine, Love, according to the computer."

"Well, I don't care. I felt a vibration. Maybe the computer's wrong."

"Oh, no, the computer's never wrong." He said it in a sarcastic tone.

"Ha!"

They both felt the next vibration. It was more of a jolt that shook their minisub with a sickening violence.

Eric's eyes widened. "What the hell?"

"Maybe a storm hit. It sure looked like it up there."

"We wouldn't feel a storm down this low. This has to be . . . Oh, shit!"

"What's wrong?" Her eyes were wide as saucers.

The next jolt rocked their little vessel from side to side, jerking them violently.

"It's an earthquake," Eric shouted.

"An earthquake?" Her voice trailed off in a squeak.

###

"What the hell was that?" Stubens yelled when he felt a violent vibration reverberating through the control room.

"It's a hydrothermal vent opening up," Henry said. "The hydrophone is going nuts."

"Where?" Stubens asked, hanging on to an instrument module.

"Somewhere north of Fernandina. I won't know the location until I run the sensor data through the computer."

"How bad?"

Henry studied a monitor. "It's in the range of four to five on the Richter scale."

"Who's out today?"

"The Deep Star, the Orion and . . . and the Hauptman's."

"Get them back," the captain ordered. "We may have a full blown eruption on our hands."

"Yes, sir."

Henry sent the message out on a low frequency signal. The deep submersibles would easily pick it up. The Hauptmans, on the other hand, didn't have a radio. They would have to get the warning by an alternate method.

###

"I'm picking up a modulated carrier on the beacon signal," Margaret said in a voice tinged with stress.

"What is it?" Eric turned to look at her.

"I don't know how to . . . how do you get the modulated signal?"

"Tell the computer to use a rectification filter."

Margaret selected the beacon menu and punched the rectify button on the touch screen.
And after an anxious minute, she said: "They want us to come back to the Nautilus."

Eric blew out a breath. "No shit. I hope that they realize that we're close to the earthquake."

"Is the earthquake on Fernandina?" Margaret asked.

"No. It's around here somewhere. It's probably a vent opening up."

"A vent?"

"Yeah, an eruption in the sea bottom, probably a crack in a previous hydrothermal vent. The Galapagos region is full of them."

"What do they look like?" she asked, fidgeting.

"Keep an eye out for a dark plume. These things vent superheated water and black smoke filled with sulfur. If we venture into one of them, we'll cook like two lobsters."

Margaret swept her wide-open eyes around in a frenzied attempt to spot something in the dark blue haze surrounding the minisub.

I wonder what the creatures do when something like this happens. Why do they live in a seismically active area, anyway? It must be like living in hell. I hope I live long enough to find out.

Suddenly, an ominous black plume appeared out of the funk, streaming smoke into the heights like a small forest fire in the night. The source of the plume glowed red and yellow, churning and rolling superheated water up under billowing black smoke. The mound on which hell vented its anger was crusted with a flaky particulate of bacteria, a sign of previous activity.

She pointed at the opening to hell. "Is that the vent?"

"Yeah, I see it." He banked around into a tight turn. "We have to get the hell out of here. If that thing blows, we'll be toast."

Eric pushed the throttles to full. Margaret turned to keep a weary eye on the gates of hell.
"It's getting brighter," she shouted.

"Oh, shit, it's going to blow!"

The concussion wave hit the minisub like a thunderclap, propelling it just barely ahead of a ball of superheated water encased in a black cloud.

The noise of the eruption drowned out the screams of the minisub's occupants.

###

"Are the subs back yet?" Captain Stubens asked Carl as he paced back and forth.

"The Deep Star and the Orion are back," Carl said. "The Hauptman's aren't."

"Weren't they exploring around Fernandina?"

"Yes, sir."

Stubens rubbed his brow. "Shit."

"If they were," Henry said, "they're cooked. That last eruption was a six point seven."

"Shit."

He turned to Carl. "Can we move in closer to Fernandina?"

"I wouldn't advise it. No telling if this baby is done spewing its guts."

He turned to Henry. "Are you still receiving their return beacon?"

Henry sighed. "No, sir."

"Shit."

The captain paced for a few minutes before he turned to Carl. "Take us up to fifty meters. Begin active pinging," he said to Henry. "Use a broad bandwidth signal, and increase the gain on the beacon. If they're out there in one piece, we should get something."

Both Carl and Henry knew that the chances of picking up anything were slim to none, but they elected to avoid throwing a wet blanket on the captain's hope.

An hour had gone by and there were no more eruptions. Captain Stubens continued his pacing--and worrying, especially since no sign of the Hauptmans' little craft had emerged from their efforts.

"Shouldn't we contact the Ecuadorian navy and ask for a search?" Henry asked.

The captain stopped pacing. "What's the use? They'd take several days to initiate a search." He sighed. "Maybe we should send out the dingy."

"The seas are pretty choppy out there," Henry said. "We'll have to wait until they subside."

Frustration erupted on Stuben's face. "We have to do something, goddamnit! They may be injured or their minisub damaged--"

"If they were anywhere near that last eruption," Henry said, "they're goners."

"Who knows where they were when it hit. Maybe they felt the initial eruption and got out of the way."

"How come we can't pick up their return beacon?"

Stubens began pacing again. "I don't know, but this not knowing is beginning to make me angry."

The hatch to the control room opened and a worried face appeared. It was not the worried face that the control room crew would have expected.

"Dr. Stevens," the captain greeted him with a forced smile.

"I heard that the Hauptman's are lost," he said. "Are you going to conduct a search?"

Stuben's smile became a frown. "We'd like to, Doctor, but the weather doesn't want to cooperate."

Steven's face muscles tightened. "Isn't there something we can do to find . . . to determine their conditions?"

"As soon as the seas calm, we'll send out the dingy."

"If you need any volunteers I'll be . . ."

"I'll let you know," Stubens said.

Stevens nodded and slowly exited down the shaft to the control room.

"I thought he hated the Hauptman's," Henry said. "He's always arguing with them."

Stubens shook his head. "Scientists! They're all eccentric."

"I think they all like to argue," Carl said. "It's professional pride."

"None of this is helping us find the Hauptmans," Stubens said, resuming his pacing.
The captain stopped pacing and stared intently at Henry. The Navigator was bent over and staring intently at a communications monitor.

"What is it?"

Henry held his hand up. After an agonizing minute, he said: "I've detected a weak signal on the beacon frequency--just a notch above static. I'm trying to boost the filter."

Stubens jumped to his station. Carl bent over to look at the monitor.

"Is it the Hauptman's?" Stubens asked, his deep penetrating eyes boring a hole through the monitor image.

"See this little blip," Henry said, pointing at the screen. "It's showing signs of a carrier."
He continued making adjustments by typing into a keyboard. "If I could just get the signal isolated from the background . . ."

Suddenly, the signal increased in amplitude.

"There it is," Henry, said, his voice relaxing but his face still showing stress. "Now, let's see what it's saying."

The message slowly displayed on the monitor: "Back from purgatory. Battery low. Slow but steady at 91°30' W, 18' N."

All three men cheered.

"I'll boost the beacon signal," Henry said, "and tell them we're coming to their aid."

"Get this tub moving. Let's get as close as we can."

"Coming to one-quarter," Carl said.

"The best track is one-seven-three," Henry said.

"Turning to one-seven-three," Cary said. "Increasing to one-half."

Stubens rubbed his beard. "Thank goodness. I thought for sure that they were . . ."
He didn't finish. No use indicating loss of confidence. It's not the proper thing for a captain to do, especially in front of his crew.

Instead, he paced to the intercom. "Dr. Stevens."

"Stevens here."

"We found the Hauptman's. They appear to be ok. We should pick them up shortly."

"Good. Thank you."

The intercom clicked off.

"Boy, he didn't seem very excited," Henry, said.

"Maybe he would have been more excited if we had found their bodies," Carl said.

"Don't say things like that," the captain said. "We don't want any problems among the scientists. We have enough nonsense to deal with."

Neither Carl nor Henry could dispute that statement.