Page 118 of Tides of Fire
Datuk nodded. “Definitely opened with the last quake.”
Phoebe frowned at the view. “But why? And why right here?” Sheglanced over her shoulder. “It can’t be pure coincidence that it swallowed that leaking sub.”
Datuk speculated, shrugging as if trying to discount his own words. “Maybe the clustering of quakes over the past two weeks was some attempt to get rid of the sub, an effort to drive it off. Then with that last spike in radiation, it’d finally had enough and decided to deal with it directly.”
“If you’re right,” Adam challenged him, “what could do that?”
“No idea.” He motioned to his sensors. “But I still find it odd howcleanthis water is after we passed through the brine layer. I’m not picking up any microplastics. The dissolved oxygen levels are through the roof. The salinity is way low. There’s a purity that makes no sense unless something is actively making it so.”
Phoebe remembered pondering this mystery on their last dive, when she compared these vast coral fields to the Brazilian rainforest, one of the lungs on the planet’s surface. Was this forest the equivalent down here? Was it somehow keeping these seas pure, actively fighting to make it so? Did this support Datuk’s conjecture about something trying to physically rid the trench of the leaking, toxic boat?
Bryan interrupted this reverie. “We’re about to break a record.”
Phoebe turned to him. “What do you mean?”
He nodded to the depth gauge on the screen that monitored their descent. The tiny, winged blip of theCormoranton the bathymetric screen continued to fall along a gradient marked along one side.
“We’re approaching eleven thousand meters,” he said. “Victor Vescovo holds the world’s record for the deepest dive. Just more than ten thousand, nine hundred meters. In a Triton-designed submersible like ours.”
They all gathered closer and watched theCormorantfall past that record.
Tired smiles spread amongst them.
“We should’ve brought champagne,” Bryan mumbled.
Adam sighed. “Let’s hope we get a chance to tell the Guinness people.”
Datuk asked an important question: “How deep can theCormorantgo?”
“She’s been overengineered,” Bryan said. “Like most submersibles. She was designed to withstand pressures deeper than any known trench.”
“Which means what?” Adam asked. “What is her crush depth?”
“Fourteen thousand meters.” Bryan turned to them. “But that was based on lab tests, not a real-world challenge.”
Adam stared down. “Looks like we’re about to test that.”
Silence again settled over their group as they continued their plummet into a bottomless darkness.
12:07P.M.
Daiyu climbed into the seat of theQianliyan. The deep-sea bathyscaphe was named after a Chinese demon, whose name meantfar-seeing eye. According to legend, he challenged Mazu, the goddess of the sea, but she tamed him and he became her guardian, protecting the depths of the seas.
It seemed a fitting name, especially as she had chosen it when she and her team of engineers at the Guangdong Southern Marine Science and Engineering Laboratory had built its prototype. The PLA Navy had taken her early design and built this vehicle for their amphibious attack boat. She had inspected theQianliyanwhile en route here and took great satisfaction in what she found, noting the PLA had adhered to her every engineering spec, down to the titanium and acrylic passenger compartment, which had been machined to within 99.978 percent of a true spherical form.
But best of all...
They kept my name for the vessel.
She took it as a testament to her achievement. The two-person sphere was surrounded by a matte-black outer shell shaped like an elongated teardrop with a glass scallop protruding out its front.
TheQianliyanhad been primarily engineered as a surveillance-and-reconnaissance vessel. But it could also serve a role in anti-submarine warfare. To that end, fourDú-yátorpedoes were being loaded under it. The weapons’ name meantvenomous fangs, which they definitely were. Their sleek shapes and piston-driven engines, fueled by a solid-fuel rocket propellant, were built to withstand extreme pressures. The weapons were slow at maximum depth, but they were deadly and dogged in their pursuit once a target was locked.
A grunt overhead announced the arrival of her co-pilot, Lieutenant Yang Háo. He dropped through the exit trunk and down into the sphere. He secured the hatch behind him and squeezed his large bulk into the neighboring seat. His torn knuckles had been treated and stained with an iodine solution. As her second-in-command, he had proven his skill aboard the yacht, and he would do so again below the seas.
Together, they silently performed a system check.
Once done, he turned to her. “Captain Tse, I’m trained in operating theQianliyan. I would be proud to pilot her myself. There is no need for you to travel down into the trench.”