The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,23
glimpse of some apocalyptic ancient Egypt, the Nile having swallowed everything in its rising waters.
When they finally reached the outer vault, Possuelo was ecstatic, but Jeri’s response was measured. This was only the first stage of the battle.
They breached it with a steel-cutting laser; then the hole they were cutting gave way before they had completed cutting it – the water pressure having caved it in – and the robotic sub plunged through the air pocket, shattering on the vault’s floor.
“Well, at least now we know that the outer vault remained watertight,” Jeri said, taking off the goggles.
That was the fifth ROV lost.
At first, each time a new robotic sub had to be brought in, it added another week to the operation. After the second one was lost, they requisitioned two at a time, so there’d always be a backup.
The escaping air created a telltale bubbling of white water on the surface that alerted everyone they had breached the outer vault. By the time the crew prepped the standby sub later that day, every scythe that had left the area was either back or on their way.
The following morning, the new robotic sub was negotiating the dark void of the flooded chamber. While the outer vault was covered with residue and slime from its tenure in the sea, the Vault of Relics and Futures was just as pristine as the day it sank.
“The best thing to do would be to cut a hole in this vault as well,” suggested Jeri, “then vacuum the diamonds out.”
It was the most efficient plan, but Possuelo had his orders.
“The robes of the founding scythes are also inside,” he explained. “And since the inner vault is still intact, my High Blade wishes to preserve them as well. Which means we have to bring up the entire vault.”
To which Jeri raised an eyebrow and said, “We’re going to need a bigger boat.”
When it comes to scythes, money is no object, and quite literally so, because scythes pay for nothing and can have everything. Jeri told Possuelo precisely the kind of ship they needed; Possuelo found the nearest one and claimed it for the Amazonian scythedom.
Four days later a fully equipped crane vessel that could deposit the vault right onto the Spence’s deck arrived in the dive zone. Its crew was put entirely at Captain Soberanis’s disposal. Even so, the crane had to wait, because it took more than a week to cut a hole large enough in the outer vault for the extraction, and to secure the inner vault with a cable sling strong enough to raise it.
“Once we start the winch, it will take about twenty-four hours to raise the vault to the surface,” Jeri informed Possuelo and the elegy of scythes that had gathered for a briefing, a veritable rainbow of robes from dozens of regions.
“We have a record of how many scythe gems are in there,” Possuelo told the others. “We’ll keep a strict accounting and divide them evenly between every region.”
“Under our observation,” insisted Scythe Onassis of Byzantium.
And although Possuelo hated that scythes no longer trusted one another, he agreed.
Possuelo was woken by pounding on his cabin door sometime after two in the morning. He tried to turn on his bedside lamp, but the bulb was out.
“Yes, yes, what is it? Why all the racket?” he called out as he stumbled in darkness to the door. He fished for the main light switch and flicked it, but that didn’t work, either. When he finally got the door open, Captain Soberanis stood in the harsh beam of a flashlight.
“Get your robe on and meet me on deck,” Jeri said.
“Whatever for – and what happened to the lights?”
“We’re running dark,” Jeri told him, handing Possuelo a flashlight as well.
And when Possuelo emerged on deck a few minutes later, he immediately understood why.
There in front of him, resting on the open deck, was a steel cube, triple their height, and still dripping wet.
The captain gave Possuelo a wicked grin. “Looks like my calculations were off.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” quipped Wharton.
Clearly there was nothing “off” about the captain’s calculations. This timing had been carefully planned – and not just the raising of the vault, but everything leading up to it. Soberanis had timed this whole undertaking so that the vault was raised beneath a new moon. With the Spence and crane vessel running dark, no one on the other ships yet knew that the vault had been raised.