like watching a man being mauled by it—how long could you last? Now, that would be some entertainment, he thought.
The shark had appeared two days earlier, trailing the ship. A veteran seaman claimed the animal had been following them for far longer as they motored up the Japan Trench.
The man-eater's presence had excited much interest at first—it was the biggest shark anyone had ever seen—but that had waned as the scientists and submersible specialists readied and then launched the Shinkai. There was some concern about what the beast would do when the deep-diving craft entered the water, but in fact the meeting between the two was a nonevent. The sub was over thirty feet long, barely ten feet longer than the great white, and it bristled with many delicate sensors and remote-operated arms, any and all of which could easily be damaged by the shark if it became inquisitive. It did indeed approach the sub, but then turned away with a flick of the tail, snubbing the vessel, much to the relief of the scientists.
* * *
The recovery ship, Natusima, was “anchored” in a relatively shallow part of the 29,500-foot-deep trench, thrusters linked to its navigation systems keeping the ship stationary above a point on the seafloor. The Shinkai had been down for over six hours already, diving on hydrothermal vents at the very extremity of its 21,000-foot performance envelope.
At a depth of 20,374 feet, the world outside was solid black, so utterly black it seemed almost to suck the very illumination from the Shinkai's spotlights. Weird and delicate creatures in all their phosphorescent glory curled, snaked, drifted, or darted past the submersible's portholes, indicating that this blackness was in fact teeming with life, and was liquid rather than solid.
“Back us up a tad,” said Professor Sean Boyle.
Dr. Hideo Tanaka's thumb shifted a toggle on the hand controller. There was the slightest vibration accompanied by an electrical hum and the Shinkai's twenty-six tons eased away several feet from the volcanic rock face. Darkness rushed in to fill the widening gap.
“That's it,” said the professor. He watched one of the video screens, leaning toward it with intense concentration.
“You OK about going down again?” asked Tanaka, a little concerned about his research partner's well-being.
The professor nodded. Perspiration dripped from his forehead onto his sweat-soaked T-shirt.
The technician handling the buoyancy controls made the adjustments and the sub slid horizontally into the depths. The hull popped a couple of times. Outside, the pressure was close to 630 atmospheres. If a seal gave out now, even a thin stream of water under such pressure would slice through the three men inside like a wire through soft cheese. Professor Boyle was aware of the danger and it weighed heavily on his mind. Dr. Tanaka had spent a lot of time in deep-sea submersibles over many years and experience had taught him this fear—a kind of claustrophobia—was irrational. These submersibles were overengineered and the Shinkai's real limit, before the weight of the sea above the hull crushed it to the thickness of a slice of bread, was probably closer to 23,000 feet.
“Let's get below the smoker,” said the professor reluctantly.
Tanaka agreed. The American-born Japanese nodded at the technician and together they completed the maneuver.
Beads of sweat dribbled into Professor Boyle's eyes while he watched the monitor. The screen displayed what was visible on the volcanic plate just beyond the bow of the Shinkai, as well as providing real-time data for sea depth, current direction and speed, sea temperature, and hull pressure. The temperature, barely 37°F sixty-six feet away, was climbing rapidly as the sub neared the hydrothermal vent.
What had seemed to be bare rock gradually became a meadow of enormous pale yellow tube worms captured in the Shinkai's lights. The tube worms, each over a yard in length, swayed in the gentle convection current. A movement at the corner of the screen caught the scientists' attention. Dr. Tanaka toggled the external camera so that the view in the monitor swept left. A huge white spider crab crawled into view, reminding Tanaka of something from a horror movie. It was gobbling something, long and slender poles ending in claws feeding torn strips of worm into its mouth. “Christ, what a monster,” muttered Boyle.
An angelfish drifted into view as the submersible continued its descent. “Now there's a face only its mother would love,” said the technician. The small fish dangled its glowing lantern in front of a grotesque, lethal-looking underbite, the brutal fangs in its wide mouth poised for