Nigel Thompson - Pheia

“Help yourself,” Morrison said.

Kate pulled open the bag and took one out. “You guys want any?”

“Nope. We had breakfast before the dive.”

She took a large bite. It tasted wonderful after the dried food. “Mmmm. Yes.” She was about to say something when the speaker in the console surprised her.

It was Williams talking from the surface.

Kate looked at Morrison.

“We hooked up a comms line,” he explained. “I guess your boss wants to chat.”

“I’ve got it,” Kate said through a mouthful of sandwich, and pushed the talk button. “This is Kate.”

“Are you OK?” came Williams voice. It was like he was in the room.

“I’m fine. We just unpacked the food. Thanks for the sandwiches. I think I’ll open the wine next.”

There was a pause.

“Wine?” Williams asked

“I think Dr. Subramanian sent it. At least that’s what Morrison told me.”

“I see. I will ask him. Perhaps it’s not a good idea to drink it until you get to the surface.”

Kate raised her eyebrows. “Really? You send down wine but I’m not expected to drink it? I don’t think so. Tell Dr. S thank you from me.”

Williams didn’t respond. Evidently he’d decided not to argue.

It seemed an odd way to end the conversation but Kate was more interested in finishing her sandwich.

Stephens had found some plastic cups and had poured wine into four of them. He gave one each to Kate, Morrison and Washington. “Up the rebels!” he said.

They touched cups and drank the wine.

The divers inflated their mats and sat on them. Kate sat cross-legged on her mattress recounting the events of the past few days.

“So how did you know how to build the antenna? I saw it on the way down and wondered what the hell it was,” Stephens asked.

“I just took a guess really. I knew that lower frequencies needed longer antennas so I made it as long as I could.”

Morrison watched Kate. This woman was really something. She didn’t seem affected by the experience at all. In fact, he got the impression when they arrived that she was a bit resentful of having to share her space with his crew. She seemed OK now though. In fact, she seemed to fit well with the group’s humor, which was a little unusual. They had worked together a long time and had many inside jokes. Those didn’t faze Kate at all. If she didn’t get it, she came right out and asked; and the explanations didn’t embarrass her. At one point Kate had said: “I’m a biologist. I know all about sex.” That had caused a loud burst of laughter from everyone.

The wine had definitely helped. Morrison thought that he should send the Indian shrink a thank you note. Or maybe he’d just do that in person when they got back to the top.

As the day passed, they moved from Kate’s tale of the past days to playing trivial pursuit. She turned out to be good at that too. Morrison could not figure out how someone her age could possibly know so much about rock music from decades ago.

“My parents subjected me to it as a kid. It was almost the only music I ever heard in our house. We had a server with a lot of music on it. This was before Pandora and apps like that. So I listened to what was there and got to like it. I’ve moved on a bit since then, but rock still has a special place for me.” She picked up Dr. Ford’s iPod. “It turns out that Dr. Ford had the same passions.” She laughed. “I was really grateful for this a few days ago.” And then she went quiet.

Nobody spoke. Morrison’s team knew only too well what it was like to lose someone you worked with. They all knew she was thinking about the accident.

Washington stood up. “I need to take a leak.” He walked over to the ladder and facing away from the group, peed in the water.

Stephens had opened a bag of trail mix and was about to hand it to Kate when the Pheia lurched upwards. The trial mix flew out of his hand and spilled over the mats. Williams fell over as he was trying to zip his pants up. “What the hell was that?” he shouted.

Morrison got up and went to the control console, but before he could hit the talk button, the surface beat him to it.

“Pheia, be aware we have some swell up here.”

Morrison hit the talk button. “Thanks for the notice.” he said just as the Pheia lurched up again.

“This is Williams. The captain says that there is some rough weather heading our way again. We had thought it was all passed but it seems there is a second system on track for us.” There was a pause, then “Over.”

“So how bad is it going to get?” Morrison asked.

“We don’t know. This swell caught us by surprise too. The weather is still good up here except for the sea condition. If it gets worse we may pay out some slack and ask you to re-engage the drive system until it calms down. Over”

“You want us to do that now? Over.”

“No, not yet” Williams responded. “The captain says the swells don’t look like they are going to get any worse for a while and he says the servos on the winch is coping with the smaller waves. Over.”

The deck pulled up under Morrison again.

“It’s a little rough down here. Are you folks sure the habitat can handle the stress? Over.”

“The engineers are discussing that now. I’ll let you know what we are going to do in five to ten minutes. Over”

“Roger. Out”

Morrison looked at the others. “Well, this is nice.”

Williams had got up off the floor. “You think this tub can handle this?” he asked Morrison.

“I’ve no idea, but this can’t be good.”

The hab heaved up again and this time it was accompanied by a loud groaning sound.

“This is stupid.” Kate said. “Let’s turn the drive on and make some slack. Williams will be doing his committee thing. There is no way he can make a decision in under an hour.”

Morrison took one step back from the console and waved at it with his hand. “You want to drive?” he asked Kate.

She got up off the floor just as the deck heaved again and fell down on the mattress. “Yes, I do.”

She rolled over, got up and joined Morrison at the console. She quickly got to the drive system page and set the drive ascent rate to twice what it was before. They heard the drive motors spin up.

The Pheia gradually rose in the water. It was rising faster than the cable from the barge and so it created some slack.

They all stood in the ops room waiting. The hab seemed to be stable again. “You think that’s enough?” Kate asked. She was looking at Morrison.

“Yes, probably. We only need a few feet of slack.”

Kate altered the ascent rate to the normal setting and let out a breath. Her heart was pounding in her chest. The sound the hab had made brought back memories of the accident. She was sure it had been one of the tunnel sections getting wrenched further from the cylinder.

On the surface, Babin had already decided the Pheia could not take the strain of the wrenching it was getting and had told the winch operator to hold the ascent and pay out some cable. She wasn’t specific about the amount of cable so the operator let it run out for a while then shut off the winch and locked it.

Babin was about to get on the comm system and let the Pheia know they would need to re-engage the drive system when the next wave rolled by.

The combination of the Pheia moving up and the winch line being let out had caused a loop of cable that extended down below the bottom of the Pheia. As the next wave hit, the surface barge rose up over the wave pulling the cable up rapidly. The bottom loop of the cable came up under the crew cylinder and caught on the gas cylinders on the outside of it. The energy in the wave was enormous. As the barge rose up over the wave, the cable pulled taut. The crew cylinder was pulled violently up snapping the support cables that held it to the other half of the Pheia. As the crew cylinder rotated up and away it snapped off the upper tunnel completely so that the crew cylinder was connected to the ops cylinder by only the gas and electrical connections at the top.