Nigel Thompson - Pheia

“The bio pill is showing my general biological condition plus some very specific data. Look here.”

Kate pointed to a number on the screen.

“That’s my overall gas absorption number. In a few minutes it’ll work out numbers for the gasses in the mix we’re breathing. If I let it run for an hour or two it’ll figure out my rate of absorption. If the hab were ascending, you’d see a negative number. Essentially how fast I’m outgassing.”

Morrison still didn’t get it. “Fascinating. You just felt the need to know eh?” he asked.

“Yes. Absolutely. Because if we all take the pills we can track our outgassing rate exactly and…”

She didn’t get to finish. Washington cut her off.

“Figure out how fast we can get to the surface.” he said.

“Right!” Kate said.

Morrison looked at the figures. “Really? And it’s reliable?”

“Yes it is. This is what Dr. Ford used to measure all her test subjects with. It’s got tons of people-hours on it. Way better than guessing, or sticking to the maximum safe ascent rate.”

Morrison thought for a minute.

“OK, so if it’s accurate we might be able to go up faster and live to tell the tale then. I guess we can give it a try but we have another problem to fix first.”

Kate visibly slumped. “And what’s that?” she asked.

“The cable they sent down is a few feet too short. We need to lift the Pheia until it reaches.”

“I spoke to Babin while you were out.” Kate said. “She said they sent down another lifting bag. Did you not find it?”

“No.” Morrison said. “Either it’s still on its way down or it got stuck.”

Kate contacted the surface and confirmed with Babin that they had sent down a lift bag. “Well, it’s supposed to be here: she said.”

As the lift bag had slid down the cable, pushed by the collection of dive weights it had fluttered slightly from side to side. It was most of the way down to the Pheia before one of the dive weights jammed between the clip on the bag and the cable. It hung there limply in the water like a sad flag on a windless day.

They had all heard what Babin had said about the bag. She had also said that they would put some more weights around the cable and send those down. Perhaps that would get it moving again as it was obviously stuck somewhere. She had apologized twice before leaving to send down the extra weights.

“Is there anything else here we can use as a lift bag?” Morrison asked Kate.

“We have lots of trash bags but nothing to put them in.” she said.

“What about kit bags? Anything like that? Doesn’t need to be big if we have enough of them.”

Kate tried to go through her mental list of everything she had seen in the storage area. “There might be kit bags in the crew room. We all brought down a few spare clothes but there isn’t much space so we were told to limit it. I know there were some small backpacks but I don’t remember seeing anything large.”

“We’re being stupid.” Washington said. “We just need the surface to let out some cable. It doesn’t reach because there isn’t enough slack. Right?”

Morrison felt dumb. “I’m going to write this off to the pressure.” He pushed the talk button on the console. “Morrison to surface. We need you to pay out about 20 to 30 feet of cable. Over.”

Babin’s voice came over the speaker. “I should have thought of that. That’s the trouble with not being able to see. I had some other mental model of the situation. We are paying out the slack now.”

The divers suited up and went back in the water. Kate wanted to be with them. It was getting a bit old now, standing around in the ops room doing nothing.

When the divers reached the top of the pinnacle, the winch cable had a loop of about ten feet deep in it. Morrison and Stephens pulled up their short section a few feet and removed one of the clamps from its end to secure it temporarily as they took off the rest of the clamps.

Washington took one clamp from Stephens and swam the end of the short line to the bottom of the lift cable loop. He clamped it there. “Secure boss.” he said over the comm system.

Morrison and Stephens transferred the rest of the clamps and let the cable hang down. Washington swam it over to the top of the Pheia. The other two joined him and they clamped the cable in place.

“Morrison to surface. Are you receiving? Over.”

“Five by five Morrison. Go ahead.”

“We have the short section clamped in place. We will cut the loop out of the main cable now so you will lose the comm link. Over.”

“Understood. Wait one. Over.”

There was a pause and Babin came on the comm in Morrison’s helmet.

“Tell me how you plan to do this.” she said and then added “Over.”

“We’ll cut the cable just above the clamp at the pinnacle first. Then we’ll go down to the top of the Pheia and cut it lose from there. We have the short link as tight as we could make it so the drop should only be a foot or so. Over.”

Babin agreed with the plan.

Morrison sent Stephens with a large cable cutter to go up and cut the lift cable free at the top of the pinnacle.

When Stephens was swimming up he saw a patch of yellow above him. “The lift bag just got here. I’ll snag it.”

“Rog.” Morrison replied.

Stephens unclipped the bag from the line and attached it to his harness. Then he put the big cutters around the lift cable and squeezed. The cutter had a ratchet action and he had to pump it a couple of times to slice through the steel wires.

The cable drifted away from the cut and drooped down. Stephens checked the clamps on the short section as he swam back down and joined the other two on top of the Pheia.

Morrison pointed to the lift bag on Stephens’ belt. Stephens nodded. He removed the bag and clipped it to the top of the collection of lift cables where they joined the main cable from the barge.

The bag was large and took a while to inflate. As it took shape it took some of the weight of the Pheia from the main cable. Stephens added more gas to the bag until the main lift cable went slack. “Good to go,” he said.

Washington took the cutter from Stephens and swam out a way with Morrison. They cut the cable that was holding the hab to the pinnacle on the wall. “We’re free,” Morrison announced.

The Pheia floated up slowly, lifted by the huge bag attached to the cables.

Stephens swam to the vent port on the bag and let gas out until the ascent stopped. It took a minute or so, and in that time the Pheia had risen past the pinnacle.

Morrison was watching from the wall. “It’s moving up too fast.”

“I’m on it,” Stephens replied as he let out more gas.

The Pheia halted its ascent and floated stationary in the clear water just a few feet from the wall.

Morrison pushed the talk button on his comms gear. “Morrison to surface. We are free. Over.”

He listened to the acknowledgement then waited. The view was spectacular. The huge structure hung silent in the water, its flood lights illuminating the wall.

A few seconds later he saw the cable start to move as the winch on the surface barge took the tension. When the cable was holding the Pheia, he pointed to the lift bags and Stephens opened the dump valves fully to empty them.

Very slowly the Pheia moved up as the winch lifted it and it started to drift away from the wall.

Morrison spoke to the team. “Let’s watch for a minute and make sure nothing breaks.”

The divers floated beside the giant structure as it crept slowly up past the wall. The assortment of cables held the two cylinders, set at their ungainly angle. Morrison thought it looked very feeble. He hoped it would hold until they got to the surface.