Nigel Thompson - Pheia

“And take me running?” she asked.

He patted his belly. “Sure. I could lose a few pounds.” He laughed.

On the surface, Williams stood on deck watching the winch line that led down to the Pheia. As the barge rose and fell over the mild swell, the servo system in the winch kept the tension in the wire constant. The mechanism was designed to compensate for up to a couple of feet of movement. The last time they had big waves it had been overcome by the huge change in height of the barge and yanked the Pheia apart.

Williams watched the wire where it entered the water. It didn’t move at all as the barge rose and fell. He wondered how it worked. Some sort of electric or hydraulic control system he supposed. So long as it kept working, he didn’t really care.

He glanced at his watch and sighed. They were expecting a TV crew and some reporters later in the morning. He had done his best to keep them away over the last few days so the barge crew could work uninterrupted. A few boats had come out to look. He’d seen cameras and given a few interviews over the phone but managed to avoid having any of the reporters on the vessel. Talking over the phone let him use notes to keep track of what he wanted to say. He wasn’t sure how he’d stand up to questioning in person.

He’d made the mistake of mentioning this to Subramanian who had talked to him like one of his stress test subjects. The man was incorrigible. He had eventually offered some advice which Williams now thought might actually make sense. He had reminded Williams that the reporters were coming out for information, not to see him specifically. And if the source of their information was a bit nervous, they would either not notice, or simply understand. This was what reporters did.

He watched the steel cable supporting the Pheia for a few more seconds then turned away and walked off to the galley. He wanted an update on the procedures for the decompression stops and the recovery of the Pheia’s crew.

The day passed slowly in the Pheia. Kate and the divers played trivial pursuit. They taught her some card games and she tried to be a good sport about losing. She knew they were trying to keep her occupied. No one said very much unless there was obvious cheating which usually resulted in the cheater having something thrown at him.

Kate enjoyed their company, and appreciated the help in passing the time. She tried very hard not to keep looking at the depth indicator. Without the wall passing the portal there was no indication they were moving up at all. Occasionally they could feel a slight change in the Pheia’s position as the tension in the winch line varied a bit. They all knew that meant waves on the surface but nobody said what they were all thinking: the last big waves had caused a lot of damage.

The slight variation in the cable tension caused by the surface barge moving over the waves was transmitted down to the Pheia. The compensator on the barge’s winch combined with the slight elasticity in the very long cable reduced the variation in tension to almost nothing by the time the cable reached the Pheia. But it was just enough to cause a slight harmonic resonance in the structure. As the tension in the cable increased, the Pheia’s two cylinders were pulled together slightly as they rose. When the cable tension dropped again, the cylinders floated back down again. It was almost impossible to see the motion of the large cylinders in the water but it was enough to apply some torque to the gas lines connecting the two cylinders together.

Most of the gas lines were small diameter, high pressure stainless steel connections that had been bent, but were not otherwise damaged. They flexed with the slight motion of the cylinders. Below the thinner gas lines were two large diameter steel pipes which were part of the gas recirculation system. They helped keep the gas mix constant between the two cylinders and ensure that the pressure in each one was the same. These large diameter pipes had folded in on themselves when the crew hab was wrenched up. Both pipes were crimped almost closed but had not yet developed any leaks.

Unfortunately, one of the larger pipes had been pressing against an electrical cable for a long time now and the slight motion of the cylinders had caused the crushed part of the pipe to wear through the plastic covering of the power cable. The cable was an underwater design with a steel and copper shield around the conductors. The pipe had worked through the steel shield in one small patch and was now resting against the inner copper shield.

The galvanic action of the dissimilar metals in the salt water caused the steel pipe to start corroding very fast. The corrosion worked though the zinc covering and exposed the bare steel underneath. The pipe was under considerable tension from the cylinders at its ends and once the corrosion ate through the thicker part of the steel there was nothing left to prevent the pipe from being forced open.

Inside the hab, Kate was digging through the food pile when the alarm on the console went off. There had been occasional alarms over the past few days and she didn’t react at first.

“You gonna see what that is?” Morrison asked.

Kate stood up from the pile holding a bar of chocolate. She hadn’t seen any for days and was looking forward to devouring it.

“Sure.” She said and walked over to the console just as a second alarm went off.

The console screens had lots of red pages from the previous problems so it took Kate a while to find what was causing the alarm. She was about to say something when Stephens beat her to it.

“We’ve got a leak. Look.” He was pointing to the water level by the ladder. It was at least an inch higher than it had been.

Kate scanned the gas system pages. “I don’t understand. The gas cylinders are all much the same as they have been for ages now. It must be leaking from somewhere else.”

Stephens picked up the marker Kate had used to make her buddy list by the ladder. He bent down and made a line where the water was and wrote the time next to it.

They were all standing now, looking at the water.

“Are you sure it’s come up?” Morrison asked.

“Yeah. I’m sure. There was a slight mark on the metal from the oils on the surface. It’s gone now.”

They all grouped behind Kate and watched as she scanned through the screens.

“How deep are we?” Morrison asked her.

She changed screens and looked at the depth indicator. “320 feet.” She said.

Morrison looked at his team. They both nodded at him.

“Can you tell where the leak is and how fast it’s leaking?” he asked Kate.

The screens flashed by as her fingers tapped on buttons and menus.

“The overall hab pressure is dropping. Not fast, but it’s dropping.”

Stephens went back to the ladder and looked at his mark. “It’s covered the mark I just made. I’d say it’s come up half an inch in, what, five minutes?”

Kate glanced over at him. “That’s not too bad. That ladder hole is pretty small diameter compared to the compartment. At that rate we’d have hours before it was even knee deep.”

Stephens looked at the water again. “Are you sure? It seems to have moved up pretty fast to me.”

As they were discussing how serious the leak was, a slightly larger wave made its way under the support barge. The cable tightened as before but it pulled just hard enough to cause the small hole in the pipe between the cylinders to open to a pencil-sized hole.

In the ops room, another alarm went off. Kate looked at the gas generator screen and saw that it was no longer able to keep up with the leak rate. It was running continuously now. Other screens showed that the gas mix was being supplemented from the helium tank.

Morrison tapped her on the shoulder. She looked at him with obvious fear in her eyes. “Let me talk to the surface.” He said.