Nigel Thompson - Pheia

Kate stepped aside and Morrison pushed the talk button. “Surface. This is Morrison. Over.” His voice sounded calm and professional.

Someone replied but the voice wasn’t recognizable.

Morrison continued. “We have developed a leak. We have a limited amount of time left before we need to evacuate. We need to have you lower the deco rigs to 200 feet and we need you to do it now. Over.”

He let go of the talk button and looked at the others. “Let’s get all the gear checked out.”

Stephens and Washington walked away without a word. Morrison turned to Kate. How much gas do you have?”

“I have about one and a half tanks up here and there are at least two full ones on the rack in the moon pool room.”

“How long does one tank last you?”

“I don’t know really. I’ve only done light work down here. Maybe an hour or so.”

Kate did the math.

“So I’ve got maybe three to four hours of gas to go up 150 feet. Right?” she asked Morrison.

“You’re the math whizz. I doubt we have that much so I’m going to ask you to do something you won’t like.”

Kate thought he meant to share the gas she had or buddy breathe or something like that. She was wrong.

“I am going to take Washington and Stephens and use our gas to get to the deco rigs. We’ll have to go up faster than I’d like but we have no choice.”

Kate was about to say something but Morrison held up his hand.

“You will not follow us at the same rate. You will ascend at one foot per minute or thereabouts. That should bring you up level with us and the deco tanks in around three hours. Can you do that?”

“Sure, but you guys can’t go up that fast.”

“We have no choice. We’ll get ready, then wait in here until we absolutely have to leave – all of us I mean. No sense in going before we need to.”

Kate couldn’t understand how he could stay so calm. The other two had still not said a word. They were going over their gear at the other side of the room. She looked at the piles of stuff all over the floor. “I have an idea.” She said.

She picked up a pack of syringes containing Ford’s HPNS meds. “You should at least each use one of these. They are designed to help suppress the symptom of HPNS and I happen to know that there is also some part of the mix that has to do with bubble formation. I don’t know the details but it can’t hurt.”

Morrison took the pack of syringes. “Where?”

“In your butt.” Kate actually laughed.

He took one out, pulled off the cap and plunged it into his buttock all in one move.

“Not much of one for arguing are you?” Kate said.

He threw the pack over to the others. “Your turn.”

They each injected themselves then brought the pack back to Kate. It had one syringe left in it. She took it out, pulled down the top of her pants, hesitated a moment then, injected herself. “Can’t hurt me either. I hope.” She added.

Things on the surface were frantic. Williams was coordinating the efforts but there was little he could actually do. They rigged a longer line to lower the scuba systems that were at 50 feet down to 200. It took some time to find enough gas line to extend the hookah rig, but they got it down to 50 feet. Williams had no idea if this was good enough and left to call the medical center on Grand Cayman to warn them again that they might need their decompression chamber.

The hole in the pipe connecting the Pheia’s cylinders enlarged more as the motion of the cylinders further weakened the pipe.

In the ops room, the water had risen to everyone’s knees. They had all put on dive suits but left the tops open. They looked like a set of misfit fishermen lost in a trout stream. Stephens had been drawing lines on the wall with times next to them. It was obvious to everyone that they had perhaps an hour before they needed to leave.

“We’re going to freeze.” Kate said.

“Yes, we are.” Morrison answered. “No avoiding that I’m afraid.”

Kate had already put on a second pair or sweat pants under her dive suit and two sweat shirts that the divers had brought with them. She was worried her suit would be too tight. No circulation wasn’t going to help with the heat problem.

Washington rummaged through the gear they had brought with them and held up an orange colored plastic bag. “Ta da!” he said. “Hand and foot warmers.”

Kate recognized them from ski trips.

Washington ripped open the bag and threw a set of hand warmers and two sets of foot warmers to Kate. She grabbed them awkwardly in her arms.

“Don’t drop those.” Washington added smiling.

She opened the packs and stuffed the heaters into her pants and her shirt sleeves. She saw that there were only a few left. “What about you guys?” she asked.

“We’ll share what’s left. We’ll be on the deco rigs up higher than you. We’ll be fine.”

They all ate as much as they could manage without feeling uncomfortable. By the time they were done, the water was almost up to Kate’s waist.

She pulled up the top of her suit and Stephens helped her zip up.

Kate looked around the room. There had been so much tragedy here yet she was reluctant to leave. The ops room had been her home and kept her alive.

“Time to get wet.” Morrison said.

They all exited the Pheia together. Kate stayed at the back of the group and followed as they ascended to the top of the ops cylinder.

Morrison signaled to Kate: stay here, slow ascent. OK.

Kate gave him an OK, then hugged him, her mask pushing against his.

“Two hugs on one dive.” He thought. “A whole new experience.”

The three divers went hand over hand in single file up the winch cable. Kate watched as they moved up and hoped they would be OK.

She looked at her watch. Three hours to go up 150 feet.

Towed behind her were three other scuba sets, each one attached to a BC that had just enough gas in it to make it neutral in the water. She checked the line that tied them together was secure and tied off to her own BC then she began to climb.

She moved up one foot each time the second hand on her watch reached the top. It started out OK but when the divers were well above her and she was alone again, she started to feel hopeless. The water was cold. She was still warm enough in the dive suit for now and could feel the heat packs in her legs and sleeves. She hoped it would be enough.

Stephens’ gas ran out about 20 feet below the tanks and he used Washington’s spare regulator until they all reached the decompression tanks waiting for them. He was glad they had left the helmets in the Pheia and were using normal masks. The helmets didn’t have any way to use an alternate air source.

They all changed regulators over and checked tank pressures. They had enough gas for a decent stop and a slow crawl up to the hookah line 150 feet above them.

Morrison held the line with one hand and rolled over to look down. There, below him he caught the wink of a light in the water. He hadn’t felt like this for a very long time. Way down below him was someone he had started to care for. He wanted badly to go down and join her, but he knew Kate would follow the instructions he’d given her, and in a little under three hours she’d be where he was now. He hoped like hell that he’d be alive when she reached him.

Kate sat in her underwear on the bed in the hotel room she had been staying in for the last two weeks. Outside, the Caribbean sun shone brightly and she thought about getting dressed and going for a walk along the beach. She got up and walked to the window. The last two weeks had been hectic. Her arrival on the barge had been met by applause and she was still very uncomfortable with that. There had been two TV crews on the boat: one from Cayman and one from Houston. She had burst into tears at the first question about how she felt, and that had more or less ended the first TV session.