Page 42 of Clive Cussler Desolation Code

Maneuvering the submarine alongside one of the partially eaten whales, Gamay was careful not to bump it. “You should be able to use the claw from here.”

Chantel operated a remote arm that had been equipped with a circular tool designed to take sedimentary cores. She figured it would be strong enough to take a core out of the floating carcass. Extending it to the side of the animal, she activated the motor. The teeth on the end of the coring probe began to spin slowly. She pushed it out until it began cutting into the gray flesh, penetrating it with ease.

“Twelve-inch depth should be enough,” Gamay said.

The probe could core out a two-foot-deep cylindrical sample, but that was more than they needed at the moment.

At roughly twelve inches of depth, Chantel stopped and reversed the motion. The probe came back out, bringing with it a chunk of flesh and muscle.

“I’ll store this in bin number one.”

Bending the robot arm, she placed the sample in a cylinder on the side of the submersible, which then sealed up tight.

Several more samples were retrieved. Two from the whale and two from what was left of a great white shark. By the time they finished they were floating in a soup of residue from the decaying animals. Oils from the bodies oozed everywhere, along with globs of fat and strips of flesh drifting about.

Gamay noticed some of the spheres mixed in with the detritus.

“Let’s get some of these floating orbs,” Gamay said. “I’m not sure what they are, but I have a bad feeling they’re part of the problem.”

Locking down the robot arm, Chantel extended the vacuum probe. It was designed to suck in water and any sea life large enough to fit through its nozzle. Turning it on started a pump, and the water near the nozzle started to swirl, but sucking up individual floating orbs proved more difficult than it looked.

“Can you move in closer?” Chantel asked. “They’re harder to catch than a bar of soap in a dirty bath.”

Gamay noticed there weren’t as many of them as there had been earlier. She wondered if they were moving on, now that the food supply was dwindling. They didn’t appear to be able to swim, but maybe they could lift their bodies to the surface and inflate a sail like the Portuguese man-of-war.

“I’ll make it easy for you.”

Gamay nudged the thruster control gently, easing the sub forward and turning it toward the remnants of the nearest bloated whale carcass, expecting a result similar to hitting the shark with the ROV.

“We’re only moving at three knots, but hang on,” she said.

Angling the craft upward, she bumped the underside of the dead animal. The impact was soft enough, but still slightly jarring, like flopping onto a bed covered with thick comforters.

The sub’s momentum pushed the rounded bow into the side of the whale, pressing it inward and splitting the skin just as she’d hoped. She flicked the thruster control into reverse and the sub backed away as the tissue began to rupture and hundreds of the glowing orbs spilled out.

“Vacuum to your heart’s content,” Gamay said, pleased with herself.

Chantel wasted no time directing the nozzle into the swarm of luminescent little blobs. They were soon being sucked into the device and flowing down the collection tube, where they were deposited in a clear tank on the other side of the submersible like fireflies in a jar.

“If we lose the lights, we can hold some of these up and find our way,” Chantel joked.

Gamay laughed, but the laughter died as she realized they were actually losing the light. She looked up and saw the reason. The submersible’s impact with the whale had made it roll over. Though she couldn’t see it, the carcass had burped a large amount of gas and lost buoyancy. It was now sinking toward them like a giant wet blanket.

She hit the thrusters, but it was too late. The semi-formless shape came down over the top of the submersible, hitting it with a soft bump and then wrapping around it on all sides. The exterior light vanished as the viewports were covered up. More concerning than the loss of light was the loss of control. The thrusters, which could pivot and turn, were jammed into place by the overhanging remnants of the whale. The submersible tilted to the side and began to sink beneath several tons of decomposing blubber.

“What’s happening?” Chantel asked.

If she’d been claustrophobic before, looking around and seeingnothing but gray sludge and whale skin pressed up against every viewport was not going to help.

“The whale came down on top of us,” Gamay said. “I shouldn’t have been so careless.”

She was maneuvering the thrusters madly, but there was little effect. A quick glance at the depth gauge showed the descent accelerating.

“I can’t get us free,” Gamay said. “Blow the tanks. We need more buoyancy.”

Chantel moved to the dive controls. The submersible had two main tanks and four trim tanks. One by one she opened the valves and the sound of hissing air reverberated through the sub. The lights indicating tank status turned green in rapid order.

“All tanks empty,” she called out. She looked at the depth gauge. “But we’re still sinking.”

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