Deep Storm

That was due to the unusual-bizarre, actually-construction of the Marble. It had a superlaminated outer hull of titanium-ceramicepoxy carbide and an i

The designers of the Marble had taken their cue from nature. And this was what Adkinson found strangest of all. He'd thought they were kidding when they'd explained it. The incredibly complex bracing was modeled after a…woodpecker. Seems any normal bird, hammering away at a tree day in and day out, would have its brain turned to jelly in record time by the impacts. But the skull of a woodpecker was double layered, with-guess what?-lots of tiny struts in between.

Adkinson shook his head. A woodpecker. Jesus. Still, just like having to be completely sealed up inside this shiny metal ball, it was all because of the pressure…

The pressure.Adkinson always tried hard not to think about that.

"Marble One," the comm-link squawked, "this is Dive Control. You have cleared the water lock. Pressure seal activated."

"Roger that," said Grove. He replaced the radio and turned to Horst. "What's the status on the Doodlebug?"

Horst was bent over his console, which consisted of three screens, a keyboard, and two tiny rubber joysticks. "Acquiring now."

Adkinson watched idly as the engineer worked. Horst's eyes were on the screens. There were three objects visible on them, green-tinted sonar images, one for each screen: their own Marble on the first; the tu

"Got a lock," Horst said.

"Roger." Grove flicked a few switches on his command console, then turned a large rotary pot ninety degrees clockwise. "Boosting gain to seventy-five percent."

There was a chirp from Grove's console, followed by a low humming that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. And then, a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach as the Marble bobbed sharply downward for a moment, like a balloon being given a sudden tug.

"Full acquisition," said Horst.

Grove plucked the radio from its mount. "Dive Control, this is Marble One. We have a lock on the Doodlebug. Descending now."

Horst went back to his joysticks. There was another, gentler downward tug, and then the Marble began its smooth descent down the excavated shaft to the dig face.

Adkinson shook his head again. As strange as the composition of the Marble was, its method of diving was stranger still. He was used to submarines, with their ballast tanks and trim controls. But there could be no ballast tanks on the Marble-holes in its outer skin, or even the smallest porthole, were out of the question. Instead, they had the Doodlebug, a robotic submersible that sat in the shaft beneath them and descended to the digging interface at the begi

Before the dive, the barometric equilibrium of the Marble was set to that of the Facility. Then it descended to the bottom of the shaft, the magnetic link with the Doodlebug doing all the work. And then, at the end of the shift, Horst-whose job it was to control the Doodlebug-simply broke the magnetic link. The Marble rose back up again, seeking barometric equilibrium with the water around it, until it reached the safety of the Facility, where equilibrium was attained and it came to rest.

It seemed bizarre. Yet it had worked like a charm through progressively deeper dives. It even had a fail-safe mechanism: if the Doodlebug ever had a mechanical failure or malfunction, all the engineer had to do was break the electromagnetic link prematurely and the Marble would automatically rise. Adkinson hated to admit it, but the whole arrangement was pretty ingenious. And when you got right down to it, the pressure had allowed for no other solution…

There it was again-the pressure.

"Zero minus one thousand relative feet," Grove a

"EM link five by five," said Horst. "Steady rate of descent."

Adkinson licked his lips. The pressure not only forced them to come up with extravagant solutions for working at these depths, but also made the work itself slow and painful. First, the rugged, autonomous, virtually indestructible tu

"Zero minus two thousand relative," Grove intoned.

Of course, they were too well trained-and the process too carefully controlled-for that to happen. His training-thanks to a certain eccentric old fart-had been particularly onerous, unpleasant, and exacting.

By the end of their shift, the central shaft would have been extended an additional three hundred or more feet straight down beneath the Facility, nicely lined with reinforcing steel-and since the shaft was filled with ocean water, the steel bands themselves were not under any pressure.

"Our rate of descent has dropped," said Grove.

Horst peered at his screens. "The Doodlebug has slowed."

Grove frowned. "It's not like last time, is it?"

"Last time" referred to the prior day's mission, on which the Doodlebug had inexplicably ceased responding to commands for sixty seconds near the lowest point of the shaft. A little idly, Adkinson wondered what idiot gave the thing its nickname. "Doodlebug" sounded small and cute. But the real thing didn't look like a bug at all, and it certainly wasn't cute: it was a hulking, beastly-looking robot, when you got right down to it.

"Nope, not like last time," the engineer was saying. "It's just a temperature gradient. We'll be through it in a moment or two."

Adkinson delicately readjusted himself on the small seat. He recalled that today was a red-letter day of sorts. The night before, the tu

Adkinson was curious about what they'd find in the oceanic layer. All he knew for sure was that it was by far the thi

He sighed, idly fingering the complex trigger mechanism for the robot arm-controlled wirelessly, of course, since no hydraulics or wiring could penetrate the skin of the Marble. The trip down would go a whole lot faster, he reflected, if the company was more interesting. But talking to Horst and Grove was the social equivalent of watching paint dry.

"Zero minus five thousand," Grove said.

Your sister,Adkinson thought grumpily.

Ten minutes passed in which the only breaks in the silence came from occasional radio squawks from the surface and Grove's relentless play-by-play. As they at last approached the base of the shaft, Adkinson perked up. Once he could begin his exacting work-receiving the semicircular steel bands lowered by cable from the Facility, slotting them into place with the countless tiny levers controlling the robot arm, sealing them-time would pass quickly.