Deep Storm

There was a loud clank, and the hatchway in the far wall opened. "Please step through the airlock and into the passageway beyond," the voice said.

Crane did as instructed and found himself in a dimly lit cylindrical passage about twenty feet long with another closed hatch at the end. He stopped, waiting. The airlock behind him closed again with another sharp clank. There was a rush of escaping air, so violent that Crane's ears popped painfully. Then at last the forward hatch opened and yellow light flooded in. A figure stood in the hatchway, haloed in light, one arm outstretched in welcome. As Crane stepped out of the passageway and into the chamber beyond, he recognized the smiling face of Howard Asher.

"Dr. Crane!" Asher said, taking his hand and shaking it warmly. "Welcome to the Facility."

"Thanks," Crane replied. "Though I feel I've been here awhile already."

Asher chuckled. "We kept meaning to install DVD players in the compression chambers to help pass the acclimation time. But now that the station is fully staffed there didn't seem any point. And we weren't anticipating any visitors. How did you find the reading material?"

"Incredible. Have you really discovered-"

But Asher stayed the question by raising his finger to his nose, winking, and giving Crane a conspiratorial smile. "The reality is more incredible than you can imagine. But first things first. Let me show you to your quarters. It's been a long trip, and I'm sure you'd like to freshen up."

Crane let Asher take one of his bags. "I'd like to know more about the acclimatization process."

"Of course, of course. This way, Peter. Did I already ask if I could call you Peter?" And he led the way with another smile.

Crane looked around curiously. They were in a square, low-ceilinged vestibule with gray-tinted windows lining the opposing walls. Behind one of the windows sat two technicians at a bank of controls, staring back at him. One of them saluted.

At the end of the vestibule, a white hallway led off into the top level of the Facility. Asher was already heading down it, bag slung over one shoulder, and Crane hastened behind him. The hall was narrow-of course-but not nearly as cramped as he'd expected. The lighting was unexpected, too: warm and incandescent, quite unlike the harsh fluorescence of submarines. The atmosphere was yet another surprise: warm and pleasingly humid. There was a faint, almost undetectable smell in the air Crane didn't recognize: coppery, metallic. He wondered if it was related to the atmosphere technology the Facility employed.

As they walked, they passed several closed doors, white like the hallway. Some bore individual's names, others abbreviated titles like ELEC PROC or SUBSTAT II. A worker-a young man wearing a jumpsuit-opened one of the doors as they passed by. He nodded to Asher, looked curiously at Crane, then headed back toward the vestibule. Peering inside, Crane got a look at a room full of rack-mounted blade servers and a small jungle of networking hardware.

Crane realized the walls and doors were not painted white, after all. Instead, they were constructed of some unusual composite that seemed to take on the color of their environment: in this case, the light of the hallway. He could see his own ghostly reflection in the door, along with a strange, platinum-colored underhue.

"What is this material?" he asked.

"Newly developed alloy. Light, nonreactive, exceptionally strong."

They reached an intersection and Asher turned left. From the image, Crane had assumed the chief scientist of the National Ocean Service to be in his late sixties, but he was obviously a decade younger. What Crane had taken for age lines was really the weathering of a life spent at sea. Asher walked quickly, and he toted Crane's heavy bag as if it were nothing. For all his apparent healthiness, however, the man kept his left arm cradled against his side. "These upper levels of the Facility are a warren of offices and dormitories, and they can be disorienting at first," he said. "If you ever get lost, refer to the schematic diagrams at major intersections."

Crane was impatient to learn more about the medical issues and the dig itself, but he decided to let Asher set the agenda. "Tell me about the Facility," he said.

"Twelve decks high, and exactly one hundred eighty meters per side. Its base is embedded into the matrix of the ocean floor, and a protective titanium dome has been placed over it."

"I saw the dome on the way down. That's some piece of engineering."

"It is indeed. This Facility we're in sits beneath it like a pea under a shell, and the open space between is fully pressurized. With the dome and our own hull, there are two layers of metal between us and the ocean. And it's some metal, too: the skin of the Facility is HY250, a new kind of aerospace steel, with a fracture toughness above twenty thousand foot-pounds and a yield strength in the range of three hundred KSI."

"I noticed the surface of the dome was punctured by a horizontal tube, ru

"You must mean the pressure spoke. There are two of them, actually, one on either side of the Facility. Given the water pressure at these depths, the ideal shape would be a perfect sphere. The dome being only one half of an ideal sphere, those two tubes-open to the ocean-help counterbalance the pressure. They also anchor the Facility to the dome. No doubt the propeller-heads on deck seven could give you more details."

This second hallway they were walking through resembled the first: a ceiling busy with cabling and pipes, lots of closed doors with cryptic labels. "I also noticed a strange object attached to the top of the dome, maybe thirty feet across," Crane said.

"That's the emergency escape pod. Just in case someone accidentally pulls the plug." Asher laughed as he said this-an easy, infectious laugh.

"Sorry, but I have to ask. That dome around us isn't exactly small. Surely certain foreign governments have taken interest?"

"Naturally. We've carefully disseminated a disinformation campaign about a secret research sub that went down at this site. They think we're involved in reclamation operations. That doesn't stop the occasional Russian or Chinese sub from doing a drive-by, of course, causing our military contingent all sorts of angst."

They passed by a door with a retinal sca

"We're on deck twelve right now," Asher went on. "It's mostly support services for the rest of the Facility. Decks eleven and ten are crew quarters, including the sports complex. You're bunking on deck ten, incidentally. We've got you sharing a bath with Roger Corbett, the mental health officer. Most rooms share baths-as you can imagine, space is at a premium. We've already got a full complement, and you're an unexpected addition."

He paused before an elevator, pressed the button. "Deck nine is crew support. The medical suite-where you'll be working-is there as well. And deck eight holds the administrative offices and research facilities."

There was a quiet chime and the elevator doors whispered open. Asher waved Crane in, then followed.

The elevator was of the same strange material as the corridor. There were six unmarked buttons on the panel: Asher pushed the third from the top and the elevator began to descend.

"Where was I? Oh, yes. And deck seven is the science level. Computer center, scientific laboratories of every description."

Crane shook his head. "It's unbelievable."

Asher beamed, looking as proud as if the Facility were his own, rather than on loan from the government. "I've left out a hundred things you'll discover for yourself. There are mess halls served by kitchens specializing in haute cuisine. Half a dozen lounges, comfortable accommodations for over four hundred persons. Basically, Peter, we're a small city, two miles below the surface of the ocean, far from prying eyes."