Walt Samshow scanned the foaming sea to the distant horizon and could see no end to it. He hardly needed to breathe at all now. Most of the men held wet rags over their noses and mouths. Nosebleeds were common; the delicate nasal tissues were deteriorating under the drying, burning effect of too much of a good thing: oxygen.

"We can't stay here long," Sand said, standing beside him on the bridge.

"Do we have our samples and readings?" Samshow asked. Sand nodded.

"Any word from the Navy ships?"

"They've left the area already. We've been listening for the deep submersible, but all we hear is the roar of bubbles."

"Tell the captain we should pull back ourselves," Samshow said. "Can anybody fight this?" He had directed his question out over the bridge railing, but Sand shook his head.

"I doubt it."

"It's like watching the whole ocean being dismantled," Samshow said. He pulled a bottle of eyedrops from his peacoat pocket and leaned his head back to administer them.

Sand refused the bottle when Samshow offered it. "It's scary."

Samshow grimaced. "It's goddamned exhilarating, and I don't mean the oxygen. You can see the end of things, you can see a plan—or at least some outline of a plan—and it's horrifying, it's grand."

Sand stared at him, not comprehending.

"Forget it," Samshow said, waving the almost empty bottle of eyedrops. "Tell the captain to get us the hell away from here."

Sand bumped into Chao, the first mate, in the bridge hatchway. Apologizing, he stood back and Chao held out a scribbled note.

"From Pearl Harbor, and from San Francisco!" he said.

"What?" Sand asked.

"Report of a seismic disturbance in Mongolia. Not an earthquake, a bomb. Perhaps ten megatons. Not an air burst, an underground or something like it."

Samshow looked at the figures on the scrap of paper. "They're no fools," he said.

"You think they blew up the Russian bogey?" Sand asked.

"What else?" Chao grinned broadly. "Maybe we can get them all! Maybe the Australians, too, eh?"

"Where will they get a bomb?" Sand asked.

"If they even want to," Samshow said..

"Only a fool would hesitate now," Chao said. "Put the bastards out of action, cut their lines of communication!"

"Hear that freight train down there?" Samshow pointed figuratively and emphatically down through the deck and the ocean, and jabbed his finger to deepen the thrust to the mantle and core below. "As long as that's running, we've accomplished nothing."

"If the theories are correct," Sand said.

"Still, we got them!" Chao refused to have a wet blanket thrown over his enthusiasm. He stared defiantly at Samshow then dipped his head and raised one leg over the bottom of the hatchway to return to the bridge.

Chapter 54

54