Gem stands. He looks strange without his holsters, like his hips have suddenly got narrower. ‘May I?’
His voice comes through loud and clear in my stereophonic fishbowl. We check each other’s gear, looking for tears, snags, loose connectors. We shoulder the toolkits Nelinha gave us. Finally, there’s no more reason for delay.
‘Okay, Nelinha,’ I say. ‘Flood the airlock.’
It happens in the time it takes Gem to hum one chorus of ‘Someone Like You’， which he seems to do unironically. We stand in the murky green water, waiting to see if our gear malfunctions. Better here than once we open the exterior lock and get exposed to the pressure of ten atmospheres.
Nothing leaks. I can breathe normally. The suit feels warm, dry and comfy – so much so that I resent all the hours I spent training in uncomfortable neoprene.
Gem gives me the okay sign – the universal diver’s signal that means, you guessed it, okay.
The moment of truth.
‘Nautilus,’ I say. ‘I’m going to leave the ship for a while. We need to inspect the hull.’
I half expect her to respond like an overprotective parent. And what time will you be home, young lady?
I pull the release latch. The exterior door irises open with no problem.
I barely feel the pressure equalize: a tightening in the fabric of my suit, a soft pop in my ears. I curl my toes, the way Nelinha instructed us, and my jet-boots shoot me into the deep.
‘Hey, wait up!’ Gem’s voice rings in my helmet.
The sound that escapes my throat is somewhere between a laugh and a roller-coaster scream. I’ve gone diving hundreds of times, but it’s never been this exhilarating. I can move effortlessly. There’s no breathing apparatus stuck in my mouth. I turn and rocket in a different direction, scattering a school of bluefin tuna. ‘This is incredible!’
Gem is laughing, too. He jets past on my left, his helmet glowing like a phosphorescent jellyfish. He tucks his knees and somersaults into the dark.
‘Okay, you two,’ Nelinha’s voice chides. ‘You’ve got work to do out there.’
‘Aw, but, Mom …’ Gem says.
‘Don’t start with me, Twain,’ she warns, ‘or I’ll take away your SIG Sauers. Now, if you’ll both please make your way towards the aft of the sub.’
We do as she asks, though it’s difficult not to just float and admire the Nautilus.
She’s breathtaking from the outside: elegant and stately with her frills, barbs and vine-like wiring. Her nemonium hull catches the one percent of sunlight able to filter down to this depth, turning her a dim purple colour that matches her great domed eyes. Unlike the hatchet-shaped Aronnax, the Nautilus looks like she belongs here – a gentle giant, a queen of the deep. I wonder if that strange sheath along her belly really does scoop up krill like the mouth of a blue whale to keep her fed.
We find the damaged conduit with no problem. As near as we can figure, the Nautilus must have been lying against a rock at that spot while she was on the bottom of the lake. Her self-healing hull wasn’t able to do its job, so over the last 150 years she developed a kind of bedsore. I apply some thick healing paste to the area – a concoction the Cephalopods and Orcas came up with together – while Gem runs a new section of wiring to bypass the break.
‘I am so sorry,’ I tell the Nautilus. I don’t know if she can feel pain the way people do, but the longer I spend with the submarine, the worse I feel for her, having spent so much time alone, wounded, neglected. If humans had woken me up after all those years, I probably would have lashed out, too.
When we’re done with the repair, we float back to what we hope is a safe distance, about twenty metres.
‘Okay, Nelinha,’ I say. ‘You want to give it a try?’
‘We’re going to run two tests,’ she tells me. ‘First, we’re going to electrify the hull. Then, if it goes okay, we’ll try the Leidenfrost shield. Ready?’
The entire ship lights up like a carnival. The hull glows in a thousand different places – brilliant white, blue and gold spots adding to the purple. Search beams arc through the water fore and aft, top and bottom.
One sweeps right across my face, momentarily blinding me.
‘Gah!’ I yelp. ‘Nelinha, is that supposed to be happening?’
‘No!’ she says. ‘Hang on … I don’t … Bridge, did somebody hit the wrong button? Are we having a grand opening nobody told me about? Electricity! Not floodlights!’