Mase_9780553807288_4p_all_r1.qxp
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11/11/08
12:12 PM
Page 136
ROBERT MASELLO
“Remember—no dawdling down there. You’ve got one hour, maximum.” He was referring, Michael knew, both to their air supply and to a human being’s ability, even under all the gear, to withstand the extreme temperatures. “The nets and traps are already down?” Darryl asked, as he wrestled his wide rubber fins over his booties and onto his feet. “Sent ’em down myself, not two hours ago, tied to the lines from the safety hole. Good luck with the fishing.” “Before we forget,” Michael said, “I’ll need that.” He gestured at the underwater camera that had been all but forgotten in the heap of discarded clothes. “Right you are,” Calloway said, retrieving it. “If you see any mermaids, get me a snap.” With that, their face masks were fitted snugly into place, their regulators tested for oxygen flow, and Darryl got a clap on the back from Calloway. While Michael was stepping into his own fins and attaching the flashlight to his waist belt, Darryl lifted the safety grate away from the dive hole, and he was already gone when Michael turned back around. Calloway gave Michael his own clap on the back, a thumbs-up sign, then he followed suit, feetfirst, down the rabbit hole. The ice cap there was about eight feet thick, and the auger had cut a hole that was wider at the top than the bottom. It was a lot like sliding down a funnel, and Michael felt his feet break through a thin scrim of icy crystals that had already recongealed since Darryl’s dive. He plunged through, surrounded by a cloud of sparkling ice and bubbles, and it took a few seconds for the water to clear enough for him to see. He was hanging suspended about a dozen feet below the dive hole, in a blue world that seemed as lacking in limits as it did in dimensions. He could see, it seemed, forever, and he knew it was because the waters, particularly at that time of the year, were as free of plankton, or any particulate matter, as any on the globe. The sunlight only dimly illuminated the ice cap, which made the safety hole above stand out like a beacon radiating sunbeams downward. A trio of long lines, with plastic pennants on them, hung down from the lip of the hole and into the unseen depths. And though he had braced himself for the shock of the icy