Deep Sea

Chapter 20: Return

Chapter 20: Return

“Ready to go, sir?” the sonar operator asked Kai.

The actual sonar device was on the bottom of the ship but it was operated here on the third deck in the sonar room. The machine had already been turned on and was ready to go. All the merfolk had been warned to keep out of the sight of the device and had cleared an area around the Haltija.

“Go.” Kai nodded.

Immediately, the people in the room started working. It was like watching an anthill that had just been kicked.

He was standing in front of a large screen where the images the sonar got would be projected.

Kyma was sitting in a chair behind him, a sketchpad open in her lap and a pencil ready to take down the images. Kai had told her that they could print out the image but she insisted that it would help her think.

“Area clear of any submersible vessels.” someone called out.

“Begin.” another called.

At the bottom of the ship, a device at that moment sent out a sound wave that raced down through the miles of ocean floor.

Kai ignored the technical jargon as he watched the screen patiently. It would take a few moments for the pulses emitted by the device to touch the ocean floor then bounce back to be picked up by the device. It would use the time between when the sound hit it back to give a rather accurate picture of what was down there.

“First image should be coming up soon, sir.” some one told him and Kai nodded to show he had heard.

“Think it will work?” Kyma asked.

Kai shrugged. “Better than trying nothing.”

She nodded and they watched the screen.

A few seconds later, the first image came up.

“No, that's not it.” Kai shook his head. “Try moving a bit further left.” The image was pretty much just blank. The ocean floor tended to look like that when it was empty of anything but the sand.

It was odd seeing his ocean floor reduced to black and white pixels and a hard to determine where he was looking and what direction to go in.

However, under his direction, they managed to find the edge of the cliff which showed up as a line on the screen.

“Alright, try following the cliff edge down for a bit.” he instructed.

“Will you recognize the spot?” the chief operator asked.

Kai shrugged again. “No real way to tell from this image. But the facility hugs the cliff pretty close. Just put the edge as far to the side as you can.”

It took another thirty minutes to find it.

Joe had no idea that the canyon they had been in was so very long. Then again, there was a great lot of the ocean floor she didn't know.

But, finally, Kai called, “There.”

Joe snapped to attention as the sonar readjusted again so that it was scanning over the facility.

And Joe finally saw, in badly rendered 2D, the very ocean base that she had sketched before.

This one was better shaped, the circles actually circles, but it was almost exactly what she had drawn. There was one extra hall that she hadn't seen because, for one reason or another, it didn't have lights. It came off of one of the four halls connecting the outside circles and ended in a smaller, more tear drop shaped structure.