Three figures entered the Nostromo through a forward hatch, not far from the spot where something huge had torn a hole in the submarine’s foredeck and hull. The boat was sitting dead in the water, having settled to the river bottom with a ten-degree list to port.
At the bottom of a steep metal ladder, cramped passageways extended away from a small circle of light like the arms of a spider.
Somehow Yanni had managed to scrounge up a trio of flashlights.
MacCready tried to dredge up anything he could remember about the deck plan of the Demeter, Nostromo’s grounded sister ship. “This way,” he whispered, gesturing down one of the dark corridors. I think.
They moved slowly, supporting themselves against the walls to compensate for the odd angle of the floor, before pausing beside an open hatch in the “B” deck. MacCready aimed his flashlight beam down into “C” deck, revealing yet another open hatch in the deck below. “D” deck? Shit. How far down does this thing go?
He shook his head. “I think it’s this way,” he whispered. “I’ll go first.”
Nobody argued with him.
MacCready was halfway down the second set of ladders when a loud metallic groan filled the passageway. The sound was accompanied by a coarse, rattling vibration, as if a giant had decided to sandpaper the Nostromo’s hull. Just to show its gratitude, the sub shifted another five degrees to port.
Great, MacCready thought, this thing’s going to capsi—
A sudden jolt caused him to lose his footing and he slid down the final four steps shins-first before landing on his rump with a splash. Completing his descent, MacCready was hit by a sloshing wave of water and fuel, as the knee-high surge on “D” deck made the adjustments required by physics.
Mac sat in complete darkness, groping in vain for his now-extinguished flashlight, when a spotlight illuminated him from above.
“Well, this descent of yours is somewhat less than smooth,” Thorne whispered from behind the light.
After the Thornes took a more deliberate, and certainly less spectacular, climb down the ladder, they stood in a central companionway. It ran fore and aft, into the dark, and through eighteen inches of debris-cluttered water.
“Which way?” Thorne asked, trying hard to mask his nervousness.
MacCready took a flashlight from his friend, shrugged, then set off in the same direction he had been heading before.
“I have a question,” Thorne whispered. They were wading single file through a claustrophobic passageway lined with gauges, pipes, and a maze of wires.
“Ask away,” MacCready whispered back.
“What do you propose we do should we find these dra-coo-lay?”
“That’s a good one, Bob; I’m not quite sure.”
The botanist let out a deep breath. “This plan is sounding more than somewhat familiar. May I suggest we head topside and talk this out?”
“Over a smoke, of course?”
“Now there you go. And I have got some—”
MacCready’s signal for silence halted his friend’s quest for herbage.
The companionway led to an abrupt end. They now stood in ankle-deep water, outside a door-shaped hatch that was several inches ajar. A skull and crossbones had been stenciled on either side of the portal, and someone had scrawled something in German on the hatch itself.
The botanist gestured toward the sign. “I don’t suppose this says ‘Welcome’?”
“Eintritt Verboten,” Mac replied. “It means stay the hell out.”
“I agree, Mac. Especially since what makes you think your bats are down here, anyway?”
“We found the Bio Lab back there. And there were no bats. Where else could they be?”
“The plateau,” Yanni replied.
“Nailed it, wifey,” Thorne added, with no little measure of pride.
“Could be,” Mac responded with a nod. “Do you two want to head back up there with me?”
The couple shook their heads simultaneously.
Mac smiled. “So?”
“Onward,” Thorne whispered.
MacCready moved forward, directing a flashlight through the narrow opening. The shaft of light revealed a lab that appeared quite spacious—for a sub. Fallen boxes and toppled equipment blocked most of his view, but not the unmistakable scent of guano and urine.
MacCready turned to his friends. “It’s definitely in there,” he whispered. “Or was.”
Yanni nodded in agreement, even as Thorne took a step backward.
“All right, let’s go,” Mac said, pushing the hatch open another six inches.
They entered the lab cautiously, stepping over the high lip of the hatchway. MacCready noticed that the threshold acted like a dam, holding back the water from the adjoining companionway.