“I can’t move it,” he shouted, standing once again and holding on to the bulkhead.
“I’ll come down,” Gamay insisted.
“No,” Paul said. “We need more than another set of hands. Anything down here I could use to give it a shove?” They were smack-dab in the middle of the engineering space. There had to be tools available. He looked up at the injured crewperson. She would know what might be handy.
“You could use the lifter,” she replied, shouting down to him. “It’s a small forklift we use to carry around heavy equipment. It’s in the forward part of the compartment.”
Paul left the door and waded back into the engineering compartment. It was easy moving this way, the flow of the water pushed him along. He found the lifter parked beside a wall. It was smaller than Paul had expected, narrow and long like an airline drink cart, but like all forklifts it was heavily weighted. It had four large rubber-clad wheels, a power pack, and a set of hydraulic struts that allowed it to raise and lower heavy items. Paul climbed onto the tiny platform at the back, started it up, and brought it into the corridor.
On its own, the lifter weighed perhaps three hundred pounds, but with Paul on board the weight was over five hundred. Enough to keep it firmly planted on the deck even as he drove it into the onrushing water.
Pushing through the deluge he brought it up against the door, lowered the lifting forks, and brought them together into a single ram. Pushing the controls forward once more he bumped into the object that was blocking the door, backed up, and then went forward at full power.
The motor whined, the wheels moved an inch or two and then spun against the deck. Paul pulled back farther and came at it once again, this time from an angle. The forks hit the blockage, shoved it sideways and out of the way.
The lifter backed against the half-closed door. The impact jarred Paul’s numb hands off the controls. He fell forward, one foot slipping off the platform. The surging water grabbed his leg and dragged him back, pulling him off his perch. Unprepared for the sudden force of the current, Paul crashed face-first into the surging water and was swept down the corridor like a man caught in a raging river.
Gamay shouted Paul’s name as he vanished into the rushing water. But it was no use. She scurried down the ladder into the flood and was almost washed away herself.
“Close the door,” Gigi shouted from above.
She was right, Gamay thought. Wading forward against the current she realized how dangerous the rushing water was, and how right Paul had been to go instead of her. Shorter and lighter, she could barely keep her feet. She grabbed the wall and used an insulated conduit to help pull herself forward. She slid her feet instead of lifting them, keeping both boots in contact with the deck. The closer she got to the door the more powerful the current. It knocked her legs out from under her, but she held on to the conduit like a lifeline. She hauled herself through the water, then up and out of it, wedging her feet onto a small shelf in the bulkhead. From here she could just reach the door.
She lunged for the yellow button. Hitting it and holding it down. Three agonizing seconds went by before the activation lights began blinking.
Pulling the red lever down, she had to wait an additional ten seconds as warning chirps warned any crew in the area to get away from the closing door.
Finally, the slab of reenforced steel began to descend. The power of the hydraulics and the door’s own massive weight were enough to force it down through the water. It passed its previous sticking point, closing tighter and tighter.
The water turned into a furious spray, becoming pressurized as it was forced through an ever-smaller gap. And then suddenly it dwindled and ceased as the door hit bottom and locked into place.
Green lights appeared on the panel. White froth spread out along the corridor, heading to the front of the ship and diminishing as it slowed. The dark water went still.
Convinced that the door was sealed, Gamay jumped into the water and headed down the corridor looking for Paul. She found himmaking his way back. He was limping a bit, his hand was still bleeding, and he had a knot over his right eye where he’d hit his head on something.
“Thanks for shutting off the flood,” he said.
“You did the hard part,” she said. “Now let’s get topside so we can put our life jackets on in time to abandon ship.”
Paul groaned at the thought. But it was a distinct possibility.
Chapter 22
Out in the sea, Kurt and Joe were racing to finish the salvage operation. They’d linked six uninflated lifting bags to the crane hooks on the other side of the ship; they had just one set to go before they could inflate them. Engaging their propulsion units and using their legs, they moved forward along the side of theLyra.
By now, she was leaning over them awkwardly, wallowing with each passing swell. She was sitting low, having lost a significant amount of freeboard, and her main deck was no more than eight feet above the tops of the swells.
She was also down at the bow—which was to be expected, as the first impact had hit forward—with the waves washing over the NUMA logo, which normally sat ten feet above the water.
“Looks worse than I thought,” Joe’s voice called out over the radio. “At least the lights are still on.”
“We’ll take the wins where we can get them,” Kurt replied.
With the help of the lights from the crew above, he and Joe zeroed in on the forward set of the folded bales. Shutting down the backpack thrusters, they swam the last twenty yards the old-fashioned way.
Kurt went toward the one nearest the bow. Paddling close, hefound the fluorescent tag at the end of the granny line. He grasped it, wrapping his hands around the rope tightly, with each palm just above one of the knots. Kicking and pulling hard, he hoisted himself upward, but as soon as half his weight was out of the water, the rope began to slip through his hands.
Starting over, he regripped, but the result was the same.
