Chapter 15 Tula
TULA
Even at night, the Indian Ocean was warm, wrapping around Tula through the wetsuit in a way that should have been comforting but wasn't. The temperature was fine, but everything else about being underwater in the dark was wrong.
Breathing through a mechanical device, the scooter that was basically a motor with handles that she had to hold on to, the disorientation in the dark water that made it hard to tell where exactly she was positioned between the surface and the bottom.
Don't panic. Just breathe.
The world had turned alien. Above, below, all around, nothing but black water that seemed to press against her from every direction.
The pressure wasn't crushing, they weren't that deep, but she couldn't tell if they were ten feet down or fifty.
Without visual references and without experience, her only indication of depth was the ache in her ears.
Was that normal pressure?
Was it safe for the baby?
The only orientation points were the small lights attached to the lead divers' belts, tiny stars in the vast underwater universe.
Okidu was beside her, occasionally turning to look at her to make sure that she was keeping her scooter steady.
The device looked deceptively simple—just two handles with triggers and a torpedo-shaped body with a propeller at the back.
But her hands were already shaking from holding on, making it hard to maintain the grip.
She was gripping the handles too tightly. She should ease her hold.
Just remember the instructions. Squeeze the trigger gently, the propeller engages. Release, it stops. Too much pressure and you'll shoot forward too fast. Too little and you'll barely move.
The sweet spot was somewhere in between, but she was still struggling to find it.
Around her, she could make out the dark shapes of the others, distinguished only by silhouettes.
The ladies all had long hair that floated like seaweed in the water, which was the only way she could identify who was who.
Tony, Elias, and the Guardian escorts were bulkier shapes.
All except one, who was shaped like a very skinny female but was as tall as the Guardians.
Tula thought that might be Tamira to her left, something about the way she held herself, even underwater, but it was impossible to tell for sure.
Tony was ahead of her, or at least she thought it was Tony and not Elias.
The breadth of their shoulders wasn't the same.
Even from here, she could see that he was struggling with the scooter, his movements jerky and uncoordinated.
The sleeping draught she'd given him had mostly worn off, but it might still be affecting him and slowing his reflexes. Usually, he was a fast learner.
A wave of sadness threatened to disorient her further when she thought about the relationship she had ended in her mind but had never told him was over. He still thought they were together, and she didn't have the heart to correct him.
She should, though.
Now that they were free of their cage, it was time for them to set each other free.
Realizing that she was going too slowly, she squeezed the trigger harder, and the scooter lurched forward, pulling her along. Too much pressure. She eased off, found something closer to the right speed, and fell into formation with the others.
The scooter's vibration traveled up her arms, and because she was so tense and rigid, her forearms soon began to ache from maintaining the exact pressure needed.
If she held on too tightly, she'd tire quickly; too loosely and she risked losing her grip, causing the scooter to stop and sink.
The wrist strap was a backup, but the idea of the scooter dangling from her wrist only made her grip harder.
Progress was slow as they frequently stopped and adjusted, so a journey that should take one and a half hours would likely stretch to two and a half or more.
Her ears popped, and panic flared. Were they going deeper?
The pressure in her ears suggested it, but maybe that was normal.
Maybe ears always felt like this underwater.
She'd never had a reason to find out before.
She tried to remember what she'd learned about diving in a novel she'd read years ago—something about nitrogen bubbles and decompression. But they weren't that deep, were they?
The rescuers knew about her pregnancy, so they would not design a mission that would endanger her baby.
Or so she hoped.
A shape veered close. Too close. One of the ladies had drifted off course, her scooter angling toward Tula.
Okidu's hand shot out, redirecting the woman back to her partner.
Even in the dark, Tula could sense the panic in the woman's movements, the way she overcorrected, almost spinning herself around before her Guardian got her steady again.
Sarah, Tula thought, recognizing something in the way she moved, the particular quality of her fear. Sarah had always been the one who catastrophized every situation. Being underwater in the dark must be difficult for her.
They kept going, the formation spreading out and bunching up like an accordion as people struggled with their scooters.
Someone ahead suddenly stopped, their trigger slipped or released, and their partner had to circle back, grab them, and get them moving again.
Each stop meant everyone behind had to stop too, waiting, breathing air that might run out if they delayed for too long.
Tula checked her air gauge, the luminescent dial visible when she brought it close to her mask. Three-quarters full. That should be plenty, but they'd only been under for thirty-two minutes. At this rate, with everyone breathing hard from anxiety, using more air than they should...
Stop it. Don't borrow trouble.
But she couldn't help calculating. Two hours at normal consumption.
But they were going slower than planned, breathing faster than normal.
Would the tanks last? What happened if someone ran out?
She'd seen buddy breathing in movies, two people sharing one regulator, but the thought of trying that while still managing the scooters, in the dark, with panicked people who'd never dived before. ..right.
They could surface and swim, but this close to the island, it was risky even with Navuh gone.
Despite what she'd told Yamanu and the others, Navuh had enough lieutenants who could take over for him.
They might not be as effective, but they had all been safeguarding the island for a very long time, and they knew what they were doing.
It was safest for their group to reach the sub as planned.
Her baby chose that moment to move, a flutter so faint she might have imagined it.
But there it was again, the butterfly sensation that had become familiar over the past weeks.
Her baby was alive, moving, seemingly unaffected by the pressure and the underwater environment.
The relief was so intense she almost released her trigger.
An hour in, her forearms were screaming. The constant grip, the exact pressure needed, the vibration from the scooter combined into a burning ache that ran from her fingers to her elbows. She tried adjusting her grip, flexing her fingers one at a time, but that just made the scooter wobble.
Around her, she could sense the others struggling too. The woman to her right kept dropping back, her partner having to slow down to match her pace. Was it Beulah?
Someone else was going at an angle, listing to one side like a boat with a broken rudder, fighting her scooter's tendency to turn.
Then Tony's scooter just died.
One moment he was moving forward, the next he was drifting, his scooter hanging from the wrist strap while he looked around in what could only be panic.
His Guardian partner immediately moved in, but Tony was already sinking, the weight of his gear pulling him down without forward momentum to keep him level.
The Guardian grabbed him, shared his own scooter by having Tony hold on to his shoulders, but that meant they were now moving at half speed, disrupting the entire formation. Everyone had to slow down to match their pace.
Tula's air gauge read just over half.
They'd been under for ninety minutes.
We're not going to make it.
The thought came unbidden and unwanted, but once it arrived, she couldn't shake it. They were moving too slowly and using air too fast. They were going to run out before they reached the submarine.
Stop it. Trust the Guardians. They know what they're doing.
But did they? Had they accounted for how slowly inexperienced divers would move? For equipment failures? For the panic that made everyone breathe like they were running a marathon?
The water around them suddenly glowed.
For a moment, Tula thought she was hallucinating, oxygen deprivation, nitrogen narcosis, or whatever happened when diving went wrong.
But the water itself was lighting up, billions of tiny organisms disturbed by their passage, creating trails of blue-green light that followed their movements like liquid starlight.
Bioluminescence. She'd read about it but never imagined she'd see it, especially not like this. It was beautiful and terrifying in equal measure, making their passage visible, marking their trail through the water like a sign saying we were here.
One of the women, Liliat most likely, given her body shape, started thrashing. Not swimming, not controlling her scooter, just panicking. Her Guardian tried to calm her, holding her steady, but she was shaking her head. The Guardian checked her gauge, then made a signal to the others.
They all stopped.
Floating there in the bioluminescent water, Tula watched as the Guardian worked to calm Liliat, getting her breathing under control. When they started moving again, Liliat was buddy breathing with her Guardian, sharing his air because hers was too low to risk.
That was one. Who was next?
Tula's own gauge read one-third. They'd been under for two hours.
At this rate, they had maybe forty minutes of air left. How far was the submarine? How much longer?
She wanted to ask Okidu, wanted to scream the question, but all she could do was keep squeezing the trigger, keep following the lights, keep breathing steadily even though every instinct said to hyperventilate.
A shadow loomed ahead.
At first, she thought it was a reef or an underwater cliff, something massive and dark that blocked out what little ambient light existed. But as they got closer, she realized it was manmade. Smooth metal hull, the distinctive shape of a submarine.
They'd made it.
Relief flooded through her so intensely that she released the trigger, drifting to a stop as she stared at their salvation. But how were they going to get inside?
When people started to line up, she saw the opening in the hull, a hatch.
Liliat and her Guardian were the first to enter what looked like a tube or chamber, with Tony and his Guardian getting in with them.
The hatch closed, and long minutes passed before it opened again, empty and ready for the next group.
It was an airlock, she realized. They had to enter in small groups, flood the chamber, and equalize the pressure.
Of course. Submarines couldn't just open a door underwater.
She checked her gauge. One-quarter full. Maybe twenty minutes of air.
It should be enough. There were eighteen of them, and the airlock could handle four at a time. That meant five rounds of this, and each round took about seven minutes. It wouldn't be enough.
Another group entered the chamber. Two groups ahead.
Her gauge hit red. Empty. Or close enough.
Okidu moved closer, holding up his own regulator and making the sign for buddy breathing. When she shook her head, he showed her his gauge. He'd barely used any of his air.
Of course. He was part machine and didn't require as much air to breathe.
She took his regulator, breathed twice, handed it back. They established a rhythm—two breaths for her, one for him, back and forth.
Another lady ran out of air completely, her Guardian having to basically wrestle her to share his regulator as she panicked. They were rushed to the front of the line, disappearing into the chamber with two others.
One more.
Tula's lungs burned, not from lack of air, Okidu was keeping her supplied, but from the stress.
Finally, it was just the two of them.
The chamber looked impossibly small from outside, but once she was pulled in, with Okidu basically shoving her through the opening, she found herself in a metal tube with him. The outer hatch closed with a definitive clang that reverberated through the water.
For a moment, nothing happened. They floated there in the flooded chamber, still breathing through regulators, still underwater. Then she heard the pumps engaging, and the water level started dropping.
Her head broke the surface first, and she spat out the regulator, gasping for real air for the first time in two and a half hours.
Tula's legs gave out the moment she tried to stand, and she collapsed onto the wet floor of the chamber, shaking. Her wetsuit felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, her hands were cramped from gripping the scooter, but her baby was moving.
Thank the merciful Fates, he was moving.