Arctic Gold

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IT WAS, FEODOR GOLYTSIN THOUGHT, like touching down on the surface of another planet.

“Ostorojna!” Captain Third Rank Dmitri Kurchakov warned. “Careful! Reduce speed of descent!”

“Da, Kepitan,” the helmsman replied.

“Vasily. Give me a readout on the depth below keel.”

“Deseet’ metrov, Kepitan,” the diving officer replied. Ten meters.

Golytsin stooped to peer through the thick quartz window into the alien world beyond. Another planet, yes… a very dark planet. Blacker than the surface of far Pluto, for there, at least, there was a sun, if one shrunken and wan. Here there was nothing save the luminescence of the abyssal fauna, banished now by the light the submarine brought with her from above.

A dark planet, and a deadly one. At a depth of just over forty-two hundred meters, the pressure bearing down on each and every square centimeter of Nomer Chiteereh’s outer nickel-steel hull was almost two tons.

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