Into the Abyss (Tom Swift, Young Inventor) (8 page)

She paused at the height of the wave, suspended for an instant, then sank back down so quickly that for a moment, we were all completely weightless.

I lost hold of whatever I was grabbing onto, and
went spinning across the deck. As I neared the railing, a huge wave crested over the side of the ship.

It swept me up, over the railing. I plunged into the open sea!

6
 
 
Castaway

I was underwater. I’d swallowed a ton of seawater. Panic took over and I thought,
I’m definitely going to die.

Then, my survival instinct took over. I flailed my arms until I broke the surface. I sucked in as much air as I could, kicking like crazy. I coughed up seawater, gasped for more air, coughed some more, and so on—until finally, I just had to float on my back for a minute or two, until my breathing could return to normal, and my heart could calm way down.

When my panic started to ease, I let myself go upright again. Treading water, I looked around for the
Nestor
.

She was quickly fading into the distance! My heart sank.

Didn’t they know I’d been washed overboard?

My panic returned in an instant, my chest pounding so hard I thought it would burst. I went back to floating on my back, my arms and legs all spread out to help me stay bouyant.

Thankfully, the sea was pretty calm again. Pretty amazing, considering we’d just had a major earthquake and possibly the beginning of a huge tsunami. But that’s how it is with seismic waves—once the source stops shaking, the waves quickly quiet down.

I wondered how long it would take before someone aboard the
Nestor
realized they’d left me behind. Come to think of it, was the
Nestor
still in one piece, or had she been damaged by the same humongous wave that had thrown me overboard?

Fortunately, I knew that there was a homing beacon in my life vest—complete with high-intensity light, so that I could be easily located, even in the dark, and could stay comfortably afloat until then.

Unfortunately, my life vest was still back on board the
Nestor
! I hadn’t worn it since the previous night, when I was out under the stars with Bud, trying to
stay vertical on the
Nestor
’s heaving deck.

What I wouldn’t have given now to be back there, with my feet firmly planted on something—
anything
!

Anything would be better than floating alone in the middle of the ocean, with nothing on the horizon in any direction.

Now, I’m a fairly good swimmer. On the school team at Shopton High, I do the four-by-one-hundred-meter medley and the four-hundred-meter freestyle. So if I’d seen the
Nestor
out there, I could have gotten to her. But she was no longer on the horizon.

Still, I knew she couldn’t be too far away. The captain would try to keep the
Nestor
near the dive site, so they would have a chance to save my dad and the submersibles crew. Once they realized I was gone, they’d deploy a motorized dinghy, one of the two strapped to the
Nestor
’s sides, to find me. I just had to stay afloat long enough to get saved.

I looked around, and to my great relief, saw that there were several pieces of debris floating not too far from me. I swam for them and grabbed hold of the biggest piece I could reach. It was about six feet square and seemed to have once been part of the wooden hull of a boat. By the looks of it, and
the other pieces floating nearby, it couldn’t have been a very large one—not even close to the size of the
Nestor
. The giant wave must have totally destroyed it.

I wondered who had been aboard and what had happened to them. Had they all been wearing their life vests? I sure hoped so.

I hauled myself up out of the water and onto the piece of wreckage. With my full weight on it, it floated only about two inches above the water.

Well, I had saved myself, at least for the moment. That certainly was worth celebrating. Now, how was I going to get myself
rescued
?

I could not afford to die like this. I had not forgotten that my dad was in danger. The
Jules Verne-1
was sitting there at the bottom of the sea, probably crippled, with a fairly limited air supply.

My dad had mentioned an avalanche—at least, that’s what I thought he’d said. Was the submersible buried under a thousand tons of lava rock?

I knew my dad had left me on board the
Nestor
so that I could take charge in an emergency. He had trusted his life to me. But if I was ever going to save him, I had to save myself first.

“Q.U.I.P, I need you,” I said to my wristwatch. My
waterlogged
wristwatch.

Nothing. No response at all.

The watch is
supposed
to be waterproof, but you never know what that really means. Getting it wet while washing your hands is one thing; submerging the watch in salt water is another.

I had to get Q.U.I.P. dried out and running again. Using the little ring of mini-tools I always keep in my pants pocket, I took off the back of the watch. I laid both pieces out on the raft, making sure they were secure and didn’t slide into the ocean or get blown away by the breeze.

The day was already a hot one. The water was calm, and there wasn’t much wind at all. The watch parts dried out pretty quickly in the late morning sun.

Exhausted, I rested for a while to regain what was left of my strength. I lay there on my little raft with my arms outstretched like a dead body, staring out at the ocean …

Speaking of dead bodies … was I seeing things? Or was that actually a dead body floating toward me?

It was a body, all right—wearing a diving suit and mask, complete with an air tank on its back!

I got a sudden, sick feeling in my stomach. Death is a shocking thing when you stare right at it. And I also knew that, if I didn’t find
Nestor
soon, I’d be just as dead.

I paddled my raft closer, then dove into the water and swam a few strokes until I could get hold of the body and bring it back to my raft. I hauled myself up out of the water, then dragged the corpse on board.

“Ooooohhhhh …”

I almost fell off the raft. The body was alive!

I took off the diving mask, and saw that it was an older man, about my dad’s age. He had a huge, purple bump on his forehead.

“Where … am I?”

“You’re in the middle of the ocean,” I told him. “You got hit by a giant wave. Are you all right?”

“Wave? Where’s my boat?”

“You’re lying on what’s left of it,” I said. “But don’t worry. I’m going to get us back to my ship.”

He groaned and closed his eyes. That bump on his head must have really hurt.

I made sure he didn’t have any other injuries that needed attention. Apart from some cuts and bruises he seemed like he’d be okay—if he didn’t have internal
bleeding, that is—and if we didn’t both float away into oblivion.

Staring at the air tank, I suddenly got an idea. “Does that tank of yours have any air left in it?” I asked my wounded companion.

“Should have about fifteen minutes worth,” he said. Oooohhh …”

“You just rest,” I said. “I’m going to get us out of this mess.”

“How?”

“I’m going to use the pressure in your air tank to propel us back to my ship.”

If it wasn’t already too far away, that is.

First things first, though. I put my watch back together, and held up its solar recharging panel to catch the sun’s energy.

Nothing happened, but I kept trying. I knew it would take awhile for enough energy to be converted by the solar panel. Sure enough, five minutes or so later, the watch’s digital readout sprang to life.

“URHGNGN …” The voice of Q.U.I.P., garbled by salt crystals, emanated from the watch.

“Hello, Q.U.I.P.,” I said. “What is your condition?”

“Gzz … What happened to me? Everything tastes salty.”

I heaved a sigh of relief. If
Q.U.I.P.
still had his sense of humor, he must be okay. And with his help, I knew we’d come out all right somehow.

“You were submerged in salt water. Q.U.I.P., I need to locate
Nestor
.”

“Deploying GPS,” it said.

My watch face opened, making a buzzing sound. A tiny titanium radar dish rose from the watch’s open face and deployed itself, turning this way and that to locate the nearest GPS satellite. “
Nestor
located.”

“Distance?”

“2.3654 miles.”

Not too far—by my rough calculations, with fifteen minutes worth of compressed air, we would be able to get at least within sight of the
Nestor
.

“Course?”

“Seventy-five degrees south-southeast.”

“You’ll have to guide me,” I said to Q.U.I.P. “I have no instruments.”

“Aren’t you counting
me
as an instrument?”

I shook my head in admiration. Had I really been
smart enough to design this tiny work of complete genius?

“A little more to the left,” said
Q.U.I.P.
, telling me which way to point the air tank before putting it into action. “And … now!”

I hit the valve, releasing the pressurized air in the tank. It worked like a charm and propelled us along at a slow but steady clip. All I had to do was make sure I didn’t let go of it—and hope that it didn’t run out of air before we found the
Nestor
.

After about fifteen minutes I saw her mast appear over the horizon. “There she is!” I yelled.

The noise woke up my wounded passenger. “Huh?” he said groggily.

“We’re saved!” I told him. “You’re going to be all right!”

“Thank you.” He smiled, then closed his eyes again, exhausted but happy.

“Don’t bother to thank
me
” I heard Q.U.l.P. say.

Sometimes I think I made him
too
human.

7
 
 
Rescue Mission

The tank ran out of air, but now we were well within shouting range of
Nestor
.

“Tom!” I heard Yo screaming, even as I saw her long arms waving at me. Bud was right next to her on the deck, jumping up and down and raising his arms to the sky in triumph.

The
Nestor
looked damaged somehow, though I couldn’t figure out in what way. It was only when I was brought on board, hauled up by the strong arms of two crewmen, that I realized what was wrong.

The ship was listing to starboard. Not terribly, but she was definitely not level anymore.

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