Ryan’s throat felt tight. He felt a rush of claustrophobia, which was strange for two reasons. First of all, he normally didn’t suffer from the affliction. Secondly he’d been held within the confines of the sinking Raleigh with no problem.
Still, this sensation wasn’t totally alien to him. It felt almost familiar somehow.
Then he remembered.
The dream. The vision. The nightmare he’d suffered days earlier during the jump into the Florida redoubt. Ryan grimly sucked dry air from the oxygen tank strapped to his back, and the taste grew more and more metallic, as if the tank were almost empty.
He extinguished the thought. Paranoia would induce panic. He’d checked the tank himself. The charge was true. Breath easy. Push up.
Ryan’s chest echoed heavily with the dull thud of a waterlogged pump, each heartbeat a resounding contraction of muscle in his body. He watched the bubbles from his mouthpiece float upward, capturing them in the light of the flashlight. He used the beam to follow their path with his good right eye, tracking them until they faded into the gloom, and tried to focus on what might lie beyond them up there.
He knew what he would find. There was no sky overhead. No clouds, no stars…nothing but water. He squinted, and took in the sight of the infinite green of the ocean. No lake or man-made pool had ever offered up such a color of green, a green duskier than the blackest of any moonless night, and just as dark and infinite.
The green was everywhere, surrounding his entire body and being.
In the dream, Ryan had been warm. That part of the mat-trans-induced mental journey was a falsehood. He’d known the ocean depths would be as cold as ice, and now he found he was incredibly cold, for there was no sun. No sky.
Only water. Only death.
Ryan willed his legs to kick, his arms to push down to check his descent, push past the strange eellike creatures that were swimming past, their mouths yawning open as they sifted through the brine for microscopic bits of plankton.
Push past the sinking hull of the submarine.
A red haze was starting to lay itself over his field of vision from lack of oxygen. True or imagined? He couldn’t be sure. Ryan was tired, so tired now. A coppery, bitter taste filled his mouth, mixing with the traces of salt water.
A man always has a choice, came the grizzled voice of the Trader, whispering in Ryan’s ear. He can either live…or he can die.
As his lungs began to ache and his heartbeat grew even louder in his ears, Krysty’s face shone like a beacon in Ryan’s mind’s eye. He thought of his son, Dean, and how he wanted to see the boy become a man. He thought of J.B., who was like a brother to him. He thought of Doc and his endless supply of quotes and stories; of Mildred’s love of people and knowledge of how to heal; and of Jak’s unwavering trust and willingness to follow him into anything.
He thought of them all.
Ryan decided to ante up the jack and buy the package. He knew from previous experiences he was psi-sensitive. If he’d been exposed to some kind of bizarre doomie prophecy back in the gateway, then he was going to see it through.
As he had during his nightmare, he willingly clung to the image of Krysty—her lips, her body, her hair undulating in reaction to her many moods. But this time, he also clung to the images of his entire family. His friends. Or, as Poseidon had contemptuously referred to Ryan’s group back at Kings Point, “his people.”
Ryan struggled to make his body work, willing his muscles to pull taut and assist his ascent. In a burst of movement, he was rewarded with his legs kicking out and his arms pushing down. How many feet down? Four hundred? He unbuckled the web belt and released one of the weights strapped around his waist. Four hundred feet? Not far to go.
Up and out. Focus. Focus.
Something brushed against his ankle, then grabbed down hard.
Ryan was so startled, he almost spit out his mouthpiece. As he turned back, valiantly striving to keep his sense of direction intact, he saw a humanoid shape near his feet. Fireblast! Had that son of a bitch Poseidon gotten up with half of his head stove in and managed to follow him out here, as well? Or was it Brosnan, his hood having not functioned as planned?