There was another booming clang and the vessel lurched again, the corridor rotating as the ship twisted along its horizontal axis so that everyone was now flung to starboard. The lamps sputtered and then flickered off, plunging the panicking pa.s.sengers into abyssal darkness.

Lights flickered and died throughout the ship, the steel coffin of the Neptune becoming filled with the screams of those sealed within. The vast vessel twisted again.

Lit by the dying lights of the sub-liner, something moved in the darkness of the ocean depths.

For a moment, the Neptune's descent was slowed and then arrested altogether as something vast and alien seized the ma.s.sive craft in its tentacled grasp. The inconstant illumination gave impressions of cratered crustacean armour, constricting tentacles as long and as thick as steel cables. And another light darted about beyond the ship, a blue bioluminescent glow jerking fitfully in the darkness.

Lightning flared and flashed, crackling around the hull of the vessel, illuminating yet more of the appalling apocalyptic leviathan that had the sub-liner snared within its suckered grasp.

The superstructure that was built to withstand abominable undersea pressures, buckled and ruptured in the crushing embrace of the monster, literally coming apart at the seams as the sea creature tore away great sheets of hull plating, inches thick, reinforced gla.s.s portholes and observation domes cracking under its abusive attentions.

Slowly but surely, with savage primordial intent, the creature began to tear the Neptune apart. Within minutes, hundreds of wretched souls trapped in the less salubrious quarters of Steerage died as the hull ruptured and the freezing cold sea flooded in.

As the ship began to take on more water, with the increase in weight, the sub-liner began to sink again, held in the deathly embrace of a true monster of the deep, plunging towards the fathomless depths of the yawning oceanic trench below.

"Run, Marie!" her father screamed, pushing her away from him, spittle flying from his foaming mouth.

Taking uncertain steps backwards, not wanting to turn away from her father, even though his haunted hollow-eyed expression terrified her, knowing that it would be the last time she ever saw him, she edged towards the perimeter of the chamber, and the tunnel that spiralled away from the centre of the base.

"Marie! For G.o.d's sake, run!" he said, staring not at her but up at the domed roof above them, from where he sat, locked into the chair.

She in turn looked up at the steel and gla.s.s curve of the dome high above her head, following her father's desperate gaze, and saw something, something blacker even than the barely-illuminated miasmal depths beyond the reinforced bubble, something torpedoing out of the never-ending darkness towards them.

When the shadow-shape was almost on top of them, at the last moment its horrific features were illuminated by the internal lights of the chamber - gaping long-fanged jaws, reaching tentacles, those terrible languid jelly-saucer eyes.

She let out a shrill scream, unable to stifle her fear, and turned away from the descending monster. A shuddering crash reverberated throughout the base, as the creature struck. She stumbled.

With a gulping sob she took one last look at her father, strapped into the device, the curious metal-banded helmet rammed down on his head. He turned his eyes from the terrible monster's attack and looked at her with red-rimmed, imploring eyes, glistening with tears of his own. That exhausted hollow-eyed expression of his would haunt her for the rest of her days.

"I love you, my angel!" he sobbed. "But now you must run, and don't look back. Never look back!"

There was another shuddering crash. She could hear curiously m.u.f.fled shouts from behind the bulkhead on the other side of the chamber and the clanging of what might have been heavy metal tools hammering on the other side of the sealed door.

"Flee for both of us - for your mother too - but you must run!"

With another soul-rending sob, she turned away, rubbing the tears from her clouded eyes with the back of her hand, and stumbled from the chamber into the beckoning, hungry mouth of the tunnel.

"Goodbye, daddy!" she cried.

And then he uttered the last words he would ever speak to her.

"Run, Marie! Run!"

And so she did, heading for the one way out of there, running from her father, running from the monster, running for freedom, because that was all there was left to do.

ACT TWO.

The Kraken Wakes.

August 1997.

There Leviathan.

Hugest of living creatures, on the deep.

Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land, and at his gills Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out a sea.

(John Milton, Paradise Lost).

CHAPTER NINE.

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

Accompanied by the hum of power coming back online, red emergency lighting flickered on within the tilted corridor. Whimpering moans and incredulous questions ran up and down the length of the pa.s.sage between the confused guests. Ulysses Quicksilver pushed himself into a sitting position before rea.s.sessing his bearings. Although tilted at a slight angle to the perpendicular, the ship appeared to have almost righted itself. The Neptune was still, at least for the time being. Whatever it was that had attacked them was gone, apparently having broken off its a.s.sault, leaving the sub-liner alone. Although, of course, it was anyone's guess how long that situation might remain.

People moved in front of and behind Ulysses within the corridor - just so many indistinct shadows under the red glow of the hazard lighting. Ulysses looked around him, taking stock. Behind him Nimrod was dabbing at a b.l.o.o.d.y graze on his forehead. In front of him a reeling Miss Celeste was extricating herself from Jonah Carcharodon's wheelchair. Next to him, Captain McCormack was already on his feet.

"Is everyone all right?" his calming Scots voice cut through the ruddy gloom.

Confused muttered responses - none of which really answered the captain's question - came back from the gaggle of shocked and disoriented VIPs.

Ulysses began to be able to identify faces and forms in the curious crimson darkness as his eyesight became more accustomed to the h.e.l.lish half-light. The purser was helping Lady Denning to her feet and nearby was Thor Haugland, obviously shaken but seemingly unhurt. His eyes alighted on John Schafer, Constance Pennyroyal and Miss Birkin at the back of the group. The purser had done well to gather so many of the Neptune's prestigious guests in such a short time, in his attempt to lead them to the lifeboats, and thence to safety. But despite his efforts, his n.o.ble endeavour had been thwarted by events beyond his control.

"Mr Purser, are you all right? Are you able to walk?" McCormack enquired of the senior officer.

"Yes, Captain," the purser said unsteadily.

"Then heed my words. Ladies and gentlemen," he said, his voice increasing in volume and natural authority, carrying along the packed corridor, "my fellow officers and I are going to have to determine what has happened, how badly the ship is damaged, and what can be done to resolve this situation. But do not worry, ladies and gentlemen, for let me a.s.sure you, even as I speak, rescue crews will have been scrambled and will be on their way to aid us. It will not be long before we are able to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.

"For the time being, I would be grateful if you could repair to the VIP dining room and wait there until I have been able to appraise myself more fully of the situation. Then I will be able to let you know more, once I know more myself, as well as what will need to happen next."

"This way, ladies and gentlemen," the purser announced, waving the now standing pa.s.sengers towards the end of the corridor, "if you would care to follow me?"

Dumbstruck and bewildered, the anxious guests would readily obey that one calm voice of authority and so, looking like forlorn, lost children, they traipsed after the purser, Ulysses and Nimrod among them.

Captain McCormack's face alone betrayed the seriousness of their situation. Ulysses thought he looked paler and more drawn, his brow more lined, than he had done even immediately after the ship had begun to sink and then, subsequently, come under attack.

"What's going on?" Carcharodon demanded impatiently. "I demand you tell me what is going on!"

"Mr Carcharodon, if you will just -" McCormack began.

"What the h.e.l.l has happened to my ship!"

"I will come to that in time -"

"And why are we being kept here?" Carcharodon went on, fuming. "We should be making for the Ahab!"

"Mr Carcharodon!" the Captain bellowed. Ulysses had never once heard the usually calm captain lose his temper before, but it certainly did the trick, silencing the irascible billionaire. "If you will just give me a minute," McCormack went on - his tone already becoming calmer and more controlled again, although his face was still flushed red from his angry outburst - "I was just about to inform yourself and our guests of the direness of our current situation."

Captain McCormack took in every one of the faces gathered around the table where, what seemed like a lifetime ago now, they had once enjoyed a sumptuous banquet. His slightly manic expression was a counterpoint to their watery-eyed anxiety. He was not a man to use such words as "the direness of our current situation" lightly.

Ulysses, finding his old instincts kicking in, icily calm and as much focused on finding a resolution to their desperate situation as McCormack, took in the faces of those gathered in the dining room as well. In many ways it was a very different party from that which had partaken of dinner at the captain's table.

There was no air of formal decorum now. Some sat at the empty table, others stood, yet more paced the room before the great viewing bubble, beyond which now lay nothing but darkness and the silty sea-bed, their anxiety finding an outlet in repet.i.tive physical action. Some were dressed for dinner or dancing, and a few looked like they had been caught preparing for bed, nightclothes now covered by hastily donned dressing gowns. The other difference was that there were others in attendance who had not been invited to the formal supper, including Ulysses' own manservant Nimrod, and various members of McCormack's staff.

They were all there, all the great and the good who had dined together that night before the Neptune had ever descended to the undersea marvel that was Pacifica, and their a.s.sociated hangers-on who had joined them as the sub-liner headed for the ocean depths. Those who had not been among the initial party to make their escape attempt, had been collected from their rooms at Miss Celeste's behest, Carcharodon's PA acting instinctively in her scrupulously organised way. Sixteen in all, as well as Captain McCormack, the purser and an, as yet, unnamed ensign, there were also present the ship's disconsolate owner Jonah Carcharodon, his obviously shaken PA Miss Celeste, Dexter Sylvester of Umbridge Industries, still in dinner dress, his usually immaculate hair now just as dishevelled as his clothes, his undone bow tie loose about his neck. Professor Maxwell Crichton was there too, nervously sipping from a hip flask, shooting furtive glances at those around the room as he did so.

In one corner sat the scared-looking engaged couple, Constance Pennyroyal dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief as John Schafer did his best to comfort her, an embracing arm around her shoulders. For once, Constance's aunt didn't seem at all interested in how close the two sweethearts were to one another. Instead her attention was fully focused on Ulysses' side of the room. In fact, he was convinced that Miss Birkin was spending as much time shooting him anxious glances as she was paying attention to what the captain was saying.

Lady Denning sat perched on another chair, her posture perfect as ever befitting one of her position and t.i.tle in society - whether she had come to acquire it by birth or marriage irrelevant now - an almost disdainful look on her face. She certainly wasn't going to let something as minor as the Neptune sinking fl.u.s.ter her carefully composed demeanour. Major Horsley was pacing the room impatiently, face red as a turkey c.o.c.k, muttering crossly to himself, while the travel writer Haugland stood leaning against an aspidistra plinth taking long draws on a cigarette, drumming his fingers on the marble pedestal in clear annoyance.

The ship's chief medic was there too. Looking as ashen-faced as ever, Ogilvy sat in a corner of the room, nervously crossing and uncrossing his legs, his face twitching in fraught excitement, his hands incessantly fiddling with the ta.s.sels of his dressing gown, unable to sit still.

And then there was Ulysses himself, with the spotlessly attired Nimrod in attendance, the injury he had received in the attack on the ship incongruous next to such immaculate formality.

The one person missing from the original dinner party group was, of course, the wretched Miss Glenda Finch.

Sixteen out of a crew and pa.s.senger manifest totalling close to three and a half thousand. If Captain McCormack's VIP guests were all here, where were the rest of the pa.s.sengers and crew? How many, if any, were still alive, trapped elsewhere within the sunken vessel, and how many more were still to die before help came? Would any of those within the dining room make it out alive, to recount their version of events to a hungry press?

The captain appeared to have become tongue-tied, as if he didn't know where to start.

"Well, man? We're waiting!" Carcharodon riled, finding his voice again.

"Captain, I think it's only right you tell us everything. Don't try to hide anything from these people," Ulysses said, taking in the scared and uncertain-looking occupants of the dining room with an expansive sweep of an arm. "Things surely can't get any worse."

"Can't they?" Captain McCormack harrumphed, almost laughing at the direness of the situation.

"Please, Captain. Just start from the top."

"Very well. Here's how it is." McCormack paused and took a deep breath. "The Neptune has come to rest right on the edge of the Marianas Trench. All engines are either flooded, on fire, or have been crippled by whatever it was that attacked us. We've lost contact with the Bridge and there's no contact with Engineering either. There are hull breaches on several decks and it looks like Steerage is already entirely flooded. We are still taking on water at the front of the ship, which is what's hanging over the abyss, so it's only a matter of time before those decks still dry also flood and we tip over into the trench. If that happens we're all dead."

Gasps of shock sounded around the room.

Captain McCormack slumped forwards in his chair, his head in his hands.

"If you don't mind me asking, captain, how are you privy to such exact information, if you can't communicate with your officers on the Bridge?" Ulysses asked.

McCormack sat up again, the effort almost seeming too much for him. He looked exhausted and took another deep breath before speaking again.

"Throughout the ship there are communication relays that allow us to connect to different parts of the vessel. Although there's no response from the Bridge, we have been able to communicate with the Neptune AI. It's the artificial intelligence that's been able to tell us what's happened elsewhere within the ship."

"Then, might we be able to ask it some other, more specific questions?"

"More specific than the damage report I've just relayed to you?" McCormack asked, sounding bewildered, as if just waking from some nightmarish dream.

"Captain," Ulysses said, taking pains to keep his voice calm and on a level, "it's obvious that if the ship's filling with water we can't stay here. We're either going to drown in this sumptuous dining room or tip into the Marianas Trench and be crushed like a tin of sardines."

"What about the rescue teams you said would be on their way by now?" Miss Birkin challenged.

"They won't reach us in time," McCormack announced with a sorrowful sigh.

"But there must be a way off this ship!" Ulysses pressed.

"Must there?" the captain looked at him with those oh-so-tired eyes of his. "According to the AI the lifeboats have either already been used, were damaged during the attack so that their release mechanisms won't fire, or are inaccessible."

"Inaccessible? What do you mean, man?" Major Horsley bl.u.s.tered.

"I mean, Major, that unless you're prepared to swim the length of the ship underwater to get to them, they're inaccessible!"

"Look, there must be a way we can get these people out of here," Ulysses said, trying again to sound encouraging and optimistic as he addressed the resigned McCormack. "Let me help you. Together we'll find a way."

"For G.o.d's sake, McCormack, if he says he can help, let him!" Carcharodon commanded. There was no doubt who thought of themselves as really being in charge.

"Very well," the captain finally agreed, slowly rising to his feet. "Follow me."

Ulysses followed the disconsolate captain out of the dining room and along the corridor to where it widened out before various sets of lift doors. On the wall next to them was a plaque bearing a cutaway plan of the ship: Ulysses had seen their like at various points around the vessel. What he hadn't noticed before, however, was the comm-link panel, which was not surprising, seeing as how it was hidden behind the image of the ship's trident logo in the bottom right-hand corner of the plaque. Captain McCormack accessed this now and keyed an enamelled b.u.t.ton beneath.

"Neptune, this is Captain McCormack. Do you read me, over?"

There was a moment's silence and then, announced by a buzz of static, there came the softly-spoken voice of the ship's state-of-the-art artificial intelligence. "I read you, Captain McCormack. Good evening again, captain. How can I be of a.s.sistance to you now?"

"We need your help, Neptune."

"I will be only too happy to oblige, captain," the a.n.a.lytical engine stated with what sounded like utter sincerity. "How may I be of service?"

"I'm going to hand you over to Mr Quicksilver."

"Ah, Mr Ulysses Quicksilver, guest suite 14B. Good evening, how may I help you?"

Ulysses leant towards the comm panel, suddenly feeling ridiculously self-conscious.

"Er, Neptune. Um, h.e.l.lo."

"h.e.l.lo, Mr Quicksilver," the comm crackled.

"We need your help to find us a way off this ship."

"But why?"