Another Excerpt from The Methane Sea

 

My novella, The Methane Sea, launched last week, so I thought I would give you another excerpt from it. Scientists are on a planet with a methane and ammonia atmosphere. In lakes of liquid methane, they search for life in a specially made submersible. In this scene Lin and Fenista are in the submersible when things take a turn.

 

A warning light came on. “Oh-oh,” Lin said. “Now we have a warning light on engine number one.”

“Well that’s . . . different." Fenista said. "Engine two has always been the problem.”

“Right” He shut the engine off.

“That makes it less likely it’s instrumentation since we are looking at a different instrument. Unless they use the same wiring to the lights or partway to the lights or . . . you know it could be that we have just been overtaxing engine one after we lost number two and it is perfectly reasonable that . . . I’m sorry. I tend to run at the mouth when I am nervous.”

He looked at her. She seemed smaller, somehow fragile. “Are you scared?”

“I’m . . . this is a bit creepy.” That it was.

Lin put the call in to Buzz and Clark at the lake station. They kept their voices level and even as they said they would send a drone out to them. In fact, they would send both drones out to them. Buzz hardly betrayed his nervousness. But it was there. They all knew that the smaller drone engines were not designed to tow something as large as the submersible.

Lin grabbed Fenista’s hand. “We’re going to be okay.”

“I know.”

“I think you are probably right about overtaxing engine number one. That makes sense. And we were fighting the turbulence back at the vent. That could have something to do with it. Engine two has been off for a while now. I am going to fire it up and see if we can get partway home with it.”

Buzz had been listening in over the radio. “Okay, but take it slow and if there is any sign of trouble, shut it off.”

“Copy Buzz.”

“Before we do this, we need to start conserving power. Let’s shut down everything we don’t need. Cameras, monitors, all the lights except for one headlamp.” She nodded and started shutting things down. He still held one of Kami’s hands. Lin started up engine two and they slowly began to pick up speed. It worked for about three minutes. Then the warning light came on and they shut it down.

By this time one of the drones had arrived. Fenista turned on more lights so she could see what she was doing. She let go of Lin’s hand. She took remote control of the drone and maneuvered it to the front of the sub. The drone had a tail hook that she tried to connect to a latch on the front of the sub. But the sub was drifting. It was a moving target. After a few minutes she sighed and said, “you want to give it a try?”

“Okay.” He took over the controls which were not designed for making fine precision movements. After a few minutes he was sweating and still had no better luck that Fenista had.

“Let me try again,” she said. She took control and tried to move as slowly as possible. She finally got it so that the hook was just under the latch. She tried to gently lift it and it caught. “I think I have it,” she almost whispered as if saying it too loud would dislodge it.

“Okay, let’s give it a try.”

She turned the drone thruster on, gently at first, then when she was sure her connection would hold, brough it up to full power. The sub began to move ever so slowly. “At this rate we’ll be there by next week,” she said.

“It’s okay. You are doing great. It will pick up speed slowly. We’ll get there.” At least he hoped they would. Hoped the little engine wouldn’t burn out. Hoped it wouldn’t take so long that their power ran out and they froze to death. Hoped that if they actually got to the station, they could find a way to actually perform the delicate docking procedure.

 The Methane Sea