“Still, I think we can just barely make it into the Second Undersea Base. ......We’ll now be carrying out the submersible evacuation process due to an accident during our dive.”
Evacuate the submersible? From the outside, Simcheong 7 looked perfectly fine, not even leaking.
“Uh. Is this because we just hit another submersible? Didn’t we just graze each other? Do we really need to evacuate?”
“Our submersible is only about twenty tons, but theirs is over forty. It’s like a big bus clipping a compact car that was driving along just fine.”
Kim Jaehui’s words startled me a little inside. This cramped little submersible weighed twenty tons? Sin Haeryang checked the submersible’s condition with Cheloni, then immediately pressed a vivid red button. Red warning alarms began appearing on the screen, and the inside of the submersible started flashing with a mix of red, orange, and green warning lights. Normally those sensor lights over there either glowed green or stayed off entirely, but seeing them all blinking red like mad now, it felt like they were screaming to be fixed.
Abnormal warning sounds burst intermittently inside the submersible. If I’d heard them without knowing anything, I would have been scared stiff, but I was already used to the high, irritating sound of the alarms, so I quietly watched what the two engineers were doing.
“Cheloni. Distance to the nearest undersea base?”
[The Second Undersea Base, located at a depth of 200 meters, is 60 meters above us.]
Hadn’t we been extremely close to the Second Undersea Base just a little while ago? When did we get that far away? I’d thought we had scraped against another submersible and bumped into it, but had we dropped sixty meters? That was practically the same as falling from the twentieth floor of an apartment building, yet I hadn’t noticed at all. Was it because we were underwater?
Sin Haeryang pressed several buttons on the control panel in sequence. Then he warned me, half-standing awkwardly, and Kim Jaehui, who was on his knees.
“Get down.”
The moment I heard that, I flung myself onto the floor of the submersible. I didn’t even care that it supposedly smelled like alcohol. Kim Jaehui also threw himself down beside me with a thud. While I had collapsed with a newly serious expression, Kim Jaehui slid toward the floor laughing as if he were here to have fun.
Sin Haeryang pulled a long belt from where it had been hidden in the floor and strapped it diagonally across Kim Jaehui and me. He spent about two seconds admiring the sight of the two of us, then immediately pressed a button. I had no idea what that button was, but the submersible began shaking violently from side to side without stopping. It felt like we were riding an amusement park ride made of steel that was shaking madly in every direction. Getting down had definitely been the right call. If I’d been standing, there was no telling which wall of the submersible I would have smashed my head into. Was what Sin Haeryang had pressed the button that made the submersible dance?
Forget motion sickness. If this went on a little longer, I was going to throw up not just everything I’d eaten two days ago, but my internal organs too. Dental treatment wasn’t torture; riding a submersible was. If it meant avoiding another ride in one, I felt confident I could even make up a nonexistent Jupiter Base and spill everything about it.
The instant I had that thought, my body abruptly floated upward. I barely managed to understand that the belt had kept me from slamming into the ceiling. Before I could even be surprised, Sin Haeryang grabbed the belt and, from outside it, used his own body like a pressing stone to try to pin Kim Jaehui and me down against the floor. Strangely, my back didn’t feel heavy.
I barely processed in my head that the submersible I was riding was rising rapidly. As I lay sprawled on the floor like a frog, a person’s weight suddenly pressed down on my back hard enough to make me choke. When Sin Haeryang, who had been using Kim Jaehui and me like a bed, moved aside, Kim Jaehui grumbled at the team leader.
“You’re crushing me to death.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
Kim Jaehui got up from the floor, saw me getting up after having been flattened like dried filefish along with him, then turned his head toward the control panel. Cheloni reported triumphantly, full of confidence.
[All weights have been successfully detached.]
So it was a button for dumping things like weights attached to the outside of the submersible. By dropping them into the sea, we gained that much buoyancy and made the submersible rise? Judging by how violently it had shaken, we had probably forcibly separated the weights from the submersible. Didn’t the weight have to be less than the buoyancy for us to rise to the surface? It had been too long since I’d learned Archimedes’ principle, so I couldn’t remember it properly.
After undoing the belt and stowing it back into the floor at the speed of light, Sin Haeryang ordered Cheloni to dump everything unnecessarily attached to the submersible.
“Prepare to detach the robot arms.”
[Robot arm manipulator detachment process underway.]
“Throw out all observation equipment.”
[Detaching floodlights, three external underwater cameras, TV camera, and video transmission device. ......The right robot arm is currently unable to drop. How should we proceed?]
“I’ll operate it manually.”
While Sin Haeryang worked on the ballast system, Kim Jaehui used the controls to operate the robot arm on the left side, grabbed the forearm of the right robot arm, and slowly began pulling. It seemed that because the right robot arm had taken a direct hit from the other submersible and been crushed, it couldn’t be detached normally.
When the right arm wouldn’t come off easily, in the end he nearly tore it off with the power of the left robot arm before managing to separate it. Then the left robot arm, having successfully completed its task, was detached normally and dropped into the sea. The submersible, having lost both arms, was swimming upward alone through the darkness.
I didn’t know how much the robot arms weighed, but even after separating and discarding the two arms attached to the outside of the submersible, there wasn’t any major change inside. Did the arms not weigh that much because of buoyancy? The camera that had been showing the arms must have been detached too, because before long the screen showing the outside went black and disappeared.
[The observation devices have been detached and are falling normally.]
Can we really just throw auxiliary equipment away like that? If someone’s below us, won’t they get hit by those arms or weights? Those questions rose to the tip of my tongue, but respecting the experts’ judgment, this clueless novice kept his mouth shut.
Simcheong 7 was rising until it was almost at a depth of 200 meters. I was surprised that nearly most of the parts installed on the submersible could be detached and dropped into the sea. Were they designed to be detachable from the start? To move freely underwater, the submersible must have already gone through multiple rounds of miniaturization and weight reduction. And yet it was still built so equipment could be removed in order to surface.
Sin Haeryang was doing everything he could to reduce the hull’s weight as much as possible. If there was someone he didn’t like, he looked ready to throw them out of the submersible too. Kim Jaehui gave me an ominous smile and asked an unsettling question.
“Savior. Are you good at swimming?”
“......”
Ah. Please...... I only let out a long sigh at that question, then closed and opened my eyes. I’d already swum once today. Kim Jaehui heard my sigh, giggled, and said,
“The ballast tank is broken. The seawater isn’t draining properly. It seems like air is being injected properly, though. It’s probably leaking somewhere. I’m not sure whether it broke because of the impact just now or if it was already broken before.”
Kim Jaehui was speaking to me as if it was unfortunate, but there wasn’t the slightest hint of anxiety in his voice that we might die. The temperature inside the submersible was close to three degrees Celsius, yet for some reason, I didn’t feel cold.
I took off the coat I was wearing and folded it neatly in the corner. Then I rolled up my sleeves and folded up the cuffs of my pants. Once I removed my coat, the cold I had forgotten crept in through my wrists, ankles, and around my neck. I moved my arms and legs lightly. I had left my bag in the lounge at the submersible port because of its weight, so the only things I had to take care of were myself and these two engineers.
There were no floodlights outside the submersible, so beyond the observation window there was only complete darkness. Since the inside of the submersible was bright from the lights, maybe now the fish could peer through the window and watch the humans floundering around.
Cheloni spoke to Sin Haeryang, who had drastically reduced the submersible’s weight.
[All devices and equipment you ordered have been detached and dropped.]
“Is that all the weights we can dump?”
[There is still one remaining.]
Cheloni spoke to us in a regretful voice.
[I do not wish to part with the crew of Simcheong 7, but given the circumstances, there is no other choice. I recommend detaching Cheloni from Simcheong 7.]
The AI system could be detached too? I listened blankly to Cheloni’s voice, then asked, feeling a vague sense of guilt creeping in from somewhere.
“Cheloni. How much do you weigh?”
[The submersible AI system Cheloni weighs a total of 60 kilograms, making it the second heaviest among the auxiliary devices removed.]
That was almost the weight of one person.
“Can the current Simcheong 7 handle carrying you?”
[That judgment cannot be made by the AI.]
Sin Haeryang thought for a moment, then ordered Cheloni.
“......Switch to manual operation. Detach the submersible AI system and prepare to drop it.”
[Switching from automatic operation to manual operation. AI system detachment process underway.]
Cheloni displayed a countdown from 10 on the screen. Then Kim Jaehui spoke lightly to Cheloni.
“See you next time.”
“You did well.”
Realizing that the words the two engineers had spoken to Cheloni were farewells, I hurriedly shouted toward Cheloni.
“Thank you for everything!”
[Your wonderful friend. This has been Cheloni.]
When the number reached 0, Cheloni’s distinctive submersible drawing and voice vanished completely from the screen. Just in case, I looked out the window, but because of the darkness, I couldn’t see anything. Cheloni hadn’t even been someone close to me, but now that it was gone like this, I felt empty.
After watching Sin Haeryang for a while as he busily operated the submersible manually, I asked Kim Jaehui, who looked like he wasn’t doing anything,
“Can’t you pick up the devices you dropped?”
“We pick them up and use them. Later, unmanned submersibles will retrieve the equipment we dropped just now. The ones that are fine will be used, and the ones that aren’t will be recycled. Don’t worry too much.”
I let out a sigh of relief inside. I’d have to make sure to ask them to retrieve Cheloni later. They could attach it to another submersible and use it again. Because Kim Jaehui’s answer was vague, I asked just in case.
“What if the Cheloni we just dropped isn’t fine?”
“Then we use another one. Almost every submersible has a Cheloni. There are some at the submersible port too. There are plenty of replacements.”
“Uh. But they’re not the Cheloni we just dropped.”
“......Well. Did you like the Cheloni we just threw away as scrap metal? Hmm. I don’t think there was anything that special about it. You can customize Cheloni to suit your taste too. Originally, Cheloni comes from the female nymph Chelone in mythology, so it had a woman’s voice, but the kids repairing the submersibles at night said it was too scary, so we changed it to a male voice. When you have time, call me and I’ll modify one to suit your taste and show you.”
I’m saying I want to rescue the one that just fell later!