At seven the next morning, after moving at a slow speed and taking repeated soundings, the Daito Maru stopped directly above the sunken island. The sea was peaceful. The tanker Tatsumi Maru, which belonged to Sea Floor Development, an chored some 300 meters from the Daito Maru. It functioned as a maintenance ship for the submarine, and now its decks were stirring with preparations. A derrick lifted the Wadatsumi from the deck and lowered it gently to the water. Onodera and Yuki went aboard, jumping onto the precariously rolling deck of the submarine. Onodera, going down through the passageway in side the conning tower, lowered himself into the gondola. Then, taking the directions that Yuki gave him through the open hatch, he guided the submarine over to the Tatsumi Maru.
The red no-smoking flag flew from the Tatsumi Maru’s deck, and the smell of gasoline filled the air. The Wadatsumi, its white hull set off in striking fashion by four stripes, two red and two orange, slowly settled to its proper draft. Three dives were planned, each in a different spot. The first was to last two and a half hours or longer if advisable.
The first passengers were Tadokoro and a young engineer from the Fisheries Bureau. After the two of them had preceded him down the hatch into the gondola, Onodera signaled with upraised thumb for the release of the mooring arm. Rattling loudly, the arm swung into action and pushed the Wadatsumi away from the side of the tanker. The submarine floated free upon the waves, its conning tower rocking from side to side.
Onodera bent his index finger, thrust it between his teeth, and whistled sharply, to ward off ill luck. From the work deck of the Tatsumi Maru, Yuki gave an answering whistle. Onodera made his way down the long, narrow hatchway, thirteen feet in height, and lowered himself into the gondola, closing the hatch cover behind him.
“Well, here we go,” said Onodera to the two men sitting tense behind him as he gave the VLF radio a routine final check. After Onodera had dimmed the interior lighting, he put his hand to the control stick and released the air from the front and rear flotation tanks. The water churned noisily about the Wadatsumi and rushed upward past its observation windows. As Yuki watched from the deck of the Tatsumi Maru, the white-and-orange conning tower of the Wadatsumi slipped silently away, sinking down into the waves as it trailed bubbles from its prow and stern.
Onodera threw the power switch. The screw set in the stern at an upward slant began to turn over quietly.
“We are making a power dive down close to the island. The depth will be two hundred feet. Please hold on.”
Onodera pushed the control stick forward sharply and then cut it to the right. The Wadatsumi began its dive, spiraling downward, its bow set at an angle of about fifteen degrees. Tadokoro and the engineer took turns peering at the TV screen and looking out the window.
“There it is,” muttered Tadokoro, his voice like a growl. “There it is, all right.”
It was nine o’clock by now, but down here in the depths there was as yet little light. The water was clear, however, and, on the screen of the free-ranging TV camera, one could dimly see, looming up from the dark depths, the massive and still darker bulk of the undersea island. Its peak alone was faintly touched with light. Its sloping side faded from sight as it trailed down through a thousand fathoms of black water.
“Point the nose right at it,” said Tadokoro, throwing the switch to activate the videotape recorder.
Onodera cautiously, bit by bit, moved the control stick to straighten out the submarine’s course and direct it at the island. Gently he shifted into reverse, and the vessel’s forward motion stopped. He released a bit of the air used for stabilization, and after depressing the nose fifteen degrees, he gently edged the vessel into a dive. Like stage scenery rising into position, the crest of the nameless island loomed up from the bottom of the TV screen. The nose of the submarine was now about 300 yards distant from it. Professor Tadokoro pushed a button, and the compact videotape recorder began to spin with a faint whirring noise.
Onodera turned on the ultrasonic-wave fathometer.
“Turn it off whenever you think it’s time,” said Onodera, peering sharply at the trembling needle of the sonic depth-recorder and at the speed-of-descent needle. “We still have quite a distance remaining.”
When the slope coming down from the crest was ten yards away, Onodera put the engine into fast reverse, and the Wadatsumi, its nose still tipped down at a fifteen-degree angle, darted backward like a killifish.
“Should we make a descent following the line of the slope, Professor?” Onodera asked.
“Hey, take it easy, will you!” Yuki’s voice came in from the Tatsumi Maru on the VLF radio. “We thought you smashed into it for sure.”
“Try circling the crest,” said Tadokoro. “And then we’ll go down the slope.”
“Professor Tadokoro,” said Onodera as he started to move the vessel forward, “even with the ocean floor sinking nearly six hundred feet in two days, there was no tidal wave or anything. Why not, do you suppose?”
“I don’t know!” Tadokoro barked in answer. “Somehow equilibrium was maintained, I suppose, but I have no idea how. I just don’t know!”
I just don’t know—that’s the same refrain I’ve heard ever since last evening, Onodera thought.