Prologue

M/V ILSE DIETRICH

48 NMI S.E. OF ISLA DE LA DESESPERACI?N,

1,500 NMI WEST OF SANTIAGO, CHILE

THE SHIP HEAVED through the rough seas with the determination of a battle-hardened veteran of countless expeditions throughout the hostile maritime world. She had weathered many storms before and this particular one was rather innocuous as gales go, so there was never any real concern from those securely tucked away in their berths. Only the skeleton crew of a single deck officer and engineer manned the necessary watches within their respective departments. The others having decided to forfeit the evening meal in the hope that breakfast at daybreak would be more digestible.

The sixty meter long Ilse Dietrich was owned by the Hamburg-based Kaspar Reinhardt Corporation and functioned as an oceangoing geochemical laboratory, scouring the world's oceans for minerals and biochemicals suitable for commercial exploitation. In this capacity, she was just the latest in a long line of German vessels that were unleashed upon the high seas seeking gold and other precious metals since the 1920's.

The immaculate white vessel was midway through a three-year expedition that had its origins at KRC's Hamburg Dock B-12 and carried her through the Eastern Caribbean down along the coast of Brazil, stopping for several months for her crew to feed the mosquitoes while the ship's scientific staff surveyed the Amazon Basin, then she sailed down around the southern tip of the continent prior to her trek northwestward towards a brief stopover at Isla de la Desesperaci?n.

Her mission at the remote Chilean island was to test a newly developed autonomous underwater vehicle that would evaluate the massive gas hydrate reserves recently discovered just south of the island. These reserves, properly retrieved, would boost the company's profits significantly and flood the Chilean government with a powerful source of tax revenues for many decades to come.

For the present, however, much laid in the feasibility of extracting such an important natural resource and therein laid the importance of the vessel's survey itself. All told, this was one of the decidedly more commercial aspects of the voyage - the trip to Brazil being one primarily of ecological study and the harrowing tour around the Horn through the dangerous Drake Passage being undertaken for investigation into the implications and perceived realities of global warming.

Second Officer Alrich Ryba could've cared less about the environment or global warming; he wanted to pull into a nice tropical port and get laid by one of those large breasted island babes that he heard so much about. At least that was his game plan, though he suspected that their current destination might have delayed the ship's arrival in Polynesia for a few weeks. Regardless, La Desesperaci?n had to be a hell of a lot warmer than the Drake Passage had been and he didn't really mind a chance to thaw out his privates before they were put into practical use.

Being alone and bathed in the brilliant orange glow of the bridge in the middle of a storm-tossed night did little to sway his dreams of beachfront paradise and threesomes, but the ceaseless rolling of the vessel and the pounding of waves against her hull from every conceivable quarter did. Nevertheless, his was primarily the function of having a warm-blooded, air-breathing human being on duty in the pilothouse just in case the autopilot decided to check out and leave the ship without control. In fact, had it not been for the storm raging outside, he would've had to resort to pacing the deck in an effort to keep his mind off of the bathing beauties in their skimpy G-strings, but thanks to nature he had the distinct option of having to bury himself into the captain's chair to avoid being launched full force into the downward bulkhead.

Alrich's concerns were not so much a fear of seasickness as personal injury. Even as a child, he loved roller coasters and just about anything else that left him upside down, sideways and which ways. However, being pelted against an aluminum bulkhead was a different matter altogether and even the seemingly calmest of seas could injure a careless sailor, particularly during the night watches when there was no one else around to remember a hapless sailor's trajectory.

Being located within an extremely remote part of the planet, even the ship's radar failed to show anything clearly and the second officer could only guess as to where the island lay amongst the instrument's return clutter that prevented him from knowing precisely what lay beyond his meter and a half visual range. He suspected - hoped - that this would change at daybreak, just about the time that he was scheduled to be relieved of his watch. They were making an average speed of eight knots with a following sea which meant that they should arrive at the island at around six o'clock in the morning.

Alrich turned and glanced at the radar, the nearest instrument to his location, to observe that it showed hardly anything but clutter and false returns. Surely the island should be showing up on the hundred mile radar? So where the hell is it? The radar return from the mountainous seas was horrendous, and he quietly assured himself that the island just lay buried amongst the clutter. After all, he had never been at this particular part of the planet before and couldn't be certain that he would recognize what the island would look like once it showed up on the radar with all of the extra crap that flickered on the screen.

Had the seas remained calm, then a complete novice could've picked out the large land mass on the horizon. However with radar echoes being thrown back from all directions and him being bounced around in the captain's chair, even Australia would've gone unnoticed. He steadied himself to take another glance at the screen. There, that large percolating mass of confusion. That has to be the island! Much too massive to be returns from the waves.

Alrich felt confident that he had answered the question regarding the island's position. It was in the right location and at about the correct distance. Considering the fact that he was struggling just to remain firmly planted in his seat, that he couldn't be certain where in the hell the island was didn't seem particularly threatening. As long as there were no big, solid return echoes that remained steadfast on a direct collision course, he was satisfied that they could safely plow their way through the sea.

As the hours wore on, the second officer became convinced that all would get back to normal, especially when the island appeared on the ship's Global Positioning Satellite System computer monitor. Until a few minutes previously, the display map showed only open ocean; he had not had an opportunity to walk over and change the zoom settings on the display while he was being buffeted around on the bridge. Now, however, as the vessel had reached a predetermined location, the display automatically changed its scale and low and behold the island appeared right where he had anticipated that it would be found.

Of course, all of this led the intrepid mariner to wonder why he was needed on the bridge at all. The ship knew where it was. If it weren't for the status of the seas, he could've slept and accomplished as much as he did. Glancing up at the clock on the near bulkhead he noticed that it had just become five o'clock in the morning, local time. The sun should be coming up soon. He strained forward to see if he could detect any signs of light emanating from the horizon but other than a few distant flashes of lightning, he couldn't observe much of anything.

Anxiety caused him to sweat, which in turned caused him to be chilled by the breeze created by the bridge fans so he zipped up his blue coveralls, then casually adjusted his black ball cap as he braced his feet against the bridge console and waited. Less than an hour to go. He couldn't tell if he was just exhausted or that the seas were abating, but somehow the rolling of the ship seemed more tolerable and the radar seemed more decipherable.

Even the views out through the windows were less of ebony and more of a slate in color, indicating that his environment was changing. Soon, he could even make out the broken surface of the water - scratches and scraps upon the slate surface that only his imagination could conclude was actually wind-blown waves. He stared at them intently until his visual acuteness could finally pick out the fine strands of spray hurling off of the crests.

Like being witness to some dramatic sporting event, time began to fly by and Alrich could see more and more detail of his surroundings. First, the scrapes on the slate surface widened and increased in depth. Then, their elevation increased the level of contrast and soon shadows enabled him to adequately judge the height of the waves. Finally, the dark slate color of the water gave way to more brilliant silver and the sky lightened to a soft dove-gray. Daybreak had arrived.

Relinquishing his grip on the console, Alrich stood up and managed to massage the circulation back into his cramped legs, finding it much easier to walk around the bridge once he had the security of knowing when he should brace himself for the occasional wave breaking over the ship's bow. Being blind at night always drastically shortened one's reaction time for such events.

Walking out onto the starboard bridge wing, the second officer breathed in the cool, subtropical air and stared far out into the horizon. There was the island, right where the radar and GPS unit had told him where it would be. Considering the distance involved, Alrich couldn't make out much - just a dark silhouette of a mountain that jutted up out of the sea, surrounded by a series of bright clouds.

He had seen islands before and knew that they came in all sizes and shapes and were located in every body of water on the planet, yet this one seemed a little different somehow. He looked towards the volcano that represented the entirety of the island, spying something that appeared out of place. Is that large cloud coming from inside the mountain? Sure enough, upon closer scrutiny of the subject, he could plainly see that a large mass of vapor had been pouring out of the top of the mountain. The volcano was active. Cool.

Having never seen an active volcano before, except of course on television and in the movies, Alrich didn't know quite what to expect. This particular specimen didn't appear especially threatening. After all, not all volcanic eruptions obliterated civilizations; that much he knew. Instead, it seemed merely to be clearing its throat and he felt no need to sound any alarms. Whatever was going on at the island, the ship was safely miles offshore.

For twenty minutes the second officer watched the volcano spew forth material from within the depths of the earth. He could tell that it had been erupting for quite some time, gauging by the distance that the top of the vertical column of gas drifted off into the west. He thought it somewhat strange that no one cared to notify the ship of this activity but concluded that it must've been merely routine and therefore no cause for concern.

He returned to the bridge and occupied a position next to the captain's chair, knowing that at any moment the skipper would appear and relieve him of his duties for the watch. These thoughts of responsibilities and volcanoes ended as soon as he noticed something really strange happening in the water only a short distance in front of the ship.

The silvery-blue sheen of the water turned decidedly white, opaque, and almost frothy in appearance. A mass of conflicting currents and chaotic bubbles erupted from below, engulfing the vessel and surrounding its own wake with a strange mixture of churned seawater and bubbling gases. Everything commonplace about the sea in the aftermath of a storm seemed to transform so quickly and unexpectedly that Alrich simply could not force any action other than to stand and stare in awe at the spectacle unfolding around him. The thought that his ship could now be in mortal danger did not register in his mind as the thought process itself seemed to be diverted by some as yet unknown mechanism.

Just prior to blacking out, the second officer had the distinct and unsettling sensation that his vessel wasn't reacting as it should have been, that somehow the seas became unnervingly well-behaved and their journey through them slower, as if the ship itself lost recognition of the medium for which it was designed.

Second sentance...

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