Into the Abyss (Tom Swift, Young Inventor) by Victor Appleton Page A

horror, I understood—the cloud had cleared, but I was still standing in total darkness.
    My searchlight was dead!
    By gripping me so tightly, the giant squid must have ruptured one of the wires that fed power through the suits metallic fabric to the light on the helmet!
    At this point, my oxygen and my time were running seriously low. I no longer had any idea which way the cliff was, or how far from it the squid had carried me before it let go.
    The submersibles—and my salvation—might as well have been a million miles away!
    I reached out blindly, stumbling a few steps in every direction, hoping to find the slope. It wasn’t there.
    It wasn’t anywhere! Frantically, I picked a random direction and started walking blindly.
    Where was I? And how was I ever going to get out of this mess?

12
 
  Back to Work
    “Tom! Are you there? Can you read me?”
    YES—my dad’s voice!
I’d forgotten completely about the wireless connection with the
Verne-1!
    “Dad! I fell down the ledge, and my lights out—I can’t see my way back.”
    “Don’t panic, son. I’ll think of something …. How much oxygen do you have left?”
    “I don’t know … fifteen minutes or so.”
    There was silence on the other end of the line as he took in this dismal news. Okay … listen to me, Tom. We’re going to get you back up here, do you understand?”
    “Not really …”

    “Just LISTEN!”
    There was no arguing with him. I just shut up and listened.
    And what did I hear?
    Something that sounded like pots and pans being banged over and over again. It was the crew of the
Verne-1
banging on the little submersible’s hull as hard as they could.
    Good old Dad! I might be blind as a bat down here, but I could hear the noise they were making and could tell its direction and its distance.
    The sound was coming from behind me. I’d been moving steadily off in the wrong direction!
    Turning around and heading back the way I came, I soon found the boulders that were my landmark and began my climb back up through the inky blackness, toward life.
    I wanted to respond to my dad’s questions—he was constantly asking me if I was okay, urging me on, and sounding more and more frantic when I didn’t answer—but to tell you the truth, I couldn’t spare the breath.
    The slope was steep, and the debris it was made ofkept giving way as I struggled forward. My dive suit was functioning beautifully, but it was still awkward at this depth. With every painfully slow move I made, I was using up more and more of my scarce air supply.
    But I couldn’t think about that—I had to keep going. If my air ran out, I would just die, that was all—quickly and painlessly. And so would my dad … and the others …
    No! Keep going …. Forward … forward …
    Let me tell you, you get exhausted really quickly when you’re exerting yourself underwater. When I finally crested the slope and saw the
Verne-1
’s lights glowing softly, it gave me hope—and somehow, I found the strength to continue.
    It had taken me a grand total of ten minutes to climb the slope. That left me with all of about five minutes, maybe seven if I was lucky, to get back to the prototype and implement Plan B.
    Believe me, it was taking every ounce of strength I had, just to put one foot in front of the other. And every breath I took left me with less air to reach the
Verne-0
.
    In the near darkness only the rapidly dimming light of the
Verne-1
, filtering through the now-cloudywater, gave me a sense of where I was. I could only hope my sense of direction was as reliable as it always was back on the surface.
    I had shut off
Verne-0
’s power before I left her, conserving it for later. Because of that, I couldn’t see her down here in the darkness.
Verne-1
’s lights weren’t strong enough to cast a glow that far. Still, I knew where the prototype had to be in relation to the
Verne-1
, and that’s where I was headed.
    Just when I thought I was going to pass out, I bumped smack into