NIGHT OWLS

Jonas gulped the hot liquid and waited for the menu to appear before him.  He typed in the word:  UNIS

UNIS

Unmanned Nautical Informational Submersible

Originally designed and developed in 1979 by Masao Tanaka, CEO of the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute, to study whale populations in the wild.  Reconfigured in 1997 in conjunction with the Japan Marine Science Technology Center (JAMSTEC) to record and track seismic disturbances along the deep-sea trenches.  Each UNIS system is composed of a three-inch-thick titanium outer shell.  The unit is supported by three retractable legs and weighs 2,600 pounds.  Each UNIS system is designed to withstand pressures of 35,000 pounds per square inch.  UNIS communicates information back to a surface ship by way of fiber-optic cable.

UNIS INSTRUMENTATION:

Electrical Fields                    Mineral Deposits                      Salinity

Seismic Equipment               Topography                              Water Temperature

Jonas reviewed the engineering reports of the UNIS systems, impressed by the simplicity of the design.  Positioned along a seismic fault line, the UNIS remotes could detect the telltale signs of an impending earthquake.

Southern Japan had the misfortune of being geographically located on the convergence of three tectonic plates.  Periodically, these plates grind against each other, generating about one-tenth of the world's annual earthquakes.  One devastating quake in 1923 had killed over 140,000 people.

In 1994, Masao Tanaka had been desperately seeking funds to complete his dream project, a monstrous cetacean lagoon, or whale sanctuary.  JAMSTEC had agreed to fund the entire project if the Tanaka Institute would provide twenty-five UNIS remotes to monitor seismic activity within the Challenger Deep.  Three years later, the systems had been successfully deployed.  But after a few weeks of transmitting critical data to the surface ship seven miles above, something had gone wrong.  Now Masao Tanaka needed Jonas's help to discover the cause of the breakdowns.

Jonas took a long swig of coffee.  The Challenger Deep, he thought to himself.  Submarine experts referred to it as "hell's antechamber."

Jonas just called it "hell."

*        *        *        *        *

Twenty miles away, Terry Tanaka, freshly showered, wrapped in the hotel towel, sat on the edge of her queen-sized bed at the Holiday Inn.  Taylor had really irked her.  The man was obstinate, with strong chauvinistic ideas.  Why her father had insisted that their team required his input was beyond her.  Pulling out her briefcase, Terry decided that she needed to review the personnel file on Professor Jonas Taylor.

She knew the basics by heart.  Educated at Penn State; advanced degrees from the University of California-San Diego and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.  Previously a full professor at the Scripps Institute and author of three books on paleontology.  At one time, Jonas Taylor had been considered one of the most experienced submersible pilots in the world.  He had piloted the Alvin  submersible seventeen times, leading multiple explorations to four different deep-sea trenches in the 1980s.  And then, seven years ago, for some unknown reason, he had simply given it all up.

"It doesn't make sense," Terry said aloud.  Thinking back to the lecture earlier in the evening, she remembered the bushy-eyebrowed man who had practically accused Jonas of piloting an expedition into the Mariana Trench.  Yet nothing in his personnel file indicated any  trip into the Challenger Deep.

Terry put the file aside and powered up her laptop computer.  She entered her personal code, then accessed the Institute's computers.

FILE NAME:  MARIANA TRENCH

LOCATION:

Western Pacific Ocean, east of Philippines, close to island of Guam.

FACTS:

Deepest known depression on earth.  Measures 35,827 feet deep (10,290 m), over 1,550 miles long (2,500 km), making the trench the deepest abyss on the planet and the second longest.  The deepest area of the Mariana Trench is called the Challenger Deep, named after the Challenger II  expedition that discovered it in 1951.  Note:  A 1 kg weight dropped into the sea above the trench would require more than an hour to reach the bottom.

EXPLORATION  (MANNED):

On January 23, 1960, the U.S. Navy bathyscaphe Trieste descended 35,800 feet (10,911 m), nearly touching bottom of the Challenger Deep.  On board were U.S. Navy Lt. Donald Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard.  In the same year, the French bathyscaphe Archimède completed a similar dive.  In each case, the bathyscaphes simply descended and returned to the surface ship.

EXPLORATION  (UNMANNED):

In 1993, the Japanese launched Kaiko, an unmanned robotic craft, which descended to 35,798 feet before breaking down.  In 1997, 25 UNIS robotic submersibles were successfully deployed by the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute along the Challenger Deep's seafloor.

Terry skimmed through the file.  Nothing about Jonas Taylor here.  She keyed in:  Naval Exploration.

NAVAL EXPLORATION:  (see)  TRIESTE, 1960

                                                                   SEACLIFF, 1990

Seacliff?  Why hadn't the name appeared in the data above?  She probed further.

SEACLIFF: ACCESS DENIED

AUTHORIZED U.S. NAVAL PERSONNEL ONLY

For several minutes, Terry attempted to gain access to the file, but it was hopeless.  She felt a knot in her stomach.

She put the laptop away, thinking of tonight's lecture.  Her first meeting with Jonas Taylor had been ten years ago at a symposium held at her father's institute.  Jonas had been invited to speak about his deep-sea dives aboard the Alvin submersible.  At the time, Terry was seventeen and had worked closely with her father, organizing the symposium, coordinating travel and hotel arrangements for more than seventy scientists from around the world.  She had booked Jonas's ticket and met him at the airport herself.  She recalled developing a schoolgirl crush on the deep-sea pilot with the athletic build.  Terry looked at his picture again in her file.  Tonight, Professor Taylor had appeared confident, yet, in a way, a little helpless.  A handsome face, tan, with a few more stress lines around the eyes.  Dark brown hair turning gray near the temples.  Six foot one, she guessed, about 195.  Still had the athletic build.

What had happened to the man?  And why had her father insisted on locating him?  As far as Terry was concerned, Jonas Taylor's involvement was the last thing the UNIS project needed.

*        *        *        *        *

Jonas woke up in his clothes.  A dog was barking somewhere in the neighborhood.  He squinted at the clock.  Six a.m..  He was lying on the couch in his den, a ram of computer printouts scattered all around him.  He sat up, his head pounding, his foot knocking over the half-empty coffeepot, staining the beige carpet brown.  He rubbed his bloodshot eyes, looked up at the computer.  His screen saver was on.  He tapped the mouse, revealing a diagram of the UNIS remote, glowing on the screen.  His memory came flooding back.

The dog stopped barking.  The house seemed unusually quiet.  Jonas got up, went into the hallway, walked down to the master bedroom.

Maggie wasn't there.  Their bed hadn't been touched.