The shift from air to water was an instant, bone-shaking transformation of physical reality.
As the black surface of the Inland Sea closed over the top of Tomas’s copper helmet, the howling gale of the canyon died into a huge, hollow silence. It was broken only by the rhythmic, clockwork THUMP-HISS of the air pump pumping overhead.
Then came the water pressure.
At ten feet depth, the water-pressure head began to squeeze the vulcanized canvas suit. The loose folds of fabric collapsed against Tomas’s thighs, belly, and ribs with the firm, unrelenting grip of a tightening vise. Every breath needed a conscious physical effort of his chest muscle to expand his lungs against forty pounds of outside water force.
The cold was vicious. The water of the Inland Sea, fed by melting glaciers eighty miles to the north, was barely three degrees above freezing. Through the thick wool flannel lining, the icy damp soaked into Tomas’s skin within sixty seconds, numbing his toes and sending a deep, piercing ache into the marrow of his shin bones.
Tomas stepped down the iron ladder rungs, one lead-soled boot at a time. Through the thick quartz bull’s-eye, the world was a murky, green-tinted twilight. Suspended flakes of gray silt and river weed drifted past his faceplate like a slow blizzard in the dark.
