Blue on Blue

Chapter Sixteen

Jonathan’s voice was breathless with exertion.  He stared up at her, but not from where Trip’s memory had shown her. He no longer half sat, half crouched on a narrow ledge with his arms wrapped tight around a stalagmite and the sound of rushing water far below. Jonathan Archer was not the type of person to sit and wait. 

Pulling off his jacket, he had rigged himself a sort of harness by bracing the body of it against his back and then pulling the sleeves forward under his arms.  He had then knotted them securely across his chest.  Removing his equipment belt, he had managed to swing that around the stalagmite, hard enough, far enough, that he could catch hold of the other end on the rebound.  She couldn’t see from here whether it was with knots or equipment clips taken from the belt, but he’d connected the ends of the loop through the openings in the jacket’s heavy wrist cuffs, effectively binding himself to the stalagmite.  By leaning his back into the harness and pressing hands and knees against the rock formation, he’d begun to slowly make his way upward.

T’Pol could not repress a shudder only partly related to the chill air of the cavern. 

How far into the rigging process had Jonathan been when the water began to creep across the ledge where he’d waited?  How hard had the current tugged at his feet, his ankles, then his legs as he climbed?  And how long had he been holding to that rock formation listening for a call coming through the darkness? 

She could see where the pale stone of the wall beyond the stalagmite had gone dark grey and glistening wet, marking the high point of the flood water’s reach.  Somewhere, high above, Algieba’s three moons had passed their zeniths and the high tide had begun to ebb.  Already the band of darkened stone was several inches wide, but even now the captain was submerged past his waist.

This would not be a question of using stakes and rappelling lines to climb down, then across, a rock wall to reach the captain, then travelling back with him to safety.  He no longer stood on solid ground.  Once he fastened himself to the line, he would have to lower himself into that dark water and allow her to use its tension to guide him across to the wall where she could draw him upward.

Since childhood T’Pol had been trained to survive in the desert extremes of Vulcan’s Forge, but she had little experience of water, except what she had learned during survival training prior to joining Enterprise. It was unfortunate that Commander Tucker wasn’t here.  He would know about water: the subtleties and strengths of its flow, the colors of its depths and shallows.  He had lived around it, had understanding of it so deep and instinctive he had retained the sense of its dangerous power even in a semi-conscious state. 

If there had been a way to maintain their link they could have used his knowledge to formulate a workable plan of action.

Control, she warned herself.  No room for the distractions of frustration.

Experienced or not, she was engaged in an operation involving water.  She would extrapolate from survival training, from other rescues she had been involved in and her own instincts as well as the captain’s. The course instructor, the class manual, the virtual simulations had been unanimous.

When attempting a water rescue one must first consider…

“There’s not too much current now.” the captain called to her as if he was running the same survival checklist. “At least… not at the surface.  I can’t tell anything… about the undertow.”

Surface currents.  Undertow.  Concepts made real. 

Slipping the rappelling line from her shoulder, she began uncoiling its length.  She estimated the distance of her throw, even as she studied him.  There was a breathless quality to his voice.  It could be from the strain of maintaining his position, but that wouldn’t explain the slightly drunken slurring of his words.

“Captain, I’m about to throw you a line.”  Back crawling several paces, she passed it two, three, four times around the stalagmite that had held the phaser blade kit.  Keeping hold of the line, she moved back to the path’s edge.

Something tugged at her memory.  It was from the unit on winter survival, but the instructor had said the dangers were not confined to snowy or icy climates.  Immersion in cold water could produce slurred speech as a symptom of moderate hypothermia.  Water, she’d learned during that class, could drain warmth from living organisms twenty five times faster than air at the same temperature.  As it dropped below four degrees Celsius, it could render a person unconscious in as little as fifteen minutes.

The air in the cavern was cool, especially to a Vulcan, but she was certain it had not approached the freezing point.  The lake’s tossing tidal waves that she had seen from the hilltop suggested no such cold either, but the exact temperature of the water was unknown, as was the duration of Jonathan’s exposure.  How much had he already been affected by stiffness, fatigue or the danger of encroaching sleepiness?

“Captain!” she called as she pounded a pair of stakes into the ground several feet from the start of the steep downward slope.  “I have secured the line.  I am about to throw it to you.  Can you release that structure you are holding on to so you can catch it?”

“Go ahead.  I won’t… know how to answer… unless I try.”

At least he still sounded alert.

He was leaning back into the harness, lifting his hands from the stone and flexing his elbows, wrists and fingers.

She re-coiled the line.  With the woven metal strands tight in the circle of her hand, she considered distance, angle and trajectory.  “Will you be able to hold on?”

“I’m not certain.  Hands…  Have gone numb.”

Hypothermia.  T’Pol stared at the coils.  “I’m going,” she called as she twisted the strands between her long, certain fingers.  “To tie this line so that it forms loops.”  She held them up for him to see.  “I want you to put one hand through each loop.  Then wriggle them as far up your arms as you can.  I’ve attached the line to rappelling stakes and a stalagmite.  When you’re ready-”

T’Pol’s shudder was involuntary.  To be already affected by some degree of hypothermia, then lower oneself into cold, dark water then swim or be towed for several yards, was to take a tremendous risk.  But there was no alternative.

“Understood!” Jonathan called back, without hesitation.  He twisted, angling his arms and shoulders to catch the line.  T’Pol could see the strain of exertion in his upturned face and the cords standing out on his neck.

“On three, then, Captain.”

“Ready.”

“One-!”

The memory came- Jonathan’s voice echoing through this same cavern.  “Coming on three now!  One… two… three…!  Catch!!” he had called to Trip, not so far from where he now waited.

T’Pol drew a deep breath and saw the momentary vision of another length of rappelling line uncoiling, flying free on a useless trail into darkness.  “Two-!”

She took a step back, making one more mental check of thrust, distance, and trajectory, before pivoting and letting her arm fly forward and up.  “Three!”

The coiled line sprang free of her hand.  Then it was sailing, unwinding, growing long, longer, then beginning a slackening arc downward.  It was flying too far.  She could see the angle of its descent.  It would fall just beyond the captain. 

Jonathan threw back his head, let himself drop, almost limp, back as far as he could into the body of the harness.  He swung an arm upward.  Leaned still further back until she became concerned the tension on the harness would prove too great and it would give way, toppling him into the frigid water.

Then one loop snagged on his shoulder and slid backward until the line rested between Jonathan’s head and his upraised arm.  He turned his head, tipped it forward and began biting at the line, clenching it between his teeth as he pulled.  The loop swung forward, dangling down the front of his chest.  One flailing, stiff-fingered hand pawed at the swinging line and missed. Jonathan shook his head hard to the right, then left.  The line bounced, the loop swung.

There was another try, another miss.

All T’Pol could do was watch and wait.  She remembered her moment of helplessness back in the tunnel, waiting for Trip to give her the information that would lead her here and her desire to pace, to shout her fear and frustration.

Control… she murmured to herself.  Patience.  It was so hard to suppress the frustration, her wish to act, do something to assist when she was so near and, in that instant, so powerless.  She willed herself to be still, to observe the motions of Jonathan’s head, the sway of the line and the steadiness of each muscle in her hands as they poised, inches above the line, ready to lift it up, reel it back in, then, if needed, to start from the beginning and make another attempt.

Jonathan’s hand snagged the loop, then wriggled through.  Letting the line drop from his teeth, he maneuvered his other hand through the remaining circle of line.  This time it caught more rapidly and with less difficulty, though it seemed to have sapped much of his energy as he let himself sag forward in the harness, forehead resting on the stalagmite.

Understanding the logic of what must happen now did not prevent T’Pol from another involuntary shudder.  “Captain?”

“Yes, T’Pol…” his voice was muffled against the rock.

“If you are secured within the lines…”

She did not have to say it.  Every moment of stillness increased the risk as the water leached away needed warmth and energy. 

He lifted his head and nodded.  “Understood.”  She could see him setting his shoulders with resolve.  “Give me…  another three count, all right?”

She checked the stakes.  They were secure.  As was the line on her end.  “On three then, Captain!  One-!”

Jonathan swung an arm around the stalagmite.  T’Pol circled the line between the captain and the nearest stake with both hands.

Jonathan struggled to unclip his belt from the cuffs of his jacket. He rocked forward to give himself more slack and fumbled with stiff fingers. 

It was almost a minute before T’Pol saw it fall away and disappear.  “Two!”  

Before the count of three, he slipped into the cold, black water.  The line between her hands went slack.  She pulled, hand over hand, careful and slow until it grew taut.  Though his face was lost in shadow, she could see the beam of the captain’s head lamp moving through the water toward her.  It painted small trails on the surface that fanned out on either side of him, rippling a little in a slight current.  The ripples spread as the light came closer. Rising, she looped the growing slack once, twice around the stalagmite, before returning to peer over the path’s edge. Jonathan was no more than eight or nine feet below, breathing in shuddering gasps, his eyes wide and exhausted beneath the brim of his helmet.

“Captain, if you can brace the bottoms of your feet against the wall, I can help you rappel up over the rocks.”

He nodded, but it was several seconds before he glanced down at the line, then at the smooth, steep slope in front of him.  Was he studying the security of his improvised harness or drifting toward an illusion of warmth and sleep? 

T’Pol looked at the stakes she had driven into the rocks about two feet apart.  Should she create a set of loops for herself so her hands would be free?  Then perhaps she could maneuver down, secure the line around his waist and rappel beside or behind him, taking as much of his weight as  possible while creating leverage for both of them.

Jonathan shook his head as though to clear it.  He looked up, met her gaze and brought his knees toward his chest, letting himself float, suspended, for a moment before his boots connected with the rock wall. The line slackened.  T’Pol fed it over first one stake, then the other, creating figure eights back and forth, back and forth, making the line taut again.  Jonathan leaned against the tension in it, used it both for traction and leverage as he brought one boot up to break the surface of the water.  He pressed the sole of it against the rock as T’Pol took up another several inches of slack.  She repeated the action as he managed another step closer.  She snaked the line back and forth, back and forth, keeping it taut, watching first the captain’s ascent, then the figure eights multiplying beneath her hands, then the captain again.  He was close, so close now.  One more step, one more length of line.  She turned from the stakes to catch one flailing arm as his head appeared over the edge of the drop.

The sound of her heavy breathing mingled with his as she grasped his shoulders and half supported, half dragged him over the barren shelf of rock and several feet onto the path where she sank onto the ground beside him.