The Fountains of Youth - Brian Stableford [153]
“Well,” I said, gruffly, “at least we’re the right way up. I don’t suppose there’d be any realistic possibility of reaching dry land even if you could walk. Do you, by any chance have one of those new-fangled suit-skins on board? I mean the ones that allow swimmers to work in this sort of environment.”
“I fear not, sir,” the silver said, politely. “Had this possibility been anticipated, such equipment would doubtless have been provided, but it was not. If you were to attempt to leave the craft in the suitskin you are wearing you would certainly drown, and even if you were able to contrive some kind of breathing apparatus you would die of hypothermia in less than an hour.”
“So we sit tight and wait to be rescued?” I said, hopefully.
“I am doing everything within my power to summon help,” the silver assured me. If my recent conversations with Eve had taught me nothing else, they had taught me to be more sensitive than before to the possibility that certain things were being deliberately left unsaid.
“And you will be able to summon help,” I said, as my heart sank to further depths than the snowmobile, “won’t you?”
“I am not presently aware of any craft that is in a position to attempt a rescue,” the silver admitted. Silvers are programmed to believe that honesty is the best policy, if pressed.
I was astonished by my own calmness, which contrasted very strongly with the panic I had felt when I realized that the Genesis had turned turtle. Being so much older and wiser than I had been way back then, I was marvelously untroubled, at least for the moment, by the fact of my helplessness.
“How long will the air last?” I asked the navigator.
“I believe that I could sustain a breathable atmosphere for at least twelve, and perhaps as long as twenty hours,” it reported, dutifully. “If you will be so kind as to restrict your movements to a minimum, that would be of considerable assistance to me. You are presumably a better judge than I of the ability of your internal nanotechnology to sustain you once you fall unconscious.” The machine was presuming too much; I had no idea how long my IT could keep me alive once the oxygen level dropped below the critical threshold.
“Why did you say I believe that I could sustain instead of I can sustain?” I wanted to know.
“Unfortunately,” the silver admitted, “I am not certain that I can maintain the internal temperature of the cabin at a life-sustaining level for more than ten hours. Nor can I be sure that the hull will withstand the pressure presently being exerted upon it for as long as that. I apologize for my uncertainty in these respects.”
“Taking ten hours as a hopeful approximation,” I said, effortlessly matching the machine’s oddly pedantic tone, “what would you say our chances are of being rescued within that time?”
“I’m afraid that it’s impossible to offer a probability figure, sir. There are too many unknown variables, even if I accept ten hours as the best estimate of the time available. Unfortunately, I am not aware of the presence in our vicinity of any submarine craft capable of taking aboard a human passenger, although it is conceivable that a human diver might be able to transport a suitskin capable of sustaining you. In either case, though, the fact that this craft is not equipped with an airlock would make the problem of getting you into the suitskin rather vexatious, even if I were actually able to open the door.”
The last sentence seemed particularly ominous. It implied, in fact, that even if an unexpected stroke of luck were to make the machine’s worst fears redundant, I would still be well and truly doomed.
“If I were to suggest that my chances of surviving this were about fifty-fifty,” I said, carefully, “would that seem optimistic or pessimistic to you?”
“I’m afraid I’d have to call that optimistic, sir,” the silver confessed.
“How about one in a thousand?” I asked, hoping to be told that there was no need to plumb such abysmal depths of improbability.
The silver