Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea Part 15

"Gleason," said the Captain, his voice crashing, "do you read me?"

"Loud and clear, sir," said a speaker on the console from the other end of the greenhouse.

Morton, in mid-sentence, mid-stride, still foolishly extending the hand with which he had carried the microphone, turned suddenly and stamped back to the console.

"Belly down," said the Captain, "and crawl. I'd guess those things were tuned to something Seaview Seaview size, but all the same, stay as far away as you can. They could be acoustic or magnetic or contact armed and tripped, or any combination." size, but all the same, stay as far away as you can. They could be acoustic or magnetic or contact armed and tripped, or any combination."

"Aye, sir." The jaunty-looking, humpbacked, sleek-skinned minisub, looking like somewhat less than a minnow compared with the Seaview Seaview, settled evenly through the brilliant water. It moved as evenly, and with as little visible effort-of-control, as a seahorse, sank sedately to within a few inches of the ocean floor, and crept up the incline of the pa.s.s like a ground vehicle. It topped the rise and went down the other side, out of sight.

Crane watched the horned skin of the lower mine, microphone tensely in hand, ready to bark a caution if he saw any evidence of jolting or swaying. He saw none. At the end of an interminable four minutes the mine simply began to rise, and ballooned upward out of range of the floods.

"One away," said the Captain. "Mr. Morton, get a sonar fix on that drifter and lock on to it. We want to know its exact position at all times. And get another automatic finder locked on to that second one."

Morton grunted an acknowledgement. Crane got a glimpse of the minisub as it moved toward the second mine, and then it was out of sight again as it sank to attack the anchor chain as near as possible to the bottom. The minisub's powerful electric winch was tied to one arm of an oversized bolt-cutter, the other arm of which was held by a fitting in its hull. Apparently it could not have been better designed.

"Two away," said the Captain. "Slow ahead both inboard. Give Kaski 2.5 magnification on the forward screen and turn over the searchlights to Central Control. Put a man on the screen, give him the controls, and see that he's ordered to do nothing else. Get me two lookouts for up here. Ahoy the minisub!"

"Smith, on the minnie, sir."

"Scout ahead. Stay in the loom of our floods, and use your own lights as well. See that your phone stays in the on position at all times and stand by for course corrections."

"Aye, sir."

"You locked on to those drifters?"

"Yes, sir," said Morton. "They're well clear."

"As you go."

Crane turned again to the nose and stood looking out until two sailors slipped up beside him. The floor sloped sharply away ahead, and the Captain returned to the console to look at the charts. It looked like sea room at last.

"Full ahead, sir?"

"As you go!" snapped the Captain. Morton shrugged; it was insolent, but to remark on it would have seemed picayune. Instead, Crane said, poring over the chart and not looking at Morton, "Mr.

Morton, could you bring yourself to lay mines and then just go off and forget about it?"

Morton looked startled; he turned quickly and looked out through the nose. "You think we'll get a reception committee?"

By way of answering, Crane gave orders: "Discontinue all sound projection systems. Establish situation Hush [the Sea-view's drill code for whispers, tiptoes, and the elimination of dish and tool clatter] and break out every pa.s.sive listening and locating device aboard. Ahoy the minnie.'

"Gleason here, sir," said the speaker.

"Situation Hush," said Crane. "Proceed as ordered, course three hundred. Do not acknowledge this. Over."

Like a shark with a pilot fish, Seaview Seaview and the minisub crept out of the Straits and into deep Pacific water. Crane hugged bottom until its slope led them to about 40 fathoms, then held that level, shallow enough to keep things comfortable for the minisub, deep enough to make their lights undetectable in daylight. and the minisub crept out of the Straits and into deep Pacific water. Crane hugged bottom until its slope led them to about 40 fathoms, then held that level, shallow enough to keep things comfortable for the minisub, deep enough to make their lights undetectable in daylight.

"Stop all," said Crane quietly after about ten minutes. As always, the difference between the almost-silent engines, and none at all, was jolting. Morton picked up the minisub in the search beams and flickered them. The sub acknowledged with its fin lights, and seemed to approach backwards-actually the result of Seaview Seaview's greater ma.s.s carrying the big submarine forward farther and faster than the minnie.

Morton and Crane studied the big screen, on which was the reconstructed image of sounds received by acute electronic ears. On the upper left shimmered a jagged symbol like a wandering clump of gra.s.s. Morton telegraphed its location to the minisub with the lights. "Twin screw," said the Captain. " 'Bout as big as a DE. Only one of 'em." He watched. "Course about ten degrees-right across our bows. There's sound gear," he added as the screen flashed a worm of light which disappeared, then reappeared, at two second intervals. "Condition red," he murmured into the general call, and flicked the stud which would repeat the call by light signals in each compartment. Morton informed the minisub with the search beams.

The ship pa.s.sed almost directly overhead, and they began to hear the whistle and ping of its detection gear. As the sound faded they began to breathe again-and then they saw the ship turn and begin an arc.

"Got us," said Morton.

Crane thought his first critical thought of the mighty Seaview Seaview. "Just too d.a.m.n big." Aloud he said, "Stand by the sonars. If they drop anything I want to know what it is." He moved to the segment of the console marked Degaussing, and pressed the stand-by b.u.t.ton. The engine room would set up the powerful generators and high-frequency alternators which would, when activated, make the entire enormous hull of the submarine disappear from the "sight" of a magnetic-seeking torpedo. Seeing what he planned, Morton spoke up: "It could be a heat-sniffer," and added "Sir."

"It could," said Crane. "So we have a fifty-fifty chance of being right. If we're right, we're altogether right, and if we're wrong it'll only matter for a minute or so." He knew as well as Morton that the special degaussing gear they carried would heat up the hull in a matter of minutes-Crane had once seen steam forming and bubbling up past the herculite nose, on a test-and make them a perfect target for an infrared detecting missile. At that moment he would have given all his stripes and a Swiss watch for the simple information as to what that ship up there was, so he could deduce what they might throw. For a painful second he actively missed the O.O.M., who would be sulking in his suite. Nelson had a deductive faculty that amounted to intuition, and that was the best possible subst.i.tute for information.

"She's squatting to lay," said Morton, his eyes nailed to the screen. The blip of the surface craft had ceased its arc and was cutting toward the overhead point. "And there's the egg."

Crane, too, watched with all his being. Here, now, was where the wrong move could not be corrected, even if the correction should be applied a second later. A depth charge, or "ashcan" they could ignore, purely because there was nothing they could do about it. A torpedo, on the other hand, although much more dangerous, could be fought.

The tiny spot of green light representing the attacking device fell wavering for three or four fathoms, which would mean "ashcan" but then suddenly turned into a slender caterpillar on the screen, crawling toward them and trailing a diminishing trace.

"A fish!" Crane hit the engine-room alarm and bellowed for full astern on all four engines.

Morton banged all the prepared sonics and the whole row of screens lit up, picking out images, finding the minisub, the hull of the attacking ship, and most important, the torpedo itself. The Seaview Seaview shuddered under the flailing of her props, wavered, and began to make weigh astern. "They're seeking, all right," cried Morton, watching the curve of the torpedo's course as they backed out of its original trajectory. shuddered under the flailing of her props, wavered, and began to make weigh astern. "They're seeking, all right," cried Morton, watching the curve of the torpedo's course as they backed out of its original trajectory.

Was it heat-seeking? or magnetic? For an awful split instant Crane could not decide. And it was as if he let his thumb decide for him. Seemingly without his orders, it come down hard on the 'Degaussing, On' b.u.t.ton. Instantly, as the lights dimmed under the initial surge, the scream of the alternators wailed through the ship.

"Hard left," he yelped, and the Seaview Seaview, like many another vessel going astern, answered almost too readily and began to swing. "Watch her head!" he cried, lest they overswing; Kaski, as if inspired, seemed to have caught O'Brien's delicate touch from the rim of his wheel, for he caught and checked her perfectly, and she shot backwards like a crayfish with her nose dead on to the approaching torpedo, thus presenting a minimum profile to the missile's seekers.

"Fish number two!" Morton called, and immediately. "Number three!"

Crane laughed, a horrible sound in that time and place. Perhaps the sudden wavering, the long curvette, performed by the first torpedo, was not funny-but it made him laugh. "Foxed 'em!"

They watched breathless as the first torpedo cut by them a hundred yards to port, followed in a few minutes by the second, which seemed to be tracking it exactly, and probably was, since it was the only magnetically attractive object in the vicinity, the minisub being made largely of high-impact synthetics.

"Where's that third fish?"

The answer came in the form of a dull boom and a slight lurch. "What'd he do-sink himself?"

"No," said Morton, watching his screen, where the surface craft still showed intact, "more's the pity. He must've pushed a destruct b.u.t.ton before she swam up his back." He did not say 'back.' "Hull temperature's two hundred or better, cap'n."

"Let it ride," said Crane, meaning the degaussing gear, and speaking the three syllables which were to cost him so terribly. They continued to speed astern, steering in a wide arc to bring her course out over deep water and toward her destination. The minisub, invisible except to their detectors, paddled along in their wake. The surface ship obviously could keep them in its sights, for it followed, the sound of its laboring screws creating jagged mountains and valleys of light on one of the screens.

"Fish four," Morton sang out, and Crane picked up the sonarphone. "Aboard the minnie," he said, " 'Ware torpedo dead in your wake," for the minisub was not equipped with wear detectors like the mother vessel.

They seemed suddenly to be in a sea of soda-water, for effervescent clouds pressed upward all around the herculite plates. "What's the hull temperature?"

"Two twenty three... four."

How much of this could she take? he thought. Nelson would know... Shut off the degaussers then and have the torpedo draw a bead? Even half a second without the degaussers, and any halfway decent seeking gear would locate and direct. "Hard right," he said.

The speeding sub veered and began to swing. "Check her at South," said Crane. " Well? Well? " he snapped at Morton. "Is that fish following?" " he snapped at Morton. "Is that fish following?"

"Can't tell yet... five seconds more... oh my G.o.d." Crane saw it as soon as Morton: the fourth torpedo was following. He should have known, he should have known... Nelson would have played chess with that skipper up there and won. He knew now the clue he had overlooked: the firing of torpedos one-two-three, and then that wait before the fourth launching. That wait had been, obviously-now, obviously-to re-equip the torpedo with a heat-seeking head. And by keeping on his degaussers, his bubbling hull couldn't have pulled in the torpedo more efficiently if he had a line and a winch on it. "A heat-sniffer, and I guess...." He swallowed, and continued hoa.r.s.ely. "I guess we've had it."

"Speak for yourself, skipper," crashed a voice from the console. Crane stared stupidly at his right hand, which still held the sonarphone mike, then at the grille, then at the screen which was locked on to the minnie. The grille laughed harshly. "You can get off my knee now, Sonny Boy."

" Gleason! Gleason! " "

"Oh, I'll jest set here, this once, daddy-o," said the exultant voice of young Smith. "As Billy Budd or somebody said, G.o.d Bless Captain Bligh or Nelson or somebody."

"Kaski," said Gleason's voice, "you can have my black sh.o.r.e shoes. I stole 'em from you anyhow."

Morton and the Captain stared, hypnotized, at the mini-sub's screen. They saw its blip accompanied suddenly by a streak, they saw the sub's blip turn and swoop, they saw the two approach and merge and the screen flare out in a shower of green speckles as suddenly the detector had nothing but scattering wreckage to detect. The sonarphone was dead. The Captain reverently laid down the microphone. "What-the-h.e.l.l did they do?"

"Saw the fish, rammed it. Stop all, mister. Shut down everything." The dull thud of the explosion reached them. "Open all ballast c.o.c.ks. I want that ship to look at a big dead pigboat. Situation Hush, and I'll have the hide of the man who breaks it." He flailed at the console, shutting off everything that would shut.

The lights went out, to be replaced by the ghastly dimness of the battery-powered emergency lamps. Outside, bubbles rising and sweeping away from the still-hot hull, tickled countless millions of pelagic life-forms into phosph.o.r.escence, so they looked down a pathway of boiling green fire. It quickly shortened, seemed to curve away and up, as their rearward velocity slowed and they began to sink through the dark waters. "Let's see that ship," said Crane, his low voice resounding in that dark place even over the crash of silence. Too bright, the No. 2 screen lit up, swept across and back from the scramble of green which was a ship, finally found it and locked on. It was circling, directly overhead. to sink through the dark waters. "Let's see that ship," said Crane, his low voice resounding in that dark place even over the crash of silence. Too bright, the No. 2 screen lit up, swept across and back from the scramble of green which was a ship, finally found it and locked on. It was circling, directly overhead.

"We got fish could seek out everything they got including the stink of their armpits," said Morton. He did not say 'armpits.' "Lee, we got to sink 'em."

Crane turned to peer at him through the gloom. "As far as they're concerned, we're dead. We sink n.o.body if we're dead." He stared at the screen. "They have everything they need for a full report and a medal from Dr. Zucco. They have our hulk sinking. They have an oil slick rising." They stood quiet, thinking about the minisub's oil slick-noticeable enough, for all her small size, for she was electric-and diesel-powered, and her fuel tanks were unused and full. Sinking the giant Seaview Seaview would release hardly as much. "They did a good job." would release hardly as much. "They did a good job."

"Smith and Gleason."

"Yeah," breathed Crane. He looked again at the screen, and returned to the previous subject: "And that could be an American ship."

"Holy G.o.d."

They sank slowly, dark in darkness, for another twenty minutes. Quite suddenly, the screen seemed in trouble, the image lost and gained again, then fading and flickering.

"Thermal layer," said the Captain at last. "Their gear won't penetrate it. Check her dive. Slow ahead all. I'm going aft."

"Aye, sir."

CRANE LAY ALONE IN HIS CABIN... ALONE, alone. There was a peculiar, and completely new, naturalness in all the things he had done to cut himself off from Nelson, from Cathy and Morton and even the cook. From the very beginning he had been a "new-style" commander of men, never jealous of his power, the enemy of formality, yet able to induce instant and total obedience in the pinch. His past deference to the Admiral in matters of command was not what Chip Morton implied it was, what, in Chip Morton, it certainly would be: weakness and uncertainty. Crane had been willing to let the O.O.M. take precedence not only because he respected him, but because he himself was absolutely sure of his own worth and position. He, unlike Morton, would never find it necessary to rea.s.sure himself of his captaincy by having the enlisted men lick the soles of his shoes. He had been free, then, to a.s.sociate with men as a man, to speak his piece, to react to anyone or anything without fear of jeopardizing his position.

This was no longer good enough for him; it was no longer even good. And although it might seem that he was, at long last, reverting to a more conventional awareness of self and estate, he was not. He had entered upon some new area, a strange inward universe in which the rules had been changed, the laws largely unknown, old valuation repealed and new ones not yet established. He was still unshakably sure of himself, of his own reality and purpose. As to the rest-all the rest-he could not be sure.

And there was n.o.body to talk to about it. n.o.body, n.o.body at all. "Oh, G.o.d," he murmured intensely, "send me somebody who can talk about it!"

There was a knock on the door.

Crane lay absolutely still for a moment, brain, body, breath, and, for all he knew, heartbeat. Then he slowly sat up on his bunk and regarded the closed door, which immediately made more knocking sounds at him.

"All right."

The door opened and old Lucius Emery came in. "Hi Lee. Feel all right?"

"Feel like I should," grunted Crane. "Gleason, Smith, O'Brien." He shrugged. "Hodges."

"I know," said Emery. "Okay, I'll push off then."

"Why?"

"I got a gripe. This wouldn't be the best time for it."

"Sit down and get rid of it."

The old Commander sank back into the chair and swiveled it to face the Captain. "What's this for?" He held out a paper.

Crane looked at it tiredly and did not raise his hand to take it. When he had recognized it he said, "I told Cathy to post that in the mess."

"She did, about twelve seconds before I walked in here. I took it down and brought it along."

"What's the matter-don't you like the way it's worded?" He leaned forward suddenly and s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper out of Emery's hand. He read it aloud. " 'To all hands: As of this posting, the supercargo Alvarez, in or out of his quarters, is to be regarded as out-of-bounds. Signed Lee Crane and-so-forth.' What's the matter? Should I have addressed it Gentlemen and included the word Please?"

"It's only a d.a.m.n fool's opinion," said Emery, "but I think you should have worded it with the eraser end of your pencil and then posted it in your hat."

Crane shrugged. "It's your opinion."

"What's the matter, Lee? He get to you, that Alvarez?"

Crane filled his lungs to blast the man out of his cabin, but Emery's acute grey gaze held him, and he let the breath out again. After a time he shrugged again and said, "I guess he did."

"What's this really for?" said Emery, taking the paper, crackling it, and tossing it behind him to the desk.

"Protection, I guess is the word for it. That Alvarez has a spooky talent for crawling under a man's skin."

"Who's protected against what?"

"I can't really answer that," said Crane candidly. "Say you have a package of-oh, call it force, and you don't really know what it is-explosive, power supply, magic, like turns frogs into fairy princes, medicine or poison: all you're d.a.m.n sure of is that it's force. You have a crew of men you're responsible for. So you tell them to stay the h.e.l.l away from the package."

"What's your idea of this force?" Crane thought for a long moment about that. Then he said, "I went storming up there after Hodges knocked himself off. Hodges left a note about G.o.d's will. As far as I was concerned at the time, that was Alvarez's thumb print."

"At the time."

Crane ignored the interruption. "I roared into that sickbay demanding to know what kind of old rope and oak.u.m he'd been jamming into Hodges. Hodges used to go see him a lot." Crane closed his eyes as if to see the scene again. "I kicked open the door and there he sat. I never saw a man sit like that. A guy by himself is reading or cutting his scrimshaw or maybe even he's stopped to think, but n.o.body I ever saw before just sits staring at an outboard rivet. He knew I was there, mind-it wasn't a trance or anything else, but I had to wait for him to-well, to come back from wherever he was. I knew knew I had to wait. I could've bellowed at him, or kicked his stern off the bunk and up and down the sick bay, I s'pose, and it wouldn't've hurried him up one bit. It wasn't even a question of insolence or stubbornness; h.e.l.l, if a man's a half-mile off in a rowboat and I hail him to talk, I've got to wait till he rows back, and I'd be a d.a.m.n fool if I put him in irons because he didn't make it in two seconds. It was like that. I just had to wait. I had to wait. I could've bellowed at him, or kicked his stern off the bunk and up and down the sick bay, I s'pose, and it wouldn't've hurried him up one bit. It wasn't even a question of insolence or stubbornness; h.e.l.l, if a man's a half-mile off in a rowboat and I hail him to talk, I've got to wait till he rows back, and I'd be a d.a.m.n fool if I put him in irons because he didn't make it in two seconds. It was like that. I just had to wait.

"So when he-got back-he turned to me very slowly and looked at me, and then he brought up one of those long bony arms and just as slowly brought it to bear on me, and he said, ' Ecce h.o.m.o Ecce h.o.m.o.' "

" ' Ecce h.o.m.o Ecce h.o.m.o'?"

"That's what he said. 'Behold the man.' I tell you, I had my mount shot out from under me. I didn't know what to make of it. Emery," said Crane, "I can remember what he said to me, idea by idea. I can remember what it was like hearing it. But I don't know what words he used or the way he used them. If I'm going to tell you about it, I'm going to have to do the best I can, and hope you don't think I'm nuts." '

"I know," said Emery, as if he really did know.

"Well, he undertook to tell me who I am." Crane suddenly tried to laugh and could not. He was sweating, and wiped his forehead. "About me, he said I was real. About everybody else, he said he doubted it. Don't talk for a minute."

Crane clutched the bridge of his nose and bent his head, trying to recapture everything about that weird interchange. Then he shook himself, like shuddering, and went on, "The idea is this. I am the center of the universe. Judging by my own subjective evidence since I was a babe in arms, the world and the cosmos have revolved around me as a center. Any evidence to the contrary is somebody else's evidence, not mine. It's been said I have a lot of what's called courage and I have some medals to prove at least that they've said it, if nothing else. And you know, I've always been amazed, getting medals or promotions or anything like that. If I'm brave it's because I know nothing can really happen to me; I'm central, the hub, the point at which everything that ever was hangs together. That's all these eyes can see of themselves; anything else I ever professed, was conceded out of courtesy and not from any real conviction. Got that?"

"Got it," said Emery.

"All right. Given that I am that, I am the world. I am humanity. Yeah, me, Lee Crane. Rank, like they say in the old Navy, rank has its privileges. The other side of the coin is that rank has its responsibilities. It has its rewards, it has its punishments. The privileges are the rewards, whether it's a promotion or some May morning I happen to enjoy a lot. The punishments are for all evil done by all mankind-and I am all mankind.