Black Gold

by Paul Kenyon

  It was eerily deserted. There wasn't much for a crewman to do at night out on that flat expanse of steel. The ship practically ran itself, with the computers and automated equipment. The Leviathan was the biggest ship ever launched, but it was manned by a crew of only twenty-four sailors. They weren't even calling them sailors anymore, and the captain's official title was Ship's Manager.

  He strained his eyes against the starlight, looking for movement. There! He spotted a dim, silvery figure walking, crouched, along the shadow of the central pipeline. Not a man out for a breath of night air!

  Paul slipped like a shadow down the companionway to the deck. He kept to the other side of the central ridge, low, so Loy wouldn't see him. Neither he nor Loy was likely to be noticed by whoever was up in the bridge, ten stories high, watching dials and oscilloscopes instead of the deck.

  How the hell was Loy going to do it? The Leviathan's owners, in the wake of the last disaster, had taken extreme precautions. The manhole covers over the oil tanks were locked and rigged with alarms. And the valves of the piping system were controlled from the bridge.

  There was a flicker of movement on the other side of the ridge and a scraping sound. Loy was up to something. Paul didn't dare hesitate any longer. He climbed over the pipes and trolleyway and dropped to the other side, silent as a cat.

  There was no one there. Loy had disappeared.

  And then he saw the yawning black hole, and he understood. It was the hatch for Center Tank Number Two. It was open. It had been left open because Center Tank Number Two was empty, and there is nothing more dangerous aboard an oil tanker than an empty tank.

  Loy was down there with his bacteria. He must have had a breathing apparatus hidden on deck. You didn't go into an empty tank without one.

  Paul looked down into the dark cavern and hesitated. If he went into that black hole, there was a very good chance that he would either die or turn into a human vegetable. It could happen with appalling suddenness. You'd be walking along the floor of one of those hundred-foot steel pits, and your feet would stir up a cloud of hydrocarbon vapor. It was invisible, and not very easy to detect by smell there in the oil-reeking hold. A couple of breaths of it, and you were suddenly unconscious. After four minutes without oxygen, your brain was permanently damaged. After five minutes you were dead. There was no time to back away, to get back up that hundred-foot ladder. By the time you realized that you were numb and drowsy, you were already falling down.

  Paul sighed. He and his brain had been friends a long time.

  He squeezed through the round opening, his feet searching for the rungs of the ladder. He found them and descended to the first small platform, ninety feet above the bottom of the tank.

  He could see, just barely. A row of Butterworth plates in the ceiling let in starlight — small, round, glassy skylights. But in his black jersey and chinos, with his black face, he'd be practically invisible to Loy. At least he hoped so.

  He found the steel rungs set into the wall of the tank and started climbing down the rest of the way. The circles of pale light above seemed to rise like moons as he descended into the void. Here and there the shafts of light illuminated huge, fantastic shapes — the enormous cathedral arches of the transverse frames, the work platforms, the titanic columns of the washing machinery. It was a long, long climb in the dark.

  His sneakered feet hit bottom. He let go of the rungs and looked around.

  It was big down here. Loy was nowhere in sight. He walked along until he came to a steel wall, fifteen feet high. It was the bottom of one of the transverse frames that braced the hull of the ship.

  He felt along the wall until he found steel rungs and then climbed to the top. He inched forward on his belly until he came to the edge of the girderlike member, then peered down into the next bay.

  There was the flicker of a flashlight down there. More light came from a Butterworth plate high overhead, sending down a ghostly shaft of starlight. The figure kneeling by the bulkhead was humpbacked and elephant-nosed; he was wearing Draeger gear, the portable breathing apparatus used by the clean-up crews.

  What was Loy doing? He was turning the huge brass wheel that controlled the valve connecting with Center Tank Number One. A thin stream of oil spattered on the floor. Loy took something out of his pocket.

  Paul had no gun, and he wouldn't have dared to fire one if he had — it would have been like setting off a hydrogen bomb. Hanging by his fingertips, he dropped to the bottom of the tank and rushed Loy.

  Something warned Loy. He turned around, looking grotesque in the face mask with its air hose. Paul grabbed for him and caught him by the hose instead of the throat. Loy pulled away, and the mask came free. He backed off, the Draeger apparatus dangling, and there was a gun in his hand.

  "You can't shoot that, man," Paul said. His voice echoed hollowly through the hundred-foot steel drum.

  Loy spat. He was a big, round-shouldered man with a bald, bullet-shaped head. He liked to work out with weights in the crew's gymnasium. "Jackson!" he rasped. "What're you doing here?"

  "What you fixing to do with that gun, Loy? Commit suicide?"

  "Look again, man."

  Paul looked at the pistol. It was awfully big, and it seemed to have two barrels, one above the other. All of a sudden Paul recognized it. It was a Benjamin M422 air pistol. It could fire ten shots, powered by a CO2 cylinder. The muzzle velocity was four hundred fps. It was good enough to tear through his skull and kill him. And there wouldn't be any flash to ignite hydrocarbon vapor.

  "See what I mean?" Loy grinned.

  Paul flexed his hands and estimated distance and position. It was no good. He couldn't get to Loy.

  "What you going to do, man?" Paul said.

  "I'm going to leave, that's all. You stay. Here's a little something to keep you company."

  He hurled a glass phial at the steel wall. It shattered, and its contents splashed on the floor.

  "Hope you can swim," Loy laughed. Paul looked behind him. The trickle of oil from the next tank had formed a pool. The pool was growing. The edge of it lapped at the shattered glass of the phial.

  Loy was backing off, the air pistol pointed at Paul's forehead. Paul took a step forward. A wave of the pistol stopped him. He was dead, but he was dead sooner if he jumped Loy.

  Loy had reached the foot of the ladder. "When I get topside," he said, "I'm going to dog that hatch. Know something? You're going to be a lot blacker before you die."

  "You son-of-a-bitch!"

  Loy half-turned, keeping the gun on Paul. He put a foot on the lower rung of the ladder. A silly smile crossed his face. He slumped to the floor, grinning.

  Paul kept his distance. Loy was more dangerous now than he'd been when he was conscious. His feet must have stirred up an invisible cloud of hydrocarbon vapor. His brain was dying, cell by cell, as Paul watched.

  Where was that cloud drifting now? Paul took a deep breath and, holding it in, reached Loy's side. It took him about thirty seconds to unfasten the Draeger apparatus and get the mask over his own face. He exhaled explosively, unable to hold his breath any longer, and took a deep drag of the bottled air.

  He looked down at Loy. The bald man was still breathing. He'd breathe for another three or four minutes. But he was as good as dead. There wouldn't have been any point in dragging him out of the lethal cloud.

  The ship! It was more important to save the ship! Paul sprang to the brass wheel and turned it. He turned it all the way, but still the oil kept coming. Loy must have done something to it.

  He was covered with oil now, and the stream from the adjoining tank seemed to be getting stronger. The floor of the steel cave was covered with an inch of oil now. The remnants of the phial were submerged somewhere. Paul scrambled for the giant transverse frame. He slipped and fell. Sloshing on his hands and knees, sliding wildly, he reached the bottom of the ladder.

  He couldn't climb it. He was too slippery. He tried over and over again. It was hopeless. He couldn't get a grip on the r
ungs. When once he did, his feet wouldn't stay on the rung. He slipped and fell back. Somehow he got to his feet. The oil was up around his knees now.

  Something was bumping against the steel bulkhead. He looked across.

  It was a boat.

  It was one of the rubber dinghies they kept in the tanks. When they flushed the tanks out with water after a voyage, an inspection crew rowed around in the dinghy, examining the steelwork. They looked over all the walls from top to bottom as the water rose higher, searching for flaws.

  Paul waded over to the rubber boat, somehow managing to stay on his feet. It bumped against his knees. He let himself fall in. He found a pair of oars. There was some cotton waste in the bottom of the dinghy, and he was able to wipe off his hands enough to get a grip on the oars. He could see Loy's body, floating head down in the oil.

  The stream from the adjoining tank grew in size. He waited, sitting in his rubber boat, until the level of the oil reached the top of the transverse frame and began to splash over into the next bay. It became a regular waterfall. No, oilfall, he thought. A half-hour later, the next bay had filled to a height of fifteen feet, and he was able to row across.

  He paddled to the foot of the ladder and looked up. The hatch was eighty feet above him, and he could see that it was closed. When the computer on the bridge had detected oil in Tank Number Two, it had automatically shut the hatch. He was trapped.

  He waited in the dinghy for a couple of hours. There was no way he could have attracted attention, made himself heard. The level of the oil grew higher. He rose another forty, fifty feet in his boat. The steel ceiling was only about thirty feet above him now.

  Something was happening to the oil he was floating in. It seemed to be getting thicker, more viscous. It rippled in great sheets, like a stiffening pudding. His boat rode on the top like a raisin in custard.

  The infection must have spread to all the other tanks by now. They were connected by small apertures intended to let the cargo find a level. There was a great shudder and a grinding of steel. Ripples spread over the black thickening surface. Paul shipped his oars and hung on for dear life.

  He was in a world of darkness, floating on a black sea, with a steel sky overhead. All of a sudden the world split apart. The dinghy tipped and almost capsized. He managed to keep it right side up. There was a huge roaring sound. He clung to the line looped around the rim of the dinghy.

  And then he was out in the starry night, the air fresh the expanse of the Indian Ocean around him. The dinghy was riding on a huge floating pad of black goo. He had just time enough to see the two halves of the Leviathan, like a pudding mold a quarter of a mile long, fall away on either side and sink into the depths. They raised an enormous wave, but the tarry island he was riding on was big enough to take it. He grasped the ropes until the enormous rocking motion subsided. Far away he could hear the screams of sea gulls.

  Some Somali fishermen in a boat found him two days later. By then the floating island had broken apart into small chunks, getting steadily smaller as waves washed it, fish nibbled at it, and sea birds by the thousands pecked away at it. Paul was rowing in water, very sunburned and very thirsty.

  The Somalis were delighted to find he was black. They gave him a drink and took him ashore to their village and made much of him. He rested a day, eating, replacing body fluid, and sampling the willing Somali maidens. Then, regretfully, he hitched his way to Mogadiscio and the United States Consul, where he talked his way aboard the next flight to London.

  Chapter 10

  All the prizes were going to the Banes. "I think it's rigged," Skytop said.

  The Baroness looked out across the grassy field toward the roped area where the contenders were warming up for the various events. The caber tossers and hammer throwers, brawny young men wearing kilts and little else, were flexing their muscles and showing off. Dancers were practicing the steps of the Highland fling. Bagpipers were tuning up and running up and down the scales.

  "They've got a reputation for cheating," she said, "but the judges are watching them pretty closely."

  She was resplendent in a red-green plaid pants suit that had been exquisitely tailored for her by de la Renta. The jacket was worn open to show a tight-bodiced vest with a ruffled white shirt spilling profusely over its front. The slacks, precisely molded to her hips and behind, would have fit no one else in the known universe.

  "There was something funny about the bagpipe preliminaries, though," Sumo said, "when the leading contender came up with a bag full of holes."

  Skytop and Sumo had come up from London the night before. Sumo had had trouble getting a room at the inn until he made it clear that he was not a part of the Japanese expedition hunting the Crombie Loch monster.

  "Something about the treacle," the Baroness said, laughing. "They pour it into the bag as a preservative, to keep it airtight. He claimed someone had tampered with his treacle."

  "But he couldn't prove anything, right?" Skytop rumbled.

  "Right," she said. "So Sawney MacCaig won again this year."

  "And what about the hammer thrower whose head flew off? He almost brained a judge. So another Bane moved up to first place."

  "The Banes play dirty," the Baroness said. "They can afford to. They've got a certified saint at the head of the clan. He never notices a thing."

  She gestured to where Sir Angus sat on a raised platform at the end of the field. He was greeting an endless procession of visitors who had come to Crombie for the games. It was the time of the Highlands Gatherings all through Scotland, and the festivities at Crombie had a reputation for being among the most colorful.

  Thousands of people were wandering over the grass and swarming up and down the rocky hillside that served as the tiers of a natural amphitheater. Tents for refreshments had been set up in the meadow. Wooden platforms had been constructed for the dancers and pipers. Tourists from Canada and the United States, many of them wearing the ancestral kilts, roamed about with cameras.

  "I can't stand cheats," Skytop growled. "Somebody ought to teach 'em a lesson."

  The Baroness bit her lip thoughtfully. "Maybe someone should, Joseph. Wait here." She strode purposefully off, her rear swaying enchantingly in the plaid slacks.

  "What's she up to?" Skytop said.

  Sumo grinned hugely. "Whatever it is, I think we're going to enjoy it."

  Sitting on the platform with the judges, Sir Angus looked up as the Baroness swung herself over the railing. He looked like a Roman emperor, with his hawklike features and white hair and the imperial drape of plaid pinned over his shoulder.

  "Ah, Baroness, a gude morning to you," he said. His Scottish burr had become noticeably more prominent in the company of the judges. "And how are you enjoying the games?"

  "Very nice," she said. "A bit one-sided, though."

  He beamed at her. "Yes, the Banes are having a bit of luck this year."

  "Can anyone enter?"

  "Weel…"

  One of the judges spoke up. "O' course, if he's qualified."

  She turned a blinding smile on the seated judges. "I have a visitor from the States," she said. "He'd simply love to try his hand at tossing the caber."

  The judge nodded. "Aye, that'll be coming up next. But it's no sport for a novice."

  Another judge leaned forward. "Sir Angus' man, Fergus, is the man will win that one. He's the favorite. There's no one else comes near him."

  "Not since young Andrew had that accident last night," the first judge said.

  "There's a great deal of money riding on Fergus," one of the others said. "The entire Bane clan is betting on him."

  "Oh, my man would like to try just for the fun of it," Penelope said sweetly. "And perhaps I'll place a small token bet on him just to be sporting."

  "It's throwing your money away, lass," the first judge said.

  Sir Angus cleared his throat. "And how much were you thinking of wagering?" he said.

  She gave him a wide, unblinking look. "Oh, about ten thousan
d pounds."

  One of the judges choked. Another went pale.

  "I'll cover you," Sir Angus said.

  "Be fair, Angus," a judge said. "Give her odds."

  Sir Angus nodded. "Aye. Two to one, then."

  "A hundred to one is more like it," the judge said.

  Penelope smiled. "Two to one is fine."

  "And what clan will your man be representing?"

  She looked over to where Skytop was standing with Sumo. "The Clan Cherokee," she said.

  A half-hour later, she was with Skytop in a cleared area at the end of the field. They were surrounded by a buzzing crowd that was staring at Skytop in unbelieving wonderment.

  He'd borrowed a kilt somewhere. His legs extended like mahogany columns from under the pleats, ending incongruously in cowboy boots. He was bare above the waist, his great chest a bulging barrel with pectoral muscles like huge slabs. His hands were like small tree stumps with gnarled thick roots for fingers.

  "Let me get this straight," Skytop said. "I pick up that tree over there and pitch it into the air. It's got to come down on the other end and fall, making a three-quarters turn."

  "Can you do it, Joseph?"

  He grinned with relish. "Did I ever tell you about the time I tossed a steel beam at a phony developer who was trying to rip off some Cherokee land? Went through his windshield and out the trunk."

  Some of the local lads were trying to pick up Skytop's caber. It was the size of a telephone pole, a tree trunk stripped of branches and shaved at one end with an axe. They huffed and heaved, but the best that any of them was able to do was to lift one end a few inches off the ground.

  "They've given you a bigger tree than they gave Fergus," Sumo said.

  "Sir Angus has about fifty thousand dollars riding on Fergus," the Baroness said. "We're lucky they didn't give him a twig."