He paused again, then looked up. “Are there any questions?”
A dozen hands shot up. Glinn nodded to the closest man, a burly oiler wearing greasy overalls.
“So what is this meteorite?” the man boomed. There was an immediate murmur of assent.
“It will probably be a mass of nickel-iron weighing some ten thousand tons. An inert lump of metal.”
“What’s so important about it?”
“We believe it to be the largest meteorite ever discovered by man.”
More hands went up.
“What happens if we get caught?”
“What we are doing is one hundred percent legal,” Glinn replied.
A man in a blue uniform stood up, one of the ship’s electricians. “I don’t like it,” he said in a broad Yorkshire accent. He had a mass of red hair and an unruly beard.
Glinn waited politely.
“If the bloody Chileans catch us making off with their rock, anything could happen. If everything’s one hundred percent legal, why not just buy the bloody stone from them?”
Glinn looked at the man, his pale gray eyes unwavering. “May I ask your name?”
“It’s Lewis,” came the reply.
“Because, Mr. Lewis, it would be politically impossible for the Chileans to sell it to us. On the other hand, they don’t have the technological expertise to get it out of the ground and off the island, so it would just sit there, buried—probably forever. In America, it will be studied. It will be exhibited at a museum for all to see. It will be held in trust for mankind. This is not Chilean cultural patrimony. It could have fallen anywhere—even in Yorkshire.”
There was a brief laugh from Lewis’s mates. McFarlane was glad to see that Glinn seemed to be gaining their confidence with his straightforward talk.
“Sir,” said one slight man, a junior ship’s officer. “What about this dead man’s switch?”
“The dead man’s switch,” Glinn said smoothly, his voice steady, almost mesmerizing, “is a distant precaution. In the unlikely event that the meteorite comes loose from its cradle—in a huge storm, say—it is merely a way for us to lighten our ballast by releasing it into the ocean. It’s no different from the nineteenth-century mariners who had to throw their cargo overboard in severe weather. But the chances of having to jettison it are vanishingly small. The idea is to protect the ship and the crew above all, even at the expense of losing the meteorite.”
“So how do you throw this switch?” another shouted out.
“I know the key. So does my chief engineer, Eugene Rochefort, and my construction manager, Manuel Garza.”
“What about the captain?”
“It was felt advisable to leave that option in the hands of EES personnel,” said Glinn. “It is, after all, our meteorite.”
“But it’s our bloody ship!”
The murmuring of the crew rose above the sound of the wind and the deep thrum of the engines. McFarlane glanced up at Captain Britton. She was standing behind Glinn, arms at her sides, stony-faced.
“The captain has agreed to this unusual arrangement. We built the dead man’s switch, and we know how to operate it. In the unlikely event that it is used, it must be done with great care, with precise timing, by those who are trained for it. Otherwise, the ship could sink with the rock.” He looked around. “Any more questions?”
There was a restless silence.
“I realize this is not a normal voyage,” Glinn went on. “Some uncertainty—even anxiety—is natural. As with any sea journey, there are risks involved. I told you what we are doing is completely legal. However, I would be deluding you if I said the Chileans would feel the same way. These are the reasons each of you will receive a fifty-thousand-dollar bonus if we are successful.”
There was a collective gasp from the crew, and an eruption of talk. Glinn held up his hand and silence again descended.
“If anyone feels uneasy about this expedition, you are free to go. We will arrange passage back to New York, with compensation.” He looked pointedly at Lewis, the electrician.
The man stared back, then broke into a broad grin. “You sold me, mate.”
“We all have much to do,” Glinn said, addressing the group. “If you have anything else to add—or anything else to ask—do so now.”
His eyes ranged enquiringly over them. Then, seeing the silence was absolute, he nodded, turned, and made his way back along the catwalk.
Rolvaag,
4:20 P.M.
THE CREW had broken up into small groups, talking quietly among themselves as they began to move back toward their stations. A sudden breeze tugged at McFarlane’s windbreaker. As he turned toward the shelter of the ship, he saw Amira. She was standing by the starboard railing, still talking to the group of deckhands. She made some comment, and the small knot around her suddenly erupted into laughter.
McFarlane made his way to the officers’ dayroom. Like most of the other ship’s compartments he had seen, it was large and expensively, if sparsely, appointed. But it housed one great attraction for him: a coffeepot that was never empty. He poured himself a cup and sipped at it with a contented sigh.
“Some cream with that?” came a woman’s voice from behind him. He turned to see Captain Britton. She closed the door to the dayroom, then walked toward him with a smile. The wind had loosened the severe braid of hair beneath her officer’s hat, and a few errant strands hung down, framing a long and elegant neck.
“No thanks, I prefer it black.” McFarlane watched as Britton helped herself to a cup, adding a single teaspoon of sugar. They sipped together in silence for a moment.
“I have to ask you,” McFarlane said, more to make conversation than anything else. “This pot always seems to be full. And it always tastes perfectly fresh. Just how do you achieve that miracle?”
“It’s no miracle. The stewards bring a new pot every thirty minutes, needed or not. Forty-eight pots a day.”
McFarlane shook his head. “Remarkable,” he said. “But then, it’s a remarkable ship.”
Captain Britton took another sip of coffee. “Care for a tour?” she asked.
McFarlane looked at her. Surely the master of the Rolvaag had better things to do. Still, it would be a nice break. Life on board ship had quickly settled into a routine. He took a final swig of coffee and set down the cup. “Sounds great,” he said. “I’ve been wondering what kind of secrets are hiding inside this big old hull.”
“Not many secrets,” Britton said, opening the door to the dayroom and ushering him out into the wide hallway. “Just lots and lots of places to put oil.”
The door to the maindeck opened and the slight figure of Rachel Amira appeared. Seeing them, she paused. Britton gave her a cool nod, then turned away and started down the corridor. As they rounded the corner, McFarlane glanced backward. Amira was still watching them, a smirk on her lips.
Opening a huge set of double doors, Britton led him into the ship’s galley. Here, Mr. Singh held sway over stewards, assistant chefs, and banks of gleaming ovens. There were massive walk-in freezers, full of sides of lamb, beef, chickens, ducks, and a row of red-and-white-marbled carcasses McFarlane thought must be goats. “You’ve got enough to feed an army here,” he said.
“Mr. Singh would probably say you scientists eat like one.” Britton smiled. “Come on, let’s leave him to it.”
They passed the billiards room and swimming pool, then descended a level, where Britton showed him the crew’s game room and mess. Down another staircase and they arrived at the crew’s quarters: large rooms with individual baths, sandwiched between galleries that ran up the port and starboard sides of the ship. They paused at the end of the port passageway. Here, the noise of the engine was noticeably louder. The corridor seemed to stretch forward forever, portholes on the left, cabin doors on the right.
“Everything’s built to a giant’s scale,” McFarlane said. “And it’s so empty.”
Britton laughed. “Visitors always say that. The fact is, the shi
p’s basically run by computers. We navigate by geophysical satellite data, course is maintained automatically, even collision detection is monitored electronically. Thirty years ago, ship’s electrician was a lowly position. Now, electronics specialists are critical.”
“It’s all very impressive.” McFarlane turned toward Britton. “Don’t get me wrong, but I’ve always wondered why Glinn chose a tanker for this job. Why go to the trouble of disguising a tanker as an ore carrier? Why not just get a dry bulk carrier to begin with? Or a big container ship? God knows it would have been cheaper.”
“I think I can explain that. Follow me.”
Britton opened a door and ushered McFarlane forward. The carpeting and wood veneer gave way to stamped metal and linoleum. They descended yet another set of stairs to a door labeled CARGO CONTROL ROOM. The room beyond was dominated by a vast electronic schematic of the ship’s main-deck, mounted on the far bulkhead. Countless small points of light blinked red and yellow across its surface.
“This is the ship’s mimic diagram,” Britton said, motioning McFarlane toward the schematic. “It’s the way we keep track of how and where cargo is loaded. We control the ballast, pumps, and cargo valves directly from the mimic area.” She pointed to a series of gauges and switches arrayed beneath the diagram. “These controls regulate the pump pressures.”
She led the way across the room, where an officer watched an array of computer screens. “This computer calculates cargo distribution. And these computers are the ship’s automatic gauging system. They monitor pressure, volume, and temperature throughout the ship’s tanks.”
She patted the beige case of the nearest monitor. “This is why Glinn chose a tanker. This meteorite of yours is heavy. Loading it will be exceedingly tricky. With our tanks and computers, we can shift seawater ballast around from tank to tank, maintaining even trim and list no matter what weird lopsided thing goes inside. We can keep everything level. I don’t think anybody would be happy if we turned belly-up the moment you drop that thing in the tank.”
Britton moved to the far side of the ballast control equipment. “Speaking of the computers, do you have any idea what this is?” She pointed to a tall, freestanding tower of black steel, featureless except for a keyhole and a small logo reading SECURE DATAMETRICS. It looked very different from the rest of the ship’s electronics. “Glinn’s people installed it back in Elizabeth. There’s another, smaller one like it, up on the bridge. None of my officers can figure out what the thing does.”
McFarlane ran a curious hand over its beveled front. “No idea. Could it have something to do with the dead man’s switch?”
“That’s what I assumed at first.” She led him out of the room and along the metal-floored corridor to a waiting elevator. “But it seems to be tied in to more than one of the ship’s key systems.”
“Would you like me to ask Glinn?”
“No, don’t bother. I’ll ask him sometime myself. But here I am, going on and on about the Rolvaag,” she said, punching an elevator button. “I’m curious how exactly one becomes a meteorite hunter.”
McFarlane looked at her as the elevator began to sink. She was a very poised woman; her shoulders were straight, her chin held high. But it was not a military kind of stiffness; rather, he thought, it was a kind of quiet pride. She knew he was a meteorite hunter: he wondered if she knew about Masangkay and the Tornarssuk meteorite fiasco. You and I have a lot in common, he thought. He could only imagine how tough it must have been for her to put on a uniform again and walk a bridge, wondering what people were saying behind her back.
“I got caught in a meteorite shower in Mexico.”
“Incredible. And you survived.”
“Only once in recorded history has a meteorite ever struck anyone,” McFarlane said. “A woman with a history of hypochondria, lying in bed. The rock had been slowed by going through the upper stories of her house, so it only made a massive bruise. Sure got her out of bed, though.”
Britton laughed: a lovely sound.
“So I went back to school and became a planetary geologist. But I was never very good at playing the sober scientist.”
“What does a planetary geologist study?”
“A long list of boring subjects, before you get to the really good stuff. Geology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, calculus.”
“Sounds more interesting than studying for a master’s license. And the good stuff?”
“My high point was getting to study a Martian meteorite in graduate school. I was looking at the effect of cosmic rays on its chemical composition—trying to find a way to date it, basically.”
The elevator door opened and they stepped out. “A real Martian rock,” Britton said, opening a door and stepping out into yet another endless corridor.
McFarlane shrugged. “I liked finding meteorites. It was a bit like treasure hunting. And I liked studying meteorites. But I didn’t like rubbing elbows at faculty sherry hour, or going to conferences and chatting with rock jocks about collisional ejection and cratering mechanics. I guess the feeling was mutual. Anyway, my academic career lasted all of five years. Got denied tenure. I’ve been on my own ever since.”
He held his breath, thinking of his ex-partner, realizing this was a poor choice of words. But the captain did not pursue it, and the moment passed.
“All I know about meteorites is that they’re rocks that fall out of the sky,” Britton said. “Where do they come from? Other than Mars, of course.”
“Martian meteorites are extremely rare. Most of them are chunks of rock from the inner asteroid belt. Small bits and pieces from planets that broke up soon after the formation of the solar system.”
“The thing you’re after isn’t exactly small.”
“Well, most of them are small. But it doesn’t take a whole lot to make a big impact. The Tunguska meteorite, which hit Siberia in 1908, had an impact energy equal to a ten-megaton hydrogen bomb.”
“Ten megatons?”
“And that’s small potatoes. Some meteoroids hit the earth with a kinetic energy greater than one hundred million megatons. That’s the kind of blast that tends to end an entire geologic age, kill off the dinosaurs, and generally ruin everybody’s day.”
“Jesus.” Britton shook her head.
He laughed dryly. “Don’t worry. They’re pretty rare. One every hundred million years.”
They had worked their way through another maze of corridors. McFarlane felt hopelessly lost.
“Are all meteorites the same?”
“No, no. But most of the ones that hit the earth are ordinary chondrites.”
“Chondrites?”
“Basically, old gray stones. Pretty boring.” McFarlane hesitated. “There are the nickel-iron types—probably like the one we’re snagging. But the most interesting type is called CI chondrites.” He stopped.
Britton glanced over at him.
“It’s hard to explain. It might be boring for you.” McFarlane remembered, more than once, putting a glaze over everyone’s eyes at a dinner party in his younger, enthusiastic, innocent years.
“I’m the one that studied celestial navigation. Try me.”
“Well, CI chondrites are clumped directly out of the pure, unadulterated dust cloud the solar system formed from. Which makes them very interesting. They contain clues to how the solar system formed. They’re also very old. Older than the Earth.”
“And how old is that?”
“Four and a half billion years.” He noticed a genuine interest shining in her eyes.
“Amazing.”
“And it’s been theorized that there’s a type of meteorite even more incredible—”
McFarlane fell silent abruptly, checking himself. He did not want the old obsession to return; not now. He walked on in the sudden stillness, aware of Britton’s curious gaze.
The corridor ended in a dogged hatch. Undogging the cleats, Britton pulled it open. A wall of sound flew out at them: the huge roar of endless horsepower. McFarlane followed the
captain out onto a narrow catwalk. About fifty feet below, he could see two enormous turbines roaring in tandem. The huge space seemed completely deserted; apparently it, too, was run by computer. He gripped a metal pole for support, and it vibrated wildly in his hand.
Britton looked at him with a small smile as they continued along the catwalk. “The Rolvaag is driven by steam boilers, not diesel motors like other ships,” she said, raising her voice over the roar. “We do have an emergency diesel for electricity, though. On a modern ship like this, you can’t afford to lose power. Because if you do, you’ve got nothing: no computers, no navigation, no fire-fighting equipment. You’re a drifting hulk. We call it DIW: dead in the water.”
They passed through another heavy door at the forward end of the engine space. Britton dogged it shut, then led the way down a hallway that ended at a closed elevator door. McFarlane followed, grateful for the quiet.
The captain stopped at the elevator, looking back at him calculatingly. Suddenly, he realized she had more on her mind than a tour of the jolly old Rolvaag.
“Mr. Glinn gave a good talk,” Britton said at last.
“I’m glad you think so.”
“Crews can be a superstitious lot, you know. It’s amazing how fast rumor and speculation can turn into fact belowdecks. I think that talk went a long way toward squelching any rumors.”
There was another brief pause. Then she spoke again.
“I have the feeling Mr. Glinn knows a lot more than he said. Actually, no—that isn’t the right way to put it. I think maybe he knows less than he let on.” She glanced sidelong at McFarlane. “Isn’t that right?”
McFarlane hesitated. He didn’t know what Lloyd or Glinn had told the captain—or, more to the point, what they had withheld. Nevertheless, he felt that the more she knew, the better off the ship would be. He felt a sense of kinship with her. They’d both made big mistakes. They’d both been dragged behind the motorcycle of life a little longer than the average Joe. In his gut, he trusted Sally Britton.
The Ice Limit Page 10