by D. F. Jones
That was a new idea to me.
In the Navy it is all go, and it seemed that I’d hardly shut my eyes when someone was shaking me. I woke up, sat up, and banged my skull on the deckhead. I swore and clambered gingerly out. The movement was more lively now, and the racket from the propellers was deafening. It was eight-thirty. My guide waited while I dressed, which meant I put my shoes on, then led me back through the labyrinthine, brightly lit bowels of the ship to the bridge.
It was an uninviting morning, gray sky, a brisk wind throwing plenty of spray around as we plunged into the rising sea.
The captain was sitting in a high chair clamped to the deck. He nodded and handed me another dispatch.
DOCTOR GRANT IS TO BE TRANSHIPPED BY YOUR HELO TO TUSCARORA AS SOON AS PRACTICABLE
“Jesus!” I said with considerable feeling. “They’re really pushing me around!”
I got a brief, cold smile. “You certainly seem to be highly regarded, Doctor.” He cast a quick glance at the heaving green-gray sea. “We’ll fly you off quite soon. You’ll get there a lot quicker. We’ve established contact with the Tuscarora. We’ll have to winch you down to her.” He took the prospect very calmly.
“Now look, Captain! I’m getting pretty tired of all this! I’m a civilian—I don’t see—”
“Neither do I, Doctor. All I know is that a large and expensive destroyer with a tight schedule is diverted to ferry one man. You may not like it, but right now this ship, all four thousand tons of her, and three hundred men, is way off track to transport you! I don’t like it either, but we both have to do as we are told.” He turned away, and dismissed me from his mind. “Take Doctor Grant down to the wardroom for breakfast.”
Halfway through the meal I was brought another teletype. I was beginning to dislike those bits of paper.
CONFIDENTIAL PERSONAL FOR GRANT FROM SUFFREN STOP AERIAL SURVEY REPORTS EXTENSION OF LEAK STOP STUDY AND REPORT SITUATION DAILY FOR WEEK OR MORE IF YOU CONSIDER DESIRABLE STOP FULL FACILITIES IN SHIP FOR YOU SONAR SOUNDER ETC CODEWORD SARAH ALL REPORTS CONFIDENTIAL GOOD LUCK SUFFREN
I stared at that “if you consider desirable.” A sop to my vanity? Not that it was much help; frankly, I was too busy being terrified at the idea of dangling on a wire from that helo. I read the message again. Crazy name, SARAH! Suddenly I hated everything and everybody. Suffren, the captain, even Bette, but most of all Suffren. All right for them, I was the Joe…. The destroyer rolled a little more, a plate slid and smashed, the weather was not getting any better. I finished my breakfast—it was practically my only consolation that I am a good sailor—and sank into an armchair and tried to think scientifically of SARAH, but without notable success; my mind kept reverting to that damned helo.
“Doctor Grant?” A big, cheery lieutenant sat down beside me. “My name’s Fiedler. Among other things, I’m aircraft safety officer. Ever flown in a chopper?”
I shook my head.
“Nothing to it!” he confided with suspicious heartiness. “But the USN has regulations—oh boy, do we have regulations!”
He got no sympathy from me.
He pressed on. “We’ll fix you up with all the gear—you know,” he said enticingly, “survival suit, lifebelt, dinghy pack, but you have to know the drill—what to do when you ditch—”
“What d’you mean, when?”
“Okay,” he said easily, “if she goes down. First thing is, don’t panic. The crewman will have the door open. Let her settle—you’ll do no good trying to get out with half the Pacific getting in. Just wait; when the first rush of water stops, break loose from your harness—I’ll show you that— and get out. Simple! Watch out for the rotor blades, inflate your lifebelt, and when clear, your dinghy. Stay near the helo—Okay?”
I found my voice at last. “You make this sound like a daily event!”
“Hell, no! We ain’t lost a chopper yet—not from this ship, anyway.” He gave me a big, wide grin.
I could have hit him—in theory.
“Come along to the aircrew ready room,” he made it sound like a night club, “in half an hour, and I’ll fix you up. Bring your grip. Don’t want to keep the old man waiting when he decides to launch.”
“You mean I’m going that soon?” My heart was pumping hard.
“Around an hour’s time, I guess.” He heaved his bulk out of the chair, gave me a final grin. “See you!”
A half hour later I was in the ready room, and met my pilot, which did me no good. He looked every bit of nineteen, going on nineteen-and-a-half.
“Hi!”
I tried a sickly grin. My big pal was there, and in ten minutes I was dressed fit to land on the moon. Thick survival suit, boots, helmet with visor, throat microphone, more zips and cords than I imagined possible and then I was loaded with a lifebelt with air bottle, a dinghy pack also with air bottle and God knows what else. I began to see where the taxes went. The instructions went on and on. Finally my chum said with great carelessness, “Got all that, Doc?”
I could only nod miserably.
“Fine—well, just sign this, willya?” A long form appeared by magic. “Pure formality. Just says you acknowledge you’ve been instructed in survival drill. Regulations— you know.”
I signed.
“How long will it take?” I didn’t care if they did see I was scared. I was a geologist, not a professional hero.
“ ’Bout hundred and fifty miles. Bit under two hours with this wind—assuming we find the Tuscarora straight off, which is unlikely, with Ed here navigating!” The pilot poked a playful elbow in the ribs of a hitherto silent figure, also engrossed in the chart. He looked up, and my overworked heart took a deeper dip. Another high school face.
Navy helo’s do not take off straight up. They lift off a few feet, heel about sixty degrees, and shoot off sideways. Strapped firmly to my seat, I caught a momentary glimpse of the destroyer’s deck where the horizon should have been and after one tight turn we set off. We climbed, wave motion ceased, and the swell congealed.
My state of mind was not improved by the clipped, laconic chat on the intercom. I tried to block it out, and found myself rehearsing the ditching drill, one hand gripping the quick release clasp on my harness. Somehow, time passed…. After an age, I heard the welcome voice of the operator in the Tuscarora calling us, reassuringly loud. The pilot answered, and we began to let down. Below, the slight overcast was thickening.
“Remain on your present heading. Let down to five hundred. Pay strict attention to my orders.” The voice was harsh, metallic. “You are not repeat not to get northwest of me.” The voice softened to the grimly facetious. “Not if you want to stay in business.”
“Roger.” We were in, then through the overcast. The pilot spoke on the intercom. “What’s so tough about that sector, Ed?”
“It looks mighty thick that way,” answered Ed. There was a pause, then, “Ker-ist! What the hell’s that?”
The shocked young voice did me no good at all. The pilot did not reply for a moment, then he spoke to me.
“Doc, I’ll weave right. Take a look out of your left-hand window.”
I leaned across as the machine changed course. Beads of moisture flicked across the glass. Held by my harness, I only got a glimpse, but that was enough.
Mist obscured much, but ten, maybe twelve miles off I had a fleeting vision of concentric rings of waves spreading out from a hidden center, and from that rose a column, white to pearly-gray. There was no time for more; I was left with an impression of vast size, SARAH had grown up, I gulped, my mind staggered; I even forgot about my impending departure from the helo. We turned back on course.
“Waddya make of that, Doc?” The pilot really wanted to know.
I gulped again. “Didn’t see much, but I sure agree with the Tuscarora!—stay clear!”
Suddenly we were a lot lower, the waves were moving again, the crewman moved across and sat on the floor, his legs dangling casually in space.
“This is it, Doc. Unplug your intercom
jack, get out of your seat harness and the dinghy pack, and get down beside the crewman—he’ll see you down, don’t worry. Good luck with your baby!”
I managed to croak my thanks. The crewman grinned at me, and passed a padded loop under my armpits. He lifted the edge of my helmet and shouted in my ear. “Hold the wire, keep your feet together. It’s a bit windy—I’ll come down with you to steady you!”
Things happened fast and I had no time to get extra scared. The Tuscarora suddenly slid sideways underneath us, and forty feet below. A bang on the shoulder, I took a deep breath and stepped off into space, and hung, rotating slowly. The crewman negligently stepped off, holding the wire above my head, wrapping his legs round my waist, and down we went. The noise was colossal, the scream of the engines, the vicious whistling of the rotors combined to block any idea of what conditions were like below. Then we were hanging six feet above the deck, and the deck was heaving. With great skill the pilot got into step with the rise and fall of the ship’s stern, my feet touched the deck, instantly the wire slackened. Feverishly I scrambled out of my suit, tumbling it all into a bag held by a seaman. The crewman had been up for my grip, and we exchanged bags. He gave me a boyish grin, slipped one foot into the loop, waved, and was whisked up, the machine climbing at the same time. High school kids! Mentally, I apologized.
I turned, grappled with new problems, faces. I was cold, shoeless, and the wind was strong, the motion lively. An oil-skinned figure led me below where I dug out my shoes. “The captain would like to see you.”
This one was different. Short, tubby and I felt, the life and soul of a party ashore. Just now, in his cabin, he did not look excessively happy. His face, wind-tanned up to the forehead, was set and businesslike.
“Sit down, Doctor.” People dropping out of the sky was everyday stuff to him. “Did you see SARAH?”
“I had a glimpse.”
“Let me lay it out for you. This is a Coast Guard cutter. We were heading for ’Frisco, and I get ordered here. Later there is a dispatch saying you are coming and that you are to be afforded all facilities.” He thought about that for a while, then went on, “This is a high endurance ship, Doctor. We can stay at sea for forty days. Right now we’re on Day Ten; how long we stay out is up to you.” He tried to keep surprise out of his voice. “So what goes from here on in is your problem, except that you must clearly understand I will not hazard my ship, and that if we get eyeball to eyeball, I win. Okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “Now let me tell you my situation, Captain.” And I did. He mellowed considerably, and ordered coffee.
“What d’you want to do, Doctor?”
“I guess the first thing is to take a look—get a general picture.” Events had gone too fast for me to digest my glimpse of SARAH. I needed time.
“Right.” For the first time he grinned. “I don’t envy you your assignment, Doctor Grant. Navy and Coast Guard, I’ve been pounding the sea for thirty years, but I’ve never seen anything like this!”
Chapter 3
I gulped my coffee, got some life back in my frozen feet, and followed the captain to the bridge. He gave a brief order, and slowly we swung round, rolling, and headed toward SARAH.
For a long, long time I stared in completely unscientific awe and amazement. My airborne glimpse had been no preparation for this.
From the mist-shrouded center rose a column which I estimated to be between six and seven hundred feet high and at least fifty feet in diameter. From the invisible base, with its plinth of. rolling mist, radiated the waves, six to eight feet high, waves that spread outward with uncanny regularity. The top of the column disappeared into the thin overcast, the whole brightly luminous in the sun. Slowly we edged toward the center, rolling heavily, and I became conscious of something else.
In the enclosed bridge, with its background noise of engines, fans, and all the rest, there was a new sound. It must have been there all the time. Maybe I was still recovering from the helo noise, but however it was, now I heard it.
The captain took my arm. “Come out on the wing of the bridge.” Out there, it really hit me.
I can only liken it to a waterfall, yet the sound was deeper, more menacing. More than anything else, that sound conveyed a sense of SARAH’s enormous, elemental power.
I clung to the bridge rail and stared fascinated as we plunged and rolled, broadside on in the unnatural, regular waves. The sheer spectacle almost mesmerized me. Finally I got a grasp on myself, aware that I was expected to do something. Me! A puny human, utterly helpless, yet instrumental in releasing this fantastic genie from his deep-buried bottle … a genie twice as tall as a Saturn/Apollo rocket….
I nodded at the captain and headed back to the relative quiet of the wheelhouse.
“Any cameras aboard?”
“Sure! Two or three of the crew have taken movies already.”
“Fine!” I tried to appear confident. “I’d be glad if all the film and stills could be loaned to me, and as soon as possible, I’d appreciate it if the photographers made a note of the time and date they took their pictures.”
“I’ll fix that.” The captain was listening, but I noticed that most of the time he had his eyes firmly stuck on SARAH.
“And could you fix for a couple of the better photographers to take more shots and movies at regular intervals— say every four hours—noting our position, relative to SARAH?” I was warming up. “Does the radar pick it up?”
“Take a look,” he said simply.
The trace swept swiftly round and round, a thin pencil of green light on the scan. The captain changed the range scale and pointed. “There.”
As the trace moved over the spot he indicated, a faint, luminous blob appeared, fading almost to nothing before the scanner came round again.
“It’s not much of a signal,” the captain said. “We reckon this response is from the broken water at the center— there’s mighty little from the gas itself.”
“I’m no expert,” I said, very truthfully, “but I have to make sure we’re getting all there is out of that picture—I don’t expect you intend going much closer.”
“That is so, Doctor,” he said dryly. “What more do you expect to get from the radar?”
“Well, maybe we can get a better idea of the diameter. Maybe there is some unusual feature—”
“Jesus Christ! The whole goddam thing—” The captain broke off, angry. I realized he was, if not scared, deeply uneasy. I passed up on that.
“This is the largest scale?”
“It’s the shortest, yes.” He glanced at the scan. “And I’m not going closer.” His gaze reverted to SARAH.
“Look at that blob again, captain. I know all this is way out of anyone’s experience, but do you have any ideas about it? For instance, it seems to me that the periphery of the blob is brighter than the center.”
He reluctantly shifted to the scan. “Yes,” he admitted, “it sure is!” He looked up and barked at a lookout, “Pass the word for Grimaldi!” He explained, “He’s our radar king, and has seen as much as any of us. There’s something—”
“What?”
He shook his head. “No—I’d rather have Grimaldi’s opinion first. I could be wrong.” To settle the matter he turned away, and resumed his watch on SARAH.
Grimaldi was a bright-eyed, quick little man, dapper and clean—even for a sailor. “You want me, cap’n?”
“Yeah. Take a good look at the scan, Joe.”
Joe peered at the tube, played with a knob or two, raised his eyes to the white deckhead for inspiration, then returned to the scan.
“It’s changed, sir. I’d say the center is bigger than it was a coupla hours back—and we’re getting a better response from the edge, and less from the middle.”
“Yeah.” The captain nodded agreement.
“Do you have any ideas on that, Joe?” I asked.
He did not scratch his head; that would disarrange his hair, but he got close to it.
“Hard to say, but
I figure it this way; when I first saw it, we had a patch of broken water around thirty feet across. That would be twelve hours back. Right now, I’d say there is a ring of even more broken water, and that it’s fifty, mebbe sixty feet across—” He stopped.
I prodded gently. “Go on, Joe.”
“Well, I know it sounds kinda crazy, but it looks like there’s a hole in the middle, some of the time.”
The captain was nodding again.
“Thanks, Joe. I’d appreciate it if you’d write down your observations while they’re fresh in your mind—times, ranges, if you can remember them—and keep the log going. Okay, captain?”
“Sure! Okay, Joe.”
“Let’s take another look, captain.” Outside I had to raise my voice against the dull, deep-throated roar of SARAH. “If you and Joe are right, that jet has enough force to break clean through four thousand feet of water.” Even with the evidence, I could not believe it. Again I was fascinated. “Well, one thing’s for sure: it can’t go on.”
The captain’s eyes probed mine. “No?”
We hauled off five or six miles; the captain ordered a triangular track centered on SARAH and we began plugging around. Once under way, the rolling eased to reasonable proportions.
I had been assigned a trim and clean cabin in the bridge superstructure. One bright spot was my forethought in packing two bottles of bourbon. Navy ships are dry, and I had no great hopes for the USCG either. I was an unrepentant civilian; if they wanted to play battleships, that was up to them.
I poured myself a tot and stretched out on the bunk and tried to sort over my problems. Suffren had shown a fair amount of confidence in sending me, and the authorities must have been more than slightly upset to give a blank check to a civilian. On the other hand, what did that check amount to? Sending a destroyer a bit off course, a helo flight, and free board and lodging on a Coast Guard cutter —which would have to be there anyway. That was deflating; I tried another one. Why the secrecy? Could be that a boob like this would do the US image no good. There are plenty delighted to knock the US….