by John Rankine
Lined up along the face, they pushed with their palms flat. The slab trembled and moved. Seconds later it had retracted into the roof. Ahead was the quayside of a second dock with the glint of seawater in it and a few scattered wall lights to show them what it was all about.
On the quayside, a long row of torpedolike submersibles lay on a gravity conveyor, ready to be pushed down for launching into the pool. Carter climbed on the conveyor and settled himself astride one of the craft. There was provision for two operators, each with a back rest and a small console set in the deck. He checked around, throwing switches. There was no joy; the machinery was dead.
Karl said, ‘Wait,’ and went over to an equipment bay set in the quay wall. He returned with a massive brace and shoved a spade-shaped bit into a slot in the decking, forward of the leading seat. A couple of turns and he lifted off a metre-long section of the deck itself.
Bergman whistled as he looked inside. ‘Very compact. Very neat indeed. A good piece of design, that. Do you see that, John? Not unlike the strike craft we developed for Western Naval Intelligence. We had the problem of finding a power source that could not be picked up by sonar probes.’
Koenig thumped the cowling. ‘No use to us, unless we know what made them tick. What about it, Karl? Did you ever have one mobile?’
Karl seemed to be debating how far he should go. Finally, he must have decided that having brought the Alphans this far, there was no point in being evasive at the last. He returned to the bay and brought out a grey canister. He said, ‘My brother is the specialist. He reckoned it was a type of rocket propulsion. As you see, there’s a cradle to take one of these.’
It took Bergman ten minutes to sort out the angles. Meantime, Koenig had rooted about in a second equipment bay and came out with a set of skin-diving gear. His nebulous idea of a foray against Caster was crystallising out into a hard-edged plan. He asked, ‘Did I hear right? Is there a pool on the ground floor?’
Karl said, ‘Surely. We use it all the time. It’s been the best way to keep in shape.’
‘Could we get a couple of these gizmos upstairs for a trial?’
‘No problem.’
‘Just supposing we make them work, how do we get out of here into the estuary?’
‘There’s an exit lock. That works for sure. There was a time when some of the youngsters had an aqualung club. But the tides are tricky. There was an accident and two were drowned. The council, in their wisdom, closed them up. Rhoda was in it, as I recall.’
Bergman and Carter had fixed the canister in place and connected some valve gear. Carter tried the console again. There was a muted thud as he hit an ignition sequence. Telltales glowed on the hooded console. They were in business.
It took an hour to transport two strike craft to the pool and there was a full set of off-duty Outfarers to watch Koenig and Carter in wet suits and flippers take them through their paces in the huge, indoor swimming bath. They were easy. Very flexible and responsive. By nightfall, Koenig reckoned he was ready for a sea trial.
He met with an ultimatum from the research team. Helena said, ‘As I see it, you need me along. I’m beginning to see how to go ahead on this neutralising business, but quantities would be critical and it would matter how and where it was introduced in the cycle. I’d have to see how they operate. Count me in, or I can’t guarantee any success.’
Rhoda said, ‘And me. You need a guide. I’ve been along the coast. As a practice, we could go along to where your Eagle came down.’
Koenig was not one to stand out against a logical argument. He said, ‘First light in the morning, then. We’ll get these craft refuelled and leave them ready on the quay.’ With his mind on load and a programme to work on, he was feeling more settled; but as he stood by Karl’s shattered observation window and looked out on the night sky of Megaron, he knew he was only going through the motions. He was first and last a spacefarer. His destiny was out there, where Earth’s moon was still a brilliant extra on the star map.
Helena Russell moved quietly behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘A penny for them.’
‘You’d be paying too much.’
‘I’m sorry, John.’
He turned to face her. ‘Sorry for what? What did I ever want except a place where we could start again? Now, if I were here and you were on Moonbase Alpha, you could be sorry for me.’
He was doing his best, but she knew him too well to be entirely deceived. ‘That’s a nice thing to say to me. But will you ever really be satisfied with what we have here?’
‘What is happiness, Helena? I know enough to be sure that nobody can define the terms and say that when such and such a thing is done, they will be happy. It has a knack of turning into dead sea fruit. I reckon it has to be a by-product of something else. If we work at it, here, we might find that it’s crept up on us unawares. And for me, at least, all the ingredients are on the site.’
She let it go at that. There was no point in persuading him that he ought to be miserable. They linked arms and walked slowly to their own quarters.
Rhoda proved her worth for a team place in the first half hour of the dummy run. She had a quick grasp of procedures and remembered, exactly, the sequences for operating the exit locks from the strike-craft pens. There was an intercom system, which had been used by the aqualung club, and she brought one of the ex-members along to stay on the quay to open up on the return leg. He was a man of her own age group, Melas, very dark and intense. As the two craft rode side by side at the entrance to the lock, he said, ‘Just in case anybody else is floating around out there, trying to get in, we should have a code word—“resurge,” it is. Give me a test call as soon as you get out into the channel.’
Koenig waved Carter to move forward. There was room for both craft to lie in line astern in the narrow chamber. The gate closed behind them. Lamps on their helmets lit the surface, which churned white as water jetted in from a hidden sluice. Following the manual, they cleared pressure by thumping hard against a closed nose. Then the outer gate began to lift and Carter, with Rhoda riding pillion, edged forward into four metre’s depth of clear water lit by open sky above.
As they fed in power and moved slowly ahead, Koenig called, ‘Resurge. Do you read me?’
Melas answered, ‘Loud and clear, Commander.’
‘We are moving out into the channel. Stand by.’
‘Check, Commander.’
Koenig took his strike craft ahead of Carter’s and held course for a hundred metres, keeping his distance from a sloping seabed of pale brown sand. Overhead, the sea surface was still as a sheet of ridged Duralumin foil.
Helena Russell, plugged in on a communications link through the two consoles, spoke intimately into Koenig’s ear. ‘Water temperature’s no problem, John. We could stay in this all day.’
‘I’d like to know what can be seen from the surface, turbulence or air trail.’ He switched to the general net to bring in Carter. ‘Alan?’
‘Commander?’
‘I’m going up. Checking on how you look from above. Just slow ahead and I’ll rejoin.’
‘Check. In water this clear, we’ll need more depth to be hidden from air survey.’
‘True. But the sea’s a big place. They’d have to know where to look.’
Koenig broke through the luminous skin of the sea and the sun was a tangible warmth on their heads and shoulders. They were further out from the coast than they expected and from zero level, there was only a limited horizon. The agunt thumb of the tower block dominated the low-lying tip of the peninsula. Only the higher crests of the sand dunes could be seen. A broad belt of trees succeeded the dunes, the remnant of the forest which had once covered the whole area and was slowly winning its way back.
Below them, Carter’s craft was a moving shadow, leaving no surface trace. There was no doubt about it. They had the transport side of the operation all buttoned up.
Koenig spent fifteen minutes on practice dives, then, with both craft on the surface
and out of sight of land, he went for a speed trial. Opened full out, the two craft tore away side by side. It was exhilarating, a kind of holiday treat. With an eye on the fuel gauge, he called a halt.
‘Hold it there, Alan. Slow ahead and pick up the course.’
Carter’s ‘Check’ was followed by a second transmission as his strike craft continued to tear away over the sea. ‘She’s not answering. Stuck on open throttle. I’ll circle.’
Koenig and Helena were hove to, rocking gently in the troughs as Carter made a long sweep round them. His voice sounded disgusted. ‘No joy, Commander. She won’t shut down. In fact, she’s building up more urge. The power needle’s over beyond “max.” We can run her out and then tow in or let her beach herself.’
Koenig was watching. It was true enough, the strike craft was pulling out more speed by the second. The nudge of a sixth sense alerted him. He said, ‘Alan, can you get clear? Get Rhoda away now. Then set a course for open sea and get clear yourself. We’ll pick you up. Do it now.’
They heard Rhoda say, ‘But I like it. Why do I have to get off?’
‘Because I say so. Stand up. Dive out to the rear but not right over the jets. Right?’
‘Say please.’
‘As God’s my witness, I’ll turn her out with you still sitting there. Get on with it.’
‘You’re a very hard man, Alan. I don’t know why I bother.’
They saw her haul herself to her feet, balance for a brief count and plunge clear. Carter was quicker. The strike craft came round in a turn as he altered course and he was on his feet and away before she had settled to the new line.
The two shipwrecked submariners hung on either side of Koenig’s strike craft, where grab handles had been provided by the designers. They were too low in the water to see the other streaking away for the horizon. But they could hear the explosion when she pulled a trick not on the maker’s manifest.
There was a percussive smack as though a sting ray had slapped down on the sea; a tall plume of water and spray flowered briefly and fell away. There was a single thread of black smoke tinged with a crimson flare and then it was all over. The sea was empty to the horizon. The strike craft had gone.
Alan Carter was no stranger to test runs with a risk surcharge, but he was aggrieved about this one. He said, ‘But I went through that panel with a tooth comb. There was nothing in the mechanism to do that. She was answering sweet as a nut on the trials.’
Koenig said, ‘That was last night. It stayed out on the quay until we picked them up this morning. I suppose any engineer could have fixed it to do that. Unless it’s a freak failure.’
Rhoda said indignantly, ‘What are you suggesting, Commander? My friends would not do that. Even supposing they would do it to you, they would not do it to me.’
Carter lifted himself out of the water to lean over the hull and pat her shiny head. ‘True, my flower, but there has to be some explaining done. There was a fail-safe relay on the power feed. Not only did the control fail to respond, but the relay failed to trip. What about this one, Commander?’
‘We’ll take it slowly. I don’t fancy swimming all the way.’
‘Do we still try to reach Eagle Seven?’
‘Not this trip. That water spout might bring company. Before we move off, all hands take a look at this craft. If we have a saboteur at work, he might have a second shot in his locker.’
The underside of the hull was a one-piece pressing with a line of shallow, circular depressions to give rigidity and strength. Lying on his back, Koenig finned slowly along its length. He was on a second trip before the pattern registered. The second hollow from the stern held a feature which had no practical purpose. Sited dead centre and looking innocent enough, there was a plate-sized disk. Intakes for the buoyancy tanks were amidships. Fuel recharge and maintenance hatches were on the deck head. He anchored himself to a lug, shone his helmet lamp on the disk and stared at it.
Seen close, it had two parts. The outer cover was set to a flange marked round the rim in fractions of a degree. There was an idented arrow on the rim of the cover and, unless it was a ripple in the water, it flipped a whole gradation as he watched. Three more intervals to go and there was a matching arrow incised on the rim.
Koenig said urgently, ‘Everybody move away. Keep together.’
Habits of obedience moved them off. Even Rhoda reacted to the tone without putting up an argument. He drew a flat-bladed knife from the belt of his diving suit and slid it along the hull under the rim of the device. There was a bubble of released air and before he could catch it, the disk was away, spinning and turning as it dropped through the clear water. He heaved himself into the saddle, fed in a little power and moved the strike craft after the swimmers. When he caught up, he leaned over and heaved Helena aboard by her harness straps. He said, ‘Alan, get yourself out of the water. Rhoda behind Helena, you up in front here on the bow. As quick as you like.’
Rhoda was halfway home, draped over the stern like a comely, black sack, when the sea erupted and a metre-high shock wave dipped the craft’s cone in a dive that was out of control. When Koenig finned powerfully for the surface in a welter of churning water and sand, his first thought was that the strike craft had bought it and that without its small chart spread and directional gear they would have a fifty-fifty chance of swimming towards the distant polar continent. Then he saw its black stern lift in a swell, almost a hundred metres away. Helena broke surface close beside him and it was all he wanted to know. He was away in a racing crawl after their lifeline.
Where there had been just an outside chance that a machine left in store for so long could develop a fault, there was no doubt at all that a deliberate hand had set the limpet mine. It cleared the air in one way. They knew for a truth they would have to watch their backs at all times. Rhoda was bitterly ashamed and could only repeat again and again, ‘Who would do such a thing? And why? Why would they do it?’
There was no good answer to be had out in the bay. Carter and Rhoda trailed like paravanes and the strike craft cruised at half speed on the surface. Koenig, jaw set in a grim line, considered the angles. The only good to come out of the exercise was that somebody had shown their hand. He was still convinced that he had a workable plan. Next time he would leave without publicity. He called the pens.
‘Resurge. Come in.’
Melas answered evenly, without any trace of surprise. It was unlikely that he was the one. ‘Resurge. I read you.’
‘We’re coming in.’
‘Professor Bergman to speak with you.’
‘Put him on.’
Bergman’s voice came on the net. ‘John, there’s been an air car roaming about for the last hour. Not attacking. I’d say it was on reconnaissance. Looks like a two-man crew. It’s been going low over the estuary, out to sea for a kilometre or so, then back over the same ground. If it wasn’t impossible, I’d say he was looking for you.’
‘Thank you, Victor. Believe me, it isn’t impossible, but keep that to yourself. Where is he now?’
‘There’s an operations room down here that you didn’t see. I have a picture of the estuary. He’s just turned and he’s going along the seawall and heading out to sea. If you’re on the surface, you’ll see him in about two minutes.’
‘Thanks, Victor. Over and out.’
The twisted spire of the tower block was in sight but the dunes and the shoreline were still over the curve of the sea. Koenig held on for another hundred metres and then killed power. He said, ‘Hear this. There’s a scout out looking for us. He might as well find us. We’ll see what he makes of it if we leave the strike craft for him to see. Dive down and make like fish.’
From ten metres down, the submersible looked like a black log breaking into the shiny roof. They gripped wrists and stood on the sea floor, looking up like a sea anemone. It seemed a long time. Helena Russell believed that they might take root, grow algae, suffer a sea change into black coral. Then a shadow passed over the surface and a bland, si
lvery oval shoved itself through the roof of their world and the air car had landed beside the strike craft.
Koenig transferred Helena’s wrist to Rhoda’s hand, tapped Alan Carter on his chest harness and pointed up. They reached the underbelly of the car at the same time and Koenig, fending off with his finger tips, traversed to the starboard quarter where the strike craft lay alongside. He felt the car dip, as a crewman left the co-pilot squab and moved aft to open a hatch. When the man leaned out to grab for a lug on the strike craft decking, the Alphan’s face was swimming up to meet him like a bizarre reflection of his own.
For a couple of seconds he was checking it out, too surprised for clear speech, and time ran out for him. Koenig had surged out of the water, grabbed the extended arm and plucked him through the open hatch like some loose-fitting cork.
The pilot, half turned on his chair, was watching the action with one hand drumming on the console. Control had told him to check out the sea approaches and liquidate any Outfarers playing marine games. There were none about. All the euphoric drugs in the world could not stop his digestive clock. He wanted to be back on station where a certain neat-handed Phyllis was keeping it hot for him. When his partner slipped away with waving legs into the drink, he stopped drumming and thumped the release stud of his harness.
A voice from the panel said, ‘Come in Car Three Nine.’
‘Three Nine. Pilot Gara.’
‘Report.’
‘Investigating a torpedo craft at the mouth of the estuary. Hold it. I have to see what that fool Max is doing.’
‘Very well.’
Gara reached the hatch as Max’s EEG went flat. He was floating face down in the space between the craft. The pilot considered it. There was no other movement, except the slow drift of the corpse out of the channel. He was uneasy. Something did not jell. Without his load of tranquillising serum, a simple instinct of self-preservation would have been enough, but he leaned out and grabbed for Max’s nearest ankle. It was proof that in the long term, the life force in Caster was following a self-defeating path. Carter took his wrist in a double grip and heaved him out. There was a short, brutal flurry that could only have one end. Carter was still incensed at the thought that Rhoda had been within a fraction of being torn apart by the exploding strike craft.