by Rory Harper
The intern standing beside us made a mark in the folder he held. “Interesting case,” He looked over at me. “Oh, not that unusual, clinically speaking. But the circumstances … are you friends of his?”
Star squeezed my hand.
“We know him,” I said.
The intern pushed his glasses up closer to his eyes and looked as knowledgeable as he could. “Lucky we got him into the re-compression chamber as quickly as we did.”
“Re-compression chamber?”
“You people were with him, weren’t you? I heard part of the story. About how your Driller walked ashore. Hasn’t anybody told you anything?”
“We been busy with another injured friend.”
“Is it true that your Driller decompressed you himself?”
I must have looked totally confused. He proceeded to explain about their theory of what had happened. The chief had a severe case of decompression sickness, otherwise known as the bends. When undersea divers go down past certain depths and stay too long, the gases in their bloodstreams are compressed and concentrated because of their increased partial pressures. When the divers surface, unless they do it in stages, the gases expand inside their bodies and cause the bends. Air embolisms in the wrong body organs can kill. The lengthy pauses on the way up give the body enough time to throw off the excess gas safely.
Sprocket had apparently been forced to increase the internal atmospheric pressure after the fight with the sea monster, in order to somewhat offset the water pressure trying to broach his hull. The chief forced his way out right after we got to shore and suffered a bad case of the bends. We stayed inside, trusting Sprocket, and he decompressed us safely.
The medic pushed his glasses up on his nose again and peered at me. “The amazing thing is that your Driller knew to do what he did. I’m told there were some sailors with you. Did they instruct him about the proper procedures and timing?”
I shrugged. “Nope. They just mostly slept through the whole thing. Sprocket just knows how to deal with pressure. Downhole or underwater, I guess it don’t make no difference to him.” I didn’t say it, but what I figured was that whoever had made his kind had thrown in some features we hadn’t known about before.
“Too bad your friend didn’t stay in with the rest of you. We don’t know yet how serious the spinal cord and brain damage will be, but it doesn’t look good for him right now.”
“It hasn’t looked good for him for some time now,” I said.
The chief began to convulse. He died a few hours later.
In-Between
I almost broke my face when I stuck my foot in the hole and tripped. Doc and Razer and Sabrina laughed at me while Star helped me get up. My fault. I knew better than to walk around the pasture without keeping an eye on the ground.
After a second, one of the culprits ambled up and demanded to be petted and stroke by us all. Munchkin had dominoed right in the middle of the hurricane. According to Star, her crew got nearly as tensed up as Sprocket’s crew was at the time. Must have been some hairy maternity adventures there.
She’d birthed four healthy Drillers, two males and two females. A big litter.
Her and Sprocket made a handsome pair, nuzzling together in the pasture, watching the kids frolic. They were all little whirlwinds, squealing with baby enthusiasm as they charged around the pasture. Each was about the size of a grizzly bear, but as friendly and cute as a collie pup.
Trouble is, they wasn’t housebroke yet. The whole pasture was a mine field of holes. They all drilled. Not to find oil yet, or even water, since they couldn’t get much depth. Just for the sheer pleasure of drilling.
One of them, who’d already acquired the name of Spivey, wandered over and cuddled up against Razer. Razer climbed on top of him and they wandered off. Sprocket’s eyelid opened lazily when I rubbed it. He hummed a greeting. “You gotta control those little monsters,” I said. “I damn near wrecked myself getting here. Have ’em do it over in one corner or something.”
Sprocket watched Spivey and Razer rolling around in the grass. His lips flapped derisively at me. He wasn’t gonna rein in his kids. Birds got to fly, Drillers got to drill. We both knew that.
Doc squatted and poured himself and Sabrina a couple of cups of coffee from the pot hanging over the fire. “Looks like Spivey and Razer might make a good team,” he said to Sabrina. “Razer’s gonna have to settle down a bit, but I believe he’s got the stuff in him to work out. I’m gonna miss him when he’s gone.”
Sabrina nodded. “Uh-huh.” She looked at me. “You figured out who your new segundo is gonna be, Doc?”
“Uh-huh. I figured I’d make the official announcement this evenin’.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What’s this about Razer goin’ somewhere?”
Doc took a sip and squinted up at me. “ Well, hell, Henry Lee. Somebody’s gotta head up the crew on Spivey when he gets his growth on him. Him and Razer get along fine.”
“But—”
“Oh, it’ll be a year or so before Spivey’s big enough. They’ll do the basic training for him and his sibs up at Aggie Station. While Sprocket’s drill-head regenerates, I figure we might as well go to school up there, too. They got a big music competition sponsored every year by the API that I want to put my latest piece in. Besides, everybody on the crew could use some more training. A couple’a semesters of cracking the books and Razer’ll have his Bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering. He’s been putting off finishing it for too long.”
“Razer? A college degree?” My mind boggled. I knew some gypsies went to Aggie Station for schooling on occasion, but nobody on Sprocket’s crew had talked much about it. It had sounded more like vocational education than anything else.
“In a year, Sprocket oughta be ready to get back to work,” he continued. “You should have enough schooling to handle your new job by then. With me and Sprocket keeping a close watch and polishing you up in the field, you’ll make a half-assed decent segundo.”
My mind re-boggled.
“Who, me?” I finally squeaked.
“It’s a ugly job, but somebody’s gotta do it.”
I leaned against Sprocket. A gentle hum from inside of him vibrated against my back.
But—but—what about the other hands? Almost everybody on the crew’s got seniority over me.”
Doc looked disgusted. “We don’t go by seniority, Son, just ability. I ain’t gonna sit here and slobber all over myself about how wonderful you are, but we figure we got the best man for the job. Ain’t nobody on the crew gonna be jealous or give you a hard time. Except when you earn it. Most of us halfways like you, boy.”
I was overwhelmed. “I’m overwhelmed,” I said.
“Don’t let it go to your head. Mostly, it’s a pain in the ass.”
I gulped. “I won’t never let Sprocket down, Doc.”
Sprocket chirped to his three kids that had quietly drifted into place behind us. Three blasts of drilling mud hit me in the rear end and knocked me on my face. I twisted around and grabbed ahold of one of the tongues before it could creep up my sleeve and fill my coveralls with mud. The kids continued to spew mud out, over all four of us and each other until we were completely covered.
We wrestled with the tongues and each other for a while, with it somehow working out that me and Star mostly rolled around together, and Doc and Sabrina mostly rolled around together, and the kids mostly sprayed us all impartially.
Doc finally sat up and wiped mud out of his eyes. “I guess that’s their subtle way of congratulatin’ you on your promotion.” He eyed Sprocket. “Their Daddy is already teaching ’em his bad habits.”
He pulled a broken conductor’s baton out of the pocket running the length of his leg. “The problem ain’t letting Sprocket down, Henry Lee.” He sighed. “The problem is puttin’ up with him.”
Sprocket Goes to Sch
ool
It was the loudest, most bizarrest conglomeration of machinery I’d ever seen or heard.
The crowd surrounding it seemed to feel they was getting their entertainment dollar’s worth. Every half a minute or so they’d erupt into cheers and whistles. The whole thing was set up about fifty yards in from the street, over by a clump of trees. Next to it somebody had assembled a refreshment stand and a small set of portable bleachers for the faint of leg and back.
We had a good viewpoint, being on top of Sprocket as he churned down University Drive. Since Aggie Station is a college town, and the college is Texas Petrological and Agricultural, the streets had been built to size, wide enough for use by Drillers and Cementers and Mud Mixers and Casing Critters and all the others. Not like a lot of them narrow, twisty country roads out in the ass end of god-knows-where that we have to make do with most of the time.
The day was bright but unusually coolish for late August, with a wind coming down from the hill country to the northwest. This was good news for the dozen fellas scrambling all over the strange machines. Looked like they’d have dropped on a normal summer day, with all the exertions they were making.
Doc and Sabrina and me and Star lounged back in our folding chairs on top of Sprocket’s back, under a huge grass-green sun umbrella we’d bolted down. Five other umbrellas dotted Sprocket’s length, with most of Sprocket’s and Lady Jane’s crews up top socializing.
Doc picked up the jug of iced lemonade on the table between us and topped off our Mason jars.
“What on Earth is that ridiculous-looking contraption?” I asked Star.
Doc grinned. “Hey, Sprocket!” he sang out. He stood up, folded his chair, and whacked Sprocket over the left eye with it. “Over thataway! Let’s us watch the show some.” Sprocket growled to himself, but he slowed and gingerly climbed over the curb, taking care not to spill anybody’s drinks. He could be thoughtful that way when he chose. It wasn’t all that often that he chose, mind you.
Lady Jane politely followed behind. She’d stayed with us when the rest of our convoy split off to head for the camp east of town.
Two derricks stood side by side. Under one of them a Driller was doing his business, making hole with a high musical whine while a gypsy band played for him. He was hooked up to a Mud Mixer and a Gas Tanker, both of them apparently asleep despite the noise of the crowd. That part was all as usual.
However, machines and lines and platforms and all kinds of unrecognizable equipment had sprouted all over the other derrick, especially down around the drilling floor. A thick, braided steel cable hung from an oversized hay pulley. A hellaciously noisy diesel engine rolled one end of the cable onto a drum that was bolted to the drilling floor. The cable went straight down to where the wellhead would have been if a Driller was drilling there. The cable and drum looked kind of like a wireline setup, but I had no idea what all the other machinery could be.
“Them Aggies never give up, do they, Sabrina?” Star said.
“I guess not, honey.” Sabrina clicked her knitting needles together. She was just starting some red wool long johns for Doc. He was only slightly embarrassed that she was doing it in public. “I was here for the first contest. When was it, Doc? Nine years ago? Ten?”
“Ten,” Doc said. “We met that year, I believe.”
“Why, so we did. I remember.” She pretended to prick him with the tip of a needle. “You were such a big stud back before you got old. Cut through the co-eds like a red-hot poker through a basket of kittens.”
I winced at the image that created. Doc muttered something none of us caught.
“Eh, dear? What was that?” Sabrina asked him.
Doc leaned over and kissed her on the ear. “I said, I ain’t so damn old. How do you know I ain’t immoral like that no more, darlin’? Henry Lee and me both could probably leave a pretty broad wake behind us here if we decided to.”
“Yeah!” I said loyally. Star dug an elbow in my ribs. “Uh, I mean, you leave me out of this! I’m an innocent bysitter and, besides, what the hell is all that machinery doin’ over there anyways?”
“You better just keep on bysittin’, bud.” Star said. “And that is a drilling rig over there.”
“I know that, smarty. I’d recognize a Driller from the smell alone. But what’s all that stuff next to it, on that other derrick?”
“Star just told you,” Sabrina said. “It’s a drilling rig, Henry Lee. A mechanical drilling rig.”
I stared at it for a long eight count. Then I busted out laughing. “Well, if that don’t beat all!”
“Uh-huh,” Doc said. “About half a dozen schools at the university here cooperate in designing and building machines to imitate the real thing. They’ve spent some serious research money on it, and they’ve come up with some purty ingenious stuff. See that cable going in the hole?”
I nodded. The drum reversed, pulling the cable out of the hole. A couple of fellas sweated over a control panel beside it.
Doc continued, “They got a pointy tool attached to the end of that cable, with some heavy-weight collars screwed on above it. They pull it up a ways and then drop it free-fall to the bottom of the hole. The tool fractures the rock and they circulate the particulates out while they’re pulling the tool back up the hole. Works damn well, all things considered. On a good day, I’ve seen ’em make three, four hundred foot of hole. Then something breaks down and they spend the next three days fixing it.”
“What’s that Driller doin’ next to ’em, then?”
“Drilling,” Star said. “Every year they have a big contest, and the Aggies trot out their new, improved version of a mechanical drilling rig and stage a contest to see who can make hole the fastest and the bestest, down to ten thousand foot. The losers spring for a big party the weekend before school starts.”
I marvelled at the ingenuity of the Aggies. The cable tool abruptly released and the cable whined into the hole. The crowd cheered again. Then I had an alarming thought. “Wait a minute! What if them fellas make a machine so good that nobody needs Drillers no more? Just put it on automatic and come back when you’re ready to go into production. We’d be in a fix!”
They all laughed. “Ain’t too likely,” Doc said. “Sometimes we forget just how complicated it is to make a well. They ain’t won a single drilling contest yet. Nobody can’t make machines good enough to compete with living critters made for the purpose. The technology just ain’t in place, maybe never will be. It costs too much, it breaks down too often, and it just don’t make hole fast as a Driller.”
The cable started winching out of the hole again. Next door to it, the Driller quietly, steadily hummed to itself as its tongue ripped a hole into the earth. Not all noisy and dramatic like the machines. Merely taking care of business and getting the job done.
“I guess,” I said doubtfully.
“Hey, Sprocket!” Doc called out. He went through the folding and whacking procedure again. He was just too lazy today to go to his room and get the crowbar that he usually drove with. “We need to get on over to the vet building. Gonna miss your appointment if we don’t get it in gear. Vet building, boy!” Sprocket groaned; once he got stopped he didn’t much like to fire up again. “We’ll come on back here later on, Henry Lee.”
“Yeah, I’d like that, Doc.”
The drilling contest receded behind us. I turned and watched it until a building got in the way.
I don’t know why, I started to hum a little tune to myself, I don’t remember all the words to it. Something about John Henry, he was a steel-driving man.
* * *
P&A was tucked away in the hill country in the middle of the state. I’d imagined it would be crude and primitive, not much more than a bunch of shacks and ugly brick buildings, since Aggie Station had a reputation for not being a completely civilized place. Instead, the campus looked modern and well-manicured. It was also five time
s as large as I had thought it would be. It looked like a small city, with its own miniature skyscrapers. I liked it. The buildings tended to be crowded together and the streets were mazes, but Sprocket knew where he was going, as he had visited the vet more than once. I had found out that oilfield critters, whenever possible, spent their first year or two at Aggie Station for pediatric care and basic training.
Eventually, we drew up on a building six or seven stories high. Sprocket chugged around to the back. A down-ramp led to an open bay wide enough for three Drillers to march in side by side.
The entire bottom three floors of the building was actually one huge room, broken up into cubicles around the edges by little head-height dividers. All sorts of equipment was scattered over the floor. Five separate areas, like oversized repair bays in a garage, were boxed by blue lines on the concrete floor. A Mud Mixer was in one of them, with a dozen people in white coats crawling all over it. A Cementer faced the wall in the bay farthest from us, apparently unattended and asleep. Sprocket proceeded to park in one of the open bays. He acted strangely eager to get to his place.
I figured it was just because he had been on the road for a week and was ready for a rest.
A big shiny piece of square gray glass, at least three yards across, hung on the wall twenty feet in front of his eyes. A long cable hung on a clip next to the glass, and on the end of it hung a box covered with buttons the size of dinner plates. As soon as Sprocket stopped moving, his tongue shot out and grabbed the cable and pulled the box toward him.
He dropped the box to the floor in front of him and his tongue-tip started pushing buttons. The bandages didn’t seem to slow it any. The square of glass lit up with moving colors and noise blared from a grill beneath it.
“Turn that goddam thing down!” Doc yelled.