The Gamma Option

by Jon Land

  He had found her in a small bar overlooking Apra Harbor, where her boat was moored a hundred yards away. She was attractive but didn’t look as though she had done much about it lately. There were papers strewn all over her corner table, and a half-drunk mug of beer stood out amid the clutter.

  “Excuse me,” Blaine said to her when he reached the table.

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “I said no. You’re not excused. Go away. Whatever it is, I’m too busy.”

  “You think I’m trying to pick you up?”

  She looked him up and down and cast a disapproving scowl. “Mister, you wouldn’t have a chance even if I did have the time.”

  “It’s your ship I’m after, Miss Hunsecker.”

  “Wait a minute, how did you know my name?”

  “Mine’s McCracken, if it matters.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  Blaine was going to sit down, then thought better of it and answered her question. “Naval records,” he said, which was mostly the truth.

  She threw her pen down hard on the table where the scraps of paper swallowed it. “What’s this got to do with my ship?”

  “I’d like to charter it.”

  Patty Hunsecker smirked. “Yeah? Well, just take your rods and reels and head down two bars.”

  “What I’m after is stuck on the ocean floor and isn’t likely to bite at any bait, Miss Hunksitter,—”

  “That’s Hunsecker.”

  “—and I don’t need a captain who knows where to find marlin. I need a boat with high tech salvage gear, strictly state of the art.”

  “Sorry,” Patty snapped back, feeling about the paper for her pen, “I’m not for hire.”

  This time Blaine did slide into the booth opposite her.

  “I didn’t ask you to sit down.”

  “And I’m afraid I wasn’t asking to use your boat. You see, any ship operating in these waters does so with the permission of the United States Navy. In other words they own your ass.”

  “Nobody owns my ass, mister!”

  “Miss Hunsecker,” Blaine responded immediately, “I could go to the navy right now and have your boat impounded indefinitely. I’m trying to do this the easy way.”

  “You talk like a federale.”

  “Of sorts.”

  “How long?” she sighed.

  “Two days, three at most.”

  “At which point my grant becomes history. Look, it might not mean much to you, but the whole future of the world is tied up in the secrets of the ocean.”

  “Absolutely,” McCracken told her, “but not for the reasons you think.”

  And now, as he pulled on his sneakers to join her on deck, Blaine reflected on how well he had come to know her in a single day. She might have come on a little strong, but Patty Hunsecker wasn’t a bad person, and not an unattractive one either. Her blond hair was cut short and worn in a shaggy style that required little care and could survive the harshness of constant exposure to salt air and water. The sun had become so much a friend to her that she wore her tan naturally and without worry. They had sat on deck in the dark hours of Sunday night, as her boat, the Runaway, glided through the currents on autopilot.

  “Interesting name,” McCracken had said.

  “More than interesting—accurate. Describes my life.”

  “In Bel Air?”

  “The little time I spent there. I was always off at schools, and when I came home my parents weren’t there. Always loved the sea, though. My grandmother died, and as soon as I turned twenty-one I used the trust fund she had left me to buy this ship, outfit it, and run away. Learned what I had to in college. My parents thought I was studying acting.”

  “They must have had good reason to if you fooled them for four years.”

  “I left after three,” Patty Hunsecker corrected. “Knew what I had to by then. The rest I could learn out here. Kind of on-the-job training.”

  “With all that money, why bother about the grant?”

  “Legitimacy, proof that someone cares about what you’re trying to do. Otherwise I’d just be the young dreamer my parents figured I was when I sailed off.”

  “Motored,” Blaine said.

  “Excuse me for saying so, mister, but it doesn’t seem much different for you.”

  “We’re all running away from something, Patty, and I’ve got an Indian friend who’ll tell you it’s always ourselves. We create our own little worlds of illusions, and once they’re gone, all we’re left with is reality. That can be pretty tough to take.”

  “But in the end we’re the only ones who can figure it out for ourselves, right? I think that’s what I like most about making a home for myself here on the Runaway.”

  “Except you’re still running, still deluding yourself. It might be the Pacific Ocean, but when you’re out here and can’t see anyone else it’s your ocean, which puts us right back where we started. Believe me, I know where you’re coming from. You’re out here to save the water. For a long time I was out to save the world.”

  “Not this time?”

  “It might come to that, yeah, but all I give a damn about is one twelve-year-old boy who deserves more than the short end of the stick he got stuck with at birth. It’s time he saw it in all its length.”

  Patty Hunsecker eyed him quizzically but didn’t press. McCracken had taken his leave soon after and drifted off into an uneasy sleep that ended only when she had awakened him minutes before. Yawning as he stepped up into the morning sun, he noticed Patty had settled herself before one of the many gadgets on the deck of the Runaway.

  “This might be your lucky day, McCracken,” she said without looking up at him.

  “Planning to ask me out?”

  “Even better.” Her eyes rose slowly. “My readings indicate that your coordinates are located smack dab on a large swell in the surface of the sea.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Well, since the pressure in regular depths in these parts is sufficient to turn any ship into a tin can, it is if you were hoping to find something reasonably intact.”

  “Then it’s a ship that’s down there?”

  “Magnetometer readings indicated a large steel mass almost directly beneath our present position.”

  “And can you find it?”

  “With a little help from a friend, absolutely.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “RUSS.”

  “Who?”

  “Not who, what. RUSS, R-U-S-S. Stands for Robotic Underwater Systems Sight. Step right this way and I’ll introduce you.”

  McCracken followed Patty to the stern to a mechanism tightly wrapped in a custom-fit tarpaulin. She undid the zippers and ties, and he helped her strip the covering off to reveal a white squat object as long as he was tall, looking like a miniature submarine or an overweight torpedo.

  “Meet RUSS.”

  “The pleasure’s all mine.”

  RUSS was mostly white with some red splashed on and came complete with a miniature conning tower like the kind found on manned submarines. Its front nose was composed of specially sealed glass, and Blaine didn’t have to be told to know that a camera behind it broadcast everything it saw back to the Runaway. It was sitting on some sort of motorized hydraulic mechanism obviously constructed to ease the process of lowering it to and raising it back from the water.

  “RUSS weighs in at well over a thousand pounds,” Patty explained, reading his mind.

  “Lotta weight for a little guy.”

  “There has to be, considering the kind of pressure he’s subjected to in depths like the Marianas. It has something to do with weight displacement and pressure per cubic inch. RUSS’s hull is so dense, he can resist the pressure up to virtually any depth. And he’s powered by a special fuel cell that allows for extended journeys in the depths without having to recharge.”

  “So we lower him into the water …”

  “And I drive him robotically from up here and hope he finds whatever it is
you’re looking for.”

  Patty dropped the Runaway’s anchor and, with McCracken looking on, activated the hydraulic mechanism which slowly eased the submersible toward the gunwale and then lowered it into the sea. The flip of a final switch released RUSS into the water and he sank slowly, almost gratefully, like a fish tossed back after being snared.

  The last of his miniature conning tower was still visible when McCracken watched Patty grasp a portable instrument panel complete with four multi-directional levers surrounding a center joystick.

  “This is how I drive him,” she explained.

  “Looks simple.”

  “Because it is. Fully transistorized and, of course, waterproof.”

  Patty eased the joystick forward and Blaine could see RUSS level out just beneath the surface. A light touch on one of the four levers and it began its descent straight down into the deep blue of the water. Fortunately RUSS possessed cameras aiming both straight above and straight below to insure it never missed anything.

  “It’ll be between twenty and twenty-five minutes before he reaches the swell in the ocean floor we’re over. Here, let me show you the rest of the setup.”

  They moved toward a canopied section of the deck nearest the cabin, and Patty took a chair behind what looked to be a combination computer monitor and television screen. Closer inspection revealed it to be both; the screen was atop the monitor and joined to it by a host of wires running like spaghetti through the rear panels. Patty began typing commands into the keyboard before her and instantly the screens jumped to life.

  “I drive RUSS but it’s the computer that talks to him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, this kind of exploration has reached new heights—perhaps I should say depths—technologically. Can you see the picture forming on the television screen?”

  McCracken leaned forward until the glare was minimized. “Looks like a big swimming pool.”

  “The biggest. We’re seeing exactly what RUSS sees as he drops further and further down. Assume he finds … whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  “I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

  “Assume he finds it anyway. Not only do we get pictures, but thanks to the computer we get measurements, structural analyses, even infrared dating to get a general idea how old the find is. We can also use the computer to have RUSS focus his camera in close on anything we choose. That usually comes in especially handy when …”

  Patty Hunsecker continued to expound on the various capabilities and virtues of the RUSS system. RUSS and other submersibles like it were no doubt on the verge of opening up whole new, never-before-seen worlds and lowering the risk to human life substantially in the process. After she was finished, they spent the next few minutes watching the screen that pictured exactly what RUSS saw as he sank into the depths.

  “I notice the picture isn’t getting any darker even though he’s sinking lower and lower.”

  “Very good,” Patty complimented. “I might make a scientist out of you yet. That’s something I neglected to explain. RUSS’s seeing eye automatically adjusts the light exposure to give us a consistent look. Any darker and we wouldn’t be able to see a thing. Too much light and the contrast would make accurate identification difficult.”

  “Where is he?”

  Patty punched a few keys on her terminal. Figures danced about the screen almost instantly.

  “I’m getting confused readings. Too many echoes, too many—”

  She stopped when a beeping sound started up. Blaine was unable to pin down exactly which of the machines it was coming from.

  “What is it?”

  “His vertical sensors, elaborate sonar actually, have locked on to something.”

  “What?”

  “School of fish probably… .”

  The beeping sound became more rapid. Patty checked the figures running wildly across her monitor.

  “Well, it’s no school of fish, and it seems to be centered almost directly on the underwater rise he’s coming down on. Looks like we’re about to find what you dragged me out here for, McCracken.”

  Blaine’s head was almost against hers as they gazed at the television screen. His heart picked up its pace. Something dread and cold grabbed him from within, telling him he didn’t really want to know what RUSS was about to find. The beeping became maddening and Patty turned a switch to lower the decibel level. When it became constant, she flipped another of the levers on the transistorized board on her left and brought RUSS to a dead stop in the water.

  “Christ, he must be right over it! Your coordinates were right on the mark.”

  “You were expecting any different?”

  “I didn’t know what to expect, but I’ll tell you this much: for an object to remain totally anchored on the bottom, it’s got to carry a lot of bulk and weight.”

  Patty flipped a few buttons and the picture sharpened in view. There was a shape barely discernible in the darkness. Patty gave it as much brightness as she could, and Blaine immediately made out a huge ship’s tower, something from a heavy cruiser or battleship maybe. His first thought was that he was at the wrong coordinates. Otherwise they had come all this way just to find another relic from World War II.

  Patty used the joystick to maneuver RUSS closer to and over the vessel that was still gaining shape.

  “What is it?” she asked Blaine.

  “Some sort of warship,” McCracken confirmed to himself. “Heavy cruiser class, I think. Had their heyday in World War II and haven’t seen much of the seas since. Time passed them by.”

  “Well, it looks pretty much intact. Wait, spoke too soon. Take a look at this,” Patty said, and slowed RUSS over the starboard side forward beneath a huge gun turret. She maneuvered the joystick to drop RUSS low and back him away from the ship’s hull to provide a more complete view of what they had uncovered through the front-mounted camera.

  “Christ, what the hell did that?”

  McCracken saw the jagged holes in the ship’s starboard hull but didn’t reply. He felt a growing realization of what they had found here but pushed it back, terrified of the consequences it might imply.

  “Wake up, McCracken! I asked you what the hell did that?”

  “Torpedoes,” he said finally. “You can tell by the angle of entry and blast radius. Those babies carried a rather precise signature.”

  “This ship was sunk in World War II?”

  McCracken’s response was to move closer to the monitor screen. “Take RUSS forward to her bow. Let’s see if we can read her name.”

  She turned back toward him before maneuvering the joystick. “You know what this ship is, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know anything. Not yet.”

  She shrugged him off and started to work the red, ball-topped handle to bring RUSS forward along the length of the dead cruiser.

  “My God, could any bodies still be inside?”

  “Judging by the position of the holes that sunk her, I’d say the great majority of those on board got off alive.”

  “To be rescued?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re not telling me everything you know!”

  “I don’t want to distract you from your driving.”

  RUSS had almost reached the boat’s front section. They could see she was wedged in the silt of the upward slope of a rise in the ocean floor. She was keeling over to starboard and seemed on the verge of tumbling over onto the submersible that had invaded her world of death.

  “She’s remarkably well preserved,” McCracken noted.

  “You find lots of weird stuff in the Marianas, and everyone’s got a different interpretation for it. Hold on, I think we’ve got something… .”

  Patty slowed RUSS to a stop and McCracken was certain he could make out a sequence of letters on the screen before him. There was some sort of pattern; though the paint had been lost years before, the stenciled border was still intact. Patty brought the submersible backward and held it in p
lace over the boldest letters left.

  U S, then a blank space followed by a splotch of shapes that were unreadable.

  “I’m going to infrared,” Patty told him, and flipped another switch. “Now let’s add magnification and see what we come up with… . There we go. That does it… . What the hell?”

  McCracken saw the letters and felt the same kind of cold dread those on the ship must have felt forty-five years ago when she was hit. His breath tasted drier than salt. Up until the last he had hoped his initial suspicions were wrong. But the corpse ship’s name running across the screen eliminated any chance of that:

  USS Indianapolis

  Chapter 13

  “I KNOW THAT NAME,” Patty was saying. “I know it from somewhere …”

  “The Indianapolis was the ship that delivered the atom bombs that were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It dropped them at Tinian, then stopped briefly at Guam en route to Leyte, where it was sunk by a Japanese submarine.”

  “Of course! Those holes we found farther back on starboard. It fits! It fits!” She sounded genuinely excited. “We’re looking at one of the great finds in salvage history.”

  “Except we can’t legitimately claim it,” Blaine told her. “Because someone else got here first.”

  “Slide RUSS back along the hull to around the midpoint,” Blaine told her.

  “Why?”

  “Because I thought I noticed something on the screen before when he moved by. His camera wasn’t angled right for proper viewing, so it was only a glimpse.”

  “Whatever you say …”

  Patty maneuvered RUSS so he was actually gliding sideways, which slowed him because of the increased resistance, but provided an excellent view of the long stretch of hull in the process.

  “There!” McCracken said suddenly. “Stop!”

  Patty pulled the small joystick toward her and the submersible’s eye locked on a large hole a third of the way down the exposed reaches of the Indianapolis’s hull.