by Bob Finley
Chapter 10
Suddenly he was staring wide-eyed into impenetrable darkness. His heart was pounding and all his senses were red-lined. Again came the quiet voice of his co-pilot, Kim, in the darkness.
"Boss?"
Relieved, he realized that he had been asleep and it was Kim's voice that had awakened him. Reaching up into the blackness, his hand found the familiar control panel above his bunk and switched on the soft reading lamp.
"Already?" he acknowledged.
"Eighteen hundred, boss," Kim informed him.
"Right. How're we doing?" he asked.
"'Bout a half hour out of Bermuda. DHS is three degrees to starboard at 10 miles; speed's 40 knots."
"Thanks. Be up in a minute," Marc replied.
The "DHS," short for Directional Homing Sonar, was a world-wide network of powerful sonar transmitters which served as navigational "road signs" to the growing international fleet of nuclear cargo submarines and those surface ships that couldn't afford the access fees for networked satellite navigational aids. It was conceived in 1976 by the Subcommittee on Exploitation of Oceanographic Resources of the United Nation's International Committee on Mutual Oceanographic Cooperation, but had faded into obscurity for lack of funding. Finally, in 1997, the United Nations proposed revival of the concept by inviting world-wide bids from interested parties in the private sector who would design and manufacture the hardware and software as well as provide global maintenance for the system. Those few companies and consortiums who submitted bids lacked the resources and experience to assume such a complex undertaking. When the UN sweetened the pot by agreeing to underwrite 30% of the costs in order to implement action it considered to be critical to submarine traffic safety, the one company already enjoying international respect in submarine research and development finally submitted its bid: Justin Oceanographic Charter Expeditions, Inc. It's specs were submitted and approved in record time. And Marc Justin suddenly found himself in the global submarine navigation business.
Easier said than done, the system consisted of a nuclear powered transponder buoy with a 12-mile sub-sea transmission range permanently stationed at every spot in the world oceans where standard latitude and longitude demarcation lines bisected each other, except in the polar regions. They were "anchored" 100 feet deep by explosively firing an expendable transmitter base into the ocean floor at the exact desired spot. An electronic data stream constantly flowed between the base on the sea floor and the buoy far above. Water jet maneuvering thrusters in the buoy kept it hovering in its proper place directly above the base. The buoys were ballasted to automatically maintain a predetermined depth of 100 feet, automatically adjusting to changes in salinity. Maintenance crews could work briefly with their MARC I lungs at that depth on compressed air instead of the more exotic and expensive breathing gasses required at depths greater than 200 feet.
When a buoy occasionally failed and was set adrift, loss of power automatically unrolled a coiled filament antenna tipped by a float. The float and antenna rose to the surface. A ten day emergency UPS power supply also triggered by the failure of the larger power unit then transmitted a "loose cannon" signal which was monitored by a system of orbital satellite ‘watchdogs’ and relayed either to the control center on Howland Island in the Pacific or to the comm tower on the barren ridgeline of Santa Luzia island in Cape Verde in the Atlantic, depending upon which ocean the defective buoy was in. In each control center the numbered location of every buoy entrusted to that particular center was displayed on a huge screen. A "loose cannon" alarm resembled a SAC bomber alert. The control center, in fact, scrambled the standby recovery chopper crew nearest the disabled buoy, while broadcasting an announcement of the shipping hazard on emergency radio channels every fifteen minutes until recovery was confirmed.
A secondary DHS system existed, also under the control of the two centers, whereby every major port-of-call island was equipped with a similar identification homing signal buoy. Every buoy in the system, whether primary or secondary, had its own individual, distinctly recognizable transmission signature. Matching the frequency reading with a published list would instantly inform any ship in the world equipped with DHS gear of its position within thirty yards. They quickly gained the nickname of “lighthouses”.
It was the DHS identifying Bermuda that Kim homed in on to bring the VIKING to its rendezvous with the third passenger in the group of scientists enlisted by the Navy for this mission.
Marc hoisted himself onto his right elbow and rolled aside the small metal hatch covering the port window. Gray light flooded the darkened sleeping quarters. From the intensity of clear twilight outside, Marc estimated the VIKING's depth at about 400 feet. The soft light filtering through the window made the half-inch scar over his left eyebrow seem much more pronounced than it really was.
Rolling out of his bunk, he stepped into lightweight white overalls and pulled the long zipper in front up to his collar bone. The blue company logo of a J-pierced globe on his left chest heightened the illusion of a spacecraft commander. His physical stature and his last name, JUSTIN, emblazoned in half-inch blue letters on his right chest furthered the military resemblance. Sitting on the edge of his bunk, he slipped his bare feet into ankle-high, fleece-lined white leather boots with rubber soles, designed specifically for and worn by all of Marc's pilots while aboard their craft. The plush lining inside them soothed his feet with an almost sensual caress. As he closed the door quietly behind him, Marc could hear the muted voices of Ben Masters and Frank Sheppard in number 3 sphere. He decided against stepping in to greet them and instead went directly to the control sphere.
As Marc entered number one he noticed that Kim had killed all the running lights inside. The console lights that surrounded him seemed to punctuate the dim gray light beyond the curving acriliglass wall of the sphere.
"Ah, so! Doctor Van Winkle, I presume." Marc smiled at his assistant's gentle jibe at his having slept the afternoon away and walked over to the CommPuter bank to the right of the door.
"From the looks of the light," he said as he cast an appraising eye at the sea a few feet away, "I'd say the weather's holding fair up topside."
Marc punched a coded series of buttons on the CommPuter console, requesting a local weather report in the Bermuda area. In less than fifteen seconds the report came stuttering from the CommPuter. Marc glanced over the sheet.
"How's your guesswork?" Kim called from his station.
"On target," Marc replied. "Fair. Light breeze. Low swells just beginning east-northeast from that approaching storm front." He put down the report. "Looks like the weather's going to cooperate long enough for us to pick up our passenger," he commented, pleased.
He walked over to stand behind Kim at the controls. His gaze flicked unconsciously over the instrument console. The depth compensator showed the sea floor to be fifteen hundred feet below them and rapidly growing shallower. They were moving over the flank of a huge group of undersea mountains toward the point where the peak of one mountain, towering fifteen thousand feet from the sea floor, weakly thrust the top 249 feet of its peak, Town Hill, above the surface. Bermuda. Marc's gaze moved on to the HolarScope. Only the middle two of the six screens were illuminated.
"Let's see full scan, Kim," he requested.
Kim reached over and depressed 1, 2, 5, and 6 scan buttons. The darkened screens quickly glowed and then three-dimensional and extremely detailed pictures flowed left to right until all monitors were active. The six screens provided Marc Justin with as composite a view of the Bermuda Islands, from a submariner's point of view, as a pilot would enjoy by soaring through the lofty peaks of the Alps, with only a hazardous 1500 foot clearance of the craggy pinnacles.
"You want to take 'er in boss?" Kim asked.
"Nah, you go ahead," Marc replied. His co-pilot could handle the ship almost as well as he could. "Have you checked the exact pick-up point yet?" he asked.
Kim looked up briefly. "No, not yet."
"Okay, I
'll get it."
Marc reached around Kim, opened a small locked door in the pilot's console, and withdrew a small briefcase. Consulting the papers he pulled from it, he then glanced at the compass mounted at an angle flush in the floor between Kim's feet.
"The pick-up point is 9.1 miles off L. F. Wade Airport at a heading of 52°, just beyond the place where the depth drops off from 100 feet to 800 feet. We’ll have a half mile of water between us and shallow water and I don’t want to get any closer that ‘cause it shoals so fast. Coordinates are 32 26 North, 64 33 West, so I think a course change of eight degrees to starboard for three miles will set us up for a locked-in 15 degree turn that will put us right on the x."
Kim nodded and moved his hand on the chromed control stick ever-so-slightly to the right. The huge, sleek craft responded smoothly by veering slightly to starboard. Marc glanced at his watch. "Better bump it up about twenty," he advised Kim.
Kim minutely eased the throttle forward and watched the speed gauge creep forward as the ship gained another twenty-two miles per hour. In a moment the gauge stopped its forward momentum and hovered at 72 m.p.h. After a couple of minutes, Marc looked at his watch again and quietly said, "Stand by for turn to port." The intimate camaraderie between the two men required no acknowledgment from Kim.
"Five seconds," Marc intoned. "Turn and lock."
Kim swiftly threw the control stick 15 degrees to the left and, with his thumb, depressed a button on top of the stick. The deck instantly canted under them as the starboard side rose and the left side dropped into the fifteen degree turn. Marc lightly gripped the back of the pilot's chair to ensure that he didn't lose his balance on the sloping floor. The VIKING was now locked into a gradual banking turn to the left and would continue to turn in that direction until the pilot resumed control or something got in the way.
Kim visibly relaxed as the responsibilities of piloting the sub were assumed by the automatic pilot.
"How long before we're in position, honcho?" he asked.
"Roughly speaking, I'd guess about 21 minutes and nine seconds," Marc cut his eyes quickly in Kim's direction and caught the tail-end of a grin on his face.
"I'm glad I didn't ask for an exact time," Kim mused to no one in particular.
Marc invited his passengers to the control room where they passed the brief interval before arrival with warm tea. With everything on schedule and under control, the atmosphere was relaxed. "Does either of you know a Dr. Cramerton?" Marc asked his guests. Masters shook his head but Frank Sheppard looked thoughtfully at him.
"The name's familiar," he mused. "Yes," he said slowly, then more emphatically, "Yes, I remember, now, reading an article in World Oceans a few months ago by a Dr. Cramerton, on heavy-medium acoustic transmission. . . sound transmission through sea water," he added, as he noted the blank looks. "Of course, it may not be the same Dr. Cramerton. But the article was well-written and Dr. Cramerton is obviously well-informed and, it seemed to me, rather well ahead of his colleagues.
"The reason I asked is that a Dr. Cramerton is the person we're to rendezvous with and pick up," Marc explained.
"Well, if this is the same Dr. Cramerton, I'd very much like to meet him," Frank enthusiastically exclaimed.
A gentle buzzing from the pilot's console interrupted Frank. Marc rose quickly and stepped to the console where he flicked a lever. The sound abruptly stopped.
"Automatic timer," Marc explained. "We're coming up on our rendezvous point." Kim moved around the console and strapped himself into the pilot's seat. As he ‘locked in’, Marc glanced casually at his passengers. "If you’d like, I know of no reason why you shouldn't remain here in number one and watch the pickup." Both men instantly agreed.
Kim reached down, gripped the attitude control lever jutting up from the floor between his knees, and released the automatic pilot lock on the head of the lever. The vast power of the sleek craft instantly submitted to his familiar touch. Minutely adjusting the attitude control lever, he brought the VIKING out of its turn. The deck underfoot lost its port list and rolled back to normal. A startled laugh from behind Marc caused him to glance quickly over his shoulder. Ben Masters was briskly brushing his trousers. He glanced apologetically at Marc. "I'd got so used to a fifteen degree list I suppose I'd begun to consider it normal. I'm afraid when the ship leveled off, my cup of tea didn't!"
Marc laughed heartily and, though embarrassed a little yet, so did Masters. As he went aft to change uniforms, Marc ripped a sheet of paper from the CommPuter console and showed it to Kim. Scanning it at a glance, he saw that it contained a computer-checked course correction to put them directly on target with no more than a thirty yard margin of error. Kim executed the slight change, smiling because his boss's dead-reckoned course had been so accurate. He reached to the right armrest of the chair and drew the throttle to him a couple of inches, reducing the VIKING's speed from 72 m.p.h. to only 40. The muted whine of the massive turbines far astern grew even more subdued.
"Going up," Kim pronounced to no one in particular. He drew the attitude control lever toward him. Two pods of water jet thrusters...one on top of the ship in the stern, the other beneath the bow...synched to push the stern down and the bow up, causing the ship to plane toward the surface.
"What's the next speed reduction, Marc?" Kim asked.
Marc glanced at the programmed approach sheet in his hand.
"Drop to 15 m.p.h. in 48 seconds," he advised.
"Give me a five second mark," Kim said.
Mark tapped the numbers into a stopwatch built into the console and hit 'Countdown'. He kept one eye on it and one on the depth compensator as it slowly rolled upward past 190 feet. "Mark!" he called. "Five . . . four . . .three . . .two . . .one . . . cut!"
Kim drew the throttle back once more to the 15 m.p.h. mark and glanced at the depth compensator. It now read 130 feet and climbing. He became conscious of the fact that the color of the sea just outside his reach had altered from gray to deep blue, indicating they were near the surface.
"In 20 seconds, reduce speed to 5 m.p.h.," Marc intoned. There was a brief silence; then he called "Mark!" and repeated the count-down. Kim reduced speed to the "5.0" mark on the throttle. Compared to the speeds at which they had crossed the Hatteras Abyssal Plain, their forward movement now seemed reduced to an almost imperceptible crawl. The color of the sea, at 95 feet, had just begun to assume a greenish tint. In the gloom, with no land mass visible as a reference, the fish that hadn’t scattered at their approach appeared suspended in three dimensions. Slope-headed jacks with their dark v-tails wheeled and turned in dense shoals, almost disappearing as they presented their head or tail silhouettes. Heavy-jowled grouper in loose schools plowed morosely along with bug-eyed faces. And silver-sided barracuda flashed like elongated mirrors as they performed their macabre dance of waiting death, gliding above their dinner-to-be. Waiting for nature’s call to slash through the wary jacks in a feeding frenzy.
"In ten seconds, reverse engines," Marc advised, keeping a close eye on his watch.
"Roger," Kim acknowledged. "Stand by to plant OSA."
Marc moved closer to the control console. Above a tiny inset labeled "OSA" he flipped a switch to ‘on’ position, then placed his finger near a ‘release’ button. "Mark! . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . all stop and reverse!”
Kim, in rapid sequence, throttled down to zero, depressed a pedal on the floor with his left foot and shoved the throttle forward again, hard. There came the whine of the turbines, a roar as trapped air rushed by under his feet and burst out in front of the ship in an explosion of bubbles, filling the water and momentarily obscuring his vision. Close on the heels of the trapped air came a tremendous burst of water from the emergency braking system. The force of the jet thrust, like the cushioned punch of a massive boxing glove, stopped the VIKING's forward motion in less than fifty feet. The instant Kim sensed that the great ship had braked to a halt, he snatched the throttle back to the zero position. As he
did so, Marc stabbed the release switch. A 20 lb. bomb-shaped projectile dropped from beneath the ship and plummeted 824 feet into the black void. The impact of impaling itself in the sea floor triggered an electronic signal which would continue its ‘beeping’ for six hours. Marc flipped a switch on the console to his right...‘automatic on station: horizontal’. He watched the depth compensator for a moment until it rose to the desired 65 feet, then hit another switch beside the first one labeled ‘automatic on station: vertical’. The ship was now ‘locked on’ to the electronic device buried in the sea floor and would neither drift horizontally nor vertically so long as the On Station Anchor functioned. Kim took a satisfyingly long breath, let it out, and, unbuckling his safety harness, slid forward and stood up. He looked at his two passengers.
"Gentlemen," he quietly smiled, "we have arrived." Glancing at his watch, he noted the time at 18:35...ten minutes ahead of schedule.
Chapter 11
The crew of the VIKING, hanging suspended 65 feet below the breeze-ruffled surface of the tropically crystalline seas off Bermuda, waited to be contacted according to plan. Marc kept watch on the early-warning sonar detector, hoping to pick up a contact that might be an approaching submarine. Kim scanned repeatedly through various radio bands on the chance that other-than-conventional channels might be used in the expected contact.
