by Bob Finley
When Marc Justin entered the galley, Janese Cramerton was sitting cross-legged at the table with her back against the wall, with a toasted bagel in one hand and a cup of cappuccino in the other.
He walked over to the refrigerator and peered in.
"Good morning," he said into the 'fridge. He grabbed a jug of cold V-8 juice and set it on the counter. Taking down a glass, he dashed Worcestershire sauce into it and poured it full of juice. Taking a sip, he turned and looked over at Janese. She was munching on the bagel and watching him with quiet aloofness.
He walked over to the table. "May I join you?" he asked politely.
"It's your ship, Captain. Sir." Her eyes never left his. A challenge?
He eased into the booth seat across from her, shook his glass in small circles to mix the Worcestershire sauce, and set it on the table before him. He met her gaze. For a long moment there was only the faint sound of her chewing. Then he thought...maybe...he detected the smallest beginning of a smile.
"Probably at me, not with me," he thought and, losing the contest, dropped his eyes to the table, picked up his glass, and swirled it again.
"I, uh," he tilted his head a little to one side and risked another look, "think I owe you an apology for last night," he began.
"Do you? Really?" she parried.
He sighed, pursed his lips, and nodded his head. She wasn't going to make it easy.
"Yeah. I do," he paused. "I..." (long pause) "guess I was...already uptight by the fact that you were ten minutes late. Which normally wouldn't have been a problem except that I hadn't been told how you'd arrive, just to be there. And then when you did arrive...and did you ever arrive! ...you were just suddenly there. It caught me off guard. And then there were the sharks. You ‘dropped in’ at exactly feeding time and if we hadn't been there...if we had been late or fifty yards in the wrong direction..." his voice trailed off. She uncurled and turned to face him across the table, leaning her elbows on it and cupping her chin in her palm. She raised her eyebrows ever so slightly.
"Well, then when we got back aboard and I found out you were a...well, a woman..." He saw the warning on her face in time to change direction. "I mean, I was expecting a man. I mean, they didn't say, and I..." He clamped his meandering mouth shut and took a swig of juice.
She leaned forward.
"Yes?"
"Well, Doctor J. Cramerton isn't much of a description, is it?"
She lifted her chin slightly but her eyes stayed on his. He took a slow, deep breath and let it out.
"Okay. Look," he started again. "I was wired and I overreacted. I was wrong. I let my mouth override my good sense and I apologize." He gave her an aggressive scowl and waited.
Finally she leaned back and stretched her left arm along the back of the booth.
She smiled.
"You have a hard time with apologies, don't you?" He could hear the amusement in her voice.
"Yeah," he answered quietly, then cut eyes at her and grinned ruefully. "How 'm I doin' ?" he asked.
She laughed, low and easy. "Not bad, for a beginner. You got all the words in the right places."
He relaxed a little and finished off his juice.
"Tell me though...why is saying 'I'm sorry' so difficult?"
Marc sobered a bit. It was a moment before he answered.
"Because saying 'I'm sorry' implies...admits...that I've made a mistake."
She looked at him incredulously. "And?! Are you perfect?" she admonished.
He smiled tightly. "No. But down here, you can be right every time, all the time, or you can be dead. My mistakes can be very expensive. So, every mistake I make...and I do make them...is a game of Russian roulette. And I don't know about you, but that scares me."
She thought that over.
"Well, I guess I just made a mistake myself. I misunderstood you, and so misjudged you. Now it's my turn to apologize."
"Good," he said. "That may not make us even, but it narrows the gap."
"Friends, then?" she asked, and offered her hand across the table.
He reach for her hand as if to shake it but, instead, gripped only her fingertips and lightly kissed the back of her hand. He bowed his head gallantly and smiled.
Caught by surprise, she very nearly blushed. She firmly retrieved her proffered hand.
"Well, I can see that you've made a full recovery. Does this mean you're back in character?" she chided.
"I represent that remark," he pretended hurt.
"Yes, I'll bet you do," she agreed, shaking her head and laughing lightly.
"Actually, that brings me to the other reason I came to see you. You said yesterday...was it only yesterday?...that you designed the acoustics hardware for MARS."
"Yes."
"Well, we're gonna need some help."
Janese Cramerton realized they'd shifted into a new relationship. Fun and games were over.
"What can I do?" she asked, putting both feet on the floor and folding her hands in front of her on the table.
"We've just reconnoitered the sight of MARS's last known transmission. They transmitted...we think...from Table Rock. But there's no sign of them now. We did find what's probably their 'pod prints...from their landing gear...but nothing else. Any ideas?"
She stared at him for a moment. Then her gaze wandered idly around the room, as if he weren't there. But he knew from the look in her eyes that she was thinking hard. He stayed quiet and waited.
"What's the terrain like around this...'Table Rock', you said? "
Marc dropped his mouth close to his left lapel and said "Comm on. Kim?"
"Yeah, boss," came a voice from the intercom.
"Run the tapes, video and ‘Scope, of our approach and recon of Table Rock, would you. And route it through the galley monitor. Comm out."
"Comin' up."
Janese pointed at his collar.
"I hope you're not going to tell me that our entire conversation has been broadcast to the world over that...thing," she said warily.
He chuckled and shook his head. "It only works on voice command. Lets Kim and me stay in touch with each other when we're working in different parts of the ship."
She gave him a relieved look and rolled her eyes. "Good!" she said.
The nearby monitor came to life and she raptly watched what she'd missed earlier. The vid ended and the monitor went blank.
She turned to him. "So, when they transmitted, they were only a couple hundred feet below the summit of a mountain that's taller than most of the peaks around it." He realized she was probably talking more to herself than to him. "Assuming normal salinity, density, temperature, currents, and so on, it's reasonable to believe that their transmission could have easily come from there."
"And the 'pod prints," he reminded her.
"Yes, that too. I suppose it's not likely that there's a lot of traffic out here in the middle of nowhere that's capable of these depths and equipped with landing gear?"
He smiled and shook his head. "Not many, and not likely," he agreed.
"So, if the...ship?...that made those footprints was the MARS III, then where is it now?"
"Exactly."
"Alright. The problem then," she was back to talking to herself, "is going to be that if the ship is down in one of these...weird canyons, their signal, assuming there is one, is going to be almost vertical. Also, the signal strength will be dissipated and scattered by the surrounding canyon walls and confused by multiple echoes." She looked at him as her thought processes led her to the inescapable conclusion. Her voice dropped and she sighed. "It's going to be pure luck if we find them."
He nodded, but said nothing. What was there to say?
"The only thing I can suggest that might be any help would be to set up a spiral grid search...can your computer do that?"… she rushed on…"and get at least a thousand feet above the highest peak around, so that you're ‘looking down’ into every canyon as you pass over it. Short of calling in the navy for the sake of manpower and equipment
resources, I don't know what else to do."
There was a slight warning click as the intercom went live, and Kim's excited voice.
"Boss! You better boogey on up here! Listen!"
There was the distinct sound of a coded series of electronic ‘beeps’.
"It matches the MARS's print! I think we've got a live one!" Marc Justin could hear his assistant's smile a mile away.
"C'mon, Doc, it looks like we might have gotten lucky," he slid out of the seat and headed briskly for the Control Sphere, Janese Cramerton scrambling to catch up.
"Whatcha got?" Marc asked at Kim's shoulder.
"Here. Take over," Kim urged, unbuckling and sliding the chair back to get up. "I want to get on that signal!"
Marc slipped in and locked down. Kim was already at the receiver.
"When I got to the turn in the canyon, I swung wide to get some turning room, and got the first pulse," Kim explained. "Sounds like it's bouncing around a lot. Probably ricocheting off the walls." He fine-tuned the scanner, trying to better home in on the source.
Slowly, afraid the signal might disappear, Kim relaxed into a kneeling position on the floor and just as slowly turned his gaze from the radio to Marc. Only the rhythmic beep of the sonar receiver broke the silence. A slow smile crept onto the faces of both men.
"I don't care what anybody else says, Kim. I don't think you're all that dumb."
Janese Cramerton looked disapprovingly at Marc, who looked at Kim. They both laughed and she realized she'd been had.
"Okay. Whereaway, matey?" Marc asked.
Kim read off the numerals of the directional fix dial.
"So that would put it about 500 yards in front of us?" Marc mused half to himself.
"Not necessarily," cautioned Janese. "This canyon's probably funneling the signals to us. Every twist or turn diffuses the original source and geometrically dilutes the confidence factor."
Marc looked at Kim.
"Wha'd she say?" he jibed.
Kim grinned. She said, "When you're talkin' sound, she's the best around."
"That's what I thought she said."
"Alright, you two! Don't start on me. You're in my ball park now. You," she pointed at Marc, "you just drive the bus."
"Whoa," Kim laughed at his boss's face. "I think I'll just be quiet now."
"It's two-thirds of a mile," Frank Sheppard said.
The laughter died away and they all turned to look at him.
"What did you say, Frank?" Marc asked quietly.
"I said you'll find MARS about two-thirds of a mile up this canyon, where it flares out into a bowl shape. She'll be sitting there, on a sandy bottom."
For a long moment, it was very quiet.
Stone-faced, Marc Justin said in a very controlled voice, "You don't sound like you're guessing, Frank."
Frank Sheppard looked at each face. "Yes, and no," he replied. "You might have wondered, Marc, why I wanted to see the cliff face. And, why I suggested that we search in this direction, in this particular canyon."
Justin nodded slowly. "Yeah. I did. I still do." There was a certain cold reserve in his voice.
Sheppard smiled tightly. "Miss Cramerton, you were involved in installation of acoustic hardware in the MARS III platform?"
She nodded.
"Well, I was involved in establishing emergency evacuation locations."
There were blank looks all around.
"In case MARS had to be abandoned," he explained, "there would be more chance of finding and recovering the vehicle after rescue if there were pre-determined sites where it could be left… ‘parked’, if you will. As a submarine geologist, I chose the sites. But," he added wistfully, "since my university can't afford your prices, Marc, I had to make the site choices from research mapping data." He smiled. "This is the first time...maybe the only time...I've had a chance to see the real thing for myself."
"So, you know from the maps that there's a drop site two-thirds of a mile up this canyon," Kim interjected.
Marc nodded reflectively. "And if that's so," he contributed, "our best bet's to follow the canyon to the source of the signals." Kim's nod, confirming his thought, was enough. With a gentle bump from the heel of his hand on the throttle and a corrective burst of the maneuvering thrusters on her flanks, the great ship gave a responsive leap forward and glided up the narrow canyon.
Warily avoiding the razor-keen walls, Marc stifled an urge to rush pell-mell toward the sound. With an effort he also tried to curb the wave of hope that threatened to roll over him...the hope that the source of the signals would indeed be MARS III, intact, with nothing more abnormal than a malfunctioning radio transmitter.
Sliding through the icy depths at five knots, Marc mentally compared himself to the senses of a great sleek owl gliding under a full moon through the forest, alert and confident of his ‘body's’ resources. As an afterthought, Marc called, "You'd better alert Ben Masters, Kim."
"He already knows," Kim replied. "He's coming forward now."
Marc accepted the information without comment, concentrating on piloting the VIKING along the now-upward-sloping canyon floor, still curving slightly to the left.
With a sudden shock he realized that the deep, corridor-like canyon up which they were pursuing the phantom MARS signals was a dead-end.
Instantly calculating his ship's speed and momentum, Marc realized that within ten seconds his ship would lie shattered on the jagged boulders piled at the bottom of a dead-end canyon.
Reacting even before the others were aware enough to cry a warning, Marc simultaneously snatched the throttle back into "STOP" position with his right hand and jammed and locked a button on the arm of the chair with his left.
Everyone in the control sphere felt the violent burst beneath their feet as the forward thruster on the belly of the ship exploded with a massive blast of water. Janese Cramerton, barely managing not to fall against the glass ‘wall’, experienced the sensation of a skyrocketing elevator.
An explosive cloud of muddy sediment immediately engulfed the ship as the bow angled steeply upward. Ben Masters, entering the room just as Marc fired the bow thruster, was flung to the carpeted floor. Everyone else grabbed for the nearest object for support and watched spellbound as the brown muck roiled about the ship, seeming to absorb the now-feeble exterior running lights.
Long, tense moments passed. Having done all he could, Marc anxiously watched the HolarScope. The VIKING glided under its momentum steeply up and away from the forty foot pile of boulders and safely into starkly clear water.
"Where'd that pile of rocks come from?!" Frank Sheppard exploded. "It wasn't on the maps!"
"Looks like it might have been an avalanche, Frank. Maybe it happened since the last soundings...since the map was issued," Kim offered.
"Doesn't matter," Marc Justin observed.
They all turned to look at him. Then, without exception, their eyes were drawn past Marc to the sandy plain beyond and below the VIKING. And they understood why it didn't matter. MARS III, fully intact, navigation strobes and interior lights aglow, sat patiently waiting for them.
Chapter 13
MARS III's magically sudden appearance gave the searchers the eerie sensation they'd accidentally stumbled onto an alien spacecraft sitting atop a desolate, moon swept mountain.
MARS III did, in fact, resemble the classic science-fiction concept of a "flying saucer." Blending their own experimental glass hulls with advanced designs, the Navy had built the research vessel primarily as an observation platform capable of any known depth but with enough mobility to allow it to sluggishly leap-frog from station to station.
Nine glass spheres in a circle, butting against each other, surrounded a tenth central sphere 40 feet wide...twice the size of the other nine. All ten spheres were sandwiched tightly in formation by what appeared to be giant aluminum dinner plates, one inverted above, the other below. The top third of the great central ‘bubble’, a transparent "ceiling" really, thrust through the top of the
"plate." The large sphere was divided into an upper and lower level. Each of the nine smaller spheres, or rooms, opened into the upper level providing the most direct access possible between the nine working areas and the upper-level control center. All machinery relevant to operating the ‘inner-space’ platform was confined below decks in the lower compartment of the central sphere.
The upward momentum of the VIKING carried it to a high vantage point above MARS III. Marc, rapidly stabbing buttons on the chair arm console, brought his ship to a hover, bow-down. The cant of the deck put the ship in a position where he could easily peer down on the MARS vehicle as it squatted on its quad landing gear a hundred feet below them on the flat, sandy bottom of a ‘punchbowl’ just as Frank Sheppard had predicted.
Marc scanned the vessel for signs of life. It was obviously intact...well lit...navigation strobes active...no visible damage. Marc felt a sudden prickly chill at the nape of his neck. Everything looked normal, yet...something...of course! Though he was looking right down into the brightly lit control room, there wasn't a soul in sight. Marc was sure that the command center would be manned around the clock. He didn't believe for a moment that in a militarily financed environment the duty watch would have quit his post. He was gripped by a cold uneasiness at the illogic of the situation.
With a gentle shock, Marc roused from his intense introspection and, as though compelled, turned his head to find Kim's eyes boring into his own. Intuitively Marc realized that they shared the same thoughts simultaneously. An almost physical surge of understanding passed between them: Mars III was obviously intact...but somewhere in that hull something wasn't right.
"Gather 'round up front here, y'all," Marc instructed his passengers "where you can see everything. I'm going to drift in close over the dome of the MARS control room and I want everybody to look closely. If you see anything...anything at all...that might indicate there's somebody on board, sing out."
Still hanging in a bow-down attitude, the VIKING inched closer toward the domed research vessel. When Marc's outstretched feet were only yards from the nearest sphere, he halted the forward movement of his ship and began, very gradually and in short bursts, to fire the starboard maneuvering thrusters. The massive ship crabbed sideways at a crawl. The golden orb of the MARS control room loomed menacingly near the glass "wall" of the VIKING's control room. Marc's hand hovered over the emergency reverse button, alert for a possible unexpected surge of current that would be the death of them should their walls of glass bump.
