The Dragon in the Sea (19 page)

Authors: Frank Herbert

BOOK: The Dragon in the Sea

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The automatic timelog read twelve days, seven hours, and five minutes from departure. Last half of Garcia's watch, first half of Bonnett's. The red dot on the sonoran chart stood well into the shore off Nordkapp: shallow water with the
Ram
creeping along the bottom in one hundred fathoms.

In the control room, a brightly lighted sweep of bulkhead, telltales flashing, heavy shadows on the undersides of levers and valve wheels. Wavering admonitions of dial needles. The two men bent over their work like laborers in a metal cave.

Bonnett looked up to the static pressure: 260 pounds to the square inch. “What's the skipper thinking of, coming in close like this?”

“Don't ask so many questions.” Garcia made a minute adjustment in the bow planes, watched the depth repeater. “We're twenty feet from bottom.”

Sparrow ducked through the door from the aft companionway. “Anything showing on the search board?” His voice was husky with a sense of fatigue. He coughed.

“Negative,” said Bonnett.

“This is their water,” said Sparrow. “They've no shore stations along the north coast; only along the Norway reaches.”

“This is still awful close,” said Bonnett. Again he looked to the depth gauge. “And awful shallow.”

“You don't think this is a safe place for us?” asked Sparrow.

“No.”

“Good. That means they don't either. They know this is a
deep
tug. They're out scouring the Norwegian basin. The sill depth there is right on our known limit.”

“So?”

“So we're going to shoot right across the shallows.” He glanced at Garcia, then up to the sonoran chart. “Course seventy degrees, Joe.”

Garcia swung the helm, watched the compass until they were heading true, then he, too, looked at the chart. “Novaya Zemlya,” he whispered.

“We're shallow enough to start taking outside samples,” said Sparrow. “Les, look for an isobaric surface running almost parallel with our course. We could use the shielding of some cold water.”

Bonnett pulled down a density-gradient chart for the area, checked the isobaric differences, ran a siphon sample of the exterior water. “Give us sixty-nine degrees for five minutes,” he said.

Garcia touched the helm. They watched the thermocouple
repeater. Suddenly, it dipped fifteen degrees. “Resume course,” said Sparrow.

The
Ram
returned to seventy degrees, cruising under the sheltering mask of the cold current which spilled down around them.

“Steady as she goes,” said Sparrow. “Push search to limit. It's a straight run from here on in.”

“It's Novaya Zemlya, isn't it?” asked Garcia.

Sparrow hesitated, then: “It's obvious anyway. Yes.”

“That's an EP rocket-testing base,” said Bonnett. “It'll be bristling with buzzards and snoopers.”

“We dug the well right under their noses,” said Sparrow.

“If we could dig without their hearing us, we ought to be able to drain it dry undetected.”

“Are they tapping the reservoir, too?”

Sparrow grinned wolfishly, his long face glistening in the multi-hued lights of the control board. “That's the beauty of it. They don't even know it's there.”

“Lord,” whispered Bonnett. “A fresh well. What're we looking for in the way of landmarks?”

Again Sparrow hesitated while his eyes sought out the red dot on the sonoran chart.
It wouldn't even be a secret from the EPs if they spotted us here,
he thought.
Now, we're in God's hands for sure.

“We're looking for a narrow fault fissure,” he said. “It's called the gut and it slants right up into the island shelf. You can't miss it once you range across it. Depth down to 3600 feet and only 400 feet across.”

“Fissure is right,” said Garcia. “Do we go down into that thing?”

“No. It's our trail. We track it in.” Again he looked at
the chart. “Thirty-three hours at this rate.” He turned to the aft door. “Call me if anything develops.”

And he was gone down the companionway.

“If anything develops,” muttered Bonnett. “We're sitting ducks. The only development we'll get is a fish in our belly. That'll wake him!”

“I think he's right,” said Garcia. “They're all out in the deeps looking for us. This is going to be a milk run.”

“I'm curdled already,” said Bonnett. He fell silent, watching the search board.

The
Ram
drove onward, headlong across the shallows like a frightened fish. The hands of the timelog swept around, around.

“Relieving Mr. Garcia on watch.” Ramsey spoke as he ducked through the door into the control room. He could sense the immediate stiffening of the two men on the board, the mounting tension.

Garcia made an attempt at casual banter. “Look who's gone all Navy formal on us.”

Ramsey took up his position beside Garcia. “What course?”

“Seventy degrees.” Garcia surrendered the helm.

“Busting right across the shallows,” said Ramsey. “If we make this, I'm going to burn a candle to St. Cuthbert.”

“That's not good talk,” said Bonnett.

“Have you heard what the EPs have done now?” asked Ramsey. “They've put engines in Novaya Zemlya. When we get close they're going to move it right out of our way, let us go lumbering off into Siberia.”

“Clever chaps,” said Garcia.

“Skipper's going to run us right into an EP trap net,”
said Ramsey. “We'll spend the rest of the war in a prison camp being brainwashed while they take the
Ram
apart bolt byâ”

“Button your bloody lip,” said Garcia. “We're going to pull this one off. And when we set foot on that blessed dock I'm going to take an obscene pleasure in pushing youâ”

“That will be enough!” said Bonnett. “This is no time for fighting among ourselves.”

“You wouldn't say that if you knew all about this wise guy,” said Garcia. “The superior brain: knows all, sees all, tells nothing!”

“Hit the sack, Joe,” said Bonnett. “That's an order.”

Garcia glowered at Ramsey, turned away, went out the aft door.

“What're you trying to prove, Johnny?”

“How do you mean?”

“Baiting Joe like that.”

“He baits easy.”

Bonnett stared at him. “One way to wreck a ship is to destroy crew morale,” he said. “There will be no more such actions from you on this cruise.”

“You sound like one of the old ladies of Security,” said Ramsey.

Bonnett's face darkened. “Knock it off, Mr. Ramsey. This won't work with me.”

It's already working,
thought Ramsey. He said, “This is going to be a really gay bunch when we get to Novaya Zemlya. All of us looking over each other's shoulders.”

“How do you know where we're headed?” gritted Bonnett. “You weren't here when Skipper announced our destination.”

“I read tea leaves.” Ramsey nodded toward the depthgauge graph tape. “Are we looking for that?”

Bonnett snapped his attention back to the tape. A sharp line broke off the tape, came back on after a brief interval.

“That's a
development,
” said Bonnett. “Buzz the skipper.”

Ramsey depressed the black toggle of the number-one call button. “Shall I hold course?”

“No. Quarter back onâSignal!” He slapped the button for the range computer, shut off the drive. “Eighteen miles. Intercept course.”

Ramsey whirled the helm to the right. “Have they heard us?”

“There's no telling,” said Bonnett. They coasted silently while he watched the pips on his screen.

Sparrow entered the control room. “Signal?”

“Heading 270 degrees,” said Bonnett.

“What's the depth here?”

“Four hundred feet, give or take a few.”

“You're forgetting something,” said Ramsey. He pointed to the tape record of the deep fissure.

“Hide in that thing?” Bonnett's voice rose half an octave. “We couldn't maneuver. Straight down the alley and they'd have us bottled up.”

The
Ram
's deck began to tip to the left as they lost way.

“Give us headway,” ordered Sparrow.

Ramsey eased in the drive. He watched the pulse-reader showing bottom depth below them. Abruptly, it fell off beyond the meter setting. Without being told, Ramsey brought the helm up to left until they were over the fissure.

“Down into it,” said Sparrow.

“What if it narrows down to nothing?” asked Bonnett.

“We couldn't back out without fouling our towlines. We'll beâ”

“Watch your board,” ordered Sparrow.

The oscillations on the screen damped down, then blanked out.

“Full speed,” said Sparrow. “Down farther, Johnny!”

Ramsey felt the excitement gripping his stomach. “The walls of this fissure are hiding our sound!”

“If we hit something, we've had it,” said Bonnett.

Sparrow glanced at the big static pressure gauge: 1240 pounds. “Give us a pulse sweep on those wallsâfifthsecond intervals.”

“Whatta you think I'm doing?” muttered Bonnett.

Sparrow grinned. He put a hand on Ramsey's shoulder. “Ease her up.”

“Speed?”

“No, depth. Set us level.”

Ramsey brought up the bow planes. The
Ram
's deck came up to level.

“One degree right,” said Bonnett.

Ramsey swung the helm.

“We're doing twenty-two knots,” said Sparrow. “If we can just putâ”

“Two degrees right,” said Bonnett.

“Coax a little more speed out of her,” said Sparrow.

Ramsey fined down the setting on the magnometer for the induction drive.

“Open the silencers,” said Sparrow.

“Butâ”

Sparrow's fingers dug into Ramsey's shoulder. “Do it!”

Ramsey's hand went out, jerked down the big red handle above the helm. They could feel the added surge of power.

“Twenty-eight knots,” said Sparrow. “There's life in the old girl yet.”

“Two degrees left,” said Bonnett.

Ramsey complied.

“An EP subcruiser can do forty-five knots,” said Bonnett. “Are you trying to run away from them?”

“How fast were they closing us at our last known position?” asked Sparrow.

“Estimated search speed of twenty knots,” said Bonnett. “Say forty-five or fifty minutes unless they were on us and upped speed when we went out of sound. Then maybe only a half hour.”

Sparrow looked at the timelog. “We'll count on a half hour.” He waited silently.

“Two degrees left,” said Bonnett.

Ramsey brought the helm over, straightened them out on the new course.

“She's narrowing down,” said Bonnett. “No more than 300 feet wide here.” He reset the ranging computer. “Now it's down to 250. Here'sâTwo degrees left!”

Ramsey swung the helm.

“We're all right if we don't scrape the slug off on the walls of this hole,” said Sparrow.

“Three degrees right.”

Ramsey obeyed.

“Two hundred feet,” said Bonnett. “Minus â¦ minus â¦ 185 â¦ 200 â¦ 215âTwo degrees right.”

The
Ram
tipped to the rudder response.

“Give us the silencer planes,” said Sparrow.

Ramsey pushed up the big red handle. They could feel the drag.

“Half speed,” said Sparrow.“How far to the canyon rim?”

“I can only guess,” said Bonnett. “Too sharp an angle to get a difference reading.”

“Well, guess then.”

“Eighteen hundred feet.”