The Dragon in the Sea by Frank Herbert
“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 by—”
“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 you—”
“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 on—Signal!” 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 be—”
“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 walls—fifthsecond 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 put—”
“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.
“But—”
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’s—Two 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 … minus … 185 … 200 … 215—Two 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.”
“Hear anything behind us?”
“Negative.”
“Motors off,” said Sparrow.
Ramsey silenced the drive.
“Now, do you hear anything?”
Bonnett fussed with his instruments. “Negative.”
“Full speed,” said Sparrow. “Two degrees on the bow planes.”
“Two degrees on the bow planes,” acknowledged Ramsey. He brought up the planes, eased in the drive, sent them surging upward.
“One degree left,” said Bonnett.
Ramsey swung the helm.
Sparrow looked at the pressure reading: 860 pounds. They were above 2000 feet. Still the Ram coursed upward.
“Half speed,” said Sparrow.
Ramsey brought back the throttle control to the midnotch.
“I can give you a rim reading,” said Bonnett. “About ninety fathoms.”
“Five hundred and forty feet,” translated Sparrow. “Are you sure of that still depth?”
Bonnett rechecked his instruments. “Reasonably sure. I can give you a better reading in a minute.”
Again Sparrow looked to the pressure gauge: 600 pounds.
“Make it eighty fathoms,” said Bonnett. “I was getting angular distortion.”
“Four hundred and eighty feet,” said Sparrow. “Less than a thousand to go. Quarter speed, if you please.”
Again Ramsey brought the throttle bar back a full notch.
“Hear anything, Les?”
The pressure gauge climbed past 400 pounds to the square inch: above 1000-foot depth.
“I make that canyon rim in 460 feet of water,” said Bonnett.
“Anything on the phones yet?”
“Still quiet.”
“Give us full power until we reach maximum speed,” said Sparrow. “Then shut everything down and coast up onto the rim. Set us down gently as you can.”
Ramsey’s eyes widened.
“Now,” said Sparrow.
Ramsey shot the throttle forward. The subtug leaped ahead. They watched the pitlog sweep through twenty-three knots.
“Now!” barked Sparrow.
Ramsey killed the drive, freed the induction system to allow the propeller to spin free. He jockeyed the planes to keep them on an even keel with the least drag.
“We’re over,” said Bonnett.
Ramsey watched the pitlog, began counting off the time-over-distance until he was certain the tow had cleared. Then he brought the bow planes down.
They grounded in mud with almost no headway.
“I’m hearing them, Skipper,” said Bonnett. “About ten miles behind us and to the—”
“What’s wrong?”
“Lost’em.”
“They’ve gone into the gut after us,” said Ramsey.
“Lift us,” said Sparrow. “Force speed!”
Ramsey jerked into motion, fed power into the drive, eased them off the bottom, pushed the throttle to the final notch.
Sparrow watched the timelog. Five minutes. “Kill the drive.”
“Still silent,” said Bonnett.
“Five minutes more,” said Sparrow.
Ramsey again sent them shooting ahead. Five minutes. Drift and listen. Five minutes. Drift and listen. Five minutes. Drift and listen.
“Set us into the mud again, Johnny.”
The Ram slanted down, grounded on a ripple surface of black manganese pebbles.
“We’ve come eight miles from the gut,” said Bonnett. He looked at the pressure gauge: 300 pounds. “It’s only 700 feet deep here.”
“What do we care?” asked Ramsey.“They think we’re in that slot. They’ll be scraping the bottom of it.”
Sparrow said, “And there goes the whole shooting match.”
Ramsey looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”
“They spotted us too close to target. And right on the trail leading to the well.”
“How do they know it wasn’t a feint?”
“No. They know we were hiding. They know—” He fell silent.
“You mean we’re going to slink home empty-handed?” It was Bonnett, voice bitter.
“I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.” The voice came from the aft door: Garcia.
The three in the control room whirled.
Garcia stepped fully onto the control deck. “We’ve got to thumb our noses at them, Skipper.”
“How long’ve you been there?” asked Sparrow.
Garcia frowned. “Maybe ten minutes. I heard the shift in speed and felt—” He broke off. “Skipper, we’ve come too far to—”
“Relax,” said Sparrow. “We’re going through.”
“How?”
“We’re going to sit here.”
“How long?” asked Ramsey.
“Maybe a day; maybe longer. Until they get tired of looking or decide they’ve missed us.”
“But they’re sure to leave a stakeout around here on just that chance,” protested Bonnett.
“Let’s just pray that they do,” said Sparrow. “Les, take over the controls and standby search. Johnny, you and Joe come with me.” Sparrow led the way across to the chart board. He swept his earlier work aside, pulled out a fresh sheet of scratch paper, began drawing cyclic curves across it. He took a second sheet, repeated the performance.
Ramsey watched, puzzled, Garcia bent close to the work.
Presently, Sparrow straightened. “What do I have here, Johnny?”
“It could be a sonic curve, but—”
“It’s the modulated beat of one of our A-2 fish,” said Garcia.
Sparrow nodded. “Now watch this.” He lifted one of the sheets, placed it over the other, held both to a light and adjusted them. He clipped the sheets together, still holding them up to the light, began to draw a new freehand curve, a broken scrawl on the surface “That’s rough,” he said, “but it gives the idea.”
“A silencer-damped screw beat from the Ram,” said Ramsey.
“Two of our A-2 fish hooked in tandem and their screws set to resonate,” said Sparrow.
“It might fool an EP until he got close enough to detect the difference in mass,” said Ramsey.
Sparrow nodded. “And what if our pair of fish carried a scrambler set to go off before they could detect mass difference?”
Ramsey stepped back from the board, stared at Sparrow.
“These are shallow waters,” he said. “The EPs would blanket the distortion area and flood it with seeker fish and—”
“And they’d get a very satisfactory explosion,” said Sparrow.
“This is all very well, but how’re we going to rig our fish out there when we’re in 700 feet of water and unable to start our engines?” asked Garcia.
“We’ve a perfect stabilizer,” said Sparrow. “The slug. We bleed air into our tanks until we gain enough buoyance to lift; then we pay out towline until we reach 300 feet where we can go outside and do our work. The slug anchors us.”
“Balance on the four points of the towlines,” muttered Garcia. “It’ll bloody well work. It will.” He looked up at Sparrow. “Skipper, you’re a genius.”
“Can you two rig those fish to fake the sound of our screw?” asked Sparrow.
Ramsey grinned. “Just let us out there.”
“One more thing,” said Sparrow. “I’ll want you to alter the drive speed controls like this—” Again, he bent over the chart board, scribbling on the scratch pad.
Ramsey shook his head. “Just a minute, Skipper.”
Sparrow stopped, looked up at Ramsey.
The electronics officer took the pencil from Sparrow’s hand. “To the devil with speed only. That’s too complicated. What you want is a sound variation: first the sound of a Hell Diver subtug under quarter speed, then half speed, and then full speed to simulate flight.” He sketched in a series of matched harmonics. “We’ll just change the resonating factor and—”
“The adjustments to change resonance won’t give it much increase in speed,” said Garcia.
“It’ll be enough,” said Sparrow. “They won’t be looking for refinements. Johnny’s plan is simpler, less likely to break down.” He put a hand on the sketch pad. “Can you two do it?”
Garcia nodded. “Get us up there.”
Sparrow turned back to the control board, strode across to Bonnett. “You hear that, Les?”
“Enough to get the idea.” He tilted his head toward the search board. “Still no sound of those boys.”
“Let’s hope they run right up onto Novaya Zemlya,” said Sparrow. “Give us a half a percent buoyancy in the bow tank.”
Bonnett stepped to his left, turned a valve wheel a fraction of a degree, watched a dial above it, closed the valve.
“Joe, play us up on the towlines,” said Sparrow.
Garcia moved to the tow controls, released the magnetics clutch on the big master reel. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the Ram lifted off the bottom, slid upward.
They watched the static pressure gauge climb through 200 pounds to the square inch, 180 … 160 … 140 …
“Slow us down,” ordered Sparrow.
Garcia fed a little power into the magnetic brakes. 130 … 120 … 115 …
“Snub us,” ordered Sparrow.
The needle stopped on 110 pounds.
“That’s close enough to 250 feet,” said Sparrow. “Joe, Johnny, this is your show.”
Garcia secured the tow board. “Better watch the balance on these lines,
“That’s our worry,” said Sparrow. “I’d blow tanks before I’d pull you two down into high pressure.”
Garcia smiled wanly. “Sorry, Skipper. You know how I feel about—”
“You’ve a good electronics man with you,” said Sparrow. He nodded toward Ramsey, looked significantly at Garcia.
“I’m with you, Skipper,” said Garcia.
Ramsey thought: Why doesn’t he just say “Keep an eye on this suspicious character?” He looked at Garcia. “You afraid of the water?”
Garcia’s dark features paled.
“That will be enough,” said Sparrow. “You’ve a job to do.”
Ramsey shrugged. “Let’s go swimming,” he said, turned toward the forward door and led the way out onto the engine-room catwalk, up the ladder to the escape hatch.
The sea suits and aqua lungs were in a slide locker beside the hatch. Ramsey yanked one set out, stepped aside for Garcia, fitted himself for the sea. Finished, he undogged the hatch, climbed inside and leaned against the ring rail.
Garcia followed, checked his mouthpiece, pulled it aside and glared at Ramsey. “Somewhere, someday, someone is going to thump your head for you.”
“Yeah, head thumper.”
Ramsey stared at the engineering officer. “What do—”
“You psycho boys are all alike,” said Garcia. “You think you’re the custodians of deep, dark knowledge … sole custodians.”
“I don’t—”
“Come off that,” said Garcia.
“But I thought you—”
“Yes?” Garcia grinned at him—a mirthless expression.
“Well, I—”
“You thought I had you pegged for a spy, a jolly old sleeper,” said Garcia. He shook his head. “None such. I’m quite certain you’re not.”
“What gives you the idea I’m a psych man?”
“We’re wasting time,” said Garcia. He jammed his mouthpiece into place, pulled up the hatch and dogged it.
Ramsey put the cold rubber of the mouthpiece between his teeth, tested the air. It tasted of chemicals, bitter.
Garcia spun the sea valve.
Cold water rushed in around them, spewing upward onto the circular walls, whirling in swift currents.
A kick of fin flippers took Ramsey to the open hatch. Outside was utter blackness broken only by the glow from the escape compartment and the small hand lamp carried by Garcia. The long Arctic night on the surface and the cover of water conspired to create an utter absence of light. In spite of the reflecting layers of his sea suit, Ramsey could feel the chill of the water begin to bite into him.