The Dragon in the Sea by Frank Herbert
Bonnett’s voice came over the speaker from the control deck: “Skipper.”
Sparrow’s bass tones: “What is it, Les?”
“Seismic shock somewhere astern.”
“I have it here,” said Ramsey. “Torp blast. It’s in the same range as the EPs’ 24-K fish.” He scribbled some figures on a note pad, picked up a slide rule, set it, read it. “About a hundred miles astern. Well within range of drift for that little package we left behind us.”
“Would they waste a torp on that little thing?” asked Sparrow, then answered his own question. “What’s the matter with me? Of course they would. All they’d see on their gear would be the signal. They’d think it was us lying doggo.”
“That’s the way I figure it,” said Ramsey. He looked at Garcia. “What do you say, Joe?”
Garcia was trembling, face pale. He shook his head. Ramsey stared at him questioningly. He appeared extremely agitated.
Sparrow’s voice boomed from the speaker: “All hands: as soon as I am finished with work here, I will relieve Mr. Bonnett.” There was the sound of a throat being cleared.
Ramsey glanced at the wall chrono. “About time. Les has been on three straight watches.”
The skipper’s voice continued: “At that time I will post a new watch schedule in the wardroom. It is to go into effect immediately.”
Garcia had brought himself under control. He said, “What’s eating the skipper? He sounds angry.”
Ramsey outlined the new watch schedule.
“What the bloody!” said Garcia. “As if we weren’t nuts enough already!”
Ramsey stared at him. That was an odd reaction for an engineering officer, he thought. For a psychologist, okay. But not for Garcia.
In his quarters, Sparrow wrote: “I must make certain there is no opportunity for anyone to activate a spy signal when we reach the well.” He penned his signature, made the final period an exclamation point, closed the log, and returned it to its hiding place.
The timelog repeater on his cabin bulkhead showed seven days, nineteen hours, twenty-three minutes from point of departure.
Sparrow stood up slowly, left his room, closing the door meticulously behind him. He turned, strode forward to the wardroom. As he passed the shack, he heard Ramsey saying: “This stabilizes the micro-timing of the take-up spool. It has to be right on.”
Garcia’s answer was lost to Sparrow as he stepped into the wardroom, closing the door meticulously behind him.
They dropped the signal squirter in the next watch. Sparrow noted the time—seven days, twenty hours, forty-eight minutes from departure—and entered it in the main logbook. He added the position from the sonoran chart: sixty-one degrees, fifty-eight minutes North Latitude, seventeen degrees, thirty-two minutes West Longitude. The squirter was set for a four-hour delay.
“Very good, Johnny,” he said. There was no warmth in his tone.
Ramsey said, “We make do with what we have.”
“Let us pray that it works,” said Sparrow. He looked at Garcia. “But we won’t count on it.”
Garcia shrugged. “It could work,” he said. “If anybody hears it.” He stared coldly at Ramsey.
Sparrow thought, Joe’s suspicious. Oh, Lord! If Ramsey’s a spy, he’d key that squirter to a wave length the EPs are listening to. It’ll tell them we’re on to the spy beam and they’ll redouble their patrols!
“Am I relieved now?” asked Ramsey.
“Until your watch,” said Sparrow. He stared after Ramsey.
In his quarters, Ramsey brought out the telemeter box, examined the tapes. Sweeping disturbance lines hit his eyes. Now Sparrow was reacting. But what reaction! They reminded Ramsey of a feedback record. Each succeeding wave worse than the one before. The whole area from the discovery of the spy beam was a scrambled record of disturbance.
The room seemed to grow smaller around Ramsey, pressing in upon him.
Sparrow’s losing touch with reality. I’ll have to do something. But what?
He took deep breaths to calm himself, forced his mind to orderly channels.
I’ve been with Sparrow a week. I’ve observed him in all manner of stress. The big elements should be in my hands by now: enough to make some kind of a plan of action. What do we have here?
He made a mental list:
We started out with evidence of rigid self-control.
But only after we knew that he could react.
There is some indication of religious paranoia.
A tendency to paranoiac type was Obe’s earlier classification.
But there are things that don’t fit the pattern.
He thinks clearly in a stress situation where you’d expect a breakdown.
Extremely masculine type. A leader.
But not totally despotic, or even nearly so.
And he’s a brilliant submariner. At times you’d think the boat was a part of him or vice versa. That he was a built-in component: Captain, Submariner type: Mark I. Portable.
Ramsey’s back stiffened. Part of the boat. Mechanical. What better way to describe rigid self-control?
He recalled his own feeling of synchronous intermingling with the boat. Fleeting as that had been—one instant in the shack. And then gone beyond recapture.
It’d be a strong survival adaptation.
Captain, Submariner type: Mark I. Portable. That may be closer than I’d imagined.
He rubbed at a burning sensation in his eyes, glanced at his wrist watch. Two hours until his next watch and he was aching with fatigue. He put away the telemeter, flopped sideways onto his bunk. Almost immediately, he was asleep and dreaming.
A giant surgeon with Sparrow’s face bent over him in his dream. Little wires. Nerves. One here. One there. Soon he’ll be built into the boat.
Electronics officer, Submariner type: Mark I. Portable.
It was Garcia’s watch.
Timelog reading: eight days, four hours, and nineteen minutes from point of departure.
Bonnett on stand by, dozing on a tall stool in front of the control search board.
The Ram at cruising speed making twenty knots.
Garcia lounged against the guardrail in front of the valve master control, eyes idly taking in the gauges, now and then a glance at the autopilot indicator.
The search board emitted a soft buzzing.
Bonnett’s head snapped up. He looked to the green face of the scope at his left, kicked the switch which automatically silenced the Ram’s motors.
They coasted quietly.
“What is it?” asked Garcia.
“Metal. Big. Coming our way.”
“One?”
“Dunno yet.”
“Is it an EP?”
His hand adjusted a dial and he looked to a gauge above it. “One. Coming fast like she owned the ocean. In these waters that means EP. Buzz the skipper.”
Garcia pushed a button on the call board.
Presently, Sparrow joined them, bending his tall figure for the aft doorway. He buckled his belt as he stepped across the control deck.
Bonnett nodded toward the search board.
The Ram’s deck had been slowly tipping to starboard as she lost headway. Now, she was pointing down by the nose and the starboard incline was steep enough that Sparrow had to steady himself on the main grab-rail. He swept his gaze across the search board, asked, “How far to bottom?”
“Too far,” said Bonnett.
Garcia, one hand on the valve-board rail, turned toward them. “I hope you two decide what we’re going to do before we turn turtle. We’re almost at a standstill.”
Sparrow’s gaze again went to the search gauges. The other sub was less than three miles distant, coming fast. As he looked, the detection equipment suddenly resolved its signal into two images.
“Two of them traveling tandem,” said Sparrow.
Through his mind sped a quotation from the tactical handbook: “Submarines stalking each other under the sea are like blindfolded adversaries with baseb
“They’re going to pass inside of a thousand yards,” said Bonnett.
“If they hold their present course,” said Sparrow. “And that could be a trick to throw us off guard.”
“They must be asleep not to’ve spotted us before this,” whispered Garcia.
“Their metal-detection gear isn’t too hot,” said Sparrow. He turned to Garcia. “Joe, drop four homing torps, five minutes delay, set to swing around in front of them. Then give us just enough push to get underway and take us down to absolute.”
Garcia’s hands moved over the control board, adjusting a vernier, setting a dial. He slapped one hand against a switch, turned to the drive controls. The Ram picked up speed slowly, nose pointing into the depths. The deck righted.
Sparrow and Bonnett watched the detection gear.
“Drift,” said Sparrow.
Bonnett’s hand swept over his drive switch. They floated downward silently.
“Give us a little more,” said Sparrow.
Again the engines took up their slow turning.
Garcia whispered: “They’re not blind; they’re deaf!”
Sparrow held up a hand to silence him. He glanced up to the big static pressure gauge; 2790 pounds to the square inch … 2800 … 2825 …
Slowly, the indicator hand swept around: 2900 … 2925 …
Above the gauge, the flat bronze plate stamped with the Ram’s weight and specifications. Someone had used red paint to fill the indentations showing pressure limit: 3010 pounds.
The hand of the dial pointed to 2975 … 3000 …
Perspiration stood out on Garcia’s face. Bonnett pulled nervously at an ear lobe. Sparrow stood impassively, feeling the boat around him. “Ease her off,” he whispered. He wet his lips with his tongue.
The knowledge of the outside pressure was like an actual physical weight pressing inward against his skull. He fought against showing his feelings.
The dial steadied at 3008, slowly climbed to 3004, stayed there.
Bonnett whispered, “They’re almost on top of our—”
A dial fluttered wildly and they felt the whump! of a detonation through the hull. Sparrow’s glance darted to the static pressure gauge: it made a stately fluctuation through 3028, back to 3004.
Garcia whispered, “I heard that the Barracuda took 3090 before she imploded.”
“There’s a bigger safety factor than that,” said Bonnett.
Sparrow said, “May the Lord take their souls and grant them mercy. Even as it may come to pass with us. God forgive us that we do this not in anger, but out of need.”
Garcia fingered the beads of his Rosary through his shirt.
A sudden thought passed through Sparrow’s mind. He looked down at his first officer. “Les, what do you do when the heat is on?”
“Huh?” Bonnett glanced up at him, back to the dials.
“What do you think about?”
Bonnett shrugged. “I remind myself I been married four times—four beautiful babes. What more could a man ask?”
“Every man to his own philosophy,” said Sparrow.
Ramsey entered the control room, took in the scene, whispered, “The silence woke me up. Are we hunting something?”
“And vice versa,” said Garcia. “Get in here and help me on the board.”
“You were not called to duty,” said Sparrow.
Ramsey hesitated.
“Get in here with Les,” said Sparrow. “I’ll stand by with Joe.” He backed away from the controls.
Ramsey stepped into the vacated spot.
Sparrow moved up to stand beside Garcia.
Bonnett looked at Ramsey out of the corners of his eyes. “I’ll clue you in on something, Junior,” he said. “This is too much like playing grab-tail with a panther for me ever to become addicted to it.”
Sparrow said, “We can’t be traced from the track of our fish. They were on a curving course before they could’ve been detected.”
“That second boy out there could’ve gotten a shockwave echo from the blast,” said Bonnett. “He’s just drifting now. He’s already put out his anti-torp volley and it should—”
Three shock waves washed over them in rapid succession.
“That would be our fish being knocked out,” said Sparrow. “Any breaking up noises from that EP?”
“Negative,” said Bonnett.
“Then they have our position now from the echo,” said Sparrow. “Send out a detection scrambler and get our anti-torp volley off.” He slapped Garcia on the back, said, “Evasive action. Force speed.”
Ramsey standing beside Bonnett hit a series of switches with the heel of his hand. A cloud of tiny torp-homing exploders swept out from the Ram.
Bonnett kicked the control which sent out a dummy torpedo carrying signal equipment to scramble detection systems.
“Why couldn’t I have taken a nice safe job in a nitrox factory?” Garcia moaned.
“You guys who want to live forever make me sick,” said Bonnett. “Here you are in a nice perambulating sewer pipe with ple—”
“Up!” barked Sparrow. “If we get into close quarters I want a bigger pressure margin.”
Garcia complied. The deck slanted upward.
Ramsey said, “What makes you think …”
“We’re coming out of that scrambler’s field,” said Bonnett.
“Fire another along our forward path,” said Sparrow. Again he slapped Garcia’s shoulder. “Right rudder and drift.”
Garcia pulled the wheel right, straightened it, shut down the drive. Slowly, the Ram lost headway. Again the deck tilted to starboard.
“We’ve gotten sloppy on our trim,” said Sparrow.
Bonnett leaned toward Ramsey, whispered, “That guy’s a genius. We coast along the edge of the first scrambler’s field. The one we just sent out will leave a track for the other boys to follow and they’ll—” He broke off, staring at the detection system, eyes widening. “Skipper!” he husked, voice hanging on the edge of horror. “They’re right on top of us—force speed. Going overhead now. Not more than one hundred feet!”
Sparrow shouldered Garcia aside, kicked the Ram into force speed, swerved it into the wake of the other sub. To Bonnett, he said, “Keep us on their tail. Gently, friend … gently.”
Garcia whispered, “I heard of this happening once with old Plunger, but I never thought I’d see it myself.”
Ramsey said, “Their blind spot. They can’t hear us in the turbulence of their own wake.”
Bonnett’s voice came calm and steady: “Two degrees port.”
Sparrow swerved the Ram to follow.
Ramsey pointed to the oscilloscope.
Bonnett followed the direction, said, “Skipper, off to starboard is a whole wolf pack. They’re converging on that last scrambler we sent out.”
“Too close for comfort,” said Sparrow. With one hand he eased down drive speed; with the other he punched the controls to arm a torpedo. “Give me minimum range,” he said. “This has to be fast. As soon as the blast reaches us, fire scramblers to the four points of the compass.”
Bonnett acknowledged. “One hundred yards,” he said. “One twenty-five … one fifty … one seventy …” He glanced to the secondary scope. “Any second now that pack will be getting two signals from us and one of the signals won’t fit IFF. Two fifty … two seventy-five …”
Sparrow fired the single torpedo, killed the drive, began counting: “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, elev—”
The concussion shook the Ram.
Bonnett fired the scramblers.
Ramsey’s ears were ringing.
Sparrow kicked on drive to force speed, brought the Ram about in a tight circle, coursing upward. With one hand, he pushed Garcia into the control position, stepped back. “They’ll be expecting us to dive,” he said. “Blow the tanks.”
Garcia palmed the switches and the Ram bounced to the
Sparrow said, “Les, give me a fifty-foot warning on the edge of the scrambler field.”
“Right,” said Bonnett. “We’ve a ways to go yet.”
Bonnett caught the puzzled look on Ramsey’s face, said,
“They taught you things in subschool, but they never taught you this, did they?”
Ramsey shook his head.
“We’re going to float up,” said Bonnett. “We may be walking on the ceiling before we get there, but we’re going to do it silently.”
Sparrow looked to the static pressure gauge: 1200 pounds—above the 0003-foot level. He glanced inquiringly at Bonnett, who shook his head.
The seconds ticked away.
Bonnett said, “Now!”
Garcia killed the drive.
Sparrow wiped his face with his hands, looked startled when his hand came away bloody. “Nosebleed,” he said. “Pressure change was too rapid. Haldane tablets, everyone.” He fished a flat green pill from a pocket, popped it into his mouth. As always, his reaction was sudden nausea. He grimaced, held the pill down by willpower, shuddered.
Ramsey choked on his pill, coughed, fought it down.
Bonnett spat into his handkerchief, said, “Human beings weren’t meant to take this kind of a beating.” He shook his head.
The Ram began to tip gently to the right.
Sparrow looked at Ramsey, said, “Johnny, go over to the left there.”
Ramsey complied, thinking: What a way to get on a first-name basis! I’d sooner stay a dryback.
As he passed Garcia, the engineering officer spoke the thought aloud: “Bet you wish you were still Junior Ramsey.”
Ramsey smiled faintly.
The deck’s tipping slowed, but did not stop.
Sparrow nodded to Bonnett. “Hand pump. Start shifting some water. Slow and easy.”
Bonnett stepped to the aft bulkhead, swung out a crank handle. Sparrow took over the search-board position.
Slowly, they steadied on an even keel, but now the nose began to sink. Then the deck began to slant slowly to the left.
Sparrow glanced at Ramsey, nodded toward the aft bulkhead on his side. “Take over fore-and-aft stabilization. Easy does it. No noise.”