Book 3: 3rd World Products, Inc (8 page)

"I decided that it would be better if I didn't touch down directly over the wreck,” she said. “We're still fifty miles away from it."

"Weren't we in stealth mode, as always?"

"Yes, but Amaran technology has found its way into some of the more critical Earth services, like air traffic control and the drug trafficking prevention efforts. I can't be sure that my usual field effects will be effective, so I'll be entering and leaving the water from different directions and at varying distances from the wreck site."

I grinned and said, “Gee. Finding a little gold sure does make some people paranoid, doesn't it?"

Stephie asked, “Do you disagree with my precautions?"

"You're being teased, miLady. Laugh."

"Ha,” she said. “Ha."

Some kind of really big-assed gray blur of motion scooted quickly away as we approached. Steph identified it as a shark—which didn't surprise me at all, since my one encounter with them had left me feeling that there was probably one every twenty feet or so in the ocean—and she said that something about her fields seemed to both attract and repel them.

"They're drawn to me, but as soon as they get within a few feet,” she said, “It's as if they smell something bad and shy away from me. They stay in the area, but they never get too close after their first brush with my fields."

"A Discovery show mentioned a shark at some aquarium a few years ago that seemed to have a problem with the metal wall of its tank. The water and metal and something else combined to create electrical signals that screwed up the shark's equilibrium or irritated it. It would attack the bare wall in one spot all the time. When they moved it to the outside tank, the odd behavior stopped."

"I think I know which episode you mean, Ed. Their sensitivity to me is what alerted me. If sharks can detect my field, so might someone's devices."

"Reasonable to me. How deep is it around here? I kind of expected to be able to see the bottom this close to shore."

"The seabed is at an average of one hundred feet in this area. You probably could just barely see it if the water contained no sediment and wasn't moving."

I took a long look over the side and realized again—as I had one evening in 1980—that I very much didn't like looking down into the dark depths of the ocean.

I'd been with some other people on a cabin cruiser that hit a mostly-submerged tree that had been washed out to sea. There had been pitch-black water all around our raft and blood in the water that we'd unthinkingly bailed out of the raft. Soon the sharks had appeared, rolling near the raft and shooting past it repeatedly as they searched for the source of the blood. We turned off the flashlight and huddled together in several inches of water all night, whispering if we spoke at all for fear of making any noise that might attract the attention of the sharks.

Tiger stood on the deck in front of me and yowled something at me. I shuddered and tore my eyes away from the view of the depths below us.

Stephie asked, “Ed, are you not feeling well?"

I cleared my throat and said, “Just remembering something, Steph."

"It must have been truly horrible,” she said.

"It could have been a lot worse, I suppose. We all made it to shore."

"Your bioscan readings were almost as high as I've ever seen them. You were even frightening Tiger. Is there something about being underwater that frightens you?"

"Not when I look up. Not when I look forward or back or to the side. Only when I look down into the blackness. I was remembering my own shipwreck in 1980 and the way the water looked around the rubber raft when it was teeming with sharks."

"Would you rather not continue?"

"I'm fine. As I said, it only bothers me to look down, for some reason."

"But the water is just as black ahead of..."

I cut in sharply with, “Shut
up
, Steph,” and then amended my words with, “I'm sorry. I'd rather deal with one direction at a time, please, and without discussion. One direction is more than enough right now, okay? I'm inside you and I'll be fine and I know it. Being inside you is very comforting to me, Steph. I'll get by."

"I ... Okay. Sorry."

"No sweat. How about putting something on the screen, Steph? Show me something of what you see out there."

She brightened and said, “I'll blend my sensor data into something like what you'd see through a Starlight scope, Ed. The images will be rendered in shades of blue, though, not green. Would that do?"

"Actually, that would be fine, Steph. It would look more as if we were flying over the terrain. Thanks."

From one side of the deck to the other, her fields projected our immediate vicinity. For the most part, we were ‘flying’ over a vast, almost featureless plain. Fish of all sizes seemed to hang suspended in the ‘sky’ around us as we continued our journey. Only those closest to us appeared to move much, and those fish were most interested in getting away from us. As I looked forward, it seemed as if the ocean were literally crowded.

"Why are there so many fish around here, Steph?"

"There aren't, really. Some of them are almost a mile away. It's difficult to display true size and perspective properly in this viewing mode."

I put a finger on one quarter-inch long fish and asked her how far away it was.

"That one is nearly eight hundred feet distant and turning away from us, Ed. You have your finger on a hammerhead shark that is almost fourteen feet long."

"Good place for him. Far away. Farther would be good, too. How long until we get to the wreck?"

"Eight minutes at this speed. If I go any faster I'll begin to generate a detectable signature, and there's a US submarine twenty miles northwest of us."

"This is fine, Steph.” I laughed shortly and said, “It might be fun to buzz them later, though. Give ‘em something to talk about, wouldn't it?"

"Buzz them?"

"Yeah. Go past them at high speed. You could configure your field to really stir up the water. They'd hear us, but they wouldn't be able to see us."

"That would be fun?"

"If you have to ask, possibly not. I guess you wouldn't know if it was fun unless you tried it. Oh, wait one. You aren't including an envisioning of the panic on their bridge, are you? Think of it, Steph. A close, high speed pass..."

"You're suggesting that we frighten them after you've just had a considerable fright of your own?"

"Excuse me, ma'am. What
I
had was a mild case of trepidation."

"Semantics, Ed."

"Oh, hell, I know that. So? They'd say the same thing over beers later."

"Was your ...
trepidation
... of a few moments ago at all enjoyable, Ed?"

I sighed and reached into the cooler for a beer.

"
Okay.
Forget I mentioned it. No buzzing the submarine. Happy now,
Mother?
"

The bottom seemed to be rising beneath us, and at first I thought Stephie was descending, but the surface of the water seemed to be about the same distance above us. When the bottom became rather starkly outlined on her fields, I asked her to let me see the outside world as it really was and she complied.

It was still dark and murky below us, but when Steph turned on her glow-field, I could actually see the seabed and a scattering of startled fish nearby.

"Did we head back toward shore, Steph?"

"No, this immediate area averages less than a hundred feet deep. The ship lies in a depression at a depth of one hundred and thirty-two feet."

"I wonder why someone's instruments haven't tripped over it by now? Are we near shipping lanes or fishing areas?"

"Not shipping lanes. There is some very old fishing netting tangled around the ship's rudder, but it seems likely that most nets would slide over the debris."

Some minutes later, Stephie said, “We're within one hundred yards of the wreck, Ed. You should be able to see it."

"I see lumps and bumps and some fish. No ships yet."

"It's lying on its side, buried in sediment. Keep watching."

"Steph, would my five suit work at this depth?"

"Your personal field could withstand almost twice this depth, Ed, but you'd still need to decompress properly."

As a small shark of some sort scurried out of our path, I asked, “But you said that fields seem to attract sharks. How would it stand up against a shark bite?"

"It wouldn't help you at all. A shark's jaws can generate two tons of pressure per square inch or more."

"Uh, huh. Guess I'll mostly just watch, then."

An elongated lump ahead caught my attention and I said, “I think I see it."

Something dark and flaccid seemed to blow past outside, slithering quickly over the canopy field and away into the darkness.

"What the hell was that?"

"A black plastic garbage bag."

"The current here must be pretty strong, then. It was really flying."

"The current averages between four and seven knots in this area. It's one of the reasons that the south side of the wreck is almost a solid mound of sediment. You'll be able to see most of what's left of the upper deck, but much of the ship's starboard hull has collapsed inward or been eroded away."

"Can you get to everything that's worth salvaging?"

"Not without damaging the remains of the ship. I can reach into most parts of the wreck, but there are two areas that have closed doors, and those doors are blocked by sediment. Clearing the sediment could cause parts of the ship to collapse."

"I don't care about a bunch of worm-eaten, rotted wood, Steph, but if those are personal cabins, there's undoubtedly stuff in them that should be in a museum. Could your field hold things together while you excavate?"

"My field would be inadequate."

"We could come in from above, then. Where's the gold?"

"Underneath the ship, mostly. It and the ballast and some cannons and cannonballs crushed the hull and fell through, apparently long after the ship sank, but they held it in place long enough for sediment to fill the ship."

"Okay. What's inside the ship is mostly lightweight archaeologically important stuff, and it isn't going anywhere. People can dive to this depth, so let's leave some of the gold, all of the cannons and like that, and announce the find. You can publish an inventory of what was aboard the ship, what you've claimed for yourself, and what you've left aboard the wreck. Say that you'd prefer to have professional help recovering the fragile stuff and dozens of qualified volunteers will jump at the chance to be involved in recovery efforts."

"If the sediment is removed, the remnants of ship will definitely begin moving in this current, Ed. Divers would be risking injury or death."

"Could you hold things steady?"

"No. It's more than twice what I could manage."

I studied the mound of mud in front of me. “How much more, exactly?"

"Two hundred and thirty percent, if the current remains fairly constant."

I considered matters briefly, then called Elkor.

"Elkor, can you suit up in one of the other flitters you made and help her?"

"No, Ed. They are no longer available to me."

"Could you make another one?"

"No, Ed. That design is now owned exclusively by 3rd World Products and a consortium of Earth manufacturers. I was specifically ordered not to manufacture any more such flitters."

"Damn. Steph, how about moving the cannons and stuff back aboard the ship?"

"That would reduce the percentage of excess to approximately one hundred and seventy or so if the ship's hull remnants were strong enough to contain them. I don't think they are."

"Can we anchor it to the bottom with cables or something?"

"That might well be possible."

Stephie and I discussed other possibilities for several minutes before Elkor spoke again.

Elkor said, “Ed, I may have a solution."

"What is it, Elkor? Any ideas are welcome at this point."

"I could build one of the larger flitters."

I almost yelled at him. Almost. After a moment I replied.

"Elkor,” I said tightly, “I have an excuse. I'm just a slow-witted human. You and Stephie think at damned near the speed of light. How come that didn't occur to either of you a while ago and why aren't you prevented from building the big flitters? I thought none were to be built on Earth except for resale elsewhere. Isn't making them some kind of a contract violation?"

"When I separated from the ship's core, I specifically requested the right to make one for my own use because I thought that I might need it for moving heavy objects. That need has not arisen until now. I don't know why the idea didn't occur to me sooner, but I think it may be because..."

I interrupted him with, “Oh, let me guess.
'Because I didn't ask'
, right?"

"That does seem the most likely answer, Ed."

"You, too, Steph?"

"I'm afraid so, Ed. On the other hand, there was a time when neither of us would have thought of it at all, for exactly the same reason. It would seem that we're making progress in matters of intuitive deduction and reasoning."

"Indeed so,” said Elkor.

"Indeed so, indeed,” I said, dropping myself into the pilot's seat. “Hell, you're right. I don't have any reason to get tense. After all, it didn't occur to me, either. I just assumed that flitter manufacturing in general was off-limits for you. Would your flitter be enough to hold things together down here, Elkor?"

"Yes. It could be enough to anchor the ship in conjunction with Stephanie's efforts."

"
Could
be? You aren't sure?"

"They weren't designed with underwater efforts such as these in mind, Ed. It would depend on the current, as Stephanie mentioned, and other factors."

I grabbed a fresh beer out of the cooler and sat down so that Tiger could have a lap. The side of the old aluminum Pearl beer cooler had the company logo embossed and painted on it. The red disk that was—I supposed—the setting sun or maybe just a frame for the company name capped the top and bottom of the name ‘Pearl', and the encompassing design gave me an idea.

I asked, “Would a third field source be enough, guys? What if you set up something like my house field to redirect the current over and around the ship? Divers could work inside something like that, too, couldn't they? Just drop a dome over the damned thing, then hitch up to it for some added safety."