Far From The Sea We Know (35 page)

“You’re stretching too far,” she said.

“The less we change, the better, and you
know that’s true. It’s the same reasoning that was used, by you
among others, to not bring any of my people on board here. We don’t
want to wake a sleeping dragon.”

“Well, you might, if you go down there.”

Andrew smiled at her. Yet, she realized, he
was not opposed to using the
Bluedrop
.

“Look,” Chiffrey said, “we don’t have weeks
to repair, and replace, and reconfigure. Malcolm tells me the parts
to fix your own ROVs are mostly custom, one of a kind. And guess
what? We sent a message to your institute, the Point. Your people
tell us that
their
spare parts have also been pilfered. The
ones we need are gone, all of them. According to them, it would
take weeks to make replacements. Weeks, in my experience, usually
translates as months.”

“Where did you get this?” Andrew asked.

“The reason I was late. The Point contacted
my people. We have a good liaison now. There probably will be a
message waiting for you on the bridge. Sorry to drop it on you out
of the blue. Unfortunately, Captain, there’s more.”

“Let’s have it.”

“Mary Sims took leave of Jack for a day and
paid a visit to the Point. Just before the parts went missing. We
have witnesses that place her in the area where the spares and
supplies for the
Bluedrop
were kept. She spoke with someone
there, someone she knew, and stayed there after that person went to
lunch.”

“She stole them?” Penny asked. It all
started to make a warped kind of sense.

“Not proven yet,” Chiffrey said, “but looks
that way. We have to think she disabled the ROVs here before she
left. Probably just dumped the parts overboard.” He sighed, slowly
letting out his breath. “I got to know her a little. Sweet girl,
but it soon became clear she was carrying a torch for Ripler. And
after the incident, that torch seemed to burn a little brighter and
a lot stranger. Right? She would have done anything for him. No
surprise when she elected to return to help with his care.”

“She’s not the type to steal and scheme,”
Andrew said.

“I agree.” Chiffrey said. “The only thing
that makes sense to me is that Mary was manipulated by Ripler. Even
after he went crackers, he could be extremely persuasive and
compelling. In some ways, more than ever. I believe he has a kind
of hold on her.”

“Works for me,” Penny said, “but why disable
the ROVs? Jack championed them at the expense of the
Bluedrop
every chance he got.”

“So I heard,” Chiffrey said. “Maybe it was
sort of a ‘if I can’t have them, no one will’ kind of thing. He
broke his own toys rather than let someone else have them. Where is
Matthew these days, by the way?”

“He’s keeping busy, but still recovering,”
Penny said. “Leave him be.”

“If you hear anything new,” Andrew said to
Chiffrey, “update me immediately.”

“You have my word. But we do need to step it
up. We don’t have spares here, we don’t have them back at the
Point. We don’t have time to make new ones. The
Bluedrop
is
our only ride. We go with what we have now, or we go home.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Yes?” Andrew said.

“It’s me, Malcolm. Um, news, Captain.”

“The missing parts?”

“Ah, no, but more.”

“Come in,” Andrew said. “What’s
happened?

Malcolm glanced around the small cabin as if
looking for something. His gaze finally alighted on the deck, but
as if he were looking straight through it, down into the sea. “The
sonar works again,” he said.

“Didn’t know it was broken.”

“I mean the dome. We can see it now.
It’s…perfect.”

The was a brief silence when no one even
seemed to breathe, then Chiffrey quietly asked, “You can see the
whole thing?”

“Perfectly round. Huge. Four hundred and
ninety-six meters in diameter, about three hundred high.”

Chiffrey made no attempt to hide his elation
and almost hugged Malcolm, but instead announced, “The welcome mat
is out.”

“You’re a fool to count on that,” Penny
said.

“Sorry, can’t argue with you now. There are
some people I need to contact. First, I’m going to have a quick
look of my own at this thing on sonar. If you’ll excuse me.” As he
was leaving, however, he turned and said, “Sure, I don’t know for
sure, but this thing becoming visible just as we arrive will lend
us even more credibility with the leash holders up the line. So
let’s use the opportunity while we can.”

Penny made no attempt at an answer. She had
none. It was time to talk to her father.

She found him in C-lab where Emory was
giving him a commentary as they viewed the sonar. The image was
striking. It seemed too symmetrical, too perfect in shape.

“Amazing,” her father said, and finally
looked up at her. “Don’t you think?”

“I think you need to tell me how you are
going to keep them safe down there.”

He glanced at Emory who, after some
hesitation, said, “I’ll explain. For one thing, we’re going to use
a dead-man switch.”

“Charming name,” she said, “but I was
speaking to my father.”

“Emory can explain this better than I
can.”

She looked at her father a moment more, then
turned to Emory. She made her face as impassive as she could. “I’m
sorry. Go on.”

“No problem. It’s called a dead-man switch
because even a dead-man can activate it.”

“Now I feel so much better.”

“Hey, it’s just a fail-safe device to bring
the
Bluedrop
up even if everything is non-operative. A solid
clockwork mechanism, no wires or circuits, just gears and springs,
tough and reliable.”

“Nothing is reliable anymore,” she couldn’t
help saying.

“Well, it doesn’t depend on electrical
power, so that should give it an edge. I’ll rig it so if the switch
is not manually reset every twenty minutes, there’ll be a warning
and then some explosive bolts—”

“Explosive!”

“They’re small,” Emory said. “Used for
years, extremely reliable. On the first manned spacecraft, for
instance. They blow by producing gas from the reaction of chemical
agents. It’s mostly carbon dioxide, so safe. The gas flows into
ballistic-rated membranes that force water out of the ballast
tanks. The
Bluedrop
becomes buoyant and up she comes, at a
safe rate, not too fast. Divers can meet it and adjust as
necessary.”

“Even from outside?” she said.

“Sure. And we have high intensity underwater
flares, so they can see if the electric lights go out and
mechanical cameras on board that can work without electricity as
well. Even if we have power problems, we’ll still get something.
Just about anything can go wrong, and the crew will still be good.
Multiple backups throughout.”

Penny smiled as best she could. Emory was
trying to reassure her, but his near religious faith in technology
made him sound less, rather than more, convincing.

“Emory, that’s all marvelous, but you don’t
really know that the
Bluedrop
will not be disabled in some
other way you can’t anticipate. Remember the Navy cruisers? What
happens if the
Bluedrop
gets a hole punched through it?
Everyone would drown.”

“I doubt it. The pressure would crush them
first.”

“Well, silly me, then there’s no worry at
all!”

She raced out of the room in a fury and out
to the deck. Footsteps sounded after her. She walked as fast as she
could, then abruptly turned and shouted, “What?” But it wasn’t
Emory. It was her father.

“Dear,” he said. “No one will be
harmed.”

“But you don’t
know
that! What do we
have to go on, to really make an assessment? Nothing!”

“I don’t agree, and I’m surprised to hear
you say this. Violence does not fit in with what we have seen so
far. No one has been hurt physically.” He paused for a moment. “In
any case, we won’t be free diving. There will be a cable, both for
added security and to allow video and data connections. It will
hamper our maneuverability somewhat, but it seems prudent. The
dead-man switch is redundant. If worst comes to worst, they can
just haul us up. Although you are right in saying we don’t
understand what we are dealing with, we have been getting a wealth
of information on its character, if you like. I don’t see anything
to indicate that we will be harmed, and Chiffrey has the Navy and
his people going along with this, but we don’t know for how long.
Right now, they are willing to let us have a go.”

“How kind of them.”

“The longer we wait, the more likely it is
that they will insist on pushing, and who knows what the
consequences of that would be?”

“We don’t know what the consequences of
our
actions will be.”

“Ultimately you can say that about every
breath we take, but it’s hardly fair to suggest we shouldn’t
explore the unknown until we know all about it first.”

Penny considered. Opposing her father now
would be like trying to stop time.

“When do you launch?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

With what was left of the evening, the
student crew began getting equipment ready. Penny having nothing to
prepare other than herself, had a walk. As she strolled around to
the aft deck, she came upon Matthew helping Becka and Emory
complete the holding tank setup to get it ready for filling. There
were no plans for any captures at this point, but maybe Andrew
wanted to have it on standby just in case. Or, more likely, he
simply knew that a busy crew meant less trouble. As it was, Matthew
had been keeping to himself the last few days and only returning to
her in the evenings.

So, good, she thought, he’s becoming engaged
again. Leave him alone. Don’t push him.

She continued her walk, climbed some steps,
and saw her father leaning on a railing, looking out over the
moonlit sea. He didn’t notice her, and she waited, watching. The
faint smile that played on his lips betrayed no doubts, only the
wonder of an innocent, in spite of his age. Somehow, he had never
lost that. As she was thinking this, he turned and nodded to
her.

“I hope you have forgiven me for getting you
into all this,” he said. “Didn’t realize it would turn into such a
circus. Good choice of a word, isn’t it?”

“Chiffrey has been putting us through some
hoops, if that’s what you mean.”

“I suspect he’s had to jump more than a few
himself. That’s his job, I suppose. But I meant it in a different
way. We find ourselves in the middle of a large circle that at
first seemed to say, ‘nothing to see, move along.’ Now, from
darkness and silence, it suddenly turns the porch light on.”

“Dad, there is something in the way this is
heading that has me deeply concerned.”

“Nothing wrong with healthy skepticism, but
cooperation has the best chance for things to work out for us.”

“Then it’s true about the budget cuts next
year? Ripler dropped that on Matthew the day we arrived.”

Her father didn’t answer right away. “Yes,
I’m afraid it is true. What’s more, this might have been one of the
last expeditions for the
Valentina.
There was a chance it
would have been
the
last.”

“And you think this adventure will delay
that?”

“In a way, Ripler was thinking correctly,
although for the wrong reasons. In spite of Chiffrey’s efforts,
something is getting out. The mysterious voyages of the
Valentina
have been news for days. That’s led to a profusion
of back-stories about the ship and what she has accomplished over
the years. It will be harder to scuttle her now. ‘You can’t shoot
Bambi,’ as Emory said to me. Not the best metaphor, but he made the
point.”

Her father gazed at his daughter a moment
before looking back at the moonlit waves. “You know I would never
put anyone at risk to get funding. It might just as easily work out
that this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back as far as
the board goes. But even if I knew that, I’d still go ahead.”

“It’s hard to believe they would stop
funding the
Valentina
.”

“Goes deeper than that. They want to sell
her. Yes, really. She’s not cheap to maintain, and is by far the
largest single expense for the Point. They don’t want to spend so
much, and other technologies beckon.”

“Then maybe you should ask the Navy for
funding. It must cost more than the GNP of some countries just for
all the ships they’ve deployed here.”

“Well, they have to be somewhere, and in
some ways, we are lucky. The Navy is working for us at the moment.
Look there.”

Penny soon found the lights of a few ships
on the inland horizon. Her father said, “Most are Navy or Coast
Guard, but a few others had begun to gather before being escorted
away. They’ve also declared a no-fly zone around us. Terrible in a
way, but helpful just now.”

“The media could prevent the military from
keeping this a secret.”

“I don’t really enjoy seeing my picture in
the papers. Expect Matthew didn’t either, but that can’t be undone,
I’m sorry to say. What is more important right now is to keep
people away from here at least until we understand what we are
dealing with. What if we had flotillas of divers all wanting to go
have a look at what’s down there in your circle? Taking off chunks
for souvenirs. Don’t laugh, they would. And selling them to the
highest bidder. For now, the Navy needs us and we need them. You
can see that, can’t you?”

As much as she loved her father, Penny hated
it when he boxed her in like this. It was the same tactic Chiffrey
had used.

“Yes, I understand the argument,” she said,
“and I know our options are limited. I don’t see us handing over
the
Valentina
to the Navy. But how far can we trust them?
Not to mention Chiffrey and whoever his friends are?”