The Dragon in the Sea (11 page)

Authors: Frank Herbert

BOOK: The Dragon in the Sea

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“Aye, Skipper.” Ramsey plugged a monitor phone into one of the board circuits ahead of him, glanced to the telltale above it. As he did, he noted that the pellet in his neck had almost lost the sound of the tube behind them. His hands continued to move the internal pressure ahead of the depth requirement. The outside pressure repeater above his head showed 2600 pounds to the square inch, still climbing. Abruptly, the temperature recorder responded to their entrance into the cold current.

Ramsey spoke into his chest mike: “We're in the cold, Skipper.”

Back came Sparrow's voice: “We have it here.”

Ramsey's pressure repeater climbed through 2815 pounds, steadied. He felt the deck beneath him come up to level. Relays clicked, a bank of monitor lights flashed green. He sensed the ship around himâa buoyant, almost living thing of machines, plastics, gases, fluids â¦ and humans. He could hear Sparrow's voice over the open intercom giving orders in the control room.

“Force speed. Change course to fifty-nine degrees, thirty minutes.”

The secondary sonoran chart at Ramsey's left noted the course change. He looked at the red dot marking their position: almost due south of the western tip of Iceland, directly on the sixtieth parallel of latitude. Automatic timelog reading: seven days, fourteen hours, twenty-six minutes from start of mission.

“Ramsey, anything on those fish we sent back?”

“Negative, Skipper.”

“Stick with the shack. We're going to start tearing down the board. We'll have to check every tube for deviation from standard weight.”

“We'll have to go over the shack and the E-stores, too,” said Ramsey.

“Later.” Sparrow's voice conveyed a calm surety.

Ramsey glanced at his wrist watch, correlated it with the timelog.
What will the telemeter show?
he asked himself. Again, he felt that his mind had made a failing grasp at an elusive piece of essential knowledge. Something about Sparrow. Ramsey's gaze ranged over the board in front of him. His ears felt tuned for the slightest sound over the monitor phones. He glanced at the oscilloscope in the right bank: only background noise. For a fleeting instant, Ramsey felt that he was one with the ship, that the instruments around him were but extensions of his senses. Then it was gone and he could not recapture the feeling.

In the control room, Sparrow fought down the twitching of a cheek muscle. He replaced a tube in the sonoran system, extracted another, read the code designation from the tube's side: “PY4X4.”

Garcia, beside him, ran a finger down a check list: “Fifteen ounces plus.”

Sparrow checked it on a balance scale. “Right on.” He replaced the tube, said, “You know, when I was in high school they were saying that someday they'd run systems like this with transistors and printed circuits.”

“They did for a while,” said Garcia.

“Then we got into sweep circuits,” said Sparrow. He pulled out an octode cumulator tube, read off the code, checked the weight.

“We could still get by with lighter stuff if it weren't for high atmospheric pressures.” He went on to another tube. “What we need is a dielectric as tough as plasteel.”

“Or an armistice,” said Garcia. “Then deep-tug equipment would be specialty stuff.”

Sparrow nodded, pulled another tube from its socket.

“Skipper, what is that Ramsey?” asked Garcia.

Sparrow paused in the process of weighing a tube, looked at Garcia. “I
think
he's a Security man planted on us.”

“That occurred to me,” said Garcia. “But have you asked yourself yet who planted the spy beam on us? He could be a sleeper. He could be, Skipper.”

Sparrow's hand trembled as he reached for another tube to weigh. He brought back his hand empty, wiped the palm on his shirt, looked down at Garcia. “Joeâ” He broke off.

“Yes?”

“Has it ever occurred to you that humanity's basic problem is all wrapped up in the idea of Security?”

“That's a big mouthful, Skipper.”

“I mean it, Joe. Look, I know what I am. I can even tell you what my conception of myself is. How you have nothing to fear from me. Les can do the same thing. And you.
And Ramsey.” He wet the corners of his mouth with his tongue, stared wide-eyed at Garcia. “And any one of us or all of us could be lying.”

“That's not a Security problem, Skipper. That's a problem in communications. Ramsey's department.”

Sparrow turned back to the board without answering, went on with his patient inspection.

“I'd like to know what that last-minute Security inspection of Ramsey was all about,” said Garcia.

“Shut up!” barked Sparrow. “Until there's proof positive to the contrary, he's one of us. So are you and Les. And so am I.” His mouth twisted in faint amusement. “We're all in the same boat.” The lips thinned. “And we've a bigger and more immediate problem.” He balanced a tube on the scales, replaced it. “How can we break radio silence to notify home base of what we've discovered?”

A distant dull thump pounded through the hull. A second one.

Ramsey's voice over the intercom: “Skipper! Two hits! Blast pattern identical to our fish!” His voice rose in pitch: “Breaking up noises! Two sources. Skipper! We got two!”

“God forgive us,” said Sparrow. “God forgive us.”

More thudding sounds resonating through the hull, a strange double beat.

“Anti-torp seekers,” said Ramsey. “They've knocked out the rest of our fish.”

“Those men didn't stand a chance,” said Sparrow. His voice lowered, became almost inaudible. “âHe that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death. And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee. But if a man come
presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.'”

Across from him, Bonnett held up a tube. “Joe, what's standard on a GR5?”

Garcia glanced at Sparrow, who turned abruptly back to his examination of the board. “Eight ounces,” said Garcia.

“That's what I make it,” said Bonnett. “But this one tops thirteen.” A tone of suppressed excitement vibrated in his voice.

Sparrow looked aft, lips trembling.

“I think I have one, Skipper,” said Bonnett.

Garcia had stepped across to Bonnett's side. He took the tube from the first officer.

“There should be a better way to live and a better way to die,” said Sparrow. He shuddered, stabbed a glance at Bonnett. “Well, set it aside and see if there are any more!”

Bonnett appeared about to reply, but remained silent. He reclaimed the tube from Garcia, deposited it gently in a padded tray of his tool box.

Sparrow passed a hand across his forehead. His head ached strangely.
Is there a spy aboard? he asked himself. Is it Ramsey? Is it Les? Is it Joe? The EPs are hoping we lead them to the well.
He looked blankly at the open wiring before him.
Then why set off a tracer now? To test our alertness? The obvious time for a signal with be when we're sitting on top of the well.

A strange vibration inside his head distracted Sparrow. He was startled to discover he'd been grinding his teeth.
When we're sitting on the well! God help me! How will I prevent it? I can't remain awake the whole time.

“That's the last one,” said Garcia. He indicated a tube
which Sparrow had automatically placed in the balance scales.

Sparrow shuddered, drew himself back to the present. “Put it back,” he said.

Garcia complied.

Sparrow looked at Bonnett. “Les, start checking the spares in E-stores.”

“Aye,” said Bonnett.

Sparrow spoke to Garcia: “Stay on watch here.”

Garcia nodded. “Are you going to rest, Skipper?”

Sparrow shook his head from side to side. “No. No, I have to go back to the shack and help Ramâ” He stopped, glanced at Garcia. “We've engaged the enemy and come through.” Sparrow stepped to the door leading aft. “I'm going to help
Johnny
check out the tubes in the shack.”

“What about that?” Garcia indicated the tube Bonnett had left in the tray of his tool box.

Sparrow returned, picked up the tube, went back to the door, examining the tube. “We'll have a look. Maybe it'll tell us something.” He glanced at Garcia. “You be thinking about how we can contact base.”

He was gone through the door.

Garcia clenched his fists, turned to face the master board. His gaze fell on the sonoran chart and its marker: a red insect creeping across vastness.
Where? Where's the well?

Ramsey looked up from his instruments as Sparrow entered. “Anything new, Skipper?”

“Les found this.” Sparrow placed the tube on the felt padding of Ramsey's bench. “It's five ounces over.”

Ramsey looked at the tube without touching it. “Has it occurred to you that thing could be set to explode on tampering?”

“Some of the old Salem sea captains used to attend their own funerals before embarking,” said Sparrow. “Figuratively, I'm in the same frame of mind.”

“That's not what I mean,” said Ramsey. “A half ounce of nitrox could get us both. Maybe you'd better leave me alone with it.”

Sparrow frowned, shrugged. He thumbed his chest mike: “Joe, Lesâhear this. This tube may be booby-trapped. If anything happens to Johnny and me, you two drop the tow and head for home. That's an order.”

Johnny!
thought Ramsey.
He called me Johnny!
And then he remembered:
We've met the enemy. The old magic is dead. Enter the new magic.

“We'll want a record of this,” said Sparrow. He took a camera from a drawer, racked it above the bench, focused it. “Okay,” he said. “You're the expert on these gadgets.”

Ramsey spoke without looking up from the tube: “A half hour of just looking at this thing, studying all the angles, could mean the difference between success and failure.”

“What're we looking for?”

“I don't really know. Something different. Something that hits a sour note.”

Sparrow bent over the bench, grabbed a handhold as the
Ram
's deck slanted to the upflow of an undersea current. Ramsey steadied the tube with one hand, brought up folds of the felt padding to keep the tube from rolling. The amber light of the temperature-gadget indicator on the board ahead of them flashed off, on, off.

Ramsey switched on the thermo repeater above the light: thirty-four degrees.

Sparrow nodded at the repeater. “The Arctic bottom
drift. It's full of food. There'll be a sonic curtain of sea life above us.” He smiled. “We can breathe a bit easier.”

Ramsey shook his head. “Not with that thing to solve.” He stared at the tube on the bench. “If you were going to trigger that to explode, how would you do it?”

“A tiny wire maybe. Break it andâ”

“Maybe,” said Ramsey. “A better way would be to set a trigger keyed to pressure changeâif the vacuum breaks â¦” He straightened. “First some infra and X pictures. Then we'll rig a vacuum jar with remote controls, handle the tube in the vacuum. After that we'll break the seal.”

Sparrow touched the tube with one long finger of his left hand. “Looks like standard heavy-pressure glass.”

“I don't understand something,” said Ramsey. He spoke as he worked, setting up the portable infra camera on the bench. “Why did this thing start when it did? That wasn't smart. The clever thing would've been to wait until we reached the well.”

“My idea exactly,” said Sparrow.

Ramsey focused the camera. “How much longer until we reach it?”

The casual way of the question caught Sparrow off balance. He looked up to the shack room sonoran chart, started to say, “Well, it's on the flank ofâ” He froze.

Ramsey made an exposure, turned the tube to a new angle.

He's too casual,
thought Sparrow.

“You were saying.” Ramsey spoke without looking up from the tube.

“Mr. Ramsey, a subtug's destination is known only to its commander until the immediate area of that destination is reached.”

Ramsey straightened. “That's a stupid order. If something happened to you we couldn't go on.”

“Are you suggesting I should confide our destination in you?”

Ramsey hesitated, thought:
I already know it. What would happen if I indicated that to Sparrow? That'd confirm his opinion that I'm Security.