Undersea Fleet (13 page)

Gideon nodded somberly.

David cried: “Gideon, what’s wrong? I’ve got to have that cruiser! It’s—it’s my father’s life that’s at stake. If we didn’t bid enough—well, then maybe we can raise some more money, somehow. But I must have it!”

“Oh, the bid was enough,” said Gideon. “But—”

“But what, Gideon?”

He sighed. “I guess Joe Trencher knew what he was doing,” he said, in that soft, chuckling voice, now sounding worried. “He put in a bid himself, you see.”

It was bad news.

We looked at each other. David said at last, his voice hoarse and ragged: “Joe Trencher. With the pearls he stole from me, he bought the ship I need to save my father’s life. And there’s no time now to go back and try something else. It’s almost time—”

Time for what, I wondered—but Roger Fairfane interrupted him. “Is that it, Gideon?” he demanded. “Did Trencher make a higher bid, so that we don’t have a ship?”

Gideon shook his head.

“Not exactly,” he said. “Trencher owns the
Killer Whale
now, but he got it for fifty thousand dollars—the same as you bid.”

“But—but then what—”

“You see,” said Gideon gently, “Trencher wasn’t just looking at those papers. He—changed them. Changed them his way. I made the Fleet commander show them to me, and it was obvious that they’d been changed—but of course I couldn’t prove anything.” He looked at us somberly. “The ship you bid on wasn’t the
Killer Whale,
” he said. “Not after Trencher got through with the papers. What you bid on—and what you now own—is the other one. The heap of rust, as you called it, Jim. The
Dolphin.
”

The next day David Craken and I went to Sargasso City to pick up our prize.

The
Killer Whale
still lay in the slip beside it. Obsolescent, no doubt—but sleek and deadly as the sea beast for which she was named. She lay low in the water, her edenite hull rippling with pale light where the wavelets washed against it.

Next to the
Killer,
our
Dolphin
looked like the wreck she was.

Naturally, there was no sign of Joe Trencher. For a moment I had the wild notion of waiting there—keeping a watch on the
Killer Whale,
laying in wait until Trencher came to claim the ship he had cheated us out of and then confronting him…

But what good would it have done? And besides, there was no time. David had said several times that we had only a few weeks. In July something was going to happen—something that he was mysterious about, but something that was dangerous.

It was now the beginning of June. We had at the most four weeks to refit the
Dolphin,
get under weigh, make the long voyage down under the Americas, around the Horn (for we had to avoid the Fleet inspection that would come if we went through the Canal)—and help David’s father.

It was a big job…

And the
Dolphin
was a very small ship.

David looked at me and grinned wryly. “Well,” he said, “let’s go aboard.”

The
Dolphin
had been a fine and famous ship—thirty years before.

We picked our way through a tangle of discarded gear—evidently her last crew had been so happy to get off her that they hadn’t waited to pack!

We found ourselves in her wardroom. The tarnished brass tablets welded to the bulkhead recorded the high moments of her history. We paused to read them.

In spite of everything, I couldn’t help feeling a thrill.

She had held the speed and depth records for her class for three solid years.

She had been the flagship of Admiral Kane—back before I was born, on his Polar expeditions, when he sonargraphed the sea floor under the ice.

She had hunted down and sunk the subsea pirate who used the name Davy Jones.

And later—still seaworthy, but too old for regular service with the Fleet—she had become a training ship at the Academy. She’d been salvaged two or three years back, just before any of us had come to the Academy, and finally put up for auction.

And now she was ours.

We took a room for the night in one of Sargasso Dome’s hotels. It was a luxurious place, full of pleasures for vacationers and tourists anxious to sample the imitation mysteries of the fabled Sargasso Sea. But we were in no mood to enjoy it. We went to bed and lay awake for a long time, both of us, wondering if the
Dolphin’s
ancient armor would survive the crushing pressures of the Deeps…

Roger Fairfane shook us awake.

I sat up, blinking, and glanced at my wristchronometer.

It was only about five o’clock in the morning. I said blurrily, “Roger! What—what are you doing here? I thought you were still in Bermuda.”

“I was.” He was scowling worriedly. “We had to come right away—all of us. Laddy’s with me, and Bob and Gideon. We took the night shuttle from Bermuda.”

David was out of his bed, standing beside us. “What’s the matter, Roger?”

“Plenty! It’s that Joe Trencher again! The bid he made on the
Dolphin
—it was in the name of something called the Sub-Sea Salvage Corporation. Well, somebody checked into the sale of surplus ships—and they found that no such firm existed. Gideon found out that an order is going to be issued at nine o’clock this morning, canceling all sales.

“So—if we want to use the
Dolphin
to help your father, David, we’ve got to get under weigh before the order comes through at nine!”

It didn’t give us much time!

David and I had looked forward to at least a full day’s testing of the
Dolphin’s
old propulsion and pressure equipment. Even then, it would have been dangerous enough, taking the old ship out into the crushing pressures that surrounded Sargasso Dome.

But now we had only hours!

“Well—thank heaven we’ve got help,” muttered David as we dressed hurriedly and checked out of the hotel. “I’m glad Gideon flew in from Marinia! And Laddy. We’ll need every one of us, to keep that old tub of rust afloat!”

“I only hope that’s enough to do it,” I grumbled. We raced after Roger Fairfane, down the corridors, through the passenger elevators, to the sea-floor levels where the
Dolphin
and the
Killer Whale
floated quietly…

“It’s gone!” cried Dave as we came onto the catwalk over the basin. “The
Killer’s
gone!”

“Sure it is,” said Roger. “Didn’t I tell you? Trencher must have heard too—the
Killer
was already gone when we got here. Isn’t that the payoff?” he went on disgustedly. “Trencher’s the one that caused all this trouble—but he’s got away already with the
Killer
“

Gideon was already at work, checking the edenite armor film, his face worried. He looked up as we trotted up the gangplank to the above-decks hatch.

“Think she’ll stand pressure, Gideon?” I asked him.

He pushed back his hat and stared at the rippling line of light where the little wavelets licked the
Dolphin’s
side.

“Think so?” he repeated. “No, Jim. I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t think so. Not from anything I can see. She ought to be towed out and scuttled, from what I see. Her edenite film’s defective—it’ll need a hundred-hour job of repair on the generators before I can really trust it. Her power plant is ten years overdue for salvage. One of her pumps is broken down. And the whole power plant, pumps and all, is hot with leaded radiation. If I had my way, I’d scrap the whole plant down to. the bedplates.”

I stared at him. “But—but, Gideon

He held up his hand. “All the same, Jim,” he went on, in his soft voice, “she floats. And I’ve talked to the salvage officer here—got him out of bed to do it—and she came in on her own power, with her own armor keeping the sea out. Well, that was only a month ago. If she could do it then, she can do it now.”

He grinned. “These subsea vessels,” he said, “they aren’t just piles of machinery. They live! This one looks like it’s fit for the junkyard and nothing else—but it’s still running, and as long as she’s running, I’ll take my chances in her!”

“That’s good enough for me!” David said promptly.

“I’ll go along with that,” I told them. “How about Laddy and Bob?” “They’re belowdecks already,” Gideon said. “Trying to get the engines turning over. Hear that?”

We all listened.

No, we didn’t hear anything—at least I didn’t. But I could
feel
something. Down in the soles of my feet, where they touched the rounded upper hump of the
Dolphin’s
armor, I could feel a faint, low vibration.

The ship was alive! That vibration was the old engines, turning over at last!

Gideon said, “That’s it, Jim. We can push off as soon as they’ll open the sea-gates for us.” He turned to Roger Fairfane. “You’re the only one who hasn’t expressed himself. What about it? You want to come along—or do you think it’s too dangerous?”

Roger scowled nervously. “I—I—” he began.

Then he grinned. “I’m coming!” he told us. “Not only that—but remember our ranks! I’m the senior cadet officer of the whole lot of us—and Gideon and David aren’t even cadets, much less officers. So I’m the captain, remember!”

The captain nearly had a mutiny on his hands in the first five minutes.

But Gideon calmed us down.

“What’s the difference?” he asked us, in his soft, serious voice. “Let him be captain. We’ve got to have one, don’t we? And we’re all pulling together…”

“I don’t know if
he
is,” grumbled Bob. We were in the old wardroom, stowing our navigation charts away, waiting for the Fleet officer to give us clearance to go through the shiplocks into the open sea. “But—I guess you’re right. He’s the captain, if he wants it that way.
I
don’t care…”

There was a rattle and blare from abovedecks. We leaped out of the wardroom to listen.

“Ahoy, vessel
Dolphin!
” a voice came roaring through the loudhailers of the Fleet office. “You are cleared for Lock Baker. Good voyage!”

“Thank you!” cried Roger Fairfane’s voice, through the loudspeakers from the bridge. We heard the rattle of the warning system, and the creaking, moaning sound of the engines dogging down the hatch.

We all ran to our stations—doublemanning them for this first venture into the depths.

My station was at the bridge, by Roger Fairfane’s side. He signaled to Laddy Angel and Bob Eskow, down at the engines, for dead slow speed ahead.

Inch by inch, on the microsonar charts before us, we saw the little green pip that marked the
Dolphin
crawl in to Lock Baker.

We stopped engines as the nose of the ship nuzzled into the cradle of rope bumpers.

The lock gates closed behind us.

The
Dolphin
pitched sharply and rolled as high-pressure sea water jetted into the lock from the deep sea outside.

I could hear the whine of the edenite field generator rise a whole octave as it took the force of all that enormous pressure and turned it back upon itself, guarding us against the frightful squeeze.

The hull of the old ship sparkled and coruscated with green fire as the pressure hit it.

The lock door opened before us.

Roger Fairfane rang
Dead Slow Ahead
on the engine telegraph.

And our ship moved out into the punishing sea.

I suppose it was luck that kept us alive.

Gideon came pounding up from the engine room. “Set course for the surface!” he cried. “She’s an old ship, Roger, and the edenite field isn’t what it should be.

Bring her up boy, bring her up! She’s taking water!” Roger flushed and seemed about to challenge Gideon—after all, Roger was the captain! But there was no arguing with the pressure of the deeps. He flipped the fore and aft diving fanes into full climb, rang
Flank Speed
on the telegraph.

The old
Dolphin
twisted and surged ahead.

I raced down the companionways with Gideon to check the leaks.

They weren’t too bad—but any leak is bad, when two miles of water lie over your head. There was just a feather of spray, leaping out where two plates joined and the edenite field didn’t quite fill the gap between. “I can fix them, Jim,” Gideon said, half to himself. “We’ll cruise on the surface, and I’ll strip down the edenite generator and the hull will hold—Only let’s get up topside now!”

It was two miles to go.

But the old
Dolphin
made it.

We porpoised to the surface—bad seamanship, that was, but we were in a hurry. And then we set course, south by east, for the long, long swing around the Cape into the South Pacific. On the surface we couldn’t make our full rated speed—unlike the old submarines, underwater; the
Dolphin
was designed to stay its plump, stubby silhouette was for underwater performance, and cruising on the surface was actually harder for it. But we could make pretty good time all the same.

And Gideon set to work at once to strip down the old generators. We could get by with the steel plates that underlay the edenite field—as long as we stayed on the surface. And once Gideon had finished his job, we could get back into the deeps where we belonged. There we would churn off the long miles to Tonga Deep. It was halfway around the world, and a bit more—for the long detour around South America added thousands of miles to our trip. At forty knots—and Gideon promised us forty knots—we would be over Tonga Trench in just about two weeks.

David Craken and I checked our position with a solar fix and laid out our course on the navigator’s charts. “Two weeks,” I said, and he nodded. “Two weeks.” He stared bleakly into space. “I only hope we’re in time—”

“Craken! Eden!”

Roger’s voice came, shrill with excitement, from the bridge. We jumped out of the navigator’s cubbyhole to join him.

“Look at that!” he commanded, pointing to the micro-sonar. “What do you make of it?”

I stared at the screen. There was a tiny blob of light—behind us and well below. At least a hundred fathoms down.

I tried to get a closer scan by narrowing the field. It made the tiny blob a shade brighter, a fraction clearer…

“There it is!” cried Roger Fairfane, and there was an edge of panic in his voice now.

I couldn’t blame him.