“No, sir,” said Stuart.
“In the circumstances, it is regrettable that you should have informed me that our communications gear is down, and that we cannot send messages.”
“Sir?”
Bliss put a finger beside his nose. “Something to do with the aerial, I believe. In fact, it’s quite serious, because we can receive messages on the emergency channels, and weather and navigation signals, but no other incoming messages at all—no telephone, no TV. Naturally I expect you to make repairs with all deliberate speed. Do you understand me now?”
“Oh. Yes, sir, I think I do.”
“Good. And you, Mr. Ferguson?”
“Yes, Chief.”
A light was blinking on the comm console. Stuart flipped a switch and listened. “Chief, a message from the Bluefields. They say they will make rendezvous at oh-nine-thirteen. They’re asking for confirmation.”
“It’s a pity we can’t answer, isn’t it? Prepare for submersion, Mr. Ferguson.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sirens went off all over the open decks. Stewards hurried about stowing away loose gear and escorting passengers inside. The weather doors were shut and dogged. The fishery and marine sections were secured. “Ready for submersion, sir,” said Ferguson. Bliss did not reply.
At oh-nine-hundred Stuart said, “A radio message from the Bluefields, sir. ‘We are approaching rendezous. Do you read? Please open telephone link.’ ”
“Thank you.”
He turned to Ferguson. “Can you see them?”
“Yes, sir. There they are.” He pointed to the TV screen.
“Bone in their teeth,” remarked Bliss.
“Yes, sir.”
“They must be rather irritated.”
“Yes, sir.”
In the screen, the carrier was now plainly visible, a hulking gray shape. Lights were winking from her foremast structure.
“She’s signaling by heliograph, Chief.”
“I see she is. Can you read that, Mr. Ferguson?”
“Yes, sir. ‘Prepare to receive helicopter.’
Bliss frowned. “How long is it since you learned heliograph, Mr. Ferguson?”
“Thirteen years. Chief.”
“So you're bound to be a little rusty. You’re really just guessing at the message, aren’t you?”
“If you say so. Chief.”
“I do say so. In fact, we don’t know that’s a U.S. Navy vessel at all. It could be hostile. I think we must consider evasive action, Mr. Ferguson.”
They watched in silence as the carrier rapidly drew nearer. It hove to half a mile away; there were further signals. Then they saw a helicopter lift off the deck and swing toward them.
“Down to plus ten,” said Bliss, “smartly, Mr. Ferguson.”
“Yes, sir.”
The water rose until only ten feet of Sea Venture’s upper works stood above the surface. The copter was still droning toward them. In the view from the camera on the foretop they saw it fly over, vastly foreshortened; it reappeared, circled twice, and turned back to the carrier.
“There’ll be hell to pay for this later,” Ferguson remarked.
“I know it,” said Bliss. In the old days on the Queen, a first officer would not have spoken to his captain in quite that way, but Bliss wasn’t a captain and this wasn't a ship.
47
On the bridge of Bluefields, Commander Leonard W. Markey watched in the television screens as the copter turned back from the submerging vessel. Beside him was the Executive Officer, Glenn Pugliese. The speaker crackled: "Returning to ship. ”
"Roger."
"What the hell do they think they’re up to?” Markey said.
Pugliese, who knew his captain, did not reply.
“Send the pilot up for debriefing as soon as he gets here. No, belay that. Hell! I’m going to my cabin.”
Bliss waited half an hour and then gave the order to surface. Presently the helicopter came out again. "Down to plus ten," said Bliss. The helicopter circled, dropped something, and went back to the carrier. “What is that?” said Bliss.
“Dye marker,” Ferguson replied.
“Oh, I see. Well. That’s a pity.”
Twice more they surfaced, and the copter came over, and twice more they submerged. Bliss could imagine the messages flying back and forth between here and Washington.
The yellow stain spread out around them; gradually they left it behind. In the late afternoon the copter came over again and renewed it. After dinner, which he ate in blessed tranquillity. Bliss came back to the Control Center. Deputy Davis was on duty. The stars were bright over the ocean.
“Submerge to minus three hundred, Mr. Davis,” he said.
“Three hundred, sir.” The cub gave him a worshipful look.
“Keep her there until twenty hundred hours tomorrow. Log it.”
"Yes, sir.”
And now he was counting boxes in a storeroom, good lord, when was that? Seventy-nine or eighty, probably, his freshman year in college, a summer job, pure monotony, but the boxes were absolutely real now, he could even read the printing on the brown cardboard, “tektronix Decoupler, Model 105, 4920-29." He hadn’t thought of that in years, and certainly hadn’t remembered the lettering on the boxes, but he knew it was right. He could see his own hand with the pencil, and the clipboard, and he could see the dust motes swimming in the sunlight from the one high window.
Now the bright sparks were streaming past him, not dust motes anymore, and there was a wet smell in his nostrils, a clean cold underwater smell as familiar as bacon and eggs, and he felt his jaws snap as something came by. And now a fish swam up to him in the water that was colorless and pure as air; its scales were like multicolored armor, and it turned to look at him with one round idiot eye, then flicked away and swam to the other end of the tank.
Newland woke without knowing that he had been asleep. His body hurt all over. It was dark outside; he was very thirsty. He managed to get out of the pilot’s seat and into his wheelchair; he drove it back down the aisle, found a water fountain, and drank. He thought that he probably ought to eat something. He could see the food-storage lockers over the microwave ovens, but they were out of his reach.
48
Commander Leonard W. Markey was a stocky blond man. His eyes were pale blue; his eyelashes were almost white, and his skin so fair that it burned and peeled. He would have been well suited to North Atlantic or Arctic duty, and therefore, as a matter of habit and tradition, the Navy had assigned him to the Asiatic Fleet.
Markey had graduated from Annapolis seventeen years before, standing one hundred forty-first in his class. At the age of thirty-nine, he knew he had been a little too long in grade, and could not look forward to further advancement unless there was a shooting war, an eventuality for which, as a sensible man, he had no yearning. He considered himself a good officer; in maneuvers last spring, Bluefields had scored the second-highest marks of any helicopter carrier in the fleet. On the whole, he was satisfied with his life and his career; he looked forward to another few years of undistinguished service, then retirement with his wife and children on Oahu.
His present mission had started out as something just unusual enough to be interesting, but certainly not much of a challenge. The search for the missing lifeboat was routine; the recon helicopters came back every day with nothing to report, and that was not surprising: if the lifeboat was under power, it could be anywhere in a thousand-mile radius by now. That was not really his problem—other ships and planes out of Guam were looking for the lifeboat, and eventually one of them would find it. Meanwhile, rescuing the VIP passengers from Sea Venture was his problem.