“Mon Dieu,” worriedly greeted Pierre Lenclud as they stepped out of the ready room.
“When you didn’t return from your trial run, we thought that something horrible had happened to you.”
“I’m sorry that we were the cause of any concern,” replied Ivana.
“But when we found Misha operating perfectly, we decided to return to the bottom of the trench and continue exploring the roadway.”
“I was hoping that would be the case,” returned the relieved Frenchman.
“Did you find the front gates to Atlantis?” asked Lisa Tanner in a lighthearted manner.
Ivana shook her head.
“No, Comrade, we didn’t find the fabled lost city, though we did make a discovery that has much more immediate significance.”
Pausing for a moment, Ivana scanned the faces of her rapt audience before continuing.
“While tracing the road network beyond our previous survey point, we came upon a precipitous drop-off, that appears to funnel directly into the Tongue of the Ocean. It was Karl Ivar who first spotted the lights belonging to another underwater submersible here. He wisely switched off our own spotlights before we were discovered, and it became apparent that a pair of vessels were working the walls of the trench before us.”
“What kind of vessels, and where could they have come from?” interrupted Lenclud.
The Russian took a deep breath and directly answered him.
“The two submersibles that we discovered were exact duplicates of Misha, meaning that they had to have originated from our support ship, the Academician Petrovsky”
“But I thought that the saucer fleet was grounded until spare parts were flown in from Russia,” interjected Lisa Tanner.
“That’s indeed what we were led to believe,” said Ivana.
“But now we know differently.”
“I wonder what such a thing could mean?” reflected Lenclud.
“I’d like to know exactly what they were doing down there in the first place?” offered Tomo.
Karl Ivar stepped forward and voiced himself.
“It looked to me that they were working on some sort of heavy equipment that had been previously positioned alongside the walls of the trench.”
“Heavy equipment, you say?” quizzed Lenclud.
“That’s right, Commandant,” answered Ivana.
“We caught them working on this machinery with their articulated manipulator arms, and we even spotted what appeared to be a dual power cable extending to the surface.” “Now that is interesting,” said Lenclud, who stood and began pacing.
“The Academician Petrovsky’s sole purpose is to act as our support ship. Because this machinery that you discovered is in no way related to the habitat program, what we have here is a flagrant violation of the U.N. agreement under which we operate.”
“I feared just such a thing when I learned that Admiral Igor Valerian had been assigned to command the Academician Petrovsky,” remarked Ivana.
“He’s much too experienced for such a routine assignment.”
“But what could they be doing down there?” asked Lisa Tanner.
“That’s immaterial,” replied Lenclud.
“They have no authority to launch those diving saucers, unless the purpose is directly related to the mission of this habitat.” “And since it isn’t,” continued Ivana.
“I’d say that Admiral Valerian is involved in a little extracurricular activity that most likely has military implications.”
“Is there any way to stop them?” questioned Lisa.
Lenclud thoughtfully stroked his chin before answering her.
“Since it would be much too dangerous to return to the site with Misha, our safest course is to inform Dr. Sorkin, the head of the United Nations observer team aboard the Academician Petrovsky. He will be in the best position to find out precisely what those saucers were doing down there.”
“If you’d like, I’ll draft the letter,” volunteered Lisa.
“Dr. Sorkin is a personal friend of my family. He’s also from Auckland, and is not the type of chap who’s easily deceived.”
“Very well, mon amie,” replied Lenclud.
“Begin this letter at once, and we’ll have Dolly deliver it with the morning mail.”
Senior Lieutenant Viktor Ilyich Alexandrov routinely began his morning watch with a comprehensive walk-through of the ship. His tour of inspection started in the Academician Petrovsky’s engine room.
The vessel’s diesel-electric drive, single-shaft engine had seen little use since arriving in the Bahamas.
While at anchor, the 3,600 shaft-horsepower engine was used solely to operate the ship’s thrusters, and power its electrical and life-support systems. So that the engine-room crew would have something other than routine maintenance to do, Alexandrov had ordered them to clean and paint their compartment.
This unpopular directive was initially received with the usual moans of complaint, but as loyal Russian sailors, his men eventually buckled down and got on with their duty.
The results were noticeable as the senior lieutenant entered the engine room and scanned its interior. The bulkheads shone like new, with a coat of fresh white paint, and even the engine was wiped clean of grease and grime. Making a mental note to pass on a job well-done to the which man Alexandrov headed forward, to the adjoining reactor room.
To gain access to this restricted portion of the ship, he had to input his security code into a bulkhead mounted keypad. Once this series was properly keyed in, the door slid open. He quickly entered, and the portal was sealed shut behind him.
A single white-smocked technician currently sat behind the central control panel. Before him was a complicated assortment of dials, gauges, digital readout counters, and switches. Alexandrov could see from the temperature gauge that the reactor wasn’t critical. To bring it on line, all the operator would have to do was trigger one of the compact pistol switches that were directly connected to the control rods. As the rods were slowly removed, the uranium-235 fuel elements would begin interacting, causing the coolant to be heated.
The resulting steam would then power the turbine, creating an abundance of power to operate the series of magnetic generators placed on the sea floor beneath them.
“How are you doing this morning. Comrade?” asked Alexandrov.
“Fine, sir,” returned the reactor operator as he recorded the assortment of data visible on the console in a log book.
“I understand that you were on duty during last night’s low-level test,” continued Alexandrov.
“Did all go smoothly?”
“That it did, sir. During the entire sequence, we generated barely a tenth of the power that we’re capable of producing. Were the results satisfactory?”
“Dr. Petrov is still working to determine the actual results,” revealed Alexandrov.
“So stand by. There’s a good chance that we’ll have to repeat the test, sometime this afternoon.”
The technician nodded and returned to his log, while Alexandrov exited by way of the forward hatchway.
This brought him directly onto the catwalk that surrounded the moon pool The only evidence of the adjoining reactor consisted of the twin rubber cables that protruded from a hole cut into the bulkhead, just on top of the waterline. The cables extended into the depths below, and he was fully confident that they would be ready to relay all the power needed.
Both diving saucers lay securely moored alongside the forward portion of the moon pool Two technicians were attending to them, and as Alexandrov walked over to check the condition of these vessels, a sudden disturbance in the water beside him caught the corner of his eye. He looked to his left, and watched as a bottienose dolphin broke the surface of the moon pool The sleek grey creature had a latex strap wrapped around its snout, and attached to the strap a small, steel pressure cooker.