“Why the powers of good, of course,” answered the psychic.
“Now can we contact Peter?” asked Mimi, her patience all but exhausted.
“There’s just one more test to pass, hon. Then the door will be wide open.”
The Sunshine picked this inopportune moment to shudder to an abrupt stop. Al seemed to know just what caused this problem, and he left the open wheelhouse where he had been standing, passed by his two seated passengers, and peered over the square transom.
“Just like I thought, ladies. Gulf weed’s gone and wrapped up the prop.”
“Is there anything you can do about it?” asked Mimi.
“Maybe we can radio that white ship we passed for help.”
“No need for that, missy,” remarked Al as he pulled off his hat, shirt, and shoes.
“Just hang on and I can cut us free in no time.”
AI whipped out a pocket knife and began climbing overboard.
“Be careful down there,” warned Dr. Elizabeth.
“No need to be worried,” offered Al before disappearing completely.
“I needs to cool off anyway. See ya in a bit, ladies.”
As Al plopped into the water, Isis unexpectedly let out a shrill, high-pitched screech. Both Mimi and Dr. Elizabeth looked to the starboard gunwale, where the cat was perched with its back arched and its head pointed out to sea.
“What in the world do you see out there, Isis?” asked the psychic.
Only moments ago, the dusk sky had been clear, with hardly a cloud visible. But now they saw a meanlooking bank of quick-moving clouds that veiled the sky in a cloak of swirling green mist. “Looks like we got us a storm comin’,” observed Dr. Elizabeth.
Just as she pulled Isis off her perch and put the cat down at her feet, the deck began to vibrate. This was accompanied by a sudden drop in the air temperature, and the arrival of a howling, gusting wind.
A thunderous boom sounded overhead, prompting Mimi to turn towards the transom and call out.
“Al, you’d better get out of the water. We’ve got a storm on its way!” “Don’t bother, hon,” said the psychic.
“You see, this ain’t no ordinary storm. This is nature’s way of tellin’ us that it’s time to make the contact!”
Also watching this swirling green bank of clouds take form was John Walden. Yet he did so from a depth of sixty-five feet, with the amplified assistance of the Rickover’s periscope.
“Looks like a real nasty one’s brewing topside,” said Walden, as he rotated the scope and took another look at the wooden fishing trawler that he had been previously studying.
“I sure hope those folks up there have battened down the hatches.”
Any further comment on his part was cut short by the frantic voice of the chief of the watch.
“Engineering reports a partial electrical failure! The reactor is being automatically scrammed.”
As if to emphasize the seriousness of this report, the lights suddenly dimmed. The deck seemed to shudder, and then angle down slightly by the bow.
“I’ve just lost neutral buoyancy,” informed the chief of the watch.
“Blow emergency and get us on the surface!” ordered Walden, who was about to return to the periscope, when the chief of the watch replied to this directive.
“Can’t do. Captain. Ballast pumps are inoperable.”
“What the hell?” remarked Walden, genuinely puzzled by this entire sequence of events.
To get some kind of handle on the situation, he lowered the periscope and quickly turned for the helm.
The COB was standing over the diving console, with the current chief of the watch close beside him. Together they studied the various instruments, with the assistance of a hand-held flashlight.
“Sound general quarters!” ordered Walden.
“COB, I want you to get on the horn with engineering, and find out what the blazes is going on back there.”
As the electronic alarm sending the crew to their action stations sounded throughout the Rickover, the sub began sinking into the same depths that only minutes ago they had climbed out of. Unable to get the engines started and reverse this descent, Walden gripped an overhead handhold and watched as his men frantically tried to restore full power.
One of the few operational stations that remained online was sonar. Here, in the midst of his second consecutive watch, Tim Lacey found his attention locked on a hypnotic, humming sound that seemed to emanate from the floor of the trench itself. On a mere hunch, he informed the captain of this transient.
Much to his surprise, he was instructed to play this mysterious signature over the control room’s intercom speakers.
From his position beside the helm, John Walden carefully listened to the sounds that had gained Lacey’s attention. With the assistance of the navigator, he was able to determine that they indeed originated from the bottom of the trench, at a depth of approximately seventeen hundred feet.
Earlier, Commander Thomas Moore had shared with him details of an amazing man-made device, that the NIS feared could be anchored on the floor of this very trench. Unable to believe in the existence of a machine which could de materialize matter, Walden initially had been skeptical. But now he was beginning to wonder if he had been too hasty in his judgment.
With the slim hope that the device Moore spoke of was real, and that it was the cause of the Rickover’s current problems, Walden ordered the firecontrol team to ready a pair of Mk 48 wire-guided torpedoes.
The source of the unexplained humming noise was then precisely determined, and with this information keyed into the boat’s firecontrol system, the torpedoes were fired.
As they streaked from their tubes, the deck once more shuddered. And Walden found himself crossing his fingers, all the while praying that this dive to oblivion would soon be halted.
21
Igor Valerian remained in the Academician Petrovsky’s reactor compartment, anxiously awaiting word of the experiment’s success. He knew that this would most likely come in the form of a satellite-relayed telephone call from Pacific Fleet headquarters in Vladivostok. If all worked out as planned, he would be notified that the rodina now had the services of the USS Hyman G. Rickover. This would be a great achievement in itself, but it would serve as a forerunner for an even greater feat to come.
Much to his disappointment, the call came from the bridge, informing him of an approaching storm. This news soured his mood, and he wondered if he could spare the time to return to his stateroom for a little liquid refreshment. A good drink of vodka never failed to fortify him, and just as he was about to excuse himself, the sensor operator kept him from doing so.
“Sonar contact. Admiral. It appears to be another submarine.”
Rushing to the man’s side. Valerian worriedly asked, “Can you classify the signature. Comrade?”
While the technician addressed his keyboard. Dr. Petrov sauntered up to the console. The physicist calmly sipped from a cup of tea, and casually commented:
“I wonder who it could be down there.”
“Most likely, it’s just the Pantera” offered Valerian, whose glance nervously scanned the broad-band frequency monitor.
It seemed to take forever for the technician to complete his signature analysis, and the news he relayed was far from heartening.
“I don’t really understand it, sir. But the analysis shows an eighty-seven-percent probability that this vessel is an American 688 class attack sub.”
“That cant be!” retorted Valerian.
“Could the device have failed completely?”
“That’s highly unlikely,” replied the physicist. “You just saw the preliminary reports yourself. Admiral.
And the one thing that we know for certain is that a submarine definitely crossed into the force field and never left it.”