` Where Peace was, MKG might be,' I replied.
We made no secret about Geoffrey coming to the Seychelles-after all, it's the biggest missile launch site outside the United States. You don't have to be a genius to work out that MKG might be here, too-if you had the right clue to start with. Therefore,' the DNI went on quickly, I-we-had to convince the world that Geoffrey Peace was dead. All suspicions had to be stifled. They had to see him go to his grave. Hence the funeral build-up.'
Remember that stethoscope,' I said. ` The CIA wasn't one hundred per cent convinced. I'm glad I didn't give him time enough to find out you were alive in the coffin, Geoffrey.'
Peace said warmly, We owe you a big debt of gratitude for that, John. I always could count on you in a tough spot.'
It worries me that he went free,' said the DNI. Maybe we should change the plan again
' Not now,' broke in Peace. ' John, we want your navigational skill.'
How?' I asked.
I've said, the original plan was for Willowtrack and Devastation to meet at St Brandon and go together to the firingpoint at Love-Apple Crossing. Actually, it's not the island itself, but a spot at sea near by. Using a nuclear sub's gadgets, you can't go wrong in pinpointing a minute spot like that.
Now we've had to change all that. We feel certain that any unusual movement of subs in these waters is being watched. Love-Apple Crossing is right in the middle of the missile firing-range. Nuclear subs give off electrical emissions. Two and two make – '
Little Bear,' said Mam'zelle Adele. 51
` The plan for the two subs to rendezvous at St Brandon still stands,' said the DNI, taking up Peace's explanation. Willowtrack's daily sunset signal is to and from the White House only. It's at a fixed time and as brief as they can make it, for obvious reasons. But we've decided to change the whole plan from the St Brandon rendezvous onwards.
' You, John, will take Bellatrix to St Brandon. Geoffrey goes to Devastation. Bob Peters, Devastation's Number One, is in the plot, and the officers know no more than that Peace is not dead but involved in some hush-hush British-American experimental missile-firing project. They're all top men, they won't talk. Little Bear is being carried in Semittanth under the guise of a new coconut-oil plant for the islands.'
Mam'zelle Adele smiled. ' The two main exports of Limuria are coconut oil and rugged individualism.'
Semittante is bound for Love-Apple Crossing from New Orleans. She was just too glad to get a load to take her halfway across the world. You'll rendezvous with her there.'
Peace prowled about uneasily. I could see that the incident of the CIA man was eating into him as the DNI elaborated' the launching programme.
' There is an exact firing schedule to be met,' continued the DNI. ' You don't simply point a missile at Sante Fe and blast off. Trajectories, orbits, what have, you-Boz Blair and MKG have them all taped. As far as we are concerned, all we have to know is that Little Bear's instrumentation has been set to coincide with the optimum position of the earth relative to the space station Sante Fe. Tomorrow is February 1st.
On February 16th Sante Fe will be at its best orbital position for Little Bear to rendezvous-space-liaise with it. The missile has a computer-compensated docking device which will guide it in to Sante Fe. Little Bear must be fired at nine o'clock on the morning of February 16th. 0900 hours on February 16th.'
' Local Limuria time?'
' Yes.'
' Eight o'clock is no good, nor is seven. It must be nine,'
Peace put in. Using a radio-firing device, I shall pull the plug on MKG's behalf six hundred feet down in the sea?
' Pull the plug?'
' Fire the bloody thing!' Peace retorted. The tone of his reply betrayed his anxieties. ' The ultimate push of the button is from the surface-a small instrument tuned in to the radio antenna which Little Bear shoots to the surface when she is at the right depth. MKG does the countdown, I send the bird flying.' He suddenly swung round on me. ' 52 all of us-have been taking one big factor for granted: are you in this thing with us?'
I looked round the three faces-Peace, hard, dedicated, ruthless; the DNI with his pedagogic whims overlying the tempered blade beneath ; Mam'zelle Adele-what did I know of her?
Yes,' I replied. Yes, of course. All I need is a good set of navigating instruments.'
The DNI relaxed. I felt Peace had been sure of me all along, despite his question.
I've got the best,' he said. Nothing that gives off a single amp of power. It's all skill-John Garland's skill'
Good. I'll want to check them over.'
Peace went on speaking to the others, his tone warm. All this man needs is the traditional star to steer her by. He-'
I cut short his eulogy. We can't launch a missile without radio guidance.'
The DNI gave a short laugh. You're saying almost exactly what the early American land-based 'missileers said about the first sea-based Polaris. Admiral Red Raborn, the father of Polaris, confounded the critics. He successfully fired Polaris from a moving platform in a liquid, ever-shifting medium because he went back to that primary element at the base of all man's activity-the sea. You'll have lots of technicalities thrown at you in the next few weeks, but SINS is the heart of it all. Tell him, Geoffrey.'
Ships Inertial Navigation System,' he explained. Raborn put his guidance package inside Polaris. It needed no help from outside-radio guidance or the rest of it. We've done the same with Little Bear, a development of the A-4 Polaris now in service with the u.s. fleet. Our Little Bear follows the same pattern. Of course, the SINS system has now become highly sophisticated in Little Bear-the guidance package is a marvel. Boz Blair will talk for days about it. But essentially it is a self-contained missile inside its own casing, a combination of mine and torpedo-tube.'
How big is it?' I asked.
The missile itself is forty feet long, six feet across, and weighs twenty tons,' replied Peace. The casing is another fifteen feet in length. All of it is highly streamlined. The casing is, so to speak, the gun-barrel.'
It seems so involved, and yet so simple. Can a handful of men really get a thing like that to a launch-point at sea?'
It's highly streamlined,' replied the DNI. Has to be. Goes through water, air, space..
It's a piece of cake for Bellatrix to tow it to sea,' Peace replied. You could do it with an outboard motor.'
What about the submersion?'
It's got ballast tanks like a sub to take it down. It is kept at a constant firing angle by two mated gyroscopes. If you want to hear all about accelerometers, earth rate and coriolis computers, automatic precision, fathometers and all the rest of it, Boz Blair will oblige with the greatest pleasure. Our job is to get Little Bear in position to fire when sequencer. starts an hour before blast-off?'
Sequencer, what's that?'
Countdown,' he replied. We've got to have MKG in position one hundred fathoms down before eight o'clock. I suggest we pull rods at dawn and have Little Bear hot to trot by seven-thirty.'
I looked helplessly at Mam'zelle Adele. I'm as foxed as you are,' she said.
Peace smiled. All the terms, like those of the nuclear subs are American-rightly so. After all, they pioneered the damn' things. Translated, we must get the SNAP nuclear reactor operating by dawn so that Little Bear is ready to be launched from seven-thirty onwards. Countdown to begin an hour before blast-off. You don't have to know any of this-Boz
Blair and MKG have the most detailed schedules and technicalities written down-pages and pages of it. There's a firing checklist as long as your arm, too.'