Lifting the phone from its cradle, Brande said, “Ocean Deep, anyone listening? This is the Mighty Moose.”
“Voyager Two here, Dane. I’m surfacing.”
The captain of Voyager II was Ron Zendl. Eventually, there would be six Voyager submarines, passenger carrying vessels accommodating thirty two tourists. That was two more subs than originally planned, but expectations had risen. They were designed to operate at depths of less than two thousand feet, carrying visitors from San Diego and Los Angeles to Ocean Deep.
“We’re watching for you, Ron. How about Dot?”
“They’re loading her up now,” Zendl said.
“Dot,” was short for Neptune’s Daughter, a two man mini sub utilized for undersea chores. Her sisters were Neptune’s Niece and Neptune’s Wife, known as “Nice” and “Wifey,” and the three subs, like the Voyager class, were designed for relatively shallow waters.
“All right. We’ll have a package for her in about twenty minutes,” Brande said.
He replaced the telephone, slipped out onto the sidedeck, and walked aft to join Dokey and Jones.
Dokey had pulled the tarpaulin from the new buoy. It was, naturally, finished in white and yellow. It was eight feet in diameter, and it was not intended to serve any useful purpose for seafarers. Rather, it was Ocean Deep’s communication link. On top of the globular buoy was a fiberglass housing protecting a wide array of antennas and a video camera. A small radar dish provided a twenty mile scan of the area around it, triggering radio warnings to ships that might collide with the buoy.
Microwave antennas connected Ocean Deep with the mainland, and a satellite uplink provided a route for more heavenly communications. Rae Thomas frequently complained about the cost of MVU’s satellite communications subscription.
Another set of sensors for wave motion, wind direction and speed, temperature, salinity, and the like in addition to the video, provided inputs to the consoles on board Ocean Deep. The technicians and the tourists could monitor conditions on the surface. Those conditions were often a stark contrast to the seemingly motionless serenity at depth.
Dokey and Brande released the tiedowns, then Brande signalled Jones, who was operating the controls of the crane. The boom’s line went taut, stretched a tad, then eased the buoy from its cradle on the deck. When it was six feet above the deck, Jones stopped the lift, and Brande took some strain on a guideline to steady it. He studied all of the lines and cables, looking for undue stresses before he nodded an okay to Dokey.
Dokey slipped beneath the buoy with the end of a thick umbilical cable that was coiled high on the deck and began to fasten the connector in place. The cable was Kevlar shielded, strong as steel and contained as an inner core a bundle of fiber optic fibers.
Marine Visions utilized a cable of the single mode fiber type. The diameter of the filament was small enough to force a single beam of light to stay on a direct path. Lasers generated light signals in binary code pulsing on for 1 and off for 2 that zipped along the fiber at tremendous speeds. The high frequency of light waves allowed the transmission of thousands of times more information than was permitted by current flowing in a copper wire. The speed and data capacity of fiber optic cables reduced immensely the thickness of the cable required. A quarter inch thick fiber optic cable could handle telecommunications, computer data transfer, electronic mail, and image transfer with ease, and with space left over. This cable, because it would also anchor the buoy, was two inches in diameter, the additional bulk made up of carbon reinforced strands of fiberglass.
The laser light generators and receivers on both ends of the cable had to be correctly aligned. A cable inserted into a connector with a 1/64 inch twist off alignment would scramble all communications between the host vehicle and the sensors and antennas. Dokey inserted the male connector into the female receptor, levered the locking ring into place, and bolted it down. Or up, since he was working on the bottom of the buoy.
Backing out from beneath the slightly swinging buoy, he said, “I must have designed this, Chief. It fit.”
Dokey had helped, but the team had also included Kim Otsuka and Bob Mayberry, the respective directors of computer systems and electronic technology.
Brande released his guideline, disconnected it from the buoy, then waved at Jones.
The crane boom moved outboard, carrying the buoy with it, dragging its cable behind, and lowered the sphere to the sea.
As Jones released the crane line’s lift hook remotely, Dokey said, “I’ll be damned. It floats.”
“This stuff won’t,” Brande said, referring to the coil of cable. It was six hundred feet long, with a fitting 250 feet from the buoy which would fasten to the concrete anchor pier imbedded in the sea bed. The remaining length would snake across the sea floor and be attached to an exterior connector on the dome.
With Jones’s assistance on the crane, they lifted the coil from the deck, swung it over the side, and lowered it to water level.
Then they waited for the subs. When both Dot and Voyager popped their sails above the surface, out of harm’s way, Jones released the coil from the crane line.
Brande watched as it began to unfurl, disappearing into the depths.
Dot immediately submerged again, chasing after the fitting she would attach to the pier.
Zendl cautiously brought Voyager alongside the workboat, and Brande and Dokey leaped from the low gunwale to the tower of the sub, which was located well forward on the hull. The sail tilted back and forth in the wave action, and Brande kept a firm grip on the exposed hand railing. The access hatch popped open, and Zendl stuck his head out. Boyish and charming, the thirty year old had an adolescent’s cowlick at the back of his head, completely uncontrollable.
“Going my way?” he asked.
“Forgot our tickets,” Dokey told him.
“We’ll bill you.”
Brande followed Dokey through the hatch, then closed and dogged it tight. Descending an eleven-foot-long ladder brought him to the main deck of the sub, in the control cabin. The smooth, well illuminated sea was visible through the four large ports over the instrument panel, which was a Boeing 747 pilot’s dream. Red, green, and blue digital readouts monitored the submarine’s performance and position. There were two comfortable seats for the pilot and his assistant, though Zendl was the only operator on board just now. When they started carrying passengers, they would have a full crew of two operators and two stewards.
The first Voyager was already back in drydock, her interior being fitted for the expectations of the traveling public airline type seats, carpeting, laminated bulkhead panelling. Voyagers III and IV were in the final stages of construction in Bremerton, and III would undergo sea trials within the month.
Zendl offered Brande the pilot’s seat, but he shook his head, and the captain settled into his seat.
Brande often felt the pangs of jealousy in such encounters. He had been the primary designer of this sub, which was based on the configuration of the submersible Ben Franklin, but he was reticent about taking the controls from the people he had designated as captains of his vessels, whether it was Bull Kontas or Ron Zendl.
Voyager II was seventy feet long, and almost all of her operating systems were below the passenger deck. Water, trim, ballast, and waste tanks took up the most space, followed by the four gigantic sets of battery banks which powered the twin electric motors. The liquid oxygen tanks and the electronic components were mounted in an aft compartment.
He dipped his head and passed though the hatchway into the main cabin, which could seat thirty two people. Each pair of seats had its own porthole, the better to view the trip through Southern California seas. The Voyager craft had been given much thinner hulls than other submersibles since they would travel in shallower water. Additionally, they had sleeker shapes in order to increase speed. The interior of Voyager II had exposed electrical and hydraulic conduits along the sides and ceiling. The floor was steel, and the seats were covered in canvas. The utilitarian decor, finished in gray speckled paint, did not bother the work crews who were transported daily to Ocean Deep.