This must be similar to being born again, Snow mused in wonder. The immense gates leading to “the world”—that’s what they eventually called everything beyond the submarine pen that had been their home for so long — had opened soundlessly after the pumps brought internal water level equal with the Pacific Ocean. With small tugs cautiously hovering on either side of the bow, Imperator had eased slowly from underneath her camouflaged land canopy into the night ocean.
Snow muttered the word “forever” (mostly to himself) because it seemed an eternity from the time the sailors on the bow first peered up at the night sky until he would see it. A thousand feet after those first sailors arched their heads back to search for stars, Imperator’s bridge finally inched into the open with a few hundred more feet of stern still to follow.
Once they were in the open and the dimmed lights in the cavern behind no longer cast a glow over the bridge, Snow removed his red night goggles and bent his own head back to marvel at the stars.
“Captain.” The speaker on the bulkhead murmured quietly. “This is Carol Petersen. Permission to come to the bridge?”
“Permission granted.” Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the fishbowl’s doors had swung shut. They would already be pumping the water out. Imperator would not return, would no longer remain a secret. It was time to begin construction of her sister. As the ship’s foreman commented when they shook hands—“The king is dead, long live the king”—it was time for new life. Imperator was now part of another world.
The soft whisper of elevator doors behind him heralded Carol Petersen’s arrival. Turning, Snow watched her step from the faint, red glow of the elevator compartment onto the bridge. The doors closed with a hiss and the elevator was on its way again, perhaps returning the full twelve decks where Carol had just been — the engineering guidance center.
“I take it Caesar has decided you’re not needed,” Snow commented as she climbed up to the piloting wing beside him.
“Caesar never did need me,” she answered.
In every sea trial over the past three months, though Imperator never once left the fishbowl, the computer had managed the reactor/engineering complex and had yet to miss a beat. “I had to be there, just to watch it operate under actual conditions.” She laughed quietly. “I never quite believed it myself, you know. I understand it, but it’s still hard to believe.”
“Don’t for a minute imagine that I’ll ever accept it completely,” Snow remarked with a forced laugh. “Ships and men belong together.” The tinge of bitterness in his voice was evident.
“They do. I agree. But this is a little too much ship for one man, I’d say.”
Snow peered out at the sailors working on the smooth, wide bow. They were dim, unidentifiable figures a fifth of a mile away. He raised the night binoculars to his eyes and watched as they stowed the port gear in compartments along the outer hull. His brain silently acknowledged Carol’s remark, agreed it was much too much ship, but his heart said Imperator was his and he could handle her.
At the sound of three soft beeping sounds from his parka pocket, he removed a compact two-way radio and responded, “This is Snow.”
“Kimmelman here, Captain. I was right again. You owe me a sawbuck when you get back.” It was the security chief on shore.
“No lights, huh?”
“No way. One Victor Ulanoff is resting very comfortably at my feet… and you were right about the satellite… infrared. I found the instrument package under his arm. It told him when the eye had contact with you.” When Kimmelman confirmed the satellite waiting above them, there was no doubt in Snow’s or anyone’s mind that it was infrared. It was just waiting for Imperator to emerge, ready to confirm the heat from her reactor.
Kimmelman couldn’t resist kidding Snow one last time. The captain had requested a call from shore by blinking light if they found Ulanoff where they expected him. But Kimmelman had laughed out loud and said the satellite would easily record the light, too. Why tell the people back in the Kremlin that we knew that they knew that… he went on and on laughing. Eventually Snow had laughed with him.
“The sawbuck is yours, Sidney. Consider it done. Think I’ve been radiating long enough?”
“I think they’ll love you in Moscow, Captain.”
Snow turned to the woman at his left. “Time for the heat shields, Carol. Maybe they’ll think we’re going under.” He held the radio to his mouth. “Done, Sidney. We’ve wrapped her up. Out.”
Snow could see whitecaps lapping either side of the black hull below the bridge, but there was no sense of motion aboard the submarine. It would take one huge storm to create any sea motion on Imperator. He could hear the muffled voices as Carol Petersen conversed with the computer room. It was his ship — yet was it really too much for one man? He’d given the order, but it was her computer seeing that it was carried out. A chill crept down his back as he once again experienced that feeling — which of them was more powerful?
“She’s all zipped up, Captain. They might be able to pick them up on infrared.” She gestured toward the sailors still working on the main deck. “But there’s no sign of heat from the ship now.”
“Let them try to figure that one out,” he responded, looking up as if he could pick out the tiny satellite hanging more than a hundred miles above. “We’re going to wink out… just like a star.”
“Just like a star,” she echoed. They were silent, both imagining more than twelve hundred feet of submarine suddenly winking out like a star. That was but one of Imperator’s tricks, and there were so many more to come. It was a game of “catch me if you can,” and Snow had deliberately given the first signal that he was ready to start the game. Soviet directives had also been intercepted the past few weeks. He knew who Abe Danilov was and he understood approximately what the Russian’s orders would be. One of the critical factors of this cruise, the only one Admiral Reed had impressed on everyone, was that the transit be completed — regardless. That was the single, vital message that Imperator could send to the world — that the oceans and the meaning of seapower had changed forever. And that included defeating everything the Kremlin could do to sink her.
Abe Danilov glanced disinterestedly at the infrared prints, then tossed them on the table. It was all new and exciting to this watch section but it was of little import to him. It simply confirmed what he’d projected about Imperator, including her ability to effect heat shielding. Damn her captain! He’d dangled a teaser… on purpose… just to let Danilov and his superiors know there were to be more surprises. They’re still one step ahead of us, Danilov thought… and arrogant as hell.
His staff officers, occupied with the mundane, made every effort to look busy. They awaited his reaction, never anticipating that his anger at the American captain would be directed at them. Then a chain of orders emerged, his voice increasing in pitch, and he later decided his reaction had been as nebulous as their efforts. His senior staff officer, Captain First Rank Sergoff, was once again plotting Imperator’s course, painstakingly laying out the same track that Danilov had done himself too many times.