“That decision is not up to me,” Kim Otsuka said.
“You must make it so,” the consulate representative said. “Also, we will require a copy of the robot computer application program.”
“For which robot?” Otsuka asked.
After a moment’s hesitation, in which she was certain Mr. Sato was digesting the unexpected information that there was more than one robot, he said, “I will inquire further and then call you again.”
He hung up, and Otsuka slowly replaced her receiver in its cradle on the bulkhead intercom panel next to the booth in which she sat. It was the fourth of four booths, and it used to be the only one with a phone.
From the galley came the clank of pans as the two seamen on galley duty prepared lunch. Larry Emry was at his computer terminal, updating charts. Dane and Kaylene were in the booth behind her, after having been absent for a while, going over the accounts or something. Every once in a while, Dane protested something Kaylene wanted to do, but he seemed to make his protests lightheartedly.
Otsuka twisted around onto her knees and peered over the back of the bench seat. Kaylene was right below her, with a yellow notepad, pages of numbers, and a calculator spread around her. Dane was across the table, slumped back, with his feet up on the end of the U-shaped bench. His expression was one of half amusement, and Otsuka guessed that he was not taking this meeting with Kaylene seriously.
“May I interrupt?” Otsuka asked.
“God, yes!” Dane told her.
“I just talked to my consulate.”
Kaylene leaned over and looked back over her shoulder. “What’d they want?”
“They want me to provide them — actually, the Eastern Flower — With any pertinent exploration data that we might develop.”
“I don’t have a problem with that,” Brande said. “We’re going to need all the help we can get, and it’s a hell of a lot better if we’re all working with the same information. Send them the updated charts, for a start.”
“They also want a copy of the operating program for a robot. They don’t know which one, but it’s probably Gargantua.”
“Hmmm,” Brande said.
“Bullshit!” Thomas added.
Various patents and copyrights within Marine Visions were shared in different ways. Gargantua’s structural design was shared by the company, Brande, Dokey and Dankelov. The electronics designs belonged to the company, to Dokey and to Mayberry. His programming belonged to the company, Otsuka and Polodka — twenty-five percent, fifty-five percent, and twenty percent, respectively. The company retained control of merchandising and production rights. Otsuka had thought the distribution policy a fair one since the company provided the research facilities and her salary.
“Why do you suppose they need the program?” Dane asked.
She had given it a speedy consideration. “I suspect that whatever robot they plan to use with their submersible is not yet operational. They’re trying to complete it en route.”
“And yet they’ve jumped right into this search?”
“Of course,” she said. “The publicity that will attach to anyone successful in the recovery is worth millions of dollars, Dane.”
“Would they take the risk of using an untested submersible and robot?” Kaylene asked.
“I do not know anyone at Hokkaido Marine Industries, but I imagine the answer is yes. They would view this disaster as an opportunity.”
Brande was watching her face closely, and Otsuka felt as if his gray eyes could see behind her own, could probe within her mind.
“Have you been threatened, Kim?” he asked.
She was glad that the relationships at MVU were so candid. Very little was ever hidden from another.
“Not directly,” she said. “It was implied that my passport could be revoked.”
“Give them the program,” he said.
“I’ll be damned if we will,” Thomas said. “Grab that phone and call Hampstead, Kim.”
“My plotting board looks like a live jigsaw puzzle,” Unruh said.
“Bet it looks just like mine,” Hampstead responded. “We’ve enlarged the display to show just the area of operations. I think it looks like a tag-team match, with about ten people on each team, and about ten teams.”
“I didn’t know you liked wrestling, Avery.”
“I don’t. Hate it.”
Unruh did not think he would pursue that line.
“Do you have any close friends in the State Department, Carl?”
“Of course not.”
“Just one?”
“Maybe. What’d you need?”
Hampstead told him about a problem with one of Brande’s scientists and her consulate.
“Wouldn’t you know someone would be trying to commercialize this thing, Avery?”
“I see it more as blackmail and industrial espionage.” “Well, let me make a few phone calls. Is that your only problem?”
“No,” Hampstead said, “but it’ll do for now.”
“You’ve got the Kirov identified?”
“Yes. She’s staying on the perimeter. CINCPAC says there’s fifty-seven civilian boats cluttering up the screen now. Several of them, according to one of the aircraft pilots, have approached the Russians. Right now, they’re sitting in place, about a quarter of a mile away, trying to stare down four big damned warships, Carl.”
“Waving banners?” Unruh asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe just fingers.”
“It’s worse elsewhere,” Unruh said, eyeing the status boards on easels that were lined up on one side of the Situation Room. “The Commonwealth naval base at Cam Ranh Bay is under siege by a horde of Vietnamese protestors.”
“Good,” was Hampstead’s response.
“A CIS Air Force attache at the United Nations was slugged in the face by a staffer from the Philippines delegation.”
“In the U.N. building?”
“Right. The CIS delegation is demanding that they be allowed to increase their security detachment.”
“Will they? Be allowed, I mean?”
“I can’t imagine that it will happen. Bob Balcon has asked the NYPD to give them a few extra cops.”
“There’s a major rally taking place at Waikiki Beach right now,” Hampstead said.
“The FBI has it listed here.”
“They want the Commonwealth expelled from the United Nations for endangering the world.”
“Is that right? That’ll really help improve communications,” Unruh said.
“Are we having any? Communications?”
“We might have, Avery. The President has called in the CIS ambassador. The ambassador asked for a delay in order to accumulate information. You can bet your ass he’s on the hot line to Moscow.”
“We wouldn’t happen to be listening in on his conversation, would we?”
“Avery.”
“Well?”
“Of course we are. But it’s scrambled and in code, naturally.”
“Naturally. How about data on the reactor?”
“We’re asking around.”
“You’ve been doing that for four days.”
“These things take time,” Unruh said. He had been on the line to Oren Patterson a dozen times, anxious, but not trying to pressure the DDO any more than he already was.
“You’re not giving us very much with which to work,” Hampstead complained.
“Well, there is one more thing.”
“I’m waiting with delicious anticipation.”
“The Navy people convinced the President that, with the CIS task force on-site and more coming, we should have more of a presence.”
“Oh, shit!”
“An aircraft carrier and two cruisers, with appropriate support craft, will be ordered out of Pearl Harbor within the next hour or so.”