It had not been difficult to find the Des Moines. While she had drifted a few feet, and sunk into the muck more than a few, her location had never been lost.
The muck had actually been the greatest of the three major problems with the recovery. It had cost a fortune to have it vacuumed away so that the antigravity devices could be placed under the hull. On the other hand, the suction of the muck would have interfered with raising her anyway, and possibly caused the hull to break apart. Moreover, getting rid of the muck had allowed a close examination of the hull and repair of all but two of the holes shot in it by Posleen fire. These were left to allow water to drain out. Patches, pre-cut, were ready to slap and weld over them once that was done. Lastly, with no chance of the muck being replaced, it had made sense to vacuum out much of the interior of the ship. This too had reduced the strain on the hull.
Sally lifted her head up, obviously hearing something Boyd could not.
“They say they’re ready to start,” she announced.
Boyd nodded. “Tell them to go ahead.”
There wasn’t long to wait, fifteen minutes at most, before the water began to show disturbances from underneath, a billowing cloud of sea bottom, a slight rising on the surface and smoothing of the waves. Boyd bit his lower lip in anxious anticipation.
“Over there,” Sally pointed.
Boyd looked a bit to port and was slightly surprised to see the point of the bow emerge first. He’d been expecting the stack.
“They canted the bow upward,” Sally explained, “to reduce stress on the hull. They’ll keep the bow about stationary now while they level off the rest of her.”
“I’m a little surprised she didn’t break up on the way down,” Boyd said.
“I think she flooded herself carefully before the end to keep upright as long as possible,” Sally answered. “Then too, the water was shallow. She would not have built up enough speed going down to really crash.”
The two went silent then as the recovery crew deftly evened out Des Moines’ keel. The next thing to appear after the point of the bow was a heavily damaged rangefinder, then the stack, then the superstructure. Two seaweed covered turrets began to show, followed by the rest of the superstructure and the remains of the number three turret. There was a wait while water drained off, running over the sides in a stinky, greenish deluge. Then slowly and, it might be said, majestically, the ship rose evenly under antigravity to her keel. The recovery ship moved in close.
Boyd continued to stare, fascinated, as diving teams from the recovery ship went over the side. He was equally fascinated by the process of lowering the two huge patches meant to seal the holes left in the hull. Once these were in place, and the crews welding, he turned his attention to the battle damage.
Boyd shook his head in wonder. “To think she was still fighting back even as she slipped under with all the damage done to her.”
The face of Sally’s avatar glowed with pride. “She was a good ship, a brave ship, from a good class. I was proud to have her for a sister. Then too,” and the actress-avatar smiled, “she sure knew how to make an exit.”
It was curiously light in the interior of the ship. While all of the human-produced light bulbs had collapsed, or the wiring rotted, the Indowy-installed emergency light plates still cast a glow strong enough to see by, if barely. Moreover, Sally’s hologram, projected from the warship herself, sitting forty yards off to port, and resonating from Des Moines’ mostly intact “nervous system,” added still more.
In a way, it was a bit too much light. The remains of several hundred of Des Moines’ crew — uniforms and shoes for the most part, sometimes bones if those had been cooked before sinking — littered the decks. Blood and flesh were gone, however, a small mercy for which Boyd gave great thanks.
Deep below decks he could hear the odd sound of underwater welding resonating through the bulkheads. The pumps he could not hear, though he knew they were working. The Galactics built well, and to fine tolerances. Their pumps were noiseless.
“This way,” Sally’s avatar suggested, pointing downward to a ladder leading deep below decks.
“What’s down this far?” Boyd asked.
“I’m not sure. Something. There’s a power source down there, and not a small one.”
“The pebble bed reactors?”
“No… they’re dead. And there’s no radiation to speak of. It’s something else.”
Boyd shrugged his shoulders and, reluctantly, descended towards the bowels of the ship.
“Are you sure there’s enough air down here?” Boyd asked.
“Does it stink?” Sally queried in response. “I suppose it must. But, yes, as the water drained, fresh air was drawn down. It would last a single man for years. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried,” the human snapped. “And, yes, it stinks.”
“Turn towards the stern,” Sally directed. “The power source is back there.”
Boyd and the avatar emerged from a long corridor into a large, mostly open space surrounding a solid looking, circular mass. Boyd looked around the open space, saw numerous tables and stools.
“Ship’s mess?” he asked.
“The main mess, yes. Those were the galley, butcher shop and garbage grinder we just passed. Just ahead, to the stern, is a ladder. The power source is near the base of that.”
Still reluctant, Boyd continued on and then down.
“I’m getting to be a little old for this, you know,” he complained.
“Mr. Boyd,” Sally answered, formally. “You know damned well you do not have to be old. A simple form to be signed, off-world passage to be paid, and you could be seventeen again.”
“Bah. And spend another lifetime going through that shit? No, thank you.”
“Up to you.”
“Well, at least there are no rats aboard.”
“No,” Sally agreed. “They all drowned. Which makes me wonder if I shouldn’t have myself sunk for a bit and re-raised. They itch, you know? The rats, I mean. Nasty little feet and claws always traipsing along the decks whenever there isn’t a human about.
“Turn to your right,” she added, “back toward the stern.”
Boyd asked, “What was back here?”
“It was supposed to be storage, bunkerage.” Sally answered. “But here also is that power source. Behind that door.”
In the dim light Boyd made out several Posleen skeletons. He counted the number of skulls. Five of them. Unlike the humans, something in the makeup of the aliens’ bones had prevented them from dissolving into the ocean’s water. The skeletons made the old man shudder but he pressed on nonetheless.
Boyd looked through the small view port in the watertight door. It was light enough inside to see that there was no leakage. He put both hands on the wheel and began to twist. The door’s locking mechanism resisted at first, than gave way only slowly and reluctantly, and with an agonized whining. Boyd stepped back and allowed the door to swing open.
Inside was a bare room, oddly shaped and with one wall sloping. The room was bare except for a conical glowing object — the power source, he guessed — and a pearlescent coffinlike box about four feet by four feet by maybe ten. The box had an almost square projection on one side, with a glassy plate on its sloping top.
“What is that thing?” he asked Sally’s avatar.
Sally didn’t answer directly. Instead she instructed, “Place your hand on that plate.”