Dead or Alive - Tom Clancy [188]
“What do you think, Vanya?” the owner asked.
“That battery thing? I’m not going to worry. Too much, at least.” His sleeping accommodations were aft and below the wheelhouse. Not an educated man, Vanya was clever enough with machines and their personalities.
Vitaliy looked at the steel bulkhead forward of the wheel. It was steel, after all, and seven or eight millimeters thick. Enough to stop a bullet. Surely that was enough to stop radiation, wasn’t it? Well, you couldn’t worry about everything.
It was just past sunset when they arrived in the harbor, where things were shutting down. At the big-ship quay a ro-ro ship was about half loaded with cargo boxes for the oil fields to the east, and the longshoremen were walking back to their homes in anticipation of finishing up loading the next day, and water-front bars were cleaning tables for the usual evening business. All in all, a normal sleepy evening for what was, mostly, a sleepy port. Vitaliy eased his boat into the dock, the one with a ramp for loading trucks and trailers onto boats such as his. The dock looked unattended, as was normal, the dockmaster doubtless on his way to one of the bars to drink his dinner.
“Days getting shorter, Captain,” Vanya observed, standing left of the wheel. In another few weeks, they’d hardly see the sun at all, and it would be their winter maintenance period, with nobody chartering their craft. Even the polar bears would be looking for dens in which to sleep out the bitter winter, while humans did much the same, helped along the way by vodka. And one lighthouse would be dark all through the winter, not that it mattered all that much.
“So we can sleep longer, eh, Vanya?”
Always a good way to spend your time, the deckhand thought.
The charter party was still in the well deck, standing by their truck. Not overly excited about getting back to port, Vitaliy saw. Well, they were businesslike, and that was fine with him. He had half his charter fee in his pocket, and the rest of the cash would join it soon enough, and maybe he would buy the GPS system to ease his navigation, if he could get a good deal for it. Yuriy Ivanov should have a goodly supply of the gadgets at his chandlery, and for a bottle of Starka, maybe he could get a decent bargain in what was still largely a barter economy.
“Stand by the engines, Vanya.”
“As you say, Comrade Captain,” the deckhand responded, heading aft and below.
He’d just beach his craft, Vitaliy decided. The ramp was concrete covered with dirt, and his boat was made for that sort of thing. He carefully lined up and moved it at three or four knots, just about right. The light was fading, but not that fast.
“Stand by,” he said over the intercom.
“Standing by,” Vanya replied the same way.
Vitaliy’s left hand found the throttle but didn’t move it quite yet. Thirty meters, approach gently, he told himself. Twenty meters. His peripheral vision showed only a fishing boat, sitting idle alongside, with nobody in sight. Just about … now.
It was an awful noise, the sort to set a man’s teeth on edge, and his steel bottom grated on the ramp, but soon enough the noise stopped, and Vitaliy chopped the throttles back to zero/ idle. And the trip and charter were complete.
“Finished with engines, Vanya.”
“Yes, Comrade Captain. Shutting down.” And the rumble stopped.
Vitaliy pulled the wheelhouse ramp-release