The Deep Range - Arthur C. Clarke [92]
“Will you have to go down yourself?” asked Indra anxiously.
“Probably. Now don’t look so upset! I’ve been doing it for years!”
“I’m not upset,” retorted Indra, and Franklin knew better than to contradict her. “Good-by, darling,” he continued, “give my love to Anne, and don’t worry.”
Indra watched the image fade. It had already vanished when she realized that Walter had not looked so happy for weeks. Perhaps that was not the right word to use when men’s lives were at stake; it would be truer to say that he looked full of life and enthusiasm. She smiled, knowing full well the reason why.
Now Walter could get away from the problems of his office, and could lose himself again, if only for a while, in the clear-cut and elemental simplicities of the sea.
“There she is,” said the pilot of the sub, pointing to the image forming at the edge of the sonar screen. “On hard rock eleven hundred feet down. In a couple of minutes well be able to make out the details.”
“How’s the water clarity—can we use TV?”
“I doubt it. That gas geyser is still spouting—there it is—that fuzzy echo. It’s stirred up all the mud for miles around.”
Franklin stared at the screen, comparing the image forming there with the plans and sketches on the desk. The smooth ovoid of the big shallow-water sub was partly obscured by the wreckage of the drills and derrick—a thousand or more tons of steel pinning it to the ocean bed. It was not surprising that, though it had blown its buoyancy tanks and turned its jets on to full power, the vessel had been unable to move more than a foot or two.
“It’s a nice mess,” said Franklin thoughtfully. “How long will it take for the big tugs to get here?”
“At least four days. Hercules can lift five thousand tons, but she’s down at Singapore. And she’s too big to be flown here; she’ll have to come under her own steam. You’re the only people with subs small enough to be airlifted.”
That was true enough, thought Franklin, but it also meant that they were not big enough to do any heavy work. The only hope was that they could operate cutting torches and carve up the derrick until the trapped sub was able to escape.
Another of the bureau’s scouts was already at work; someone, Franklin told himself, had earned a citation for the speed with which the torches had been fitted to a vessel not designed to carry them. He doubted if even the Space Department, for all its fabled efficiency, could have acted any more swiftly than this.
“Captain Jacobsen calling,” said the loud-speaker. “Glad to have you with us, Mr. Franklin. Your boys are doing a good job, but it looks as if it will take time.”
“How are things inside?”
“Not so bad. The only thing that worries me is the hull between bulkheads three and four. It took the impact there, and there’s some distortion.”
“Can you close off the section if a leak develops?”
“Not very well,” said Jacobsen dryly. “It happens to be the middle of the control room. If we have to evacuate that, we’ll be completely helpless.”
“What about your passengers?”
“Er—they’re fine,” replied the captain, in a tone suggesting that he was giving some of them the benefit of a good deal of doubt. “Senator Chamberlain would like a word with you.”
“Hello, Franklin,” began the senator. “Didn’t expect to meet you again under these circumstances. How long do you think it will take to get us out?”
The senator had a good memory, or else he had been well briefed. Franklin had met him on not more than three occasions—the last time in Canberra, at a session of the Committee for the Conservation of Natural Resources. As a witness, Franklin had been before the C.C.N.R. for about ten minutes, and he would not have expected its busy chairman to remember the fact.
“I can’t make any promises, Senator,” he answered cautiously. “It may take some time to clear away all this rubbish. But