The Deep Range - Arthur C. Clarke [94]
They were starting to pump out the second batch of oil drums when Captain Jacobsen called.
“I’m afraid I’ve got bad news, Franklin,” he said, his voice heavy with apprehension. “There’s water coming in, and the leak’s increasing. At the present rate, we’ll have to abandon the control room in a couple of hours.”
This was the news that Franklin had feared. It transformed a straightforward salvage job into a race against time—a race hopelessly handicapped, since it would take at least a day to cut away the rest of the derrick.
“What’s your internal air pressure?” he asked Captain Jacobsen.
“I’ve already pushed it up to five atmospheres. It’s not safe to put it up any farther.”
“Take it up to eight if you can. Even if half of you pass out, that won’t matter as long as someone remains in control. And it may help to keep the leak from spreading, which is the important thing.”
“I’ll do that—but if most of us are unconscious, it won’t be easy to evacuate the control room.”
There were too many people listening for Franklin to make the obvious reply—that if the control room had to be abandoned it wouldn’t matter anyway. Captain Jacobsen knew that as well as he did, but some of his passengers might not realize that such a move would end any chance of rescue.
The decision he had hoped he would not have to make was now upon him. This slow whittling away of the wreckage was not good enough; they would have to use explosives, cutting the fallen derrick at the center, so that the lower, unsupported portion would drop back to the sea bed and its weight would no longer pin down the sub.
It had been the obvious thing to do, even from the beginning, but there were two objections: one was the risk of using explosives so near the sub’s already weakened hull; the other was the problem of placing the charges in the correct spot. Of the derrick’s four main girders, the two upper ones were easily accessible, but the lower pair could not be reached by the remote handling mechanisms of the scoutsubs. It was the sort of job that only an unencumbered diver could do, and in shallow water it would not have taken more than a few minutes.
Unfortunately, this was not shallow water; they were eleven hundred feet down—and at a pressure of over thirty atmospheres.
CHAPTER XXIV
“IT’S TOO GREAT a risk, Franklin. I won’t allow it.” It was not often, thought Franklin, that one had a chance of arguing with a senator. And if necessary he would not merely argue; he would defy.
“I know there’s a danger, sir,” he admitted, “but there’s no alternative. It’s a calculated risk—one life against twenty-three.”
“But I thought it was suicide for an unprotected man to dive below a few hundred feet.”
“It is if he’s breathing compressed air. The nitrogen knocks him out first, and then oxygen poisoning gets him. But with the right mixture it’s quite possible. With the gear I’m using, men have been down fifteen hundred feet.”
“I don’t want to contradict you, Mr. Franklin,” said Captain Jacobsen quietly, “but I believe that only one man has reached fifteen hundred—and then under carefully controlled conditions. And he wasn’t attempting to do any work.”
“Nor am I; I just have to place those two charges.”
“But the pressure!”
“Pressure never makes any difference, Senator, as long as it’s balanced. There may be a hundred tons squeezing on my lungs—but I’ll have a hundred tons inside and won’t feel it.”
“Forgive me mentioning this—but wouldn’t it be better to send a younger man?”
“I won’t delegate this job, and age makes no difference to diving ability. I’m in good health, and that’s all that matters.”
“Take her up,” he said. “They’ll argue all day if we stay here. I want to get into that rig before I change my mind.”
He was wrestling with his thoughts all the way to the surface. Was he being a fool, taking risks which a man in his position, with a wife and family, ought never to face? Or was he still, after all these years,