The Hunt for Red October - Tom Clancy [38]
Jones lit another cigarette. He knew the student who had originally drafted this abortion they called SAPS. One problem was that it had a nasty habit of analyzing the wrong signal—and you couldn't tell it was wrong from the results. Besides, since it had been originally designed to look for seismic events, Jones suspected it of a tendency to interpret anomalies as seismic events. He didn't like the built-in bias, which he felt the research laboratory had not entirely removed. It was one thing to use computers as a tool, quite another to let them do your thinking for you. Besides, they were always discovering new sea sounds that nobody had ever heard before, much less classified.
"Sir, the frequency is all wrong for one thing—nowhere near low enough. How 'bout I try an' track in on this signal with the R-15?" Jones referred to the towed array of passive sensors the Dallas was trailing behind her at low speed.
Commander Mancuso came in just then, the usual mug of coffee in his hand. If there was one frightening thing about the captain, Thompson thought, it was his talent for showing up when something was going on. Did he have the whole boat wired?
"Just wandering by," he said casually. "What's happening this fine day?" The captain leaned against the bulkhead. He was a small man, only five eight, who had fought a battle against his waistline all his life and was now losing because of the good food and lack of exercise on a submarine. His dark eyes were surrounded by laugh lines that were always deeper when he was playing a trick on another ship.
Was it day, Thompson wondered? The six-hour one-in-three rotating watch cycle made for a convenient work schedule, but after a few changes you had to press the button on your watch to figure out what day it was, else you couldn't make the proper entry in the log.
"Skipper, Jones picked up a funny signal on the lateral. The computer says it's magma displacement."
"And Jonesy doesn't agree with that." Mancuso didn't have to make it a question.
"No, sir, Captain, I don't. I don't know what it is, but for sure it ain't that."
"You against the machine again?"
"Skipper, SAPS works pretty well most of the time, but sometimes it's a real kludge." Jones' epithet was the most perjorative curse of electronics people. "For one thing the frequency is all wrong."
"Okay, what do you think?"
"I don't know, Captain. It isn't screw sounds, and it isn't any naturally produced sound that I've heard. Beyond that . . ." Jones was struck by the informality of the discussion with his commanding officer, even after three years on nuclear subs. The crew of the Dallas was like one big family, albeit one of the old frontier families, since everybody worked pretty damned hard. The captain was the father. The executive officer, everyone would readily agree, was the mother. The officers were the older kids, and the enlisted men were the younger kids. The important thing was, if you had something to say, the captain would listen to you. To Jones, this counted for a lot.
Mancuso nodded thoughtfully. "Well, keep at it. No sense letting all this expensive gear go to waste."
Jones grinned. Once he had told the captain in precise detail how he could convert this equipment into the world's finest stereo rig. Mancuso had pointed out that it would not be a major feat, since the sonar gear in this room alone cost over twenty million dollars.
"Christ!" The junior technician bolted upright in his chair. "Somebody just stomped on the gas."
Jones was the sonar watch supervisor. The other two watchstanders noted the new signal, and Jones switched his phones to the towed array jack while the two officers kept out of the way. He took a scratch pad and noted the time before working on his individual controls. The BQR-15 was the most sensitive sonar rig on the boat, but its sensitivity was not needed for this contact.
"Damn," Jones muttered quietly.
"Charlie," said the