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Morton said, "Jesus, Lee, d'you think "
"Gleason," said the Captain, his voice crashing, "do you read me?"
"Loud and clear, sir," said a speaker on the console from the other end of the greenhouse.
Morton, in mid-sentence, mid-stride, still foolishly extending the hand with which he had carried the
microphone, turned suddenly and stamped back to the console.
"Belly down," said the Captain, "and crawl. I'd guess those things were tuned to something
Seaview size, but all the same, stay as far away as you can. They could be acoustic or magnetic or
contact armed and tripped, or any combination."
"Aye, sir." The jaunty-looking, humpbacked, sleek-skinned minisub, looking like somewhat less
than a minnow compared with the Seaview, settled evenly through the brilliant water. It moved as
evenly, and with as little visible effort-of-control, as a seahorse, sank sedately to within a few inches
of the ocean floor, and crept up the incline of the pass like a ground vehicle. It topped the rise and
went down the other side, out of sight.
Crane watched the horned skin of the lower mine, microphone tensely in hand, ready to bark a
caution if he saw any evidence of jolting or swaying. He saw none. At the end of an interminable four
minutes the mine simply began to rise, and ballooned upward out of range of the floods.
"One away," said the Captain. "Mr. Morton, get a sonar fix on that drifter and lock on to it. We
want to know its exact position at all times. And get another automatic finder locked on to that second
one."
Morton grunted an acknowledgement. Crane got a glimpse of the minisub as it moved toward the
second mine, and then it was out of sight again as it sank to attack the anchor chain as near as possible
to the bottom. The minisub's powerful electric winch was tied to one arm of an oversized bolt-cutter,
the other arm of which was held by a fitting in its hull. Apparently it could not have been better
designed.
"Two away," said the Captain. "Slow ahead both inboard. Give Kaski 2.5 magnification on the
forward screen and turn over the searchlights to Central Control. Put a man on the screen, give him
the controls, and see that he's ordered to do nothing else. Get me two lookouts for up here. Ahoy the
minisub!"
"Smith, on the minnie, sir."
"Scout ahead. Stay in the loom of our floods, and use your own lights as well. See that your
phone stays in the on position at all times and stand by for course corrections."
"Aye, sir."
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"You locked on to those drifters?"
"Yes, sir," said Morton. "They're well clear."
"As you go."
Crane turned again to the nose and stood looking out until two sailors slipped up beside him. The
floor sloped sharply away ahead, and the Captain returned to the console to look at the charts. It
looked like sea room at last.
"Full ahead, sir?"
"As you go!" snapped the Captain. Morton shrugged; it was insolent, but to remark on it would
have seemed picayune. Instead, Crane said, poring over the chart and not looking at Morton, "Mr.
Morton, could you bring yourself to lay mines and then just go off and forget about it?"
Morton looked startled; he turned quickly and looked out through the nose. "You think we'll get
a reception committee?"
By way of answering, Crane gave orders: "Discontinue all sound projection systems. Establish
situation Hush [the Sea-view's drill code for whispers, tiptoes, and the elimination of dish and tool
clatter] and break out every passive listening and locating device aboard. Ahoy the minnie.'
"Gleason here, sir," said the speaker.
"Situation Hush," said Crane. "Proceed as ordered, course three hundred. Do not acknowledge
this. Over."
Like a shark with a pilot fish, Seaview and the minisub crept out of the Straits and into deep
Pacific water. Crane hugged bottom until its slope led them to about 40 fathoms, then held that level,
shallow enough to keep things comfortable for the minisub, deep enough to make their lights
undetectable in daylight.
"Stop all," said Crane quietly after about ten minutes. As always, the difference between the
almost-silent engines, and none at all, was jolting. Morton picked up the minisub in the search beams
and flickered them. The sub acknowledged with its fin lights, and seemed to approach backwards
actually the result of Seaview's greater mass carrying the big submarine forward farther and faster
than the minnie.
Morton and Crane studied the big screen, on which was the reconstructed image of sounds
received by acute electronic ears. On the upper left shimmered a jagged symbol like a wandering
clump of grass. Morton telegraphed its location to the minisub with the lights. "Twin screw," said the
Captain. " 'Bout as big as a DE. Only one of 'em." He watched. "Course about ten degrees right
across our bows. There's sound gear," he added as the screen flashed a worm of light which
disappeared, then reappeared, at two second intervals. "Condition red," he murmured into the general
call, and flicked the stud which would repeat the call by light signals in each compartment. Morton
informed the minisub with the search beams.
The ship passed almost directly overhead, and they began to hear the whistle and ping of its
detection gear. As the sound faded they began to breathe again and then they saw the ship turn and
begin an arc.
"Got us," said Morton.
Crane thought his first critical thought of the mighty Seaview. "Just too damn big." Aloud he
said, "Stand by the sonars. If they drop anything I want to know what it is." He moved to the segment
of the console marked Degaussing, and pressed the stand-by button. The engine room would set up
the powerful generators and high-frequency alternators which would, when activated, make the entire
enormous hull of the submarine disappear from the "sight" of a magnetic-seeking torpedo. Seeing
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what he planned, Morton spoke up: "It could be a heat-sniffer," and added "Sir."
"It could," said Crane. "So we have a fifty-fifty chance of being right. If we're right, we're
altogether right, and if we're wrong it'll only matter for a minute or so." He knew as well as Morton
that the special degaussing gear they carried would heat up the hull in a matter of minutes Crane had
once seen steam forming and bubbling up past the herculite nose, on a test and make them a perfect
target for an infrared detecting missile. At that moment he would have given all his stripes and a
Swiss watch for the simple information as to what that ship up there was, so he could deduce what
they might throw. For a painful second he actively missed the O.O.M., who would be sulking in his
suite. Nelson had a deductive faculty that amounted to intuition, and that was the best possible
substitute for information.
"She's squatting to lay," said Morton, his eyes nailed to the screen. The blip of the surface craft
had ceased its arc and was cutting toward the overhead point. "And there's the egg."
Crane, too, watched with all his being. Here, now, was where the wrong move could not be
corrected, even if the correction should be applied a second later. A depth charge, or "ashcan" they
could ignore, purely because there was nothing they could do about it. A torpedo, on the other hand,
although much more dangerous, could be fought.
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