Pacific Vortex! Part 17

"The lights, the pumping pressure," March said dazedly. "The nuclear reactor must still be operating."

"It would seem so. Shall we have a look?"

To March, Pitt's glacial calm was astounding. "Why not?" he said. He tried to sound casual but his words came out like a hoa.r.s.e croak. The water was completely drained away now and he gazed downward at the interior hatch of the Starbuck.

They removed their air tanks, face masks, and fins in the certainty that if there was breathable air in the escape chamber, there had to be breathable air in the sub itself. March got down on his knees in the inch or so of water left on the interior hatch, and began twisting the handwheel. This one gave easily; tiny air bubbles foamed around the lip of the cover as air vented from within the sub. He leaned down and sniffed the escaping air.

"It's okay."

"Crack it some more."

March spun the handwheel until a small rush of air splashed through the puddle at their feet. Then the pressure equalized and water gurgled away beneath the hatch. March felt a despairing apprehension; there was no mistaking this time the icy sweat that seeped from his pores. He eased the hatch cautiously up on -its hinges and quickly turned aside. There was no way that he was going to enter that unholy crypt first. He needn't have worried. Pitt rapidly slipped past and dropped down the ladder and disappeared from view.

Pitt found himself in the well-illuminated, cramped, and empty forward torpedo compartment. Everything seemed neatly in place as though the owners had temporarily left to play cards in the ward room or grab a late afternoon snack in the crew's mess. The bunks tiered aft of the torpedo storage were tightly made up; the bra.s.s plaques on the circular rear doors of the tubes s.h.i.+ned brightly; the ventilation blower hummed at normal speed. The only sign of movement was Pitt's shadowy form making its contorted way across a bulkhead wall. He stepped back to the escape hatch and looked up.

"n.o.body's home. Come on down and bring Barf."

He could have saved his breath. March was already descending the ladder carrying both Barf and the camera case. He handed Pitt the carbon dioxide gun and furtively glanced around the compartment. His fear gave way to astonishment when he saw that Pitt wasn't fooling about the vacant compartment.

"Where is everybody?"

"Let's find out," Pitt said quietly. He took Barf from March's hand and nodded at the camera. "That your security blanket?"

March finally forced a tight smile. Tve got eight more shots left on the roll. Commander Boland might like to see what we've discovered. He's not going to be too happy about our breaking and entering."

"h.e.l.l hath no wrath like a commander scorned," Pitt said. Til take full responsibility."

"They must have seen us enter the escape hatch from the TV monitors," March said uneasily.

"First things first. I'm counting on you for a personally guided tour."

"I served on an attack sub. The Starbuck is an engineering marvel none of us even dreamed about five years ago. I doubt if I could find the nearest John."

"Nonsense," Pitt said loftily. "If you've seen one submarine, you've seen them all. Where does this lead?" He pointed at an aft bulkhead door.

"Probably a companionway running past the missile tubes to the crew's mess."

"Okay, let's go."

Pitt unlatched the bulkhead door and stepped over the sill into a compartment with seemingly the same dimensions as the Carlsbad Caverns. It was vast-at least four decks high, a labyrinth of heat exchanger tubes, drive systems, generators, boilers, and two monstrous turbines. A powerhouse, Pitt thought; one of those gas and electric company powerhouses that burst at the seams with nightmare upon nightmare of piping and machinery. As he stood there amazed at the immensity of the room, March brushed past him and slowly, almost hypnotically ran his hands over the equipment.

"My G.o.d," March exclaimed. "They did it. They actually combined the engine room with the reactors and set them in the forward part of the s.h.i.+p."

"I thought nuclear reactors had to be mounted in isolated compartments because of radiation danger."

"They've improved the control, so that a man working in or around a reactor for nearly a year, will receive less radiation than a hospital X-ray technician in a week."

March walked over to a large boilerlike piece of machinery that rose nearly twenty feet high and studied it carefully. He followed the heat exchanger tubes to where they finally merged with the main propulsion turbines.

"The starboard reactor is shut down," he said softly. "But the rods are pulled on the port reactor. That's why the system is providing power."

"How long could it sit unattended like this?" Pitt asked.

"Six months, maybe a year. This is a brand-new system, pretty advanced. Might even go longer."

"Wouldn't you say this is an exceptionally clean engine room?"

"Somebody's kept it up, that's for sure," March said, looking uneasily behind him.

"We'd better push on," Pitt said briefly.

They climbed a ladder to another door and stepped over the sill. They found themselves in the crew's messroom; a large, s.p.a.cious compartment brightly decorated with long wide tables covered in dark blue vinyl. It looked more like a Holiday Ion Coffee Shop than a dining compartment of a submarine. The grills on the galley stoves were cold and again everything was neat and orderly. No stacked pots and pans, no dirty dishes. Pitt didn't even find so much as a tiny crumb laying about anywhere. He couldn't help but smile as he moved past a thirty-two-inch color TV console and a mammoth stereo. Something didn't jell in the back of his mind. In fact, nothing jelled in this whole crazy, uninhabited vessel. Then he had it- a small piece of the baffling puzzle.

"No paper," Pitt said to no one in particular.

March looked at him. "No what?"

"No sign of paper anywhere," Pitt murmured. "This is where the crew pa.s.sed time, isn't it? Then why no playing cards, magazines, books? Why no salt and pepper, no sugar..." Suddenly he broke off in mid-sentence and walked, quickly behind the serving line into the galley. He threw open the doors to the supply lockers and the galley storage compartment. They were completely barren. Only the cooking utensils and dishware remained. He noted with grim satisfaction the specks of corrosion on the dinnerware.

March was regarding him thoughtfully over the serving line counter. "What do you make of it?"

"This compartment's been flooded," Pitt said slowly.

"Impossible," March said simply. "The engine and reactor room.. "

"Were never touched by water," Pitt finished. "That's obvious. You can't dry out a nuclear reactor like a load of laundry, but you can restore a galley that's been flooded." He carefully closed the storage locker doors, leaving them as he had found them.

They hurried down a long corridor past the officers' ward room, the living compartments, and the captain's stateroom. Pitt made a rapid search of Commander Dupree's quarters but found nothing; even his clothing was gone. Pitt felt as if he were standing in a hospital room where a patient had just died and the orderlies had removed every item of the man's existence.

Swiftly, without speaking, Pitt continued down the corridor and stepped into what he correctly guessed was the main control room. Barf tightly clutched in his hand, he padded silently past rows of electronic equipment. His eyes scanned the panels and stainless steel gauges, the radar scopes, the illuminated charts, and transparent tracking screens. It was difficult for him to believe that he was in a submarine beneath the sea instead of a highly complex command center at the National s.p.a.ce Headquarters. The Starbuck was humming softly without human supervision, awaiting the day when a command was given that would awaken and send her surging through the seas once more.

At last Pitt found what he was looking for: the door to the radio room. The equipment waited forlornly, as if somehow expecting the operator to return any second. Pitt sat down and, pulling open the nearest drawer, retrieved a manual on the radio's operation. Good old Navy, he thought; operating instructions are never kept more than spitting distance away. He leaned forward over the transmitter and arranged the necessary dials and switches. Then he turned to March.

"Find the antenna control and shove it up as high as it'll go."

It took March sixty seconds to discover and activate the topside antenna. Then Pitt gripped the microphone; absorbed in his task in the eerie emptiness of the submarine, the return trip to the surface was completely forgotten for the moment. He set the frequency to maritime transmission, knowing his message would be picked up back in the bunker at Pearl Harbor. This ought to make a few people believe in ghosts, he thought devilishly. Then he pressed the b.u.t.ton for TRANSMIT.

"h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo, Martha Ann. This is Starbuck. I repeat, Starbuck. Do you read me? Over."

Boland had not been idle. Pitt had no sooner pulled the Starbuck's escape hatch closed when Boland ordered two of his best men to prepare for diving. They were to carry extra air tanks to replace the ones carried by Pitt and March, which, he figured, must surely be on reserve air by now. He pounded his fist helplessly on the chart table. They had been in that sub too long; they must be trapped in the escape compartment. G.o.dd.a.m.n Pitt, he thought, G.o.dd.a.m.n him to h.e.l.l for pulling such a stupid stunt.

He grabbed the intercom mike. "You men on the dive platform. You've got less than five minutes to get them out of there. So move your a.s.s."

He jammed the microphone back in its cradle and turned to the TV monitors. His eyes locked on the viewing screens with a cold, impa.s.sive stare. "How long?"

Stanley glanced at his watch for the fiftieth time. "If they don't exert themselves, I give them another three minutes."

As they watched the divers. .h.i.t the water and swim furiously toward the submarine, footsteps sounded in the pa.s.sageway outside; the boatswain burst into the detection room.