“Well, I’m a monkey’s uncle,” he confessed finally. “That is something else. Interesting-very interesting. I’ll hang on to this for a while, Leff, if you don’t mind.”
“Then we use it?” Stavrianos’s smile brightened his dark Mediterranean countenance.
Dr. Fallows sidestepped the question and addressed the group at large. “According to the author of this paper, some broad named Dr. Faith Hamilton-that’s why I checked out the figures-I never take anything on faith-the speed and direction of the jet streams is such that when the main thrusters’ air jets touch them, it curves back on itself hyperbolically, producing a turbulence that piles up under the machine in what seems to be a very controlled-and better yet, controllable-manner, supporting it as gently as if it were riding along on glass. A real magic carpet, if we can believe the experimental data. The math is all right, I can attest to that. But the real kicker is this: la Hamilton says that it takes only 22 percent of the energy expended by a state-of-the-art GEM to produce the maximum hypothesized speed.” He returned to the computer keyboard and made a few entries. “Unless I’m way off base, this could work on the Texas. We could squeeze speeds of nearly fifty-eight knots out of the old wagon, depending of course on the size of the power plant. And it would operate, naturally, across dry land as well as water, although I’d hate to be within a country mile when that baby started through a forest of ponderosa pine.” His smile was wistful as he visualized the old battleship plowing across the landscape like a giant bulldozer from another world.
“We use it?” said Stavrianos again.
“No.”
“But you just said-”
“I said, ‘Unless I’m way off base.’ Despite the consuming faith of all present in my infallibility, I have missed guesses-oh, perhaps once or twice in a long lifetime. But this-it’s never been tried outside the laboratory. What if we convert the old Texas to a GEM and it just sits there, making noises like a vacuum sweeper? If that happens, the Russian fleet won’t be the only thing red around here- Any other geniuses to be heard from this morning?” he inquired sweetly.
There was, as usual, no shortage of them. One proposed to convert the Texas to a hydrofoil. Mount huge blades that could be deployed horizontally once the ship was in the channel, and then conventional power could be applied to raise the ship up on the blades, reducing water friction against the hull to the extent that speed would be increased nearly threefold. He had the figures to prove it.
Dr. Fallows examined the figures and pronounced them beautiful.
“Trouble is,” he went on, “you’re talking about a five-year project.”
First there was the question of designing, testing, forging, and fitting the huge underwater foils, a task of much greater magnitude than simply forging new connecting rods, and one that could hardly be carried out in secret. Second, the machinery to manipulate huge blades at high speed didn’t yet exist. Third, where would the fins be installed? Installation would require transfer of the Texas to a graving dock, for no floating drydock in service could accommodate it. Russian satellites would pick It up before it left its slip, and where would the surprise be then? And finally, even if the foils were installed, and a computerized guidance system developed to control them, even if the ship were assumed to be balanced without dock and sea trials, there still remained the matter of propulsion.
Propulsion. They always came back to it, empty-handed . . .
A week passed. Ten days. Two weeks, and they were no closer to a solution than when they had begun. Dr. Fallows, hounded almost daily by Gwillam Forte, finally had to confess that not only had no solution been found, but none was in sight.
“There must be,” Forte said.
Dr. Fallows shook his head.
“Atomic power?”
“Well, of course, there’s atomic power. But there is no shipboard power plant available in the United States that is big enough for the job. To produce the speed you require in the 34,000-ton Texas would take a power plant big enough to propel a 90,000-ton aircraft carrier. None is now abuilding.”
“Submarine power plants?”
“Too small. All committed under current construction programs, anyway. You ought to know-you’re a prime contractor.”
Gwillam Forte considered the problem. “It’s a question of priorities. I could go to the top.”
“Still wouldn’t solve the problem. As I said, the submarine power plants haven’t the capacity we need.”
“Would two of them do?”
“No.”
“Four?”
Fallows broke into a smile. “Now you’re talking. Could you really get four released?”
“It all depends on which the White House wants first-the Texas or those subs. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, the Texas wins the toss. What then?”
“What stage of completion have they reached?”
“Two are in the test stands down here in SD-1. Two of the other five under contract are in the sub-assembly stage. They could be ready to install in two months or ten weeks.”
“That’s cutting it pretty close, but we could do it. … What next? There’s only one way to go, Will. Conventional screw propulsion is out, and so are all the attractive but hopelessly esoteric alternatives my staff has been brainstorming. We have to go with the tried and tested.”
“Which is?”
“Jet propulsion. Water jet. We can obtain the requisite power from the four reactors with a good margin to spare, I should imagine, although of course I haven’t made any calculations yet. We’ll install huge water intakes at the bow, and impeller turbines amidships, to shoot the water in two streams out the stern under tremendous pressure. For guidance, we remove the rudder and put in bow and stern thrusters port and starboard, also working on water jets. It’s quiet, efficient, and, compared with the other ideas floating about, easy to install, as it minimizes parts and engineering. Need a lot of manpower, though.”
“You’ll get it. Can it achieve the speeds we need?”
“Yes, I’m glad you asked about that, because there’s a piece of the puzzle that we’ve been pushing around that really doesn’t fit the way you’ve been thinking.”
“Oh?”
“It’s this business of top speed. First, we must remember that all the Russian ships are going to be limited by the speed of the slowest. That’s the Karl Marx, which can make a bit better than thirty-three knots. The top speeds of the other ships, since they will all be staying together in column formation, is irrelevant.”
“That’s true.”
“Another thing: the Texas won’t be encountering them on the high seas, where they will be going at top speed. On the contrary, they’ll be in relatively narrow, calm, protected waters-the Houston Ship Channel. They’ll be ascending the channel in stately procession, so that the natives can get an eyeful. That means at a relatively low speed-say, ten or eleven knots. Any craft moving at a speed three times that will seem to be flying. If the old Texas barrels through the Soviet fleet at fifty knots-and with nuclear power and water-jet propulsion I see no problem in attaining that-it’ll look like a speedboat among coal barges.”
“But you do think it’ll work?”
“Hell, Will, I don’t know. I’ll certainly give it the old college try. Do you think you can get the White House to spring those nuclear power plants?”
“Hell, Chil, I don’t know.”
“But you’ll give it the old college try?”
“Don’t know how-never got past the seventh grade.”
28 FEBRUARY 1998
“Hobe Caulkins is outside, sir. He’d like to speak with you.”
“Tell him I’ve gone to Alaska,” Gwillam Forte grumbled.
“I told him that yesterday.”
“Good. Tell him I’m still there.”
“I did. He saw you get in the elevator this morning. He wants to welcome you back.”
Forte sighed.
“Send him in.”
He rose from behind his desk as a young man who looked as though he had just put down his hoe and dressed in his Sunday best shambled into the room. His brown hair was carelessly slicked down, his ankle showed a lot of white sock below the cuffs of blue trousers, and a button was missing from his beige sports jacket. He had freckles across the ridge of his nose, which went perfectly with the Huckleberry Finn grin and the wholesome aroma of country bumpkin. Forte wondered why he bothered with the yokel act: everybody knew he had graduated summa cum laude in political science from the University of Texas, bruised many a linebacker who imagined all quarterbacks to be fragile, and was a damned smart newspaperman.
“Have a chair, Hobart.”
“Thanks, Mr. Forte.” The cheerful young man sat down and draped a long leg over the arm. He looked around the spacious modern office. “Redecorated your office again, I see.”
“Gives my secretary an excuse to get off the couch from time to time. What’s on your mind besides the new décor, Hobe?”