‘So that’s why Parkinson’s booked space on Skylab 3.’
‘What a ridiculous rumor; not worth contradicting.’
‘Roy Emerson told me he was looking forward to his first trip into space . . . and setting up a weightless lab.’
‘I’ll fax Roy a polite note, telling him to keep his bloody mouth shut. But since you’ve raised the subject — yes, we think there are possibilities for zero-gee glassblowing. It may not start a revolution in the industry, like float glass back in the last century — but it’s worth a try.’
‘This probably isn’t a polite question, but how much is this goblet worth?’
‘I assume you’re not asking in your official capacity, so I won’t give a figure I’d care to put in a company report. Anyway, you know how crazy the art business is — more ups and downs than the stock market! Look at those late twentieth-century megadollar daubs you can’t give away now. And in this case there’s the history of the piece — how can you put a value on that?’
‘Make a guess.’
‘I’d be very disappointed at anything less than fifty M.’
Bradley whistled.
‘And how much more is down there?’
‘Lots. Here’s the complete listing, prepared for the exhibition the Smithsonian had planned. Is planning — just a hundred years late.’
There were more than forty items on the list, all with highly technical Italianate descriptions. About half had question marks beside them.
‘Bit of a mystery here,’ said Parkinson. ‘Twenty-two of the pieces are missing — but we know they were aboard, and we’re sure G.G. had them in his suite, because he complained about the space they were taking up — he couldn’t throw a party.’
‘So — going to blame the French again?’
It was an old joke, and rather a bitter one. Some of the French expeditions to the wreck, in the years following its 1985 discovery, had done considerable damage while attempting to recover artifacts. Ballard and his associates had never forgiven them.
‘No. I guess they’ve a pretty good alibi; we’re definitely the first inside. My theory is that G.G. had them moved out into an adjoining suite or corridor — I’m sure they’re not far away — we’ll find them sooner or later.’
‘I hope so; if your estimate is right — and after all, you’re the expert — those boxes of glass will pay for this whole operation. And everything else will be a pure bonus. Nice work, Rupert.’
‘Thank you. We hope Phase Two goes equally well.’
‘The Mole? I noticed it down beside the moon pool. Anything since your last report — which was rather sketchy?’
‘I know. We were in the middle of urgent mods when your office started making rude noises about schedules and deadlines. But now we’re on top of the problem — I hope.’
‘Do you still plan to make a test first, on a stretch of open seabed?’
‘No. We’re going to go for broke; we’re confident that all systems are okay, so why wait? Do you remember what happened in the Apollo Program, back in ’68? One of the most daring technological gambles in history. . . . The big Saturn V had only flown twice — unmanned — and the second flight had been a partial failure. Yet NASA took a calculated risk; the next flight was not only manned — it went straight to the Moon!
‘Of course, we’re not playing for such high stakes, but if the Mole doesn’t work — or we lose it — we’re in real trouble; our whole operation depends on it. The sooner we know about any real problems, the better.
‘No one’s ever tried something quite like this before; but our first run will be the real thing — and we’d like you to watch.
‘Now, Jason — how about a nice cup of tea?’
27 INJUNCTION
Article 1
Use of terms and scope
1. For the purposes of this Convention:
(1) ‘Area’ means the seabed and ocean floor and subsoil thereof, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction;
(2) ‘Authority’ means the International Seabed Authority;
Article 145
Protection of the marine environment
Necessary measures shall be taken in accordance with this Convention with respect to activities in the Area to ensure effective protection for the marine environment from harmful effects which may arise from such activities. To this end the Authority shall adopt appropriate rules, regulations and procedures for inter alia:
(a) the prevention, reduction and control of pollution and other hazards to the marine environment . . . particular attention being paid to the need for protection from harmful effects of such activities as drilling, dredging, disposal of waste, construction and operation or maintenance of installations, pipelines, and other devices related to such activities.
(United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982.)
‘We’re in deep trouble,’ said Kato, from his Toyko office, ‘and that’s not meant to be funny.’
‘What’s the problem?’ asked Donald Craig, relaxing in the Castle garden. From time to time he liked to give his eyes a chance of focusing on something more than half a meter away, and this was an unusually warm and sunny afternoon for early spring.
‘Bluepeace. They’ve lodged another protest with ISA — and this time I’m afraid they’ve got a case.’
‘I thought we’d settled all this.’
‘So did we; heads are rolling in our legal department. We can do everything we’d planned — except actually raise the wreck.’
‘It’s a little late in the day to discover that, isn’t it? And you’ve never told me how you intended to get the extra lift. Of course, I never took that crack about rockets seriously.’
‘Sorry about that — we’d been negotiating with Du Pont and Thiokol and Union Carbide and half a dozen others — didn’t want to talk until we were certain of our supplier.’
‘Of what?’
‘Hydrazine. Rocket monopropellant. So I wasn’t economizing too greatly with the truth.’
‘Hydrazine? Now where — Of course! That’s how Cussler brought her up, in Raise the Titanic!’
‘Yes, and it’s quite a good idea — it decomposes into pure nitrogen and hydrogen, plus lots of heat. But Cussler didn’t have to cope with Bluepeace. They got wind of what we were doing — wish I knew how — and claim that hydrazine is a dangerous poison, and some is bound to be spilled, however carefully we handle it, and so on and so forth.’
‘Is it a poison?’
‘Well, I’d hate to drink it. Smells like concentrated ammonia, and probably tastes worse.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Fight, of course. And think of alternatives. Parky will be laughing his head off.’
28 MOLE
The three-man deep-sea submersible Marvin had been intended as the successor of the famous Alvin, which had played such a key role in the first exploration of the wreck. Alvin, however, showed no intention of retiring, though almost every one of its original components had long since been replaced.
Marvin was also much more comfortable than its progenitor, and had greater reserves of power. No longer was it necessary to spend a boring two and a half hours in free-fall to the seabed; with the help of its motors, Marvin could reach the Titanic in less than an hour. And in an emergency, by jettisoning all external equipment, the titanium sphere holding the crew could get back to the surface in minutes — an incompressible air bubble ascending from the depths.
For Bradley, this was a double first. He had never yet seen the Titanic with his own eyes, and though he had handled Marvin on test and training runs down to a few hundred meters, he had never taken it right down to the bottom. Needless to say, he was carefully watched by the submersible’s usual pilot, who was doing his best not to be a backseat driver.
‘Altitude two hundred meters. Wreck bearing one two zero.’
Altitude! That was a word that sounded strangely in a diver’s ear. But here inside Marvin’s life-support sphere, depth was almost irrelevant. What really concerned Bradley was his elevation above the seabed, and keeping enough clearance to avoid obstacles. He felt that he was piloting not a submarine but a low-flying aircraft — one searching for landmarks in a thick fog. . . .
‘Searching,’ however, was hardly the right word, for he knew exactly where his target was. The brilliant echo on the sonar display was dead ahead, and now only a hundred meters away. In a moment the TV camera would pick it up, but Bradley wanted to use his own eyes. He was not a child of the video age, to whom nothing was quite real until it had appeared on a screen.
And there was the knife edge of the prow, looming up in the glare of Marvin’s lights. Bradley cut the motor, and let his little craft drift slowly toward the converging cliffs of steel.
Now he was separated from the Titanic by only a few centimeters of adamantine crystal, bearing a pressure that it was not wise to dwell upon. He was confronting the ghost that had haunted the Atlantic sea lanes for almost a century; it still seemed to be driving ahead under its own power, as if on a voyage that, even now, had only just begun.