No one ever remembered who screamed first.
30 PIETÀ
Jason Bradley had seen something like this before, in a space movie whose name he couldn’t recall. There had been a dead astronaut cradled in mechanical arms, being carried toward the stars. . . . But this robot pietà was rising from the Atlantic depths, toward the circling inflatable boats waiting to receive it.
‘That’s the last one,’ said Parkinson somberly. ‘The girl. We still don’t know her name.’
Just like those Russian sailors, thought Bradley, who had been laid out on this very same deck, more than thirty years ago. He could not avoid it; the silly cliché flashed into his mind: ‘This is where I came in.’
And, like many of the sailors brought up in Operation JENNIFER, these dead also appeared to be only sleeping. That was the most amazing — indeed, uncanny — aspect of the whole matter, which had seized the imagination of the world. After all the trouble we went to, explaining why there couldn’t possibly be even a scrap of bone. . . .
‘I’m surprised,’ he said to Parkinson, ‘that you were able to identify any of them, after all these years.’
‘Contemporary newspapers — family albums — even poor Irish immigrants usually had at least one photo taken during their lifetime. Especially when they were leaving home forever. I don’t think there’s an attic in Ireland the media haven’t ransacked in the last couple of days.’
ROV 3 had handed over its burden to the rubber-suited divers circling in their inflatables. They lifted it carefully — tenderly — into the cradle suspended over the side from one of Explorer’s cranes. It was obviously very light; one man was able to handle it easily.
With a common, unspoken impulse both Parkinson and Bradley moved away from the rail; they had seen enough of this sad ritual. During the past forty-eight hours, five men and one woman had been brought out of the tomb in which they had been lying for almost a century — apparently beyond the reach of time.
When they were together in Parkinson’s suite, Bradley handed over a small computer module. ‘It’s all there,’ he said. ‘The ISA lab’s been working overtime. There are still some puzzling details, but the general picture seems clear.
‘I don’t know if you ever heard the story about Alvin — in the early days of its career, it was lost in deep water. The crew just managed to scramble out — leaving their lunch behind.
‘When the sub was salvaged a couple of years later, the crew’s lunch was exactly as they’d left it. That was the first hint that in cold water, with low oxygen content, organic decay can be vanishingly slow.
‘And they’ve recovered bodies from wrecks in the Great Lakes that look absolutely fresh after decades — you can still see the expressions of surprise on the sailors’ faces!
‘So,’ continued Bradley, ‘the first requirement is that the corpse be in a sealed environment, where marine organisms can’t get at it. That’s what happened here; these people were trapped when they tried to find a way out — poor devils, they must have been lost in first-class territory! They’d broken the lock on the other door of the suite — but couldn’t open the other before the water reached them. . . .
‘But there’s more to it than cold, stagnant water — and this is the really fascinating part of the story. Have you ever heard of bog people?’
‘No,’ said Parkinson.
‘Neither had I, until yesterday. But from time to time Danish archaeologists keep finding almost perfectly preserved corpses — victims of sacrifices, apparently — more than a thousand years old. Every wrinkle, every hair intact — they look like incredibly detailed sculptures. The reason? They were buried in peat bogs, and the tannin protected them from decay. Remember the boots and shoes found scattered around the wreck — all the leather untouched?’
Parkinson was no fool, though he sometimes pretended to be a character out of P. G. Wodehouse; it took him only seconds to make the connection.
‘Tannin? But how? Of course — the tea chests!’
‘Exactly; several of them had been breached by the impact. But our chemists say tannin may be only part of the story. The ship had been newly painted, of course — so the water samples we’ve analyzed show considerable amounts of arsenic and lead. A mighty unhealthy environment for any bacteria.’
‘I’m sure that’s the answer,’ said Parkinson. ‘What an extraordinary twist of fate! That tea did a lot better than anyone ever imagined — or could imagine. . . . And I’m afraid G.G. has brought us some very bad luck. Just when things were going smoothly.’
Bradley knew exactly what he meant. To the old charge of desecrating a historic shrine had now been added that of grave robbing. And, by a strange paradox, an apparently fresh grave at that.
The long-forgotten Thomas Conlin, Patrick Dooley, Martin Gallagher, and their three as-yet-still-anonymous companions had transformed the whole situation.
It was a paradox which, surely, would delight any true Irishman. With the discovery of her dead, Titanic had suddenly come alive.
31 A MATTER OF MEGAWATTS
‘We have the answer,’ said a tired but triumphant Kato.
‘I wonder if it matters now,’ answered Donald Craig.
‘Oh, all that hysteria isn’t going to last. Our P.R. boys are already hard at work — and so are Parky’s. We’ve had a couple of summit meetings to plan a joint strategy. We may even turn it to our mutual advantage.’
‘I don’t see — ‘
‘Obvious! Thanks to our — well, Parky’s — careful exploring, these poor folk will at last get a Christian burial, back in their own country. The Irish will love it. Don’t tell anyone, but we’re already talking to the Pope.’
Donald found Kato’s flippant approach more than a little offensive. It would certainly upset Edith, who seemed fascinated by the lovely child-woman the world had named Colleen.
‘You’d better be careful. Some of them may be Protestant.’
‘Not likely. They all boarded in the deep south, didn’t they?’
‘Yes — at Queenstown. You won’t find it on the map, though — a name like that wasn’t popular after Independence. Now it’s called Cobh.’
‘How do you spell that?’
‘C-O-B-H.’
‘Well, we’ll talk to the archbishops, or whoever, as well as the cardinals, just to cover all bases. But let me tell you what our engineers have cooked up. If it works, it will be a lot better than hydrazine. And it should even start Bluepeace shouting slogans for us.’
‘That’ll be a nice change. In fact, a miracle.’
‘Miracles are our business — didn’t you know?’
‘What are the specs of this particular one?’
‘First, we’re making our iceberg larger, to get more lift. As a result, we’ll only need about ten k-tons of extra buoyancy. We could go Parky’s route for that, and at first we were afraid we might have to. But there’s a neater — and cleaner — way of getting gas down there. Electrolysis. Splitting the water into oxygen and hydrogen.’
‘That’s an old idea. Won’t it take enormous amounts of current? And what about the risk of an explosion?’
‘Silly question, Donald. The gases will go to separate electrodes, and we’ll have a membrane to keep them apart. But you’re right about the current. Gigawatt-hours! But we’ve got them — when our nuclear subs have done their thing with the Peltier cooling elements, we’ll switch to electrolysis. May have to rent another boat, though — why are subs always called boats? I told you that the Brits and the French would like to get into the act, so that’s no problem.’
‘Very elegant,’ said Donald. ‘And I see what you mean about pleasing Bluepeace. Everyone’s in favor of oxygen.’
‘Exactly — and when we vent the balloons on the way up, the whole world will breathe a little easier. At least, that’s what P.R. will be saying.’
‘And the hydrogen will go straight up to the stratosphere without bothering anyone. Oh — what about the poor old ozone layer? Any danger of making more holes?’
‘We’ve checked that, of course. Won’t be any worse off than it is now. Which, I admit, isn’t saying a great deal.’
‘Would it make sense to bottle the gases on the way up? You’re starting with hundreds of tons of oxy-hydrogen, at four hundred atmospheres. That must be quite valuable; why throw it away?’
‘Yes — we’ve even looked into that. It’s marginal — increased complexity, cost of shipping tanks, and so on. Might be worth a try on a test basis — and gives us a fall-back position if the environment lobby gets nasty again.’
‘You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?’ said Donald with frank admiration.
Kato shook his head slowly.
‘Our friend Bradley once told me: ‘When you’ve thought of everything — the sea will think of something else.’ Words of wisdom, and I’ve never forgotten them. . . . Must hang up now — Oh — give my love to Edith.’