Far more famous was a man who wrote only one book, A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future, which was published in 1894. This somewhat mystical tour around the Solar System, in the year 2000, described antigravity and other marvels. Arkham House reprinted the book on its centennial.
I described the author as ‘famous,’ but that is a gross understatement. His name is the only one that appears above the huge headline of the New York American for 16 April 1912: ‘1,500 TO 1,800 DEAD.’
He was the multi-millionaire John Jacob Astor, sometimes labelled as ‘the richest man in the world.’ He was certainly the richest writer of science fiction who ever lived — a fact which may well mortify admirers of the late L. Ron Hubbard, should any still exist.
I have the honor to be, Sir,
Yours sincerely,
Aldiss of Brightfount, O.M.
President Emeritus, SFWA
10 ‘THE ISLE OF THE DEAD’
Every trade has its acknowledged leaders, whose fame seldom extends beyond the boundaries of their profession. At any given time, few could name the world’s top accountant, dentist, sanitary engineer, insurance broker, mortician . . . to mention only a handful of unglamorous but essential occupations.
There are some ways of making a living, however, which have such high visibility that their practitioners become household names. First, of course, are the performing arts, in which anyone who becomes a star may be instantly recognizable to a large fraction of the human race. Sports and politics are close behind; and so, a cynic might argue, is crime.
Jason Bradley fit into none of these categories, and had never expected to be famous. The Glomar Explorer episode was more than three decades in the past, and even if it had not been shrouded in secrecy, his role had been far too obscure to be noteworthy. Although he had been approached several times by writers hoping to get a new angle on Operation JENNIFER, nothing had ever come of their efforts.
It seemed likely that, even at this date, the CIA felt that the single book on the subject was one too many, and had taken steps to discourage other authors. For several years after 1974, Bradley had been visited by anonymous but polite gentlemen who had reminded him of the documents he signed when he was discharged. They always came in pairs, and sometimes they offered him employment of an unspecified nature. Though they assured him that it would be ‘interesting and well paid,’ he was then earning very good money on North Sea oil rigs, and was not tempted. It was now more than a decade since the last visitation, but he did not doubt that the Company still had him carefully stockpiled in its vast data banks at Langley — or wherever they were these days.
He was in his office on the forty-sixth floor of the Teague Tower — now dwarfed by Houston’s later skyscrapers — when he received the assignment that was to make him famous. The date happened to be April 2nd, and at first Bradley thought that his occasional client Jeff Rawlings had got it a day late. Despite his awesome responsibilities as operations manager on the Hibernia Platform, Jeff was noted for his sense of humor. This time, he wasn’t joking; yet it was quite a while before Jason could take his problem seriously.
‘Do you expect me to believe,’ he said, ‘that your million-ton rig has been shut down . . . by an octopus?’
‘Not the whole operation, of course — but Manifold 1 — our best producer. Forty thou barrels a day. Five flowlines running into it, all going full blast. Until yesterday.’
The Hibernia project, it suddenly occurred to Jason, had the same general design as an octopus. Tentacles — or pipelines — ran out along the seabed from the central body to the dozen wells that had been drilled three thousand meters through the oil-rich sandstone. Before they reached the main platform, the flowlines from several individual wells were combined at a production manifold — also on the seabed, nearly a hundred meters down.
Each manifold was an automated industrial complex the size of a large apartment building, containing all the specialized equipment needed to handle the high-pressure mixture of gas, oil, and water erupting from the reservoirs far below. Tens of millions of years ago, nature had created and stored this hidden treasure; it was no simple matter to wrest it from her grasp.
‘Tell me exactly what happened.’
‘This circuit secure?’
‘Of course.’
‘Three days ago we started getting erratic instrument readings. The flow was perfectly normal, so we weren’t too worried. But then there was a sudden data cutoff; we lost all monitoring facilities. It was obvious that the main fiber-optic trunk had been broken, and of course the automatics shut everything down.’
‘No surge problems?’
‘No; slug-catcher worked perfectly — for once.’
‘And then?’
‘S.O.P. — we sent down a camera — Eyeball Mark 5. Guess what?’
‘The batteries died.’
‘Nope. The umbilical got snagged in the external scaffolding, before we could even go inside to look around.’
‘What happened to the driver?’
‘Well, the kitchen isn’t completely mechanized, and Chef Dubois can always use some unskilled labor.’
‘So you lost the camera. What happened next?’
‘We haven’t lost it — we know exactly where it is — but all it shows are lots of fish. So we sent down a diver to untangle things — and to see what he could find.’
‘Why not an ROV?’
There were always several underwater robots — Remotely Operated Vehicles — on any offshore oilfield. The old days when human divers did all the work were long since past.
There was an embarrassed silence at the other end of the line.
‘Afraid you’d ask me that. We’ve had a couple of accidents — two ROVs are being rebuilt — and the rest can’t be spared from an emergency job on the Avalon platform.’
‘Not your lucky day, is it? So that’s why you’ve called the Bradley Corporation — ‘No job too deep.’ Tell me more.’
‘Spare me that beat-up slogan. Since the depth’s only ninety meters, we sent down a diver, in standard heliox gear. Well — ever heard a man screaming in helium? Not a very nice noise . . .
‘When we got him up and he was able to talk again, he said the entire rig was covered by an octopus. He swore it was a hundred meters across. That’s ridiculous, of course — but there’s no doubt it’s a monster.’
‘However big it is, a small charge of dynamite should encourage it to move.’
‘Much too risky. You know the layout down there — after all, you helped install it!’
‘If the camera’s still working, doesn’t it show the beast?’
‘We did get a glimpse of a tentacle — but no way of judging its size. We think it’s gone back inside — we’re worried that it might rip out more cables.’
‘You don’t suppose it’s fallen in love with the plumbing?’
‘Very funny. My guess is that it’s found a free lunch. You know — the bloody Oasis Effect that Publicity’s always boasting about.’
Bradley did indeed. Far from being damaging to the environment, virtually all underwater artifacts were irresistibly attractive to marine life, and often became a target for fishing boats and a paradise for anglers. He sometimes wondered how fish had managed to survive, before mankind generously provided them with condominiums by scattering wrecks across the seabeds of the world.
‘Perhaps a cattle prod would do the trick — or a heavy dose of subsonics.’
‘We don’t care how it’s done — as long as there’s no damage to the equipment. Anyway, it looked like a job for you — and Jim, of course. Is he ready?’
‘He’s always ready.’
‘How soon can you get to St. John’s? There’s a Chevron jet at Dallas — it can pick you up in an hour. What does Jim weigh?’
‘One point five tons.’
‘No problem. When can you be at the airport?’
‘Give me three hours. This isn’t my normal line of business — I’ll have to do some research.’
‘Usual terms?’
‘Yes — hundred K plus expenses.’
‘And no cure, no pay?’
Bradley smiled. The centuries-old salvage formula had probably never been invoked in a case like this, but it seemed applicable. And it would be an easy job. A hundred meters, indeed! What nonsense . . .
‘Of course. Call you back in one hour to confirm. Meanwhile please fax the manifold plans, so I can refresh my memory.’
‘Right — and I’ll see what else I can find out, while I’m waiting for your call.’
There was no need to waste time packing; Bradley always had two bags ready — one for the tropics, one for the Arctic. The first was very little used; most of his jobs, it seemed, were in unpleasant parts of the world, and this one would be no exception. The North Atlantic at this time of year would be cold, and probably rough; not that it would matter much, a hundred meters down.