‘Now,’ said Kato briskly, ‘I’m happy to say that all our computer runs and tank tests are satisfactory. If I may say so, what we’re going to do is unique, and will seize the imagination of the whole world. No one, but no one else, can even attempt to raise Titanic the way we’re going to do!’
‘Well, part of her. Why just the stern?’
‘Several reasons — some practical, some psychological. It’s much the smaller of the two portions — less than fifteen thousand tons. And it was the last to go under, with all the remaining people on deck still clinging to it. We’ll intercut with the scenes from A Night to Remember. Thought of reshooting them — or colorizing the original — ‘
‘No!’ said both Craigs simultaneously.
Kato seemed taken aback. ‘After what you’ve already done to it? Ah, the inscrutable Occident! Anyway, since it’s a night scene it’s just as effective in b/w.’
‘There’s another editing problem we’ve not resolved,’ said Edith abruptly. ‘Titanic’s dance band.’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, in the movie it plays ‘Nearer My God to Thee.’ ‘
‘So?’
‘That’s the myth — and it’s utter nonsense. The band’s job was to keep up the passengers’ spirits, and prevent panic. The very last thing they’d play would be a doleful hymn. One of the ship’s officers would have shot them if they’d tried.’
Kato laughed. ‘I’ve often felt that way about dance bands. But what did they play?’
‘A medley of popular tunes, probably ending with a waltz called ‘Song of Autumn.’ ‘
‘I see. That’s true to life — but we can’t have Titanic sinking to a waltz tune, for heaven’s sake. Ars longa, vita brevis, as MGM almost used to say. In this case, art wins, and life takes second place.’
Kato glanced at his watch, then at one of the clones, who walked to the door and disappeared down the corridor. In less than a minute, he returned accompanied by a short, powerfully built man with the universal insignia of the global executive — a carryall bag in one hand, an electronic briefcase in the other.
Kato greeted him warmly.
‘Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Bradley. Someone once said that punctuality is the thief of time. I’ve never believed it, and I’m glad you agree. Jason Bradley, meet Edith and Donald Craig.’
As Bradley and the Craigs shook hands with the slightly distracted air of people who thought they should know each other, but weren’t quite certain, Kato hastened to put the record straight.
‘Jason is the world’s number one ocean engineer — ‘
‘Of course! That giant octopus — ‘
‘Tame as a kitten, Mrs. Craig. Nothing to it.’
‘ — while Edith and Donald make old movies as good as new — or better. Let me explain why I’ve brought you together, at such rather short notice.’
Bradley smiled. ‘Not very hard to guess, Mr. Mitsumasa. But I’ll be interested in the details.’
‘Of that I’m sure. All this, of course, is highly confidential.’
‘Of course.’
‘First we plan to raise the stern, and shoot a really spectacular TV special as it comes to the surface. Then we’ll tow it to Japan, and make it part of a permanent exhibit at Tokyo-on-Sea. There’ll be a three-hundred-sixty-degree theater, the audience sitting in lifeboats rocking on water — beautiful starry night — almost freezing — we’ll give them topcoats, of course, and they’ll see and hear the last minutes as the ship goes underwater. Then they can go down into the big tank and view the stern through observation windows at various levels. Though it’s only about a third of the whole ship, it’s so big that you can’t see it all at one time; even with the distilled water we’ll use, visibility will be less than a hundred meters. The wreck will just fade away into the distance — so why bring up any more? The viewers will have a perfect illusion of being on the bottom of the Atlantic.’
‘Well, that seems logical,’ said Bradley. ‘And, of course, the stern is the easiest part to raise. It’s already badly smashed up — you could lift it in sections weighing only a few hundred tons, and assemble them later.’
There was an awkward silence. Then Kato said: ‘That won’t look very glamorous on TV, will it? No. We have more ambitious plans. This is the bit that’s top secret. Even though the stern portion is smashed to pieces, we’re going to bring it up in a single operation. Inside an iceberg. Don’t you think that’s poetic justice? One iceberg sank her — another will bring her back to the light of day.’
If Kato expected his visitor to be surprised, he was disappointed. By this time, Bradley had heard just about every scheme for raising the Titanic that the ingenious mind of man and woman could conceive.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘You’ll need quite a refrigeration plant, won’t you?’
Kato gave a triumphant smile. ‘No — thanks to the latest breakthrough in solid-state physics. You’ve heard of the Peltier Effect?’
‘Of course. The cooling you get when an electric current is passed through certain materials — I don’t know exactly which. But every domestic icebox has depended on it since 2001, when the environmental treaties banned fluorocarbons.’
‘Exactly. Now, the common or kitchen Peltier system isn’t very efficient, but it doesn’t have to be as long as it quietly manufactures ice cubes without blasting holes in the poor old ozone layer. However, our physicists have discovered a new class of semiconductors — a spinoff from the superconductor revolution — that ups efficiency several times. Which means that every icebox in the world is obsolete, as of last week.’
‘I’m sure’ — Bradley smiled — ‘that all the Japanese manufacturers are heartbroken.’
‘The scramble for the patent licenses is on right now. And we haven’t overlooked the advertising tie-in — when the biggest ice cube in the world surfaces — carrying the Titanic inside it.’
‘I’m impressed. But what about the power supply?’
‘That’s another angle we hope to exploit — swords into plowshares, though the metaphor is a little farfetched in this case. We’re planning to use a couple of decommissioned nuclear subs — one Russian, one U.S. They can generate all the megawatts we need — and from several hundred meters down, so they can operate through the worst Atlantic storms.’
‘And your time scale?’
‘Six months to install the hardware on the seabed. Then two years of Peltier cooling. Remember — it’s almost freezing down there. We only have to drop the temperature a couple of degrees, and our iceberg will start to form.’
‘And how will you stop it from floating up before you’re ready?’
Kato smiled.
‘Let’s not go into details at this stage — but I can assure you our engineers have thought of that small item. Anyway, this is where you come in — if you want to.’
Does he know about the Parkinsons? Bradley wondered. Very probably; and even if he’s not certain, he’ll have guessed that they’ve made an offer.
‘Excuse me a moment,’ said Kato apologetically, turning away and opening his briefcase. When he faced his visitors again, barely five seconds later, he had been transformed into a pirate chief. Only the barely visible thread leading to the keyboard in his hand revealed that the eye patch he was wearing was very hi-tech indeed.
‘I’m afraid this proves I’m not a genuine Japanese — bad manners, you know . . . my father still uses a laptop, late Ming Dynasty. But monocs are so much more convenient, and give such superb definition.’
Bradley and the Craigs could not help smiling at each other. What Kato said was perfectly true; many portable video devices now used compact microscreens that weighed little more than a pair of spectacles and indeed were often incorporated in them. Although the monoc was only a centimeter in front of the eye, a clever system of lenses made the postage-stamp-sized image appear as large as desired.
This was splendid for entertainment purposes — but it was even more useful for businessmen, lawyers, politicians, and anyone who wanted to access confidential information in total privacy. There was no way of spying on another person’s electronic monocle — short of tapping the same data stream. Its chief disadvantage was that excessive use led to new types of schizophrenia, quite fascinating to investigators of the ‘split-brain’ phenomenon.
When Kato had finished his litany of megawatt-hours, calorie-tons, and degrees-per-month coefficients, Bradley sat for a moment silently processing the information that had been dumped into his brain. Many of the details were too technical to be absorbed at first contact, but that was unimportant; he could study them later. He did not doubt that the calculations would be accurate — but there might still be essential points that had been overlooked. He had seen that happen so many times. . . .