Beyond the Ice Limit

59

PATRICK BRAMBELL AND Antonella Sax emerged onto the hangar deck shortly after the sun rose over the rim of the ocean.

“What remarkable weather we’ve been having,” said Brambell cheerfully as they strolled across the hangar. “Nice of that approaching storm to hold off long enough for us to accomplish our goal.”

“Really remarkable.”

The DSV John sat in its rolling cradle, strapped down and draped in canvas. No one was around; the ship was in an uproar and all security personnel had been pulled off to assist in the hunt for worms.

“Are you sure you know how to operate this thing?” asked Brambell.

“Part of Glinn’s habit of ‘double overage,’ you know: safety in redundancy. Really, it’s rather like playing a video game. Joystick-controlled. Pretty simple. Although in this instance I’ll have to disable the autopilot AI and turn off the surface override. Otherwise, the do-gooders might try to pull me back up and stop our mission.”

“You can do that?”

“I was in mission control when they forced Gideon Crew’s DSV back to the surface. Back when Alex Lispenard went to her new home. I saw them open the procedures manual on how to override the AI and the DSV operator’s control. I saw the codes.” She shook her head. “If they hadn’t meddled so unnecessarily like that, maybe Dr. Crew could have come home then, too.”

Once again, Brambell considered how profoundly misconceived the entire mission was. An intelligent, alien life-form had come to earth. And what was mankind’s first response? Kill it.

How sad. And yet how predictable.

“All right, let’s take a look at this,” he said.

They each gripped an edge of the tarp and slid it off, exposing the mini sub. It looked fresh and new, gleaming in the sodium lights of the hangar, ready for its next dive, iron ballast already attached. Sax walked around, unclipping the tie-downs that held it in place on the cradle. She climbed into the motorized cart used to haul the DSVs to and fro, backed it up, and attached it to the towing pin.

“Open the hangar doors,” she said.

Brambell rolled back the double doors, the sunlight pouring in. What a beautiful day it was, he thought, as he looked out to the distant sea horizon. A beautiful day in which to open a channel of communication—real communication—with the life-form. It had tried to speak to them in blue whale speech. If it could learn that, it could surely learn English. Indeed, with all the chatter it must have been picking up, chances were it already knew some English. He breathed deeply, thinking about the momentous step they were about to take—not for themselves, but for all humankind.

He stood in the warm spring sun and watched Sax expertly tow John into position under the A-frame crane, get out, unhook it. She waved him over.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Daydreaming. About being part of a day that will go down in history.”

She laughed and gave him a playful punch on the arm. “Come on, we’ve got work to do. Help me roll that ladder into position.”

They took the rolling ladder and together wheeled it over to the DSV. Brambell held the ladder in place, then watched her derriere as she climbed up and attached the crane’s two cables to hooks on the DSV. Then she came back down. “What are you grinning about?”

“You.”

She smirked. “I’m getting inside. Do you see that console over there? Those are the controls for the crane. Once again, joystick-operated. You know how to use a joystick?”

“Oh, dear,” said Brambell. “Never in my life.”

She took his hand. “I’ll show you. It’s easy. Just try not to bump me around too much before putting me in the water.”

At the console she demonstrated up, down, sideways for the boom, plus the control to raise and lower the cables. And finally, the button that unhooked the DSV. “Don’t hit that button until I’m in the water, floating, with the cables slack.”

“Understood. Ready?”

“I’m ready.”

Brambell helped her onto the ladder and watched her climb up to the hatch at the top. The DSV really did look like the Yellow Submarine. Brambell had always felt a special affiliation with the Beatles, on account of his grandfather, the actor Wilfrid Brambell, having played Paul McCartney’s fictional grandfather in the film A Hard Day’s Night.

“Okay, Patrick!” She waved to him and gave him a thumbs-up. He smiled and waved back, and then she descended and shut the hatch.

Brambell looked around to see if anyone was paying attention. There was a knot of people at one end of the aft deck, talking or arguing, but they paid him no heed. His mind was unusually clear, and he remembered the directions perfectly. He maneuvered the joystick. The cables tightened, raising the sub from its cradle. When it was clear of the cradle, he pushed the crane stick sideways and the crane obediently swung away from the A-frame, carrying the DSV until it was dangling over the stern. Checking to make sure there was plenty of clearance, he lowered John to the water, where it settled in, still buoyant. He pressed the button that disengaged the hooks, and the DSV was free.

“Good luck, Antonella,” he said to himself under his breath, as a rush of air bubbles around the DSV indicated Sax was filling ballast tanks. The mini sub sank beneath the surface. He watched for a few minutes as it went down and then disappeared.

Brambell felt a certain loneliness steal over him. He had to admit he was a bit in love with Sax. But he would see her again, and soon—he was certain of that.

Leaving the console, he wandered back into the hangar, feeling restless and anxious. He wondered what there was to do now. It did seem as if there should be more to do, and then it occurred to him what it was: stop this insane use of the nuke. He wasn’t sure when that was supposed to be deployed, exactly, but it didn’t matter: he could stop that right now.

At the far end of the hangar, set apart from everything else, was another draped submersible. It was not a manned DSV, but a smaller ROV. That, he knew, was the intended delivery vehicle for the bomb.

It would be a simple matter to make sure the ROV never delivered a bomb anywhere.

Antonella Sax worked the controls of John as it descended into the depths. She located the main panel, then punched in the code to deactivate the mini sub’s AI and disable any surface override of her autopilot. She felt a sensation of warmth and security as the DSV was enveloped in darkness. She could almost feel the massive weight of water pressing in on it relentlessly, increasing with every meter she sank. There was a feeling of anticipation, of excitement, as she was about to perform perhaps the greatest mission ever conducted by a human being.

As she descended, humming a little tune to herself, she saw movement: a head poked out of a gap in the electronics, a small head with two beady eyes and a tiny puckered mouth. The mouth opened, exposing a single tooth.

“Who are you?” Sax asked playfully.

As if in response, the little creature crawled out of its hiding place and came over, curling up against her thigh for warmth.

She touched it. “There’s a good boy,” she said, stroking it as it relaxed in contentment. “There’s a good boy.”