– Have rockets learned not only to fly but to sail under water?
– They could do it before. But now the submarine cannot escape them.
– Will it be exploded?
– No. Directed attack of the crew with gamma-rays. Techniques will not suffer, and the people will perish almost immediately.
– As a biologist I am quite pleased to hear this.
– But any submariner, whether Russian or Chinese, would have reacted differently.
– Would he be happy, Pete?
– Don’t get excited. Yes, he would be happy, can you imagine it? Death in water is much more terrible that death on land. And it is still more terrible under water. Because in case of a usual defeat the submarine does not perish all at once. The tragedy is that it will not be able to get out of the deep. In many compartments people remain who are alive. I could tell you what those who inspect the raised lost-submarine see, but I won’t.
Professor thoughtfully tucked at his beard.
– It is difficult for me to judge, my dear brother, but listening to you one gets an impression that Pentagon will soon get a Noble Prize for humanism and love for mankind. – Suddenly, having thought about something, he raised his head, and his eyes were dark with anger. – And what about the ocean? You were just testing some awful things!
– Don’t worry, please. Yes, in the radius of half a mile your fishes have been severely irradiated. But this is much less than a drop in a glass of water. Besides, just remember, your colleagues in the laboratory pitilessly cut up mice and rabbits for experiment. Others doom kind and meek dolphins to captivity in oceanariums. And so on.
– We do it for the sake of… eh…
– Ha! Now let’s go to my place. We do our job for the same purpose, I can assure you.
– All right, – said the Professor in a reconciliating tone. – So everything is superb here?
– Decidedly everything! This ship is more expensive and more modern than any space program of NASA.
Cabin-saloon of the general also appeared to be superb.
– They could have saved tax-payers’ money here, – grumbled the Professor, having examined this “de luxe’.
– Even our sailors have comfortable lodging. Believe me, Marc, in reality there is nothing extra here. People must live in the ocean for months on end. And work with extremely complicated and very dangerous technology. We cannot afford even the slightest psychological tiredness, and moreover, irritation over daily discomforts. – The general pressed some button, and less than in a minute the steward rolled in a cart covered with napkins with plates and champagne in a silver bucket in the middle. – Let us now drink for us. No, – he looked at the photo on the wall, – first, for our father.
Time, it is always short for everything good.
It is already time to part.
– Pete, can’t I fill up my ship here. Then I would not, have to drop to some local island port in a week.
– I’ve got plenty of fuel, but it is not comfortable to pump it from the cruiser. Just twenty miles from here is our small ship. It’s continuing some experiments. I’ll give an order, they will supply you with fuel.
Then professor waived to his brother from the boat, going back to their modest ship. He started feeling sad.
In his childhood he had never had this feeling. Maybe because he had to help his father all the time, to take care of his younger brother, to study as well as he could to enter the University. And there he had to be among the first, not bothering, due to his scholarship, his already elderly parent.
When did this uncomprehensible sadness start to appear? After his father’s death?..
No, if old people go away like this, with clear consciousness, quiet, already prepared for the other world, their death causes quite a different feeling in those around them. Different… something which one sometimes experiences here, in the ocean. It suddenly pierces one with a feeling that life cannot disappear. That the real world is much larger than the one people live in because of habit, clutching at the small pieces of the fleeting, and thus limit themselves foolishly and hopelessly. He also notices such things in himself, and with age this mess of the great and the petty is beginning to bring sadness.
– You are all the time thinking about something, Marc, – noted Christian when they were finishing their tea in the crew’s headquarters. – About this strange skeleton?
– About this too.
– I can’t get it out of my head. Do you remember how two years ago we were dragging back to the ocean a female blue whale?
– The one which threw herself to the shore?
– Yes. We dragged her, but then she started dying on approximately the same depth. Sharks ate it up very quickly, but then we could watch for six days different small fish which sailed there. And how many new data we got, what wonderful specimen we managed to catch.
– Add here, Chris, that the female was much smaller than the cachalot, – added the professor rather absent-mindedly. – And it would be interesting to see the squid who could manage to kill it.
His assistant shrugged his shoulders not very happily:
– No, Mark, you are still thinking about something else.
Deadly Whiteness
Night is not the best time for moving in the ocean on a ship like theirs, that’s why Tuccert decided to move further tomorrow. And first of all – to approach the military ship which will complete filling them with fuel.
But the impudent fellow who was on night duty decided in his own way. At dawn, when everybody will be still sleeping he will himself lead the ship according to the coordinates marked in the journal. This is a good chance to have practice. Let them get angry and shout afterwards. It is always pleasant to watch people get back before his cool-headedness. And this crank of a Professor first of all.
That’s why just when the night darkness began to disappear he started the noiseless engine and stood at the wheel.
He calculated that it was a little more than an hour’s way to the military ship. It means, people will not get awakened by that time. He wondered if he would be able to find the exact place according to the coordinates pointed out.
Less than in an hour the young man was nearly enraptured with joy – in the light, pre-morning ocean the ship could be seen straight ahead. Wasn’t it great! Now it was just about fifteen minutes’ way to it…
The ship appeared to be so-so; its sides were higher, but the size – not much bigger than their own.
When there were some three hundred feet left a sailor appeared at the deck of the military ship and waived his arms in greeting. And when the distance was twice smaller he could be seen already quite clearly and made a sign to moor to their closest side.
The impudent young man was a little at a loss, because he had never moored, moreover, not to the pier, but straight in the ocean.
But, having reduced the speed to the minimum, he decided that he would try anyway. And having turned the steering-wheel to move side by side came out to the deck to prepare the mooring end.
He had already bent to the rope folded in the figure of eight, but suddenly everything raised, and the site at which he was heeled sharply upwards. The impudent fellow lost his balance and fell on his back, having hurt his shoulder painfully.
– What the hell is this?! – he just said but felt at once that the deck returned to the correct position.
Having stood up he again was quite perplexed.
It seemed that the wave which had hit their ship, was holding them, because the end of the mast of the navy ship