"Cussler, Clive - Fire Ice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cussler Clive)

The captain was a man of unassuming appearance who could have passed for an Ivy League college professor. A nuclear engineer by training, Logan had commanded surface ships before being assigned as the officer in charge of the NR-1. He was of medium height and build, with thinning blond hair and a slight fleshiness around the jaw. The navy had long ago dispensed with the rawboned John Wayne type who ran a ship by the seat of his pants. With computerized firing controls, laser guidance and smart missiles, navy vessels were too complicated and expensive to entrust to cowboys. Logan had a sharp mind and the ability to make a lightning-quick analysis of the most complex technical problem.

His previous commands had been much bigger, yet none came close to the NR-1 in the sophistication of her electronics. Although the boat had been built in 1969, she was constantly upgraded. Despite her cutting edge technology, the sub still used some older but time-tested techniques. A thick twelve-hundred-foot towline ran from the support vessel's deck to a large metal ball clutched by metal jaws on the submarine's bow.

Logan gave the order to release the towrope, then he turned to a thickset bearded man in his fifties and said, "Welcome aboard the smallest nuclear submarine in the world, Dr. Pulaski. Sorry we don't have more elbowroom. The shielding for the nuclear reactor takes up most of the sub. My guess is that you'd prefer claustrophobia to radiation. I assume you've had a tour."

Pulaski smiled. "Yes, I've been checked out on the proper procedure for using the head." He spoke with a slight accent.

"You might have to stand in line, so I'd go easy on the coffee. We've got a ten-man crew, and our facilities can get busy."

"I understand you can stay submerged for up to days," Pulaski said. "I can't imagine what it must be like sitting on the bottom a half-mile down for that length of time."

"I'd be the first to admit that even the simplest task, such as taking a shower or cooking a meal, can be a challenge," Logan said. "Luckily for you, we'll only be down a few hours." He glanced at his watch. "We'll descend one hundred feet to make sure all systems are working. If everything checks out, we'll dive."

Logan stepped through a short passageway slightly wider than his shoulders and indicated a small padded platform behind the two chairs in the control station. "That's normally where I sit during operations. It's all yours today. I'll take the copilot's seat. You've met Dr. Pulaski," he said to the pilot. "He's a marine archaeologist from the University of North Carolina."

The pilot nodded and Logan slid into the right-hand chair beside him. In front of him was a formidable array of instruments and video display screens. "Those are our 'eyes,' " he said, pointing to a row of television monitors. "That's the bow view from the sail cam on the front of the sail."

The captain studied the glowing control panel and after conferring with the pilot, he radioed the support ship and said the sub was ready to dive. He gave the order to submerge and level off at one hundred feet. The pump motors hummed as water was introduced into the ballast tanks. The rocking motion of the sub ceased as she sank below the waves. The sharp bow pictured on the monitors disappeared in a geyser of spray, then reappeared, looming dark against the blue water. The crew checked out the sub's systems while the captain tested the UQC, an underwater wireless telephone that connected the sub with the support ship. The voice from the ship had a drawling, metallic quality but the words were clear and distinct.

When the captain was assured all systems were go, he said, "Dive, dive!"

There was little sensation of movement. The monitor pictures went from blue to black water as the sunlight faded, and the captain ordered the exterior lights on. The descent was practically silent, the pilot using a joystick to operate the diving planes, the captain keeping a close eye on the deep-depth gauge. When the sub was fifty feet above the bottom, Logan ordered the pilot to hover.

The pilot turned to Pulaski. "We're in shouting distance of the site we picked up with remote sensing. We'll run a search using our side-scan sonar. We can program a search pattern into the computer. The sub will automatically run the course on its own while we sit back and relax. Saves wear and tear on the crew."

"Incredible," Pulaski said. "I'm surprised this remarkable boat won't analyze our findings, write a report and defend our conclusions against the criticism of jealous colleagues."

"We're working on that," Logan said, with a poker face. Pulaski shook his head in mock dismay. "I'd better find another line of work. At this rate, marine archaeologists will be doomed to extinction or to simply staring at television monitors."

"Something else you can blame on the Cold War."

Pulaski looked around in wonderment. "I never would have guessed that I'd be doing archaeological research in a sub designed to spy on the Soviet Union."

"There's no way you could have known. This vessel was as hush-hush as it gets. The amazing part is that the ninety-million-dollar price tag was kept a secret. It was money well-spent in my opinion. Now that the navy has allowed her to be used for civilian purposes, we have an incredible tool for pure research."

"I understand the sub was used in the Challenger space shuttle disaster," Pulaski said.

Logan said, "She retrieved critical parts so NASA could determine what went wrong and make the shuttle safe to fly. She also salvaged a sunken F-14 and a missing Phoenix air-to-air missile we didn't want anyone getting their hands on. Some of the stuff involving the Russians is still classified."

"What can you tell me about the mechanical arm?"

"The manipulator works like a human arm, with rotation at all the joints. The sub has two rubber wheels in the keel. It's not exactly a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, but it allows us to move along on the seabed. While the sub rests on the ocean floor, the arm can work a nine-foot radius."

"Fascinating," Pulaski said. "And its capacity?"

"It can lift objects up to two hundred pounds."

"What about cutting tools?"