The Ghost from the Grand Banks (Arthur C. Clarke Collection) Read online

  “I quite agree,” Bradley said, “and I’d like to take it on. Not just for the cash—which I’m sure will be okay—but the challenge. Win or lose. Very nice meeting you both—gotta run.”

  “Aren’t you seeing anything of London? I can get you tickets to the new Andrew Lloyd Webber-Stephen King show. There aren’t many people who can make that claim.”

  Bradley laughed. “Love to go—but they’ve managed to total a slugcatcher in the Orkneys field, and I’ve promised to be in Aberdeen by this afternoon.”

  “Very well. We’ll keep in touch….”

  “What do you think, Roy?” Parkinson asked, when the room was quiet again.

  “Tough little guy, isn’t he? Do you suppose he’s holding out for the highest bidder?”

  “That’s just what I was wondering. If he is, he’ll be out of luck.”

  “Oh—our legal eagles have done their thing?”

  “Almost; there are still some loose ends. Remember when I took you to Lloyd’s?”

  “I certainly do.”

  It had indeed been a memorable occasion for an out-of-town visitor; even in this twenty-first century, the “new” Lloyd’s building still looked positively futuristic. But what had most impressed Emerson had been the Casualty Book—the register of wrecks. That series of massive volumes recorded all the most dramatic moments in maritime history. Their guide had shown them the page for 15 April 1912, and the copperplate handwriting encapsulating the news that had just stunned the world.

  Heart-stopping though it was to read those words, they had less impact on Roy Emerson than an awesome triviality he noticed when skimming through the earlier volumes.

  All the entries, spanning a period of more than two hundred years, seemed to be in the same handwriting. It was an example of tradition and continuity that would be very hard to beat.

  “Well, Dad’s been a member of Lloyd’s for ages, so we have—ah—a certain influence there.”

  “That I can well believe.”

  “Thank you. Anyway, the board’s had some discussions with the International Seabed Authority. There are dozens of conflicting claims, and the lawyers are doing rather well. They’re the only ones who can’t lose—whatever happens.”

  Roy Emerson sometimes found Rupert’s discursiveness exasperating; he never seemed in a hurry to get to the point. It was hard to believe that he could act quickly in an emergency—yet he was one of the best yachtsmen in the world.

  “It would be nice if we could claim exclusive ownership—after all, she was a British ship—”

  “—built with American money—”

  “A detail we’ll overlook. At the moment, she doesn’t belong to anyone, and it will have to be settled in the World Court. That could take years.”

  “We don’t have years.”

  “Precisely. But we think we can get an injunction to stop anyone else trying to raise her—while we go ahead quietly with our own plans.”

  “Quietly! You must be joking. Know how many interviews I’ve turned down lately?”

  “Probably about as many as I have.” Rupert glanced at his watch. “Just in time. Like to see something interesting?”

  “Of course.” Emerson knew that whatever Parkinson called “interesting” was likely to be something he would never have another chance of seeing in his life. The real crown jewels, perhaps; or 21b Baker Street; or those books in the British Museum Library that were curiously named curious, and weren’t listed in the main catalogue….

  “It’s just across the road—we can walk there in two minutes. The Royal Institution. Faraday’s lab—where most of our civilization was born. They were rearranging the exhibit when some clod managed to drop the retort he used when he discovered benzene. The director wants to know if we can match the glass, and repair it so that no one will ever notice.”

  It was not every day, Emerson told himself, that you had a chance of visiting Michael Faraday’s laboratory. They crossed the narrow width of Albemarle Street, easily dodging the slow-moving traffic, and walked a few meters to the classical facade of the Royal Institution.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Parkinson. Sir Ambrose is expecting you.”

  17.

  DEEP FREEZE

  “I hope you don’t mind meeting us at the airport, Mrs. Craig… Donald… but the traffic into Tokyo is getting worse every day. Also, the fewer people who see us, the better. I’m sure you’ll understand.”

  Dr. Kato Mitsumasa, the young president of Nippon-Turner, was, as usual, immaculately dressed in a Savile Row suit that would remain in style for the next twenty years. Also as usual, he was accompanied by two samurai clones who remained in the background and would not say a word during the entire proceedings. Donald had sometimes wondered if Japanese robotics had made even more advances than was generally realized.

  “We have a few minutes before our other guest arrives, so I’d like to go over some details that only concern us….

  “First of all, we’ve secured the world cable and satellite rights for your smokeless version of A Night to Remember, for the first six months of ’12, with an option of another six months’ extension.”

  “Splendid,” said Donald. “I didn’t believe even you could manage it, Kato—but I should have known better.”

  “Thank you; it wasn’t easy, as the porcupine said to his girlfriend.”

  During the years of his Western education—London School of Economics, then Harvard and Annenberg—Kato had developed a sense of humor that often seemed quite out of keeping with his present position. If Donald closed his eyes, he could hardly believe that he was listening to a native-born Japanese, so perfect was Kato’s mid-Atlantic accent. But every so often he would produce some outrageous wisecrack that was uniquely his own, owing nothing to either East or West. Even when his jokes appeared to be in bad taste—which was not infrequent—Donald suspected that Kato knew exactly what he was doing. It encouraged people to underestimate him; and that could cause them to make very expensive mistakes.

  “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 unive
rsal 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 “splitbrain” 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….

  His instincts told him, however, that the plan was sound. He had learned to take first impressions seriously—especially when they were negative, even if he could not pinpoint the exact cause of his premonition. This time, there were no bad vibes. The project was fantastic—but it could work.

  Kato was watching him covertly, obviously trying to gauge his reactions. I can be pretty inscrutable when I want to, thought Bradley…. Besides, I have my reputation to consider.

  Then Kato, with the ghost of a smile, handed him a small slip of paper, folded in two. Bradley took his time opening it. When he saw the figures, he realized that even if the project was a total disaster, he need give no further thought to his professional career. In the natural course of events, it could not last many more years—and he had not saved this much in his entire lifetime.

  “I’m flattered,” he said quietly. “You’re more than generous. But I still have some other business to settle, before I can give you a definite answer.”

  Kato looked surprised. “How long?” he asked, rather brusquely.

  He thinks I’m still negotiating with someone else, thought Bradley. Which is perfectly true—

  “Give me a week. But I can tell you right away—I’m quite sure no one will match your offer.”

  �
��I know,” said Kato, closing his briefcase. “Any points you want to make—Edith, Donald?”

  “No,” said Edith, “you seem to have covered everything.” Donald said nothing, but merely nodded in agreement. This is a strange partnership, Bradley told himself, and not a very happy one. He had taken an immediate liking to Donald, who seemed a warm, gentle sort of person. But Edith was tough and domineering—almost aggressive; she was obviously the boss.

  “And how is that delightful child prodigy who happens to be your daughter?” Kato asked the Craigs as they were about to leave. “Please give her my love.”

  “We will,” Donald replied. “Ada’s fine, and enjoyed her trip to Kyoto. It made a change from exploring the Mandelbrot Set.”

  “And just what,” asked Bradley, “is the Mandelbrot Set?”

  “Much easier shown than described,” answered Donald. “Why don’t you visit us? We’d like to take you around our studio—wouldn’t we, Edith? Especially if we’ll be working together—as I hope we will.”

  Only Kato noticed Bradley’s momentary hesitation. Then Bradley smiled and answered: “I’d enjoy that—I’m going to Scotland next week, and think I could fit it in. How old is your girl?”

  “Ada’s almost nine. But if you asked her age, she’d probably tell you 8.876545 years.”

  Bradley laughed. “She does sound a prodigy. I’m not sure I could face her.”

  “And this,” said Kato, “is the man who scared away a fifty-ton octopus. I’ll never understand these Americans.”

  18.

  IN AN IRISH GARDEN

  “When I was a small boy,” said Patrick O’Brian wistfully, “I used to love coming up here to watch the magic pictures. They seemed so much brighter—and more interesting—than the real world outside. No telly in those days, of course—and the traveling tent cinema only came to the village about once a month.”

  “Don’t you believe a word, Jason,” said Donald Craig. “Pat isn’t really a hundred years old.”

  Though Bradley would have guessed seventy-five, O’Brian might well be in his eighties. So he must have been born in the 1930s—perhaps even the ’20s. The world of his youth already seemed unimaginably remote; reality outdid storytelling exaggeration, even by Irish standards.