Thunder In The Deep (02) (47 page)

"Deutschland still pursuing," Bell reported. "Separation twenty-two hundred yards. No sign of change in Deutschland's course or speed."

"Very well, Fire Control."

"Mark eighty-eights loaded and armed in tubes one, three, five, and seven, sir."

"V'r'well."

"Captain, advise those are our last four Mark eighty-eights." Jeffrey sighed. This was it. The finality was somehow comforting.

"Sea Lions loaded in tubes one through eight, Captain. All weapons armed."

"Very well, Einzvo."

"Sir, advise those are our last deep-capable nuclear torpedoes."

"We know from our two skirmishes that Fuller's rate of fire is very low, and he has only four tubes working. Eight eels will be more than enough."

Jeffrey watched as the volcano field got closer and closer. There were five main erupting cones, formed roughly in a cross twenty miles wide: one in the center, one at each of four corners. These were young seamounts, disgorging molten rock from deep within the earth. Though it didn't -show yet on the gravimeter, Jeffrey knew they were growing steadily, as the earth's core leaked and fresh-born rock piled up. More magma—called lava once it emerged from the ocean floor—welled out of side vents on the volcanoes'

slopes. The seafloor here was 11,500 feet deep; the craters at the seamounts' peaks rose two or three thousand feet above that.

Jeffrey ordered Meltzer to steer just to the right of the volcano at the southern tip of the cross. He ordered the sonar speaker volume lowered; the rumbling and sizzling and crunching from directly ahead were extreme. Bell reported Deutschland still on their tail. Jeffrey wondered if Eberhard was frightened, too, taking his ship into a live volcano field, and so close to his crush depth. Eberhard was not a man to know fear easily, but this place, of all possible places, might well remind him of his ultimate mortality. Jeffrey called up the basic sonar data, a summary of

what Kathy and Ilse and the sonarmen were working with. He windowed the surrounding water's temperature and density and dissolved mineral content. Chemical sniffers mounted on Challenger's hull showed him just what Ilse had told him to expect: The local ocean was a corrosive soup of sulfuric and hydrochloric acid. It was very warm, with chaotic hot spots that were impairing Challenger's cooling systems. As they approached the flank of the cone that Jeffrey called South, the acoustic sea state and hydro-graphic measurements shot higher.

Way above their heads, Jeffrey knew from the magnetometers, the solar storm still raged. Up there, too, the gale continued; any survivor of this confrontation who somehow made it to the surface in a life vest would die of exposure rapidly. Intermittently, Kathy reported crashing and tumbling from big icebergs, broken from glaciers on the Icelandic coast, driven here by winds and surface currents. Truly this was a submariner's Hell.

"Helm," Jeffrey said, "stand by for a hard turn to port on my mark."

"Understood."

"Sir," Bell said, "we'll unmask our weaker side to Deutschland, our damaged port wideaperture array. We'll lose him."

"He knows we've been favoring our left side, XO. He'll expect us to turn to starboard. We've a better chance of him losing us by going to port."

Bell nodded. He and Jeffrey grabbed their armrests as Challenger dipped suddenly; water heated by lava was less dense, reducing buoyancy. They held on again as Challenger plunged upward—caught in an updraft now, as that less-dense water, itself positively buoyant, raced for the surface.

"Helm, hard left rudder, mark."

"Hard left rudder, aye. No course specified."

Jeffrey watched the gravimeter, and the ring-laser gyrocompass. "Slow to ahead one third, turns for ten knots."

"Sir," Beck said, "we've lost sonar and wake turbulence contact with Challenger."

"Good," Eberhard said. "Then they've surely lost contact with us. Pilot, slow to one-third speed ahead, RPMs for ten knots. Starboard twenty rudder, steer zero four five." Coomans acknowledged.

"Status of the acoustic holography routines, Einzvo?" "Engaged and working, sir."

"He thinks he's evened the odds, coming here. He's no idea how well we can see in his supposed darkened room."

Beck nodded. These brand-new signal processing routines used Deutschland's wideaperture arrays to map out the entire three-dimensional noise field structure, on both the near and far sides of a sound source, no matter how chaotic and intense that field might be. Originally invented to analyze jet and missile engine performance in wind-tunnel testing, and ideal for use with both Deutschland and her quarry in a slow-speed stalking game, they should spot Challenger even here amid the live volcanoes. All around Challenger, five live volcanoes roared and burbled. There was constant seismic activity, too, adding to the noise. A volcanic eruption, or a massive avalanche, or an earthquake and resulting seawave surge—any one of them could do in Deutschland and Challenger both. As Jeffrey had reasoned earlier, an even exchange here—both vessels sunk—was a big strategic gain for the Axis, with Germany's new SSGN almost ready for sea.

Jeffrey scratched his head. His scalp itched; he needed

a shower badly. He made himself stop; it didn't look good.

"He'll probably patrol in a circle," Jeffrey said.

"Eberhard needs to keep moving, or we might spot his reactor shielding and core on our gravimeter. . . . If one of us goes outside the outer ring of cones, the other might spot

him there while still concealed. So neither of us is gonna leave the inner maelstrom till this issue is resolved." "May I ask your intentions, Captain?"

"You may ask, XO. If I were sure of the best next steps, I'd've told you already. . . . So, what do we know?"

Bell opened his mouth, but was interrupted by a big blast from outside. Ilse shouted that it was a magma eruption on the left flank of the central cone, the one they were calling Middle. The noise lessened, and the buffeting died down. Kathy reported she detected no torpedoes in the water—that blast hadn't given Deutschland a hole-inocean or ambientecho sonar contact on Challenger, but the threat was always there. Jeffrey ordered Meltzer to move the ship, just in case.

There was a sound like rolling thunder, and once more Challenger rocked.

"Seismic event on West," Ilse reported. "Probable magma subsidence, resulting lava dome collapse."

Jeffrey waited while Kathy's people listened again for an inbound weapon. "XO, Sonar, Oceanographer," Jeffrey said, "we need to do a recon. Get more water measurements, and better gravimeter resolution, too. We'll patrol clockwise for now, take the chance Eberhard's gone the other way, off on the other side of Middle. _Helm, take us closer to volcano West."

Soon Lieutenant Willey called; at least the intercom was repaired. He warned Jeffrey that the temperature of seawater intake to the main condensor cooling loops was rising rapidly, and the efficiency of the propulsion thermodynamic cycle was being degraded. They might suffer boilerfeedwater vapor lock, and stall the turbines.

-If Jeffrey's ship did stall, Deutschland could spot the stationary mass concentration on her gravimeter; gravimeters were immune to the local acoustic conditions and turbulence. And with propulsion degraded, we couldn't evade an inbound weapon either. Jeffrey saw Bell hesitate.

"Captain, I must advise, with only four remaining Mark eighty-eights, both self-defense and sure destruction of our target will be difficult."

"I know it, XO."

Another terrible rumble came through the hull. "Magma outburst!" Ilse said. "South flank of volcano North."

Challenger shook, then dipped and rolled.

"Seismic seawave," Ilse shouted. "Assess an avalanche on North." Jeffrey had the glimmer of an idea. If they could somehow predict one of these outbursts, and get into proper position, they might use the noise to get a sonar contact off Deutschland. Of course, this could backfire and give Challenger away, and Eberhard might get in the first and fatal shots. Or, the outburst might not behave as expected and itself deal Challenger the lethal blow. But with his own port-side wide-aperture array in bad shape, and some of his other sonars wrecked completely, Jeffrey knew he had no choice; time was on Eberhard's side.

Jeffrey told COB to activate all ship's passive photonics sensors, and window the pictures onto one of the vertical wide-screen displays. So far there was just darkness.

"Oceanographer."

"Captain?"

"Let's check out the west flank of Middle from closer range."

"Sir? There was just a magma outburst there." "Let's go take a look."

"Magma outburst!" Haffner shouted. "South flank of volcano North!" Deutschland shook, then dipped and rolled.

"Seismic seawave," Beck shouted. "Assess an avalanche on North!"

"Any contact on Challenger?"

"Working, Captain. Holography needs time to exploit the acoustic illumination. . . . No object identified as Challenger."

"He may be hugging terrain, trying to use shadow masking."

"Recommend we gain some altitude for a better look-down aspect angle." In a strange way Beck was enjoying himself now. This was a pure contest of will and technology between Challenger and Deutschland, and he could focus solely on survival and success with a clear conscience. Let them sink Fuller's ship, here in this ecological wasteland, and help speed the larger war toward victory

"Concur, Einzvo," Eberhard said. "Pilot, decrease depth. Keep us three hundred meters off the bottom. Maintain search pattern within volcano field. We'll find him. We have sonar superiority, and he's outgunned."

Challenger cruised the west side of the central volcano. The ship moved at three knots, taking careful measurements. Jeffrey ordered the sonar speakers turned off altogether, because of the noise; Ilse used her headphones, with the volume set well down. Even at dead slow, the ship shook and jostled as it had when she'd made flank speed before. The volcano field was never still, and the shocks transmitted through the water never ceased. Ilse wondered when something on Challenger would break.

Jeffrey ordered Meltzer closer to the bottom, despite the risk of a crash into terrain. They needed better data, if Ilse was to have a hope of forecasting how these magma outbursts behaved.

On passive photonics, with the gain at a factor of one hundred thousand, she began to see something. The scientist in her was fascinated. The common sense in her said this was madness—volcanologists on dry land had been killed getting too close to their subject of study. . . .

Ilse stared at the screens. Lava poured from a side vent in Middle's cone. It glowed bright orange, before

quickly quenching to red, then turning dark as it cooled more. There was no steam as the molten rock emerged and hit the seawater; the pressure at eleven thousand feet was much too great.

The lava was alive. As Ilse watched, it cascaded and spattered. The lava's surface hardened quickly in the cold, often forming a glassy, brittle shell, only to shatter as more glowing rock, at 3,000° Fahrenheit, forced its way from inside. The lava formed strange shapes, some resembling huge cow patties, others extruded toothpaste. The glowing lava gave its own illumination. The imagery rippled from the heat. Ilse saw large pillow lavas. One resembled a cracked egg: the hardened surface broke, and the liquid rock inside poured out and hardened like a yolk.

Challenger neared another active vent, and the picture grew brighter. Here lava emerged with greater force. Ilse watched red chunks and cinders erupt and cascade like fireworks in slow motion. Challenger trembled constantly, from immense geological forces transmitted through the water.

On her headphones, Ilse listened to the accompanying sounds. The lava rumbled as it upwelled through faults and dikes, then gurgled as it flowed through tubes and fumaroles. As new hot lava forced the cool -young rock ahead of it downhill, the advancing front made a crunching, scraping, clinking noise.

"Oceanographer. Recommendations?" Jeffrey's voice pulled Ilse from her reverie.

"Er, to predict large-scale behavior we need to examine more of this face. Build a recent history of the cone flank." "What do you think, XO?"

"If we want to regain contact with Deutschland, sir, it is better to linger in one area. If both of us keep moving, the chances are great we'll both just go in circles and keep missing each other."

"Captain," Kathy said. "Ilse and I discussed something earlier. In this acoustic sea state, low-frequency look-down pings are unlikely to be detected by an adversary. Properly tuned sound energy will penetrate the seafloor, and give us valuable geologic information."

Jeffrey turned to Ilse. "This isn't a scientific research expedition, you know."

"Sir, we need that kind of data to time the seismic events. If you want to use that tactically against Deutschland . . ."

"Very well. Go active at your discretion with ground-penetrating sonar."

"Captain," Ilse said, looking up from her console a few minutes later, "recommend switching photonics to active laser line scan."

"That's risky," Jeffrey said.

"Understood. But we're too far from hot lava to gain illumination now. Line scan will provide the fine-resolution data I've got to have."

"Chief of the Watch, activate all look-down laser line-scan cameras." COB

acknowledged.

As Challenger moved along, Ilse studied her screens. The terrain here was a jumble of layers made at different times. Ilse built a picture of how and when each lava flow had formed, their origins and sequencing. She saw large and squared-off blocks, with light and darker swirls and marbling, where molten basalt had thickened in alternating bands as its mineral content varied; this gave further clues about the Middle cone's behavior. These blocks were blown out from the central crater in some giant explosion, or they'd fallen from the rim in a violent avalanche. Either way, their sparkling, crinkled surfaces suggested they were very recent. Ilse realized the next outburst would probably produce more such huge projectiles, and one might come smashing through Challenger's hull. Kathy's people continued gathering ground-penetrating