Floating City (22 page)

He went back into the cabin, where Abramanov sat cabled to the descending robot. “Where are we?”

“Almost there,” Abramanov said, checking his bank of portable computers. “I’m twenty feet from the upper level of the ledge.”

“Too bad we couldn’t drop it closer, on the lower level, but the outcroppings the discrete-image sonar picked up would almost certainly have cut the cable.” Rock shook his head. “We don’t even know whether he will be able to walk down to the bottom level.”

A spray of rain hit the windows with the force of a hammer throw. The boat rocked at its mooring. Rock glanced at the captain, but he was too busy giving orders to notice.

“I’m on the ledge.”

Rock returned his attention to Abramanov, who was re-checking the plethora of sophisticated telemetry coming in from the robot’s remote sensors.

“What does it look like?”

“Slow. Serene. Unlike up here. I will show you.”

Abramanov switched on the video camera, made some adjustments. On the twelve-inch monitor a perfect image appeared of the immediate environs of the shale ledge six hundred feet below him.

Awed, despite himself, Rock whispered, “I see the ledge floor. Go forward.”

The image shifted, and Rock felt almost as if he himself had begun to walk that narrow shale ridge below that hung over thousands of fathoms of water under pressure so severe it would burst apart anything man-made.

“It’s surprisingly easy,” Abramanov reported. “It is not steep.”

“According to the sonar sweeps, that will change very soon and very quickly.”

“Yes, yes. I know.”

Abramanov was locked into the wonder of his underwater world. Rock wondered what it must be like linked so completely into the sensors of a machine. He didn’t care for the thought, but for a scientist like Abramanov it must have been heaven.

“Be careful.”

Rock saw the image changing. Within the light field he could see the striations of the shale ledge, floating bits in the water: diadems of plankton, mixed perhaps with bits of shale and biological detritus the robot had disturbed as it moved along the ledge. A tiny translucent squid passing in and out of the theater of vision. Nothing else.

“The drop-off begins,” Abramanov informed him.

The rain was a constant hammering now, and the boat was bobbing on the gathering swells. “Everything okay with the mechanical systems?” And when Abramanov nodded, he said, “Is the drop-off continuing?”

“Accelerating. The sonar readings are off by point five percent.”

“Not too bad.”

“The difference might have caused serious injury to a human diver. See?”

Rock did. The irregular shale had come off in thick, long plates, creating a kind of rift in the ledge. “Can the robot negotiate the chasm?”

“No problem.”

Rock was suddenly aware of a feeling of weightlessness, and he made a grab for the hatch opening. Then the shale ridge came up into the light again, and the eerie sensation was gone. He could see that though the ledge now sloped down at a far steeper angle, it was somewhat wider than it had been up top. He waited, tossed by the storm on the surface.

“Problem.”

Rock’s stomach tightened, and not just from the increasingly frenzied motion of the boat. “Nature?”

“I’d better show you.”

The image on the monitor shifted, and Rock experienced a disconcerting sense of vertigo. Then the image stabilized and he could see the phalanx of outcroppings, sharp as lances, that shot out just in front of the robot.

“Can the robot get through?”

“The ledge appears impassable for the next sixty-five feet. Beyond that is the abyss.”

No,
Rock thought.
We’re so close; I will not be stopped short. There must be a way.

As if reading his mind, Abramanov said, “I believe there’s a way around the impasse.’’

“Tell me.”

“If you use the cable to swing me off the ledge at the angle I calculate, the forward momentum will drive me past the blockage and back onto the ledge.”

“Do it.”

Abramanov hesitated. “There is a caveat.”

Rock’s stomach was now doing flip-flops. “Only one?”

“When my momentum brings me in past the outcroppings, there’s a chance the cable will be severed.”

“If that happens, the robot
and
the objective will be lost.”

“Yes.”

“What are the odds of us making it across intact?”

“About even.”

“Alternatives?”

Abramanov sighed. “I’m very much afraid there are none. As we have seen, no diver can possibly make it to the aircraft, let alone return with the cargo. The robot’s every chance we have.”

Rock took a deep breath. “Initiate the procedure.”

Abramanov surprised him; this was the moment that, looking back, he began to like and to trust the Russian. “The calculations are already complete. I am feeding them into the computers.”

The captain was plucking anxiously at Rock’s sleeve. “What the hell is this data coming on-line?”

“Never mind,” Rock said. “Just keep an eye on the storm and hold us steady at our present position.”

“But, sir—”

Rock hefted his black magic. “If we move even a centimeter off-line, I’ll shoot you.” To Abramanov, he said, “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Do it now,” Rock said, feeling his heart seem to stop as he watched Abramanov hit the button.

The image blew out against the edges of the screen. Diadems danced crazily in the light as the image swung, shifting radically, illuminating a larger section of the ledge as the robot was hurled outward into the sea, overhanging the abyss.

Darkness below, and an eerie sense of weightlessness, then the image shifted again as the robot was hurled forward. The light fanned outward, careening over the phalanx of lethal-looking shale, bunched like the frowning brow of a giant sea god.

And then they were coming in quickly with the shale spears looming like the weapons of an execution squad.

Are we far enough forward?
Rock asked himself.
Has Abramanov made the right calculations? It looks like we’re heading right for those spears, they’re so close.
Tiny creatures milled around their points, transfixed by the alien light, then blown away by the fierce displacement of water as the heavy robot swung inward.

Whoomp!

“The cable is intact.”

Rock felt light-headed as his fingers gripped the Russian’s shoulder.

“On the ledge,” Abramanov said.

The image on the monitor faded for a moment, then reassembled, as the robot continued its descent along the edge of the abyss. After a time, the image became stationary, and Rock knew that the robot had stopped.

“What’s happening?”

He was shown the view forward. The pitch of the shale ledge was now near to vertical. At the far end of the shaft cut into the shale the light illuminated something cold, hard, shiny beneath the silty biological casing that was encrusting it.

“Primary objective.”

Rock’s heart leapt. “Any problems negotiating the underwater chimney?”

“None.”

The image remained unchanged.

“Then what’s the matter?”

Abramanov partially unhooked himself from the telemetry, turned to Rock, “I think at this point we must consider abandoning the project.”

“Why? Can you see any cracks in the casings? Is there any sign of gamma radiation leakage?”

“Telemetry indicates no radiation leakage whatsoever.”

“Do you have moral misgivings, then?”

Abramanov sighed. “I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t.”

“Then try to be more like me. I have no misgivings whatsoever. We’ve got to get your 114m out of this danger area. I told you there was a quake here of major proportions just last year. Almost every month, there’s a minor one.”

“Yes, this is why we are here today. As I have told you, 114m was created by massive and repeated bombardment of plutonium by a high-energy, high-flux neutron field in an inert atmosphere of argon gas.

“The inert atmosphere was necessary in part because 114m is an exceedingly energetic gamma-ray emitter, and exposure for even one minute is lethal to humans.”

Abramanov had explained that all radioactive isotopes emitted three kinds of radiation: alpha, the slowest and therefore most easily stopped, beta, and gamma. Gamma rays moved at the speed of light and were therefore the most difficult to deflect. Lead or DU, depleted uranium-238, both very dense metals, were most often used to contain the emissions. Isotope 114m was an exceedingly intense gamma-ray emitter, and it was yet to be determined whether the DU casings would be adequate in keeping the deadly radiation contained.

“Quite apart from that,” Abramanov continued, “114m is more chemically toxic than its parent element, plutonium, and let me tell you that plutonium is a nightmare to deal with. Contact with fine particles by inhalation, ingestion, or absorption through the skin is lethal to humans. The argon atmosphere minimizes oxidation and surface instability. However, I must emphasize that even with the best containment measures, particulates of 114m can and will migrate out of confinement zones.”

Rock stared implacably at the Russian. “What’s your point?”

The Russian shook his head sadly. “If I am required to explain further, it is useless.” He turned back to his telemetry. “Let’s get on with it.”

Rock felt his stomach lurch upward into his throat as the image on the monitor canted over and down. The robot sank into the chimney of shale, alighting on the floor of the lowest section of the ledge.

There was the Russian aircraft that had brought Abramanov into his lap.

“Beginning fuselage penetration.”

The robot’s sophisticated mechanical arms emerged from its squat torso, its delicate fingers probing the side of the aircraft. They worked industriously for some time.

Rock waited, his heart pounding painfully against his rib cage. The turbulence caused by the robot’s armor-piercing blades made it impossible to follow the procedure visually.

“Fuselage breached. Going in.”

A riot of images exploded on the monitor as the robot’s spots illuminated the interior of the plane in disjointed segments.

Rock could not bear the tension. “Do you see them?”

The images—flaring white light, impenetrable darkness—were impossible to decipher. Maybe the aircraft had shifted with the tectonic activity, spilling the 114m into the abyss; maybe they hadn’t made it all the way into the water with the plane; maybe—

“Cargo located.”

Rock squinted at the screen, could make out the dull metallic boxes the robot’s articulated arms were handling.

“Yes! Come to mama!” Rock was too elated at this moment to feel any fear. He hand-signaled to the crewmen standing by to be ready to deploy the automatic nets that would capture the robot and its extraordinary prize when it emerged on the surface.

But already the image had shattered, re-forming in a kind of slow-motion free-fall as the robot, having backed out of the rent fuselage, was teetering on the shale ledge. The movement was putting it in danger of dropping down into the abyss that seemed limitless.

“Fucker, I told you to keep this damn boat steady!” Rock shouted at the captain as he hefted his black magic.

“It isn’t the storm,” Abramanov said as his fingers worked frenziedly over the robot’s remote controls. “There’s a tectonic shift in progress.”

“An undersea quake!”

The images on the screen shuddered, then splintered like sparks from a burning log.

“I’ve hit something! The fuselage or an outcropping. The thrusters are inoperable.”

“Get the thing out of there, Abramanov! Now!”

“I can’t! I’m paralyzed!” The Russian was sweating. “Use the backup electronic winch!”

Rock rushed across the cabin, out into the storm. He signaled to his men, who leapt to the gantry securing the robot’s winch to the deck. Rock, at the controls himself, began reeling the robot in. He tried to imagine the scene deep beneath him. How severe was the quake? He stared at the gauges through the sheeting rain, shouted wordlessly as they registered the tension and weight associated with the robot.

He gave over the controls to one of his men, raced back inside the cabin.

“Sir, I can’t hold us here much longer,” the captain said.

“With any luck you won’t have to.” To Abramanov, Rock said, “How’re we doing?”

“We’re off the ledge, at least. Now all we have to worry about is losing the casings.”

But Rock knew that would not happen now. Soon he’d have the 114m on board, and shortly after that the precious isotope and its creator would be safely secreted within the bunkerlike containment environment Rock had had constructed for the purpose.

Then he would give Abramanov his final instructions—or ultimatum. Rock was fully prepared for that. He had no compunction about doing whatever had to be done in order to take this extraordinary raw material and make of it something unique. The way he saw it, 114m was not unlike the tears of the poppy his people harvested high in the Shan Mountains of Burma. That substance was also extraordinary, but it needed the careful refining process to make it unique—and highly valuable.

Rock, watching the back of Abramanov’s head as he monitored the ascent of the robot and the DU-cased 114m bricks through turbulent waters, knew that he must have an end product from the fissile isotope like no other.

He knew this because an eternally grateful Abramanov had revealed his creation’s secret: that it was the most powerful portable nuclear-energy source imaginable. To Rock, that had implications that made his mouth water. Today’s world was vastly different from what it had been even two years ago. The Cold War was dead, Russia was no longer the threat it had been. It was the time of the small, mobile ethnic battle, and that meant the rise of terrorism. Unwittingly, Abramanov had given him the most potent product he could sell to the new kind of customer that was, increasingly, demanding weaponry.

Rock was almost salivating in anticipation. He had in his hands the ultimate terrorist weapon—immensely powerful and compact. Even better, he had the one man who could manufacture it.