The Seventh Angel (43 page)

Ann had almost no skill for reading people, but she knew instantly that this was not what the kid really wanted to ask. He had changed his mind at the last second, shied away from his real question—whatever that was.

She decided to answer him anyway.

“
When I was about ten years old, I saw this movie called ‘
Silent Running
.’ Have you ever seen it?”

“
I don’t think so,” the Sailor said. “Is that one of those old submarine flicks? Like ‘
The Enemy Below
,’ or something like that?”

“
No,” Ann said. “It’s science fiction. It’s about the future, when the Earth is so polluted that the atmosphere can’t support trees or plants any more.”

The mess attendant waited for her to continue.

“
There are these giant spaceships in orbit,” Ann said. “They carry all that’s left of the world’s forests in these enormous geodesic domes. And on one of those ships is this guy named Freeman Lowell. He’s sort of a botanist and ecologist. He takes care of the forests.”

Ann stopped. Why was she doing this? She didn’t talk about her private life to
anyone
. Why was she spilling her guts to this kid? Was she looking for an excuse to stall, because she was too freaking scared to go do her job?

“
Lowell doesn’t get along with the other people on his ship,” she said. “The others all care about different things than he does. He doesn’t think the same way they do, or value the same things. He doesn’t really understand other people, and he doesn’t like them very much.”

The Sailor was staring now, but Ann forged ahead.

“
Lowell likes the trees, and the bushes,” she said. “Because he understands them. He also likes the robots that take care of the ship, for the same reason. He appreciates the clean logic of their thinking. They make sense to him. He doesn’t have to be witty, or charming, and he doesn’t have to try to fit in. The plants and the machines accept him for who he is. They don’t ask him to be anything else.”

“
I’ve watched that movie about a thousand times,” Ann said. “The robots weren’t real; they were human actors in little robot costumes. But they
looked
real. And I knew from the first second I saw them that I wanted to work with robots.”

She shrugged. “I guess I’m cut from the same cloth as Freeman Lowell. Machines make sense to me. Robots make sense. It’s people I can’t figure out.”

The Sailor gave her a judicious nod. “Robotics is a big field,” he said. “What made you decide to specialize in the
underwater
stuff?”

Again, Ann felt certain that this wasn’t the question the kid really wanted to ask.

“
Three-quarters of this planet is water,” she said. “If I’m going to do anything worth doing, the ocean seems like a good place to start.”

The mess attendant paused for several seconds, as if unsure about how to phrase whatever was on his mind. He cleared his throat. “Ma’am, are you … scared?”

Ann felt the heat rise to her face. “
What
?”

“
Scared,” the Sailor said. “You know …
afraid
?”

Ann wanted to slap the little bastard. Was
that
was this was about? Popeye the Sailor Man getting her to open up, so he could laugh in her freaking face?

His Sailor buddies must have been talking up a storm, all about the crazy civilian woman who had yakked all over Combat Information Center. They’d probably laughed their asses off about that.

But the kid wasn’t smiling, and there was nothing critical in his voice.

“
I’m
scared,” he said quietly. “I’ve been to the head twice, and I still feel like I’m going to piss my pants.”

The kid paused, and Ann realized that he wasn’t jerking her around. He really was scared. Maybe even as frightened as she was.

“
I told my Senior Chief,” he said. “I figured there’s no point in hiding it if I’m not tough enough for combat. You know what Senior Chief said?”

Ann shook her head. “What did he say?”

“
He told me
everybody
is scared shitless in combat. Everybody except maybe crazy people, and complete idiots. He told me that’s natural. Fear is an instinctive reaction to danger. Somebody’s trying to kill you, you’re gonna get scared. Senior Chief says you have to learn to work through the fear—get past it, so you can do your job, even if you’re scared half to death.”

The Sailor picked up the coffee pot and used a white dish towel to wipe the spot where it had been. “You think that’s true, ma’am? You think it’s okay to be scared, as long as you do your job?”

“
I don’t know,” Ann said. “I’m probably not the best person to ask. I mean, it
sounds
true. Maybe it
is
true.”

“
Are you scared?” the Sailor asked again.

“
I’m terrified,” Ann said.

The kid turned away and carried the silver pot back to the coffee maker. “Me too,” he said. “It’s not so bad right now. I’m on mess attendant duties. I clean, I serve meals, and I clean some more. There aren’t exactly lives hanging on my every action. If I screw up, the coffee gets cold, or breakfast is late. Nobody dies.”

He shook his head. “But this is only temporary duty for me. When I go back to my division, I’ll be a Fire Control Technician again. If I get scared
then
, I mean
really
scared—too scared to do my job—people are going to get killed. You know what I mean?”

Ann nodded. That was a lot of weight to hang on the shoulders of a nineteen-year-old kid. Hell, that was a lot of weight to hang on
her
shoulders. But it was true for the frightened young Sailor, and it was true for Ann.

What was it that Sheldon had said? “How many nightmares will we get, if we let a million people die?”

It all came back to that again—Ann’s fears and her doubts, weighed against the lives of countless human beings. Or more precisely, Ann’s personal safety weighed against the safety of thousands, or even millions, of people. Put in those terms, it wasn’t a very difficult decision to make.

Ann glanced at her watch. She was late, but not
that
late. The boat crew would still be up there, waiting to lower Mouse into the water for the next phase of his search.

Ann stood up; the spell that had bound her to the chair was broken. “Can you help me find the boat deck?” she asked. “I have to go do my job now.”

USS TOWERS (DDG-103)

WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN

THURSDAY; 07 MARCH

0603 hours (6:03 AM)

TIME ZONE +11 ‘LIMA’

The beefy Sailor who called himself Boats stared down over the side of the ship at the robot circling slowly in the dark ocean swells. The big man shook his head sadly. “If you can’t get your machine to sit still, ma’am, I don’t see how we’re gonna be able to get a line on the damned thing.”

Ann followed the Navy man’s gaze. Sunrise was still two hours away, and the waves looked like liquid obsidian under the cold illumination of a three-quarter moon. But Mouse’s brightly-colored hull provided enough contrast to be faintly visible in the moonlight.

Ann burrowed her hands more deeply into the pockets of her foul weather coat. Even with the gloves on, her fingers were freezing in the raw subarctic air. She didn’t even want to
think
about how cold the water was.

“
Mouse’s emergency maintenance subroutine has been triggered,” she said. “When he gets damaged, he’s programmed to return to his launching coordinates, drive to the surface, and circle until he’s picked up for repairs.”

“
How did he get damaged?” Boats asked.

“
I have no idea,” Ann said. “Maybe he collided with something, or one of his seals started leaking. He might have developed an electrical problem: a short, or a blown component. I won’t be able to tell until we get him out of the water, and I can download his error logs.”

“
You can’t stop him?” one of the Sailors asked.

Ann didn’t see which one of the Navy men had spoken, but it wasn’t Boats. The voice was younger: one of the other members of the boat deck crew.

“
I can’t control him from remote,” Ann said. “Not when he’s in emergency maintenance mode.”

She shuddered, dreading the very thought of what she was about to say next. “I’m going to have to go into the water, and shut him off by hand.”

Boats exhaled explosively. “No ma’am! Not a chance! You are
not
going in the water.”

The Sailor’s tone made the hair on the back of Ann’s neck bristle. “That’s not your decision,” she snapped. “That’s
my
robot down there, and I don’t work for you.”

“
No ma’am,” Boats said. “You don’t work for me. But this is my boat deck, and I’m not letting you go in the water unless the captain orders me to.”

Ann made an effort to keep her voice from rising. “I’ve got a wetsuit and swim gear,” she said. “I’m an excellent swimmer, and I’ve done this before. More than once.”

“
I’m sure that’s true, ma’am,” the big Sailor said. “But this ain’t Southern California. The water temperature here is low enough to kill you in fifteen or twenty minutes. You’ll be unconscious in half that time. You don’t have the equipment or the training to work in water this cold.”

“
That’s ridiculous,” Ann said. “I won’t be down there more than a couple of minutes.”

Boats shook his head. “You won’t be down there at all, ma’am. Not while
I’m
running the boat deck.”

Ann snorted. “How are you planning to stop me? Tie me up, and throw me in the brig?”

“
This is a destroyer,” the Sailor said. “We don’t have a brig. But we will use physical force, if that’s what it takes to keep you out of the water.”

Ann looked down at the dim form of Mouse, still driving in wide clockwise circles. “We’ve got to shut him down, or we’ll never get the lifting cable on him.”

“
You’re right about that,” Boats said. “We’re going to have to put a swimmer in the water.”

Ann frowned. “You just said…”

Boats cut her off. “
Our
swimmer. He’s got the cold water gear, and he’s got the training.”

“
Wait just a second,” Ann said.

“
We don’t have time to argue about this,” Boats said. “The ship is gonna turn south in about a half hour, so we won’t be too close to the ice when the sun comes up. If you want your Mouse gadget to be aboard when we get out of here, we’d better get a move on.”

Before Ann could respond, Boats pointed to one of the shadowy Sailor shapes huddled on the boat deck. “Peters, go get yourself suited up. I’m calling the Bridge for authorization. As soon as I get the thumbs-up, you’re going over the side.”

“
Really?” the other Sailor muttered. “That’s just fucking fabulous.”

“
What was that?” Boats growled. “I don’t believe I heard you.”

Peters coughed, and spoke more clearly. “Aye-aye, Boats.”

Boats nodded. “That’s what I
thought
you said. Now, get your butt in gear; we’re running out of darkness.”

* * *

Ten or fifteen minutes later, as she listened over a set of headphones to the teeth-chattering grunts and mumbled curses of the Navy swimmer, Ann discovered—to her secret disgust—that she was glad Peters had gone into the water in her place. She could actually
hear
the bone-numbing cold in the young Sailor’s voice.

Peters had only been in the water a couple of minutes, and his speech was already thick, and slurred.

Ann, who had never been much colder than she was right now—standing on the boat deck, could not even imagine what it must be like down there. Just the sound of the man’s increasing discomfort was beginning to make her own muscles contract and cramp. The frigid water was leaching the life out of him, and Ann was listening to it happen.

“
Almost … got … it …,” Peters murmured thickly. “Almost …”

The sound of a ragged exhalation came through the headphones. “Fuck! Missed … I … fucking … missed … it…”

Ann stood at the lifelines, looking down toward the water. The eastern sky was beginning to lighten now, and she could see the swimmer’s orange wetsuit, bobbing near the yellow form of the robot. The suit was thick, and supposedly designed for cold water dives, but it didn’t sound like it was doing Peters a lot of good.

That was probably a false impression, she knew. Without his protective suit, the Sailor might already be unconscious by now, or dead.

She watched Peters thrash in the water as he made another lunge for the cover plate on the robot’s dorsal access port. The trio of propulsion pods on the machine’s stern were still pushing it forward, relentlessly powering through another in a series of continuous clockwise circles.

The retaining latches on the cover plate were mounted flush with the curve of the hull, to minimize hydrodynamic drag. To release them, Peters had to depress each one, and turn it ninety degrees.

Ann knew from experience that this was not an easy task, even in relatively comfortable water temperatures. Mouse was streamlined, wet, and very slippery. The robot pitched and rolled with the waves, and the continuous thrust from the propulsion pods had the effect of constantly scooting the rounded machine away from you.