Raise the Titanic - Cussler Clive. Страница 39

"I see," Sandecker said slowly. "You've been able to simulate the Titanic's fall to the sea floor."

"Yes, let me show you." Silverstein lifted a telephone from a shelf under the observation window. "Oven, make a drop in thirty seconds."

"You have a scale model of the Titanic?"

"Not exactly a prize exhibit for a maritime museum, of course," Silverstein said, "but, for a scaled-down version of the ship's general configuration, weight, and displacement, it's a near-perfect, balanced replica. The potter did a damned fine job."

"The potter?"

"Ceramics," Silverstein said waving his hand in a vague gesture. "We can mold and fire twenty models in the time it would take us to fabricate a metal one." He laid a hand on Sandecker's arm and pulled him toward the window. "Here she comes."

Sandecker looked up and saw an oblong shape about four feet in length falling slowly through the water, preceded by what looked to be a shower of marbles. He could see that there had been no attempt to authenticate detail. The model looked like a smooth lump of unglazed clay rounded at one end, narrowed at the other, and topped by three tubes, representing the Titanic's smokestacks. He heard a distinct clink through the observation window as the model's bow struck the bottom of the tank.

"Wouldn't your calculations be thrown off by a flaw in the model's configuration?" Sandecker asked.

"Yes, a mistake could make a difference." Silverstein looked at him. "But I assure you, Admiral, we missed nothing!

Sandecker pointed at the model. "The real Titanic had four funnels; yours has only three."

"Just before the Titanic's final plunge," Silverstein said, "her stern rose until she was completely perpendicular. The strain was too much for the guy wires supporting the number one funnel. They snapped and it toppled over the starboard side."

Sandecker nodded. "My compliments, Doctor. I should have known better than to question the thoroughness of your experiment."

"It's nothing, really. It gives me a chance to show off my expertise." He turned and motioned a thumbs-up sign through the window. The diver tied the model onto a line that traveled toward the top of the tank. "I'll run the test again and explain how we arrived at our conclusions."

"You might begin by explaining the marbles."

"They act the role of the boilers," Silverstein said.

"The boilers?"

"Perfect simulation, too. You see, while the Titanic's stern was pointing at the sky, her boilers broke loose from their cradle mounts and hurtled through the bulkheads toward the bow. Massive things they were-twenty-nine, all told; some of them were nearly sixteen feet in diameter and twenty feet long."

"But your marbles fell outside the model."

"'Yes, our calculations indicate that at least nineteen of the boilers smashed their way through the bow and dropped to the bottom separately from the hull."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because if their fall had been contained, the tremendous shift in ballast caused by their journey from amidships to the forward section of the ship would have pulled the Titanic on a ninety-degree course straight downward. However, the reports of the survivors watching from the lifeboats-for once, most all tend to agree-state that soon after the earsplitting rumble from the boilers' crazy stampede had died away, the ship settled back a bit at the stern before sliding under. This fact indicates to me, at any rate, that the Titanic vomited her boilers and once free of this super-incumbency, righted herself slightly to attain the seventy-eight-degree slant I mentioned previously."

"And the marbles bear out this theory?"

"To the letter." Silverstein picked up the telephone again. "Ready whenever you are, Owen." He replaced the receiver on its cradle. "Owen Dugan, my assistant above. About now he'll be setting the model in the water directly over that plumb line you see in the water off to one side of the tank. As the water begins coming in through holes drilled strategically in the bow of the model, she'll begin to go down by the head. At a certain angle the marbles will roll to the bow and a springloaded door will allow them to fall free."

As if on cue, the marbles began falling to the floor of the tank, followed closely by the model. It struck about twelve feet from the plumb line. The diver made a tiny mark on the bottom of the tank and held up his thumb and index finger, indicating one inch.

"There you have it, Admiral, a hundred and ten drops and she's never touched down outside a four-inch radius."

Sandecker stared into the tank for a long moment, then turned to Silverstein. "So where do we search?"

"After a few dazzling computations by our physics department," said Silverstein, "their best guess is thirteen hundred yards south of east from the point the Sappho I discovered the cornet, but at that, it's still a guess."

"How can you be certain the horn didn't fall on an angle, too?"

Silverstein feigned a hurt look. "You underestimate my genius for perfection, Admiral. Our evaluations here would be worthless without a clear-cut picture of the cornet's path to the sea floor. Included in my expense vouchers you will find a receipt from Moe's Pawnshop for two cornets. After a series of tests in the tank, we took them two hundred miles off Cape Hatteras and dropped them in twelve thousand feet of water. I can show you the charts from our sonar. They each landed within fifty yards of their vertical departure line."

"No offense," Sandecker said equably. "I have a sinking feeling, if you'll pardon the pun, that my lack of faith is going to cost me a case of Robert Mondavi Chardonnay 1984 "

"1981," Silverstein said, grinning.

"If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a schmuck with good taste."

"Think how common the world would be without us."

Sandecker made no reply. He moved up to the window and stared inside the tank at the ceramic model of the Titanic. Silverstein moved up behind him. "She's a fascinating subject, no doubt of it."

"Strange thing about the Titanic, " Sandecker said softly. "Once her spell strikes, you can think of nothing else."

"But why? What is there about her that grips the imagination and won't let go?"

"Because She's the wreck that puts all the others to shame," Sandecker said. "She's modern history's most legendary yet elusive treasure. A simple photograph of her is enough to pump the adrenaline. Knowing her story, the crew who sailed her, the people who walked her decks in the few short days she lived, that's what fires the imagination, Silverstein. The Titanic is a vast archive of an era we'll never see again. God only knows if it is within our power to bring the grand old dame into daylight again. But, by heaven, we're going to try."

The submersible Sea Slug looked aerodynamically clean and smooth from her outside, but to Pitt, as he contorted his six-foot-two frame into the pilot's chair, the interior seemed a claustrophobic nightmare of hydraulic plumbing and electrical circuitry. The craft was twenty feet long and tubular in shape, with rounded ends like its lethargic namesake. It was painted bright yellow and had four large portholes set in pairs on its bow, while mounted along the top, like small radar domes, were two powerful high intensity lights.