“You just now said something about New London yourself, Skipper,” said Buck, mischievously. “Is there anyone there in particular …?”
Someone was approaching rapidly on the other side of the reactor housing. Rhodes. “Rich,” he said, “Brighting’s changed his mind! Can you take the exam right away?”
“You mean right this minute? You bet! What’s happened?”
“Damned if I know,” said Rhodes. “He suddenly called up again, and out of the clear blue he said to give you the test immediately. Now. Then he hung up. It’s now or never, the way he said it. He’s not even willing for you to wait till tomorrow morning. Can you start right now?”
There was neither disrespect nor lese majesty in the blows Keith and Buck were suddenly raining on his back, and their delighted exclamations. Dusty Rhodes joined them after a moment and in a somewhat more inhibited fashion, and within minutes Rich found himself seated in the same examination room lately occupied by his friends, fortified by a cup of black coffee and staring at his first question.
“There’s no time limit, but you have to do it all at one sitting,” said Rhodes. “Just work till you finish, and then lay your papers on my desk. I’ll get them in the morning. I couldn’t give you the same test as the others, though. Brighting’s orders. It’s a little tougher, so it won’t be lying on my desk very long, I don’t think. This is the one for reactor supervisor, which we normally use to qualify top-grade technicians who’ve been out here at least a year. I’m afraid you’ll be working pretty late.”
After Rhodes had left, Keith said quietly, “If this exam is tougher than ours, it’s going to be a long night for you. Buck and I will go watch-and-watch on you, so there’ll be one of us around for moral support and coffee. We’ve got plenty of quarters for the soup machines, too; so all you have to do is yell when you need something.”
The examination taken by his two friends had contained thirty questions, they had said, and it was with some dismay that Rich found forty-two in his. Dusty’s sure not going to find all these finished and on his desk when he gets there tomorrow morning, that’s one thing certain, he thought. It took Keith and Buck nine hours to do theirs, so they averaged ten questions every three hours. At the same speed this one will take more than twelve hours. He put his wristwatch on the table in front of him, picked up the first of a boxful of sharpened pencils and began.
“Sketch and describe the control rod configuration in Mark I,” the question read. “Show the relationship between control rod geometry and the fuel element geometry. Explain the effect on nuclear flux. Draw a three-dimensional sketch of the flux density at various control rod positions, describing the theoretical considerations pertaining to each…”
What could have caused Brighting to reverse himself? Or had he been hazing him the entire time? This special test was certainly far more difficult than the one for which he had prepared. And he had been forced to begin it at the end of an already long and emotionally exhausting day. Maybe this, too, was part of the hazing.
No matter. Whatever the cause, or causes, he had been given his chance. There was no time limit; so he could work as long as necessary, or as long as his brain could function. He would budget twenty minutes per question, three questions per hour. It was now just seven o’clock. With luck, he might be dropping the completed examination on Dusty Rhodes’ desk sometime in the late morning, about fifteen hours from now.
6
It was nearly noon of the next day when Richardson carried into Rhodes’ office ninety-two sheets of ruled legal-size paper, closely written with pencil and ball-point pen. “Here it is, Dusty,” he said. His mind was still awhirl. Sometime during the all-night grind there had come on him some inner strength, an increased alertness, a mental second wind. He had been sixteen hours at his desk, except for necessary trips to the head, had used up all the pencils provided — and faithfully sharpened — by Keith and Buck, and had drunk many cups of coffee, also brought by his two friends. True to their word, they had split up the night so that one of them was always there. Shortly after midnight a large mug filled with hot soup had appeared, and at eight, wonder of wonders, a plate of scrambled eggs.
“Compliments of Mrs. Dusty Rhodes,” Buck had said, “only she doesn’t know it yet. Now that Dusty has to stay on the site she fixed him up with a hot plate in his quonset and will keep him supplied with stuff. He’s not allowed to do anything for you, you know, but he can’t help it if I swipe a couple eggs while he’s shaving.”
Richardson had expected to be exhausted, physically and mentally. To his surprise, he felt positively ebullient. He wanted to talk, could not sit still, paced up and down in front of Rhodes.
“You’d better turn in, Rich,” said Rhodes. “You’re so wound up right now you’d go boing if I tapped you with a pencil. We’ll start marking your paper right away; so when you get back over here we’ll have your grade for you. The old man will be pleased, I know. He’s called a couple of times this morning already, and I told him you were still hard at it. We’ll have your orders ready so that you can start for New London by the night plane out of the Falls, if you want.”
“The admiral must figure he’s doing us a favor,” grumped Buck from beside the driver of the Twelfth Naval District sedan. “There’s just no other explanation. First he treats Rich worse than a plebe at Annapolis, and then he sends us all three on a joyride to Mare Island, California. It doesn’t make any sense. We don’t even know what we’re supposed to do, except inspect the reserve fleet subs. Inspect for what? We’ve got no instructions at all. He must figure we need a vacation for a day in California, before heading back to the rigors of New England. If he’d sent Cindy out here and given us a week, maybe I’d feel different.”
“Mare Island is where we left the old Eel after the war, you know,” said Keith, thoughtfully. “I’ve not heard of her being moved or anything. Wonder if that might have anything to do with it.”
“No way, Keith. You know the last thing in the world Brighting is is sentimental.” Williams tossed his head as if to lob the words over his shoulder to Keith, in the back seat. The sedan, moving at only moderate speed, lurched frequently on the uneven asphalt road.
“The only thing everybody always agrees on about Brighting is that no one has yet figured him out, or ever will, probably.” Richardson, sitting beside Keith, spoke for the first time in several minutes. “I’ve been thinking maybe Keith’s right. I’m sure the old boat is still there, and our orders to come out here so suddenly just might have something to do with her. We’d all have known if she’d been put back into commission, and I’m positive we’d have heard if they’d scrapped her or used her for a target or something. So this will at least be a chance to look her over for a few minutes, anyway.” He paused. “There may be something going on, too. This car and driver were waiting for us at San Francisco airport. No word about that, either. He just met the plane. Driver”—addressing the uniformed sailor behind the wheel—“the Reserve Fleet Admin Office is back there in the shipyard, isn’t it? Why aren’t you taking us there?”
“Dunno, sir. My orders was to take you right to the reserve fleet berths. It’s upstream from the yard.”
“We have to catch the night flight out of San Francisco for New York. Are you going to wait for us and bring us back?”
“Nosir. I’m supposed to start right back for District Headquarters. Those are my orders, sir. I don’t know how you’re supposed to get back, sir.”
“We’ll have to work on that,” muttered Rich half to himself, as Buck turned around and Keith leaned forward the better to look at him. “We’re not going to have much time to inspect if we have to spend some of it scrounging up a car to take us back to South San Francisco.”