And yet, despite that pragmatic contentment, again he had run away.
But even this escape was a lie, and little protection from the profound sadness within the man. He had never learned the joy of existence, the simple pleasures of perception and experience; and that, more than Debby, was his true frustration. Instinctively Del perceived an emptiness, a void within himself that craved fulfillment, but his materialistic and fiercely competitive world gave him no comfort.
“Lift, lift,” Del repeated over and over. No good. Every time the ping-poc of the hydraulic system sounded, his concentration broke and he remembered Debby and those haunting questions. He slipped his hands from the bar in frustration.
On the forward bridge, navigator Billy Shank’s brown eyes intently studied his instruments. “Any minute now, Captain,” he said, his voice edged with excitement.
“Put the signal from the screen to the rest of the monitors on the ship,” said Captain Mitchell, a giant, scowling man. His voice and visage held rock steady, but the simmering glow in his eyes betrayed his calm facade.
The alarm blasted just as Del finally managed to start his lift. The weights crashed back to the rack and Del scrambled across the room, his mind whirling. He charged into the hall, colliding with a crewman. His panic changed to embarrassment when he saw the cooler of beer.
“Carry on,” Del said, waving his hand impatiently, as if he had known all along.
“Look at those legs!” came a voice from behind, that of Ray Corbin, the Unicorn’s second in command.
“Ray,” Del replied, watching the easy saunter of his approaching friend, the one man Mitchell had personally requested for the crew.
The irony of that fact was never lost on Del, for Mitchell and Corbin were far from alike. Intensity, Mitchell’s trademark, was certainly not a prominent trait of Ray Corbin-the crew had even tagged the man with the nickname of Lay-back Ray. Still, everyone on the crew understood Mitchell’s choice. A quiet, unassuming first officer virtually guaranteed the dominating captain uncontested control.
Or did it? Del often wondered. Truly Ray Corbin would not openly oppose Mitchell; dogfighting wasn’t a part of his makeup. But Corbin was an officer sympathetic to the needs of the people around him, and he realized the pressures that a tyrant like Mitchell could exert on a crew. Del thought of him as the Unicorn’s Mr. Roberts, playing around the hard edges of Jimmy Cagney. And Del’s role in this movie script? He knew it all too well, knew why Ray Corbin had pulled quite a few strings to get him into the project. Corbin needed a foil for Mitchell’s dominance, a release valve for the inevitable tension, and he found it in a man recommended by an old skipper of his. Corbin’s secret weapon was Jeff DelGiudice, the Ensign Pulver to Corbin’s Mr. Roberts.
“You going up front?” Corbin asked.
“You think I’d miss this?” Del replied. “Probably the only excitement we see on this tub for the next eight months.”
“You want excitement?” Corbin remarked, smiling widely. “Wait until Mitchell sees his junior officer in gym shorts on the bridge.”
Del understood that smile well, for he, too, could easily picture the scene on the bridge, the captain’s face burning bright with rage.
“But you do have cute legs,” Ray Corbin finished.
“He won’t mind just this once,” Del said unconvincingly. “Besides, they’re Navy issue.”
“The legs?” Corbin quipped, heading down the corridor.
Both of them were handed a plastic cup of beer when they entered the control room. Most of the staff and several crewmen were there, all holding foam-tipped cups and staring intently at the viewing screen. Mitchell sat straight-backed in his chair, a microphone buried in one of his huge paws and beer surrounded by the other.
“Refrigerator with a head,” Del mumbled when he viewed the square-bodied captain. Mitchell gave his two officers a quick glance, but immediately returned his attention to the screen.
Del breathed easier that his outfit had apparently gone unnoticed.
Suddenly the screen brightened as the searchlight reflected back off the ocean floor. Buried for centuries untold under an inconceivable tonnage of water, the pressed stretch of mud and rock offered little artistic inspiration, but to the men of the Unicorn the view proved grand indeed.
Mitchell cracked a rare smile as he clicked on the com. “The deepest spot in the Atlantic, gentlemen,” he said, lifting his glass of Old Milwaukee beer in a toast. “The floor of the Milwaukee Deep.”
A tiny sip later, Mitchell’s perpetual scowl returned. “She’s all yours, Mr. Corbin,” he said as he headed for the door. “And get rid of the beer. All of it.”
Corbin shrugged impotently to the disappointed crew and motioned for one of the seamen to collect the drinks.
Del was as thrilled as anyone aboard to finally realize the goal of their months of preparation, but a five-second toast and a sip of beer wasn’t exactly his idea of a celebration. “Big deal,” he grumbled, errantly believing the captain to be out of earshot.
The room hushed instantly when Mitchell’s crew-cut head popped back in the door, the burly captain eyeing Del for a long, long while.
“Mr. DelGiudice,” he began, his voice teasingly calm. “Since you found this celebration inadequate, you’re invited to join me in my quarters in ten minutes for a private party.” His grin became an ugly grimace. “In uniform!”
Del just sighed helplessly as Corbin strolled over to pat him on the shoulder. “Maybe he didn’t like your legs.”
Billy Shank bit his lip and tried hard not to laugh.
Two uneventful days passed as the Unicorn crawled along the floor of the Atlantic. Forty-eight hours of prowling showed nothing but rocky abutments and flat bottoms, captured in relentless progression on the ship’s monitor, making Del feel like a cartoon character running past the same background scenery again and again. He was on the bridge most of the time, pulling extra duty at the personal request of Captain Mitchell.
Good behavior reward, he supposed.
Three others, Seamen Jonson, Camarillo, and Billy Shank, worked with him, but they went about their duties with disciplined efficiency and did little to relieve the boredom on this long and particularly uneventful shift.
Finally, mercifully, a voice dispelled the solitude.
“Unbelievable,” Billy Shank muttered. “Come see this.”
But even as Del rose from his chair, a loud peal blasted out of Camarillo’s sonic equipment and spun the others on their heels in surprise.
His visage locked in a contortion of shock and terror, Camarillo could not answer their questioning stares. Unblinking, he toppled facedown to the floor, not even extending his arms to break the fall.
The three men scrambled to him. “Back to your station!” Del told Billy. “And full stop! Get the captain and Doc!”
Del rolled Camarillo’s body over, his stare answered by dull unseeing orbs. He removed the headphones and found the speaker cloth torn wide and wet from the blood that still trickled out of Camarillo’s ears. He and Jonson went to work immediately, Jonson rhythmically pushing on Camarillo’s chest, Del trying to breathe life into the man.
A moment later Ray Corbin and Doc Brady rushed in, followed closely by Mitchell and Martin Reinheiser, the civilian physicist who had earned the dubious distinction of becoming Mitchell’s right-hand man. They ran to DelGiudice, now working furiously on the body.