When the comm officer reported transmission complete, Snow saw no point in remaining on the surface. They could submerge to a depth safe enough to avoid creating any surface disturbance that might alert curious satellites, and for that matter, the increasing concentration of surface ice would mask their presence anyway. It was time for Imperator’s final disappearing act. He punched in the power data to effect their dive, then authenticated his order. The computer responded almost immediately, “CAPTAIN SNOW, DO YOU WISH TO OVERRIDE THE CONTROL ROOM?” Of course not, he realized. That would require an emergency order. Now why the hell did he go ahead and do that? There wasn’t the slightest reason to upset the watch at this stage. Lifting the sound-powered phone from the wall box, he called the control room and gave his orders to the diving officer. The computer, he was told, had already projected the increased frequency and density of floe ice over the next twelve hours, and the OOD requested permission to set the upward-looking sonar. That unit was set at a specific depth before entering a solid ice area when ship’s depth was equal to the distance to the surface as determined by the sonar. Upon entering an ice area, the sonar recorded changes between the submarine’s actual depth and the distance to the surface alone. It was vitally important for Imperator to be at perfect trim since even the slightest deviation from zero trim would result in inaccurate measurement of ice thickness. A mark that showed a perfect distance to the surface according to the presetting would identify a polynya, a hole in the ice. It was vital to maintain a constant chart of surface ice and polynyas in case the submarine was required to surface through the ice for any reason.
As Snow silently wondered what else Caesar had been doing in his spare time, the watch officer reported that repairs had been made to a valve seal in one of the forward ballast pumps, a heat detector had been malfunctioning in the magazine next to the number three Tomahawk missile launcher, umbilical readings had reported a low battery on one of the Apache helicopters stored in the forward hangar room, and a radiation detector had malfunctioned in a compartment adjacent to the main reactor. None of the incidents had been noted by the crew before Caesar reported them to the engineering office.
It was eerie. Snow muttered to himself, how an electronic marvel could grate on one’s nerves. There was no malice involved — Caesar was incapable of humanity. Yet the fact that Snow was increasingly irritated by this electronic nonentity bothered him. He found himself longing for the old-fashioned comfort of a submarine dependent on the men who sailed her. Malfunctions in those days were reported to the captain at once and details were constantly relayed to him on what repairs were underway, and again when they were complete. Imperator had been designed to alleviate that factor. If Snow desired a status report on his command, he could call it up on the computer. The report would be far more accurate and timely than those called back to a captain in his old-fashioned control room by a technician or engineering officer up to his armpits in grease.
There was neither the smell of the old diesel subs nor the efficient quiet hum of the nuclear boats of only ten years before. Sound silencing had become such an art in the construction of Imperator that she functioned with the soundless hush of space. The only noises were human, and they seemed to intrude on the efficiency of the wonder that was Caesar, the heart and soul of Imperator.
As Snow’s fingers ran over the keys on the terminal before him, he realized from conversations with Carol Petersen that there was a limited capability for human psychological response programmed into Caesar. She had assured him it was designed to interpret certain mental problems that might crop up among the crew, similar to implanting a set of medical symptoms in a computer’s memory bank. The system could then respond with a diagnosis of the correct ailment.
What, then, would Caesar say about Hal Snow? How would he respond to a man with two failed marriages who often went months without knowing where his offspring were? The navy determined that Snow was fine for their purposes. His record from the day he was commissioned until the day he resigned was nothing but professional. He had always been able to set aside his personal life in favor of professional demands — and the life of a submarine officer was rigorous and demanding. The psychological testing he’d undergone before commanding a ballistic-missile submarine was no different. Hal Snow was in total command of his submarines, able to make life-or-death decisions in every possible situation navy psychologists could imagine without displaying the slightest inconsistencies. You were perfect, Snow, he remarked silently to himself.
Then why the hell am I tempted to talk to Caesar about the things I’m aware of that no navy shrink is ever going to learn? Was it because he’d decided to come back for one more round? That was the mistake of boxers… race car drivers… test pilots… to have to prove it to themselves one more time — the old ego trip.
Or was it Carol Petersen? Why was a man his age so concerned about what that woman thought? No one could ever convince him that a woman had a place on a submarine, yet there had been moments when he felt like a high school jock showing off for some girl in the stands. So while he was considering having this very personal conversation with good old Caesar, he was also worried that Caesar’s mistress might get wind of the fact that he, Hal Snow, was plumbing the psychological depths of a computer. What kind of stable mind was that?
He snapped off the terminal abruptly. While the glow faded from the screen, he was able to convince himself there were better things to do than challenge Caesar to a mental duel. The results could be disconcerting. One thing that computer couldn’t do was go on a tour of the forward weapons systems with his weapons officer. Snow hadn’t inspected that section of Imperator since they got underway, It was a good excuse to keep his mind busy, and it was even better to have his officers see him involved in their department.
But the effect Carol Petersen seemed to have on him remained in the forefront of his mind that day.
Abe Danilov’s plan for arriving on station at least twenty-four hours before Imperator cleared the Bering Strait was based on sound reasoning. He knew listening devices would have been deployed, and that they would be heavily monitored before the American submarine ever entered the shallow Chukchi Sea. Creeping stealthily closer the previous day, Danilov managed to arrive unnoticed.
Seratov and Smolensk waited patiently for their quarry, and Novgorod had departed after the exercises on the third day to assume station between four and five hundred miles to the east. There she could silently patrol the deeper waters off the entrance to the Northwest Passage. Danilov was positive that Imperator’s chosen path would be under the North Pole, but he was covering every alternative. Once Admiral Reed determined that his best choice was a course due north under the ice, then Danilov and his two submarines would be waiting. Novgorod would then swing in behind them and contact the additional hunter/killer forces dispatched the previous day.
“Sergoff,” he called as he passed by the wardroom, “come with me.” The chief of staff reacted with unconcealed pleasure to the broad smile on Danilov’s face. The admiral had been brooding again, and this always troubled Sergoff. The best he could expect would be a change of heart, for Danilov reminded him these days of a rubber ball perpetually bouncing from one mood to another. The radiance he now recognized on the admiral’s face appeared to be more than a simple change of moods.