Jones had taken an hour — when he was supposed to be sleeping — to explore the submarine. Mr. Mannion had joined him. They started in the bunkroom. The individual footlockers didn’t lock — probably so that officers could rifle through them. Jones and Mannion did just that. There was nothing of interest. Even the sailor porn was junk. The poses were just plain dumb, and the women — well, Jones had grown up in California. Garbage. It was not at all hard for him to understand why the Russians wanted to defect.
The missile had been interesting. He and Mannion opened an inspection hatch to examine the inside of the missile. Not too shabby, they thought. There was a little too much loose wiring, but that probably made testing easier. The missile seemed awfully big. So, he thought, that’s what the bastards have been aiming at us. He wondered if the navy would hold onto a few. If it was ever necessary to flip some at old Ivan, might as well include a couple of his own. Dumb idea, Jonesy, he said to himself. He didn’t ever want those goddamned things to fly. One thing was for sure: everything on this bucket would be stripped off, tested, taken apart, tested again — and he was the navy’s number one expert on Russian sonar. Maybe he’d be present during the analysis…It might be worth staying in the navy a few extra months for.
Jones lit a cigarette. “Want one of mine, Mr. Bugayev?” He held his pack out to the electronics officer.
“Thank you, Jones. You were in university?” The lieutenant took the American cigarette that he’d wanted but been too proud to ask for. It was dawning on him slowly that this enlisted man was his technical equal. Though not a qualified watch officer, Jones could operate and maintain sonar gear as well as anyone he’d known.
“Yes, sir.” It never hurt to call officers sir, Jones knew. Especially the dumb ones. “California Institute of Technology. Five semesters completed. A average. I didn’t finish.”
“Why did you leave?”
Jones smiled. “Well, sir, you gotta understand that Cal Tech is, well, kinda a funny place. I played a little trick on one of my professors. He was working with strobe lights for high-speed photography, and I rigged a little switch to work the room lights off the strobe. Unfortunately there was a short in the switch, and it started this little electrical fire.” Which had burned out a lab, destroying three months of data and fifteen thousand dollars of equipment. “That broke the rules.”
“What did you study?”
“I was headin’ for a degree in electrical engineering, with a strong minor in cybernetics. Three semesters to go. I’ll get it, then my masters, then my doctorate, and then I’ll go back to work for the navy as a civilian.”
“Why are you a sonar operator?” Bugayev sat down. He had never spoken like this with an enlisted man.
“Hell, sir, it’s fun! When something’s going on — you know, a war game, tracking another sub, like that—I am the skipper. All the captain does is react to the data I give him.”
“And you like your commander?”
“Sure thing! He’s the best I’ve had — I’ve had three. My skipper’s a good guy. You do your job okay, and he doesn’t hassle you. You got something to say to him, and he listens.”
“You say you will go back to college. How do you pay for it? They tell us that only the ruling class sons go to university.”
“That’s crap, sir. In California if you’re smart enough to go, you go. In my case, I’ve been saving my money — you don’t spend much on a sub, right? — and the navy pitches in, too. I got enough to see me all the way through my masters. What’s your degree in?”
“I attended a higher naval school. Like your Annapolis. I would like to get a proper degree in electronics,” Bugayev said, voicing his own dream.
“No sweat. I can help you out. If you’re good enough for Cal Tech, I can tell you who to talk to. You’d like California. That is the place to live.”
“And I wish to work on a real computer,” Bugayev went on, wishful.
Jones laughed quietly. “So, buy yourself one.”
“Buy a computer?”
“Sure, we got a couple of little ones, Apples, on Dallas. Cost you about, oh, two thousand for a nice system. That’s a lot less than what a car goes for.”
“A computer for two thousand dollars?” Bugayev went from wishful to suspicious, certain that Jones was leading him on.
“Or less. For three grand you can get a really nice rig. Hell, you tell Apple who you are, and they’ll probably give it to you for free, or the navy will. If you don’t want an Apple, there’s the Commodore, TRS-80, Atari. All kinds. Depends on what you want to use it for. Look, just one company, Apple, has sold over a million of ’em. They’re little, sure, but they’re real computers.”
“I have never heard of this — Apple?”
“Yeah, Apple. Two guys started the company back when I was in junior high. Since then they’ve sold a million or so, like I said — and they are some kinda rich! I don’t have one myself — no room on a sub — but my brother has his own computer, an IBM-PC. You still don’t believe me, do you?”
“A working man with his own computer? It is hard to believe.” He stabbed out the cigarette. American tobacco was a little bland, he thought.
“Well, sir, then you can ask somebody else. Like I said, Dallas has a couple of Apples, just for the crew to use. There’s other stuff for fire control, navigation, and sonar, of course. We use the Apples for games — you’ll love computer games, for sure. You’ve never had fun till you’ve tried Choplifter — and other things, education programs, stuff like that. Honest, Mr. Bugayev, you can walk into most any shopping center and find a place to buy a computer. You’ll see.”
“How do you use a computer with your sonar?”
“That would take a while to explain, sir, and I’d probably have to get permission from the skipper.” Jones reminded himself that this guy was still the enemy, sort of.
The Alfa drifted slowly at the edge of the continental shelf, about fifty miles southeast of Norfolk. Tupolev ordered the reactor plant chopped back to about five percent of total output, enough to operate the electrical systems and little else. It also made his submarine almost totally quiet. Orders were passed by word of mouth. The Konovalov was on a strict silent ship routine. Even ordinary cooking was forbidden. Cooking meant moving metal pots on metal grates. Until further notice, the crew was on a diet of cheese sandwiches. They spoke in whispers when they spoke at all. Anyone who made noise would attract the attention of the captain, and everyone aboard knew what that meant.
Quentin was reviewing data sent by digital link from the two Orions. A crippled missile boat, the USS Georgia, was heading into Norfolk after a partial turbine failure, escorted by a pair of attack boats. They had been keeping her out, the admiral had said, because of all the Russian activity on the coast, and the idea now was to get her in, fixed, and out as quickly as possible. The Georgia carried twenty-four Trident missiles, a noteworthy fraction of the country’s total deterrent force. Repairing her would be a high priority item now that the Russians were gone. It was safe to bring her in, but they wanted the Orions first to check and see if any Soviet submarines had lingered behind in the general confusion.