He and his crews had worked Department of Defense contracts, locating sunken ships and aircraft, and raising top secret components such as radios, encoding machines, radars, and armament. Brande thought it was better if Marine Visions Unlimited did it, rather than have Russian or Chinese divers combing the wreckage of gunboats and M-14 Tomcats.
He detested the scavengers who, in effect, looted shipwrecks in clandestine dives. They avoided the tax man and the authorities, when the wreck was within state or national waters, and sold the artifacts to private collectors who hid them in their basements.
That was as great a sin as Curtis Aaron’s zealous preaching for the opposite viewpoint. Aaron and his Oceans Free cult had started out as environmentalists, but had turned their crusade into a near religion that banned any disturbance of nature. That included the sea floor and its bounty of minerals, energy, and food sources.
Brande had his own fears for the earth and her environs, but he also thought that there were compromise procedures available. The oceans were invaluable resources, and would become even more so, as the planet overpopulated itself. The overall goal of Marine Visions Unlimited was to develop the tools and the techniques for mining the oceans of metals, fluids, gases, and food in the most efficient and harmless manner possible.
Curtis Aaron did not believe it for one minute. His view was that anyone diving more than one hundred feet intended to molest Mother Nature. Nature abuse.
“I wonder if it would help if we, if MVU, donated some cash to the Oceans Free cause?”
“You mean, would it get Brother Aaron off our backs?” Dokey asked.
“Would I say that?”
“Not out loud. No, I don’t think it would help. Plus, from what Kaylene says, we don’t have much spare cash.”
“Details. You and Rae worry too much about details.”
“She worries about details. I worry about a monthly pay-check”
That was not true, either. Dokey worried about having enough time available to putter in the workshops in San Diego, get involved in the expeditions of Gemini and Orion, shuttle out to Harbor One, and check the progress of the mining station. His robots were operating everywhere, and he loved to see them at work or to take their controls in hand.
For that matter, Brande had the same worries. Never enough time to do all that he wanted to do.
The flight went smoothly. The seaman offered them coffee from a Thermos. The pilot, a Navy lieutenant, came back and talked to them for a while. A few minutes before noon, the wheels clunked out of their housings, and the ungainly Albatross landed gracefully at Callender Field, which was actually in Belle Chasse, rather than New Orleans proper.
Toting their gear, Brande and Dokey thanked the crew, then wandered across the tarmac toward the operations building. The humidity was close to steaming. Brande noted the parked Gulfstream business jet and assumed it belonged to, or was chartered by, the Department of Commerce.
Hampstead was waiting inside the operations building in a borrowed office. He smiled his hello and waved them to chairs. “Coffee?”
Brande checked his watch. “How about lunch, Avery? We’ve had plenty of coffee.”
“They’re going to bring us some sandwiches,” the undersecretary said.
“Geez,” Dokey moaned. “No steaks? Seems to me the department could spring for something more substantial than bologna.”
Hampstead grinned at him, his big teeth and long face giving him a horsey flavor. “Dokey, do you think about anything but food and women?”
“You got the order wrong, Avery.”
Hampstead shut the door and went behind the desk to sit down. Brande sat in a straight chair made of gray-painted metal and gray Naugahyde. It felt like his office.
“I bring you the President’s greetings, gentlemen.”
“Oh, shit!” Dokey said. “We’re drafted.”
“Not quite. But there is a problem. Somewhat of a major problem.”
“With one of our contracts?” Brande asked. Currently, MVU held seventeen federal contracts, all for research projects. It was a substantial source of income.
“No,” Hampstead told him.
Then he told them about a Soviet A2e rocket and its nuclear reactor payload.
“Jesus Christ!” Brande said. “Meltdown.”
“Yes, we think so”
“In the Pacific.”
“That much we know for sure. We’re talking almost four miles down.”
“And you want our equipment?”
“Admiral Delecourt would like to borrow your equipment, yes.”
“No way,” Dokey said. “My ROVs don’t go anywhere without me.”
“I told Delecourt that’s the way it would be, but I had to make his pitch first.”
“And the next pitch?” Brande asked.
“Inside curve. Will you take it on?”
Brande thought about it for a moment. “There’s no timeline on the meltdown?”
“The nuke specialists haven’t made any guesses or promises yet. They’ll try to refine it, and we’re trying to get additional information from the Russians.”
“I can’t risk my people,” Brande said.
“I understand if you take that position,” Hampstead said. “In which event, would you allow the Navy to use your equipment?”
“We get a contract out of this?” Dokey asked.
“We can work something out, Okey. We always seem to.”
“What I’ll have to do,” Brande said, “is get a team together and see what they say.”
“It would have to be done quickly, Dane.”
Brande slid his chair up to the desk and picked up the phone. He dialed the San Diego number, but Thomas was out. He asked the graduate student who answered to have her tracked down, thinking this was the one time they needed pagers.
Thomas called back eight minutes later.
“Rae, I want you to start rounding up people.”
“What people? Why?”
“Can’t tell you why just yet. I want you, Kim, Bob Mayberry, Ingrid Roskens, Svetlana and Valeri. Where’s the Orion?*
“She’s over Harbor One. They just delivered two new turbines.”
“Call Mel and order her back to San Diego immediately, full turns. Call the suppliers and get everything we need to fully stock her.”
“Dane! What’s going on?”
“Tell you as soon as I get there.” Brande hung up. “Will the Navy fly us west, Avery?”
“You can take my Gulfstream, Dane. If you’re going to do this”
“No promises, just yet. But we’ll get the wheels in motion.”
“You bring a contract with you?” Dokey asked.
Hampstead grinned ruefully. “Slipped my mind.”
“We’ll bill you,” Dokey said.
“What’s going to happen when the word gets out?” Brande asked. “Assuming it will.”
“Oh, it will. It’s just a matter of time. I imagine there could be some panic exhibited.”
“You have a penchant for understating things, Avery,” Brande said.
Carl Unruh spent the morning and afternoon with a telephone pressed against his ear. His left ear was red and sore. He had missed lunch and his stomach rumbled from time to time. Other than the intrusion on his concentration, he figured the missed meal was good for his waistline.