Douglas Preston - The Ice Limit

Glinn appeared, rolled-up blueprints in one hand, an EES hard hat on his head. Lloyd looked at him, still smiling, and shook his head wordlessly in admiration.

Glinn handed him a spare hard hat. "The view from the catwalks is even better," he said. "We'll meet Captain Britton up there."

Lloyd fitted the hard hat to his head and followed Glinn onto a small lift. They ascended about a hundred feet, then stepped out onto a catwalk that ran around all four walls of the dry dock. As he moved, Lloyd found himself unable to take his gaze off the immense ship that stretched away below him. It was incredible. And it was his.

"It was built in Stavanger, Norway, six months ago." Glinn's dry voice was almost lost in the din of construction that rose up to meet them. "Given everything we're doing to it, we couldn't opt for a spot charter. So we had to buy it outright."

"Double overage," Lloyd murmured.

"We'll be able to sell it later and recoup almost all the expense, of course. And I think you'll find the Rolvaag worth it. It's state of the art, double-hulled and deep drafted for rough seas. It displaces a hundred and fifty thousand tons-smallish when you consider that VLCCs displace up to half a million."

"It's remarkable. If there was only some way of running my affairs remotely, I'd give anything to be able to go along."

"We'll document everything, of course. There will be daily conferences via satellite uplink. I think you'll share everything but the seasickness."

As they continued along the catwalk, the entire port side of the vessel became visible. Lloyd stopped.

"What is it?" Glinn asked.

"I..." Lloyd paused, temporarily at a loss for words. "I just never thought it would look so credible."

Amusement gleamed briefly in Glinn's eyes. "Industrial Light and Magic is doing a fine job, don't you think?"

"The Hollywood firm?"

Glinn nodded. "Why reinvent the wheel? They've got the best visual effects designers in the world. And they're discreet."

Lloyd did not reply. He simply stood at the railing, gazing down. Before his very eyes, the sleek, state-of-the-art oil tanker was being transformed into a shabby ore carrier bound for its graveyard voyage. The forward half of the great ship presented beautiful, clean expanses of painted metal, welds and plates in crisp geometrical perfection: all the sparkling newness of a six-month-old vessel. From amidships to the stern, however, the contrast could not have been more outrageous. The rear section of the ship looked like a wreck. The aft superstructure seemed to have been coated in twenty layers of paint, each flaking off at a different rate. One of the bridge wings, a queer-looking structure to begin with, had been apparently crushed, then welded back together. Great rivers of rust cascaded down the dented hull. The railings were warped, and missing sections had been crudely patched with welded pipe, rebar, and angle iron.

"It's a perfect disguise," said Lloyd. "Just like the mining operation."

"I'm especially pleased with the radar mast," said Glinn, pointing aft.

Even from this distance, Lloyd could see the paint was largely stripped off, and bits of metal dangled from old wires. A few antennae had been broken, crudely spliced, then broken again. Everything was streaked with stack soot.

"Inside that wreck of a mast," Glinn went on, "you'll find the very latest equipment: P-Code and differential GPS, Spizz-64, FLIR, LN-66, Slick 32, passive ESM, and other specialized radar equipment, Tigershark Loran C, INMARSAT, and Sperry GMDSS communications stations. If we run into any, ah, special situations, there are some mast electronics that can be raised at the push of a button."

As Lloyd watched, a crane holding a huge wrecking ball swiveled toward the hull; with exquisite care the ball was brought in contact with the port side of the ship once, twice, then three times, adding fresh indignities. Painters with thick hoses swarmed over the ship's midsection, turning the spotless deck into a storm of simulated tar, oil, and grit.

"The real job will be cleaning all this up," Glinn said "Once we unload the meteorite and are ready to resell the ship."

Lloyd tore his gaze away. Once we unload the meteorite ... In less than two weeks, the ship would be heading to sea. And when it returned — when, at last, his prize could be unveiled — the whole world would be talking about what had been accomplished.

"Of course, we're not doing much to the interior," Glinn said as they started along the catwalk again. "The quarters are quite luxurious — large staterooms, wood paneling, computer-controlled lighting, lounges, exercise rooms, and so forth."

Lloyd stopped once again as he noticed activity around a hole cut into the forward hull. A line of bulldozers, D-cats, front-end loaders, skidders with house-size tires, and other heavy mining equipment snaked away from the hole, a heavyweight traffic jam, waiting to be loaded onto the ship. There was a roar of diesel engines and the grinding of gears as, one by one, the equipment drove in and disappeared from view.

"An industrial-age Noah's ark," said Lloyd.

"It was cheaper and faster to make our own door than to position all the heavy equipment with a crane," Glinn said. "The Rolvaag is designed like a typical tanker. The cargo-oil spaces occupy three quarters of the hull. The rest is taken up with general holds, compartments, machinery spaces, and the like. We've built special bays to hold the equipment and raw material we'll need for the job. We've already loaded a thousand tons of the best Mannsheim high-tensile steel, a quarter million board feet of laminated timbers, and everything from aircraft tires to generators."

Lloyd pointed. "And those boxcars on the deck?"

"They're designed to look like the Rolvaag is making some extra bucks on the side piggybacking containers. Inside are some very sophisticated labs."

"Tell me about them."

"The gray one closest to the bow is a hydro lab. Next to it is a clean room. And then we have a high-speed CAD workstation, a darkroom, tech stores, a scientific freezer, electron microscope and X-ray crystallography labs, a diver's locker, and an isotope and radiation chamber. Belowdecks are medical and surgical spaces, a biohazard lab, and two machine shops. No windows for any of them, I'm afraid; that would give the game away."

Lloyd shook his head. "I'm beginning to see where all my money is going. Don't forget, Eli, what I'm buying is basically a recovery operation. The science can wait."

"I haven't forgotten. But given the high degree of unknowns, and the fact that we'll only get one chance at this recovery, we must be prepared for anything."

"Of course. That's why I'm sending Sam McFarlane. But as long as things go according to plan, his expertise is for use with the engineering problem. I don't want a lot of timewasting scientific tests. Just get the thing the hell out of Chile. We'll have all the time in the world to fuss with it later."

"Sam McFarlane," Glinn repeated. "An interesting choice. Curious fellow."

Lloyd looked at him. "Now don't you start telling me I made a mistake."

"I didn't say that. I merely express surprise at your choice of planetary geologists."

"He's the best guy for the job. I don't want a crowd of wimpy scientists down there. Sam's worked both the lab and the field. He can do it all. He's tough. He knows Chile. The guy who found the thing was his ex-partner, for chrissakes, and his analysis of the data was brilliant." He leaned confidentially toward Glinn. "So he made an error of judgment a couple of years back. And, yes, it wasn't a small one. Does that mean nobody should trust him for the rest of his life? Besides" — and here he placed a hand on Glinn's shoulder-"you'll be there to keep an eye on him. Just in case temptation comes his way." He released his hold and turned back to the ship. "And speaking of temptation, where exactly will the meteorite go?"