Alex Nork - Deadly Whiteness

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It happened just as it had to happen, but still he got excited. Though he was so sure in advance that without being frightened to endanger his success he bought two crates of champagne before sailing.

Today it will be drunk for his and their common success.

Tuccert thought once again about the champagne which should be sufficient for the officers of the flag-cruiser and for those who will arrive from three other ships. Two dozen for thirty people will certainly be enough.

According to the sea tradition he was first congratulated by the radio-operator. Only after this did he read the order of the Minister of Defense and his congratulations on becoming General.

Let anybody say whatever he likes, pretend to be a modest employee, but he will not pretend, moreover before himself. To enter the ranks of elite officers of a great power with the greatest navy in the world is a tremendous honor. And it is not given for nothing.

He gave twenty five years to the ocean.

As one gives oneself to a friend. Because ocean had always helped him. All victories, all joys were here and not in the studies and research centers. The final results were summed up by the ocean.

So yesterday he summed up the results of long work of Tuccert and his team, scientists, technologists and those on the top of the Navy who did not believe in the project and tried to slow down its movement.

They have won again – he and his ocean.

A happy coincidence – his brother happened to be near on his research ship. Just about a hundred miles from here.

“A happy coincidence is God’s praise deserved by the man”, – their late father used to say.

It is strange that inspite of his experience and education he always feels tiny before the image of his father, a simple hard-working farmer in far-away rural province, preserved in his memory. He had been very religious and hardly read anything besides canonical books, he had not watched films and had watched TV quite rarely. But Tuccert was sure, not only in his childhood, but at present, that father knew everything. Knew not quantitively, but qualitatively, to the very depth. As the ocean knows everything and about everything.

Tomorrow the squadron will go back, leaving here for remaining final touches of work a little ship. And already in the middle of the day they will cross with Marc, his elder brother.

Five years difference in their childhood had never been an obstacle between them. One of the reasons was that Marc who went through his mother’s death at the age of six thought that his junior brother suffered most of all the members of his family. He was doomed not to know the real childhood at all.

The two village children had a wonderful fate.

They had always been crazy about the ocean. They saw it in the cinema, in the pictures, on TV. But until Pete was seven and Marc twelve the living ocean was the main attraction for them.

By that time their father could afford to leave his work for a week and take them to Atlantic coast. They came to the hotel late in the evening, that’s why they had to wait till morning. But just at the dawn Mark woke up small Pete and both of them, nearly trembling, went to the long-expected meeting.

In the skylight, still without sunshine, the ocean was incredibly enormous and quiet.

Pete suddenly saw, at the distance of half a mile from the shore, a lonely and motionless navy ship with a high deck, exquisitely curved towards water from the bow and the stern. They saw the masts with technical gadgets the function of which was ununderstandable. They also saw the above-mast ovals of fire complexes.

Elegant ant fearless master of the ocean was standing peacefully before them. It was as noble as its own silhouette.

He wanted to point out the ship to his brother, but the latter was looking fascinatedly into transparent water spread at their feet: at the stalks of seaweeds, at small fish gliding among them, at the gentle semisphere of a jellyfish, which seemed to breathe, enjoying the quietness near the shore.

It was then that they made their life choice – he and Marc, who has become a very well-known specialist in ocean fauna.

– Marc, something happened with the lads!

Professor heard the engine of their high-speed boat rattling overboard their ship and, having rushed to the deck saw it breaking away and rushing, leaving a foamy tail.

– Sharks?

– Most probably. – His permanent assistant in expeditions Christian pointed in the direction of the boat. – The fellows sailed up far away from the ship and began calling for help.

– Hell, can there be tiger sharks again?! Haven’t I said, one should not go up sharply in such cases!

– Don’t get nervous, the boat is already in its place.

– The leg may be out of place, Chris! You know it very well yourself. Where is the binocular?!

– Wait, I can see without the binocular… both of them are loading into the boat. Look there, their flippers are flickering in the air.

The boat made a semi-circle and reassured them by returning at low speed.

– Don’t scold them too much, Marc, they are just unexperienced students.

The boat approached and has just switched off its engine to come close to the ship and the divers – to open their mouths to make explanations when professor Tuccert snatching at the side of the ship with his hands was shouting:

– I’ve told you ten times, no, I’ve told you twenty times! You can escape the sharks only moving along the bottom. With the frame held vertically. Until you are under the bottom of the ship. There there is a cage. Get into it, and you will be lifted. Isn’t it clear? I’ve told you twenty times, should I tell one hundred and twenty?!

– There aren’t any sharks there, Professor, – said one of the divers while he was taking in the air.

Marc Tuccert froze staring at them from up and then asked in a quiet and quite calm voice:

– Why all this circus then?

– If you were in our place, Professor, – said the other diver in an offended tone.

– Thanks a lot, but I would rather stay on mine.

– There is a terrible skeleton at the bottom, – said the first one again, – you will shout if you see such a one in your dream.

– The skeleton of a pirate who is guarding a chest with gold?.. Speak clearly at last!

– We couldn’t understand clearly, that’s why we decided to sail up. The skeleton belongs to a creature if gigantic size. You should just see its jaw!

– A very clear explanation. Try to preserve this wonderful style up to your future examinations.

Tuccert looked at the smiling Christian.

– Get our aqualungs and camera! You must have remembered at what distance from the ship they rose to the surface?

One may not have asked. He had long ago stopped to be surprised at the fantastic eyesight and ability of his assistant to judge by eye.

They came back after quite some time.

When the boat moored to the ship the faces of both of them expressed deliberation.

– First of all, – announced the professor climbing up the deck, – I congratulate you on not having recognized the skeleton of a cachalot.