Arthur Clarke - The Ghost from the Grand Banks

“Of course! That giant octopus—”

“Tame as a kitten, Mrs. Craig. Nothing to it.”

“—while Edith and Donald make old movies as good as new—or better. Let me explain why I’ve brought you together, at such rather short notice.”

Bradley smiled. “Not very hard to guess, Mr. Mitsumasa. But I’ll be interested in the details.”

“Of that I’m sure. All this, of course, is highly confidential.”

“Of course.”

“First we plan to raise the stern, and shoot a really spectacular TV special as it comes to the surface. Then we’ll tow it to Japan, and make it part of a permanent exhibit at Tokyo-on-Sea. There’ll be a three-hundred-sixty-degree theater, the audience sitting in lifeboats rocking on water—beautiful starry night—almost freezing—we’ll give them topcoats, of course, and they’ll see and hear the last minutes as the ship goes underwater. Then they can go down into the big tank and view the stern through observation windows at various levels. Though it’s only about a third of the whole ship, it’s so big that you can’t see it all at one time; even with the distilled water we’ll use, visibility will be less than a hundred meters. The wreck will just fade away into the distance—so why bring up any more? The viewers will have a perfect illusion of being on the bottom of the Atlantic.”

“Well, that seems logical,” said Bradley. “And, of course, the stern is the easiest part to raise. It’s already badly smashed up—you could lift it in sections weighing only a few hundred tons, and assemble them later.”

There was an awkward silence. Then Kato said: “That won’t look very glamorous on TV, will it? No. We have more ambitious plans. This is the bit that’s top secret. Even though the stern portion is smashed to pieces, we’re going to bring it up in a single operation. Inside an iceberg. Don’t you think that’s poetic justice? One iceberg sank her—another will bring her back to the light of day.”

If Kato expected his visitor to be surprised, he was disappointed. By this time, Bradley had heard just about every scheme for raising the Titanic that the ingenious mind of man and woman could conceive.

“Go on,” he said. “You’ll need quite a refrigeration plant, won’t you?”

Kato gave a triumphant smile. “No—thanks to the latest breakthrough in solid-state physics. You’ve heard of the Peltier Effect?”

“Of course. The cooling you get when an electric current is passed through certain materials—I don’t know exactly which. But every domestic icebox has depended on it since 2001, when the environmental treaties banned fluorocarbons.”

“Exactly. Now, the common or kitchen Peltier system isn’t very efficient, but it doesn’t have to be as long as it quietly manufactures ice cubes without blasting holes in the poor old ozone layer. However, our physicists have discovered a new class of semiconductors—a spinoff from the super conductor revolution—that ups efficiency several times. Which means that every icebox in the world is obsolete, as of last week.”

“I’m sure’—Bradley smiled—’that all the Japanese manufacturers are heartbroken.”

“The scramble for the patent licenses is on right now. And we haven’t overlooked the advertising tie-in—when the biggest ice cube in the world surfaces—carrying the Titanic inside it.”

“I’m impressed. But what about the power supply?”

“That’s another angle we hope to exploit—swords into plowshares, though the metaphor is a little farfetched in this case. We’re planning to use a couple of decommissioned nuclear subs—one Russian, one U.S. They can generate all the megawatts we need—and from several hundred meters down, so they can operate through the worst Atlantic storms.”

“And your time scale?”

“Six months to install the hardware on the seabed. Then two years of Peltier cooling. Remember—it’s almost freezing down there. We only have to drop the temperature a couple of degrees, and our iceberg will start to form.”

“And how will you stop it from floating up before you’re ready?”

Kato smiled.

“Let’s not go into details at this stage—but I can assure you our engineers have thought of that small item. Anyway, this is where you come in—if you want to.”

Does he know about the Parkinsons? Bradley wondered. Very probably; and even if he’s not certain, he’ll have guessed that they’ve made an offer.

“Excuse me a moment,” said Kato apologetically, turning away and opening his briefcase. When he faced his visitors again, barely five seconds later, he had been transformed into a pirate chief. Only the barely visible thread leading to the keyboard in his hand revealed that the eye patch he was wearing was very hi-tech indeed.

“I’m afraid this proves I’m not a genuine Japanese—bad manners, you know… my father still uses a laptop, late Ming Dynasty. But monocs are so much more convenient, and give such superb definition.”

Bradley and the Craigs could not help smiling at each other. What Kato said was perfectly true; many portable video devices now used compact microscreens that weighed little more than a pair of spectacles and indeed were often incorporated in them. Although the monoc was only a centimeter in front of the eye, a clever system of lenses made the postage-stamp-sized image appear as large as desired.

This was splendid for entertainment purposes—but it was even more useful for businessmen, lawyers, politicians, and anyone who wanted to access confidential information in total privacy. There was no way of spying on another person’s electronic monocle—short of tapping the same data stream. Its chief disadvantage was that excessive use led to new types of schizophrenia, quite fascinating to investigators of the “split-brain” phenomenon.

When Kato had finished his litany of megawatt-hours, calorie-tons, and degrees-per-month coefficients, Bradley sat for a moment silently processing the information that had been dumped into his brain. Many of the details were too technical to be absorbed at first contact, but that was unimportant; he could study them later. He did not doubt that the calculations would be accurate—but there might still be essential points that had been overlooked. He had seen that happen so many times…

His instincts told him, however, that the plan was sound. He had learned to take first impressions seriously— especially when they were negative, even if he could not pinpoint the exact cause of his premonition. This time, there were no bad vibes. The project was fantastic—but it could work.

Kato was watching him covertly, obviously trying to gauge his reactions. I can be pretty inscrutable when I want to, thought Bradley… Besides, I have my reputation to consider.

Then Kato, with the ghost of a smile, handed him a small slip of paper, folded in two. Bradley took his time opening it. When he saw the figures, he realized that even if the project was a total disaster, he need give no further thought to his professional career. In the natural course of events, it could not last many more years—and he had not saved this much in his entire lifetime.

“I’m flattered,” he said quietly. “You’re more than generous. But I still have some other business to settle, before I can give you a definite answer.”

Kato looked surprised. “How long?” he asked, rather brusquely.

He thinks I’m still negotiating with someone else, thought Bradley. Which is perfectly true—

“Give me a week. But I can tell you right away—I’m quite sure no one will match your offer.”

“I know,” said Kato, closing his briefcase. “Any points you want to make—Edith, Donald?”