Arthur Clarke - The Ghost from the Grand Banks

“Of course it is. But it’s one major reason why we Parkinsons should get involved.”

“And the others?”

“You’ve been on the board long enough to know that a little publicity doesn’t do any harm. The whole world would know whose product did the lifting.”

Still not good enough, Emerson said to himself. Parkinson’s was doing very nicely—and by no means all of the publicity would be favorable. To many people, the wreck was almost sacred; they branded those who tampered with it as graverobbers.

But he knew that men often concealed—even failed to recognize—their true motives. Since he had joined the board, he had grown to know and like Rupert, though he would hardly call him a close friend; it was not easy for an outsider to get close to the Parkinsons.

Rupert had his own account to settle with the sea. Five years ago, it had taken his beautiful twenty-five-meter yacht Aurora , when she had been dismasted by a freak squall off the Scillies, and smashed to pieces on the cruel rocks that had claimed so many victims through the centuries. By pure chance, he had not been aboard; it had been a routine trip—a “bus run’—from Cowes to Bristol for a refit. All the crew had been lost—including the skipper. Rupert Parkinson had never quite recovered; at the same time he had lost both his ship and, as was well known, his lover. The playboy image he now wore in self-defense was only skin deep.

“All very interesting, Rupert. But exactly what do you have in mind? Surely you don’t expect me to get involved!”

“Yes and no. At the moment, it’s a—what do they call it?— thought experiment. I’d like to get a feasibility study done, and I’m prepared to finance that myself. Then, if the project makes any sense at all, I’ll present it to the board.”

“But a hundred million ! There’s no way the company would risk that much. The shareholders would have us behind bars in no time. Whether in a jail or a lunatic asylum, I’m not sure.”

“It might cost more—but I’m not expecting Parkinson’s to put up all the capital. Maybe twenty or thirty M. I have some friends who’ll be able to match that.”

“Still not enough.”

“Exactly.”

There was a long silence, broken only by faintly querulous bleeps from the real-time decoding system as it searched in vain for something to unscramble.

“Very well,” said Emerson at last. “I’ll go fifty-fifty with you—on the feasibility report, at any rate. Who’s your expert? Will I know him?”

“I think so. Jason Bradley.”

“Oh—the giant octopus man.”

“That was just a sideshow. But look what it did to his public image.”

“And his fee, I’m sure. Have you sounded him out? Is he interested?”

“Very—but then, so is every ocean engineering firm in the business. I’m sure some of them will be prepared to put up their own money—or at least work on a no-profit basis, just for the P.R.”

“Okay—go ahead. But frankly, I think it’s a waste of money; we’ll just end up with some very expensive reading matter, when Mr. Bradley delivers his report. Anyway, I don’t see what you’ll do with fifty thousand tons, or whatever it is, of rusty scrap iron.”

“Leave that to me—I’ve a few more ideas, but I don’t want to talk about them yet. If some of them work out, the project would pay for itself—eventually. You might even make a profit.”

Emerson doubted if that “you” was a slip of the tongue. Rupert was a very smooth operator, and knew exactly what he was doing. And he certainly knew that his listener could easily underwrite the whole operation—if he wished.

“Just one other thing,” Parkinson continued. “Until I give the okay—which won’t be until I get Bradley’s report—not a word to anyone. Especially Sir Roger—he’ll think we’re crazy.”

“You mean to say,” Emerson retorted, “that there could be the slightest possible doubt?”

To: The Editor, The London Times

From: Lord Aldiss of Brightfount, O.M.

President Emeritus, Science Fiction World Association

Dear Sir,

Your Third Leader (07 Apr 15) concerning plans to raise the Titanic again demonstrates what an impact this disaster—by no means the worst in maritime history—has had upon the imagination of mankind.

One extraordinary aspect of the tragedy is that it had been described, with uncanny precision, fourteen years in advance. According to Walter Lord’s classic account of the disaster, A Night to Remember , in 1898 a “struggling author named Morgan Robertson concocted a novel about a fabulous Atlantic liner, far larger than any that had ever been built. Robertson loaded it with rich and complacent people, and then wrecked it one cold April night on an iceberg.”

The fictional liner had almost exactly the Titanic ’s size, speed, and displacement. It also carried 3,000 people, and lifeboats for only a fraction of them…

Coincidence, of course. But there is one little detail that chills my blood. Robertson called his ship the Titan.

I would also like to draw attention to the fact that two members of the profession I am honoured to represent—that of writers of science fiction—went down with the Titanic. One, Jacques Futrelle, is now almost forgotten, and even his nationality is uncertain. But he had attained sufficient success at the age of thirty-seven with The Diamond Master and The Thinking Machine to travel first class with his wife (who, like 97% of first-class ladies, and only 55% of third-class ones, survived the sinking).

Far more famous was a man who wrote only one book, A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future , which was published in 1894. This somewhat mystical tour around the Solar System, in the year 2000, described antigravity and other marvels. Arkham House reprinted the book on its centennial.

I described the author as “famous,” but that is a gross understatement. His name is the only one that appears above the huge headline of the New York American for 16 April 1912: “1,500 TO 1,800 DEAD.”

He was the multi-millionaire John Jacob Astor, sometimes labelled as “the richest man in the world.” He was certainly the richest writer of science fiction who ever lived—a fact which may well mortify admirers of the late L. Ron Hubbard, should any still exist.

I have the honor to be, Sir,

Yours sincerely,

Every trade has its acknowledged leaders, whose fame seldom extends beyond the boundaries of their profession. At any given time, few could name the world’s top accountant, dentist, sanitary engineer, insurance broker, mortician… to mention only a handful of unglamorous but essential occupations.

There are some ways of making a living, however, which have such high visibility that their practitioners become household names. First, of course, are the performing arts, in which anyone who becomes a star may be instantly recognizable to a large fraction of the human race. Sports and politics are close behind; and so, a cynic might argue, is crime.

Jason Bradley fit into none of these categories, and had never expected to be famous. The Glomar Explorer episode was more than three decades in the past, and even if it had not been shrouded in secrecy, his role had been far too obscure to be noteworthy. Although he had been approached several times by writers hoping to get a new angle on Operation JENNIFER, nothing had ever come of their efforts.

It seemed likely that, even at this date, the CIA felt that the single book on the subject was one too many, and had taken steps to discourage other authors. For several years after 1974, Bradley had been visited by anonymous but polite gentlemen who had reminded him of the documents he signed when he was discharged. They always came in pairs, and sometimes they offered him employment of an unspecified nature. Though they assured him that it would be “interesting and well paid,” he was then earning very good money on North Sea oil rigs, and was not tempted. It was now more than a decade since the last visitation, but he did not doubt that the Company still had him carefully stockpiled in its vast data banks at Langley—or wherever they were these days.