Arthur Clarke - Cradle

Carol held her hand up in acknowledgment but didn’t turn around to greet Troy. “So that’s 2748 Columbia, just beyond the Pelican Resort, at eight-thirty tomorrow night?”

“Right,” replied Homer Ashford. He nodded his head in Troy’s direction and started to leave. “We’ll be ready for you. Bring plenty of tape, for it’s a long story.” He made a peculiar clucking sound with his mouth. “And plan to stay for a little party afterward.”

Homer was already halfway down the steps when Troy walked up beside Carol. “Hello, Captain Homer. Good-bye, Captain Homer,” he said quietly, still playing the comic. He leaned over to kiss Carol on the cheek. “Hi there, angel…”

“Yuch,” Carol pulled her cheek away. “You smell like brewery. No wonder I’ve had to look all over town for you two.” She saw Nick coming toward them across the parking lot. He was carrying the exercise bag. She raised her voice. “Well, Mr. Williams, what a pleasant surprise. How nice that you and your brother here could climb down from your bar stools long enough to keep our appointment.” She looked at her watch. “My, my,” she said in her most sarcastic voice, “we are certainly fashionably late. Let’s see, if one waits fifteen minutes for a full professor, how long does one wait for a fake professor?”

“Knock off the bullshit, Miss High and Mighty,” Nick said, responding angrily to her barbs. He joined Carol and Troy and then caught his breath. “We have a few bones to pick with you as well,” he continued. “Just what were you doing talking to that asshole Ashford?”

Nick sounded threatening. Carol recoiled. “Listen to him,” she said, “the typical macho male. Always shifts the blame to the woman. ‘Hey bitch,’ he says, ‘forget I’m late, forget I’m an arrogant bastard, it was your fault anyway…’ ”

“Hey, hey… hey,” Troy interceded. Carol and Nick were glowering at each other. They both started to speak but Troy interrupted them again. “Children, children, please,” he continued, “I have something important to say.” They both looked at him. Troy raised his arms for quiet. Then he adopted a stiff pose and pretended to be reading. “ ‘Fourscore and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation…’ ”

Carol cracked up first. “Troy,” she said, smiling despite her anger,” you are something else. You are also ridiculous.”

A grinning Troy punched Nick on the shoulder. “How did I do, Professor? Would I make a good Lincoln? Could a nice young black boy play Lincoln for the white folks?”

Nick smiled reluctantly and looked down at the macadam while Troy jabbered. When Troy was finished, Nick’s tone to Carol was conciliatory. “I’m sorry we were late,” he said in measured tones, “we forgot what time it was. Here’s the trident.”

Carol recognized how difficult it had been for Nick to apologize. She accepted gracefully with a short smile and a gesture with her hands. “You keep the trident for a little while longer,” she said after a brief silence. “We have a lot of other things to talk about.” She looked around. “But this may be the wrong place and the wrong time.”

Both Nick and Troy were giving her questioning looks. “I have some very exciting news,” she explained, “some of which is here in your copy of the pictures that I developed this morning. Bottom line is that the telescope picked up an infrared signal coming out of the fissure from some kind of large object or objects.” She turned to Nick. “It may be more treasure. We can t be certain what it is based on the images.”

Nick reached for the envelope. Carol pulled it away. “Not here, not now. Too many eyes and ears. Take my word for it. What we have to do now is make plans. Can you two take me out again tomorrow morning early and be prepared to salvage objects possibly as big as two hundred pounds? Of course, I intend to pay for chartering the boat again.”

“Wow,” whistled Nick, “two hundred pounds! I can hardly wait to see the pictures.” He was sobering up rapidly.” We’ll need to borrow a dredger and—”

“I still have the telescope so we can use it again,” Carol added. She looked at her watch. “It’s almost five o’clock now, how much preparation time do you need?”

“Three hours, four hours at the most,” Nick said, calculating swiftly. “With Troy’s help, of course,” he added.

“Gladly, my friends,” Troy replied. “And since Angie has reserved a special table for me at Sloppy Joe’s for her ten-thirty show tonight, why don’t we meet there and go over the details for tomorrow?”

“Angie Leatherwood is a friend of yours?” Carol said, obviously impressed. “I haven’t seen her since she made the big time.” She paused for a second and handed the envelope to Nick. “Look at these images in private. The whole set was taken just under the boat where we were diving. Some are obviously blowups of others. It may take a little time for your eyes to adjust to all the colors. But it’s the brown object or objects that we’re after.” Carol could tell that both of the men were eager to see the pictures. She walked with them toward Nick’s car. “So I’ll see both of you tonight at Sloppy Joe’s about ten-fifteen.” She turned to head for her own parking place.

“Uh, Carol, just a minute,” Nick stopped her. Carol waited while Nick, suddenly awkward, tried to figure out a nice way to ask his question. “Would you mind telling us why you were talking to Captain Homer?” he at last said tactfully.

Carol looked at Nick and Troy for a minute and then laughed. “I ran into him while I was in the office trying to call you guys. He wanted to know about the piece we retrieved yesterday. I put him off the track by telling him I was doing a feature article on all members of the crew that found the Santa Rosa treasure eight years ago.”

Nick glanced at Troy with mock disgust “You see, Jefferson,” he said with exaggerated emphasis. “I told you there was a legitimate explanation.” The two men waved at Carol as she headed for her car.

LIEUTENANT Todd,” the commander said with exasperation, “I am beginning to think that the U.S. Navy has overestimated your intelligence or experience or both. It is beyond me how you can continue even to consider the possibility that the Panther was commanded off course by the Russians, particularly in light of the new information you presented this afternoon.”

“But, sir,” the younger man answered stubbornly “it is still a viable hypothesis. And you yourself said in the meeting that a good failure analysis does not exclude any reasonable possibility.”

The two men were in Commander Winters’ office. The commander walked over to look out the window. It was almost dark outside. The air was heavy, still, and humid. Thunderstorms were building over the ocean to the south. The base was nearly empty. At length Winters looked at his watch, heaved a sigh, and came back across the room toward Lieutenant Todd. He was smiling only slightly.

“You listened well, Lieutenant. But the operative word here is ‘reasonable.’ Let’s review the facts. Did I or did I not hear correctly that your telemetry analysis unit found this afternoon that the commands rejected counter on the bird also incremented during the flight, beginning as early as off the coast of New Brunswick? And that, apparently, over one thousand command messages were rejected as the missile made its way down the Atlantic Coast? How do you propose to explain all this in terms of your scenario? Did the Russians deploy an entire fleet of ships along the flight path, just to confuse and capture one solitary Navy test missile?”

Commander Winters was now standing directly in front of the taller young lieutenant. “Or maybe you believe,” he continued sarcastically, before Todd could respond, “that the Russians have a new secret weapon that flies alongside a missile going at Mach 6 and talks to it en route. Come on, Lieutenant, on what reasonable grounds do you consider this bizarre Russian hypothesis of yours still viable?”