Arthur Clarke: Cradle

One of the other staff officers asked a question about the probability of the missile actually having reached Cuba. Lieutenant Todd answered “very low” and then activated an electronic overlay that placed a dotted and blinking trajectory on the right screen inset map. The blinking dots followed a path that started just off Coral Gables, south of the city of Miami, and then continued across a portion of south Florida into the Gulf of Mexico, across the Keys, and finally into the ocean again. “It is along this line that we intend to concentrate our search. Unless the bird suddenly changed its mind its general heading would have been consistent with a perceived target located anywhere along this path. And since we have no reports of any land impact near a populated area, we assume that the missile landed in the Everglades or the ocean.”

Lieutenant Todd had consulted briefly with Winters the previous evening on the agenda for the meeting. It had been scheduled to last only an hour, but the number of questions caused it to stretch to an hour and a half. Todd was thorough and precise in his presentation but was obviously dismayed by Winters’ continued probing into the possibility of human error. The lieutenant freely admitted that they had blown the procedure to destroy the missile when it went awry, but defended his men by citing the unusual circumstances and the nearly perfect previous record enjoyed by the Panther missile. He also explained that they were going to equip their search vessels with the best possible instrumentation (“including the new ocean telescope developed by the Miami Oceanographic Institute”) and begin searching the outlined areas in earnest the next day.

Winters asked many questions about the possible cause of the missile’s strange behavior. Todd told him that he and his staff were convinced that it was a software problem, that some new or updated algorithm in the 4.2 version of the software had somehow scrambled both the initialization sequence and the optically stored target parameters. Winters accepted their opinion eventually, but not until he ordered them to prepare a “top down” failure modes analysis that would list every possible hardware, software, or operational error (Todd winced when Winters mentioned operations again) that could lead to the kind of problem observed.

Toward the end of the meeting Winters reiterated the secrecy of the activity and pointed out that the Broken Arrow project was to remain completely unknown to the press. “Commander,” Todd broke in while Winters was explaining the press policy. The lieutenant had begun the meeting with confidence but was feeling increasingly unsettled. “Sir, I had a call late yesterday afternoon from a reporter, a Carolyn or Kathy Dawson I think, from the Miami Herald. She told me that she had heard of some special activity down here and that I was supposedly connected with it. She claimed her source was someone in the Pentagon.”

Winters shook his head. “Shit, Lieutenant, why didn’t you say something before this? Can’t you imagine what will happen if the word gets out that one of our missiles wandered over Miami?” He paused. “What did you tell her?”

“I didn’t tell her anything. But I think she is still suspicious. She called the public affairs office after she talked to me.”

Winters gave an order that the existence of the Broken Arrow investigation was to be kept classified and that any and all inquiries about it were to be referred to him. He then called for the next status meeting at 1500 on the following day, Friday, by which time (he told Lieutenant Todd) the commander expected to see the results of the analysis of the intermittent telemetry, a more complete logic breakdown of the failure modes, and a list of recent open items with the 4.2 software.

Lieutenant Richard Todd left the meeting aware that this assignment was going to have a significant impact on his career. It was clear to the lieutenant that his personal competence was already being questioned by this Commander Winters. Todd intended to respond to the challenge in a positive way. First he called a small postmortem meeting of the junior officers in his group. He told them (they were all young ensigns, just out of the university after completing a Navy ROTC program) that their collective ass was on the line. Then he defined a series of action items that would keep all of them up working for most of the night. It was imperative to Todd that he be properly prepared for the next meeting.

KEY West was proud of its new marina. Completed in 1992 just after the explosion in cruises had brought an influx of new visitors to the old city, the marina was thoroughly modem. Scattered around the jetties on high towers were automatic cameras that constantly surveyed the marina. These cameras and the rest of the electronic surveillance systems were just one facet of an elaborate security setup that protected the slips when the boat owners were absent. Another of the new features of the Hemmingway Marina (it was naturally named after the most famous resident of Key West) was a centralized navigation control center. Here, using a virtually automatic traffic control system, a single controller was able to pass instructions to all the vessels in the harbor and provide for efficient handling of the burgeoning water traffic.

The marina was built on Key West Bight, on what had been a decaying part of the waterfront. It had slips for almost four hundred boats and its completion changed the nature of the city’s commerce. Young professionals wanting to be near their boats at the marina quickly purchased and upgraded all the wonderful nineteenth-century houses that lined Caroline and Eaton streets on what was known as the Pelican Path. Smart shops, toney restaurants, even little theaters crowded into the area around the marina to create an atmosphere of bustle and excitement. There was even a new Japanese hotel, the Miyako Gardens, which was famous for its magnificent collection of tropical birds that played in the waterfalls and ferns of its atrium.

Just before noon Carol Dawson walked into the marina headquarters and approached the circular information desk in the middle of the large room. She was wearing a sharp silk blouse, light purple in color, and a pair of long white cotton slacks that covered the tops of her white tennis shoes. Two petite ruby and gold bracelets were wrapped around her right wrist, and a huge amethyst set in a gold basket at the end of a neck chain dangled perfectly at the vertex of the “V” in her open blouse. She looked stunning, like a well-heeled tourist about to rent a boat for the afternoon.

The young girl behind the information desk was in her early twenties. She was blonde, fairly attractive in the clean-cut American style originally typified by Cheryl Tiegs. She watched Carol with just a tinge of competitive jealously as the journalist moved purposefully across the room. “Can I help you?” she said with feigned cheer as Carol reached the desk.

“I would like to charter a boat for the rest of the day.” Carol began. “I want to go out to do a little diving and a little swimming and maybe see some of the interesting ship-wrecks around here.” She planned to say nothing about the whales until she had picked the boat.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” the girl responded. She turned to the computer on her left and prepared to use the keyboard. “My name is Julianne and one of my jobs here is to help tourists find the boats that are just right for their recreational needs.” Carol noted that Julianne sounded as if she had memorized the little speech. “Did you have any particular price in mind? Although most of the boats here at Hemingway are private vessels, we still do have all sorts of boats for charter and most of them meet your requirements. Assuming of course that they’re still available.”