Arthur Clarke - Cradle

Her humor did not lighten the atmosphere in the room. Troy was clearly worried about something. His face was very earnest, almost stern. “Professor,” he said to Nick in a soft and deliberate monotone, “I know I didn’t have all the answers to your questions. I don’t even have the answers to my own. But I do know one thing for certain. Nothing like this has ever happened on the Earth before. At least not in recorded history. The creatures who built that spaceship are, when compared to us, as we would appear to the ants or the bees if they could comprehend us. They have asked the three of us for help in repairing their vehicle. To say that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity would be a colossal under-statement.

“It would be great if we could sit around and debate this issue for weeks or even months. But we can’t. Time is running out. The Navy is certain to find them soon, maybe they have already, with possibly dire circumstances for the human beings on this planet. They have made it clear to me that their mission must be fulfilled, that they must repair their vehicle and continue their voyage, even if they must interfere with the Earth system to achieve their goal.

“I know all this sounds incredible, maybe even absurd. But I am going to collect some lead weights from my diver friends and pick up the compact discs at the library. With or without your help, I want to be over their spaceship at dawn tomorrow.”

Nick studied Troy very carefully during this speech. For an instant in the middle, it seemed as if it were not Troy speaking at all, but someone or something else speaking through him. An eerie chill raced down Nick’s spine. Shit, he thought. I’m as bad as they are. I’m now caught up in this thing too. He gestured to Carol to follow him and walked out the door.

As I have told you twice before?” the voice sounded tired and bored, “I was out diving with my friends, Nick Williams and Carol Dawson. She had a problem with her equipment and decided to make a quick return to the boat. We had found a particularly interesting reef, with some very unusual features, and we weren’t certain we would be able to locate it again. So I decided to stay and wait for her to come back. When I finally surfaced half an hour later, there was no sign of them or the boat.”

The recorder clicked off. The two lieutenants stared at each other. “Shit, Ramirez, do you believe that bastard’s story? Any part of it?” The other man shook his head. “Then why the hell did you let him go? That black shitass sat there for an hour, making fools out of us with ridiculous answers to our questions. and then you summarily released him.”

“We can’t detain someone without positive evidence of wrong doing,” responded Ramirez, as if he were quoting from a military manual. “And swimming in the ocean ten miles from the nearest island, although strange, does not constitute wrong doing.” Ramirez could see that his colleague was scowling. “Besides, he never slipped up. He always told exactly the same story.”

“The same bullshit, you mean.” Lieutenant Richard Todd leaned back in his chair. The two men were sitting around a small conference table in an old room with white plaster walls. The tape recorder was on the table in front of them next to an empty ashtray. “He didn’t even believe his own story. He just sat there, that cocky grin on his black face, knowing that we couldn’t charge him with anything.” Todd put all four of his chair legs back on the floor and pounded the table for emphasis. “An experienced diver would never stay down by himself for five minutes, much less thirty. Too many things could go wrong. As for his friends, why the hell did they leave him?” Now Todd stood up and made gestures in the air with his hands. “I’ll tell you why, Lieutenant. Because they knew he was all right, that he had been picked up by a Russian submarine. Shit, I told you we should have taken one of the new vessels. We probably could have spotted the sub with the upgraded electronic gear.”

Ramirez was playing idly with the glass ashtray while Todd was giving his lecture. “You really believe that those three are involved with the Russians in this, don’t you? It sure seems farfetched to me.”

“Fucking A,” replied Todd, “nothing else makes even a tittle sense. Every engineer we have talked to says there are no conceivable failures that are consistent both with the observed behavior of the missile and the telemetry we received at our tracking stations. So the Russians must have commanded it off course.”

Todd grew excited as he explained the rest of the plot. “The Russians knew they would need some local help to find the exact location of the missile in the ocean, so they hired Williams and crew to search for the bird and then tell them where it was. They planned to pick it up with one of their subs. Adding that Dawson woman to their team was a master stroke; her inquiries have slowed down our own search by making us more concerned about the press.”

Lieutenant Ramirez laughed. ‘You always sound convincing, Richard. But we still do not have even one shred of evidence. I don’t believe Troy Jefferson’s story any more than you do, but there could be many reasons why he lied, only one of which is any of our business. Besides, there still is a fundamental problem with your explanation. Why would the Russians go to all this trouble just to seize a Panther missile?”

“You and I and even Commander Winters may not know the true story of the Panther missile,” Todd countered quickly. “It may be designed to carry some new breakthrough weapon that we haven’t even heard about. It’s not all that unusual for the Navy to represent a project falsely and to keep its true purpose hidden.” He stopped to think. “But what’s motivating the Russians is not that important to us. We have evidence of a conspiracy here. Our job is to stop it.”

Ramirez did not reply right away. He continued to push the ashtray around on the table. “I guess I no longer view it that way,” he said at length, gazing directly at Todd. I see no substantial evidence of any conspiracy. Unless Commander Winters himself orders additional work from my department, I am abandoning my investigation.” He looked at his watch. “At least I can still spend Saturday night and Sunday with my family.” He rose to leave.

“And what if I bring you proof?” Todd asked, making no effort to hide his disgust with Ramirez.

“Proof will convince Winters as well,” Ramirez answered coldly. “I have taken enough risk on this project. I will not take any more action unless instructed by the proper authority.”

Winters wasn’t really certain he would find something appropriate. Ordinarily, he carefully avoided shopping malls, especially on a Saturday afternoon. But while he had been lying on the couch, watching one of the NCAA basketball games and sipping a beer, he had remembered how pleased he had been when Helen Turnbull, who had played Maggie, had given him a set of unusual tile coasters after the opening weekend of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. “It’s a fading tradition in the theater, I fear,” the experienced actress had said when he thanked her, “but giving small presents after the opening night or nights is still my way of congratulating those people I have enjoyed working with.”

The mall was crowded with Saturday shoppers and Commander Winters felt oddly conspicuous, as if everyone were looking at him. He walked around for several minutes before he even thought about what kind of gift he might get for her. Something simple of course, he thought. Nothing that could be misinterpreted. Just a nice memento or souvenir. He saw Tiffani in his mind’s eye as she had appeared in his fantasy just before he had fallen asleep the night before. The image embarrassed him in the shopping crowd and he nervously called up another picture, this one wholesome and acceptable, of the little girl Tiffani during his conversation with her father. Her hair, he thought, remembering the pigtails. I’ll buy her something for her hair.