The Dragon in the Sea Read Online Free PDF Page B

was busy cataloguing his first visual impressions of the three men in the flesh. It seemed strange to be meeting these people for the first time when he felt that he already knew them. And that, he knew, would have to be concealed. Odd bits of knowledge about the personal lives of these men—even the names of their wives—could not be in the memory of a new man.
    â€œSecurity said you might be delayed,” said Sparrow.
    â€œWhat’s got Security on its ear?” asked Ramsey. “I thought they were going to dissect me.”
    â€œWe’ll discuss that later,” said Sparrow. He rubbed at the thin scar on his neck where the Security surgeons had imbedded the detection-system speaker. “Castoff is 0800. Mr. Garcia will take you aboard. Get into fatigues. You’ll be assisting him in a final spy-beam inspection as we get underway.”

    â€œYes, sir,” said Ramsey.
    â€œYour gear came along hours ago,” said Garcia. He took Ramsey’s arm, propelled him toward the ramp. “Let’s get with it.” They hurried up the ramp.
    Ramsey wondered when he could break away to examine his telemeter box. He felt an anxiety—a need to study the first records on Sparrow.
    That mannerism of rubbing his neck , thought Ramsey. Extreme nervous tension well concealed. But it shows in the tight movements .
    On the pier, Sparrow turned to look across the mooring basin at a string of moving lights. “Here comes our tow, Les.”
    â€œDo you think we’ll make it, Skipper?”
    â€œWe always have.”
    â€œYes, but—”
    â€œâ€˜For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed,’” said Sparrow. “‘The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.’” He looked at Bonnett. “Paul wrote that to the Romans two thousand years ago.”
    â€œA pretty wise fellow,” said Bonnett.
    A bos’n’s whistle sounded at the head of the dock. A swifty crane came darting up to take away the boarding ramp. Ratings hurried to attach the hooks, looked inquiringly at the two officers.
    Men hurried along the pier, a new purposefulness in their movements. Sparrow swept his gaze over the scene. “We’re being asked to perform,” he said. He gestured for Bonnett to precede him up the ramp. “Like the man said: Let’s get with it.”

    They climbed to the conning tower. Bonnett ducked for the cable rack which mounted the float for their TV periscope. As a matter of routine, he glanced at the housing, saw that it was secured for dive. He grasped the ladder arms, slid down into the subtug.
    Sparrow remained topside. Around him, the mooring basin appeared a vast lake. He looked at the rock ceiling’s blackness.
    There should be stars, he thought. Men should get one last look at stars before they go under the sea.
    On the pier below, scurrying figures moved to cast off the magnetic grapples. For a moment, Sparrow felt like a useless pawn being thrown into a sacrifice position. There had been a time, he knew, when captains conned their vessels away from the dock, shouting orders through a megaphone. Now, it was all automatic—done by machines and by men who were like machines.
    A surface tug swung up to their bow, slapped its tow grapples onto them. White water boiled from beneath the tug’s stern. The Fenian Ram resisted momentarily, as though reluctant to leave, then began a slow, ponderous movement out into the basin.
    They cleared the slot, and another tug slid alongside their stern. The magna-shoe men leaped onto the Ram ’s silencer planes, hitched the tow and guide cables of the long plastic tube which stretched out across the dark water of the basin. Their shouts came up to Sparrow in the tower like the clear noise of children. He tasted a sudden oil-tainted breeze and knew they had crossed the path of a