The QE2 Is Missing

Harry Harrison The QE2 Is Missing

For Anthony Cheetham — who started the ship’s engine

1

The wide-winged bulk of the United States Navy Hawk-eye plane broke out of the low-hanging cloud, barely a hundred feet above the surging waves of the Pacific Ocean. Tropical rain lashed the glass in front of the pilots, rain so heavy that the wipers had almost no effect on it. The ocean swells were gigantic, reaching up higher and higher towards the early-warning aircraft as though about to engulf it. The copilot’s knuckles were white where he gripped the edges of his seat.

“Christ, Lieutenant,” he said. “You’re going to have us swimming in that stuff in a minute. Those clouds go right down to the deck — I swear the waves are breaking against the bottom of the clouds. And there’s nothing to see, nothing at all.”

Lieutenant Leroy Palmer nodded reluctantly. The visibility was almost zero, what with the lashing rain and flying scud torn from the waves. There was a real danger that a sudden gust might put them down in the drink. He pulled slowly back on the wheel and the big turboprop plane lifted back up into the clouds. He felt the same relief as Corker the copilot did, though he tried not to show it.

“For a minute there I was sure we had had it,” Corker said, aware that the sweat on his forehead had more cause than just the tropical heat. “And there’s nothing we could do down there. Visibility still zero, that goes in the report. We are still going to have to rely on radar.”

“Well, don’t go blaming me because the screen ain’t showing nothing but shit!” the radar operator said, not disguising his belligerence. He had been hauled out of his nice warm sack in San Diego, away from his nice round wife, and flown south without sleep and pushed aboard this search plane, and he was just not happy about it. “All I get on the screen is wave-echo and crud like that, and the goddamned QE2 could be down there and I couldn’t see it.”

“You redneck moron,” Corker said, his temper barely under control — he had been flying for two days with almost no sleep, “that’s just what is down there somewhere. What the hell do you think we’re doing up here going around in circles…. “

“Hold it,” the pilot said, “I’m getting a news broadcast in English.” Palmer was a good officer; he tried to stop trouble before it developed. “Sounds like a limey, BBC or something. There…. “

There was the continuous crackle of atmospherics in their earphones, but the calm voice of the announcer still came through clearly enough.

“… search still goes on. Ships and flying craft from more than twenty nations are now actively involved in the search in one capacity or another, while at least two space satellites are scanning the area. It is known that the American military satellites can detect objects as small as two meters in length, but even this precise ability is of no use when a tropical storm completely covers the area of search. For almost three days now, since the Queen Elizabeth the Second did not respond to attempts at radio contact, the search has gone on. Though the ocean is wide it still seems impossible that the QE2, the largest liner afloat, could remain undetected for this length of time. Even if this great ship has been sunk — horrifying as that thought may be, it must still be considered — there should be some debris, lifeboats, ship’s launches, something. But there is nothing. It is as though the liner has vanished from the face of the globe. No warning given, a sudden cessation of radio contact. Then silence…. “

“That’s a big help,” Corker said, and the pilot nodded agreement and switched the radio off. “Same old story rehashed just one more time. Let’s do a navigational check.”

The Hawkeye was an early-warning aircraft, easily identified by the giant parasol-shaped radar dome mounted above the wings. It had been pressed into service for this search because of the sophisticated inertial and satellite navigation equipment it carried. They were flying long legs out and back in a carefully worked-out search pattern, in conjunction with many other aircraft, most of them from the carrier Kitty Hawk. This particular area of the Pacific Ocean where they were searching was off the normal shipping routes and far enough from the coast so that the sea was empty even of offshore fishermen. It was a boring — but very necessary — routine.

“I think I’m getting something,” the radar operator said suddenly. “Harder than goddamn to pick out a blip from all the shit out there — but, sure — there it is again!”

Before the operator had finished speaking, the copilot had unbuckled and was standing behind him, squinting at the hash of white flecks on the screen. The operator tapped with his finger. “There,” he said, and Corker nodded.