Under the Ice

The slightly built, redheaded Georgian was the Defiance’ full-time diving officer, and was not known for sartorial splendor. Yet in this instance the captain found Marshall dressed in a crisp pair of khakis, his perpetually loose shirt bottom neatly tucked into the sharply creased pants. Noting that the enlisted men working at the OOD’s side were similarly dressed in fresh coveralls, Colter suspected that they had been anticipating a visit from the base commander, and had dressed this way to impress him.

Certainly not disappointed that his men were suddenly taking an interest in their outward appearances, the captain loudly cleared his throat to announce his presence.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I hope I’m not breaking in on anything important.”

“Not at all, sir,” Marshall replied in his deep southern drawl.

“I was only going over the diving procedures with those seamen interested in qualifying during this tour.”

“Well, don’t let me keep you from continuing,” returned Colter as he looked past the periscope well to the access hatch cut into the base of the sail.

“Tell me, Lieutenant, the civilian engineers on board, are they still inside the sail working on that Fathometer?”

There was an unusual gleam in the OOD’s eyes as he answered.

“That they are, Captain. Shall I call them down for you?”

Colter shook his head.

“That won’t be necessary,

Lieutenant. I think under the circumstances it’s better if I crawl up there unannounced.”

“Whatever you say, sir. But it certainly won’t be any bother for me to go up there and fetch ‘em for you.”

A bit puzzled by this reply. Colter turned to the sail.

“You may return to your business, Mr. Marshall. I’m quite capable of handling this matter on my own.”

The men’s stares seemed to be following him as he ducked through the hatch and began to go up the narrow, steel-gauge ladder. Putting out of his mind the notion that his men were up to some sort of mischief. Colter made the climb up to the exposed bridge. A whiff of cool, fresh air. rich with the scent of the sea, met his nostrils, and in the distance he could just make out the sounds of muffled voices. In the hope that this repair team could explain precisely what had malfunctioned on the prototype Fathometer unit, he proceeded up the remaining rungs.

As Colter crawled through the final hatch, he viewed the backs of two workmen, busily digging through an exposed panel that was set near the bridge’s latticed floor. Both were dressed in woolen hats and identical heavy, navy blue coveralls that had Naval Arctic Laboratory stencilled in white below their shoulder blades. It was evident that they were completely unaware of his presence, and Colter took advantage of his surprise appearance by going directly on the offensive.

“I hope one of you will be able to explain just what went wrong with that damn unit. If the pencil pusher who invented it only knew its malfunction almost cost the lives of one hundred seven men, he’d hopefully be more careful the next time. This is no laboratory experiment that we’re running out here. It’s reality of the harshest sort!”

“I doubt if you’ll have to worry about another failure,” retorted one of the kneeling figures in an unnaturally high voice.

Only as this individual swiveled around and stood did Colter realize this technician wasn’t a man as he had assumed, but a young woman, and a pretty one at that. With her dark, almond-shaped eyes locked onto his startled gaze, she took a step forward and added.

“You must be Captain Colter. I’m Dr. Laurie Lansing of the Naval Arctic lab, and I believe we just found the problem that caused the unit to malfunction.

It seems that during installation, the lasers weren’t calibrated properly.”

“This is a hell of a time to figure that one out,” snapped Colter.

“That damn machine of yours was almost responsible for our deaths on three separate occasions.”

“You have every reason to be upset,” Dr. Lansing responded in a conciliatory tone.

“I would feel the same way if our situations were reversed. But now that we know the problem, I’m certain it can be rectified.”

Capping these words off with a brave smile, she removed her woolen hat and shook loose a long mop of silky black hair. This feature served to further enhance her natural beauty, and Matt Colter’s wrath was temporarily quieted. Sensing this, Laurie Lansing continued.

“I know excuses are meaningless now, but this whole problem came into being when I was forced to miss the unit’s final fine tuning. I pleaded with Admiral Long to hold off your sailing date, but he said it would be next to impossible to do such a thing for a mere double-check of the equipment. I prayed that the lasers were tuned properly, and when I heard about your close calls under the ice, I felt simply terrible.”

Her sincerity was painfully real, and Matt Colter couldn’t help but be placated. Yet he still found himself with a bone to pick.