Chapter Five
Lee rounded the spiral stairs down into the Control Room. Other than the white bandage square on his forehead, and the fact that he had opted to forego the necktie, there was no visible indication that he'd spent the last four hours in sickbay recovering from an electric eel attack. He was determined and focused as he crossed the deck, taking in the boat's condition and readiness for action in one seamless sweep of his eyes across the stations.
"Status, Mr. Morton?" he inquired as he neared the chart table.
"Stationary at 200 feet; trim satisfactory, Sir," the blond exec responded pointing to Seaview's current position on the chart. He was privately pleased to see his best friend back on his feet again, but offered no outward hint of his satisfaction. Likewise, the moment passed without any fanfare from the relieved crewmen as the Captain of Seaview resumed his duties as if nothing had happened.
"What about contacts on sonar?" Lee asked.
"We're tracking two biologics, but bow-lookout has identified them as both non-predatory and, so far, they've offered no threat to Seaview."
"Very well, what about the sensor?" he asked, while signing off on the logbook and multitasking with ease.
Chip chuckled dryly. "I haven't seen hide-nor-hair of the Admiral since sickbay. Sharkey reports he has all the water samples he wants from this position and has been focused solely on the sensor for several hours now."
"Very well, I'll check in on him," he replied, stowing the logbook and heading aft. Any other time, he might have smiled and chuckled fondly at the thought of Harry so engrossed in his work. This time, however, he found nothing light-hearted about the fact that there was a two-ton killer squid lurking somewhere in the region and a dozen seismic sensors that had failed to register a quake large enough to open Sterling's fissure.
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"Come in," a distracted voice called from behind the laboratory door.
Lee entered to find the Admiral hunched over the delicate electronic sensor.
"How's is coming, Admiral?"
Harry sat up straight, pleasantly surprised to hear Lee's voice behind him. "Fine, fine," he answered, quickly appraising Seaview's captain and, just as quickly, assessing him as fit for duty. "Well, maybe 'fine' isn't the right word for it," he amended with a guarded smile that indicated his sarcasm wasn't just meant to keep the mood light.
Lee snagged the nearby stool closer and straddled it. "What do you mean?"
Harry turned toward Lee, his expression immediately changing to match the mystery his next words presented. "When I opened the backing on the sensor, I fully expected to see the electronics fried…"
"Perhaps, by the electric eel?" Lee finished for him, indicating he'd had some time to consider the puzzling question while stuck in sickbay.
"Exactly," Harry confirmed animatedly, "but look," he said, directing Lee's attention back to the instrument in question. "Everything checks out, and by all electronic indications, this sensor should be working." He demonstrated his point by making a connection to one of the electronic leads, producing a confirming light that remained lit until he withdrew the disconnection. He repeated the process on another lead, producing the same output. "I've checked every connection, and there's just no good reason I can think of that explains why this sensor isn't working," he said.
"So, what's your next step?" Lee questioned, sensing Harry might have been frustrated but was far from defeated by the enigma.
Harry grinned at Lee's perception. "You're just in time to help me prove my hypothesis."
"Which is?"
"That the sensor is in perfect working order," Harry returned cleverly.
Lee raised an eyebrow at the paradoxical experiment that would prove that a sensor that hadn't registered a probable and very significant quake was, in fact, in perfect working condition. "What do you want me to do?"
"Just observe," he said then directed Lee's attention to a device on another table. "We're receiving the data from Santa Barbara, and this seismometer will graph the results." He pursed his lips, looking over both the sensor and the graphing device and then smiled almost gleefully. "This won't exactly be a scientific study, since I don't have a means of measuring the amount of shake I'm applying," the admiral qualified, then grinned slyly and tapped the table to simulate a small tremor. Exactly one second later the needle scribbled out the expected activity a minor "quake" might produce.
"Note the delay in the graphing," Harry pointed out, "the readings are recorded in live time, but for the data to be received in Santa Barbara, the sensors have to be plugged into a data feed cable. The cable is connected to a junction box on a nearby island some two hundred miles from here, and then fed by satellite to Santa Barbara. To consolidate the readings, eleven sensors are networked together to the twelfth sensor, which in turn, is hard-wired to the data cable. It's a round-about way to test the sensor, but I wanted to see exactly what the seismologist at the lab is seeing over two-thousand miles away," he explained.
Lee watched as Harry examined the graph. Though it did appear they were going about it the long way around to obtain the seismograph readings, Lee was convinced that this experiment had been well-planned by the admiral and would serve some specific purpose to his discoveries.
"It looks like a 1.7 on the Richter Scale," he announced and then readied for the next "quake", this time holding both hands on the table and giving it a good shake. Another second later, the needle scribbled out another reading. This time however, it produced an unexpected result.
"1.6," Harry stated flatly, raising an eyebrow at the obvious incorrect reading for the good shaking he had rendered.
"Then the sensor is malfunctioning," Lee concluded.
"All twelve sensors?" Harry asked, not ready to succumb to the "obvious" conclusion just yet.
"It does seem rather convenient," the captain agreed.
Harry recorded his findings and continued. "Let's just see what we get again," he stated, undaunted by the mystery of the false reading.
He gave the table another good shake, noting a reading of 1.9 and then followed it up with a slight tremor produced by a light tap that registered 1.6 again.
"Perhaps the electric current from the eel damaged the circuits," Lee offered with a shrug.
"Or perhaps… the sensor is working perfectly," the Admiral announced in a bombshell observation that was met immediately with a frown from his current lab partner.
"I don't follow," Lee admitted.
"It's just an idea I have, but it would explain a good deal of things, including the fact that the water samples I've examined verify that the fissure is open," Harry replied and pursed his lips before continuing. "As I said before, these are the readings that Santa Barbara is receiving," he said, picking up a screwdriver and adjusting the sensor as he spoke. "What I'm going to do now, is disconnect the network to the cable and hardwire this sensor directly to my seismometer," he explained. He fiddled a few more minutes connecting a wire from the sensor to the seismometer and then looked over his work, satisfying himself that everything was ready. "Now, let's see what we get," he said, almost as if he already knew what the outcome was going to be.
He tapped the table. This time there was no delay, as the seismometer graphed out the response.
"A one point five," Harry read, interpreting the graph handily.
Next, he added a healthy shake to the table. Immediately the seismometer reacted in a violent eruption of sharp peaks and valleys. Lee stood, looking over Harry's shoulder as the admiral read the graph.
"Five point six," Harry said victoriously. "The sensor is working; it's the output that's flawed."
Lee put his hands in his back pocket and bit his bottom lip in thought. "Tell me, Admiral, what are the chances of a malfunctioning cable producing data like this?"
Harry sighed. "Well, anything's possible, but I think you know where I'm going with this."
Lee nodded, pursing his bottom lip. "Each simulated quake produced a false reading under 2.0…"
"The threshold for reporting out of the ordinary activity in the area," Harry finished. "None of those readings would have signaled any further query by the seismologist; they would have been noted, categorized, and logged… and that's all," he noted solemnly.
Lee expelled a breath. What Harry was proposing was nothing to be taken lightly. If it were true, then someone opened the fissure purposely and went to great lengths to keep their handiwork a secret. Considering the lives lost from the giant squid, the whole thing bordered on sinister.
"Let's just say for a moment that your theory is correct. How do we prove it?"
Harry responded with a resigned shrug. "It's possible that modifications were made with the twelfth sensor, the networking sensor."
"What about the cable, Admiral? We have 200 miles of cable that could have been tampered with, it could have been spliced and the data intercepted and modified anywhere along the cable."
"Or someone could have intercepted the Satellite transmission, for that matter," Harry replied, "both options would require a great deal of sophistication in computer programming; in either case, a few adjustments in the networking sensor would do the trick."
"To what end?" the frustrated captain asked as he paced the deck. "What could anyone possibly hope to gain by going to these lengths?"
"The same thing Sterling was after," Harry said sitting forward with hands folded on the table. "A look into the earth's core could revolutionize the elemental chart. The advancements we could make with any number of possible discoveries are simply mind-numbing," he answered excitedly.
Lee stopped pacing and turned sharply toward Harry. "Whoever did this isn't after scientific discoveries, Admiral," he ventured boldly. They had gone to far too much trouble to keep their activities a secret, with far too many people dying in the wake of their furtiveness.
Harry leaned forward and expelled a breath, speaking calmly but darkly. "I agree. Someone has an agenda, and the sooner we discover what that is, the better."
Lee nodded in agreement; his concern palpable. "Then we have two potential problems; a giant, man-eating squid, and whoever is behind all of this," he said throwing his hands up in the air before turning back toward the Admiral at his next thought. "No one's going to believe us until we have proof," he predicted.
"Then I had better retrieve the twelfth sensor," Harry delivered evenly.
"Admiral…" Lee started in protest, still weak from his run-in with the giant eel and painfully aware of the dangers lurking in these particular waters.
"It can't be helped, Lee. We've got to have proof, but first things first," he interjected.
"We need to seal the fissure," Lee answered for him.
"And hope that whoever is behind this, isn't waiting to stop us," the perceptive admiral added.
A silent moment passed before Lee walked briskly to the mic on the wall and snagged it up. "Mr. Morton, bring the boat to general quarters."
"Aye, aye, Skipper," the XO responded dutifully.
Captain Crane shipped the mic to the sound of klaxons booming and red alert lights flashing as Seaview prepared for battle stations, readying herself for whatever dangers lay ahead, be it man or beast.