The Dragon in the Sea

The Dragon in the Sea

By Frank Herbert

The Ram bore southwest toward home waters, and the timelog reeled off the days. A monotonous succession of watches amidst the cold pipes, dials, wheels, levers, blinking lights, and telltale buzzers. The same faces and the same danger.

Even peril can grow boring.

A distant sound of propellers in an area where all such sounds mean hunter.

Wait and listen. Creep ahead a few knots. Wait and listen. The distant sound is gone, The Ram picks up speed while red-rimmed eyes watch the ranging and sonar gear.

Garcia was up and about on the fourth day – a man grown strangely morose and sullen when Ramsey was present. Still the subtug moved steadily nearer to safety, towing the turgid slug: a prize wrested from death itself.

And a special tension – a new pressure – crept into the actions of the Ram's crew. It was a tension that said: “We're going to make it... We're going to make it... we're going to make it...

“Aren't we?”

Ramsey, asleep in his bunk, wrestled with a silent night-mare in which Sparrow, Garcia and Bonnett suddenly turned to face him – all with the features of mad Heppner.

Slowly, the nightmare lifted and left him peaceful in the womb-like stillness of the boat.

Dragon in the sea. Photo by Elena.

Stillness!

Ramsey sat bolt upright in his bunk, wide awake, every sense crying out against the strange new element: quite. He reached behind him and snapped on his bunk light. It was dim – showing that they were on emergency batteries.

“Johnny!” It was Sparrow's voice over the wall speaker.

“Here, Skipper.”

“Get up to your shack on the double. We're having pile trouble.”

“I'm on my way!”

His feet hit the deck, fumbled into shoes. He snapped off his bunk light, ran out the door, up the ladder two steps at a time, down the companionway and into his shack station, talk switch open. “On station, Skipper. It is serious?”

Bonnett's voice came back. “Full-scale flare-up.”

“Where's the skipper?”

“Forward with Joe.”

“Joe shouldn't be anywhere near that! He's still on the hot lost!”

“It was Joe's watch. You know how - “

“Johnny!” Sparrow's voice over the intercom.

“Here.”

“Secure the shack for minimum power drain and come forward.”

“Right.” Ramsey found that his hands knew automatically which switches to hit. He blessed the long hours of patience with the mock-up board. This was what Reed had meant: “There is no such thing as a minor emergency aboard a submarine.” He made the conventional glance-around double check: standby light glowing amber, jacks out, main switch up, relay circuit to control room plugged in and green. He thumbed his chest mike: “Les, she's all yours.”

“On your way.”

He ran out the door, turned right up the companionway, through the control room without glancing at Bonnett, and out onto the central catwalk. The laboring hum of one engine turning slowly on battery power to give them headway permeated the engine room.

Garcia stood beside the tunnel hatch down forward to the left, his hands fumbling with the zipper of an ABG suit.

The Dragon hidden deep in the sea. Illustration by Elena.