Night Probe! - Cussler Clive - Страница 48

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"The two upper decks have collapsed," he murmured as if conversing in a church. "We can't penetrate."

Pitt spread the ship's interior drawings on a chart table and traced a line with his finger. "Drop down to the lower promenade deck. The first-class lobby entrance should be clear."

"Is Baby actually going to enter the ship?" Heidi asked.

"That's what it was designed for," replied Pitt.

"All those people dead in there. Somehow it almost seems sacrilegious."

"Men have been diving on the Empress for half a century," Gunn said gently, as though talking to a child. "The,museum at Rimouski is filled with artifacts taken from inside the wreck. Besides, it's imperative to see what we'll be up against when we begin cutting through-"

"I have penetration," Hoker interrupted.

"Take it slow," Pitt acknowledged. "The wooden ceilings have probably fallen and clogged the passageways."

For the next few seconds only the floating particles in the water showed on the monitors. Then the RSV's light source fell on a fan-shaped stairway. The curled lines of the banisters were still evident, held erect by sagging support columns. The Persian carpeting that had once graced the lower landing had long since rotted away, as had the chairs and sofas. "I think I can negotiate the aft passageway," said Hoker. "Make entry," Pitt instructed tersely.

The stateroom doorways marched by the cameras in wraithlike procession as the RSV threaded its way through the fallen rubble. After thirty feet the passageway looked clear and they made an inspection of a cabin. The luxurious comfort for which the ill-fated ship was famous had deteriorated into pitiful scraps. The spacious bunk-style beds and ornate dressers had long ago surrendered to the ravages of the callous waters.

The journey into time passed with agonizing slowness. It took nearly two hours for the RSV to break into a lounge area. "Where are we?" asked Gunn.

Pitt consulted the drawings again. "We should be coming on the entrance of the main dining saloon."

"Yes, there it is," Heidi pointed excitedly. "The large doorway to the right of the screen."

Pitt looked at Gunn. "It's worth checking out. According to the plans, Shields' cabin lies on the deck directly below."

The lights of the RSV played over the huge room, casting phantom shadows beyond the columns that supported the remains of the sculptured ceilings above the dining alcoves. Only the oval mirrors on the walls, their glass coated with decades of slime, bore mute testimony to the opulent decor that had once enhanced the passengers' dining pleasure.

Suddenly there was a movement on the fringe of the light beams. "What in hell is that?" blurted Gunn.

Spellbound, everyone in the control room started at the etheric cloud that floated into camera range.

For long moment it seemed to hover, the outer edges vague and wavering in slow motion. Then, as if encased within a milky translucent shroud, a human form reached out for the RSV, an indistinct, disembodied form like two photographic negatives overlaying one another and producing a double exposure.

Heidi fell silent; her blood turned to ice. Hoker sat like a chunk of granite at the console, his face dazed with disbelief Oddly, Gunn tilted his head to one side and studied the apparition with the clinical look of a surgeon contemplating an X-ray.

"In my wildest dreams," he said in a hoarse voice, "I never really thought I'd see a ghost."

Gunn's apparent composure didn't fool Pitt. He could see the little man was in a near state of shock. "Reverse Baby," he said calmly to Hoker.

Fighting a fear he had never experienced before, Hoker gathered his senses and moved his fingers over the controls. At first the undulating shape receded in the background, and then it began to grow larger again.

"Oh, lord, it's following," whispered Heidi.

A quick glance at the strained, stunned faces showed the same realization on every mind. They stood paralyzed, their attention transfixed on the monitors. "For God's sake, what is it doing?" rasped Gunn.

No one answered, no, one in the control room possessed the power of speech. No one except Pitt.

"Turn Baby around and get it out of there, fast!" he snapped.

Hoker forced himself to tear his eyes from the unearthly sight and pushed the power setting to FULL.

The little survey craft was not designed for speed. At maximum, its thrusters could only propel it at three knots. It began a tight turn. The cameras in the bow panned away from the undulating menace, past the open portholes glowing weirdly from the filtered light from the surface, past the faces of the mirrors that reflected no more. The 180-degree maneuver seemed to take an endless time.

And it came too late.

A second transparent specter drifted above the threshold of the doorway to the lounge, its shadowy arms outstretched and beckoning.

"Damn!" Pitt cursed. "Another one!"

"What should I do?" Hoker's voice was pleading, almost desperate.

It would be an understatement to say that Pitt held the undivided attention of everyone in the control room. They were awed by his glacial concentration. It was beginning to seep through to them why he was held in such high esteem by Admiral Sandecker. If ever a man was in the right place at the right time, it was Dirk Pitt standing on the deck of a salvage ship calling the shots against the unnatural.

Given a century, they could never have guessed the thought running through his mind. All they could detect from his expression was that anger had replaced studied contemplation.

If "Attack and be damned" worked with the phantom train, Pitt reasoned, there was little to lose by repeating the play. He nodded to Hoker.

"Ram the bastard!"

The mood abruptly changed now. Everyone took their strength from Pitt. Their fear gradually altered to growing determination to expose what their imaginations suggested were dead souls haunting the decaying ocean liner.

The RSV zeroed in and struck the spectral barrier in the doorway. There seemed to be no resistance at first. The blurred figure gave way, but then it floated forward and its shroud enveloped the craft. All focus was lost from the cameras and the monitors projected only vague shadows.

"It appears our hosts have substance," Pitt said conversationally.

"Baby is not responding to command," Hoker called out. "The controls react as if it's immersed in cooked oatmeal."

"Try reversing the thrusters."

"No go." Hoker shook his head. "Whatever those things are, they've immobilized it."

Pitt walked across to the control console and peered over Hoker's head at the instruments. "Why is the directional indicator vascillating?"

"It's like they're wrestling with Baby," answered Hoker. "Trying to drag it somewhere, I would guess."

Pitt gripped his shoulder. "Shut down all systems except the cameras.

"What about the lights?"

"Shut them down too. Let those heavy-handed ghosts think they've damaged Baby's power source."

The monitors dimmed until their screens showed only blackness. They looked cold and dead, but occasionally a faint, undefined movement showed through. If a stranger had walked into the control room he would have written everyone off as men tally incompetent; finding a group of people standing enraptured by dark TV screens was a psychologist's dream.

Ten minutes became twenty, and twenty became thirty. There was no change. Anticipation hung heavy in the air. Nothing and still nothing. Then very gradually, so gradually nobody noticed it at first, the screens began to lighten. "What do you make of it?" Pitt asked Hoker.

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