The Nautilus Sanction (TimeWars 5)

“Ned!” shouted Andre, leaning out over the side of the boat and trying to see through the fog.

The singing stopped. “Andre? Is that you?”

“Keep singing, Ned!” cried Finn. “We’ll row toward the sound of your voice!”

“Put your back to it, my lad!” Land shouted, then began singing once again, louder than before and with considerable gusto.

“So I slapped that wench upon ‘er hum and threw ‘er to the floor,

Looked down at ‘er and hated ‘er, the bloody little whore,

I said it was all done with, that her words made up my mind,

And I told her I was leavin’, I was finished with ‘er kind.

“She looked up at me with fury and came at me with a blade,

I was faced with the most fiery wench the good Lord ever made,

I twisted round and felt that deadly steel scrape my side,

And I knew if I lived through it I would take ‘er for my bride.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Finn.

It loomed before them, shrouded in the mist, its teardrop-shaped hull like a steel island rising out of the waves. They could see the huge conning tower with its winglike sailplanes and tall periscopes, the flattened top portion of the deck with om

inous round hatches, beneath which lurked ballistic missiles in their silos.

“What in the name of God is that?” Verne whispered, awestruck. “What is that?”

“A submarine,” said Lucas.

Land stood upon the deck, gazing out into the fog. When he spotted them, he waved.

“I’ve found your sea monster, Jules!” he shouted. “Come, have a look!”

“Finn, the sail!” said Lucas, grabbing his arm and pointing.

Delaney looked where he was pointing and saw a figure standing up on the bridge at the top of the conning tower. At the same moment, a hatch opened in the boat and uniformed men came streaming out, carrying automatic weapons. Land put up a struggle, but they overpowered him. A stream of bullets from an automatic rifle stitched the water close beside their boat.

One of the sailors barked out a command in Russian and waved them in.

“I think we’re being invited on board,” said Lucas.

“We must go,” said Verne. “We cannot abandon Ned.”

“I have no intention of abandoning Ned, Jules,” Lucas said. “We came here looking for that submarine. Well, now we’ve found it.”

Under the watchful eyes of the Soviet sailors, they came on board and, one at a time, went down the hatch.

They were taken to a cabin which slept six, with the bunks built into the bulkheads in tiers of three. By each row of bunks there were lockers and the cabin was equipped with a table, bolted down, as well as chairs. The bunks were close together, giving hardly any headroom, though there was plenty of space for a man of six feet to stretch out. Each bunk was equipped with a fluorescent light for reading and with a stereo headset. Moments after they were brought in, a crewman entered with coffee and a change of clothing for them, jumpsuits like those the others wore.

“Looks like we’ve got officers’ quarters,” Finn said. He opened the door to the cabin and was not surprised to see an armed guard confronting him. “Well, they’re willing to give us some privacy, but it seems we’re not to be allowed the run of the ship.”

“Boat,” said Lucas. “A submarine is called a boat.”

“One this size ought to be called a ship,” said Finn. He began to strip off his wet clothes.