Kataoka was frantically at work at Yokosuka supervising the refitting of factory ship Yoshino to serve as the command vessel for D-l, and in the meantime the Takatsuki was doing duty as mother ship for the Kermadic. The Takatsuki was an old ship, a former American corvette which had served as an anti-submarine vessel during the Second World War. Just the previous year the Sea Defense Force had refitted it as a specialty ship. In place of its depth-charge racks, a platform had been installed on its broad afterdeck, which was used to secure the Kermadic on the way from one diving site to another while the Takatsuki kept to a grueling schedule calling for some twenty dives within two weeks over a wide area of the Pacific above the slope of the Japan Trench. Often the submarine, caught in the flux of con verging currents, was buffeted like a leaf, and there were many days when the sea was so clouded to the very floor of the ocean that any visual estimates were impossible.
The grind told upon Onodera. His skin became pallid. His eyes were bloodshot, and his cheeks hollow. A growth of beard covered his face, and his joints ached from lack of sleep. Time and time again he guided the submarine down through turbulent seas to the ocean floor in dives of more than 20,000 feet, taking it where the shouting Tadokoro directed, turning on lights, releasing flares, taking pictures, and operating the television camera. Often it was necessary twice in one day to do the work of placing the automatic measuring devices on the trench floor and on its sides. The consequent strain on mind and body had a cumulative intensity. With the temperature of the ocean floor at two or three degrees Centigrade, the instruments in the gondola were as cold as ice, and the moisture inside was so heavy that the dehumidifying compound had to be replaced after every dive. Then, too, since the refitting of the submarine had been carried out very quickly, the various instruments to be installed had been crammed helter-skelter into the narrow confines of the gondola, leaving almost no space in which to move about during the dives of some hours’ duration.
On the seventeenth day the Kermadic developed mechanical trouble as a result of the hard use it had been put to, and further dives had to be put off for a while. Tadokoro shut him self up in the wardroom with a vast amount of research data, and Onodera, fighting the weariness that had taken hold of him, threw himself into the repair of the submarine, working in grim silence beside the Takatsuki’s engineers.
Two days later the Yoshino finally arrived at the rendezvous point. Its three radar masts roused a cheer when they appeared over the horizon. Two large derricks were mounted on the low afterdeck, which was also equipped with a launching slide. It would be a simple matter for the two interlocked cranes to lift the submarine out of the water and place it on the deck, and the use of the launching slide would make refloating it a speedy operation. Things would go much smoother from then on.
Kataoka was on board the Yoshino, a short, bright-eyed young man whose plump brown face was like that of a young boy.
“It took more time than I thought. I’m sorry,” said Kataoka, grinning as he spoke through the loudspeaker on the bridge. “We’ll load the sub onto the Yoshino right away. Professor Nakata and Mr. Kunieda are on board, too. Mr. Yamazaki will be coming soon on the courier plane. We can have a conference on board here, if that’s all right.”
When Tadokoro and the others were ready to leave the Takatsuki, they went to the captain’s cabin to take their leave. The captain handed Tadokoro a message he had just received.
“It says that Hakone shows signs of erupting,” the captain said. “And it seems that there’s the sound of rumbling at Miyakejima. The timing’s good, anyway. We’re to proceed at full speed to Miyakejima to aid in the evacuation.”
The Kermadic was already in the water, its yellow hull bobbing in the troughs of the waves as it was drawn slowly to the fantail of the Yoshino. As soon as the submarine was secured, the Takatsuki steamed off at once on a southerly course, its prow cleaving the waves as it rapidly grew smaller in the distance.
“Well, as you see,” said Nakata, “we don’t have a welcoming banquet prepared for you. What do you say? Should we start talking right away?”
“Of course,” said Tadokoro without hesitation. “As soon as we pay our respects to the captain. Where can we have a private conference?”
“Well, first let’s get your luggage to your cabin,” said Kunieda. “Then I’ll show you to our Plan D command room.”
Twenty minutes later they gathered in the command room on the top deck at the front of the ship. The walls were banked with flashing computer lights, and at one end of the room hung the luminescent progress chart and the magnetic plastic board on which was drawn the Japan Archipelago. In almost the center of the room was a huge rectangular block of clear plastic. The block seemed to contain nothing at all, but when Kataoka pressed a switch at its base, the Japan Archipelago came into view in the form of a vividly clear three-dimensional image in full color. Everyone responded with a gasp of admiration.
“Rather nice, isn’t it?” said Kataoka, flashing his white teeth. “It’s a hologram projector screen developed by Defense Re search. The plastic block seems to be empty, but actually it’s filled with very small metallic particles.”
Kataoka pressed other switches, and smaller-scale images appeared one after another in the plastic block. One of these showed the topography of the ocean floor.
Moreover, as Kataoka moved his fingers over the board, a wide variety of symbols such as spots of light, arrows, lines, and the like appeared. Heat currents, gravitational abnormalities, vertical and horizontal movement of the earth crust, volcanic activity—these and almost every other sort of data could be projected into the hologram.
“There’s a direct link-up with the computers, and so the data, as soon as it comes in, can be shown as is. It takes in everything,” said Nakata.
Tadokoro, in the meantime, had sat down in a corner of the room in a chair facing the wall. His head was bent forward, and he seemed lost in thought. His face was gray and covered with sweat, and Yukinaga was taken aback to see how painfully contorted his expression was.