"Caribbean Crisis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)
a Sexton Blake adventure
by Desmond Reid
Caribbean Crisis is Michael Moorcock's first published novel, a volume in the Sexton Blake library, little more than a chapbook. It has become a rarity that is very difficult to track down and can sell for anything up to $100. A collaboration with Jim Cawthorn, that was revised by the editor of the series in which it appeared.
Caribbean Crisis is by no means a true representation of Moorcock's work, so if you've never read Moorcock before and want to know what his work is like then this is not the place to start. This is a work more of curiousity value to the Moorcock fanatic, a fun story without a great deal of depth.
There is little, if any chance, of it being published again, but through this medium it can be made available free of charge. I intend to publish it as a serial, one chapter at a time in a weekly schedule, as it seems structured perfectly to do this. Hopefully one day The Nomads of the Time Streams
A Caribbean Crisis
1. BLOOD IN THE DEEP
Six miles above the ocean bedrock of the Caribbean, the research ship Gorgon rolled gently in the blazing heat of the mid-afternoon.
Overhead the sky was a limpid sapphire blue. And beneath the ship's keel - more than thirty thousand feet down on the ocean floor - lay the Tanangas Deep: the deepest marine valley known to man.
It was a moment of history.
On the squat research ship, derricks stretched outwards over the starboard bow, giving the vessel a slight list.
Suspended over the water from the derricks hung the most unearthly object ever seen East of Cape Canaveral.
A great, bloated melon of crystal-steel blazing off the fire of reflected sunlight; an orb of metallic splendour which hung like a man-made planet, barely ten feet from the surface of the glassy sea.
Upon it, perched like grotesque frogs, two men balanced themselves - waiting.
On the deck of the research ship, half-blinded by the sunlight reflected from the giant globe, brown-skinned men sweated to manoeuvre the derricks.
One of them was shouting. His voice was gutteral and pitched high.
"Steady on number three! Ease her out slowly!"
The two men crouched on top of the sphere looked at each other.
The younger one, pale-faced and nervous, whispered throatily: "Shall we get in no, Harben?"
Harben, bird-faced and with eyes malevolently calm replied softly: "You get in. I'll join you in a moment."
But the younger man hesitated. He trembled slightly as he glanced around him. He laughed nervously.
"It's silly. I know, but I feel kind of -- scared." He paused before adding tremulously: "What do you think we're going to find down there, Harben?"
Linwood muttered: "Sorry. It's just a feeling - a kind of premonition. Nobody's ever been this deep before, have they?"
Harben's voice was barely audible. "For God's sake man get in! You wanted to have a look down there and you're in no danger!"
Linwood, with an apologetic whimper, eased himself through the open hatch of the bathysphere. His head was visible for a few seconds as he hung there. Then it disappeared. His voice came hollowly from inside the metal globe: "All right, I'm in."
Harben's face hardened. He looked like a bird of prey, poised there with his beak of a nose and his hair ruffled by the gentle breeze. The disquieting calmness had returned to his eyes.
He looked around him. Up at the sun -- down into the water. Nothing could go wrong, he told himself.
He cursed Linwood. The man's fear was infectious.
Harben swore viciously at the crew on the deck:
"Don't stand there gaping! Swing her out!"
The crew scurried to obey his orders.
Electric winches began to hiss and hum.
Harben clambered hurriedly down into the sphere, closing the heavy hatch behind him.
On board the Gorgon the mate of the research ship stood by the radiophone. Soon Harben's voice came barking out of the receiver. "All right, Vasquez! Let her go! Slowly for the first fifty feet -- then increase speed."
Ramon Vasquez let a grim expression of resentment spread over his face in the privacy of the control cabin.
He didn't like Harben. He didn't like taking orders from him. And he didn't like what Harben was doing. It was against the instruction of the project chief -- Professor Hoddard Curtis.
Curtis had forbidden anyone to use the bathysphere without his permission. And Harben had no permission -- but the crew had to obey him because Harben was second in command and Curtis was miles away, trying to get money out of Marine Institute in Florida.
"Very good, sir," Vasquez replied with a hard edge on his voice. "Slowly for the first fifty feet."
He reached across the bank of metres to the electric winch regulator and switched on the down-drive.
Once more Harben's voice rasped harshly over the line. "I'm breaking contact for a short while. I'll call you again in a minute."
"Roger," the mate acknowledged. He flicked the switch to 'recieve' and let it stay there. Then he watched from the control cabin window, as slowly and with delicate and precise grace, the hugh sphere began to sway downwards.
It touched the surface of the water and the sea heaved up as if to reject it. But an instant later the great globe was plunging down, breaking through the translucent blue waves to be slowly swallowed in the darkness beneath.
The sea eddied round the cables supporting the twelve ton globe -- the fine, woven cords of steel which looked too slender to support such a colossal weight.
Ramon Vasquez, the mate, kept his dark eyes on the pressure metres.
An indicator needle crept slowly round a large dial marked in tens feet, then in hundreds, then in thousands.
Ten feet ... twenty ... fifty ...
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