resounded through Voortrekker's hull.
'Navigator,' Van Gelder said, 'get a radiation count.'
'Working on it, sir. It takes a minute for the detector modes to integrate.'
'Captain,' Van Gelder said, 'we're probably best off like this for now, with that thing facing toward our stern.' His eyes were stinging from the smoke.
'What?'
'The slant angle, sir, from the fireball back aft. It makes the hull seem thicker.'
'Yes, I think you're right…'
'That way our sail and the reactor shielding give us more protection too, at least in forward compartments.'
Ter Horst nodded. Finally tearing himself from the screen, he spoke into his mouthpiece.
'All nonessential personnel evacuate the engineering spaces. Do not use the aft escape hatch, come forward through the reactor tunnel.' He reached beneath his seat and gave Van Gelder his own air mask, then grabbed a spare stowed in the overhead.
'Sir,' the navigator shouted through his respirator, 'not much gamma radiation's getting through the hull, but it's murder topside. Strontium 90 all over the place, iodine 131, cesium 137, krypton 85…'
The boat rolled into the trough of an especially lofty wave, the confluence of several others that had melded in a rogue. Van Gelder braced himself as the backup mechanical inclinometer plumbed toward sixty-five degrees, then recovered as the vessel yawed almost broadside to ground zero. The working of the ship seemed heavier now — she must have spilled some air and hydrazine fumes. Van Gelder glanced nervously at the overhead to starboard, toward the south, knowing what was out there. Another strong wave hit. Again the boat rolled mercilessly.
'We've got to get propulsion back,' ter Horst said. 'We need directional control. But a fast scram recovery will take them ten or fifteen minutes.'
'Sir,' Van Gelder said, 'if we start the emergency diesel now, we'll draw in outside air.'
'I know. And the batteries won't take us far in so rough a sea either, plus then we won't have the amp-hours to regain reactor power.'
A breathless messenger arrived from aft. 'Captain, the engineer reports wrecked main motor breakers bypassed now, but forward DC buses impaired by overheating from the fan room fire. Only trickle current available from the forward batteries.'
'Enough to lift a control rod group and give us criticality?' The man shook his head. 'We need the after battery to pressurize the fire mains. Sir, we need to keep running the bilge pumps too. We took a lot of water through the main shaft packing gland.'
'How bad's the flooding?' Van Gelder said.
'They tightened the peripheral bolts as far as the threads can go and the inflow stopped at shallower depth. The seawater's clearing, sir, but slowly, and the free surface hinders our stability.'
'That fire's the key, then, Gunther,' ter Horst said. 'We've got to put it out, and quickly. Messenger, have Engineering deenergize the forward bus bars.'
'I'm going down there now,' Van Gelder said. The smoke was growing thicker and it was getting very warm. The boat took another violent roll to starboard, still facing sideways to the mushroom cloud.
Van Gelder hurried down two ladders, through a dogged hatchway, along a companionway, and through another hatch. It felt like he was walking toward an oven. When he finally arrived, two charred corpses lay along the deck, wearing what was left of fire-fighting gear. One seemed to stare up at Van Gelder, its black and bloody face all melted, broken teeth in a now-lipless mouth, air mask fused to flesh. Above the acrid stink of smoke, even through his sealed respirator, Van Gelder smelled burned flesh and hair.
Hoses twisted everywhere, men crouching to stay below the heat, leaning into the recoil of the lines. Freshwater sprayed and white foam sloshed, making the deck treacherously slippery. The hoses roared, the fire roared and crackled.
'It started at the back,' a senior chief shouted through his mask, straining to project his voice — already badly hoarse — above the constant noise.
'I can't see a blery thing,' Van Gelder shouted back.
Just then another fire fighter was carried past, his face bright red, down from heat prostration. The chief turned to the stretcher bearers as they went through the hatchway aft. 'Helmet!' A seaman understood, took off the fire fighter's headgear, and tossed it to Van Gelder.
Van Gelder donned the helmet, fastened the chin strap tight around his breather mask, and then flipped down the special visor. He activated the switch near his right temple. Immediately the infrared oculars gave him a false- color image through the smoke. A hose team was crouched in the doorway to the fan room, another farther back, keeping the first team drenched to cool them down. Others aimed fog nozzles toward the overhead, letting the hot gases of combustion vent their energy by making steam. Already Van Gelder was sweating from the heat and the humidity. As he watched, flames licked out through the fan room hatchway, subsided, and then came back redoubled.
'What's burning?' he yelled to the chief.
'Christ, sir, everything. We think it started when a hydraulic line ruptured from the shock, then got set off by some sparking from a damaged motor.' Van Gelder nodded. Hydraulic fluid burned like gasoline.
'We dropped the pressure and sealed the line real quick, but it was too late. Mostly now the fire load's grease and lube oil in the machinery, plus all the insulation, and rubber, and the acoustic isolation pads.'
'Scheisse,' Van Gelder said. 'They're full of PVCs, those vibration isolators. Make sure no one breathes that stuff.'
'Right, sir. We know. The worst was some aluminum ignited. We couldn't reach it from the trim.'
'What happened to those two?' Van Gelder said, pointing to the corpses.
'Both pitched in headfirst, right into the burning metal, when we caught that aftershock. We pulled them out with boathooks.'
'Jesus.'
'It's far from burning out, sir. The Class D metal fire, I mean. We just keep pouring on the water, best we can, with foam around the edges for all the Class B stuff.'
'Your team's done well,' Van Gelder shouted, 'but you've got to keep going.'
'Yes, sir. We've got auxiliary lines covering the exposures, hosing down each bulkhead from the other side.'
'Good.'
'Not good, sir. The bus bars from the batteries are right underneath.'
'Can't we cool them down somehow?'
'Not while the fire's still going. It's just too hot. They're insulated against shorts and arcing, not a thermal overload.'
The hotter the bus bars got, Van Gelder knew, the greater their resistance. It was like the opposite of superconductivity: chaotic outer electron shell paths from the overexcited molecular motions.
'So what are you suggesting?' Van Gelder said.
'The problem's getting in there, sir, to get at the seat of the fire. Our longest foam applicators only reach four meters, and the water isn't going where it should.' There was a sharp thump and a fireball blasted into the passageway. Everybody dropped fast to the deck. Van Gelder thanked the Lord when the flaming vapors went the other way, then he felt shame over his selfishness. At least the other crewmen have their fireretardant Nomex suits, he told himself.
'That was hydrogen, probably,' the old chief shouted, 'from the metals that are still on fire contacting the water.'
'How much freshwater do we have left in the tanks?'
'Less than half, sir. We have to get this thing under control. We take in seawater now, or use the forward trunk to ventilate, we'll pollute the ship.'
Again Van Gelder nodded. Again an injured fire fighter was carried aft, screaming in pain, writhing on the stretcher.
'Someone has to get inside,' Van Gelder said.
'Sir, it's a thousand centigrade in there! We can barely keep the blaze from spreading as it is!'
