Thirteen thousand feet is nearly two and a half miles. It takes a long time to haul a full dredge up from that depth, especially when you're not too sure of your cable and taking it slowly. Normally nobody took any notice until the bucket came inboard, but this time everyone's attention was riveted, and when at last the dredge broke surface there were many willing hands to swing the boarding derrick out and bring the haul in.
Geordie had handed over the wheel to Danny and he ran forward to help release the load. A cascade of nodules swept onto the deck, together with the usual lot of slimy mud. Taffy stooped and picked up a nodule. 'This doesn't look any different to me,' he said, clowning disappointment.
Ian said, 'Ye daft loon. Leave it to Mike, would you? He knows what he's doing.'
I hoped he was right.
Campbell said, 'How long, Mike?'
The usual three hours. I can't do it any faster.'
Nor did I – in fact it took longer. The lab wasn't very big and we had enough trouble with three of us working there. Now Campbell insisted on coming in and watching, and wherever he stood or sat he was in the way. In the end I bundled him out despite his protests, but I could hear him pacing up and down in the passage-way.
At the end of three and three-quarter hours I opened the door and said, 'Congratulations, Mr Campbell. You've just become the father of a 9.7 per cent cobalt nodule.'
His eyes lit up. 'We've hit it! By God, we've hit it!'
'Bang on the nose,' I agreed happily.
He leaned against the bulkhead and sighed deeply. 'I never thought we'd make it.' After a few moments his brain started to function again and he said, 'What's the density?'
Ten pounds to the square foot. That'll keep you busy for the next few years.'
His smile grew jubilant.
'Come up to the saloon, all of you. Let's have a drink on it. Get Geordie down here.'
In the saloon he opened the liquor cabinet and produced bottles of whisky and gin, and set about pouring drinks with great energy. Clare and I managed to linger in the passage just long enough for a quick hug and kiss before joining him with Paula, and Geordie arrived a moment later, beaming.
To you, Mike. You've done a great job,' Campbell said expansively.
I included them all in the toast, and we drank it with great cheer. 'It isn't finished yet, though,' I warned them. 'We've got to find the extent of the deposit. There's a lot of proving to be done.'
'I know, I know,' Campbell said. 'But that's detail work. Do you realize we've done it, Geordie?'
'I'm very pleased for you,' Geordie said formally.
The hell with that. I'm pleased for all of us. How about splicing the mainbrace, Geordie – with my compliments?' He waved to the well-stocked cabinet.
'Well, I don't know,' said Geordie judiciously. 'I've still got a ship to run. The lads off watch can have a dram, but those on duty will have to wait a while yet. There's enough buzz going on up there as it is.' He smiled and added, 'I'm off watch myself.'
Campbell laughed. 'Okay, join us.'
Geordie cocked his head at me. 'We're still hove-to. you know. Where do we go from here?'
I said, 'Ninety degrees from your last course – to the south. Tell the watch to keep an eye on the echometer and to keep to the deepest water they can. We'll go for about twenty-five miles. If the water shallows appreciably or we diverge too much off course I'd like to know at once. And I think Clare had better give you the latest bulletin, don't you?'
Clare produced a sheet of paper with the magic figures, and Geordie took it up with him. Campbell turned to me. 'You trotted all that out glibly enough. I suppose you've got an idea.'
'I've got an idea of sorts. We came from a ridge and dredged in the deepest part of a valley. Now I want to run along the valley to see how far it stretches each way. The echometer record will give us a lot of useful information, and we'll dredge at intervals along the course.'
From the deck we heard the sound of cheering. Campbell stopped in the act of pouring himself another drink. 'Everybody's happy.'
'Everyone except Ramirez,' I commented.
'I wish he'd sink,' said Paula, unexpectedly viciously.
Campbell frowned, then pushed the unwelcome thought from his mind; this was no time for thinking of a chancy future. Geordie came back into the saloon and Campbell pointed to the cabinet. 'Pour your own. I'm no man's servant,' he said. Geordie grinned and picked up the bottle.
I rolled a nodule onto the table. 'Geordie's a bit doubtful as to the value of this. I promised I'd get you to talk figures.'
Campbell poked at it with one finger. 'It sure doesn't look like much, does it, Geordie?'
'Just like any other bit of rock we've been dredging up the last couple of weeks,' Geordie said offhandedly.
'It contains nearly ten per cent cobalt. We don't know much about anything else that's in it because Mike's only checked for cobalt, but we know there should be a fair amount of copper and vanadium and a lot of iron – and manganese too of course. Now, I'm telling you and I speak from experience, that the gross recoverable value will run to about four hundred dollars a ton.'
Geordie was still not convinced. 'That doesn't seem too valuable to me. I thought it was really valuable – like gold or platinum.'
Campbell grinned delightedly and took a little slide rule from his pocket. 'You'd say the density would be pretty consistent over a wide area, wouldn't you, Mike?'
'Oh yes. In the centre of the concentration you can fairly well rely on that.'
'And what would you call a wide area?'
I shrugged. 'Oh, several square miles.'
Campbell looked at Geordie under his brows, then bent over the slide rule. 'Now, let's see. At ten pounds a square foot – that makes it – run to about, say, fifty-six million dollars a square mile.'
Geordie, who was in the act of swallowing whisky, suddenly coughed and spluttered.
We all shouted with surprised laughter. I said, 'There are a lot of square feet in a square mile, Geordie!'
He recovered his breath. 'Man, that's money! How many square miles of this stuff will there be?'
'That's what we find out next,' I said. I saw the two girls looking at Campbell with astonishment and something occurred to me. I said to Paula, 'You're in on this too, you know.'
She gaped at me. 'But I've – I'm not'
Campbell said. 'Why, yes, Paula. You're one of the crew. Everybody on this ship gets in on the deal.'
Her astonishment must have been too great for her to contain, for she burst suddenly into tears and ran blindly from the saloon. Clare cast us a quick happy smile and went after her.
I could see that Geordie was trying to work out the fifteenth part of five percent of 56 million dollars – and failing in the attempt. I said, 'That four hundred dollars a ton is a gross value. We have to deduct the costs of dredging and processing, distribution and all sorts of extras. Got any ideas on that?'
'I have,' Campbell said. 'When Mark first came to me with this idea I went into it pretty deeply. The main problem is the dredging – a drag line dredge like the one we're using, but bigger, isn't much use at this depth. You waste too much time pulling it up. So I put some of my bright boys on to the problem and they decided it would be best to use a hydraulic dredge. They did a preliminary study and reckoned they could suck nodules to the surface from 14,000 feet for ten dollars a ton or less. Then you have to add all sorts of factors -processing; marketing, transport and other technical overheads – the cost of hiring ships and crews and maintaining them. We'd want to develop and build our own dredges, we'd need survey ships, and we'd have to build a processing plant.
That would happen on one of the islands and we'd get a lot of help there, as it'll mean a huge income in many ways for them, but all in all I would have to float a company capable of digging into its pocket to the tune of some forty million dollars.'
He said this in a serious and businesslike tone. Clare was apparently used to these flights of executive rhetoric but Geordie and I gaped at him. It was Geordie's first excursion into high finance, as it was mine, but I was slightly better prepared for it. 'Good God! Have you got that much – I mean can you lay your hands on it?'
'Not before this. But I can get it with what we have to show here. We'd clear a net profit of forty million in the first couple of years of operation – the rest should be pure cream. There's going to be a lot of guys on Wall Street eager to jump into a thing like this – or even take it over.'
