“Soon,” Holtzman promised. Now he knew why he'd declined a promotion to assistant managing editor. He didn't need the money, his book income absolved him of the necessity of working at all. He liked being a journalist, still had his idealism, still cared about what he did. It was a further blessing, he thought, that he was absolved of the necessity of making executive decisions.
The new feed-water pump was everything the Master Shipwright had promised on the installation side, Captain Dubinin noted. They'd practically had to dismantle a whole compartment to get it in, plus torch a hole through the submarine's double hull. He could still look up and see sky through what should have been a curved steel overhead, something very unnerving indeed for a submarine officer. They had to make sure that the pump worked satisfactorily before they welded shut the “soft patch” through which it had arrived. It could have been worse. This submarine had a steel hull. Those Soviet submarines made of titanium were the devil to weld shut.
The pump/steam-generator room was immediately aft of the reactor compartment. In fact the reactor vessel abutted the bulkhead on the forward side, and the pump assembly on the after side. The pump circulated water in and out of the reactor. The saturated steam went into the steam-generator, where it ran through an interface. There its heat caused water in the “outside” or non-radioactive loop to flash to steam, which then turned the submarine turbine engines (in turn driving the propeller through reduction gears). The “inner loop” steam, with most of its energy lost, then ran through a condenser that was cooled by seawater from outside the hull, and was pumped as water back into the bottom of the reactor vessel for reheating to continue the cycle. The steam- generator and condenser were actually the same large structure, and the same multi-stage pump handled all of the circulation. This one mechanical object was the acoustical Achilles' heel of all nuclear-powered ships. The pump had to exchange vast quantities of water that was “hot” both thermally and radioactively. Doing that much mechanical work had always meant making a large amount of noise Until now.
“It's an ingenious design,” Dubinin said.
“It should be. The Americans spent ten years perfecting it for their missile submarines, then decided not to use it. The design team was crushed.”
The Captain grunted. The new American reactor designs were able to use natural convection-circulation. One more technical advantage. They were so damnably clever. As both men waited, the reactor was powering up. Control rods were being withdrawn, and free neutrons from the fuel elements were beginning to interact, starting a controlled nuclear chain-reaction. At the control panel behind the captain and the Admiral, technicians called off temperature readings in degrees Kelvin, which started at absolute zero and used Celsius measurements.
“Any time now…,” the Master Shipwright breathed.
“You've never seen it in operation?” Dubinin asked.
“No.”
Marvelous, the captain thought, looking up at the sky. What a horrible thing to see from inside a submarine. “What was that?”
“The pump just kicked in.”
“You're joking.” He looked at the massive, multi-barrel assembly. He couldn't — Dubinin walked over to the instrument panel and—
Dubinin laughed out loud.
“It works, Captain,” the chief engineer said.
“Keep running up the power,” Dubinin said.
“Ten percent now, and rising.”
Take it all the way to one-ten.'
“Captain…”
“I know, we never go over a hundred.” The reactor was rated for fifty thousand horsepower, but like most such machines, the maximum power rating was conservative. It had been run at nearly fifty-eight thousand — once, on builder's trials, resulting in minor damage to the steam generator's internal plumbing — and the maximum useful power was fifty-four-point-nine-six. Dubinin had only done that once, soon after taking command. It was something a ship's commander did, just as a fighter pilot must find out at least one time how fast he can make his aircraft lance through the air.
“Very well,” the engineer agreed.
“Keep a close eye on things, Ivan Stepanovich. If you see any problems, shut down at once.” Dubinin patted him on the shoulder and walked back to the front of the compartment, hoping the welders had done their jobs properly. He shrugged at the thought. The welds had all been X-rayed for possible faults. You couldn't worry about everything, and he had a fine chief engineer to keep an eye on things.
“Twenty percent power.”
The Master Shipwright looked around. The pump had also been mounted on its own small raft structure, essentially a table with spring-loaded legs. They largely prevented transmission of whatever noise the pump generated into the hull, and from there into the water. That, he thought, had been poorly designed. Well, there were always things to be done better. Building ships was one of the last true engineering art forms.
“Twenty-five.”
“I can hear something now,” Dubinin said.
“Speed equivalent?”
“With normal hotel load”—that meant the power required to operate various ship's systems ranging from air conditioning to reading lights—“ten knots.” The Akula class required a great deal of electric power for her internal systems. That was due mainly to the primitive air-conditioning systems, which alone ate up ten percent of reactor output. “We need seventeen percent power for hotel loadings before we start turning the screw. Western systems are much more efficient.”
The Master Shipwright nodded grumpily. “They have a vast industry concerned with environmental engineering. We do not have the infrastructure to do the proper research yet.”
They have a much hotter climate. I was in Washington once, in July. Hell could scarcely be worse.'
“That bad?”
“The embassy chap who took me around said it was once a malarial swamp. They've even had Yellow Fever epidemics there. Miserable climate.”
“I didn't know that.”
“Thirty percent,” the engineer called.
“When were you there?” the Admiral asked.
“Over ten years ago, for the Incidents at Sea negotiations. My first and last diplomatic adventure. Some headquarters fool thought they needed a submariner. I was drafted out of Frunze for it. Total waste of time,” Dubinin added.
“How was it?”
“Dull. The American submarine types are arrogant. Not very friendly back then.” Dubinin paused “No, that's not fair. The political climate was very different.The hospitality was cordial, but reserved. They took us to a baseball game.”
“And?” the Admiral asked.
The captain smiled “The food and beer were enjoyable. The game was incomprehensible, and their explanations just made things worse.”
“Forty percent.”
“Twelve knots,” Dubinin said. “The noise is picking up… ”
“But?”
“But it's a fraction of what the old pump put out. My men have to wear ear protection in here. At full speed the noise is terrible.”
“We'll see. Did you learn anything interesting in Washington?”
Another grunt. “Not to walk the streets alone. I went out for a stroll and saw some poor woman attacked by a street hooligan, and, you know, that was only a few blocks from the White House!”
“Really?”
“The young crook tried to run right past me with her purse. Like something from a film. It was quite amazing.”
