Cryptonomicon

Amy has vanished beneath the pamboat's canopy. Randy and Doug follow her into its shade, and find her sitting crosslegged on a fiberglass equipment case that is encrusted with airport baggage stickers. Her face is socketed into the top of a black rubber pyramid whose base is the screen of a ruggedized cathode-ray tube. "How's the cable business?" she mutters. Months ago, she gave up even trying to hide her scorn for the dull work of cable-laying. Pretenses are shabby things that, like papier-mâché houses, must be energetically maintained or they will dissolve. Another case in point: some time ago, Randy gave up pretending that he was not completely fascinated with Amy Shaftoe. This is not exactly the same thing as being in love with her, but it has quite a few things in common with that. He has always had a weird, sick fascination with women who smoked and drank a lot. Amy does neither, but her complete disregard of modern skin-cancer precautions puts her in the same category: people too busy leading their lives to worry about extending their life expectancy.

In any case, he has a desperate craving to know what Amy's dream is. For a while he thought it was treasure-hunting in the South China Sea. This she definitely enjoys, but he is not sure if it gives her satisfaction entire.

"Been adjusting the trim on those dive planes again," she explains. "I don't think those pushrod things were engineered very well." She pulls her head out of the black rubber cowl and gives Randy a quick sidelong look, holding him responsible for the shortcomings of all engineers. "I hope it'll run now without corkscrewing all over the place."

"Are you ready?" her father asks.

"Whenever you are," she answers, slamming the ball back into his court.

Doug rises to a crouch and duck-walks out from under the low canopy. Randy follows him, wanting to see the ROV for himself.

It rests in the water alongside the pamboat's center hull: a stubby yellow torpedo with a glass dome for a nose, held in place by a Filipino crewman who leans over the gunwale to grip it with both hands. Pairs of stunted wings are mounted at the nose and at the tail, each wing supporting a miniature propeller mounted in a cowl. Randy is reminded of a dirigible with its outlying engine gondolas.

Noting Randy's interest, Doug Shaftoe squats alongside it to point out the features. "It's neutrally buoyant, so when we have it alongside like this, we have it in this foam cradle, which we will now take off." He begins jerking loose some quick-release bungee cords, and molded segments of foam peel away from the ROV's hull. It drops lower in the water, nearly pulling the crewman over the side with it, and he lets go, keeping his arms extended so he can prevent it from bumping into them with each swell. "You'll notice there's no umbilical," Doug says. "Normally that is mandatory for an ROV. You need the umbilical for three reasons."

Randy grins, because he knows that Doug Shaftoe is about to enumerate the three reasons. Randy has spent almost no time around military people, but he is finding that he gets along with them surprisingly well.

His favorite thing about them is their compulsive need to educate every one around them, all the time. Randy does not need to know anything about the ROV, but Doug Shaftoe is going to give him a short course anyway. Randy supposes that when you are in a war, practical knowledge is a good thing to spread around.

"One," says Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe, "to provide power to the ROV. But this ROV carries its own power source-an oxygen/natural gas swash-plate motor, adapted from torpedo technology, and part of our peace dividend"(that is the other thing Randy likes about military people--their mastery of deadpan humor) "that generates enough electricity to run all of the thrusters. Two, for communications and control. But this unit uses blue-green lasers to communicate with the control console which Amy is manning. Three, for emergency recovery in the event of total systems failure. But if this unit fails, it is smart enough, supposedly, to inflate a bladder and float up to the surface where it will activate a strobe light so that we can go recover it."

"Jeez," Randy says, "isn't this thing incredibly expensive?"

"It is incrediblyexpensive," Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe says, "but the guy who runs the company that makes it is an old buddy of mine--we were at the Naval Academy together--he loans it to me sometimes, when I have a pressing need."

"Does your friend know what the pressing need is in this case?"

"He does not know specifically," says Doug Shaftoe, mildly offended, "but I suppose he is not a stupid man either."

"Clear!" shouts Amy Shaftoe, sounding rather impatient.