The Atlantic Abomination by John Brunner Page A

and somethingis deliberately preventing the search parties that sight the missing vessels from informing us.”
    There was a chorus of objections, belated from those present who did not speak English. Lampion stilled it with a wave of his hand.
    “Let us not race ahead of our knowledge,” he said. “Let us merely send a further expedition to see.”
    The thrumming of the engine shook the whole fabric of the helicopter. Peter had found it hard to get used to at first, and the pilot had sympathetically asked if he felt all right.
    “It’s smoother underwater!” Peter had replied. “And it feels a hell of a sight safer there, too.”
    “Same difference,” the pilot shrugged. “Down there if something goes wrong, the pressure mashes you flat. Up here, if something goes wrong, at least you have a parachute. Matter of taste, most likely.”
    Peter nodded. He had inveigled his way aboard the ’copter between dives of the Russian ’nef—their own was still being refitted. The work of clearing the site of Atlantica was heartbreakingly slow, even with the German submarine bulldozer shifting mud by the scores of tons. And so far the TV camera, hunting on its robot drogue a thousand fathoms further down, had failed to reveal anything but mud, mud and more mud, dotted with the thinly scattered flora and fauna of the deeps.
    “Right,” the pilot said, and flipped a switch. He took his hands off the controls and sat back in a relaxed fashion. Noticing Peter’s look of alarm, he grinned.
    “George has taken over,” he said. “He’s quite a box of tricks; a whole lot more than just an automatic pilot. He’ll take us right into the middle of the blank area, circle us round, and bring us out again dead on course without my doing another hand’s turn. He was secret until they turned him loose for our benefit.”
    “So we’re just passengers!” Peter commented. “Like you said, it must be a matter of taste.”
    They were flying at about a thousand feet, a reading of 130 showing on the air-speed indicator. There was almost nothing to be seen except sea. An occasional island showed the course of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. A few ships passed within their view, but it was dull today and visibility was poor. Foul weather would be hindering their work soon. Indeed, there was a small storm of rain a few miles to starboard, which they were skirting by courtesy of their robot pilot’s radar eyes.
    He found the trip restful, and was half dozing, dreaming of the few short days of the honeymoon he had enjoyed with Mary, and making plans for picking up where they had left off, when the pilot leaned forward and pointed.
    “There. See?”
    “Why, it
is
the
Alexandra!
” Peter exclaimed. “Of all the crazy things! To think a ship that size could have been lost in the main Atlantic traffic lanes for so long …”
    She was enormous; she was the biggest liner on the Atlantic run, a thousand and ninety feet long, a hundred and four thousand tons burden, nuclear engines, and a speed of at least forty-five knots average port-to-port.
    The pilot snapped on the film cameras which would record what they saw, and touched a button on the casing of the automatic pilot. “Course correction,” he said briefly. “This is to let George know the ship ahead is the one we want. He’ll take us in and bring us back right away now.”
    “Any sign of the
Gondwana
?” Peter was staring through binoculars. The distance was closing rapidly.
    “Not a thing. Probably been sunk.” The pilot was casual.
    “You seem to have some preconceived ideas,” Peter commented. “But what in hell is going on down there?”
    They were close enough now to see movement on the liner’s great promenade deck. There were lines of people all round, in a sort of horseshoe formation. They moved rhythmically,like grass as the wind blows across it. They seemed to be shuffling back and forth. The distance closed further. They began to take on individual features. Some of them