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"The caps on the port shaft have been torn down and the bearings reo fairly smoothly The port shaft, however, can only be repaired at a shipyard"
Gunn addressed himself to Captain Quick "I don't understand why your company didn't have the Explorer refitted at a local shipyard after she came out of mothballs in San Francisco"
"Blaed "Chief Toft and I strongly recoement wouldn't hear of it The only time spent at the shipyard was for re equip system As for standard maintenance, they insisted it was a waste of money and that any mechanical failures could be repaired at sea or after we reached Honolulu, which obviously we failed to do And on top of that, we're way underinal creas 172 men, I have 60 men and women on board, mostly maritime crewmen, crane and equipment operators and mechanics to ists, ineers and electronics experts Unlike your NUMA projects, Commander Gunn, ours is a bare-bones operation"
"My apologies, Captain," said Gunn "I sympathize with your predicament"
How soon can you get us under way?" Sandecker asked Toft, trying to keep the fatigue of the past feeeks fro
"Thirty-six hours, maybe more"
The room went silent as every eye was trained on Sandecker He fixed the chief engineer with a pair of eyes that went as cold as a serial killer's "I'll explain it to you one more time," he offered sharply, "as candidly as I can put it If we are not on station at the convergence site with our antenna positioned in the water thirty-five hours from now, more people will die than inhabit most small countries This is not a harebrained fantasy or the script for a Hollywood science-fiction movie It's real life, and I for one do not want to stand there looking at a sea of dead bodies and say Ìf only I'd ht have prevented it' Whatever ic it takes, Chief, we must have the antenna in the water and positioned before 800 AM the day after tomorrow"
"I'll not promise the impossible," Toft came back sternly "But if we can't ine-roolass and walked fro the door heavily behind him
"I'ineer," Quick said to Sandecker "A bit harsh, weren't you, laying the blame on him if we fail?"
Sandecker stared at the closed door thoughtfully "The stakes are too high, Captain I didn't plan it this way, certainly not for the burden to sit on Chief Toft's shoulders But like it or not, thaton the island of Oahu in his hands"
At 3:30 PM the following afternoon, a haggard and grimy Toft stepped into the wheelhouse and announced to Sandecker, Gunn and Captain Quick, "The bearings in the port shaft have been replaced I can get us under way, but the best speed I can give you is five knots with a little edge to spare"
Sandecker pumped Toft's hand "Bless you, Chief, bless you"
"What is the distance to the convergence site?" asked Quick
"Eighty nauticalworked the course out in his mind over a dozen times
"A razor-edge hty nautical miles will take sixteen hours, which will put us on your site a few ht hundred hours"