From the Ocean from teh Stars (12 page)

They walked together to the assistant chief instructor's office, where
the C.I. and Burley were waiting for them. Dr. Myers threw open the
door—and stood paralyzed on the threshold. For a moment he thought
that he had two more patients—or that he had gone insane himself. Don and the chief instructor, all distinctions of rank forgotten, had their arms
around each other's shoulders and were shaking with hysterical laughter. There was no doubt of the hysteria; it was that of relief. And there was
equally no doubt about the laughter.

Dr. Myers stared at this improbable scene for perhaps five seconds,
then glanced swiftly around the room. At once he saw the message form
lying on the floor where one of his temporarily disordered colleagues had
dropped it. Without asking their permission, he rushed forward and
picked it up.

He had to read it several times before it made any sense; then he, too,
began to laugh as he had not done for years.

☆
CHAPTER NINE

Captain Bert Darryl was looking forward to a quiet
trip; if there was any justice in this world, he was certainly due for one.
Last time there had been that awkward affair with the cops at Mackay;
the time before there had been that uncharted rock off Lizard Island;
and before
that,
by crikey, there'd been that trigger-happy young fool
who had used a nondetachable harpoon on a fifteen-foot tiger and had
been towed all over the sea bed.

As far as one could tell by appearances, his customers seemed a rea
sonable lot this time. Of course, the Sports Agency always guaranteed
their reliability as well as their credit—but all the same it was surprising
what he sometimes got saddled with. Still, a man had to earn a living,
and it cost a lot to keep this old bucket waterproof.

By an odd coincidence, his customers always had the same names—
Mr. Jones, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Brown, Mr. Smith. Captain Bert thought it was a crazy idea, but that was just another of the agency's little ways.
It certainly made life interesting, trying to figure out who they really were.
Some of them were so cautious that they wore rubber face masks the
whole trip—yes, even under their diving masks. They would be the important boys who were scared of being recognized. Think of the scandal,
for instance, if a supreme court judge or chief secretary of the Space

Department was found poaching on a World Food reservation! Captain
Bert thought of it, and chuckled.

The little five-berth sports cruiser was still forty miles off the outer edge of the reef, feeling her way in from the Pacific. Of course, it was
risky operating so near the Capricorns, right in enemy territory as it
were. But the biggest fish were here, just because they were the best
protected. You had to take a chance if you wanted to keep your clients
satisfied. . . .

Captain Bert had worked out his tactics carefully, as he always did. There were never any patrols out at night, and even if there were, his
long-range sonar would spot them and he could run for it. So it would
be perfectly safe creeping u£> during darkness, getting into position just
before dawn, and pushing his eager beavers out of the air lock as soon as
the sun came up. He would he doggo on the bottom, keeping in touch
through the radios. If they got out of range, they'd still have his low-
powered sonar beacon to home on. And if they got too far away to pick
up
that,
serve 'em jolly well right. He patted his jacket where the four
blood chits reposed safely, absolving him of all responsibility if anything
happened to Messrs. Smith, Jones, Robinson, or Brown. There were times when he wondered if it was really any use, considering these
weren't their real names, but the agency told him not to worry. Captain
Bert was not the worrying type, or he would have given up this job long
ago.

At the moment, Messrs. S., J., R., and B. were lying on their respective couches, putting the final touches to the equipment they would not need until morning. Smith and Jones had brand-new guns that had ob
viously never been fired before, and their webbing was fitted with every
conceivable underwater gadget. Captain Bert looked at them sardoni
cally; they represented a type he knew very well. They were the boys
who were so keen on their equipment that they never did any shooting,
either with the guns or their cameras. They would wander happily around
the reef, making such a noise that every fish within miles would know exactly what they were up to. Their beautiful guns, which could drill a
thousand-pound shark at fifty feet, would probably never be fired. But
they wouldn't really mind; they would enjoy themselves.

Now Robinson was a very different matter. His gun was slightly
dented, and about five years old. It had seen service, and he obviously knew how to handle it. He was not one of those catalogue-obsessed
sportsmen who had to buy the current year's model as soon as it came
out, like a woman who couldn't bear to be behind the fashion. Mr. Robin-

son, Captain Bert decided, would be the one who would bring back the biggest catch.

As for Brown—Robinson's partner—he was the only one that Captain Bert hadn't been able to classify. A well-built, strong-featured man in the forties, he was the oldest of the hunters and his face was vaguely familiar. He was probably some official in the upper echelons of the state, who had felt the need to sow a few wild oats. Captain Bert, who was constitutionally unable to work for the World State or any other employer, could understand just how he felt.

There were more than a thousand feet of water below them, and the reef was still miles ahead. But one never took anything for granted in this business, and Captain Bert's eyes were seldom far from the dials and screens of the control board, even while he watched his little crew preparing for their morning's fun. The clear and tiny echo had barely appeared on the sonar scanner before he had fastened on to it.

"Big shark coming, boys," he announced jovially. There was a general rush to the screen.

"How do you know it's a shark?" someone asked.

"Pretty sure to be. Couldn't be a whale—they can't leave the channel inside the reef."

"Sure it's not a sub?" said one anxious voice.

"Naow. Look at the size of it. A sub would be ten times as bright on the screen. Don't be a nervous Nelly."

The questioner subsided, duly abashed. No one said anything for the next five minutes, as the distant echo closed in toward the center of the screen.

"It'll pass within a quarter of a mile of us," said Mr. Smith. "What about changing course and seeing if we can make contact?"

"Not a hope. He'll run for it as soon as he picks up our motors. If we stopped still he might come and sniff us over. Anyway, what would be the use? You couldn't get at him. It's night and he's well below the depth where you could operate."

Their attention was momentarily distracted by a large school of fish— probably tuna, the captain said—which appeared on the southern sector of the screen. When that had gone past, the distinguished-looking Mr. Brown said thoughtfully: "Surely a shark would have changed course by now."

Captain Bert thought so too, and was beginning to be puzzled. "Think we'll have a look at it," he said. "Won't do any harm."

He altered course imperceptibly; the strange echo continued on its unvarying way. It was moving quite slowly, and there would be no diffi-

culty in getting within visual distance without risk of collision. At the
point of nearest approach, Captain Bert switched on the camera and the
U.V. searchlight—and gulped.

"We're rumbled, boys. It's a cop."

There were four simultaneous gasps of dismay, then a chorus of
"But you told us . . ." which the captain silenced with a few well-chosen
words while he continued to study the screen.

"Something funny here," he said. "I was right first time. That's no
sub—it's only a torp. So it can't detect us, anyway—they don't carry that
kind of gear. But what the hell's it doing out here at night?"

"Let's run for it!" pleaded several anxious voices.

"Shurrup!" shouted Captain Bert. "Let me think." He glanced at the
depth indicator. "Crikey," he muttered, this time in a much more sub
dued voice. "We're a hundred fathoms down. Unless that lad's breathing
some fancy mixture, he's had it."

He peered closely at the image on the TV screen; it was hard to be certain, but the figure strapped to the slowly moving torp seemed abnormally still. Yes—there was no doubt of it; he could tell from the atti
tude of the head. The pilot was certainly unconscious, probably dead.

"This is a bloody nuisance," announced the skipper, "but there's
nothing else to do. We've got to fetch that guy in."

Someone started to protest, then thought better of it. Captain Bert
was right, of course. The later consequences would have to be dealt with
as they arose.

"But how are you going to do it?" asked Smith. "We can't go outside
at this depth."

"It won't be easy," admitted the captain. "It's lucky he's moving so
slowly. I think I can flip him over."

He nosed in toward the torp, making infinitely delicate adjustments
with the controls. Suddenly there was a clang that made everybody jump
except the skipper, who knew when it was coming and exactly how loud
it would be.

He backed away, and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Made it first time!" he said smugly. The torp had rolled over on its
back, with the helpless figure of its rider now dangling beneath it in his harness. But instead of heading down into the depths, it was now climb
ing toward the distant surface.

They followed it up to the two-hundred-foot mark while Captain
Bert gave his detailed instructions. There was still a chance, he told his
passengers, that the pilot might be alive. But if he reached the surface,

he'd certainly be dead—compression sickness would get him as he dropped from ten atmospheres to one.

"So we've got to haul him in around the hundred-and-fifty-foot level
—no higher—and then start staging him in the air lock. Well, who's going
to do it? / can't leave the controls."

No one doubted that the captain was giving the single and sufficient
reason, and that he would have gone outside without hesitation had
there been anyone else aboard who could operate the sub. After a short
pause, Smith said: "I've been three hundred feet down on normal air."

"So have I," interjected Jones. "Not at night, of course," he added
thoughtfully.

They weren't exactly volunteering, but it would do. They listened to the skipper's instructions like men about to go over the top, then put on
their equipment and went reluctantly into the air lock.

Fortunately, they were in good training and he was able to bring them up to the full pressure in a couple of minutes. "O.K., boys," he said. "I'm opening the door—here you go!"

It would have helped them could they have seen his searchlight, but
it had been carefully filtered to remove all visible light. Their hand
torches were feeble glowworms by comparison, as he watched them
moving across to the still-ascending torp. Jones went first, while Smith
played out the line from the air lock. Both vessels were moving faster
than a man could swim, and it was necessary to play Jones like a fish on
a line so that as he trailed behind the sub he could work his way across
to the torpedo. He was probably not enjoying it, thought the skipper, but he managed to reach the torp on the second try.

After that, the rest was straightforward. Jones cut out the torp's mo
tor, and when the two vessels had come to a halt Smith went to help him.
They unstrapped the pilot and carried him back to the sub; his face mask was unflooded, so there was still hope for him. It was not easy to man
handle his helpless body into the tiny air lock, and Smith had to stay
outside, feeling horribly lonely, while his partner went ahead.

And thus it was that, thirty minutes later, Walter Franklin woke in a
surprising but not totally unfamiliar environment. He was lying in a bunk aboard a small cruiser-class sub, and five men were standing around him.
Oddest of all, four of the men had handkerchiefs tied over their faces so
that he could only see their eyes. . . .

He looked at the fifth man—at his scarred and grizzled countenance
and his rakish goatee. The dirty nautical cap was really quite superflu
ous; no one would have doubted that this was the skipper.

A raging headache made it hard for Franklin to think straight. He