Franklin gave a brief eyewitness description of the scene for the benefit of his patiently waiting colleagues a mile above. It was probably being broadcast, and he hoped that Indra and Peter were listening. Then he settled down to keep an eye on Percy as the long haul back to the surface began.
They could not move at more than two knots, lest the collar lose its none-too-secure grip on the great mass of jelly it was towing. In any event, the trip back to the surface had to take at least three hours, to give Percy a fair chance of adjusting to the pressure difference. Since an airbreathing—and therefore more vulnerable—animal like a sperm whale could endure almost the same pressure change in ten or twenty minutes, this caution was probably excessive. But Dr. Roberts was taking no chances with his unprecedented catch.
They had been climbing slowly for nearly an hour, and had reached the three-thousand-foot level, when Percy showed signs of life. The two long arms, terminating in their great sucker-covered palps, began to writhe purposefully; the monstrous eyes, into which Franklin had been staring half hypnotized from a distance of no more than five feet, began to light once more with intelligence. Quite unaware that he was speaking in a breathless whisper, he swiftly reported these symptoms to Dr. Roberts.
The doctor’s first reaction was a hearty sigh of relief: “Good!” he said. “I was afraid we might have killed him. Can you see if he’s breathing properly? Is the siphon contracting?”
Franklin dropped a few feet so that he could get a better view of the fleshy tube projecting from the squid’s mantle. It was opening and closing in an unsteady rhythm which seemed to be getting stronger and more regular at every beat.
“Splendid!” said Dr. Roberts. “He’s in fine shape. As soon as he starts to wriggle too hard, give him one of the small bombs. But leave it until the last possible moment.”
Franklin wondered how that moment was to be decided. Percy was now beginning to glow a beautiful blue; even with the searchlights switched off he was clearly visible. Blue, he remembered Dr. Roberts saying, was a sign of excitement in squids. In that case, it was high time he did something.
“Better let go that bomb. I think he’s getting lively,” he told Don.
“Right—here it is.”
A glass bubble floated across Franklin’s screen and swiftly vanished from sight.
“The damn thing never broke!” he cried. “Let go another one!”
“O.K.—here’s number two. I hope this works; I’ve only got five left.”
But once again the narcotic bomb failed. This time Franklin never saw the sphere; he only knew that instead of relaxing into slumber once more Percy was becoming more active second by second. The eight short tentacles—short, that is, compared with the almost hundred-foot reach of the pair carrying the grasping palps—were now beginning to twine briskly together. He recalled Melville’s phrase: “Like a nest of anacondas.” No; somehow that did not seem to fit. It was more like a miser—a submarine Shylock—twisting his fingers together as he gloated over his wealth. In any event, it was a disconcerting sight when those fingers were a foot in diameter and were operating only two yards away.…
“You’ll just have to keep on trying,” he told Don. “Unless we stop him soon, he’ll get away.”
An instant later he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw broken shards of glass drifting by. They would have been quite invisible, surrounded as they were by water, had they not been fluorescing brilliantly under the light of his ultraviolet searchlight. But for the moment he was too relieved to wonder why he had been able to see something as proverbially elusive as a piece of broken glass in water; he only knew that Percy had suddenly relaxed again and no longer appeared to be working himself into a rage.
“What happened?” said Dr. Roberts plaintively from above.
“These confounded knockout drops of yours. Two of them didn’t work. That leaves me with just four—and at the present rate of failure, I’ll be lucky if even one goes off.”
“I don’t understand it. The mechanism worked perfectly every time we tested it in the lab.”
“Did you test it at a hundred atmospheres pressure?”
“Er—no. It didn’t seem necessary.”
Don’s “Huh!” seemed to say all that was needful about biologists who tried to dabble with engineering, and there was silence on all channels for the next few minutes of slow ascent. Then Dr. Roberts, sounding a little diffident, came back to the subject.
“Since we can’t rely on the bombs,” he said, “you’d better come up more quickly. He’ll revive again in about thirty minutes.”
“Right—I’ll double speed. I only hope this collar doesn’t slip off.”
The next twenty minutes were perfectly uneventful; then everything started to happen at once.
“He’s coming around again,” said Franklin. “I think the higher speed has waked him up.”
“I was afraid of that,” Dr. Roberts answered. “Hold on as long as you can, and then let go a bomb. We can only pray that one of them will work.”
A new voice suddenly cut into the circuit.
“Captain here. Lookout has just spotted some sperm whales about two miles away. They seem to be heading toward us; I suggest you have a look at them—we’ve got no horizontal search sonar on this ship.”
Franklin switched quickly over to the long-range scanner and picked up the echoes at once.
“Nothing to worry about,” he said. “If they come too close, we can scare them away.” He glanced back at the TV screen and saw that Percy was now getting very restive.
“Let go your bomb,” he told Don, “and keep your fingers crossed.”
“I’m not betting on this,” Don answered. “Anything happen?”
“No; another dud. Try again.”
“That leaves three. Here goes.”
“Sorry—I can see that one. It isn’t cracked.”
“Two left. Now there’s only one.”
“That’s a dud too. What had we better do, Doc? Risk the last one? I’m afraid Percy will slip off in a minute.”
“There’s nothing else we can do,” replied Dr. Roberts, his voice now clearly showing the strain. “Go ahead, Don.”
Almost at once Franklin gave a cry of satisfaction.
“We’ve made it!” he shouted. “He’s knocked cold again! How long do you think it will keep him under this time?”
“We can’t rely on more than twenty minutes, so plan your ascent accordingly. We’re right above you—and remember what I said about taking at least ten minutes over that last two hundred feet. I don’t want any pressure damage after all the trouble we’ve been to.”
“Just a minute,” put in Don. “I’ve been looking at those whales. They’ve put on speed and they’re coming straight toward us. I think they’ve detected Percy—or the beacon we put in him.”
“So what?” said Franklin. “We can frighten them with—oh.”
“Yes—I thought you’d forgotten that. These aren’t patrol subs, Walt. No sirens on them. And you can’t scare sperm whales just by revving your engines.”
That was true enough, though it would not have been fifty years ago, when the great beasts had been hunted almost to extinction. But a dozen generations had lived and died since then; now they recognized the subs as harmless, and certainly no obstacle to the meal they were anticipating. There was a real danger that the helpless Percy be eaten before he could be safely caged.
“I think we’ll make it,” said Franklin, as he anxiously calculated the speed of the approaching whales. This was a hazard that no one could have anticipated; it was typical of the way in which underwater operations developed unexpected snags and complications.
“I’m going straight up to the two-hundred-foot level,” Don told him. “We’ll wait there just as long as it’s safe, and then run for the ship. What do you think of that, Doc?”
“It’s the only thing to do. But remember that those whales can make fifteen knots if they have to.”
“Yes, b
ut they can’t keep it up for long, even if they see their dinner slipping away. Here we go.”
The subs increased their rate of ascent, while the water brightened around them and the enormous pressure slowly relaxed. At last they were back in the narrow zone where an unprotected man could safely dive. The mother ship was less than a hundred yards away, but this final stage in the climb back to the surface was the most critical of all. In this last two hundred feet, the pressure would drop swiftly from eight atmospheres to only one—as great a change in ratio as had occurred in the previous quarter of a mile. There were no enclosed air spaces in Percy which might cause him to explode if the ascent was too swift, but no one could be certain what other internal damage might occur.
“Whales only half a mile away,” reported Franklin. “Who said they couldn’t keep up that speed? They’ll be here in two minutes.”
“You’ll have to hold them off somehow,” said Dr. Roberts, a note of desperation in his voice.
“Any suggestions?” asked Franklin, a little sarcastically.
“Suppose you pretend to attack; that might make them break off.”
This, Franklin told himself, was not his idea of fun. But there seemed no alternative; with a last glance at Percy, who was now beginning to stir again, he started off at half-speed to meet the advancing whales.
There were three echoes dead ahead of him—not very large ones, but he did not let that encourage him. Even if those were the relatively diminutive females, each one was as big as ten elephants and they were coming toward him at a combined speed of forty miles an hour. He was making all the noise he could, but so far it seemed to be having no effect.
Then he heard Don shouting: “Percy’s waking up fast! I can feel him starting to move.”
“Come straight in,” ordered Dr. Roberts. “We’ve got the doors open.”
“And get ready to close the back door as soon as I’ve slipped the cable. I’m going straight through—I don’t want to share your swimming pool with Percy when he finds what’s happened to him.”
Franklin heard all this chattering with only half an ear. Those three approaching echoes were ominously close. Were they going to call his bluff? Sperm whales were among the most pugnacious animals in the sea, as different from their vegetarian cousins as wild buffaloes from a herd of prize Guernseys. It was a sperm whale that had rammed and sunk the Essex and thus inspired the closing chapter of Moby Dick; he had no desire to figure in a submarine sequel.
Yet he held stubbornly to his course, though now the racing echoes were less than fifteen seconds away. Then he saw that they were beginning to separate; even if they were not scared, the whales had become confused. Probably the noise of his motors had made them lose contact with their target. He cut his speed to zero, and the three whales began to circle him inquisitively, at a range of about a hundred feet. Sometimes he caught a shadowy glimpse of them on the TV screen. As he had thought, they were young females, and he felt a little sorry to have robbed them of what should have been their rightful food.
He had broken the momentum of their charge; now it was up to Don to finish his side of the mission. From the brief and occasionally lurid comments from the loud-speaker, it was obvious that this was no easy task. Percy was not yet fully conscious, but he knew that something was wrong and he was beginning to object.
The men on the floating dock had the best view of the final stages. Don surfaced about fifty yards away—and the sea behind him became covered with an undulating mass of jelly, twisting and rolling on the waves. At the greatest speed he dared to risk, Don headed for the open end of the dock. One of Percy’s tentacles made a halfhearted grab at the entrance, as if in a somnambulistic effort to avoid captivity, but the speed at which he was being hurried through the water broke his grip. As soon as he was safely inside, the massive steel gates began to close like horizontally operating jaw, and Don jettisoned the towrope fastened around the squid’s flukes. He wasted no time in leaving from the other exit, and the second set of lock gates started to close even before he was through. The caging of Percy had taken less than a quarter of a minute.
When Franklin surfaced, in company with three disappointed but not hostile sperm whales, it was some time before he could attract any attention. The entire personnel of the dock were busy staring, with awe, triumph, scientific curiosity, and even downright disbelief, at the monstrous captive now swiftly reviving in his great concrete tank. The water was being thoroughly aerated by the streams of bubbles from a score of pipes, and the last traces of the drugs that had paralyzed him were being flushed out of Percy’s system. Beneath the dim amber light that was now the sole illumination inside the dock, the giant squid began to investigate its prison.
First it swam slowly from end to end of the rectangular concrete box, exploring the sides with its tentacles. Then the two immense palps started to climb into the air, waving toward the breathless watchers gathered round the edge of the dock. They touched the electrified netting—and flicked away with a speed that almost eluded the eye. Twice again Percy repeated the experiment before he had convinced himself that there was no way out in this direction, all the while staring up at the puny spectators with a gaze that seemed to betoken an intelligence every wit as great as theirs.
By the time Don and Franklin came aboard, the squid appeared to have settled down in captivity, and was showing a mild interest in a number of fish that had been dropped into its tank. As the two wardens joined Dr. Roberts behind the wire meshing, they had their first clear and complete view of the monster they had hauled up from the ocean depths.
Their eyes ran along the hundred and more feet of flexible, sinewy strength, the countless claw-ringed suckers, the slowly pulsing jet, and the huge staring eyes of the most superbly equipped beast of prey the world had ever seen. Then Don summed up the thoughts that they were both feeling.
“He’s all yours, Doc. I hope you know how to handle him.”
Dr. Roberts smiled confidently enough. He was a very happy man, though a small worry was beginning to invade his mind. He had no doubt at all that he could handle Percy, and he was perfectly right. But he was not so sure that he could handle the director when the bills came in for the research equipment he was going to order—and for the mountains of fish that Percy was going to eat.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SECRETARY OF the Department of Scientific Research had listened to him attentively enough—and not merely with attention, Franklin told himself, but with a flattering interest. When he had finished the sales talk which had taken such long and careful preparation, he felt a sudden and unexpected emotional letdown. He knew that he had done his best; what happened now was largely out of his hands.
“There are a few points I would like to clear up,” said the secretary. “The first is a rather obvious one. Why didn’t you go to the Marine Division’s own research department instead of coming all the way up to World Secretariat level and contacting D.S.R.?”
It was, Franklin admitted, a rather obvious point—and a somewhat delicate one. But he knew that it would be raised, and he had come prepared.
“Naturally, Mr. Farlan,” he answered, “I did my best to get support in the division. There was a good deal of interest, especially after we’d captured that squid. But Operation Percy turned out to be much more expensive than anyone had calculated, and there were a lot of awkward questions about it. The whole affair ended with several of our scientists transferring to other divisions.”
“I know,” interjected the secretary with a smile. “We’ve got some of them.”
“So any research that isn’t of direct practical importance is now frowned on in the division, which is one reason why I came to you. And, frankly, it hasn’t the authority to do the sort of thing I propose. The cost of running even two deep-sea subs is considerable, and would have to be approved at higher than divisional level.”
“But if it was approved, you are confident that the staff could be made available?”
“Yes, at t
he right time of the year. Now that the fence is practically one hundred per cent reliable—there’s been no major breakdown for three years—we wardens have a fairly slack time except at the annual roundups and slaughterings. That’s why it seemed a good idea—”
“To utilize the wasted talents of the wardens?”
“Well, that’s putting it a little bluntly. I don’t want to give the idea that there is any inefficiency in the bureau.”
“I wouldn’t dream of suggesting such a thing,” smiled the secretary. “The other point is a more personal one. Why are you so keen on this project? You have obviously spent a lot of time and trouble on it—and, if I may say so, risked the disapproval of your superiors by coming directly to me.”
That question was not so easy to answer, even to someone you knew well, still less to a stranger. Would this man, who had risen so high in the service of the state, understand the fascination of a mysterious echo on a sonar screen, glimpsed only once, and that years ago? Yes, he would, for he was at least partly a scientist.
“As a chief warden,” explained Franklin, “I probably won’t be on sea duty much longer. I’m thirty-eight, and getting old for this kind of work. And I’ve an inquisitive type of mind; perhaps I should have been a scientist myself. This is a problem I’d like to see settled, though I know the odds against it are pretty high.”
“I can appreciate that. This chart of confirmed sightings covers about half the world’s oceans.”
“Yes, I know it looks hopeless, but with the new sonar sets we can scan a volume three times as great as we used to, and an echo that size is easy to pick up. It’s only a matter of time before somebody detects it.”
“And you want to be that somebody. Well, that’s reasonable enough. When I got your orginal letter I had a talk with my marine biology people, and got about three different opinions—none of them very encouraging. Some of those who admit that these echoes have been seen say that they are probably ghosts due to faults in the sonar sets or returns from discontinuities of some kind in the water.”