Thereafter there was only the sea, and a mindless machine creeping ever more slowly down to the hundred-fathom line and the far Pacific wastes.
CHAPTER VIII
THERE WERE FOUR people in the room, and not one of them was talking now. The chief instructor was biting his lip nervously, Don Burley sat looking stunned, and Indra was trying not to cry. Only Dr. Myers seemed fairly well under control, and was silently cursing the fantastic, the still inexplicable bad luck that had brought this situation upon them. He would have sworn that Franklin was well on the road to recovery, well past any serious crisis. And now this!
“There’s only one thing to do,” said the chief instructor suddenly. “And that’s to send out all our underwater craft on a general search.”
Don Burley stirred himself, slowly and as if carrying a great weight upon his shoulders.
“It’s twelve hours now. In that time he could have covered five hundred miles. And there are only six qualified pilots on the station.”
“I know—it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But it’s the only thing we can do.”
“Sometimes a few minutes of thought can save a good many hours of random searching,” said Myers. “After all a day, a little extra time will make no difference. With your permission, I’d like to have a private talk with Miss Langenburg.”
“Of course—if she agrees.”
Indra nodded dumbly. She was still blaming herself bitterly for what had happened—for not going to the doctor immediately when they had returned to the island. Her intuition had failed her then; now it told her that there was no possibility of any hope, and she could only pray that it was wrong again.
“Now, Indra,” said Myers kindly when the others had left the room, “if we want to help Franklin we’ve got to keep our heads, and try to guess what he’s done. So stop blaming yourself—this isn’t your fault. I’m not sure if it’s anyone’s fault.”
It might be mine, he added grimly to himself. But who could have guessed? We understand so little about astrophobia, even now … and heaven knows it’s not in my line.
Indra managed a brave smile. Until yesterday, she had thought she was very grown-up and able to take care of herself in any situation. But yesterday was a very, very long time ago.
“Please tell me,” she said, “what is the matter with Walter. I think it would help me to understand.”
It was a sensible and reasonable request; even before Indra had made it, Myers had come to the same conclusion.
“Very well—but remember, this is confidential, for Walter’s own sake. I’m only telling it to you because this is an emergency and you may be able to help him if you know the facts.
“Until a year ago, Walter was a highly qualified spaceman. In fact, he was chief engineer of a liner on the Martian run, which as you know is a very responsible position indeed, and that was certainly merely the beginning of his career.
“Well, there was some kind of emergency in mid-orbit, and the ion drive had to be shut off. Walter went outside in a space suit to fix it—nothing unusual about that, of course. Before he had finished the job, however, his suit failed. No—I don’t meant it leaked. What happened was that the propulsion system jammed on, and he couldn’t shut off the rockets that allowed him to move around in space.
“So there he was, millions of miles from anywhere, building up speed away from his ship. To make matters worse, he’d crashed against some part of the liner when he started, and that had snapped off his radio antenna. So he couldn’t talk or receive messages—couldn’t call for help or find out what his friends were doing for him. He was completely alone, and in a few minutes he couldn’t even see the liner.
“Now, no one who has not been in a situation like that can possibly imagine what it’s like. We can try, but we can’t really picture being absolutely isolated, with stars all around us, not knowing if we’ll ever be rescued. No vertigo that can ever be experienced on Earth can match it—not even seasickness at its worst, and that’s bad enough.
“It was four hours before Walter was rescued. He was actually quite safe, and probably knew it—but that didn’t make any difference. The ship’s radar had tracked him, but until the drive was repaired it couldn’t go after him. When they did get him aboard he was—well, let’s say he was in a pretty bad way.
“It took the best psychologists on earth almost a year to straighten him out, and as we’ve seen, the job wasn’t finished properly. And there was one factor that the psychologists could do nothing about.”
Myers paused, wondering how Indra was taking all this, how it would affect her feelings toward Franklin. She seemed to have got over her initial shock; she was not, thank God, the hysterical type it was so difficult to do anything with.
“You see, Walter was married. He had a wife and family on Mars, and was very fond of them. His wife was a second-generation colonist, the children, of course, third-generation ones. They had spent all their lives under Martian gravity—had been conceived and born in it. And so they could never come to Earth, where they would be crushed under three times their normal weight.
“At the same time, Walter could never go back into space. We could patch up his mind so that he could function efficiently here on Earth, but that was the best we could do. He could never again face free fall, the knowledge that there was space all around him, all the way out to the stars. And so he was an exile on his own world, unable ever to see his family again.
“We did our best for him, and I still think it was a good best. This work here could use his skills, but there were also profound psychological reasons why we thought it might suit him, and would enable him to rebuild his life. I think you probably know those reasons as well as I do, Indra—if not better. You are a marine biologist and know the links we have with the sea. We have no such links with space, and so we shall never feel at home there—at least as long as we are men.
“I studied Franklin while he was here; he knew I was doing it, and didn’t mind. All the while he was improving, getting to love the work. Don was very pleased with his progress—he was the best pupil he’d ever met. And when I heard—don’t ask me how!—that he was going around with you, I was delighted. For he has to rebuild his life all along the line, you know. I hope you don’t mind me putting it this way, but when I found he was spending his spare time with you, and even making time to do it, I knew he had stopped looking back.
“And now—this breakdown. I don’t mind admitting that I’m completely in the dark. You say that you were looking up at the Space Station, but that doesn’t seem enough cause. Walter had a rather bad fear of heights when he came here, but he’d largely got over that. Besides, he must have seen the station dozens of times in the morning or evening. There must have been some other factor we don’t know.”
Dr. Myers stopped his rapid delivery, then said gently, as if the thought had only just struck him: “Tell me, Indra—had you been making love?”
“No,” she said without hesitation or embarrassment. “There was nothing like that.”
It was a little hard to believe, but he knew it was the truth. He could detect—so clear and unmistakable!—the note of regret in her voice.
“I was wondering if he had any guilt feelings about his wife. Whether he knows it or not, you probably remind him of her, which is why he was attracted to you in the first place. Anyway, that line of reasoning isn’t enough to explain what happened, so let’s forget it.
“All we know is that there was an attack, and a very bad one. Giving him that sedative was the best thing you could have done in the circumstances. You’re quite sure that he never gave any indication of what he intended to do when you got him back to Heron?”
“Quite sure. All he said was, ‘Don’t tell Dr. Myers.’ He said there was nothing you could do.”
That, thought Myers grimly, might well be true, and he did not like the sound of it. There was only one reason why a man might hide from the only person who could help him. That was because he
had decided he was now beyond help.
“But he promised,” Indra continued, “to see you in the morning.”
Myers did not reply. By this time they both knew that that promise had been nothing more than a ruse.
Indra still clung desperately to one last hope.
“Surely,” she said, her voice quivering as if she did not really believe her own words, “if he’d intended to do—something drastic—he’d have left a message for somebody.”
Myers looked at her sadly, his mind now completely made up.
“His parents are dead,” he replied. “He said good-by to his wife long ago. What message was there for him to leave?”
Indra knew, with a sickening certainty, that he spoke the truth. She might well be the only person on Earth for whom Franklin felt any affection. And he had made his farewell with her.…
Reluctantly, Myers rose to his feet.
“There’s nothing we can do,” he said, “except to start a general search. There may be a chance that he’s just blowing off steam at full throttle, and will creep in shamefaced some time this morning. It’s happened before.”
He patted Indra’s bowed shoulders, then helped her out of the chair. “Don’t be too upset, my dear. Everyone will do his best.” But in his heart, he knew it was too late. It had been too late hours before, and they were going through the motions of search and rescue because there were times when no one expected logic to be obeyed.
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 IX
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 reasonable 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 up 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 lie 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 obviously never been fired before, and their webbing was fitted with every conceivable underwater gadget. Captain Bert looked at them sardonically; 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. Robinson, 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—pro
bably 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 Bart 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 difficulty 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 subdued 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 attitude 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.”