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Seed of the Arctic Ice
By H. G. Winter
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding StoriesFebruary 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that theU.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: Killer whales and seal-creatures tangle Ken Torrance in anamazing adventure under the ice-roofed arctic sea.]
Sleepily the lookout stared at the scope-screen before him, wishing forsomething that would break the monotony of the scene it pictured: theschools of ghostly fish fleeting by, the occasional shafts of palesunlight filtering down through breaks in the ice-floes above, the longsnaky ropes of underwater growth. None of this was conducive towakefulness; nor did the half-speed drone of the electric engines aftand the snores of some distant sleeper help him. The four other men onduty in the submarine--the helmsman; the second mate, whose watch itwas; the quartermaster and the second engineer--might not have beenpresent, so motionless and silent were they.
The lookout man stifled another yawn and glanced at a clock to see howmuch more time remained of his trick. Then suddenly something on thescreen brought him to alert attention. He blinked at it; staredhard--and thrilled.
Far ahead, caught for an instant by the submarine _Narwhal's+light-beams, a number of sleek bodies moved through the foggy murk, witha flash of white bellies and an easy graceful thrust of flukes.
The watcher's hands cupped his mouth; he turned and sang out:
"K-i-i-ll-ers! I see killers!"
The cry rang in every corner, and immediately there was a feverishresponse. Rubbing their eyes, men appeared as if from nowhere and jumpedto posts; with a clang, the telegraph under the second mate's hand wentover to full speed; Captain Streight rolled heavily out of his bunk,flipped his feet mechanically into sea-boots and came stamping forward.First Torpooner Kenneth Torrance, as he sat up and stretched, heard theusual crisp question:
"Where away?"
"Five points off sta'b'd bow, sir; quarter-mile away; swimming slow."
"How large a school?"
"Couldn't say, sir. Looks around a dozen."
"Whew!" whistled Ken Torrance. "That's a strike!" He pulled on a sweaterand strode forward to the scope-screen to see for himself, even asCaptain Streight, all at once testy with eagerness, bawled:
"Sta'b'd five! Torpoon ready, Mister Torrance! Mister Torr--oh, here youare. Take a look."
* * * * *
Never in the two years of experience which had brought him to theimportant post of first torpooner had Ken failed to thrill at the sightwhich now met his eyes. Directly ahead, now that the _Narwhal's_ bow wasturned in pursuit, but veering slowly to port, swam a pack of the twentyto thirty-foot dolphins which are called "killer whales," their bodiesso close-pressed that they seemed to be an undulating wave of black,occasionally sliced with white as the fluke-thrusts brought theirbellies into view. Their speed through the shadowed, gloomy water wasequal to the submarine's; when alarmed, it would almost double.
"Three more of 'em will fill our tanks," grunted Streight, his chunkyface almost glowing. He bit on a plug of tobacco, his eyes never movingfrom the screen. "Now, if only we hadn't lost Beddoes.... Y' think youcan bag three, Mister Torrance?"
"Well, if three'll fill our tanks--sure!" grinned Ken.
The other's eyebrows twitched suddenly. "They're speeding up!" heshouted, and then: "That torpoon ready, there? Good." His voice loweredagain as Ken pulled his belt a notch tighter and snatched a last glimpseof the fish before leaving. "I want you to try for three, son," he saidsoberly: "but--be careful. Don't take fool chances, and keep alert.Remember Beddoes."
Ken nodded and walked to the torpoon catapult, hearing Streight'sfamiliar send-off echoed by the men of the crew who were nearby:
"Good hunting!"
* * * * *
The idea of an underwater craft for the pursuit of killerwhales--tremendously valuable since the discovery of valuable medicinalqualities in their oil--had been scoffed at by the majority of theAlaska Whaling Company's officials at the time of its suggestion, butthe _Narwhal_ after her first two months of service had decisivelyproved her worth. She was not restricted to the open seas, now sweptalmost clean of the highly prized killers; she could follow them totheir last refuge, right beneath the floe-edges of the Arctic Circle;and as a result she could bring back more oil than any four surfacewhalers.
With a cruising radius of twenty-five hundred miles, she stayed out fromthe base until her torpoons had accounted for anywhere from sixty toeighty killers. One by one these sea-animals would be taken to thesurface and there cut up and boiled down, until her tanks were full ofthe precious blubber oil. Ever farther she pressed in her quest for thefish schools, dipping for leagues into a silent sea that for ages hadbeen known only to the whale and the seal and their kindred; a seaalways dark and mysterious beneath its sheath of ice.
The inner catapult door closed behind Kenneth Torrance, and he slid intohis torpoon. Twelve feet long, and resembling in miniature a dirigible,was this weapon that made practical an underwater whaling craft. Thetapered stern bore long directional rudders, which curved round thesquat high-speed propeller: its smooth flanks of burnished steel weremarked only by the lines of the entrance port, which the torpooner nowdrew tight and locked. Twin eyes of light-beam projectors were set inthe bow, which was cut also by a vision-plate of fused quartz and thenitro-shell gun's tube, successor to the gun-cast harpoon.
Ken lay full-length in the padded body compartment, his feet resting onthe controlling bars of the directional planes, hands on the torpoon'sengine levers. A harness was buckled all around him, to keep him inplace. His gray eyes, level and sober, peered through the vision-plateat the outer catapult door.
Suddenly a spot of red light glowed in it; the door quivered, swung out.A black tide swirled into the chamber. There came the hiss of releasedair-pressure, and the slim undersea steed rocketed out into the exteriorgloom, her light-beams flashing on and propeller settling into a blur ofspeed as she was flung.
* * * * *
Ken turned on her full twenty-four knots, zoomed above the dark bulk ofthe slower mother ship, whose light-beams flashed across him for asecond, and then straightened out in a long, slight-angled dive afterthe great black bodies ahead.
Aware that some strange enemy was on their track, the killers had becomepanicky and were darting away at their full speed, which was onlyslightly under that of the torpoon's humming motors, and which at timeseven surpassed it. Ken saw that it looked like a long chase, and settledhis lean body as comfortably as he could.
His mind was not concentrated on the task ahead, for the first part wasmere routine and he could follow his quarry almost mechanically. And so,as his steel shell drove through the ever-shadowed, icy sea, he began tothink about the disappearance of Chan Beddoes, the _Narwhal's_ secondtorpooner.
Dead, now Beddoes; it was a week since he had set out on the chase fromwhich he had never returned. Ken could only conjecture as to what hadstricken him down. There were countless possibilities: perhaps a blowfrom a dying killer whale's flukes bursting his torpoon's seams; perhapsa crash into underwater ice. Whatever it was, it had been sudden, fornot even a faint radioed S.O.S. had trembled into the ear-phones of the_Narwhal's_ radio-man. For two days they had held hopes that the secondtorpooner still lived, as the sea-suit stored in each torp containedair-units sufficient for thirty-six hours. But a whole week's passingtold them that that vast stretch of glacial sea was now Chan Beddoes'grave.
Ken's
reflections brought an urge to get the present job over with asquickly as possible. He squeezed another ounce of speed from thetorpoon, taxing it to the limit and setting up a slight vibration; thenhe fondled the nitro-shell gun's trigger and studied the huge fishbodies ahead.
"Seems as if they're going to run forever," he muttered indignantly."We'll be to the Pole if they keep it up!"
* * * * *
Already the _Narwhal_ was miles behind. Through the torp's vision-platea scene of ever increasing mystery and gloom met his gaze. The killers'course had brought them beneath a wide sheet of ice, apparently, forthere were no more columns of pale sunlight piercing through. Thequarter-light monotone was unbroken, save by deeper drifts of shadow,and as he drummed through it the torpooner wondered