Creatures of the Abyss, Murray Leinster [read after .txt] 📗

bills. She put them down.

"I'll leave the paddle with you," she said crisply. "Our boat is the Esperance. You'll find it...." She named the anchorage, which was that of Manila's most expensive yacht club. "There's a launch which will bring you out whenever you're ready to sail. It would be nice if you could sail tomorrow—and nicer if you could come aboard today."

She nodded in friendly fashion, opened the door—the bell jangled—and went out.

Terry blinked. Then he swore and snatched up the pile of bills. Two fluttered to the floor and he lost time picking them up. He went out after her, the money in his hand.

He saw a taxicab door close behind her, three or four doors down the street. Instantly the cab was in mad career away. The taxicabs of Manila are driven by a special breed of chauffeurs. It is said that they are all escaped lunatics with homicidal tendencies. The cab went roaring down the Calle Enero's cluttered length and turned the corner.

Terry went back to the shop. He swore again. He looked at the money in his hand. It totalled exactly the excessive amount he'd named as the price of an electronic fish-driving unit, including an underwater horn.

"The devil!" he said angrily.

He felt the special indignation some men feel when they are in difficulties which their pride requires them to surmount by themselves, and somebody tries to help. The indignation is the greater as they see less chance of success on their own.

Terry's situation was offensive to him because he shouldn't be in this kind of situation at all, or rather, his troubles were not foreseeable by the most competent of graduate electronic engineers. He'd trained for the work he'd undertaken. He'd prepared himself for competence. At graduation he'd encountered the representatives of at least three large corporations who were snapping up engineers as soon as they left the cloistered halls of learning. Terry'd asked how many men were employed in the category he'd fit in. When one representative boasted that ten thousand such engineers were on his company's payroll, Terry declined at once. He wanted to accomplish something himself, not as part of a team of some thousands of members. The smaller the organization, the better one's chance for personal satisfaction. He wouldn't make as much money, but—

It was a matter of simple logic. If he was better off with a really small company, he'd be best off on his own. And he'd nearly managed it. He'd worked only with Jimenez. Jimenez was the sales organization. Terry was the production staff. In Manila there was certainly room for special electronic equipment—especialidades electr�nicas y f�sicas. He should have had an excellent chance to build up a good business. Starting small, even without capital, he'd confidently expected to be going strong within months. There were taxi fleets to be equipped with short-wave radio. There were burglar alarms to be designed and installed, and all sorts of setups to be engineered. And these things were still in demand. His expectations had a solid foundation. Nobody could have anticipated the disaster caused by La Rubia's phenomenal success in commercial fishery. It was even irrational for it to be a disaster to Terry. But it was.

More immediately, though, he was indignant because this girl had known all about him when she came into the shop. She'd probably even known about his gimmicking a standard-design submarine listening device so it was really good and really directional. But she'd let him talk, asking seemingly interested questions, when she knew the whole business beforehand. And at the end she'd done a most infuriating thing by paying him in advance for something he'd refused to do, thereby forcing him into the obligation to do it.

He fretted. He needed the money. But he objected to being tricked. He went back to the probably senseless business of taking an inventory. Time passed. Nothing happened. Nobody came to the shop. The police had been firm about La Rubia crewmen calling on Terry to make threats. They'd been equally firm about other people calling to make counterthreats. No casual customers entered. Two hours went by.

At four o'clock the door opened—with the sound of its tinkling bell—and Police Captain Felicio Horta came in.

"Buenas tardes," he said cordially.

Terry grunted at him.

"I hear," said Horta, "that you leave Manila."

Terry asked evenly, "Is that a way of asking me to hurry up and do it?"

"Pero no! Por supuesto no!" protested Horta. "But it is said that you have new and definite plans."

"What do you know about them?" demanded Terry.

Police Captain Horta said pleasantly, "Officially, nothing. Privately, that you will aid some ricos americanos to do experiments in—oceanograf�a? Some study of oceanic things. That you regret having agreed to do so. That you consider changing your mind. That you are angry."

The girl, of course, could have inferred all this from his angry charge out of the shop with the money in his hand, too late to stop her taxicab. But Terry snapped, "Now, who the devil told you that?"

Police Captain Horta shrugged.

"One hears. I hope it is not true."

"That what's not true? That I leave? Or that I don't?"

"I hope," said Horta benignly, "that you do as you please. I am not on duty at the moment. I have my car. I offer myself to chauffeur you if there is any place you wish to go—to a steamer or anywhere else. If you do not wish to go anywhere, I will take my leave. With no pre ... prejudice," he finished. "We have been friendly. I hope we remain so."

Terry stared at him estimatingly. Police Captain Horta was a reasonable and honest man. He knew that Terry had contributed to matters giving the police some trouble, but he knew it was accidental on Terry's part. He would hold no grudge.

"Just why," asked Terry measuredly, "did you come here to offer to drive me somewhere? Is there any special reason to want me to get out of town?"

"That is not it," said Horta. "It could be wished that you would—take a certain course of action. Yes. But not because you would be absent from here. It is because you would be present at a special other place. The matter connects with La Rubia, but in a manner you could not possibly guess. Yet you are wholly a free agent. You will do as you please. I would like to make it—convenient. That is all."

He paused. Terry stared at him, frowning. Horta tried again.

"Let us say that I have much interest in oceanograf�a. I would like to see certain research carried on."

"Being, I'm sure, especially interested in fish-driving," said Terry skeptically. "You sound as if you were acting unofficially to get something done that officially you can't talk about."

Horta smiled warmly at him.

"That," he pronounced, "is a logical conclusion."

"What's the object of the—research, if that's what it is? And why pick me?"

Horta shrugged and did not answer.

"Why not tell me?"

"Amigo," said Horta, "I would like nothing better than to tell you. I would be interested to see your reception of the idea. But it would be fatal. You would think me cr-azy. And also more important persons. But especially me."

It was Terry's turn to shrug his shoulders. He hesitated for a long moment. If Horta had tried to apply pressure, he'd have turned obstinate on the instant. But there was no pressure. First the girl and now Horta tried to lure him with mystery and assurance of interest in high places.

"And La Rubia's involved in the secret?" demanded Terry.

"Innocently," said Horta promptly. "As you are."

"Thank you for faith in my innocence," said Terry with irony. "All right. If I'm involved, I'm involved. I'll try to devolve out of being involved by playing along."

He turned to the workshop space at the back of the store. He found boxes to pack his working tools and the considerable stock of small parts needed to make such things as burglar alarms, submarine ears and the assorted electronic devices modern business finds increasingly necessary. He began to pack them. Surprisingly, Horta helped. Any man of Spanish blood is apt to be sensitive about manual labor. If he has an official position his sensitiveness is apt to be extreme. But Horta not only helped pack the boxes with Terry's stock of parts; he helped carry them to his car outside. He helped to load them.

Terry turned the key in the door and handed it to him, with the nearly complete inventory of the shop's contents.

"Jimenez having run away, I leave the shop in your hands," he observed.

Horta put the key and document away. He started the motor of his car and drove along the Calle Enero. He drove with surprising moderation for a police officer authorized to ignore traffic rules on occasion. Presently the dock-area of Manila was left behind, and then the rest of the commercial district, and then for a time the car tooled along wide streets past the impressive residences of the wealthy. Some of the architecture was remarkable. A little further, and the harbor—the bay—appeared again. The car entered the grounds of Manila's swankiest yacht club. The design of the clubhouse was astounding. The car stopped by the small-boat pier. There were two men waiting there. Without being given any orders, they accepted the parcels Horta handed out. Also without orders, they carried them out to the float. They loaded them into the brass-trimmed motor tender which waited there.

"They knew we were coming," said Terry shortly. "Would I have been brought anyhow?"

"Pero no," said Horta. "But there are telephones. When we left the shop, one was used."

The men who'd carried out the parcels vanished. Terry and Horta stepped aboard. The tender cast off and headed out into the harbor. There was a Philippine gunboat and a mine-layer and an American flattop in plain view. There were tankers and tramp steamers and a vast array of smaller craft at anchor. A seemingly top-heavy steamer ploughed across oily water two miles distant. The tender headed for a trim sixty-five-foot schooner anchored a mile from shore. It grew larger and seemed more trim as the tender approached it.

The smaller boat passed under the larger one's stern, and the name Esperance showed plainly. On the starboard side a boat boom projected. The tender ran deftly up and a man in a sweat shirt and duck trousers snubbed the line. He said cheerfully, "How do you do, Mr. Holt?" Then he nodded to Horta. "Good to see you, Captain." He offered his hand as Terry straightened up on deck. "My name's Davis. We'll have your stuff aboard right away."

Two young men in dungarees and with crew cuts appeared and took over the motley lot of cartons that Terry and Horta had made ready.

"Have you everything you need?" asked Davis anxiously. "Would some extra stuff be useful?"

"I could do with a few items," said Terry, stiffly.

He had quickly developed an acute dislike for the patent attempt to induce him to join the Esperance. He had no reason for his objection, save that he had not been informed about the task he was urged to undertake.

"Also," he added abruptly, "Captain Horta didn't think to stop at my hotel so I could get my baggage."

"Write a list of what you want," suggested Davis. "I'm sure something can be done about your baggage. Make the list complete. If something's left over, it won't matter. There's a desk in the cabin for you to write at." He turned to Horta. "Captain, what's the news about La Rubia?"

"She sailed again yesterday," said Horta ruefully. "She was followed by many other boats. And now there is a moon. It rises late, but it rises. Many sailors will be watching her from mastheads. It is said that all the night glasses in Manila have been bought by fishermen...."

His voice died away as Terry went down the companion ladder. Belowdecks was attractive. There was no ostentation, but the d�cor was obviously expensive. There were armchairs, electric lamps, a desk, and shelves filled with books—two or three on electronics and a highly controversial one on marine monsters and sea serpents. There were some on anthropology. On skin diving. On astronomy. Two thick volumes on abyssal fish. There was a shelf of fiction and other shelves of reference books for navigation, radio and Diesel maintenance and repair. There were obvious reasons for these last, but no reason that could be imagined for two books on the solar planets.

Terry sat at the desk and compiled a list of electronic parts that he was sure wouldn't be available in Manila. He was annoyed as he realized afresh the smoothness of the operation that had brought him to the Esperance. He found satisfaction in asking for some multi-element vacuum tubes that simply couldn't be had except on special order from the manufacturers back in the United States. But it took time to think of them.

When