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

Terry blinked. Then he realized. Of course, that was where just about any imaginable component for electronic devices would be found—in the electronics stores of a flattop! They needed to have such things at hand. They'd carry them in store. Davis said drily, "They wouldn't supply parts to a civilian who was investigating imaginary gods or devils. So what I'm bothered with isn't a superstition. Right?"

"Y-yes," agreed Terry.

It was true. The Navy would not stretch regulations for a crackpot civilian. It was not likely, either, that Horta would have implied so definitely that the Philippine Government wanted somebody with Terry's qualifications to go for a cruise on the Esperance.

Deirdre put her head up through the after-cabin hatch.

"Dinner is served," she said cheerfully.

"The wheel," said Davis to Terry.

He went forward. All four of the non-professional seamen came with him when he returned.

"This is the rest of the gang," said Davis. "You met Nick. The others are Tony Drake, Jug Bell, and Doug Holmes." He made an embracing gesture as they shook hands in turn. "Harvard, Princeton, Yale—and Nick's M.I.T. It's your turn at the wheel, Tony."

One of the four took over. The others filed below after Davis and Terry. Terry was silent. Davis had wanted to show that he was being informative, and yet he'd said exactly nothing about the interests or the purpose of the Esperance's complement.

Dinner in the after-cabin was almost as confusing to Terry. Seen at close range across a table, the four dungareed young men could not possibly be anything but college undergraduates. They were respectful to Davis as an older man and they tended to be a little cagey about Terry, because he was slightly older than themselves but not an honorary contemporary. They plainly regarded Deirdre with the warmest possible approval.

Conversation began, at first cryptic but suddenly only preposterous. There was an argument about the supposed intelligence of porpoises, based on recent studies of their brain structure. Tony observed profoundly that without an opposable thumb intelligence could not lead to artefacts, and hence no culture and no great effective intelligence was possible. Jug denied the meaningfulness of brain structure as an indication of intellect. Intellect would be useless to a creature which could neither make nor use a tool. Doug argued hotly that the point was absurd. He pointed to spastic children once rated as morons but actually having high I.Q.'s. They had intellects, though they had been useless because of their inability to communicate. But Nick asserted that without tools they'd have nothing to talk about but food, danger, and who went where with whom for what. All of which, he observed, needed no brains.

Davis listened amusedly. Deirdre threw in the suggestion that without hands or tools an intelligent creature could compose poetry, and Jug protested that that was nothing to use a brain for—and the talk turned into a violent argument about poetry. Doug insisted vehemently that the finest possible intellects were required for the composition and appreciation of true poetry. Then Davis said, "Tony's still at the wheel."

The argument died down and the crew-cuts devoted themselves to eating, so one of them could get through and relieve him.

Afterward, Davis settled down below to a delicate short-wave tuning process to get music from an improbable distance. Deirdre served Tony his meal and talked with him while he ate it. Terry went abovedecks and paced back and forth as the Esperance sailed on through the night.

He couldn't make out anything at all about the crew or the purpose behind the Esperance's chosen task and purpose. He felt dubious about the whole business. Like most technically-minded men, he could become absorbed in a problem, especially if it was a device difficult to design or a design that somehow didn't work. Such things fascinated him. But the Esperance's crew was not concerned with a problem like that. There was no pattern in their talk or behavior to match the way a technical mind would go about finding a solution. The problem was bafflingly vague, yet there was one.

La Rubia was an element in it. Possibly Davis' wistful mention of a partial map of the bottom of the Luzon Deep fitted in somewhere. Davis had spoken of orejas de ellos with some familiarity, but certainly no Navy ship would cooperate in the investigation of a fisherman's superstition in which even fishermen didn't believe any longer. The Philippine fishing fleet was modern and efficient. Fishermen used submarine ears without superstitious fears, and if they referred to imaginary ellos it was as an American would say "knock on wood," with no actual belief that it meant anything.

Whatever the Esperance's purpose was, there was nothing mystical about it—not if a flattop parted with rare and expensive specialized vacuum tubes to try to help, and the police department of Manila urged Terry tactfully—through Horta—to join the yacht, and no less than a Navy Captain had named him as someone to be recruited.

Deirdre came abovedecks and replaced Tony at the wheel. The Esperance sailed on. A last-quarter moon was now shining low on the eastern horizon. It seemed larger and nearer to the earth than when seen from more temperate climes. The wake of the yacht glowed in the moonlight.

The wide expanse of canvas made stark contrast between its moonlit top and its shadow on the deck. The only illumination on the ship was the binnacle lights and the red and green running lights. Deirdre kept the Esperance on course.

Terry went up to where she sat, beside the wheel.

"I've been making guesses," he told her. "Your father.... I believe that his curiosity has been aroused by something, and he's resolved to track it down. I strongly suspect that at some time or another he's gotten bored with making money and decided to have some fun."

Deirdre nodded.

"Very good! Almost completely true. But what he's interested in is a good deal more important than fun."

Terry nodded in his turn.

"I suspected that too. And it's rather likely that you've got a volunteer crew instead of a professional one because these young men consider it a fascinating adventure into the absurd, and because they'll keep their mouths shut if something turns out to be classified information."

"My father's doing this strictly on his own!" said Deirdre quickly. "There's nothing official about it. There isn't any classified information about it. This is a private affair from the beginning!"

"But in the end it may turn out to be something else," said Terry.

"Y-yes. We don't know, though. It's impossible to know! It's—ridiculous!"

"And my explanation for your being so mysterious with me is that you and your father insist that I find out everything for myself because I'd think it foolish if you told me."

Deirdre did not answer for a moment. There was a movement behind Terry, and Davis came on deck.

"That was good music!" he said pleasedly. "You missed some very interesting sounds, Deirdre! You too, Holt."

"He's decided," said Deirdre, "that we're a little bit ashamed of our enterprise and won't tell him about it for fear he'll simply laugh at us."

Terry protested, "Not at all! Nothing like that!"

"When some forty-odd people have been killed by something inexplicable at one time that we know of," said Davis, "—and we don't know how many others have been killed at other times, or may be killed by it in the future—I don't think that's a laughing matter."

He surveyed what should be the direction of the land. A light showed there and vanished, then came on again and vanished. A minute later it showed and disappeared, then came on again twice. It was very far away. Davis said in a different tone, "We can change course now, Deirdre. You know the new one."

The Esperance's bowsprit forsook the star at which it had been aiming. It swung to another. Davis moved about, adjusting the sheets alone. On the new heading the yacht heeled over a little more and the water rushing past her hull had a different sound. The sky seemed larger and more remote than it ever appears from a city. The yacht's wake streamed behind her in a trail of bluish brightness. Even the moon was strange. It had the cold enormousness of something very near and menacing. It looked as close as when seen through a telescope of moderate power.

The Esperance seemed very lonely on the immense waste of waters.

Next morning, of course, the sense of loneliness was gone. There was neither land nor any ship in sight, but gulls fluttered and squawked overhead, and the waves seemed to leap and gambol in the sunshine. Just before the foremast a metal plate in the decking had been lifted up, and a new, stubby, extensible mast rose almost as high as the crosstrees. A tiny basket-like object rotated monotonously at its upper end. It was a radar-bowl, and somehow it was not unusual, except in the manner in which it was mounted. Yet, such a collapsible radar mast was reasonable on a sailing yacht with many lines aloft that could be fouled. Anyhow, the radar was concerned with human affairs, and so it was company.

The housekeeping work on the boat was in progress. Doug and Jug scrubbed the deck. The other crew-cuts gave signs of industry from time to time, appearing and vanishing. Davis smoked tranquilly at the wheel. Terry felt useless, as well as puzzled.

"Can I do anything?" he asked awkwardly.

"You're your own boss," said Davis.

"Then I might as well see what can be done about that submarine noisemaker."

"If you feel like it," said Davis, "fine!"

But he did not urge. Terry waited a moment. There was a sort of contagion of purposefulness in this eccentric small group on the Esperance. They had something they were trying to do, and it seemed important to them. But Terry was an outsider and would remain one until he became active in their joint effort.

He got out his equipment and materials and spread them out. There was no need to build a recorder, since there was one among the supplies. The rest wouldn't be unduly difficult. He established a working space and set systematically to work. The task he'd accepted was essentially simple. A submarine ear was to pick up underwater sounds. He had to modify a microphone and enclose it in a water-tight housing, with certain special features that would make it highly directional. The recorder would take the pick-up and register it on magnetic tape, while playing it for simultaneous listening. Then he had to assemble a machine for playing back the taped sounds under water. That required a unit for a submarine horn, to broadcast the amplified sound. It isn't difficult to make a sound under water. One can knock two stones together under the surface and a swimmer can hear it a mile or more away. But a horn to reproduce specific sounds is more difficult to build. It needs extra power. A sound-truck in a city, competing with all the traffic noises, will turn no more than fifteen watts of electricity into noise. But much more power would be needed to produce a similar volume under water.

Terry modified the mike into a submarine ear—an orejas de ellos. Then he began to assemble an audio amplifier to build up the volume of the sounds already taped for re-use under the sea. He had the parts. It was mostly just finicky labor. He sat cross-legged in the sunshine, not far from the Esperance's unusual winch.

Nick came up from below and went aft. He spoke to Davis. Terry couldn't hear what was said, but Davis gave orders.

The Esperance heeled over; away, away over. The four crew-cuts adjusted the sheets for maximum effect of the sails on the new direction of motion. The yacht seemed to tear through the water like a racing boat. Terry had to rescue some of his smaller parts which started for the scuppers. He looked up. Deirdre said cheerfully, "Our radar picked up a boat that's probably La Rubia on the way back to Manila. We don't want her to see us."

Terry blinked.

"Why?"

"We're going to take a look at the spot where we think she catches her fish," said Deirdre. "It's strange enough that she catches so many, but what's even stranger is the kind of fish she catches at times."

"How?"

Deirdre shrugged. Then she said irrelevantly, "La Rubia's skipper would like to have the only radar in the world, as you've reason to know, and he doesn't think of radars, except his own and possible competitors. But there are lots of others. We're probably a blip on somebody's radar-screen right now. In fact, we're supposed to be. So when my father got interested in La Rubia and her—catches, he was able to have somebody notice where she goes every time she slips away from the fishing fleet. And so he was told. It was all quite unofficial, of course."

Terry bent over his task again while the Esperance sped along over the off-shore swells. There was