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

in deep water, that's true. But...."

"You're explaining," said Terry, "that you didn't want me to whack a fish-driving paddle overside in deep water."

Davis hesitated, and then nodded.

"The phenomena you're interested in are under water?"

"Yes," said Davis. "They are in the Luzon Deep area."

"Then, to be co-operative, I'll test this contrivance in ten to fifteen feet of water in the Barca harbor. And I will not get temperamental about your suggestions that I should not mess up your deep-water inquiries."

"Thanks," said Davis.

He went forward to meet Nick, just coming abovedecks with a slip of paper in his hand. It occurred to Terry, suddenly, that somebody went below down the forecastle hatch just about every hour on the hour. They must be in short-wave communication with Manila. It had been mentioned last night—a loran fix on the Esperance's position. There were apparently frequent reports to somebody somewhere.

The afternoon went by. A tree-lined shore appeared to the eastward just when the gaudy colorings of a beautiful sunset filled all the western sky. The Esperance changed course and followed the coast line, some miles out. Night fell. The yacht sailed with a fine smooth motion over the ocean swells.

After dinner Davis was below, fiddling with the knobs to pick up short-wave music from San Francisco, and the muted sound of an argument came occasionally from the forecastle where the four crew-cuts resided. Terry and Deirdre went on deck.

"My father," said Deirdre, "says you understand each other better, now. He doesn't think you're going to feel offended with us, and he's really pleased. He says your mind doesn't work like his, but you come to more or less the same conclusions, which makes it likely the conclusions are right."

Terry grimaced.

"My conclusion," he observed, "is that I haven't enough facts yet to come to any conclusion."

"Of course!" said Deirdre. "Just like my father!"

They sat in silence. It was not exactly a tranquil stillness. It was pleasant enough to be here on the slanting deck of a beautiful yacht, driving competently through dark seas under a canopy of stars. But now Terry realized he was constantly aware of Deirdre. He liked her. But he'd liked other people, male and female, without being continually conscious of their existence. Girls are usually more conscious of such things than men. At least ninety-nine per cent of the time, a man does not modify his behavior because of the age, sex, and marital status of the people he comes in contact with. It isn't relevant to most of what he says and does. But a girl frequently modifies her actions in just such circumstances. Deirdre was well aware of the slightly uneasy, extremely interested state of Terry's mind. There was silence for a long time. Then a shooting star went across the sky. It went out.

"Would you like to hear something really wild?" asked Deirdre, ruefully. "That shooting star, just then. It used to be true that more meteorites—shooting stars—had fallen and been recovered in Kansas than any other place in the world. But it would be ridiculous to think they aimed for Kansas, wouldn't it?"

Terry nodded, not following at all.

"At Thrawn Island," said Deirdre, "since the satellite-tracking station has been built, space-radars have picked up more bolides—big meteors—coming in to fall in the Luzon Deep than ever in Kansas or anywhere else. I think my father frets over that, simply because he's so concerned about the Luzon Deep."

Terry heard himself saying irrelevantly, "I'd like to ask you a few strictly personal questions, Deirdre. What's your favorite food? What music do you like? Where would you like best to live? When...."

Deirdre turned her head to smile at him.

"I've been wondering," she said, "if you thought of me only as a fellow researcher or whether you'd noticed that I'm a person, too. Hmmmmm. There's a restaurant in Manila where they still cut their steaks along the muscle instead of across it, but where they make some unheard-of dishes. That place has some of my favorite foods. And...."

"Next time we're in Manila we'll try it," said Terry. "Now, I know a place...."

The Esperance went on. Presently, the moon rose and moonlight glinted on the waves while the stars looked cynically down on the small yacht upon the sea. And two people talked comfortably and absorbedly about things nobody else would have thought very interesting.

When Terry turned in for the night he realized pleasantly that he was very glad he'd let himself be persuaded to join the Esperance's company.

Dawn came. Terry was already on deck when the Esperance threaded her way into a small harbor. There were palm trees along the shore, and there was a Philippine town with edifices ranging from burnt brick to stucco to mere nipa huts on its outskirts. Two-man fishing boats were making their way out from the shore on which they'd been beached. From somewhere came the staccato, back-firing noise of an old automobile-engine being warmed up for the day's work. It would undoubtedly be the bus for Manila. But it was not thinkable that Terry should take it, now.

The yacht dropped anchor and lay indolently at rest while her crew breakfasted and the morning deck routine was being performed. Then Deirdre appeared in shore-going clothes of extreme femininity. Davis too was dressed otherwise than as usual.

"We're going ashore to the shipyard," he told Terry. "If you'd like to come—"

"I've something to do here," said Terry.

Two of the crew-cuts got a boat overside and headed it for the shore. Terry got out the recorder and the submarine ear and horn. He set up his apparatus for a test. Tony came from belowdecks and watched. Then he came closer.

"If I can help," he said tentatively.

"You can," Terry told him. "But let's listen to what the fish are saying, first."

He dropped over the submarine ear and started the recorder to play what it picked up, but without recording it. Sounds from underwater came out of the speakers. The slappings of tiny harbor-waves against the yacht's planking; the chunking, rhythmic sound of oars from a fishing boat which was rowing after the half-dozen that had gone out earlier; grunting sounds. Those were fish.

Terry listened critically, and Tony with interest. Then Terry brought out the fish-driving paddle. He turned on the tape, now, to have a record of the sound the paddle made.

"Whack this on the water," he suggested, "and we'll hear how it sounds."

Tony went down the ladder and gave the water surface a few resounding whacks. There were tiny, violent swirlings. For thirty or forty feet from the Esperance's side there were isolated, minute turmoils in the water. Three or four fish actually leaped clear of the surface.

"Not bad!" said Tony. "Shall I whack some more?"

Terry reeled back a few feet of the tape which contained the whacking sounds. He re-played them, listening critically as before. Tony had returned to the deck. The whackings, as heard underwater, were not merely impacts. There was a resonance to them. Almost a hum. Rather grimly, Terry substituted this tape-reel with the recording he'd made the night before. He started the instrument and found the exact spot where the object from the depths had fallen back into the sea. He stopped the recorder right there. He hauled up the submarine ear and plugged in the horn to the audio-amplifier, as yet untested, which should multiply the volume of sound from the tape. Then he put the horn overside.

He switched on the recorder again. The tape-reel began to spin. The sound went out underwater from the horn. Underwater it was much louder than when it had been received by the Esperance's microphone. Here it was confined by the surface above and the harbor-bottom beneath. It must have been the equivalent of a loud shout in a closed room—only worse.

The fish in the harbor of Barca went mad. All the harbor-surface turned to spray. Creatures of all sizes leaped crazily above the surface, their fins flapping, only to leap again, more frantically still, when they fell back. A totally unsuspected school of very small flying fish flashed upward in such frenzied haste that some tried to climb too steeply and fell back and instantly flung themselves into the air again.

Terry turned off the playing recorder. The disorder at the top of the water ceased immediately. But he heard shrill outcries. Children had been wading at the edge of the shore. They stampeded for solid ground, shrieking. Where their feet and legs had been underwater they felt as if a million pins and needles had pricked them.

Something flapped heavily on the Esperance's deck. Tony went to see. It was a three-pound fish which had leaped clear of the water and over the yacht's rail to the deck.

Tony threw it back into the water.

"I guess there's not much doubt," he said painfully.

"Of what?" demanded Terry.

"Of what ... I had guessed," said Tony.

"And what did you guess?"

Tony hesitated.

"I guess," he said unhappily, "that I'd better not say."

He watched with a startled, uneasy expression on his face as Tony put the apparatus away.

Time passed. Davis and Deirdre had been ashore over an hour. Then Terry saw the small boat leave the shore and approach. It came deftly alongside, the two passengers climbed up to the deck, and all four crew-cuts hauled the boat back inboard and lashed it fast.

"Our dredge isn't ready yet," said Davis. "It looks good, but there'll be a delay of a few days."

Deirdre examined Terry's expression.

"Something's happened. What?"

Terry told her. Davis listened. Tony added what he'd seen, including the fish that had leaped high enough out of the water to land on the Esperance's deck.

"After the fact," said Davis, "I can see how it could happen. But...." He hesitated for a long time and then said, "This is another case where I've been making guesses and hoping I was wrong. And like the others, proof that my early guess was wrong makes another guess necessary. And I dislike the later guess much more than the first."

He moved restlessly.

"I'm glad you only tried it once, here," he said unhappily. "We're due up at Thrawn Island anyhow. You can work this trick out in the lagoon up there. If there's no reaction to the dredge when we try it, we can try this. But it might be a very violent poke at something we don't quite believe in. I'd rather try a gentle poke first."

He turned away. In minutes Nick was belowdecks starting the yacht's engine, two others of the crew-cuts were hauling up the anchor, and the fourth was at the wheel. Without haste, but with celerity, the Esperance headed for the harbor-mouth and the open sea.

They had their midday meal heading north by west. Late in the afternoon Deirdre found occasion to talk to Terry about Thrawn Island.

"It's the China Sea tracking station for satellites," she told him. "Some of the staff are friends of my father's. It's right on the edge of the Luzon Deep, and the island's actually an underwater mountain that just barely protrudes above the surface. There are some hills, a coral reef and a lagoon. It's also terrifically steep, and you can use the fish-driving device as much as you please without startling any Filipino fishermen."

"You've been there before," said Terry.

"Oh, yes! I told you a fish wearing a plastic object was caught in the lagoon there. That was when the station was being built. The men at the tracking station fish in the lagoon for fun, and now they're naturally watching out for more ... oddities."

The Esperance sailed on. The crew-cuts went about their various chores and talked endlessly, among themselves and with Deirdre, when she joined in. Terry felt useless. He trailed the submarine ear overboard and set the recorder to work as an amplifier only. At low volume it played the sounds of things below. He kept half an ear cocked toward it for the mooing sound he'd picked up at the place where the ocean glittered. He heard it again now, and again found it difficult to imagine any cause for it. The sounds uttered by noisemaking fish are usually produced in their swim-bladders. The purpose of fish cries is as obscure as the reason for some insect stridulations, or the song of many birds. But a long-continued fish noise would involve a swim-bladder of large size. At great depths, if a considerable cavity were filled with gas, under pressures running into tons to the square inch.... Terry could not quite believe it.

He did not hear the mooing sound any more, as the yacht went on its way. Other underwater sounds became commonplace, and he tended not to hear them. From the deck around him, though, he heard arguments about wave mechanics, prospects in the World Series, the virtues of Dixieland jazz, ichthyology, Copeland's contribution to modern music, the possibility of life on other planets, and kindred topics. The crew-cuts were taking their summer vacations as able seamen