One thing he would never know. If fate had not brought him public admiration and the even more valuable—because less fickle—friendship of Senator Chamberlain, would he have had the courage of his new-found convictions? It had been easy, as the latest hero that the world had taken to its heart but would forget tomorrow, to stand up in the witness box and state his beliefs. His superiors could fume and fret, but there was nothing they could do but accept his defection with the best grace they could muster. There were times when he almost wished that the accident of fame had not come to his rescue. And had his evidence, after all, been decisive? He suspected that it had. The result of the referendum had been close, and the Maha Thero might not have carried the day without his help.
The three sharp blasts of the siren broke into his reverie. In that awe-inspiring silence which still seemed so uncanny to those who remembered the age of rockets, the great ship sloughed away its hundred thousand tons of weight and began the climb back to its natural element. Half a mile above the plain, its own gravity field took over completely, so that it was no longer concerned with terrestial ideas of “up” or “down.” If lifted its prow toward the zenith, and hung poised for a moment like a metal obelisk miraculously supported among the clouds. Then, in that same awful silence, it blurred itself into a line—and the sky was empty.
The tension broke. There was a few stifled sobs, but many more laughs and jokes, perhaps a little too high-pitched to be altogether convincing. Franklin put his arms around Anne and Indra, and began to shepherd them toward the exit.
To his son, he willingly bequeathed the shoreless seas of space. For himself, the oceans of this world were sufficient. Therein dwelt all his subjects, from the moving mountain of Leviathan to the newborn dolphin that had not yet learned to suckle under water.
He would guard them to the best of his knowledge and ability. Already he could see clearly the future role of the bureau, when its wardens would be in truth the protectors of all the creatures moving in the sea. All? No—that, of course, was absurd; nothing could change or even greatly alleviate the incessant cruelty and slaughter that raged through all the oceans of the world. But with the great mammals who were his kindred, man could make a start, imposing his truce upon the battlefield of Nature.
What might come of that in the ages ahead, no one could guess. Even Lundquist’s daring and still unproved plan for taming the killer whales might no more than hint of what the next few decades would bring. They might even bring the answer to the mystery which haunted him still, and which he had so nearly solved when the submarine earthquake robbed him of his best friend.
A chapter—perhaps the best chapter—of his life was closing. The future would have many problems, but he did not believe that ever again would he have to face such challenges as he had met in the past. In a sense, his work was done, even though the details were merely beginning.
He looked once more at the empty sky, and the words that the Mahanayake Thero had spoken to him as they flew back from the Greenland station rose up out of memory like a ground swell on the sea. He would never forget that chilling thought: “When that time comes, the treatment man receives from his superiors may well depend upon the way he has behaved toward the other creatures of his own world.”
Perhaps he was a fool to let such phantasms of a remote and unknowable future have any influence upon his thoughts and acts, but he had no regrets for what he had done. As he stared into the blue infinity that had swallowed his son, the stars seemed suddenly very close. “Give us another hundred years,” he whispered, “and we’ll face you with clean hands and hearts—whatever shape you be.”
“Come along, dear,” said Indra, her voice still a little unsteady. “You haven’t much time. The office asked me to remind you—the Committee on Interdepartmental Standardization meets in half an hour.”
“I know,” said Franklin, blowing his nose firmly and finally. “I wouldn’t dream of keeping it waiting.”
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Arthur C. Clarke 1968
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The right of Arthur C. Clarke to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This edition first published in Great Britain in 2005 by
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This eBook first published in 2011 by Gollancz.
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ISBN 978 0 575 09878 7
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Arthur C. Clarke, The Deep Range
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