“Right—give me another couple of minutes so I can get a movie sequence as well. Then I’ll try to plant my harpoon.”
It seemed a long two minutes, but at last Don had finished. Percy still showed none of the shyness which Dr. Roberts had rather confidently predicted, though by this time he could hardly have imagined that Franklin’s sub was another squid.
Don planted his dart with neatness and precision in the thickest part of Percy’s mantle, where it would lodge securely but would do no damage. At the sudden sting, the great mollusk abruptly released its grip, and Franklin took the opportunity for going full speed ahead. He felt the horny palps grating over the stern of the sub; then he was free and rising swiftly up toward the distant sky. He felt rather pleased that he had managed to escape without using any of the battery of weapons that had been provided for this very purpose.
Don followed him at once, and they circled five hundred feet above the seabed—far beyond visual range. On the sonar screen the rocky bottom was a sharply defined plane, but now at its center pulsed a tiny, brilliant star. The little beacon—less than six inches long and barely an inch wide—that had been anchored in Percy was already doing its job. It would continue to operate for more than a week before its batteries failed.
“We’ve tagged him!” cried Don gleefully. “Now he can’t hide.”
“As long as he doesn’t get rid of that dart,” said Franklin cautiously. “If he works it out, we’ll have to start looking for him all over again.”
“I aimed it,” pointed out Don severely. “Bet you ten to one it stays put.”
“If I’ve learned one thing in this game,” said Franklin, “it’s not to accept your bets.” He brought the drive up to maximum cruising power, and pointed the sub’s nose to the surface, still more than half a mile away. “Let’s not keep Doc Roberts waiting—the poor man will be crazy with impatience. Besides, I want to see those pictures myself. It’s the first time I’ve ever played a starring role with a giant squid.”
And this, he reminded himself, was only the curtain raiser. The main feature had still to begin.
CHAPTER
15
How nice it is,” said Franklin, as he relaxed lazily in the contour-form chair on the porch, “to have a wife who’s not scared stiff of the job I’m doing.”
“There are times when I am,” admitted Indra. “I don’t like these deep-water operations. If anything goes wrong down there, you don’t have a chance.”
“You can drown just as easily in ten feet of water as ten thousand.”
“That’s silly, and you know it. Besides, no warden has ever been killed by drowning, as far as I’ve ever heard. The things that happen to them are never as nice and simple as that.”
“I’m sorry I started this conversation,” said Franklin ruefully, glancing around to see if Peter was safely out of earshot. “Anyway, you’re not worried about Operation Percy, are you?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’m as anxious as everybody else to see you catch him—and I’m still more interested to see if Dr. Roberts can keep him alive.” She rose to her feet and walked over to the bookshelf recessed into the wall. Plowing through the usual pile of papers and magazines that had accumulated there, she finally unearthed the volume for which she was looking.
“Listen to this,” she continued, “and remember that it was written almost two hundred years ago.” She began to read in her best lecture-room voice, while Franklin listened at first with mild reluctance, and then with complete absorption.
“In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose, and slightly gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on reappearing once more, like a stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod, the negro yelled out—‘There! there again! there she breaches! Right ahead! The White Whale! The White Whale!’
“The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab’s in advance, and all swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with oars suspended, we were awaiting its appearance, lo! in the same spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing cream-colour, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to catch at any hapless object within reach. No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable token of either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the billows, an unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.
“As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice exclaimed—‘Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!’
“ ‘What was it, Sir?’ said Flask.
“ ‘The great live squid, which, they say, few whaleships ever beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it.’
“But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel; the rest as silently following.”
• • •
Indra paused, closed the book, and waited for her husband’s response. Franklin stirred himself in the too-comfortable couch and said thoughtfully: “I’d forgotten that bit—if I ever read as far. It rings true to life, but what was a squid doing on the surface?”
“It was probably dying. They sometimes surface at night, but never in the daytime, and Melville says this was on ‘one transparent blue morning.’ ”
“Anyway, what’s a furlong? I’d like to know if Melville’s squid was as big as Percy. The photos make him a hundred and thirty feet from his flukes to the tips of his feelers.”
“So he beats the largest blue whale ever recorded.”
“Yes, by a couple of feet. But of course he doesn’t weigh a tenth as much.”
Franklin heaved himself from his couch and went in search of a dictionary. Presently Indra heard indignant noises coming from the living room, and called out: “What’s the matter?”
“It says here that a furlong is an obsolete measure of length equal to an eighth of a mile. Melville was talking through his hat.”
“He’s usually very accurate, at least as far as whales are concerned. But ‘furlong’ is obviously ridiculous—I’m surprised no one’s spotted it before. He must have meant fathoms, or else the printer got it wrong.”
Slightly mollified, Franklin put down the dictionary and came back to the porch. He was just in time to see Don Burley arrive, sweep Indra off her feet, plant a large but brotherly kiss on her forehead, and dump her back in her chair.
“Come along, Walt!” he said. “Got your things packed? I’ll give you a lift to the airport.”
“Where’s Peter hiding?” said Franklin. “Peter! Come and say good-bye—Daddy’s off to work.”
A four-year-old bundle of uncontrollable energy came flying into the room, almost capsizing his father as he jumped into his arms.
“Daddy’s going to bring me back a ’quid?” he asked.
“Hey—how did you know about all this?”
“It was on the news this morning, while you were still asleep,” explained Indra. “They showed a few seconds of Don’s film, too.”
“I was afraid of that. Now we’ll have to work with a crowd of cameramen and reporters looking over our shoulders. That means that something’s sure to go wrong.”
“They can’t follow us down to the bottom, anyway,” said Burley.
“I hope you’re right—but don’t forget we’re not the only people with deep-sea subs.”
“I don’t know how you put up with him,” Don protested to Indra. “Does
he always look on the black side of things?”
“Not always,” smiled Indra, as she unraveled Peter from his father. “He’s cheerful at least twice a week.”
Her smile faded as she watched the sleek sportster go whispering down the hill. She was very fond of Don, who was practically a member of the family, and there were times when she worried about him. It seemed a pity that he had never married and settled down; the nomadic, promiscuous life he led could hardly be very satisfying. Since they had known him, he had spent almost all his time on or under the sea, apart from hectic leaves when he had used their home as a base—at their invitation but often to their embarrassment when there were unexpected lady guests to entertain at breakfast.
Their own life, by many standards, had been nomadic enough, but at least they had always had a place they could call home. That apartment in Brisbane, where her brief but happy career as a lecturer at the University of Queensland had ended with the birth of Peter; that bungalow in Fiji, with the roof that had a mobile leak which the builders could never find; the married quarters at the South Georgia whaling station (she could still smell the mountains of offal, and see the gulls wheeling over the flensing yards); and finally, this house looking out across the sea to the other islands of Hawaii. Four homes in five years might seem excessive to many people, but for a warden’s wife Indra knew she had done well.
She had few regrets for the career that had been temporarily interrupted. When Peter was old enough, she told herself, she would go back to her research; even now she read all the literature and kept in touch with current work. Only a few months ago the Journal of Selachians had published her letter “On the possible evolution of the Goblin Shark (Scapanorhynchus owstoni),” and she had since been involved in an enjoyable controversy with all five of the scientists qualified to discuss the subject.
Even if nothing came of these dreams, it was pleasant to have them and to know you might make the best of both worlds. So Indra Franklin, housewife and ichthyologist, told herself as she went back into the kitchen to prepare lunch for her ever-hungry son.
• • •
The floating dock had been modified in many ways that would have baffled its original designers. A thick steel mesh, supported on sturdy insulators, extended its entire length, and above this mesh was a canvas awning to cut out the sunlight which would injure Percy’s sensitive eyes and skin. The only illumination inside the dock came from a battery of amber-tinted bulbs; at the moment, however, the great doors at either end of the huge concrete box were open, letting in both sunlight and water.
The two subs, barely awash, lay tied up beside the crowded catwalk as Dr. Roberts gave his final instructions.
“I’ll try not to bother you too much when you’re down there,” he said, “but for heaven’s sake tell me what’s going on.”
“We’ll be too busy to give a running commentary,” answered Don with a grin, “but we’ll do our best. And if anything goes wrong, trust us to yell right away. All set, Walt?”
“O.K.,” said Franklin, climbing down into the hatch. “See you in five hours, with Percy—I hope.”
They wasted no time in diving to the seabed; less than ten minutes later there was four thousand feet of water overhead, and the familiar rocky terrain was imaged on TV and sonar screen. But there was no sign of the pulsing star that should have indicated the presence of Percy.
“Hope the beacon hasn’t packed up,” said Franklin as he reported this news to the hopefully waiting scientists. “If it has, it may take us days to locate him again.”
“Do you suppose he’s left the area? I wouldn’t blame him,” added Don.
Dr. Roberts’ voice, still confident and assured, came down to them from the distant world of Sun and light almost a mile above.
“He’s probably hiding in a cleft, or shielded by rock. I suggest you rise five hundred feet so that you’re well clear of all the seabed irregularities, and start a high-speed search. That beacon has a range of more than a mile, so you’ll pick him up pretty quickly.”
An hour later even the doctor sounded less confident, and from the comments that leaked down to them over the sonar communicator it appeared that the reporters and TV networks were getting impatient.
“There’s only one place he can be,” said Roberts at last. “If he’s there at all, and the beacon’s still working, he must have gone down into the Miller Canyon.”
“That’s fifteen thousand feet deep,” protested Don. “These subs are only cleared for twelve.”
“I know—I know. But he won’t have gone to the bottom. He’s probably hunting somewhere down the slope. You’ll see him easily if he’s there.”
“Right,” replied Franklin, not very optimistically. “We’ll go and have a look. But if he’s more than twelve thousand feet down, he’ll have to stay there.”
On the sonar screen, the canyon was clearly visible as a sudden gap in the luminous image of the seabed. It came rapidly closer as the two subs raced toward it at forty knots—the fastest creatures, Franklin mused, anywhere beneath the surface of the sea. He had once flown low toward the Grand Canyon, and seen the land below suddenly whipped away as the enormous cavity gaped beneath him. And now, though he must rely for vision solely on the pattern of echoes brought back by his probing sound waves, he felt exactly that same sensation as he swept across the edge of this still mightier chasm in the ocean floor.
He had scarcely finished the thought when Don’s voice, high-pitched with excitement, came yelling from the speaker.
“There he is! A thousand feet down!”
“No need to break my eardrums,” grumbled Franklin. “I can see him.”
The precipitous slope of the canyon wall was etched like an almost vertical line down the center of the sonar screen. Creeping along the face of that wall was the tiny, twinkling star for which they had been searching. The patient beacon had betrayed Percy to his hunters.
They reported the situation to Dr. Roberts; Franklin could picture the jubilation and excitement up above, some hints of which trickled down through the open microphone. Presently Dr. Roberts, a little breathless, asked: “Do you think you can still carry out our plan?”
“I’ll try,” he answered. “It won’t be easy with this cliff face right beside us, and I hope there aren’t any caves Percy can crawl into. You ready, Don?”
“All set to follow you down.”
“I think I can reach him without using the motors. Here we go.”
Franklin flooded the nose tanks, and went down in a long, steep glide—a silent glide, he hoped. By this time, Percy would have learned caution and would probably run for it as soon as he knew that they were around.
The squid was cruising along the face of the canyon, and Franklin marveled that it could find any food in such a forbidding and apparently lifeless spot. Every time it expelled a jet of water from the tube of its siphon it moved forward in a distinct jerk; it seemed unaware that it was no longer alone, since it had not changed course since Franklin had first observed it.
“Two hundred feet—I’m going to switch on my lights again,” he told Don.
“He won’t see you—visibility’s only about eighty today.”
“Yes, but I’m still closing in—he’s spotted me! Here he comes!”
Franklin had not really expected that the trick would work a second time on an animal as intelligent as Percy. But almost at once he felt the sudden thud, followed by the rasping of horny claws as the great tentacles closed around the sub. Though he knew that he was perfectly safe, and that no animal could harm walls that had been built to withstand pressures of a thousand tons on every square foot, that grating, slithering sound was one calculated to give him nightmares.
Then, quite suddenly, there was silence. He heard Don exclaim, “Christ, that stuff acts quickly! He’s out cold.” Almost at once Dr. Roberts interjected anxiously: “Don’t give him too much! And keep him moving so that he’ll still breathe!”
Don was too busy to answer. Ha
ving carried out his role as decoy, Franklin could do nothing but watch as his partner maneuvered dexterously around the great mollusk. The anesthetic bomb had paralyzed it completely; it was slowly sinking, its tentacles stretched limply upward. Pieces of fish, some of them over a foot across, were floating away from the cruel beak as the monster disgorged its last meal.
“Can you get underneath?” Don asked hurriedly. “He’s sinking too fast for me.”
Franklin threw on the drive and went around in a tight curve. There was a soft thump, as of a snowdrift falling from a roof, and he knew that five or ten tons of gelatinous body were now draped over the sub.
“Fine—hold him there—I’m getting into position.”
Franklin was now blind, but the occasional clanks and whirs coming from the water outside told him what was happening. Presently Don said triumphantly: “All set! We’re ready to go.”
The weight lifted from the sub, and Franklin could see again. Percy had been neatly gaffed. A band of thick, elastic webbing had been fastened around his body at the narrowest part, just behind the flukes. From this harness a cable extended to Don’s sub, invisible in the haze a hundred feet away. Percy was being towed through the water in his normal direction of motion—backward. Had he been conscious and actively resisting, he could have escaped easily enough, but in his present state the collar he was wearing enabled Don to handle him without difficulty. The fun would begin when he started to revive. . . .
Franklin gave a brief eyewitness description of the scene for the benefit of his patiently waiting colleagues a mile above. It was probably being broadcast, and he hoped that Indra and Peter were listening. Then he settled down to keep an eye on Percy as the long haul back to the surface began.
They could not move at more than two knots, lest the collar lose its none-too-secure grip on the great mass of jelly it was towing. In any event, the trip back to the surface had to take at least three hours, to give Percy a fair chance of adjusting to the pressure difference. Since an air-breathing—and therefore more vulnerable—animal like a sperm whale could endure almost the same pressure change in ten or twenty minutes, this caution was probably excessive. But Dr. Roberts was taking no chances with his unprecedented catch.