From the Ocean from teh Stars (11 page)

motivated by curiosity, sex, or hunger he neither knew nor cared. It remained in sight for almost a minute before his superior speed left it behind. He had never met a shark that had reacted in this way before; usually they were terrified of the turbine's warning scream. But the laws that ruled the reef during the day were not those that prevailed in the hours of darkness.

He raced on through the luminous night that covered half the world, crouching behind his curved shield for protection against the turbulent waters he was sundering in his haste to reach the open sea. Even now he was navigating with all his old skill and precision; he knew exactly where he was, exactly when he would reach his objective—and exactly how deep were the waters he was now entering. In a few minutes, the sea bed would start slanting sharply down and he must say his last farewell to the reef.

He tilted the nose of the torp imperceptibly toward the depths and at the same time cut his speed to a quarter. The mad, roaring rush of waters ceased; he was sliding gently down a long, invisible slope whose end he would never see.

Slowly the pale and filtered moonlight began to fade as the water thickened above him. Deliberately, he avoided looking at the illuminated depth gauge, avoided all thought of the fathoms that now lay overhead. He could feel the pressure on his body increasing minute by minute, but it was not in the least unpleasant. Indeed, he welcomed it; he gave himself, a willing sacrifice, gladly into the grasp of the great mother of life.

The darkness was now complete. He was alone, driving through a night stranger and more palpable than any to be found upon the land. From time to time he could see, at an unguessable distance below him, tiny explosions of light as the unknown creatures of the open sea went about their mysterious business. Sometimes an entire, ephemeral galaxy would thrust forth and within seconds die; perhaps that other galaxy, he told himself, was of no longer duration, of no greater importance, when seen against the background of eternity.

The dreamy sleep of nitrogen narcosis was now almost upon him; no other human being, using a compressed-air lung alone, could ever have been so deep and returned to tell the tale. He was breathing air at more than ten times normal pressure, and still the torpedo was boring down into the lightless depths. All responsibility, all regrets, all fears had been washed away from his mind by the blissful euphoria that had invaded every level of consciousness.

And yet, at the very end, there was one regret. He felt a mild and

wistful sadness that Indra must now begin again her search for the happiness he might have given her.

Thereafter there was only the sea, and a mindless machine creeping ever more slowly down to the hundred-fathom line and the far Pacific wastes.

☆
CHAPTER EIGHT

T
here were four people in the room, and not one of them was talking now. The chief instructor was biting his lip nervously, Don Burley sat looking stunned, and Indra was trying not to cry. Only Dr. Myers seemed fairly well under control, and was silently cursing the fantastic, the still inexplicable bad luck that had brought this situation upon them. He would have sworn that Franklin was well on the road to recovery, well past any serious crisis. And now this!

"There's only one thing to do," said the chief instructor suddenly. "And that's to send out all our underwater craft on a general search."

Don Burley stirred himself, slowly and as if carrying a great weight upon his shoulders.

"It's twelve hours now. In that time he could have covered five hundred miles. And there are only six qualified pilots on the station."

"I know—it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But it's the only thing we can do."

"Sometimes a few minutes of thought can save a good many hours of random searching," said Myers. "After half a day, a little extra time will make no difference. With your permission, I'd like to have a private talk with Miss Langenburg."

"Of course—if she agrees."

Indra nodded dumbly. She was still blaming herself bitterly for what had happened—for not going to the doctor immediately when they had returned to the island. Her intuition had failed her then; now it told her that there was no possibility of any hope, and she could only pray that it was wrong again.

"Now, Indra," said Myers kindly when the others had left the room, "if we want to help Franklin we've got to keep our heads, and try to guess what he's done. So stop blaming yourself—this isn't your fault. I'm not sure if it's anyone's fault."

It might be mine, he added grimly to himself. But who could have

guessed? We understand so little about astrophobia, even now . . . and
heaven knows it's not in my line.

Indra managed a brave smile. Until yesterday, she had thought she
was very grown-up and able to take care of herself in any situation. But
yesterday was a very, very long time ago.

"Please tell me," she said, "what is the matter with Walter. I think it
would help me to understand."

It was a sensible and reasonable request; even before Indra had made it, Myers had come to the same conclusion.

"Very well—but remember, this is confidential, for Walter's own
sake. I'm only telling it to you because this is an emergency and you may
be able to help him if you know the facts.

"Until a year ago, Walter was a highly qualified spaceman. In fact,
he was chief engineer of a liner on the Martian run, which as you know is a very responsible position indeed, and that was certainly merely the be
ginning of his career.

"Well, there was some kind of emergency in mid-orbit, and the ion
drive had to be shut off. Walter went outside in a space suit to fix it— nothing unusual about that, of course. Before he had finished the job,
however, his suit failed. No—I don't mean it leaked. What happened
was that the propulsion system jammed
on,
and he couldn't shut off the
rockets that allowed him to move around in space.

"So there he was, millions of miles from anywhere, building up speed
away from his ship. To make matters worse, he'd crashed against some
part of the liner when he started, and that had snapped off his radio
antenna. So he couldn't talk or receive messages—couldn't call for help
or find out what his friends were doing for him. He was completely alone,
and in a few minutes he couldn't even see the liner.

"Now, no one who has not been in a situation like that can possibly
imagine what it's like. We can try, but we can't really picture being ab
solutely isolated, with stars all around us, not knowing if we'll ever be
rescued. No vertigo that can ever be experienced on Earth can match
it—not even seasickness at its worst, and that's bad enough.

"It was four hours before Walter was rescued. He was actually quite
safe, and probably knew it—but that didn't make any difference. The
ship's radar had tracked him, but until the drive was repaired it couldn't go after him. When they did get him aboard he was—well, let's say he
was in a pretty bad way.

"It took the best psychologists on Earth almost a year to straighten him out, and as we've seen, the job wasn't finished properly. And there
was one factor that the psychologists could do nothing about."

Myers paused, wondering how Indra was taking all this, how it would
affect her feelings toward Franklin. She seemed to have got over her
initial shock; she was not, thank God, the hysterical type it was so difficult
to do anything with.

"You see, Walter was married. He had a wife and family on Mars,
and was very fond of them. His wife was a second-generation colonist,
the children, of course, third-generation ones. They had spent all their
lives under Martian gravity—had been conceived and born in it. And so
they could never come to Earth, where they would be crushed under three times their normal weight.

"At the same time, Walter could never go back into space. We could
patch up his mind so that he could function efficiently here on Earth, but
that was the best we could do. He could never again face free fall, the
knowledge that there was space all around him, all the way out to the
stars. And so he was an exile on his own world, unable ever to see his
family again.

"We did our best for him, and I still think it was a good best. This
work here could use his skills, but there were also profound psychological
reasons why we thought it might suit him, and would enable him to re
build his life. I think you probably know those reasons as well as I do, Indra—if not better. You are a marine biologist and know the links we
have with the sea. We have no such links with space, and so we shall
never feel at home there—at least as long as we are men.

"I studied Franklin while he was here; he knew I was doing it, and didn't mind. All the while he was improving, getting to love the work.
Don was very pleased with his progress—he was the best pupil he'd
ever met. And when I heard—don't ask me how!—that he was going
around with you, I was delighted. For he has to rebuild his life all along
the line, you know. I hope you don't mind me putting it this way, but
when I found he was spending his spare time with you, and even making
time to do it, I knew he had stopped looking back.

"And now—this breakdown. I don't mind admitting that I'm completely in the dark. You say that you were looking up at the Space Sta
tion, but that doesn't seem enough cause. Walter had a rather bad fear of
heights when he came here, but he'd largely got over that. Besides, he
must have seen the station dozens of times in the morning or evening.
There must have been some other factor we don't know."

Dr. Myers stopped his rapid delivery, then said gently, as if the
thought had only just struck him: "Tell me, Indra—had you been mak
ing love?"

"No," she said without hesitation or embarrassment. "There was nothing like that."

It was a little hard to believe, but he knew it was the truth. He could detect—so clear and unmistakable!—the note of regret in her voice.

"I was wondering if he had any guilt feelings about his wife. Whether he knows it or not, you probably remind him of her, which is why he was attracted to you in the first place. Anyway,
that
line of reasoning isn't enough to explain what happened, so let's forget it.

"All we know is that there was an attack, and a very bad one. Giving him that sedative was the best thing you could have done in the circumstances. You're
quite
sure that he never gave any indication of what he intended to do when you got him back to Heron?"

"Quite sure. All he said was, 'Don't tell Dr. Myers.' He said there was nothing you could do."

That, thought Myers grimly, might well be true, and he did not like the sound of it. There was only one reason why a man might hide from the only person who could help him. That was because he had decided he was now beyond help.

"But he promised," Indra continued, "to see you in the morning."

Myers did not reply. By this time they both knew that that promise had been nothing more than a ruse.

Indra still clung desperately to one last hope.

"Surely," she said, her voice quavering as if she did not really believe her own words, "if he'd intended to do—something drastic—he'd have left a message for somebody."

Myers looked at her sadly, his mind now completely made up.

"His parents are dead," he replied. "He said good-by to his wife long ago. What message was there for him to leave?"

Indra knew, with a sickening certainty, that he spoke the truth. She might well be the only person on Earth for whom Franklin felt any affection. And he had made his farewell with her. . . .

Reluctantly, Myers rose to his feet.

"There's nothing we can do," he said, "except to start a general search. There may be a chance that he's just blowing off steam at full throttle, and will creep in shame-faced some time this morning. It's happened before."

He patted Indra's bowed shoulders, then helped her out of the chair. "Don't be too upset, my dear. Everyone will do his best." But in his heart he knew it was too late. It had been too late hours before, and they were going through the motions of search and rescue because there were times when no one expected logic to be obeyed.