From the Ocean from teh Stars (17 page)

very soon afterward sported pearl necklaces or earrings—and Indra was no exception to this rule.

She had received her necklace the day she gave birth to Peter, and with the arrival of his son it seemed to Franklin that the old chapter of his life had finally closed. It was not true, of course; he could never forget —nor did he wish to—that Irene had given him Roy and Rupert, on a world which was now as remote to him as a planet of the farthest star. But the ache of that irrevocable parting had subsided at last, for no grief can endure forever.

He was glad—though he had once bitterly resented it—that it was impossible to talk to anyone on Mars, or indeed anywhere in space beyond the orbit of the Moon. The six-minute time lag for the round trip, even when the planet was at its nearest, made conversation out of the question, so he could never torture himself by feeling in the presence of Irene and the boys by calling them up on the visiphone. Every Christmas they exchanged recordings and talked over the events of the year; apart from occasional letters, that was the only personal contact they now had, and the only one that Franklin needed.

There was no way of telling how well Irene had adjusted to her virtual widowhood. The boys must have helped, but there were times when Franklin wished that she had married again, for their sakes as well as hers. Yet somehow he had never been able to suggest it, and she had never raised the subject, even when he had made this step himself.

Did she resent Indra? That again was hard to tell. Perhaps some jealousy was inevitable; Indra herself, during the occasional quarrels that punctuated their marriage, made it clear that she sometimes disliked the thought of being only the second woman in Franklin's life.

Such quarrels were rare, and after the birth of Peter they were rarer. A married couple forms a dynamically unstable system until the arrival of the first child converts it from a double to a triple group.

Franklin was as happy now as he had ever hoped to be. His family gave him the emotional security he needed; his work provided the interest and adventure which he had sought in space, only to lose again. There was more life and wonder in the sea than in all the endless empty leagues between the planets, and it was seldom now that his heart ached for the blue beauty of the crescent Earth, the swirling silver mist of the Milky Way, or the tense excitement of landfall on the moons of Mars at the end of a long voyage.

The sea had begun to shape his life and thought, as it must that of all men who try to master it and learn its secrets. He felt a kinship with all the creatures that moved throughout its length and depth, even when

they were enemies which it was his duty to destroy. But above all, he
felt a sympathy and an almost mystical reverence, of which he was half
ashamed, toward the great beasts whose destinies he ruled.

He believed that most wardens knew that feeling, though they were
careful to avoid admitting it in their shoptalk. The nearest they came to it
was when they accused each other of being "whale happy," a somewhat
indefinable term which might be summed up as acting more like a whale
than a man in a given situation. It was a form of identification without
which no warden could be really good at his job, but there were times
when it could become too extreme. The classic case—which everyone
swore was perfectly true—was that of the senior warden who felt he was suffocating unless he brought his sub up to blow every ten minutes.

Being regarded—and regarding themselves—as the elite of the world's
army of underwater experts, the wardens were always called upon when there was some unusual job that no one else cared to perform. Sometimes
these jobs were so suicidal that it was necessary to explain to the would-
be client that he must find another way out of his difficulties.

But occasionally there was no other way, and risks had to be taken.
The bureau still remembered how Chief Warden Kircher, back in '22,
had gone up the giant intake pipes through which the cooling water flowed
into the fusion power plant supplying half the South American continent. One of the filter grilles had started to come loose, and could be fixed only
by a man on the spot. With strong ropes tied around his body to prevent
him from being sucked through the wire meshing, Kircher had descended
into the roaring darkness. He had done the job and returned safely; but
that was the last time he ever went under water.

So far, all Franklin's missions had been fairly conventional ones; he had had to face nothing as hair-raising as Kircher's exploit, and was not
sure how he would react if such an occasion arose. Of course, he could always turn down any assignment that involved abnormal risks; his con
tract was quite specific on that point. But the "suicide clause," as it was sardonically called, was very much a dead letter. Any warden who invoked it, except under the most extreme circumstances, would incur no
displeasure from his superiors, but he would thereafter find it very hard
to live with his colleagues.

Franklin's first operation beyond the call of duty did not come his
way for almost five years—five busy, crowded, yet in retrospect curiously
uneventful, years. But when it came, it more than made up for the delay.

☆
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T
he chief accountant dropped his tables and charts
on the desk, and peered triumphantly at his little audience over the rims
of his antiquated spectacles.

"So you see, gentlemen," he said, "there's no doubt about it. In this
area here"—he stabbed at the map again—"sperm whale casualties have
been abnormally high. It's no longer a question of the usual random
variations in the census numbers. During the migrations of the last five
years, no less than nine plus or minus two whales have disappeared in
this rather small area.

"Now, as you are all aware, the sperm whale has no natural enemies,
except for the orcas that occasionally attack small females with calves. But we are quite sure that no killer packs have broken into this area for
several years, and at least three adult males have disappeared. In our
opinion, that left only one possibility.

"The sea bed here is slightly less than four thousand feet down,
which means that a sperm whale can just reach it with a few minutes' time
for hunting on the bottom before it has to return for air. Now, ever since
it was discovered that Physeter feeds almost exclusively on squids, naturalists have wondered whether a squid can ever win when a whale attacks
it. The general opinion was that it couldn't, because the whale is much
larger and more powerful.

"But we must remember that even today no one knows how big the giant squid does grow; the Biology Section tells me that tentacles of
Bathyteutis Maximus
have been found up to eighty feet long. Moreover,
a squid would only have to keep a whale held down for a matter of a few
minutes at this depth, and the animal would drown before it could get back to the surface. So a couple of years ago we formulated the theory that in this area there lives at least one abnormally large squid. We—
ahem—christened him Percy.

"Until last week, Percy was only a theory. Then, as you know, Whale
S.87693 was found dead on the surface, badly mauled and with its body
covered with the typical scars caused by squid claws and suckers. I would
like you to look at this photograph."

He pulled a set of large glossy prints out of his brief case and passed
them around. Each showed a small portion of a whale's body which was

mottled with white streaks and perfectly circular rings. A foot ruler lay incongruously in the middle of the picture to give an idea of the scale.

"Those, gentlemen, are sucker marks. They go up to six inches in diameter. I think we can say that Percy is no longer a theory. The ques
tion is: What do we do about him? He is costing us at least twenty
thousand dollars a year. I should welcome any suggestions."

There was a brief silence while the little group of officials looked
thoughtfully at the photographs. Then the director said: "Fve asked Mr. Franklin to come along and give his opinion. What do you say, Walter?
Can you deal with Percy?"

"If I can find him, yes. But the bottom's pretty rugged down there,
and it might be a long search. I couldn't use a normal sub, of course—
there'd be no safety margin at that depth, especially if Percy started put
ting on the squeeze. Incidentally, what size do you think he is?"

The chief accountant, usually so glib with figures, hesitated for an
appreciable instant before replying.

"This isn't
my
estimate," he said apologetically, "but the biologists
say he may be a hundred and fifty feet long."

There were some subdued whistles, but the director seemed unim
pressed. Long ago he had learned the truth of the old cliche that there were bigger fish in the sea than ever came out of it. He knew also that,
in a medium where gravity set no limit to size, a creature could continue
to grow almost indefinitely as long as it could avoid death. And of all
the inhabitants of the sea, the giant squid was perhaps the safest from
attack. Even its one enemy, the sperm whale, could not reach it if it
remained below the four-thousand-foot level.

"There are dozens of ways we can kill Percy if we can locate him,"
put in the chief biologist. "Explosives, poison, electrocution—any of
them would do. But unless there's no alternative, I think we should
avoid killing. He must be one of the biggest animals alive on this planet,
and it would be a crime to murder him."

"Please,
Dr. Roberts!" protested the director. "May I remind you that
this bureau is only concerned with food production—not with research
or the conservation of any animals except whales. And I do think that
murder is rather a strong term to apply to an overgrown mollusk."

Dr. Roberts seemed quite unabashed by the mild reprimand.

"I agree, sir," he said cheerfully, "that production is our main job,
and that we must always keep economic factors in mind. At the same
time, we're continually co-operating with the Department of Scientific
Research and this seems another case where we can work together to our
mutual advantage. In fact, we might even make a profit in the long run."

"Go on," said the director, a slight twinkle in his eye. He wondered what ingenious plan the scientists who were supposed to be working for
him had cooked up with their opposite numbers in Research.

"No giant squid has ever been captured alive, simply because we've
never had the tools for the job. It would be an expensive operation, but
if we are going to chase Percy anyway, the additional cost should not be
very great. So I suggest that we try to bring him back alive."

No one bothered to ask how. If Dr. Roberts said it could be done,
that meant he had already worked out a plan of campaign. The director, as usual, bypassed the minor technical details involved in hauling up
several tons of fighting squid from a depth of a mile, and went straight
to the important point.

"Will Research pay for any of this? And what will you do with Percy
when you've caught him?"

"Unofficially, Research will provide the additional equipment if we make the subs and pilots available. We'll also need that floating dock we
borrowed from Maintenance last year; it's big enough to hold two whales,
so it can certainly hold one squid. There'll be some additional expendi
ture here—extra aeration plant for the water, electrified mesh to stop
Percy climbing out, and so on. In fact, I suggest that we use the dock as a lab while we're studying him."

"And after that?"

"Why, we sell him."

"The demand for hundred-and-fifty-foot squids as household pets
would seem to be rather small."

Like an actor throwing away his best line, Dr. Roberts casually pro
duced his trump card.

"If we can deliver Percy alive and in good condition, Marineland will
pay fifty thousand dollars for him. That was Professor Milton's first informal offer when I spoke to him this morning. I've no doubt that we can get more than that; I've even been wondering if we could arrange things
on a royalty basis. After all, a giant squid would be the biggest attraction
Marineland ever had."

"Research was bad enough," grumbled the director. "Now it looks as
if you're trying to get us involved in the entertainment business. Still, as
far as I'm concerned it sounds fairly plausible. If Accounts can convince
me that the project is not too expensive, and if no other snags turn up, we'll go ahead with it. That is, of course, if Mr. Franklin and his col
leagues think it can be done. They're the people who'll have to do the
work."