From the Ocean from teh Stars (19 page)

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 mo
ment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose, and silently
gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick? thought Dag-
goo. 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, then to have seen thee, thou white ghost!'

" 'What was it, Sir?' said Flask.

" The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships 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 dic
tionary. 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-by
—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," ex
plained 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 cam
eramen and reporters looking over our shoulders. That means that some
thing'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 apart
ment in Brisbane, where her brief but happy career as a lecturer at the University of Queensland had ended with the birth of Peter; that bunga
low 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 inter
rupted. 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 sea bed; 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 sea-bed irregular
ities, 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 sea bed. 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 search
ing. 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 be
side 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 pres
sures 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. Rob-