From the Ocean from teh Stars (5 page)

"Who's there?" asked Franklin, as he tidied up the debris and made his room look presentable.

"Dr. Myers."

The name meant nothing to Franklin, but his face twisted into a wry smile as he thought how appropriate it was that his very first visitor should be a doctor. What kind of a doctor, he thought he could guess.

Myers was a stocky, pleasantly ugly man in his early forties, with a disconcertingly direct gaze which seemed somewhat at variance with his friendly, affable manner.

"Sorry to butt in on you when you've only just arrived," he said apologetically. "I had to do it now because I'm flying out to New Caledonia this afternoon and won't be back for a week. Professor Stevens asked me to look you up and give you his best wishes. If there's anything you want, just ring my office and we'll try to fix it for you."

Franklin admired the skillful way in which Myers had avoided all the obvious dangers. He did
not
say—true though it undoubtedly was— "I've discussed your case with Professor Stevens." Nor did he offer direct help; he managed to convey the assumption that Franklin wouldn't need it and was now quite capable of looking after himself.

"I appreciate that," said Franklin sincerely. He felt he was going to like Dr. Myers, and made up his mind not to resent the surveillance he would undoubtedly be getting. "Tell me," he added, "just what do the people here know about me?"

"Nothing at all, except that you are to be helped to qualify as a warden as quickly as possible. This isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened, you know—there have been high-pressure conversion courses before. Still, it's inevitable that there will be a good deal of curiosity about you; that may be your biggest problem."

"Burley is dying of curiosity already."

"Mind if I give you some advice?"

"Of course not—go ahead."

"You'll be working with Don continually. It's only fair to him, as well as to yourself, to confide in him when you feel you can do so. I'm sure you'll find him quite understanding. Or if you prefer, I'll do the explaining."

Franklin shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. It was not a matter of logic, for he knew that Myers was talking sense. Sooner or later it would all have to come out, and he might be making matters worse by postponing the inevitable. Yet his hold upon sanity and self-respect was still so precarious that he could not face the prospect of working with men who knew his secret, however sympathetic they might be.

"Very well. The choice is yours and we'll respect it. Good luck—and
let's hope all our contacts will be purely social."

Long after Myers had gone, Franklin sat on the edge of the bed,
staring out across the sea which would be his new domain. He would
need the luck that the other had wished him, yet he was beginning to feel
a renewed interest in life. It was not merely that people were anxious to help him; he had received more than enough help in the last few
months. At last he was beginning to see how he could help himself, and
so discover a purpose for his existence.

Presently he jolted himself out of his daydream and looked at his
watch. He was already ten minutes late for lunch, and that was a bad
start for his new life. He thought of Don Burley waiting impatiently in the
mess and wondering what had happened to him.

"Coming, teacher," he said, as he put on his jacket and started out of
the room. It was the first time he had made a joke with himself for longer
than he could remember.

☆
CHAPTER THREE

When Franklin first saw Indra Langenburg she was
covered with blood up to her elbows and was busily hacking away at the
entrails of a ten-foot tiger shark she had just disemboweled. The huge beast was lying, its pale belly upturned to the sun, on the sandy beach
where Franklin took his morning promenade. A thick chain still led to the
hook in its mouth; it had obviously been caught during the night and
then left behind by the falling tide.

Franklin stood for a moment looking at the unusual combination of
attractive girl and dead monster, then said thoughtfully: "You know,
this is not the sort of thing I like to see before breakfast. Exactly what
are you doing?"

A brown, oval face with very serious eyes looked up at him. The
foot-long, razor-sharp knife that was creating such havoc continued to
slice expertly through gristle and guts.

"I'm writing a thesis," said a voice as serious as the eyes, "on the vitamin content of shark liver. It means catching a lot of sharks; this is
my third this week. Would you like some teeth? I've got plenty, and they
make nice souvenirs."

She walked to the head of the beast and inserted her knife in its gaping
jaws, which had been propped apart by a block of wood. A quick jerk

of her wrist, and an endless necklace of deadly ivory triangles, like a band
saw made of bone, started to emerge from the shark's mouth.

"No thanks," said Franklin hastily, hoping she would not be offended.
"Please don't let me interrupt your work."

He guessed that she was barely twenty, and was not surprised at meeting an unfamiliar girl on the little island, because the scientists at
the Research Station did not have much contact with the administrative
and training staff.

"You're new here, aren't you?" said the bloodstained biologist, sloshing a huge lump of liver into a bucket with every sign of satisfaction. "I
didn't see you at the last HQ dance."

Franklin felt quite cheered by the inquiry. It was so pleasant to meet
someone who knew nothing about him, and had not been speculating
about his presence here. He felt he could talk freely and without restraint
for the first time since landing on Heron Island.

"Yes—I've just come for a special training course. How long have
you been here?"

He was making pointless conversation just for the pleasure of the
company, and doubtless she knew it.

"Oh, about a month," she said carelessly. There was another slimy,
squelching noise from the bucket, which was now nearly full. "I'm on
leave here from the University of Miami."

"You're American, then?" Franklin asked. The girl answered sol
emnly: "No; my ancestors were Dutch, Burmese, and Scottish in about
equal proportions. Just to make things a little more complicated, I was
born in Japan."

Franklin wondered if she was making fun of him, but there was no
trace of guile in her expression. She seemed a really nice kid, he thought,
but he couldn't stay here talking all day. He had only forty minutes for
breakfast, and his morning class in submarine navigation started at nine.

He thought no more of the encounter, for he was continually meeting
new faces as his circle of acquaintances steadily expanded. The high-
pressure course he was taking gave him no time for much social life, and
for that he was grateful. His mind was fully occupied once more; it had
taken up the load with a smoothness that both surprised and gratified
him. Perhaps those who had sent him here knew what they were doing
better than he sometimes supposed.

All the empirical knowledge—the statistics, the factual data, the ins
and outs of administration—had been more or less painlessly pumped into Franklin while he was under mild hypnosis. Prolonged question periods, where he was quizzed by a tape recorder that later filled in the

right answers, then confirmed that the information had really taken and had not, as sometimes happened, shot straight through the mind leaving
no permanent impression.

Don Burley had nothing to do with this side of Franklin's training,
but, rather to his disgust, had no chance of relaxing when Franklin was
being looked after elsewhere. The chief instructor had gleefully seized
this opportunity of getting Don back into his clutches, and had "sug
gested," with great tact and charm, that when his other duties permitted Don might like to lecture to the three courses now under training on the
island. Outranked and outmaneuvered, Don had no alternative but to
acquiesce with as good grace as possible. This assignment, it seemed, was
not going to be the holiday he had hoped.

In one respect, however, his worst fears had not materialized. Frank
lin was not at all hard to get on with, as long as one kept completely away
from personalities. He was very intelligent and had clearly had a technical training that in some ways was much better than Don's own. It was seldom necessary to explain anything to him more than once, and long
before they had reached the stage of trying him out on the synthetic
trainers, Don could see that his pupil had the makings of a good pilot. He
was skillful with his hands, reacted quickly and accurately, and had that
indefinable poise which distinguishes the first-rate pilot from the merely
competent one.

Yet Don knew that knowledge and skill were not in themselves suf
ficient. Something else was also needed, and there was no way yet of telling if Franklin possessed it. Not until Don had watched his reactions
as he sank down into the depths of the sea would he know whether all
this effort was to be of any use.

There was so much that Franklin had to learn that it seemed impossible that anyone could absorb it all in two months, as the program in
sisted. Don himself had taken the normal six months, and he somewhat
resented the assumption that anyone else could do it in a third of the
time, even with the special coaching he was giving. Why, the mechanical
side of the job alone—the layout and design of the various classes of
subs—took at least two months to learn, even with the best of instruc
tional aids. Yet at the same time he had to teach Franklin the principles
of seamanship and underwater navigation, basic oceanography, subma
rine signaling and communication, and a substantial amount of ichthyol
ogy, marine psychology, and, of course, cetology. So far Franklin had never even seen a whale, dead or alive, and that first encounter was
something that Don looked forward to witnessing. At such a moment one
could learn all that one needed to know about a man's fitness for this job.

They had done two weeks' hard work together before Don first took Franklin under water. By this time they had established a curious re
lationship which was at once friendly and remote. Though they had
long since ceased to call each other by their surnames, "Don" and "Walt"
was as far as their intimacy went. Burley still knew absolutely nothing about Franklin's past, though he had evolved a good many theories. The
one which he most favored was that his pupil was an extremely talented
criminal being rehabilitated after total therapy. He wondered if Franklin
was a murderer, which was a stimulating thought, and half hoped that
this exciting hypothesis was true.

Franklin no longer showed any of the obvious peculiarities he had
revealed on their first meeting, though he was undoubtedly more nervous
and highly strung than the average. Since this was the case with many of
the best wardens, it did not worry Don. Even his curiosity about Frank
lin's past had somewhat lessened, for he was far too busy to bother about it. He had learned to be patient when there was no alternative, and he did
not doubt that sooner or later he would discover the whole story. Once
or twice, he was almost certain, Franklin had been on the verge of some revelation, but then had drawn back. Each time Don had pre
tended that nothing had happened, and they had resumed their old, im
personal relationship.

It was a clear morning, with only a slow swell moving across the face
of the sea, as they walked along the narrow jetty that stretched from
the western end of the island out to the edge of the reef. The tide was in,
but though the reef flat was completely submerged the great plateau of
coral was nowhere more than five or six feet below the surface, and its every detail was clearly visible through the crystal water. Neither Frank
lin nor Burley spared more than a few glances for the natural aquarium
above which they were walking. It was too familiar to them both, and
they knew that the real beauty and wonder of the reef lay in the deeper
waters farther out to sea.

Two hundred yards out from the island, the coral landscape suddenly dropped off into the depths, but the jetty continued upon taller stilts until
it ended in a small group of sheds and offices. A valiant, and fairly suc
cessful, attempt had been made to avoid the grime and chaos usually
inseparable from dockyards and piers; even the cranes had been de
signed so that they would not offend the eye. One of the terms under
which the Queensland government had reluctantly leased the Capricorn
Group to the World Food Organization was that the beauty of the islands