He went aft to Davis, apparently somnolent at the wheel. Deirdre joined
the two of them in a seemingly very serious discussion. Then she walked
over to Terry.
"I hate to say it," she told him with evident concern, "but my father
thinks it would be wiser to try out the paddle in shallow water. Do you
mind?"
"Yes," snapped Terry. "I do mind, since I'm not allowed to know the
reason for that or anything else."
He put away his tools and the unused parts. He pointed to the machines
he had already built.
"This is what your father wanted, I think. After it's tested I'll ask
you to put me ashore."
He went below, where he fretted to himself. But no one came, either to
inform him of Davis' reasons, or to tell him to do as he pleased. He
felt like a child who isn't allowed to play with other children; who is
arbitrarily excluded from the purpose and the excitement of his fellows.
Thinking in such terms did not make him feel any better. His irritation
increased. The _Esperance_ was engaged in an enterprise that these
people considered very much worth doing. He'd joined them to accomplish
it, and they wouldn't tell him what it was. He hadn't the temperament to
be content with just following blindly. And somehow the fact that
Deirdre was aboard and a participant in the secret made his exclusion an
insult.
He felt about Deirdre that urgent concern that a man may feel about one
or two, or at most three girls during his whole lifetime. It wasn't a
romantic interest, at this stage, but he wanted to look well in her
eyes, and he was enormously interested in anything she said and did. If
he left the _Esperance_ and ceased to know her, he knew he'd be nagged
at by the feeling that he'd made a very bad mistake. He didn't want to
stop knowing her. But he refused to be patronized.
He saw an open book on the after-cabin table and glanced restlessly at
it. There were three or four photographs and a newspaper clipping stuck
into its pages. The book itself dealt with physics at post-graduate
levels--which meant that it included a good deal about electronics.
Still fuming, Terry glanced at the pictures. The first was of a
spherical object made of transparent plastic and probably of small size.
It had a number of metallic elements clearly visible through the
transparent case. It looked as if it might be an electronic device
itself, but there was no sign of lead-in contacts, and the parts inside
made no sense at all. The second and third photographs were of a similar
yet slightly different object. The fourth photograph was a picture of
what looked like ocean water, taken from a plane. The horizon showed in
one corner. The center of the picture was an irregularly-shaped mass of
white. On close examination it appeared to be foam. But it looked as if
it were piled up in masses above the surface. If the water around it was
ocean--and it was--and the visible crest-lines were of waves--and they
were--that heap of foam must have been hundreds of yards in diameter and
piled many feet high on the surface. Foam does not form in such masses
in the open sea. It would not last if it did.
On the margin of this picture a date had been inked--three days
before--and a position in degrees of latitude and longitude.
Terry turned to the chart rack. He pulled out a chart and looked up the
position. Someone had made a pencil-dot there. It was close to Thrawn
Island, on the very brink of the Luzon Deep, that incredible submarine
chasm in which the entire Himalayan chain could be sunk without showing
a single pinnacle above the surface.
He went back to the clipping. It was dated Manila, two years earlier. It
was an obviously skeptical article on a report made by the crewmen of a
sailing ship that stopped by Manila. Sailing ships are rare enough in
modern times. This ship reported that she had sighted another of her own
kind at sea. The two ships altered course to speak to each other. And
the one which came into Manila declared that when the other vessel was
no more than two miles away, white foam suddenly appeared on the sea
just in front of her. A geyser of unsubstantial white stuff spouted up
and spread, shooting up about thirty feet on the water. The bow of the
other sailing ship entered the foam patch. And suddenly her bow tilted
downward, her masts swayed forward, and the entire ship vanished into
the white stuff, exactly as if she had sailed over a precipice. She did
not sink. She dropped. She "fell" under water--under the foam--her sails
still spread. One instant she sailed proudly. The next instant she was
gone.
The position of such an incredible happening was roughly given. It was
almost exactly the same as the position written on the photograph of
foam taken from the air. At the margin of the Luzon Deep.
Terry found that his indignation had evaporated. The reason for it still
remained, but now he wanted to know more about this happening and about
the spheres of plastic with those deftly designed but enigmatic
inclusions. The plastic objects had a purpose. He wanted to know what.
And the news clipping....
Having announced crossly that he would ask to be set ashore as soon as
the fish-driving unit was tested, he was ashamed to take it back. He
stayed below, now angry at himself again. Nobody came below. Deirdre did
not descend to cook. Night fell. Well after nightfall he heard movements
on deck, and presently a voice which sounded oddly distant. The
_Esperance's_ course changed abruptly. The quality of her motion altered
once more.
He went abovedecks. Twilight was long over, but the moon was not yet up.
Here and there a wave-tip frothed, and blue luminescence appeared. Here
and there a streak of dim blue light could be seen under water, where
some fish darted. But those dartings were rare. Despite the yacht's
shining wake and the curling wave-tips, the sea was darker than usual.
Nick's voice came from aloft, faint and eerie and seeming to come from
the stars.
"... farther to port.... Two points ..."
Terry could see the masthead weaving and swaying against the stars, with
a small dark silhouette clinging to it: Nick. The yacht began to swing.
On one bearing she pounded heavily. The seas could hit her squarely, and
they did. Figures moved swiftly about the deck, loosening sheets or
tightening them. Nick's voice again, from overhead.
"Stea-a-a-dy!"
The _Esperance_ ceased to turn. Rushing, pounding water sprayed in the
air. The waves splashed upon the hull of the yacht, which was sweeping
along on a quartering wind.
For a while no one talked. Tony stood at the wheel, with Davis nearby,
by the binnacle light. Terry could see Davis glancing into the binnacle,
then gazing at the horizon ahead, and then aloft, where Nick seemed to
swing among low-hanging stars.
"Ri-i-i-ght!" he called from high overhead. "Steady as she goes."
The _Esperance_ sailed on, over the surging seas. Waves came out of
nowhere, leaped beside the yacht and then went by--to nowhere. It was
hard to believe that the yacht actually moved forward. She seemed to
stay perpetually in the one spot. But there was a winding, sinuous wake,
and there was froth under her forefoot.
Then a vague brightness appeared on the sea, at the limit of vision. It
spread out more widely as the _Esperance_ approached. Presently it was
clearly visible.
Dead ahead, the beam of the headlight suddenly revealed an incredible
spectacle. Until then there had been just a few flashes in the water,
where some fish darted away from the yacht's bulk. But here the entire
surface of the water shone with thousands and thousands of fish. They
were packed in a sharply delimited circle about a mile wide. When the
_Esperance_ got close enough, she hauled up into the wind to look.
From a spot fifty yards ahead, the sea was alive with a million frantic
dartings of swimming things. They were crowded, packed almost
fin-to-fin. And it was not a surface phenomenon only. From the yacht's
deck the streaks of light were visible deep down, as far as the clear
water would let them be seen. They formed a column of glittering chaos.
The vast circle, to an indefinite depth, was packed solid with agitated
fish. At that edge of brightness the thronging creatures were splashing
in a mad frenzy. Solid shining shapes leaped crazily from the water.
Some leaped again and again, until they reached the spot where the
flashes were thickest, and got lost in the multitude of their fellows. A
few escaped to the darker surrounding sea. They seemed to run away in
stark terror. But those were only a few. The greatest mass of fish
milled crazily inside the circle. There were even porpoises, darting
about as if frightened beyond all normal behavior, not even trying to
feed on the equally fear-maddened creatures all about them.
_Three_
Terry stared incredulously. Someone moved beside him. It was Davis. He
spoke in a dry voice.
"I would think," he said detachedly, "that _La Rubia_ could catch a
boatload of fish in that water with a single haul of her nets. Certainly
with two."
Terry turned his head.
"But what is it? What makes these fish gather like this?"
"An interesting question," said Davis. "We'll try to find out how it
happens. Even more interesting, I'd like to know why."
He moved away along the deck. Terry went close to the side rail. A few
minutes later the startling glare of one of the side searchlights smote
upon the water away from the incredible scene. It moved slowly back and
forth. Where the light struck, the sea seemed totally commonplace. No
fish could be seen. Then the white beam swept here and there in jerky
leapings. There was nothing unusual on the surface, nothing beyond the
limit of brightness, where the sea turned dark.
Deirdre said at Terry's side, "We didn't really expect this! I'm going
to get a sample of the water, Terry. Want to help?"
She ignored his haughty withdrawal of the afternoon, and he could not
stand on his dignity in the presence of such an incredible phenomenon.
She got a water bucket from the nearby rack. A wave sprung up as she
tried to fill the bucket overside. It touched her hand and she cried
out. Terry jerked her back by the shoulder. The bucket bumped against
the _Esperance's_ side, hanging on the line attached to the rail.
"What's the matter?"
"It stung! The water stung! Like a nettle!" Shaking a little, Deirdre
rubbed her wet hand with the other. "It doesn't hurt now, but it was
like a stinging nettle--or an electric shock!"
Terry hauled in the bucket and set it down. He leaned far over the rail.
He plunged his hand into a lifting pinnacle of the sea. Instantly, his
skin felt as if pricked by ten thousand needles. But his muscles did not
contract as they would in an electric shock. The sensation was on the
surface of his skin alone.
He shook his head impatiently. He put his finger in the bucket he'd
lifted to the deck. There was no unusual sensation. He dipped overside
again. Again acute and startling hurt, from the mere contact with the
water.
Deirdre still rubbed her hand. She said in a queer, surprised voice,
"Like pins and needles. It's like--like the fish-driving paddle! But
worse! Much worse!"
Terry looked again at the sea glittering with the swarms of fish in
hopeless, panicked agitation, confined in a specific narrow compass by
something unguessable. The searchlight continued to flick here and
there. The _Esperance_ drifted away from the edge of brightness. Terry
put his hand overside once more, and once more he felt the stinging,
nettle-like sensation. He got a fresh bucket of water from overside. On
deck, there was no strange sensation when he dipped his hand in it.
The searchlight went out abruptly and only a faint and quickly dimming
reddish glow came from it. That too died.
Davis' voice gave orders. Terry said sharply, "Wait a minute!" He began
to explain about the stinging of the water. But then he said, "Deirdre,
you tell him! I'm going to put a submarine ear overboard. At the least
we'll get fish noises on a new scale. But I've got an idea ... don't
sail into the bright circle yet."
He got out the submarine ear and the recorder he'd made ready that
afternoon. He started the recorder. Then he trailed the microphone
overside. The sounds would be heard live through the speaker and they
would be taped at the same time. At first, a blaring, confused sound
came through. Terry turned down the volume.
He heard gruntings and chirpings and rustlings. Fish made those
noises--not all fish, but certain species. These shrill, squeaking
noises were the protests of frightened porpoises. But under and through
all other sounds, a steady, unvarying hum could be easily detected.
Terry had never heard anything quite like it. Its pitch was the same as
that of a sixty-cycle frequency, but its tone quality was somehow
sardonic and snarling. The word that came into Terry's mind was "nasty."
Yes, it was a nasty sound. One didn't like it. One would want to get
away from it. In the air the same unpleasant sensation is produced by
noises that make one's flesh crawl.
Terry straightened up from where the recorder played upon the wet deck.
Davis and Deirdre had come to listen, in the strange darkness under the
sails of the _Esperance_.
"I've got a sort of hunch," said Terry slowly. "Let's sail across the
bright patch. I'll record the sea noises all the way. I've a feeling
that that hum means something."
"It's not what you'd call an ordinary sound," said Davis.
He raised his voice. One of the crew-cuts was at the schooner's wheel.
He spun it. The sails filled, and the rattling of flapping canvas died
away. The _Esperance_ gathered way and moved swiftly from the glittering
circle, came about, and sailed again toward the shining area. She got
closer and closer to the boundary.
The recorder continued to give out the confused and frightened noises of
the sea creatures, but under and through their sounds there remained the
nasty and sardonic hum. It grew louder and more unpleasant--much louder
in proportion to the fish sounds. At the very boundary of the bright
space it was loudest of all.
But as the yacht went on, the hum dimmed. At the very center of the
circle where the glitterings were brightest, the humming sound was
overwhelmed by the submarine tumult of senseless fish voices. Terry
dipped his hand here. The tingling was almost tolerable, but not quite.
Davis hauled more buckets of water to the deck. In two of them he found
some fish, so dense was the finny multitude. Then the yacht neared the
farthest limit of the bright circle. The hum from the recording
instrument grew progressively louder. Again, at the very edge of the
shining water, it was loudest.
The _Esperance_ sailed across the live boundary and into the dark sea.
As the boat went on, the sound dimmed....
"Definitely loudest," said Terry absorbedly, "at the edge of the circle
of fish. At the line the fish couldn't cross to escape. It is if there
were an electric fence in the sea. It felt like that, too. But there
isn't any fence."