He moved away, back to the stern. In moments, the _Esperance_ was
beating upwind. Presently, she headed back toward her previous position,
but outside the brightness. Terry could see dark silhouettes moving
about near the yacht's wheel. Then he saw another brightness at the
eastern horizon, but that was in the sky. Almost as soon as he noticed
it, the moon peered over the edge of the world, and climbed slowly to
full view, and then swam up among the lower-hanging stars.
Immediately, the look of the sea was different. The waves no longer
seemed to race the darkness with only star glitters on their flanks. The
figures at the _Esperance's_ stern were now quite distinct in the
moonlight.
"You said a very sensible thing, Deirdre," said Terry. "I thought of the
fish-driving paddle and its effects, but I was ashamed to mention it. I
thought it would sound foolish. But when you said it, it didn't."
"I have a talent," said Deirdre, "for making foolish things sound
sensible. Or perhaps the reverse. I'm going to say a sensible thing now.
We haven't had dinner. I'm going to fix something to eat."
"You won't get anybody to go belowdecks right now!" said Terry.
"I thought of that," she told him. "Sandwiches."
She went below. Terry continued to watch, while figures at the stern of
the schooner went through an involved process of visual measurement. It
was not simple to determine the dimensions of a patch of shimmering
light flashes from a boat in motion. But presently, Davis came toward
him.
"It's thirteen hundred yards across," he told Terry. "Plus or minus
twenty."
"I didn't expect all this," Davis said, frowning. "I've been making
guesses and hoping fervently that I was wrong. And I have been, but each
time the proof that I was wrong has led to new guesses, and I'm afraid
to think those guesses may be right."
"I can't begin to guess yet," said Terry.
"You will!" Davis assured him. "You will! You try to add up things.... A
half-mile-wide patch of foam that piles up thirty feet above the
sea...."
"And into which," Terry interrupted, "a sailing ship does not sink but
drops out of sight as if there were a hole in the sea."
Davis turned sharply toward him.
"There were some photographs and a newspaper clipping on the cabin
table," explained Terry. "I suspected they might have been put there for
me to see."
"Deirdre, perhaps," said Davis. "She's resolved to involve you in this.
You've got scruples, so she suspects you of having brains. Yes. You'll
add those things up. You'll include the remarkable success of a fishing
boat named _La Rubia_ and the fact that she sometimes brings in very
strange fish ... And then you'll add ..."
His eyes flickered aloft. A shooting star streaked across one-third of
the sky leaving a trail of light behind it. Then it went out.
"You'll even be tempted," said Davis, "to include something like that in
your guesses! And then you'll try to come up with a total for the lot.
Then you'll be as troubled as I am."
He paused a moment.
"You said you wanted to be put ashore as soon as the gadget you made
today was tested. I hope you've changed your mind, or will. That
tape-recording may mean something to somebody. We wouldn't have heard
that very singular noise but for you."
"I withdraw the business of going ashore," said Terry uncomfortably.
"I'm going to ask another question. What are those little spheres that I
saw in the photographs on the cabin table? Were they found fastened to
the fish?"
"So I'm told," said Davis. "They are made of plastic. One was on a fish
caught by a chief petty officer of the United States Navy. Four have
been found on fish brought into the market by _La Rubia_. They could
conceivably be a joke, but it's very elaborate! Somebody tried to cut
one open and it burst to hell-and-gone. Terrific pressure inside. The
metal parts inside were iridium. The others haven't been cut open.
They're--" Davis' tone was dry. "They're being studied."
A figure came out of the forecastle and walked aft. It was Nick. He
stopped to say, "I called Manila and got a loran fix on us. We're right
at the place _La Rubia_ heads for every time she sneaks away from the
rest of the fishing fleet. It seems that she hauls her nets yonder."
He nodded toward the circular area of luminosity on the sea. "It looks
smaller than when I went below deck."
Davis stared. He seemed to stiffen.
"It does. We'll make sure."
He went aft. Deirdre came up with sandwiches. Terry took the tray from
her and followed her toward the others.
"Cigars, cigarettes, candy, sandwiches?" she asked cheerfully.
Davis was back at the task of measuring the angle subtended by the patch
of shining sea, and then closely estimating its distance from the
_Esperance_. He said, "It _is_ smaller. Eleven hundred yards, now."
"When _La Rubia_ was here today," said Terry, "it might have been a
couple of miles across. Even that would be a terrific concentration of
fish! They're not all at the surface."
Davis said with impatience, seemingly directed against himself, "It's
narrowed two hundred yards in the past half-hour. It must be tending
toward something! There has to be a conclusion to it! Something must be
about to happen!"
Deirdre said slowly, "If it's the equivalent of a seine being hauled,
with a hum instead of a net, what's going to happen when it's time for
the fish to be boated?"
Davis ignored her for a moment. Then he said irritably, "Everyone seems
to have more brains than I do! Tony, break out those gun-cameras. Nick,
get back and report if the bright spot's getting any smaller. I wish you
weren't here, Deirdre!"
The two crew-cuts moved to obey. Terry, alone, had no specific duty
assigned to him on the yacht, unless tending to the recorder was it. He
bent over the instrument which was playing in the air anything that a
trailing microphone picked up under water. He raised the volume a
trifle. He could still hear the singular noises of the agitated fish
mixed in with the thin, strangely offensive humming sound. He heard
small thumpings, and realized that they were the footfalls of his
companions on the deck of the _Esperance_, transmitted to the water. He
heard ...
Tony came abovedecks with an armful of mysterious-looking objects which
could not be seen quite clearly in the slanting moonlight. He put two of
them down by the wheel and passed out the others. He silently left one
for Terry and another for Deirdre, while Terry adjusted tone and volume
on the recorder for maximum clarity.
"What are those?" asked Terry.
"Cameras," said Deirdre. "Mounted on rifle stocks, with flashbulbs in
the reflectors. You aim, pull the trigger, and the shutter opens as the
flashbulb goes off. So you get a picture of whatever you aim at, night
or day."
"Why ..."
"There was a time when my father thought they might be useful," said
Deirdre. "Then it looked like they wouldn't. Now it looks like they
may."
Terry was tempted to say, "Useful for what?" But Davis' vague talk of
unpleasant wrong guesses which led to even less pleasant ones had
already been an admission that no convincing answer could be given him.
Davis came over to him.
"This has me worried," he said in a frustrated tone of indecision. "We
must be near the end of some process that I didn't suspect, and the
conclusion of which I can't guess. I don't know what it is, and I don't
know what it's for. I only know what it's tied in with."
Terry said absorbedly, "Two or three times I've picked up some new kinds
of sounds. You might call them mooing noises. They're very faint, as if
they were far away, and there are long intervals between them. I don't
think they come from the surface."
Davis made an irresolute gesture. He seemed to hesitate over something
he was inclined to accept. Deirdre protested before he could speak. "I
don't think what you're thinking is right!" she said firmly. "Not a bit
of it! Whatever happens will be connected with the fish. _La Rubia_ has
been around this sort of thing over and over again! We haven't been
running the engine and we haven't been making any specific noises in the
water to arouse curiosity! If anything were going to happen to us, it
would have happened to _La Rubia_ before now! It would be ridiculous to
run away just because I'm on board!"
Terry, bent intently over the recorder, suddenly felt a cold chill run
up and down his spine. His mind told him it was ridiculous to associate
distant mooing sounds, underwater, with a completely unprecedented,
frantic gathering of fish into one small area, and come up with the
thought that something monstrous and plaintive was coming blindly to
feed upon fellow creatures of the sea. There was nothing to justify the
thought. It was out of all reason. But his spine crawled, just the same.
"The circle's only eight hundred yards across, now," said Davis,
uneasily. "The fish can't crowd together any closer! But Doug went
overboard with diving goggles, and he says there's a column of
brightness as far down as he can make out."
Terry looked up.
"He went overboard? Didn't he tingle?"
"He said it was like baby nettles all over," Davis protested, as if it
were someone's fault. "But he didn't sting after he came out. It must
be ..."
A mooing sound came out of the recorder. It was fainter than the other
sounds and very far away. It must have been of terrific volume where it
originated. It lasted for many seconds, then stopped.
"I should have been recording," said Terry. "That sound comes up about
every five minutes. I'll catch it next time."
Davis went away, as if he wanted to miss the noise and the decision it
would force upon him. Yet Terry told himself obstinately that there was
no reason to connect the mooing sound with the crazed fish herd half a
mile away. But somehow he couldn't help thinking there might be a
connection.
The ship's clock sounded seven bells. Deirdre said, "The brightness is
really smaller now!" The patch of flashes was no more than half its
original size. Terry pressed the recording button and straightened up to
look more closely. Right then Deirdre said sharply, "Listen!"
Something new and quite unlike the mooing noise now came out of the
recorder.
"Get your father," commanded Terry. "Something's coming from somewhere!"
Deirdre ran across the heaving deck. Terry shifted position so he could
manipulate the microphone hanging over the yacht's side into the water.
Davis arrived. His voice was suddenly strained and grim. "Something's
coming?" he demanded. "Can you hear any engine noise?"
"Listen to it," said Terry. "I'm trying to get its bearing."
He turned the wire by which the submarine ear hung from the rail. The
chirpings and squealings and squeakings changed volume as the microphone
turned. But the new sound, of something rushing at high speed through
the water--that did not change. Terry rotated the mike through a full
circle. The fish noises dwindled to almost nothing, and then increased
again. The volume of the steady hum changed with them. But the rushing
sound remained steady. Rather, it grew in loudness, as if approaching.
But the directional microphone didn't register any difference, whether
it received sound from the north, east, south, or west.
It was a booming sound. It was a rushing sound. It was the sound of an
object moving at terrific speed through the water. There was no engine
noise, but something thrust furiously through the sea, and the sound
grew louder and louder.
"It's not coming from any compass course," said Terry shortly. "How deep
is the water here?"
"We're just over the edge of the Luzon Deep," said Davis. "Four thousand
fathoms. Five. Maybe six."
"Then it can only be coming from one direction," said Terry. "It's
coming from below. And it's coming up."
For three heartbeats Davis stood perfectly still. Then he said, with
extreme grimness, "Since you mention it, that would be where it's coming
from."
He turned away and shouted a few orders. The crewmen scurried swiftly.
The yacht's head fell away from the wind. Terry listened again to the
rushing sound. There seemed to be regular throbbings in it, but still no
engine noise. It was a steady drone.
"Bazooka shells ought to discourage anything," Davis said in an icy
voice. "If it attacks, let go at it. But try to use the gun-cameras
first."
The _Esperance_ rolled and wallowed. Her bows lifted and fell. Her sails
were black against the starry sky overhead. Two of the crew-cuts settled
themselves at the starboard rail. They had long tubes in their hands,
tubes whose details could not be seen. The wind hummed and thuttered in
the rigging. Reef-points pattered. Near the port rail the recorder
poured out the amplified sounds its microphone picked up from the sea.
The sound of the coming thing became louder than all the other noises
combined. It was literally a booming noise. The water started to bubble
furiously as it parted to let something rise to the surface from
unthinkable depths.
Doug put two magazine-rifles beside Terry and Deirdre, then he moved
away. Deirdre had a clumsy object in her hands. It had a rifle-stock and
a trigger. What should have been the barrel was huge--six inches or more
in diameter--but very short. That was the flashbulb reflector. The
actual camera was small and on top, like a sight.
"We'll aim these at anything we see," said Deirdre composedly, "and pull
the trigger. Then we'll pick up the real rifles and see if we must
shoot. Is that all right?"
She faced the shining patch of ocean. Davis and the crew-cut at the
wheel faced that way. Tony and Jug stood with the clumsy tubes of
bazookas facing the same direction. Doug had taken a post forward, with
a camera-gun and a magazine rifle. He had the camera in hand, to use
first.
It seemed that hours passed, but it must have been just a few minutes.
Nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be taking place anywhere. The moon
now shone down from a sky in which a few thin wisps of cloud glowed
among the stars. Sharp-peaked waves came from one horizon and sped
busily toward the other. The yacht pitched and rolled, its company
strangely armed and expectant. The recorder gave out a droning, booming,
rushing sound which grew louder with ever-increasing rapidity. Now the
sound reached a climax.
From the very center of the glinting circle of sea, there was a
monstrous splashing sound. A phosphorescent column rose furiously from
the waves. It leaped. Water fell back and ... something soared into the
air. Sharp, stabbing flashes of almost intolerably white light flared
up. The gun-cameras fired their flashbulbs without a sound.
It was then that Terry saw it--in mid-air. He swung the gun-camera, and
a flash from another gun showed him that he would miss. He jerked the
gun to bear and pulled the trigger. The flash illuminated _it_ vividly.
Then night again.
It was torpedo-shaped and excessively slender but very long. It could
have been a living thing, frozen by the instantaneous flash. It could
have been something made of metal. It leaped a full fifty feet clear of
the waves and then tumbled back into the ocean with a colossal splash.
Then there was silence, except for the sounds of the sea. Terry had the
magazine-rifle still in his hands. Tony and Jug waited with their
bazookas ready. It occurred to Terry that yachts are not customarily
armed with bazookas.
"That--wasn't a whale," said Deirdre unsteadily.
The recorder bellowed suddenly. It was the hum that had been heard
before: the nasty, sixty-cycle hum that surrounded the captive fish. But
it was ten, twenty, fifty times as loud as before.
The fish in the bright-sea area went mad. The entire surface whipped
itself to spray, as fish leaped frenziedly to get out of the water,
which stung and burned where it touched.
Then, very strangely, the splashing stopped. The brightness of the sea
decreased. A while later the enormous snarling sound was noticeably less
loud than it had been at that first horrible moment.
The wind blew. The waves raced. The _Esperance's_ bow lifted and dipped.
The noise from the loudspeaker system--the noise from the sea--decreased
even more. One could hear the squeakings and chitterings of fish again.
But they were very much fainter. Presently the humming was no louder
than before the strange apparition. By that time the fish-sound had died
away altogether. The nearer normal noises remained. The hum was
receding. Downward.
Davis came to Terry, where he stood by the recording instrument.
"The fish have gone," he said in a flat voice, "they've gone away. They
didn't scatter. We'd have seen it. Do you realize where they went?"
Terry nodded.
"Straight down. Do you want to hear an impossible explanation?"
"I've thought of several," said Davis.
Doug came and picked up the gun-cameras that Terry and Deirdre had used
and went away with them.
"There's a kind of sound," said Terry, "that fish don't like. They won't
go where it is. They try to get away from it."