Arthur Clarke: The Deep Range

There was real feeling — almost passion — in Burley’s voice, and Franklin looked at the warden with surprise. The “whaleboys,” as they had been inevitably christened by a nostalgically minded public in search of heroes, were not supposed to be much inclined either to thought or emotions. Though Franklin knew perfectly well that the tough, uncomplicated characters who stalked tight lipped through the pages of contemporary submarine sagas had very little connection with reality, it was hard to escape from the popular clichés. Don Burley, it was true, was far from tight lipped, but in most other respects he seemed to fit the standard specification very well.

Franklin wondered how he was going to get on with his new mentor — indeed, with his new job. He still felt no enthusiasm for it; whether that would come, only time would show. It was obviously full of interesting and even fascinating problems and possibilities, and if it would occupy his mind and give him scope for his talents, that was as much as he could hope for. The long nightmare of the last year had destroyed, with so much else, his zest for life — the capacity he had once possessed for throwing himself heart and soul into some project.

It was difficult to believe that he could ever recapture the enthusiasm that had once taken him so far along paths he could never tread again. As he glanced at Don, who was still talking with the fluent lucidity of a man who knows and loves his job, Franklin felt a sudden and disturbing sense of guilt. Was it fair to Burley to take him away from his work and to turn him, whether he knew it or not, into a cross between a nursemaid and kindergarten teacher? Had Franklin realized that very similar thoughts had already crossed Burley’s mind, his sympathy would have been quenched at once.

“Time we caught the shuttle to the airport,” said Don, looking at his watch and hastily draining his beer. “The morning flight leaves in thirty minutes. I hope all your stuff’s already been sent on.”

“The hotel said they’d take care of it.”

“Well, we can check at the airport. Let’s go.”

Half an hour later Franklin had a chance to relax again. It was typical of Burley, he soon discovered, to take things easily until the last possible moment and then to explode in a burst of activity. This burst carried them from the quiet bar to the even more efficiently silenced plane. As they took their seats, there was a brief incident that was to puzzle Don a good deal in the weeks that lay ahead.

“You take the window seat,” he said. “I’ve flown this way dozens of times.”

He took Franklin’s refusal as ordinary politeness, and started to insist. Not until Franklin had turned down the offer several times, with increasing determination and even signs of annoyance, did Burley realize that his companion’s behavior had nothing to do with common courtesy. It seemed incredible, but Don could have sworn that the other was scared stiff. What sort of man, he wondered blankly, would be terrified of taking a window seat in an ordinary aircraft? All his gloomy premonitions about his new assignment, which had been partly dispelled during their earlier conversation, came crowding back with renewed vigor.

The city and the sunburned coast dropped below as the lifting jets carried them effortlessly up into the sky. Franklin was reading the paper with a fierce concentration that did not deceive Burley for a moment. He decided to wait for a while, and apply some more tests later in the flight.

The Glasshouse Mountains — those strangely shaped fangs jutting from the eroded plain — swept swiftly beneath. Then came the little coastal towns, through which the wealth of the immense farm lands of the interior had once passed to the world in the days before agriculture went to sea. And then — only minutes, it seemed, after take-off — the first islands of the Great Barrier Reef appeared like deeper shadows in the blue horizon mists.

The Sun was shining almost straight into his eyes, but Don’s memory could fill in the details which were lost in the glare from the burning waters. He could see the low, green islands surrounded by their narrow borders of sand and their immensely greater fringes of barely submerged coral. Against each island’s private reef the waves of the Pacific would be marching forever, so that for a thousand miles into the north snowy crescents of foam would break the surface of the sea.

A century ago — fifty years, even — scarcely a dozen of these hundreds of islands had been inhabited. Now, with the aid of universal air transport, together with cheap power and water-purification plants, both the state and the private citizen had invaded the ancient solitude of the reef. A few fortunate individuals, by means that had never been made perfectly clear, had managed to acquire some of the smaller islands as their personal property. The entertainment and vacation industry had taken over others, and had not always improved on Nature’s handiwork. But the greatest landowner in the reef was undoubtedly the World Food Organization, with its complicated hierarchy of fisheries, marine farms, and research departments, the full extent of which, it was widely believed, no merely human brain could ever comprehend.

“We’re nearly there,” said Burley. “That’s Lady Musgrave Island we’ve just passed — main generators for the western end of the fence. Capricorn Group under us now — Masthead, One Tree, North-West, Wilson — and Heron in the middle, with all those buildings on it. The big tower is Administration — the aquarium’s by that pool — and look, you can see a couple of subs tied up at that long jetty leading out to the edge of the reef.”

As he spoke, Don watched Franklin out of the corner of his eye. The other had leaned toward the window as if following his companion’s running commentary, yet Burley could swear that he was not looking at the panorama of reefs and islands spread out below. His face was tense and strained; there was an indrawn, hooded expression in his eyes as if he was forcing himself to see nothing.

With a mingling of pity and contempt, Don understood the symptoms if not their cause. Franklin was terrified of heights; so much, then, for the theory that he was a spaceman. Then what was he? Whatever the answer, he hardly seemed the sort of person with whom one would wish to share the cramped quarters of a two-man training sub…

The plane’s shock absorbers touched down on the rectangle of scorched and flattened coral that was the Heron Island landing platform. As he stepped out into the sunlight, blinking in the sudden glare, Franklin seemed to make an abrupt recovery. Don had seen seasick passengers undergo equally swift transformations on their return to dry land. If Franklin is no better as a sailor than an airman, he thought, this crazy assignment won’t last more than a couple of days and I’ll be able to get back to work. Not that Don was in a great rush to return immediately; Heron Island was a pleasant place where you could enjoy yourself if you knew how to deal with the red tape that always entangled headquarters establishments.

A light truck whisked them and their belongings along a road beneath an avenue of Pisonia trees whose heavily leafed branches blocked all direct sunlight. The road was less than a quarter of a mile long, but it spanned the little island from the jetties and maintenance plants on the west to the administration buildings on the east. The two halves of the island were partly insulated from each other by a narrow belt of jungle which had been carefully preserved in its virgin state and which, Don remembered sentimentally, was full of interesting tracks and secluded clearings.

Administration was expecting Mr. Franklin, and had made all the necessary arrangements for him. He had been placed in a kind of privileged limbo, one stage below the permanent staff like Burley, but several stages above the ordinary trainees under instruction. Surprisingly, he had a room of his own — something that even senior members of the bureau could not always expect when they visited the island. This was a great relief to Don, who had been afraid he might have to share quarters with his mysterious charge. Quite apart from any other factors, that would have interfered badly with certain romantic plans of his own.