Murray Leinster - Creatures of the Abyss

Deirdre said firmly, “You’ll be ready for it when it comes!”

“Maybe,” said Terry. “Your father once mentioned an instrument he’d like to have to take a relief map of the ocean bottom. Changed around a little, it might be something we need very badly indeed. The horn we’ve got is good, but not good enough. I’ll talk to the electronics men here.”

There was a noise of scraping chairs, inside the dining hall. People came out, talking cheerfully. There was much to talk about on Thrawn Island today. The killing of a giant squid had been preceded by a specific guess that linked it to meteoric falls in the Luzon Deep. Logically, the excitement had grown.

Terry found his electronics specialists, and explained to them the type of apparatus he was interested in. He asked if it was included in the island’s technical stores. He wanted to assemble something capable of emitting underwater noises of special quality and unprecedented power. There is not much power involved in sound through the air. A cornet player manages with much effort to convert four-tenths of a watt of power into music. A public-address system for a large area may give out fifteen watts of noise. Terry described a device which could use a small amount of power, serving as a sonar or a depth-finding unit, and then, with the throw of a switch, turn kilowatts into vibrations underneath the sea. If powerful and shrill enough, such vibrations could be lethal.

A technical argument ensued. Terry’s demands were toned down to fit the equipment at hand. Then three men went with him to the island’s workshop. They took off their coats and set to work.

Three hours later someone noticed an unknown vessel making its way into the lagoon. She was stubby and small, and had short thick masts with heavy booms tilted up at steep angles. Her Diesel engines boomed hollowly, louder than the surf. As she entered the lagoon, a searchlight winked on and flicked here and there. It finally found the wharf where the Esperance was moored.

Men of the tracking station staff went down to the wharf to meet the small row boat that was now coming ashore.

A short, stout, irate fishing boat skipper waved his arms and shouted angrily. What had los americanos done to keep La Rubia from catching fish? Why had they changed the arrangement by which the starving wives and children of La Rubia’s crew were fed? He would protest to the Philippine Government! He would expose the villainy of los americanos to the world! He demanded that now, instantly, the original state of affairs be restored!

A fish leaped out of the water nearby. Where it leaped, and where it fell back, bright specks of luminosity appeared. Even the ripples of the splashes glowed faintly as they spread outward. The skipper of La Rubia stared. And now the people of the island realized that the look of the water was not altogether commonplace. Little bluish flames under the surface showed that many fish darted there. There were more fish than usual in the lagoon. Many more. The lagoon had suddenly become a fine place to catch fish. Some care would be needed, of course. There were doubtless coral heads in plenty. But still …

The skipper of La Rubia abruptly returned to his fury and his protests. La Rubia had gone to the place where she always found fish. Always! There was a humming in the water there, and fish were to be found in quantity. But yesterday the American ship had been there, and also this very yacht! La Rubia stayed out of sight lest the americanos learn her fishing secrets. But it was useless. When the two American ships were gone, there was no longer a humming in the sea and no more fish for the crew of La Rubia to capture for their hungry wives and children. And therefore he, Capitan Saavedra, demanded that the americanos restore the previous state of affairs.

Davis would have intervened, but the chubby skipper erupted into wilder and more theatrical accusations still.

Let them not deny what they had done! Fish were always to be found where there was a humming in the sea that las orejas de ellos heard and reported to him. But that humming was not in its former place. It was here! At the entrance of the lagoon! The fish were here, also! Los americanos had moved the fish so the crewmen of La Rubia could not feed their wives and children. Los americanos wished to take all the fish for themselves! But fish were the property of all men, especially fishermen with starving wives and children. So he, Capitan Saavedra, would fish in this lagoon, and he defied anyone to stop him.

“Certainly,” said Terry. “ Seguramente!” He added in Spanish: “We’ll lend you a short-wave contact with Manila to make any complaints you please. I’m sure all the other fishing boats will be glad to hear where you’ve been catching fish, and where you’ve found the fish have moved to! Calm yourself, Capitan, and help yourself to the fish of the lagoon, and any time you want to call Manila we’ll arrange it!”

He moved away. He went back to the electronics shop, while Morton and Davis and the others talked encouragingly to Capitan Saavedra. Presently they suggested that he accept their hospitality, and the Capitan and his oarsmen went up to the dining hall, where they were served dinner, and a more friendly mood developed. In time the Capitan said happily that he would wait till sunrise to lower his nets, because he didn’t want to risk losing them on the coral heads. A few drinks later the Capitan boasted about his own system of fishing, as practised by La Rubia. The starving condition of his crew’s wives and children ceased to be mentioned.

In the presence of so accomplished a liar, nobody of the tracking station staff mentioned a giant squid hauled partly, but only partly, out of the water. They suspected that he would not believe it. They were sure that he would top their real feat by an imaginary one. So the four crew-cuts listened politely, and fed him more drinks, and learned much.

In the workshop the most unlikely device Terry’d described took form. In effect, it was an underwater horn which was much more powerful than it looked. Submerged, and with power from a group of amplifiers in parallel, it would create a tremendous volume of underwater noise. That sound would run through a tube shaped like a gun-barrel. It would travel in a straight line, spreading only a little.

The same projection tube could also send out the tentative beep-beep-beep of sonar gear, or the peculiar noise a depth-finder makes. So the instrument could search out a distance or find a target, and then fling at it a beam of humming torment equal to bullets from a machine gun.

It would have taken Terry, alone, a long time to build. But he had three assistants, two of whom were very competent. By dawn, they had it ready to be mounted upon the Esperance. It was placed hanging from the bow, mounted on gimbals, so that it could point in any direction. It was firmly fixed to the yacht’s planking.

There was plenty of activity on La Rubia, too, at daybreak. That squat and capable fishing boat prepared to harvest the fish in the lagoon. She got her nets over. She essayed to haul them. Some got caught on the coral heads rising from the lagoon’s bottom toward the surface. Capitan Saavedra swore, and untangled them. He tried again. Again coral heads baulked the enterprise. The nets tore.

A helicopter came rattling into view from the south. It grew in size and loudness, and presently hovered over the tracking station. Then it made a wide, deliberate circuit of the lagoon. At the inlet where the squid lay almost entirely in the water—but fastened by ropes lest it drift away—above that spot, the helicopter hovered for a long time. It must have been taking photographs. Presently, it lowered one man by a line to the ground. Obviously, the man could not endure any delay in getting at so desirable a biological specimen. Then the helicopter went droning and rattling to the tracking station, and landed with an air of weariness.