Murray Leinster - Creatures of the Abyss

The Esperance seemed very lonely on the immense waste of waters.

Next morning, of course, the sense of loneliness was gone. There was neither land nor any ship in sight, but gulls fluttered and squawked overhead, and the waves seemed to leap and gambol in the sunshine. Just before the foremast a metal plate in the decking had been lifted up, and a new, stubby, extensible mast rose or almost as high as the crosstrees. A tiny basket-like object rotated monotonously at its upper end. It was a radar-bowl, and somehow it was not unusual, except in the manner in which it was mounted. Yet, such a collapsible radar mast was reasonable on a sailing yacht with many lines aloft that could be fouled. Anyhow, the radar was concerned with human affairs, and so it was company.

The housekeeping work on the boat was in progress. Doug and Jug scrubbed the deck. The other crew-cuts gave signs of industry from time to time, appearing and vanishing. Davis smoked tranquilly at the wheel. Terry felt useless, as well as puzzled.

“Can I do anything?” he asked awkwardly.

“You’re your own boss,” said Davis.

“Then I might as well see what can be done about that submarine noisemaker.”

“If you feel like it,” said Davis, “fine!”

But he did not urge. Terry waited a moment. There was a sort of contagion of purposefulness in this eccentric small group on the Esperance. They had something they were trying to do, and it seemed important to them. But Terry was an outsider and would remain one until he became active in their joint effort.

He got out his equipment and materials and spread them out. There was no need to build a recorder, since there was one among the supplies. The rest wouldn’t be unduly difficult. He established a working space and set systematically to work. The task he’d accepted was essentially simple. A submarine ear was to pick up underwater sounds. He had to modify a microphone and enclose it in a water-tight housing, with certain special features that would make it highly directional. The recorder would take the pick-up and register it on magnetic tape, while playing it for simultaneous listening. Then he had to assemble a machine for playing back the taped sounds under water. That required a unit for a submarine horn, to broadcast the amplified sound. It isn’t difficult to make a sound under water. One can knock two stones together under the surface and a swimmer can hear it a mile or more away. But a horn to reproduce specific sounds is more difficult to build. It needs extra power. A sound-truck in a city, competing with all the traffic noises, will turn no more than fifteen watts of electricity into noise. But much more power would be needed to produce a similar volume under water.

Terry modified the mike into a submarine ear—an oreja de ellos. Then he began to assemble an audio amplifier to build up the volume of the sounds already taped for reuse under the sea. He had the parts. It was mostly just finicky labor. He sat cross-legged in the sunshine, not far from the Esperance’s unusual winch.

Nick came up from below and went aft. He spoke to Davis. Terry couldn’t hear what was said, but Davis gave orders.

The Esperance heeled over; away, away over. The four crew-cuts adjusted the sheets for maximum effect of the sails on the new direction of motion. The yacht seemed to tear through the water like a racing boat. Terry had to rescue some of his smaller parts which started for the scuppers. He looked up. Deirdre said cheerfully, “Our radar picked up a boat that’s probably La Rubia on the way back to Manila. We don’t want her to see us.”

Terry blinked.

“Why?”

“We’re going to take a look at the spot where we think she catches her fish,” said Deirdre. “It’s strange enough that she catches so many, but what’s even stranger is the kind of fish she catches at times.”

“How?”

Deirdre shrugged. Then she said irrelevantly, “ La Rubia’s skipper would like to have the only radar in the world, as you’ve reason to know, and he doesn’t think of radars, except his own and possible competitors. But there are lots of others. We’re probably a blip on somebody’s radar-screen right now. In fact, we’re supposed to be. So when my father got interested in La Rubia and her—catches, he was able to have somebody notice where she goes every time she slips away from the fishing fleet. And so he was told. It was all quite unofficial, of course.”

Terry bent over his task again while the Esperance sped along over the offshore swells. There was no land in sight anywhere. An albatross glided overhead for a time, as if inspecting the Esperance as a possible source of food. When Terry looked for it later it was gone. Once there was a flurry in many wave-flanks, and a small school of flying fish darted out of the sea with hazy, beating fins, and dived back into the sea many yards from where they started.

But nothing of any consequence happened anywhere. Terry fitted and soldered and tested. By noon he had a rather powerful audio amplifying unit, set up to magnify any sound the tape-recorder fed into it. Deirdre prepared a meal. The galley of the Esperance was admirably supplied with all kinds of food. After the noon meal the yacht changed course again to a line which would intersect her original morning course at some point.

Terry found himself fuming. He’d set to work to make something that Davis apparently wanted, but his most elementary questions still ran against a blank refusal to answer. Both Davis and Deirdre had spoken of oddities in the catches of La Rubia. There could not possibly be any reason for them to refuse to tell him what they were. Terry worked himself into irritability, recalling how he volunteered to come on the Esperance but not thinking that he would be treated as someone who wasn’t allowed to know what everybody else aboard most certainly did.

In the afternoon there was guitar music down in the forecastle, and Doug came out and settled himself on the bowsprit with a book of poetry. Presently Nick sat down close by Terry and watched interestedly as he put mysterious-looking electronic elements together into incomprehensible groups. When he had finished, Terry did not admire his handiwork. The noisemaking unit came last. The electrical part had to be enclosed, watertight, with a diaphragm exposed to the water on one side and its working parts protected from all moisture on the other. The device looked cobbled, but it worked, and made monstrous sounds in the air.

Now he plugged the submarine ear into the recorder. He dropped it overside and taped the random noises of the sea: the washings of sea water against the Esperance’s hull, frequent splashings, and very faint, chirping noises from who-knew-what.

“Watch the volume, will you?” Terry pointed out the indication that should not be exceeded. Nick nodded. “I’m going to whack the paddle overside and see what we get in the way of noise.”

Nick hesitated. Then he said uneasily, “Wait a minute.”

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.