Chapter 2

The edge of the sun touched the horizon and sank below it, out of sight. There were magnificent tints in the sky, and the gently rippling harbor water reflected them in innumerable swirlings of color. The Esperance swayed very slightly and very gracefully on the low swells. In minutes two of the dungareed members of the ship’s company got the anchor up with professional efficiency. One of them went below, and the Esperance’s engine began to rumble. Davis casually took the wheel, and the small yacht began to move toward the open sea while Nick played a salt-water hose on the anchor before lashing it fast. The brief twilight of the tropics transformed itself swiftly into night. Lights winked and glittered ashore and on the water.

Terry felt more than a little absurd. The girl said pleasantly, at his side, “My name’s Deirdre, in case you don’t know.”

“Mine’s Terry, but you do know.”

“Naturally!” she said briskly. “I should explain that I’m the ship’s cook, and the boys forward aren’t professional sailors, and my father isn’t--”

“Isn’t in this business for money,” said Terry. “It’s strictly for something else. And I don’t think it’s buried treasure or anything like that.”

“Nothing so sensible,” she agreed. “Now, if you want to join a watch, you’ll do it. If you don’t, you won’t. The port cabin, the little one, is yours. You are our guest. If you want anything, ask for it. I’m going below to cook dinner.”

She left him. He surveyed the deck again, and presently went back to where Davis sat nonchalantly by the Esperance’s wheel. Davis nodded.

“Now that you’ve, well, joined up,” he said meditatively, “I’ve been trying to think how to, well, justify all the mystery. Part of it was Deirdre’s idea. She thought it would make our proposition more interesting, so you’d be more likely to take it up. But when I think about explaining, I bog down immediately.”

Terry sat down. The Esperance drove on. Her bow lifted and dipped and lifted and dipped. The water was no longer nearly smooth. There was the beginning of a land breeze.

“There’s La Rubia,” said Davis uncomfortably. “You outfitted her with underwater ears and a radar, at least. Was there anything else?”

“No,” said Terry curtly. “Nothing else.”

“She catches the devil of a lot of fish,” said Davis. He frowned. “Some of them you might call very queer fish. You haven’t heard anything about that?”

“No,” said Terry. “Nothing.”

“I think, then,” said Davis, “that I’d better not expose myself to scorn. I’d like to be able to read her skipper’s mind, though. But it’s possible he simply thinks he’s lucky. And it’s possible he’s right.”

Terry waited. Davis puffed on his pipe. Then he said abruptly, “Anyhow you’re a good man at making gadgets. We’ll let it go at that, for the time being.”

The sea became less and less smooth. There were little slapping sounds of waves against the yacht’s bow. The muted rumble of her engine was not intrusive. The breeze increased. Davis gave a definite impression of having said all he intended to say for the time being. Terry stirred.

“You want me to build a gadget,” he said. “To drive fish. Would you want to give me some details?”

Davis considered. A few drops of spray came over the Esperance’s side.

“N-o-o-o,” said Davis. “Not just yet. There’s a possibility it will fit in. I’d like you to make one, and maybe it will fit in somewhere. But La Rubia’s the best angle we’ve got so far. There is one gadget I’d give a lot to have! You know, a depth-finder. It sends a pulse of sound down to the bottom and times the echo coming back. Very much like radar, in a way. Both send out a pulse and time its return.”

Terry nodded. There was no mystery about depth-finders or radars.

“We’ve got a depth-finder on board,” said Davis. “If I sail a straight course and keep the depth-finder running, I can make a profile of the sea bottom under me. If I had a row of ships doing the same thing, we could get profiles and have a relief map of the bottom.”

“That’s right,” agreed Terry.

“What I’d give a lot for,” said Davis, “would be a depth-finder that would send spot-pulses, like radar does. Aimed sound-pulses. And an arrangement made so it could scan the ocean bottom like radar scans the sky. One boat could make a graph of the bottom in depths and heights, mapping even hummocks and hills underwater. Could something like that be done?”

“Probably,” Terry told him. “It might take a good deal of doing, though.”

“I wish you’d think about it,” said Davis. “I know a place where I’d like to use such a thing. It’s in the Luzon Deep. I really would like to have a detailed picture of the bottom at a certain spot there!”

Terry said nothing. He’d been made angry, then mollified, and now he felt tempted to grow angry again. There was nothing definite in what was wanted of him, after elaborate machinations to get him aboard the Esperance. He was disappointed.

“Good breeze,” said Davis in a different voice. “We might as well hoist sail and cut off the engine. Take the wheel?”

Terry took the wheel. Davis went forward. Four dungareed figures came up out of the forecastle. The sails went up and filled. The engine stopped. The motion of the boat changed. More spray came aboard, but the movement was steadier. Davis came back and took the wheel once more.

“I think,” he said, “that we’re acting in a way to--hm--be annoying. I ought to lay my cards on the table. But I can’t. For one thing, I haven’t drawn a full hand yet. For another, there are some things you’ll have to find out for yourself, in a situation like this.”

“Such as--”

“Well,” said Davis with a sudden dogged air, “take those orejas de ellos, for an example. Ellos are supposed to be some sort of beings at the bottom of the sea who listen to fish and fishermen. It’s a superstition pure and simple. Suppose I said I was investigating the possibility that there were such--beings. You’d think I was crazy, wouldn’t you?”

Terry shrugged.

“What I am interested in,” said Davis, “has enough credit behind it for me to get some pretty rare electronic parts from the flattop in harbor back yonder. Nick called them by short-wave, they sent the parts ashore and gave them to Deirdre, and she brought them out to you.”

Terry blinked. Then he realized. Of course, that was where just about any imaginable component for electronic devices would be found--in the electronics stores of a flattop! They needed to have such things at hand. They’d carry them in store. Davis said drily, “They wouldn’t supply parts to a civilian who was investigating imaginary gods or devils. So what I’m bothered with isn’t a superstition. Right?”

“Y-yes,” agreed Terry.

It was true. The Navy would not stretch regulations for a crackpot civilian. It was not likely, either, that Horta would have implied so definitely that the Philippine Government wanted somebody with Terry’s qualifications to go for a cruise on the Esperance.

Deirdre put her head up through the after-cabin hatch.

“Dinner is served,” she said cheerfully.

“The wheel,” said Davis to Terry.

He went forward. All four of the non-professional seamen came with him when he returned.

“This is the rest of the gang,” said Davis. “You met Nick. The others are Tony Drake, Jug Bell, and Doug Holmes.” He made an embracing gesture as they shook hands in turn. “Harvard, Princeton, Yale--and Nick’s M.I.T. It’s your turn at the wheel, Tony.”

One of the four took over. The others filed below after Davis and Terry. Terry was silent. Davis had wanted to show that he was being informative, and yet he’d said exactly nothing about the interests or the purpose of the Esperance’s complement.

Dinner in the after-cabin was almost as confusing to Terry. Seen at close range across a table, the four dungareed young men could not possibly be anything but college undergraduates. They were respectful to Davis as an older man and they tended to be a little cagey about Terry, because he was slightly older than themselves but not an honorary contemporary. They plainly regarded Deirdre with the warmest possible approval.

Conversation began, at first cryptic but suddenly only preposterous. There was an argument about the supposed intelligence of porpoises, based on recent studies of their brain structure. Tony observed profoundly that without an opposable thumb intelligence could not lead to artefacts, and hence no culture and no great effective intelligence was possible. Jug denied the meaningfulness of brain structure as an indication of intellect. Intellect would be useless to a creature which could neither make nor use a tool. Doug argued hotly that the point was absurd. He pointed to spastic children once rated as morons but actually having high I.Q.’s. They had intellects, though they had been useless because of their inability to communicate. But Nick asserted that without tools they’d have nothing to talk about but food, danger, and who went where with whom for what. All of which, he observed, needed no brains.

Davis listened amusedly. Deirdre threw in the suggestion that without hands or tools an intelligent creature could compose poetry, and Jug protested that that was nothing to use a brain for--and the talk turned into a violent argument about poetry. Doug insisted vehemently that the finest possible intellects were required for the composition and appreciation of true poetry. Then Davis said, “Tony’s still at the wheel.”

The argument died down and the crew-cuts devoted themselves to eating, so one of them could get through and relieve him.

Afterward, Davis settled down below to a delicate short-wave tuning process to get music from an improbable distance. Deirdre served Tony his meal and talked with him while he ate it. Terry went abovedecks and paced back and forth as the Esperance sailed on through the night.

He couldn’t make out anything at all about the crew or the purpose behind the Esperance’s chosen task and purpose. He felt dubious about the whole business. Like most technically-minded men, he could become absorbed in a problem, especially if it was a device difficult to design or a design that somehow didn’t work. Such things fascinated him. But the Esperance’s crew was not concerned with a problem like that. There was no pattern in their talk or behavior to match the way a technical mind would go about finding a solution. The problem was bafflingly vague, yet there was one.

La Rubia was an element in it. Possibly Davis’ wistful mention of a partial map of the bottom of the Luzon Deep fitted in somewhere. Davis had spoken of orejas de ellos with some familiarity, but certainly no Navy ship would cooperate in the investigation of a fisherman’s superstition in which even fishermen didn’t believe any longer. The Philippine fishing fleet was modern and efficient. Fishermen used submarine ears without superstitious fears, and if they referred to imaginary ellos it was as an American would say “knock on wood,” with no actual belief that it meant anything.

Whatever the Esperance’s purpose was, there was nothing mystical about it--not if a flattop parted with rare and expensive specialized vacuum tubes to try to help, and the police department of Manila urged Terry tactfully--through Horta--to join the yacht, and no less than a Navy Captain had named him as someone to be recruited.

Deirdre came abovedecks and replaced Tony at the wheel. The Esperance sailed on. A last-quarter moon was now shining low on the eastern horizon. It seemed larger and nearer to the earth than when seen from more temperate climes. The wake of the yacht glowed in the moonlight.

The wide expanse of canvas made stark contrast between its moonlit top and its shadow on the deck. The only illumination on the ship was the binnacle lights and the red and green running lights. Deirdre kept the Esperance on course.

Terry went up to where she sat, beside the wheel.

“I’ve been making guesses,” he told her. “Your father ... I believe that his curiosity has been aroused by something, and he’s resolved to track it down. I strongly suspect that at some time or another he’s gotten bored with making money and decided to have some fun.”

Deirdre nodded.

“Very good! Almost completely true. But what he’s interested in is a good deal more important than fun.”

Terry nodded in his turn.

“I suspected that too. And it’s rather likely that you’ve got a volunteer crew instead of a professional one because these young men consider it a fascinating adventure into the absurd, and because they’ll keep their mouths shut if something turns out to be classified information.”

“My father’s doing this strictly on his own!” said Deirdre quickly. “There’s nothing official about it. There isn’t any classified information about it. This is a private affair from the beginning!”

“But in the end it may turn out to be something else,” said Terry.

“Y-yes. We don’t know, though. It’s impossible to know! It’s--ridiculous!”

“And my explanation for your being so mysterious with me is that you and your father insist that I find out everything for myself because I’d think it foolish if you told me.”

Deirdre did not answer for a moment. There was a movement behind Terry, and Davis came on deck.

“That was good music!” he said pleasedly. “You missed some very interesting sounds, Deirdre! You too, Holt.”

“He’s decided,” said Deirdre, “that we’re a little bit ashamed of our enterprise and won’t tell him about it for fear he’ll simply laugh at us.”

Terry protested, “Not at all! Nothing like that!”

“When some forty-odd people have been killed by something inexplicable at one time that we know of,” said Davis, “--and we don’t know how many others have been killed at other times, or may be killed by it in the future--I don’t think that’s a laughing matter.”

He surveyed what should be the direction of the land. A light showed there and vanished, then came on again and vanished. A minute later it showed and disappeared, then came on again twice. It was very far away. Davis said in a different tone, “We can change course now, Deirdre. You know the new one.”

The Esperance’s bowsprit forsook the star at which it had been aiming. It swung to another. Davis moved about, adjusting the sheets alone. On the new heading the yacht heeled over a little more and the water rushing past her hull had a different sound. The sky seemed larger and more remote than it ever appears from a city. The yacht’s wake streamed behind her in a trail of bluish brightness. Even the moon was strange. It had the cold enormousness of something very near and menacing. It looked as close as when seen through a telescope of moderate power.

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 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.