The Shipshape Miracle: And Other Stories

by Clifford D. Simak

  Could the Venusians have been coming to Earth for all these centuries? Quietly, unobtrusively dropping out of space—perhaps carrying on a lucrative trade for many years with treasures snatched from Earth’s ocean beds. Perhaps even now there were many Venusian colonies planted on The Bottom. That could easily be so, for Man as yet had only started his exploitation of the sea beds. His health and tourist resorts, his sea farms and oil fields, his floral gardens and mines only fringed the continental shelves, and at no point was The Bottom thickly settled. A few depth-dippy coots like Old Gus, spending their lives on The Bottom, caught by the mystic love of its silences and weird mystery, had pushed ever deeper and deeper, but they were few. The Bottom, to all intent and purpose, was still a wilderness. In that wilderness might be many colonies of Venusians.

  Grant Nagle pondered the matter as he headed his tank back into the depths from Deep End, back to Old Gus’ dome.

  He chuckled as he remembered the result of his visaphone call to Hart.

  He could imagine Hart now—cussing up and down the office, ripping things wide open, laying down the law to Washington. By nightfall Hart would have every government submarine in the entire world combing the ocean bottoms.

  Combing the ocean bottoms to ferret out Venusians and their deadly little chemical plants where they were manufacturing hydrofluoric acid.

  Maybe they didn’t mean anything by manufacturing the acid. Maybe it was for some perfectly innocent purpose of their own. But the fact that hydrofluoric acid was the only acid known to have an effect on glass, the fact that quartz domes had been failing all tied up too neatly to be disregarded.

  After all, wouldn’t that be the logical way for the Venusians to proceed if they wished to keep the oceans for themselves. If they wished to drive Earthmen from the beds of their own seas, how better might they do it than by making Earthmen fear the sea, by destroying their confidence in the quartz that made possible domes and submarines and tanks and underwater suits? Without quartz man would be practically helpless on The Bottom, for quartz was the eyes of men down here. In time to come, of course, television could be worked out so that quartz would be unnecessary, but that would be an unsatisfactory substitute—indirect sight instead of direct sight.

  And if the worst came to worst, might it not be possible that the Venusians, with their chemical factories, might entirely alter the chemical content of the oceans? The material lay at hand. Fluorite for hydrogen fluoride. Most of the compounds in the oceans’ waters were chlorides—simple to juggle them chemically. Vast deposits of manganese.

  Grant shuddered to think of the witches’ broth that well-directed chemical effort might stir up in these depths. A great job, truly—but not impossible—especially when one considered the Venusians might have developed chemical treatment, might hold knowledge of chemistry which was still a closed book to Man. That machine and the hopper and the cylinders—nothing like one would find in an Earthly chemical plant—but apparently efficient. With unlimited raw material, with many machines such as that—what might not the Venusians be able to do?

  And it didn’t make a bit of difference to them. In Venus they lived in seas that frothed and bubbled and stank to the high heavens—seas that seethed with continual chemical change. A few chemical changes in Earth’s seas wouldn’t bother them at all, but it would the people and the creatures of the Earth. All sea life would die, men would be driven from The Bottom, perhaps many sections of country lying close to the sea would become virtually uninhabitable because of the fumes.

  Grant cursed at himself. “You damn fool,” he said, “creating a world catastrophe when you aren’t absolutely certain of any fact as yet.”

  No facts, of course, except that he had actually found a Venusian operating a machine which produced hydrofluoric acid. He studied his chart closely and corrected his course. He was getting close to Old Gus’ dome.

  Half an hour later he sighted the black, shadowy cliffs and cruised slowly in toward them.

  He didn’t see the dome until the tank was almost on top of it. Then he cried out in amazement, jerked the tank to a halt and flattened his face against the glass, playing the spotlight on the ruins of the dome.

  Old Gus’ dome had been literally blown to bits. Only a few jagged stumps of its foundation, firmly anchored to the rock beneath, still stood. The rest was hurled in shattered fragments over The Bottom!

  There was no sign of Old Gus. Apparently the old man had been away when the dome had crashed or his body had been carried away.

  But there was little mystery as to what had caused the dome to fall. The broad wheel marks of a large undersea tank led away from the scene of destruction. Deep footprints still made a tracery about the dome site and the interior of the dome had plainly been rifled after the dome itself had been destroyed. This had been the work of men. A shell, loaded with high explosive, driven by compressed air, had smashed the dome.

  “Robber’s Deep,” said Grant, half to himself, staring along the direction in which the tank trail led. The tale of Robber’s Deep, as he had heard it from Old Gus, had sounded like one of those tall tales for which The Bottom men were famous. Tales inspired by superstition, by loneliness, by the strange things that they saw. But maybe Robber’s Deep wasn’t just a tale—maybe there really was something to it after all.

  Grant turned back to his waiting tank. “By Heaven,” he said, “I’m going to find out!”

  The tread marks were easy to follow. They led straight away, down the slope toward the Big Deep, then angled sharply to the north, still leading down.

  The water grew darker, became a dirty gray with all the blue gone from it. Sparks flittered in the darkness—flashes that came and went, betraying the presence of little luminous things—sea life carrying their own lanterns. Arrow worms slid across the vision plate, like white threads. Copepods, the insects of the deep, jerked along with oarlike strokes, like motes of dust dancing in the sunlight. A shrimp, startled, turned into a miniature firecracker, hurling out luminous fluid which seemed to explode almost in Grant’s face.

  A swarm of fish with cheek and lateral lights flashed by the glass and a nightmare of a thing, with flame-encircled eyes, bobbing lantern barbells and silver tinsel on its body, crawled over the nose of the tank, perched there for a moment like a squatting ogre, then slipped out of sight.

  The gauges were swinging over. Deeper and deeper, with the pressure rising. The grayness of the water held and the lights outside increased, like little fireflies rustling through the gloom.

  What had happened to Old Gus? And why had his dome been smashed?

  Those two questions pounded in Grant’s brain. If Gus was still alive, where was he? Out rounding up the vigilantes he had spoken of? Hurrying back to Deep End to inform the police? Or haunting the trail of the marauders?

  Grant shrugged his shoulders. Old Gus probably was dead. The old coot was depth-dippy. He would fight at the drop of the hat, no matter what the odds. Somewhere a blasted tank or a shattered suit was hidden in the ocean’s mud, marking the last resting place of the old Bottom man.

  But why the attack on the dome? Could Old Gus have had treasure there? It was not unlikely. He had talked of old ships loaded with treasure, he was watching a five-foot clam with a pearl as big as a man’s hat. Even at the lower price of pearls due to their greater abundance now, that pearl itself would represent a small-sized fortune.

  The trail led deeper and deeper, down into a darker gray, with more fireflies dancing, with monstrous shadows slipping through the water. Weird formations began to thrust themselves out of the ocean bed and the trail dipped swiftly. The track of the larger tank wound tortuously around the outcroppings.

  Without a doubt they were approaching Robber’s Deep. The depth gauge read slightly under two thousand feet and the pressure gauge sent a shiver of fear along Grant’s spine. Exposed to that pressure for an instant, a man would be jelly—less than
jelly, less than a grease spot on the floor.

  The trail led into a narrow canyon, with mighty rock walls rearing up straight into the water. There was barely clearance for Grant’s tank—the larger machine must have almost brushed the walls.

  Suddenly the canyon debouched into a wider space, a sort of circular arena, with the walls sweeping to left and right and then closing in again narrower than ever, forming a little pocket.

  Grant jerked the machine to a stop, tried frantically to spin it and retreat. For in that little arena were other tanks, a battery of them, large and small.

  He had run slam-bang into a trap and as he ripped savagely at the controls he felt the cold perspiration trickling down his chest and arms.

  A voice boomed in his radio receiver: “Stay where you are or we’ll blast you!”

  He saw the snouts of guns mounted on the tanks swiveling around to menace him. He was beaten and he knew it. He halted the tank, switched off the motor.

  “Get into your suit and get out,” boomed the voice in the receiver.

  He was in for it now—clear up to his neck.

  Out of the tank, he walked slowly across the arena floor. A man from one of the tanks came out to meet him. Neither of them spoke until they were face to face.

  Then, in the dim light, Grant recognized the man in the other suit. It was the Rat!

  “Nice hide-out you have here, Rat,” said Grant.

  The Rat leered at him. “Hellion will be glad to see you,” he said. “This is a sort of unexpected visit, but he’ll be glad to see you just the same.” The Rat’s face twisted. “He liked your message.”

  “Yes,” said Grant, “I figured that he would.”

  Alcatraz on Ganymede had done something to Hellion Smith, had instilled in him a deeper, sharper cruelty, a keener cunning, a fouler bitterness. It showed in his squinted eyes, his twitching face with the jagged scar that ran from chin to temple, the thin, bloodless lips.

  “Yes,” he told Grant, “I have a nice place here. Convenient in a good many ways. The police would never think to hunt for me down here and if they did and we wanted to make a fight of it, we could hold them off until the crack of doom. Or if we wanted to run for it, they’d never be able to trail us through those canyons that run into the Big Deep.”

  “Clever,” said Grant. “But you always were clever. Your only trouble was that you took a lot of chances.”

  “I am not taking them any more,” said Hellion, but his tone still held that puzzling, light note of pleasant conversation.

  “By the way,” he said, “the Rat told me you remembered me. Sent your regards to me. I appreciated that.”

  “Here it comes,” Grant told himself. Involuntarily his body tensed.

  But nothing came.

  Hellion waved his arm to indicate the mighty dome which nestled in another larger, deeper arena in the canyon. Through the quartz, even in the murkiness of the gray water, one could see the towering canyon walls that ran up from the ocean floor.

  “Just like on the surface,” said Hellion proudly. “All the comforts of home. The boys like it down here. A few things to do and a good place to loaf around. Lamps that take the place of daylight, latest electrolysis equipment, generators—everything. We have it cozy.” He turned to face Grant squarely. “I wish you could stay with us a while,” he said, “but I suppose you will want to be going back.”

  Grant gasped. “Why, yes,” he said. “The chief will be expecting me.”

  But there was something wrong. No word or action. Nothing in the atmosphere. Nothing at all—except that Hellion Smith hated his guts. Hellion Smith wouldn’t let him walk out of this place and go back to the surface.

  And yet—that was what he had said: “—you will want to be going back.”

  “I’ll walk to the lock with you,” Hellion offered.

  Grant held his breath, waiting for the joker. But there wasn’t any joker. Hellion chatted amiably, his scarred face twitching, his eyes a-glitter, but his voice smooth and easy. Small talk about old times back in New York, gossip of the underworld, life in the Ganymedean prison.

  Grant’s suit stood within the lock, just as he had left it.

  Hellion held out his hand.

  “Come and see us again,” he said. “Any time. But maybe you had better get started now.” And for the first time Grant sensed a note of warning and of mockery in Hellion’s voice.

  “So long, Hellion,” said Grant.

  Still puzzled, he clambered into his suit, screwed shut the entrance port, snapped on the interior lights. Everything all right—dials intact, mechanism O.K. He snapped on the power and tested the controls. But there was something wrong. Something missing. A soft purr that should have been in his ears.

  Then he knew, and as the realization struck him the strength seemed to go out of his body and a cold dew of perspiration dampened his entire body. “Hellion,” he said, “my electrolysis unit has gone haywire.”

  Hellion stood just outside the lock, ready to slam home the port. He smiled engagingly at Grant, as if Grant might have just told him a funny joke. “Now,” he said, “isn’t that too bad.”

  “Look, Hellion,” shouted Grant, “if you want to wipe me out, use your guns.”

  “Why, no,” said Hellion. “I wouldn’t think of that. This is so much neater. You have your emergency reserve of oxygen, enough for three or four hours. Maybe in that time you can figure out a way to save your neck. I’m giving you a chance, see? That’s more than you gave me, you dirty little pencil pusher.” He slammed the port and Grant watched it spinning home.

  Water was hissing into the lock, shattered to fog by the mighty pressure, raising the pressure inside the lock to that outside the dome.

  Grant stood still, waiting, mad thoughts thundering in his brain. Four hours’ air at the most. Hours short of the time that would be necessary to get back to Deep End. If Old Gus’ dome still stood, no problem would have existed, for he could have made the dome easily. Probably there were other domes as near, but he had no idea where they were.

  There was just one thing—and he had to face it—death within his suit when his air gave out. Four hours. Plenty of time to get to Gus’ dome.

  His mind snagged and held, revolved around one idea. Time to get to Gus’ dome. Follow the tracks left by the tanks. Scale the canyon walls and cut southward to intersect the tank tracks.

  The site of the Venusian’s machinery was a scant quarter mile from Gus’ dome. Two hours would do it, less than two hours. Two hours to go there—two hours to come back.

  He wondered grimly what a dozen jugs of hydrofluoric acid, dropped into the canyon, would do to the dome. He chuckled and the chuckle echoed ghastly inside the suit. “We go out together, Smith,” he whispered.

  Climbing the canyon wall had been no child’s play. Several times he had nearly fallen when the mighty grip of the suit’s steel hands had slipped on slimy rock. Not that such a fall would have been fatal, although it might have been.

  But now Grant was near the top. Slowly, carefully, he manipulated the right arm of the suit toward a projection, hooked the fingers around it, tightened them savagely with a vicious thrust of a lever. The motors droned as the arm swung the suit, scraping along the rocky face of the looming wall. Now the left arm and the fingers hooked upon a ledge, anchored there. Grant jerked on the arm several times to make sure of the grip, then applied the power. The arm bent, mechanical muscles straining, and the suit moved upward.

  Time was valuable, but he must be careful. One slip now and he would have to do it all over again—if he could, for the fall might crush him to death on the rocks below, might crack his visor, might damage the suit so it wouldn’t operate.

  It had taken him longer than he thought to reach the top, but there was still time enough. Time to reach the Venusians’ camp and get the acid. Time to get back and hurl jug aft
er jug out into the canyon. Time to watch the jugs settle and break on the glowing dome down on the canyon floor. Time to watch the yellow-greenish liquid creep over the quartz. Time to see the quartz walls crumple inward beneath the terrific pressure of the deep.

  “A message, Hellion?” he shrieked into the watery canyon. “I’ll have one for you. I’ll have a dozen of them—in jugs!”

  But maybe he was just kidding himself. Playing at dramatics. Jousting with windmills. Maybe that much acid wouldn’t touch the dome—maybe it would take hundreds of gallons of the stuff, dumped into the canyon, before it would affect the quartz. Maybe the jugs would collapse under the pressure before he could get them down this deep. That was funny stuff they and the cylinders were made of—neither steel nor quartz, and steel and quartz were the only two materials that would stand up even at five hundred feet. In the laboratories on the surface hydrofluoric acid was kept in wax containers, but that, of course, would be just as crazy at this depth as quartz containers.

  Those jugs must be made of some new material, some material unknown to Earthmen, but developed by the Venusians. The Venusians, naturally, would have developed materials of that kind—materials that were immune to acid action, could withstand tremendous pressures.

  The oxygen jet, hissing warningly, roused Grant from his speculations. His eyes went to the reserve-tank pressure gauge and what he saw was like a blow between the eyes. Of the two tanks, one was empty—or almost empty, just enough for a few more minutes. The second tank was at full pressure—but something had happened to that first tank. He had counted on it carrying him almost to the Venusians’ camp—on not being forced to call upon the second tank until he was ready for the return trip to the canyon’s edge. Some imperfection, perhaps a faulty gauge—it didn’t matter now, for the damage was done. The hissing of the jet ebbed lower and lower and Grant snapped on the second tank.

  Well, that settled it.

  He’d never live to get to the Venusians’ camp and back to the canyon. Two hours—that was all that was left to him of life—perhaps not even that much. And that wasn’t long enough.