“Oh, we could do that all right,” said Robby eagerly.
“I wasna thinking of we doing it at all,” replied Mr. Lillibulero. “It was I, I was talking about.”
“But you’d need Balthasar to cross the deep water,” said Robby. “And Balthasar wouldn’t take you without me.”
“And why would I need the beast, now?”
“To show you the way,” said Robby, “and warn the sharks off, and pull you there two or three times as fast as you could swim it.”
“Hmmm,” said Mr. Lillibulero thoughtfully, but not convinced.
“Besides,” went on Robby, “what good would it do for me to stay here alone?”
“There is that,” admitted the little man. His bright eyes glittered through the transparent face plate of his mask. “It’s unfortunate, y’know, about the Martians. If it weren’t for that, y’could swim back to the station and let them hold y’prisoner until help arrived.”
“What’ve the Martians got to do with it?” asked Robby.
“I’d not have said anything,” said Mr. Lillibulero, “but perhaps it’s best y’know, seeing the way things have turned out. There’s a large to-do among some Vandal gangs to gather all things Martian that’re on the earth, and see them destroyed. But public opeenion will not agree—so they’re at work these last few months t’prove that the Martians from the ice caves on Mars are dangerous. It was for that reason I was sent here—to guard y’r Martians. But it wasna expected the Vandals’d come in such force. Several gangs must’ve banded together to steal yon ship. I’ve no doubt they planned to kidnap y’r father and force him to work in wi’their plans,that’s why they came here. And it’s no impossible that,lacking y’r father, they might try t’make use of you.”
Robby stared through the water at the little man.
“Was that why Dad—” he began, but Mr. Lillibulero cut him short.
“I’ve said enough and too much already,” he replied.“Well, if there’s no choice for it, there’s no choice for it—and we’ll all make the long swim to shore. Call in y’r Balthasar and—what ails the beast?” demanded Mr. Lillibulero, breaking off.
Balthasar was throwing himself around in the water in a frantic fashion, plainly trying to lead Robby and Mr. Lillibulero back to the station. A chilling suspicion crossed Robby’s mind.
“I’m going to go up on top and take a look,” he told Mr.Lillibulero. “Just a second.”
He reached out, and the big dolphin came shooting to him.Robby took hold of the harness and pulled himself on to Balthasar’s back.
“Up!” he ordered Balthasar. “Up and out!”
Balthasar slanted towards the surface, some twenty feet above. He could have gone straight up, but Robby, shot suddenly from twenty feet underwater to ordinary air pressure, would have been seriously hurt when the air in his lungs abruptly expanded to nearly twice the volume it had at twenty feet below.
When they were within a half-dozen feet of the top, Robby jerked back on the harness and gathered his feet up under-neath him so that he was crouching instead of sitting on Balthasar’s back. This was an old trick to both of them, but an effective one. Balthasar was about to make himself into a diving board.
The minute the dolphin felt Robby’s swim fins pressing against his wide back he put on speed, made an upward turn,and broke the surface like a torpedo. All the Cetacea can jump, and like to do so—even the big whales. Balthasar was no exception. When he decided to move, he could really move—and when he pointed up instead of straight ahead, he could fling his whole thirteen feet clear of the water.
With Robby riding his back it was not quite so easy,although Robby—to Balthasar—represented only about as much extra weight as a ten-pound sack of sugar would to a man. It was mainly a matter of adjusting his balance while jumping—and Balthasar had learned to do that.
So up went Balthasar, and up went Robby—ten feet clear of the water. And when he reached the peak of Balthasar’s jump, Robby gave his own spring.
This was the point at which Robby ordinarily went into a swan dive, or a jack-knife, or a cannonball, but this particular time he was interested only in taking a look around. He jumped as high as he could, and straightened out so that he would come down again feet first, meanwhile hoping no one would be on the platform to see him.
Robby gained another three feet with his own jump, so he was able to see around quite well. He had a flashing glimpse of the blue waters on the far horizon, and the cloudless sky,and two hundred yards away the empty metal circle of the surface platform on top of the station, with the silver rudder of the submersible sticking out of the water beside it. Just as he hit the water, he caught sight of a tall, black fin cutting the waves. Then the ocean closed over his head once more.
Cold with terror, he shot downward as fast as he could swim, not minding now the painful pressure and creaking in his ears that came from too quick a descent. He reached Mr. Lillibulero, still sitting on the Castle.
“Killer!” gasped Robby.
“What’s that y’say?” demanded the little man.
“A killer whale!” cried Robby. “That’s what Balthasar was so scared about. And it’s between us and the station!”
The Battle on the Sea Bottom
Robby grabbed Mr. Lillibulero’s arm. There was no time for arguing or explaining, and the little man wisely did not seem to expect it. Robby pulled him down and around the Castle,and in through an opening in its grey-green rock to a natural cave hollowed out of the interior. Balthasar had followed Robby through the water, and now he seemed to be at war with himself. His natural instinct told him to run—to put as much distance between himself and the great black-and-yellow killer whale as he could. But at the same time his love for Robby anchored him to where he was, even though, if the killer did come, there was little Balthasar could do to protect him. Finally, Balthasar shot through the opening and joined them in the cave.
“Balthasar!” said Robby, pushing him urgently out again.“Go and breathe!”
But Balthasar would not leave. Robby swam back into the cave, hunting along its roof for a high spot. When he found one he took off his face mask and let it bubble atmosphere up into the hollow he had discovered until he needed the mask to breathe again. Then, after a breath, he held it up once more.
“What’s that y’re at now?” asked the voice of Mr. Lillibulero. Robby put the mask on again. He could not talk underwater without it.
“For Balthasar,” he said. “I’m collecting air for him.” He pointed to the hollow where, indeed, all the air that had bubbled from his mask had caught against the rock. Little by little, Robby was building up a water-free space between the water and the roof.
"Oh, aye,” said Mr. Lillibulero. “How long can the beast stay under wi’out breathing?”
“Twenty or thirty minutes if he has to,” said Robby. “But then, when he breathes, he needs a lot.”
“What makes y’think the killer whale’ll know we’re about?” asked Mr. Lillibulero.
“I don’t know,” answered Robby, briefly, between bubblings. “They smell you or something. Like Balthasar knows when he’s around.”
Mr. Lillibulero left Robby and drifted over to the mouth of the cave. It was not very big—Balthasar had barely squeezed himself inside—and when they first came in they had hardly been able to see in the comparative darkness. But now that their eyes had adjusted, the cave seemed to be in shadow, while outside the open waters seemed ablaze with sunlight.
A moment later Robby put his mask on again, and with a flick of his swim fins swam over to join Mr. Lillibulero.
He looked out among the rocks and coral and occasional clumps of waving underwater vegetation. Far off, perhaps forty or fifty yards away, he saw a great dark shape slide smoothly out from behind one hummock of rock and coral and disappear behind another. It was the killer on his voracious patrol for food, and he was working their way.
For a full minute or two they did not see him. And then he came into sight ag
ain. He had been swimming from their right across to their left. Now he came back from left to right,slipping easily through the water, for all his size—which they could now see was twenty-five or thirty feet in length. He was half again as close to them on this pass, but he glided unhurriedly by, as if he never dreamed that anyone was near.
But the three in the cave knew his tricky ways. For a killer whale is not like a big shark which only has brains enough to swim around and swallow anything that looks like food. A killer is actually a dolphin, the largest of them all, and in theEncyclopaedia Britannica it says that in all the Cetacea who live out their lives in the sea, “the brain is large, its cerebral hemispheres much convoluted.” That is why the Cetacea are so intelligent, and why Grandfather Hoffer had such large plans for teaching and training them.
So the killer is not merely something that can gulp one down like a sardine. He can also out-think one if one takes it for granted he is just another appetite with fins swimming around. The three knew very well that the killer realized they were near—even if he did not know exactly where they were.
Balthasar quivered in the rear of the cave. Robby had gone back to the bubble he was building for the dolphin to breathe.It was good-sized, now, filling the hollow in the rock roof to the point where Balthasar could poke his whole head up into it. Robby put his mask on again, swam over to Balthasar, and led him back to the bubble.
Balthasar rose until the top of his head entered the bubble.A second later, a loud snorting sigh rang through the cave. Balthasar had exhaled, in the same way that whales do when they spout, by blowing out the bad moist air in his lungs through the nostrils in the top of his head.
Then he sank down into the water and rose again into the bubble several times. He was now inhaling. The bubble grew noticeably smaller. Then he settled back, looking satisfied and relieved.
The killer whale swept back directly in front of the cave, his little piggy eye above the end of the grinning mouth staring intently at them. It was obvious that he was expecting them to come out—in the same way that seals, or porpoises, or even Balthasar would ordinarily have had to do, in order to breathe. Then he could chase them and devour them in a twinkling. Of course, the killer had a breathing problem himself, but he could pop up to the surface and down again without giving them a chance to escape, and this he had been doing.
Robby’s and Mr. Lillibulero’s and Balthasar’s position was far from good. There was no fresh flow of water through the cave, and the artificial lungs were using up, at a rapid rate, all the breathable oxygen that could be made. Pretty soon Balthasar would have to breathe again. They had another safe half-hour left perhaps, and then they would have to leave.
It was at this moment that something happened. The killer whale checked abruptly. His great flukes quivered a moment,and then he shot away, no longer moving with lazy power,but travelling like a torpedo, with speed and purpose. In a second he was out of sight.
Robby quickly grabbed hold of Balthasar’s harness and pulled the dolphin to the cave entrance.
“Go breathe!” he ordered, urgently. And this time Balthasar did not hesitate. He eeled through the mouth of the cave and shot upwards. Robby and Mr. Lillibulero slipped out into the clean fresh ocean and hung in the water, staring in the direction in which the killer had disappeared.
“We’ll not be trying to get to shore now. Can y’make it to the station wi’your Balthasar, do y’think?” asked Mr. Lillibulero.
“I don’t know,” replied Robby. “I don’t know what made the killer go off like that.” He looked at Mr. Lillibulero.“Maybe I ought to go look.”
“I’ll not let y’do that,” said Mr. Lillibulero. “The danger’s too great. ”
“I could ride Balthasar,” said Robby, as the dolphin swooped down from above. “If I saw him, I could rush back here.There was something funny about the way the killer left. As if he was going somewhere special.”
“I’m the one who’ll go,” said Mr. Lillibulero.
“But you can’t ride Balthasar,” said Robby. “He won’t let you.”
The little man paused, looking doubtfully at the big dolphin.“Verra well,” he said, finally. “Y’can go take a look. But I’m trusting y’not to go too far. Stay in sight of me, here. Then I can wave y’back if I see the killer whale, myself.”
“Sure. I will,” said Robby, catching hold of the reins trailing from Balthasar’s harness. He climbed, on to the big dolphin’s back and they sped off.
Robby was feeling that kind of exhilaration that comes on the heels of a close call with danger, when everything has come out all right. So now, recklessly, he headed Balthasar towards the path of the killer whale, although ordinarily he would have had far more sense. And Balthasar, as if he had given up trying to caution his young master, made no effort to turn aside from the way Robby was steering him.
They swept now into an area where the water was only fifteen or twenty feet deep, but which was on the edge of the drop-off to the normal sea bottom, six hundred to a thousand feet below. But, while this part of the reef was shallow, it was cut and sliced and gullied, and tumbled about with rock and coral stretching clear across one end of the shoals to the Seal Rocks. It was a sort of undersea badlands.
Robby, still lightheaded, slipped off the dolphin’s back.
“Stay!” he ordered. “You know the caves down here are too little for you to get into. I’ll go alone.”
He shoved the dolphin back when Balthasar tried to follow,and swam off.
He pushed himself through the clear water with his swim fins, not hard, but steadily, threading through spires of rock and over little white sand gullies. And so heedlessly did he go that he came finally round a pile of coralled rock and swam almost smack into the mighty flukes of the killer.
In that terrible moment, Robby realized suddenly how foolish he had been. All at once, the way a drowning man is supposed to remember in his last minutes everything that happened in his life, Robby saw his recklessness in coming alone, and regretted it. But there was nothing he could do now. He had taken the fatal step, and only a miracle could save him.
And it was, indeed, a sort of miracle that did save him. For it happened that the killer was, at the moment, too busy to notice his presence. And when Robby saw why, his eyes opened wide with shock.
For the killer was engaged in a battle to the death with a creature such as Robby, who, in his twelve years, had learned of many strange beasts that walked, swam, or crawled through the ocean deeps, had never seen or heard of before.
The Sea Badger
Robby froze, expecting any second that one of them would spot him. The battle was taking place on a white sand area, in a gully about twenty-five feet below him. In the comer of this arena, next to a coral cliff, stood the odd creature in a posture of defence. Above it circled the killer.
The creature did not look as if it had much chance for life and victory. True, it was big—bigger than Balthasar by four or five feet—but it looked more clumsy than anything else,and not at all vicious.
It had a pointed, delicate head, with a large mouth that contained not teeth, but a fringe-like arrangement of broad,flat plates. In place of eyes, two long feelers trembled in the direction of the attacking killer. The thick body was mounted upright on two stumpy legs with broad, clawed feet. From a hump between the shoulder-blades grew a truly tremendous pair of arms ending in great, spade-like claws, each as big as a car door. These hand-claws had blunt forward edges and shone oddly in the water, as if they were metallic.
The creature held up his hands as if to ward off the diving rush of the killer. For a second Robby thought it was just going to huddle up in fright and let itself be devoured, but then a wonderful thing happened. The killer swung in without warning and the creature suddenly straightened. With a speed that Robby would not have believed possible underwater, the two big hands lashed out like the fists of a boxer.
The first blow spun the killer against the cliff, and the second, pinning him there,
sank deep into his mid-body. The killer got away, but he shuddered and seemed to be badly hurt.
He rose clumsily through the water, reaching instinctively to the surface for air. The great spade-hands of the creature had not cut into him, but they seemed to have hurt him inside, for he paid no attention to Robby. A half-roll took him to the surface some ten feet above the boy, and Robby heard him sigh as if in great pain. And at the sound Robby awokeonce more to his own danger.
He turned quickly, but the creature below was hurrying off—not swimming, but loping through the water, leaving its tracks in the sea bottom. They were the same tracks that Robby had discovered the day before, near the station, when he had gone out with Balthasar.
Robby stared after them. The killer, descending once more, swam feebly, turning off towards the far edge of the shoals where the sea bottom dropped away into a green-black darkness. He swam slowly, twisted sideways and a thin trail like grey smoke strung out behind him in the water. Robbyknew that it was blood.
He stiffened. Blood in. the water meant the coming of sharks, meant that it would lead the sharks to the killer—they who would never have dared to approach him while he had his full strength. There was hope for the killer yet, however,if his wounds were not too great. Out over the great silences of the ocean he stood a chance of escaping the scavenger sharks. If they pressed him too hard he could dive six hundred feet and more below the surface where they would not follow him if they could. And so, perhaps, he could survive to heal himself, and be once more the terror of the seas.
But Robby had no such way of escaping the sharks whent hey came. The best thing for him to do was to get away fast.He turned with a kick of his fins and swam to where he had left Balthasar. Gratefully, he caught hold of the reins and they hurried back to the Castle.
Secrets of the Deep Page 4
