“Well now,” he heard his father saying. Dr. Hoenig was still speaking to Bill over the radio circuit that brought his words to the whale-speakers and into Robby’s helmet as well.“Let’s see what we can do about that slash.”
Dr. Hoenig’s voice rumbled on in a soothing monotone. He had a particular knack for handling all living creatures. He got along as well with tigers and baby meadow mice as with blue whales. The secret, he had told Robby, was to treat them all as equals—and friends. Robby had tried it. It worked.
So Dr. Hoenig went on talking in his best whaleside manner as he sprayed the long cut from a pressure can of anesthetic which also contained anti-infective agents. Then, working slowly and gently, he began to close the wound with a specially developed surgical adhesive which as it dried drew together and glued the sides of the cut. The adhesive would be absorbed as the wound healed and eventually Bill would be left with a scar that could hardly be seen.
Meanwhile, Robby was thinking his own thoughts. He was remembering the poem Alfred, Lord Tennyson had written entitled "The Kraken." Robby had memorized it:
Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth...
And so on. . . .
A little chill snaked its way down Robby’s spine, but he glowed inside. Why shouldn’t it be true? What else but a kraken could have given a wound like that to Bill, a blue whale, considered to be the largest living creature on land or sea? It had to have been a kraken. And the kraken would not have gone away. He imagined it underneath them right now, sensing their presence. It was rising slowly through the water.It was coming closer. It felt they would be easy prey. It did not know that the one person who suspected its existence—Robertson Alan Hoenig—sat waiting for it, one hand on the firing handle of the sonic cannon, one finger on the trigger.
As it ascended through the shimmering water toward them,its cold, dark, deep-sea mind knew nothing of sonic cannons. It could not expect that it would be stunned and captured; that Robertson Alan Hoenig sensed it was there right now, just about to break the surface of the sea before them in all its monstrous form—
“Well,” said Dr. Hoenig, stepping down into the smallboat beside Robby, “that’s that.”
Blam went the sonic cannon. Robby’s finger had been on the trigger, and being startled was just too much for him. Blue Mountain Bill, alarmed, sheered and plunged away,almost dragging the smallboat down on the swirling wake of his leaving.
“What on earth . . . ?” said Dr. Hoenig.
Robby suddenly felt about as big as one of the tiny, red shrimp-like crustaceans, called kril, that Blue Mountain Bill swallowed daily by the millions.
“The kraken,” he said in a small voice, “I was thinking it might come up beside us—”
“Kraken!” said Dr. Hoenig. “Climb into the rear seat. ”Robby climbed back. Dr. Hoenig closed the transparent cover over their heads, sat down at the controls and headed the smallboat back toward the pod of whales and the Palship, which was now so far off from them that it looked like a dot on the watery horizon.
“Robby,” said his father thoughtfully, “we’ve absolutely got to come to some meeting of the minds on this kraken notion of yours.”
“It’s not a notion,” said Robby. He had stopped feeling as big as one of the kril, and was starting to feel his own size again. “How do we know there’s no kraken?”
“We don’t,” said Dr. Hoenig.
“Well, then!” said Robby triumphantly.
“But,” said his father, “there is no solid evidence for believing there is such a creature and plenty of indirect evidence against it.”
“How about that cut on Bill?” Robby asked. “No giant squid made that. And if it wasn’t a giant squid, what else could it be? It had to be a kraken.”
“No ‘had to’ about it,” Dr. Hoenig retorted, almost happily. He had had a terrific temper in his youth but had learned to control it. Now he never lost his temper, but he thoroughly enjoyed a good argument or debate as long as it was conducted politely. Secretly, he was rather pleased with Robby for sticking to his guns. “No ‘had to’ about it. It could just as well have been a Boojum.”
“A what?” said Robby.
“A Boojum—a sort of snark. From a poem by Lewis Carroll called The Hunting of the Snark. I thought you told me you’d read it.”
“Oh, that!” said Robby. “I’m talking about something real—not some made-up animal. Lots of people have heard about the kraken. Who ever heard of a Boojum?”
“Everybody who read the poem.”
“You’re not arguing fair!” shouted Robby. “I’m serious!”
“So am I,” said Dr. Hoenig. “The Boojum is a creature invented by Lewis Carroll. The kraken is a creature inventedby ancient Norwegian sailors.”
“You always win,” shouted Robby, “because you know more words than I do. Don’t you always tell me to keep an open mind until all the evidence is in?”
“I do,” conceded Dr. Hoenig.
“All right,” said Robby, lowering his voice. “Then I’m right to believe in the kraken.”
“Right to believe in it, no,” said Dr. Hoenig. “Right to keep an open mind about the chance of its actually existing, yes. The two are entirely different. The second is the scientific attitude. The first is superstition.”
“I don’t see how you tell,” said Robby, “which is which.”
“I’ll give you an example,” his father replied. “Suppose you are in the library one day—”
“Doing research for a paper on large animals from the deepest parts of the oceans,” put in Robby.
“Very well,” said Dr. Hoenig, “doing research on the kraken, we’ll say. And you come across a book written by somebody who has a theory about the kraken. The author believes it exists—”
“There!” said Robby, triumphantly.
“Remember, this is only a theory,” said his father, “a theory which states that the kraken exists, but that there is only one way his existence can be proved—by blowing up all of New York City. If this was done, the kraken would emerge from the depths of the ocean and tell us how to solve all our problems. We would all end up wise, happy, and with every-thing we ever wanted, just for blowing up one city. Would you blow up New York then, if you could?”
Robby thought about it.
“Could I get all the people out first?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Hoenig, “we’ll say you could get the people out but you had to leave everything else.”
“Then I’d blow it up,” said Robby.
“And you would be absolutely wrong to do so,” said his father severely. “How would you know the kraken would actually show up, or whether it would be as helpful as the theory said? You haven’t any proof of either part of the theory.” He looked sharply at Robby. “If you blew up New York you might get no kraken but a tidal wave instead, that would drown thousands of people living along the seacoast around New York.”
Robby wriggled uncomfortably.
“You would,” went on Dr. Hoenig, “have killed a great many people simply because you wanted to believe in a theory for which you had no evidence of any kind. Your belief would have been a superstitious belief that does not stop to examine what it believes in but simply charges ahead,sometimes to do great damage instead of accomplishing its desired end.”
“But what can you do then?” burst out Robby. “Just put the book with the theory in it away and forget all about it?”
“Not at all,” said his father. “You simply file the theory on your shelf of kraken materials with the notation: interesting, possibly true. And then set about comparing it with other theories or facts, or reports about the kraken. You are quite willing to believe, if only the theory can be proved. But until it can be proved, you do not go around trying to blow up New York.”
“Do you always have to prove things?” grumbled Robby.
“If yo
u’re a scientist, yes,” said his father. “The scientific attitude looks at all theories, but insists on asking questions about all of them. The superstitious attitude insists at looking at only one theory, and gets angry if any questions at all are asked about it. That’s the difference between them. If you’ll—” He broke off suddenly. They were almost back to the Palship X Two, cruising in the midst of the pod of whales. Blue Mountain Bill had rejoined the pod. Robby saw him diving and surging through the water not far off. But Dr. Hoenig was not looking at the wounded whale. His head was turned toward the Palship X Two, driving itself forward on its automatic controls.
Moored to the Palship X Two floated a small, ducted fan-flying craft. One of the portholes on the Palship was smashed and hung open. The above-water entrance to the Palship was also standing open.
Dr. Hoenig swung the smallboat in to attach its magnetic mooring line to the Palship beside the open entrance. Then he shoved back the transparent cover and leaped up into the entrance opening. Robby followed him.
They stepped through the air lock into the main Control Room. Drawers were pulled open in cabinets and the papers inside them strewn over the floor. It looked as if the Palship had been roughly and quickly searched for something valuable.
“Wait here!” snapped Dr. Hoenig to Robby, turning to go forward into the laboratory. But before he could take the first step they heard a sound from under their feet. It was the noise of feet on the ladder from the storage area below deck, the ladder up which Robby had raced just a short time ago when the alarm bell had rung to warn them of Blue Mountain Bill’s being hurt. And, at the same time, there came to their ears a raspy, scratchy voice humming a strange little tune as the singer came up the ladder.
The tune was one both Robby and his father had heard before. It was from a song that went:
Lilli bu—ler ler — o ler — o
Lilli bu—ler ler — o — o
“Jump for Y’r Life!”
The tune and the sound of footsteps came up the metal ladder together and a moment later a very unusual-looking little man emerged into the Control Room of the Palship X Two.
He was wearing an Outside Suit just like the ones Robby and Dr. Hoenig were wearing. His fishbowl helmet was tipped back as they had tipped theirs back automatically on returning inside the Palship, and the white Outside Suit fitted him like a second skin. In it, boots and all, he stood hardly an inch or two taller than Robby. However, in a belt around his narrow waist was a holstered pistol and a sheathed shark knife, and he moved as if the muscles of his wiry legs were powerful oiled springs. During the Vandal attack on the Point Loma station the summer before, Robby had seen this man defeat three six-foot Vandals with nothing but his bare hands,in a half a dozen seconds. He was, as Robby’s father had told Robby, perhaps the top security agent for the International Bureau of Police. He was probably the most dangerous manon earth that someone breaking the law could encounter.
“Mr. Lillibulero!” cried Robby.
“Ah, there, Robertson,” replied the little man in an odd,rusty, rasping sort of voice. It sounded rather like a buzz saw biting its way through a dry log. He stepped up onto the floor of the Control Room and nodded at Robby’s father. “James.”
He gave them both a twisted bit of a smile. His voice had a strange accent, sounding mainly Scottish, but full of tones and turns that could have come from a half-dozen other languages from Irish to Portuguese. It was not a dangerous-sounding voice, and his dangerousness did not show in his face either, which was sharp-chinned and leathery under curly, tight, brown hair. There was a fine, deep, curving line on each side of his thin-lipped mouth and a sharp short line like an exclamation point between two black eyebrows. From under those eyebrows burned two green eyes so sharp and bright they seemed to stop in his tracks anyone who met that green gaze.
“Lillibulero!” said Dr. Hoenig. “What’re you doing here?”
“Y’might say,” rasped Mr. Lillibulero, “locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen, James.”
“Stolen!” exclaimed Robby’s father. “Stolen? What’s been stolen?”
“That,” said Mr. Lillibulero dryly, “I dinna know, not knowing exactly what y’had on board y’r ship here. But I hardly think it likely y’were broken into by someone merely wishing the exercise o’the job.”
“But there’s nothing aboard but scientific equipment and my notes, and—hmm!” Dr. Hoenig stopped, suddenly thoughtful. “We have some large amounts of drugs and medicines for doctoring the whales that might be valuable. And there’s a spare sonic cannon down in the stores.”
“Then if y’ll check the drugs t’see if any are missing,” said Mr. Lillibulero, “meanwhile, Robertson can be showing me the stores to see if the sonic cannon or anything else has been taken—can y’not, Robertson?”
“Sure!” said Robby. “Come on.”
He leaped for the ladder up which Mr. Lillibulero had just come and went down it in three jumps. He had been half-hoping to move so fast that he would be able to turn around at the bottom and call up to Mr. Lillibulero to come along. But when he actually turned around on the deck below, he found Mr. Lillibulero right behind him.
“Ah, Robertson!” said Mr. Lillibulero, with a frosty twinkle in his green eyes, “it’s good t’see y’can move from place t’place without dragging y’r feet and lagging along the way. Now, where might this sonic cannon be stored?”
Robby led him toward the back of the ship and through the metal door into the storage place. In an ordinary ship it might have been called the hold, and been merely a large open space piled high with boxes of supplies and other things needed on board. But on the Palship X Two, it was a room neatly filled with rows of metal shelving with spaces to walk between the rows. Robby led Mr. Lillibulero to one row, and along it almost to the wall at the back, beyond which was the steam jet engine that drove the Palship X Two. This was a small nuclear engine, a sort of little cousin to the engines of the first atomic-powered submarines like the Polaris.
“I think the cannon’s still there,” said Robby, as they came to the end of the row. “Yes, there it is. See?” He pointed to a large wooden crate about five feet long with blue metal showing between the wooden slats of the crate’s side.
“So I see,” said Mr. Lillibulero. “It was clearly not the cannon y’r visitors were after, then. D’you observe anything else that appears t’be missing?”
Robby looked up and down the rows of shelves between which they were standing.
“No,” he said finally. “I don’t think so. Wait a minute though!”
He bent down and peered over the crated cannon and between the shelves at a spot two rows away.
“No,” he said, “I thought maybe our deep-sea cameras had been taken. But I remember now, Dad’s got them up in the lab.”
“In that case,” said Mr. Lillibulero, “we’ll just search through the whole room, and make certain all’s here.” He led the way back toward the entrance to the room. “I’ll begin wi’the shelves against the wall there, Robertson, and you start on this side of the room. If nothing’s missing, we’ll meet in the middle row. But if you find anything’s missing, y’are to call me."
He bent his bright green gaze on Robby.
“All right,” said Robby.
They split up and took opposite sides of the room. For a few moments they searched in silence, and then Mr. Lillibulero’s voice called through the shelves.
“There’s an empty space here—between some spear guns y’use for underwater fish-hunting and a stack of books.”
“That’s all right!” Robby shouted back quickly. “Those are just some schoolbooks. That part of the shelf was empty anyway.”
There was no immediate answer from Mr. Lillibulero.“You don’t have to worry about that!” called Robby. “Just study books and things!”
“So I observe, Robertson,” floated back the dry voice of Mr. Lillibulero. “ ’Tis most admirable, y’r deep devotion to the study of all these books ab
out the kraken, when y’might be enjoying y’rself instead studying arithmetic or other skills and sciences. I’ll not disturb the books.”
They both went on searching in silence for some moments after that. Then Mr. Lillibulero called over to Robby to ask about an empty space between some oxygen tanks and a welding torch. Robby coldly answered that more oxygen tanks had been stored there, but these were now empty, waiting in the back part of the deck above to be recharged the next time the Palship X Two got supplies.
There was another period of silence. Then . . .
“I found it!” yelped Robby suddenly. “Mr. Lillibulero, come here!” Then, suddenly remembering Mr. Lillibulero would not know where “here” was, he added, “Third row, halfway back. Come quick!”
In a little more than three seconds, Mr. Lillibulero was beside him. Robby pointed to a bottom shelf, empty for a good six feet of length.
“And what was there, laddie?” said Mr. Lillibulero.
“That’s what I don’t understand,” said Robby. “There were a couple of hundred Control Caps for the whales stored there. What would anyone want Control Caps for?”
“It’s barely possible I might answer that question,” said Mr. Lillibulero, “if y’ could inform me what a Control Capis?”
“Oh!” said Robby. He was so used to his father, his mother, and the Salt Water Research Division people knowing all about the caps, that he had forgotten entirely that Mr. Lillibulero might not know. It more than made up for Mr. Lillibulero’s sharp-edged remark about the kraken books.
Secrets of the Deep Page 10
