by Frederik
Roger said brutally: “That’s a lie, Trencher!”
For a moment I thought the stranger was going to spring at us—all three of us.
He tensed and half-crouched, and his hand was on the butt of his sea-knife again. His breath came in whistling gasps, and the milky, pearly eyes were half-slitted, gleaming evilly in the moonlight.
Then he stood straighter and showed those fine white teeth in a cold smile. He shook his head.
“Your manners, young man,” he wheezed, “they need improving. I do not like to be called a liar.”
Roger gulped and backed away. “All right,” he said placatingly. “I only meant—that is, you have to admit your story isn’t very convincing. This tube is very valuable, you know.”
“I know,” agreed the stranger breathlessly.
I cut in: “If you are really who you say you are, isn’t there someone who can identify you?”
He shook his head. Again I noticed the strange dead whiteness of his skin in the moonlight. “I am not known here.”
“Well, who were you going to see in Sargasso City? Perhaps we could call there.”
His queer eyes narrowed. “I cannot discuss my business there. Still, that is a reasonable request. Suppose you check with Kermadec Dome. I can give you some names there—perhaps the name of my attorney, Morgan Wensley…”
“Morgan Wensley!” I nearly shouted the name. “But that’s the same name! That’s the name of the man who answered Jason Craken’s letter!”
“Craken?”
The stranger from the sea jumped back a step, as though the name had been a kind of threat. “Craken?” he repeated again, crouching as though he thought I would lunge at him, his hand on the sea knife. “What do you—” he whispered hoarsely, and had to stop for breath. “What do you know of Jason Craken?” He was gasping for air and his slitted eyes were blazing milkily.
I explained, “His son, David, was a cadet here. A friend of mine, in fact—before he was lost. Do you know Mr. Craken?”
The stranger called Joe Trencher shivered, as though the water had chilled him—or as though he had been afraid of the name “Craken.” He was frightened—and somehow, his fright made him seem more strange and dangerous than ever.
“I’ve heard the name,” he muttered. His strange eyes were fixed hungrily on the edenite cylinder at my side. “I’ve no more time to waste. I want my property!”
I said: “If it’s yours, tell us what is in it.” Trencher’s white face looked ugly for an instant, before he smoothed the anger from it. “The tube contains—a—money—” He hesitated, choking and coughing, looking at us searchingly. “Yes, money. And—and legal papers.” He had another coughing spasm. “And—pearls.”
“Look at him!” cried Roger. “Can’t you see he’s just guessing?”
It was true that he did seem to be doubtful, I thought. Still, he had been right enough as far as he went.
I asked: “What kind of pearls?”
“Tonga pearls!” Well, that was easy enough to guess, for a man from Kermadec.
“How many of them?”
The pale face was contorted in an expression of rage and fear. The ragged breathing was the only sound we heard for a moment, while Joe Trencher stared at us.
At last he admitted: “I don’t know. I’m acting only as an agent, you see. An agent for Morgan Wensley. He asked me to undertake this trip, and he gave me the tube. I can’t give you an itemized list of of its contents, because they belong to him.”
“Then it isn’t yours!” cried Roger triumphantly.
“I’m responsible for it,” Trencher gasped. “I must recover it. Here, you!” He reached toward me. “Give me that!”
For a moment I thought we had come to violence—violence had been in the air all those long minutes. But Bob Eskow jumped between us. He said: “Listen, Trencher, we’re going to the Commandant. He’ll settle this whole thing. If they belong to you, he’ll see that you get them. He will make sure that no one is cheated.”
Roger Fairfane grumbled: “I’m not so sure. I’d rather keep them until my Dad’s lawyer can tell me what to do.” Then he glanced at Trencher’s long sea knife. “Oh, all right,” he agreed uncomfortably. “Let’s go to the commandant.”
I turned to Mr. Trencher. He was having trouble with his breathing, but he nodded. “An expedient solution,” he gasped. “You needn’t think I fear the law. I am willing to trust your Commandant to recognize my rights and see that justice is done…”
He stopped suddenly, staring out to the dark sea.
“Look!” he cried.
We all turned to stare. I heard Bob’s voice, as hoarse and breathless as Trencher’s own. “What in the sea is that?”
It was hard to tell what we saw. A mile out, perhaps, there was something. Something in the water. I couldn’t see it clearly, even in the moonlight. But it was enormous.
For a moment I thought I saw a thick neck lifted out of the water, and a head—that same, immense, reptilian head that I had thought I had seen at the rail of the gym ship…
Something struck me just under the ear, and the world fell away from me.
It didn’t really hurt, but for a moment I was paralyzed and I could see and feel nothing.
I wasn’t knocked out. I knew that I was falling, but I couldn’t move a muscle to catch myself. Some judo blow, I suppose, some clever thrust at a nerve center.
Then the world came back into focus. I heard feet pounding on the hard sand, and the splash of water.
“Stop him, Eskow!” Roger was crying shrilly. “He’s got the pearls!”
But Bob was bending over me worriedly. The numbness was beginning to leave my body, and I could feel Bob’s exploring fingers moving gently over the side of my head.
“No bones broken,” he muttered to himself. “But that shark really clipped you one, while you weren’t looking. Hit you with the edge of his hand, I think. You’re lucky, Jim; there doesn’t seem to be any permanent damage.”
In a minute or two I was able to get up, Bob helping me. My neck was stiff and sore as I moved it, but there were no bones grating.
By the edge of the water Roger stood hungrily staring out at the waves. The stranger who called himself Joe Trencher was gone. Bob said: “He hit you, grabbed the edenite tube and dived for the water. Roger ran after him to tackle him—but when he waved that sea knife Roger stopped cold. Then he dived under the water—and that’s the last we saw of him.”
Roger heard our voices and came running back to us. “Get up!” he cried. “Keep a watch over the water! He can’t get far. He hasn’t come up for air yet—but he can’t stay under much longer, not without sub-sea gear! I want those pearls back!”
He caught my arm. “Go after him, Eden! Bring back those pearls and I’ll give you a half interest in them!”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” I told him. I was beginning to feel better. “I want Bob counted in. An equal three-way split for all of us, in everything that comes out of this deal. Agreed?”
Roger sputtered for a moment, but at last he gave in. “Agreed. But don’t let him get away!”
“All right then,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. All of us will put our sub-sea gear back on—electrolungs and face lenses anyway, I don’t suppose we need the thermo-suits. We’ll go out on the surface and wait for him to stick his nose up for air. Then we’ll surround him and bring him in. You’re right about him needing air, Roger—he can’t get more than a few hundred yards away without coming up for a breath.”
We all quickly checked our face lenses and electrolungs and splashed out through the shallows into the calm Bermuda waves.
“Watch out for that sea knife!” I called, and then all three of us were swimming, spreading out, searching the surface of the sea for the pale face and gleaming eyes of the stranger.
Minutes passed.
I could see Roger to my left and Bob Eskow to my right, treading water, staring around. And that was all.
/> More minutes. I saw nothing. In desperation, I pulled my legs up, bent from the waist and surface-dived to see what was below. It was a strangely frightening experience. I was swimming through ink, swimming about in the space between the worlds where there is neither light nor gravitation. There was no up and no down; there was no sign of light except an occasional feeble flicker of phosphorescence from some marine life. I could easily have got lost and swum straight down. That was a danger; to counter it, I stopped swimming entirely and took a deep breath and held it. In a moment I felt the wash of air across my back and shoulders, as the buoyancy of my lungs lifted me to the surface.
I lifted my head and looked around.
Bob Eskow was shouting and splashing, a hundred yards to my right. And cutting toward him, close to where I had surfaced, Roger Fairfane was swimming with frantic speed.
“Come on!” cried Roger, panting. “Bob’s found him, I think!” That was all I had to hear. I drove through the water as fast as my arms and flipper-shoes would take me. But I had breath enough left over to cry out:
“Careful, Bob! Watch out for his knife!”
We got there in moments, and the three of us warily surrounded a feebly floating form in the water. Knife? There was no knife.
There were no pearly eyes, no milk-white face.
We looked at the figure, and at each other, and without a word the three of us caught hold of him and swam rapidly toward the shore.
We dragged the inert body up on the sand.
I couldn’t help staring back at the sea and shivering. What mysteries it held! That strange, huge head—the white-eyed man who had clipped me and stolen the pearls—where were they now?
And what was this newest and strangest mystery of all?
For the inert body that we brought up wasn’t Joe Trencher. We all recognized him at once.
It was David Craken, unconscious and apparently more than half drowned.
7
Back from the Deeps
Bob’s voice was filled with astonishment and awe. Even Roger Fairfane stood gawking. No wonder! I could hardly believe it myself. When a man is lost on a lung dive at thirteen hundred feet, you don’t expect him to be found drifting off shore months later—and still alive!
“Don’t stand there!” I cried. “Help me, Bob! We’ll give him artificial respiration. Roger, you stand by to take over!”
We dragged him up to the firm, dry sand and flipped him over. Bob knelt beside his head, taking care that his tongue did not choke him, while I spread his arms and moved them, wing fashion, up and down, up and down—
It was hardly necessary. We had barely begun when David rolled over suddenly, coughing. He tried to sit up.
“He’s alive!” cried Roger Fairfane. “Jim, you keep an eye on him. I’m going after an ambulance and a sea medic. I’ll report to the Commandant and—”
“Wait!” cried David Craken weakly. He propped himself on one arm, gasping for breath. “Please. Please don’t report anything—not yet.”
He gripped my arm with surprising strength and lifted himself up. Roger glanced at him worriedly, then, uneasily, out toward the dark sea, where that peculiar person who had said his name was Trencher had vanished with the pearls. “But we have to report this,” he said, without conviction. It was, in fact, an open question—there was nothing in the regulations to cover anything like this.
“Please,” said David again. He was shivering from the chill of the deep water, and exhausted as if from a long swim, but he was very much alive. The straps at his shoulders showed where his electrolung had been seated—lost, apparently, after he had surfaced. He said: “Don’t report anything. I—I’m lost, according to the Academy’s roster. Leave it that way.”
Bob demanded: “What happened, David? Where have you been?”
David shook his head, watching Roger. Roger stood irresolutely for a moment, staring at David, then at the lights of the Academy. At last he said: “All right, Craken. Have it your way. But I ought to get a sea medic—”
David choked, but managed a grin. “I don’t need a sea medic,” he said. “I’m not coming back as a cadet, you see. I’m here on business—for my father. I was in a sea car and I was attacked, down there.” He nodded toward the black water. “Subsea pirates,” he cried angrily. “They jumped my sea car and robbed me. I was lucky to get away with my life.”
“Pirates!” Roger was staring at him. “In the front yard of the Academy! Craken, we’ve got to do something about this. What did they look like? How many were there? What kind of sea car were they using? Give me the facts, Cracken—I’ll get a report to the Fleet, and we’ll—”
“Wait, Roger. Wait!” David protested desperately. “I don’t want the Fleet. There’s nothing they can do to help me now. And I—I can’t let anyone know I’m here.”
Roger looked at him suspiciously. Then he stared at Bob and me. I could see his brain working, could see the conclusion he was coming to.
“You don’t want the Fleet,” he said slowly. “You can’t let anyone know you’re here. Could that be—” he leaned down, staring into David’s eyes angrily—” could that be because of what you lost when you were robbed?”
David said weakly, “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“But you do, Craken! I’d bet a summer’s leave you do! Was it pearls you lost when they robbed you, Craken? Thirteen pearls, Tonga pearls, in an edenite tube?”
There was a moment’s silence. Then David got to his feet, his face blank. He said in a cold, changed voice:
“They’re mine. Where are they?”
“I thought so!” cried Roger. “What do you think of that, Eden? I knew it was just too much of a coincidence for Craken to turn up right now. He’s connected with that Joe Trencher, that stole my pearls.”
David stood up straight. For a moment I thought he was angry, but the expression in his eyes was not rage. He said: “Trencher? Did you say—Trencher?”
“That’s the name! As if you didn’t know. A queer little white-skinned man, with a case of asthma, I think. Trencher. Don’t try to tell us you never heard of him!”
David laughed sharply. “If only I could, Roger,” he said soberly. “If only I could! But I must admit that I’ve heard of him—of them, at any rate. Trencher isn’t a name, you see. Trencher is—from the Trench. The Tonga Trench!”
He shook his head. “Joe Trencher. Yes, he would give a name like that. And you met him?”
I cut in. “We not only met him, David, but I’m afraid we let him get away with the pearls.” I gave him a quick outline of what had happened, from the moment Bob Eskow felt the edenite cylinder wash against his foot until the stranger clipped me, grabbed it and dived into the sea. “He never came up,” I told David Craken. “No electrolung, no thermosuit—but he never came up. I suppose he must be drowned out there now…”
“Drowned? Him?” David Craken looked at me queerly, but then he shook his head again. “No, he isn’t drowned, Jim. Trust him for that. I’ll explain sometime—but the likes of Joe Trencher will never drown.” He looked soberly out to sea. “I thought I’d got away from them,” he said. “All this long way from Kermadec Dome. But they caught up with me. I suppose it was inevitable that they would. The first thing I knew was when the microsonar showed something approaching—fast and close. A projectile exploded, I suppose—anyway, the next thing that happened was that my sea car was out of control and taking in water. Those devils came in through the emergency hatches. I got away—but they got the pearls.” He sighed. “I needed those pearls,” he said. “It isn’t just money. I was going to sell them to—to buy something for my father. Something that he has to have.”
Roger demanded: “Where did you get the pearls? You’ve got to tell us that. Otherwise, Craken, I’m warning you—I’m going to report this whole thing!”
“Hold on a minute, Roger!” I interrupted. “There’s no sense blackmailing David!”
David Craken smiled at me, then looked at R
oger Fairfane. “Blackmail is the word,” he said. “But bear this in mind, Roger. I’ll never tell you where the Tonga pearls come from. Men have died trying to find that out—I won’t tell. Is that perfectly clear?”
“Listen,” Roger blustered, “you needn’t think you can scare me! Mv father is an important man! You’ve heard of Trident Lines, haven’t you? My father is one of the biggest executives of the line! And if I tell my father—”
“Wait a minute,” said David Craken. His tone was oddly placating. He suddenly seemed struck with a thought. “Trident Lines, you say?”
“That’s right!” sneered Roger. “I thought that would straighten you out! You can’t buck Trident Lines!”
“No, no,” David said impatiently. “But—Trident Lines. They’re one of the big subsea shippers, aren’t they?”
“The third biggest line in the world,” said Roger Fairfane with pride.
David Craken took a deep breath. “Roger,” he said, “if you’re interested in the Tonga pearls, perhaps we can work something out. I—I need help.” He turned to us, imploringly. “But not from the Fleet! I don’t want anything reported!”
Roger said, puffed with pride now that things seemed to be going his way: “Perhaps that won’t be necessary, Craken. What do you want?”
David hesitated. “I—I want to think it over. I came here to do something for my father, and without the pearls, I can’t do it—unless I have some help. But first we’d better get out of sight. Is there any place we can go to talk this over?”
Roger said: “There’s a beach house about a mile below here—the Atlantic manager of Trident Lines maintains it. He isn’t there, but he told me I could use it any time.” He said it proudly.
“That will do,” said David. “Can you take me there?”
“Well—I suppose so,” said Roger, somewhat unwillingly. “Do you think it’s necessary? I mean, are you that worried about someone from the Academy seeing you?”
David looked worriedly out to sea, then at Roger.
“It isn’t anyone from the Academy that I’m worried about,” he told Roger Fairfane.
We made our arrangements. We left David waiting for us in a boathouse on the beach, and Roger, Bob and I hurried back to the Academy to sign in. Every swimmer who completed the marathon was entitled to an overnight pass as a reward, so there was no difficulty getting off the reservation. The cadet on guard, stiffly at attention in his sea-red dress uniform, gave our passes only a glance, but he examined the little bag Roger was carrying very carefully. “Civilian clothes?” he demanded. “What are you going to do with those?”
