Andre Norton - Sea Siege

by Sea Siege(lit)

  Hughes sent them between the island and the main­land and brought them to anchor behind the reef, while Griff got into his diving kit. He turned to ask Holmes politely: "Care to go down, Lieutenant?"

  "Perhaps later." Holmes was making a point of non-interest, preserving the attitude of one carrying out boring orders.

  "You, Mr. Casey?"

  "Yes, sir!" The other was already stripping off his shirt. Holmes looked as if he might protest, but he remained silent on that point if not on another.

  "What is your research here?" He spoke to Hughes, who was rigging the overside glass through which those in the boat could watch activity below.

  "Octopi settlement—or an alleged octopi settlement."

  Casey paused in the process of shucking his slacks. "Octopi?"

  Griff laughed. "Not dangerous at all—and these are small ones. Most of the stories about them are in the same class with shark tales—only more so. They're intelligent after their own fashion and don't go around picking fights. You let them alone, and they won't even give you the ink treatment."

  He slipped his mask into place, made sure of his air, and climbed down the short diving ladder, shivering a little as the chill of the sea hit his sun-warmed skin. Then, instantly, he was in another world. Above him was the bottom of the boat, festooned with feathery green stuff. Golden spears of sun struck down to be swallowed up by endless blue. The distance became hazy, overspread with an almost pearl luster. For per­haps a little more than fifty feet he could see clearly, the fantastic forest of yellow coral trees into which he was descending standing out with the sharp relief of a silhouette. Sea fans, brilliant blood-colored sponges, and then the dark caves in between. And always the flights of gemmed fish in brilliant array of every shade and color. He judged his distance and took off in one of the slow-motion bounds, which cleared a hedge of purple sea plumes. The flooring, which, from above, had looked so smooth and flat, was in reality a hillside, jagged and torn with crevices and outcrops, pitted with hidey holes and caves, each of which, Griff knew from his past ex­perience, housed a varied collection of inhabitants. He jerked his hand back from a careless grip on a pinnacle of smooth, brownish coral, which stung hotly.

  Drifting, he made a feather-soft landing some twen­ty feet from the point where he had taken off. But in doing so, he dislodged a growth of anemone, and within seconds he was the core of a whirling pool of fish, all feeding or attempting to feed on the crushed and dying flower-animals. A flounder crawled on a patch of white sand and dug in, its eyes rising on stalks above its chosen ambush.

  As usual Griff had to drag his attention back to the job on hand. He progressed along the line of sea fans, watching for the telltale piles of shells, which marked octopi dwellings. And with mounting excitement he saw that Chris had been right—this section of reef housed more of the cephalopods than he had ever seen gath­ered together before. He jerked the signal line for the camera to be lowered.

  A weird shadowy form moved toward him with decep­tive slowness, and the sea-monster head turned so that he recognized Casey. He reached out to draw the other down beside him and indicated the crevices. Whether the other understood or not, he could not tell. But the Navy diver helped him steer the camera around to face that stretch of wall. Now if he could just get one or more of the creatures out of their holes to put on a real show—

  He caught the sign of an octopus at home, the end of a tentacle issuing from a crevice, a slit in the porous rock, which seemed too narrow to house a creature of the size he knew lurked there. Would a current of water set up by waving hands entice the things out of hiding? He flipped tentatively in the direction of the nearest, and the result was spectacular.

  Accustomed to octopi that were retiring, who fled from man rather than courted him, Griff was not pre­pared for the sudden eruption of some five of the spe­cies, who oozed out of their homes and appeared to be intelligently waiting for him to declare his intentions. Advancing with their arms pointing to the bottom, the ends curved slightly, their head-bodies erect, they pre­sented the curious aspect of walking on tiptoe. And that concentrated move was so unlike the habits of their kind that he gaped at them for a long moment while Casey withdrew with a quick flip of his fins.

  A five-foot, sucker-adorned arm curled lazily through the water as if its owner wished to drag to it this out­land monster for a closer inspection. Griff, alert to an opportunity he had never had before, was busy with the camera. Five—no, six—seven—he counted as he watched a new big-eyed dome crawl across an outcrop of brain coral, shooing before it a wave of parrot fish.

  An azure Beau-Gregory, jealous of its homestead rights as always, flashed down to defend its chosen section, but, baffled by the cephalopod, merely darted about the bulbous head, which was also body, as a bee might dart about a bear. Griff worked feverishly, intent upon filming the scene. But when a hand fell on his shoul­der, urging him back, he became aware of something else, that he now floated in a ring of solemn mollusks, the center of attention for a whole circle of dark, ex­pressionless eyes. And for the first time, his belief in the relative harmlessness of octopi was shaken. In all his observation, in all his reading, he had never seen nor heard of any such move on the part of their species. It was as if some strange being from another planet had landed on San Isadore and the natives had ringed the new arrival around, not menacingly—as yet—but curi­ously, intent on discovering just what the thing was and why it had come to disturb their peace.

  Casey was tugging at his weight belt, signaling with exaggerated jerks of his arm for a quick retreat. But Griff, though uneasy, was intrigued. He knew that an octopus could move fast, but he was also sure that it was possible to escape that steadily narrowing circle when he wished to. He was still busy with the camera, getting what he hoped was a clear and detailed shot of the scene.

  A sharp warning tug on his signal cord broke his absorption at last. No diver dared ignore such a sum­mons. He was being paged from above. Those three stiff pulls meant to surface. Casey was already spiraling up, the splashing of his flippers stirring the floating plumes. Reluctantly Griff released the camera and followed. Holding onto the lowest rung of the boarding ladder, he waited for Casey to precede him out of the water. "What is it—?" he pushed up his face mask and de­manded in annoyance. Then he heard the beat of a motor. Around the mangrove-covered cay and straight for their anchored launch came the Navy cutter. It couldn't be another warn-off. They weren't in the dis­puted territory. And what was his father doing in that cutter?

  "Hughes, Griff." As the Navy craft came alongside Dr. Gunston called to them. "Take a tow—we're needed!"

  They retrieved the camera, stowed their gear tem­porarily, and took up anchor to accept a towline.

  "What's the matter, sir?" Hughes asked for them all.

  "Diver in trouble at the base. I don't know the par­ticulars, but apparently Murray believes we can help. And it's a rush job."

  It was Lieutenant Holmes who protested. "That's re­stricted territory, Doctor. You haven't been cleared to enter it—"

  Dr. Gunston favored him with a grim stare. "I gather that there's a life in danger, Lieutenant. Your command­ing officer has asked for our assistance, and he's going to get it."

  Holmes did not answer as they trailed along behind the cutter. But Griff had an idea that he would not ac­cept the rebuff so easily and was planning to take steps of his own. In the meantime, since diving would prob­ably be required, Griff knelt to check his apparatus care­fully.

  V

  DEPTH SCOUT

  the muddle of clashing machinery and visibly rising foundations, which marked the site of Base Hush-Hush, meant little or nothing to Griff. There was activity un­leashed over a wide section of territory where the cliff wall had been graded down, where the whole face of San Isadore was in the process of being drastically al­tered. And not for the better was Griff's secret thought.

  However, the cutter did not point in toward this ant­hill of action but swept on f
arther north, coming in to a wasteland Griff had never explored and which even the islanders avoided, there being nothing to draw them to the desert of curdled rock and salty sand.

  Here, at some time in the past, a large slice of cliff had broken loose, to fall outward, forming a roughly surfaced natural wharf, over the lip of which spray was flung in rainbow bubbles. It was probably almost be­neath the surface at high tide, Griff judged by the lengths of vivid yellow sea moss that clung to it in ragged patches.

  Breck Murray was easy to note among the three men who stood there awaiting the cutter and its tow. His kahki shirt was plastered to him by the spray, and his stance suggested impatience. Griff remained in the lab­oratory launch, content to await developments, but Casey and Holmes went ashore.

  Hughes stared down into the water at the edge of the rocks.

  "Not too good a place for a dive—"

  Griff chose to believe that was addressed to him. "Have to take it easy," he agreed. "This surf could smash you before you got under."

  Hughes leaned back, studying the broken cliffs with narrowed eyes. The rock was pitted and creviced all the way along. There could be innumerable caves and crannies below as well as above. A diver swept into one of those by some freak of current might well find him­self in dangerous difficulties. This was no place to dive alone, nor without all the safety precautions possible. "What are they trying to do, anyway?" Hughes mused. "They couldn't have picked out a nastier place to work." "Frank—Griff—" They both turned at Dr. Gunston's call and scrambled over the greasy footing of slimy waterweed to the rocky platform.

  "What about it?" The doctor motioned along the edge of the surf.

  Hughes was scowling. "No place to play the fool. Not a place to dive unless you are pushed into it." He gave his verdict frankly. "Most of it is an out-and-out death trap—"

  Now Murray was frowning, too. "All right. We un­derstand that. Only there's a job to be done here. Jim Lasalles, my expert, is down under there somewhere and"—he looked at his watch—"time's about run out for him. Those cylinders hold just so much air, remember? How can we work to get him out?"

  Dr. Gunston paced closely along the edge of the natural wharf, studying the boil of the waves. "You know where he went in—but he may be half a mile from this point now. We can at least take a closer look." His fingers were busy with the buttons on his shirt as he spoke.

  "Chief—let me go down!" Hughes was at his side, while Griff simply slid back into the launch and reached for a tank harness.

  But the doctor shook his head firmly. "I'll do it, Frank. After all, I've had the most experience—and I've had time to learn my way around down there. You'll keep a line on me, I promise that!"

  Griff, silently rebelling, was forced to accept that ruling. He strapped on his father's weight belt, made sure that watch and depth gauge were safely in place, test­ing each fastening. But when he turned to pick up the tank, he discovered that Casey, too, was making prepara­tions to enter the water. And almost side by side, the two used the same trick of an expert diver, catching the exact moment to slide into an advancing comber. Frank was crouched over the water glass, watching their descent, while Griff stood with Murray, paying out the lifelines, feeling the pull with sensitive fingers, the pull that meant all was right below.

  Seconds seemed hours long during that period of waiting. Griff would gladly have surrendered his hope of returning to the States to be making that dive him­self. It was easier to battle the actual dangers lurking along the broken shore line than to sweat it out up here.

  "Sharks—" He caught the mumble from one of the attendant Seabees.

  There was little to fear from sharks here. But morays —this was just the type of coastline to attract the dead­ly eels. And barracudas had been sighted in island waters from time to time. Resolutely Griff tried to curb his imagination. He had dived without fear for himself, but now he discovered it was very easy to know anxiety for another.

  "Can't see him!" Frank's head lifted from his glass watch.

  Griff's grasp on the signal line tightened. He must have given it a noticeable twitch, for a reassuring tug was telegraphed back.

  "He signals 'all right'!"

  "Where's Casey?" Murray demanded.

  "Working his way around the point, sir." The Seabee pointed north. "Must be rugged down there, he's tak­ing it mighty easy—"

  Disaster struck so suddenly that for a moment they did not really understand what had happened. A low swell of water, which did not seem alarming from their viewpoint, hit the rocks, dashing up with a volume of spray that betrayed its force. And in that moment the line spun between Griff's fingers, burning flesh. In­stinctively his grasp on it tightened, but he had fol­lowed it almost knee-high into the water by then.

  "Hughes!" He cried the warning. What was happen­ing down there? His father must have been swept away. Griff pulled the cord, praying for the return signal. But the line was now stiff, as if it were hooked upon some projection of rock. And he dared not exert any more pull for fear it would snap.

  A nightmare span of time followed. Casey was re­called to trace Dr. Gunston's line as Hughes made ready to dive. And then came the paralyzing answer. The cord was fouled, right enough, about a sharp spur of coral even as Griff had dreaded. And beyond drifted a frayed end. His father might have been sucked into any one of half a hundred cracks and caves, caught there unable to win free again.

  Griff fought panic. The island was a porous sponge, carved out below sea level. And a cave big enough to admit the body of a diver might run back for some dis­tance. There were the sea wells dotting the interior —they were fed through such breaks in the cliff wall. Here the combers would endanger a diver, give him a limited chance for search. But if a man might go down one of those pools—

  "The wells!" He must have said that aloud, for Mur­ray had spun to face him. But Griff was staring inland, trying to remember all he knew of the sea pools.

  "You have an idea?" Murray pushed.

  "The sea pools, inland—they have their outlets." He didn't want to explain too much, and he stopped before he had a chance to even try.

  Murray was startled and then thoughtful. "There's a large one, about a quarter of a mile due west—"

  Before he could elaborate, the head of a diver broke water, and Hughes climbed up the weedy verge. He shoved up his mask and squatted, panting, a pinched look about his nostrils.

  "I think maybe I've got it—" But there was little ex­ultation in his voice. It was plain he did not consider his news good. "Traced in from where the cord fouled. There's a cave there—reaches pretty far back. The chief may have been jammed in by that wave. I need a lamp—"

  "We've got that." One of the Seabees produced an un­derwater lamp of the latest design. As he rigged it un­der Hughes's direction, Murray spoke again to Griff.

  "About that pool—"

  Griff leaned over the busy pair before him. "Frank, in which direction does that cave run?"

  Hughes sat back on his heels, glancing from the surg­ing waters to the cliff front. "From about there"—he indicated a point some hundred yards to the south— "west. It's pretty long, that's why I have to have the lamp—goes straight in."

  Murray was obviously thinking. "Could be—just could be—" was his verdict.

  Griff was willing to accept that. He waited until Hughes submerged once more, and then he assembled his own equipment from the lab launch. He'd probably need extra weight on his belt. With care he tested its latch, making sure it would release at a touch. Too many divers had been drowned because of faulty belts, and what he proposed to do was the trickiest bit of under­water work he had ever attempted.

  "You've dived the inland pools?" Murray asked the question Griff dared not answer with the truth. As far as he knew, no one had ever invaded the mysterious depths of one of the sea wells, but that fact was not go­ing to stop him now. He nodded, rather than spoke.

  The blistering heat of the sun dried the last remaining drops of sea sp
ray from Griff's half-naked body during that trek across the upper reaches of the cliff. One of the Seabees helped him with his equipment. They crossed a stretch of heated rock, found a gully running back in the general direction, and dropped thankfully into the thick white sand that drifted there. The well, when they finally came to its lip, was no different from the others Griff had seen. The deep blue surface, the scarlet sponges growing along its walls, seemed to add to the secret, closed-in quality, a quality the waters along the reef never had. To slide over into that and to allow oneself to spiral down through the liquid that appeared from above to be thicker, less like salt water, was going to be an ordeal.

  And the reasoning behind Griff's recklessness was so flimsy a guess. Griff could not have explained it—had no wish to put into words his feeling that there was a connection between this deep sapphire well inland and the cave on the coast. He was going by hunch now, and a kind of inner stubbornness kept him to his decision. It was good that Murray believed he had done this be­fore—no use asking for complications.