by Frederick
At once I was thinking of my uncle Stewart, under a mountain of water at the bottom of Eden Deep, because of Hallam Sperry. The faceplate of my pressure suit misted—
Gideon thumped my back, bringing his headpiece close to mine, and turned his helmet talker on to low power. “See that building?” He pointed to a group of lights half-hidden by the waving kelp. “That’s where they keep the sea-cars. Because this is a sub-sea fleet base as well as one of Sperry’s farms, it’ll be guarded. But stick with me, Jim, and we’ll make it.”
He led the way; I followed. The growth was thick, occasionally we had to stop and hack ourselves free from the entangling growth with the sea-knives from our knee- scabbards. Far off to the right, harvesting machines floated through the water, clutching at the tangled kelp and gathering it into bales for transportation into the city, and eventual processing. Harvest was not a season but a year-round event in these farms, where the sun never dreamed of touching; after the harvest machines came cultivators and seeders, and a new crop was growing almost before the old one was inside the ports of Thetis.
We were lucky—we were not seen, though sea-cars floated by within scant yards of us, though a score and more of men in pressure-suits were moving about in the kelp jungles around us. If anyone caught a glimpse of us, no doubt he dismissed us as merely another pair of workers; but, so careful was Gideon in leading me through the concealing growths, I suspect we were never spotted at all.
At any rate, we reached the entrance port of the building around which the sea-cars nuzzled without challenge.
There was no question of talking now, of course; I had only the waving of Gideon’s arms to guide me. We crept up on the entrance port and stopped. He peered around, then worked the port controls. There was a rolling motion in the water around us as the powerful little pumps balanced the inside and outside pressure; then the port opened, we stepped into the lock and closed the outer door.
The water level began at once to fall.
If we had come in a sea-car we would certainly have been hailed and spotted. But you can hardly blame those sub-sea workers for keeping a slipshod watch on the port. A sea-car would have been detected by microsonar, and a dozen alarms would have called attention to it; but we, sneaking invisibly through the kelp, were in the sonar’s blind spot, and there was of course no reason for suspecting that anyone would be stupid enough to come across the sea-bottom on foot. Nor, in truth, was there much reason to do so. There was nothing of value at the farms, except for the sea-cars themselves and the complex farming machinery—and those were pretty bulky objects for anyone to steal.
And yet, that was exactly what Gideon had in mind.
As soon as the water was out of the port chamber and the inner doors open, he strode out with assurance, leading me across the entrance chamber. There were men in sight, operating communications equipment, moving about in the corridors, perhaps half a dozen or more; but they hardly glanced at us. As though he knew every inch of the layout well (and, in fact, he did—for Gideon had worked in many a layout like this, with my uncle and otherwise—in his long sub-sea life), Gideon headed for the suit room. We shed our suits there; fortunately no one was in the room.
Then we stole a sea-car.
It was astonishingly easy—up to a point. With Gideon leading the way, we marched openly through the winding corridors of the farm administration building to the entry ports where the little seacars lay nuzzled. Then we became less open. Gideon spotted a small office; when no one was looking, we slipped into it and waited, listening.
The ready room was just outside our door, where the sea-car operators filed their reports and got their orders. Traffic was erratic; at times there seemed to be a dozen men in the room, and a few moments later it might be nearly empty.
We listened to their conversation, trying to judge which sea-car would be easiest to slip into, which held sufficient reserves of fuel for the trip to Seven Dome. There were remarks that puzzled me; it seemed that one of the sea-cars was special, in some way unlike the others.
A dawning idea began to grow in my mind. I nudged Gideon excitedly, but he hushed me. “Wait,” he whispered. “They’re all leaving…”
The group of operators, talking among themselves, went out of the room on some unknown errand. It looked like our chance; Gideon gestured to me, and the two of us started to tiptoe out of the little office, into the ready room beyond which the sea-cars lay waiting…
“James Eden!” crackled a familiar voice from behind us.
I spun around. There against the other door to the little office stood a tall youth in civilian clothing. He looked familiar, yet somehow wrong. As I stared at him I seemed to see, on his head, the flat scarlet cap of the Sub-Sea Academy, hear the echo of his voice flatly and contemptuously going over me back on the steps of Fletcher Hall.
Brand Sperry!
Gideon was quicker than I. He still had the gun we had taken from Sperry’s “butler”; it was in his hand, and the younger Sperry was staring into its muzzle, before I had quite realized who it was.
“Keep quiet, Sperry,” Gideon whispered softly and dangerously. “If you want to stay alive, keep quiet.”
Brand Sperry stopped as he was about to turn. He looked us over coolly. “What do you want?” he demanded.
I took a deep breath. I had had an idea, the ghost of a thought, listening to the sea-car operators talk; it seemed to me that there was a bare possibility that the “special” sea-car was special indeed. After all, Hallam Sperry had claimed to have something very special in the way of sea-cars, back in the room where Catroni lay dead…
I said: “We want my uncle’s experimental job, Sperry. We know it’s here. Where is it?”
Gideon was a champion; he gave me one quick look, and then backed me up: “That’s right, Sperry! Hurry up!” But he must have thought, for a moment, that I was out of my head.
But I wasn’t. Brand Sperry’s piercing eyes flamed and he snapped: “Eskow! He tipped you off! That little— ”
“Shut up, Sperry!” Gideon said sharply. “You don’t want to attract any attention here—you’ll be the first one hurt!”
“Wait a minute, Gideon,” I said. “What’s this about Eskow?”
“You know,” Brand Sperry sneered. “I told my father. I knew it was a mistake bringing him here. We kept your message from getting to him the first time, but I knew you’d reach him sooner or later—and I knew he’d spill everything he knew to you!”
I said, “Sperry, I haven’t seen Eskow except through the viewport at the docks. Not that it makes any difference. Where is he?”
Sperry shrugged. “Last I saw, he was in the ready room a couple of hours ago. My father transferred him off the liner because he thought we might get information out of him about you. I warned him!”
I stared at Gideon pleadingly, but he read my mind. “No, Jim,” he said. “We haven’t got time to look up old friends. Any minute someone might walk in on us, and then where will we be? You, Sperry—we want that seacar. Take us to it!”
“I’ll do no such thing,” Sperry said frostily—and for a moment there, I almost admired him; he might have had a squad of sea-police at his back as he confronted us. “Put that gun down. I’ll have the guards take care of you two ”
Gideon kept his grin. He said gently, “Mr. Sperry, I don’t advise you to make any trouble. I really don’t.”
Abruptly his tone changed to a crackle: “You young idiot!” he blazed. “Jim Eden and I were that close to being brain-pumped by your father. We know that he sank Jim’s uncle—tried to kill Jim half a dozen times—we know that every dirty deal and corrupt official in Marinia belongs to him. Do you think I’d hesitate to shoot you if you give me half a chance? Get a move on, man! Take us to Eden’s sea-car—now! And thank your lucky stars I don’t shoot you dead this minute!”
Brand Sperry saw the light of reason.
He conducted us to the sea-car, conscious of the gun in Gideon’s pocket. He sharply ordered the d
ispatcher to mind his own business when the man appeared and started to ask a question. Heaven knows what the dispatcher thought—but he had undoubtedly learned, working for the Sperry interests, that it didn’t pay to get in the way of anyone named Sperry.
Sperry strode stiffly before us into the entrance hatch of the seacar, never looking back. We followed him.
And then the three of us were inside, and the vessel was sealed, and cast loose from the little dome.
We were free!
“Smart work, Jim,” Gideon acknowledged. “I heard what the operators were saying, but it never occurred to me that this was that first sea-car your uncle built. That makes it yours, I guess—so we aren’t even stealing it!”
“We’ll see what the law says about that!” snapped Brand Sperry, his voice rising. “You men are thieves, plain and simple!”
Gideon only looked at him, and gestured gentiy with the gun; Brand Sperry was silent—but fuming.
Gideon turned the controls over to me, and I set course for Seven Dome. He stood over my shoulder, thoughtfully watching, until I grew uneasy and said: “Isn’t that where you want us to go, Gideon? Seven Dome? You said—”
“I know what I said, Jim,” he agreed hesitantiy. “Only—”
“Only what?”
He looked around him at the insice of the sea-car. It looked much like any other—perhaps there was a slightly brighter glimmer from the Edenite armor, to show that it was stronger, more powerfully charged, than most. Gideon said:
“This one has the same kind of armor as the one your uncle Stewart was lost in, doesn’t it?”
“I guess so,” I agreed.
“So it ought to be able to take quite a lot of pressure, right?”
But this time I was used to Gideon’s long and complicated way of getting at anything he had to say; I only nodded without trying to rush him.
He said, striking off in another direction, “You remember what we saw in the reel that was brainpumped from Catroni?” I nodded, and he went on: “Sure you do. After Catroni pulled out, a man followed him. Only the other man’s armor had been sabotaged; it couldn’t take the pressure, and he was killed.”
“That’s right, Gideon. My uncle.”
“Was it?” Gideon demanded sharply. “We’ve been thinking it was, sure—but how did we know? There was another man on board, after all—Westervelt, the engineer.”
I said slowly, “You mean the man who was killed might not have been my uncle?”
“That’s right, Jim.” Gideon’s dark face was sober as he looked at me. “Now, it’s only a guess—don’t get your hopes up! Even if that first one was Westervelt, your uncle might have tried a little later in another suit, if he could patch one together—or the sea-car’s armor might have failed over the weeks he’s been down there, or he might have run out of air—Oh, it’s only an outside chance. But what if he’s still alive at the bottom of Eden Deep, Jim?”
I looked at him for a long moment. Then I returned to the controls and sent the little sea-car heeling over as I swung it around.
“We’re going to find out!” I said. “Or we’ll sink ourselves trying!”
17
Into the Deeps
We made a curious crew, the three of us, as we bored through the cold, dense waters toward Eden Deep.
Brand Sperry, after the first few minutes, sat himself down in the navigator’s seat and stared unseeingly at the blackness outside.
He didn’t offer conversation; for my part, I was glad to have him quiet.
Fortunately, we knew my uncle’s position when Catroni scuttled the ship. I could still see, through Catroni’s eyes, the entire instrument panel; if the Academy had taught me anything, it had taught me to read the gauges and meters on the control board of any sub-sea vessel in a single sweeping glance. I would have no more trouble putting us right over the hulk of my uncle’s sea-car than I would in finding my way across my bedroom at the Academy in the dark.
The trip, I estimated, would take us another hour and a half. I put the controls on auto; but I was too eager to get up from the pilot’s seat and let the sea-car take itself to the gridpoint. I sat there, watching the distance gauge whirl slowly through its arc, watching the miles reel past, almost unable to keep my hands off the diving rudders and the stabilizers, though I knew perfectiy well that the autopilot would do a far better job of keeping the little car on course than any mere human.
Gideon said: “Tired, Jim? Want to take a little nap?”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “But if you want to—”
“Neither could I.” Pause, while Brand Sperry stared stonily into nothingness. Gideon said, “Are you sure you can take us to Stewart’s sub?”
I shrugged. “I can put us right over it, I’ll guarantee. Getting down—that’s something else. All I can do is dive the car; whether or not it will take the pressure is something I don’t know. Don’t forget, Gideon, that this is the first experimental sea-car my uncle built. Maybe it’s as strong as the other—maybe not.”
Gideon nodded slowly. “Well,” he said, “we’ll find out ”
That seemed to cover that.
We plunged on through the dark waters. The little motors of the sea-car whined almost inaudibly, the hissing friction of the waters sliding along the Edenite armor whispered in our ears, the slow, erratic clicking of the autopilot and the instruments lulled me. There were other noises, too—
I realized, abruptly, that some of the other noises didn’t belong there.
I sat up straight, listening. From somehwere in the sea-car there came a faint, furtive scratching. It stopped; in a moment I heard it again.
Gideon heard it too. I caught the look of sudden tension in his eyes as we both got the same idea at the same time…
Someone else was in the sea-car!
Gideon looked a wordless threat at Brand Sperry—who paid him no attention—and silently, holding the captured gun, Gideon stepped to the door to the after compartment. Fools, to have forgotten to search the little sub! I blamed myself angrily.
Gideon flung the door open, peered in, then lunged inside and I heard a scramble of motion.
In a moment Gideon appeared again, frowning. “Jim,” he groaned, “we ought to be kicked. Look who was here, at the aft communicator—heaven knows what messages he was sending!”
He gestured with the gun, and another figure stepped uncertainly through the doorway—
Bob Eskow!
I said, “Bob!”
He stared at me. “I—I thought it was you, Jim,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it! Jim Eden—a thief!”
The expression on his face was impossible to read. Gideon said sharply, “Young man, Jim Eden is no more a thief than—”
I stopped him. I said, “Bob, listen to me. You’ve got to trust me.” As quickly as I could I told him everything that had happened since I came to Marinia—our hopes of finding my uncle’s ship, the duplicity of the Sperrys, the threat to our lives. It was a long story, short as I tried to make it, and I couldn’t tell if he was believing me as I spoke. When I finished he sighed and looked at the floor.
“I—I don’t know, Jim,” he said wearily. “It’s pretty hard to take in. I admit—well, I knew something was wrong. When I saw you at the landing stages and you ran away—”
“Bob! I didn’t run away! I tried to see you—I sent a message—they told me you didn’t want to talk to me.”
He stared at me grimly. “I got no message,” he said. “You see? I can look at that either way—either you ran, or what you say is true, and the Sperry gang kept me from seeing you.” He shook his head. “How can I tell? When you came aboard this ship I was giving it a pre-cruise inspection. I thought it was you, Jim, and it was a hard thing for me to make up my mind what to do. The only solution I could come to was to message Thetis, tell them what happened, let them send a patrol sea-car after us and bring you back. I thought the courts could decide, Jim.”
“The courts are Hal
lam Sperry,” said Gideon.
Bob nodded slowly. “So you tell me,” he said. “But—”
A tiny bell was ringing, and it stopped that conversation right there. I jumped back to the controls. “We’re over the gridpoint!” I cried. “If our computations were right—my uncle’s sea-car is right below us!”
I cleared the auto-pilot with a swift touch of the keys and took over manual control. I hesitated, looking over my shoulder at Bob Eskow.
He nodded reluctantly. “We’re this far,” he said. “Go ahead, Jim. If your uncle’s ship is down there—well, that answers a lot of questions. But Jim—don’t forget that I messaged Thetis. A Sea Patrol car should be right on our tails!”
Gideon chuckled softly. “They’ll have a sweet job following where we’re going, boy,” he said. “This is Eden Deep—seven and a half miles straight down. Drop her, Jim!”
I nodded and touched the controls. The buoyancy tanks began to fill as the tiny pumps droned and spurted seawater into them. I set course for a wide circle, gently eased over the diving vanes.
The clinometer showed three degrees dive, then five; then, carefully, I slipped the vanes to the full fifteen-degree crash dive position and opened up the propeller motors…
And our little sea-car began clawing downward into Eden Deep.
Already we were close to the bottom limits of most sea-cars, even with standard Edenite armor. Nearly four miles of water towered over us; the pressure would have smashed steel, squeezed quartz like putty. As we went down and down, four and a quarter miles, and four and a half, I saw something that I never had seen before. At first I thought it was a trick of eyestrain—a faint glimmering twinkle of light on the walls of the cabin. But I saw it again, flickering like witch-fire, and it grew stronger, and I realized that it was the sparkling glow of the Edenite armor, showing on the inside of the hull, giving a faint notion of the enormous forces pressing against it, pressures that could destroy any metal and penetrate even the mighty strength of ordinary Edenite…
