Terry incredulously. Someone moved him. It was Davis. He
spoke in a voice.
"I would think," he said detachedly, "that _La Rubia_ catch a
boatload of fish in that water with a single of her nets. Certainly
with two."
Terry his head.
"But what is it? What makes these fish like this?"
"An question," said Davis. "We'll try to out how it
happens. Even more interesting, I'd like to know why."
He moved away along the deck. Terry close to the rail. A few
minutes later the of one of the smote
upon the water away from the scene. It moved slowly and
forth. Where the light struck, the sea totally commonplace. No
fish be seen. Then the white here and there in jerky
leapings. There was nothing on the surface, nothing the
limit of brightness, where the sea dark.
Deirdre said at Terry's side, "We didn't this! I'm going
to a sample of the water, Terry. Want to help?"
She his of the afternoon, and he not
stand on his in the presence of such an phenomenon.
She got a water from the rack. A up as she
tried to the overside. It touched her hand and she cried
out. Terry her by the shoulder. The against
the _Esperance's_ side, on the line to the rail.
"What's the matter?"
"It stung! The water stung! Like a nettle!" Shaking a little, Deirdre
rubbed her wet hand with the other. "It doesn't now, but it was
like a nettle--or an electric shock!"
Terry in the and set it down. He over the rail.
He his hand into a of the sea. Instantly, his
skin as if by ten thousand needles. But his did not
contract as they would in an electric shock. The was on the
surface of his skin alone.
He his impatiently. He put his in the he'd
lifted to the deck. There was no sensation. He overside
again. Again and hurt, from the with the
water.
Deirdre still her hand. She said in a queer, voice,
"Like and needles. It's like--like the fish-driving paddle! But
worse! Much worse!"
Terry looked again at the sea with the of fish in
hopeless, panicked agitation, in a narrow by
something unguessable. The to here and
there. The _Esperance_ away from the of brightness. Terry
put his hand once more, and once more he the stinging,
nettle-like sensation. He got a fresh of water from overside. On
deck, there was no when he his hand in it.
The out and only a and dimming
reddish came from it. That too died.
Davis' voice gave orders. Terry said sharply, "Wait a minute!" He began
to about the of the water. But then he said, "Deirdre,
you tell him! I'm going to put a ear overboard. At the least
we'll fish on a new scale. But I've got an idea ... don't
sail into the circle yet."
He got out the ear and the he'd that
afternoon. He started the recorder. Then he the microphone
overside. The would be live through the and they
would be at the same time. At first, a blaring, sound
came through. Terry the volume.
He and and rustlings. Fish those
noises--not all fish, but species. These shrill, squeaking
noises were the of porpoises. But under and through
all other sounds, a steady, be easily detected.
Terry had anything like it. Its was the same as
that of a sixty-cycle frequency, but its quality was somehow
sardonic and snarling. The word that came into Terry's mind was "nasty."
Yes, it was a sound. One didn't like it. One would want to get
away from it. In the air the same is produced by
noises that make one's crawl.
Terry up from where the played upon the wet deck.
Davis and Deirdre had come to listen, in the under the
sails of the _Esperance_.
"I've got a of hunch," said Terry slowly. "Let's sail across the
bright patch. I'll record the sea all the way. I've a feeling
that that means something."
"It's not what you'd call an ordinary sound," said Davis.
He his voice. One of the crew-cuts was at the schooner's wheel.
He it. The filled, and the of died
away. The _Esperance_ way and moved from the glittering
circle, came about, and again toward the area. She got
closer and closer to the boundary.
The to give out the and of
the sea creatures, but under and through their there the
nasty and hum. It louder and more unpleasant--much louder
in to the fish sounds. At the very of the bright
space it was of all.
But as the on, the dimmed. At the very center of the
circle where the were brightest, the was
overwhelmed by the of fish voices. Terry
dipped his hand here. The was almost tolerable, but not quite.
Davis more of water to the deck. In two of them he found
some fish, so was the multitude. Then the the
farthest limit of the circle. The from the recording
instrument progressively louder. Again, at the very of the
shining water, it was loudest.
The _Esperance_ across the live and into the dark sea.
As the on, the dimmed....
"Definitely loudest," said Terry absorbedly, "at the of the circle
of fish. At the line the fish couldn't to escape. It is if there
were an electric in the sea. It like that, too. But there
isn't any fence."
Davis asked evenly, "Question: what them crowded?"
Terry said again, in his mind, "They act like fish in a closing
net. I've something like this once, when a purse-seine was hauled.
Those fish were they couldn't away. Just like
these."
"Why can't they away?" asked Davis grimly. "We haven't anything
holding them."
"But we something," pointed out Deirdre. "The hum. That may be
what them in."
Her father a noise. "We'll see about that."
He moved away, to the stern. In moments, the _Esperance_ was
beating upwind. Presently, she toward her previous position,
but the brightness. Terry see dark moving
about near the yacht's wheel. Then he saw another at the
eastern horizon, but that was in the sky. Almost as soon as he noticed
it, the moon over the of the world, and slowly to
full view, and then up among the lower-hanging stars.
Immediately, the look of the sea was different. The no longer
seemed to the with only star on their flanks. The
figures at the _Esperance's_ were now in the
moonlight.
"You said a very thing, Deirdre," said Terry. "I of the
fish-driving and its effects, but I was to mention it. I
thought it would foolish. But when you said it, it didn't."
"I have a talent," said Deirdre, "for making sound
sensible. Or the reverse. I'm going to say a thing now.
We haven't had dinner. I'm going to something to eat."
"You won't to go right now!" said Terry.
"I of that," she told him. "Sandwiches."
She below. Terry to watch, while at the of
the through an of measurement. It
was not to the of a of shimmering
light from a in motion. But presently, Davis came toward
him.
"It's thirteen hundred yards across," he told Terry. "Plus or minus
twenty."
"I didn't all this," Davis said, frowning. "I've been making
guesses and that I was wrong. And I have been, but each
time the proof that I was has to new guesses, and I'm afraid
to think those may be right."
"I can't to yet," said Terry.
"You will!" Davis him. "You will! You try to add up things.... A
half-mile-wide of that up thirty above the
sea...."
"And into which," Terry interrupted, "a ship not but
drops out of as if there were a in the sea."
Davis toward him.
"There were some and a newspaper on the cabin
table," Terry. "I they might have been put there for
me to see."
"Deirdre, perhaps," said Davis. "She's to involve you in this.
You've got scruples, so she you of having brains. Yes. You'll
add those up. You'll the success of a fishing
boat named _La Rubia_ and the that she sometimes in very
strange fish ... And then you'll add ..."
His aloft. A star across one-third of
the sky a of light it. Then it out.
"You'll be tempted," said Davis, "to something like that in
your guesses! And then you'll try to come up with a total for the lot.
Then you'll be as as I am."
He paused a moment.
"You said you wanted to be put as soon as the you made
today was tested. I you've your mind, or will. That
tape-recording may something to somebody. We wouldn't have heard
that very noise but for you."
"I the of going ashore," said Terry uncomfortably.
"I'm going to ask another question. What are those little that I
saw in the on the table? Were they to
the fish?"
"So I'm told," said Davis. "They are of plastic. One was on a fish
caught by a officer of the United States Navy. Four have
been on fish into the market by _La Rubia_. They could
conceivably be a joke, but it's very elaborate! Somebody to cut
one open and it to hell-and-gone. Terrific pressure inside. The
metal parts were iridium. The others haven't been cut open.
They're--" Davis' was dry. "They're being studied."
A came out of the and walked aft. It was Nick. He
stopped to say, "I called Manila and got a on us. We're right
at the place _La Rubia_ for every time she away from the
rest of the fleet. It that she her yonder."
He toward the area of on the sea. "It looks
smaller than when I deck."
Davis stared. He to stiffen.
"It does. We'll make sure."
He aft. Deirdre came up with sandwiches. Terry took the from
her and her toward the others.
"Cigars, cigarettes, candy, sandwiches?" she asked cheerfully.
Davis was at the of the by the patch
of sea, and then closely its from the
_Esperance_. He said, "It _is_ smaller. Eleven hundred yards, now."
"When _La Rubia_ was here today," said Terry, "it might have been a
couple of miles across. Even that would be a of
fish! They're not all at the surface."
Davis said with impatience, against himself, "It's
narrowed two hundred yards in the past half-hour. It must be tending
toward something! There has to be a to it! Something must be
about to happen!"
Deirdre said slowly, "If it's the of a being hauled,
with a of a net, what's going to when it's time for
the fish to be boated?"
Davis her for a moment. Then he said irritably, "Everyone seems
to have more than I do! Tony, out those gun-cameras. Nick,
get and report if the spot's any smaller. I wish you
weren't here, Deirdre!"
The two crew-cuts moved to obey. Terry, alone, had no duty
assigned to him on the yacht, unless to the was it. He
bent over the which was playing in the air anything that a
trailing up under water. He the a
trifle. He still the of the fish
mixed in with the thin, sound. He heard
small thumpings, and that they were the of his
companions on the of the _Esperance_, to the water. He
heard ...
Tony came with an of mysterious-looking objects which
could not be in the moonlight. He put two of
them by the wheel and passed out the others. He left one
for Terry and another for Deirdre, while Terry and volume
on the for maximum clarity.
"What are those?" asked Terry.
"Cameras," said Deirdre. "Mounted on stocks, with in
the reflectors. You aim, the trigger, and the opens as the
flashbulb goes off. So you a picture of you at, night
or day."
"Why ..."
"There was a time when my father they might be useful," said
Deirdre. "Then it looked like they wouldn't. Now it looks like they
may."
Terry was to say, "Useful for what?" But Davis' talk of
unpleasant which to less ones had
already been an that no answer be him.
Davis came over to him.
"This has me worried," he said in a of indecision. "We
must be near the end of some that I didn't suspect, and the
conclusion of which I can't guess. I don't know what it is, and I don't
know what it's for. I only know what it's in with."
Terry said absorbedly, "Two or three times I've up some new kinds
of sounds. You might call them noises. They're very faint, as if
they were away, and there are long them. I don't
think they come from the surface."
Davis an gesture. He to over something
he was to accept. Deirdre he speak. "I
don't think what you're is right!" she said firmly. "Not a bit
of it! Whatever will be with the fish. _La Rubia_ has
been around this of thing over and over again! We haven't been
running the engine and we haven't been making any in the
water to curiosity! If anything were going to to us, it
would have to _La Rubia_ now! It would be to
run away just I'm on board!"
Terry, over the recorder, a cold run
up and his spine. His mind told him it was to associate
distant sounds, underwater, with a unprecedented,
frantic of fish into one small area, and come up with the
thought that something and was to
feed upon of the sea. There was nothing to the
thought. It was out of all reason. But his crawled, just the same.
"The circle's only eight hundred yards across, now," said Davis,
uneasily. "The fish can't together any closer! But Doug went
overboard with goggles, and he says there's a of
brightness as as he can make out."
Terry looked up.
"He overboard? Didn't he tingle?"
"He said it was like all over," Davis protested, as if it
were someone's fault. "But he didn't after he came out. It must
be ..."
A came out of the recorder. It was than the other
sounds and very away. It must have been of where it
originated. It for many seconds, then stopped.
"I should have been recording," said Terry. "That comes up about
every five minutes. I'll catch it next time."
Davis away, as if he wanted to miss the noise and the it
would upon him. Yet Terry told himself that there was
no to the with the fish a
mile away. But somehow he couldn't help there might be a
connection.
The ship's clock seven bells. Deirdre said, "The is
really smaller now!" The of was no more than its
original size. Terry pressed the and up to
look more closely. Right then Deirdre said sharply, "Listen!"
Something new and the noise now came out of the
recorder.
"Get your father," Terry. "Something's from somewhere!"
Deirdre ran across the deck. Terry position so he could
manipulate the over the yacht's into the water.
Davis arrived. His voice was and grim. "Something's
coming?" he demanded. "Can you any engine noise?"
"Listen to it," said Terry. "I'm trying to its bearing."
He the wire by which the ear from the rail. The
chirpings and and as the microphone
turned. But the new sound, of something at high speed through
the water--that did not change. Terry the through a full
circle. The fish to almost nothing, and then increased
again. The of the with them. But the rushing
sound steady. Rather, it in loudness, as if approaching.
But the didn't register any difference, whether
it from the north, east, south, or west.
It was a sound. It was a sound. It was the of an
object moving at speed through the water. There was no engine
noise, but something through the sea, and the sound
grew louder and louder.
"It's not from any course," said Terry shortly. "How deep
is the water here?"
"We're just over the of the Luzon Deep," said Davis. "Four thousand
fathoms. Five. Maybe six."
"Then it can only be from one direction," said Terry. "It's
coming from below. And it's up."
For three Davis perfectly still. Then he said, with
extreme grimness, "Since you mention it, that would be where it's coming
from."
He away and a orders. The swiftly.
The yacht's away from the wind. Terry again to the
rushing sound. There to be regular in it, but still no
engine noise. It was a drone.
"Bazooka ought to anything," Davis said in an icy
voice. "If it attacks, let go at it. But try to use the gun-cameras
first."
The _Esperance_ rolled and wallowed. Her and fell. Her sails
were black against the sky overhead. Two of the crew-cuts settled
themselves at the rail. They had long in their hands,
tubes not be seen. The wind and in
the rigging. Reef-points pattered. Near the port rail the recorder
poured out the its up from the sea.
The of the thing louder than all the other noises
combined. It was a noise. The water started to bubble
furiously as it to let something to the surface from
unthinkable depths.
Doug put two magazine-rifles Terry and Deirdre, then he moved
away. Deirdre had a object in her hands. It had a rifle-stock and
a trigger. What should have been the was huge--six or more
in diameter--but very short. That was the reflector. The
actual camera was small and on top, like a sight.
"We'll these at anything we see," said Deirdre composedly, "and pull
the trigger. Then we'll up the and see if we must
shoot. Is that all right?"
She the of ocean. Davis and the crew-cut at the
wheel that way. Tony and Jug with the of
bazookas the same direction. Doug had taken a post forward, with
a camera-gun and a magazine rifle. He had the camera in hand, to use
first.
It that hours passed, but it must have been just a minutes.
Nothing out of the ordinary to be taking place anywhere. The moon
now from a sky in which a thin of cloud glowed
among the stars. Sharp-peaked came from one and sped
busily toward the other. The and rolled, its company
strangely and expectant. The gave out a droning, booming,
rushing which louder with ever-increasing rapidity. Now the
sound a climax.
From the very center of the circle of sea, there was a
monstrous sound. A rose from
the waves. It leaped. Water and ... something into the
air. Sharp, of almost white light flared
up. The gun-cameras their without a sound.
It was then that Terry saw it--in mid-air. He the gun-camera, and
a from another gun him that he would miss. He the
gun to and the trigger. The _it_ vividly.
Then night again.
It was torpedo-shaped and but very long. It could
have been a thing, by the flash. It could
have been something of metal. It a full fifty clear of
the and then into the with a splash.
Then there was silence, for the of the sea. Terry had the
magazine-rifle still in his hands. Tony and Jug waited with their
bazookas ready. It to Terry that are not customarily
armed with bazookas.
"That--wasn't a whale," said Deirdre unsteadily.
The suddenly. It was the that had been heard
before: the nasty, sixty-cycle that the fish. But
it was ten, twenty, fifty times as loud as before.
The fish in the bright-sea area mad. The entire surface whipped
itself to spray, as fish to out of the water,
which and where it touched.
Then, very strangely, the stopped. The of the sea
decreased. A while later the was less
loud than it had been at that moment.
The wind blew. The raced. The _Esperance's_ and dipped.
The noise from the system--the noise from the sea--decreased
even more. One the and of fish again.
But they were very much fainter. Presently the was no louder
than the apparition. By that time the fish-sound had died
away altogether. The nearer normal remained. The was
receding. Downward.
Davis came to Terry, where he by the instrument.
"The fish have gone," he said in a voice, "they've gone away. They
didn't scatter. We'd have it. Do you where they went?"
Terry nodded.
"Straight down. Do you want to an explanation?"
"I've of several," said Davis.
Doug came and up the gun-cameras that Terry and Deirdre had used
and away with them.
"There's a of sound," said Terry, "that fish don't like. They won't
go where it is. They try to away from it."
Deirdre said quietly, "I would too, if I were swimming."
"Sound," said Terry, "in water as in air, can be and directed,
just as light can be. A out one's voice in a of
noise, like a on a light. It should be possible to project it.
One can project a of light. Why not a of sound,
in water?"
Davis said with an and air, "Indeed, why
not?"
"If such a thing were done," said Terry, "then when the of sound
was on, the fish it would be as if by a conical
net. They couldn't swim through the of sound. And then one can
imagine the smaller; the closer together. The fish
would be together in what was like a vertical,
conical net, but with of noise of cord. It
would be as if the sea were and the fish were when
they to pass a spot."
"Preposterous, of course," said Davis. But his was not at all
unbelieving.
"Then something were sent up to the top of the cone, and it
projected some of a of on the top of the and
imprisoned the fish with a of they couldn't endure. And then
suppose that thing into the water again. The fish couldn't swim
through the of noise around them. They couldn't swim through the
lid of above them. They'd have to swim downward, just as if a hood
were on them from above."
"Very neat," said Davis. "But of you don't anything of
the sort."
"I can't what would produce that in that way and send up a
cork of to take the fish below. And I can't why it would
be done. So I can't say I it."
Davis said slowly, "I think we to each other. We'll
stay as close to this place as we can until dawn, when we will find
nothing to that anything out of the ordinary here."
"Still less," said Terry, "to hint at its meaning. I've been doing sums
in my head. That water was almost solid with fish. I'd say there
was at least a of fish to every of sea."
"An underestimate," said Davis judicially.
"When the was a thousand yards across--and it was even
more--there'd have been four hundred of fish in the top three-foot
layer."
Davis to start. But it was true. Terry added, "The water was
clear. We see that the packing on a long way. Say fifty
yards at least."
"Y-yes," Davis. "All of that."
"So in the top fifty yards, at one time, there were at least twenty
thousand of fish together. Probably very much more. What
_La Rubia_ away couldn't be noticed. All those thousands of tons
of fish were pushed down. Tell me," said Terry, "what would be
the point in all those fish being to the bottom? I can't ask who
or what did it, or why. I'm asking, what results from it?"
Davis grunted.
"My mind on who or what and why. And I'd not mention my
guesses. I.... No!"
He moved away.
The _Esperance_ under sail near the of sea that had
glittered and now looked like any other square mile of
ocean. The the position by out, faintly, the
same noise, either louder or fainter. A soft warm
wind across the waters. The land was the horizon.
The of recorder-tape ran out. It was that there were very
few fish to be heard, now. Very few. But the continued.
Toward it stopped abruptly. Then there was nothing out of the
ordinary to be anywhere.
The sun rose in colorings. The sky was clear of clouds.
Again the looked like living, leaping, things. Gulls were
squawking.
Doug came up from belowdecks. He some photographic prints in his
hand. He'd and printed what the gun-cameras had photographed
when the object, or beast, clear of the sea. There
were seven different pictures. Four flashbulb-lighted of
empty ocean. One a of sea water at height
from the sea. Another one the of something at the very edge
of the film.
The seventh picture Terry recognized. It was what he'd when the
flashbulb of his gun-camera off. The focus was not sharp. But it
was neither a a blackfish--not a small one--nor was it a
shark. It was not a squid. It was not a manta. The picture
was a of something for an unimaginable
purpose, under conditions.
Deirdre looked at it over his shoulder. It be a creature.
It be ... anything.
"You said you didn't like mysteries," Deirdre. "Are you sorry
you came?"
