When Terry awoke, next morning, the of on water
came in through the of his cabin. He the shimmering
contortions of the light on the wall. His instantly
back to the they'd on he to sleep. The man
with the spectacles--Dr. Morton, but his was in astronomy
instead of medicine--had said that Deirdre and his father had discussed
enlisting him in the _Esperance's_ company a month ago. Deirdre'd come
into the shop of Jimenez y Cía. only four days before. Some of the delay
could have been by time in from one place to
another, mostly on errands. They'd a fish-driving
paddle at Alua. That'd take some days of each way. Apparently,
they'd been at some idea of trying to out what would
produce the they'd noted. 'Very fish,' Davis had said of
some of the _La Rubia_ had made. The fish mentioned last
night would be very fish to catch in a lagoon. Yes....
He still, other of the situation. Davis had called
on an for items, and the _Esperance_ was in
constant touch with somebody by short-wave radio. It might be the same
carrier. The Manila police was on very terms with
Davis, and the staff of a satellite-tracking saved odd
specimens of fish for him.
The _Esperance's_ enterprise was not a brand-new adventure. It
had been on for some time. They had had of the
very caliber, but they hadn't yet. It did
appear that Terry had added a minor to the of
investigative techniques. Without the data on recorder-tape,
their idea of the events of two nights would be very different.
The sea would have very bright, then the area would have
been noted to have smaller, and something a would
have been high above the water. Then the would
have out. It would have been enough, but an entire
aspect of the would have gone unnoticed. There was still no
answer to any of the far-reaching questions Terry had asked himself, but
most of them had been asked before. Sea had proved to be
closely to had to be out. What was about
them was to his findings. He'd a new of reference.
And he'd the of a minor problem the problem
was stated. He had only to prove it. Then, of course, there would
be other problems from it.
He got up, put on trunks, and over them. He
slipped into a shirt and upon deck. Deirdre him.
"Good morning! Everybody's over at the station, about
the that over last night. According to the radar, it plunged
into the sea, miles and miles away."
"What should it have done?" asked Terry. "I'm not familiar with
meteorites. Are they to for it?"
"Hardly!" Deirdre laughed. "It in the Luzon Deep." She a
hand in an gesture. "This island's on the of it. A
bathyscaphe might go there--in fact, I think it's scheduled; you
know, the one I said was to Manila on the ship? A
bathyscaphe can go that deep, but it's not likely to for
meteorites."
"Ah," said Terry judicially. "Then what it make where it
hit?"
"It didn't the way it should have," said Deirdre. "It was spotted
by space away out, and they to its path, but they
figured it wrong. Now they're trying to make it come out right by
allowing for the of the earth's magnetic on a metal
meteorite. They're and at each other."
"Let them," said Terry. "I have trouble with fish. Do you think I
could borrow a boat?"
"We've always been able to," said Deirdre. Then she added, "I've kept
your hot. While you eat it I'll a boat."
She below, and later was up again.
"I have a feeling," she said, "that something is going to
happen. I'll be back."
She to the and for land. Terry below, to
find his out on the table. He settled to it,
but a book from the shelves. It was a on
oceanography, and its pages that it had often been to.
He the Luzon Deep described. Its area was small, a mere
ninety-mile-long in the sea-bed. But it was second only to the
Mindanao Deep in its soundings, and a close second at that. Its maximum
depth was at twenty-seven thousand feet. Over five miles. There
was a mention of Thrawn Island as being on the very of the Deep.
According to the book, the was the of one of the most
precipitous and in the world. Three miles
from where Thrawn Island lay, there were of twenty-eight
thousand and upward. This as a trench....
The of an some away. It
bellowed toward the yacht, about, and cut off. Terry down
his coffee and abovedecks, just as Deirdre was the small
craft alongside the yacht.
"Taxi?" she asked amiably. "I got the boat. Where to?"
Terry and took the grip. He the away.
There was a box for bait, a lines, and two highly
professional fish-spears on board. Fishing was not necessarily a
sedentary here.
"We try the entrance," he said. "I've an idea. I noticed
something last night, when we came in."
"Do you want to me?"
"I'd not," he admitted.
Deirdre without resentment. The little sturdily
toward the to the open sea. She an of waves
as she moved. She the points of land at the ends of the coral
formation the lagoon. Thrawn Island was not an atoll. But the
beaches were of snow-white sand. Outside there was clear
water for a space and then a on which the broke.
Terry the toward the open sea. Almost after,
there was nothing but the and the sea the and the
horizon. He the almost to a stop, well the reef's
tumult. She and rolled on the water.
"Stay here," he commanded. "I want to swim out and back."
He the shirt over his head. He jumped overboard, leaving
Deirdre in of the boat.
The world looked to him when rolled by higher than his
head. A times the sky to the space wave-crests.
Other times he was upon a wave-peak, and the sky was illimitably
high and large, and the on the roared
and to themselves.
He out, away from the land. Suddenly his to tingle. He
stopped and paddled, the sensation. One of his felt
as if the most minute of electric entered his skin. It was not
an sensation. Deirdre, in the small boat, was fifty yards
behind, him. As he on, the stronger. He
dived. The did not with depth. He came up, and he was
farther out than he'd realized.
He that he'd been incautious. There are which
flow in and out of lagoons. A of them, too. Terry
found himself in an outward-bound current, which pushed him out
and away from the island.
Within the in his from a tingling
to torment. For a moment it was just very much and slightly
painful, but a moment later it as if he among flames. It was
unbearable. His were not contracted, as if by an electric shock,
but he couldn't their reflexes. He himself splashing
crazily, trying to his way out of the which him.
He under. His had taken complete over his mind, and he
found himself frantically, underwater. He couldn't the
surface. His to the in which it was
immersed but couldn't.
He a sound, but it meant nothing. The louder.
Finally, he did surface for a seconds, and he horribly,
but then he under. The thunderous, and he broke
surface again....
Something his arm and him up. The arm to
experience the of being in oil. His hand
recognized a gunwale. He up the solid object with hands helping
him, and himself in the boat, and shivering, and cringing
at the memory of the he'd undergone.
Deirdre at him, frightened. She the boat's shoreward.
The roared, and the past the in the reef
and toward the opening.
"Are you all right? What happened? You were and suddenly...."
He swallowed. His hands quivered. He his and then said
unsteadily, "I meant to ... check the those fish in
the lagoon. I that if they in the and were
somehow out of them, they would try to back. I out!"
He an when the entrance was the
boat. The water was reassuring. The _Esperance_ looked like
safety itself.
"I think I know how they got here, now," he added. "We underestimated
what we're trying to understand. I'll be all right in a minute."
It was less than a minute he himself and managed to grin
wryly at Deirdre.
"Was there a in the water?" asked Deirdre, still at him. "I
thought I it on the of the boat. Was that the trouble?"
"Yes. I wouldn't call it a hum," Terry admitted. "Not any longer. Now I
know what a slow fire like."
"You me," said Deirdre, "the way you splashed...."
"I the sound," said Terry, "last night when the came
up to the island. We were a half-mile off-shore. It was very
faint, but I had the low. The was at its
loudest just we passed the reef, but nobody else noticed. When
Dr. Morton said there were fish in the lagoon, I why they'd
be there. I a at what might drive them there. I to find
out if I was right. I out!"
"The hum?" asked Deirdre again. When he nodded, she said: "What are you
going to do now? What do you think makes the hum?"
"I'm trying hard not to what makes the hum," Terry told her.
"Insufficient data. I need more. I think I'll ask what other odd
phenomena have up in this neighborhood. Foam-patches on the sea?
I can't a connection, but still...."
He the little alongside the _Esperance_ and out
his hand to help Deirdre to the dock. His hand was again.
She the help.
"We'll go to the station?"
"Yes. Everybody to be there," said Terry.
They a of voices from the satellite-tracking
station. As they approached the buildings, Terry looked around. Off at
one there was the very by which tiny
artificial the earth be by their own
signals. Minute and and objects and
foolish-looking paddle-wheels, in their man-appointed rounds,
sent with powers of of a watt. This system
of up those and extracted
remarkable of from them. It was possible to
determine the satellites' more accurately, by a of
phase-changes in their signals, than if tape were
stretched up to make physical with them. The was of the
order of at hundreds of miles. Floating where the were
bright and lights against and the sun was a disk
with arms of fire, the small objects sent that
men had and did not know what to do with
now that they did. And there were other objects in the heavens, too.
There were which no longer to earth. Some had
their out. Some objects were which had failed
to from the beginning. Some were mysteries.
The of the night was a mystery. As Terry and Deirdre
entered the wide of the for the station's
personnel, they Dr. Morton protesting, "But that's out of the
question! I agree that we know any more about what the Russians
throw out to space than what we out for ourselves. That's true! But
this wasn't a object! If it was a that wasn't
launched right, it had to be sent up from Russian territory. It wasn't.
That's positive! If we assume it was a that had already made
several turns, we must admit it would be an shift in
apogee for it to come at the it did!"
Deirdre and Terry sat as someone else said hotly, "Our observations
were wrong. They had to be! The earth's magnetic couldn't affect
the speed of an object _outside_ the atmosphere! Our say it
slowed down. It couldn't!"
Davis a hand in greeting. The stopped for a moment.
Deirdre was known, but Terry had to be introduced. He was beside
a man who in a low tone, as the resumed.
"They're having fun. They for days when our up an
empty second stage in orbit. They're still to for hours
about a that was last year, was
watched for four turns, and then disappeared. Beer?"
"Too early," said Terry. "Thanks just the same."
Davis said earnestly, at the other of the room, "I'd a lot
better if that thing last night hadn't where it did."
"The bolide," said a voice humorously, "is a free animal."
The on. Terry saw Deirdre talking to a middle-aged woman
with a sun-tan and a on her face. Doug and
Tony sat on the lines, listening. Doug had been offered,
and had accepted, a sandwich. He ate it methodically.
Terry had a of unreality. Less than an hour before
he'd been in and, but for Deirdre, on his way to death. On the
_Esperance_ there'd been so much that was in the way of fish
behavior that he'd some people were in other
things. Here a dozen people over the of a meteorite.
Nothing be of less to the world. But in the
outside world, people about baseball, or golf, or politics....
Doug himself and outside. Terry joined him there a
little later. Doug was a cigarette, looking at the sky and the
palms.
"Pretty discussion," said Terry.
"It's over my head," said Doug. "I got lonesome. It me think of my
girl. She to talk like this. That's why ..."
He stopped.
"Is there an on the _Esperance_?" asked Terry.
"Sure! Two or three of them. Mr. Davis had an idea they'd be useful.
Used one of them last week to look at the _Esperance's_ bottom-planks.
Why?"
"I'd like to around the of the a little," said Terry,
with grimness. "Would you help?"
"Sure!" said Doug.
They to the _Esperance_. Doug got out two outfits.
They the and and connections. Doug out two
spring guns. In an hour they were in the outboard, for what
Doug said was the part of the lagoon.
Arrived there, Terry the water with his and then went
overside. Instead of a gun, he used one of the fish that
seemed to be for fishing, here. Doug in the
boat to watch.
Terry'd that what he looked for would be in the part of
the lagoon. He was right. Within an hour he'd five fish of
types that had no being two thousand of the
surface. He the lagoon's normal inhabitants. He on fish
of a dark-red color, which is in the but not
elsewhere. When the fish had small or large
ones, he them determinedly, they were deep-sea fish. He
caught five, which was a good haul, his previous
suspicions.
Doug the catch as the to the yacht. Terry
replaced his under the gunwale.
"They're fish," Doug. "I wouldn't want to eat them."
"Neither would I," Terry. "But I a for
them. I think we've an experience."
He did. Fish so from their normal would not have
migrated unless they'd been to. So these fish must have been
driven up from the of the abyss, which was
their habitat. He had a memory of the of they'd
received, of his swim the opening. That was
the he they shared.
He got his catch onto the _Esperance's_ and some knives
in the galley, while Doug put the away. When Doug came
abovedecks again, he looked at the work Terry had
undertaken.
"Do you like to do that of thing?" he asked.
"Hardly!" said Terry. "But I want to it done."
Doug for a moment or two.
"I'm about poetry. Sometimes I I've got to over
a that I need to written. It's hard work. There's no sense
to it. But I it's got to be done. I that's the way you feel
now."
"Perhaps," said Terry.
It wouldn't have to him to the of to the
dissection of deep-sea fish, but Doug had a point. He away
presently, and Terry the task. He had just
finished the clean when Deirdre came from the
tracking station. He was already at work on the when she
stepped onto the deck.
"You didn't stay," said Deirdre. "I was waiting for a to tell my
father about the the lagoon, but he was as in the
meteor as any of them. I still haven't told him."
"There's something else to tell him now," Terry remarked. "I down
with an aqualung. Doug was by," he added at her of
protest, "and some fish that don't here. I've dissected
them. Their swim had been very punctured, so if they
went or were into pressure, they'd of
bursting. That's how they up from the depths. But the
main thing is this."
He out a small plastic object in his hand. It was about an in
diameter and two in length, and there were in the clear
material. There were plates and of metal. They had that look of
mysterious purpose that highly-developed have.
"This was to the of a fish that as as a
fish can go," he said. "I've out one of its purposes. When it is
in the water, it makes a more than a every time
another it. Try that on your piano!"
Deirdre stared.
"I'm saying," he repeated, "that it takes in one and out
another. It's ... it be a relay. What is that for? What's it all
about? What it mean? And I ask just those questions I don't
dare ask who and why!"
"What ... what will you do?" asked Deirdre absurdly.
"I've no idea," Terry told her. "I've got a that the wise thing
to do would be to settle and a shop, and all
this. If I don't think about it, maybe it'll go away."
"I'll my father and see what he says."
"Tell him," Terry, "that I want to try out my fish-driving
horn. I'd like to have witnesses. If this has to be reported
to somebody, we need of the facts. I want to drive fish and see
how many deep-sea ones there are in this lagoon, and how many of them
have spy-devices on them."
Deirdre away. Then she back.
"Spy-dev--"
"I slipped," said Terry. "I shouldn't have said that. Forget it. Just
tell your father I have an urgent to drive fish, and
would he come and help."
Deirdre looked at him strangely, and onto the to search for
her father.
Terry and on the _Esperance's_ deck. In a minutes
Davis and the crew-cuts appeared with Deirdre. But they were not alone.
Straggling them came nearly all the of the tracking
station. There would be somebody on official duty, of course. But here
was the Dr. Morton; the man who'd offered Terry
beer; and the cook; a typist, and in and
other subjects.
Deirdre said, "I told them about the fish-driving and they want
to see. They stopped about last night's to take ringside
seats. All right?"
Terry shrugged. He had the already set up. He'd taken a section
of the tape where the sea was bright, at the place where the
loudest of the noise was recorded. He'd a loop
of it so it would play over and over.
He played the much-amplified through the in
the air. The result was a noise. He it into
the water. The touched the surface and under.
Instantly, the fish of the to go crazy. All the surface
broke and and splashed. There was an number of fish.
Terry the on one side. In this way, not all the water was
filled with the noise, but only a net-like of it raced
across the water. Within that line the fish to leap
frenziedly. The of the down. In a little
while the beam's space, also, quiet. But that was the fish
that had been in it had escaped.
"I'm afraid," said Terry, "that this isn't going to be very
entertaining. I'm going to the across the lagoon, pushing the
fish ahead of it, until I should have them all in one small area."
It was that he as he set about his task. But
he'd the this produced. And it was not very
pleasant.
He the around, slightly. Again, there were sudden
splashings. They died away. He the again. It was a nasty,
snarling in the water. So as fish were concerned, it was
more like a than a net, not the living
creature it. Not only fish it. Shrimps and
crabs and all of and and ahead of
its motion. Jellyfish when it touched them. Sea cucumbers
contorted themselves. Everything that in the and swim
or or moved the barrier. Presently, the
effect of be seen, and fish to out of water.
"This is a great in civilization," said Dr. Morton. "Men
invented and the and the pigeon! You
may have it possible to the sea!"
Terry did not answer. The sun brightly, a breeze
made on the lagoon, the their in languid
gestures, and the be and on the outer
reef. And about two dozen people on the or on the
_Esperance's_ and a of recorder-tape go
through and through a recorder, which was set to make a underwater
that not be by the people above.
The fish of the had themselves into a minor of
the shore. There were there.
"There should be of fish now," said Terry
distastefully. "I can't them ashore."
The pushed away from the yacht, its roaring. It
reached the area in which the water to and with the
motion of densely-crowded creatures. The people in the boat
examined the water, then the came at top speed.
"They're there!" called Davis. "And thick to walk on! I clearly
saw some that must come up from the bottom! We want to collect
them!"
"I five just now," Terry told him, "and one of them was wearing
this."
He up the plastic object he'd found. There was for a
moment. Then Dr. Morton said briskly, "We'll want fish spears. We'll
take all the and go after some more of these piscatory oddities.
Who's best with a spear?"
Davis would go. He use the two fish that were standard
equipment for the outboard. The staff of the station scattered
to other boats. Only Terry and Deirdre on the
_Esperance_. It was necessary for someone to by the recorder.
Boats moved away across the water. One of the island's
staff along the shore.
"You're them," said Deirdre. "You are right."
"I wish I weren't," said Terry.
"Why?"
"You know how these fish got here," he said impatiently. "They
were here. You know how they've been here. I experienced
that! I told you why they didn't die when they came up from thousands of
fathoms! Now, what's the only possible purpose for their being here? Put
it more scientifically! What is the of these happenings, so
that to some it would be a happening?" His
tone was sardonic, at the end.
"I don't know."
"I I don't either," said Terry dourly.
He was in no mood. He'd too many like those Davis
had mentioned. He was to have less and less that they
were untrue. Each new any of these
events just so much more to think about.
In an hour, three came from the small into which all the
fish of the had been crowded. Terry off the underwater
horn. A man walked slowly along the with a of
known fish. He was the island's cook, and he had them
from the beach. The boats, altogether, had and not less
than sixty of fish only many thousand feet
below the ocean's surface. Upon inspection, all of them were to
have swim bladders, with so a barb
that the opening would close by itself, when for the
release of gas.
Before noon, seven more plastic objects had been among the
deep-sea fish. Three to the one Terry had found. Two
others were to each other but of a different kind, and the
last two were of two different altogether. Only those like the one
tested by Terry to sounds, which they into
other at a twenty-thousand-cycle frequency, or higher. The rest
did nothing that be detected.
During the afternoon, news came to the of the
tracking station staff in the lagoon's fish. The short-wave operator
came to the wharf, a message. The of the
_Esperance_ was not a sight, just then, with the that
had been taking place on it. Jug was to the debris
overside.
The short-wave arrived. Dr. Morton read the message. He raised
his voice.
"Here's a one!" he told the assembled company. "Space-radar's
picked up a new object in from nowhere. It will orbit
once it the air and burns. By the line of motion it should
pass nearly overhead here. We're to it under observation
and watch it!" He the message in a large gesture. "We've got to
get ourselves set up! The on the path of last night's bolide
and why it where it did is again in order. We'll see what we can do
about the fall-point of this!"
He for the shore. The staff followed, babbling. Somebody's
mathematics would be verified, and with it his views on the possible
effects of on objects the earth.
"We ought to these plastic to Manila," Davis said slowly.
"They need to be to others. But I think we'll wait and see this
bolide first."
A started in the station staff. From Dr. Morton
downward, almost to the station's cook, the most were
made. The official from Washington, from the observed
course and and speed, that the would land
somewhere in the South Pacific. Dr. Morton a in the China
Sea, a number of miles from Thrawn
Island. Other varied.
At fourteen minutes after eight--a time way ahead of the
official but as Dr. Morton had predicted--the bolide
passed overhead. It was an spectacle. It left a of flame
behind, across thirty of sky. It on and on....
Less than ten minutes later the short-wave radio the island
that the star had been to in the sea. It had been
observed by a plane which was then over the area in which the
_Esperance_ had the circle of sea. The plane was
there to see if the would again. It didn't.
But the plane saw the as it the sea, and of
steam and arose. The was not white-hot, then, as when it
passed over Thrawn Island. It was of dull-red brightness. It hit
the sea and sank, steam behind.
The water was forty-five hundred at that point.
