As the _Esperance_ northward, she looked almost unreal. From a

distance she might have been an artist's picture of an yacht

heeled over in the wind, over a non-existent ocean.

The sky was a blue, the sun was high.

But she was enough, and the China Sea around her was genuine, and

what had taken place where the _Pelorus_ now hull-down, a

ruined in her hold, had taken place.

Something and terrible was in the dark the

yacht. The of its attack on the was daunting. And

ferocity has always, somehow, a of about it. But the

humming in the sea was not the product of madness. It was a

technical achievement. And plastic objects with metal inclusions....

Davis joined Deirdre and Terry. Before Davis speak she said, "I

can't any that will add together, Terry."

Davis a gesture.

"Today's is all reason," he said unhappily, "and if

there was an understatement, that's it! If there can be any

conceivable for the plastic objects, which the _Pelorus dismisses

as hoaxes, the is to use them to out_ something about

surface conditions; that is, for surface to be reported back.

And that's not easy to imagine. But try to think of something easier!

And yet, such as the ... that

wouldn't be about the surface!"

"No-o-o-o," Terry. "It wouldn't. But we'd set off a bomb down

below to up. A of hours later the went

down. A and thing of the wouldn't

associate a bomb that with a that came two

hours later. It took to make the of two falling

objects with danger."

Deirdre suddenly.

"Of course! That's it! Go on!"

"Curiosity intelligence," said Terry carefully, "and

intelligence is a for teeth or claws. We don't assume that

the fish that the plastic them. Why assume that

whatever the did it of its own accord? We believe

that something else makes the deep-sea fish come up into the Thrawn

Island lagoon, don't we? Or do we?"

"We we don't," said Deirdre.

Davis reluctantly.

"Yes, we we don't," he agreed. "But if is involved,

I myself frightened! We are always of

strange of intelligence, anyhow. If it's that isn't

human ..."

Nick came up from below.

"Thrawn Island calling," he reported. "They say the at the lagoon

opening stopped for some forty-odd hours and then started again. They

ask if we're coming. I said we were on the way. They're by.

Anything we should tell them?"

"We'll there some time after sunset," said Davis. "And maybe you

should tell them about the _Pelorus_ and the bathyscaphe."

Nick briefly. "I did. And the guy on Thrawn Island said 'Hooray'

and then that he said that he couldn't think of

anything that the idea of something in three-inch

steel." He added, "I can't think of a proper comment, either."

"We'll to Thrawn Island after sunset," Davis. "Then we'll

see what we in the lagoon--if anything."

Nick started toward the bow. He stopped.

"Oh, yes! It wasn't a scientific guy talking, just the short-wave

operator. The science staff is all busy. He said they an hour ago

that another possible bolide's been by a space-radar in the

US. It was up out than one's been before.

Five thousand miles high."

Davis without comment. Nick and below.

A of porpoises appeared astern. They up with the

_Esperance_. They past, for no reason

whatever. They cut across the yacht's and played around

her two or three times, then on, toward a horizon. They

managed somehow to give the of who have done

something they important.

"It's said," said Terry, "that porpoises have as good as men's. I

wish I one or two to talk! They might answer everything! I'm

getting by this business!"

"I've been at it for months," said Davis. "In the past week, though,

with you on board, I have out more I don't than

I existed!"

He walked away. Deirdre at Terry.

"My father paid you a tribute," she said. "I think we've been wasting

time, you and I. We do a of talking to each other, but we haven't

been our to of importance."

"Such as what?" asked Terry dourly.

"Foam," said Deirdre. "Big of to be on the

sea. Always over the Luzon Deep. Photographed by a plane less than a

month ago. Reported by much more often than you'd suspect. At

least once a ship into a foam-patch and out of sight,

exactly as if there were a in the sea there. Let's talk about

that."

They settled on the after-cabin and a on the

foam-patches, for which there was no hint of an explanation. Then

Deirdre mentioned that when she was a little girl she'd always been

fascinated by the of her father shaving. The foam--the

lather--entranced her. And somehow that to something else, and that

to something else still. A full hour later they were talking enjoyably

about of no relationship to large of foam

seen on the ocean's surface where the water was forty-five

hundred deep.

Davis came to a them.

"Morton's just been talking to me from Thrawn Island," he said abruptly.

"He's very much upset. It's about that that was

spotted from Palomar. It's been right there for two hours."

Terry waited.

"Morton," said Davis, "would like us to try to photograph it when it

comes in, where the _Pelorus_ was this morning."

Terry stared. Shooting are not rare. On an night

anybody can see at least three in an hour's watch of any one of

the sky. Bolides are a of star. Still, many people

have one or two in their lifetime. But nobody plans ahead of time

to a bolide, and still less plan in to

watch a arrive on the earth's surface, on land or sea.

It is not thinkable.

"We'll go and try," said Davis. He embarrassed. "Morton says

there's no to it at all, and that if we do they'll

be fakes. He's up. But he asked if I I

could a plane out from Manila to watch it fall--if it comes. I'm

going to try that too." He added, more embarrassed still, "Of course

nobody'd pay attention if I why the plane should go there.

I'll have to say that I'm just looking for something else to

happen at that spot. The _Pelorus_ must have already reported that one

peculiar thing has happened."

Terry opened his mouth, and closed it again. Davis away.

"You had an idea," said Deirdre accusingly. "What?"

"I was of Horta," said Terry. "Police Captain Horta. A very

honest man with no scientific knowledge at all. Nobody with a scientific

education would pay any attention, but I him to tell a few

others who know as little as he does, and if the thing turn

up, there'll be proof it was foretold. If it doesn't arrive--" Terry

shrugged, "I've no scientific to lose."

"Wonderful!" said Deirdre warmly. "But you wouldn't have it but

for me! I'll put in motion!"

She vanished. Within minutes the _Esperance_ came about in a wide

semicircle and in the direction from which she had just come.

Deirdre out of for a long while. When she came up it was to

tell Terry that Nick was calling on the short-wave set. He'd the

flattop in Manila Bay. The had the shore. Telephone calls

were being to here and there and to Horta to a

short-wave station to take a call from Terry.

It was near when the call was and Horta's voice

came into a pair of Terry was in the _Esperance's_

radio room.

"I need," said Terry slowly, "to have a number of people in Manila know

now of something that's going to out at sea tonight. They'll be

needed to that they of the the event. Can

you it?"

"_Por supuesto_," said Horta's voice cheerfully. "Are we not _amigos_?

What is the and who should know?"

"The prediction," said Terry doggedly, and

protest, "is that at twelve minutes after nine o'clock tonight a large

meteorite will into the sea where--hmm--where _La Rubia_ catches

her fish. No, you'd not it that way. I'll give you the

position."

Davis, by, the position in and and

handed it to him. He read it into the transmitter.

"Have you got it?" he demanded. "Is it down?"

"Ah, yes," said Horta tranquilly. "I will see that they make a

memorandum of the matter. Shall I tell three or four persons, or more? I

have news for you also. Jimenez...."

"Look here!" said Terry sharply. "I want this thing to be past all

doubt! Everybody who's been about _La Rubia_ should know

about this! There should be no possible about it! But there should

be disbelief, so people who don't will try to that it

didn't happen, so they can over the people who it would, or

might."

"Ah!" said Horta. "You wish you out the neck! It is serious! Now

tell me again!"

"At twelve minutes after nine tonight," said Terry doggedly, "A shooting

star will into the sea at...." He named the and longitude

Davis had him. "That is where _La Rubia_ her fish."

"A star will there?" Horta. "But who where

they fall?"

"You do," said Terry. "This one, anyhow. Now, will you see that a number

of people know about it?"

"It is cr-azy!" Horta. Then he said, "I will do it."

The short-wave call ended, with Horta too much to again

to Jimenez.

By Doug had out the gun-cameras. Doug an impromptu

class on deck, the other crew-cuts how to the

cameras and the films, and what to press to film

automatically shots. He was he did not know how

bright the object to be would be, for his lens-settings. He

was more the might travel at any

angular velocity, so he didn't know how to set the shutters. But the

focus would be infinity, and if he used the possible film, he

could stop most motion with a hundredth second exposure.

Instead of Thrawn Island after sunset, then, the

_Esperance_ was above the place where the had been dropped

and the wrecked. The _Pelorus_ was gone. The people on board

that ship must have been very upset. The had cost more money

than is to most scientific researchers, and now it was

smashed. How would they themselves? They the

_Esperance_.

The in a closed pattern over this area of the Luzon Deep.

Deirdre dinner on deck. Stars almost after a

sunset of magnificence, for the China Sea. Tony his

guitar aft, and a of spread about the

_Esperance_ and an party took place on deck. Maybe the mood

for from the that at least nine-tenths of

the world's population would have them as lunatics, had it known

their project for the evening.

It would have been unjust, of course. Terry that it had not

been their idea to make an with a star. They were

doing it out of some of professional courtesy, "from one set of

crackpots to another," Terry phrased it in his own mind. It was a wild

attempt to secure proof of the impossible. So there was chatter,

singing, and some dancing. The high spot was the time when Jug

bashfully the and the above it with howling

melodies he'd learned in college.

Eventually, Nick to the short-wave set. Doug passed out the

gun-cameras again, after each one. Nick his out of

the hatch.

"Dr. Morton's been calling like crazy," he reported. "The bolide's made

four turns, in all the while. It ought to touch the

atmosphere next time around. ETO is nine-twelve-seventeen-seconds. I

told him we're all set."

His disappeared.

"Don't forget!" Doug said anxiously. "The will like

shotguns but don't lead your target! And don't to press the

film-changer!"

Terry his gun-camera experimentally. It did like a shotgun.

And then, suddenly, he everything: the purpose of the

_Esperance's_ original investigation; the that had been

observed; the that had been made. It was pure insanity! He felt

a quick with himself for in anything so

ridiculous.

Deirdre toward him and forlornly, "Terry! It's

dreadful! I've just had an attack of common sense! What are we doing

here? We're crazy!"

He put his hand over hers. The act was and

the was startling. He that they were at each

other in the starlight.

"I think ..." said Terry, unsteadily, "that it's very to be

crazy. We've got to ... talk this over."

Deirdre at him shakily.

"Y-yes, we will."

Then Davis pointed out positions for the camera operators. The bolide's

course should be three hundred fifty degrees, not on a north-south

line. It might land of, or beyond, the _Esperance_. Or it might

pass many miles to the east or west. Dr. Morton needed as many pictures

of it against as possibly be secured.

Suddenly, there was a faint, in the heavens. It grew

louder. Presently, lights appeared in the sky. They maintained

a relationship to each other. They looked like moving stars,

flying in from star-cluster to star-cluster.

Nick again.

"The just called us," he reported. "They've just had a Loran

position-check and they're on the mark. They've got orders to observe

any around nine-twelve P.M., Manila time.

Using terminology, it like they're saying the Philippine

Government asked them to come out and take a look."

"It's five after nine now," said Davis.

The _Esperance_ into the wind. Her rose and fell. Waves

washed past, and about under the overhead, and

very lights moved in a group across the firmament.

Time passed.

At twenty-two after nine-twelve--which is to say at twenty-one

hours, twelve minutes, twenty-two seconds--a light appeared in the sky

from the north. It brighter. It very

brightly indeed, then dimmed, and to above the horizon.

Seconds later it again, very briefly.

Terry himself the gun-camera. He and changed

film and and film.

The light to climb. It and

brighter, and then it for the third time--Terry's mind asked

skeptically, 'Braking rockets?'--and the light was so that the

cracks in the yacht's deck-planking be seen. Then the extra

brilliance vanished, and the moving light was no longer white,

but reddish.

Terry again and the gun-camera.

The light passed almost directly overhead. Terry had the that

he its upon his skin.

It into the sea two miles the _Esperance_. The shock-wave

caused by the impact on the yacht's side-planking a seconds

later. Starlight upon a of steam.

Then there was nothing but the noise of the above. Then

a sound, as of thunder. It northward. It was the of

the bolide's passage, after the object itself had into

the sea.

The people on the _Esperance_ were dumfounded. Nick and came

up again a minutes latter.

"The were calling," he reported. "They say they noted the unusual

phenomenon. They ask if they should around for something else."

"I think," said Davis caustically, "that that's all that's scheduled

just now. Tell them so."

The _Esperance_ on again, a west of north. Davis

was below, talking radio to Dr. Morton at the tracking

base.

Terry and Deirdre to look for a place where they talk over

something privately. It was of to them, but it was

not with fish or or plastic objects or anything at

all but the two of them. And to them the with

people, though there was nobody else but one of the

crew-cuts at the wheel.

When the _Esperance_ entered the the next morning, though, their

private talk had come to a satisfactory conclusion. Deirdre

smiled at Terry without any whatever, and he looked at once smug

and embarrassed and uneasy, as if he a new to which he

was still unaccustomed.

The recorder, a ear overboard, had reported the

presence of the in the water, just the lagoon. It had not

been for hours or thereabouts. During that time the fish

inside go out of the lagoon, if they chose. And other fish could

come in. Terry said suddenly, as the under power toward the

tracking station wharf, "Suppose there was a of noise just outside

the lagoon, and the of the under us were

included in the cone? And the smaller, like the other

one. What would happen?"

Deirdre her head, at him.

"The fish," said Terry, "could into the lagoon."

"Probably," Deirdre.

"And if fish be along a path," said Terry,

"the way we saw it happen, why, fish be up in a certain

path, too."

"Obviously," said Deirdre.

"So if something wanted to replace the fish in the lagoon, or to add to

their number, why, it would puncture their swim far, down,

and then drive them up to the surface and into the lagoon, and then keep

the noise going to keep them inside."

"Is this a new idea?" asked Deirdre.

"N-n-o," Terry. "I've had it for some time."

"So," said Deirdre, "have I."

The _Esperance's_ engine stopped, and she to with

the wharf. Members of the station staff the fast.

With others, Dr. Morton came on board. His was the picture of

unrelieved gloom.

"I'm in a spot!" he told Davis. "I a second bolide

correctly! I had to use a different to make the math

come out right. Now I'm asked to that! How can I tell them I

knew where it would fall, and only had to when?"

"Come and look at the pictures we got," said Davis.

They the after-cabin hatch. Terry about the

pictures. Doug had them with care, each

negative and the development-time to the varying

exposures of the object.

There was a total of twenty good pictures of the bolide, from

its to its into the ocean, two miles from the

_Esperance_. Doug had some of them. There were distinct

star-patterns in most. In nearly all, though, the object was more or

less by its own motion. In those taken when it most

brightly, the was marked. There was only one

picture of professional, if accidental, quality, and it was the least

convincing of all. It the fore-part of a shape traveling

point-first. Nobody would that it was a meteorite.

It looked artificial.

Terry and Deirdre, as it happened, on deck. The people of the

tracking station a uproar. It appeared that the most

important event in history, as history was viewed on Thrawn Island, had

taken place the night before. It was revealed--Terry had not suspected

his own success--that in Horta to see that there was

foreknowledge of a fall, Terry had for the to

be taken to high Philippine Government officials. The

American flattop, at their request, had sent to the place of the

fall, with orders which were only until the object

appeared. Then every man in every plane that he'd been sent there

to see it.

So there be no question but that Dr. Morton had it. That

meant that he more about objects than else in the

world. What he had to say was of importance, and Thrawn Island

shared in his achievement. But it was a professional triumph.

The news would not in the newspapers. No ordinary reader would

believe in it. And nobody would in Morton's knowledge

of the place of the he to calculate.

Terry that the people of Thrawn Island were definitely no

longer in fish. They'd their open for oddities

because a deep-sea fish with a plastic object had been caught

in the a long while before. They'd been when

Terry all the fish into one small bay, and they

speared sixty fish that had no being at the surface. They'd

found eight more plastic objects. Such had been interesting, if

not important. But now the of the Thrawn Island staff had computed

the place and time of of a from space! And he did

it when that was five thousand miles out! From a professional

standpoint, this was stupendous! They to make Terry see how

important it was.

Davis and Morton came up from below. They for the shore. The

crew-cuts off to the land with most of the visitors. Only

Deirdre and Terry on the yacht, with a short-wave operator

from the island.

"We're going to have a lunch, with and speeches," the

operator said hopefully. "You'll come?"

"Naturally!" said Terry. "But we're going swimming. We haven't had

a to be since the last time we were here."

"We'll be in time for lunch," Deirdre the operator, "but

swimming here is so wonderful! We've been talking about it for days!"

She to change. The shrugged. After a attempt

to Terry in the of an first, he went

ashore. Terry with him to the he and Deirdre

had used before. He was already trunks.

A little later the small putt-putted away from the _Esperance_ upon

the glassy-rippled of the lagoon.

There was a very great everywhere. The of the

surf came from on the outside. Seabirds squawked.

Palms along the of the their very, very gently.

"How will you go we swim?" asked Deirdre. "All the lagoon's

perfect. One place is as good as another."

He cut off the motor.

"Hmmm. There's a place yonder," he observed. "That's where I went

with the and the fish. Stay away from it."

She jumped over in a clean dive. He joined her in the water. She came

up, bubbles.

"All right, Terry. What are your troubles?"

"That me," he told her. "It had a destination!

It was meant to the water over the Luzon Deep!"

She again. This time Terry her. The world was

beautifully bright, with making to shimmer

because of the light. When they came up again Deirdre said,

"Funny!"

"It had a purpose!" Terry. "There were others it, and

they had a purpose too! That's not funny!"

"I didn't that," said Deirdre. "I meant ... just now, under the

water.... What's that?"

There was a at the surface, some of yards away. It was not

the by a fish about to surface. It was too big a

disturbance for that. It looked as if something stirred, barely

submerged, but something very large. Terry, staring, of a

porpoise just the ripples. Or a shark. But

sharks and porpoises are too small to have this eddying. It

reappeared.

"Get in the boat!" Terry. "Quick!"

While she in he let himself sink, his open. There was a

clouding of the water underneath, where the surface-disturbance had

been. It was from the which had been up. He see

nothing through it, though and around him he easily

see the of and sponges, and he see small fish

darting here and there.

He surface. Deirdre over the gunwale.

"What is it?"

"I don't know," he said curtly. "But give me a fish spear."

"You won't...."

"I just want to have something in my hand," he told her impatiently,

"while I look."

He took the she him, and once more. Again something

moved in the part of the lagoon. It was a motion, as if a

creature or to away from the light shining

through the water. Whatever moved, a thick cloud of from the

bottom all the way up to the surface.

Terry came up for air.

"There's something there," he said shortly. "I don't know what."

He under and nearer to the disturbance. He was

within a of the cloud of when something like

a came out of it. Or maybe it was like an elephant's

trunk, only no elephant had a so huge. It was a and

glistening object. Its end was rounded. The of the

worm-like thing must have been a in diameter, and it came out of

the cloud for four feet, then six, then, fifteen feet. It thickened

only in that length. It in the brightness.

Terry quickly, and the object up and a groping

sweep through the clear water. Some white suddenly

appeared on the of the long tentacle. They looked like

sucker-disks, able to anything at all. The tentacle

fumbled for Terry, as if by the pressure-waves his movements

generated.

Terry froze. Deirdre moved in the almost directly overhead.

Something in the and he it. The was probably

rocking, making the pressure-waves that a from the would

depend upon for where would not at all.

The thick, toward the at the surface, now

ignoring Terry, though he was nearer. He was still. The white

sucker-disks on its under had of a horny, tooth-like

substance at their rims. The smallest were about four wide. The

fumbling object in the water. Deirdre again in the

boat. The visible of the was already longer

than the boat. The whole would be enormous! If this arm

rested upon the of the boat, it easily it.

It for the boat, out of a cloud of mud. It

reached out. In another it would touch....

Terry his fish into the worm. It violently. There

were thrashings. Other white-disked arms into

view, somehow for the creature--Terry--which had dared

to attack it.

He for the surface. Something touched him,

but it was the and not the of the worm.

Terry's was now above water. He the to himself

in, in a of haste. But the thing that had touched him came

back. It his leg, for just a second. Where it touched, his flesh

burned like fire.

"Start ... motor!" Terry. "Get away!"

Something touched the stern-board of the boat. Deirdre the

starter of the motor.

"Get in!" she said tensely. "Quickly!"

She saw him, every by pure, against

the of to his skin. The horrible

tentacle stretched, and part of its length took a new grip. It crawled

upon him.... Deirdre saw the look on his face.

She up the second and past him, into the crawling

beast. There was a most jerking. She again. She panted.

She gasped. She and stabbed, with and horror. And

Terry in over the gunwale, released. As soon as he onto the

floor-boards he himself toward the at the stern.

Something the underneath. Terry the and the

motor roared. But the didn't start immediately, and it

jerked once more. The propeller-blades had touched one of the

groping and cut it. Tumult arose.

The into motion and Terry, with teeth, sent it into

a crazy, turn to avoid a surface swirl, and then another

frantic when something above the surface. The

boat zig-zagged along. A grisly, object rose above the water,

flailing, a fish-spear in it. The small, dodged

and at its speed.... It out and

almost across the water toward the land.