THE GIFT OF GAB
The planet’s aquatic inhabitants seemed to have no language, so were considered only animals of low intelligence. It would be a pity, but perfectly legal, if an unscrupulous company drove them into extinction—unless a team of scientists could communicate with the endangered aliens.
Middle afternoon had come to the Shallows. The wind had died; the sea was listless and spread with silken gloss. In the south a black broom of rain hung under the clouds; elsewhere the air was thick with pink murk. Thick crusts of seaweed floated over the Shallows; one of these supported the Bio-Minerals raft, a metal rectangle two hundred feet long, a hundred feet wide.
At four o’clock an air horn high on the mast announced the change of shift. Sam Fletcher, assistant superintendent, came out of the mess hall, crossed the deck to the office, slid back the door, and looked in. The chair in which Carl Raight usually sat, filling out his production report, was empty. Fletcher looked back over his shoulder, down the deck toward the processing house, but Raight was nowhere in sight. Strange. Fletcher crossed the office, checked the day’s tonnage:
The gross tonnage, by Fletcher’s calculations, came to 5.31—an average shift. He still led Raight in the Pinch Bottle Sweepstakes. Tomorrow was the end of the month; Fletcher could hardly fail to make off with Raight’s Haig and Haig. Anticipating Raight’s protests and complaints, Fletcher smiled and whistled through his teeth. He felt cheerful and confident. Another month would bring to an end his six-month contract; then it was back to Starholme with six months’ pay to his credit.
Where in thunder was Raight? Fletcher looked out the window. In his range of vision was the helicopter—guyed to the deck against the Sabrian line-squalls—the mast, the black hump of the generator, the water tank, and at the far end of the raft, the pulverizers, the leaching vats, the Tswett columns, and the storage bins.
A dark shape filled the door. Fletcher turned, but it was Agostino, the day-shift operator, who had just now been relieved by Blue Murphy, Fletcher’s operator.
“Where’s Raight?” asked Fletcher.
Agostino looked around the office. “I thought he was in here.”
“I thought he was over in the works.”
“No, I just came from there.”
Fletcher crossed the room and looked into the washroom.
“Wrong again.”
Agostino turned away. “I’m going up for a shower.” He looked back from the door. “We’re low on barnacles.”
“I’ll send out the barge.” Fletcher followed Agostino out on deck and headed for the processing house.
He passed the dock where the barges were tied up and entered the pulverizing room. The No. 1 Rotary was grinding barnacles for tantalum; the No. 2 was pulverizing rhenium-rich sea slugs. The ball mill waited for a load of coral, orange-pink with nodules of rhodium salts.
Blue Murphy, who had a red face and a meager fringe of red hair, was making a routine check of bearings, shafts, chains, journals, valves, and gauges. Fletcher called in his ear to be heard over the noise of the crushers. “Has Raight come through?”
Murphy shook his head.
Fletcher went on, into the leaching chamber where the first separation of salts from pulp was effected, through the forest of Tswett tubes, and once more out onto the deck. No Raight. He must have gone on ahead to the office.
But the office was empty.
Fletcher continued around to the mess hall. Agostino was busy with a bowl of chili. Dave Jones, the hatchet-faced steward, stood in the doorway to the galley.
“Raight been here?” asked Fletcher.
Jones, who never used two words when one would do, gave his head a morose shake.
Agostino looked around. “Did you check the barnacle barge? He might have gone out to the shelves.” Fletcher looked puzzled.
“What’s wrong with Mahlberg?”
“He’s putting new teeth on the drag-line bucket.”
Fletcher tried to recall the line-up of barges along the dock. If Mahlberg the barge tender had been busy with repairs, Raight might well have gone out himself. Fletcher drew himself a cup of coffee. “That’s where he must be.” He sat down. “It’s not like Raight to put in free overtime.” Mahlberg came into the mess hall. “Where’s Carl? I want to order some more teeth for the bucket.”
Mahlberg laughed at the joke. “Catch himself a nice wire eel maybe. Or a dekabrach.”
Dave Jones grunted. “He’ll cook it himself.”
“Seems like a dekabrach should make good eatin’,” said Mahlberg, “close as they are to a seal.”
“Who likes seal?” growled Jones.
“I’d say they’re more like mermaids,” Agostino remarked, “with ten-armed starfish for heads.”
Fletcher put down his cup. “I wonder what time Raight left?”
Mahlberg shrugged; Agostino looked blank.
“It’s only an hour out to the shelves. He ought to be back by now.”
“He might have had a breakdown,” said Mahlberg.
“Though the barge has been running good.”
Fletcher rose to his feet. “I’ll give him a call.” He left the mess hall and returned to the office, where he dialed T3 on the intercom screen—the signal for the barnacle barge.
The screen remained blank.
Fletcher waited. The neon bulb pulsed off and on, indicating the call of the alarm on the barge.
No reply.
Fletcher felt a vague disturbance. He left the office, went to the mast, and rode up the man-lift to the cupola. From here he could overlook the half-acre of raft, the five-acre crust of seaweed, and a great circle of ocean.
In the far northeast distance, up near the edge of the Shallows, the new Pelagic Recoveries raft showed as a small dark spot, almost smeared from sight by the haze. To the south, where the Equatorial Current raced through a gap in the Shallows, the barnacle shelves were strung out in a long loose line. To the north, where the Macpherson Ridge, rising from the Deeps, came within thirty feet of breaking the surface, aluminum piles supported the sea-slug traps. Here and there floated masses of seaweed, sometimes anchored to the bottom, sometimes maintained in place by the action of the currents.
Fletcher turned his binoculars along the line of barnacle shelves and spotted the barge immediately. He steadied his arms, screwed up the magnification, and focused on the control cabin. He saw no one, although he could not hold the binoculars steady enough to make sure.
Fletcher scrutinized the rest of the barge.
Where was Carl Raight? Possibly in the control cabin, out of sight?
Fletcher descended to the deck, went around to the processing house, and looked in. “Hey, Blue!”
Murphy appeared, wiping his big red hands on a rag.
“I’m taking the launch out to the shelves,” said Fletcher. “The barge is out there, but Raight doesn’t answer the screen.”
Murphy shook his big bald head in puzzlement. Не асcompanied Fletcher to the dock, where the launch floated at moorings. Fletcher heaved at the painter, swung in the stern of the launch, and jumped down on the deck.
Murphy called down to him, “Want me to come along? I’ll get Hans to watch the works.” Hans Heinz was the engineer-mechanic.
Fletcher hesitated. “I don’t think so. If anything’s happened to Raight—well, I can manage. Just keep an eye on the screen. I might call back in.”
He stepped into the cockpit, seated himself, closed the dome over his head, and started the pump.
The launch rolled and bounced, picked up speed, shoved its blunt nose under the surface, then submerged till only the dome was clear.
Fletcher disengaged the pump; water rammed in through the nose and was converted to steam, then spat aft.
Bio-Minerals became a gray blot in the pink haze, while the outlines of the barge and the shelves became hard and distinct, and gradually grew large. Fletcher de-staged the power; the launch surfaced and coasted up to the dark hull, where it grappled with magnetic balls that allowed barge and launch to surge independently on the slow swells.
Fletcher slid back the dome and jumped up to the deck of the barge.
“Raight! Hey, Carl!”
There was no answer.
Fletcher looked up and down the deck. Raight was a big man, strong and active but there might have been an accident. Fletcher walked down the deck toward the control cabin. He passed the No. 1 hold, heaped with black-green barnacles. At the No. 2 hold the boom was winged out, with the grab engaged on a shelf, ready to hoist it clear of the water.
The No. 3 hold was still unladen. The control cabin was empty.
Carl Raight was nowhere aboard the barge.
He might have been taken off by helicopter or launch, or he might have fallen over the side. Fletcher made a slow check of the dark water in all directions. He suddenly leaned over the side, trying to see through the surface reflections. But the pale shape under the water was a dekabrach, long as a man, sleek as satin, moving quietly about its business.
Fletcher looked thoughtfully to the northeast, where the Pelagic Recoveries raft floated behind a curtain of pink murk. It was a new venture, only three months old, owned and operated by Ted Chrystal, former biochemist on the Bio-Minerals raft. The Sabrian Ocean was inexhaustible; the market for metal was insatiable; the two rafts were in no sense competitors. By no stretch of imagination could Fletcher conceive Chrystal or his men attacking Carl Raight.
He must have fallen overboard.
Fletcher returned to the control cabin and climbed the ladder to the flying bridge on top. He made a last check of the water around the barge, although he knew it to be a useless gesture—the current, moving through the gap at a steady two knots, would have swept Raight’s body out over the Deeps. Fletcher scanned the horizon. The line of shelves dwindled away into the pink gloom. The mast on the Bio-Minerals raft marked the sky to the northwest. The Pelagic Recoveries raft could not be seen. There was no living creature in sight.
The screen signal sounded from the cabin. Fletcher went inside. Blue Murphy was calling from the raft. “What’s the news?”
“None whatever,” said Fletcher.
“What do you mean?”
“Raight’s not out here.”
The big red face creased. “Just who is out there?”
“Nobody. It looks like Raight fell over the side.”
Murphy whistled. There seemed nothing to say. Finally he asked, “Any idea how it happened?”
Fletcher shook his head. “I can’t figure it out.”
Murphy licked his lips. “Maybe we ought to close down.”
“Why?” asked Fletcher.
“Well—reverence to the dead, you might say.”
Fletcher grinned humorlessly. “We might as well keep running.”
“Just as you like. But we’re low on the barnacles.”
“Carl loaded a hold and a half.” Fletcher hesitated, heaved a deep sigh. “I might as well shake in a few more shelves.”
Murphy winced. “It’s a squeamish business, Sam. You haven’t a nerve in your body.”
“It doesn’t make any difference to Carl now,” said Fletcher. “We’ve got to scrape barnacles some time. There’s nothing to be gained by moping.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Murphy dubiously.
“I’ll be back in a couple hours.”
“Don’t go overboard like Raight, now.”
The screen went blank. Fletcher reflected that he was in charge, superintendent of the raft, until the arrival of the new crew, a month away. Responsibility, which he did not particularly want, was his.
He went slowly back out on deck and climbed into the winch pulpit. For an hour he pulled sections of shelves from the sea, suspending them over the hold while scraper arms wiped off the black-green clusters, then slid the shelves back into the ocean. Here was where Raight had been working just before his disappearance. How could he have fallen overboard from the winch pulpit?
Uneasiness inched along Fletcher’s nerves, up into his brain. He shut down the winch and climbed down from the pulpit. He stopped short, staring at the rope on the deck.
It was a strange rope, glistening, translucent, an inch thick. It lay in a loose loop on the deck, and one end led over the side. Fletcher started down, then hesitated. Rope?
Certainly none of the barge’s equipment.
Careful, thought Fletcher.
A hand scraper hung on the king post, a tool like a small adz. It was used for manual scraping of the shelves, if for some reason the automatic scrapers failed. It was two steps distant, across the rope. Fletcher stepped down to the deck. The rope quivered; the loop contracted, snapped around Fletcher’s ankles.
Fletcher lunged and caught hold of the scraper. The rope gave a cruel jerk; Fletcher sprawled flat on his face, and the scraper jarred out of his hands. He kicked, struggled, but the rope drew him easily toward the gunwale. Fletcher made a convulsive grab for the scraper, barely reaching it. The rope was lifting his ankles to pull him over the rail.
Fletcher strained forward, hacking at it again and again.
The rope sagged, fell apart, and snaked over the side.
Fletcher gained his feet and staggered to the rail. Down into the water slid the rope, out of sight among the oily reflections of the sky. Then, for half a second, a wavefront held itself perpendicular to Fletcher’s line of vision.
Three feet under the surface swam a dekabrach. Fletcher saw the pink-golden cluster of arms, radiating like the arms of a starfish, the black patch at their core which might be an eye.
Fletcher drew back from the gunwale, puzzled, frightened, oppressed by the nearness of death. He cursed his stupidity, his reckless carelessness; how could he have been so undiscerning as to remain out here loading the barge? It was clear from the first that Raight could never have died by accident.
Something had killed Raight, and Fletcher had invited it to kill him, too. He limped to the control cabin and started the pumps. Water was sucked in through the bow orifice and thrust out through the vents. The barge moved out away from the shelves. Fletcher set the course to northwest, toward Bio-Minerals, then went out on deck.
Day was almost at an end; the sky was darkening to maroon; the gloom grew thick as bloody water. Gideon, a dull red giant, largest of Sabria’s two suns, dropped out of the sky.
For a few minutes only the light from blue-green Atreus played on the clouds. The gloom changed its quality to pale green, which by some illusion seemed brighter than the previous pink. Atreus sank and the sky went dark.
Ahead shone the Bio-Minerals masthead light, climbing into the sky as the barge approached. Fletcher saw the black shapes of men outlined against the glow. The entire crew was waiting for him: the two operators, Agostino and Murphy; Mahlberg the barge tender, Damon the bio-chemist, Dave Jones the steward, Manners the technician, Hans Heinz the engineer.
Fletcher docked the barge, climbed the soft stairs hacked from the wadded seaweed, and stopped in front of the silent men. He looked from face to face. Waiting on the raft they had felt the strangeness of Raight’s death more vividly than he had: so much showed in their expressions.
Fletcher, answering the unspoken question, said, “It wasn’t an accident. I know what happened.”
“What?” someone asked.
“There’s a thing like a white rope,” said Fletcher. “It slides up out of the sea. If a man comes near it, it snakes around his leg and pulls him overboard.”
Murphy asked in a hushed voice, “You’re sure?”
“It just about got me.”
Damon the biochemist asked in a skeptical voice, “A live rope?”
“I suppose it might have been alive.”
“What else could it have been?”
Fletcher hesitated. “I looked over the side. I saw dekabrachs. One for sure, maybe two or three others.”
There was silence. The men looked out over the water.
Murphy asked in a wondering voice, “Then the dekabrachs are the ones?”
“I don’t know,” said Fletcher in a strained sharp voice.
“A white rope, or fiber, nearly snared me. I cut it apart. When I looked over the side I saw dekabrachs.”
The men made hushed noises of wonder and awe.
Fletcher turned away and started toward the mess hall. The men lingered on the dock, examining the ocean, talking in subdued voices. The lights of the raft shone past them, out into the darkness. There was nothing to be seen.
Later in the evening Fletcher climbed the stairs to the laboratory over the office, to find Eugene Damon busy at the microfilm viewer.
Damon had a thin, long-jawed face, lank blond hair, a fanatic’s eyes. He was industrious and thorough, but he worked in the shadow of Ted Chrystal, who had quit Bio-Minerals to bring his own raft to Sabria. Chrystal was a man of great ability. He had adapted the vanadium-sequestering sea slug of Earth to Sabrian waters; he had developed the tantalum barnacle from a rare and sickly species into the hardy, high-yield producer that it was. Damon worked twice the hours that Chrystal had put in, and while he performed his routine duties efficiently, he lacked the flair and imaginative resource which Chrystal used to leap from problem to solution without apparent steps in between.
He looked up when Fletcher came into the lab, then turned back to the microscreen.
Fletcher watched a moment. “What are you looking for?” he asked presently.
Damon responded in the ponderous, slightly pedantic manner that sometimes amused, sometimes irritated Fletcher.
“I’ve been searching the index to identify the long white rope which attacked you.”
Fletcher made a noncommittal sound and went to look at the settings on the microfile throw-out. Damon had coded for “long,” “thin,” “white.” On these instructions, the selector, scanning the entire roster of Sabrian life forms, had pulled the cards of seven organisms.
“Find anything?” Fletcher asked.
“Not so far.” Damon slid another card into the viewer. Sabrian Annelid, RRS-4924, read the title, and on the screen appeared a schematic outline of a long segmented worm. The scale showed it to be about two and a half meters long.
Fletcher shook his head. “The thing that got me was four or five times that long. And I don’t think it was segmented.”
“That’s the most likely of the lot so far,” said Damon. He turned a quizzical glance up at Fletcher. “I imagine you’re pretty sure about this—long white marine rope?”
Fletcher, ignoring him, scooped up the seven cards, dropped them back into the file, then looked in the code book and reset the selector.
Damon had the codes memorized and was able to read directly off the dials. “‘Appendages’—long—dimensions D, E, F, G.’”
The selector kicked three cards into the viewer.
The first was a pale saucer which swam like a skate, trailing four long whiskers. “That’s not it,” said Fletcher.
The second was a black, bullet-shaped water beetle, with a posterior flagellum.
“Not that one.”
The third was a kind of mollusk, with a plasm based on selenium, silicon, fluorine, and carbon. The shell was a hemisphere of silicon carbide with a hump from which protruded a thin prehensile tendril.
The creature bore the name “Stryzkal’s Monitor,” after Esteban Stryzkal, the famous pioneer taxonomist of Sabria.
“That might be the guilty party,” said Fletcher.
“It’s not mobile,” objected Damon. “Stryzkal finds it anchored to the North Shallows pegmatite dikes, in conjunction with the dekabrach colonies.”
Fletcher was reading the descriptive material. “‘The feeler is elastic without observable limit, and apparently functions as a food-gathering, spore-disseminating, exploratory organ. The monitor typically is found near the dekabrach colonies. Symbiosis between the two life forms is not impossible.’”
Damon looked at him questioningly. “Well?”
“I saw some dekabrachs out along the shelves.”
“You can’t be sure you were attacked by a monitor,” Damon said dubiously. “After all, they don’t swim.”
“So they don’t,” said Fletcher, “according to Stryzkal.”
Damon started to speak, then, noticing Fletcher’s expression, said in a subdued voice, “Of course there’s room for error. Not even Stryzkal could work out much more than a summary of planetary life.”
Fletcher had been reading the screen. “Here’s Chrystal’s analysis of the one he brought up.”
They studied the elements and primary compounds of a Stryzkal Monitor’s constitution.
“Nothing of commercial interest,” said Fletcher.
Damon was absorbed in a personal chain of thought. “Did Chrystal actually go down and trap a monitor?”
“That’s right. In the water bug. He spent lots of time underwater.”
“Everybody to their own methods,” said Damon shortly.
Fletcher dropped the cards back in the file. “Whether you like him or not, he’s a good field man. Give the devil his due.”
“It seems to me that the field phase is over and done with,” muttered Damon. “We’ve got the production line set up; it’s a full-time job trying to increase the yield. Of course I may be wrong.”
Fletcher laughed, slapped Damon on his skinny shoulder.
“I’m not finding fault, Gene. The plain fact is that there’re too many avenues for one man to explore. We could keep four men busy.”
“Four men?” said Damon. “A dozen is more like it. Three different protoplasmic phases on Sabria, to the single carbon group on Earth! Even Stryzkal only scratched the surface!” He watched Fletcher for a while, then asked curiously:
“What are you after now?”
Fletcher was once more running through the index. “What I came in here to check. The dekabrachs.”
Damon leaned back in his chair. “Dekabrachs? Why?”
“There’re lots of things about Sabria we don’t know,” said Fletcher mildly. “Have you ever been down to look at a dekabrach colony?”
Damon compressed his mouth. “No. I certainly haven’t.”
Fletcher dialed for the dekabrach card.
It snapped out of the file into the viewer. The screen showed Stryzkal’s original photo-drawing, which in many ways conveyed more information than the color stereos. The specimen depicted was something over six feet long, with a pale, seal-like body terminating in three propulsive vanes.
At the head radiated the ten arms from which the creature derived its name—flexible members eighteen inches long, surrounding the black disk which Stryzkal had assumed to be an eye.
Fletcher skimmed through the rather sketchy account of the creature’s habitat, diet, reproductive methods, and protoplasmic classification. He frowned in dissatisfaction. “There’s not much information here considering that they’re one of the more important species. Let’s look at the anatomy.” The dekabrach’s skeleton was based on an anterior dome of bone with three flexible cartilaginous vertebrae, each terminating in a propulsive vane.
The information on the card came to an end. “I thought you said Chrystal made observations on the dekabrachs,” growled Damon.
“So he did.”
“If he’s such a howling good field man, where’s his data?”
Fletcher grinned. “Don’t blame me, I just work here.” He put the card through the screen again.
Under General Comments, Stryzkal had noted, “Dekabrachs appear to belong in the Sabrian Class A group, the silico-carbo-nitride phase, although they deviate in important respects.” He had added a few lines of speculation regarding relationships of dekabrachs to other Sabrian species.
Chrystal had merely made the notation, “Checked for commercial application; no specific recommendation.”
Fletcher made no comment.
“How closely did he check?” asked Damon.
“In his usual spectacular way. He went down in the water bug, harpooned one of them, and dragged it to the laboratory. Spent three days dissecting it.”
“Precious little he’s noted here,” grumbled Damon. “If I worked three days on a new species like the dekabrachs, I could write a book.”
They watched the information repeat itself.
Damon stabbed at the screen with his long bony finger.
“Look! That’s been blanked over. See those black triangles in the margin? Cancellation marks!”
Fletcher rubbed his chin. “Stranger and stranger.”
“It’s downright mischievous,” Damon cried indignantly, “erasing material without indicating motive or correction.”
Fletcher nodded slowly. “It looks like somebody’s going to have to consult Chrystal.” He considered. “Well—why not now?” He descended to the office, where he called the Pelagic Recoveries raft.
Chrystal himself appeared on the screen. He was a large blond man with blooming pink skin and an affable innocence that camouflaged the directness of his mind; his plumpness similarly disguised a powerful musculature. He greeted Fletcher with cautious heartiness. “How’s it going on Bio-Minerals? Sometimes I wish I was back with you fellows—this working on your own isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“We’ve had an accident over here,” said Fletcher. “I thought I’d better pass on a warning.”
“Accident?” Chrystal looked anxious. “What’s happened?”
“Carl Raight took the barge out—and never came back.”
Chrystal was shocked. “That’s terrible! How . . . why—”
“Apparently something pulled him in. I think it was a monitor mollusk—Stryzkal’s Monitor.”
Chrystal’s pink face wrinkled in puzzlement. “A monitor? Was the barge over shallow water? But there wouldn’t be water that shallow. I don’t get it.”
“I don’t either.”
Chrystal twisted a cube of white metal between his fingers.
“That’s certainly strange. Raight must be dead?”
Fletcher nodded somberly. “That’s the presumption. I’ve warned everybody here not to go out alone; I thought I’d better do the same for you.”
“That’s decent of you, Sam.” Chrystal frowned, looked at the cube of metal, and put it down. “There’s never been trouble on Sabria before.”
“I saw dekabrachs under the barge. They might be involved somehow.”
Chrystal looked blank. “Dekabrachs? They’re harmless enough.”
Fletcher nodded noncommittally. “Incidentally, I tried to check on dekabrachs in the microlibrary. There wasn’t much information. Quite a bit of material has been canceled out.”
Chrystal raised his pale eyebrows. “Why tell me?”
“Because you might have done the canceling.”
Chrystal looked aggrieved. “Now, why should I do something like that? I worked hard for Bio-Minerals, Sam—you know that as well as I do. Now I’m trying to make money for myself. It’s no bed of roses, I’ll tell you.” He touched the cube of white metal, then noticing Fletcher’s eyes on it, pushed it to the side of his desk, against Cosey’s Universal Handbook of Constants and Physical Relationships.
After a pause Fletcher asked, “Well, did you or didn’t you blank out part of the dekabrach story?”
Chrystal frowned in deep thought. “I might have canceled one or two ideas that turned out bad—nothing very important. I have a hazy idea that I pulled them out of the bank.”
“Just what were those ideas?” Fletcher asked in a sardonic voice.
“I don’t remember offhand. Something about feeding habits, probably. I suspected that the deks ingested plankton, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“No?”
“They browse on underwater fungus that grows on the coral banks. That’s my best guess.”
“Is that all you cut out?”
“I can’t think of anything more.”
Fletcher’s eyes went back to the cube of metal. He noticed that it covered the Handbook title from the angle of the v in Universal to the center of the o in of. “What’s that you’ve got on your desk, Chrystal? Interesting yourself in metallurgy?”
“No, no,” said Chrystal. He picked up the cube and looked at it critically. “Just a bit of alloy. Well, thanks for calling, Sam.”
“You don’t have any personal ideas on how Raight got it?”
Chrystal looked surprised. “Why on earth do you ask me?”
“You know more about the dekabrachs than anyone else on Sabria.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you, Sam.”
Fletcher nodded. “Good night.”
“Good night, Sam.”
Fletcher sat looking at the blank screen. Monitor mollusks, dekabrachs—the blanked microfilm. There was a drift here whose direction he could not identify. The dekabrachs seemed to be involved, and, by association, Chrystal.
Fletcher put no credence in Chrystal’s protestations; he suspected that Chrystal lied as a matter of policy, on almost any subject. Fletcher’s mind went to the cube of metal.
Chrystal had seemed rather too casual, too quick to brush the matter aside. Fletcher brought out his own Handbook. He measured the distance between the fork of the v and the center of the o: 4.9 centimeters. Now, if the block represented a kilogram mass, as was likely with such sample blocks—Fletcher calculated. In a cube, 4.9 centimeters on a side, were 119 cc. Hypothesizing a mass of 1,000 grams, the density worked out to 8.4 grams per cc.
Fletcher looked at the figure. In itself it was not particularly suggestive. It might be one of a hundred alloys. There was no point in going too far on a string of hypotheses—still, he looked in the Handbook. Nickel, 8.6 grams per cc. Cobalt, 8.7 grams per cc. Niobium, 8.4 grams per cc.
Fletcher sat back and considered. Niobium? An element costly and tedious to synthesize, with limited natural sources and an unsatisfied market. The idea was stimulating. Had Chrystal developed a biological source of niobium? If so, his fortune was made.
Fletcher relaxed in his chair. He felt done in—mentally and physically. His mind went to Carl Raight. He pictured the body drifting loose and haphazard through the night, sinking through miles of water into places where light would never reach. Why had Carl Raight been plundered of his life?
Fletcher began to ache with anger and frustration at the futility, the indignity of Raight’s passing. Carl Raight was too good a man to be dragged to his death into the dark ocean of Sabria.
Fletcher jerked himself upright and marched out of the office, up the steps to the laboratory.
Damon was still busy with his routine work. He had three projects under way: two involving the sequestering of platinum by species of Sabrian algae; the third was an attempt to increase the rhenium absorption of an Alphard-Alpha flat-sponge. In each case his basic technique was the same: subjecting succeeding generations to an increasing concentration of metallic salt, under conditions favoring mutation. Certain of the organisms would presently begin to make functional use of the metal; they would be isolated: and transferred to Sabrian brine. A few might survive the shock; some might adapt to the new conditions and begin to absorb the now necessary element.
By selective breeding the desirable qualities of these latter organisms would be intensified; they would then be cultivated on a large-scale basis, and the inexhaustible Sabrian waters would presently be made to yield another product.
Coming into the lab, Fletcher found Damon arranging trays of algae cultures in geometrically exact lines. He looked rather sourly over his shoulder at Fletcher.
“I talked to Chrystal,” said Fletcher.
Damon became interested. “What did he say?”
“He says he might have wiped a few bad guesses off the film.”
“Ridiculous,” snapped Damon.
Fletcher went to the table, looking thoughtfully along the row of algae cultures. “Have you run into any niobium on Sabria, Gene?”
“Niobium? No. Not in any appreciable concentration. There are traces in the ocean, naturally. I believe one of the corals shows a set of niobium lines.” He cocked his head with birdlike inquisitiveness. “Why do you ask?”
“Just an idea, wild and random.”
“I don’t suppose Chrystal gave you any satisfaction.”
“None at all.”
“Then what’s the next move?”
Fletcher hitched himself up on the table. “I’m not sure. There’s not much I can do. Unless—” He hesitated.
“Unless what?”
“Unless I make an underwater survey myself.”
Damon was appalled. “What do you hope to gain by that?”
Fletcher smiled. “If I knew, I wouldn’t need to go. Remember, Chrystal went down, then he came back up and stripped the microfile.”
“I realize that,” said Damon. “Still, I think it’s rather . . . well, foolhardy, after what’s happened.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not.” Fletcher slid off the table to the deck. “I’ll let it ride till tomorrow, anyway.”
He left Damon making out his daily check sheet and descended to the main deck.
Blue Murphy was waiting at the foot of the stairs. Fletcher said, “Well, Murphy?”
The round red face displayed a puzzled frown. “Agostino up there with you?”
Fletcher stopped short. “No.”
“He should have relieved me half an hour ago. He’s not in the dormitory. He’s not in the mess hall.”
“Good God,” said Fletcher. “Another one?”
Murphy looked over his shoulder at the ocean. “They saw him about an hour ago in the mess hall.”
“Come on,” said Fletcher. “Let’s search the raft.”
They looked everywhere—processing house, the cupola on the mast, all the nooks and crannies a man might take it into his head to explore. The barges were all at dock; the launch and catamaran swung at their moorings; the helicopter hulked on the deck with drooping blades.
Agostino was nowhere aboard the raft. No one knew where Agostino had gone; no one knew exactly when he had left.
The crew of the raft collected in the mess hall, making small nervous motions, looking out the portholes over the ocean.
Fletcher could think of very little to say. “Whatever is after us—and we don’t know what it is—it can surprise us and it’s watching. We’ve got to be careful—more than careful!”
Murphy pounded his fist softly on the table. “But what can we do? We can’t just stand around like silly cows!”
“Sabria is theoretically a safe planet,” said Damon. “According to Stryzkal and the Galactic Index, there are no hostile life forms here.”
Murphy snorted, “I wish old Stryzkal was here now to tell me.”
“He might be able to theorize back Raight and Agostino.”
Dave Jones looked at the calendar. “A month to go.”
“We’ll only run one shift,” said Fletcher, “until we get replacements.”
“Call them reinforcements,” muttered Mahlberg.
“Tomorrow,” said Fletcher, “I’m going to take the water bug down, look around, and get an idea what’s going on. In the meantime, everybody better carry hatchets or cleavers.”
There was soft sound on the windows and on the deck outside. “Rain,” said Mahlberg. He looked at the clock on the wall. “Midnight.”
The rain hissed through the air, drummed on the walls; the decks ran with water and the masthead lights glared through the slanting streaks.
Fletcher went to the streaming windows and looked toward the process house. “I guess we better button up for the night. There’s no reason to—” He squinted through the window, then ran to the door and out into the rain.
Water pelted into his face. He could see very little but the glare of the lights in the rain. And a hint of white along the shining gray-black of the deck, like an old white plastic hose.
A snatch at his ankles: his feet were yanked from under him. He fell flat upon the streaming metal.
Behind him came the thud of feet; there were excited curses, a clang and scrape; the grip on Fletcher’s ankles loosened.
Fletcher jumped up, staggering back against the mast.
“Something’s in the process house,” he yelled.
The men pounded off through the rain. Fletcher came after.
But there was nothing in the process house. The doors were wide; the rooms were bright. The squat pulverizers stood on either hand; behind were the pressure tanks, the vats, the pipes of six different colors.
Fletcher pulled the master switch; the hum and grind of the machinery died. “Let’s lock up and get back to the dormitory.”
Morning was the reverse of evening; first the green gloom of Atreus, warming to pink as Gideon rose behind the clouds.
It was a blustery day, with squalls trailing dark curtains all around the compass.
Fletcher ate breakfast, dressed in a skin-tight coverall threaded with heating filaments, then a waterproof garment with a plastic head-dome.
The water bug hung on davits at the east edge of the raft, a shell of transparent plastic with the pumps sealed in a metal cell amidships. Submerging, the hull filled with water through valves, which then closed; the bug could submerge to four hundred feet, the hull resisting about half the pressure, the enclosed water the rest.
Fletcher lowered himself into the cockpit; Murphy connected the hoses from the air tanks to Fletcher’s helmet, then screwed the port shut. Mahlberg and Hans Heinz winged out the davits. Murphy went to stand by the hoist control; for a moment he hesitated, looking from the dark, pink-dappled water to Fletcher, and back at the water.
Fletcher waved his hand. “Lower away.” His voice came from the loudspeaker on the bulkhead behind them.
Murphy swung the handle. The bug eased down. Water gushed in through the valves, up around Fletcher’s body, over his head. Bubbles rose from the helmet exhaust valve.
Fletcher tested the pumps, then cast off the grapples. The bug slanted down into the water.
Murphy sighed. “He’s got more nerve than I’m ever likely to have.”
“He can get away from whatever’s after him,” said Damon.
“He might well be safer than we are here on the raft.”
Murphy clapped him on the shoulder. “Damon, my lad you can climb. Up on top of the mast you’ll be safe; it’s unlikely that they’ll come there to tug you into the water.” Murphy raised his eyes to the cupola a hundred feet over the deck. “And I think that’s where I’d take myself—if only someone would bring me my food.”
Heinz pointed to the water. “There go the bubbles. He went under the raft. Now he’s headed north.”
The day became stormy. Spume blew over the raft, and it meant a drenching to venture out on deck. The clouds thinned enough to show the outlines of Gideon and Atreus, a blood orange and a lime. Suddenly the winds died; the ocean flattened into an uneasy calm. The crew sat in the mess hall drinking coffee, talking in staccato and uneasy voices.
Damon became restless and went up to his laboratory. He came running back down into the mess hall. “Dekabrachs—they’re under the raft! I saw them from the observation deck!”
Murphy shrugged. “They’re safe from me.”
“I’d like to get hold of one,” said Damon. “Alive.”
“Don’t we have enough trouble already?” growled Dave Jones.
Damon explained patiently. “We know nothing about dekabrachs. They’re a highly developed species. Chrystal destroyed all the data we had, and I should have at least one specimen.”
Murphy rose to his feet. “I suppose we can scoop one up in a net.”
“Good,” said Damon. “I’ll set up the big tank to receive it.” The crew went out on deck where the weather had turned sultry. The ocean was flat and oily; haze blurred sea and sky together in a smooth gradation of color, from dirty scarlet near the raft to pale pink overhead.
The boom was winged out; a parachute net was attached and lowered quietly into the water. Heinz stood by the winch; Murphy leaned over the rail, staring intently down into the water.
A pale shape drifted out from under the raft. “Lift!” bawled Murphy.
The line snapped taut; the net rose out of the water in a cascade of spray. In the center a six-foot dekabrach pulsed and thrashed, gill slits rasping for water.
The boom swung inboard; the net tripped; the dekabrach slid into the plastic tank.
It darted forward and backward; the plastic dented and bulged where it struck. Then it floated quiet in the center, head-tentacles folded back against the torso.
All hands crowded around the tank. The black eye-spot looked back through the transparent walls.
Murphy asked Damon, “Now what?”
“I’d like the tank lifted to the deck outside the laboratory where I can get at it.”
“No sooner said than done.”
The tank was hoisted and swung to the spot Damon had indicated. Damon went excitedly off to plan his research.
The crew watched the dekabrach for ten or fifteen minutes, then drifted back to the mess hall.
Time passed. Gusts of wind raked up the ocean into a sharp steep chop. At two o’clock the loudspeaker hissed; the crew stiffened and raised their heads.
Fletcher’s voice came from the diaphragm. “Hello aboard the raft. I’m about two miles northwest. Stand by to haul me aboard.”
“Ha!” cried Murphy, grinning. “He made it.”
“I gave odds against him of four to one,” Mahlberg said. “I’m lucky nobody took them.”
“Get a move on. He’ll be alongside before we’re ready.” The crew trooped out to the landing. The water bug came sliding over the ocean, its glistening back riding the dark disorder of the waters.
It slipped quietly up to the raft; grapples clamped to the plates fore and aft. The winch whined and the bug was lifted from the sea, draining its ballast of water.
Fletcher, in the cockpit, looked tense and tired. He climbed stiffly out of the bug, stretched, unzipped the waterproof suit, and pulled off the helmet.
“Well, I’m back.” He looked around the group. “Surprised?”
“I’d have lost money on you,” Mahlberg told him.
“What did you find out?” asked Damon. “Anything?”
Fletcher nodded. “Plenty. Let me get into clean clothes. I’m wringing wet—sweat.” He stopped short, looking up at the tank on the laboratory deck. “When did that come aboard?”
“We netted it about noon,” said Murphy. “Damon wanted to look one over.”
Fletcher stood looking up at the tank with his shoulders drooping.
“Something wrong?” asked Damon.
“No,” said Fletcher. “We couldn’t have it worse than it is already.” He turned away toward the dormitory.
The crew waited for him in the mess hall; twenty minutes later he appeared. He drew himself a cup of coffee and sat down.
“Well,” said Fletcher. “I can’t be sure—but it looks as if we’re in trouble.”
“Dekabrachs?” asked Murphy.
Fletcher nodded.
“I knew it!” Murphy cried in triumph. “You can tell by looking at the blatherskites they’re up to no good.”
Damon frowned, disapproving of emotional judgments. “Just what is the situation?” he asked Fletcher. “At least, as it appears to you.”
Fletcher chose his words carefully. “Things are going on that we’ve been unaware of. In the first place, the dekabrachs are socially organized.”
“You mean to say—they’re intelligent?”
Fletcher shook his head. “I don’t know for sure. It’s possible. It’s equally possible that they live by instinct, like social insects.”
“How in the world—” began Damon.
Fletcher held up a hand. “I’ll tell you just what happened; you can ask all the questions you like afterwards.” He drank his coffee.
“When I went down under, naturally I was on the alert and kept my eyes peeled. I felt safe enough in the water bug—but funny things have been happening, and I was a little nervous.
“As soon as I was in the water I saw the dekabrachs—five or six of them.” Fletcher paused, sipped his coffee.
“What were they doing?” asked Damon.
“Nothing very much. Drifting near a big monitor which had attached itself to the seaweed. The arm was hanging down like a rope clear out of sight. I edged the bug in just to see what the deks would do; they began backing away. I didn’t want to waste too much time under the raft, so I swung off north, toward the Deeps. Halfway there I saw an odd thing; in fact, I passed it, and swung around to take another look.
“There were about a dozen deks. They had a monitor—and this one was really big. A giant. It was hanging on a set of balloons or bubbles—some kind of pods that kept it floating, and the deks were easing it along. In this direction.”
“In this direction, eh?” mused Murphy.
“What did you do?” asked Manners.
“Well, perhaps it was all an innocent outing—but I didn’t want to take any chances. The arm of this monitor would be like a hawser. I turned the bug at the bubbles, burst some, scattered the rest. The monitor dropped like a stone. The deks took off in different directions. I figured I’d won that round. I kept on going north, and pretty soon I came to where the slope starts down into the Deeps. I’d been traveling about twenty feet under; now I lowered to two hundred. I had to turn on the lights, of course this red twilight doesn’t penetrate water too well.” Fletcher took another gulp of coffee. “All the way across the Shallows I’d been passing over coral banks and dodging forests of kelp. Where the shelf slopes down to the Deeps the coral gets to be something fantastic—I suppose there’s more water movement, more nourishment, more oxygen. It grows a hundred feet high, in spires and towers, umbrellas, platforms, arches white, pale blue, pale green.
“I came to the edge of a cliff. It was a shock—one minute my lights were on the coral, all these white towers and pinnacles then there was nothing. I was over the Deeps. I got a little nervous.” Fletcher grinned. “Irrational, of course. I checked the fathometer—bottom was twelve thousand feet down. I still didn’t like it, and I turned around and swung back. Then I noticed lights off to my right. I turned my own off and moved in to investigate. The lights spread out as if I was flying over a city—and that’s just about what it was.”
“Dekabrachs?” asked Damon.
Fletcher nodded. “Dekabrachs.”
“You mean—-they built it themselves? Lights and all?”
Fletcher frowned. “That’s what I can’t be sure of. The coral had grown into shapes that gave them little cubicles to swim in and out of, and do whatever they’d want to do in a house. Certainly they don’t need protection from the rain. They hadn’t built these coral grottoes in the sense that we build a house—but it didn’t look like natural coral either. It’s as if they made the coral grow to suit them.”
Murphy said doubtfully, “Then they’re intelligent.”
“No, not necessarily. After all, wasps build complicated nests with no more equipment than a set of instincts.”
“What’s your opinion?” asked Damon. “Just what impression does it give?”
Fletcher shook his head. “I can’t be sure. I don’t know what kind of standards to apply. ‘Intelligence’ is a word that means lots of different things, and the way we generally use it is artificial and specialized.”
“I don’t get you,” said Murphy. “Do you mean these deks are intelligent or don’t you?”
Fletcher laughed. “Are men intelligent?”
“Sure. So they say, at least.”
“Well, what I’m trying to get across is that we can’t use man’s intelligence as a measure of the dekabrach’s mind. We’ve got to judge him by a different set of values—dekabrach values. Men use tools of metal, ceramic, fiber: inorganic stuff—at least, dead. I can imagine a civilization dependent upon living tools—specialized creatures the master group uses for special purposes. Suppose the dekabrachs live on this basis? They force the coral to grow in the shape they want. They use the monitors for derricks, or hoists, or snares, or to grab at something in the upper air.”
“Apparently, then,” said Damon, “you believe that the dekabrachs are intelligent.”
Fletcher shook his head. “Intelligence is just a word—a matter of definition. What the deks do may not be susceptible to human definition.”
“It’s beyond me,” said Murphy, settling back in his chair.
Damon pressed the subject. “I am not a metaphysician or a semanticist. But it seems that we might apply, or try to apply, a crucial test.”
“What difference does it make one way or the other?” asked Murphy.
Fletcher said, “It makes a big difference where the law is concerned.”
“Ah,” said Murphy, “the Doctrine of Responsibility.”
Fletcher nodded. “We could be yanked off the planet for injuring or killing intelligent autochthons. It’s been done.”
“That’s right,” said Murphy. “I was on Alkaid Two when Graviton Corporation got in that kind of trouble.”
“So if the deks are intelligent, we’ve got to watch our step. That’s why I looked twice when I saw the dek in the tank.”
“Well—are they or aren’t they?” asked Mahlberg.
“There’s one crucial test,” Damon repeated.
The crew looked at him expectantly.
“Well?” asked Murphy. “Spill it.”
“Communication.”
Murphy nodded thoughtfully. “That seems to make sense.” He looked at Fletcher. “Did you notice them communicating?”
Fletcher shook his head. “Tomorrow I’ll take a camera out, and a sound recorder. Then we’ll know for sure.”
“Incidentally,” said Damon, “why were you asking about niobium?”
Fletcher had almost forgotten. “Chrystal had a chunk of it on his desk. Or maybe he did—I’m not sure.”
Damon nodded. “Well, it may be a coincidence, but the deks are loaded with it.”
Fletcher stared.
“It’s in their blood, and there’s a strong concentration in the interior organs.”
Fletcher sat with his cup halfway to his mouth. “Enough to make a profit on?”
Damon nodded. “Probably a hundred grams or more in the organism.”
“Well, well,” said Fletcher. “That’s very interesting indeed.”
Rain roared down during the night; a great wind came up, lifting and driving the rain and spume. Most of the crew had gone to bed: all except Dave Jones the steward and Manners the radio man, who sat up over a chess board.
A new sound rose over the wind and rain—a metallic groaning, a creaking discord that presently became too loud to ignore. Manners jumped to his feet and went to the window.
“The mast!”
Dimly it could be seen through the rain, swaying like a reed, the arc of oscillation increasing with each swing.
“What can we do?” cried Jones.
One set of guy lines snapped. “Nothing now.”
“I’ll call Fletcher.” Jones ran for the passage to the dormitory.
The mast gave a sudden jerk, poised long seconds at an unlikely angle, then toppled across the process house.
Fletcher appeared and went over and stared out the window. With the masthead light no longer shining down, the raft was dark and ominous. Fletcher shrugged and turned away. “There’s nothing we can do tonight. It’s worth a man’s life to go out on that deck.”
In the morning, examination of the wreckage revealed that two of the guy lines had been sawed or clipped cleanly through. The mast, of lightweight construction, was quickly cut apart, and the twisted segments dragged to a corner of the deck. The raft seemed bald and flat.
“Someone or something,” said Fletcher, “is anxious to give us as much trouble as possible.” He looked across the leaden-pink ocean to where the Pelagic Recoveries raft floated beyond the range of vision.
“Apparently,” said Damon, “you refer to Chrystal.”
“I have suspicions.”
Damon glanced out across the water. “I’m practically certain.”
“Suspicion isn’t proof,” said Fletcher. “In the first place, what would Chrystal hope to gain by attacking us?”
“What would the dekabrachs gain?”
“I don’t know,” said Fletcher. “I’d like to find out.” He went to dress himself in the submarine suit.
The water bug was made ready. Fletcher plugged a camera into the external mounting and connected a sound recorder to a sensitive diaphragm in the skin. He seated himself and pulled the blister over his head.
The water bug was lowered into the ocean. It filled with water, and its glistening back disappeared under the surface.
The crew patched the roof of the process house, then jury-rigged an antenna.
The day passed; twilight came, and plum-colored evening.
The loudspeaker hissed and sputtered; Fletcher’s voice, tired and tense, said, “Stand by. I’m coming in.”
The crew gathered by the rail, straining their eyes through the dusk.
One of the dully glistening wave-fronts held its shape, drew closer, and became the water bug.
The grapples were dropped; the water bug drained its ballast and was hoisted into the chocks.
Fletcher jumped down to the deck and leaned limply against one of the davits. “I’ve had enough submerging to last me a while.”
“What did you find out?” Damon asked anxiously.
“I’ve got it all on film. I’ll run it off as soon as my head stops ringing.”
Fletcher took a hot shower, then came down to the mess hall and ate the bowl of stew Jones put in front of him, while Manners transferred the film Fletcher had shot from camera to projector.
“I’ve made up my mind about two things,” said Fletcher.
“First—the deks are intelligent. Second, if they communicate with each other, it’s by means imperceptible to human beings.”
Damon blinked, surprised and dissatisfied. “That’s almost a contradiction.”
“Just watch,” said Fletcher. “You can see for yourself.” Manners started the projector; the screen went bright.
“The first few feet show nothing very much,” said Fletcher.
“I drove directly out to the end of the shelf and cruised along the edge of the Deeps. It drops away like the end of the world—straight down. I found a big colony about ten miles west of the one I found yesterday—almost a city.”
“‘City’ implies civilization,” Damon asserted in a didactic voice.
Fletcher shrugged. “If civilization means manipulation of environment—somewhere I’ve heard that definition—they’re civilized.”
“But they don’t communicate?”
“Check the film for yourself.”
The screen was dark with the color of the ocean. “I made a circle out over the Deeps,” said Fletcher, “turned off my lights, started the camera, and came in slow.”
A pale constellation appeared in the center of the screen, separating into a swarm of sparks. They brightened and expanded; behind them appeared the outlines, tall and dim, of coral minarets, towers, spires, and spikes. They defined themselves as Fletcher moved closer. From the screen came Fletcher’s recorded voice. “These formations vary in height from fifty to two hundred feet, along a front of about half a mile.”
The picture expanded. Black holes showed on the face of the spires; pale dekabrach-shapes swam quietly in and out.
“Notice,” said the voice, “the area in front of the colony. It seems to be a shelf, or a storage yard. From up here it’s hard to see; I’ll drop down a hundred feet or so.” The picture changed; the screen darkened. “I’m dropping now—depth meter reads three hundred sixty feet . . . three eighty . . . I can’t see too well; I hope the camera is getting it all.”
Fletcher commented: “You’re seeing it better now than I could; the luminous areas in the coral don’t shine too strongly down there.”
The screen showed the base of the coral structures and a nearly level bench fifty feet wide. The camera took a quick swing and peered down over the verge, into blackness.
“I was curious,” said Fletcher. “The shelf didn’t look natural. It isn’t. Notice the outlines on down? They’re just barely perceptible. The shelf is artificial—a terrace, a front porch.”
The camera swung back to the bench, which now appeared to be marked off into areas vaguely differentiated in color.
Fletcher’s voice said, “Those colored areas are like plots in a garden—there’s a different kind of plant, or weed, or animal on each of them. I’ll come in closer. Here are monitors.” The screen showed two or three dozen heavy hemispheres, then passed on to what appeared to be eels with saw edges along their sides, attached to the bench by a sucker.
Next were float-bladders, then a great number of black cones with very long loose tails.
Damon said in a puzzled voice, “What keeps them there?”
“You’ll have to ask the dekabrachs,” said Fletcher.
“I would if I knew how.”
“I still haven’t seen them do anything intelligent,” said Murphy.
“Watch,” said Fletcher.
Into the field of vision swam a pair of dekabrachs, black eye-spots staring out of the screen at the men in the mess hall.
“Dekabrachs,” came Fletcher’s voice from the screen.
“Up to now, I don’t think they noticed me,” Fletcher himself commented. “I carried no lights and made no contrast against the background. Perhaps they felt the pump.” The dekabrachs turned together and dropped sharply for the shelf.
“Notice,” said Fletcher. “They saw a problem, and the same solution occurred to both, at the same time. There was no communication.”
The dekabrachs had diminished to pale blurs against one of the dark areas along the shelf.
“I didn’t know what was happening,” said Fletcher, “but I decided to move. And then—the camera doesn’t show this—I felt bumps on the hull, as if someone were throwing rocks. I couldn’t see what was going on until something hit the dome right in front of my face. It was a little torpedo, with a long nose like a knitting needle. I took off fast, before the deks could try something else.”
The screen went black. Fletcher’s voice said, “I’m out over the Deeps, running parallel with the edge of the Shallows.” Indeterminate shapes swam across the screen, pale wisps blurred by watery distance. “I came back along the edge of the shelf,” said Fletcher, “and found the colony I saw yesterday.”
Once more the screen showed spires, tall structures, pale blue, pale green, ivory. “I’m going in close,” came Fletcher’s voice. “I’m going to look in one of those holes.” The towers expanded; ahead was a dark hole.
“Right here I turned on the nose-light,” said Fletcher. The black hole suddenly became a bright cylindrical chamber fifteen feet deep. The walls were lined with glistening colored globes, like Christmas tree ornaments. A dekabrach floated in the center of the chamber. Translucent tendrils ending in knobs extended from the chamber walls and seemed to be punching and kneading the creature’s seal-smooth hide.
“The dek doesn’t seem to like me looking in on him,” said Fletcher.
The dekabrach backed to the rear of the chamber; the knobbed tendrils jerked away, into the walls.
“I looked into the next hole.”
Another black hole became a bright chamber as the searchlight burnt in. A dekabrach floated quietly, holding a sphere of pink jelly before its eye. The wall-tendrils were not to be seen.
“This one didn’t move,” said Fletcher. “He was asleep or hypnotized or too scared. I started to take off and there was the most awful thump. I thought I was a goner.” The image on the screen gave a great lurch. Something dark hurled past and on into the depths.
“I looked up,” said Fletcher. “I couldn’t see anything but about a dozen deks. Apparently they’d floated a big rock over me and dropped it. I started the pump and headed for home.” The screen went blank.
Damon was impressed. “I agree that they show patterns of intelligent behavior. Did you detect any sounds?”
“Nothing. I had the recorder going all the time. Not a vibration other than the bumps on the hull.”
Damon’s face was wry with dissatisfaction. “They must communicate somehow—how could they get along otherwise?”
“Not unless they’re telepathic,” said Fletcher. “I watched carefully. They make no sounds or motions to each other—none at all.”
Manners asked, “Could they possibly radiate radio waves? Or infrared?”
Damon said glumly, “The one in the tank doesn’t.”
“Oh, come now,” said Murphy, “are there no intelligent races that don’t communicate?”
“None,” said Damon. “They use different methods—sounds, signals, radiation—but they all communicate.”
“How about telepathy?” Heinz suggested.
“We’ve never come up against it; I don’t believe we’ll find it here,” said Damon.
“My personal theory,” said Fletcher, “is that they think alike and so don’t need to communicate.”
Damon shook his head dubiously.
“Assume that they work on a basis of communal empathy,” Fletcher went on, “that this is the way they’ve evolved. Men are individualistic; they need speech. The deks are identical; they’re aware of what’s going on without words.” He reflected a few seconds. “I suppose, in a certain sense, they do communicate. For instance, a dek wants to extend the garden in front of its tower. It possibly waits till another dek comes near, then carries out a rock—indicating what it wants to do.”
“Communication by example,” said Damon.
“That’s right—if you can call it communication. It permits a measure of cooperation—but clearly no small talk, no planning for the future or traditions from the past.”
“Perhaps not even awareness of time!” cried Damon.
“It’s hard to estimate their native intelligence. It might be remarkably high or it might be low; the lack of communication must be a terrific handicap.”
“Handicap or not,” said Mahlberg, “they’ve certainly got us on the run.”
“And why?” cried Murphy, pounding the table with his big red fist. “That’s the question. We’ve never bothered them. And all of a sudden Raight’s gone, and Agostino. Also our mast. Who knows what they’ll think of tonight? Why? That’s what I want to know.”
“That,” said Fletcher, “is a question I’m going to put to Ted Chrystal tomorrow.”
Fletcher dressed himself in clean blue twill, ate a silent breakfast, and went out to the flight deck.
Murphy and Mahlberg had thrown the guy lines off the helicopter and wiped the dome clean of salt-film.
Fletcher climbed into the cabin and twisted the inspection knob. Green light—everything in order.
Murphy said, half-hopefully, “Maybe I better come with you, Sam—if there’s any chance of trouble.”
“Trouble? Why should there be trouble?”
“I wouldn’t put much past Chrystal.”
“I wouldn’t either,” said Fletcher. “But—there won’t be any trouble.”
He started the blades. The ram-tubes caught hold; the ’copter lifted and slanted up, away from the raft, and flew off to the northeast. Bio-Minerals became a bright tablet on the irregular wad of seaweed.
The day was dull, brooding, windless, apparently building up for one of the tremendous electrical storms that came every few weeks. Fletcher accelerated, hoping to get his errand over with as soon as possible.
Miles of ocean slid past; Pelagic Recoveries appeared ahead.
Twenty miles southwest of the raft, Fletcher overtook a small barge laden with raw material for Chrystal’s macerators and leaching columns; he noticed that there were two men aboard, both huddled inside the plastic canopy. Pelagic Recoveries perhaps was having its troubles too, thought Fletcher.
Chrystal’s raft was little different from Bio-Minerals, except that the mast still rose from the central deck, and there was activity in the process house. They had not shut down, whatever their troubles.
Fletcher landed the ’copter on the flight deck. As he stopped the blades, Chrystal came out of the office—a big blond man with a round, jocular face.
Fletcher jumped down to the deck. “Hello, Ted,” he said in a guarded voice.
Chrystal approached with a cheerful smile. “Hello, Sam! Long time since we’ve seen you.” He shook hands briskly. “What’s new at Bio-Minerals? Certainly too bad about Carl.”
“That’s what I want to talk about.” Fletcher looked around the deck. Two of the crew stood watching. “Can we go to your office?”
“Sure, by all means.” Chrystal led the way to the office, slid back the door. “Here we are.”
Fletcher entered the office. Chrystal walked behind his desk. “Have a seat.” He sat down in his own chair. “Now—what’s on your mind? But first, how about a drink? You like Scotch, as I recall.”
“Not today, thanks.” Fletcher shifted in his chair. “Ted, we’re up against a serious problem here on Sabria, and we might as well talk plainly about it.”
“Certainly,” said Chrystal. “Go right ahead.”
“Carl Raight’s dead. And Agostino.”
Chrystal’s eyebrows rose in shock. “Agostino, too? How?”
“We don’t know. He just disappeared.”
Chrystal took a moment to digest the information. Then he shook his head in perplexity. “I can’t understand it. We’ve never had trouble like this before.”
“Nothing happening over here?”
Chrystal frowned. “Well—nothing to speak of. Your call put us on our guard.”
“The dekabrachs seem to be responsible.”
Chrystal blinked and pursed his lips, but said nothing.
“Have you been going out after dekabrachs, Ted?”
“Well now, Sam—” Chrystal hesitated, drumming his fingers on the desk. “That’s hardly a fair question. Even if we were working with dekabrachs or polyps or club moss or wire eels—I don’t think I’d want to say, one way or the other.”
“I’m not interested in your business secrets,” said Fletcher. “The point is this: the deks appear to be an intelligent species. I have reason to believe that you’re processing them for their niobium content. Apparently they’re doing their best to retaliate and don’t care who they hurt. They’ve killed two of our men. I’ve got a right to know what’s going on.”
Chrystal nodded. “I can understand your viewpoint—but I don’t follow your chain of reasoning. For instance, you told me that a monitor had done Raight in. Now you say dekabrach. Also, what leads you to believe I’m going for niobium?”
“Let’s not try to kid each other, Ted.” Chrystal looked shocked, then annoyed. “When you were still working for Bio-Minerals,” Fletcher went on, “you discovered that the deks were full of niobium. You wiped all that information out of the files, got financial backing, and built this raft. Since then you’ve been hauling in dekabrachs.”
Chrystal leaned back, surveying Fletcher coolly. “Aren’t you jumping to conclusions?”
“If I am, all you’ve got to do is deny it.”
“Your attitude isn’t very pleasant, Sam.”
“I didn’t come here to be pleasant. We’ve lost two men, also our mast. We’ve had to shut down.”
“I’m sorry to hear that—” began Chrystal.
Fletcher interrupted: “So far, Chrystal, I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt.”
Chrystal was surprised. “How so?”
“I’m assuming you didn’t know the deks were intelligent, that they’re protected by the Responsibility Act.”
“Well?”
“Now you know. You don’t have the excuse of ignorance.” Chrystal was silent for a few seconds. “Well, Sam—these are all rather astonishing statements.”
“Do you deny them?”
“Of course I do!” said Chrystal, with a flash of spirit.
“And you’re not processing dekabrachs?”
“Easy, now. After all, Sam, this is my raft. You can’t come aboard and chase me back and forth. It’s high time you understood it.”
Fletcher drew himself back a little, as if Chrystal’s mere proximity were unpleasant. “You’re not giving me a plain answer.”
Chrystal leaned back in his chair and put his fingers together, puffing out his cheeks. “I don’t intend to.”
The barge that Fletcher had passed on his way was edging close to the raft. Fletcher watched it work against the mooring stage, snap its grapples. He asked, “What’s on that barge?”
“Frankly, it’s none of your business.”
Fletcher rose to his feet and went to the window. Chrystal made uneasy protesting noises. Fletcher ignored him. The two barge handlers had not emerged from the control cabin. They seemed to be waiting for a gangway, which was being swung into position by the cargo boom.
Fletcher watched in growing curiosity and puzzlement. The gangway was built like a trough, with high plywood walls.
He turned to Chrystal. “What’s going on out there?”
Chrystal was chewing his lower lip, rather red in the face. “Sam, you come storming over here, making wild accusations, calling me dirty names—by implication—and I don’t say a word. I try to allow for the strain you’re under; I value the good will between our two outfits. I’ll show you some documents that will prove once and for all—” He began to sort through a sheaf of miscellaneous pamphlets.
Fletcher stood by the window, with half an eye for Chrystal, half for what was occurring out on deck.
The gangway was dropped into position; the barge handlers were ready to disembark.
Fletcher decided to see what was going on. He started for the door.
Chrystal’s face went stiff and cold. “Sam, I’m warning you, don’t go out there!”
“Why not?”
“Because I say so.”
Fletcher slid open the door. Chrystal made a motion to jump up from his chair, then he slowly sank back.
Fletcher walked out the door and crossed the deck, toward the barge.
A man in the process house saw him through the window and made urgent gestures.
Fletcher hesitated, then turned to look at the barge. A couple more steps and he could look into the hold. He stepped forward, craned his neck. From the corner of his eye, he saw the man’s gestures becoming frantic, then the man disappeared from the window.
The hold was full of limp white dekabrachs.
“Get back, you fool!” came a yell from the process house.
Perhaps a faint sound warned Fletcher; instead of backing away, he threw himself to the deck. A small object flipped over his head from the direction of the ocean, with a peculiar fluttering buzz. It struck a bulkhead and dropped—a fishlike torpedo, with a long needlelike proboscis. It came flapping toward Fletcher, who rose to his feet and ran crouching and dodging back toward the office.
Two more of the fishlike darts missed him by inches; Fletcher hurled himself through the door into the office.
Chrystal had not moved from the desk. Fletcher went panting up to him. “Pity I didn’t get stuck, isn’t it?”
“I warned you not to go out there.”
Fletcher turned to look across the deck. The barge handlers ran down the troughlike gangway to the process house. A glittering school of dart-fish flickered up out of the water, striking the plywood.
Fletcher turned back to Chrystal. “I saw dekabrachs in that barge. Hundreds of them.”
Chrystal had regained whatever composure he had lost. “Well? What if there are?”
“You know they’re intelligent as well as I do.”
Chrystal smilingly shook his head.
Fletcher’s temper was going raw. “You’re ruining Sabria for all of us!”
Chrystal held up his hand. “Easy, Sam. Fish are fish.”
“Not when they’re intelligent and kill men in retaliation.”
Chrystal wagged his head. “Are they intelligent?”
Fletcher waited until he could control his voice. “Yes. They are.”
“How do you know they are? Have you talked with them?”
“Naturally I haven’t talked with them.”
“They display a few social patterns. So do seals.”
Fletcher came up closer and glared down at Chrystal. “I’m not going to argue definitions with you. I want you to stop hunting dekabrach, because you’re endangering lives aboard both our rafts.”
Chrystal leaned back a trifle. “Now, Sam, you know you can’t intimidate me.”
“You’ve killed two men; I’ve escaped by inches three times now. I’m not running that kind of risk to put money in your pocket.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions,” Chrystal protested. “In the first place, you’ve never proved—”
“I’ve proved enough! You’ve got to stop, that’s all there is to it!”
Chrystal slowly shook his head. “I don’t see how you’re going to stop me, Sam.” He brought his hand up from under the desk; it held a small gun. “Nobody’s going to bulldoze me, not on my own raft.”
Fletcher reacted instantly, taking Chrystal by surprise. He grabbed Chrystal’s wrist and banged it against the angle of the desk. The gun flashed, seared a groove in the desk and fell from Chrystal’s limp fingers to the floor. Chrystal hissed and cursed, bent to recover it, but Fletcher leaped over the desk and pushed the other man over backward in his chair. Chrystal kicked up at Fletcher’s face, catching him a glancing blow on the cheek that sent Fletcher to his knees.
Both men dived for the gun. Fletcher reached it first, rose to his feet, and backed to the wall. “Now we know where we stand.”
“Put down that gun!”
Fletcher shook his head. “I’m placing you under arrest—civilian arrest. You’re coming to Bio-Minerals until the inspector arrives.”
Chrystal seemed dumfounded. “What?”
“I said, I’m taking you to the Bio-Minerals raft. The inspector is due in three weeks, and I’ll turn you over to him.”
“You’re crazy, Fletcher.”
“Perhaps. But I’m taking no chances with you.” Fletcher motioned with the gun. “Get going. Out to the ’copter.” Chrystal coolly folded his arms. “I’m not going to move. You can’t scare me by waving a gun.”
Fletcher raised his arm, sighted, and pulled the trigger. The jet of fire grazed Chrystal’s rump. Chrystal jumped, clapping his hand to the burn.
“Next shot will be somewhat closer,” said Fletcher.
Chrystal glared like a boar from a thicket. “You realize I can bring kidnaping charges against you?”
“I’m not kidnaping you. I’m placing you under arrest.”
“I’ll sue Bio-Minerals for everything they’ve got.”
“Unless Bio-Minerals sues you first. Get going!”
The entire crew met the returning helicopter: Damon, Blue Murphy, Manners, Hans Heinz, Mahlberg, and Dave Jones. Chrystal jumped haughtily to the deck and surveyed the men with whom he had once worked. “I’ve got something to say to you men.”
The crew watched him silently.
Chrystal jerked his thumb at Fletcher. “Sam’s got himself in a peck of trouble. I told him I’m going to throw the book at him, and that’s what I’m going to do.” He looked from face to face. “If you men help him, you’ll be accessories. I advise you, take that gun away from him and fly me back to my raft.”
He looked around the circle, but met only coolness and hostility. He shrugged angrily. “Very well, you’ll be liable for the same penalties as Fletcher. Kidnaping is a serious crime.”
Murphy asked Fletcher, “What shall we do with the varmint?”
“Put him in Carl’s room—that’s the best place for him. Come on, Chrystal.”
Back in the mess hall, after locking the door on Chrystal, Fletcher told the crew, “I don’t need to warn you—be careful of Chrystal. He’s tricky. Don’t talk to him. Don’t run any errands of any kind. Call me if he wants anything. Everybody got that straight?”
Damon asked dubiously, “Aren’t we getting in rather deep water?”
“Do you have an alternative suggestion?” asked Fletcher. “I’m certainly willing to listen.”
Damon thought. “Wouldn’t he agree to stop hunting dekabrach?”
“No. He refused point-blank.”
“Well,” said Damon reluctantly, “I guess we’re doing the right thing. But we’ve got to prove a criminal charge. The inspector won’t care whether or not Chrystal’s cheated Bio-Minerals.”
Fletcher said, “If there’s any backfire on this, I’ll take full responsibility.”
“Nonsense,” said Murphy. “We’re all in this together. I say you did just right. In fact, we ought to hand the sculpin over to the deks, and see what they’d say to him.”
After a few minutes Fletcher and Damon went up to the laboratory to look at the captive dekabrach. It floated quietly in the center of the tank, the ten arms at right angles to its body, the black eye-area staring through the glass.
“If it’s intelligent,” said Fletcher, “it must be as interested in us as we are in it.”
“I’m not so sure it’s intelligent,” said Damon stubbornly.
“Why doesn’t it try to communicate?”
“I hope the inspector doesn’t think along the same lines,” said Fletcher. “After all, we don’t have an airtight case against Chrystal.”
Damon looked worried. “Bevington isn’t a very imaginative man. In fact, he’s rather official in his outlook.”
Fletcher and the dekabrach examined each other. “I know it’s intelligent—but how can I prove it?”
“If it’s intelligent,” Damon insisted doggedly, “it can communicate.”
“If it can’t,” said Fletcher, “then it’s our move.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ll have to teach it.”
Damon’s expression became so perplexed and worried that Fletcher broke into laughter.
“I don’t see what’s funny,” Damon complained. “After all, what you propose is . . . well, it’s unprecedented.”
“I suppose it is,” said Fletcher. “But it’s got to be done, nevertheless. How’s your linguistic background?”
“Very limited.”
“Mine is even more so.”
They stood looking at the dekabrach.
“Don’t forget,” said Damon, “we’ve got to keep it alive. That means, we’ve got to feed it.” He gave Fletcher a caustic glance. “I suppose you’ll admit it eats.”
“I know for sure it doesn’t live by photosynthesis,” said Fletcher. “There’s just not enough light. I believe Chrystal mentioned on the microfilm that it ate coral fungus. Just a minute.” He started for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To check with Chrystal. He’s certainly noted their stomach contents.”
“He won’t tell you,” Damon said to Fletcher’s back.
Fletcher returned ten minutes later.
“Well?” asked Damon in a skeptical voice.
Fletcher looked rather pleased with himself. “Coral fungus, mostly. Bits of tender young kelp shoots, stylax worms, sea oranges.”
“Chrystal told you all this?” asked Damon incredulously.
“That’s right. I explained to him that he and the dekabrach were both our guests, that we planned to treat them exactly alike. If the dekabrach ate well, so would Chrystal. That was all he needed.”
Later, Fletcher and Damon stood in the laboratory watching the dekabrach ingest black-green balls of fungus.
“Two days,” said Damon sourly, “and what have we accomplished? Nothing.”
Fletcher was less pessimistic. “We’ve made progress in a negative sense. We’re pretty sure it has no auditory apparatus, that it doesn’t react to sound, and that it apparently lacks means for making any sound. Therefore, we’ve got to use visual methods to make contact.”
“I envy you your optimism,” Damon declared. “The beast has given me no grounds to suspect either the capacity or the desire for communication.”
“Patience,” said Fletcher. “It still probably doesn’t know what we’re trying to do and it probably fears the worst.”
“We not only have to teach it a language,” grumbled Damon, “we’ve got to introduce it to the idea that communication is possible. And then invent a language.”
Fletcher grinned. “Let’s get to work.”
They inspected the dekabrach, and the black eye-area stared back through the wall of the tank. “We’ve got to work out a set of visual conventions,” said Fletcher. “The ten arms are its most sensitive organs, and they are presumably controlled by the most highly organized section of its brain. So—we work out a set of signals based on the dek’s arm movements.”
“Does that give us enough scope?”
“I should think so. The arms are flexible tubes of muscle. They can assume at least five distinct positions: straight forward, diagonal forward, perpendicular, diagonal back, and straight back. Since the beast has ten arms, evidently there are ten to the fifth power combinations—a hundred thousand.”
“Certainly adequate.”
“It’s our job to work out the vocabulary and syntax—a little difficult for an engineer and a biochemist, but we’ll have a go at it.”
Damon was becoming interested in the project. “It’s merely a matter of consistency and sound basic structure. If the dek’s got any comprehension whatever, we’ll put it across.”
“If we don’t,” said Fletcher, “we’re gone geese and Chrystal winds up taking over the Bio-Minerals raft.”
They seated themselves at the laboratory table.
“We have to assume that the deks have no language,” said Fletcher.
Damon grumbled uncertainly, and ran his fingers through his hair in annoyed confusion. “Not proven. Frankly, I don’t think it’s even likely. We can argue back and forth about whether they could get along on communal empathy, and such like but that’s a couple of light-years from answering the question whether they do. They could be using telepathy, as we said; they could also be emitting modulated X-rays, establishing long and short code signals in some unknown-to-us subspace, or hyperspace, or interspace—they could be doing almost anything we never heard of.
“As I see it, our best bet—and best hope—is that they do have some form of encoding system by which they communicate between themselves. Obviously, as you know, they have to have an internal coding and communication system; that’s what a neuromuscular structure, with feedback loops, is. Any complex organism has to have communication internally. The whole point of this requirement of language as a means of classifying alien life forms is to distinguish between true communities of individual thinking entities and the communal, insect type, with apparent intelligence.
“Now, if they’ve got something like an ant colony or beehive city over there, we’re sunk, and Chrystal wins. You can’t teach an ant to talk; the nest-group has intelligence, but the individual doesn’t. So we’ve got to assume they do have a language—or, to be more general, a formalized encoding system for intercommunication. We can also assume it uses a pathway not available to our organisms. That sound sensible to you?”
Fletcher nodded. “Call it a working hypothesis, anyway. We know we haven’t seen any indication that the dek has tried to signal to us.”
“Which suggests the creature is not intelligent.”
Fletcher ignored the comment. “If we knew more about their habits, emotions, attitudes, we’d have a better framework for this new language.”
“It seems placid enough,” Damon said.
The dekabrach moved its arms back and forth idly. The eye-area studied the two men.
“Well,” said Fletcher with a sigh, “first, a system of notation.” He brought forth a model of the dekabrach’s head, which Manners had constructed. The arms were made of flexible conduit and could be bent into various positions.
“We number the arms zero to nine, around the clock, starting with this one here at the top. The five positions—forward, diagonal forward, erect, diagonal back, and back—we call A, B, K, X, Y. K is normal position, and when an arm is at K, it won’t be noted.”
Damon nodded his agreement. “That’s sound enough.”
“The logical first step would seem to be numbers.”
Together they worked out a system of numeration and constructed a chart:
The colon (:) indicates a composite signal: i.e., two or more separate signals.
Damon said, “It’s consistent—but cumbersome. For instance, to indicate five thousand, seven hundred sixty-six, it’s necessary to make the signal . . . let’s see: 0B, 5Y, then 0X, 7Y, then 0Y, 6Y, then 6Y.”
“Don’t forget that these are signals, not vocalizations,” said Fletcher. “Even so, it’s no more cumbersome than ‘five thousand, seven hundred and sixty-six.’”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Now—words.”
Damon leaned back in his chair. “We can’t just build a vocabulary and call it a language.”
“I wish I knew more linguistic theory,” said Fletcher. “Naturally, we won’t go into any abstractions.”
“Our basic English structure might be a good idea,” Damon mused, “with English parts of speech. That is: nouns are things, adjectives are attributes of things, verbs are the displacements which things undergo or the absence of displacement.”
Fletcher reflected. “We could simplify even further, to nouns, verbs, and verbal modifiers.”
“Is that feasible? How, for instance, would you say, ‘the large raft’?”
“We’d use a verb meaning ‘to grow big.’” Raft expanded. “Something like that.”
“Humph,” grumbled Damon. “You don’t envisage a very expressive language.”
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t be. Presumably the deks will modify whatever we give them to suit their own needs. If we get across just a basic set of ideas, they’ll take it from there. Or by that time someone’ll be out here who knows what he’s doing.”
“O.K.,” said Damon, “get on with your Basic Dekabrach.”
“First, let’s list the ideas a dek would find useful and familiar.”
“I’ll take the nouns,” said Damon. “You take the verbs. You can also have your modifiers.” He wrote, No. 1: water.
After considerable discussion and modification, a sparse list of basic nouns and verbs was agreed upon, with assigned signals.
The simulated dekabrach head was arranged before the tank, with a series of lights on a board nearby to represent numbers.
“With a coding machine we could simply type out our message,” said Damon. “The machine would dictate the pulses to the arms of the model.”
Fletcher nodded. “Fine, if we had the equipment and several weeks to tinker around with it. Too bad we don’t. Now—let’s start. The numbers first. You work the lights, I’ll move the arms. Just one to nine for now.”
Several hours passed. The dekabrach floated quietly, the black eye-spot observing.
Feeding time approached. Damon displayed the black-green fungus balls; Fletcher arranged the signal for “food” on the arms of the model. A few morsels were dropped into the tank.
The dekabrach quietly sucked them into its oral tube.
Damon went through the pantomime of offering food to the model. Fletcher moved the arms to the signal “food.” Damon ostentatiously placed the fungus ball in the model’s oral tube, then faced the tank and offered food to the dekabrach.
The dekabrach watched impassively.
Two weeks passed. Fletcher went up to Raight’s old room to talk to Chrystal, whom he found reading a book from the microfilm library.
Chrystal extinguished the image of the book, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and sat up.
Fletcher said, “In a very few days the inspector is due.”
“So?”
“It’s occurred to me that you might have made an honest mistake. At least I can see the possibility.”
“Thanks,” said Chrystal, “for nothing.”
“I don’t want to victimize you for what may be an honest mistake.”
“Thanks again—but what do you want?”
“If you’ll cooperate with me in having the dekabrachs recognized as an intelligent life form, I won’t press charges against you.”
Chrystal raised his eyebrows. “That’s big of you. And I’m supposed to keep my complaints to myself?”
“If the deks are intelligent, you don’t have any complaints.”
Chrystal looked keenly at Fletcher. “You don’t sound too happy. The dek won’t talk, eh?”
Fletcher restrained his annoyance. “We’re working on him.”
“But you’re beginning to suspect he’s not so intelligent as you thought.”
Fletcher turned to go. “This one only knows fourteen signals so far. But it’s learning two or three a day.”
“Hey!” called Chrystal. “Wait a minute!”
Fletcher stopped at the door. “What for?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s your privilege.”
“Let me see this dek make signals.”
Fletcher shook his head. “You’re better off in here.”
Chrystal glared. “Isn’t that a rather unreasonable attitude?”
“I hope not.” He looked around the room. “Anything you’re lacking?”
“No.” Chrystal turned the switch, and his book flashed once more on the ceiling screen.
Fletcher left the room. The door closed behind him; the bolts shot home. Chrystal sat up alertly and jumped to his feet with a peculiar lightness, went to the door, and listened.
Fletcher’s footfalls diminished down the corridor. Chrystal returned to the bed in two strides, reached under the pillow, and brought out a length of electric cord detached from a desk lamp. He had adapted two pencils as electrodes, making notches through the wood and binding a wire around the graphite core so exposed. For resistance in the circuit he included a lamp bulb.
He went to the window. He could see down the deck all the way to the eastern edge of the raft, and behind the office as far as the storage bins at the back of the process house. The deck was empty. The only movement was a white wisp of steam rising from the circulation flue, and behind it the hurrying pink and scarlet clouds.
Chrystal went to work, whistling soundlessly between intently pursed lips. He plugged the cord into the baseboard strip, held the two pencils to the window, struck an arc, and burnt at the groove which now ran nearly halfway around the window—it was the only means by which he could cut through the tempered beryl-silica glass.
It was slow work and very delicate. The arc was weak and fractious; fumes grated in Chrystal’s throat. He persevered, blinking through watery eyes, twisting his head this way and that, until five-thirty, half an hour before his evening meal, when he put the equipment away. He dared not work after dark, for fear the flicker of light would arouse suspicion.
The days passed. Each morning Gideon and Atreus brought their respective flushes of scarlet and pale green to the dull sky; each evening they vanished in sad dark sunsets behind the western ocean.
A makeshift antenna had been jury-rigged from the top of the laboratory to a pole over the living quarters. Early one afternoon Manners blew the general alarm to short jubilant blasts, to announce a signal from the LG-19, now putting into Sabria on its regular semiannual call. Tomorrow evening lighters would swing down from orbit, bringing the inspector, supplies, and new crews for both Bio-Minerals and Pelagic Recoveries.
Bottles were broken out in the mess hall; there was loud talk, brave plans, laughter.
Exactly on schedule the lighters—four of them—burst through the clouds. Two settled into the ocean beside Bio-Minerals; two more dropped down to the Pelagic Recoveries raft.
Lines were carried out by the launch and the lighters were warped against the dock.
First aboard the raft was Inspector Bevington, a brisk little man, immaculate in his dark blue and white uniform. He represented the government, interpreting its multiplicity of rules, laws, and ordinances; he was empowered to adjudicate minor offences, take custody of criminals, investigate violations of galactic law, check living conditions and safety practices, collect imposts, bonds, and duties, and, in general, personify the government in all of its faces and phases.
The job might well have invited graft and petty tyranny, were not the inspectors themselves subject to minute inspection.
Bevington was considered the most conscientious and the most humorless man in the service. If he was not particularly liked, he was at least respected.
Fletcher met him at the edge of the raft. Bevington glanced at him sharply, wondering why Fletcher was grinning so broadly. Fletcher was thinking that now would be a dramatic moment for one of the dekabrach’s monitors to reach up out of the sea and clutch Bevington’s ankle. But there was no disturbance; Bevington leaped onto the raft without interference.
He shook hands with Fletcher, then looked around, up and down the deck. “Where’s Mr. Raight?”
Fletcher was taken aback; he himself had become accustomed to Raight’s absence. “Why—he’s dead.”
It was Bevington’s turn to be startled. “Dead?”
“Come along to the office,” said Fletcher, “and I’ll tell you about it. This has been a wild month.” He looked up to the window of Raight’s old room, where he expected to see Chrystal looking down. But the window was empty. Fletcher halted. Empty! The window was vacant even of glass! He started down the deck.
“Here!” cried Bevington. “Where are you going?”
Fletcher paused long enough to call over his shoulder, “You’d better come with me!” He ran to the door leading into the mess hall, with Bevington hurrying after him, frowning in annoyance and surprise.
Fletcher looked into the mess hall, hesitated, then came back out on deck and looked up at the vacant window.
Where was Chrystal? Since he had not come along the deck at the front of the raft, he must have headed for the process house.
“This way,” said Fletcher.
“Just a minute!” protested Bevington. “I want to know just what—”
But Fletcher was on his way down the eastern side of the raft toward the process house, where the lighter crew was already looking over the cases of precious metal to be trans-shipped. They glanced up as Fletcher and Bevington approached.
“Did anybody just come past?” asked Fletcher. “A big blond fellow?”
“He went in there.” One of the lighter crewmen pointed toward the process house.
Fletcher whirled and ran through the doorway. Beside the leaching columns he found Hans Heinz, looking ruffled and angry.
“Chrystal come through here?” Fletcher asked, panting.
“Did he come through here! Like a hurricane. He gave me a push in the face.”
“Where did he go?”
Heinz pointed. “Out on the front deck.”
Fletcher and Bevington hurried off, Bevington demanding petulantly, “Exactly what’s going on here?”
“I’ll explain in a minute,” yelled Fletcher. He ran out on deck, looked toward the barges and the launch.
No Ted Chrystal.
He could only have gone in one direction: back toward the living quarters, having led Fletcher and Bevington in a complete circle.
A sudden thought hit Fletcher. “The helicopter!”
But the helicopter stood undisturbed, with its guy lines taut.
Murphy came toward them, looking perplexedly over his shoulder.
“Seen Chrystal?” asked Fletcher.
Murphy pointed. “He just went up them steps.”
“The laboratory!” cried Fletcher in sudden agony. Heart in his mouth, he pounded up the steps, with Murphy and Bevington at his heels. If only Damon were in the laboratory now, not down on deck, or in the mess hall!
The lab was empty—except for the tank containing the dekabrach.
The water was cloudy and bluish. The dekabrach was thrashing from end to end of the tank, its ten arms kinked and knotted.
Fletched jumped on a table, then vaulted directly into the tank. He wrapped his arms around the writhing body and lifted, but the supple shape squirmed out of his grasp.
Fletcher grabbed again, heaved in desperation, finally raised it out of the tank.
“Grab hold,” he hissed to Murphy between clenched teeth. “Lay it on the table.”
Damon came rushing in. “What’s going on?”
“Poison,” said Fletcher. “Give Murphy a hand.”
Damon and Murphy managed to lay the dekabrach on the table. Fletcher barked, “Stand back—flood coming!” He slid the clamps from the side of the tank, and the flexible plastic collapsed. A thousand gallons of water gushed across the floor.
Fletcher’s skin was beginning to burn, “Acid! Damon, get a bucket and wash off the dek. Keep him wet.”
The circulatory system was still pumping brine into the tank.
Fletcher tore off his trousers, which held the acid against his skin, then gave himself a quick rinse and turned the brine pipe around the tank, flushing off the acid.
The dekabrach lay limp, its propulsion vanes twitching.
Fletcher felt sick and dull. “Try sodium carbonate,” he told Damon. “Maybe we can neutralize some of the acid.” On a sudden thought he turned to Murphy. “Go get Chrystal. Don’t let him get away.”
This was the moment that Chrystal chose to stroll into the laboratory. He looked around the room with an expression of mild surprise and hopped up on a chair to avoid the water.
“What’s going on in here?”
Fletcher said grimly, “You’ll find out.” To Murphy: “Don’t let him get away.”
“Murderer!” cried Damon in a voice that broke with strain and grief.
Chrystal raised his eyebrows in shock. “Murderer?”
Bevington looked back and forth between Fletcher, Chrystal, and Damon. “Murderer? What is all this?”
“Just what the law specifies,” said Fletcher. “Knowingly and willfully destroying one of an intelligent species. Murder.” The tank was rinsed; he clamped up the sides. The fresh brine began to rise up the sides.
“Now,” said Fletcher. “Hoist the dek back in.”
Damon shook his head hopelessly. “He’s done for. He’s not moving.”
“We’ll put him back in anyway,” said Fletcher.
“I’d like to put Chrystal in there with him,” Damon said with passionate bitterness.
“Come now,” Bevington reproved him, “let’s have no more talk like that. I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like anything of what I hear.”
Chrystal, looking amused and aloof, said, “I don’t know what’s going on, either.”
They lifted the dekabrach and lowered him into the tank.
The water was about six inches deep, the level rising too slowly to suit Fletcher.
“Oxygen,” he called. Damon ran to the locker. Fletcher looked at Chrystal. “So you don’t know what I’m talking about?”
“Your pet fish dies—-don’t try to pin it on me.”
Damon handed Fletcher a breather-tube from the oxygen tank; Fletcher thrust it into the water beside the dekabrach’s gills. Oxygen bubbled up. Fletcher agitated the water, urged it into the gill openings. The water was nine inches deep.
“Sodium carbonate,” Fletcher said over his shoulder. “Enough to neutralize what’s left of the acid.”
Bevington asked in an uncertain voice, “Is it going to live?”
“I don’t know.”
Bevington squinted sideways at Chrystal, who shook his head. “Don’t blame me.”
The water rose. The dekabrach’s arms lay limp, floating in all directions like Medusa’s locks.
Fletcher rubbed the sweat off his forehead. “If only I knew what to do! I can’t give it a shot of brandy; I’d probably poison it.”
The arms began to stiffen, extend. “Ah,” breathed Fletcher, “that’s better.” He beckoned to Damon. “Gene, take over here—keep the oxygen going into the gills.” He jumped to the floor where Murphy was flushing the area with buckets of water.
Chrystal was talking with great earnestness to Bevington. “I’ve gone in fear of my life these last three weeks! Fletcher is an absolute madman. You’d better send up for a doctor—or a psychiatrist.” He caught Fletcher’s eye and paused. Fletcher came slowly across the room. Chrystal turned back to the inspector, whose expression was harassed and uneasy.
“I’m registering an official complaint,” said Chrystal. “Against Bio-Minerals in general and Sam Fletcher in particular. Since you’re a representative of the law, I insist that you place Fletcher under arrest for criminal offenses against my person.”
“Well,” said Bevington, glancing cautiously at Fletcher. “I’ll certainly make an investigation.”
“He kidnaped me at the point of a gun!” cried Chrystal. “He’s kept me locked up for three weeks!”
“To keep you from murdering the dekabrachs,” said Fletcher.
“That’s the second time you’ve said that,” Chrystal remarked ominously. “Bevington is a witness. You’re liable for slander.”
“Truth isn’t slander.”
“I’ve netted dekabrach, so what? I also cut kelp and net coelacanths. You do the same.”
“The deks are intelligent. That makes a difference.” Fletcher turned to Bevington. “He knows it as well as I do. He’d process men for the calcium in their bones if he could make money at it!”
“You’re a liar!” cried Chrystal.
Bevington held up his hands. “Let’s have order here! I can’t get to the bottom of this unless someone presents some facts.”
“He doesn’t have facts,” Chrystal insisted. “He’s trying to run my raft off of Sabria—can’t stand the competition!”
Fletcher ignored him. He said to Bevington, “You want facts. That’s why the dekabrach is in that tank, and that’s why Chrystal poured acid in on him.”
“Let’s get something straight,” said Bevington, giving Chrystal a hard stare. “Did you pour acid into that tank?”
Chrystal folded his arms. “The question is completely ridiculous.”
“Did you? No evasions.”
Chrystal hesitated, then said firmly, “No. And there’s no vestige of proof that I did so.”
Bevington nodded. “I see.” He turned to Fletcher. “You spoke of facts. What facts?”
Fletcher went to the tank, where Damon was still swirling oxygenated water into the creature’s gills. “How’s he coming?”
Damon shook his head dubiously. “He’s acting peculiar. I wonder if the acid got him internally?”
Fletcher watched the long pale shape for a few moments. “Well, let’s try him. That’s all we can do.”
He crossed the room, then wheeled the model dekabrach forward. Chrystal laughed and turned away in disgust.
“What do you plan to demonstrate?” asked Bevington.
“I’m going to show you that the dekabrach is intelligent and is able to communicate.”
“Well, well,” said Bevington. “This is something new, is it not?”
“Correct.” Fletcher arranged his notebook.
“How did you learn his language?”
“It isn’t his—it’s a code we worked out between us.”
Bevington inspected the model, looked down at the notebook. “These are the signals?”
Fletcher explained the system. “He’s got a vocabulary of fifty-eight words, not counting numbers up to nine.”
“I see.” Bevington took a seat. “Go ahead. It’s your show.”
Chrystal turned. “I don’t have to watch this fakery.”
Bevington said, “You’d better stay here and protect your interests—if you don’t, no one else will.”
Fletcher moved the arms of the model. “This is admittedly a crude setup; with time and money we’ll work out something better. Now, I’ll start with numbers.”
Chrystal said contemptuously, “I could train a rabbit to count that way.”
“After a minute,” said Fletcher, “I’ll try something harder. I’ll ask who poisoned him.”
“Just a minute!” bawled Chrystal. “You can’t tie me up that way!”
Bevington reached for the notebook. “How will you ask? What signals do you use?”
Fletcher pointed them out. “First, interrogation. The idea of interrogation is an abstraction which the dek still doesn’t completely understand. We’ve established a convention of choice, or alternation, like, ‘Which do you want?’ Maybe he’ll catch on what I’m after.”
“Very well—‘interrogation.’ Then what?”
“Dekabrach—receive—hot—water. ‘Hot water’ is for ‘acid.’ Interrogation: Man—give—hot—water?”
Bevington nodded. “That’s fair enough. Go ahead.”
Fletcher worked the signals. The black eye-area watched.
Damon said anxiously, “He’s restless—very uneasy.”
Fletcher completed the signals. The dekabrach’s arms waved once or twice, then gave a puzzled jerk.
Fletcher repeated the set of signals, adding an extra “interrogation—man?”
The arms moved slowly.
“‘Man,’” read Fletcher.
Bevington nodded. “Man. But which man?”
Fletcher said to Murphy, “Stand in front of the tank.” And he signaled, “Man—give—hot—water—interrogation.”
The dekabrach’s arms moved.
“‘Null-zero,’” read Fletcher. “No. Damon—step in front of the tank.” He signaled the dekabrach. “‘Man—give—hot—water—interrogation.”
“‘Null’.”
Fletcher turned to Bevington. “You stand in front of the tank.” He signaled.
“‘Null.’”
Everyone looked at Chrystal. “Your turn,” said Fletcher. “Step forward, Chrystal.”
Chrystal came slowly forward. “I’m not a chump, Fletcher. I can see through your gimmick.”
The dekabrach was moving its arms. Fletcher read the signals, Bevington looking over his shoulder at the notebook.
“‘Man—give—hot—water.’”
Chrystal started to protest.
Bevington quieted him. “Stand in front of the tank, Chrystal.” To Fletcher: “Ask once again.”
Fletcher signaled. The dekabrach responded. “‘Man—give—hot—water. Yellow. Man. Sharp. Come. Give—hot—water—water. Go.’”
There was silence in the laboratory.
“Well,” said Bevington flatly, “I think you’ve made your case, Fletcher.”
“You’re not going to get me that easy,” said Chrystal.
“Quiet,” rasped Bevington. “It’s clear enough what’s happened.”
“It’s clear what’s going to happen,” said Chrystal in a voice husky with rage. He was holding Fletcher’s gun. “I secured this before I came up here, and it looks as if—” He raised the gun toward the tank, squinting, his big white hand tightened on the trigger. Fletcher’s heart went dead and cold.
“Hey!” shouted Murphy.
Chrystal jerked. Murphy threw his bucket. Chrystal fired at Murphy, missed. Damon jumped at him, and Chrystal swung the gun around. The white-hot jet pierced Damon’s shoulder. Damon, screaming like a hurt horse, wrapped his bony arms around Chrystal. Fletcher and Murphy closed in, wrested away the gun, and locked Chrystal’s arms behind him.
Bevington said grimly, “You’re in trouble now, Chrystal, even if you weren’t before.”
Fletcher said, “He’s killed hundreds and hundreds of deks. Indirectly he killed Carl Raight and John Agostino. He’s got a lot to answer for.”
The replacement crew had moved down to the raft from the LG-19. Fletcher, Damon, Murphy, and the rest of the old crew sat in the mess hall, six months of leisure ahead of them.
Damon’s left arm hung in a sling; with his right he fiddled with his coffee cup. “I don’t know quite what I’ll be doing. I have no plans. The fact is, I’m rather up in the air.” Fletcher went to the window, looked out across the dark scarlet ocean. “I’m staying on.”
“What?” cried Murphy. “Did I hear you right?”
Fletcher came back to the table. “I can’t understand it myself.”
Murphy shook his head in total lack of comprehension.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m an engineer, a working man,” said Fletcher. “I don’t have a lust for power or any desire to change the universe—but it seems as if Damon and I set something into motion—something important—and I want to see it through.”
“You mean, teaching the deks to communicate?”
“That’s right. Chrystal attacked them, forced them to protect themselves. He revolutionized their lives. Damon and I revolutionized the life of this one dek in an entirely new way. But we’ve just started. Think of the potentialities! Imagine a population of men in a fertile land—men like ourselves, except that they never learned to talk. Then someone gives them contact with a new universe an intellectual stimulus like nothing they’ve ever experienced. Think of their reactions, their new attitude to life! The deks are in that same position—except that we’ve just started with them. It’s anybody’s guess what they’ll achieve and somehow I want to be part of it. Even if I didn’t, I couldn’t leave with the job half done.”
Damon said suddenly, “I think I’ll stay on, too.”
“You two have gone stir-crazy,” said Jones. “I can’t get away fast enough.”
The LG-19 had been gone three weeks; operations had become routine aboard the raft. Shift followed shift; the bins began to fill with new ingots, new blocks of precious metal.
Fletcher and Damon had worked long hours with the dekabrach; today would see the great experiment.
The tank was hoisted to the edge of the dock.
Fletcher signaled once again his final message. “Man show you signals. You bring many dekabrachs, man show signals. Interrogation.”
The arms moved in assent. Fletcher backed away; the tank was hoisted and lowered over the side, then it submerged.
The dekabrach floated up, drifted a moment near the surface, and slid down into the dark water.
“There goes Prometheus,” said Damon, “bearing the gift of the gods.”
“Better call it the gift of gab,” said Fletcher, grinning.
The pale shape had vanished from sight. “Ten gets you fifty he won’t be back,” Caldur, the new superintendent, offered them.
“I’m not betting,” said Fletcher. “Just hoping.”
“What will you do if he doesn’t come back?”
Fletcher shrugged. “Perhaps net another, teach him. After a while it’s bound to take hold.”
Three hours went by. Mists began to close in; rain blurred the sky.
Damon, who had been peering over the side, looked up.
“I see a dek. But is it ours?”
A dekabrach came to the surface. It moved its arms.
“Many-dekabrachs. Show-signals.”
“Professor Damon,” said Fletcher. “Your first class.”