Murray Leinster

“ Terry aimed the sound-weapon and pressed the button. Something gigantic started up, and the top of a huge squid's mantle pierced the surface. The giant leaped convulsively, high above the water, save for trailing tentacles. It was larger than a whale. It fell back into the sea with a loud splash, and moved away quickly.
Color came into the sky. The sun's upper rim appeared. Flecks of gold spread upon the sea.
Far, far away at the horizon a dark speck appeared. As the sun climbed up over the edge of the world, the speck turned golden. ”

“ It was twice, three times the size of the squid captured in the lagoon. Terry heard his own voice cry out, "Bazookas! Use 'em! Use 'em!"
Flaring rocket missiles sped toward the giant. Davis flung one of the hand grenades he'd manufactured. The yacht plunged on toward the clutched, half-sunk fishing boat. The hand grenade exploded against the monster's flesh. Simultaneously, the bazooka-missiles hit their target and flung living, incandescent flame deep into the creature's body. Those flames would melt steel. They bored deeply into the squid, and they were infinitely more damaging than bullets. ”

“ Terry went with him to get the outboard motorboat he and Deirdre had used before. He was already wearing swimming trunks.
A little later the small boat putt-putted away from the Esperance upon the glassy-rippled waters of the lagoon.
There was a very great tranquillity everywhere. The booming roar of the surf came from unseen rollers on the reef outside. Seabirds squawked. Palms along the edge of the lagoon waved their fronds very, very gently.
"How far will you go before we swim?" asked Deirdre. "All the lagoon's perfect. One place is as good as another." ”

“ Beyond her, a conical, glistening and utterly horrifying monster emerged, a mere few yards from her rail. Enormous eyes glittered in the searchlight rays. A monstrous tentacle with a row of innumerable sucker-disks reached over the stern of La Rubia.
Another flare swept from the fishing boat's deck in the direction of the giant squid. It fell upon wetted, shining flesh. The monster jerked, and La Rubia was shaken from stem to stern. Hurriedly, Terry pressed the power-feed button, and the sound projector was on. Its effect was instantaneous. The monster began to writhe convulsively. ”

“ He would protest to the Philippine Government! He would expose the villainy of los americanos to the world! He demanded that now, instantly, the original state of affairs be restored!
A fish leaped out of the water nearby. Where it leaped, and where it fell back, bright specks of luminosity appeared. Even the ripples of the splashes glowed faintly as they spread outward. The skipper of La Rubia stared. And now the people of the island realized that the look of the water was not altogether commonplace. ”

“ One patch swept close to La Rubia, and that small derelict seemed to tremble. And then the fishing boat touched the very edge of the white stuff, and was engulfed in it. She vanished instantly, as if she had fallen into a hole in the sea. When the foam-patch passed on, the sea was empty.
The effect of the foam, actually, was that of a gigantic, slavering, blind gullet straining to devour. It moved erratically over the surface. Terry called to Deirdre, "Have Nick tell the flattop that the foam only comes up from deep water. If they can get inside the hundred-fathom curve they're safe! ”

“ Terry went back to the shop. He swore again. He looked at the money in his hand. It totalled exactly the excessive amount he'd named as the price of an electronic fish-driving unit, including an underwater horn.
"The devil!" he said angrily.
He felt the special indignation some men feel when they are in difficulties which their pride requires them to surmount by themselves, and somebody tries to help. The indignation is the greater as they see less chance of success on their own. ”

“ One would want to get away from it. In the air the same unpleasant sensation is produced by noises that make one's flesh crawl.
Terry straightened up from where the recorder played upon the wet deck. Davis and Deirdre had come to listen, in the strange darkness under the sails of the Esperance.
"I've got a sort of hunch," said Terry slowly. "Let's sail across the bright patch. I'll record the sea noises all the way. I've a feeling that that hum means something."
"It's not what you'd call an ordinary sound," said Davis.
He raised his voice. One of the crew-cuts was at the schooner's wheel. ”

“ Afterward, Davis settled down below to a delicate short-wave tuning process to get music from an improbable distance. Deirdre served Tony his meal and talked with him while he ate it. Terry went abovedecks and paced back and forth as the Esperance sailed on through the night.
He couldn't make out anything at all about the crew or the purpose behind the Esperance's chosen task and purpose. He felt dubious about the whole business. Like most technically-minded men, he could become absorbed in a problem, especially if it was a device difficult to design or a design that somehow didn't work. ”

“ The Esperance drove over and came to a stop between the two armed vessels. Someone shouted down by megaphone from the carrier's deck, "What happened to you? What hit your bowsprit?"
Terry shouted back, "You shot those beasts. We've been wrestling with 'em!"
An enormous eruption of gas.... Then the underwater ear began to emit an unprecedented sound. It was a rushing sound, but it was only vaguely like the noise of whatever had come up from the depths last Tuesday night. This was powerful beyond imagining.
"Something's coming up!" roared Terry. "Better alert for a real fight now!" ”

“ Then Terry said sharply, "That's it! On the Esperance there's a picture of a huge mass of foam on the sea. A ship dropped right out of sight right into it. Deirdre found the answer! Something down below needs free oxygen. In quantity. Why not get it from the water? What to do with the hydrogen that is left? Let it loose! It'll come to the surface, make a foam-patch...."
Dr. Morton said with a sort of mirthless geniality, "I add a stroke of pure genius! Davis just asked what would be the origin of a creature which preferred the depths of the sea to any other place on earth. ”

“ Go on!"
"Curiosity implies intelligence," said Terry carefully, "and intelligence is a substitute for teeth or claws. We don't assume that the fish that carry the plastic gadgets made them. Why assume that whatever attacked the bathyscaphe did it of its own accord? We believe that something else makes the deep-sea fish come up into the Thrawn Island lagoon, don't we? Or do we?"
"We pretend we don't," said Deirdre.
Davis nodded reluctantly.
"Yes, we pretend we don't," he agreed. "But if intelligence is involved, I find myself getting frightened! ”

“ Doug and Tony sat watchfully on the side lines, listening. Doug had been offered, and had accepted, a sandwich. He ate it methodically.
Terry had a sudden feeling of unreality. Less than half an hour before he'd been in torment and, but for Deirdre, on his way to death. On the Esperance there'd been so much that was absorbing in the way of fish behavior that he'd forgotten some people were interested in other things. Here a dozen people squabbled over the behavior of a meteorite. Nothing could be of less consequence to the outside world. ”

“ Foam, for example. We know how a ship simply dropped out of sight, as if into a hole."
"I know!" said Davis drearily. "I told the flattop about that. But I don't think they really believe it."
At two-thirty Davis and Terry went down to the yacht. They stood on the deck. They kept watch by mere instinct. There was no activity anywhere. Faint noises were coming from La Rubia. Maybe her crew was repacking the hastily loaded masses of squid-flesh. The last-quarter moon rose at long last, and shone upon the glassy-rippled water of the lagoon. Star-images danced beside its reflection. ”

“ There's no light—I repeat, none—below three hundred fathoms. Down at the sea-bottom it's black, black, black! Now, where in the universe could there be creatures capable of riding down here in a bolide, and in need of an environment like that?"
Terry shook his head. He remembered seeing a book on the solar planets, in the after-cabin of the Esperance. He hadn't read it. The others on the yacht must have.
"How about Jupiter?" asked Deirdre. "The gravity's four times the earth's, and the atmosphere is thousands of miles thick. The pressure at the surface should be tons to the square inch." ”

“ It was pleasant enough to be here on the slanting deck of a beautiful yacht, driving competently through dark seas under a canopy of stars. But now Terry realized he was constantly aware of Deirdre. He liked her. But he'd liked other people, male and female, without being continually conscious of their existence. Girls are usually more conscious of such things than men. At least ninety-nine per cent of the time, a man does not modify his behavior because of the age, sex, and marital status of the people he comes in contact with. ”

“ They'd lifted anchor without noise. Now La Rubia headed for the lagoon entrance, heavy in the water but with precise information about what coral heads needed to be dodged. She had on board a cargo history had no parallel for. Her skipper expected to be rewarded with fame, as well as cash.
When the outboard motor rushed toward La Rubia, Capitán Saavedra zestfully gave his engines full throttle. When the racketing, roaring motorboat arrived beside his ship, and Terry shouted to him to stop, he chuckled and drove on. In fact, he left La Rubia's pilot-house to wave cheerfully at the two men. ”

“ One can project a hollow cone of light. Why not a hollow cone of sound, in water?"
Davis said with an unconvincingly ironic and skeptical air, "Indeed, why not?"
"If such a thing were done," said Terry, "then when the cone of sound was turned on, the fish inside it would be captured as if by a conical net. They couldn't swim through the walls of sound. And then one can imagine the cone made smaller; the walls drawn closer together. The fish would be crowded together in what was increasingly like a vertical, conical net, but with walls of unbearable noise instead of cord. ”

“ Late in the afternoon Deirdre found occasion to talk to Terry about Thrawn Island.
"It's the China Sea tracking station for satellites," she told him. "Some of the staff are friends of my father's. It's right on the edge of the Luzon Deep, and the island's actually an underwater mountain that just barely protrudes above the surface. There are some hills, a coral reef and a lagoon. It's also terrifically steep, and you can use the fish-driving device as much as you please without startling any Filipino fishermen." ”

“ It's too important for them!"
"Much too important," said Deirdre firmly. "The shooting stars aren't shooting stars and there's something down in the depths just like Terry says. He's right that we can't consider sharing our world with—beings that come down from the sky, even if they only want our oceans and don't care about the land. He says that we wouldn't get along with creatures that know more than we do, and we would especially resent any space ships coming uninvited to start colonies on our world while we're not advanced enough to stop them! ”

“ Tony timed the leap. When the splash came he made his calculations absorbedly, while Terry switched off the recorder.
"It would take the same amount of time going up as it does coming down," said Tony, scribbling numbers. "Since we know how fast things fall, when we know how long they fall we can tell how fast they were traveling when they landed, and therefore when they leaped."
He multiplied and divided.
"Sixty miles an hour, roughly," he pronounced. "The whale was going sixty miles an hour straight up when it left the water! What can swim that fast?" ”

“ Down to southward, where the bathyscaphe had been crushed, the planes that were dropping mines reported that four other objects broke loose from the ocean and fled for empty space at speeds too great to be estimated.
Terry looked suddenly astonished.
"But ... of course!" he told Deirdre. "When you need high pressure, of course you've got a weakness. You can't take concussions! Anything underwater is completely vulnerable to bombs! Whatever was down there has found out that the natives—we aborigines—have a weapon they can't face. ”

“ So there was only one such creature in the lagoon.
When Davis and the others came down from the tracking station, Terry turned off the horn. He was applying soothing ointment to the raw flesh of his leg.
"There's a monstrous creature out there," he said evenly when a white-faced Davis demanded information. "Heaven knows how big it is, but it's something like a huge squid. It may be the kind that sperm whales feed on, down in the depths." ”

“ Heeled over as the Esperance was, his hand could reach down into the rushing waters overside.
He came to a resolution. He felt foolish, but by now he was determined to try an experiment. Tiny light-blue sparks flashed where the water raced past the yacht's planking. ”

“ Certainly, complete images would be meaningless to creatures who had evolved in blackness and without a sense of sight. They might respond to pressure-waves, such as are known to be picked up by fish when something struggles in the water, even though man-made instruments have not yet detected them. They might furnish data of a sensory kind that is meaningless to humans, as pictures would be to Jovians. If there were such things....
"Why argue only for Jupiter?" asked Deirdre. "Venus is supposed to be mostly ocean. There could be abyssal life there." ”