Whatever Goes Up

by Troy Conway

  She came out without a glance at her surroundings. She climbed into the Sprite and started the engine. I waited until she was gone about five minutes before I stood up from the rope coils and walked toward the building.

  The man with the leathery brown skin bobbed his head at sight of me. “Do something for you, guv’nor?”

  “I want to rent a two-man submarine.”

  The little man blinked. “Sorry, mate. It ain’t for rent. Belongs to the company. We use it to do a bit of undersea mining at times.”

  My wallet came into view. I opened it and drew out two five-hundred-dollar bills, American money. I watched the old man with the captain’s cap perched on the back of his head as he ran a tongue around his lips.

  “One thousand dollars,” I murmured. “Does your mining operations earn as much over a twenty-four-hour period?”

  “Well, now. Can’t say as it does.”

  I might have argued, but this was Foundation money, I drew out a third bill and placed all three carefully on the counter. The greed in the eyes staring at these riches was easy to read.

  “Fifteen hundred for using your submarine tonight and maybe part of tomorrow. If you don’t want it, okay by me.”

  I put out a hand to take back the bills. His leathery hand covered mine like a leech. “Hold now, hold now. Didn’t say I wouldn’t do it, did I, mate? Mining isn’t all that good around these parts.”

  He put the three bills into a cash register, cackling laughter. “Tell the truth, we ain’t done much mining to speak of. I’ve always been meaning to, but never got around to it.”

  “Where’s it docked?”

  He made me come along with him along a quay. Up ahead I saw a sleek Century inboard runabout roped to a piling. I paused. “Hmmm. Maybe I ought to rent that Coronado. It looks fast. I could dive to make the explorations I want.”

  “Can’t do it, mate. The Century’s rented.”

  “Oh? That girl I just saw?”

  He chuckled, walking past the inboard bumping the rubber half-tires wired to the pilings. “Maybe she wants a bit of fun tonight. There’s to be a full moon.”

  “He’s a lucky man,” I smiled.

  “Aye, that he is . . . but here’s your submersible.”

  The submarine was an old version of a research submersible built by General Dynamics for some big university, the man told me. Modern scientific discoveries had outdated it, but its yellow and blue hull was still capable of submerging safely to a six-hundred-foot depth, and of staying submerged for close to ten hours. It could move at a speed of three to four knots the hour.

  “They’ve got new ones can go down fifteen thousand feet and work under pressures of seven thousand pounds the square inch. But I don’t imagine you need one of them.”

  “This will do nicely,” I admitted.

  My eyes touched the Century Coronado, which was capable of hitting a forty-four miles an hour speed. To get to where Midge Priest was going tonight, I’d have to take off well before she did. I glanced at my wristwatch.

  “Tell you what,” I said to the old man. “Fill her up, get her ready. I’ll be back inside the hour to take her out.”

  “You pay for the petrol,” he reminded me.

  I peeled off a century note and let him fold his wrinkled fingers around it. “You do a good job getting it in tiptop shape and that hundred-dollar bill is all yours, above and beyond the cost of the gas. Or petrol, as you call it.”

  His eyes glinted greedily.

  He had the submersible ready when I came back. I was wearing slacks and rubber-soled sports shoes, a turtleneck shirt and sports jacket. Inside the shoulder holster was a spring fun that would fire a drugged pellet with only a slight whooshing sound. I didn’t want gunfire to alert the whole world if I ran into trouble out there.

  I went down through the hatch into a small cabin where two seats sat side by side above twin viewing ports. The controls were close to hand. I looked up at the wizened face peering down at me.

  “You know how to operate this thing?” he wondered.

  “Like my canoe back home,” I grinned.

  The vertical propulsion motor started with a roar, as if to prove the truth of what I said. The man nodded and swung the hatch closed. I reached up and locked it tight. The old man would throw off the ropes.

  I opened the valves to flood the main ballast tank.

  In half an hour I was heading under thirty feet of water toward the Atlantic Ocean, fifteen miles off the west end of the Grand Bahama Island. It was noisy inside the old submersible. And dark. I dared not switch on any lights, outside maybe the flashlight hooked onto my belt so I could read the nautical map in my jacket pocket.

  I chugged along at three knots the hour.

  It took me close to five hours to reach my destination at that speed. It got damn boring after a time, especially since I didn’t even dare to take a look at the surface. Even the sight of a shark would have been welcome. I let myself dream about how much fun it would be if Redhead was in the empty seat beside me.

  Imagine parking and smooching under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, with no fuzz around to send you on your way! The mere idea sent a raw chill of desire through me. I would have turned the lights on for that. Lovemaking, like smoking, is best done in the light.

  When I was as close as my calculations told me I could get to twenty-seven and seventy-nine, I shut off the motors and hung there in the water. My watch told me it was about quarter to ten. I waited for ten minutes, then took off my clothes. Under them I was wearing swim trunks.

  I raised the submersible then.

  She popped from the water about half a mile from the Albatross, riding its anchor in the moonlit darkness. The yacht was alive with electric lights shedding their radiance out across the waters. The brightness did not reach my body as I clambered out of the hatch, listening for the sound of the Coronado motor.

  I was west of the yacht, invisible in the darkness. The submersible had no anchor, but I figured the thing would stay roughly in the same position while I swam across to the Albatross.

  My body slid down into the water.

  I was halfway across to the yacht when my ears picked up the sound of a 225 horsepower V8 engine. The Century Coronado boasts such a motor, so I figured Midge Priest was approaching to keep her rendezvous with the Albatross.

  By the time I got to the huge white hull, Midge was already aboard. Me, I climbed up the anchor chain and hung there, wet and cold, while I waited to pick up voices. It was quiet, this far out to sea, and sound carries easily.

  “—make such a decision,” said a velvety voice completely unfamiliar to me. “It shows how smart you are, Midge. You could go far in the organization. Very far. But you want to call it quits, and that’s all right too.”

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t want me to, Doctor.”

  That was Midge Priest’s voice, no doubt about it. I tightened my grip on the chains and raised by body slowly until I was scanning the foredeck. There had been a nervous tremelo in her throat that told me Midge was scared witless.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” murmured velvet-voice. I could get a brief glimpse of her as she sat with crossed legs under a short-sleeved shift dress striped in brown and beige from hem to the somewhat large turtleneck. Her brown. hair was done in a bun at the back of her head, she wore glasses, and her hands toyed with a brown leather handbag. Despite the rather handsome curves of her mature body, she looked like a high school physics teacher.

  She was saying, “We don’t run our little establishment like a police state, you know. You want out, you can go out, with our thanks and with the money I promised you for a job well done.”

  She lifted a hand from her bag, snapping its fingers.

  A girl stepped out of the shadows, and I did a double-take. Shades of Barbarella! This dame with the feather-cut blonde hair was attired in a uniform of sorts—and what sorts! It was of black satin, tight to her hips, breasts and thighs. It was so tight that I thought at fir
st I was seeing a naked Negress. Her tanned face beneath the blonde hair dispelled that notion.

  Around her curving hips was a leather belt with a holstered automatic. The automatic bobbed on her hips in tune with the breasts bobbing up above. She had a dazzling smile which she showed to Midge. She held an envelope in her hands.

  She handed the envelope to the older woman.

  Velvet-voice counted out some bills, showing them to Midge, who was all eyes as she stared down at the crisp greenbacks. They went back inside the envelope and the woman handed it to her.

  “There you are, my dear. I want to wish you all the luck in the world in your future life. I don’t have to ask you if you’re going to keep a tight lip about our little venture, and about our organization.”

  “Oh, yes, I will. I will!” Midge vowed.

  She sounded as if she could not believe her ears, that despite her brave front, she was positive she was going to be in trouble. She seemed to freeze in her mingled relief and despair, leaning forward slightly toward the older woman. Her hands about the envelope tightened until the paper crumpled.

  The woman doctor rose to her feet, patting Midge gently on her shoulder. “I’ll be leaving now. I’ll send your motorboat back to the dock. You’ll stay on only just so long as the Albatross can put you wherever you want to go.”

  “I—I had thought of taking a vacation on the island.”

  “In that case, spend the night on board. Or if you want, leave now. But be good enough to see me to the tender. I have to be off myself on a matter of business tonight in Freeport.”

  “Whatever you say, Doctor.”

  Midge walked with the older woman toward the port rail. She stood there leaning on the railing as the doctor walked down the ship’s ladder to the tender, which must have been butting moldboards with the Century Coronado. The girl in the skintight uniform stood slightly behind Midge, also looking down.

  I threw a leg up over the starboard rail, where it passed over the brass fairlead through which the anchor chain ran to the windlass. My bare feet made no sound as I put them firmly on the deck.

  Midge Priest could answer questions. If she remained on the Albatross, I had to find a way to reach her cabin and abduct her, if necessary. If she told me what I wanted to know, fine. Then I would dive overside and swim back to my little submersible.

  The uniformed girl put a hand to her belt

  There was a small automatic in the holster hanging on the belt. She was lifting the automatic from the holster as the tender roared into life on the far side of the yacht

  “Midge! Duck!” I bellowed, and leaped.

  My voice startled Midge, who turned and stared at me, but she couldn’t recognize me because of my mask. The girl flunky also whirled, her eyes getting big at sight of me. The hand holding the automatic at her side came out of its paralysis. The gun lifted toward my all but naked body.

  Suddenly the gun veered, turned on Midge.

  The blonde girl had been gaping at me, not believing what she saw. When the uniformed girl turned her gun toward her, I yelled.

  “She’s going to kill you, Midge!”

  I was still too far away to interfere. Midge grabbed for the gun, the gun went off and I held my breath as I ran those last few yards between the struggling girls and my speeding body.

  Out of the corners of my eyes I saw three more girls in those skintight uniforms come racing from a deck cabin. They ran for me. Ahead of me, Midge and her companion were locked in a desperate struggle, bumping into the port rail, sliding sideways across the deck into a stanchion.

  I angled my run toward the three girls.

  My feet went off the deckplanks.

  I dove into the girls sideways, like a Green Bay blocking back clearing a path for his runner. The girls screeched as they slammed backwards, thumping onto the deck and sliding.

  I scrambled for them, grabbing a gun from one and hurling it, kicking a second gun from another. The third girl had slammed into a rail with her head. She lay motionless.

  Ignoring her, I ran for Midge and the girl with whom she was struggling. My hand shot forward for the automatic. I gripped it, twisted. The girl screamed in pain as her fingers tore from the savagery of my wrench. I threw the gun overboard.

  I only hit women in self-defense, or while defending another person. My left fist traveled eight inches. It landed on the side of a jaw. The girl’s head spun sideways, her knees buckled and she slumped down, her dead weight tearing her wrist free of Midge’s grip.

  “Come on,” I yelled at the blonde girl.

  “You!” she gasped. “Where’d you—you’re dead!”

  I gave her a slap on her buttock. “Get the hell over that starboard rail—fast!”

  The two girls without automatics were coming for us. The girl who still held the automatic in her hand was reviving, shaking her head and stirring with her legs.

  “Go, Midge—go!”

  She caught the urgency in my voice. She ran for the rail. I turned back toward the oncoming Valkyries. One I hit with a fist right in the middle of her belly between her rib-case and her navel. She doubled up with a sickening gasp, and started retching even before she hit the deck.

  The second girl tried to brake her run. I reached for her. I was aiming at her arm, to grip it and hurl her, but when she braked I missed my target. My spread-fingered hands closed down on her breasts.

  She was the tomboy type and didn’t have too much up front, but what there was, I fastened on with the grip of a steel vise. She screamed as the pain rocketed through her body, that began bucking in reflex response to my grip.

  Both hands fastened to her breasts, I moved sideways, hurling her with my hands tight on her young breasts, across the deck. She went through the air like an aerialist falling off a tightrope. Her head and neck rammed into the side of the cabin. I winced at the dull thud.

  Midge was at the rail, grabbing it and leaping upward to clear it. I got a glimpse of nyloned legs and bare thighs as her skirt flared, then she was dropping out of sight toward the water.

  I disdained the rail. I took a long leap, diving over that brass bar, arms together as my body went down. It was lucky for me I did. A bullet raced me through the darkness. It grazed my calf as I went into my dive. If I’d hesitated to lay hands to the rail and vault over as Midge Priest had done, that lead pellet would have hit the middle of my back.

  I fell for the black waters. Midge was nowhere in sight. I hit the cold, dark wetness and went under.

  I swam underwater for about fifty feet before I had to surface for air. Midge was slightly behind me, treading water.

  “What are you doing?” I rasped. “That girl with the gun is hanging over the rail looking for us.”

  “I can’t swim in this dress! It’s got to go.”

  She wriggled and writhed and in a moment I caught a look at her sodden garment moments before it vanished in the water. “I kicked off my shoes back a ways,” she panted, turning to swim.

  I saw a pink behind under wet, tissue-thin panties as she began to swim away from the yacht. Since she was moving in the general direction of the submersible, I let her go, and flicked a glance at the Albatross.

  The girl with the automatic in her hand was steadying it with both hands, elbows resting on the rail. She had just sighted us swimming, now she was zeroing in with the Colt

  “Dive!” I yelled at Midge, and went down myself.

  I swam under the surface for a dozen yards. I surfaced and looked back at the yacht. The girl had snapped off a shot I heard something hit the water with a screeching whine, but she had lost sight of us. I drew a deep breath when I saw no sign of Midge, and dove again.

  We made it in slow stages to the submersible. When we were a hundred yards from the Albatross, I judged it safe enough to swim on the surface where we could make better time. I was damn cold and I knew Midge must be freezing in just her underthings.

  “Got a two-man sub ahead,” I told her as we swam.“Just keep going and you ca
n’t miss it.”

  She didn’t bother to nod. Her bare arms kept stroking, her stockinged feet went on beating. The submersible looked real good to me, its yellow superstructure like a welcome home light in the faint radiance from the yacht’s lights.

  I put a hand to her elbow, aided the all but exhausted girl up onto the tiny deck. This research craft was no luxury submarine, it had no rail and its deck was curved. Midge slipped and floundered her way forward as I hoisted myself out of the water and went to aid her in getting the hatch raised.

  Her teeth were chattering as she slid a shapely stockinged leg over the hatch rim and found the tiny ladder. Her breasts bobblcd under a cobwebby brassiere as she swung about to grasp the rim and fumble with a foot for the rungs.

  She lifted her eyes for an instant before she ducked her head out of view to look at me in something like awe. “I’m saving my questions until I get warm,” she chattered, and went down out of sight.

  I dropped after her, closed the hatch, locked it in place.

  We gave ourselves a couple of minutes to get our wind back, and to do something about our cold flesh. Midge was crouched with her arms about herself, not to protect her breasts from my stare but to try and squeeze some heat into her bloodstream. There was gooseflesh on her soft thighs above the ripped stockings. I noticed that she had tucked the envelope with her money inside the stocking on her right leg.

  “Now you know,” I growled, turning to lift my sports jacket and shirt and put them within reach of her hand, “what sort of outfit you were working for.”

  There was a towel in the Eastern Airlines bag I had carried onto the submersible, together with a hammered silver hip flask containing some expensive Pinwinnie Scotch. I handed the towel to Midge.

  “Get those wet things off and dry yourself. Then you can have a swig of this Scotch.”

  Midge reached behind her back to get at the brassiere snaps. Her breasts swung forward, swaying slightly. I let my eyeballs feast on those sleek white weights with their cold-hardened brown nipples. Midge Priest had marvelous breasts. I congratulated myself on having saved them for all the males in the world who would get to see them, some day.