Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea

by Theodore Sturgeon

  It was nothing . . . more properly, it was no thing. It was a purplish, then lavender cloud moving down toward him, spreading and diluting as it came. He remembered then to breathe again, and snapped a curse at himself for being so jumpy. He thought he knew what this stain was, but to be sure, he pulled out the square packet at the back of his tool belt and yanked the cord which tore it open.

  Purple matter smoked out and streamed slowly away, rising in a tall orchid cloud as it approached the submarine.

  Shark repellent.

  Someone had planted a dispenser or two of shark repellent upwind of him, pinned it under a rock, probably, so it would stream its protection over him. A simple safeguard which proved Crane, for overlooking it, quite as afflicted by the Blind Spot as those aboard who had not been able to think of signaling with the lights.

  He captured his own repellent dispenser with a piece of coral and stared upcurrent for a moment.

  He had promised himself he would waste no thought on the matter, but now he wondered if the diver in yellow was still up there somewhere, or if he was gone, having left the chemical guardian in his place.

  Crane shrugged and went back to work. He set the remaining cutaway section of armor in place after threading the trigger-line from the gas pellet through the hole he had drilled, which was on the underside of the big cable. Then he unrolled his armor tape, stripped off the backing, and carefully taped up all the saw cuts. Finally he snipped a piece of tape off for a patch, removed the backing, and knelt to reach the dangling trigger-line. He grasped it and pulled; it came free, came out. Inside the cable, which was built in watertight sections, gas under high pressure poured out of the tiny pellet, collecting inside the armor at the top and forcing seawater out through the hole he had drilled. When bubbles appeared at the low point, and a moment later, when they began to dwindle in intensity, Crane slapped the final patch on. Inside, the three “getters” he had planted would chemically absorb moisture until, in a few hours, the cut section would be as dry as the day it came out of the factory.

  He gathered up his tools and stowed them, wondering if, after all, this meticulous workmanship wasn’t a little ludicrous in the face of the world’s end. And then he thought, right up to the time it ends, I’ll know. And it was worth the effort.

  He swam slowly back, holding the free end of the phone line up off the sea floor to keep it from fouling while Sparks reeled it in. Then, as the floods and search-beams winked out behind him, he headed gratefully for the warm shaft of brilliance which located the well chamber. Reaching it, he pulled himself heavily up the ladder, painfully feeling the increment of weight as his tanks and tools came into atmosphere. Waist-deep, he paused to get his breath—he had not known he had been down so long, worked so hard, gotten himself so exhausted.

  Suddenly he was relieved of pounds of weight. He looked up, startled, into the smiling eyes of Cathy Connors, who was hauling mightily on his tanks. He found strength immediately to climb the rest of the way, swung over the rim, stood on the walkway and relievedly yanked the quick-release on his tank harness, turning to help the girl, who almost fell with them. He broke the seals at his throat, hauled down the zipper, and got the hood palmed up, back, and off his head. “Lee—Lee!” She was on him, enfolding him, ignoring the sweat, the smell (what a diver once called blended essences of undersea and underwear); her warm mouth was on him hungrily, eagerly. “Oh Lee, I was so scared. Oh dear . . . your poor head,” she cried, stroking, with a feather touch, his bruised forehead.

  “Well!” he said, pushing her back in order to make room for a word. “The girl I’d most like to get decompressed with. What the devil are you doing here, you scamp?”

  “Oh . . . just scampering around. I—”

  “In the well!” barked the grille on the overhead. “All secure, Captain?”

  “A moment, Admiral, for the hatch.” Crane pulled a wall lever. There was a soft rumble, and the water in the well stirred. The rumble ceased. “All secure, sir.”

  “Take her up,” the Admiral’s voice said off mike. “Steer one eight five.” On mike again, “Just relax now, Captain. Gleason’ll handle your pressure.”

  “One eight five. South and a hair west. He’s going through with it, then. No presidential permission, either.”

  “He’s on his own cognizance now. There just isn’t any other way to try. If there was, he’d think of it. He even asked for suggestions—I know—I was the one who trotted around with a pad and pencil like a pollster. From now on we’re discretionary.”

  “You’re not,” said Crane. “You hussy. You know I have to strip and dry off.”

  “I know. I brought you dry clothes. I just want to be alone with you for a little while, no matter what the neighbors say.”

  “Then push that intercom button to ‘Listen.’ ”

  “Oh my goodness.” She pushed the button. While he stripped and toweled himself, she stood on the other side of the well, turned comfortably sidewise. There was about Cathy Connors neither brazen sophistication nor schoolgirl coyness. She did not primly turn her back; but she also did not stare. She genuinely had other things on her mind.

  The submarine began to quiver slightly, as it left the sea-mount and headed toward the surface.

  Cathy palmed her ears. “If they raise the pressure any more to blow that water out of the well, I’ll implode like a light bulb,” she said.

  “They won’t,” said Crane. “Use your head. Sure, there’s a hatch across the bottom of the well now, but there’s a one-way valve in it—and when the outside pressure goes down, which it will durn quick as we go for the surface, the inside pressure here forces the water out. Look, you can see it going down right now.”

  Imitating a hill-billy, she wagged her head and demanded to know what they would think of next: then, as if on some secret inner signal, dropped all pretense of small talk. “Lee, I’m so worried.”

  “Aside from being trapped with a wild animal,” he said, clinching his belt and coming around to put his arms around her, “while the world ends—what’s on your mind?” Then he, too, stopped the banter, and said quite differently, “What is it, honey?”

  She kissed him absently. “The O.O.M., mostly. Some of the men think he’s carrying the dogged determination bit a little too far.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Part female intuition, part sheer scuttlebutt.”

  “What would they like to do instead?”

  “Some of ‘em were pretty sore about the shore leave. Not crazy mad like poor Berkowitz, but sore anyway. Oh, and about Berkowitz: there’s talk that the O.O.M. knew in advance that the police boat would shoot him.”

  “Who said that? By the Lord, I’ll—”

  “Shh,” she said against his lips. “I can’t tell you who, and you’ll do no such thing. Men have to talk, men always will. You were a fo’c’s’le type sailor not so long ago. Have you forgotten already?”

  “I guess not,” he said, the swollen veins in the sides of his neck subsiding. “But how can anybody know Nelson and talk like that . . .? anything else?”

  “You going to pop your gaskets any more?”

  “I’ll try not.”

  “If you do again, I’ll clam up.”

  “I’ll be good.”

  “Well,” she said, “It’s Chip. He’s wild—I’ve never known him to be so mad before.”

  “What’s his beef?”

  “The phone call. Oh dear, you haven’t heard it yet? Oh well—you will. It’s taped. Anyway, the O.O.M. put it on the p.a. system. Chip says that was the stupidest move he has ever seen made by a commanding officer.”

  “Why stupid?”

  “Well,” she said soberly, “it was pretty grim.”

  “I don’t care how grim it was. I’d do just what Nelson did. I think the way he does—that unless it’s a matter of security—like the Van Allen shot before he broke it to the UN—a crew has a right to know what’s going on. But if we’re to go through with it, and make no stop
s between here and there, it’s just like opening sealed orders—it’s a high-seas situation.”

  “You might change your mind when you hear the tape,” said Cathy, “though I don’t think so. Anyway, Chip thinks the O.O.M. is getting senile. He says the only thing to do is to say nothing and double the work details. He says if it was any other kind of a ship on any other kind of a mission, it might not matter, but when it’s the end of the world, you don’t hold a crew together by telling them how bad things are.”

  “He doesn’t know this crew,” said Crane; but the brave loyal words did nothing about the cold lump which had formed in his stomach. “Any more good news?”

  “There’s something wrong with Hodges.”

  “The Third? Heck, there’s nothing wrong with him a shore leave won’t cure. What’s his trouble?”

  “He was, well, praying.”

  “If that’s bad, it’s curable. But is it bad? Some of my best friends—”

  “He was saying the Lord’s Prayer in the magazine, and he wouldn’t stop. Dr. Jamieson said he didn’t think he could stop.” She shuddered. “It was awful, Lee—awful. He started during the phone call, and he just went on and on.”

  “Dr. Hiller has him under some sort of therapy, hasn’t she?”

  “Yes. She took care of him. She whispered something to him and he stopped praying, but he seemed to be very dazed. She led him away like a child.”

  “Damn. That makes us a little short-handed on the bridge. I guess I’ll have to take his watches . . . it doesn’t surprise me too much, though, honey. I’ve heard before that people getting their heads handled sometimes come unglued for a while. I’ll have a word or two to say to Hiller, though. She should’ve kept her hands the hell off him.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that, Lee. Really not. She’s awfully good, and she only took him on because he was getting jumpy. He hasn’t been able to sleep, you know. If it weren’t for her the chances are he’d’ve cracked up even sooner, and maybe worse. You have to remember—nothing’s normal now.”

  “All the more reason to act normally.”

  “That’s what Chip said about putting that call on the p.a.”

  “I’ll have to hear this famous phone call. Who did we talk to, anyway?”

  “England.”

  “England? Who in England?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. You’ll hear it later. Please, Lee.”

  “All right, Cathy,” he said, surprised and concerned. “Then there’s only one more thing on my mind: who was the man in the yellow suit?”

  “Old Emery said it was an angel.” She looked quickly at him, his eyes, one, the other, searching for laughter which would be cruel then. “He was kidding, of course, but—”

  “He really didn’t come from this boat?”

  “If he did, he was in two places at once. When we saw him out there, we thought it was one of your men—Gleason or Smith. And then when you . . . when he got away from you, we looked around and there both of them were behind us, watching. O’Brien and his little helpers had their hands full in Main Control and the engine room. Cookie was in the greenhouse with us too—oh, everybody, everyone was aboard but you. And just to cap it—there wasn’t a yellow suit in the rack.”

  “You’re right, there wasn’t, and we went over every one of them.” He shook his head. “What bothers me is that the suit was strictly Navy—identical to the one I had on. Not only that—you saw me set out shark repellent? Well, what nudged me to do it was that that . . . angel of yours . . . he set some out too, upcurrent. I used mine mainly to check just that—it was identical.”

  “He did? Lee, who was he? Who was he?”

  “I can think of three possibilities. One, no matter what you said, it was someone from the Seaview—someone you thought you’d checked but didn’t. (That, by the way, is my choice.) Two, it was a man from another submarine—which makes no sense at all, because the only way there could have been one around without our detecting it a half a day ago would be for it to be lying doggo—lying exactly where we would stop, or within a few minutes’ scuba swim. And nobody knew where we’d stop until we stopped. Even if someone outside had known of our plan to tap the cable, they’d have hundreds of miles of cable to guess at. And just to dispose altogether of that nonsensical silly submarine, it would either be for us or against us. If it was for us, it would have given us a hail. If it was against us, no diver in no yellow suit would’ve pegged that shark for me.”

  “Why would anyone be against us?”

  “Anyone wouldn’t, which finally disposes of the whole silly idea.”

  And what’s your third guess?”

  Lee Crane spread his big hands. “He was an angel,” he said.

  13

  CRANE LAY ON HIS BUNK LISTENING to a tape recorder. The first thing he heard was his own voice:

  CRANE: Segment twenty-four, pair one. [Silence, five seconds] Segment twenty-four, pair two.

  SPARKS: Hold it! Hold it right there, Captain Crane, while I pull up the gain. [Chatter, scratches, chatter. And what sounds like a voice.] Captain, we got something. We got something. Can you hook on with your needle-probes, sir? That’s Segment twenty-four, pair 2.

  CRANE: Hold on a minute. [Pause, 15 seconds] Try that. [Over background of bad static, a woman’s voice, crooning]

  VOICE: [very English] . . . ride a cock horse, to Banbury Cross, and what will poor robin do then, poor thing . . .? For oh, for oh, the hobby-horse is forgot. ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, did boil the beer of all those coves, in the name of the Father, the Son—

  SPARKS: Hello hello hello. Hello hello hello. This is the atomic submarine Seaview, United States Bureau of Undersea Exploration. Hello hello hello, do you read me. [A moment of silence, but for the backsurge of noise]

  VOICE: I say.

  SPARKS: Hello hello hello. This is the atomic submarine Seaview. Answer, please.

  VOICE: This is the operator. May I help you?

  SPARKS: I have a top priority, urgent call for Washington, D.C. Where are you, operator?

  VOICE: Southampton, natur’ly. What number are you calling?

  SPARKS: Operator, this is an emergency. This is the submarine Seaview, Admiral Harriman Nelson calling the President of the United States in Washington, D. C.

  VOICE: You’re pulling my leg.

  SPARKS: Operator, this is a genuine emergency. This is the submarine Seaview. We have tapped into the undersea cable off the Brazilian coast. We have a crash priority call for the President of the United States. Can you get us through?

  VOICE: [Completely businesslike] One moment please. [Twenty seconds silence]

  SPARKS: Hello Southampton. Hello hello hello.

  VOICE: One moment, please, Seaview. I’ve put in a trunk call to the Foreign Office. I think I’ve got through and they’re ringing. I say, y’know, this is the first call I’ve handled in two days. I was lit’r’ly talking to myself . . . I’m not getting the Foreign Office. P’raps it isn’t ringing after all, there could be a short. I’ll try some numbers at the Home Office.

  SPARKS: Southampton, could you put us through to the admiralty, or the RAF Signal Corps?

  VOICE: I’ll try, sir.

  SPARKS: Could you put some other operators on it? And may I speak to your supervisor?

  VOICE: [Cold, tense] I am the other operators, sir. I am the supervisor. I am the charlady and the bottlewasher and the sweeper-up and the doorman. Oh I am the cook and the captain bold, and the mate of the Nancy Lee . . . Sorry, Seaview. I’ve been on duty for three days and I haven’t had tea since yesterday . . . The ringing signal’s stopped. Maybe it never was ringing, what? Ring out wild bells . . .

  SPARKS: Southampton!

  VOICE: Mrs. Symonds is the relief operator, what? She came a little late in her little blue hat. She floated right up to the window and she bobbed about, and she went away with the tide, and when the tide came in, there she was again. [Suddenly businesslike] I’m sorry, sir. I’ve been ringing L
ondon right along, but I can’t get an answer from telephone Central. I’m afraid I shan’t get through. The wires are down all over the west coast, y’know. This one London line sounds live, but there hasn’t been anybody on it in days.

  SPARKS: Operator, what about the overseas lines?

  VOICE: All out, sir. First noise, ever so much noise, and then one by one they went out. Until you came. Where did you say you’re calling from?

  SPARKS: United States Submarine Seaview, tapped into the submarine cable off Ferdinand de Noronha.

  VOICE: Oh, I say: that is a lark.

  SPARKS: Could you speak a little more clearly, please. There’s no way you can relay this call to Washington, then? Or to the British authorities?

  VOICE: Not until they put the lines right, sir.

  SPARKS: [Off mike] Yes sir, I’ll ask. [On mike] Operator, Admiral Nelson wants to know everything you can tell us about the world situation.

  VOICE: Now I know you’re pulling my leg. He’s been dead for years.

  SPARKS: The American Admiral Nelson!

  VOICE: Oh yes, of course. I’m sorry, sir. I’m sorry, I’ve been, you know. And no tea. I say, you wanted to call Washington in America, what? Oh dear, you can’t, you know, it isn’t there any more. At least the Government are not. The very last I heard was that they had moved into Virginia, the mountains, you know. There were some calls from New York too, there are still people there. In the tall buildings. They want water. They want food too, but mostly water. The rivers have all gone salt, you see, with the sea coming in. [The background noise louder. The voice fainter.]