by Robb White
Pete stood perfectly still, the oxygen hissing quietly into the helmet. His mind was now cluttered with thoughts; utter loneliness was like a weight pressing down on him; uncontrollediear moved in the pit of his stomach. He waited, trying to breathe slowly, until his mind cleared and became familiar to him, became the mind of a controlled man holding to a single train of thought, concentrated entirely and with complete detachment on the plan of attack.
Still standing still, Pete slowly ripped open the packet of shark chaser at his belt. The dye spread slowly through the room, seeping along the floor. He watched as it reached and flowed around the dome of the octopus.
The animal did not move.
Pete watched it for a long time as the dye slowly dissipated. He had known that it would not work. There was no escape from the thing he had to do.
He could now make out the camouflaged tentacles of the octopus extending into the room, long and the color of dead flesh as they lay motionless on the dead surface of the sea growth. With an almost imperceptible movement Pete
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drifted toward the thing as he watched the hateful eyes, watched the motionless tentacles. Pete was stooped over a little, the combat knife bare in his right hand, his left arm across his chest, his left hand under his right armpit.
The plastic lens of the underwater light gleamed pale on the floor and Pete glanced down at it. When he looked up again, he saw the tentacle to his left moving. Inside the sucker-lined sheath muscles oozed back toward the hood, and the butt of the tentacle began to swell and then, slowly and smoothly rising from the floor, the tip end of the tentacle came up like the head of a cobra. For long seconds it undulated gently and then began its slow approach toward his body.
Pete stopped every movement of his muscles except his slow and gentle breathing. Requiring the total power of his mind, he stopped the involuntary trembling of his knees, the quivering of his lower lip, the convulsive reaction of his stomach pressing up against his diaphragm. He knew that the time for flight was forever gone; the conflict had been joined.
He could not stop the slow closing of his eyes, the tremor of their lids, or the thick swallowing in his throat. When he opened his eyes, the tentacle was reaching out toward him, and he watched the thin, death-gray tip of it as it came. He saw the circular mouths of the rows of suckers, and as the tactile tip touched him, the sucker
SECRET SEA
mouths opened and shut in a convulsive movement all along the tentacle.
Through the diving dress he could not feel the tentacle at all, but he knew that it was sliding around his body, for he could see at the edge of the faceplate the diameter of it, just below his left elbow, growing, swelling, and he could see the rows of suckers sliding past.
The implacable eyes stared, unblinking; the mantle of the thing then began to convulse slowly.
The faceplate of the helmet sharply defined the area of Pete's vision, and he was startled when he saw the tip of the tentacle appear again on his right side. The squirming end of the thing moved more swiftly now as it continued to encircle him just above the hipbones. As though it was blind, it felt its way along, searching in the folds of the diving suit, sliding over small summits and into the valleys of them.
Pete could still feel nothing through the heavy dress. The tentacle continued, the tip now disappearing past the left edge of the faceplate, the band of the tentacle across his belly swelling steadily.
Then Pete felt the pressure. Not suddenly, not with a jerk or a squeeze. It was just a slowly growing pressure around his waist, particularly against his back. There was no feeling of constriction, just of compulsion. It was as though
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a solid wall was behind him, pushing him forward.
Then, with horror, Pete suddenly realized that the tentacle had pinned his right arm to his side, pinned the knife against his leg. His mind stopped the almost instantaneous impulse to raise his arm, free the knife. He forced himself to become completely relaxed, offering no resistance whatsoever as the tentacle drew him with increasing speed toward the dome of the animal.
Pete turned his eyes to those of the octopus, and they stared at each other steadily. Pete tried to penetrate through the eyes into the mind of the animal which held his life encircled, while his own mind coldly calculated distances, pressures, the length of the razor-sharp radula which could slice open the dress and let the enormous crush of the sea in upon his body.
Now he must lower his left arm, move it down outside the grasping tentacle, move the hand down until the fingers could reach and replace those of his right hand on the hilt of the knife. The action must be so slow that the octopus would not interpret it as a threatening movement, so slow that to the yellow eyes it would appear to be only drifting, and yet the movement had to be completed before his body was drawn close to the hood and the rake of the radula; it had to be completed before, in the violence of the animal's gluttony, the thing should
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grab him with other tentacles, jerk him forward and clamp him against the mouth which Pete could now see, the folds of it working like a nest of snakes.
As Pete started the deliberate, snail-slow passage of his left hand downward, he saw another tentacle moving forward, saw the tip touch and slide around his legs and felt the new pressure. Then a third tentacle rose, the tip touched the faceplate an inch from his eyes, slid slowly over it until the small double row of suckers was oozing across the glass. In dread Pete watched as the area of glass through which he could see v/as slowly reduced by the swelling tentacle until almost all light was blocked and there remained but a slit at the bottom through which he could see on]^ the underside of the tentacle, the suckers convulsing, and beyond, the yellow eyes.
The movement of his left hand continued, and with all his will power he forced his mind to remain as calm, detached, and concentrated as it would have been in the safety of the Indra. Estimating the diameter of the tentacle around his waist, he was careful not to let his moving hand brush it. Once, when he let his movements become too fast, he felt the instant reaction of the animal—a quick tightening of all the tentacles.
In the dim light now inside the helmet Pete could make out the round suckers working on the polished glass faceplate. First the lip would
THE CONFLICT IS JOINED
touch the glass in a thin, circular line, then it would flatten into a pale ribbon as the suction began, and finally the interior of the mouth would come down white and deathlike to ooze inside the motionless band of lip.
The fingers of his left hand touched the wrist of his right. The knife was so close now—if he bent his right hand up, he would be able to shift it with no further movement of his left hand. But he did not do it, for he knew that any movement of his arm Inside the coil of the tentacles would result in instant and crushing pressure. Anything he did now which the octopus could interpret as an attempt to escape would certainly mean his death.
He could feel the little ball on the hilt of the knife, but his hands in the heavy rubber gloves were clumsy as the fingers slid slowly down against the fingers of his right hand.
The fear of dropping the knife was terrible as his fingers continued their controlled and dead-slow movement. He raised the first finger of his right hand, the finger of the left taking its place. He raised the second finger.
His time was running out. Through the slit of the faceplate he saw a sudden horrible change sweep over the octopus. From its dead gray a wave of color tinged its body, receded, and another wave, this one blotched with gray and purplish brown, took its place. The pressure of the
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tentacles increased; he could feel now the swift passage of his body toward the animal.
With the knife at last gripped in his left hand, his left arm slowly rising in a calculated passage between the tentacles which now held him, Pete was suddenly drawn in under the mantle of the octopus.
For a moment the animal held him so that t
he hooded eyes were close to his own. The tentacles across the faceplate oozed away, and suddenly Pete's whole circle of vision was clear again and he could look straight into the sinister and baleful eyes.
He knew now that the time of his life was being measured out in seconds, and yet he held back the desire, strong as panic, to stab into the eyes.
Pete continued the slow raising of his left arm.
The radula began to rake him, gently at first, the sounds of the teeth against the rough twill rasping.
Pete studied the two hoods containing the eyes. In the gloom of the room he calculated the distance behind them on the now slowly convulsing dome of the octopus. Above the dome the long knife gleamed, and a pale blue and golden fish swam away from it.
Pete recognized the spot the point of the knife must enter. It was small in area, and it was moving with the convulsions of the animal. To miss it would mean his death.
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Pete fixed his eyes on the moving spot, and the downward thrust began.
At the first instant of the stab—as Pete's muscles tensed along his left side, flowed over his shoulder, and pulled downward—the tentacles crushed in around him, the radula raked across the twill suit, the suckers ripped at him. A tentacle, the tip of it moving so fast that it was only a blur of gray, seized his left wrist and he felt the shock of its strength.
Too late. As Pete's breath came crushing up out of his lungs in a short, harsh moan, as the radula flailed the metal helmet, the Marine Corps knife drove down seven and a quarter inches through the brain of the animal. A flood of ink shot from the octopus and the room was suddenly utterly •dark.
Pete realized slowly that he had been unconscious for a while—how long he did not know. As he opened his eyes, he saw nothing except inky blackness. And there was an enormous weight pressing him down against the floor of the room.
Moving slowly, his body trembling, he pushed upward. The weight oozed off him and he stood up.
The ink slowly cleared until he could see the animal sprawled among the dim crates. The knife hilt made a dull silver line. Pete, revulsion tight in his stomach, reached far out and grasped the
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knife. It came away easily, blood oozing out from where it had been.
Then panic hit Pete. Turning, he ran through the door, crashed into the frames of the ship, staggered back and ran at them again, jamming his way out to the open floor of the ocean.
Then he heard his own breath dry and hard and he stopped running. He turned slowly, looked back at the ship from which the black ink of the octopus was still flowing, and then turned again and walked to the anchor chain.
His knees were weak and his hands were shaking so that he had trouble snapping the life line to his suit. It was a long time before he got the telephone plug in, but at last he screwed it tight.
"Mike." Pete heard his own voice, and it was only a whisper. "Mike. Bring me up."
"Roger, wilco," Mike's voice answered. It sounded cheerful. Pete sighed and slumped down on the white sand, waiting until the life line began hoisting him upward.
Mte Wheel
Of Years i ^^Mln^im
Xhe sunset was again peaceful, the world calm as the Indra rode at anchor in the little lagoon. Pete, however, was not slowly walking along the beach dreading the encounter with the octopus. He and Mike were both in the main cabin working. Coils of rope had been brought aft from the forecastle peak, a small cargo net was spread out on the floor, in one corner Pete was collecting a small pile of tools.
Mike was measuring three-quarter-inch rope and coiling it down—measuring out thirty fathoms of it with a three-foot rule.
"How'd you kill that thing, Pete?" he asked.
Pete didn't look up from his examination of a six-point ripping saw. "Stabbed it."
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"Just walked right up to it and stabbed it, eh?"
"Practically."
"Seventeen . . . eighteen . . . Don't give me that modest-hero stuff, Mac. What happened down there? It took you twenty-six minutes."
"That long?" Pete put the saw down on the pile of tools and began rummaging in a gear locker.
"Come on, give," Mike said.
"I just figured that the octopus had never seen a self-contained diver's suit," Pete said, pulling stuff out of the gear locker. "Figured he wouldn't know whether I was good to eat or not, or whether I was an enemy. So I walked right up to it."
"Yeah?"
"He wrapped two or three arms around me and I just relaxed."
"Ugh," Mike said, grunting.
"Since I didn't resist him, he decided I wasn't an enemy. So he brought me in close to see if I was good to eat. That's where he made the greatest mistake of his life."
Mike stopped measuring the rope and stood looking at Pete still rummaging in the gear locker.
"As soon as I was in close enough, I let him have it with the knife the Marines clean their fingernails with."
"Suppose you'd missed?"
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Pete shrugged. "Would've been rugged."
Mike said slowly, "Brother, you took an awful chance. Weren't you scared when he wrapped those things around you?"
"StiflF," Pete said.
"I guess you were too busy to worry about ol' Mike, but those were the longest twenty-six minutes I ever put in," Mike said. "When you disconnected the phone and I didn't hear any more, there wasn't a thing to do but stand around on one foot and wonder what was going on. After twenty minutes I decided that the thing had got you. I was sort of glad to hear you gurgling again."
"You sounded pretty good yourself. 'Roger wilco.'"
Mike grinned. "You had that thing all figured out before you went down, didn't you?"
Pete nodded.
Mike started measuring rope again. "It would've been right lonely sailing back all by myself."
"I can imagine," Pete said. Then he held up a short rifle. "Ever shoot one of these hull thumpers?"
"Twenty-three ... Is that a carbine?" Mike put the rope down carefully and stepped over it. Hefting the M-1 carbine, he said, "Boy, I bet that thing kicks the britches off you."
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"Nope. Very sweet-shooting piece of artillery. Little heavy on the muzzle blast but no kick."
"How does she work?"
Pete got a clip of cartridges from the box and slipped them up into the underside of the receiver. Then he pulled the bolt back and let it ride home. "The safety's on the trigger guard— push her over and she's ready to go."
"How many bullets?"
"Fifteen in the clip and one in the gun. Semi-auto, gas-operated. She doesn't ride up very much, so you can do a lot of perforating in a very short time."
Mike held the gun gingerly, looking at it. As Pete turned back to the gear locker, Mike laid the carbine gently down in the bunk against the outboard bulkhead.
"Here's what I'm looking for," Pete said, holding up a small pair of ice tongs.
Mike laughed. "Did anybody ever tell you you were a pack rat, Pete?"
"Never mind the remarks. I want to get that dead octopus out of there. I don't want a bunch of sharks gnawing away on him while I'm in there. So you're going to haul him up to the surface and set him adrift. Secure one of the empty gas tins to him so he'll float away and not come dangling back down my neck, see?"
Pete added the tongs to the collection of tools while Mike finished measuring the rope.
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"That does it for tonight," Pete said. "Sack time."
Mike turned off the light in the main cabin and pulled the black curtains away from the hatch and skylights so that the cool night wind came sweeping into the dark cabin. As he and Pete went forward in the darkness Mike said, "What do you think, Skipper?"
"Hard to tell, Mike. I might have to break through a lot of bulkheads before I can get to where the stuff is. Might take three or four days yet."
> Mike groaned. "I thought it was in the room with the octopus."
"Might be. There's something in there. Among other things there's a human skeleton."
"You know, Pete," Mike said slowly, "sometimes I think we're never going to find the stuff. We get closer and closer, but we don't ever find anything."
"We'll find it. Good night."
"Night, Cap'n."
In the morning as Mike steered the Indra slowly upwind toward the floating coconut, Pete said, "We'd better put a new nut on it tomorrow. That one's getting sort of waterlogged."
Mike nodded as Pete went forward and picked up the anchor. He dropped it overboard and came aft.
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**You going down in the self-contained outfit?" Mike asked.
"No. Time's too limited in that. Anyway, you ought to do some work."
"I'll remember that," Mike said. "When you start gasping for air down there, you'll hear me laughing."
Pete laughed as he snapped a slide to the life line and climbed into the heavy outfit. Mike got the air pump running while Pete arranged the pile of tools in the cargo net and secured the thirty fathoms of rope to it. "I'll put a fisherman's knot in the life line. That way you'll be able to slide stuff up and down the line, and I won't have to hunt all over the Gulf for it. In an emergency give it a hard yank and the knot'11 slip."
For a few minutes Pete waited with the helmet on, testing the incoming air, the outlet valve, and the phone. "Okay, lower away," he said at last.
Down on the now familiar bottom, Pete drew enough life line and hose to permit him to move freely inside the ship with the line secured by a slip knot to one of the frames. This done, he asked Mike to lower away on the tools.
As he spread his gear out carefully on the white sand bottom, he listened to the valves clicking smoothly up in the air pump, and occasionally he could hear Mike pushing the "talk" button on the phone.