by Frederik
Undersea City
by Frederik Pohl
and Jack Williamson
(1958)
1
The Inside Drift
“Cadet Eden, ten-hut!”
I stopped at the edge of the deepwater pool and stiffened to attention. I had been playing sea-tennis with Bob Eskow in the pool courts on a hot Saturday afternoon. I had come out to adjust my oxygen lung—I could see Eskow still in the water, gliding restlessly back and forth as he waited for me—and the Cadet Captain’s sharp order caught me just about to dive back in.
“Cadet Eden, as you were!” I relaxed slightly and turned.
With the Cadet Captain was the O.O.D. He said, “Report to the Commandant’s office at thirteen hundred hours, Cadet Eden. Now carry on.” He returned my salute and walked off with the Cadet Captain.
Bob Eskow poked his head out of the water, flipped back his mask and complained: “Come on, Jim, what’s holding up the game?”
Then he caught sight of the Cadet Captain and the O.O.D. He whistled. “What did they want?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got to report to the Commandant at thirteen hundred, that’s all.”
Eskow climbed out and sprawled on the edge of the deepwater pool beside me. He said seriously, “Maybe it’s what Danthorpe was talking about.”
“What’s that?”
Eskow shook his head. “He just hints around. But it’s something involving you and me—and him.”
“Forget it,” I advised him, and sat down. I took off the mask of my lung and rechecked the bubble valve. It had been sticking. I had fixed it, but there is one thing you learn in the Sub-Sea Fleet and that is to make doubly sure that every piece of undersea equipment is working perfectly. The deeps don’t give you a second chance.
The Bermuda sun was hot on the back of my neck. We had marched a lot of miles under that sun, as cadets at the Sub-Sea Academy, but now we had lost the habit of it. We had been too long under deadly miles of black water, Bob Eskow and I. The sun was strange to us.
Not that we minded the sun. In spite of all the inventions that are conquering the sea—spreading domed cities across that dark, drowned desert that is stranger than Mars—no invention can ever take the place of the clean smell of natural air and the freedom of the wide surface horizon. Not for the first few days, anyhow.
Bob Eskow stood up. He looked around him at the bright green trees and the red-tiled roofs above the hot white beach; he looked out at the whitecaps flashing out on the surface of the sea; and he said what was in my mind.
“It’s worth all the pearls in the Tonga Trench just to be back.”
I knew how he felt.
The deep sea gets into your blood. There’s a strain and a danger that you can never forget. There’s the dark shape of death, always there, waiting outside a film of shining edenite that is thinner than tissue, waiting for you to pull the wrong switch or touch the wrong valve so that it can get in. It can smash a city dome like a peanut under a truck, or slice a man to ribbons with a white jet of slashing brine—
“Quit your daydreaming, you two!”
We looked up.
Another cadet was approaching us.
I hadn’t met him, but I knew his name: Harley Danthorpe. The one Bob Eskow had just mentioned.
He was slender and a bit shorter than Bob. He wore his sea-scarlet dress uniform with knife-edge creases; his hair slick down flat against his scalp.
I didn’t like the expression on his face as Bob introduced us; he seemed to be sneering, “Jim,” said Bob, “Harley Danthorpe is a transfer student, from down deep.”
“And going back there,” said Danthorpe. He flicked a speck of coral dust from his sleeve. “Along with you two,” he mentioned.
Bob and I looked at each other. “What are you talking about, Danthorpe? The fall term’s about to begin—”
Danthorpe shook his head. “We won’t be here. The orders will be out this afternoon.”
I looked hard at him. “You aren’t kidding us? How do you know?”
He shrugged. “I’ve got the inside drift.”
And something happened.
ft happened to Bob as well as to me; I could feel it and I could see it in his eyes. I didn’t like Danthorpe. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not—but the rumor had done something to me. The dry tingle of the sun felt just as good as ever. The sky was still as blue and as high, and the island breeze was just as sweet.
But suddenly I was ready to go down deep again.
I asked: “Where to?”
He stretched and glanced at me and at Bob, then turned and looked out over the sea. “Why Krakatoa Dome,” he said.
Bob said sharply: “Krakatoa?”
“That’s right,” nodded Danthorpe. He looked at Bob curiously. For that matter, so did I; suddenly Bob’s face had seemed to turn a degree paler.
I said quickly, trying to divert Danthorpe’s attention from whatever it was that was bothering Bob: “What are we supposed to be going to Krakatoa for?”
Danthorpe shrugged. “I’ve got the inside drift, but not about that,” he admitted. “All I know is that we’re going.”
Krakatoa! I wanted to believe him. Right at that minute I wanted it more than anything in the world. Krakatoa Dome was one of the newest of the undersea cities. It stood near the brink of the Java Trough, south of the famous volcanic island in the Sunda Strait, three miles down.
I wanted to go there very much. But I couldn’t believe that it was possible.
I knew something about Krakatoa Dome. My Uncle Stewart Eden had spoken many times of the wealth around it, the sea-floor rotten with oil, pocketed with uranium and precious tin. But I had never heard that the Sub-Sea Fleet had a training station there. And what other reason could there be for detaching three cadets as the training year was about to begin?
Danthorpe said, in a voice tinged with contempt, “What’s the matter Eskow? You look worried.”
“Leave him alone,” I said sharply. But Bob’s expression had disturbed me too. His face had been pale with the pallor of the deeps, but he looked even paler now.
Danthorpe squinted down at him. “Maybe you’re afraid of—seaquakes,” he said softly.
Bob straightened up abruptly, glaring at him.
I knew that Bob was under pressure. He had driven himself far too hard ever since his first moments in the Academy, oppressed by the grinding fear of washing out. I knew that our adventures in the Tonga Trench had drained his last reserves; yet I couldn’t quite understand this now.
Then he relaxed and looked away. “I guess that’s so,” he said, barely loud enough to be heard. “I guess I’m afraid of quakes.”
“Then Krakatoa Dome’s no place for you! We’ve got plenty of them there!” Danthorpe was smirking smugly—as though he were actually boasting of the fact, as if the quakes were another valuable resource of the seabottom around Krakatoa, like the oil. “It’s near the great geological fault, where the crust of the earth buckles down in the Java Trough. Ever hear of the great eruption of Krakatoa, back a hundred years and more ago? It made waves a hundred feet high—on the surface, of course. That was part of the instability of the area!”
I interrupted him, really curious. “Danthorpe, what’s so good about sub-seaquakes?”
I couldn’t help asking it. Earthquakes on dry land are bad enough, of course. But under the sea they can be a thousand times worse. Even a minor quake can snap a transportation tube or turn the mad sea into the tunnels of a mine; even a very small one can shatter the delicate film of edenite armor for a second. And a second is all the deeps need to splinter a city dome.
Danthorpe had a cocky grin. “Good? Why, they’re the best part of it, Eden! Quakes scare the
lubbers away!”
He sounded really happy. “That leaves richer diggings for the man with the inside drift,” he cried. “Take my Dad. He’s making plenty, down in Krakatoa Dome. He isn’t worried about sub-sea quakes!”
Suddenly something registered in my mind. “Your dad?” I repeated. “Danthorpe? Then your father must be—”
He nodded. “You’ve heard of him,” he said proudly, “Sure you have! He bought in at the bottom level at Krakatoa Dome, when it wasn’t anything but six edenite bubbles linked together and a hope for the future. And he’s traded his way to the top! Every time there’s a quake, prices go down—he buys—and he gets richer! He’s got a seat on the Stock Exchange, and he’s on the Dome Council. He’s lived down deep so long that people call him Barnacle Ben—”
Bob was getting more and more annoyed. He interrupted: “Barnacle Ben! If you ask me, that’s a good name—he sounds like a parasite! If you want to talk about real pioneers—the inventors and explorers who really opened up the floor of the sea when the dry land got overcrowded—you ought to ask Jim about his uncle Stewart. Stewart Eden—the man who invented Edenite!”
Danthorpe stopped short.
He squinted at me sharply. “Old Stewart Eden is your uncle?”
“That’s right,” I told him shortly. I don’t like to boast about it—Uncle Stewart says that family is only important for the inspiration and help it gives you, not for what effect a famous relative may have on somebody else. But I won’t deny that I am proud to be related to the man who made the whole sub-sea empire possible.
There was a pause.
Then, “My Dad could buy him out,” Danthorpe said challengingly, “and never miss the change.” I didn’t say a word, though he waited—that was part of what I had learned from my Uncle Stewart. Danthorpe squinted at Bob. “All right, Eskow,” he said. “What about your folks?”
Bob’s face hardened. ‘Well, what about them?”
“Haven’t you got a family? Give me the inside drift. Who are they? What do they amount to? Where do they live? What does your old man do?”
“They’re just—people,” Bob said slowly. “My father makes a living.”
“Down deep?” challenged Danthorpe. “Or is he a lubber?”
That was too much. I cut in. “Leave him alone, Danthorpe,” I said. “Look. If there’s any truth to this inside drift you came buzzing around with, the three of us are going to have to get along together. Let’s start even! Forget about families—let’s just concentrate on our job, whatever it’s going to be.”
Danthorpe shrugged lazily. He pointed at Bob, who was staring out at the tiny white fin of a catboat, miles out on the smiling surface of the sea. “Better get him started on concentrating,” Danthorpe advised. “Because, to tell you the truth, it looks to me as though he’s the wrong man for Krakatoa! It isn’t a place for anybody who’s afraid of quakes!”
Bob and I walked back to the barracks after Danthorpe had left. I could see that he was feeling low, and I tried to cheer him up.
“After all,” I told him, “we haven’t got any special orders yet. Maybe we’ll start the fall term with everybody else.”
He shook his head glumly. “I don’t think so. What’s that on the bulletin board?”
A fourth-year orderly was smoothing an order slip on the adhesive board just inside our barracks. We read over his shoulder.
It was for us, all right:
The cadets named herein will report to the Commandant’s Office at 1700 hours this date:
Cadet Danthorpe, Harley
Cadet Eden, James
Cadet Eskow, Robert
We looked at each other,
A thought struck me.
“I wonder if—But the O.O.D. said thirteen hundred hours. Remember? When he spotted me at the deepwater pool?” Bob shook his head.
“I didn’t hear him. I must’ve been underwater at the time.”
But the orderly turned sharply, saluted, and said in a brisk tone: “Sir! Cadet Tilden, Walter S., requests permission to address an upperclassman.”
It was a good example of proper form; I couldn’t help admiring him—far better than I had been able to do when I first came to the Academy. I said: “Proceed, Cadet Tilden!”
Staring into space, at full attention, his chin tucked so far back into his collar that he could hardly move his jaw to speak, he said: “Sir, Cadet Eden has two appointments. The one at thirteen hundred hours concerns the possible death of his uncle, Stewart Eden!”
2
The Man Called Father Tide
Etched in silver over the sea-coral portals of the Administration Building was the motto of the Academy:
The Tides Don’t Wait!
But I did.
I was ten minutes early for my appointment with the Commandant; but to the Commandant, 1300 hours meant exactly that, and not a minute before or after. I sat at attention in his anteroom, and wondered, without joy, just how nearly right the orderly had been in his guess about why the Commandant wanted to see me.
My uncle Stewart Eden was my only near relative. His home was ten thousand miles away and three miles straight down, in the undersea nation of Marinia. He had been in ill health, that I knew. Perhaps his illness had grown worse, and—No. I closed my mind to that thought. In any case, the orderly had said “possible death,” and that didn’t sound like illness.
I put aside the attempt to think and concentrated only on sitting there and waiting.
Precisely at 1300 the Commandant appeared.
He approached from the officers’ mess, a towering, frowning giant of a man, powerful as the sea itself. Beside him was a neat little man in clerical black, trotting to keep up with the Commandant’s great strides, talking very urgently.
“Ten-hut!” barked the cadet sentry, presenting arms. I sprang to attention.
The Commandant paused on his way into his private office, the tiny stranger behind him.
“Cadet Eden,” said the Commandant gravely. “You have a visitor. This is Father Jonah Tidesley, of the Society of Jesus. He has come a long way to see you.”
I remember shaking the little man’s hand, but I don’t remember much else except that I found myself with the Commandant and Father Tidesley, in the Commandant’s private office. I remember noticing that the Commandant was full of a quiet respect for the priest; I remember him looking at me with a look that was disturbingly keen. They said that the Commandant was able to read the minds of cadets, and for a moment I thought it was true—
Then I concentrated on what Father Tidesley was saying.
“I knew your uncle, Jim,” he said in a clear, warm voice. “Perhaps you’ve heard him speak of me. He usually called me Father Tide—everybody does.”
“I don’t remember, sir,” I said. “But I seldom see my uncle.”
He nodded cheerfully. He was an amiable little man, but his sea-blue eyes were as sharp as the Commandant’s. He wasn’t young. His face was round and plump, but his red cheeks were seamed like sea-coral. I couldn’t guess his age—or his connection with my uncle, or what he wanted with me, for that matter.
“Sit down, Jim,” he beamed, “sit down.” I glanced at the Commandant, who nodded. “I’ve heard about your adventure with the sea serpents, Jim,” he went on. “Ah, that must have been quite an adventure! I’ve always longed to see the Tonga Trench. But it hasn’t been possible, though perhaps some day—But you’ve done more than that, Jim. Oh, I know a great deal about you, boy, though we’ve never met.” He went on and on. It was true; he surprised me. Not only because he knew so much of my own life—Uncle Stewart might well have told him that—but because he knew that other world so well, that world “down deep” which is stranger to most lubbers than the mountains of the moon.
Lubber! It was the most foolish thought I had ever had—Father Tide a lubber! But I didn’t know him well, not then.
He talked for several minutes; I believe he was trying to put me at my ease, and he succeeded. But at last he op
ened a briefcase.
“Jim,” he said, “look at this.” He took out a thick plastic envelope and spilled its contents on the desk before me.
“Do you recognize these articles?” he asked me solemnly.
I reached out and touched them.
But it was hardly necessary.
There was a worn silver ring, set with a milky Tonga pearl. There was a watch—a fine wrist chronometer in a plain case of stainless steel. There were coins and a few small bills—some of them American, the rest Marinian dollars. And there was a torn envelope.
I didn’t have to look at the address. I knew what it would be. It was for Mr. Stewart Eden, at his office in the undersea city of Thetis, Marinia.
I recognized them at once. The address on the envelope was my own writing. The ring was my uncle’s—the pearl a gift from his old friend Jason Craken. The watch was the one my father had given Uncle Stewart many a long year ago.
I said, as calmly as I could: “They are my uncle’s. Stewart Eden.”
Father Tide looked at me compassionately for a long, thoughtful moment.
Then he gathered up the articles and began to replace them in the plastic wrapper. “I was afraid they were,” he said softly.
“Has something happened to Uncle Stewart?” I demanded.
“I don’t know, Jim. I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Tell you? But how could I? Where did you get these things?”
Father Tide replaced the plastic envelope in his briefcase and looked at me across the desk.
“I found them in a sea-car,” he said softly. “Bear with me, Jim. Let me explain this my own way.”
He got up and began to pace restlessly around the room.
“Perhaps you know,” he said in that warm, clear voice, “that our order has pioneered in vulcanology and seismology—that is, in the scientific study of volcanoes and earthquakes. I myself am something of a specialist in the undersea phenomena associated with these things.”
I nodded uneasily.
“Two weeks ago,” he went on, pausing by the window to look out at the bright Bermudan sea, “there was a sudden eruption in the Indian Ocean. It was entirely unexpected.”