by Frederik
“In fact,” he said after a moment, looking at me with that curious expression, “my dad says one trader did.”
There was a pause.
Bob broke it. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
Danthorpe grinned. “Ask him,” he said, pointing to me. “Ask him about his uncle.”
I was totally mystified. “My uncle—Stewart Eden, you mean? But I haven’t seen him in a long time. You don’t mean that Uncle Stewart’s here in Krakatoa Dome, do you?”
Danthorpe shrugged. “I don’t know if he is or not,” he said. “But I know what my father says. Your uncle’s broker was busy in the market yesterday—selling securities short. He knew there would be a market break today! And I guess he knew there would be a quake, to cause it.”
He stared at me again, with that curious sort of respect in his eyes. “For your uncle,” he said, “it was a million-dollar quake!”
It took my breath away.
I knew that my Uncle Stewart had investments in all sorts of enterprises down deep. I knew that he was sometimes wealthy, and sometimes nearly bankrupt—that was the way he lived. Long before he invented edenite he had been playing a dangerous game with the sea, matching his brain and his money—and often his life—against all its hazards. Sometimes he had won. Why, all the sub-sea domes were evidence of that! But, just as often, the unconquerable sea had beaten him.
But this—making money out of disaster! I could hardly believe it.
If nothing else, it took my mind off Bob Eskow. “Come on, Jim,” Danthorpe was insisting. “Where is he? Is he in Krakatoa Dome?”
I could only tell him what I knew of the truth. “The last I heard of him, he was in Marinia. Thetis Dome, I think. I don’t know where he is now.”
“Sure, sure.” But Harley Danthorpe seemed disappointed. “Too bad,” he said. “My dad is anxious to meet him.”
Bob grinned tightly. “I bet he is,” he said in a voice that rasped. “I bet he’d like to be able to make a few millions out of quakes himself.”
It was not a pleasant remark, but Danthorpe nodded shrewdly. “Of course. They’re both working the inside drift. They ought to be working together.”
I doubted that my uncle would want to work any kind of drift with old Barnacle Ben Danthorpe. But I didn’t say anything—didn’t have much of a chance, for that matter, for just then Yeoman Harris came into our quarters.
“Eden?” he demanded, peering around. “Where’s—Oh, there you are. Eden, you’re to report to Lieutenant Tsuya down at Station K—at oh eight hundred hours.”
I glanced at my watch. It was almost that already.
“On the double!” he said.
I hesitated. What did the lieutenant want with me? I looked hard at the old yeoman’s sea-battered face. His watery, bulging eyes didn’t tell me a thing. “Can’t you give me a tow?” I asked. “I’m adrift.”
He snapped: “Give you a tow? You cadets are more trouble than you’re worth already!” And he glared at Eskow. “You,” he muttered, “I’d give a lot to know what you were up to last night, when your pass was missing?”
Bob’s expression was innocent. “I thought you found the pass.”
“I did! But where was it when I couldn’t find it? You wouldn’t have, for instance, taken it, used it, and then put it back?”
Bob merely looked polite; but that was answer enough for me. But I didn’t have time to think about it. “On the double, Eden!” Yeoman Harris barked. “The tides don’t wait!”
And I hurried off to Station K.
Lieutenant Tsuya glanced up abstractedly as I came into the station, mumbled something, and looked back at his map.
He had been there around the clock. When he found time to sleep I had no idea; his pumpkin face was sagging with weariness, but his eyes were still bright.
He was working over a cross-sectional chart, with the crumpled layers of the earth’s crust carefully lined in under the Dome, stretching out and under the great downfold of the Java Trough. He painstakingly inked in a red fault line, and then looked up.
“Eden,” he said, “I hear you were hurt in the quake last night.”
The lieutenant didn’t miss much. “Not badly, sir. Just a scratch.”
“Yes.” He nodded and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “Krakatoa Dome was lucky,” he said. “If it had been a major quake, like the one at Nansei Shoto—”
He shook his head and closed his eyes for a second. “You didn’t forecast it, Eden,” he said, reaching back to knead the weary muscles at the back of his neck. “That’s no shame to you. I didn’t forecast it either. But Bob Eskow did.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lieutenant Tsuya said suddenly: “How well do you know Cadet Eskow?”
“Why—why—” He had caught me off balance. “We’ve been close friends ever since we were lubbers at the Academy, sir.”
“I see. And how do you think he was able to make that forecast last night?”
It was a good question. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a good answer.
I should have known that the Lieutenant would ask that question; as I say, he didn’t miss much.
I said: “I can’t account for it, sir.”
The lieutenant nodded. “But you’d like to, wouldn’t you, Cadet Eden?”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir!”
Lieutenant Tsuya said thoughtfully, “I have questioned him, and all I get out of him is that his forecast was based on the observations we all made together. It is true that the observations support his forecast—viewed in a certain light. It is all a matter of probabilities. I elected to consider the quake very improbable. So did you and Cadet Danthorpe. But Cadet Eskow—no. He considered it probable.” He leaned forward and looked at me searchingly. “And I wonder why, Eden. And so do you.”
I said nothing—but I couldn’t help wondering just how much this lieutenant did know.
The lieutenant said earnestly. “Eden, I am going to take you into my confidence. You know the Jesuit seismologist, Father Tidesley, I believe.”
“Yes, sir. I met him at the Academy.”
“And do you know his theory concerning the recent quakes in this area?”
I hesitated. “Well, sir, not really.”
“He believes that they are artifically caused!” said Lieutenant Tsuya grimly. “He believes that someone is touching them off—perhaps for the profit they can make in stock exchange speculation! What do you think of that?”
I said stubbornly: “I didn’t know that was possible, sir.”
He nodded. “Neither did I,” he admitted. “But now I’m not so sure, Eden. And neither are you. I know of your—researches last night, Eden,” he said. I know what you were doing ’bovedecks in the Dome.
And I know that there is some question about your own uncle.”
He looked at me thoughtfully. Then he seemed to reach a decision.
“Cadet Eden,” he said, “your own loyalty to the Sub Sea Fleet is unquestioned. I will not ask you to betray any confidences you may happen to hold. But—” he hesitated, then nodded, as if making up his mind—”if you would like to continue your, ah researches…why, I will be glad to facilitate them in any way I can.
“Specifically,” he said, “if you require another pass to do any further investigation, I will see that it is granted.”
And that was all he would say.
I went back to our quarters, very much disturbed in mind.
What Lieutenant Tsuya was suggesting was too horrible to believe! Clearly, he knew about Bob Eskow’s absence last night—knew even that I had been following him—and suspected, as I had come to suspect myself, that Bob’s forecast of the surprise quake was by no means an accident.
It was more than I could take in at once.
I couldn’t help thinking of the time when I had come on Bob in the barracks, giving something to that wizened old Chinese—just before we had discovered that the geosonde was missing!
I couldn’t he
lp thinking of what Harley Danthorpe had said about my Uncle Stewart’s broker—and what Father Tide had told me, back at the Academy, concerning the wreck of the sea-car that was trapped in the eruption under the Indian Ocean.
Yet—these were the two who meant the most to me of anyone alive in the world! How could I doubt them?
Firmly I resolved to put the whole thing out of my mind. I would not accept the lieutenant’s offer of a pass—I would not become a spy! Surely Bob had some explanation to make. I would wait for it. And as for my uncle—why, probably he was not within a thousand miles of Krakatoa Dome! The whole thing was a misunderstanding, at the worst.
I found Bob and Harley Danthorpe getting their gear ready for inspection, and hurried to join them. There wasn’t much time.
I didn’t bring up the subject of the forecast, or of my uncle; I was going to wait.
Until the moment when I opened my locker, and my uncle’s picture fluttered out.
Harley Danthorpe picked it up and handed it to me, then he caught sight of the signature. “Oh,” he said. “So that’s him. Jim, I wish you’d change your mind and bring him around to meet Dad.”
I said, “But I don’t even know where he is, Harley. For all I know, he might be in the Antarctic or the Gulf of California.”
“He’s here,” said Bob, absent-mindedly. “I thought—” Then he caught himself sharply
“What did you say?”
Bob looked confused, as though he had spoken without thinking. “Why, uh—” he squirmed uncomfortably. “I mean, I saw him. Or anyway, I thought I saw him. Somebody that looked like him, at any rate. Probably that’s what it was, Jim—just someone who looked like him. I, uh, didn’t have time to speak to him—”
I looked at him for a moment.
Then I said, “I see,” and I let it drop there.
But there was no doubt in my mind, now, that Bob was keeping something from me that concerned my uncle.
And there was no doubt in my mind, now, that—no matter what it meant—I was going to change my mind about taking that pass from Lieutenant Tsuya.
9
Eden Enterprises, Unlimited
I straightened my sea-cap, made sure my uniform was properly buttoned, and entered the huge doorway between the vaulting pillars shaped like sea-cars. They stretched forty feet up to the top of the deck, sea-basalt, as impressive as the entrance to the Taj Mahal; in actuality, they were the entrance to the offices of Barnacle Ben Danthorpe.
A blonde iceberg at the reception desk inside inspected me. She showed no visible signs of thawing.
I said, “I’d like to see Mr. Ben Danthorpe.” Silence. “I’m a close friend of Harley Danthorpe’s.” More silence. “Harley is Mr. Danthorpe’s son.”
Still more silence, while she looked me up and down.
Then, reluctantly, she shrugged. “One moment, sir,” she said, and picked up a telephone.
I stood waiting.
I felt out of place there, but it was the only clue I had to follow.
If my uncle was really in Krakatoa Dome, he had beaten my poor skills at trying to find him. I had tried the phone directory, the business associations, the hotels. No one had ever heard of him.
So all that was left was to talk to Barnacle Ben Danthorpe. He had told his son that he had heard a rumor about Uncle Stewart; perhaps I could track the rumor down.
I saw the snow-blonde eyebrows on the girl lift slightly. “You will?” she said, incredulous. Then she looked at me with a curiously unbelieving expression. “You may go in, Mr. Eden,” she said coolly, nodding toward the office elevator. “Mr. Danthorpe is at Sub-Level A.”
When I stepped out of the little elevator at the top of its track, Barnacle Ben Danthorpe was waiting for me.
He shook my hand cordially—like a salesman, in fact. “Jim Eden!” he cried. “Harley has told me a great deal about you! And your uncle—why, Stewart Eden and I—many years, my boy! Many years!” He didn’t exactly say what was supposed to have been happening those many years, of course. I didn’t expect him to. I knew that he and my uncle had not been exactly close friends. “Enemies” was a better word, in fact.
But still, he was the only lead I had.
He conveyed me into a big, sound-proofed office, paneled with sea-wood from salvaged wrecks. “What is it, Jim?” His squint was just like his son’s. “What can I do for you?”
“You can help me find my uncle,” I said bluntly.
“Ah.” He squinted thoughtfully at me for a moment. “You don’t know where he is?”
I told him the truth: “No, sir I’ve heard that he’s in Krakatoa Dome. I hope you can tell me where.”
He shook his head. “No, Jim, I can’t do that. But perhaps—”
His voice drifted off. He stood up and began to roam around his office. “I’ve heard strange things about your uncle, Jim,” he mused. “I knew that he was foundering, eh? Made one foolish investment too many?” He shook his head. “It never pays, Jim, never pays to put your money where your heart is. Your uncle was always a great one for backing risky ventures—because, he said, they were ‘good for the people of the sea.’ Foolish. I told him so, many times.
“But it looks as if he learned his lesson at last.”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“Ah, Jim!” He grinned shrewdly. “He has the inside drift now, boy! Everybody knows it. His brokers cleaned up millions for him on the quake last night. Millions! I know—he caught me for a nice slice of it!” He made a little face, but his keen eyes never left me. “Harley told me that a friend of yours knew that quake was coming. Would that have anything to do with your uncle, Jim?”
I said stiffly: “I’m not allowed to discuss quake forecasting sir.” And I almost added: “And neither is Harley.”
“I see. Well, Jim,” Danthorpe said, “I sympathize with that. I really do. But when you see your friend again, give him the inside drift. Tell him to come to see me.” He nodded wisely. “If he can really call his shots, I’ll make him as rich as Davy Jones!”
I said urgently, “Mr. Danthorpe, I really must find my uncle. Can you help me?”
Ben Danthorpe squinted at me sharply, as though he were wondering if he had said too much.
“Perhaps I can, Jim. At least, I know your uncle’s broker.”
He excused himself and picked up a telephone. It had a hush mouthpiece; I could hear only a faint whisper. After a moment he put it down and frowned at me.
“I’ve got your uncle’s broker’s address,” he said. Queerly, something had cooled his voice. He wasn’t quite as friendly. It’s down on Deck Four Plus, Radial Seven, Number Eighty-Eight. And if you’ll excuse me now, I had better get back to business.”
And he hurried me out the door.
When I got down to Deck Four Plus I soon guessed why he had rushed me out so coolly.
Deck Four Plus was on the borderline between the financial district and the commercial sub-sea vessel docks. Most of the buildings were warehouses and shipping offices.
For a broker’s office, it was definitely not impressive.
But it meant something more than that to me. There were no pedestrian slidewalks, and the streets were crowded with rumbling cargo haulers. The air was rich with the fragrance of sea-coffee beans and the sour reek of sea-copra and the musty sharpness of baled sea-flax. Perhaps it didn’t smell like high finance, but it was all a rare perfume for me.
It was the odor of the sea.
Dodging the trucks, I walked to Number 88.
It was a door between two warehouses, with a dark flight of stairs leading up inside. I climbed into a long empty corridor in the loft above the warehouses, which had been partitioned into office space. The only person I saw was a man in paint-spattered overalls, lettering a sign on the metal door at the end of the corridor.
The sign read:
EDEN ENTERPRISES, UNLIMITED
I hurried down the dim hall toward him. Every door had a sign like it—signs that annou
nced dubious and enigmatic enterprises: A.Yelverton, Consulting Benthologist and Siminski Submarine Engineering, next to The Sunda Salvage Company and Hong Lee, Oriental Importer. None of them looked very prosperous.
But I didn’t care about that. Eagerly I spoke to the back of the painter’s head. “Excuse me. Is Mr. Eden here?”
The painter turned around, fast, almost upsetting a paint can.
“Jim,” he cried. “Jim, it’s good to see you!”
It was Gideon Park!
“Gideon!” I shouted and grabbed his hand. Gideon Park–my uncle’s faithful friend and associate—the man who had saved my life back in Marinia—the man who had been with us in our great adventures under the sea!
He grinned at me out of his jet-black face, smudged with sea-green from the paint can. “Jim, boy,” he whooped. “I thought you were back at Bermuda!” He pulled his hand away from mine, looked at it and grinned again. “Here you are, Jim,” he said, offering me a rag while he scrubbed at the smears of paint on his own hands with another. “I’m afraid I’m not a very neat painter!”
“That doesn’t matter, Gideon,” I said. “But what are you doing here? Why—it isn’t two months since the two of us were down in the Tonga Trench, fighting those giant saurians! I thought you were back in Marinia.”
“Looks like we were both wrong,” he observed. “But come in, Jim. Come in! It’s not much of an office, but we might as well use it!”
“All right, Gideon. But first—what about my uncle?” He stopped and looked at me gravely. “I thought you’d ask me that, Jim,” he said after a moment, in his warm, chuckling voice. “He’s not too well. I guess you know that. But he isn’t capsized yet! You can’t sink Stewart Eden, no, no matter who tries!”
I hesitated, then said, remembering Father Tide: “Gide on, I heard something about my uncle’s sea-car being wrecked—out under the Indian Ocean, a few weeks ago. Was it true?”
The question made him look very grave.
He turned away from me, fussing with his brushes and cans of paint. Then he nodded toward the office door.