Danny Dunn on the Ocean Floor

by Raymond Abrashkin

  Professor Bullfinch nodded his agreement. The three young people looked at Dr. Grimes and waited.

  At last Dr. Grimes said, “Very well. But remember, Bullfinch, if Danny acts in a headstrong way or makes any trouble, I’ll hold you personally responsible.”

  “I’m not afraid of responsibility,” said the Professor quietly. “I think you know that already.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Into the Depths

  The Sea Urchin sailed between the jagged rocky headlands of Puerta Nomata bay and then began her dive. To the three young people crowded close to one of the transparent sides of the hull, it was a breathtaking sight to see the water slowly rise past their faces until the blue-green sea had closed over their heads.

  The sunlight was not yet cut off. It made the water bright and clear as crystal, and twinkled upon millions of tiny floating specks, like starry dust, only they were alive—microscopic plants and animals. Their sky was now a shining but hazy mirror. There was no feeling of movement; it was only by seeing the fish or plants move past that they could judge they were descending. There was almost no sound in the ship except for the hum of electric motors and the clicking of the pressure recorder. In this quiet they moved steadily forward and downward, and the water slowly darkened about them.

  “Gosh, it’s pretty,” said Danny.

  “Pretty?” said Irene. “Isn’t that just like a boy? It’s beautiful!”

  “Yes, and it makes me nervous, too,” said Joe. “I smell trouble. Suppose something goes wrong, and we can’t get back up?”

  “Oh, Joe, relax,” Danny said, slapping his friend’s back. “It’s as safe as riding a bicycle.”

  “Is that so? Well, I once fell off a bicycle and sprained my wrist, and skinned my nose, and broke a cellar window,” said Joe. “How safe is that?”

  “Nobody else is worried,” Danny said. “There isn’t going to be any trouble.”

  He turned away from the side of the hull and began to walk toward the front of the cabin, still staring out at the water. His foot caught in something on the floor, and he uttered a yell and fell headlong.

  “Ah-HA!” said Joe triumphantly. “No trouble, eh? I think I’ll get out and walk home.”

  Danny picked himself up, rubbing his knees and wincing. Professor Bullfinch hastened to him and said, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay,” said Danny. “But I stumbled over something—” He looked down and pointed. “There are four eyebolts in the floor here. I never noticed them. That’s what tripped me.”

  He glanced at the ceiling. “And there are four hooks up there. What are they for?”

  The Professor looked a bit embarrassed. “Oh—why—hum! I’m sorry you stumbled, my boy. Those hooks? Why, they’re—well, I’ll explain them another time. You’re sure you aren’t hurt?”

  “I’m sure,” said Danny, looking a little surprised, for it wasn’t like the Professor to be so evasive.

  Just then Irene let out a shout. “My gracious, Professor, come here, quick! It’s a sea monster!”

  They all rushed to the side. Through the plastic, they could see what looked like a gigantic ball covered with spikes. It was almost as tall as one of the children, and as it floated nearer to the ship it turned a round eye the size of a saucer on them.

  “It’s a puffer fish,” said Dr. Grimes, coming up beside them. “But it’s ten times normal size.”

  As they watched, the round fish swelled up even larger so that the sharp spikes with which its body was covered stood out on every side. Then it seemed to see the watchers in the ship, and suddenly it flattened like a deflated football and swam swiftly away.

  “We’ve noticed the unusual size of many fish in these waters,” the Professor remarked. “The Beaudette Foundation’s expedition found that there was some quality in a strip of water along this coast which made fish and seaweed grow to an amazing degree. What’s more, the fish were remarkably healthy and free from disease. It would be wonderful if we could find the reason—a real benefit to mankind.”

  “How big do the fish grow?” asked Irene.

  “Well, the Beaudette Foundation noted that yellowtails, which weigh about twenty pounds when caught off San Diego, can be found weighing nearly a hundred pounds off Central America. Only a few days ago, Dr. Grimes spotted a marlin which must have weighed half a ton. They usually weigh around two hundred pounds.”

  “Suppose we meet a whale that’s grown to ten times its normal size,” said Joe in a hollow voice. “And suppose it thinks we’re a sardine.”

  “Let’s face that when it happens, Joe,” said the Professor. “Look how blue the water’s getting. What’s our depth, Captain?”

  Captain Beaversmith, seated at the controls up forward, glanced at the depth gauge. “Three hundred and fifty feet. We’re below the level of safe aqualung diving.”

  All the reds and yellows of the spectrum had been filtered out of the water by the depth, and its color was a deep blue like that of an evening sky. The Professor switched on the four bright spotlights outside the hull; they were controlled from inside so that they could be turned in any direction. The water was very clear, and once in a while brightly colored fish would swim into the circle of their lights as if to examine them, and then would flick away again. Once, a brilliant golden fish with blue spots moved up alongside them; it was fully six feet long.

  “Biggest goldfish I ever saw,” said Joe.

  “It’s a skipjack,” the Professor said. “They are rarely more than two feet long. Delicious eating.”

  He broke off. The skipjack had vanished as he spoke, and the water began to grow cloudy. In a few moments, they appeared to be moving through a cloud of small bugs.

  “Five hundred feet,” announced Captain Beaversmith. “We’re in the soup.”

  Joe clutched at Danny. “I knew it. Now the trouble starts.”

  “Why?” asked Dan.

  “You heard the Captain. We’re in the soup.”

  Irene had her face pressed to the side of the hull. “He’s right,” she said. “It is like soup.”

  The boys gazed through the transparent sides. All about them, the searchlights showed a mass of small luminous particles, and looking closer they could see that these were alive: there were tiny shrimps, jellyfish, and many other creatures, most of them no bigger than pinheads.

  “Speaking of eating—and of whales,” said the Professor, looking over their shoulders, “this ‘soup’ is called plankton, and it is what the larger whales eat. If it keeps them healthy, you can imagine how nourishing it is. Plankton may very well be one of the answers to the world’s food problems.”

  “Yes, but how does it taste?” Joe said.

  “Why not try some?” suggested the Professor. “We want to take some samples anyway.”

  He went to the collecting tank, which had been emptied in preparation for the trip, and pressed the button that started the suction intake. They could dimly see the nozzle, which looked a good deal like the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner, stretch out beyond the rear of the hull. When it had extended some six or eight feet, the Professor pushed down a lever and water began running into one of the tank compartments. In a few seconds, the compartment was full and he shut off the pump. Then, from the shelves which held emergency rations, he took a box of hard sea biscuits.

  “Help yourselves,” he said cheerily.

  Joe looked into the tank. “But they’re alive,” he faltered.

  “So are raw oysters,” said Professor Bullfinch, “but I’ve seen you eat dozens of them, Joe. A scientist should never draw back from new experiences.”

  He calmly dipped up some of the plankton and put it on his cracker. “Delicious,” he said after a bite. “Tastes like shrimp salad.”

  “Well, I guess after octopus and cactus nothing matters,” said Danny and he took some of the plankton. “Hey! It rea
lly is good,” he said.

  Irene was already munching away, and Joe at last tasted a mouthful. Then he took another, and another, and went on eating until the Professor pointed out to him that they wanted to keep just a few of the tiny creatures as specimens.

  The Urchin continued to descend. The plankton thinned away and vanished, and the water became clear again. Its blue tinge darkened.

  “One thousand feet,” Captain Beaversmith said. “We’re below the level to which ordinary submarines can go. I think we’ll stop here for a bit.”

  He pressed a button, and they heard a rattle as some of their shot ballast was released. The water had become colder, and the sides of the hull grew misty. He touched another button which started air circulating along the sides and quickly cleared away the mist. Dr. Grimes and Professor Bullfinch snapped the lights on in the cabin—very soft, shielded lights which allowed them to see what they were doing, but did not reflect on the walls and prevent their seeing outside.

  Large jellyfish floated by, looking like parachutes with long tentacles trailing below them. An eel writhed into the searchlight beam and away again. Red and white shrimps kicked themselves around the lights like moths and then shot off as a huge dark shadow loomed up.

  Irene gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from yelling. Danny exclaimed, “Jeepers!” The Professor beckoned to Dr. Grimes and called softly to the Captain, “Take a look at this, Beaversmith.”

  Writhing tentacles, longer than telephone poles, moved outside the ship. Then a vast white body with a tail shaped like a spearhead could be seen at the edge of the searchlights’ glare. It was the size of a small house. A great, flat, round eye stared at the people in the ship.

  “A s-s-sea dragon,” Joe stammered.

  “Not quite. It’s a giant squid,” Professor Bullfinch replied. “They have found pieces of such monsters on the surface and have estimated them to be about fifty feet in length. This one’s closer to eighty.”

  “What’ll we do?” Joe whimpered. “Will he g-g-grab us?”

  “Oh, no, I hardly think so,” said the Professor coolly. “I know that Hollywood movies and comic strips are always showing ships being attacked by giant squids, but the fact is they are probably extremely timid. Their greatest enemy is the killer whale, and this fellow may think we’re something dangerous. In any case, he will know from the feel of our hull that the ship isn’t alive.”

  As he spoke, a couple of tentacles touched the ship and they could feel the hull vibrate. Captain Beaversmith moved one of the light controls so a searchlight shone full on the giant beast. It moved back a little way.

  “A splendid opportunity for a photograph,” said the Professor. “Quick, Grimes, get some more plates. I’ll start taking pictures with what we have in the cameras.”

  The scientists clearly had no thought of possible danger, but were only concerned with their work. The Professor sprang to the camera controls, while Dr. Grimes darted off to get some additional film. Danny was excited by their courage and his own curiosity was aroused.

  “I wonder what kind of sound a squid makes?” he said to Irene.

  Without hesitating any longer, he snatched up his tape recorder. “Maybe I can drop the hydrophone outside through the collecting tank pump,” he muttered.

  He rushed to the tank. Then everything seemed to happen at once.

  There were a number of very bright, sudden flashes like lightning in the water. These were the stroboscopic flashbulbs for the cameras going off. Startled, Danny turned his head. So did Dr. Grimes, who was running toward him with his arms full of film plates. They crashed into each other, and Dr. Grimes sat down abruptly. Danny’s tape recorder fell to the floor.

  Dr. Grimes turned crimson. “Why don’t you look where I’m going?” he fumed.

  “The squid has gone,” said the Professor, coming to help Dr. Grimes to his feet. “The lights must have frightened him. However, I’m sure I got a couple of good pictures.”

  Danny was examining his tape recorder. “Don’t get excited, Dr. Grimes,” he said soothingly. “The recorder wasn’t hurt at all. Listen.” He turned it on. From the amplifier came a loud squawk.

  Dr. Grimes jumped a foot in the air. The photographic plates flew from his arms and crashed to the deck.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Danny said. “That noise was the Common Spotfish—Leiostomus xanthurus.”

  Dr. Grimes’s Adam’s apple was bobbing up and down. He made a rapid ticking or clucking sound like that of the Common Sea Robin (Prinotus carolinus). Then, finding his voice, he said, “Put—that—infernal—thing—away!”

  “Wh-what?” Danny quavered.

  “I said, ‘Put that tape recorder away!’” Dr. Grimes roared. “And if you play it once more—just once more—on this voyage, I promise I will feed it—and you—to the fish!”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ”Our Ship Is Sinking!”

  For a short time after Dr. Grimes’s outburst, things were very quiet aboard the Sea Urchin. Captain Beaversmith began fussing with his controls; Professor Bullfinch busied himself about the cameras; and Dr. Grimes, as if somewhat ashamed of his temper, began working at the bench on some specimens. Danny looked about for a place to store his recorder.

  “I can’t put it on the floor,” he whispered to Irene, “because somebody may trip over it and then I’ll be blamed. And it looks as if every inch of space on the shelves is full of bottles or jars.”

  “How about underneath the collecting tank?” Irene said.

  “Things are too busy around there,” Danny frowned. Then his face brightened. “There’s the spot,” he said.

  Up forward, where Captain Beaversmith sat, the ship was crowded with instruments and gauges, but just above the pilot’s seat there was an empty shelf. It was very narrow, but it would hold the tape recorder. Danny softly put his machine on this shelf—so softly that not even Captain Beaversmith noticed him—and lashed it down with a cord. About half of it stuck out over the shelf but at least it was out of the way.

  Just as he got it stowed Captain Beaversmith said, “Professor! Dr. Grimes! Have a look at the sonar.”

  The two scientists hurried forward. The sonar was the device which bounced sound waves off the bottom and recorded their echoes. In this way, the various depths and the shape of the bottom could be observed on a screen. Dr. Grimes bent over this screen.

  “A canyon,” he muttered.

  “No doubt of it,” the Captain replied. “We didn’t spot it on our other trips.”

  “We weren’t exactly over this area,” said the Professor. “My, my. It’s nine thousand feet deep. Almost two miles. Perhaps we ought to explore it?”

  “Not with the children aboard,” said Dr. Grimes.

  “No, of course not. Let’s see if it’s on the chart.”

  He went back to the chart table and pulled out a map showing the coastal waters. He and Dr. Grimes bent over it.

  Captain Beaversmith pulled down a small handle on the control board, and then uttered an exclamation of annoyance. Danny, who was leaning on the back of his seat, said, “What’s the matter, sir?”

  “When those camera lights went off, something must have overloaded,” the Captain said. “The tank pumps aren’t responding. I’d better have a look-see.”

  He pulled up the cover of the control panel and began probing into the maze of wires inside. With a flashlight in one hand and an insulated screwdriver in the other, he began unfastening connections.

  “Can I help?” Danny asked.

  Captain Beaversmith, with his head buried in the control box, said, “Do you know anything about electricity?” At the same time, he put down his screwdriver and began fumbling among the loose wires that stuck up from the side of the box.

  “Everything,” said Danny boldly. “I learned all about wiring when I was only a little kid. The Professor taught
me. Here—is this the one you’re looking for?”

  He picked up one of the wires and thrust it into the Captain’s hand. Captain Beaversmith took it automatically and connected it to something inside the control box.

  There was a loud POP! Blue sparks sprang from the control board. Every light in the ship went out.

  There was an instant of startled silence. Then everyone began talking or shouting at once: “What’s happened?”

  “Put those lights on!”

  “Captain Beaversmith—what are you doing?” Danny heard a peculiar thump and then a groan. The flashlights rattled to the floor. He snatched it up. By its beam, he saw the pilot lying across the control panel.

  The others made their way forward, guided by the light.

  “What’s the matter with Beaversmith?” Dr. Grimes barked.

  “I think he was electrocuted,” Danny gasped.

  “Here, help me move him, Bullfinch,” said Dr. Grimes. He and the Professor lifted the unconscious pilot and placed him on the deck.

  Meanwhile, Danny looked into the control box. He found the wire he had given the Captain and disconnected it. Tracing the cables, he found the fuse box. One of the fuses had a burned filament. There were spare fuses in the box, and he replaced the burned one. At once the lights went on again.

  “Good work, Dan,” said Professor Bullfinch, blinking up at him.

  But Danny wasn’t listening. He was looking up at his tape recorder. It had been moved slightly. Then he glanced at the pilot’s seat, directly under it. His heart sank.

  “How on earth do you suppose it happened?” Dr. Grimes was saying. “I thought Beaversmith knew enough about electricity to keep from hurting himself.”