“So?”
“The bonanza voyages,” Terry explained, “started immediately after La Rubia had submarine ears installed. Immediately all the other boats installed them. My former partner sold them faster than I could assemble them. And nobody regrets them. They do increase the catches. But they don’t match La Rubia. She’s making a mint of money! She’s found some place or she has some trick that loads her down deep every time she puts out to sea.”
The girl made an interrogative sound.
“The other fishermen think it’s a place,” Terry added, “so they ganged up on her. Two months back, when she sailed, the entire fishing fleet trailed her. They stuck to her closer than brothers. So she sailed around for a solid week and never put a net overboard. Then she came back to Manila—empty. They were furious. The price of fish had gone sky-high in their absence. They went to sea to make some money regardless. When they got back they found La Rubia had sailed after they left, got back before they returned—and she was just loaded with fish, and the market was back to normal. There was bad feeling. There were fights. Some fishermen landed in the hospital and some in jail.”
A motor truck rolled by on the street outside the shop of the now moribund Jimenez y Cia. The girl automatically turned her eyes to the source of the noise. Then she looked back at Terry.
“And then my erstwhile associate Jimenez had a brainstorm,” said Terry ruefully. “He sold the skipper of La Rubia on the idea of short-range radar. I built a set for him. It was good for possibly twenty miles. So La Rubia sailed in the dark of the moon with fifty fishing boats swearing violent oaths that they’d follow her to hell-and-gone. When night fell La Rubia put out her lights, used her radar to locate the other boats who couldn’t see her, and sneaked out from their midst. She came back loaded down with fish. There were more fights and more men in the hospital and in jail.
Some of La Rubia’s men boasted that they’d used radar to dodge their rivals. And that’s how the police got interested in me.”
The girl had listened interestedly.
“Why?”
“Oh, Jimenez began to take orders for radar from other fishing boat owners. If La Rubia could dodge them by radar, they could trail her by radar even in the dark. So the skipper and crew of La Rubia promised blood-curdling things as Jimenez’s fate if he delivered a radar set to anybody else. Then the skippers and crews of other boats made even more blood-curdling threats if he didn’t deliver radar to them. So Jimenez ran away, leaving me to hold the bag.”
The girl nodded.
“And therefore,” said Terry, “I’m shutting up shop. I’ll turn the inventory over to the police and go off somewhere until someone learns where La Rubia gets her fish. When things calm down again, I’ll come back and start up business once more—without Jimenez. I’ll probably stick to electric-eye doors, burglar alarms, closed-circuit television systems and things like that. Then I might make this underwater broadcasting device, if your father still wants it. I’d better not now.”
“We heard about your problem,” said the girl. “Almost exactly the way you just explained it.”
Terry stared. Then he said politely, “Oh. You did?”
“Yes, I thought—”
“Then you knew,” said Terry more politely still, “that I was leaving town and couldn’t make the gadget you want? You knew it before you came here?”
“Why,” said the girl, “your plans seemed to fit in very nicely with ours. We’ve got a sixty-five-foot schooner and we’re sailing around. My father wants something like—what you described. So since you want to—well—travel around for a time, why not come on board our boat and make the thing we want there? We’ll land you anywhere you like when it’s finished.”
“Thanks,” said Terry with very great politeness indeed. “I think I made a fool of myself, explaining. You knew it all beforehand. I’m afraid I bored youhorribly. You probably even know that Jimenez took all the funds when he ran away.”
She hesitated, and then said, “Y-yes. We thought—”
“That I should have trouble raising steamer-fare to any place at all,” he said without cordiality. “And I will. You had that information too, didn’t you?”
“Please!” she said with distress. “You make it sound—”
“Did you have any idea what I’d charge to assemble the device you want?”
“If you’ll name a price.”
Terry named one. He was angry. The sum was far from a small one. It was, in fact, exorbitant. But he felt that he’d made a fool of himself, responding to her encouragement by telling her things she already knew.
She opened her purse and peeled off bills. She put them down.
“I’ll leave the paddle with you,” she said crisply. “Our boat is the Esperance. You’ll find it… “ She named the anchorage, which was that of Manila’s most expensive yacht club. “There’s a launch which will bring you out whenever you’re ready to sail. It would be nice if you could sail tomorrow—and nicer if you could come aboard today.”
She nodded in friendly fashion, opened the door—the bell jangled—and went out.
Terry blinked. Then he swore and snatched up the pile of bills. Two fluttered to the floor and he lost time picking them up. He went out after her, the money in his hand.
He saw a taxicab door close behind her, three or four doors down the street. Instantly the cab was in mad career away. The taxicabs of Manila are driven by a special breed of chauffeurs. It is said that they are all escaped lunatics with homicidal tendencies. The cab went roaring down the Calle Enero’s cluttered length and turned the corner.
Terry went back to the shop. He swore again. He looked at the money in his hand. It totalled exactly the excessive amount he’d named as the price of an electronic fish-driving unit, including an underwater horn.
“The devil!” he said angrily.
He felt the special indignation some men feel whenthey are in difficulties which their pride requires them to surmount by themselves, and somebody tries to help. The indignation is the greater as they see less chance of success on their own.
Terry’s situation was offensive to him because he shouldn’t be in this kind of situation at all, or rather, his troubles were not foreseeable by the most competent of graduate electronic engineers. He’d trained for the work he’d undertaken. He’d prepared himself for competence. At graduation he’d encountered the representatives of at least three large corporations who were snapping up engineers as soon as they left the cloistered halls of learning. Terry’d asked how many men were employed in the category he’d fit in. When one representative boasted that ten thousand such engineers were on his company’s payroll, Terry declined at once. He wanted to accomplish something himself, not as part of a team of some thousands of members. The smaller the organization, the better one’s chance for personal satisfaction. He wouldn’t make as much money, but—
It was a matter of simple logic. If he was better off with a really small company, he’d be best off on his own. And he’d nearly managed it. He’d worked only with Jimenez. Jimenez was the sales organization. Terry was the production staff. In Manila there was certainly room for special electronic equipment—especialidades electronicas y fisicas. He should have had an excellent chance to build up a good business. Starting small, even without capital, he’d confidently expected to be going strong within months. There were taxi fleets to be equipped with short-wave radio. There were burglar alarms to be designed and installed, and all sorts of setups to be engineered. And these things were still in demand. His expectations had a solid foundation. Nobody could have anticipated the disaster caused by LaRubia’s phenomenal success in commercial fishery. It was even irrational for it to be a disaster to Terry. But it was.