Davis nodded. Terry frowned. Then he spoke painfully.
“I have a gift for making a fool of myself,” he said ruefully. “When it’s put that way, fine! I’ll come along. But I reserve the right to make guesses.”
“That’s good!” said Davis warmly. “If you do find out what we won’t tell you, you’ll see why we didn’t.”
He waved to Nick and the tender operator. The parcels came onto the Esperance’s deck. His baggage followed. He picked up one of the new cardboard parcels and examined its markings.
“This,” he said more ruefully still, “has me stymied. I’d have sworn you couldn’t get one of these special tubes nearer than Schenectady, New York. But you found one in Manila in minutes! How did you do it?”
The girl laughed.
“Terribly simple!” she said. “We’ll tell you. But not until we’re under way, or you might be so disgusted with the simplicity of it that you’d want to go ashore again.”
Two
The edge of the sun touched the horizon and sank below it, out of sight. There were magnificent tints in the sky, and the gently rippling harbor water reflected them in innumerable swirlings of color. The Esperance swayed very slightly and very gracefully on the low swells. In minutes two of the dungareed members of the ship’s company got the anchor up with professional efficiency. One of them went below, and the Esperance’s engine began to rumble. Davis casually took the wheel, and the small yacht began to move toward the open sea while Nick played a salt-water hose on the anchor before lashing it fast. The brief twilight of the tropics transformed itself swiftly into night. Lights winked and glittered ashore and on the water.
Terry felt more than a little absurd. The girl said pleasantly, at his side, “My name’s Deirdre, in case you don’t know.”
“Mine’s Terry, but you do know.”
“Naturally!” she said briskly. “I should explain that I’m the ship’s cook, and the boys forward aren’t professional sailors, and my father isn’t—”
“Isn’t in this business for money,” said Terry. “It’s strictly for something else. And I don’t think it’s buried treasure or anything like that.”
“Nothing so sensible,” she agreed. “Now, if you want to join a watch, you’ll do it. If you don’t, you won’t The port cabin, the Utile one, is yours. You are our guest If you want anything, ask for it. I’m going below to cook dinner.”
She left him. He surveyed the deck again, and presently went back to where Davis sat nonchalantly by the Esperance’s wheel. Davis nodded.
“Now that you’ve, well, joined up,” he said meditatively, “I’ve been trying to think how to, well, justify all the mystery. Part of it was Deirdre’s idea. She thought it would make our proposition more interesting, so you’d be more likely to take it up. But when I think about explaining, I bog down immediately.”
Terry sat down. The Esperance drove on. Her bow lifted and dipped and lifted and dipped. The water was no longer nearly smooth. There was the beginning of a land breeze.
“There’s La Rubia,” said Davis uncomfortably. “You outfitted her with underwater ears and a radar, at least. Was there anything else?”
“No,” said Terry curtly. “Nothing else.”
“She catches the devil of a lot of fish,” said Davis. He frowned. “Some of them you might call very queer fish. You haven’t heard anything about that?”
“No,” said Terry. “Nothing.”
“I think, then,” said Davis, “that I’d better not expose myself to scorn. I’d like to be able to read her skipper’s mind, though. But it’s possible he simply thinks he’s lucky. And it’s possible he’s right.”
Terry waited. Davis puffed on his pipe. Then he said abruptly, “Anyhow you’re a good man at making gadgets. We’ll let it go at that, for the time being.”
The sea became less and less smooth. There were little slapping sounds of waves against the yacht’s bow. The muted rumble of her engine was not intrusive. The breeze increased. Davis gave a definite impression of having said all he intended to say for the time being. Terry stirred.
“You want me to build a gadget,” he said. “To drive fish. Would you want to give me some details?”
Davis considered. A few drops of spray came over the Esperance’sside.
“N-o-o-o,” said Davis. “Not just yet. There’s a possibility it will fit in. I’d like you to make one, and maybe it will fit in somewhere. But LaRubia’s the best angle we’ve got so far. There is one gadget I’d give a lot to have! You know, a depth-finder. It sends a pulse of sound down to the bottom and times the echo coming back. Very much like radar, in a way. Both send out a pulse and time its return.”
Terry nodded. There was no mystery about depth-finders or radars.
“We’ve got a depth-finder on board,” said Davis. “If I sail a straight course and keep the depth-finder running, I can make a profile of the sea bottom under me. If I had a row of ships doing the same thing, we could get profiles and have a relief map of the bottom.”
“That’s right,” agreed Terry.
“What I’d give a lot for,” said Davis, “would be a depth-finder that would send spot-pulses, like radar does. Aimed sound-pulses. And an arrangement made so it could scan the ocean bottom like radar scans the sky. One boat could make a graph of the bottom in depths and heights, mapping even hummocks and hills underwater. Could something like that be done?”
“Probably,” Terry told him. “It might take a good deal of doing, though.”
“I wish you’d think about it,” said Davis. “I know a place where I’d like to use such a thing. It’s in the Luzon Deep. I really would like to have a detailed picture of the bottom at a certain spot there!”
Terry said nothing. He’d been made angry, then mollified, and now he felt tempted to grow angry again. There was nothing definite in what was wanted of him, after elaborate machinations to get him aboard the Esperance. He was disappointed.
“Good breeze,” said Davis in a different voice. “We might as well hoist sail and cut off the engine. Take the wheel?”
Terry took the wheel. Davis went forward. Four dungareed figures came up out of the forecastle. The sails went up and filled. The engine stopped. The motion of the boat changed. More spray came aboard, but the movement was steadier. Davis came back and took the wheel once more.
“I think,” he said, “that we’re acting in a way to—hm—be annoying. I ought to lay my cards on the table. But I can’t. For one thing, I haven’t drawn a full hand yet. For another, there are some things you’ll have to find out for yourself, in a situation like this.”
“Such as—”
“Well,” said Davis with a sudden dogged air, “take those orejas de ellos, for an example.
Ellos are supposed to be some sort of beings at the bottom of the sea who listen to fish and fishermen. It’s a superstition pure and simple. Suppose I said I was investigating the possibility that there were such—beings. You’d think I was crazy, wouldn’t you?”
Terry shrugged.
“What I am interested in,” said Davis, “has enough credit behind it for me to get some pretty rare electronic parts from the flattop in harbor back yonder. Nick called them by short-wave, they sent the parts ashore and gave them to Deirdre, and she brought them out to you.”
Terry blinked. Then he realized. Of course, that was where just about any imaginable component for electronic devices would be found—in the electronics stores of aflattop! They needed to have such things at hand. They’d carry them in store. Davis said drily, “They wouldn’t supply parts to a civilian who was investigating imaginary gods or devils. So what I’m bothered with isn’t a superstition. Right?”