The Kraken Wakes

The atmosphere was similar to that at a declaration of war. Yesterday's phlegmatics and sceptics were, all of a sudden, fervid preachers of a crusade against the — well, against whatever it was that had had the insolent temerity to interfere with the freedom of the seas. Agreement on that cardinal point was virtually unanimous, but from that hub speculation radiated in every direction, so that not only fireballs, but every other unexplained phenomenon that had occurred for years was in some way attributed to, or at least connected with, the mystery in the Deeps.

The wave of worldwide excitement struck us when we stopped off for a day at Karachi on our way home, the place was bubbling with tales of sea-serpents and visitations from space, and it was clear that whatever restrictions Bocker might have put on the circulation of his theory, a good many million people had now arrived at a similar explanation by other routes. This gave me the idea of telephoning to the EBC in London to find out if Bocker himself would now unbend enough for an interview.

He did — to the representatives of a few carefully selected organs — but it added little to the script we had already put together on the journey from Karachi to London. His repeated plea for the sympathetic approach was so contrary to the public mood as to be almost unusable.

Once more, however, we had a demonstration that bellicose indignation is not self-sustaining. You just can't have a rousing fight for long with a sandbag, and little happened to animate the situation. The only step for weeks was that the Royal Navy, partly in deference to public feeling, but probably more for reasons of prestige, also sent down a bomb. It went off quite spectacularly, I understand, but the only recorded result was that the shores of the South Sandwich Islands were so littered with dead and decaying fish for weeks afterwards that they stank to heaven.

Then, by degrees, a feeling began to get about that this was not at all the way anyone had expected an interplanetary war to be; so, quite possibly, it was not an interplanetary war after all. From there, of course, it was only a step to deciding that it must be the Russians.

The Russians had all along discouraged, within their dictatorate, any tendency for suspicion to deviate from its proper target of capitalistic warmongers. When whispers of the interplanetary notion did in some way penetrate their curtain, they were countered by the statements that (a) it was all a lie: a verbal smoke screen to cover the preparations of warmongers; (b) that it was true: and the capitalists, true to type, had immediately attacked the unsuspecting strangers with atom bombs; and (c) whether it were true or not, the USSR would fight unswervingly for Peace with all the weapons it possessed, except germs.

The swing continued. People were heard to say: 'Huh — that interplanetary stuff? Don't mind telling you that I very nearly fell for it at the time. But, of course, when you start to actually think about it — I Wonder what the Russian game really is? Must've been something pretty big to make 'em use a-bombs on it.' Thus, in quite a short time, the status quo ante helium hypotheticum was restored, and we were back on the familiarly comprehensible basis of international suspicion. The only lasting result was that marine insurance stayed up I per cent.

'Things,' Phyllis complained, 'sort of die on us. We looked like being the popular authorities on fireballs — in fact, for a week or two we were. Then the interest faded away, and there were fewer of them until now, if anyone sees one, he just regards it as a hallucination that he's not going to be taken in by. We didn't do so badly on that first dive — but you can't go on sustaining interest in just a couple of fused cables. We fell down badly somehow on not hearing of the Bocker business until it was practically stale — and I still don't understand how we missed it. At the bomb-dropping we were simply two of the crowd. When all the excitement boiled up it did look as if we might come into our own — but now that's all fizzled out. Everything's gone quiet again everywhere; it can't be that there's nothing happening.'

'It isn't,' I said. 'If you'd read the papers properly you'd see that two more bombs have gone down in the last week: one in the Cocos-Keeling Basin, and the other in the Prince Edward Deep.'

'I didn't see that.'

'News value practically nil at the moment. You have to read the small print.'

'It doesn't help when they choose outlandish places to send them down, either. There must be plenty of deep places somebody's heard of.'

'Presumably none of the civilized regions will put up with bombs on their own doorsteps — and who's to blame them? I wouldn't fancy a coastline that's all radio-active water full of dead fish by the million, myself.'

'But it does show that they've not shelved the whole thing — the Navy, I mean.'

'Apparently not.'

'Mightn't it be worth going to Whitehall and seeing your Admiral again?'

'He's a captain,' I told her, but I considered the idea. 'Last time we met it wasn't really I that had the success with him,' I pointed out.

'Oh. Oh, I see,' said Phyllis. 'H'm. Dinner Tuesday?'

'I'll put it to him, from you.'

'I'm sure there must be a name for this kind of thing,' she said. 'The way I have to work! One day you'll find it's misfired and you've cut yourself out.'

'Darling, you know you thoroughly enjoy the art of the little finger. And you'd be furious if I concealed you under a bushel.'

'That's all very well,' she said. 'But I'd just like to feel a little more certain whose little finger we're talking about.'

Captain Winters came to dinner.

'Would you,' asked Phyllis, leaning back on her pillow with her hands behind her head, and studying the ceiling, 'would you call Mildred attractive?'

'Yes, darling,' I replied, promptly.

'Oh,' said Phyllis, 'I thought perhaps so.'

We pondered.

'It looked mutual,' she observed.

'It was meant to look — er — absorbed,' I told her.

'Oh, it did,' she assured me.

'Darling, the position is awkward,' I pointed out. 'If I were to tell you that one of your best friends is unattractive —'

'I'm not at all sure that she is one of my best friends. But she's not unattractive.'

'Your own appearance,' I remarked, 'I would describe as rapt. The manner trustful, the eyes a little starry, the smile a little enchanted, the overall effect quite bewitching. You know that, of course, but I thought I'd mention it; it was so well done — unusually well, I thought.'

She shifted slightly.

'The Captain's a very attractive man,' she said.

'Ah, well, then we've had a nice evening with two attractive people, haven't we? And they had to be stopped from attracting one another; channelled, as it were.'

'H'm,' she said.

'Darling, you're not jealous of my poor little histrionic talent?'

'No — it just seemed to have improved, that's all.'

'Sweetie,' I said, 'I am almost constantly treated to the spectacle of a variety of men wrestling with the pangs of temptation, and I feel great sympathy for them.'

She let the nearer hand stray from behind her head.

'I don't want them,' she said

'Darling,' I remarked, somewhat later, 'I begin to wonder if we ought not to see more of Mildred.'

'M'm,' she said, doubtfully, 'but the Captain, too.'

'Which reminds me, if you aren't too sleepy — what did the Captain have to say?'

'Oh, lots of nice things. Irish blood there, I think.'