Toward the end of the week I had learned more about ancient Crete than I wanted to know. My brain was reeling and my body was cramped with squatting among broken pots. I might have rebelled anyway, but something happened that gave me a good excuse for changing my routine.
We went up to the dig as usual that morning. As a rule the men were there waiting for us, but that morning the place was deserted. I expressed surprise, and Frederick explained that they weren’t coming. It was a holy day, a saint’s day or something. He added a few comprehensive curses on the Greek Christian pantheon.
It was cool down there in the ravine, and deeply shadowed; but when I looked up I could see a slash of blue sky and a bird soaring high and free. I stood up, brushing dirt off my knees.
“I’m taking the day off, too,” I said, breaking into his anathemas. “God knows I deserve it, the hours I’ve been working. See you later.”
I left without waiting for an answer. We’d just have gotten into an argument, and arguing with Frederick was the most useless activity known to man. He never listened to a word anybody said. I went straight back to the house and changed into my bathing suit.
I know I shouldn’t have gone swimming alone. But I was young and confident, and I really had very little choice; either I swam alone, or I didn’t swim. I could imagine what Frederick would say if I suggested he join me, especially after I’d walked out on a day’s work. He had already turned down several invitations to come for a swim, saying he wanted me to gain some experience with archaeological techniques before I started working underwater. When I pointed out that people did occasionally swim for pleasure, he gave me a blank look.
As I climbed down the cliff, carrying my fins and mask, I promised myself I would be careful. I wouldn’t go out far or stay in long, and I would keep an eye out for monsters. But I couldn’t wait any longer. It was warm and bright and the blue water drew me like a magnet. It slid over my body like a silken robe as I went in.
In a way, it was like coming home after a long absence. Water is not our natural element. We die if we stay in it too long. But we came from the water, if the theory of evolution is right. Millions and millions of years ago, our remote ancestors were spawned in the seas, and they lived there for more millions of years before some foolish fish wriggled up onto dry land and turned into an amphibian. Maybe that’s why some of us keep trying to go back. I don’t know. All I know is, I love it. There’s a whole world down there, and if some of its denizens are killers, they are less vicious than their two-legged descendants.
Actually, I wasn’t too sure what kinds of killers I might run into in these waters. Sharks were a possibility; they inhabit most of the seas. Some jellyfish are unpleasant customers, and they too are common all over the world. I had read about a fish called a weever, which is “capable of inflicting a painful sting.” But I figured the chance of encountering anything like that was pretty slim. I was dying to meet a dolphin. I had read about them, how intelligent they are, and how friendly. I also wanted to see an octopus, not a little squid, but a big Kraken-type monster eight feet across. Not that I intended to get familiar with an enraged octopus, but I know most predators are unlikely to attack if you don’t bother them.
I didn’t see anything particularly interesting that day. I’d never been in water so clear, though; I suppose anything around the United States is bound to be contaminated. The water shimmered with refracted sunlight, and magnified details. I could see the separate, delicate strands of seaweed on the bottom twenty feet below. There wasn’t a lot of weed, but it was a rough bottom, covered with rocks and lava fragments. The terrain lacked the spectacular colors of coral and vegetation that I was used to, but it looked fine to me.
When I finally came out of the water I saw that I was not alone. The straight, lean body of the man on the beach gave me a momentary thrill, but almost immediately I realized it couldn’t be Jim. His back was turned to me, and it was bleached white in color, not tanned, as Jim’s back surely must be. The man turned. I recognized my father.
Half amused and half annoyed I walked toward him. Like his face, his body was younger looking than it ought to have been. I suppose an ascetic, physically active life accounted for that. So far as I could tell, he didn’t suffer from any of the temptations of the flesh.
I expected him to be annoyed at my defection, but he greeted me without anger-without emotion of any kind.
“Thanks for coming down to keep an eye on me,” I said.
He looked surprised.
“Why should I do that? You are supposed to be an excellent swimmer.”
“Even an excellent swimmer can get a cramp,” I said, angered at his indifference-and pleased that I could tell him something he didn’t know. “I do swim alone sometimes, but I know it’s stupid. When I start diving for real, you’ll have to stick around.”
“I will certainly be on hand, to direct your actions.”
“I didn’t see anything interesting out there. No pots, no walls-”
“I doubt that you would recognize them if you found them,” he said dryly. “In any case, this is not the area in which I am interested. We’ll swim around the headland and I’ll show you the spot. It’s not far.”
I followed him into the water, and then north along the coast. He swam with the same economical power all his other actions displayed, but he was a little awkward; I could tell that his technique was the result of concentration, not of training. I turned over onto my side and took a look around. We had rounded the headland and were a long way from shore.
Ahead and to the left, another miniature bay had opened up. Perched on the cliff top was a house. It wasn’t a small cottage, like the houses in the village, but an honest-to-God villa, almost a mansion. The walls gleamed white in the sunlight, and the red-tiled roof stood out against the blue sky.
Frederick was slowing down. I moved in closer, blaming myself for not checking him out before we started. He might be well preserved, but he was certainly no chicken, he had to be in his fifties, and for all I knew he might have a heart condition or something. By this time I could see bottom down below, although we were still some distance from the inner wall of the bay. Though the water wasn’t deep, there was no beach, only rough rock all around.
Frederick caught hold of a rock, one of several that poked its head up out of the water. He clung there, breathing hard, and I joined him, hanging on with one hand.
“You’re out of condition,” I said.
“I have one bad lung,” Frederick replied, as calmly as I would have announced, I have a pimple on my nose. “I punctured it some years ago.”
“You fool, why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have let you-”
“Let me? I can’t imagine how you would have prevented me.”
We were both bobbing gently up and down with the motion of the waves, and in spite of myself I started to laugh.
“Look,” I said, after a moment. “I take all the orders you hand out, don’t I, when it comes to digging? On this subject I’m the expert. I’m familiar with all the life-saving techniques, but I’d prefer not to use any of them on you. Let me do the swimming from now on, okay?”
Frederick ’s reaction was meek, for him.
“Why do you suppose I’m not doing the underwater work myself? The techniques do not seem difficult; I could have mastered them in a few months if I had been physically able to do so. I shall certainly leave the diving to you as soon as I have instructed you as to what you are looking for.
“As we know, the Minoans were the greatest navigators and sailors of their age. Cretan experts were responsible for the massive harbor installations near Alexandria, in the Egyptian Delta, discovered by divers in 1910, and a few Minoan harbors have been explored. Five years ago, following certain clues which I need not enumerate to you, I did some diving near here. I found…”