Gull softened slightly. “Nice-looking kids,” he commented, returning the picture.
“Thank you.”
“No, really. I mean it.”
“You’re being kind.”
Gull started to reply, then stopped himself.
For he was falling into the oldest trap in the business. He was allowing his gentler emotions to interfere with the needs of the assignment. In this business there was no room for sentiment, Gull thought wryly. Better men than he had been taken in by the soft passions and had paid for it, in death, in torture, in dismemberment— worst of all, in the failure of a mission. “Hell with all that stuff,” he said gruffly. “I still can’t accept your story.”
“You must. The Black ‘Ats ‘ave a plan to kill you!”
He shook his head. “I can’t take a stranger’s word for it.”
The tears had stopped. She gazed at him for a long opaque moment. Then she smiled tantalizingly.
“A stranger, Meesta Gull?”
“That’s what I said.”
“I see.” She nodded gravely. “We ‘ave never met, eh? And therefore I could not possibly know something about you—oh, something that perhaps is very private.”
“What are you talking about? Get to the point!”
“Something,” she continued, her eyes veiled but dancing with amusement, “that perhaps you ‘ave told no one else. A—shall we say—a sore lip, Meesta Gull? Received, perhaps, in an alley in the Syrian quarter of Marsport?”
Gull was startled. “Really! Now, look. I—confound it, how could you possibly know about that? I’ve mentioned it to no one!”
She inclined her head, a tender and mocking gesture.
“But it’s true! And there was no one there at the time! Not a single living soul but myself and the woman who trapped me!”
The girl pursed her lips but did not speak. Her eyes spoke for her. They were impudent, laughing at him.
“Well, then!” he shouted. He was furious at himself. There had to be some rational explanation! Why had he let her catch him off-balance like this? It was a trick, of course. It could be no more than that. There were a thousand possible explanations of how she could have found out about it—”Well, then! How did you know?”
“Meesta Gull,” she whispered soberly, “please trust me. I cannot tell you now. In precisely seven minutes—” she glanced at her watch—”an attempt will be made on your life.”
“Rot!”
Her eyes flamed with sudden anger. “Idiot!” she blazed. “Oh, ‘ow I ‘ate your harrogance!”
Gull shrugged with dignity.
“Very well! Die, then, if you wish it. The Black ‘Ats will kill you, but I will not die with you.” And she began to take off her clothes.
Johan Gull stared. Then soberly, calmly, he picked up his stogie, relit it and observed, “Your behavior is most inexplicable, my dear.”
“Hah!” The girl stepped out of her dress, her lovely-face bitter with anger and fear. A delicate scent of chypre improved the air.
“These tactics will get you nowhere,” said Gull.
“Pah!” She touched the catch on her carrying case. It fell open and a bright rubbery coverall fell out, with mask and stubby, bright tanks attached.
“Good heavens!” cried Gull, startled. “Is that a warmsuit? SCUBA gear?”
But the girl said only, “You ‘ave four minutes left.”
“You’re carrying this rather far, you know. Even if there are Black Hats aboard, we can’t leave the submarine underwater.”
“Three minutes,” said the girl calmly, wriggling into her suit. But she was wrong.
The submarine seemed to run into a brick wall in the water.
They were thrown against the forward wall, a Laocoon of lovely bare limbs and rubbery warmsuit and Gull entwined in the middle. A huge dull sound blossomed around them. Gull fought himself free.
The girl sat up, her face a mask of terror. “Oh, damn the damn thing,” she cried, shaking her wrist, staring at her watch. “I must’ve forgot to set it. Too late, Meesta Gull! We ‘ave been torpedoed!”
IV
The warbling wheep-wheep of alarm signals blended with a confused shouting from the steerage holds below. The cabin lighting flickered, went out, tried once more, failed and was replaced by the purplish argon glow of the standby system. A racking, shuddering crash announced the destruction of the nuclear reactor that fed the hydro-jets; somewhere, water was pouring in.
“ ‘Urry, Meesta Gull!” cried the girl.
“Of course,” said Gull, courteously assisting her with the warmsuit. He patted her shoulder. “Not to worry, my dear. I owe you an apology, I expect. At a more propitious time—”
“Meesta Gull! The bulkheads ‘ave been sabotaged!” Gull smiled confidently and turned to his escape procedures. Now that it was a matter of instant action he was all right. His momentary uncertainty was behind him.
Coolly he reached into his pocket, unsnapped the little packet of microthin Standing Orders and scanned their titles. “Let me see, now. Checklist for air evacuation— no. Checklist for enemy attack, artillery. Checklist for enemy attack, ICBM. Checklist for—”
“Meesta Gull,” she cried, with real fear in her voice. “ ‘Ave you forgotten that these waters are the ‘abitat of the Martian piranha? You must’urry!”
“Well, what the devil do you think I’m doing? Now be still; I have it here.” And crossly Gull began to check off the items under Submarine torpedoing, Martian canals: Secret papers, maps, halazone tablets, passports, poison capsule, toothbrush, American Express card… with metronome precision he stowed them away and instantly donned his own SCUBA gear. “That’s the lot,” he announced, glancing distastefully at the dirty froth of water that was seeping under the door. “We might as well be off, then.” He lowered the SCUBA mask over his face—and raised it again at once, to fish out a packet of Kleenex in its waterproof packet and add it to his stores. “Sorry. Always get a sniffly nose when I’m torpedoed,” he apologized, and flung open the door to the passageway.
A three-foot wall of water broke into the cabin, bearing with it a short-circuited purser-robot that hummed and crackled and twitched helplessly in a shower of golden sparks. “Outside, quick!” cried Gull, and led the way through the roiled, tumbling waters.
The brave old T Coronae Borealis had taken a mortal wound. Half wading, half swimming, they fought strongly against the fierce drive of inwelling waters towards an escape hatch. In the dim purple gleam of the standby circuits they could see little. But they could hear much —shouts, distant screams, the horrid sounds of a great ship breaking up.
There was nothing they could do. They were lucky to be able to escape themselves.
And then it was nothing; a few strong strokes upward, a minute of clawing through the gelid, fungal mass that prevented the canals’ evaporation and had concealed their water from earthly telescopes for a hundred years —and they were safe. Armed and armored in their SCUBA gear, they had no trouble with the piranhas.
Gull and the girl dragged themselves out on the bank of the sludgy canal and stared back at the waters, gasping for breath. There were ominous silent ripples and whorls. They watched for long minutes. But no other head appeared to break the surface.
Gull’s face was set in a mask of anger. “Poor devils,” he allowed himself, no more.
But in his heart he was resolved. A hundred men, women and robots had perished in the torpedoing of the T Coronae. Someone would pay for it.