“Look at him!” cried Roger. “Can’t you see he’s just guessing?”
It was true that he did seem to be doubtful, I thought. Still, he had been right enough as far as he went.
I asked: “What kind of pearls?”
“Tonga pearls!” Well, that was easy enough to guess, for a man from Kermadec.
“How many of them?”
The pale face was contorted in an expression of rage and fear. The ragged breathing was the only sound we heard for a moment, while Joe Trencher stared at us.
At last he admitted: “I don’t know. I’m acting only as an agent, you see. An agent for Morgan Wensley. He asked me to undertake this trip, and he gave me the tube. I can’t give you an itemized list of of its contents, because they belong to him.”
“Then it isn’t yours!” cried Roger triumphantly.
“I’m responsible for it,” Trencher gasped. “I must recover it. Here, you!” He reached toward me. “Give me that!”
For a moment I thought we had come to violence—violence had been in the air all those long minutes. But Bob Eskow jumped between us. He said: “Listen, Trencher, we’re going to the Commandant. He’ll settle this whole thing. If they belong to you, he’ll see that you get them. He will make sure that no one is cheated.”
Roger Fairfane grumbled: “I’m not so sure. I’d rather keep them until my Dad’s lawyer can tell me what to do.” Then he glanced at Trencher’s long sea knife. “Oh, all right,” he agreed uncomfortably. “Let’s go to the commandant.”
I turned to Mr. Trencher. He was having trouble with his breathing, but he nodded. “An expedient solution,” he gasped. “You needn’t think I fear the law. I am willing to trust your Commandant to recognize my rights and see that justice is done…”
He stopped suddenly, staring out to the dark sea.
“Look!” he cried.
We all turned to stare. I heard Bob’s voice, as hoarse and breathless as Trencher’s own. “What in the sea is that?”
It was hard to tell what we saw. A mile out, perhaps, there was something. Something in the water. I couldn’t see it clearly, even in the moonlight. But it was enormous.
For a moment I thought I saw a thick neck lifted out of the water, and a head—that same, immense, reptilian head that I had thought I had seen at the rail of the gym ship…
Something struck me just under the ear, and the world fell away from me.
It didn’t really hurt, but for a moment I was paralyzed and I could see and feel nothing.
I wasn’t knocked out. I knew that I was falling, but I couldn’t move a muscle to catch myself. Some judo blow, I suppose, some clever thrust at a nerve center.
Then the world came back into focus. I heard feet pounding on the hard sand, and the splash of water.
“Stop him, Eskow!” Roger was crying shrilly. “He’s got the pearls!”
But Bob was bending over me worriedly. The numbness was beginning to leave my body, and I could feel Bob’s exploring fingers moving gently over the side of my head.
“No bones broken,” he muttered to himself. “But that shark really clipped you one, while you weren’t looking. Hit you with the edge of his hand, I think. You’re lucky, Jim; there doesn’t seem to be any permanent damage.”
In a minute or two I was able to get up, Bob helping me. My neck was stiff and sore as I moved it, but there were no bones grating.
By the edge of the water Roger stood hungrily staring out at the waves. The stranger who called himself Joe Trencher was gone. Bob said: “He hit you, grabbed the edenite tube and dived for the water. Roger ran after him to tackle him—but when he waved that sea knife Roger stopped cold. Then he dived under the water—and that’s the last we saw of him.”
Roger heard our voices and came running back to us. “Get up!” he cried. “Keep a watch over the water! He can’t get far. He hasn’t come up for air yet—but he can’t stay under much longer, not without sub-sea gear! I want those pearls back!”
He caught my arm. “Go after him, Eden! Bring back those pearls and I’ll give you a half interest in them!”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” I told him. I was beginning to feel better. “I want Bob counted in. An equal three-way split for all of us, in everything that comes out of this deal. Agreed?”
Roger sputtered for a moment, but at last he gave in. “Agreed. But don’t let him get away!”
“All right then,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. All of us will put our sub-sea gear back on—electrolungs and face lenses anyway, I don’t suppose we need the thermo-suits. We’ll go out on the surface and wait for him to stick his nose up for air. Then we’ll surround him and bring him in. You’re right about him needing air, Roger—he can’t get more than a few hundred yards away without coming up for a breath.”
We all quickly checked our face lenses and electrolungs and splashed out through the shallows into the calm Bermuda waves.
“Watch out for that sea knife!” I called, and then all three of us were swimming, spreading out, searching the surface of the sea for the pale face and gleaming eyes of the stranger.
Minutes passed.
I could see Roger to my left and Bob Eskow to my right, treading water, staring around. And that was all.
More minutes. I saw nothing. In desperation, I pulled my legs up, bent from the waist and surface-dived to see what was below. It was a strangely frightening experience. I was swimming through ink, swimming about in the space between the worlds where there is neither light nor gravitation. There was no up and no down; there was no sign of light except an occasional feeble flicker of phosphorescence from some marine life. I could easily have got lost and swum straight down. That was a danger; to counter it, I stopped swimming entirely and took a deep breath and held it. In a moment I felt the wash of air across my back and shoulders, as the buoyancy of my lungs lifted me to the surface.
I lifted my head and looked around.
Bob Eskow was shouting and splashing, a hundred yards to my right. And cutting toward him, close to where I had surfaced, Roger Fairfane was swimming with frantic speed.
“Come on!” cried Roger, panting. “Bob’s found him, I think!” That was all I had to hear. I drove through the water as fast as my arms and flipper-shoes would take me. But I had breath enough left over to cry out:
“Careful, Bob! Watch out for his knife!”
We got there in moments, and the three of us warily surrounded a feebly floating form in the water. Knife? There was no knife.
There were no pearly eyes, no milk-white face.
We looked at the figure, and at each other, and without a word the three of us caught hold of him and swam rapidly toward the shore.
We dragged the inert body up on the sand.
I couldn’t help staring back at the sea and shivering. What mysteries it held! That strange, huge head—the white-eyed man who had clipped me and stolen the pearls—where were they now?
And what was this newest and strangest mystery of all?
For the inert body that we brought up wasn’t Joe Trencher. We all recognized him at once.
It was David Craken, unconscious and apparently more than half drowned.
7
Back from the Deeps
Bob’s voice was filled with astonishment and awe. Even Roger Fairfane stood gawking. No wonder! I could hardly believe it myself. When a man is lost on a lung dive at thirteen hundred feet, you don’t expect him to be found drifting off shore months later—and still alive!