“Trencher followed—naturally. I don’t know if he suspected her or not. I hope not.” David’s face looked pinched and drawn as he said it.
“Anyway,” he went on, “Joe Trencher followed me—not in a sea car, but swimming free, and riding one of the saurians. They can make a fabulous rate of speed in the open sea—they kept right after me. And then they caught me.”
David looked up.
“And the rest you know,” he said. “Now—it’s up to all of us. And we don’t have much time.”
We didn’t have much time.
But time passed.
David went back to the little apartment over the boat shed, to wait. Roger and Bob and I went on with our classes.
The next day there was not much time for thinking. It was only a week until Graduation Week, and there were the last of our examinations to get through. Hard to focus our minds on Mahan’s theories and the physics of liquid masses, with high adventure in the background! But we had to do it.
And after the final day of examinations, no break. For there was close-order drill, parade formation. We struggled into our dress-scarlet uniforms and fell out for unending hours of countermarching and wheeling. It wasn’t our own graduation we would be marching for—but every one of us looked forward to the time when we would be sworn in before the assembled ranks of the Academy, and every one of us clipped off the maneuvers with every ounce of precision we could manage. It was blistering hot in the Bermuda sun as we practiced, hour after hour, for the final review. Then, just before the sunset gun, there came a welcome change. The cumulus masses had been building and towering over the sea; they came lowering in on us, split with lightning flashes. The clouds opened up, and pelting rain drenched us all.
We raced for shelter, any shelter we could find.
I found myself in the lee of an upended whaleboat, and crouched beside me was another cadet, as wet as I. He brushed rivulets of rain from his flat-visored dress-scarlet cap and turned to me, grinning.
It was Eladio Angel.
“Jim!” he cried. “Jim Eden! So long since I have seen you!”
I took his hand as he held it out to shake, and I suppose I must have said something. But I don’t know what.
Eladio Angel—David Craken’s old roommate, his close friend, the only cadet in all the Academy, save Bob Eskow and myself, who thought enough of David to feel the loss when he was gone.
And what could I say to Laddy Angel now?
He was going on and on. “—since you wrote your letter to Jason Craken, the father of David. Ah, David—even now, Jim, I think sometimes of him. So great a loss, so good a friend! I can scarcely believe that he is gone. And truly, Jim, even to this day I cannot believe it. No, in my heart I believe he is alive somewhere—somehow he escaped, somehow he did not drown. But—enough!” He grinned again. “Tell me, Jim, how are you? I have seen you only a time or two, leaving a class or crossing the quadrangle—we have not had time to speak. Convenient, this rain—it causes us to meet again!”
I cleared my throat. “Why—why, yes, Laddy,” I said, uncomfortably. “Yes, it—it certainly is good to see you again. I, uh—” I pretended to look out at the teeming rain and to be surprised. “Why, look, Laddy!” I cried. “I believe it’s letting up! Well, I’ve got to get back to dorm—I’ll be seeing you!”
And I fled, through the unrelenting downpour.
I could feel his eyes on my back as I went—not angry, but hurt. Undoubtedly hurt. I had been rude to him—but what could I do? David had said, over and over, that we must keep this matter secret—and I am no accomplished liar, that I could talk to his close friend and not give away the secret that he was not dead!
But I didn’t have much time to brood about it. As I was racing across the quadrangle, drenched to the skin, someone hailed me. “Eden! Cadet Eden, report!”
I skidded to a halt and saluted.
It was an upperclassman, on temporary duty with the Commandant’s office. He was outfitted in bad-weather oilskins, only his face peeping out into the downpour. He returned my salute uncomfortably, rain pouring into his sleeve as he lifted his arm.
“Cadet Eden,” he rapped, “report to the Commandant’s office immediately! Someone to see you!”
Someone to see me?
The standing orders of the Academy are: Cadets reporting to the Commandant will do so on the double! But I didn’t need the spur of the standing orders to make me move. I could hardly wait to get there—for I could not imagine who might want me. If it was David, or anyone connected with David, it could only mean trouble. Bad trouble, bad enough to make him give up his secrecy…
But it wasn’t trouble at all.
I ran panting into the Commandant’s outer office and braked to stiff attention. Even while I was saluting I gasped: “Cadet Eden, sir, reporting as ordered by—”
I stopped, astonished.
A tall, black figure was getting up out of a chair in the reception room—a figure I knew well, the figure of someone I had thought to be half a world away. Gideon Park!
He grinned at me, his white teeth flashing. “Jim,” he said, in his soft, mild voice. “Your uncle said you needed help. Here I am!”
11
Graduation Week
Gideon Park! Tall, black, loyal—just to see him there waiting for me in the Commandant’s office took an enormous weight off my shoulders. Gideon and I had been in plenty of tight spots together, and I had a lot of respect for the man.
Maybe we had a chance to carry through our plans after all!
Gideon and I had only a moment to talk together, that first afternoon. I whispered to him where he could find David Craken—in the boathouse on the estate of Trident’s Atlantic manager. He nodded and winked and left.
And I went back to dorm to get ready for evening mess, feeling better than I had in days.
I couldn’t get off Academy grounds that evening, but Bob hadn’t used all his passes. Right after evening chow he took off for the boathouse, to talk things over with Gideon and David Craken.
He returned seconds before Lights Out. He had been gone nearly four hours.
“It’s all right,” he whispered to me, hastily getting ready for bed. “Gideon brought the money with him.”
“How much?” I asked, keeping my own voice down—if the duty officer heard us, it was a demerit. And it was too close to the end of the school year to want demerits.
“Enough. Ninety-seven thousand dollars, Jim! He had it with him in cash. That’s the most money I ever saw in one place.”
I nodded in the darkness. “Ninety-seven thousand,” I repeated. “Funny amount—I suppose it was every penny he could raise.” It was a grim thought. I whispered urgently: “Bob, we’ve got to come through on this! If I know my uncle, he’s gone in debt for this—he’s repaying an obligation to Jason Craken. If anything goes wrong—if we can’t help Craken, can’t get this money back for my uncle—it’ll mean trouble for him.”
“Of course, Jim.” Bob was in bed already. “Gideon’s going to Sargasso Dome tomorrow,” he whispered. “To put up the bond so that our bid will be counted. There isn’t much time left.”
“Did you tell David that I’d seen Laddy Angel?” There was a pause for a second. “I—I forgot, Jim. I didn’t have much time, anyway. I was only there for a few minutes—”
I sat straight up in bed. “Only a few minutes! But, Bob—you were gone for hours!”
His voice was apologetic—and strained. “I was, well, delayed, Jim. I, uh—”
We both heard the rapping of the duty officer’s heels in the corridor outside.
That put an end to the conversation. But I couldn’t help wondering fuzzily, as I went to sleep—if Bob was gone four hours, and had only a few minutes in the beach house…what had he done with the rest of his time?