Bob Eskow frowned. “I’ve heard of the Plesiosaurs,” he said. “They’re descended from reptiles that once lived on dry land—like all the big sea saurians. And that thing that’s following us, is that one of them?”
David nodded. “One of the tamed ones. The amphibians work them. Joe Trencher is using them in his rebellion against my father.”
The Dolphin pounded on, through the deep, dark seas.
David Craken looked up finally from his charts. His face was clouded. He said “We’re a long way off the main sea routes. It’s been a long time since we passed a sonar beacon for a fix. But—I think we are…here.”
His finger stabbed a tiny penciled cross on the chart.
The Tonga Trench!
His expression cleared and he grinned at Roger. “Captain Fairfane,” he reported formally, “I have a course correction for you. Azimuth, steady on two twenty-five He grinned down!”
Gideon said soberly: “Just a few more hours then, David. Are we in time?”
David Craken shrugged. “I hope so. I think so.”
He looked at the sonarscope, where the tiny little blob that was the pursuing saurian hung on. He said: “You see, it is almost July—and July is the month of breeding for them. My father—he’s a willful man, Gideon. He chose to build his dome on a little mound on the slope of a sea-mount, and he must have known long before the work was finished that it was a bad place. Because it is there that the saurians go to lay their eggs. They come up out of the degrees. Elevation, negative five degrees.” and translated. “Straight ahead and Trench—Dad says it is a pattern of behavior that dates back hundreds of millions of years, perhaps to the time when they still went to the beaches on dry land, as turtles sometimes do today.
“Anyway—Dad’s dome is directly in their path.” David shook his head broodingly. “While he was well, while he had the amphibians to help him—he managed to fight them off, and I believe he enjoyed it. But now he’s sick, and alone, and the amphibians are bound to try something at the same time…”
He glanced again at the scope of the microsonar.
“Gideon!” he cried. “Jim!”
We clustered around, staring.
There was another blob of light there once more—the featured little speck that was the saurian, and the other tiny one that hung around it.
But it was larger than ever before.
Even as we watched it grew larger and larger.
Gideon said, frowning, “Something’s coming mighty fast. Another saurian? But it’s faster than the other one has ever gone. It’s gaining on us as though we were floating still…”
David’s face was drained of color.
He said lifelessly: “It isn’t a saurian, Gideon.”
Roger and Laddy and Bob were talking, all at once. I elbowed my way past them to get to the rangmg dials of the microsonar. The little blips grew fuzzy, then sharper, then fuzzy once more. I cried: “Please! Give me room!”
I turned again to the dials and gently coaxed the images back. They grew brighter, sharper…
“You’re right, David!” Gideon’s voice was soft and worried behind me. “That’s no saurian!”
It was a sea-car—a big one. Bigger than ours.
I cracked the range dial a hairs-breadth.
The image leaped into clear focus.
The shape in the microsonar was the sleek and deadly outline of the Killer Whale!
14
Sub-Sea Skirmish
The ship was the Killer, no question about it.
It was headed straight for us. Roger looked around at the rest of us, his face pale. “Well what about it?” he demanded. “What can they do? They’ve no armament,have they? The Fleet must have stripped the Killer just as they did the Dolphin—”
“Don’t count on it,” David said quietly. “Remember, Trencher’s at home under the water. They’ve been delayed for something—they must have put the saurian to following us, while they were doing something. Doing what? I don’t know, Roger. But I could make a guess, and my guess would be that they’ve been stripping sunken ships somewhere, taking armament off them…I don’t know, I admit. But if you think they can’t hurt us, Roger, I’m afraid you’re living in a fool’s paradise.”
Roger said harshly: “Eden! Give them a hail on the sonarphone! Ask them what they want.”
“Aye-aye, sir!” I started the sonarphone pulsing and beamed a message at the ship behind us. “Dolphin to Killer Whale. Dolphin to Killer Whaler
No answer.
I tried again: “Dolphin to Killer Whale! Come in, Killer Whale.”
Silence, while we waited. The sonarphone picked up and amplified the noises of the ship behind us, the half-musical whine of her atomic turbines, the soft hissing of the water sliding past her edenite armor.
But there was no answer.
Roger glared at me and shouldered past. He picked up the sonarphone mike himself. “Killer Whale!” he cried. “This is the Dolphin, Roger Fairfane commanding. I demand you answer—”
I stopped listening abruptly.
I had glanced at the microsonar screen. Against the dark field that was black sea water, I saw a bright little fleck dart away from the bright silhouette of the Killer.
I leaped past Roger to the autopilot, cut it out with a flick of the switch, grabbed the conn wheel and heaved the Dolphin into a crash dive.
Everyone went sprawling and clinging to whatever they could hold. Roger Fairfane fought his way up, glaring at me, his face contorted. “Eden! I’m in command here! If you—”
Whump.
A dull concussion interrupted him. The old Dolphin shook and shivered, and the strained metal of her hull made ominous snapping sounds.
“What was that?” Roger cried.
Gideon answered. “A jet missile,” he said. “If Jim hadn’t crash-dived us—we’d be trying to breathe water right now.”
Cut and run!
We jumped to battle stations, and Roger poured on the coal.
Battle stations. But what did we have to fight with? The Killer Whale had found arms somewhere—either by salvaging wrecks or buying them in some illegal way. But we had none.
Bob Eskow and Gideon manned the engines, and coaxed every watt of power out of the creaking old reactors.
It wasn’t enough. Newer, bigger, faster—the Killer Whale was gaining on us. Roger, sweating, banged the handle of the engine-room telegraph uselessly against the stops. He grabbed the speaking tube and cried: “Engine room! Eskow, listen. Cut out the safety stops—run the reactors on manual. We’ll need more power!”
Bob’s voice rattled back, with a note of alarm: “On manual? But Roger—these reactors are old! If we cut out the safety stops—”
“That’s an order!” blazed Roger, and slammed the microphone into its cradle. He looked anxiously to me, manning the microsonar. “Are we gaining, Eden?”
I shook my head. “No, sir. They’re still closing up. I—I guess they’re trying to get so close that we can’t dodge their missiles.”
Beside me, David Craken was working the fathometer, tracing our course on the chart he had made. He looked up, and he was almost smiling. “Roger—Jim!” he cried. “I—I think we’re going to make it.” He stabbed at the chart with his pencil. “The last sounding shows we’ve just passed a check point. It isn’t more than twenty miles to my father’s sea-mount!”