“It may not matter to you, but it matters to me. Listen, Eden, he isn’t even an American! He’s a transfer student from the sea. He knows more about sea pressure than the coach does! I want you to go to Lieutenant Blighman and protest. Tell him it isn’t fair to have Craken swimming against us!”
“Why don’t you protest yourself, if you feel that way?”
“Why, Jim!” Fairfane looked hurt. “It just wouldn’t look right—me being cadet captain and all. Besides—”
Bob broke in: “Besides, you already did, and he turned you down. Right?”
Roger Fairfane scowled. “Maybe so. I didn’t actually protest, I just—Well, what’s the difference? He’ll listen to you, Eden. He might think I’m prejudiced.”
“Aren’t you?” Bob snapped.
“Yes, I am!” Roger Fairfane said angrily. “I’m a better man than he is, and better than his pet Peruvian too! That’s why I resent being made to look like a fool when he’s in his natural element. We’re supposed to be diving against men, Eskow—not against fish!”
Bob was getting angry, I could see. I touched his arm to quiet him down. I said: “Sorry, Roger. I don’t think I can help you.”
“But you’re Stewart Eden’s nephew! Listen to me, Jim, if you go to Blighman he’ll pay attention.”
That was something Roger Fairfane hadn’t learned, regardless of the grades he got in his studies. I was Stewart Eden’s nephew—and that, along with five cents, would buy me a nickel’s worth of candy bars at the Academy. The Academy doesn’t care who your uncle is; the Academy cares who you are and what you can do.
I said: “I’ve got to get my gear on. Sorry.”
“You’ll be sorry before you’re through with Craken!” Roger Fairfane blazed. “There’s something funny about him. He knows more about the Deeps than—“
He stopped short, glared at us, and turned away.
Bob and I looked at each other and shrugged. We didn’t have time to talk by then, the other cadets were already falling in by crews, ready to go to the locks.
We hurried into our diving gear. It was simple enough—flippers for the feet, mouthpiece and goggles for the face, the portable lung on the back.
It was a late-issue electrolung, one of the new types that generates oxygen by the electrolysis of sea water. Dechlorinators remove the poison gases from the salt. It saves weight; it extends the range considerably—for water is eight-ninths oxygen by weight, and there is an endless supply, as long as the strontium atomic battery holds out to provide the electric current.
But Bob put his on reluctantly. I knew why. As the old early lung divers had found, pure oxygen was chancy; for those who were prone to experience “the raptures of the depths,” oxygen in too great strength seemed to bring on seizures earlier and more violently than ordinary air. Perhaps the injections would help…
We filed into the lock in squads of twenty men, our fins slapping the deck. We were issued tight thermo-suits there—first proof that this was no ordinary skin-diving expedition; we would be going deep enough so that the water would be remorselessly cold as well as crushingly heavy above us.
We sat on the wet benches around the rim of the low, gloomy dome of the lock and Coach Blighman gave us our final briefing:
“Each of you has a number. When we flood the lock and open the sea door, you are to swim to the bow super-structure, find your number, punch the button under it. The light over your number will go out, proving that you have completed the test. Then swim back here and come into the lock.
“That’s all there is to it. There’s a guide line in case any of you are tempted to get lost. If you stick to the guide line, you can’t get lost. If you don’t—”
He stared around at us, his shark’s eyes cold as the sea.
“If you don’t,” he rasped, “you’ll put the sub-sea service to the expense of a search party for you—or for your body.”
His eyes roved over us, waiting.
No one said anything. There wasn’t really much chance of our being lost—
Or was there? One of the fathometers was missing. In the hookup as used on the gym ship, it was a part of the microsonar; without it, it might be very hard indeed to locate one dazed and wandering cadet, overcome by depth-narcosis…
I resolved to keep an eye on Bob.
“Any questions?” Coach Blighman rapped out. There were no questions. Very well. Secure face-pieces! Open Sea Valves One and Three!”
We snapped our face-lenses and mouthpieces into place.
The cadet at the control panel saluted and twisted two plastic knobs. The sea poured in.
It came in two great jets of white water, foaming and crashing against the bulkhead. Blinding spray distorted our lenses, and the cold brine surged and pulled around our feet.
Coach Blighman had retreated to the command port, where he stood watching behind thick glass. As the lock filled we could hear his voice, sounding hollow and far away through the water, coming over the communicators: “Sea door open!”
Motors whined, and the sea door irised wide.
“Count and out!”
Bob Eskow was number-four man in our crew, just before me. I could hear him rap sharply four times on the bulkhead as he squeezed through the iris door.
I rapped five times and followed.
The raptures of the depths!
But they weren’t dangerous, they were—being alive. All of the work and strain at the Academy, all of my life in fact, was pointed toward this. I was in the sea.
I took a breath and felt my body start to soar toward the surface, a hundred feet above; I exhaled, and my body dipped back toward the deck of the sub-sea raft. The electrolung chuckled and whispered behind my ear, measuring my breathing, supplying oxygen to keep me alive, a ten-story building’s height below the waves and the sky. It was broad daylight above, but down here was only a pale greenish wash of light.
The deck of the gym ship—all gray steel and black shadow on the surface—was transformed into a Sinbad’s cave, gray-green floor beneath us, sea-green, transparent walls to the sides. The guide line was a glowing, greenish snake stretched tautly out ahead of me, into the greenish glow of the water. There was no sense of being under-water, no feeling of being “wet”; I was flying.
I kicked and surged rapidly ahead of the guide line without touching it.
Bob was just ahead, swimming slowly, fingers almost touching the guide line. I dawdled impatiently behind him, while he doggedly swam to the bow superstructure and fumbled around the scoring rig. Our numbers were there, with the Troyon tubes glowing blue over the signal buttons. They stood out clearly in the wash of green light, but Bob seemed to be having trouble.
For a moment I thought of helping him—but there is an honor code at the Academy, strict and sharp: Each cadet does his own tasks, no one can coast on someone else’s work. And then he found the button, and his number went out.
I followed him with growing concern, back along the guide line. He was finding it difficult to stay with the guide; twice I saw him clutch at it and pull himself along, as his swimming strokes became erratic.
And this at a hundred feet! The bare beginning of the qualifying dives!
What would happen at three hundred? At five?
Finally we were all back inside the lock, and the seapumps began their deep, purring hum. As soon as the water was down to our waists Coach Blighman rasped:
“Eden, Eskow! What were you jellyfish doing? You held up the whole crew!”
We stood dripping on the slippery duckboards, waiting for the tongue-lashing; but we were spared it. One of the other cadets cried out sharply and splashed to the floor. The sea-medics were there almost before the water was out of the lock. I grabbed him, holding his head out of the last of the water; they took him from me and quickly, roughly, stripped his face-piece and goggles away. His face was convulsed with pain; he was unconscious.