We were stopped by a cadet from the Guards crews. “Eden?” he snapped. “Eskow?”
That’s right,” I told him.
“Report to the Commandant’s office, both of you. On the double.”
We stared at each other. The Commandant! But we had done nothing to justify being reprimanded…
On the double, lubbers!” the Guard cadet barked. What are you waiting for? The tides don’t wait!”
They called me first. I left Bob sitting at ramrod attention in the Commandant’s outer office, opened the door tothe private room, took a deep breath and entered. My hat was properly under my arm, my uniform was as nearly perfect as I could make it; at least, I thought, if the Commandant had to call me in, in was nice of him to make it right after a full-dress inspection! I saluted and said, with all the snap I could give it: “Sir, Cadet Eden, James, reporting to the Commandant as ordered!”
The Commandant, still in his own dress uniform, mopped at his thick neck with a sea-scarlet handkerchief and looked me over appraisingly.
“All right, Eden,” he said after a moment. “Stand at ease.”
He got up and walked wearily to a private door of his office. “Come in, Lieutenant,” he called.
Sea Coach Blighman marched stiffly into the room. The Commandant stood for a moment at the window, looking somberly out at the bright, white beaches and the blue sea beyond. Without turning, he said:
“Eden, we lost a shipmate of yours yesterday in the diving tests. His name was David Craken. I understand you knew him.”
“Yes, sir. Not very well. I only met him a short time before the dive, sir.”
He turned and looked at me thoughtfully. “But you did know him, Eden. And I’ll tell you something you may not know. You are one of the very few cadets in the Academy who can say that. His roommate—Cadet Angel. You. And just about nobody else. It seems that Cadet Craken, whatever his other traits, did not go in for making friends.”
I remained silent. When the Old Man wanted me to say something, he would let me know, I was sure of that.
He looked at me for a moment longer, his solid, ruddy face serious. Then he said: “Lieutenant Blighman, have you anything to add to your report on Cadet Craken?”
“No, sir,” rasped Coach Blighman. “As I told you, as soon as Cadet Craken failed to return in a reasonable time I alerted the bridge and requested a microsonar search. They reported that the microsonar was not fully operative, and immediately beamed the escort tugs, asking them to conduct a search. It took a few minutes for the tugs to reach us, and by the time they did they could find no trace of Cadet Craken.”
I thought of David Craken, out alone in the icy, dark sea, under the squeeze of thirteen hundred feet of water. It was no wonder the tugs had been unable to locate him. A man’s body is a tiny thing in the immensity of the sea.
The Commandant said: “What about the microsonar? What was the trouble with it?”
Blighman scowled. “Well, sir,” said, “I—I don’t know that it makes sense.”
“I’ll decide that,” the Commandant said with an edge to his voice.
“Yes, sir.” Blighman was clearly unhappy; he frowned at me. “In the first place, sir, one of the fathometer rigs was apparently lost from the deck of the gym ship before the dive. Since the microsonar had been adapted to use two fathometers to make an official diving record, that may have affected its efficiency. At any rate, the search room reported a—a ghost image. They had stripped down the sonar to find the trouble when Craken was lost.”
“A ghost image,” repeated the Commandant. He looked at me. “Tell Cadet Eden what that image was supposed to be, Lieutenant.”
“Well—The sonar crew thought it, well, looked something like a sea serpent.”
The Commandant let the words hang there for a moment.
“A sea serpent,” he repeated. “Cadet Eden, the Lieutenant tells me that you said something about a sea serpent.”
I said stiffly, “Yes sir. I—I thought I saw something at eleven hundred feet. But it could have been anything, sir. It could have been a fish, or just my imagination—narcosis or something like that, sir. But—”
“But you used the term ‘sea serpent,’ did you not?”
I swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“I see,” The Commandant sat down at his desk again and looked at his hands. “Cadet Eden,” he said, “I’ve investigated the disappearance of Cadet Craken as thoroughly as I could. There are several aspects to it on which I have not fully made up my mind. In the first place, there is the loss of the fathometer. True, it was not secured, working slipped over the side. But there have been several such incidents. And in this case it may have cost us the life of a cadet.
“Second, there is the suggestion that a sea serpent may somehow be involved. I must say, Eden, that I am instinctively inclined to think all sea serpents come out of bottles. I’ve spent forty-six years in the sub-sea service and I’ve been in some funny places; but I’ve never seen a sea serpent. The microsonar crew isn’t very sure of what they saw—if they saw anything at all—and besides we know that the equipment was operating badly for which I have already disciplined the crew responsible, and it may merely have because of the loss of the fathometer. That puts it up to you. Can you say positively that you saw a sea serpent?”
I thought rapidly, but there was only one conclusion. “No, sir. It may have been a reaction, either from the depth serum or from narcosis.”
The Commandant nodded. “I thought so. So there remains only point three.
“Cadet Eden, I have already interviewed Cadet Captain Roger Fairfane. He reports that there was a serious disagreement between Cadet Craken and himself, and it is his opinion after due reflection that Cadet Craken may have been in an unstable mental state at the time of his final dive. In other words, Eden, Captain Fairfane suggests that Craken may deliberately have gone over the side and straight down, in order to commit suicide.”
I completely forgot Academy discipline.
“Sir!” I blazed. “Sir, that’s ridiculous! Fairfane’s crazy if he thinks David would have killed himself! Why, in the first place, the whole fight between them was Fairfane’s own doing—and besides David had absolutely no reason to do anything of the sort! He might have been a little—well, odd, sir, keeping to himself and so on, but I’ll swear he wasn’t the kind to commit suicide. Why, he was—”
I stopped, suddenly remembering who and where I was. Lieutenant Blighman was frowning fiercely at me, and even the Commandant was looking at me with narrowed eyes.
“Sorry, sir,” I said. “But—no, sir, it’s impossible. Cadet Craken couldn’t have killed himself.”
The Commandant took a moment to think it over. Then he said:
“All right, Cadet Eden. If it is of any interest to you, I may say that your estimate agrees with Lieutenant Blighman’s. In his opinion Cadet Craken—like yourself, I might mention—is, or was, one of the most promising cadets in the Academy. Dismissed!”
I saluted, turned and left—but not before I caught a glimpse of Lieutenant Blighman, looking embarrassed. The old shark! I thought to myself, wonderingly. Evidently behind those fierce and hungry eyes there was a human being, after all.
Because it was Academy Day, there was only one class that afternoon, and Eladio Angel was in it with me. Since Bob didn’t return from the Commandant’s office before it was over, Laddy—so David Craken had called him—and I left together.
We walked toward his quarters, comparing notes on what the Commandant had said to us. It had been about the same for both of us—Laddy was as furious as I at Fairfane’s suggestion that David had committed suicide. “That squid Fairfane, Jeem,” he said, “he hates greatly. David is beyond question a better diver, no? So when he is lost, the squid must destroy his name.” He looked at me searchingly for a moment. “And also,” he added, “I do not think David ees dead.”