Complete Short Fiction, page 170
I might wait until they found the tank and just hope for a chance to drop the instrument without anyone’s noticing while they were carting me off, but that seemed to involve a historical record for optimism.
I couldn’t accept the idea of going back to the surface without leaving it, though, even though that and all the other things it would be so nice to get done seemed to be impossible. Even a snake on a tray of oiled ball bearings keeps wriggling.
And so I remained. There was really no point in an early departure anyway. I still had plenty of oxygen, and there was always the hope that I’d get a useful idea before they—whoever ‘they’ were—found me. The hope lasted for nearly six hours.
It wasn’t a girl this time, though it might possibly have been one of the same men. He wore the same sort of swimming outfit to the last detail, as far as I could see. He was swimming straight toward me when I first saw him, above the tent roof as the others had been, slanting out of the darkness from the direction I supposed the entrance must lie. Certainly he had seen me, or rather the tank. I wished I had spotted him earlier—it would be interesting, and might even be useful, to know whether I had been found accidentally by a passing swimmer or by someone deliberately checking the region where the wrecked boat had been found. However, I could be philosophical about not knowing. I watched as he swam overhead.
He should be able to recognize the tank without much trouble. It had a lot of nonstandard equipment fastened outside, but it was basically a regular emergency high-pressure escape tank of the sort you’d find in any large submarine—a sphere of silica fiber and high-stress polymer able to stand the pressure of two miles of sea water. It was light enough to float, ordinarily, but the jury-rigged thing I was in was well ballasted. Besides the legs and their accessory gear there were the lights, the transponders, sundry pieces of sensing equipment, and several slabs of lead so distributed as to keep the center of buoyancy and the geometrical center as close together as practical. The lead made the real difference; I would still float with all the rest.
The swimmer stopped stroking as he glided overhead and drifted, settling slowly toward me. I could see his face now through the helmet—in fact, the helmet itself was barely noticeable; he might almost have been swimming bareheaded. He was no one I could remember ever having seen before in five years, of Board work, but I took good note of the line of his black hair, the set of his eyes, and the squarish outline of the rest of his face so as to be sure of knowing him again if the chance ever came up. Presumably he couldn’t see me; the view ports were small, my inside lights were out, and he showed no sign of the surprise I would have expected him to feel if he knew or guessed that the tank contained a living man.
He came close enough to touch the equipment—so close that I could no longer see everything he was doing. I told myself that it couldn’t be anything very drastic, considering what the tank was built to take, but I’d still have been much happier if I could have seen his hands all the time. He was certainly fooling with things; I could feel the casing quiver occasionally as he pushed something particularly hard.
He drew away again and swam twice more all around the tank, never taking his eyes from it. Then he settled down to the tent roof and pushed his head against it, as though he were trying to swim through.
I didn’t dare shift my weight quickly enough to look through one of the lower ports while he was still in that position, so I couldn’t tell whether his helmet stretched the fabric enough to let him see through—it was, after all, a lot smaller than my tank. I did let myself down very gingerly, so as not to move my container noticeably, but by the time my eyes had reached one of the lower ports he had risen again—at least, I could see nothing against the fabric except his shadow. He seemed to have started swimming away, and I took a chance and straightened up quickly. The shadow had told the truth. He was heading back in the direction from which he had come.
This time I was much more careful with the clock. He was back with another man in just under eight minutes. His companion was carrying either the cylinder that had been used in moving the wreck, or one just like it; the first man was also carrying something, but I couldn’t make out what it was right away. It looked like a rather untidy bundle of rope.
When he stopped above the tank and shook it out, however, it turned out to be a cargo net, which he began to work around the tank. Apparently he had decided on his first inspection that the natural irregularities of his find didn’t offer much hold to a rope. I couldn’t exactly blame him for that conclusion, but I very much wished he hadn’t reached it. I wasn’t sure how strong the net might be, but unless it were grossly defective in manufacture it would hold my ballast slugs. If it were fastened around tank and slugs both, releasing the latter would become a pointless gesture. It was definitely time to go, and I reached for the master ballast release.
Then I had another thought. Dropping the lead would presumably give my presence away, assuming they hadn’t already guessed there was someone inside. That cat was out of the bag, and nothing else I could do would tell them any more. I might as well, therefore, try something else which might keep that net from enfolding me until I was over bare rock again and stood a chance of dropping the transponder effectively. There seemed nothing to lose by it, so I extended all the legs at once.
Neither of the swimmers was actually hit, but they were very startled. The one with the net had been touching the tank at the time, and may have thought that something he had done was responsible for releasing the springs. At any rate, neither of them seemed to feel that any more haste than before was needed, as they should have done if they’d suspected a man was inside. They simply went about the job of attaching the lifting device as they had to the other wreck; there were plenty of things to fasten lines to now that the legs were out, and it would have been hard or impossible to get the net around the new configuration. That was all to the good.
The technique was the same as before. I assumed the cylinder contained a chemical gas generator, considering the pressure the balloon was expanding against. That was just a fleeting thought, though. It was much more interesting to watch the two swimmers pushing me toward the edge of the roof even before my container had lifted entirely clear of the fabric. Things were certainly looking up; only two people, bare rock coming up—no, don’t be too hasty; maybe they’ll push you right to that entrance you want to find. Wait it out, boy. I pulled my fingers away from the panel, and locked them together for extra safety.
Just as had been done with Pugnose, the tank was moved away from the tent and then along parallel with its edge. The motion was slow—even with a weightless load there was plenty of water to push out of the way—and we were more than fifteen minutes on the trip. I kept watching for some sign of the entrance, expecting a break of some sort in the fabric itself, but that wasn’t the arrangement I finally saw.
After a quarter of an hour my porters aimed away from the lights again and headed up the slope which I assumed was still to our right. About two hundred yards in this new direction brought us to the lip of another bowl or gully, apparently much like the one I had almost been trapped in a few hours before, but larger. The center of this depression was even more brightly lighted than the roof of the tent, and the entrance was in the very middle of the bright region.
I didn’t take a very good look at it; I acted too fast. I glimpsed what seemed to be a smooth-walled pit about forty feet across with ladders going down at a couple of dozen points around its rim. Most of the light came from some point in the pit below my line of vision. Between me and the opening were a dozen or more swimming figures, and it was the sight of these that made me act. If I were to be surrounded by a whole school of swimmers, my chances of dropping a transponder unnoticed would be negligible; and without spending any more time in thought, I dropped the ballast and one of the sounders simultaneously. I instantly realized that might be a mistake, since each of the lead slabs was heavy enough even under water to smash the instrument, and as I felt the tank lurch upward I dropped another of the little machines. There was a good chance that my company had been distracted by the ballast—a much better one than I realized, as I found later.
I heard the lead hit the rock. So, evidently, did the swimmers around the hole. It took them a few seconds to spot the source of the racket. A man judges sound direction partly from the difference in arrival time of the wave at his two ears; and with the high speed of sound in water, the fact that the disturbance was also being carried by the rock, and the helmets they were all wearing it was impossible for them to get more than a vague notion of where the sound had originated. When they did start coming my way it was in response to a flashlight which one of my carriers was shining toward them.
The two original swimmers were hanging onto my legs—the tank’s I should say. They couldn’t hold me down, of course. It takes more than a couple of almost-floating human bodies to replace several tons of lead. They were staying with me, though, and guiding the others.
That didn’t worry me at first, since there weren’t enough people in sight to hold me down, and if there had been they couldn’t all have found room to get hold. The only real cause for anxiety was the possibility that there might be work subs with outside handling equipment somewhere around. Even from these, though, I’d be fairly safe if they’d just put off their appearance for a few more minutes. They’d have to hunt me with sonar once I was out of sight, and I was beginning to feel pretty certain that the last thing this bunch would do was send out sonar waves. The darned things travel too far and can be recognized too easily. I still didn’t know what these folks were up to, but there was enough obviously illegal about it to suggest that secrecy would be high on their policy list.
The ones who were holding on to me would have to drop off soon. There isn’t an underwater breathing rig made that will let a man rise at three feet a second or so for more than a few hundred feet without running into decompression trouble. I didn’t care what gas mixture these characters were breathing; there are laws of physics and human bodies have to obey them.
The more distant swimmers were turning back as this thought crossed my mind; I could see them against the fading background of the lighted pit. I could also see, poorly, the light which one of my hitchhikers was shining toward them. He seemed to have some hope still; maybe there was a sub in the neighborhood, and he was trying to stick with me long enough to guide it. Unless it showed up very soon, though, he was going to lose that gamble and kill himself in the bargain.
I saw another swimmer, quite close, dwindling between me and the light; my second passenger must have dropped off. When would the first go? His light was still shining, but it could hardly do any good now. I could barely see the pit, and surely no one down there could see his little flash.
Evidently he realized this, for after a few more seconds it went out. I expected to see him leave like his fellow, since he could do no more good by sticking, but he wasn’t thinking along those lines. He had different ideas, and one of them from his viewpoint was a very good one. I didn’t like it so much.
The dual-phase stuff they make pressure tanks out of isn’t a metal, and differs widely from any metal in its elastic properties; but like metals, if you hit it, it makes a noise. I didn’t know what my rider started hitting with, but it most certainly made a noise. I, from inside, can vouch for that. A nice, steady, once-a-second tapping resounded from the tank, hurting my ears and doing worse to my plans. He didn’t need his light; any work sub could home in on that noise from miles away if it had even a decent minimum of instrumentation.
And there was no way that I could think of to stop him.
V
I could try the legs, of course. I did. It was so dark by now, with the light from entrance pit and tent roof alike faded to the barest glimmer, that he may not even have known that I did anything. If he’d been holding on by a leg he may have been disconcerted when I pulled it in and maybe bruised when I popped it out again, but there was no evidence that anything of the sort happened. I ran the legs through their cycle several times without making the slightest change in the rhythm of that tapping.
I tried shifting my weight to make the tank roll over. It worked, but didn’t bother my passenger. Why should it? A swimmer doesn’t care whether he’s right side up or not, and a submarine hitchhiker in total darkness should care even less. I was the only one who was bothered.
But why was this character alive, conscious and active? We’d risen more than a thousand feet now, through a pressure difference that should have popped his suit if it were really sealed as tightly as I had judged. If it weren’t, and if he were valving off gas to keep his lung volume down, he was going to be in trouble when he descended again; and in any case, volume or no volume troubles, whether he was breathing helium or anything else, he should by now be completely helpless with embolisms.
The simple sad fact, independent of what should be, was that he was still going strong, and I had no way of getting rid of him.
Nothing like this had been foreseen by the Board geniuses who had worked out this mission. There was not the slightest doubt that some sort of sub was going to be along shortly to pick me up—no other notion was sane, in view of the fact that this fellow had been fit to stick with me. There were always insane notions to consider, of course; maybe he had decided to sacrifice his life to make sure I didn’t get back to the surface, but even that assumed the coming of something. Maybe a torpedo, but something. Personally I doubted the sacrifice idea. Lots of people will, for a cause they consider important enough, but I’ve never met a lawbreaker who acted that way. Especially I’ve never seen an energy waster who would; selfishness is the key word with those lads—keep the eye out for Number One.
But never mind the psychology; what’s to be done? The guy may be a moving corpse, but he’s still there broadcasting. Why didn’t I come down in a work sub? Skip that question; it’s a waste of good thinking time. How can I make him get off, or at least stop making noise?
Badly phrased question. I can’t make him do anything. He’s outside, and I’m inside, and with his pressure difference never the twain shall meet. Then, how can I persuade him to leave or shut up? Until I start communicating, I can’t persuade him either. Obvious.
I put on my lights, both inside and out. That at least caught the fellow’s attention; the tapping stopped for a moment. Then it resumed, but less regularly, and I caught glimpse’s of him as he worked his way to a place which would let him see through one of the ports. I pulled my own face far enough back from it so that he could see me clearly, and for a few seconds we just looked at each other. The tapping stopped again.
It was the same man who had found the tank. I’m not a mind reader, but I felt pretty sure from his expression that he had only just realized there was anyone inside and that the discovery bothered as well as surprised him. He resumed his banging on the tank, in a much more irregular pattern. After a few seconds I realized that he must be sending some sort of code, though I couldn’t read it.
I tried to explain my gestures that the racket was hurting my ears, but all he did was shrug. If he cared at all about my comfort, it certainly wasn’t at the top of his priority list. He finished his code message at last and resumed the regular tapping. He didn’t seem angry—didn’t scowl, or shake a fist at me, or anything of that sort, but he didn’t look as though he considered me a long-lost friend, either. I could see his face clearly and without distortion through the helmet, but I could see no sign of real interest in his expression. I spent some time trying to get him to respond to my gestures, but he paid no attention. I thought of writing a note that he could read through the port, though I couldn’t guess what languages he might know, and I managed to find some scraps of paper in one of my pockets; but I could find nothing to write with, and that idea collapsed. I finally gave up and turned my lights off again. There was no use in helping him guide the sub to us.
I couldn’t think of any more practical plans, and my mind wandered back to the question of how the fellow lived. We had risen several hundred more feet during the time the lights were on, and his suit hadn’t emitted a single bubble. I was beginning to wonder whether it really was an ambient-pressure unit. It was hard to see how anything so thin, and especially so flexible, could possibly be pressure armor; on the other hand, the peculiarities of the tent roof indicated that someone had been making progress in molecular architecture. I was in no position to say such armor was impossible, but I wished I could make at least a vague guess as to how it was done.
I can feel a little silly about it now, of course. I’d had the man in full sight, well lighted, only a few feet away from me for fully five minutes, and I missed the key fact—not in something I saw but in something I didn’t see. At least, I’m not alone in my folly.
The tapping kept up. It wasn’t really loud enough to be painful, but it was annoying, Chinese water torture style. It may have been equally so to the. fellow outside who was doing it, and I got a little consolation out of the thought that at least he was having to work at it. I got a little more out of the realization that as long as he did keep it up the help he was calling hadn’t arrived yet.
Two thousand feet was less than halfway to the surface, though it was an unbelievable pressure change for my hitchhiker. It wasn’t very much comfort to me to know that I’d put that much water under me; even twice as much wouldn’t be much help. It wasn’t as though there’d be a police squadron standing by to pick me up, or even a single boat. The tank had only the normal automatic transmitters for calling help, and they wouldn’t even start to function until I reached the surface—which I was unlikely to do. There probably was a Board vessel within a few miles, since the plan didn’t include my navigating the open halves of the tank to Easter Island when I got back to the surface, but that would do me no immediate good. The storm would probably still be going on, and they wouldn’t be able to see me at fifty yards. If they did, they probably couldn’t do anything about it unless there were more specialized salvage gear aboard than seemed likely. Even a minor ocean storm is quite a disturbance, and one doesn’t pick a pressure tank bobbing around on its waves casually out of the water.
