Dr. Myers stopped his rapid delivery, then said gently, as if the thought had only just struck him: “Tell me, Indra— had you been making love?”
“No,” she said without hesitation or embarrassment. “There was nothing like that.”
It was a little hard to believe, but he knew it was the truth. He could detect—so clear and unmistakable!—the note of regret in her voice.
“I was wondering if he had any guilt feelings about his wife. Whether he knows it or not, you probably remind him of her, which is why he was attracted to you in the first place. Anyway, that line of reasoning isn’t enough to explain what happened, so let’s forget it.
“All we know is that there was an attack, and a very bad one. Giving him that sedative was the best thing you could have done in the circumstances. You’re quite sure that he never gave any indication of what he intended to do when you got him back to Heron?”
“Quite sure. All he said was, ‘Don’t tell Dr. Myers.’ He said there was nothing you could do.”
That, thought Myers grimly, might well be true, and he did not like the sound of it. There was only one reason why a man might hide from the only person who could help him. That was because he had decided he was now beyond help.
“But he promised,” Indra continued, “to see you in the morning.”
Myers did not reply. By this time they both knew that that promise had been nothing more than a ruse.
Indra still clung desperately to one last hope.
“Surely,” she said, her voice quavering as if she did not really believe her own words, “if he’d intended to do—something drastic—he’d have left a message for somebody.”
Myers looked at her sadly, his mind now completely made up.
“His parents are dead,” he replied. “He said good-by to his wife long ago. What message was there for him to leave?”
Indra knew, with a sickening certainty, that he spoke the truth. She might well be the only person on Earth for whom Franklin felt any affection. And he had made his farewell with her…
Reluctantly, Myers rose to his feet.
“There’s nothing we can do,” he said, “except to start a general search. There may be a chance that he’s just blowing off steam at full throttle, and will creep in shamefaced some time this morning. It’s happened before.”
He patted Indra’s bowed shoulders, then helped her out of the chair. “Don’t be too upset, my dear. Everyone will do his best.” But in his heart, he knew it was too late. It had been too late hours before, and they were going through the motions of search and rescue because there were times when no one expected logic to be obeyed.
They walked together to the assistant chief instructor’s office, where the C.I. and Burley were waiting for them. Dr. Myers threw open the door—and stood paralyzed on the threshold. For a moment he thought that he had two more patients—or that he had gone insane himself. Don and the chief instructor, all distinctions of rank forgotten, had their arms around each other’s shoulders and were shaking with hysterical laughter. There was no doubt of the hysteria; it was that of relief. And there was equally no doubt about the laughter.
Dr. Myers stared at this improbable scene for perhaps five seconds, then glanced swiftly around the room. At once he saw the message form lying on the floor where one of his temporarily disordered colleagues had dropped it. Without asking their permission, he rushed forward and picked it up.
He had to read it several times before it made any sense; then he, too, began to laugh as he had not done for years.
Nine
CAPTAIN BERT DARRYL was looking forward to a quiet trip; if there was any justice in this world, he was certainly due for one. Last time there had been that awkward affair with the cops at Mackay; the time before there had been that uncharted rock off Lizard Island; and before that, by crikey, there’d been that trigger-happy young fool who had used a nondetachable harpoon on a fifteen-foot tiger and had been towed all over the sea bed.
As far as one could tell by appearances, his customers seemed a reasonable lot this time. Of course, the Sports Agency always guaranteed their reliability as well as their credit—but all the same it was surprising what he sometimes got saddled with. Still, a man had to earn a living, and it cost a lot to keep this old bucket waterproof.
By an odd coincidence, his customers always had the same names—Mr. Jones, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Brown, Mr. Smith. Captain Bert thought it was a crazy idea, but that was just another of the agency’s little ways. It certainly made life interesting, trying to figure out who they really were. Some of them were so cautious that they wore rubber face masks the whole trip—yes, even under their diving masks. They would be the important boys who were scared of being recognized. Think of the scandal, for instance, if a supreme court judge or chief secretary of the Space Department was found poaching on a World Food reservation! Captain Bert thought of it, and chuckled.
The little five-berth sports cruiser was still forty miles off the outer edge of the reef, feeling her way in from the Pacific. Of course, it was risky operating so near the Capricorns, right in enemy territory as it were. But the biggest fish were here, just because they were the best protected. You had to take a chance if you wanted to keep your clients satisfied.
Captain Bert had worked out his tactics carefully, as he always did. There were never any patrols out at night, and even if there were, his long-range sonar would spot them and he could run for it. So it would be perfectly safe creeping up during darkness, getting into position just before dawn, and pushing his eager beavers out of the air lock as soon as the sun came up. He would lie doggo on the bottom, keeping in touch through the radios. If they got out of range, they’d still have his low-powered sonar beacon to home on. And if they got too far away to pick up that, serve ‘em jolly well right. He patted his jacket where the four blood chits reposed safely, absolving him of all responsibility if anything happened to Messrs. Smith, Jones, Robinson, or Brown. There were times when he wondered if it was really any use, considering these weren’t their real names, but the agency told him not to worry. Captain Bert was not the worrying type, or he would have given up this job long ago.
At the moment, Messrs. S., J., R., and B. were lying on their respective couches, putting the final touches to the equipment they would not need until morning. Smith and Jones had brand-new guns that had obviously never been fired before and their webbing was fitted with every conceivable underwater gadget. Captain Bert looked at them sardonically; they represented a type he knew very well. They were the boys who were so keen on their equipment that they never did any shooting, either with the guns or their cameras. They would wander happily around the reef, making such a noise that every fish within miles would know exactly what they were up to. Their beautiful guns, which could drill a thousand-pound shark at fifty feet, would probably never be fired. But they wouldn’t really mind; they would enjoy themselves.
Now Robinson was a very different matter. His gun was slightly dented, and about five years old. It had seen service, and he obviously knew how to handle it. He was not one of those catalogue-obsessed sportsmen who had to buy the current year’s model as soon as it came out, like a woman who couldn’t bear to be behind the fashion. Mr. Robinson, Captain Bert decided, would be the one who would bring back the biggest catch.
As for Brown—Robinson’s partner—he was the only one that Captain Bert hadn’t been able to classify. A well-built, strong-featured man in the forties, he was the oldest of the hunters and his face was vaguely familiar. He was probably some official in the upper echelons of the state, who had felt the need to sow a few wild oats. Captain Bert, who was constitutionally unable to work for the World State or any other employer, could understand just how he felt.
There were more than a thousand feet of water below them, and the reef was still miles ahead. But one never took anything for granted in this business, and Captain Bert’s eyes were seldom far from the dials and screens of the control board, even while he watched his little crew preparing for their morning’s fun. The clear and tiny echo had barely appeared on the sonar scanner before he had fastened on to it.