It seemed a long two minutes, but at last Don had finished. Percy still showed none of the shyness which Dr. Roberts had rather confidently predicted, though by this time he could hardly have imagined that Franklin’s sub was another squid.
Don planted his dart with neatness and precision in the thickest part of Percy’s mantle, where it would lodge securely but would do no damage. At the sudden sting, the great mollusk abruptly released its grip, and Franklin took the opportunity for going full speed ahead. He felt the horny palps grating over the stern of the sub; then he was free and rising swiftly up toward the distant sky. He felt rather pleased that he had managed to escape without using any of the battery of weapons that had been provided for this very purpose.
Don followed him at once, and they circled five hundred feet above the sea bed—far beyond visual range. On the sonar screen the rocky bottom was a sharply defined plane, but now at its center pulsed a tiny, brilliant star. The little beacon —less than six inches long and barely an inch wide—that had been anchored in Percy was already doing its job. It would continue to operate for more than a week before its batteries failed.
“We’ve tagged him!” cried Don gleefully. “Now he can’t hide.”
“As long as he doesn’t get rid of that dart,” said Franklin cautiously. “If he works it out, we’ll have to start looking for him all over again.”
“I aimed it,” pointed out Don severely. “Bet you ten to one it stays put.”
“If I’ve learned one thing in this game,” said Franklin, “it’s not to accept your bets.” He brought the drive up to maximum cruising power, and pointed the sub’s nose to the surface, still more than half a mile away. “Let’s not keep Doc Roberts waiting—the poor man will be crazy with impatience. Besides, I want to see those pictures myself. It’s the first time I’ve ever played a starring role with a giant squid.”
And this, he reminded himself, was only the curtain raiser. The main feature had still to begin.
Fifteen
HOW NICE IT is,” said Franklin, as he relaxed lazily in the contour-form chair on the porch, “to have a wife who’s not scared stiff of the job I’m doing.”
“There are times when I am,” admitted Indra. “I don’t like these deep-water operations. If anything goes wrong down there, you don’t have a chance.”
“You can drown just as easily in ten feet of water as ten thousand.”
“That’s silly, and you know it. Besides, no warden has ever been killed by drowning, as far as I’ve ever heard. The things that happen to them are never as nice and simple as that.”
“I’m sorry I started this conversation,” said Franklin ruefully, glancing around to see if Peter was safely out of earshot. “Anyway, you’re not worried about Operation Percy, are you?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’m as anxious as everybody else to see you catch him—and I’m still more interested to see if Dr. Roberts can keep him alive.” She rose to her feet and walked over to the bookshelf recessed into the wall. Plowing through the usual pile of papers and magazines that had accumulated there, she finally unearthed the volume for which she was looking.
“Listen to this,” she continued, “and remember that it was written almost two hundred years ago.” She began to read in her best lecture-room voice, while Franklin listened at first with mild reluctance, and then with complete absorption. “In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose, and slightly gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on reappearing once more, like a stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod, the negro yelled out—‘There! There again! There she breaches! Right ahead! The White Whale! The White Whale!’ ”
“The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab’s in advance, and all swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with oars suspended, we were awaiting its appearance, lo! in the same spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing cream-colour, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to catch at any hapless object within reach. No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable token of either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the billows, an unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.
“As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice exclaimed—’Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, then to have seen thee, thou white ghost!’
“ ‘What was it, Sir?’ said Flask.
“ ‘The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it.’
“But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel; the rest as silently following.”
Indra paused, closed the book, and waited for her husband’s response. Franklin stirred himself in the too-comfortable couch and said thoughtfully: “I’d forgotten that bit—if I ever read as far. It rings true to life, but what was a squid doing on the surface?”
“It was probably dying. They sometimes surface at night, but never in the daytime, and Melville says this was on ‘one transparent blue morning.’ ”
“Anyway, what’s a furlong? I’d like to know if Melville’s squid was as big as Percy. The photos make him a hundred and thirty feet from his flukes to the tips of his feelers.” “So he beats the largest blue whale ever recorded.”
“Yes, by a couple of feet. But of course he doesn’t weigh a tenth as much.”
Franklin heaved himself from his couch and went in search of a dictionary. Presently Indra heard indignant noises coming from the living room, and called out: “What’s the matter?”
“It says here that a furlong is an obsolete measure of length equal to an eighth of a mile. Melville was talking through his hat.”
“He’s usually very accurate, at least as far as whales are concerned. But ‘furlong’ is obviously ridiculous—I’m surprised no one’s spotted it before. He must have meant fathoms, or else the printer got it wrong.”
Slightly mollified, Franklin put down the dictionary and came back to the porch. He was just in time to see Don Burley arrive, sweep Indra off her feet, plant a large but brotherly kiss on her forehead, and dump her back in her chair.
“Come along, Walt!” he said. “Got your things packed? I’ll give you a lift to the airport.”
“Where’s Peter hiding?” said Franklin. “Peter! Come and say good-by—Daddy’s off to work.”
A four-year-old bundle of uncontrollable energy came flying into the room, almost capsizing his father as he jumped into his arms.
“Daddy’s going to bring me back a “quid?” he asked.
“Hey—how did you know about all this?”
“It was on the news this morning, while you were still asleep,” explained Indra. “They showed a few seconds of Don’s film, too.”
“I was afraid of that. Now we’ll have to work with a crowd of cameramen and reporters looking over our shoulders. That means that something’s sure to go wrong.”
“They can’t follow us down to the bottom, anyway,” said Burley.
“I hope you’re right—but don’t forget we’re not the only people with deep-sea subs.”
“I don’t know how you put up with him,” Don protested to Indra. “Does he always look on the black side of things?”
“Not always,” smiled Indra, as she unraveled Peter from his father. “He’s cheerful at least twice a week.”
Her smile faded as she watched the sleek sportster go whispering down the hill. She was very fond of Don, who was practically a member of the family, and there were times when she worried about him. It seemed a pity that he had never married and settled down; the nomadic, promiscuous life he led could hardly be very satisfying. Since they had known him, he had spent almost all his time on or under the sea, apart from hectic leaves when he had used their home as a base—at their invitation but often to their embarrassment when there were unexpected lady guests to entertain at breakfast.
Their own life, by many standards, had been nomadic enough, but at least they had always had a place they could call home. That apartment in Brisbane, where her brief but happy career as a lecturer at the University of Queensland had ended with the birth of Peter; that bungalow in Fiji, with the roof that had a mobile leak which the builders could never find; the married quarters at the South Georgia whaling station (she could still smell the mountains of offal, and see the gulls wheeling over the flensing yards); and finally, this house looking out across the sea to the other islands of Hawaii. Four homes in five years might seem excessive to many people, but for a warden’s wife Indra knew she had done well.