Undersea Fleet

6 The Pearly Eyes

Bob stood pointing toward the sea. The Atlantic lay dark under the thickening dusk, the light of the full moon shimmering on it.

For a moment that was all I saw. Then Bob pointed, and I saw a man wading out of the black water.

Roger said sharply: “Who’s that? One of the cadets?”

“No.” I knew that was impossible.

The same thought had crossed my own mind—a cadet like ourselves, a straggler from the sub-sea marathon. No one else had any business there, of course.

But he was no cadet.

He wore no sub-sea gear—nothing but swim trunks that had an odd, brightly metallic color. He came striding toward us over the wet sand, and the closer he got the stranger he seemed. Something about him was—strange. There was no other word to describe it.

Moonlight is a thief of color; the polarized light steals reds and greens and washes out all the hues but grays. Perhaps it was only that. But his skin seemed much, much too white, pallid, fishbelly white. The way he walked was somehow odd. It was his flipper-shoes, I thought at first—and then as he came closer, I saw that he wore none. Or if there were any, they were much smaller than ours.

And most of all, there was something quite odd about his eyes. They glowed milky white in the moonlight—like cold pearls, with a velvet black dot of pupil in the center.

Quickly I poured the pearls back into the velvet bag and dropped them back cylinder. I screwed the cap back on and the edenite film flickered into bluish light. The stranger stopped a foot away from me. His queer eyes were fixed on the edenite cylinder. I saw that he wore a long sea knife hung from the belt of his trunks.

He said, breathing hard, almost gasping: “Hello. You have—recovered something that I lost, I see.” His voice was oddly harsh and flat. There was no accent, exactly, but he clearly had difficulty with his breathing. That was not surprising, in a man just up out of the water—a long swim can put a hitch in anyone’s breathing—but together with those eyes, that colorless skin, he seemed like someone I’d have preferred to meet in broad daylight, with more people around.

Roger said challengingly: “They’re ours! You’ll have to do better than that if you want the p—”

I stopped him before he could say the word. “If you lost something,” I cut in, “no doubt you can describe it.”

For a moment his face flashed with strange rage in the moonlight. But then he smiled disarmingly, and I noticed that his teeth looked remarkably fine and white.

“Naturally,” he agreed. “Why should I not?” He pointed with a hand that seemed oddly shaped. “But I need not describe my missing property very clearly, since you hold it in your hand. It is that edenite tube.”

“Don’t give to him,” Roger said sharply. “Make him identify himself. Make him prove it’s his.”

The stranger’s clawed hand hesitated near the butt of his sea knife, and the sound of his rasping breath came clear in the. night. Curious that he should seem to be shorter of breath now than when he first came to us! But he was gasping and panting as though he had just completed a twenty-mile swim…

“I can identify myself,” said the stranger. “My name—my name is Joe Trencher.”

“Where are you from?”

“It’s a long way from here,” he said, and paused to get his breath, looking at us. “I come from Kermadec.”

Kermadec! That was where Jason Craken had lived—halfway around the world, four miles under the sea, on a flat-topped sea-mount between New Zealand and the Kermadec Deep. “You’re a long way from home, Mr. Trencher,” I said.

“Too long,” He made a breathless little chuckle. “I’m not used to this dry land! It is not like Kermadec.”

Strange how he called it “Kermadec” instead of “Kermadec Dome,” I thought. But perhaps it was a local question; and, anyway, there were more important things to think about. “Would you mind explaining what you were doing here?”

“Not at all,” he wheezed. “I left Kermadec—” again he called it that—“on a business trip, traveling in my own sea car. You can understand that I am not familiar with these waters. Evidently my sonar gear was defective. At any rate—an hour ago I was cruising on autopilot, toward Sargasso City at five hundred fathoms. The next thing I knew, I was swimming for my life.” He looked at us soberly. “I suppose I ran aground, somewhere down there.” He nodded toward the moonlit sea. “The edenite tube must have floated to the surface. I’ll gladly reward the three of you for helping me recover it, of course. Now, if you’ll hand it over—”

He was reaching for it. I stepped back.

Roger Fairfane came between us. “That isn’t up to you!” he said sharply. “If you own it, we’ll get a reward—from the salvage courts. But you’ll have to prove your title to it!”

“I can do that, certainly,” wheezed the man who called himself Joe Trencher. “But you can see that I have lost everything except the tube itself in the wreck of my sea car. What sort of proof do you want?”

Bob Eskow had been silent and thoughtful, but now he spoke up.

“For one thing,” he said, “you might explain something to us, Mr. Trencher. What happened to your thermo-suit, if you had one?”

“Had one? Of course I had one!” But the stranger was off balance, glowering at us. “I had a thermo-suit and an electrolung—how else could I have survived the crash?”

“Then what did you do with it?”

Trencher convulsed with a sudden fit of coughing. I wondered how much of it was an attempt to cover up. “It—it was defective,” he wheezed at last. “I couldn’t open the face lens after I reached the surface. I—I was suffocating, so I had to cut it loose and abandon it.”

Roger said brutally: “That’s a lie, Trencher!”

For a moment I thought the stranger was going to spring at us—all three of us.

He tensed and half-crouched, and his hand was on the butt of his sea-knife again. His breath came in whistling gasps, and the milky, pearly eyes were half-slitted, gleaming evilly in the moonlight.

Then he stood straighter and showed those fine white teeth in a cold smile. He shook his head.

“Your manners, young man,” he wheezed, “they need improving. I do not like to be called a liar.”

Roger gulped and backed away. “All right,” he said placatingly. “I only meant—that is, you have to admit your story isn’t very convincing. This tube is very valuable, you know.”

“I know,” agreed the stranger breathlessly.

I cut in: “If you are really who you say you are, isn’t there someone who can identify you?”

He shook his head. Again I noticed the strange dead whiteness of his skin in the moonlight. “I am not known here.”

“Well, who were you going to see in Sargasso City? Perhaps we could call there.”

His queer eyes narrowed. “I cannot discuss my business there. Still, that is a reasonable request. Suppose you check with Kermadec Dome. I can give you some names there—perhaps the name of my attorney, Morgan Wensley…”

“Morgan Wensley!” I nearly shouted the name. “But that’s the same name! That’s the name of the man who answered Jason Craken’s letter!”

“Craken?”

The stranger from the sea jumped back a step, as though the name had been a kind of threat. “Craken?” he repeated again, crouching as though he thought I would lunge at him, his hand on the sea knife. “What do you—” he whispered hoarsely, and had to stop for breath. “What do you know of Jason Craken?” He was gasping for air and his slitted eyes were blazing milkily.

I explained, “His son, David, was a cadet here. A friend of mine, in fact—before he was lost. Do you know Mr. Craken?”

The stranger called Joe Trencher shivered, as though the water had chilled him—or as though he had been afraid of the name “Craken.” He was frightened—and somehow, his fright made him seem more strange and dangerous than ever.

“I’ve heard the name,” he muttered. His strange eyes were fixed hungrily on the edenite cylinder at my side. “I’ve no more time to waste. I want my property!”

I said: “If it’s yours, tell us what is in it.” Trencher’s white face looked ugly for an instant, before he smoothed the anger from it. “The tube contains—a—money—” He hesitated, choking and coughing, looking at us searchingly. “Yes, money. And—and legal papers.” He had another coughing spasm. “And—pearls.”

“Look at him!” cried Roger. “Can’t you see he’s just guessing?”

It was true that he did seem to be doubtful, I thought. Still, he had been right enough as far as he went.

I asked: “What kind of pearls?”

“Tonga pearls!” Well, that was easy enough to guess, for a man from Kermadec.

“How many of them?”

The pale face was contorted in an expression of rage and fear. The ragged breathing was the only sound we heard for a moment, while Joe Trencher stared at us.

At last he admitted: “I don’t know. I’m acting only as an agent, you see. An agent for Morgan Wensley. He asked me to undertake this trip, and he gave me the tube. I can’t give you an itemized list of of its contents, because they belong to him.”

“Then it isn’t yours!” cried Roger triumphantly.

“I’m responsible for it,” Trencher gasped. “I must recover it. Here, you!” He reached toward me. “Give me that!”

For a moment I thought we had come to violence—violence had been in the air all those long minutes. But Bob Eskow jumped between us. He said: “Listen, Trencher, we’re going to the Commandant. He’ll settle this whole thing. If they belong to you, he’ll see that you get them. He will make sure that no one is cheated.”

Roger Fairfane grumbled: “I’m not so sure. I’d rather keep them until my Dad’s lawyer can tell me what to do.” Then he glanced at Trencher’s long sea knife. “Oh, all right,” he agreed uncomfortably. “Let’s go to the commandant.”

I turned to Mr. Trencher. He was having trouble with his breathing, but he nodded. “An expedient solution,” he gasped. “You needn’t think I fear the law. I am willing to trust your Commandant to recognize my rights and see that justice is done…”

He stopped suddenly, staring out to the dark sea.

“Look!” he cried.

We all turned to stare. I heard Bob’s voice, as hoarse and breathless as Trencher’s own. “What in the sea is that?”

It was hard to tell what we saw. A mile out, perhaps, there was something. Something in the water. I couldn’t see it clearly, even in the moonlight. But it was enormous.

For a moment I thought I saw a thick neck lifted out of the water, and a head—that same, immense, reptilian head that I had thought I had seen at the rail of the gym ship…

Something struck me just under the ear, and the world fell away from me.

It didn’t really hurt, but for a moment I was paralyzed and I could see and feel nothing.

I wasn’t knocked out. I knew that I was falling, but I couldn’t move a muscle to catch myself. Some judo blow, I suppose, some clever thrust at a nerve center.

Then the world came back into focus. I heard feet pounding on the hard sand, and the splash of water.

“Stop him, Eskow!” Roger was crying shrilly. “He’s got the pearls!”

But Bob was bending over me worriedly. The numbness was beginning to leave my body, and I could feel Bob’s exploring fingers moving gently over the side of my head.

“No bones broken,” he muttered to himself. “But that shark really clipped you one, while you weren’t looking. Hit you with the edge of his hand, I think. You’re lucky, Jim; there doesn’t seem to be any permanent damage.”

In a minute or two I was able to get up, Bob helping me. My neck was stiff and sore as I moved it, but there were no bones grating.

By the edge of the water Roger stood hungrily staring out at the waves. The stranger who called himself Joe Trencher was gone. Bob said: “He hit you, grabbed the edenite tube and dived for the water. Roger ran after him to tackle him—but when he waved that sea knife Roger stopped cold. Then he dived under the water—and that’s the last we saw of him.”

Roger heard our voices and came running back to us. “Get up!” he cried. “Keep a watch over the water! He can’t get far. He hasn’t come up for air yet—but he can’t stay under much longer, not without sub-sea gear! I want those pearls back!”

He caught my arm. “Go after him, Eden! Bring back those pearls and I’ll give you a half interest in them!”

“You’ll have to do better than that,” I told him. I was beginning to feel better. “I want Bob counted in. An equal three-way split for all of us, in everything that comes out of this deal. Agreed?”

Roger sputtered for a moment, but at last he gave in. “Agreed. But don’t let him get away!”

“All right then,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. All of us will put our sub-sea gear back on—electrolungs and face lenses anyway, I don’t suppose we need the thermo-suits. We’ll go out on the surface and wait for him to stick his nose up for air. Then we’ll surround him and bring him in. You’re right about him needing air, Roger—he can’t get more than a few hundred yards away without coming up for a breath.”

We all quickly checked our face lenses and electrolungs and splashed out through the shallows into the calm Bermuda waves.

“Watch out for that sea knife!” I called, and then all three of us were swimming, spreading out, searching the surface of the sea for the pale face and gleaming eyes of the stranger.

Minutes passed.

I could see Roger to my left and Bob Eskow to my right, treading water, staring around. And that was all.

More minutes. I saw nothing. In desperation, I pulled my legs up, bent from the waist and surface-dived to see what was below. It was a strangely frightening experience. I was swimming through ink, swimming about in the space between the worlds where there is neither light nor gravitation. There was no up and no down; there was no sign of light except an occasional feeble flicker of phosphorescence from some marine life. I could easily have got lost and swum straight down. That was a danger; to counter it, I stopped swimming entirely and took a deep breath and held it. In a moment I felt the wash of air across my back and shoulders, as the buoyancy of my lungs lifted me to the surface.

I lifted my head and looked around.

Bob Eskow was shouting and splashing, a hundred yards to my right. And cutting toward him, close to where I had surfaced, Roger Fairfane was swimming with frantic speed.

“Come on!” cried Roger, panting. “Bob’s found him, I think!” That was all I had to hear. I drove through the water as fast as my arms and flipper-shoes would take me. But I had breath enough left over to cry out:

“Careful, Bob! Watch out for his knife!”

We got there in moments, and the three of us warily surrounded a feebly floating form in the water. Knife? There was no knife.

There were no pearly eyes, no milk-white face.

We looked at the figure, and at each other, and without a word the three of us caught hold of him and swam rapidly toward the shore.

We dragged the inert body up on the sand.

I couldn’t help staring back at the sea and shivering. What mysteries it held! That strange, huge head—the white-eyed man who had clipped me and stolen the pearls—where were they now?

And what was this newest and strangest mystery of all?

For the inert body that we brought up wasn’t Joe Trencher. We all recognized him at once.

It was David Craken, unconscious and apparently more than half drowned.