111 "If you want to indicate the obvious, you may. You said you could make it back to the ship, una.s.sisted. Change your mind?"
"No."
"Then get us two scuba outfits and I"ll race you under Tensquare.
"I"ll win, too," she added.
I stood and looked down at her, because that usually makes me feel superior to women.
"Daughter of Lir, eyes of Pica.s.so," I said, "you"ve got yourself a race. Meet me at the forward Rook, starboard, in ten minutes."
"Ten minutes," she agreed.
And ten minutes it was. From the center blister to the Rook took maybe two of them, with the load I was carry- ing. My sandals grew very hot and I was glad to shuck them for flippers when I reached the comparative cool of the comer.
We slid into harnesses and adjusted our gear. She had changed into a trim one-piece green job that made me shade my eyes and look away, then look back again.
I fastened a rope ladder and kicked it over the side.
Then I pounded on the wall of the Rook.
"Yeah?"
"You talk to the port Rook, aft?" I called.
"They"re all set up," came the answer. "There"s ladders and draglines all over that end."
"You sure you want to do this?" asked the sunburnt little gink who was her publicity man, Anderson yclept.
He sat beside the Rook in a deckchair, sipping lemon- ade through a straw.
"It might be dangerous," he observed, sunken-mouthed.
(His teeth were beside him, in another gla.s.s.) 149.
"That"s right," she smiled. "It will be dangerous. Not overly, though."
"Then why don"t you let me get some pictures?" We"d have them back to Lifeline in an hour. They"d be in New York by tonight. Good copy."
"No," she said, and turned away from both of us.
She raised her hands to her eyes, 112 "Here, keep these for me.".
She pa.s.sed him a box f"ll of her unseeing, and when she turned back to me they were the same brown that I remembered.
"Ready?"
"No," I said, tautly. "Listen carefully, Jean. If you"re going to play this game there are a few rules. First," I counted, "we"re going to be directly beneath the hull, so we have to start low and keep moving. If we b.u.mp the bottom, we could rupture an air tank. . . ."
She began to protest that any moron knew that and I cut her down.
"Second," I went on, "there won"t be much light, so we"ll stay close together, and we will both carry torches."
Her wet eyes flashed.
"I dragged you out of Govino without-"
Then she stopped and turned away. She picked up a lamp.
"Okay. Torches. Sorry."
". . . And watch out for the drive-screws," I finished.
"There"ll be strong currents for at least fifty meters be- hind them."
She wiped her eyes again and adjusted the mask.
"All right, let"s go."
We went.
She led the way, at my insistence. The surface layer was pleasantly warm. At two fathoms the water was bracing; at five it was nice and cold. At eight we let go 150.
the swinging stairway and struck out. Tensquare sped forward and we raced in the opposite direction, tattooing the hull yellow at ten-second intervals.
The hull stayed where it belonged, but we raced on like two darkside satellites. Periodically, I tickled her frog feet with my light and traced her antennae of bubbles.
About a five meter lead was fine; I"d beat her in. the home stretch, but I couldn"t let her drop behind yet.
Beneath us, black. Immense. Deep. The Mindanao of Venus, where eternity might eventually pa.s.s the dead to a rest in cities of unnamed fishes. I twisted my head away and touched the hull with a feeler of light; it told me we were about a quarter of the way along.
I increased my beat to match her stepped-up stroke, and narrowed the distance which she had suddenly 113 opened by a couple meters. She sped up again and I did, too. I spotted her with my beam.
She turned and it caught on her mask. I never loiew whether she"d been smiling. Probably. She raised two fingers in a V-for-Victory and then cut ahead at full speed.
I should have known. I should have felt it coming. It was just a race to her, something else to win. d.a.m.n the torpedoesi So I leaned into it, hard. I don"t shake in the water. Or, if I do it doesn"t matter and I don"t notice it. I began to close the gap again.
She looked back, sped on, looked back. Each time she looked it was nearer, until I"d narrowed it down to the original five meters.
Then she hit the jatoes.
That"s what I had been fearing. We were about half- way under and she shouldn"t have done it. The powerful jets of compressed air could easily rocket her upward into the hull, or tear something loose if she allowed her body to twist. Their main use is in tearing free from 151.
marine plants or fighting bad currents. I had wanted them along as a safety measure, because of the big suck- and-pull windmills behind.
She shot ahead like a meteorite, and I could feel a sud- den tingle of perspiration leaping to meet and mix with the churning waters.
I swept ahead, not wanting to use my own guns, and she tripled, quadrupled the margin.
The jets died and she was still on course. Okay, I was an old fuddyduddy. She could have messed up and headed toward the top.
I plowed the sea and began to gather back my yard- age, a foot at a time. I wouldn"t be able to catch her or beat her now, but I"d be on the ropes before she hit deck.
Then the spinning magnets began their insistence and she wavered. It was an awfully powerful drag, even at this distance. The call of the meat grinder.
I"d been scratched rp bv one once, under the Dolphin, a fishing boat of the middle-cla.s.s. I had been drinking, but it was also a rough day, and the thing had been turned on prematurely. Fortunately, it was turned off in time, also, and a tendon-stapler made everything good as new, except in the log, where it only mentioned that I"d been drinking. Nothing about it being off-hours when I had a right to do as I d.a.m.n well pleased.
She had slowed to half her speed, but she was still 114 moving crosswise, toward the port, aft comer. I began to feel the pull myself and had to slow down. She"d made it past the main one, but she seemed too far back. It"s hard to gauge distances under water, but each red beat of time told me I was right. She was out of danger from the main one, but the smaller port screw, located about eighty meters in, was no longer a threat but a^certainty.
She had turned and was p- lling away from it now.
Twenty meters separated us. She was standing still. Fif- teen.
152.
Slowly, she began a backward drifting. I hit my jatoes, aiming two meters behind her and about twenty back of the blades.
Straightline! ThankG.o.d! Catching, softbelly, leadpipe on shoulder SWIMLIKEh.e.l.l! maskcracked, not broke though AND UP!
We caught a line and I remember brandy.
Into the cradle endlessly rocking, I spit, pacing. Insom- nia tonight and left shoulder sore again, so let it rain on me-they can cure rheumatism. Stupid as h.e.l.l. What I said. In blankets and shivering. She: "Carl, I can"t say it."
Me: "Then call it square for that night in Govino, Miss Luharich. Huh?" She: nothing. Me: "Any more of that brandy?" She; "Give me another, too." Me: sounds of sipping. It had only lasted three months. No alimony.
Many $ on both sides. Not sure whether they were happy or not. Wine-dark Aegean. Good fishing. Maybe he should have spent more time on sh.o.r.e. Or perhaps she shouldn"t have. Good swimmer, though. Dragged him all the way to Vido to wring out his lungs. Young. Both. Strong. Both.
Rich and spoiled as h.e.l.l. Ditto. Corfu should have brought them closer. Didn"t. I think that mental cruelty was a trout. He wanted to go to Canada. She: "Go to h.e.l.l if you want!" He: "Will you go along?" She: "No." But she did, anyhow. Many h.e.l.ls. Expensive. He lost a monster or two. She inherited a couple. Lot of lightning tonight.
Stupid as h.e.l.l. Civility"s the coffin of a conned soul. By whom?-Sounds like a b.l.o.o.d.y neo-ex. . . . But I hate you, Anderson, with yo"r gla.s.s full of teeth and her new eyes. . . . Can"t keep this pipe lit, keep sucking tobacco.
Spit againi Seven days out and the scope showed Ikky.
Bells Jangled, feet pounded, and some optimist set the thermostat in the Hopkins. Malvern wanted me to sit it 153.
out, but I slipped into my harness and waited for what- ever came. The bruise looked worse than it felt. I had exercised every day and the shoulder hadn"t stiffened on me.
A thousand meters ahead and thirty fathoms deep, it 115 tunneled our path. Nothing showed on the surface.
"Will we chase him?" asked an excited crewman.
"Not unless she feels like using money for fuel." I shrugged.
Soon the scope was clear, and it stayed that way. We remained on alert and held our course.
I hadn"t said over a dozen words to my boss since the last time we went drowning together, so I decided to raise the score.
"Good afternoon," I approached. "What"s new?"
"He"s going north-northeast. We"ll have to let this one go. A few more days and we can afford some chasing Not yet."
Sleek head . . .
I nodded. "No telling where this one"s headed."
"How"s your shoulder?"
"All right. How about you?"
Daughter of Lir . . .
"Fine. By the way, you"re down for a nice bonus."
Eyes of perdition!
"Don"t mention it," I told her back.
Later that afternoon, and appropriately, a storm shat- tered.I prefer "shattered" to "broke." It gives a more accurate idea of the behavior of tropical storms on Venus and saves lots of words.) Remember that inkwell I men- tioned earlier? Now take it between thumb and forefin- ger and hit its side with a hammer. Watch yourself 1 Don"t get splashed or cut- Dry, then drenched. The sky one million bright frac- tures as the hammer falls. And sounds of breaking.
154.
r "Everyone below?" suggested loudspeakers to the al- ready scurrying crew.
Where was I? Who do you think was doing the loud- speaking?
Everything loose went overboard when the water got to walking, but by then no people were loose. The Shder was the first thing below decks. Then the big lifts lowered their shacks.
I had hit it for the nearest Rook with a yell the mo- ment I recognized the pre-brightening of the holocaust.
From there I cut in the speakers and spent half a minute 116 coaching the track team Minor in]uries had occurred, Mike told me over the radio, but nothing serious. I, however, was marooned for the duration. The Rooks do not lead anywhere, they"re set too far out over the hull to provide entry downwards, what with the extensor shelves below.
So I undressed myself of the tanks which I had worn for the past several hours, crossed my flippers on the table, and leaned back to watch the hurricane. The top was black as the bottom and we were in between, and somewhat illuminated because of all that flat, shiny s.p.a.ce.
The wateis above didn"t ram down-they just sort of got together and dropped.
The Rooks were secure enough-they"d weathered any number of these onslaughts-it"s just that their posihons gave them a greater arc of rise and descent when Ten- square makes like the rocker of a very nervous grandma.
I had used the belts from my rig to strap myself into the bolted-down chair, and I removed several years in pur- gatory from the soul of whoever left a pack of cigarettes in the table drawer.
I watched the water make teepees and mountains and hands and trees until I started seeing faces and people.
So I called Mike.
155.
"What are you doing down there?"
"Wondering what you"re doing up there," he replied, "What"s it like?"