"And what other use can you make of a farrago like that?" Bennell enquired.

"Well, you can at least say, as I said before, that he does include more factors than anyone else has-and that anything that includes even most of the factors is, ipso facto, bound to be fantastic. We may decry it, but, for all that, until something better turns up, it's the best we have."

Bennell shook his head.

"You begged the whole thing at the start. Suppose I concede for the moment that there does seem to be intelligence of some kind down there you've no solid proof that intelligence couldn't evolve at a few tons to the square inch as easily as at fifteen pounds. You've nothing to support you but sheer common sense-the same kind of common sense that was satisfied that heavier-than-air craft could never fly. Prove to me-"

"You've got it wrong. He claims that the intelligence must have evolved under high pressure, but that it couldn't do so under the other conditions obtaining in our Deeps. But whatever you concede, and whatever the top naval men may think about Bocker, it is clear enough that they must have been a.s.suming for some time that there is something intelligent down there. You don't design and make a special bomb like that all in five minutes, you know. Anyway, whether the Bocker theory is sheer hot air or not, he's lost his main point. This bomb was not the amiable and sympathetic approach that he advocated."

Mallarby paused, and shook his head.

"I've met Bocker several times. He's a civilized, liberal-minded man-with the usual trouble of liberal-minded men; that they think others are, too. He has an interested, inquiring mind. He has never grasped that the average mind when it encounters something new is scared, and says: "Better smash it, or suppress it, quick." Well, he's just had another demonstration of the average mind at work."

"But," Bennell objected, "if, as you say, it is officially believed that these ship losses have been caused by an intelligence, then there's something to be scared about, and you can't put today's affair down as anything stronger than retaliation."

Mallarby shook his head again.

"My dear Bennell, I not only can, but I do. Suppose, now, that something were to come dangling down to us on a rope out of s.p.a.ce; and suppose that that thing was emitting rays on a wavelength that acutely discomforted us. perhaps even caused us physical pain. What should we do? I suggest that the first thing we should do would be to snip the rope and put it out of action. Then we should examine the strange object and find out what we could about it.

"Then suppose that more strange objects began to be reported dangling down from above and causing discomfort to our citizens. We should argue: "This looks like a kind of invasion, or reconnaissance for one. Anyway it is extremely painful to us, so whatever is up there doing it has got to be stopped." And we should forthwith take what steps we could to discourage it. It might be done simply in the spirit of ending a nuisance, or it might be done with some animosity. and regarded as retaliation. Now, would it be we, or the thing above, that was to blame?

"In the present case, and after today's performance the question becomes simply academic. It is difficult to imagine any kind of intelligence that would not resent what we've just done. If this were the only Deep where trouble has occurred, there might well be no intelligence left to resent it-but this isn't the only place, as you know; not by any means. So, what form that very natural resentment will take remains for us to see."

"You think there really would be some kind of response, then?" Phyllis asked.

He shrugged. "To take up my a.n.a.logy again: suppose that some violently destructive agency were to descend from s.p.a.ce upon one of our cities. What should we do?"

"Well, what could we do?" asked Phyllis, reasonably enough.

"We could turn the backroom boys on to it. And if it happened a few times more, we should soon be giving the backroom boys full priorities."

"You're a.s.suming a lot, Mallarby," Bennell put in. "For one thing, an almost parallel state of development. The significance of the word "priority", even, has a semantic dependence on conditions. It could scarcely mean a thing a century ago, and in the eighteenth century you could have howled "priority" until you were blue in the face without creating any technical advance whatever because our modern idea of research wasn't there-n.o.body would even understand what you were after."

"True," agreed Mallarby, "but after what happened to those ships I'm justified in a.s.suming quite a degree of technology there, I think."

Phyllis said "Is it really too late-for some such approach as Bocker wanted, I mean? There's only been one bomb. If there isn't another they might think it was a natural disaster, an eruption or something."

Mallarby shook his head.

"It won't be just one bomb. And it was always too late, my dear. Can you imagine us tolerating any form of rival intelligence on earth, no matter how it got here? Why, we can't even tolerate anything but the narrowest differences of views within our own race. No," he shook his head, "no, I'm afraid Bocker's idea of fraternisation never had the chance of a flea in a furnace."

That was, I think, very likely as true as Mallarby made it sound; but if there ever had been any chance at all it was gone by the time we reached home. Somehow, and apparently overnight, the public had put several twos together at last. The half-hearted attempt to represent the depth-bomb as one of a series of tests had broken down altogether. The vague fatalism with which the loss of the Keweenaw and the other ships had been received was succeeded by a burning sense of outrage, a satisfaction that the first step in vengeance had been taken, and a demand for more.

The atmosphere was similar to that at a declaration of war. Yesterday's phlegmatics and sceptics were, all of a sudden, fervid preachers of a crusade against the-well, against whatever it was that had had the insolent temerity to interfere with the freedom of the seas. Agreement on that cardinal point was virtually unanimous, but from that hub speculation radiated in every direction, so that not only fireb.a.l.l.s, but every other unexplained phenomenon that had occurred for years was in some way attributed to, or at least connected with, the mystery in the Deeps.

The wave of worldwide excitement struck us when we stopped off for a day at Karachi on our way home, the place was bubbling with tales of sea-serpents and visitations from s.p.a.ce, and it was clear that whatever restrictions Bocker might have put on the circulation of his theory, a good many million people had now arrived at a similar explanation by other routes. This gave me the idea of telephoning to the EBC in London to find out if Bocker himself would now unbend enough for an interview.

He did-to the representatives of a few carefully selected organs but it added little to the script we had already put together on the journey from Karachi to London. His repeated plea for the sympathetic approach was so contrary to the public mood as to be almost unusable.

Once more, however, we had a demonstration that bellicose indignation is not self-sustaining. You just can't have a rousing fight for long with a sandbag, and little happened to animate the situation. The only step for weeks was that the Royal Navy, partly in deference to public feeling, but probably more for reasons of prestige, also sent down a bomb. It went off quite spectacularly, I understand, but the only recorded result was that the sh.o.r.es of the South Sandwich Islands were so littered with dead and decaying fish for weeks afterwards that they stank to heaven.

Then, by degrees, a feeling began to get about that this was not at all the way anyone had expected an interplanetary war to be; so, quite possibly, it was not an interplanetary war after all. From there, of course, it was only a step to deciding that it must be the Russians.

The Russians had all along discouraged, within their dictatorate, any tendency for suspicion to deviate from its proper target of capitalistic warmongers. When whispers of the interplanetary notion did in some way penetrate their curtain, they were countered by the statements that (a) it was all a lie: a verbal smoke screen to cover the preparations of warmongers; (b) that it was true: and the capitalists, true to type, had immediately attacked the unsuspecting strangers with atom bombs; and (c) whether it were true or not, the USSR would fight unswervingly for Peace with all the weapons it possessed, except germs.

The swing continued. People were heard to say: "Huh-that interplanetary stuff? Don't mind telling you that I very nearly fell for it at the time. But, of course, when you start to actually think about it-I Wonder what the Russian game really is? Must've been something pretty big to make 'em use A-bombs on it." Thus, in quite a short time, the status quo ante bellem hypothetic.u.m was restored, and we were back on the familiarly comprehensible basis of international suspicion. The only lasting result was that marine insurance stayed up 1 per cent.

"Things," Phyllis complained, 'sort of die on us. We looked like being the popular authorities on fireb.a.l.l.s in fact, for a week or two we were. Then the interest faded away, and there were fewer of them until now, if anyone sees one, he just regards it as a hallucination that he's not going to be taken in by. We didn't do so badly on that first dive-but you can't go on sustaining interest in just a couple of fused cables. We fell down badly somehow on not hearing of the Bocker business until it was practically stale-and I still don't understand how we missed it. At the bomb-dropping we were simply two of the crowd. When all the excitement boiled up it did look as if we might come into our own-but now that's all fizzled out. Everything's gone quiet again everywhere; it can't be that there's nothing happening."

"It isn't," I said. "If you'd read the papers properly you'd see that two more bombs have gone down in the last week: one in the Cocos-Keeling Basin, and the other in the Prince Edward Deep."

"I didn't see that."

"News value practically nil at the moment. You have to read the small print."

"It doesn't help when they choose outlandish places to send them down, either. There must be plenty of deep places somebody's heard of."

"Presumably none of the civilised regions will put up with bombs on their own doorsteps and who's to blame them? I wouldn't fancy a coastline that's all radioactive water full of dead fish by the million, myself."

"But it does show that they've not shelved the whole thing-the Navy, I mean."

"Apparently not."

"Mightn't it be worth going to Whitehall and seeing your Admiral again?"

"He's a captain," I told her, but I considered the idea. "Last time we met it wasn't really I that had the success with him," I pointed out.

"Oh. Oh, I see," said Phyllis. "H'm. Dinner Tuesday?"

"I'll put it to him, from you."

"I'm sure there must be a name for this kind of thing," she said. "The way I have to work! One day you'll find it's misfired and you've cut yourself out."

"Darling, you know you thoroughly enjoy the art of the little finger. And you'd be furious if I concealed you under a bushel."

"That's all very well," she said. "But I'd just like to feel a little more certain whose little finger we're talking about"

Captain Winters came to dinner.

"Would you," asked Phyllis, leaning back on her pillow with her hands behind her head, and studying the ceiling," would you call Mildred attractive?"

"Yes, darling," I replied, promptly.

"Oh," said Phyllis, "I thought perhaps so."

We pondered.

"It looked mutual," she observed.

"It was meant to look-er-absorbed," I told her.

"Oh, it did," she a.s.sured me.

"Darling, the position is awkward," I pointed out. "If I were to tell you that one of your best friends is unattractive-"

"I'm not at all sure that she is one of my best friends. But she's not unattractive."

"Your own appearance," I remarked, "I would describe as rapt. The manner trustful, the eyes a little starry, the smile a little enchanted, the overall effect quite bewitching. You know that, of course, but I thought I'd mention it; it was so well done-unusually well, I thought."

She shifted slightly.

"The Captain's a very attractive man," she said.

"Ah, well, then we've had a nice evening with two attractive people, haven't we? And they had to be stopped from attracting one another; channelled, as it were."

"H'm," she said.

"Darling, you're not jealous of my poor little histrionic talent?"

"No-it just seemed to have improved, that's all."

"Sweetie," I said, "I am almost constantly treated to the spectacle of a variety of men wrestling with the pangs of temptation, and I feel great sympathy for them."

She let the nearer hand stray from behind her head.

"I don't want them," she said...

"Darling," I remarked, somewhat later, "I begin to wonder if we ought not to see more of Mildred."

"M'm," she said, doubtfully, "but the Captain, too."

"Which reminds me, if you aren't too sleepy-what did the Captain have to say?"

"Oh, lots of nice things. Irish blood there, I think."

"But, pa.s.sing from the really important, to matters of mere worldwide interest-?" I suggested, patiently.

"He wouldn't let go of much, but what he did say wasn't encouraging. Some of it was rather horrid."

"Tell me."

"Well, the main situation doesn't seem to have altered a lot on the surface, but they're getting increasingly worried about what's happening below. The general flap and scare worried the authorities. It unsettled people, and they were uneasy lest what was just an excitement and a thrill might turn into a panic. From the way he spoke I think there must have been quite a bit of manoeuvring behind the way it has all calmed down.

"And he didn't actually say that investigation has made no progress either, but what he did say implied it. For instance, echo soundings don't help. You can tell where the bottom is, but that tells you nothing about what may be on the bottom there. The shallower, secondary echoes may be off large creatures, shoals of fish, or anything, but there's no means of being sure what they are off. Some of them seem to be static, but no one's sure about that.

"Depth microphones don't help much. At some levels there's practically nothing, at others there's just a meaningless pandemonium of fish-noises, like we heard from that telebath thing. And they daren't let them down really deep on a steel cable because of what happened to that research-ship and some of the others. They've tried with a cable which was a non-conductor, but the mike leads burnt out at about a thousand fathoms. They sent down a television camera adapted for infra-red instead of visible rays, on the theory that it might be less provocative, and insulated the gear from all the rest of the ship. That was a good thing because at about eight hundred fathoms up came a charge that jumped fuses and melted half their instruments.

"He says that atomic bombs are out, for the moment at any rate. You can only use them in isolated places, and even then the radioactivity spreads widely. They kill an awful lot of fish quite uselessly, and make a lot more radio-active. The fisheries experts on both sides of the Atlantic have been raising bell, and saying that it's because of the bombings that some shoals have been failing to turn up in the proper places at the proper times. They've been blaming the bombs for upsetting the ecology, whatever that is, and affecting the migratory habits. But a few of them are saying that the data aren't sufficient to be absolutely sure that it is the bombs that have done it, but something certainly has, and it may have serious effects on food supplies. And so, as n.o.body seems to be quite clear what the bombs were expected to do, and all they do do is to kill and bewilder lots of fish at great expense, they've become unpopular just now."

"Most of that we already know," I remarked," but when it's on parade it certainly makes a fine upstanding body of negatives."

"Well, here's one you didn't know. Two of those bombs they've sent down haven't gone off."

"Oh," I said," and what do we infer from that?"

"I don't know. But it has them worried, very worried. You see, the way they are set to operate is by the pressure at a given depth; simple and pretty accurate."

"Meaning that they never reached the right pressure-zone? Must have got hung up somewhere on the way down?"

Phyllis nodded. "That alone would take a bit of explaining, but what worries them still more is that there is a secondary setting, quite independent, just in case it happens to land on a submarine mountain, or something. It works with a time-switch only with these two it hasn't."

"Ah," I said, "perfectly simple, my dear Watson-the water got in and stopped the clock," I told her.

"It's your name that's very suitably Watson-I'm only labelled that way for the duration," Phyllis said, coldly. "Anyway, there's nothing perfectly simple about it; and it's made them extremely anxious."

"Understandably, too. I'd not feel too happy myself if I'd mislaid a couple of live atom bombs," I admitted. "What else?"

"Three cable-repair ships have unaccountably disappeared. One of them was cut off in the middle of a radio message. She was known to be grappling for a defective cable at the time."

"When was this?"

"One about six months ago, one about three weeks ago, and one last week."

"They might not be anything to do with it."

"They might-not but everyone's pretty sure they are."

"No survivors to tell what happened?"

"None."

Presently I asked: "Anything more?"

"Let me sec. Oh, yes. They are developing some kind of guided depth-missile which will be high-explosive, not atomic. But it hasn't been tested yet."

I turned to look at her admiringly. "That's the stuff, darling. The real Mata Hari touch. Have you got the drawings?"

"You goof. It's only because they don't want people unsettled that it's not been published in the newspapers-that, and the fact that the newspapers agree. The last hullabaloo sent the sales-graphs dipping everywhere, and the advertisers didn't like it. There's no need for ordinary security measures. n.o.body's going to dangle a telephone into the Mindanao Trench and ask if anybody down there would like to buy some interesting information."

"I suppose not," I admitted.

"Even the Services use common sense sometimes," she said pointedly, and then added, on a second thought: "Though there are probably several things he didn't tell me."

"Probably, "I agreed again.

"The most important thing is that he is going to give me an introduction to Dr. Matet, the oceanographer."