Kate Wilhelm & Ted Thomas - Year of the Cloud

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Year of the Cloud

Ted Thomas and Kate Wilhelm

1970

February 28

Dr. Henry Spain looked up at the great barrel of the telescope and shivered. There was a cold

dampness in the observatory that even his heavy jacket could not keep out. He shook his head and

muttered to Charlie Porter, "One thing that should be abolished is the month of February. It's

miserable, does no good for anybody, a totally wasted month of the year, should be abolished." He

looked up at the domed roof and dreaded the moment when the great panels would open and the cold

February night air would rush in and make it colder than it was now.

Charlie Porter shivered too, but he was anxious for the panels to open. He would then be able to

leave this frigid, barren room and go to his warm darkroom and start making the enlargements of

last night's photographic plates. There were advantages in being far down in the hierarchy of the

observatory. As a darkroom technician, no one expected him to put up with the discomforts of

winter observing. He breathed in deeply and coughed a little; he did not like the musty smell of

mouse excrement that always seemed to fill the air out here.

Dr. Peter Yudkin clumped up the metal, circular staircase and came toward them. Both Spain and

Porter turned to face him with the deference that befitted a greeting of the Director. Both of

them immediately felt colder, for Yudkin was dressed in his usual business suit with the coat

jacket open and his stomach protruding, no vest, no sweater, no coat. Yudkin rubbed his hands

together, but it was not to warm them. He said, 'The seeing is good tonight. Some good work we

will do. Let us to begin." Yudkin's accent was an unconscious fraud, assumed because he

instinctively felt that it impressed visitors who always seemed more respectful of foreign

science. In moments of stress he forgot the garbled syntax completely. An assistant threw a

switch, and the panels began to open. The cold night air swept down on them with just enough

moisture in it for maximum discomfort. Yudkin threw back his head and sucked air noisily, while

the other men shivered.

"Well," said Porter. "I guess I'd better go and get to work. You'll have some more plates for me

before too long."

Spain nodded pleasantly at Porter and said, "Don't get overheated in that darkroom of yours now."

And he turned to mount the platform with Yudkin. Porter waved at him and headed for the circular

staircase.

Porter left his jacket on when he entered his warm darkroom. He began to lay out his trays and set

up his bottles of solutions, checking to make sure there was enough in each. With his preliminary

chores done, he hung up his jacket and took down some of the dried plates to look at them. He held

them to the bright fluorescent plate to inspect them. One after another he checked them out,

looking for mechanical flaws in the photographic plate.

Now, Porter had a sensitive eye and a fine sense of composition. He came to a plate that did not

seem quite right. The flaw was so subtle that at first he could not detect it. He made himself

relax, and he blinked his eyes and looked at the ceiling for a moment. Then he carelessly looked

at the plate along its top, not straining, not trying to focus his eyes. He pursed his lips and

blew air through them, not quite whistling. He moved his eyes back and forth, vaguely focusing

them along the top of the plate. And in a moment he had it.

Below the center of the plate and a little to the left was a faint blotch, so faint the eye could

not normally see it. "Damn it," said Porter to himself. He snatched up the plate, turned on a

bright overhead light and held the plate up to it. He turned it various ways to catch the

reflected light from the face of the plate, trying to find the reason for the flaw. He turned it

over and did the same with the back. "Not water spotting. No smear. Must be in the gelatin film

itself." He thought for a moment. He selected the two plates that had been exposed next to it, one

just ahead and the other just behind. A careful check showed the same blotch on each.

Porter rubbed his chin and reflected. By this time his eye was accustomed to seeing the blotch,

and he was certain it was a trifle more pronounced on the last plate. The tray containing the

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entire series of plates was on the table in front of him, and he went right to the very last

plate. It, too, had the faint blotch, perhaps a little more discernible than the blotch on the

earlier plates. Now he knew that the cameras had actually photographed something. Porter was

reasonably certain the astronomers had not been looking for it. Perhaps it was a hitherto unknown

comet. He grinned as he thought it. Photographers' assistants did not normally study astronomical

plates, so maybe he was the first of his profession to discover a celestial object. He could see

it now; the banquet hall, the head table, the bright Bghts, the speaker saying, "And it gives me

great pleasure to present this honorary doctorate to Charlie Porter, discoverer of the greatest

comet of them all, now known as Porter's Comet."

Porter shook himself back to reality and wondered what to do next. With the plates all replaced in

their tray, he shrugged into his jacket and went to find Dr. Spain. Spain and Yudkin were quietly

engrossed in their work. Porter said, "Dr. Spain, I think I've found something on the plates you

took last night. Could I trouble you to come take a quick look at them?" He spoke softly.

Spain said, "Why, yes, Charlie. Wait for about ten minutes and we'll have a breaking point here

for a few minutes. I'll be down then."

Porter went back down and busied himself doing some more chores until he heard the knock on the

door. When he opened it, both Spain and Yudkin were there.

Yudkin pushed his way in and said, "Where are these plates with something on them we took last

night? I want to see them."

Something in his voice irritated Porter, so he deliberately handed Yudkin the faintest of the

plates without comment. Yudkin held it in front of the viewer and scanned it. He bent over it and

tipped his head back to bring his bifocals into focus. He seemed to be stabbing the photograph

with his chin as he pored over it.

Then he straightened and said, "I see nothing. What is it here you think you see?"

Porter had just begun to regret his impulse in trying to make Yudkin look foolish, when Yudkin's

cutting voice made him mad all over again. He did something he should not have done. He tried to

use Spain to make Yudkin look even more foolish. Porter said as he took the plate from Yudkin's

hand, "I'm sure Dr. Spain can see it." He held it so the light struck the plate at the right angle

for Spain, and he pointed to the area on the plate. "See it there, Dr. Spain?"

Spain was embarrassed, but his eye caught the faint blotch and he said, "Why, yes." He took the

plate and held it for Yudldn and pointed. "With the light like this. See it?"

Yudkin leaned forward, saw it, nodded and said, "Is it anything? Let me see the rest of the

series."

One at a time Porter handed Yudldn the rest of the plates while Spain peered over Yudkin's

shoulder, both of them growing more excited as they inspected plate after plate.

Yudkin finally almost shouted, "We discovered something last night. We must study it some more."

Yudkin turned and rushed out of the darkroom. The other two followed him.

In the control room Yudkin gave the computer technician directions to retake some of the pictures,

and in six minutes the coordinates were fed into the telescope controls and the great structure

began to swing. Porter went with them to the domed room, and he was too excited to mind the chill.

Yudkin snapped at him, "We do not need you here, Mr. Porter. Why don't you finish your work in the

darkroom?"

Porter, momentarily taken aback, stared at Yudkin angrily for a moment, and then said, "I want to

make sure the photographic end of this session is handled as best as it can be. I'll see to it

that our highest quality plates are used. I want to use a coarser grain and a faster plate to

bring out more brightness in the object."

Yudkin flushed and began to retort, when Spain said, "Let's try it in the short infrared, perhaps

in the ultraviolet. Might give us more information right off the bat."

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Yudkin nodded vigorously, quickly lost in consideration of the problem. 'Yes. We will run a

spectrographic analysis, too. Let us organize." And he turned and began shouting orders to the

various people scattered around the dome. Porter personally took over the chores of selecting the

plates, and he laid out for later use the IR and UV plates and the strips for insertion into the

spectrograph.

In half an hour the routine of the photographic procedures had settled, and the staff members

hardly spoke to one another as they did their jobs. Porter took the exposed plates down to his

darkroom and set to work with fresh chemicals. In two hours he was able to check the first plates,

and the blotch was there, dead center on the plates. He took them up to the dome in a padded tray

and showed them to Spain.

"Fine. They are much clearer than last night's. We can position it now, maybe get an idea of the

distance. I think it's close; inside Mars' orbit. I'll take them." Spain took the tray and headed

for the computer room. The technicians there were ready, and soon the typewriters were clicking

away feeding the data necessary to fix the position of the object.

Porter at first started to go with Spain, reluctant to allow his precious plates out of his sight.

But the photography was continuing, and he knew he was not needed on the floor of the observatory.

He was completely immersed in the routine again when Spain was back with the news.

"It's in the path of the Earth," he said. "We're going to pass right through it. It seems to be a

transparent Cloud of some kind. Any information yet on the IR and UV? We've got to find out what

it is."

The others stared at him, openmouthed, except Yudkin. Yudkin turned cold and impassive and turned

his back on the others while he thought out the situation, unaffected by the mounting excitement.

Even Spain was caught in the unsettling tension, and he joined in the unproductive chatter:

"Through it?" "What could it be?" "Dust, maybe. We'll get meteor showers."

Yudkin turned around and said, "We must call the National Observatory. We may be the first to see

this, and we must warn them. Dr. Spain, have you an estimate of the distance?"

"Not yet, Doctor. It should be ready in a few minutes."

Yudkin nodded. "We will wait for it, then I will call. Meantime, let us continue taking pictures."

They all scattered back to work.

In fifteen minutes Spain was back with the answer. "The Cloud is five days away from us, and we

will pass through it dead center. It seems to be about three times larger than the Earth itself.

It's an inert dust, thin, transparent. That's all I know at the moment."

Yudkin nodded. "It is enough. I will make the call."

Spain and Porter followed him down the stairs into the office and listened quietly while Yudkin

called the National Observatory and told the chief astronomer, "I have found a Cloud of apparent

dust in the path of the Earth, five days away. You have noticed this?"

Porter shifted his weight uncomfortably and looked at Spain. Spain shrugged while Yudkin continued

to talk. It was apparent from the conversation that the other observatory had not found the Cloud.

They heard Yudkin say, "Very good. We will wait. We will announce it not at this time." He hung

up. Porter gritted his teeth.

Spain said, "What happened?"

"They will look and call us back. They want us to make no announcement at this time. They are

afraid of a panic when people learn we will pass through a Cloud. Well, let us collect more data."

They had been up on the observatory floor for a half hour when a call came through from the

National Observatory. The people had been busy over there. "We're sending a copter over to pick

you up, Dr. Yudkin. NASA has a shoot ready to go in four hours to check the solar wind, and they

can easily adapt it for some tests on that Cloud--take samples, animal tests, things like that."

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"You have seen it already?" asked Yudkin.

"No. We pulled some plates made a day or two ago, and we saw it on them. It's pretty hard to spot;

you've got sharp eyes over there. Well, we'll pick you up in a few minutes."

Spain had been busy during the telephoning. He read off some figures to Yudkin. "The Cloud is

roughly circular in appearance with a diameter of about twenty-four thousand miles. As we estimate

its mass, it runs about twenty-two times ten to the twelfth power short tons, if it's spherical.

So this works out to a concentration of matter of something on the order of one pound of dust per

seventy million cubic feet. That's pretty concentrated. No data yet on the composition. Rocket

sampling should give us the best results. Are they all set over at National?"

"Yes. The copter will be here in five minutes. You will continue the analytical procedures?"

"Yes, and we will keep you posted as we leam things. Anything I can get for you to take with you?"

Yudkin shook his head gruffly; it was difficult for him to say a personal "thank you." He listened

and said, "I hear the copter. I go now." He quickly shook hands with Spain and turned to trudge

off to get his things and board the copter. The men he left behind slowly got back into their

routine.

The copter flew Dr. Yudkin directly to the rocket launching site. The launch manager was an

intense, young, black-haired man named Bensen. He had a habit of cocking his head when he was

thinking, and he cocked it at Yudkin and said, "Can you think of any other tests we can make with

this rocket, Doctor? Mind you, we have a pay load of only three hundred sixty pounds."

Yudkin had listened to the explanation of the sampling and analytical procedures that would take

place when the rocket passed through the Cloud. Yudkin rubbed his chin and said, "Infrared,

ultraviolet, flame spectrogram, plus live animals and collecting bottles. TV camera. Oh, yes. Can

you send back the reaction of a sample in air? We then will have some idea if the Cloud matter can

be exposed to air without reaction."

The cocked head straightened, and Bensen turned and snapped orders at the technicians at the

liquid oxygen pumps. They ran to carry them out, and Bensen turned back to Yudkin and said, "Good

idea, Doctor. I think we can do it and it will be a good idea to know in advance if the matter in

the Yudkin Cloud is reactive with our atmosphere. Okay, let's get out of here. This bird's going

to fly soon." He led the way to Central Control.

On the way they passed a group of reporters, held fifty yards from Control by a fence manned by

guards. Bensen said, "I don't know how they do it. Those boys sense something special's up. I

don't think NASA's going to be able to keep this one quiet very long. The word's out that

something's up."

They went on in, took over the pre-shoot chores and in an hour and a half the bird flew. It was a

good shot, right through the window, and the crew smiled as they went about their monitoring

chores.

Spain called in. "Dr. Yudkin, the Cloud is receding from us, but at a slow rate. I'd estimate

we'll be in the Cloud for about twentyfour hours--just time for one complete revolution of the

Earth. Do you have any more information about it?"

Yudkin absent-mindedly shook his head over the phone, but Spain recognized what he was doing.

Spain continued, "I've had some phone calls here from the press asking if anything is going on.

Have you made any announcements over there?"

Yudkin shook his head again and said, "No, but they know something is up. Call later. Soon we will

get some data." And without more he hung up.

Central Control took on a more tense atmosphere as the time for measurements neared. And when the

data began to come in, there was no sound but the clack of spinning wheels, the whir of tapes, and

the hum of the circuitry. When the preliminary data were in, they sat back and looked at what they

had. They did not have much. The animals were unharmed. Infrared and ultraviolet were

inconelusive. The matter in the Cloud rested harmlessly in air environment inside the collecting

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bottles.

Henry Ray, analytical chemist, looked at the traces of the several absorption spectra. "Well," he

said, "seems to be large molecules, hydrocarbon moities, oxygen in the chain, like that. Can't get

the end groups yet, or any side groups. Looks almost completely organic, though. What's that doing

out there?"

Bensen turned to one of the other chemists and said, "What did he say?"

The chemist snorted. "He said he doesn't know what it is. We'll have to wait for the specimens to

arrive. When we get them on a lab bench, we'll find out what's what."

A phone call came in from the Secretary of Defense, who wanted to be brought up to date

immediately on the comet he had just learned about. Would it cause any trouble when they went

through it? He listened to all they had to say, and then emphasized the need for secrecy. In" half

an hour they had a similar call from the White House, and they had to go through the whole thing

again, with little more information than they had the first time. The switchboard began to stay

lighted up from the flock of incoming calls. Nearby technical centers had heard that something big

was up, and they wanted to know what it was.

The rocket returned at the predicted spot and was flown to Central Control by copter and carefully

sterilized before it was opened. The mice, the pigeons, the two monkeys were all alive and well,

although they had now been immersed in the Cloud's material for several hours. The analyses began.

Ten hours later Bensen pulled a meeting together. Yudkin was there. "Well," said Bensen, "any

decent preliminary results?"

Henry Ray said, "Yes. By and large the Cloud material is a familiar material. Seems to be

particles of a polymer, a big one, molecular weight on the order of ten million. I think I see

ethylene linkages in the infrared, and I know I see ether groups. The structure seems to fit a

polymeric ethylene oxide, but . . ." He stopped.

"What's the matter?"

"Well, there's an occasional group along the chain that I can't identify. Cyclic, three-

dimensional. What's more, I can't get at it very well. It comes apart easily. I've got to come up

with a new technique or something, at least I think so. The group doesn't seem important, but I

can't really say. It's there, or something's there."

Yudkin said, "This material in the Cloud--the Yudkin Cloud" --they all looked up at him--"have you

fed it to animals?"

Bensen said, "I was coming to that What do the biologists say? Frank?"

F?ank Manner said, "No effects on any animals, so far. Mind you, we only have a few milligrams of

the stuff to work with, so we're using mice, and we haven't seen anything yet. We've started

sacrificing the experimental animals, too. Nothing shows on autopsy."

Yudkin said, "Good. Those amounts may be the same as we will be exposed to. We have the total

amount measured, and a fraction of one percent is exposure rate." He nodded contentedly.

The chief of analytical summed it up: "Well, it doesn't look like the Cloud--oh, excuse me, the

Yudkin Cloud--is going to cause much of a problem. It seems to be an inert material even though

it's organic, which is really the only strange part of it. So far, it seems to be harmless,

totally non-poisonous."

"What about that group we can't identify?"

"Doesn't seem to be a problem biologically, but we're following it."

They all sat quietly until Bensen said, "Okay, I'll go report this upstairs to see what they have

to say about all this. Why don't you all go to the cafeteria and have some coffee for half an hour

while I get the word from the top." They nodded and the meeting broke up.

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Bensen explained to Headquarters what they had found and waited for twenty minutes while some kind

of preliminary decision was made. The decision was simple. Keep studying the material from the

Cloud, but make no announcements of any kind to anybody. No sense in throwing the public into a

panic when it learns we are going to pass through a cloud of inert material that will do nothing

more than produce a few gloriously colored sunsets.

Bensen called a meeting and explained the edict. "The press already knows something is up so this

is going to be great trying to keep them out of this. But that's the word, so that's what we do.

Keep after the dust, try to identify it down to the last atom. That's all."

Despite a night's work, nothing new had come out by morning. The Cloud matter was non-toxic in

concentrations fifty rimes greater than predicted exposure when the Earth passed through the

Cloud. Yet the secrecy lid stayed clamped on tightly out of fear that a premature announcement

would start a panic. By 11 A.M., E.S.T. the decision had been made that the President would make a

TV appearance at 9 P.M., E.S.T, calmly to tell the people about the Cloud. The talk would

emphasize harmlessness and tell about the lovely sunsets everyone could watch.

But at twelve noon, one Charles L. Stephens, a gifted amateur astronomer, noticed the Cloud on a

plate he had taken the night before and called the National Observatory to discuss it. He was at

first rudely brushed off, so he hung up and talked to another amateur friend of his who happened

to be an employee of the French Legation in Baltimore. The friend promptly reported it to his

superiors, who promptly called Paris. By the time the people at the National Observatory called

Stephens back to take him into their confidence, the damage was done. At 1:30 P.M., E.S.T., the

French Government announced the situation to the world.

There was no panic.

March 28

Sam Brooks and Charlie Frazier steered their Boston Whaler into their slip, and Carl Loudermilch

hailed them from the end of the pier. "Kind of windy out there today, wasn't it? You dedicated

scientist types always awe me. Come hell or high water, you got to take your measurements. Now me,

I'm the lazy type."

Loudermilch had a fishing pole in one hand and a can of cold beer in the other. He was leaning

against a piling in the warm sun. The wind was gentle in the shelter of the harbor, and it rippled

the brim of the great straw hat he wore. Loudermilch might call himself the lazy type, but Frazier

saw that his notebook lay alongside him on the pier, and a pencil stuck out of the pages marking

where Loudermilch had made his last notation. Loudermilch was a science writer for the New York

Times. He was a soft-spoken man who talked a lot without seeming to. His fund of information kept

the chemists and marine biologists running to the encyclopedias, and they had yet to catch him in

a mistake. But he was so modest a man that none of them resented what he had to say. Even Sam

Brooks, the dourest of them all, was able to smile and talk easily with Carl Loudermilch.

Loudermilch was really in Nassau on a vacation, but the paper had assigned him to the marine

project in order to make it a paying vacation. Nobody expected him to do much work and so he

constantly referred to himself as a lazy man.

Loudermilch watched Brooks and Frazier unload their gear for a moment, then he got up and went

over to help. Brooks handed him the long line of little bottles containing the samples of sea

water. Loudermilch held it up and said, "Darndest fish I ever saw. Can't you fellows ever do any

better than that?"

Brooks stepped out of the boat and took the samples. He said, "That's our bread and butter. And

with this project, it might be your bread and butter too. If we have to rely on the oceans to feed

all the people in the world, we'd better start learning something about them." He looked at

Frazier and said, "Finish unloading, will you? I'll take these in to Kramer."

Loudermilch walked with him as he headed in to the laboratory. Just before going in, Loudermilch

turned to look out over the waters, of Coral Harbor. The hot sun beat down through the wind, and

the sun and the wind felt good. Loudermilch sighed. It was good to be alive in that place. He

turned and went in.

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Kramer was removing the sample bottles from the band that held them and he placed them all in a

row to get ready for the analysesj Loudermilch said, "You don't waste any time. Do they change

that fast?"

Kramer was a short, stocky man with the barest fringe of hair around the back portion of his head.

He kept it cut so short he seemed totally bald. In the hot weather of Nassau he wore nothing but a

pair of khaki shorts and rope sandals. His sandals whispered On the linoleum floor as he shuffled

around the lab doing his work. He wore tinted glasses indoors and out. Loudermilch often came in

to watch him work, fascinated at the way Kramer moved around the lab. There was never a single

detectable wasted motion. He could carry several beakers in his hands at once, and there was no

tinkle of glassware. He could place a large, heavy, liquid-filled flask down on the lab bench, and

there was no thud. His hands were exceedingly dexterous, and they darted bird-like over his

equipment, never really seeming to touch it.

He smiled at Loudermilch and said, "Ocean water begins to change as soon as you remove it from its

environment. That's why I tried to get a larger boat for this project; I wanted to analyze the

water samples within seconds after they were taken. But you know how it is to get money from the

Howe Foundation. Perhaps in a few months I can prove to their satisfaction that we really need a

larger boat." His voice was high, and he cut his words off short. He continued, "Always provided,

of course, that we are still here in a few months. Any news on that Cloud we went through?"

Loudermilch shook his head. "No. The trouble seems to be that they can't get a good specimen of

the material--too little of it. The Cloud was very thin. But they ought to learn something about

it any day now. They keep saying there is certainly nothing to worry about. The tests they've

been able to run indicate the material is harmless. Sounds like they're still doing a lot of

guessing to me."

Kramer nodded. "They should have had the whole answer days ago. The trouble is, it dropped between

the chairs--nobody had a clear-cut responsibility to go all out and find the answers we need.

Well, that's the government for you. Like anything big, it has trouble getting off its dead ass in

a hurry. At least it's real colorful when the sun goes down."

Sam Brooks came in carrying the rest of his gear, and Kramer said, "Bad day out on the reef?"

"Yeah. Didn't get much done. Only one man diving, then the wind came up. Nothing went right."

"Well, you did pretty well to get the samples you did. March is a lousy time of year here for

diving, anyway. Next month and the one after, we'll have things pretty good down here. You may

even get me in the water then. Where's Frazier?"

"I don't know. Probably gone back to sleep to get ready for tonight. I hear there's a new act at

Sloppy Joe's, and Frazier would never miss that."

Kramer said, "Well, he can work hard when it is necessary, and he's a good marine biologist. When

we really shake down here, he'll be all right. You'll see."

Loudermilch said to Brooks, "If Frazier won't be in shape to go out with you tomorrow, and if the

wind is not too bad, I'll go with you."

"Thanks, Carl. I may hold you to that." And Brooks went into the adjoining room to his desk to

make out his report of the day's work, such as it was.

Next morning Sam Brooks got up again at six o'clock and took a dip in the harbor off the end of

the dock. When he swam back to the ladder, Loudermilch was waiting for him. As Brooks dried

himself, Loudermilch said, "Looks like I'm your man. Frazier and Harnish both got in late last

night, and from the uproar I heard, they won't be rolling out until noon."

"Thanks, Carl. I'll take you up on that. What do you say we get going early and see if we can

finish before the wind comes up."

"I'm ready now. I never eat breakfast, so whenever you're ready, I am."

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Brooks said, "Good. Let me get a light bite and some coffee. I'll get some sandwiches and beer

too, in case we stay out that long."

"Now you're talking. I'll get my fishing gear and meet you at the slip."

In half an hour they were on their way out to Southwest Reef. It was a sharp clear morning, with

the brilliant, colored sky they were getting used to, and the ocean was as smooth as a mirror

except for the long smooth rollers that swept by at twenty-second intervals. The sun was to their

left as they went out, and its reflection was bright on the sides of the rollers that flowed

toward them. There was not the slightest trace of a wind. A school of six porpoises cut across

their path as they went out, ignoring them. The porpoises slipped out of the surface and in again

so smoothly that they left only the barest ripples behind them.

In the distance, out near the reef, a motor sailer was at anchor, but it had moved from where they

had seen it the afternoon before. Brooks said, pointing at it, "Look, that boat has anchored right

along the line of our instruments. I hope his anchor hasn't ruined any of them. He was further out

yesterday."

Loudermilch said, "He must like the sea. He spent a rough night out here yesterday. Who is the

owner, do you know?"

"No. I've seen the boat around. It comes in once in a while, but I don't know who owns it. I'd

better tell him about our work here and tell him to stay clear of it."

Loudermilch started to point out that it was a free ocean, but knowing Brooks, he said nothing. He

watched as they came up to the vessel from the stem, and they could read her name in large black

letters, Donado.

Brooks pointed up at the masthead. A flag hung limply there, and as the vessel pitched gently in

the rollers, it opened momentarily. It was a bright red flag with a diagonal white bar. "Look at

that," Brooks said, "a diver's flag. They've got divers down right now." He cupped a hand around

his mouth and called across to the other boat, "Ahoy there." There was no answer so he tried

again. Still no answer. He said to Loudermilch, "Do you suppose they are down, leaving nobody to

tend the boat? That's kind of stupid."

Loudermilch had been looking around over the surface of the smooth ocean. He stood up in the slow-

moving boat to see better, and then he pointed out over the water to a spot two hundred yards

away. 'There are their bubbles. See them?"

Brooks stood up too and looked. "Yes," he said, "and they are right on our line of equipment. If

they've ruined anything, I'll see that they pay plenty for it. Those meddling nincompoops. ..."

"Hold it," said Loudermilch, "we don't know that they've done anything yet. They're probably just

looking at your stuff; they've no reason to damage it. Wait until you get down there before you

start blasting them. Your stuff will be all right."

Brooks sat down, muttering, gunned the motor, and headed for the surface buoy that marked the

start of the line of underwater buoys. He dropped the anchor, hurriedly put on his diving gear and

hung on his pieces of equipment. Loudermilch helped him. As he went over the side Brooks caught

the line that held his camera; it tightened and cut the back of his neck. The salt water stung the

cut, Brooks rubbed it. He flung his hand away from his neck in annoyance, and his hand hit the

viscometer dangling from another string and broke it. "Damn those people," he snapped. "Get me

another viscometer, under the seat."

Loudermilch reached under the seat and hauled out another one. He looked at Brooks with concern,

noted his flushed face and petulant manner. He almost suggested that Brooks come back into the

boat for a few minutes, but he knew that Brooks would not do it, and that the suggestion would

only irritate him further. As he handed Brooks the viscometer he took particular care to look over

the gear that Brooks had on, looking for anything missing or anything wrong. He saw nothing.

Brooks turned his head down into the water and flailed with his feet to drive himself toward the

bottom. Loudermilch saw him start down, suddenly stop, and then fling himself up to the surface

again, shooting out of the water up to his waist, spitting out his mouthpiece and gasping a great

lungful of air. Loudermilch put both hands on the gunwale of the boat ready to hop over the side

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and grab him, but Brooks did not seem to need it. Brooks quickly kicked over to the boat and said,

"Turn on my damned air, will you?"

Loudermilch nodded, restraining a smile, and opened the air valve on Brooks' tank. It was the

oldest blunder in the books, and he did not want to make a kidding remark about it. He opened the

valve all the way, and then closed it a quarter turn. He tapped Brooks on top of the head and

said, "All set."

Brooks surface dived again with much splashing, and this time he went straight to the bottom

with only momentary stops to clear his ears. Loudermilch could see him swimming along the bottom

with great streamers of bubbles behind him. Brooks was puffing from physical strain and mental

turmoil; he would never get an hour out of the tank.

Brooks came to the first submerged buoy and quickly took his sample and his readings. At the next

buoy Brooks broke the point on the crayon as he marked his viscosity reading on the slate. He had

to stop and sharpen the point with his knife, kneeling on top of a brain coral twenty feet deep.

Then he went on. He had a vague feeling that something was wrong, but he was too upset to stop and

figure out what it was.

It was at the fifth buoy that he saw the two divers lying motionless among a mass of staghom

coral, with a great school of striped grunts clustered around them. One of the divers was right

next to Brooks' buoyed equipment, and he kicked harder to get to it to chase them away. At fifty

feet he saw what was happening. The diver near his equipment was a girl, and even in his anger

Brooks could see that she was a remarkable girl. She wore an abbreviated bikini that was coal

black; it was in sharp contrast to her tanned skin. Her hair was a light brown, just the color of

the staghom coral she lay in, and it was long and gathered with a silver clasp at the nape of her

neck in a kind of pony tail. The end of it trailed behind her and coiled around the end of a

coral. She looked as if she grew there. She was slim; there was no trace of bulging Sesh at the

tight halter or briefs. She wore a black face mask and black weight belt, and her tank was black.

Her face was near the instruments that dangled from the white nylon buoy line, and the school of

striped grunts surrounded her like a mantle.

The other diver was a man, deeply tanned, hair sunburned white, and his long length was

intertwined among the coral. He held a camera, and he was sighting through the view finder at the

girl. Even as he dove down on them Brooks realized that they must have been in that position for a

long time; striped grunt normally shied away from divers, yet now they swarmed around the girl.

But when Brooks was fifteen feet away, the entire school suddenly zigzagged up and away, and the

picture was ruined.

The man came up out of the coral, and the girl lifted her head and looked at Brooks. He pulled up

right in front of them and waved them away from his instruments. Again and again he pointed first

at the instruments, then at himself, and then waved them away. His meaning was clear: these are

mine and you have no right here so go away.

The man shook his head at Brooks and pointed to his camera and the girl, and waved Brooks away.

Brooks lost his temper and lunged at the man to push him away from the buoy. At the last moment

the man slipped sideways a bit and rolled on his side, grabbing Brooks' arms as he went by. He

twisted his body in a somersault that carried him first over and then under Brooks' body and then

he launched Brooks straight on in the direction he had been heading. It was five feet before

Brooks could overcome his own momentum and stop and empty his mask and turn to face the other

diver again. But Brooks was now cautious. He had felt the strength in those hands that had. turned

him and then thrown him through the water. He saw a black smear on the man's ribs that had not

been there a moment before. He recognized the smear and grabbed up his slate to look at it. All

the data he had written on it with the black crayon were smeared out in an unrecognizable blur.

The slate had rubbed against the other diver; Brooks' data were destroyed.

The fury rose in him, but the memory of the hands kept him in check. For an instant Brooks

considered pulling his knife, but his common sense quickly took over. Instead he jerked his thumb

toward the surface in the diver's signal to surface. The other man looked toward the girl and then

he nodded to Brooks. Brooks shot for the surface and switched to his snorkle when he got there.

The other two came up slowly and effortlessly, switching to their snorkles when they were still

about ten feet deep, and then trailing a continuous row of bubbles.

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As soon as their heads broke the surface Brooks began shouting, "What's the idea? Don't you know

we are running some very important experiments down there? Who do you think you are?"

Neither the man nor the girl answered. They both kept their faces in the water, breathing through

the snorkles, looking at Brooks through the water. The man raised a hand and pointed behind Brooks

and then waved in that direction. Brooks turned and saw the motor sailer anchored fifty yards

away. The other two began to kick slowly toward the boat, so Brooks swam toward it. He was the

first there, and he went up the boarding ladder with some difficulty, trying to keep all his

gear from fouling the steps of the ladder. On deck he turned to watch the other two climb up. He

heard the rumble of an outboard engine and turned to see Loudermilch coming toward them in their

boat. Loudermilch pulled up alongside just as the man and the girl climbed into the cockpit.

Loudermilch called, "May I come aboard, skipper?"

"Come ahead," said the man, and he stepped to the gunwhale to take the line that Loudermilch

threw. He made it fast and helped Loudermilch into the cockpit.

Loudermilch said, "Well, I guess you've all met. My name's Carl Loudermilch." He stuck out his

hand.

"Hugh Winthrop," said the man, "and this is Gail Cooper. No, we haven't met him yet." He nodded

toward Brooks.

Brooks started to speak, but Loudermilch said to Gail, "I'm very pleased to meet you, young lady."

He looked at the camera still hanging around Winthrop's neck, and continued, "With you as a model,

I would think Mr. Winthrop here would be an internationally known photographer." He dropped

Winthrop's hand and shook hers.

Gail smiled. Her teeth were even and stardingly white against her tan face, and her mouth was

broad and curved. "Thank you. Coming from as renowned a newspaperman as you, that is pleasant to

hear."

Winthrop was staring at Brooks, waiting for Brooks to say something. Loudermilch stepped into the

tense silence. "Hugh Winthrop, I'd like you to meet Dr. Samuel Brooks, marine biologist. He's been

running a series of experiments in these waters. They're trying to find optimum conditions for

fish life--may be useful in the future when the world needs more food. You know, population

explosion and all that."

Neither of the two men said anything, nor did they shake hands. The silence grew again.

Loudermilch sighed and said, "Well, let's talk it out. What happened under the water?"

Brooks snapped, "He tried to ruin my measurements--disturbing buoy number five."

Winthrop said nothing, merely looked at Brooks. It was Gail who said, "I don't understand, Dr.

Brooks. We did not touch any of your things. We simply used them as a setting for a photograph.

How did we ruin anything?"

Brooks almost snapped at her, but he changed his mind and said,

"Well, you were right in among my equipment, and your body heat might change the temperature

readings the recorder was making. Also, continued movements right on the spot might change the

caldum ion concentration, and that's one of the most important parameters we are looking for."

Winthrop nodded and said, "Oh, I see. I guess I owe you an apology. I did not realize you were

measuring such fine points. I'll clear with you in the future. That picture you broke up would

have been a beautiful one, and I'd like to try it again soon. Can we arrange it?"

Brooks felt better, his anger was waning. He still felt disturbed at the ease with which Winthrop

had avoided his rush and at the memory of the strength in those hands. But Loudermilch was

smiling, and so was Gail, and Winthrop no longer had the attitude of quiet tautness. Brooks took a

deep breath and said, "Yes; in fact. I'll take my readings at the buoy we just left, and then you

can use it again. That'll give the station about twenty hours to settle down into normal ambient

conditions."

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