Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson - Undersea 1 - Undersea City

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UNDERSEA

CITY

Frederik Pohl

and

Jack Williamson

DEL

REY

A Del Rey Book

BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

A Del Rey Book

Published by Ballantine Books

Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New

York, and simultaneously in Canada by Ballantine Books of

Canada limited, Toronto.

ISBN 0-345-30814-X

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: April 1971 Fourth

Printing: February 1983

Cover art by David B. Mattingly

CONTENTS

1 THE INSIDE DRIFT 1

2 THE MAN CALLED FATHER TIDE 8

5 FIRE UNDER THE SEA 15

4 SEAQUAKE CITY 20

5 QUAKE FORECAST! 27

6 THE BORER IN THE EARTH 35

7 LIFE ON THE LID 42

8 MILLION-DOLLAR SEAQUAKE 49

9 EDEN ENTERPRISES, UNLIMITED 58

10 THE SEA-PULP PARCEL 66

11 THE SHIP IN THE PIT 73

12 FORECAST: TROUBLE! 81

13 THE BILLION-DOLLAR PANIC 91

14 THE LEAD-LINED SAFE 99

15 THE CRIME OF STEWART EDEN 106

16 THE INTRUDER IN STATION K 114

17 THE QUAKE DOCTORS 124

18 GRAVE DOWN DEEP 132

19 SEA OF STONE 139

20 FATHER TIDE'S FOUNDLINGS 148

Undersea City

The Inside Drift

"Cadet Eden, ten-hutV9

I stopped at the edge of the deepwater pool and stiff-

ened to attention. I had been playing sea-tennis with Bob

Eskow in the pool courts on a hot Saturday afternoon. I

had come out to adjust my oxygen lung—I could see

Eskow still in the water, gliding restlessly back and forth

as he waited for me—and the Cadet Captain's sharp

order caught me just about to dive back in.

"Cadet Eden, as you were!" I relaxed slightly and

turned.

With the Cadet Captain was the O.O.D. He said, "Re-

port to the Commandant's office at thirteen hundred

hours, Cadet Eden. Now carry on." He returned my

salute and walked off with the Cadet Captain.

Bob Eskow poked his head out of the water, flipped

back his mask and complained: "Come on, Jim, what's

holding up the game?"

Then he caught sight of the Cadet Captain and the

O.O.D. He whistled. "What did they want?"

"I don't know. I've got to report to the Commandant at

thirteen hundred, that's all."

Eskow climbed out and sprawled on the edge of the

deepwater pool beside me. He said seriously, "Maybe it's

what Danthorpe was talking about."

"What's that?"

Eskow shook his head. "He just hints around. But it's

something involving you and me—and him."

"Forget it," I advised him, and sat down. I took off the

mask of my lung and rechecked the bubble valve. It had

been sticking. I had fixed it, but there is one thing you

learn in the Sub-Sea Fleet and that is to make doubly sure

that every piece of undersea equipment is working per-

fectly. The deeps don't give you a second chance.

The Bermuda sun was hot on the back of my neck. We

had marched a lot of miles under that sun, as cadets at

the Sub-Sea Academy, but now we had lost the habit of

it. We had been too long under deadly miles of black

water, Bob Eskow and I. The sun was strange to us.

Not that we minded the sun. In spite of all the inven-

tions that are conquering the sea—spreading domed cities

across that dark, drowned desert that is stranger than

Mars—no invention can ever take the place of the clean

smell of natural air and the freedom of the wide surface

horizon. Not for the first few days, anyhow.

Bob Eskow stood up. He looked around him at the

bright green trees and the red-tiled roofs above the hot

white beach; he looked out at the whitecaps flashing out

on the surface of the sea; and he said what was in my

mind.

"It's worth all the pearls in the Tonga Trench just to be

back."

I knew how he felt.

The deep sea gets into your blood. There's a strain and

a danger that you can never forget. There's the dark

shape of death, always there, waiting outside a film of

shining edenite that is thinner than tissue, waiting for you

to pull the wrong switch or touch the wrong valve so that

it can get in. It can smash a city dome like a peanut under

a truck, or slice a man to ribbons with a white jet of

slashing brine—

"Quit your daydreaming, you two!"

We looked up.

Another cadet was approaching us.

I hadn't met him, but I knew his name: Harley Dan-

thorpe. The one Bob Eskow had just mentioned.

He was slender and a bit shorter than Bob. He wore his

sea-scarlet dress uniform with knife-edge creases; his hair

slick down flat against his scalp.

I didn't like the expression on his face as Bob intro-

duced us; he seemed to be sneering, "Jim," said Bob,

"Harley Danthorpe is a transfer student, from down

deep."

"And going back there," said Danthorpe. He flicked a

speck of coral dust from his sleeve. "Along with you

two," he mentioned.

Bob and I looked at each other. "What are you talking

about, Danthorpe? The fall term's about to begin—"

Danthorpe shook his head. "We won't be here. The

orders will be out this afternoon."

I looked hard at him. "You aren't kidding us? How do

you know?"

He shrugged. "I've got the inside drift.**

And something happened.

ft happened to Bob as well as to me; I could feel it and

I could see it in his eyes. I didn't like Danthorpe. I didn't

know whether to believe him or not—but the rumor had

done something to me. The dry tingle of the sun felt just

as good as ever. The sky was still as blue and as high, and

the island breeze was just as sweet.

But suddenly I was ready to go down deep again.

I asked: "Where to?"

He stretched and glanced at me and at Bob, then

turned and looked out over the sea. "Why Krakatoa

Dome," he said.

Bob said sharply: "Krakatoa?"

"That's right," nodded Danthorpe. He looked at Bob

curiously. For that matter, so did I; suddenly Bob's face

had seemed to turn a degree paler.

I said quickly, trying to divert Danthorpe's attention

from whatever it was that was bothering Bob: "What are

we supposed to be going to Krakatoa for?"

Danthorpe shrugged. "I've got the inside drift, but not

about that," he admitted. "All I know is that we're going."

Krakatoa! I wanted to believe him. Right at that min-

ute I wanted it more than anything in the world. Kraka-

toa Dome was one of the newest of the undersea cities. It

stood near the brink of the Java Trough, south of the

famous volcanic island in the Sunda Strait, three miles

down.

I wanted to go there very much. But I couldn't believe

that it was possible.

I knew something about Krakatoa Dome. My Uncle

Stewart Eden had spoken many times of the wealth

around it, the sea-floor rotten with oil, pocketed with

uranium and precious tin. But I had never heard that the

Sub-Sea Fleet had a training station there. And what

other reason could there be for detaching three cadets as

the training year was about to begin?

Danthorpe said, in a voice tinged with contempt,

"What's the matter Eskow? You look worried."

"Leave him alone," I said sharply. But Bob's expres-

sion had disturbed me too. His face had been pale with

the pallor of the deeps, but he looked even paler now.

Danthorpe squinted down at him. "Maybe you're

afraid of—seaquakes," he said softly.

Bob straightened up abruptly, glaring at him.

I knew that Bob was under pressure. He had driven

himself far too hard ever since his first moments in the

Academy, oppressed by the grinding fear of washing out.

I knew that our adventures in the Tonga Trench had

drained his last reserves; yet I couldn't quite understand

this now.

Then he relaxed and looked away. "I guess that's so,"

he said, barely loud enough to be heard. "I guess I'm

afraid of quakes."

"Then Krakatoa Dome's no place for you! We've got

plenty of them there!" Danthorpe was smirking smugly—

as though he were actually boasting of the fact, as if the

quakes were another valuable resource of the seabottom

around Krakatoa, like the oil. "It's near the great geologi-

cal fault, where the crust of the earth buckles down in the

Java Trough. Ever hear of the great eruption of Kraka-

toa, back a hundred years and more ago? It made waves a

hundred feet high—on the surface, of course. That was

part of the instability of the area!"

I interrupted him, really curious. "Danthorpe, what's so

good about sub-seaquakes?"

I couldn't help asking it. Earthquakes on dry land are

bad enough, of course. But under the sea they can be a

thousand times worse. Even a minor quake can snap a

transportation tube or turn the mad sea into the tunnels of

a mine; even a very small one can shatter the delicate film

of edenite armor for a second. And a second is all the

deeps need to splinter a city dome.

Danthorpe had a cocky grin. "Good? Why, they're the

best part of it, Eden! Quakes scare the lubbers away!"

He sounded really happy. "That leaves richer diggings

for the man with the inside drift," he cried. "Take my

Dad. He's making plenty, down in Krakatoa Dome. He

isn't worried about sub-sea quakes!"

Suddenly something registered in my mind. "Your

dad?" I repeated. "Danthorpe? Then your father must

be—"

He nodded. "You've heard of him," he said proudly,

"Sure you have! He bought in at the bottom level at

Krakatoa Dome, when it wasn't anything but six edenite

bubbles linked together and a hope for the future. And

he's traded his way to the top! Every time there's a

quake, prices go down—he buys—and he gets richer!

He's got a seat on the Stock Exchange, and he's on the

Dome Council. He's lived down deep so long that people

call him Barnacle Ben—"

Bob was getting more and more annoyed. He inter-

rupted: "Barnacle Ben! If you ask me, that's a good

name—he sounds like a parasite! If you want to talk

about real pioneers—the inventors and explorers who

really opened up the floor of the sea when the dry land

got overcrowded—you ought to ask Jim about his uncle

Stewart. Stewart Eden—the man who invented Edenite!"

Danthorpe stopped short.

He squinted at me sharply. "Old Stewart Eden is your

uncle?"

"That's right," I told him shortly. I don't like to boast

about it—Uncle Stewart says that family is only impor-

tant for the inspiration and help it gives you, not for what

effect a famous relative may have on somebody else. But I

won't deny that I am proud to be related to the man who

made the whole sub-sea empire possible.

There was a pause.

Then, "My Dad could buy him out," Danthorpe said

challengingly, "and never miss the change." I didn't say a

word, though he waited—that was part of what I had

learned from my Uncle Stewart. Danthorpe squinted at

Bob. "All right, Eskow," he said. "What about your

folks?'*

Bob's face hardened. 'Well, what about them?'*

"Haven't you got a family? Give me the inside drift.

Who are they? What do they amount to? Where do they

live? What does your old man do?"

"They're just—people," Bob said slowly. "My father

makes a living."

"Down deep?" challenged Danthorpe. "Or is he a lub-

That was too much. I cut in. "Leave him alone, Dan-

thorpe," I said. "Look. If there's any truth to this inside

drift you came buzzing around with, the three of us are

going to have to get along together. Let's start even!

Forget about families—let's just concentrate on our job,

whatever it's going to be."

Danthorpe shrugged lazily. He pointed at Bob, who

was staring out at the tiny white fin of a catboat, miles

out on the smiling surface of the sea. "Better get him

started on concentrating," Danthorpe advised. "Because,

to tell you the truth, it looks to me as though he's the

wrong man for Krakatoa! It isn't a place for anybody

who's afraid of quakes!"

Bob and I walked back to the barracks after Danthorpe

had left. I could see that he was feeling low, and I tried to

cheer him up.

"After all," I told him, "we haven't got any special

orders yet. Maybe we'll start the fall term with everybody

else."

He shook his head glumly. "I don't think so. What's

that on the bulletin board?"

A fourth-year orderly was smoothing an order slip on

the adhesive board just inside our barracks. We read over

his shoulder.

It was for us, all right:

The cadets named herein will report to the Com-

mandant's Office at 1700 hours this date:

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UNDERSEACITYFrederikPohlandJackWilliamsonDELREYADelReyBookBALLANTINEBOOKS•NEWYORKADelReyBookPublishedbyBallantineBooksCopyright©1958byFrederikPohlandJackWilliamsonAllrightsreservedunderInternationalandPan-AmericanCopyrightConventions.PublishedintheUnitedStatesbyBallantineBooks,adivisionofRandomHouse...

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