Hal Clement - Ocean on Top

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Ocean on Top

HAL CLEMENT

SPHERE BOOKS LIMITED

30/32 Gray's Inn Road, London WCIX 8JL

TRADE MARK

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out

or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in

which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent

purchaser.

Set in Intertype Baskerville

Printed in Great Britain by

Hunt Barnard Printing Ltd, Aylesbury, Bucks.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter One

I've never met a psychiatrist professionally and don't much want to, but just then I rather wished there

was one around to talk to. It wasn't that I felt like cracking up; but when you have something profound

to say, you like to have it appreciated, and it would have taken a professional really to appreciate the

remark I wanted to make at that moment.

There's a word for people who can't stand being out in the open with crowds staring at them, and there's

another one for those who get all in a dither from being cramped into a small space. They're both

common enough ailments, but I would have liked to place a bet that no one before had ever suffered

from agoraphobia and claustrophobia simultaneously.

With a name like mine, of course, I've never exactly sought the public eye, and usually I resist the

temptation even to make bright remarks in company. Just then, though, I was wishing there was

someone to hear that diagnosis of my feelings.

Or maybe I was just wishing there was someone.

I couldn't hear the storm any more. The Pugnose had broken up almost where she was supposed to. She

had hit the heavy weather just where the metro office had said she would, and her fuel had run out

within five minutes of that time - that even I could have predicted; trust a Board boss to make sure that

no more stored energy than could possibly be helped went down with her. There was some battery

power left, though, and I had kept a running Loran check until she drifted as close to Point X as she

was going to. This turned out to be about half a mile. When I saw I was going on past the key spot I

blew the squibs, and poor little Pug-nose started to come apart amidships.

She'd never been intended for any other purpose, and I hadn't fallen in love with her as some people

might have, but I didn't like the sight just the same. It seemed wasteful. I didn't spend any time

brooding over it, though. I ducked into the tank and sealed it and let nature take its course. By now, if

static pressure instruments could be trusted, the tank and I were eight hundred feet down.

It was very, very quiet. I knew water was going by because the depth was increasing about two feet a

second, but I couldn't hear it. Any loose pieces of the boat were long gone, floatables being scattered

over the Pacific and sinkables mostly preceding me toward the bottom. I'd have been disturbed as well

as surprised to hear anything solid bump against my particular bit of wreckage. The silence was good

news, but it still made me uncomfortable.

I'd been in space once - a waste investigation at one of the Board's fusion research stations - and there

was the same complete lack of sound. I hadn't liked it then; it gave me the impression that the universe

was deliberately snubbing me until the time would come to sweep up my remains. I didn't like it now,

though the feeling was different - this time it was as though someone were watching carefully to see

what I was up to and was trying to make up his mind when to do something about it. A psychiatrist

wouldn't have been much help with that notion, of course, because there was a good chance that it was

true.

Bert Whelstrahl had disappeared in this volume of water a year before. Joey Elfven, as competent an

engineer and submariner as could be found on Earth, had been lost track of ten months later in the same

neighborhood. They were both friends of mine, and I was bothered by their vanishing.

Six weeks ago, Marie Wladetzki had followed the other two. This was much worse from my point of

view. She was not an investigator, of course - the Board, as personified by its present boss whose name

I'll leave out of this account, doesn't believe women are objective enough — but that didn't mean she

couldn't be curious. Also, she'd been as interested in Joey as I was in her. Being Marie, she hadn't

actually broken the letter of any regulations when she took out a Board sub at Papeete, but she most

certainly strained the spirit of most of them. She hadn't said where she was going and had last checked

in between Pitcairn and Oejo a thousand miles from where I was now sinking with the remains of

Pugnose; but no one who knew her had any doubts about where to look first.

The boss was human enough to volunteer me for the look-see. My own inclination would have been to

do just that — take a sub and see what had happened; but brains won out. Bert's disappearance could

have been an accident, although there were already grounds for suspicion about the Easter Island area.

Joey's vanishing within half a dozen miles of the same spot could conceivably have been coincidence

— the sea can still outguess man on occasion. After Marie's loss, though, only a very stupid person

would have gone charging into the region any more obviously than he could help.

Therefore, I was now a thousand feet below the top of the Pacific and several times as far above the

bottom, camouflaged as part of a wrecked boat.

I didn't know exactly how much water was still below me; even though my last fix on the surface had

been pretty good and I'd acquired an excellent knowledge of the bottom contours north of Rapanui, I

couldn't be sure I was going straight down. Currents near an island are not the smooth, steady things

suggested by those little arrows on small-scale maps of the Pacific.

I might, of course, have tried echo-sounding, but to control that temptation I had no emission

instruments in the tank except floodlights; and I had no intention of using even those until I had some

assurance that I was alone. See without being seen was the current policy. The assurance would come,

if ever, very much later, after I had reached the bottom and spent a good, long time listening.

In the meantime I watched the pressure gauge, which told how the water was piling up above me, and

the sensors which would let me know if anyone else was using sonar gear in the neighborhood. I wasn't

sure whether I wanted them to react or not. If they did, it would be progress; I'd know someone was

down here who shouldn't be - but it might be the same sort of progress the other three had made. It

might not be grounds for too much worry, since fifteen or twenty feet of smashed hull would show on

any sonar scope for just what it was, and supposedly the tank inside would not. Of course, some

sonarmen are harder to fool than others.

I could look out, of course. The tank had ports, and a couple of them faced the opening where

Pugnose's stern used to be. I could even see things at times. There were flecks of phosphorescence

drifting upward and streaks of luminosity not quite bright enough to identify in color which sometimes

whipped past and vanished in the gloom and sometimes drifted for minutes in front of a port as though

they marked the position of something which was trying curiously to look in. I was tempted - not very

strongly, but tempted - to turn on my lights once or twice to see what the things were.

The wreckage was tumbling slowly. I had been assured that this wouldn't happen — that weight had

been distributed so that the sharp prow would always point down and leave the tank on top when I hit

bottom - but there was no one to complain to. There also seemed to be nothing to do about it, and I

began to wonder just what I could accomplish if the tank wound up in bottom ooze, or even on hard

rock, with the wreckage on top of it. The thing had little enough maneuverability as it was. With very

much extra weight, dropping ballast might not be enough to start me back toward the surface.

I couldn't shift my own weight enough to affect the tumbling at all. The tank's inside diameter was only

about six feet, and much of that volume was taken up by fixed apparatus.

Some of my friends have shown a tendency to solve problems by doing nothing until the last possible

moment. I've outlived most of them. Once I'd noticed the tumbling, it took me about five seconds to

run through the possible actions. I could cut loose from the wreckage right now, exposing the nearly

spherical form of the tank to anyone who was watching with a good sonar — though no one had been

so far. I could turn on the lights so as to see the bottom before I hit and, hopefully, still separate in time

if it proved necessary; that would also be inconsistent with the concealment plan. I could sit and hope I

would land in the right attitude in spite of the tumbling - that is, do nothing. That might mean that I

would have to argue for my life with the laws of nature, which are harder to convince than most human

opponents.

The first two choices meant — well, maybe Bert and Joey and Marie were still alive. I reached for the

light switch.

I didn't touch it, though. All of a sudden I could see the bottom anyway.

At least, it looked as though it ought to be the bottom. It was in the right direction - I could still tell up

from down -and it seemed flat. And it was visible.

Chapter Two

I didn't believe it, of course. I'm a very conservative person who likes even his fiction realistic, and this

was too much to swallow. I had to stop reading The Maracot Deep when I was young because it

described a luminous ocean bottom. I know Conan Doyle had never been down and needed the light for

story purposes and didn't have very high standards of consistency anyway, but it still bothered me. I

knew he was wrong for the same reason everyone does — the bottom just isn't bright.

Only now it was.

The tumbling wreck was swinging me upward away from the light, and I had time to decide whether I

should believe my eyes or not. I could still read instruments. The pressure dial gave a direct depth of

four thousand eight hundred eighty feet; a quick mental correction from the record tape of the

thermograph added another two hundred or so. I certainly should be near the bottom, somewhere on the

northern slopes of the mountain whose peaks are Rapanui.

I swung gently over the top and back down the other side, and my line of sight pointed downward

again. Whether I wanted to believe my eyes or not, they insisted there was light in that direction. It was

a gentle yellow-green glow — just the sort of thing you use in lighting effects to give the impression of

an underwater scene. At first it looked uniform and smooth; then, a few turns later and two hundred

feet lower, it showed a pattern. The pattern was of squares, with their corners just a little brighter than

the rest of the area. It didn't cover the whole bottom; its edge was almost below me, and it extended

toward what I thought was the north, though my compass wasn't reacting too well to the tumbling.

In the other direction was the normal comforting and frightening darkness - that was real enough.

Two things happened at almost the same instant. It became evident that I was going to come down

pretty close to the edge of the light area, and it also became obvious what the light area was. The

second realization got to me. For three or four seconds I was so furious and disgusted that I couldn't

plan, and as a result I almost didn't get around to telling this story.

The light was artificial. Believe it if you can.

I realize that for a normal person it's hard. Wasting watts to light up the outdoors is bad enough, but

sometimes it's a sad necessity. Spending power to illuminate the sea bottom, though — well, as I say,

for a few moments I was too furious to think straight. My job has brought me into contact with people

who were careless with energy, with people who stole it, and even with people who misused it; but this

was a brand-new dimension! I was lower now and could see acres and acres of light stretching off to

the north, east, and west until it blurred out of sight. Acres and acres lighted by things suspended a few

yards above the level bottom, things visible only as black specks in the center of slightly brighter areas.

At least, whoever was responsible for this display had some sense of economy; he was using reflectors.

Then I got my anger under control, or maybe my fear did it for me. I suddenly realized that I was only a

few dozen yards above the lights. I was not going to come down among them, but a little to the south. I

couldn't say safely to the south. I couldn't say safely anything, because my assemblage of Pugnose-bow

and safety tank was turning over slowly enough to let me predict the attitude it would have when it hit

bottom, and it looked pretty certain that the open end of the hull would be underneath.

Quite aside from the fact that I wouldn't be able to see anything from under the wreckage, there was the

likelihood that I wouldn't be able to do anything either - such as get back to the surface. This time I did

reach the controls.

Since the whole idea hinged on concealment, the separators used springs rather than squibs. I waited

until the spin put the hulk between me and the light and punched the button. The push was light enough

to make me wonder for a few seconds whether I mightn't be in even worse trouble than I'd supposed.

Then light began to come in through ports which had been covered by the hull, and that worry ended.

The springs had kicked the tank away from the lighted region, so I could see Pugnose's bow outlined

against the luminescence. The separation had slowed our fall very slightly with the wreckage now

going just a trifle faster than I was. At least something was going as planned; the wreck would hit first,

so there should be no chance of my getting trapped under it.

I hadn't expected to see it hit bottom, of course. I would certainly never have expected to see what

happened when it did.

For the most part, level stretches of sea bottom tend to be on the gooey side. They may call it

globigerina ooze or radiolarian ooze, but it's usually ooze. You can meet with coral and sand and other

firm stuff in shallow water and honest rock at times on slopes, but where it's level you expect

something like a cross between ordinary mud and the top couple of inches of a stagnant pond. When

something hard and heavy lands on it, even gently, you don't expect the bottom to give it much support.

You may sometimes be surprised on this matter, but you never count on anything bouncing off the sea

bottom.

Pugnose didn't exactly bounce, I have to admit, but she certainly didn't behave properly. She hit the

lighted surface thirty or forty yards from the edge, and perhaps twice as far from me. I could see easily.

She touched, as expected, and sank in as expected. There was no swirl of silt, though -no sign of the

slow-motion splash you normally see when something lands in the ooze. Instead, the bow section dis-

appeared almost completely into the smooth surface while a circular ripple grew around it and spread

away from the point of impact. Then the wreckage eased gently back up until it was half uncovered,

then back down again, still in slow motion. It oscillated that way three or four times before coming to

rest, and each rebound sent another ripple spreading out from the spot for a dozen yards or so.

By the time that stopped, so had my tank. I felt it hit something hard - rock, for a bet, and I'd have won.

Then it began to roll very, very gently toward the light. I couldn't see the surface I was on at all clearly,

but it seemed evident that it was a solid slope which would deliver me beside the Pugnose in two or

three minutes if I didn't do something about it. Fortunately, there was something I could do.

The tank had what we'd come to call legs, six-foot-long telescoping rods of metal which could be

extended by springs and retracted again by solenoids. I was still hoping not to have to use magnets, but

it seemed that the legs were in order; I propped out four of them in what I hoped were reasonable

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摘要：

OceanonTopHALCLEMENTSPHEREBOOKSLIMITED30/32Gray'sInnRoad,LondonWCIX8JLFirstpublishedinGreatBritainbySphereBooksLtd1976Copyright©HarryC.Stubbs1976Magazineserialversioncopyright©GalaxyPublishingCorp.1967forWorldsofIfTRADEMARKThisbookissoldsubjecttotheconditionthatitshallnot,bywayoftradeorotherwise,bel...

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Hal Clement - Ocean on Top

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