Four for Tomorrow Part 17

"What about?"

"Cameras. Microphones. Stuff like that."

"I'd better stow my gear. Which one am I riding?"

He poked the screwdriver at the other hopper.

"That one. You're on video tape now, by the way. They wanted to get you arriving."

He turned to the hangar, turned back.

"Say 'cheese.' They'll shoot the close close-ups later."

I said something other than "cheese." They must have 135.

been using telelens and been able to read my lips, be- . cause that part of the tape was never shown.

I threw my junk in the back, climbed into a pa.s.senger seat, and lit a cigarette. Five minutes later, Cal himself emerged from the office Quonset, looking cold. He came over and pounded on the side of the hopper. He jerked a thumb back at the hangar.

"They want you in there!"-he called through cupped hands. "Interview!"

"The show's over!" I yelled back. "Either that, or they can get themselves another baitman!"

His rustbrown eyes became nailheads under blond brows and his glare a spike before he jerked about and stalked off. I wondered how much they had paid him to be able to squat in his hangar and suck juice from his generator.

Enough, I guess, knowing Cal. I never liked the guy, anyway.

Venus at night is a field of sable waters. On the coasts, you can never tell where the sea ends and the sky be- gins. Dawn is like dumping milk into an inkwell. First, there are erratic curdles of white, then streamers. Shade the bottle for a gray colloid, then watch it whiten a little more. All of a sudden you've got day. Then start heating the mixture.

101 I had to shed my jacket as we flashed out over the bay.

To our rear, the skyline could have been under water for the way it waved and rippled in the heatfall. A hopper can accommodate four peoplefive, if you want to bend Regs and underestimate weight), or three pa.s.sengers with the sort of gear a baitman uses. I was the only fare, though, and the pilot was like his machine. He hummed and made no unnecessary noises. Lifeline turned a somer- sault and evaporated in the rear mirror at about the 136.

same time Tensquare broke the fore-horizon. The pilot stopped humming and shook his head.

I leaned forward. Feelings played flopdoodle in my guts. I knew every b.l.o.o.d.y inch of the big raft, but the feelings you once took for granted change when their source is out of reach. Truthfully, I'd had my doubts I'd ever board the hulk again. But now, now I could almost believe in predestination. There it was!

A tensquare football field of a s.h.i.+p. A-powered. Flat as a pancake, except for the plastic blisters in the mid- dle and the "Books" fore and aft, port and starboard.

The Rook towers were named for their comer positions -and any two can work together to hoist, co-powering the graffles between them. The graffles-half gaff, half grapple-can raise enormous weights to near water level; their designer had only one thing in mind, though, which accounts for the gaff half. At water level, the Slider has to implement elevation for six to eight feet before the graffles are in a position to push upward, rather than pull- ing.

The Slider, essentially, is a mobile room-a big box capable of moving in any of Tensquare's crisscross groov- ings and "anchoring" on the strike side by means of a powerful electromagnetic bond. Its winches could hoist a battles.h.i.+p the necessary distance, and the whole craft would tilt, rather than the Slider come loose, if you want any idea of the strength of that bond.

The Slider houses a section operated control indicator which is the most sophisticated "reel" ever designed.

Drawing broadcast power from the generator beside the center blister, it is connected by shortwave with the sonar room, where the movements of the quarry are recorded and repeated to the angler seated before the section con- trol.

The fisherman might play his "lines" for hours, days 137.

even, without seeing any more than metal and an outline on the screen. Only when the beast is graffled and the extensor shelf, located twelve feet below waterline, slides out for support and begins to aid the winches, only then does the fisherman see his catch rising before him like a 102 fallen Seraphim. Then, as Davits learned, one looks into the Abyss itself and is required to act. He didn't, and a hundred meters of unimaginable tonnage, undemarco- tized and hurting, broke the cables of the winch, snapped a graffle, and took a half-minute walk across Tensquare.

We circled till the mechanical flag took notice and waved us on down. We touched beside the personnel hatch and I jettisoned my gear and jumped to the deck.

"Luck," called the pilot as the door was sliding shut.

Then he danced into the air and the flag clicked blank.

I shouldered my stuff and went below.

Signing in with Malvem, the de facto captain, I learned that most of the others wouldn't arrive for a good eight hours. They had wanted me alone at Cal's so they could pattern the pub footage along twentieth-century cinema lines.

Open: landing strip, dark. One mechanic prodding a contrary hopper. Stark-o-vision shot of slow bus pulling in. Heavily dressed baitman descends, looks about, limps across field. Close-up: he grins. Move in for words; "Do you think this is the time? The time he will be landed?"

Embarra.s.sment, taciturnity, a shrug. Dub something. -"I see. And why do you think Miss Luharich has a better chance than any of the others? Is it because she's better equipped? [Grin.] Because more is known now about the creature's habits than when you were out before? Or is it because of her will to win, to be a champion? Is it any one of these things, or is it all of them?" Reply: "Yeah, all of them." "-Is that why you signed on with her? Be- cause your instincts say, "This one will be it'?" Answer; "She pays union rates. I couldn't rent that d.a.m.ned thing 138.

nwself. And I want in." Erase. Dub something else. Fade- out as he moves toward hopper, etcetera.

"Cheese," I said, or something like that, and took a walk around Tensqure, by myself.

I mounted each Rook, checking out the controls and the underwater video eyes. Then I raised the main lift.

Malvern had no objections to my testing things this way. In fact, he encouraged it. We had sailed together before and our positions had even been reversed upon a time. So I wasn't surprised when I stepped off the lift into the Hopkins Locker and found him waiting. For the next ten minutes we inspected the big room in silence, walking through its copper coil chambers soon to be Arc- tic.

Finally, he slapped a wall.

"Well, will we fill it?"

I shook my head.

103 Td like to, but I doubt it. I don't give two hoots and a d.a.m.n who gets credit for the catch, so long as I have a part in it. But it won't happen That gal's an egomaniac.

She'll want to operate the Slider, and she can't."

"You ever meet her?"

"Yeah."

"How long ago?"

"Four, five years."

"She was a kid then. How do you know what she can do now?"

"I know. She'll have learned every switch and reading by this time. She'll be up on all theory. But do you re- member one time we were together in the starboard Rook, forward, when Ikky broke water like a porpoise?"

"How could I forget?"

"Well?"

He rubbed his emery chin.

"Maybe she can do it, Carl. She's raced torch s.h.i.+ps and she's scubaed in bad waters back home." He glanced in 139.

the direction of invisible Hand. "And she's hunted in the Highlands. She might be wild enough to pull that horror into her lap without flinching.

". . . For Johns Hopkins to foot the bill and sh.e.l.l out seven figures for the corpus," he added. "That's money, even to a Luharich."

I ducked through a hatchway.

"Maybe you're right, but she was a rich witch when I knew her.

"And she wasn't blonde," I added, meanly.

He yawned, "Let's find breakfast."

We did that.

When I was young, I thought that being born a sea creature was the finest choice Nature could make for anyone. I grew up on the Pacific coast and spent my summers on the Gulf or the Mediterranean. I lived months of my life negotiating coral, photographing trench dwellers, and playing tag with dolphins. I fished everywhere there are fish, resenting the fact that they can go places I can't. When I grew older I wanted bigger fish, and there was nothing living that I knew of, except- ing a Sequoia, that came any bigger than Ikky. That's 104 part of it. ...

I jammed a couple of extra rolls into a paper bag and filled a thermos with coffee. Excusing myself, I left the galley and made my way to the Slider berth. It was just the way I remembered it. I threw a few switches and the shortwave hummed.

"That you, Carl?"

"That's right, Mike. Let me have some juice down here, you double-crossing rat."

He thought it over, then I felt the hull vibrate as the generators cut in. I poured my third cup of coffee and found a cigarette.

140.

"So why am I a double-crossing rat this time?" came his voice again.

You knew about the cameramen at Hangar Sixteen?"

-r s> Yes.

"Then you're a d"u^e crossing rat. The last thing I want is publicity. 'He w^o fo -led up so often before is ready to try it, n.o.bly, once more.' I can read it now."

"You're wrong. T''e -D tlipht's only big enough for one, and she's prettier than yo'i."

My next comment was cut off as I threw the elevator switch and the elephant ears flapped above me. I rose, settling flush with the dc Retracting the lateral rail, I cut forward into the ""wve. Amids.h.i.+ps, I stopped at a juncture, dropped the lateral, and retracted the longitu- dinal rail.

I slid starboard, midway between the Books, halted, and threw on the cornier.

I hadn't spilled a drop of coffee.

"Show me pictures."

The screen glowed. I adjusted and got outlines of the bottom.

"Okay."

I threw a Status Blue switch and he matched it. The light went on.

* The winch unlocked. I aimed out over the waters, ex- tended the arm, and fired a cast.

"Clean one," he commented.

"Status Red. Call strike." I threw a switch.

105 "Status Red."

The baitman would be on his way with this, to make the barbs tempting.

It's not exactly a fishhook. The cables bear hollow tubes; the tubes convey enough dope for any army of hopheads; Ikky takes the bait, dandled before him by remote control, and the fisherman rams the barbs home.

My hands moved over ti.e console, making the neces- 141.

sary adjustments. I checked the narco-tank reading.

Empty. Good, they hadn't been filled yet. I thumbed the Inject b.u.t.ton.

"In the gullet," Mike murmured.

I released the cables. I played the beast imagined. I let him run, swinging the winch to simulate his sweep.

I had the air conditioner on and my s.h.i.+rt off and it was still uncomfortably hot, which is how I knew that mom- ing had gone over its noon. I was dimly aware of the arrivals and departures of the hoppers. Some of the crew sat in the "shade" of the doors I had left open, watching the operation. I didn't see Jean arrive or I would have ended the session and gotten below.

She broke my concentration by slamming the door hard enough to shake the bond.

"Mind telling me who authorized you to bring up the Slider?" she asked.

"No one," I replied. "I'll take it below now."

"Just move aside."

I did, and she took my seat. She was wearing brown slacks and a baggy s.h.i.+rt and she had her hair pulled back in a practical manner. Her cheeks were flushed, but not necessarily from the heat. She attacked the panel with a nearly amusing intensity that I found disquieting.

"Status Blue," she snapped, breading a violet finger- nail on the toggle.

I forced a yawn and b.u.t.toned my s.h.i.+rt slowly. She threw a side glance my way, checked the registers, and fired a cast.

I monitored the lead on the screen. She turned to me for a second.

"Status Red," she said levelly.

I nodded my agreement.

She worked the winch sideways to show she knew how.