Undersea Quest (9 page)

I felt myself warming to the man; he had charm and a hard-bitten strength that, to me, was greatly appealing. Perhaps he was telling the truth; perhaps his bitter struggles with my father and uncle were purely business transactions, only the rough-and-tumble bouts of strong men engaged in rivalry with each other.

Certainly Hallam Sperry had a warm smile and a strong handclasp…

Still—I could not help but notice it: His lips smiled, but his eyes were still sea-cold.

I told him about the Academy, my relations with his son, Brand Sperry, the trouble in Italy and my forced resignation. He was a receptive audience. I even found myself telling him about the radiograms from Wallace Faulkner and my answers; even about the man in the red hat and the little gray man and the
lethine
that had murdered the steward, instead of me.

Careless of me…

Still, I wonder. Hallam Sperry owned the
Isle of Spain
and everything in it. Certainly he would know everything that went on aboard it, in any case.

And I found out that he knew much, much more.

When I had finished my story he said, sipping his sea-liqueur,

“Bad breaks, boy. Question is, what do you do now?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know exactly, sir. I’m going to Thetis. Then I’ll look around and see what’s what. I—I don’t know too much about Marinia, actually.”

He gave a rumbling laugh. “Never thought I’d hear an Eden admit that! Boy, Eden Dome is named after your family!”

I said stiffly, “I know, sir. But after all, I’ve never been here before. I don’t even know what my uncle was doing these last few years, as a matter of fact.”

He looked surprised. “Oh, I can tell you that,” he offered.

“Know everything that goes on in Marinia, I don’t mind admitting. Particularly about your Uncle Stewart, boy.” He ticked off on his fingers. “First, platinum prospect in the Mountains of Darkness. Worked it for a year; then it petered out. Next, petroleum. Looked like a good bet; but your uncle sold out. Needed capital for something. For what? For Marine Mines Ltd. Sunk every nickel he had or could get his hands on into it. Finally sunk himself.” He started to grin at his joke, but the expression on my face must have stopped him. “No offense, boy,” he apologized. “Stewart was always a daredevil; you know.”

“So you said,” I answered.

He rolled on, “Come back to the main question. I staked your uncle last couple of years. Owes me money—more than half a million dollars. What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know, sir,” I admitted miserably. “This is the first I heard of it. I—I’ll have to talk to Mr. Faulkner about that.”

Hallam Sperry’s expression changed curiously. For the first time, his face was in repose, but it was his eyes that were grinning at me—a faint, somehow alarming sardonic smile. All he said was, “Take your time, boy.” He rang for a steward and ordered coffee.

“Pretty near bed-time,” he said. “Let you go in a couple of minutes. Anything else you want to know from me?”

I said slowly, “Well, I guess not, sir. Not unless you can think of something I should know.”

He shrugged those giant shoulders expressively. “Did I tell you about Marine Mines?” he demanded.

“Well, I know a little bit about it, from Mr. Faulkner.”

“Not much, probably. Well, not much to tell. Typical fat-headed scheme of your uncle’s, of course. Mine Eden Deep! Couldn’t get within a thousand fathoms of the bottom—not even with his own Edenite. Tried to tell him that—but it never was any use trying to talk sense to your Uncle Stewart.”

I said, as bitingly as I could, “So the mathematicians found out.” When Uncle Stewart first announced his Edenite process, the mathematicians were quick to call it impossible. They proved conclusively with facts and figures that it was ridiculous to imagine that any force- field armor could be so constructed as to make the water work against itself, turn its own pressure against it to keep the surging tides out of whatever the armor enclosed. It wasn’t until Uncle Stewart managed to get the first Edenite armor in operation that the mathematicians hastily changed the subject.

Sperry grinned. “Good point, boy,” he admitted. “Well, I guess I had something like that in mind. Anyway, he went ahead. Opened an office out at Seven Dome, way out of the normal mining territory, right near the Deep. Had a man in there with him—fellow named Westervelt, some such name. Don’t know where he is now.

Dropped out of sight when your uncle died; last I heard he was hiding out in Kelly’s Kingdom, in some kind of trouble with the law. That’s all there is to tell, boy. Can’t tell you anything that Marine Mines ever actually accomplished, because it never accomplished anything. Just a paper corporation. With paper assets.”

I said, trying to keep my temper under control, “Those assets were worth a hundred and sixty thousand dollars to somebody, paper or not.”

“Who?”

“Well—I don’t know who,” I admitted. “Some client of Mr. Faulkner’s.”

“Course you don’t know who,” he rumbled. “Tell you, if you like. Me. I offered a hundred-sixty; you turned it down. Well, maybe you did me a favor. Wasn’t worth it, of course.”

I stared at him. “Why—how—”

He roared with bull-like laughter. “Why—how?” he mimicked. “Boy, you’re a little wet behind the ears for Marinia! No offense, of course. Tell you why: You’ve got a partner in the Mines, you know.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“But nothing. That partner’s me. I put up money; I took twenty per cent of the stock. Was supposed to get back the rest out of profits. What profits? None, of course. But I could afford the gamble, so I took it. I lost. If I can get complete ownership of the Mines, maybe I can do something with it—I have a little influence in Marinia, you know. Might be able to get the claim time extended a couple more years; maybe something will come of it eventually. Still a gamble—and not even a gamble while I’m a minority holder. See?”

I didn’t see. But I was too stubborn—too young!—to admit it I said uncomfortably, “I—I’d better talk to Mr. Faulkner, sir. Not that I doubt anything you say, of course. But—”

“But—but,” he mimicked again. He was still grinning that cold, somehow worrisome grin.

Abruptly his mood changed. He set down his coffee cup with a sharp slapping sound. “Enough,” he growled. “Time for bed. Go to your room, boy; get some sleep.”

He rang for the steward, who appeared in his white coat, rubbing his eyes, to open the door for me. Hallam Sperry didn’t get up. As I was going out he said:

“Sleep on it, boy. Just make up your mind. Do you want to pay your uncle’s debts—or pay as much as you can; take my offer for your shares and I’ll forget the rest—or not? Can’t make you do it; it’s a gentlemen’s agreement. Make up your mind.”

I turned uncomfortably at the door, but Sperry had dismissed me. Without haste he stood and walked lumberingly through the far door into one of his other rooms. The steward, politely but firmly, closed the outer door in my face.

At last we docked at Thetis.

The
Isle of Spain
dropped out of the darkness that had surrounded her to a flat, slightly luminous plain of blue clay. We anchored at the usual flat metal platform.

To our west was Thetis itself. Its shimmering dome bulged high into the black water. Eastward and northward were rugged black hills. South lay a Deep, and on the lip of it, a phosphorescent valley, covered with weird, tangled streamers that looked like vines, and thick growths that stood tall and erect like trees on land. They looked like vines and trees—but, I was to find, they were not. No vegetation grows so far beneath the sea’s surface; all the dainty blossoms and ropy growths were animal, not plants.

I disembarked from
Isle of Spain,
checked my baggage and went directly to Faulkner’s office.

W-17, S-469, Level 9—the address was well fixed in my mind. It had been on the long blue envelopes in which the checks from my uncle had come.

From the elevator I stepped into the big waiting room beneath the docks, carved out of the living rock beneath the ocean floor. It was brilliant with the cold, violet Troyon light, crowded with the passengers of the
Isle of
Spain,
customs officials and hundreds of others. It seemed incredible, in that giant chamber, that four miles of sea towered over our heads.

But it was true! I was in Marinia!

I found a passenger belt headed in the right direction, and on it I was swept swiftly down a long tunnel; I found the elevator bank I was seeking and in a matter of short minutes’I was at Level 9.

I stepped out onto a rather wide street.

It was flooded with the violet Troyon light, crowded with hurrying Marinians. It was my first glimpse of the life of a city of Marinia, and, truthfully, I was less than delighted. The people seemed dingy, roughly clad; I saw a number of scarlet-clothed sea-police moving purposefully through the crowd; the voices seemed coarse and loud. And the buildings which rose a few dozen feet to support the next level above were shabbier than I had imagined.

Of course, it was not Marinia itself which was at fault. Even then, before I had seen any of the broad, beautiful residential levels, or the sweeping concourses of the administration section, I realized that this could not be typical. Level 9 was at the no-man’s-land between the factory and shipping levels beneath, and the office and residential levels above; it had all the worst features of its neighbors above and below.

It seemed to me that Faulkner’s office was located in an unsavory neighborhood.

Still—Faulkner was my uncle’s lawyer. I stopped a red-tunic policeman and got directions to W-17, S-149.

It turned out to be a door in a dingy office building, with a long flight of steps leading up.

At the head of the steps, I emerged into a dark, low- ceilinged room, smelling of dust and stale air. Beneath the single Troyon tube, two grimy chairs and a battered desk were all the room held.

A huge man leaned back in a chair behind the desk.

His feet were propped on the desk, his gnarled hands clasped behind his shaggy head. His mouth hung open, showing yellowed teeth; the dark face was scarred and pocked.

He was snoring loudly.

I coughed. “Good afternoon,” I said.

The man in the chair snorted, dropped his feet to the floor and blinked at me. “Eh?” he said thickly. Then his eyes cleared; he looked at me with more comprehension.

“What do you want?” he said sullenly.

“I’d like to see Mr. Wallace Faulkner,” I told him.

The big man shook his head. “Ain’t in.”

“When do you expect him?”

“Dunno. Won’t be back today.”

I hesitated. I could do nothing until I saw this Faulkner, that was certain; and I most urgently wanted to ask him about what Hallam Sperry had told me on the
Isle of Spain.
I said:

“It’s very important that I see him. Where can I find him now?”

The big man glowered at me. “Come back tomorrow,” he said. “Who are you?”

“James Eden,” I said.

I thought the big man’s eyes widened. But all he said was, “I’ll tell him.”

I started to leave. I was beginning to dislike all of this: the man, the filthy, miserable office, my impression of Faulkner formed from his letters and radios.

But I had to face the affair sooner or later. I tried once more: “Sir, I
must
see Mr. Faulkner. Isn’t there any possible way I can reach him today?”

The big man snarled, “I told you
no.
Come back tomorrow. First thing in the morning—you hear me?”

There was nothing to do but leave—especially since he slammed his feet down on the desk again, tilted back and seemed ready to get back to his interrupted sleep.

I let myself out the office door and started down the stairs.

Halfway down I stopped. I thought I heard the big man calling my name.

I stood there for a moment, listening. It came again, clearly, not so much as though I were being called as though the man were saying it emphatically to someone else; my name, clearly enough to recognize unmistakably, then a pause and a mumble of other words.

I went back up the stairs.

At the door I heard a final mumble: “—Eden. See you in the morning.” And then the sound of a telephone handpiece being slammed down on its cradle. I waited, but there was no other sound, until a moment later I began to hear the big man’s regular breathing.

He had gone to sleep—but he had phoned someone first. About me.

No, I didn’t like this at all…

Still, I told myself, things could be worse.

If I couldn’t see Faulkner until the next morning, that meant I had almost a whole day to spend at whatever I wished. I could, for instance, look around Thetis, see all the wonders of the capital of Marinia at first hand.

My mood of depression began to lift. I stopped a scarlet-clad sea-policeman and asked him to recommend a hotel. He mentioned several, told me how to reach them, where to find a phone to make reservations.

The phone was in a drinking place, it turned out; the customers seemed mostly to be the same rough characters that were shouldering their way along the street. I didn’t have to drink with them, though, after all: I found the pay telephone, located a coin and called the first hotel the policeman had suggested.

The clerk was brisk and polite. They had a room; they would hold it for me; they would expect me in an hour, as soon as I had picked up my bags.

Things were beginning to look up as I put down the phone and started back to the street. I could get my bags without trouble—the customs men would have had a chance to examine them by now if they wished—and then I had the rest of the day to myself.

As I headed for the door, a tall, lean man turned away from the bar right in front of me. I stopped, but not quite quickly enough; I jarred him slightly, and a few drops spilled from his drink.

He whirled on me. “Watch it, Mac!” he growled.

“Sorry,” I said, and waited for him to step aside. But he wasn’t stepping. He carefully set his drink down on the bar and moved even closer to me.

“Think you own the place?” he demanded. “Come in here looking for trouble, is that it?”