The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories (17 page)

Six times the sequence was repeated. Then, when Magnus Ridolph opened the gate, there was no rush of fish. He reached down, removed the rag, sat peering with an innocent eye up the chute.

A foreman presently bustled forward. “What’s the trouble? What’s wrong up here?”

“The fish evidently have learned the danger of the chute,” said Magnus Ridolph. The foreman gave him a scornful glance. “Keep working the gate.” He turned away.

Ten minutes later, when Magnus Ridolph opened the gate, fish poured down the chute as before. The foreman came to watch a moment, assured himself that the fish were running as usual, then departed. Magnus Ridolph replaced the rag in the side-passage. Six operations later the opened gate again drew blank. Magnus Ridolph immediately pulled out the rag.

The foreman came on the run. Magnus Ridolph shook his head ruefully, framed an apologetic smile behind his beard.

“We can’t have this—we can’t
have
this!” bawled the foreman. “What’s going on here?”

He ran off, came back with a rock-eyed Donnels.

Donnels peered down the chute, felt into the side escape. He drew back, straightened, glanced sharply at Magnus Ridolph, who blandly returned the gaze.

“Throw another unit into the tank,” said Donnels to the foreman. “Keep an eye on ’em. See what’s happening.”

“Yes, sir.” The foreman hurried off.

Donnels turned to Magnus Ridolph, his long yellow face set hard, his mouth pulled far down at the corners.

“You come out on the last ship?”

“Why, yes,” said Magnus Ridolph. “A dismal voyage. The quarters were cramped, the food was miserable.”

The thin mouth quivered. “Where did you sign up?”

“On Rhodope. I remember it perfectly, it was—”

“Fine, fine,” said Donnels. After a short pause: “You look like a pretty smart man.”

“Ahr, ahem,” said Magnus Ridolph. “Are you suggesting a promotion? I’d be delighted to have a more responsible position, something clerical perhaps.”

“If you’re smart,” said Donnels in an edged even tone, “you’ll keep your mind on your work—and
nothing
else.”

“Just as you say,” said Magnus Ridolph with dignity.

The foreman returned. Donnels signaled Magnus Ridolph to raise the gate and fish once more flushed the chute.

Donnels stood close at hand for twenty minutes and the foreman remained ten minutes after Donnels had stalked away.

The rest of the shift Magnus Ridolph performed his duties well and skillfully—though by way of diversion he found it amusing to reach down and cuff the Judas fish as it passed, until at last the fish learned to keep to the far side of the chute. Magnus Ridolph could pursue his sport only with inconvenient exertion and so desisted.

Magnus Ridolph sat on the clammy bench before the bunkhouse, looking out over the landscape. There was little to see. Low in the sky hung the giant red sun, fitfully obscured by the shifting vapors. Ahead stretched the mud-flats and the leaden ocean, to his left rose the cannery and the warehouse. To his right the laboratory was visible, two hundred yards down the gravel path.

Magnus Ridolph reached for a cigar, then remembered that he had packed none in his meager luggage—and the brand sold at the commissary offended rather than soothed his palate.

Movement at the laboratory. Magnus Ridolph sat straighter on the bench. Donnels and Naile emerged, followed by two Capellan laborers, carrying the diving-suit.

Magnus Ridolph pursed his lips. Evidently the absence of the seam-sealer had not been discovered.

He watched impassively as the party turned toward the cannery wharf—Donnels darted him a long level stare as he strode by.

As soon as the group had passed Magnus Ridolph rose, jauntily set off down the path toward the laboratory. He found the door unlocked and, entering, turned directly to the wall which had been out of his vision when he stood at the window.

Tanks lined the wall, tanks full of fish—sardines. Some swam placidly to and fro, others hung close to the glass, staring out with intent eyes. Magnus Ridolph became aware of differences.

Some had monstrous tails, lizard-like heads. Others resembled tadpoles, with rudimentary fins and tail barely moving hyper-developed crania. Eyes bulged at Magnus Ridolph—eyes like bubbles, eyes flame red, eyes coal-pit black. One fish trailed a bridal-train of fins, another wore an antler-like head-growth.

Magnus Ridolph surveyed the array without emotion. He had seen like sights in other biological laboratories, freak distortions of every description. In the infamous clinic on the planet Pandora—Magnus Ridolph returned to the case at hand, sought a fish in a tank by himself—“the wise one.”

There he was, at the far end—a fish normal except for a slightly enlarged head.

“Well, well,” said Magnus Ridolph. “Well, well.” He bent forward, peered into the tank and the sardine, eyes unwinking, expressionless, stared back. Magnus Ridolph turned, sought around the room. There—the twenty charts comprising the
Barnett Method for Establishing Communication with Alien Intelligences
.

Magnus Ridolph fanned out the master chart before the tank, and the fish pressed closer to the glass.

“Opening communication,” Magnus Ridolph signaled and waited. The fish plunged to the bottom of the tank, returned with a bit of metal in its mouth. It tapped on the glass—once, twice, once.

Magnus Ridolph had no need to refer to the chart. “Proceed,” was the message.

He bent over the chart, selected the symbols with care, pausing frequently to assure himself that the fish was following him.

“Instructor-man…of you…desire…utilize…you…purpose…injury…class of you. I…know (negative)…method.”

The fish tapped on the glass: 5—3—5, 4—3—2. 5—6—1, 2—6—3—4.

Magnus Ridolph followed the code on the chart. “Class of me…exists…place (indefinite, interrogative)?”

Magnus Ridolph signaled back. “Large (emphatic)…extension…water…exists…exterior. Plurality (emphatic)…class of you…exists. Class of instructor-man…kill…class of you…eat…class of you.”

“Purpose (interrogative)…of you?” was the fish’s pointed signal.

“Complex mixture,” signaled Magnus Ridolph. “Constructive. You…desire (interrogative)…depart…tank…converge…plurality…class of you?”

The fish rattled his bit of metal indecisively. “Food?”

“Plurality,” returned Magnus Ridolph. “Swim…extension (emphatic)…barriers (negative).”

The fish twitched his fins, retired to a dark corner. Presently, as Magnus Ridolph was becoming restive, the fish swam out in front once more, tapped twice on the glass.

Magnus Ridolph sought around the laboratory, found a bucket. He dipped it into the tank, but the fish nervously skittered out of reach. Magnus Ridolph scooped him out willy-nilly and, stuffing the Barnett charts into his pocket, he left the laboratory.

Briskly he traversed the path, turned toward the wharf. Now he spied Donnels and Naile coming toward him, lines dividing Donnels’ yellow face into hard segments. Magnus Ridolph prudently set the bucket beside the bunkhouse, and was placidly seated on the bench when Donnels and Naile passed.

“—slider was there and working last night, I’m sure,” Magnus Ridolph heard Naile say. Donnels shook his head curtly.

As soon as they had passed Magnus Ridolph took the bucket, continued toward the wharf.

The diving-suit stood at the edge of the pier, ready for use—except for the missing seam-sealer. The Capellan laborers stood dully nearby, watching without interest.

Magnus Ridolph rubbed his chin. Suit—seam-sealer—why not? He changed his mind about throwing the fish into the ocean; instead he approached the suit, looked it over carefully. Two dials on the breastplate; one controlled the drive-unit, the other the air generator. Simplicity itself.

He fitted the seam-sealer into place and, with a side-glance at the two Capellans, stepped into the suit, slid the seam-sealer home. The Capellans shifted uneasily, brains roiling at a sight which they knew to be unnatural—and yet which they had no orders to prevent. As an afterthought Magnus Ridolph unsealed the suit, transferred the Barnett charts to the exterior pouch, sealed himself into the suit once more.

At his belt hung a knife, an axe, a flash-lamp. Another lamp was set at the top of the transparent head-dome. He reached to the breastplate, assured himself that the dials moved easily, set the air-generator in operation.

He looked over his shoulder. Motion near the laboratory. He floated the bucket on the sluggish water, lurched off the dock. A last glimpse of the rear showed him George Donnels running in his direction, face twisted in a contortion of rage. Behind him scampered Naile, white smock flapping.

Magnus Ridolph tapped the side of the bucket, unsure of the code, hoping for the best. “Swim…proximity…me.” Then he overturned the bucket. The fish darted out, away. Magnus Ridolph himself sank under the surface.

He twisted the propulsion dial. Water was sucked into the unit, spewed astern. Magnus Ridolph drove headlong through the water. And something tore hissing past the head-dome, made a vague clap in his ears.

Magnus Ridolph wrenched at the dial, and the water buffeted his suit.

Two or three minutes later he slowed, rose to the surface. The wharf was a quarter-mile to the rear and he could see Donnels’ taut frame searching across the water. Magnus Ridolph chuckled.

The point of land with the three tall trees sloped into the ocean at his left. Turning on his head-lamp, fixing the direction by a compass set in the rim of the dome, he submerged, drove forward.

The water was emerald-green, clearer than it seemed from the surface. He swam into a gigantic underwater forest—sea-trees with delicate silver fronds pinned to the bottom by the slenderest of stalks, sea-vines rising straight as pencils of light from the depths, with shining globes spaced along the stalks.

These might not be true plants, thought Magnus Ridolph, but possibly groups of polyps like the anemones of Earth. And, recalling the sting of the Portuguese man-of-war, he gave the sea-vines a wide berth.

Everywhere swam sardines, shoal upon shoal, sardines by the millions, and the light in the head-dome glinted on the flitting silver sides like moonlight along a wind-ruffled lake.

Magnus Ridolph looked about to see if possibly the fish he had liberated were near. If so he was indistinguishable among his fellows.

On he drove, suspended between the mirroring under-surface and the gloom of the depths, past shoulders of quiet mud, across sudden deeps, threading the groves of the sea-trees.

He rose once more to the surface, adjusted his course. The cannery was a ramshackle huddle far back along the gray shore. He submerged, continued.

A white wall glimmered ahead. He veered, slowed and saw the barrier to be a submarine dike, a rampart of felsite or quartzite, striding mightily across the ocean floor. He drifted close to the wall, rose to the top face—a flat course of rock fifteen feet below the surface.

Magnus Ridolph floated quietly, considering. This was approximately where Donnels had blasted, possibly a little further out to sea. He turned, swam slowly through the lime-green water, just above the flat white rock-face. He halted, floated motionless.

Below him several-score bubbles clung to the stone, large globes arrayed in ordered rows. They seemed flexible, swayed slightly to random currents. Within, Magnus Ridolph glimpsed small intricate objects and a lurid flickering light came from several.

Magnus Ridolph suddenly became aware of the press of fish, thicker than anything he had seen to date. They were pushing slowly in upon him and now, noting the hyper-developed crania, the bulging eyes, the careful purposive movements, Magnus Ridolph felt that he knew a great deal about the Chandaria cannery.

He also experienced a sense of uneasiness. Why were several of the fish nudging a weighted bubble in his direction?

He whipped out the Barnett charts, found number one, gesticulated to the sequence which conveyed the notion of friendly intent.

Several of the fish darted close, followed his motions carefully. One of them—no different, so far as Magnus Ridolph could tell, from the multitude—came close, tapped on his head-dome.

1—2—1—“opening communication.”

Magnus Ridolph sighed, relaxed in the diving-suit, indicated symbols on the charts.

“I…come…purpose…help…class of you.”

“Doubt….Class of you…destructive (interrogative)?”

“Class of me…in building…friends (negative) of me. I…constructive….Friend…class of you.”

“Class of you…purpose…kill…class of us.”

Magnus Ridolph struggled with the elemental concepts. Valuable as the charts were, conveying an exact sense was like repairing a watch with a pipe-wrench.

“Complex…thought….Class of me…carry…you…this place….Construct…thinking…of you…stronger.”

A sudden small movement flurried through the throng, silver sides twinkled. Magnus Ridolph listened—the hum of a propeller. He rose to the surface. Not a hundred yards distant was the rowboat, propelled by an outboard motor. The man in the boat sighted Magnus Ridolph, swerved. In one hand he carried a long tube with a shoulder stock. Magnus Ridolph submerged quickly.