The Watch Below (25 page)

you
to say about this?"
Dasdahar looked helplessly at Heglenni and prepared to give the softest
answer possible.
"We don't know why the gas-breathers became suspicious of us, sir,"
he said quickly, "but they did, and quite suddenly became uncooperative.
We were in the process of obtaining some very useful information and we
took the decision to tell them -- "
"I took the decision," said Heglenni sharply. "The fault is entirely mine."
". . . And we took the decision to tell them the whole truth," Dasdahar
went on. "Of necessity this included much background information on Untha,
the numbers, composition, and inherently non-warlike nature of the fleet.
Their response to this was guarded, and they requested more detailed
information. They were particularly interested in the problems met with on
the flagship after the Untha-trained personnel had gone into Cold Sleep --
"
"Anyone with half a brain," Heglenni put in, "could understand why."
". . . And now," continued the communications officer quickly, while his
eyes pleaded with Heglenni to shut up and not make things more difficult
for them, "they have refused to supply any further data about themselves
or their race until we agree to certain conditions. One of them is that
you, sir, speak with and if possible meet the gas-breather Wah-Lass -- "
"No!"
There was a short silence while Heglenni and Dasdahar stared at each other
-- a hulking, good-natured male who had actually lived on the home world
and a sleek, hard female who was nearly always angry and who did not quite
believe in the existence of the world on which the other had lived.
Then suddenly Gunt was speaking again.
"I do not want to speak to the being Wah-Lass for a reason I will shortly
make clear," he said. "Our position here is steadily worsening. More and
more reports are coming in of the enemy's depth-bombing their inshore
wrecks to keep us from using them as observation posts. As you know,
the flagship has been sheltering beside the metal of one of the sunken
enemy capital ships, so that our turn must soon come. Consequently
we must complete our data on the enemy life-form for earliest possible
transmission to the fleet. You will therefore kill the five gas-breathing
specimens, making sure that they are not damaged unnecessarily in the
process, and transfer them without delay to the flagship so that we can
fill the gaps in our knowledge of their physiology."
"No," said Heglenni.
"Is this necessary, sir?" said Dasdahar.
"Unfortunately yes," replied the captain. "I realize that both of you
have formed a slight emotional attachment for these beings, that you
have the highest admiration for their ability to survive, and that you
advocate placing them on the surface to be rescued by their friends. But
they are now in possession of much vital information about us, and if the
enemy realized that we were
not
a war fleet, they would be less cautious
while hunting us and our casualties would be immeasurably greater. I dislike
this step as much as you do, but this is war.
"I understand both your feelings," Gunt went on, "and I will overlook your
mishandling of the matter as well as your present insubordination. It could
also be argued that the specimens would have died anyway if you hadn't
discovered them, so you can allay your consciences with the knowledge
that -- "
"I won't do it!" said Heglenni angrily.
"Neither," said Dasdahar respectfully, "will I."
The verbal explosion which burst from the communicator was followed
instants later by a second and greater explosion which smashed against
their bodies like some tremendous hammer, obliterating from their minds
all thoughts of gas-breathers and insubordination and questions of ethics
to leave only a sudden and terrible darkness.
It was a newly discovered wreck lying among rocks in a narrow inlet and
this was their first drop on the target; otherwise the drill was very much
as before. Drop the bomb, watch a large area of water turn white, try to
jump skyward, wait a few minutes for it to settle, and then look for any
unusual occurrence. Up to now there had been no unusual occurrences .
"God!" said the navigator-bombardier.
"Choppers, para-meds, hover-boats!" the pilot yelled suddenly on the
emergency frequency. "Get them here fast! There's people down there,
survivors of some kind, floating up! They're in some kind of plastic
bag. Some of them . . . I think some of them are still moving!"
XXIV
There were no longer any pockets of gas trapped inside the wreck of Gulf
Trader, since the shock of the explosion had opened very nearly every
seam in her hull, but there was still life. Heglenni and her companion
belonged to a species tough both in mind and body, and the compression
effects of the depth bomb had been nullified to a certain extent by the
compartmented structure of the vessel, not to mention the pockets of
gas it had contained, which had also helped absorb the shock wave. But
the water around the ship lightened and darkened several times before
Heglenni was anything like fully conscious, and many more days would pass
before her companion would be able to speak properly and move without
swimming into things. They were both in considerable pain.
The communicator was undamaged, but subsiding wreckage had cut the line to
the outside. As quickly as possible -- the heat beams could not be used
at full strength in the confined space without their boiling themselves
alive -- Heglenni cut her way through the roof of what had been Number
Ten tank and through to the weather deck. From the opening she could see
into the tiny section of corridor and the two small compartments where
the gas-breathers had lived before she had extended their quarters. They
had been most grateful for the extra living space and Heglenni had been
doubly pleased because the transparent bubble had greatly eased the problems
of communication. Now all that remained of the extension was a semicircle
of hardened sealing compound projecting outwards onto the weather deck to
which there adhered tatters of slowly waving plastic. The explosion must
have ripped it to shreds and Wah-Lass, and the others, too, of course,
with it.
Heglenni felt welling up inside her a pain which had nothing whatever
to do with her many physical injuries, a pain which was a combination
of anger and sorrow and helplessness at the inevitability of things.
Self-preservation, the survival of one's self or one's race, was the prime
law. Another law was that enemies must be destroyed. Even the enemies
themselves agreed on this. But Heglenni had not only been unwilling, she
had been unable to kill the gas-breathers in the wreck, and her feelings
in the matter had gradually been transmitted to the communications officer.
Basically it was a feeling of rebellion against natural and inevitable
laws, reinforced by the strange but true fact that Heglenni felt much
more understanding and affection for the grotesque, spindly gas-breather
Wah-Lass than she did for Captain Gunt. When she looked at the captain
she saw a fat, self-confident, highly efficient Unthan who was inclined to
be patronizing, when he wasn't being impatient, about her background and
manners. But when she looked at Wah-Lass she scarcely saw the gas-breather
at all.
Instead she saw a composite picture of the flagship and the face of her
father, Deslann Five; and the blind, ravaged features of Hellseggorn
of the food ship; and the shadowy faces of all the captains stretching
back to the first Deslann. In the picture, too, was the conflict between
the Young People and the Seniors, the generations-long war with the
food ship, and the over-all suffering which had come in the wake of
too much inbreeding and cramped, unnatural surroundings. The technical
aptitude which made it possible to survive physically in such hostile
surroundings formed only a very small part of the picture in comparison
with the sheer, dogged courage and mental discipline which had kept
them both going for generation after generation. The flagship had had a
purpose in the shape of the target planet and journey's end to give them
stability and direction, but the gas-breathers in their wreck had had
nothing but the will to survive and to remain as civilized as possible
while they were doing it.
Heglenni was glad that it had been their own kind who had killed the
gas-breathers. She could not, and would not, have done it.
Moving a short distance from the wreck she found the communications cable
and spliced it into the severed lead from the set. She was about to put
in a call, wondering if the flagship was at the other end of the line
or just another depth-bombed wreck, when there was a sudden disturbance
on the surface.
It was a slow-moving area of highly agitated water characteristic of
the enemy hover-boats, probably the only kind which could pass over the
submerged rocks with safety. The patch of disturbed water slowed and
came to a stop almost directly overhead. A large metal object broke
through the surface and began to slip down towards her, and Heglenni
had a moment of the most horrible kind of fear followed by an angry
fatalism. Then she noticed that there was a line attached to the object
and stopping it short of the sea bottom, and that it was making loud,
distorted, but intelligible noises.
"Captain Heglenni, Captain Gunt, Communicator Dasdahar. Any Unthan
person who is in contact with your flagship," it boomed in the slow,
labored, and unmistakable accents of the gas-breather Wah-Lass. "This
is a recording of my words, since I am still under the care of the
healers, but I can assure you with all truth that my superiors wish
for peaceful contact with your race and a nonviolent solution to our
problems. A continuing war between us would, as well as bringing about
your destruction as a civilized race, so poison our oceans and our
gas envelope with radioactive material that our own species might be
lethally affected.
"Until now we had thought that our destruction of the ships in the
vanguard of your fleet had committed us irrevocably to war as the
only solution possible, but now that we know that the ships destroyed
contained only food animals, peace is still possible between us.
"The remaining units of your fleet will arrive ten days from now. We
will not oppose their landing, but urge that you signal us before then
so that we will know that you do in fact desire peace. . . ."
It was at that point that Heglenni succeeded in getting through to the
flagship. She said quickly, "Heglenni and Dasdahar here, sir. We were
injured when the gas-breathers depth-bombed their wreck. I don't know
how long exactly we have been unconscious, but there have been new
developments. Listen, sir!"
"No need, Heglenni," the captain replied, his voice distorted both by
distance and deep emotion. "They've had one of those gadgets dangling
above our heads here for the best part of a day. We are signaling them
now in the manner they have suggested and we will transmit the good news
to the rest of the fleet.
"This is the answer, Heglenni. I think there is going to be peace."
"Thousands of Unthan ships landing in all the oceans of the world,"
said the officer wearing the spectacles, "and all we could see from the
headland was what looked like three slow-moving shooting stars. It was
a bit of an anti-climax."
Smiling, the admiral said, "He's right, Surgeon Commander. You didn't
miss a thing."
Wallis looked at them without speaking. The one with the glasses was
standing almost at attention beside the bed while the older one was
lying across it with his weight propped on one elbow. Behind them were
the red walls, ceiling, and floor which had been painted to represent
rust-streaked bulkheads and the tank of tropical fish set flush with
the wall in a window frame, all designed to make him feel at home. The
real windows had been painted over and his only view of the outside
came to him via the TV, which for some odd reason did not bring on his
agoraphobia. His bed was so warm and so comfortable and so fantastically,
unbelievably dry that he did not feel at home in it at all -- it felt
more like Heaven. There were times -- the present moment, in fact --
when he did not feel in contact with his surroundings at all.
One of the doctors had told him that the feeling was nothing to worry about,
being due simply to massive doses of medication and the aftermath of double
pneumonia, severe malnutrition, exposure, decompression, and shock through
being blown to the surface by a depth charge, and that he was lucky to
be alive.
"It's a case of a big fleet landing in an enormous ocean," said the officer
with the glasses. "You know, if they'd landed three or four centuries ago
we might have put it down to a meteor shower and not even realized they
were there. Now, however, we know they are there and vice versa. Our
people are beginning to accept the idea of their being refugees rather
than an invading force. But it is an extremely tenuous image. Can we
really trust them not to -- "
"You can trust them," said Wallis sharply.
"Of course, Commander," the other said placatingly. "They're friends of yours
so you should know. But what I was going to say was can we trust them not to
boob and spoil things? Certainly we have oceans enough to spare so far as
living space goes, and they'll be able to help us farm the seas more
efficiently, thus helping relieve our food problems. There is a lot we
can learn from them about spaceship design and power plants, the Cold
Sleep they've developed, and undersea technology in general. And the
learning process will be two-way; there'll be progress in all areas of
knowledge. It wouldn't surprise me if we can go to the stars before too
long, and not by putting ourselves into cold storage for a couple of
centuries, either.
"But the point I'm trying to make," he went on excitedly, "is that there
is bound to be friction between us as well as cooperation. Their life-span,
for instance, is much shorter than ours. A couple of centuries from now
the seas may be overpopulated as well as the land. There are bound to be
incidents, accidents, where humans or Unthans are injured or killed. What
I'm getting at is that we must make the widest possible contact with
them now, so that in the future these incidents will seem less important!"