“But my dear old chap!” exclaimed Ullward. “Relaxation is good for you!

  True, agreed Frobisher Worbeck, if one could make himself oblivious to the possibility of fiasco through the carelessness of underlings. Much as he deplored the necessity, in spite of his inclination to loiter for weeks, he felt impelled to leave—and not a minute later than that very afternoon.

  Others of the group likewise remembered important business which they had to see to, and those remaining felt it would be a shame and an imposition to send up the capsule half-empty and likewise decided to return.

  Ullward’s arguments met unyielding walls of obstinacy. Rather glumly, he went down to the capsule to bid his guests farewell. As they climbed through the port, they expressed their parting thanks:

  “Bruham, it’s been absolutely marvelous!”

  “You’ll never know how we’ve enjoyed this outing, Lamster Ullward!”

  “The air, the space, the privacy—I’ll never forget!”

  “It was the most, to say the least.”

  The port thumped into its socket. Ullward stood back, waving rather uncertainly.

  Ted Seehoe reached to press the Active button. Ullward sprang forward, pounded on the port.

  “Wait!” he bellowed. “A few things’s I’ve got to attend to! I’m coming with you!”

  “Come in, come in,” said Ullward heartily, opening the door to three of his friends: Coble and his wife, Heulia Sansom, and Coble’s young, pretty cousin Landine. “Glad to see you!”

  “Oh, come now! It’s not so marvelous as all that!”

  “Not to you, perhaps—you live here!”

  Ullward smiled. “Well, I must say I live here and still like it. Would you like to have lunch, or perhaps you’d prefer to walk around for a few minutes? I’ve just finished making a few changes, but I’m happy to say everything is in order.”

  “Can we just take a look?”

  “Of course. Come over here. Stand just so. Now—are you ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Ullward snapped the wall back.

  “Oooh!” breathed Landine. “Isn’t it beautiful!”

  “The space, the open feeling!”

  “Look, a tree! What a wonderful simulation!”

  “That’s no simulation,” said Ullward. “That’s a genuine tree!”

  “Lamster Ullward, are you telling the truth?”

  “I certainly am. I never tell lies to a lovely young lady. Come along, over this way.”

  “Lamster Ullward, that cliff is so convincing, it frightens me.” Ullward grinned. “It’s a good job.” He signaled a halt. “Now—turn around.”

  The group turned. They looked out across a great golden savannah, dotted with groves of blue-green trees. A rustic lodge commanded the view, the door being the opening into Ullward’s living room.

  The group stood in silent admiration. Then Heulia sighed. “Space. Pure space.”

  Ullward smiled, a trifle wistfully. “Glad you like my little retreat. Now what about lunch? Genuine algae!”

  THE GIFT OF GAB

  Middle afternoon had come to the Shallows; the wind had died; the sea was listless and spread with silken gloss. In the south a black broom of rain hung under the clouds; elsewhere the air was thick with pink murk. Thick crusts of seaweed floated over the Shallows; one of these supported the Bio-Minerals raft, a metal rectangle two hundred feet long, a hundred feet wide.

  At four o’clock an air horn high on the mast announced the change of shift. Sam Fletcher, assistant superintendent, came out of the mess hall, crossed the deck to the office, slid back the door, looked in. Where Carl Raight usually sat, filling out his production report, the chair was empty. Fletcher looked over his shoulder, down the deck toward the processing house, but Raight was nowhere in sight. Strange. Fletcher crossed the office, checked the day’s tonnage:

  Rhodium trichloride -- 4.01

  Tantalum sulfide -- 0.87

  Tripyridyl rhenichloride -- 0.43

  The gross tonnage, by Fletcher’s calculations, came to 5.31 — an average shift. He still led Raight in the Pinch-bottle Sweepstakes. Tomorrow was the end of the month; Fletcher could hardly fail to make off with Raight’s Haig & Haig. Anticipating Raight’s protests and complaints, Fletcher smiled and whistled through his teeth. He felt cheerful and confident. Another month would bring to an end his six-months contract; then it was back to Starholme with six months pay to his credit.

  Where in thunder was Raight? Fletcher looked out the window. In his range of vision was the helicopter — guyed to the deck against the Sabrian line-squalls — the mast, the black hump of the generator, the water tank, and at the far end of the raft, the pulverizers, the leaching vats, the Tswett columns, and the storage bins.

  A dark shape filled the door. Fletcher turned, but it was Agostino, the day-shift operator, who had just now been relieved by Blue Murphy, Fletcher’s operator.

  “Where’s Raight?” asked Fletcher.

  Agostino looked around the office. “I thought he was in here.”

  “I thought he was over in the works.”

  “No, I just came from there.”

  Fletcher crossed the room, looked into the washroom. “Wrong again.”

  Agostino turned away. “I’m going up for a shower.” He looked back from the door. “We’re low on barnacles.”

  “I’ll send out the barge.” Fletcher followed Agostino out on deck, headed for the processing house.

  He passed the dock where the barges were tied up, entered the pulverizing room. The No. 1 Rotary was grinding barnacles for tantalum; the No. 2 was pulverizing rhenium-rich sea-slugs. The ball mill waited for a load of coral, orange-pink with nodules of rhodium salts.

  Blue Murphy, who had a red face and a meager fringe of red hair, was making a routine check of bearings, shafts, chains, journals, valves and gauges. Fletcher called in his ear to be heard over the noise of the crushers, “Has Raight come through?”

  Murphy shook his head.

  Fletcher went on, into the leaching chamber where the first separation of salts from pulp was effected, through the forest of Tswett tubes, and once more out upon the deck. No Raight. He must have gone on ahead to the office.

  But the office was empty.

  Fletcher continued around to the mess hall. Agostino was busy with a bowl of chili. Dave Jones, the hatchet-faced steward, stood in the doorway to the galley.

  “Raight been here?” asked Fletcher.

  Jones, who never used two words when one would do, gave his head a morose shake. Agostino looked around. “Did you check the barnacle barge? He might have gone out to the shelves.”

  Fletcher looked puzzled. “What’s wrong with Mahlberg?”

  “He’s putting new teeth on the drag-line bucket.”

  Fletcher tried to recall the line-up of barges along the dock. If Mahlberg, the barge-tender, had been busy with repairs, Raight might well have gone out himself. Fletcher drew himself a cup of coffee. “That’s where he must be.” He sat down. “It’s not like Raight to put in free overtime.”

  Mahlberg came into the mess hall. “Where’s Carl? I want to order some more teeth for the bucket.”

  “He’s gone fishing,” said Agostino.

  Mahlberg laughed at the joke. “Catch himself a nice wire eel maybe. Or a dekabrach.”

  Dave Jones grunted. “He’ll cook it himself.”

  “Seems like a dekabrach should make good eatin’,” said Mahlberg, “close as they are to a seal.”

  “Who likes seal?” growled Jones.

  “I’d say they’re more like mermaids,” Agostino remarked, “with ten-armed starfish for heads.”

  Fletcher put down his cup. “I wonder what time Raight left?”

  Mahlberg shrugged; Agostino looked blank.

  “It’s only an hour out to the shelves. He ought to be back by now.”

  “He might have had a breakdown,” said Mahlberg. “Although the barge has been running good.”

  Fletcher rose to his feet. “I’ll give him a call.” He left the mess hall, returned to the office, where he dialled T3 on the intercom screen — the signal for the barnacle barge.

  The screen remained blank.

  Fletcher waited. The neon bulb pulsed off and on, indicating the call of the alarm on the barge.

  No reply.

  Fletcher felt a vague disturbance. He left the office, went to the mast, rode up the man-lift to the cupola. From here he could overlook the half-acre of raft, the five-acre crust of seaweed and a great circle of ocean.

  In the far northeast distance, up near the edge of the Shallows, the new Pelagic Recoveries raft showed as a small dark spot, almost smeared from sight by the haze. To the south, where the Equatorial Current raced through a gap in the Shallows, the barnacle shelves were strung out in a long loose line. To the north, where the Macpherson Ridge, rising from the Deeps, came within thirty feet of breaking the surface, aluminum piles supported the sea-slug traps. Here and there floated masses of seaweed, sometimes anchored to the bottom, sometimes maintained in place by action of the currents.

  Fletcher turned his binoculars along the line of barnacle shelves, spotted the barge immediately. He steadied his arms, screwed up the magnification, focused on the control cabin. He saw no one, although he could not hold the binoculars steady enough to make sure.

  Fletcher scrutinized the rest of the barge.

  Where was Carl Raight? Possibly in the control cabin, out of sight.

  Fletcher descended to the deck, went around to the processing house, looked in. “Hey, Blue!”

  Murphy appeared, wiping his big red hands on a rag.

  “I’m taking the launch out to the shelves,” said Fletcher. “The barge is out there, but Raight doesn’t answer the screen.”

  Murphy shook his big bald head in puzzlement. He accompanied Fletcher to the dock, where the launch floated at moorings. Fletcher heaved at the painter, swung in the stern of the launch, jumped down on the deck.

  Murphy called down to him, “Want me to come along? I’ll get Hans to watch the works.” Hans Heinz was the engineer–mechanic.

  Fletcher hesitated. “I don’t think so. If anything’s happened to Raight — well, I can manage. Just keep an eye on the screen. I might call back in.”

  He stepped into the cockpit, seated himself, closed the dome over his head, started the pump.

  The launch rolled and bounced, picked up speed, shoved its blunt nose under the surface, submerged till only the dome was clear.

  Fletcher disengaged the pump; water rammed in through the nose, converted to steam, spat aft.

  Bio-Minerals became a gray blot in the pink haze, while the outlines of the barge and the shelves became hard and distinct, and gradually grew large. Fletcher de-staged the power; the launch surfaced, coasted up to the dark hull, grappled with magnetic balls that allowed barge and launch to surge independently on the slow swells.

  Fletcher slid back the dome, jumped up to the deck.

  “Raight! Hey, Carl!”

  There was no answer.

  Fletcher looked up and down the deck. Raight was a big man, strong and active — but there might have been an accident. Fletcher walked down the deck toward the control cabin. He passed the No. 1 hold, heaped with black-green barnacles. At the No. 2 hold the boom was winged out, with the grab engaged on a shelf, ready to hoist it clear of the water.

  The No. 3 hold was still unladen. The control cabin was empty.

  Carl Raight was nowhere aboard the barge.

  He might have been taken off by helicopter or launch, or he might have fallen over the side. Fletcher made a slow check of the dark water in all directions. He suddenly leaned over the side, trying to see through the surface reflections. But the pale shape under the water was a dekabrach, long as a man, sleek as satin, moving quietly about its business.

  Fletcher looked thoughtfully to the northeast, where the Pelagic Recoveries raft floated behind a curtain of pink murk. It was a new venture, only three months old, owned and operated by Ted Chrystal, former biochemist on the Bio-Minerals raft. The Sabrian Ocean was inexhaustible; the market for metal was insatiable; the two rafts were in no sense competitors. By no stretch of imagination could Fletcher conceive Chrystal or his men attacking Carl Raight.

  He must have fallen overboard.

  Fletcher returned to the control cabin, climbed the ladder to the flying bridge on top. He made a last check of the water around the barge, although he knew it to be a useless gesture — the current, moving through the gap at a steady two knots, would have swept Raight’s body out over the Deeps. Fletcher scanned the horizon. The line of shelves dwindled away into the pink gloom. The mast on the Bio-Minerals raft marked the sky to the northwest. The Pelagic Recoveries raft could not be seen. There was no living creature in sight.

  The screen signal sounded from the cabin. Fletcher went inside. Blue Murphy was calling from the raft. “What’s the news?”

  “None whatever,” said Fletcher.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Raight’s not out here.”

  The big red face creased. “Just who is out there?”

  “Nobody. It looks like Raight fell over the side.”

  Murphy whistled. There seemed nothing to say. Finally he asked, “Any idea how it happened?”

  Fletcher shook his head. “I can’t figure it out.”

  Murphy licked his lips. “Maybe we ought to close down.”

  “Why?” asked Fletcher.

  “Well — reverence to the dead, you might say.”

  Fletcher grinned crookedly. “We might as well keep running.”

  “Just as you like. But we’re low on the barnacles.”

  “Carl loaded a hold and a half —” Fletcher hesitated, heaved a deep sigh. “I might as well shake in a few more shelves.”

  Murphy winced. “It’s a squeamish business, Sam. You haven’t a nerve in your body.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference to Carl now,” said Fletcher. “We’ve got to scrape barnacles sometime. There’s nothing to be gained by moping.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Murphy dubiously.

  “I’ll be back in a couple hours.”

  “Don’t go overboard like Raight now.”

  The screen went blank. Fletcher reflected that he was in charge, superintendent of the raft, until the arrival of the new crew, a month away. Responsibility, which he did not particularly want, was his.

  He went slowly back out on deck, climbed into the winch pulpit. For an hour he pulled sections of shelves from the sea, suspended them over the hold while scraper arms wiped off the black-green clusters, then slid the shelves back into the ocean. Here was where Raight had been working just before his disappearance. How could he have fallen overboard from the winch pulpit?

  Uneasiness inched along Fletcher’s nerves, up into his brain. He shut down the winch, climbed down from the pulpit. He stopped short, staring at the rope on the deck.

  It was a strange rope — glistening, translucent, an inch thick. It lay in a loose loop on the deck, and one end led over the side. Fletcher started down, then hesitated. Rope? Certainly none of the barge’s equipment.

  Careful, thought Fletcher.

  A hand-scraper hung on the king-post, a tool like a small adze. It was used for manual scraping of the shelves, if for some reason the automatic scrapers failed. It was two steps distant, across the rope. Fletcher stepped down to the deck. The rope quivered; the loop contracted, snapped around Fletcher’s ankles.

  Fletcher lunged, caught hold of the scraper. The rope gave a cruel jerk; Fletcher sprawled flat on his face, and the scraper jarred out of his hands. He kicked, struggled, but the rope drew him easily toward the gunwale. Fletcher made a convulsive grab for the scraper, barely reached it. The rope was lifting his ankles, to pull him over the rail. Fletcher strained forward, hacked, again and again. The rope sagged, fell apart, snaked over the side.

  Fletcher gained his feet, staggered to the rail. Down into the water slid the rope, out of sight among the oily reflections of the sky. Then, for half a second, a wave-front held itself perpendicular to Fletcher’s line of vision. Three feet under the surface swam a dekabrach. Fletcher saw the pink-golden cluster of arms, radiating like the arms of a starfish, the black patch at their core which might be an eye.

  Fletcher drew back from the gunwale, puzzled, frightened, oppressed by the nearness of death. He cursed his stupidity, his reckless carelessness; how could he have been so undiscerning as to remain out here loading the barge? It was clear from the first that Raight had never died by accident. Something had killed Raight, and Fletcher had invited it to kill him too. He limped to the control cabin, started the pumps. Water sucked in through the bow orifice, thrust out through the vents. The barge moved out away from the shelves; Fletcher set the course to northwest, toward Bio-Minerals, then went out on deck.

  Day was almost at an end; the sky was darkening to maroon; the gloom grew thick as bloody water. Geideon, a dull red giant, largest of Sabria’s two suns, dropped out of the sky. For a few minutes only the light from blue-green Atreus played on the clouds. The gloom changed its quality to pale green, which by some illusion seemed brighter than the previous pink. Atreus sank and the sky went dark.

  Ahead shone the Bio-Minerals mast-head light, climbing into the sky as the barge approached. Fletcher saw the black shapes of men outlined against the glow. The entire crew was waiting for him: the two operators, Agostino and Murphy, Mahlberg the barge-tender, Damon the biochemist, Dave Jones the steward, Manners the technician, Hans Heinz the engineer.

  Fletcher docked the barge, climbed the soft stairs hacked from the wadded seaweed, stopped in front of the silent men. He looked from face to face. Waiting on the raft they had felt the strangeness of Raight’s death more vividly than he had; so much showed in their expressions.

  Fletcher, answering the unspoken question, said, “It wasn’t an accident. I know what happened.”

  “What?” someone asked.

  “There’s a thing like a white rope,” said Fletcher. “It slides up out of the sea. If a man comes near it, it snaps around his leg and pulls him overboard.”