Murphy asked in a hushed voice, “You’re sure?”

  “It just about got me.”

  Damon the biochemist asked in a skeptical voice, “A live rope?”

  “I suppose it might have been alive.”

  “What else could it have been?”

  Fletcher hesitated. “I looked over the side. I saw dekabrachs. One for sure, maybe two or three others.”

  There was silence. The men looked out over the water. Murphy asked in a wondering voice, “Then the dekabrachs are the ones?”

  “I don’t know,” said Fletcher in a strained sharp voice. “A white rope, or fiber, nearly snared me. I cut it apart. When I looked over the side I saw dekabrachs.”

  The men made hushed noises of wonder and awe.

  Fletcher turned away, started toward the mess hall. The men lingered on the dock, examining the ocean, talking in subdued voices. The lights of the raft shone past them, out into the darkness. There was nothing to be seen.

  Later in the evening Fletcher climbed the stairs to the laboratory over the office, to find Eugene Damon busy at the micro-film viewer.

  Damon had a thin, long-jawed face, lank blond hair, a fanatic’s eyes. He was industrious and thorough, but he worked in the shadow of Ted Chrystal, who had quit Bio-Minerals to bring his own raft to Sabria. Chrystal was a man of great ability. He had adapted the vanadium-sequestering sea-slug of Earth to Sabrian waters; he had developed the tantalum-barnacle from a rare and sickly species into the hardy high-yield producer that it was. Damon worked twice the hours that Chrystal had put in, and while he performed his routine duties efficiently, he lacked the flair and imaginative resource which Chrystal used to leap from problem to solution without apparent steps in between.

  He looked up when Fletcher came into the lab, then applied himself once more to the micro-screen.

  Fletcher watched a moment. “What are you looking for?” he asked presently.

  Damon responded in the ponderous, slightly pedantic manner that sometimes amused, sometimes irritated Fletcher. “I’ve been searching the index to identify the long white ‘rope’ which attacked you.”

  Fletcher made a noncommittal sound, went to look at the settings on the micro-file throw-out. Damon had coded for ‘long’, ‘thin’, dimensional classification ‘E, F, G’. On these instructions, the selector, scanning the entire roster of Sabrian life forms, had pulled the cards of seven organisms.

  “Find anything?” Fletcher asked.

  “Not so far.” Damon slid another card into the viewer. ‘Sabrian Annelid, RRS-4924’, read the title, and on the screen appeared a schematic outline of a long segmented worm. The scale showed it to be about two and a half meters long.

  Fletcher shook his head. “The thing that got me was four or five times that long. And I don’t think it was segmented.”

  “That’s the most likely of the lot so far,” said Damon. He turned a quizzical glance up at Fletcher. “I imagine you’re pretty sure about this … long white marine ‘rope’?”

  Fletcher ignored him, scooped up the seven cards, dropped them back into the file, looked in the code book, reset the selector.

  Damon had the codes memorized and was able to read directly off the dials. “‘Appendages’ — ‘long’ — ‘dimensions D, E, F, G’.”

  The selector kicked three cards into the viewer.

  The first was a pale saucer which swam like a skate, trailing four long whiskers. “That’s not it,” said Fletcher.

  The second was a black, bullet-shaped water-beetle, with a posterior flagellum.

  “Not that one.”

  The third was a kind of mollusk, with a plasm based on selenium, silicon, fluorine and carbon. The shell was a hemisphere of silicon carbide, with a hump from which protruded a thin prehensile tendril.

  The creature bore the name ‘Stryzkal’s Monitor’, after Esteban Stryzkal, the famous pioneer taxonomist of Sabria.

  “That might be the guilty party,” said Fletcher.

  “It’s not mobile,” objected Damon. “Stryzkal finds it anchored to the North Shallows pegmatite dikes, in conjunction with the dekabrach colonies.”

  Fletcher was reading the descriptive material. “‘The feeler is elastic without observable limit, and apparently functions as a food-gathering, spore-disseminating, exploratory organ. The monitor typically is found near the dekabrach colonies. Symbiosis between the two life forms is not impossible.’”

  Damon looked at him questioningly. “Well?”

  “I saw some dekabrachs out along the shelves.”

  “You can’t be sure you were attacked by a monitor,” Damon said dubiously. “After all, they don’t swim.”

  “So they don’t,” said Fletcher, “according to Stryzkal.”

  Damon started to speak, then noticing Fletcher’s expression, said in a subdued voice, “Of course there’s room for error. Not even Stryzkal could work out much more than a summary of planetary life.”

  Fletcher had been reading the screen. “Here’s Chrystal’s analysis of the one he brought up.”

  They studied the elements and primary compounds of a Stryzkal Monitor’s constitution.

  “Nothing of commercial interest,” said Fletcher.

  Damon was absorbed in a personal chain of thought. “Did Chrystal actually go down and trap a monitor?”

  “That’s right. In the water-bug. He spent lots of time underwater.”

  “Everybody to their own methods,” said Damon shortly.

  Fletcher dropped the cards back in the file. “Whether you like him or not, he’s a good field man. Give the devil his due.”

  “It seems to me that the field phase is over and done with,” muttered Damon. “We’ve got the production line set up; it’s a full-time job trying to increase the yield. Of course I may be wrong.”

  Fletcher laughed, slapped Damon on the skinny shoulder. “I’m not finding fault, Gene. The plain fact is that there’s too many avenues for one man to explore. We could keep four men busy.”

  “Four men?” said Damon. “A dozen is more like it. Three different protoplasmic phases on Sabria, to the single carbon group on Earth! Even Stryzkal only scratched the surface!”

  He watched Fletcher for a while, then asked curiously: “What are you after now?”

  Fletcher was once more running through the index. “What I came in here to check. The dekabrachs.”

  Damon leaned back in his chair. “Dekabrachs? Why?”

  “There’s lots of things about Sabria we don’t know,” said Fletcher mildly. “Have you ever been down to look at a dekabrach colony?”

  Damon compressed his mouth. “No. I certainly haven’t.”

  Fletcher dialled for the dekabrach card.

  It snapped out of the file into the viewer. The screen showed Stryzkal’s original photo-drawing, which in many ways conveyed more information than the color stereos. The specimen depicted was something over six feet long, with a pale seal-like body terminating in three propulsive vanes. At the head radiated the ten arms from which the creature derived its name — flexible members eighteen inches long, surrounding the black disk which Stryzkal assumed to be an eye.

  Fletcher skimmed through the rather sketchy account of the creature’s habitat, diet, reproductive methods, and protoplasmic classification. He frowned in dissatisfaction. “There’s not much information here — considering that they’re one of the more important species. Let’s look at the anatomy.”

  The dekabrach’s skeleton was based on an anterior dome of bone with three flexible cartilaginous vertebrae, each terminating in a propulsive vane.

  The information on the card came to an end. “I thought you said Chrystal made observations on the dekabrachs,” growled Damon.

  “So he did.”

  “If he’s such a howling good field man, where’s his data?”

  Fletcher grinned. “Don’t blame me, I just work here.” He put the card through the screen again.

  Under ‘General Comments’, Stryzkal had noted, Dekabrachs appear to belong in the Sabrian Class A group, the silico-carbo-nitride phase, although they deviate in important respects. He had added a few lines of speculation regarding dekabrach relationships to other Sabrian species.

  Chrystal merely made the comment, “Checked for commercial application; no specific recommendation.”

  Fletcher made no comment.

  “How closely did he check?” asked Damon.

  “In his usual spectacular way. He went down in the water-bug, harpooned one of them, dragged it to the laboratory. Spent three days dissecting it.”

  “Precious little he’s noted here,” grumbled Damon. “If I worked three days on a new species like the dekabrachs, I could write a book.”

  They watched the information repeat itself.

  Damon stabbed out with his long bony finger. “Look! That’s been blanked over. See those black triangles in the margin? Cancellation marks!”

  Fletcher rubbed his chin. “Stranger and stranger.”

  “It’s downright mischievous,” Damon cried indignantly, “erasing material without indicating motive or correction.”

  Fletcher nodded slowly. “It looks like somebody’s going to have to consult Chrystal.” He considered. “Well — why not now?” He descended to the office, where he called the Pelagic Recoveries raft.

  Chrystal himself appeared on the screen. He was a large blond man with a blooming pink skin and an affable innocence that camouflaged the directness of his mind; his plumpness similarly disguised a powerful musculature. He greeted Fletcher with cautious heartiness. “How’s it going on Bio-Minerals? Sometimes I wish I was back with you fellows — this working on your own isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “We’ve had an accident over here,” said Fletcher. “I thought I’d better pass on a warning.”

  “Accident?” Chrystal looked anxious. “What’s happened?”

  “Carl Raight took the barge out — and never came back.”

  Chrystal was shocked. “That’s terrible! How … why —”

  “Apparently something pulled him in. I think it was a monitor mollusk — Stryzkal’s Monitor.”

  Chrystal’s pink face wrinkled in puzzlement. “A monitor? Was the barge over shallow water? But there wouldn’t be water that shallow. I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t either.”

  Chrystal twisted a cube of white metal between his fingers. “That’s certainly strange. Raight must be — dead?”

  Fletcher nodded somberly. “That’s the presumption. I’ve warned everybody here not to go out alone; I thought I’d better do the same for you.”

  “That’s decent of you, Sam.” Chrystal frowned, looked at the cube of metal, put it down. “There’s never been trouble on Sabria before.”

  “I saw dekabrachs under the barge. They might be involved somehow.”

  Chrystal looked blank. “Dekabrachs? They’re harmless enough.”

  Fletcher nodded noncommittally. “Incidentally, I tried to check on dekabrachs in the micro-library. There wasn’t much information. Quite a bit of material has been cancelled out.”

  Chrystal raised his pale eyebrows. “Why tell me?”

  “Because you might have done the cancelling.”

  Chrystal looked aggrieved. “Now why should I do something like that? I worked hard for Bio-Minerals, Sam — you know that as well as I do. Now I’m trying to make money for myself. It’s no bed of roses, I’ll tell you.” He touched the cube of white metal, then noticing Fletcher’s eyes on it, pushed it to the side of his desk, against Cosey’s Universal Handbook of Constants and Physical Relationships.

  After a pause Fletcher asked, “Well, did you or didn’t you blank out part of the dekabrach story?”

  Chrystal frowned in deep thought. “I might have cancelled one or two ideas that turned out bad — nothing very important. I have a hazy idea that I pulled them out of the bank.”

  “Just what were those ideas?” Fletcher asked in a sardonic voice.

  “I don’t remember offhand. Something about feeding habits, probably. I suspected that the deks ingested plankton, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

  “No?”

  “They browse on underwater fungus that grows on the coral banks. That’s my best guess.”

  “Is that all you cut out?”

  “I can’t think of anything more.”

  Fletcher’s eyes went back to the cube of metal. He noticed that it covered the Handbook title from the angle of the V in ‘Universal’ to the center of the O in ‘of’. “What’s that you’ve got on your desk, Chrystal? Interesting yourself in metallurgy?”

  “No, no,” said Chrystal. He picked up the cube, looked at it critically. “Just a bit of alloy. I’m checking it for resistance to reagents. Well, thanks for calling, Sam.”

  “You don’t have any personal ideas on how Raight got it?”

  Chrystal looked surprised. “Why on earth do you ask me?”

  “You know more about the dekabrachs than anyone else on Sabria.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you, Sam.”

  Fletcher nodded. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Sam.”

  Fletcher sat looking at the blank screen. Monitor mollusks — dekabrachs — the blanked micro-film. There was a drift here whose direction he could not identify. The dekabrachs seemed to be involved, and by association, Chrystal. Fletcher put no credence in Chrystal’s protestations; he suspected that Chrystal lied as a matter of policy, on almost any subject. Fletcher’s mind went to the cube of metal. Chrystal had seemed rather too casual, too quick to brush the matter aside. Fletcher brought out his own Handbook. He measured the distance between the fork of the V and the center of the O: 4.9 centimeters. Now, if the block represented a kilogram mass, as was likely with such sample blocks — Fletcher calculated. In a cube, 4.9 centimeters on a side, were 119 cc. Hypothesizing a mass of 1000 grams, the density worked out to 8.4 grams per cc.

  Fletcher looked at the figure. In itself it was not particularly suggestive. It might be one of a hundred alloys. There was no point in going too far on a string of hypotheses — still, he looked in the Handbook. Nickel, 8.6 grams per cc. Cobalt, 8.7 grams per cc. Niobium, 8.4 grams per cc.

  Fletcher sat back and considered. Niobium? An element costly and tedious to synthesize, with limited natural sources and an unsatisfied market. The idea was stimulating. Had Chrystal developed a biological source of niobium? If so, his fortune was made.

  Fletcher relaxed in his chair. He felt done in — mentally and physically. His mind went to Carl Raight. He pictured the body drifting loose and haphazard through the night, sinking through miles of water into places where light would never reach. Why had Carl Raight been pillaged of life?

  Fletcher began to ache with anger and frustration, at the futility, the indignity of Raight’s passing. Carl Raight was too good a man to be dragged to his death into the dark ocean of Sabria.

  Fletcher jerked himself upright, marched out of the office, up the steps to the laboratory.

  Damon was still busy with his routine work. He had three projects under way: two involving the sequestering of platinum by species of Sabrian algae; the third an attempt to increase the rhenium absorption of an Alphard-Alpha flat-sponge. In each case his basic technique was the same: subjecting succeeding generations to an increasing concentration of metallic salt, under conditions favoring mutation. Certain of the organisms would presently begin to make functional use of the metal; they would be isolated and transferred to Sabrian brine. A few might survive the shock; some might adapt to the new conditions and begin to absorb the now necessary element.

  By selective breeding the desirable qualities of these latter organisms would be intensified; they would then be cultivated on a large-scale basis and the inexhaustible Sabrian waters would presently be made to yield another product.

  Coming into the lab, Fletcher found Damon arranging trays of algae cultures in geometrically exact lines. He looked rather sourly over his shoulder at Fletcher.

  “I talked to Chrystal,” said Fletcher.

  Damon became interested. “What did he say?”

  “He says he might have wiped a few bad guesses off the film.”

  “Ridiculous,” snapped Damon.

  Fletcher went to the table, looked thoughtfully along the row of algae cultures. “Have you run into any niobium on Sabria, Gene?”

  “Niobium? No. Not in any appreciable concentration. There are traces in the ocean, naturally. I believe one of the corals shows a set of niobium lines.” He cocked his head with birdlike inquisitiveness. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just an idea, wild and random.”

  “I don’t suppose Chrystal gave you any satisfaction?”

  “None at all.”

  “Then what’s the next move?”

  Fletcher hitched himself up on the table. “I’m not sure. There’s not much I can do. Unless —” he hesitated.

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless I make an underwater survey, myself.”

  Damon was appalled. “What do you hope to gain by that?”

  Fletcher smiled. “If I knew, I wouldn’t need to go. Remember, Chrystal went down, then came back up and stripped the micro-file.”

  “I realize that,” said Damon. “Still, I think it’s rather … well, foolhardy, after what’s happened.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not.” Fletcher slid off the table to the deck. “I’ll let it ride till tomorrow, anyway.”

  He left Damon making out his daily check sheet, descended to the main deck.

  Blue Murphy was waiting at the foot of the stairs. Fletcher said, “Well, Murphy?”

  The round red face displayed a puzzled frown. “Agostino up there with you?”

  Fletcher stopped short. “No.”

  “He should have relieved me half an hour ago. He’s not in the dormitory; he’s not in the mess hall.”

  “Good God,” said Fletcher, “another one?”

  Murphy looked over his shoulder at the ocean. “They saw him about an hour ago in the mess hall.”