“Someone or something,” said Fletcher, “is anxious to give us as much trouble as possible.” He looked across the leaden-pink ocean to where the Pelagic Recoveries raft floated beyond the range of vision.

  “Apparently,” said Damon, “you refer to Chrystal.”

  “I have suspicions.”

  Damon glanced out across the water. “I’m practically certain.”

  “Suspicion isn’t proof,” said Fletcher. “In the first place, what would Chrystal hope to gain by attacking us?”

  “What would the dekabrachs gain?”

  “I don’t know,” said Fletcher. “I’d like to find out.” He went to dress himself in the submarine suit.

  The water-bug was made ready. Fletcher plugged a camera into the external mounting, connected a sound-recorder to a sensitive diaphragm in the skin. He seated himself, pulled the blister over his head.

  The water-bug was lowered into the ocean. It filled with water, and its glistening back disappeared under the surface.

  The crew patched the roof of the process house, jury-rigged an antenna.

  The day passed; twilight came, and plum-colored evening.

  The loudspeaker hissed and sputtered; Fletcher’s voice, tired and tense, said, “Stand by; I’m coming in.”

  The crew gathered by the rail, straining their eyes through the dusk.

  One of the dully glistening wave-fronts held its shape, drew closer, and became the water-bug.

  The grapples were dropped; the water-bug drained its ballast and was hoisted into the chocks.

  Fletcher jumped down to the deck, leaned limply against one of the davits. “I’ve had enough submerging to last me a while.”

  “What did you find out?” Damon asked anxiously.

  “I’ve got it all on film. I’ll run it off as soon as my head stops ringing.”

  Fletcher took a hot shower, then came down to the mess hall and ate the bowl of stew Jones put in front of him, while Manners transferred the film Fletcher had shot from camera to projector.

  “I’ve made up my mind to two things,” said Fletcher. “First — the deks are intelligent. Second, if they communicate with each other, it’s by means imperceptible to human beings.”

  Damon blinked, surprised and dissatisfied. “That’s almost a contradiction.”

  “Just watch,” said Fletcher. “You can see for yourself.”

  Manners started the projector; the screen went bright.

  “The first few feet show nothing very much,” said Fletcher. “I drove directly out to the end of the shelf, and cruised along the edge of the Deeps. It drops away like the end of the world — straight down. I found a big colony about ten miles west of the one I found yesterday — almost a city.”

  “‘City’ implies civilization,” Damon asserted in a didactic voice.

  Fletcher shrugged. “If civilization means manipulation of environment — somewhere I’ve heard that definition — they’re civilized.”

  “But they don’t communicate?”

  “Check the film for yourself.”

  The screen was dark with the color of the ocean. “I made a circle out over the Deeps,” said Fletcher, “turned off my lights, started the camera and came in slow.”

  A pale constellation appeared in the center of the screen, separated into a swarm of sparks. They brightened and expanded; behind them appeared the outlines, tall and dim, of coral minarets, towers, spires, and spikes. They defined themselves as Fletcher moved closer. From the screen came Fletcher’s recorded voice. “These formations vary in height from fifty to two hundred feet, along a front of about half a mile.”

  The picture expanded. Black holes showed on the face of the spires; pale dekabrach-shapes swam quietly in and out. “Notice,” said the voice, “the area in front of the colony. It seems to be a shelf, or a storage yard. From up here it’s hard to see; I’ll drop down a hundred feet or so.”

  The picture changed; the screen darkened. “I’m dropping now — depth-meter reads three hundred sixty feet … Three eighty … I can’t see too well; I hope the camera is getting it all.”

  Fletcher commented: “You’re seeing it better now than I could; the luminous areas in the coral don’t shine too strongly down there.”

  The screen showed the base of the coral structures and a nearly level bench fifty feet wide. The camera took a quick swing, peered down over the verge, into blackness.

  “I was curious,” said Fletcher. “The shelf didn’t look natural. It isn’t. Notice the outlines on down? They’re just barely perceptible. The shelf is artificial — a terrace, a front porch.”

  The camera swung back to the bench, which now appeared to be marked off into areas vaguely differentiated in color.

  Fletcher’s voice said, “Those colored areas are like plots in a garden — there’s a different kind of plant, or weed, or animal on each of them. I’ll come in closer. Here are monitors.” The screen showed two or three dozen heavy hemispheres, then passed on to what appeared to be eels with saw edges along their sides, attached to the bench by a sucker. Next were float-bladders, then a great number of black cones with very long loose tails.

  Damon said in a puzzled voice, “What keeps them there?”

  “You’ll have to ask the dekabrachs,” said Fletcher.

  “I would if I knew how.”

  “I still haven’t seen them do anything intelligent,” said Murphy.

  “Watch,” said Fletcher.

  Into the field of vision swam a pair of dekabrachs, black eye-spots staring out of the screen at the men in the mess hall.

  “Dekabrachs,” came Fletcher’s voice from the screen.

  “Up to now, I don’t think they noticed me,” Fletcher himself commented. “I carried no lights, and made no contrast against the background. Perhaps they felt the pump.”

  The dekabrachs turned together, dropped sharply for the shelf.

  “Notice,” said Fletcher. “They saw a problem, and the same solution occurred to both, at the same time. There was no communication.”

  The dekabrachs had diminished to pale blurs on one of the dark areas along the shelf.

  “I didn’t know what was happening,” said Fletcher, “but I decided to move. And then — the camera doesn’t show this — I felt bumps on the hull, as if someone were throwing rocks. I couldn’t see what was going on until something hit the dome right in front of my face. It was a little torpedo, with a long nose like a knitting needle. I took off fast, before the deks tried something else.”

  The screen went black. Fletcher’s voice said, “I’m out over the Deeps, running parallel with the edge of the Shallows.” Indeterminate shapes swam across the screen, pale wisps blurred by watery distance. “I came back along the edge of the shelf,” said Fletcher, “and found the colony I saw yesterday.”

  Once more the screen showed spires, tall structures, pale blue, pale green, ivory. “I’m going in close,” came Fletcher’s voice. “I’m going to look in one of those holes.” The towers expanded; ahead was a dark hole.

  “Right here I turned on the nose-light,” said Fletcher. The black hole suddenly became a bright cylindrical chamber fifteen feet deep. The walls were lined with glistening colored globes, like Christmas tree ornaments. A dekabrach floated in the center of the chamber. Translucent tendrils ending in knobs extended from the chamber walls and seemed to be punching and kneading the seal-smooth hide.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” said Fletcher, “but the dek doesn’t like me looking in on him.”

  The dekabrach backed to the rear of the chamber; the knobbed tendrils jerked away, into the walls.

  “I looked into the next hole.”

  Another black hole became a bright chamber as the searchlight burnt in. A dekabrach floated quietly, holding a sphere of pink jelly before its eye. The wall-tendrils were not to be seen.

  “This one didn’t move,” said Fletcher. “He was asleep or hypnotized or too scared. I started to take off — and there was the most awful thump. I thought I was a goner.”

  The screen gave a great lurch. Something dark hurtled past, and into the depths.

  “I looked up,” said Fletcher. “I couldn’t see anything but about a dozen deks. Apparently they’d floated a big rock over me and dropped it. I started the pump and headed for home.”

  The screen went blank.

  Damon was impressed. “I agree that they show patterns of intelligent behavior. Did you detect any sounds?”

  “Nothing. I had the recorder going all the time. Not a vibration other than the bumps on the hull.”

  Damon’s face was wry with dissatisfaction. “They must communicate somehow — how could they get along otherwise?”

  “Not unless they’re telepathic,” said Fletcher. “I watched carefully. They make no sounds or motions to each other — none at all.”

  Manners asked, “Could they possibly radiate radio waves? Or infrared?”

  Damon said glumly, “The one in the tank doesn’t.”

  “Oh, come now,” said Murphy, “are there no intelligent races that don’t communicate?”

  “None,” said Damon. “They use different methods — sounds, signals, radiation — but all communicate.”

  “How about telepathy?” Heinz suggested.

  “We’ve never come up against it; I don’t believe we’ll find it here,” said Damon.

  “My personal theory,” said Fletcher, “is that they think alike, and so don’t need to communicate.”

  Damon shook his head dubiously.

  “Assume that they work on a basis of communal empathy,” Fletcher went on, “that this is the way they’ve evolved. Men are individualistic; they need speech. The deks are identical; they’re aware of what’s going on without words.” He reflected a few seconds. “I suppose, in a certain sense, they do communicate. For instance, a dek wants to extend the garden in front of its tower. It possibly waits till another dek comes near, then carries out a rock — indicating what it wants to do.”

  “Communication by example,” said Damon.

  “That’s right — if you can call it communication. It permits a measure of cooperation — but clearly no small talk, no planning for the future or traditions of the past.”

  “Perhaps not even awareness of past or future; perhaps no awareness of time!” cried Damon.

  “It’s hard to estimate their native intelligence. It might be remarkably high, or it might be low; the lack of communication must be a terrific handicap.”

  “Handicap or not,” said Mahlberg, “they’ve certainly got us on the run.”

  “And why?” cried Murphy, pounding the table with his big red fist. “That’s the question. We’ve never bothered them. And all of a sudden, Raight’s gone, and Agostino. Also our mast. Who knows what they’ll think of tonight? Why? That’s what I want to know.”

  “That,” said Fletcher, “is a question I’m going to put to Ted Chrystal tomorrow.”

  Fletcher dressed himself in clean blue twill, ate a silent breakfast, and went out to the flight deck.

  Murphy and Mahlberg had thrown the guy-lines off the helicopter and wiped the dome clean of salt-film.

  Fletcher climbed into the cabin, twisted the inspection knob. Green light — everything in order.

  Murphy said half-hopefully, “Maybe I better come with you, Sam — if there’s any chance of trouble.”

  “Trouble? Why should there be trouble?”

  “I wouldn’t put much past Chrystal.”

  “I wouldn’t either,” said Fletcher. “But — there won’t be any trouble.”

  He started the blades. The ram-tubes caught hold; the copter lifted, slanted up, away from the raft, and off into the northeast. Bio-Minerals became a bright tablet on the irregular wad of seaweed.

  The day was dull, brooding, windless, apparently building up for one of the tremendous electrical storms which came every few weeks. Fletcher accelerated, thinking to get his errand over with as soon as possible.

  Miles of ocean slid past; Pelagic Recoveries appeared ahead.

  Twenty miles southwest from the raft, Fletcher overtook a small barge laden with raw material for Chrystal’s macerators and leaching columns; he noticed that there were two men aboard, both huddled inside the plastic canopy. Pelagic Recoveries perhaps had its troubles too, thought Fletcher.

  Chrystal’s raft was little different from Bio-Minerals’, except that the mast still rose from the central deck, and there was activity in the process house. They had not shut down, whatever their troubles.

  Fletcher landed on the flight deck. As he stopped the blades, Chrystal came out of the office — a big blond man with a round jocular face.

  Fletcher jumped down to the deck. “Hello, Ted,” he said in a guarded voice.

  Chrystal approached with a cheerful smile. “Hello, Sam! Long time since we’ve seen you.” He shook hands briskly. “What’s new at Bio-Minerals? Certainly too bad about Carl.”

  “That’s what I want to talk about.” Fletcher looked around the deck. Two of the crew stood watching. “Can we go to your office?”

  “Sure, by all means.” Chrystal led the way to the office, slid back the door. “Here we are.”

  Fletcher entered the office. Chrystal walked behind his desk. “Have a seat.” He sat down in his own chair. “Now — what’s on your mind? But first, how about a drink? You like Scotch, as I recall.”

  “Not today, thanks.” Fletcher shifted in his chair. “Ted, we’re up against a serious problem here on Sabria, and we might as well talk plainly about it.”

  “Certainly,” said Chrystal. “Go right ahead.”

  “Carl Raight’s dead. And Agostino.”

  Chrystal’s eyebrows rose in shock. “Agostino too? How?”

  “We don’t know. He just disappeared.”

  Chrystal took a moment to digest the information. Then he shook his head in perplexity. “I can’t understand it. We’ve never had trouble like this before.”

  “Nothing happening over here?”

  Chrystal frowned. “Well — nothing to speak of. Your call put us on our guard.”

  “The dekabrachs seem to be responsible.”

  Chrystal blinked and pursed his lips, but said nothing.

  “Have you been going out after dekabrachs, Ted?”

  “Well now, Sam —” Chrystal hesitated, drumming his fingers on the desk. “That’s hardly a fair question. Even if we were working with dekabrachs — or polyps or club-moss or wire-eels — I don’t think I’d want to say, one way or the other.”

  “I’m not interested in your business secrets,” said Fletcher. “The point is this: the deks appear to be an intelligent species. I have reason to believe that you’re processing them for their niobium content. Apparently they’re doing their best to retaliate and don’t care who they hurt. They’ve killed two of our men. I’ve got a right to know what’s going on.”

  Chrystal nodded. “I can understand your viewpoint — but I don’t follow your chain of reasoning. For instance, you told me that a monitor had done for Raight. Now you say dekabrach. Also, what leads you to believe I’m going for niobium?”

  “Let’s not try to kid each other, Ted.”

  Chrystal looked shocked, then annoyed.

  “When you were still working for Bio-Minerals,” Fletcher went on, “you discovered that the deks were full of niobium. You wiped all that information out of the files, got financial backing, built this raft. Since then you’ve been hauling in dekabrachs.”

  Chrystal leaned back, surveyed Fletcher coolly. “Aren’t you jumping to conclusions?”

  “If I am, all you’ve got to do is deny it.”

  “Your attitude isn’t very pleasant, Sam.”

  “I didn’t come here to be pleasant. We’ve lost two men; also our mast. We’ve had to shut down.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that —” began Chrystal.

  Fletcher interrupted: “So far, Chrystal, I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt.”

  Chrystal was surprised. “How so?”

  “I’m assuming you didn’t know the deks were intelligent, that they’re protected by the Responsibility Act.”

  “Well?”

  “Now you know. You don’t have the excuse of ignorance.”

  Chrystal was silent for a few seconds. “Well, Sam — these are all rather astonishing statements.”

  “Do you deny them?”

  “Of course I do!” said Chrystal with a flash of spirit.

  “And you’re not processing dekabrachs?”

  “Easy, now. After all, Sam, this is my raft. You can’t come aboard and chase me back and forth. It’s high time you understood it.”

  Fletcher drew himself a little away, as if Chrystal’s mere proximity were unpleasant. “You’re not giving me a plain answer.”

  Chrystal leaned back in his chair, put his fingers together, puffed out his cheeks. “I don’t intend to.”

  The barge that Fletcher had passed on his way was edging close to the raft. Fletcher watched it work against the mooring stage, snap its grapples. He asked, “What’s on that barge?”

  “Frankly, it’s none of your business.”

  Fletcher rose to his feet, went to the window. Chrystal made uneasy protesting noises. Fletcher ignored him. The two barge-handlers had not emerged from the control cabin. They seemed to be waiting for a gangway which was being swung into position by the cargo boom.

  Fletcher watched in growing curiosity and puzzlement. The gangway was built like a trough with high plywood walls.

  He turned to Chrystal. “What’s going on out there?”

  Chrystal was chewing his lower lip, rather red in the face. “Sam, you came storming over here, making wild accusations, calling me dirty names — by implication — and I don’t say a word. I try to allow for the strain you’re under; I value the good will between our two outfits. I’ll show you some documents that will prove once and for all —” he sorted through a sheaf of miscellaneous pamphlets.

  Fletcher stood by the window, with half an eye for Chrystal, half for what was occurring out on deck.

  The gangway was dropped into position; the barge-handlers were ready to disembark.