Terry bent over his task again while the _Esperance_ sped along over the off-shore swells. There was no land in sight anywhere. An albatross glided overhead for a time, as if inspecting the _Esperance_ as a possible source of food. When Terry looked for it later it was gone. Once there was a flurry in many wave-flanks, and a small school of flying fish darted out of the sea with hazy, beating fins, and dived back into the sea many yards from where they started. But nothing of any consequence happened anywhere. Terry fitted and soldered and tested. By noon he had a rather powerful audio amplifying unit, set up to magnify any sound the tape-recorder fed into it. Deirdre prepared a meal. The galley of the _Esperance_ was admirably supplied with all kinds of food. After the noon meal the yacht changed course again to a line which would intersect her original morning course at some point. Terry found himself fuming. He'd set to work to make something that Davis apparently wanted, but his most elementary questions still ran against a blank refusal to answer. Both Davis and Deirdre had spoken of oddities in the catches of _La Rubia_. There could not possibly be any reason for them to refuse to tell him what they were. Terry worked himself into irritability, recalling how he volunteered to come on the _Esperance_ but not thinking that he would be treated as someone who wasn't allowed to know what everybody else aboard most certainly did. In the afternoon there was guitar music down in the forecastle, and Doug came out and settled himself on the bowsprit with a book of poetry. Presently Nick sat down close by Terry and watched interestedly as he put mysterious-looking electronic elements together into incomprehensible groups. When he had finished, Terry did not admire his handiwork. The noisemaking unit came last. The electrical part had to be enclosed, water-tight, with a diaphragm exposed to the water on one side and its working parts protected from all moisture on the other. The device looked cobbled, but it worked, and made monstrous sounds in the air. Now he plugged the submarine ear into the recorder. He dropped it overside and taped the random noises of the sea: the washings of sea water against the _Esperance's_ hull, frequent splashings, and very faint, chirping noises from who-knew-what. "Watch the volume, will you?" Terry pointed out the Indication that should not be exceeded. Nick nodded. "I'm going to whack the paddle overside and see what we get in the way of noise." Nick hesitated. Then he said uneasily, "Wait a minute." He went aft to Davis, apparently somnolent at the wheel. Deirdre joined the two of them in a seemingly very serious discussion. Then she walked over to Terry. "I hate to say it," she told him with evident concern, "but my father thinks it would be wiser to try out the paddle in shallow water. Do you mind?" "Yes," snapped Terry. "I do mind, since I'm not allowed to know the reason for that or anything else."