Terry suddenly felt a warm sympathy for Morton. It is bad enough to
dispute with oneself when something incredible happens. But Dr. Morton
had gone out on a limb. He'd been caught psychologically naked telling
the truth, and now he was asked to explain it. And he couldn't.
"This thing has got to come to a head!" he said angrily. "Sooner or
later they'll find out that I don't calculate where it'll land by its
behavior in space but by its landing spot! Davis, you've talked about
stirring something up. For Heaven's sake, do it! You may save my
reputation! And you...."
"I'll try to think of something," said Davis reservedly.
"I've got to have proof that my suspicions are right or wrong before I'm
ruined. I know what you're planning to do. Do it! Is there anything that
can be done here to help?"
Davis spread out his hands helplessly. But Terry said, "Yes. Send a boat
every so often to listen at the gap in the reef. Put an oar overboard
and put your ear to the handle. You should hear the underwater hum, if
it's still there. It was there this morning."
Morton looked at him suspiciously.
"Why check on it? Should it change?"
"Perhaps," said Terry. "We've speared most of the deep-sea fish in the
lagoon. Maybe we've interfered with ... the reports from the plastic
objects, telling what was happening up here. There may be a reaction. If
so, most likely the humming will stop, and after a longer or shorter
time begin again. And then, if my guess is right, there'll be more
deep-sea creatures in the lagoon."
"Ha," said Morton. "I think you and I have the same kind of delusions!
All right. I'll see that that's done. You two do the rest."
He went abovedecks. When Terry got on deck, Dr. Morton's angular figure
was already marching along the wharf to the shore.
There was no ceremony of departure. The _Esperance_ cast off and her
engine started. She moved toward the lagoon entrance under power only,
but her sails were hoisted as she floated on, and Jug Bell was trimming
the jib when she cleared the opening to the sea.
The humming in the water was still audible to the submarine ear, close
to the land. It occurred to Terry to take a bearing on the source of the
sound, noting both the compass direction and the vertical angle from
the reef. If his vertical-angle reading was accurate, a line from the
reef to the source of the sound would touch the bottom at twenty-seven
thousand feet down, between four and five miles away.
The _Esperance_ sailed on. The humming duly faded away. Terry left the
recorder picking up undersea sounds, without recording them. It relayed
the underwater sounds to the people on deck. It was in Terry's mind to
keep at least half an ear cocked to it, in case the mooing sounds, heard
and recorded elsewhere, should come again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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