_Seven_ As the _Esperance_ sailed northward, she looked almost unreal. From a distance she might have been an artist's picture of an imaginary yacht heeled over in the wind, sailing splendidly over a non-existent ocean. The sky was a speckless blue, the sun was high. But she was real enough, and the China Sea around her was genuine, and what had taken place where the _Pelorus_ lay now hull-down, stowing a ruined bathyscaphe in her hold, had unquestionably taken place. Something monstrous and terrible was hidden in the dark abyss below the yacht. The ferocity of its attack on the bathyscaphe was daunting. And ferocity has always, somehow, a suggestion of madness about it. But the humming sound in the sea was not the product of madness. It was a technical achievement. And plastic objects with metal inclusions.... Davis joined Deirdre and Terry. Before Davis could speak she said, "I can't imagine any guess that will add everything together, Terry." Davis made a jerky gesture. "Today's business is beyond all reason," he said unhappily, "and if there ever was an understatement, that's it! If there can be any conceivable motive for the plastic objects, which the _Pelorus dismisses as hoaxes, the motive is to use them to find out_ something about surface conditions; that is, for surface conditions to be reported back. And that's not easy to imagine. But try to think of something easier! And yet, such mindless ferocity as attacked the bathyscaphe ... that wouldn't be curious about the surface!" "No-o-o-o," agreed Terry. "It wouldn't. But we'd set off a bomb down below to stir things up. A couple of hours later the bathyscaphe went down. A stupid and merely ferocious thing of the depths wouldn't associate a bomb that exploded with a bathyscaphe that came down two hours later. It took intelligence to make the association of two falling objects with danger." Deirdre beamed suddenly. "Of course! That's it! Go on!" "Curiosity implies intelligence," said Terry carefully, "and intelligence is a substitute for teeth or claws. We don't assume that the fish that carry the plastic gadgets made them. Why assume that whatever attacked the bathyscaphe did it of its own accord? We believe that something else makes the deep-sea fish come up into the Thrawn Island lagoon, don't we? Or do we?" "We pretend we don't," said Deirdre. Davis nodded reluctantly. "Yes, we pretend we don't," he agreed. "But if intelligence is involved, I find myself getting frightened! We humans are always terrified of strange types of intelligence, anyhow. If it's intelligence that isn't human ..." Nick came up from below. "Thrawn Island calling," he reported. "They say the hum at the lagoon opening stopped for some forty-odd hours and then started again. They ask if we're coming. I said we were on the way. They're standing by. Anything we should tell them?"