"Certainly," said Terry. "_Seguramente!_" He added in Spanish: "We'll
lend you a short-wave contact with Manila to make any complaints you
please. I'm sure all the other fishing boats will be glad to hear where
you've been catching fish, and where you've found the fish have moved
to! Calm yourself, Capitán, and help yourself to the fish of the lagoon,
and any time you want to call Manila we'll arrange it!"
He moved away. He went back to the electronics shop, while Morton and
Davis and the others talked encouragingly to Capitán Saavedra. Presently
they suggested that he accept their hospitality, and the Capitán and his
oarsmen went up to the dining hall, where they were served dinner, and a
more friendly mood developed. In time the Capitán said happily that he
would wait till sunrise to lower his nets, because he didn't want to
risk losing them on the coral heads. A few drinks later the Capitán
boasted about his own system of fishing, as practised by _La Rubia_. The
starving condition of his crew's wives and children ceased to be
mentioned.
In the presence of so accomplished a liar, nobody of the tracking
station staff mentioned a giant squid hauled partly, but only partly,
out of the water. They suspected that he would not believe it. They were
sure that he would top their real feat by an imaginary one. So the four
crew-cuts listened politely, and fed him more drinks, and learned much.
In the workshop the most unlikely device Terry'd described took form. In
effect, it was an underwater horn which was much more powerful than it
looked. Submerged, and with power from a group of amplifiers in
parallel, it would create a tremendous volume of underwater noise. That
sound would run through a tube shaped like a gun-barrel. It would travel
in a straight line, spreading only a little.
The same projection tube could also send out the tentative
beep-beep-beep of sonar gear, or the peculiar noise a depth-finder
makes. So the instrument could search out a distance or find a target,
and then fling at it a beam of humming torment equal to bullets from a
machine gun.
It would have taken Terry, alone, a long time to build. But he had
three assistants, two of whom were very competent. By dawn, they had it
ready to be mounted upon the _Esperance_. It was placed hanging from the
bow, mounted on gimbals, so that it could point in any direction. It was
firmly fixed to the yacht's planking.
There was plenty of activity on _La Rubia_, too, at daybreak. That squat
and capable fishing boat prepared to harvest the fish in the lagoon. She
got her nets over. She essayed to haul them. Some got caught on the
coral heads rising from the lagoon's bottom toward the surface. Capitán
Saavedra swore, and untangled them. He tried again. Again coral heads
baulked the enterprise. The nets tore.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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