Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke [51]
The tiny cabin vibrated with power-the power which could hold at bay the immense weight of the waters above their heads, and could create this little bubble of light and air within which men could live. If that power failed, thought Jan, they would become prisoners in a metal tomb, buried deep in the silt of the ocean bed.
"Time to get a fix," said the pilot. He threw a set of switches, and the submarine came to rest in a gentle surge of deceleration as the jets ceased their thrust. The vessel was motionless, floating in equilibrium as a balloon floats in the atmosphere.
It took only a moment to check their position on the sonar grid. When he had finished with his instrument readings, the pilot remarked; "Before we start the motors again, let's see if we can hear anything."
The loudspeaker flooded the quiet little room with a low, continuous murmur of sound. There was no outstanding noise that Jan could distinguish from the rest. It was a steady background, into which all individual sounds had been blended. He was listening, Jan knew, to the myriad creatures of the sea talking together. It was as if he stood in the centre of a forest that teemed with life-except that there he would have recognized some of the individual voices. Here, not one thread in the tapestry of sound could be disentangled and identified. It was so alien, so remote from anything he had ever known, that it set Jan's scalp crawling. And yet this was part of his own world-
The shriek cut across the vibrating background like a flash of lightning against a dark stormcloud. It faded swiftly away Into a banshee wail, an undulation that dwindled and died, yet was repeated a moment later from a more distant source. Then a chorus of screams broke out, a pandemonium that caused the pilot to reach swiftly for the volume control.
"What in the name of God was that?" gasped Jan.
"Weird, isn't it? It's a school of whales, about ten kilometres away. I knew they were in the neighbourhood and thought you'd like to hear them."
Jan shuddered.
"And I always thought the sea was silent! Why do they make such a din?"
"Talking to one another, I suppose. Sullivan could tell you-they say he can even identify some individual whales, though I find that hard to believe. Hello, we've got company!"
A fish with incredibly exaggerated jaws was visible in the viewing screen. It appeared to be quite large, but as Jan did now know the scale of the picture it was bard to judge. Hanging from a point just below its gills was a long tendril, ending In an unidentifiable, bell-shaped organ.
"We're seeing it on infrared," said the pilot. "Let's look at the normal picture."
The fish vanished completely. Only the pendant remained, slowing with its own phosphorescence. Then, just for an instant, the shape of the creature flickered into visibility as a line of lights flashed out along its body.
"It's an angler; that's the bait it uses to lure other fish. Fantastic, isn't it? What I don't understand is-why doesn't his bait attract fish big enough to eat him? But we can't wait here all day. Watch him run when I switch on the jets."
The cabin vibrated once again as the vessel eased itself forward. The great luminous fish suddenly flashed on all its lights in a frantic signal of alarm, and departed like a meteor into the darkness of the abyss.
It was after another twenty minutes of slow descent that the invisible fingers of the scanner beams caught the first glimpse of the ocean bed. Far beneath, a range of low hills was passing, their outlines curiously soft and rounded. Whatever irregularities they might once have possessed had long ago been obliterated by the ceaseless rain from the watery heights above. Even here in mid-Pacific, far from the great estuaries that slowly swept the continents out to sea, that rain never ceased. It came from the storm-scarred flanks of the Andes, from the