The Deep Range - Arthur C. Clarke [6]
To all appearances, Don was completely relaxed, yet had any one of the many dials and lights filling his field of view called for attention he would have been instantly alert. His mind was already back on the Rorqual, and he found it increasingly hard to keep his thoughts away from his overdue breakfast. In order to make the time pass more swiftly, he started mentally composing his report. Quite a few people, he knew, were going to be surprised by it. The engineers who maintained the invisible fences of sound and electricity which now divided the mighty Pacific into manageable portions would have to start looking for the break; the marine biologists who were so confident that sharks never attacked whales would have to think up excuses. Both enterprises, Don was quite sure, would be successfully carried out, and then everything would be under control again, until the sea contrived its next crisis.
But the crisis to which Don was now unwittingly returning was a man-made one, organized without any malice toward him at the highest official levels. It had begun with a suggestion in the Space Department, duly referred up to the World Secretariat. It had risen still higher until it reached the World Assembly itself, where it had come to the approving ears of the senators directly interested. Thus converted from a suggestion to an order, it had filtered down through the Secretariat to the World Food Organization, thence to the Marine Division, and finally to the Bureau of Whales. The whole process had taken the incredibly short time of four weeks.
Don, of course, knew nothing of this. As far as he was concerned, the complicated workings of global bureaucracy resolved themselves into the greeting his skipper gave him when he walked into the Rorqual’s mess for his belated breakfast.
“What kind of a job?” asked Don suspiciously. He remembered an unfortunate occasion when he had acted as a guide to a permanent undersecretary who had seemed to be a bit of a fool, and whom he had treated accordingly. It had later turned out that the P.U.—as might have been guessed from his position—was a very shrewd character indeed and knew exactly what Don was doing.
“They didn’t tell me,” said the skipper. “I’m not quite sure they know themselves. Give my love to Queensland, and keep away from the casinos on the Gold Coast.”
“Much choice I have, on my pay,” snorted Don. “Last time I went to Surfer’s Paradise, I was lucky to get away with my shirt.”
“But you brought back a couple of thousand on your first visit.”
“Beginner’s luck—it never happened again. I’ve lost it all since then, so I’ll stop while I still break even. No more gambling for me.”
“Is that a bet? Would you put five bucks on it?”
“Sure.”
“Then pay over—you’ve already lost by accepting.”
A spoonful of processed plankton hovered momentarily in mid-air while Don sought for a way out of the trap.
“Just try and get me to pay,” he retorted. “You’ve got no witnesses, and I’m no gentleman.” He hastily swallowed the last of his coffee, then pushed aside his chair and rose to go.
“Better start packing, I suppose. So long, Skipper—see you later.”
The Captain of the Rorqual watched his first warden sweep out of the room like a small hurricane. For a moment the sound of Don’s passage echoed back along the ship’s corridors; then comparative silence descended again.
The skipper started to head back to the bridge. “Look out, Brisbane,” he muttered to himself; then he began to rear-range the watches and to compose a masterly memorandum to HQ asking how he was expected to run a ship when thirty per cent of her crew were permanently absent on leave or special duty. By the time he reached the bridge, the only thing that had stopped him from resigning was the fact that, try as he might, he couldn’t think of a better job.
CHAPTER II
THOUGH HE HAD been kept waiting only a few minutes, Walter Franklin was already prowling impatiently around the reception room. Swiftly he examined and dismissed the deep-sea photographs hanging on the walls; then he sat for