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"There are holes in the fuselage aft, the holes through which the water entered in the first place."

"Then we have to seal them, Mr. Grimes."

"That shouldn't be necessary, Chief. As far as I can see, they're on the bottom of the hull."

"Very good, sir. But what if she topples? If I were you, I'd seal those holes and fit 'em with non-return valves."

"You aren't me. And don't forget that the brute was designed to fly this way up. Surely she'll float this way up."

Stiffly, "I'm not qualified in aerodynamics, sir."

"But you are in hydrodynamics. All right, then. Do you think she'll topple once she starts to lift?"

Anderson, leaving the tool case and the weighted ends of the hoses with Grimes, swam slowly around the wreck. "No," he admitted when he returned. "She shouldn't topple." He stayed by the fore end of the dynosoar, stood in the silt and tried to lift one of the parts of the open canopy. It moved but with extreme reluctance. Grimes heard the man, a massive, black-glistening giant in his suit, grunt with effort.

"I thought of running lines down from the boat," he said.

"And pull the boat over, or under? No, sir. That wouldn't do at all."

No, thought Grimes. It wouldn't. Not if he hoped to get any shore leave on this planet.

"We'll have to cut the flaps and then weld them back into place."

"Now you're talking, sir. With your permission?" he asked, then paused.

"Of course. Carry on, Chief."

"Jones, Willoughby, Antonetti. Down here, on the double. Bring the cutting torches, a bundle of sheeting and that bundle of metal strip. Jump to it!"

"And a spear gun," added Grimes. "If we have one." He had a feeling that the knife at his belt would be inadequate. Helplessly, he looked at the huge, silvery torpedo shape that was approaching them, that was staring at them from glassy eyes as big as dinner plates.

Then, even through his helmet, he heard the muffled whirring of machinery and laughed. "Don't worry, Chief," he said. "Just remember what the Captain told us all and comport yourself like a gentleman. You're on camera."

Chapter 13

After a while Grimes decided to leave the frogmen to it. It was obvious that Anderson and his team knew what they were doing. The Lieutenant had tried to lend a hand; he had realized quite soon that any attempt at supervision by himself would lead only to confusion, but the C. P. O. had made it quite plain, without actually saying so, that he was just being a bloody nuisance. So he said, in his best offhand manner, "Carry on, Chief. I'll take a dekko at this submarine camera of theirs. Let me know if you want me."

"That'll be the sunny Friday!" he heard somebody mutter. He could not identify the voice.

He put the busy scene—the flaring torches, the exploding bubbles of steam, the roiling clouds of disturbed silt—behind him, swam slowly toward the robot midget submarine. And was it, he wondered, called a watchfish? At first he thought that the thing was ignoring him; its two big eyes remained fixed on the salvage operations. And then he noticed that a small auxiliary lens mounted on a flexible stalk was following his every movement. He thumbed his nose at it, the rude gesture giving him a childish satisfaction.

Then he swam on lazily. He should, he realized, have brought a camera with him. One of Anderson's team had one, he knew; but he knew, too, that all the footage of film would be devoted to the raising of the dynosoar. Shots of the underwater life of this lake would have made an interesting addition to Aries' film library. More than a score of worlds must have contributed their share of fresh water fauna. There were graceful shapes, and shapes that were grotesque, and all of them brightly colored. Some were fish and some were arthropods and some—he mentally christened them "magic carpets"—defied classification. And there were plants, too, a veritable subaqueous jungle that he was approaching, bulbous trunks, each crowned with a coronal of spiky branches. If they were plants. Grimes decided that