Humanx - Cachalot Part 59

His right eye was twitching slightly and he looked nervous and worried. What his aghast companions could not know was that the worry stemmed not from Mataroreva's near charge. His nervousness came from something that screamed along his nerves and ham- mered at his brain, trying to get inside. It promised to soothe him, that voice did, to relax him and take all the burden of the past weeks and throw it bliss- fully aside.

"I didn't think you were just a biologist," Cora said tightly. "Though you had me believing that for a little

while."

"I am a biologist," Merced shot back at her.

To Cora's pleasure, it was Rachael who next spoke

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angrily to him. "I saw what you did when we first landed here, back at the dock where the toglut at- tacked us!" Merced's eyes darted quickly back toward Mataroreva, who had moved as if to rise again. "I saw the gun you didn't use then. But I trusted you."

"And I saw," Mataroreva said quietly, "the hold you used on that man on Hazaribagh's ship, the way you fought." He shook his head. "You don't leam to react that way by making it a hobby. Only a pro- fessional works that smoothly."

Rachael's voice was filled with disgust, "To think that I've been all over you since we landed here!"

Cora gaped at her daughter.

"It's true. Mother. I thought for a while he was a pretty nice guy. You know, at first I could hardly get him to touch me, much less anything else." Cora tried to speak, couldn't. She had suspected. But to hear it put so bluntly, from her daughter's own lips ...

"The fighting I couldn't conceal." Merced gasped the words out, emphasizing the first syllable of each as if fighting merely to speak. He glanced at Rachael.

"As for the other, I'm sorry. Sometimes it helps to mix business with pleasure."

Cora slumped back in her seat, overwhelmed by the double revelation of daughter and colleague. "So you've been tied in with these thought-manipulators all along. You were in on the destruction of all the towns, even Vai'oire. Now I can see why you want to go on. Near the bottom, beyond any hope of rescue, you'll lock us in and leak the air supply or something after your friends come to save you. It will be as- sumed we were all lost. What I can't figure out is how your people managed to infiltrate Commonwealth se- curity to have you, their operative, a.s.signed to this mission."

"No one has infiltrated Commonwealth security."

He was trying to watch them all at once. Under the

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present circ.u.mstances, even Rachael might jump him.

He didn't want to have to shoot anyone.

Instruments protruding from the wall pressed into his back. He forced himself against them. The phys- ical pain helped override some of the mental anguish

he was battling.

"I said I was a biologist. I wasn't lying. I also hap- pen to be a Commonwealth agent. Security a.s.signed me to this to hunt for exactly the kind of infiltration you're talking about," he explained to Cora. He looked anxiously at Hwoshien. "He knows that. He's temporarily forgotten. Something's making him for- get."

The others glanced at the Commissioner. Once

secure and serene, he now appeared to be wrestling

with his own thoughts.

"I-I . . . confusing. I don't know . . ."

"Never mind. I don't need your confirmation now."

"No-wait," Hwoshien burst out. "It's true. I think , . . yes, it is true," he added more a.s.suredly. "I do remember you now. Colonel Merced." He looked at

his companions.

"Remember when you first arrived I explained that you would explore the biological possibilities and others would work on the chance that humans might be involved?" He nodded toward the still wary Merced. The muzzle of the gun had not dropped. "He is one of those 'others.'"

"Why make us remain down here, though?" a very confused Mataroreva wondered. Suddenly life had grown complicated, thinking an effort. His thoughts were slow and heavy, much like those of the fins.

Uncontrollable opposing ma.s.ses warred inside his head. "Why stay anyway? Why not go up and start over again? At least this time we'll know exactly what everyone's here for." Again his hand moved for the

controls.

Merced gestured convulsively with the gun. "Touch

that and I'll shoot, Captain. And these darts will pUt you out permanently. I like you. I'd rather not have to do that."

Slowly the big Polynesian's palm moved away from the board. "But why? What's wrong with beginning again?"

"In the first place, I'm not sure that's necessary,"

Merced said carefully. "In the second-you really think you're going to send us up, don't you?"

"What else?"

"You were going to send us to the surface?"

"Of course. I-"

"Take another look, Captain. A close one. But don't move your hands." Mataroreva hesitated, and wasn't sure why he did so. "Go on, look," Merced insisted. "Are you afraid?"

That challenge appeared to break the lethargy that had come over the submersible's pilot. Like a man in slow motion, he turned back toward the console, keeping his hands from the controls.

The switch his hand had almost flicked was not the one to drop the ballast-That switch was close by, but not close enough to explain the near error. Instead, his fingers had drifted above a double red switch pro- tected by a snap cover. This was the emergency re- lease used to disengage the gas cylinders in the event of a potentially explosive leak.

Had he followed through and thrown the double switch, they would have had no way to return to the surface and would in fact have immediately plunged to the ooze flooring the canyon, eight thousand meters below normal air and pressure. Nothing could raise them against that gigantic force save another, similar submersible. None waited aboard the suprafoil above.

By the time a second diving craft could be prepared and airshipped out from Mou'anui, the occupants of the submersible would be dead from lack of air. Arti-

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CACHALOT.

CACHALOT.

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