With Friends Like These... Part 13

Ha'apu seemed satisfied. "So I believed. I wanted to make certain I understood. My mind takes longer to think things than it once did. What I have brought to show you . . ." he indicated the small package in his 143.

lap, *'. . . could be understood and believed only by such a person."

"Of course," said Poplar, sneaking a fast glance at his watch. He wished the chief would come to the point. Then Poplar could haggle, politely refuse, kindly suggest the chief try the usual tourist markets downtown and wharfside, and he could get to work. He'd found one new sh.e.l.l this morning that . . . But he didn't want to be rude by hurrying the conversation. Some Matai were easily insulted. And he wasn't famous for his diplomatic manner.

Ha'apu was working at the small package. It was tightly bound in clean linen and secured with twine.

"But first you must promise me you will be careful of whom you speak to about this. We have no wish to endure an a.s.sault of the curious."

Poplar thought back to the moaning jetliner that had pa.s.sed overhead this morning, crammed to the gills with bloated statesiders eager for a glimpse of the quaint locals betwixt brunch and supper, and applauded the Matai's att.i.tude. He wasn't all that naive.

"I promise it will be so, Matai."

Ha'apu continued to work deliberately with the knots. "You are familiar with Niuhi?"

"Yes, certainly." He peered at the shrinking pile of cloth and twine with renewed interest. A good carving of Niuhi would be something of a novelty. At least it wasn't yet another dugout or tiki.

"Then you will know this," said Ha'apu solemnly. He removed an irregular shaped object and placed it carefully on the desk in front of the director.

Poplar stared at it for a long moment before he recognized it for what it was. The realization took another moment to penetrate fully. Slowly he reached out and picked it up. A rapid examination, a few knuckle taps convinced him it was real and not a clever fake. It wasn't the sort of thing one could easily fake. And besides, even the simplest islander would know he couldn't get away with it. He brought it up to eye level.

144.

He "Ye G.o.ds and little fishes," he murmured in astonishment.

It wasn't a carving.

It was a tooth. And it was quite impossible. The tooth was almost a perfect triangle. He reached into his desk and brought out a ruler, laid it alongside the hard bone. Slightly under 18 cms. long, about 14 cms. wide at the bottom, and over five thick. The base was slightly curved where it fit into the jaw. Both cutting edges were wickedly serrated, like a saw. He stared at it for a long, long time, running his fingers along the razor-sharp cutting edges, testing the perfect point. A magnifying gla.s.s all but confirmed its reality. That failed to temper his uncertainty.

"Where did you get this, Ha'apu? And are there any more?" he asked softly.

"This was taken from the wood of a paopao." The Matai smiled slightly. "There is another."

It took Poplar about thirty seconds to connect this with what the chief bad told him earlier. Einsteinian calculations aside, he could still add up the implications. He leaned back in his chair.

"Now Ha'apu, you're not going to try and convince me that this tooth came out of the mouth of a living Great White!"

The chief began slowly, picking his words. "The doctor is very sure of himself. About three weeks ago, two young men from my village were out fishing an area we rarely visit, rather far from Tafahi. There is better fishing in other directions, and closer to home, but they wished also a little adventure. They did not return to us, even hours after nightfall.

"All of the men of the village, including myself, set out to search for them. We were not yet worried. We knew where they had gone. Perhaps their boat had been damaged, or both had been injured. There was no moon that night. One cannot see far onto the ocean at night by only torch and flashlight. We did not find them.

"What we did find, floating by a small reef and still 145 anch.o.r.ed to the coral, was the rear half of their pao-pao. It had been snapped in two, Dr. Poplar, That tooth you hold now in your hand was buried in the side of the wreckage. Television and great jet airplanes admitted, Doctor, old beliefs still linger on most of the islands. I am the most educated man in my village and proud of my learning. But this frightened me. We have lived with the sea too long to doubt what might come from it. We put on an exhibition of rowing that could not be matched, Dr. Poplar, in any of the Olympic games.

"It was very quiet on Tafahi the next day. Fishing, a daily task for us, had grown suddenly unpopular. I pointed out there was still a chance to recover the bodies or . . ." he winced, ", . . parts of them. But no one would return to that reef.

"I went alone. It is a small atoll . . . very tiny, not on any but the most detailed of your maps, I should guess. That was where our two men had gone to fish. To the northeast of it, I believe, the ocean bottom disappears very fast."

Poplar nodded. "The northern tip of the Kermadec-Tonga Trench runs across there. In spots the sea floor drops almost straight down for, oh, 3500, 3600 fathoms ... and more."

"As you say, Doctor. The sun does not go far there. It is where He dwells.

"I anch.o.r.ed my paopao behind the protection of the little reef, safe from the breakers on the other side. It was where the men had anch.o.r.ed. Swimming was not difficult, despite a slight current."

"If you thought you might encounter a big Great White prowling around down there, why'd you go in?" asked Poplar shrewdly.

The chief shrugged. "My family have been chiefs and divers for enough generations for my genealogy to bore you, Doctor. I respect Niuhi and know him. I was careful. Anyhow, someone had to do it. I did not swim too long or too deep. I had only mask and fins 146.

He and did not use the weights. I also have respect for age, including my own.

"The small lunch I had brought with me did not take long to eat. The afternoon was long, the sun pleasant. I dove again.

"I had given up and was swimming back to the boat when I noticed a dark spot in the water to my left. It was keeping pace with me. The water was clear, and so it must have been far away to be so blurred. It paced me all the way back to the boat. Despite the distance I knew it was Him."

"Mightn't it have been . .. ?" Poplar didn't finish the question. Ha'apu was shaking his head.

"My eyes, at least, are still young. It was Him. I could not be absolutely certain He was watching me. I doubt it. Faster or slower I did not swim. A sudden change of stroke might have caught His attention. But I was glad when I was in the bottom of my boat, breathing free of the sea.

"I waited and watched for a long time, not daring to leave the small shelter of the reef. Once, far away, I think I saw a fin break the surface. If it was a fin, it was taller than a tall man, Doctor. But it might not have been. It was far away and the sun was dropping.

"I have only been truly afraid, and I say this honestly, a few times in my life. To be alone on the sea with Him was terrible enough. To have been caught there in the dark would have frozen the blood of a G.o.d. Then I knew the legend was true."

"What legend?" asked Poplar.

"Whoever sees Him is forever changed, Doctor. His soul is different, and a little bit of it is stolen away by Him. The rest is altered forever."

"In what way?" Poplar inquired. Better to humor the old man. He was interested in the d.a.m.n tooth, not local superst.i.tion.

"It depends so much on the man," the Matai mused. "For myself, the sea will never again be the open friend of my youth. I ride upon it now and look into its 147.

depths with hesitation, for any day, any hour, He maybe come for me.

"My people were surprised to see me. They had not expected me to return."

Poplar considered silently. "That's quite a story you want me to swallow. In fact, it's pretty unbelievable."

"A strange thing for you to say, Sea-Doctor," smiled Ha'apu. "But I do not blame you. Come back with me. Bring a good boat and your diving tools. I will show you what remains of our young men's paopao. And then I will take you to the spot where I saw Him, if you dare. He may have returned to the deeps. Surely this is a rare thing, or He would have been seen before. There must be a purpose for it."

B.S., M.S., Ph.D., he thought hard for a moment. The legend stuff was all bushwah, of course. But the tooth ... he tried to visualize its owner, and a little shiver went down his spine. This business about soul-changing . . . ridiculous! . . . he, frightened of another fish?

"This tooth could be very, very old, you know. They've been found before, like new. Although," he swallowed and cursed himself for it, "not quite of this size. According to the best estimates these creatures became extinct only very recently."

"Creatures? There is only one of him," said Ha'apu firmly.

"You could fake the ruined outrigger," persisted Poplar.

"To what end?"

"I don't know!" He was irritated at his irrational terror. G.o.ddammit, man, it probably doesn't exist! And if it, by some incredible chance, did, it was only another fish.

"Maybe you want to attract those tourists you profess to dislike. Or want to try and w.a.n.gle some free diving equipment. Or simply want to draw some attention to yourself. Who knows? But I can't take that chance." He took another look at the tooth. "You 148.

He know I can't, d.a.m.n you. Where are you staying while you're on Tutuila?"

"With friends."

"Okay, we have a couple of cruisers here at the station. They're not in use just now. Down at the very end of Pier Three. The one we'll use is called the Vatia. You can't mistake it. The other, the Aku-Aku, is longer and has a flying bridge. Meet me at, oh, ten tomorrow morning, on the pier. If you get there ahead of me, tie your boat to the stern." He stopped turning the tooth over and over, feigned unconcern. Inside, he was quivering with tension.

"May I keep this?" He knew what he was asking. Did the chief?

"There is another still set in the paopao. Yes, you may have this one. For your children, to remind them of when you were young."

"I have no children. I'm not married, Ha'apu."

"That is sad. The other tooth must remain with us. It will not. . ." he said, in reply to the imposed question, '*... ever be for sale."

Poplar was seeing his name blazoned across the cover and t.i.tle page of every scientific journal in the world. Below the name, a picture of himself holding the largest tooth of Carcharodon megalodon ever found. He might even manage to include Ha'apu in the picture.

He leaned over the desk, began shuffling papers.

"Good-bye till tomorrow, then, Matai Ha'apu."

"Tofa, Sea-Doctor Poplar." The chief gathered up his wrappings and left quietly.

He began going over the supplies they'd need in addition to what was standard stock on board the Vatai. Plan on being gone at least a week, maybe two. Get him out of the office, at least.

Elaine walked in, strolled over to the desk and leaned across it. That finished any attempt at paperwork. When she noticed the tooth in front of him, she almost swallowed her gum.

'My G.o.d, what's that?'

149.

WITH FRIENDS LIFE THESE . ..

"You're a master's candidate in marine bio. You tell me." He handed it to her.

She examined it closely, and those pixie eyes got wider and wider.

"Some gag. It looks like a Great White's tooth. But that's absurd."

"So was the coelacanth when it turned up in 1938," he replied evenly.

"But it can't be Carcharodon!" she protested. "It's three times too big!"

"For Carcfarodon carcharias, yes. Not for Carcharodon megalodon." He turned and dug into,the loosely stacked books that inhabited the s.p.a.ce between desk chair and wall. In a teacher-student situation, he was perfectly comfortable with her.

"You mean the Great White's ancestor? Well, maybe." She took another look at the unreal weapon in her hand. "I found one in Georgia about half this size. And there was a six-incher turned up just a few years ago. Extrapolating from what we know about the modern Great White, carcharias, that would mean this tooth came out of a shark ninety fee-"

"Ah-ah," he warned.

"Oh, all right. About, urn, thirty meters long." She didn't smile. "Kind of hard to imagine."

"So are sharks attacking boats. But there are dozens of verified incidents of sharks, often Great Whites, hitting small craft. Happens off stateside waters as well as in the tropics. The White Death. The basis for a real Moby d.i.c.k, only ten times worse. Not to mention a few thousand years of sea-serpent stories."

"You think one of these might have survived into recent times?"

Poplar was thumbing through a thick tome. "That's what that chief thinks, only to him it's a G.o.d and not a shark. The Great White prefers ocean-going- mammals to fish. Probably this oversized ancestor of his fed on the earlier, slower-moving whales. First the whales grew more streamlined, and then man began picking off the slower ones. The sea couldn't have supported 150.

He too many of these monsters anyway. A megalodon would have a killer whale for breakfast."

"A man-eater as big as a blue whale." She shook her lovely head. "A diver's nightmare."

"The Matai who brought this one in says he knows where there's another, and maybe more."

"Far out. You think I might get my thesis out of this?"

"Well," he smiled, "the chief did say that according to legend anyone who sees Him is forever changed. All you've got to do is spot Him."

"Very funny."

"We leave first thing tomorrow morning, on the Vatai. Tenish. Now go and pack." But she was already out the door.

She was not so happy for the reasons Poplar thought Tourists waved from the hotel balcony. It had been built at the point where the open sea met Pago Pago's magnificent harbor. Elaine slid her lava-lava down a little lower on one shoulder and waved back coquet-tishly. Poplar looked up from the wheel disapprovingly.

"Just because naked native maidens went out of fashion forty years ago is no reason for you to feel any obligation to revive the tradition for the benefit of overweight used-car salesmen from Des Moines."

"Oh, foo! For what they charge the poor slobs to stay in that concrete doghouse they're ent.i.tled to a little wish-fulfillment."

"Courtesy of downtown Brooklyn, hmm," he grinned in spite of himself. He swung the wheel hard over and they headed south-southwest. The powerful twin diesels purred evenly below deck.

Wreathed in gold-gray clouds, Mt. Rainmaker, all 530 meters of it, watched them from astern long after Tutuila itself had vanished into the sea.

The trip was uneventful, except that Elaine insisted on sleeping stark naked. She also had what Popfar felt was a childish habit of kicking her sheets down to her feet. He considered going over and replacing them, 151.

but hesitated. He might wake her and that would be awkward.

Ha'apu was clearly pleased at the situation, and there wasn't anything Poplar could do about it. Well, if she wanted to expose herself, he'd simply ignore her. Clearly she was looking for attention, and he didn't intend to give it to her.

So until he fell asleep, he spent a lot of time staring at the sterile cabin wall that separated him from the sea.

And the other wall remained equally unbroken.

Like most small, low-lying Pacific islands, Tafahi was nonexistent one moment and a destination the next, popping out of the blue ocean like a cork. The white sand beach sparkled in evening sun, devoid of the usual ornaments of civilization . . . beer cans, dogeared sandals, plastic wrappers, empty candy papers, beer cans.

There was a broad, clear entrance to the small lagoon. Poplar had no trouble bringing the Vatai inside. Ha'apu climbed into his paopao, its little sail tightly furled, and paddied ash.o.r.e. Poplar and Elaine followed in the Vatai'?, powerful little runabout.