Pohl

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UNDERSEA FLEET
Frederik Pohl
and
Jack Williamson
DEL RSY
A Del Rey Book
BALLANT1NE BOOKS • NEW YORK
A Del Rey Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright © 1956 by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York,
and simultaneously in Canada by Ballantine Books of Canada,
Ltd., Toronto, Canada.
ISBN 0-345-25618-2
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition: April 1971
Second Printing: July 1977
Cover art by H. R. Van Dongen
CONTENTS
/ the raptures of the depths
1
2 the looters of the sea
9
3 dive for record!
17
4 "the tides don't wait!**
27
5
visitor from the sea
35
6
the pearly eyes
44
7
back from the deeps
52
8
the half men
58
9
sargasso dome
68
10
tencha of tonga trench
75
11
graduation week 82
12
rustbucket navy 88
13
the followers of the deeps 94
14
sub-sea skirmish 100
15
abandon ship! 106
16
hermit of the tonga trench 112
17
craken of the sea-mount 118
18
the fight for tonga trench 125
19
sub-sea stampede! 131
20
"the molluscans are ripe!" 136
21
aboard the killer whale
143
22
"panic is the enemy!"
148
The Raptures of the Depths
We marched aboard the gym ship at 0400.
It was long before dawn. The sea was a calm,
black mirror, rolling slowly under the stars. Standing at
sharp attention, out of the corner of my eye I could
see the distant docks of the Sub-Sea Academy, a
splash of light against the low dark line of Bermuda.
Cadet Captain Roger Fairfane rapped out:
"Cadets!
Ten-hut!"
We snapped to attention, the whole formation of
us. The gym ship was a huge undersea raft, about as
lively and graceful as an iceberg. The sub-sea tugs
1
were nuz-zling around it like busy little porpoises,
hauling and pulling us around, getting us out to sea.
We were still on the surface, standing roll-call
formation on the deck of the gym ship, but already the
raft was beginning to pitch and wallow in the swells of
the open sea.
I was almost shivering, and it wasn't only the wind
that came in from the far Atlantic reaches. It was
tingling excitement. I was back at the Sub-Sea
Academy! As we fell in I could sense the eagerness
in Bob Eskow, beside me. Both of us had given up all
hope of ever being on the cadet muster rolls again. And
yet—here we were!
Bob whispered: "Jim, Jim! It gets you, doesn't it?
I'm
beginning to hope ---- "
He stopped abruptly, as the whole formation fell
sud-denly silent. But he didn't have to finish the
sentence; I knew what he meant.
Bob and I—Jim Eden is my name, cadet at the
Sub-
T
Sea Academy—had almost lost hope for a while.
Out of the Academy, in disgrace—but we had fought
our way back and we were full-fledged cadets again.
A new year was beginning for us with the traditional
qualifying skin-dive tests. And that was Bob's
problem, for there was something in his makeup that
he fought against but could not quite defeat,
something that made skin-diving as diffi-cult for him as,
say, parachute-jumping would be for a man afraid of
heights. It wasn't fear. It wasn't weakness. It was just
a part of him. "Count off!"
Captain Fairfane gave the order, and the whole long
line of us roared out our roll-call. In the
darkness—it was still far from dawn—I couldn't see
the far end of the line, but I could see Cadet
Captain Fairfane by the light of his flash-tipped
baton. It was an inspiring sight, the rigid form of the
captain, the braced ranks of cadets fading into the
darkness, the dully gleaming deck of the gym ship,
the white-tipped phosphorescence of the waves. We
were the men who would soon command the Sub-
Sea Fleet!
Every one of us had worked hard to be where we
were. That was why Bob Eskow, day after day,
grimly went through the tough, man-killing schedule of
tests and work and study. The deep sea is a drug—so
my uncle Stewart Eden used to say, and he gave his
whole life to it. Sometimes it's deadly bitter. But
once you've tasted it, you can't live without it.
Captain Fairfane roared: "Crew commanders,
report!"
"First crew, allpresentandaccountedforSIR!"
"Second crew, allpresentandaccountedforSIR!"
"Third crew, allpresentandaccountedforSIR!" The
cadet captain returned the salutes of the three crew
commanders, whirled in a stiff about-face and
saluted Lieutenant Blighman, our sea coach.
"Allpresentandac-countedforSIR!" he rapped out.
Sea Coach Blighman returned the salute from
where he stood in the lee of the bow superstructure.
He strode swiftly forward, in the easy, loose-limbed gait
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