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  “I wondered what was up. I was working away here a while ago and Wham! a geyser of water shot up through the well.”

  “That was our tower blowing.”

  “Damn glad it was your equipment. I checked out every instrument I got to see everything was okay. Everything from fuel on up. I figured it was one of you grape-pickers screwing something up.”

  “We’ll have to blow up your generator too. Your barge is as much a giveaway as our tower.” He ignored the color rising in Teawater’s round face and continued. “You won’t be needing your barge. Your supply ship won’t be coming, and you won’t be able to go to the top for supplies for a long time.”

  Teawater folded his arms. “Blow up any dang thing you like, so long as it’s yours. That barge and diesel generator are mine. Anyone touches them I’ll set charges under every goddang station you got over there.”

  It was going to be the hard way, then. “I’m not offering you a choice.”

  “Talk all you want, you’re not blowing up anything of mine. You’ve been after me to get me off here ever since you decided you wanted to set up some tinkertoy operations down here, even though this mountain was already legally mine…”

  Alex felt suddenly weary. “You can’t stake a claim to an entire mountain. There’s 240 square miles of territory here, and that’s bigger than some entire countries.”

  “Setting chains of recording instruments across my property, scaring the growth off my crabs—I could have shot a dozen of you. You’re not going to scare me off this way, either. And especially not to come over there, you better believe that.” He glanced in the direction of the schlager and rubbed his palms gainst his knees.

  “We don’t want you over there any more than you want to come.”

  “Then git! What the hell’s keeping you?”

  “If you’ll shut up a minute I’ll tell you. Our supply ship didn’t come either, and already we’ve had to take six extra men; the meteorologists from the platform—greenhorns who’ve never been below before, who can’t help with so much as routine maintenance outside. Our problem is survival. So is yours. And we intend to begin by not being a target for anyone who’s looking for us. Your barge up there makes us a sitting duck. Mattern has sent a team up to wire explosives to it and to try to get a radioactivity reading at the surface.”

  Tea water scrambled from his seat like a cat through the maze of tanks to the diving gear hanging beside the well. He was halfway into the suit before Alex got to him. Teawater swung the schlager ait his head, still struggling with the suit. Alex dived under his arm and tackled him, pinning his shoulders to the edge of the well.

  “Knock it off,” he barked into the crimson face.

  Teawater flipped his torso, nearly knocking Alex off. “You bastards stay away from my barge. You trying to kill me?” His head hung backward over the edge of the well, and Alex saw that his eyes were brimming.

  “We’re trying to keep you from getting killed. And ourselves too. Damn it man, can’t you listen? The sooner we get that barge off the water, the better our chances of not being detected. Understand that. And it’s going to go if I have to sit here on top of you the entire time and wait.”

  “Let me get my head up.”

  Alex eased his grip and let him slide over to rest against the floor. They stared at each other across the narrow distance with only the chug of the converter motor breaking the silence. “You figure I got to go, huh?”

  “One way or another. As soon as your barge goes, that’s it. And without light or power you couldn’t stay alive long enough to get charges ready to set under even one of our stations, so let’s stop the bullshit.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Get whatever you need. We’ll load it and whatever food you have on your sea glider and go back to the Main station.” As he spoke he eased his grip enough to measure Teawater’s reaction. He lay still, breathing hard. Alex stood and released him. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

  Teawater sat up slowly. “Couldn’t you cut the anchor line and let her drift? Do you have to blow it up?”

  “You’d rather have it a menace to navigation along the coast? The Navy doesn’t take kindly to derelicts drifting in navigable waters, especially in time of war.”

  Teawater slowly zipped his diving suit. “I got some things to get ready here. My catch is all netted up ready to go to the boat. I got to release them or they’ll die.”

  “We don’t have time for that.”

  “Damn it all, man, you may not have time for it. I’m telling you what I’m going to do before I move out of here. You go on and get out if you’re worried about time. I got work to do.”

  Alex stepped backward and held out a hand to help him to his feet. “Show me where things are.”

  Piece by piece they stowed the supplies and essential gear onto the glider. The remaining supply of food was meager, but the stowing of gear and instruments might have been endless if Teawater hadn’t finally filled the last available cranny in the none too large glider, and looked regretfully behind at the equipment he had to leave. Alex felt a quick gratitude that the man didn’t keep any sort of pet to drag along. On the last trip down the well, Tea-water tucked a black metal box under his arm, then pulled the hatch shut behind him and screwed it closed. He motioned to Alex and they set about the outside work. Following the instructions of waving arms and nods of head, Alex helped release the crabs from the enormous nets back to their pens. He admired the swift efficiency of the man as he cut and pulled at the net. He swam with a minimum of effort. They worked together like a practiced team, understanding each other. By the time the net was secured they moved off toward the sea glider like old friends, smiling through their masks, each congratulating the other at being able to keep up.

  The glider was loosed from its anchor line. It rose of its own buoyancy about twenty feet, became too heavy, and began a slow sinking as Teawater guided it forward toward the station.

  Alex wished that for once the government had not insisted on the most recent technology, and had been content to equip Cobb with such vessels that needed little source of power, rather than the larger research sub.

  The craft rose and glided gently downward toward the station. On a high upcurrent Alex looked below and was astonished at how much of the nylon network was visible in its phosphorescence, compared to its relative dimness when he travelled it hand over hand.

  An enormous shape loomed below them. Killer whale flashed through Alex’s reflexes. He wrenched around to watch the swift moving oblong. Teawater froze at the controls, looking back. As it moved out of sight he hit the auxiliary power. The dark shape once again rose toward them. Its profile clicked in Alex’s brain. A submarine.

  III

  The submarine captain worked off his gloves before extending his hand. “I’m Captain Plevier.”

  “Lyle Mattern. Sit down, Captain.” Mattern was still coming down off the high from the adrenalin that charged through him when they’d picked up a sub outside. Calmed him by half to get quick reassurance it was American, but only half.

  “Like some coffee?”

  Plevier eased himself into the vinyl deck chair in front of the desk and rubbed at an eye. “Can’t drink it. My stomach. Tea’s fine if you have it.”

  Mattern swivelled around in his chair and pushed the intercom. “Bring Captain Plevier some tea.” When he turned back, Plevier was still rubbing the same red eye. With his hat in his lap he sat, worrying his face with his hand, the bald area over his forehead shiny and pink.

  Plevier had the pitted face of a man cursed with teenage acne who had given in to the picking urge. His neatly trimmed dark beard, Mattern suspected, covered some scars.

  “Have you got instructions for us?”

  One side of Plevier’s mouth pulled up into an ironic snort. “No. I’m here for two reasons—first to find out what the attack was.”

  “You mean was it nuclear, biological or chemical? How should I know? Maybe all three.” r />
  “You don’t know?” Mattern could see him trying to control a rush of anger. “What in hell do you do down here?”

  “We’re not set up for that kind of activity.”

  “You’re government funded, aren’t you? What in hell do you expect me to believe this is, a fishing expedition? If the problem is security, I’ve got the clearance, and I sure as hell have die need to know.”

  Mattern might have let himself blow up in return, given different circumstances. But in the crisis he felt himself in possession of a new power. “We keep busy,” he drawled.

  “You keep a missile tracking station up top, don’t you?”

  “No. Up top, the physical oceanography section charts currents, weather, and does some studies on thermal transfer and cosmic rays. That’s all.”

  “And down here?”

  “Our biggest project is the hospital. We specialize in open heart surgery. At this pressure a patient can have about four times normal oxygen concentration without the danger of explosion you’d have at the surface. We do studies in high pressure chemistry. We do radiocarbon dating, study hydrogen embrittlement and the like.”

  “And do a little underwater testing?”

  “We wouldn’t muddy our own water, Captain, and to save you asking, down at mid-station, the tectonophysics section does geological exploration, pure and simple. This mount was a volcano, you know. We keep busy enough without politics.”

  “If you’re not military, how come you have a supply dump for subs on the other side of the mountain?”

  Mattern stiffened and felt the breath drain from him. “Maybe you’d better tell me what you’re doing here.” Plevier talked in nervous haste, filling in what he knew, closing his eyes occasionally.

  When he finished Mattern nodded quietly.

  He flipped the intercom button. “Is Alex back yet?”

  “Hasn’t reported in yet.”

  “Check with the diving room and let me know. Meantime, ask Doc Johnson to come in.”

  “Will do.” The light winked off.

  “I’d like my second and third in charge to hear this.” Plevier nodded. “You agree now that I have some need to know?”

  Mattern pulled along face. “Never doubted it. Sad damn part of it is, the only secret study we’ve got going hasn’t got a thing to do with the military. Fact is, I never could see any reason for its being secret. Concerns the effects of pressure on biological functions.”

  Plevier sighed and sipped at his tea. “Have you got any aspirin?”

  There was a perfunctory tap on the door before it slid part way open. Doc Johnson stuck his close-cropped blonde head through. “You looking for me?”

  “Come on in and shut the door. Doc, this is Captain Plevier.” They shook hands. “Doc Johnson’s head of medicine here. You’ve probably heard of his wife up top. She’s a painter.” He caught himself as Johnson paled. How long would it take him, he wondered, to stop referring to people up top until he had some certainty they were still alive?

  “How do you do?” Plevier acknowledged him with an academy correctness that struck Mattern as bordering on reproach to his own off-the-cuff attitude.

  Johnson unfolded the second deck chair and set it into the small remaining space between the desk and the wall, next to Plevier. “Are you rescue?”

  “No, they’re not,” Mattern said. “You know the rumors about Navy bases on seamounts? Well—they weren’t just rumors. Besides stations for submarines, there’s at least one installation for storing classified information and records, and we don’t know how many more where provisions are stored. One of them is here on Cobb. Captain?”

  Plevier leaned forward, elbows on the desk, studying his thumb as it rubbed against his index finger.

  “We’ve been on a routine three month cruise in the Arctic. I was headed back to Bremerton, when I was warned Bremerton was quarantined because of an epidemic, and told to stand by for further orders. Then I received orders to pick up supplies here at Cobb, from-the cache the Navy laid down when they put in the first station.”

  “Where is the cache?”

  “I can’t give you the coordinates. But it’s around the other side of the mountain.”

  Johnson grunted and nodded.

  “I was approaching Cobb when I started receiving the Red Alert.”

  “Probably the same time we got it,” Mattern said. “Wait a minute. Anything in your message about a red tide?”

  Plevier looked baffled. “There’s no message to it. It’s a signal. I don’t know what your alert was for. To us it means we’re to forget wherever we were headed, put aboard all available missiles stored at undersea locations, and proceed to destroy our preassigned targets in the order of priority. I tried to contact the base. Nothing. We’ve been pinged twice, picked up on someone’s sonar, but not attacked. Something damn strange is going on out there.”

  “You’ve got no clue what’s happening?”

  “War. Not a very long one.‘We have access to enough provisions to run for over a year under the surface, but my war is going to be over in about five days, when my missiles are used up.”

  “And then what?” Johnson asked. “Back to the surface?”

  Plevier gave a dry, humorless laugh. “With what I’m going to put up there, singlehanded, there will be enough contamination to prevent me from debarking with my crew any place that I know of on the Western rim of the Pacific. No doubt the other side will take care of the Eastern rim. No, I said I was here for two reasons. The second was to make arrangements to return here after we’ve delivered our missiles.”

  Johnson looked at him wonderingly, shaking his head. “We’ve got more bodies than we have room for now.” “You can make room for more. As a government installation, I believe you’re obligated to help. We’ve no idea how long we may have to stay below.”

  “Negative, Captain.” Mattern stood behind his desk. “Our air and our food supply are limited. And I won’t starve my crew for the sake of becoming a military target. You said the Navy has underwater bases—those are your proper location. Not here.”

  “They’re fully manned!” Plevier snapped.

  “So are we!”

  “For the love of God, man, we have got to have a place to go. The surface will be impossible.”

  Mattern could see the cords taut in Doc Johnson’s neck. “Does it strike you that what you’re doing is ridiculous?”

  Plevier’s face turned pink but his expression didn’t alter. “Maybe you’ll be kind enough to give me the full benefit of your thinking, Doctor? I’ve been up for over forty-eight hours, and you can’t expect too much of a career man in the presence of genius.”

  Johnson ignored the return slap. His voice was as weary as Plevier’s, but it had a dry, relentless push to it, as though by pacing his words he might string them out in an unremitting structure of accusation from which there would be no defense…

  “You’ve had enough training for nuclear warfare to know. How long would it take for enough missiles to be launched to destroy major targets on both sides?”

  Plevier studied the splitting nail on his left thumb. “Less than an hour.”

  “And are people needed to fire them?”

  “They can be set to go off automatically.”

  “You’ve received a red alert. What’s the chance the shore missiles haven’t been launched?”

  “Very little.”

  “Then I don’t need to put the label on it, do I? The surface is undoubtedly…taken care of, wouldn’t you say? Your action will be overkill.”

  “Dr. Johnson, in the Navy we carry out orders. Logic is something to be used afterward.” Plevier’s smile was patronizing.

  “I’ve heard that expressed in a stronger voice, Captain. You know there’s a possibility that there’s nothing left up there but a wasteland.”

  “That is neither my decision to make, nor my responsibility.” He averted his eyes in such a way that Mattern was sure he hadn’t missed the contempt in John
son’s look.

  Mattern found himself enjoying the captain’s discomfort. Plevier was obviously unused to having his words questioned, and was straining at the edge of his temper to keep it polite. Mattern wondered how long it. would be before Plevier realized that the ranks, the hierarchies, the organization whose orders he would dutifully execute, now existed only in his mind. Would that make them crumble or, in some mysterious way, reinforce them as something sacred? Mattern broke into the argument.

  “If by some stretch we’ve already won, there’s nothing to be gained by firing more missiles. We might even be violating a truce. If we’ve already lost, a delay of one day, or even several, can’t make much difference, can it? It might even catch the other side, or whatever’s left of them, more off guard.”

  “I’m receiving a red alert, and that’s an active order.”

  “Your first job is the same as ours. Self preservation.” Plevier sat brushing his fingers back and forth at the side of his beard. “Mr. Mattern, you’re talking treason.” “Not to the human race!” Johnson snapped.

  “What do you think war is, some game of dump truck?

  In any give and take that teetered in the balance, my missiles might be the key ones. Every target’s plotted and assigned. If I don’t deliver the hardware to mine, they might be the retaliatory ones that could finish us. Would you like to assume that risk? I wouldn’t.” Plevier stood. “And now I’m afraid I’ll have to be on my way.”

  Mattern rose and extended his hand. “Can you ask your base to get word back to us? We need some idea how long we’ll have to hold out.”

  Plevier shook his head. “Our underwater bases can receive messages, but they aren’t allowed to send them. They’d be blown out of the water if they were detected.” Mattern wrung the bitterness from his voice. “Of course. Doc, will you go along with the captain to the diving room and see him aboard the sub?”

  “With pleasure.” Plevier didn’t miss the dryness of his voice.

  Mattern pushed back his office door to let them pass. From a distant room he could hear a quarrel—a high pitched voice ranting on about something, and a deeper voice periodically attempting to cut in.