“I’ll remember. Let me have some more oxygen.”
“No. You’ll poison yourself.” Kondratev felt like saying a few more words about wine, but he restrained himself and turned out the light. The submarine again moved in a spiral and everyone, even Belov, kept silent for a long time. Seven hundred meters, seven hundred fifty, eight hundred…
“There it is,” Akiko whispered.
A hazy narrow spot was moving unhurriedly across the screen. The creature was still too far away—so far it was impossible to identify. It could be a giant squid, a sperm whale, a food whale away from the herd, a large whale shark, or some unknown animal. There were still many animals either unknown or little known to humans in the deep. The Oceanic Guard had reports of enormous long-legged and long-tailed turtles, of sea serpents, of deep-sea spiders that nested in the chasms to the south of the Bonin Islands, of sea gnats-little predatory fish that swarmed in herds of many thousands at a depth of a mile or a mile and a quarter and wiped out everything in their path. So far there had been neither the opportunity nor any special need to verify these reports.
Kondratev quietly swung the submarine to keep the creature in its field of vision.
“Let’s get a little closer to it,” Belov asked. “Get closer!” He breathed noisily in Kondratev’s ear. The submarine slowly began the approach.
Kondratev turned on the sight, and crossed threads of light flashed onto the screen. The narrow spot was swimming near the crosshairs.
“Wait,” said Belov. “There’s no hurry, Kondratev.”
Kondratev got annoyed. He bent over, felt under his legs for the dictaphone, and poked it over his shoulder into the darkness.
“What’s going on?” asked Belov, displeased.
“The dictaphone,” Kondratev said. “Make a note: depth eight hundred meters, target sighted.”
“We’ve got time.”
“Let me,” said Akiko.
“Beg your pardon.” Belov gave a cough. “Kondratev! Don’t even think of shooting it, Kondratev. We’ve got to have a look first.”
“So look,” said Kondratev.
The distance between the submarine and the animal lessened. Now it was clearly a giant squid. If it were not for the trainees, Kondratev would not have delayed. A worker of the Oceanic Guard had no business delaying. Not one other sea creature brought as much harm to whaleherding as did the giant squid. It was subject to instant annihilation whenever one encountered a submarine—the squid’s blip would move within the crosshairs of the screen, and then the submarine would launch torpedoes. Two torpedoes. Sometimes three, to be certain. The torpedoes would dart along the ultrasonic beam and explode next to the target. And at the sound of the explosion, sharks would move in from all sides,
Kondratev took his finger off the torpedo launch switch with regret. “Look,” he repeated.
But there was not yet anything to look at. The limit of clear vision in the clearest ocean water did not exceed eighty or a hundred feet, and only the sonar allowed them to locate targets at distances of up to a third of a mile.
“I wish it would show up,” Belov said excitedly.
“Don’t be in such a hurry.”
The minisubs of the Oceanic Guard were intended to guard plankton crops from whales, and to guard whales from sea predators. The submarines were not intended for research purposes. They were too noisy. If the squid did not feel like closer acquaintance with the submarine, it would move off before they could turn the searchlights on and look it over. To pursue it would be useless—giant cephalopods were capable of a speed twice that of the quickest minisub. Kondratev was relying only on the amazing fearlessness and cruelty of the squid, which sometimes would incite it into skirmishes with fierce sperm whales and herds of grampuses.
“Careful, careful,” Belov repeated tenderly and imploringly.
“Want some oxygen?” Kondratev asked savagely.
Akiko softly touched him on the shoulder. She had been standing bent over the screen for several minutes, her hair tickling Kondratev’s ear and cheek,
“Ika sees us,” she said,
Belov shouted, “Don’t shoot!”
The spot on the screen-now it was big and round-moved downward fairly rapidly. Kondratev smiled, pleased. The squid was coming out under the submarine in its attack position. It had no thought of fleeing. Instead, the squid was offering battle.
“Don’t let it get away,” whispered Belov.
Akiko said, “Ika is getting away.”
The trainees did not yet understand what was going on. Kondratev began to lower the nose of the submarine. The squid’s blip once again flashed in the crosshairs. He had only to push the release to blow the vermin to shreds.
“Don’t shoot,” Belov repeated. “Just don’t shoot.”
I wonder what happened to his depth sickness, thought Kondratev. He said, “The squid will be under us now. I’m going to stand the sub on its bow. Get ready.”
“Aye, aye, Comrade Captain,” said Akiko.
Without speaking a word, Belov began moving energetically, getting himself settled. The submarine slowly rotated. The blip on the screen grew larger, and took on the form of a many-pointed star with winking rays. The submarine hung motionless nose down.
Evidently the squid was puzzled by the strange behavior of its intended victim. But it only delayed a few seconds. Then it moved to the attack. Rapidly and surely, as it must have done thousands of times before in its unimaginably long life.
The blip on the screen swelled and filled the whole screen.
Kondratev immediately turned on all the searchlights, two on the hatch side and one fixed to the bottom. The light was very bright. The transparent water seemed yellow-green. Akiko sighed briefly. Kondratev looked at her out of the corner of his eye for a moment. She was squatting over the porthole, hanging onto the edge of the control panel with one hand. A bare, scratched knee was sticking out from under her arm.
“Look,” Belov said hoarsely. “Look, there it is! Just look at it!”
At first the shining haze beyond the porthole was motionless. Then some sort of shadows began to stir in it. Something long and supple showed briefly, and after a second they could see the squid. Or rather they could see a broad white body, two unwavering eyes in its lower part, and under the eyes, like a monstrous mustache, two bundles of thick, waving tentacles. In an instant all this moved over the porthole and blocked off the light from the searchlights. The submarine rocked strongly, and something repulsive-sounding, like a knife on glass, began to scrape over the plating.
“There you are,” said Kondratev. “Have you enjoyed your fill?”
“It’s enormous!” Belov breathed reverently. “Akiko-san, did you see how enormous it is?”
“O-ika,” whispered Akiko.
Belov said, “I have never come across a record of such an enormous specimen, I would estimate the distance between the eyes as something over two meters. What do you think, Kondratev?”
“About that.”
“And you, Akiko-san?”
“One and one half to two meters,” Akiko answered after a silence.
“Which with the usual proportions would give us…” Belov started counting on his fingers. “Would give us a body of at least thirty meters, and a weight—”
“Listen,” Kondratev interrupted impatiently. “Have you looked enough?”
Belov said, “No, wait. We’ve got to tear away from it somehow and photograph it whole.”
The submarine rocked again, and once again the repulsive screech of horny jaws on metal could be heard.
“We’re not a whale, dearie,” Kondratev muttered gloatingly, and said aloud, “It won’t leave us voluntarily now, and it’d crawl over the submarine for at least two hours, no less. So now I’ll shake it off, and it’ll fall under the jet of superheated water from the turbines. Then we’ll quickly turn around, photograph it, and shoot it. All right?”