We surfaced and set course for Fisherman’s Island, where we could be picked up for the return trip to Thetis.
21
The Long Voyage
Fisherman’s Island hadn’t changed. We moored at almost the same spot on the coral reef as before, and Bob got busy on the communicator while we set the pumps to draining the last drops of seepage.
Bob looked worriedly up at me. “The only acknowledgment I get from Thetis,” he said, “is ‘Stand by for boarding.’ It doesn’t sound right, Jim.”
My uncle Stewart rubbed his long jaw. “It isn’t right,” he said softly. “We’ve chopped off the head of the octopus, boys, but the arms are something else again. The Sperrys are out of the way, but the men they put in power are still in Thetis.”
“You mean you think Sperry’s sea-police will make trouble for us?” I asked.
“Think it, boy?” My uncle waved at the microsonar screen. “What do you make of that?”
There was something there, all right, big and distant but coming up fast. “I can’t make it out,” I said. “It—it doesn’t look like a Marinian police vessel, and it’s too fast for a tramp freighter.”
Stewart Eden peered into the viewplate and shook his head. “I don’t know, boy,” he said in his soft voice. “No, it’s not Marinian—not unless they’ve laid some new keels while I was tucked away at the bottom of the Deep. Whatever it is, we’ll know soon enough.”
The ship was literally boiling through the water toward us; perhaps Isle of Spain or another crack passenger liner might have made as many knots, but we were far from the liner routes.
Gideon coughed and said, “What happens if it is the sea-police?”
“Trouble, maybe,” my uncle said grimly. “It depends.” He looked, at me with sober humor. “You didn’t bargain on this, did you, Jim? I didn’t mean to get you into it. I had other plans for you—plenty of money, out of the royalties on the new Edenite, the mines at the bottom of the Deep. But we can’t always know how things will work out.”
“But you still have all that, Mr. Eden!” Bob said.
Stewart Eden shook his head, the wry smile still on his lips.
“Our lease on the Deep expires—Hallam Sperry’s little trick of putting me out of the way for a while took care of that. And the new Edenite—I gave that away. I can’t take it back.” He patted me on the shoulder and winked. “Wouldn’t if I could,” he said. “There’s money to be made and things to do. If we need the money, we’ll earn it. If we don’t—why, what is the use of having it?”
I said very sincerely, “Uncle Stewart, I never wanted the money, and I don’t want it now. What I wanted most of anything in the world I got.”
Stewart Eden looked at me for a moment, and then he looked away. We Edens don’t show our feelings much; he didn’t say anything; and he didn’t have to.
Gideon said, “Whatever it is that’s coming, it’s within the thousand-yard range now!”
We swung to look at the microsonar, Gideon and Bob and I with apprehension, my uncle Stewart with a half smile. I couldn’t understand it for a moment—it was not like my uncle to sit quiet and careless when an unknown danger was coming close. I stared, perplexed…
Bob Eskow said tensely, “Think it’s the sea-police?”
To my astonishment, my uncle was grinning broadly now. He must have seen the perplexity in my eyes, because he laughed and said, “No, Bob, it isn’t the sea- police. What in the seven seas did they teach you at that Academy, anyhow?”
Bob and I looked at each other for a moment, then, with the same impulse stared again at the screen—unbelieving, then sure.
“Of course!” said Bob, and even Gideon leaned back and sighed a long, relaxed sigh.
We scrambled out of the hatchway and up on deck in time to greet the upthrust nose of the long, gray silhouette of the Nares, flagship of the Marinian Patrol Command of the Sub-Sea Fleet.
The Nares was commanded by Fleet Captain Bogardus, a stern-faced four-striper with a chest full of ribbons and eyes of piercing black. We were escorted to the command cabin with full military honors, including a guard of armed seamen in full dress.
They didn’t say whether they were a guard of honor or a prisoner-detail, and I, for one, didn’t quite want to ask.
Bob and I saluted the captain with all of the snap and precision the Academy had given us. Gideon and my uncle were less formal. My uncle said, “Thanks for picking us up, Captain. You’ve done us a favor.”
“That,” the captain said frostily, “remains to be seen. It may interest you to know that the governor of Marinia has ordered this command to pick you up.”
“I appreciate his concern,” my uncle said gravely.
“Indeed.” The captain nodded with a brisk motion. “You may sit down, gentlemen. I need hardly say that you’ve stirred up quite a commotion over the past few hours. Accusations against the mayor of Thetis——”
“The late mayor of Thetis,” my uncle interrupted politely.
“The late mayor, then. All right. But he was a responsible public official, all the same, and if he is dead the circumstances concerning that death must be gone into very deeply, Mr. Eden. As, of course, must your allegation that he and his son were endeavoring to ram and destroy you.”
“Of course,” my uncle said shortly. He might have gone on from there, but Fleet Captain Bogardus held up his hand, and for the first time his expression seemed a trifle less frosty.
“On the other hand,” he went on, “I need hardly say, Mr. Eden, that your word has a certain amount of weight too. Now, suppose you begin at the beginning and tell me just what all this hullabaloo is about…”
We were in his office for an hour or more, while the captain asked questions and listened, and a methodical seaman took all our conversation down on a dictating machine. Then the Fleet Captain, courteously but blank- faced, excused himself and left us alone for a little while longer.
It wasn’t for long. Bob had hardly had time to get restless when we heard the .sharp crack of heels in die corridor outside and Fleet Captain Bogardus came in through the door.
“I’ve been in touch with the governor of Marinia,” he said crisply. “I have my orders, gentlemen. We are already on course to Thetis!”
A fast cruiser of the Sub-Sea Fleet eats up the miles like no other vessel under the surface of the sea. We had time to eat and get a little cleaned up, and we were there.
And my uncle and I set out to clean up unfinished business.
We went to a certain place and opened a certain door, and the man behind the door jumped up, staring at us as though we were ghosts.
“Stewart Eden!” he gasped.
“The same,” said my uncle. “What’s the matter, Faulkner? Did you think I was out of the way for good?”
The lawyer sat down suddenly, breathing heavily. “My—my heart,” he gasped. “This shock—
“Too bad,” said my uncle sharply. “We’ve had a few shocks too. Do you recognize my nephew here, the man you tried to have killed?”
Faulkner was getting a grip on himself. “Have killed?” he repeated. “Nonsense. This young man came around and tried to cause trouble, but I certainly—Besides, he’s not your nephew. He’s an imposter! I’ve seen the real James Eden, and—”
“That’s enough, Faulkner!” Stewart Eden’s quiet voice was a whiplash. He towered over the white-lipped man, looking like some avenging sea-god about to strike down an infidel. “We’ve had lies enough out of you, Faulkner,” my uncle snapped. “Now we’ll take the truth. All of it!”