The man licked his lips. “What—what do you want?” he asked.
“The truth,” my uncle repeated, like the tolling of some sea-bell.
“The truth, Faulkner, the truth! The truth about you and Hallam Sperry, for a start. You were my lawyer, Faulkner, taking my money. And all the while you were secretly hand-in-glove with Sperry, selling me out to him, working with him in every shady deal in Thetis. Is that the truth, Faulkner?”
The man said feebly, “I—I—”
“Is it the truth?”
Faulkner swallowed. “Yes.”
“In fact,” my uncle went on remorselessly, “you helped Sperry take power in Thetis, didn’t you? You sold out my Edenite patents to him and framed the contract so I lost control and lost my royalties. True? And with the money and power that gave him, you helped him build an empire here under the sea.”
Faulkner only nodded. He was staring at my uncle in fascination, like a bird at a cobra, helpless and unable to move.
“And then Sperry got me out of the way,” said Stewart Eden,
“and Jim here came along. You tried to scare him off with crazy lies about sea-monsters. When he wouldn’t scare, you tried to buy him out. When he wouldn’t sell, you tried to kill him. When you couldn’t kill him, you hired some cheap cut-purse from Kelly’s Kingdom to impersonate him. Am I right, Faulkner?”
There was something glittering in Faulkner’s eyes now, something that hadn’t been there before. He was still looking at my uncle, but from time to time his eyes skipped past my uncle, to the door—the door that was moving slightly as though there were someone waiting on the other side of it.
Faulkner said viciously, “Right, Eden? Of course you’re right!
You and your nephew are two fools from the same hatch—and neither one of you deserves power or money, it’s wasted on you!”
He stood up and leaned forward, over the desk, staring piercingly at my uncle. “Do you doubt it, Eden?” he demanded. “Let me show you! You came in here, but you may not find it so easy to get out alive. Take a look at that door, Eden! I’ve standing orders here: When there’s unwelcome company in the office, my man Bishop waits there to show them out when the time comes. And that time is now! Bishop, shoot them down!”
He shouted the last words on a note of triumph. But the triumph didn’t last. Quick as the lashing stroke of a hammerhead, my uncle leaped to the door and flung it wide. “Your man has other engagements, Faulkner,” he cried. “See for yourself!”
And Faulkner, staring in a moment of horror and unbelief at his Neanderthal doorman, helpless in the grip of two sturdy men of the Sub-Sea Fleet while an armed squad of others stood at the ready before him, slumped slowly and finally to the desk…
With Thetis under martial law—established by Fleet Captain Bogardus at the radioed order of the governor of Marinia—a new day opened up for all of us. The Sperrys were gone; Faulkner and his staff and a few score others were under lock and key; and the power of the Sperrys, like a sea-sorcerer’s spell, vanished in a bubble of froth.
Even the Sub-Sea Fleet’s martial law was hardly needed, after those first hours—it stayed on only long enough for new and free elections to be held.
It didn’t take long. Only a few days after the Sub-Sea Fleet had ringed Thetis and cleaned out the last of the Sperry influence, Bob Eskow and I walked down one of the broad ways between long lines of citizens of Thetis, casting their ballots. There was no trouble. Every polling booth was guarded by a detachment from the Sub-Sea Fleet, the bright scarlet uniforms of the Western Allies, the sea-blue and fouled anchors of the European Union, even the sea-bottom gray of the Asian Command. Every component of the Sub-Sea Fleet was represented in the Marinian Patrol Command; and all of them took turn and turn about in policing Thetis.
Neither Bob nor I said a word; but I could tell what he was thinking as we looked at the smart submariners. The closest Bob came to saying what was in both our hearts was when he sighed and said, “With the Sperrys out of business, I guess I’m out of a job.”
I nodded. “And I guess I’d better start looking for one.”
And that seemed to be that…
Until, returning to the hotel where we shared quarters with my uncle, we found a message waiting for us: “Report to Fleet Captain Bogardus without delay.”
My uncle was in the Captain’s command room, waiting for us and there was a smile on his face. Perhaps I should have guessed—but I didn’t. It was only when the captain handed me the familiar platinum-crested envelope that I began to suspect. “The Sub-Sea Fleet doesn’t often make a mistake,” he said, “but when it does, it always admits it. When you two resigned, it was under pressure—and there’s no doubt, now, that a lot of the pressure was more than improper. So—well, this is from the Academy, for both of you. Open it up.”
The words danced in front of my eyes as I held the sheet of paper up before me. “In view of new information,” it said, and, “resignation disapproved,” and, most important of all, the last sentence, unbelievable but clear before my eyes:
“Cadets Eden, J., and Eskow, R., will therefore proceed by fastest available transportation to the Academy to resume training. By order of the Commandant, U.S.S.S.”
We were reinstated!
Bob and I found ourselves in the passageway outside the command cabin, half dazed. We looked at each other incredulously.
“Well,” I said, trying to seem unemotional about it, “it looks like we won’t have to worry about a job for a while.”
“Sure,” he said, poker-faced as I… And then his broad face split in a grin. “Who are you kidding?” he demanded exuberantly.
“Jim, we made it, we made it! Let’s get going, lubber—we’ve got packing to do. And the tides won’t wait!”