We begin with afish story.
The locale is Venus; the "fish" is Ichthysaunis elasmognathus, a
three-hundred-foot monster that has never been landed and
perhaps never -will be, in spite of powered equipment built to
the scale of a floating platform as big as an aircraft carrier.
This story won overwhelmingly in the novelette category: it
got five nominations, and more votes than the next four stories
combined.

Nebula Award, Best Novelette 1965

THE DOORS OF HIS FACE,
THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH

Roger Zeiazny
I'm a baitman. No one is born a baitman, except in a French
novel where everyone is. (In fact, I think that's the title. We
Are All Bait. Pfft!) How I got that way is barely worth the
telling and has nothing to do with neo-exes, but the days of the
beast deserve a few words, so here they are.
The Lowlands of Venus lie between the thumb and
forefinger of the continent known as Hand. When you break
into Cloud Alley it swings its silverblack bowling ball toward
you without a warning. You jump then, inside that firetailed
tenpin they ride you down in, but the straps keep you from
making a fool of yourself. You generally chuckle afterwards,
but you always jump first.
Next, you study Hand to lay its illusion and the two middle
fingers  become  dozen-ringed  archipelagoes  as  the  outers
resolve into greengray peninsulas; the thumb is too short, and
curls like the embryo tail of Cape Horn.
You suck pure oxygen, sigh possibly, and begin the long
topple to the Lowlands.
There, you are caught like an infield fly at the Lifeline
landing areaiso named because of its nearness to the great
delta in the Eastern Baylocated between the first peninsula
and "thumb." For a minute it seems as if you're going to miss
Lifeline and wind up as canned seafood, but afterwards-
shaking off the metaphorsyou descend to scorched concrete
and present your middle-sized telephone directory of authori-
zations to the short, fat man in the gray cap. The papers
show that you are not subject to mysterious inner rottings and
etcetera. He then smiles you a short, fat, gray smile and motions
you toward the bus which hauls you to the Reception Area. At
the R.A. you spend three days proving that, indeed, you are not
subject to mysterious inner rottings and etcetera.
Boredom, however, is another rot. When your three days are
up,  you  generally hit Lifeline  hard,  and it returns  the
compliment as a matter of reflex. The effects of alcohol in
variant atmospheres is a subject on which the connoisseurs
have written numerous volumes, so I will confine my remarks to
noting that a good binge is worthy of at least a week's time and
often warrants a lifetime study.
I had been a student of exceptional promise (strictly
undergraduate) for going on two years when the Bright Water
fell through our marble ceiling and poured its people like
targets into the city.
Pause. The Worlds Almanac re Lifeline: ". . . Port city on
the eastern coast of Hand. Employees of th'e Agency for
Nonterrestrial Research comprise approximately 85% of its
100,000 population (2010 Census). Its other residents are
primarily personnel maintained by several industrial corpora-
tions engaged in basic research. Independent marine biologists,
wealthy fishing enthusiasts, and waterfront entrepreneurs make
up the remainder of its inhabitants."
I turned to Mike Perrin,  a fellow entrepreneur, and
commented on the lousy state of basic research.
"Not if the mumbled truth be known."
He paused behind his glass before continuing the slow
swallowing process calculated to obtain my interest and a few
oaths, before he continued.
"Carl," he finally observed, poker playing, "they're shaping
Tensquare."
I could have hit him. I might have refilled his glass with
sulfuric acid and looked on with glee as his lips blackened and
cracked. Instead, I grunted a noncommittal:  "Who's fool
enough to shell out fifty grand a day? ANR?"
He shook his head.
"Jean Luharich," he said, "the girl with the violet contacts
and fifty or sixty perfect teeth. I understand her eyes are really
brown."
"Isn't she selling enough facecream these days?"
He shrugged.
"Publicity makes the wheels go 'round. Luharich Enterprises
jumped sixteen points when she picked up the Sun Trophy.
You ever play golf on Mercury?"
I had, but I overlooked it and continued to press.
"So she's coming here with a blank check and a fishhook?"
"Bright Water, today," he nodded. "Should be down by now.
Lots of cameras. She wants an lkky, bad."
"Hmm," I hmmed. "How bad?"
"Sixty day contract, Tensquare. Indefinite extension clause.
Million and a half deposit," he recited.
"You seem to know a lot about it."
"I'm Personnel Recruitment.  Luharich Enterprises ap-
proached me last month. It helps to drink in the right places.
"Or own them," he smirked, after a moment.
I looked away, sipping my bitter brew. After awhile I
swallowed several things and asked Mike what he expected to
be asked, leaving myself open for his monthly temperance
lecture.
"They told me to try getting you," he mentioned. "When's
the last time you sailed?"
"Month and a half ago. The Corning."
"Small stuff," he snorted. "When have you been under,
yourself?"
"It's been awhile."
"It's been over a year, hasn't it? That time you got cut by the
screw, under the Dolphin?"
I turned to him.
"I was in the river last week, up at Angleford where the
currents are strong. I can still get around."
"Sober," he added.
"I'd stay that way," I said, "on a job like this."
A doubting nod.
"Straight union rates. Triple time for extraordinary circum-
stances," he narrated. "Be at Hangar Sixteen with your gear,
Friday morning, five hundred hours. We push off Saturday,
daybreak."
"You're sailing?"
"I'm sailing."
"How come?"
"Money."
"lkky guano."
"The bar isn't doing so well and baby needs new minks."
"I repeat-"
". . . And I want to get away from baby, renew my contact
with basicsfresh air, exercise, make cash . . ."
"All right, sorry I asked."
I poured him a drink, concentrating on HgS04, but it didn't
transmute. Finally I got him soused and went out into the night
to walk and think things over.
Around a dozen serious attempts to land Ichthysaurus
elasmognathus, generally known as "lkky," had been made
over the past five years. When lkky was first sighted, whaling
techniques were employed. These proved either fruitless or
disastrous, and a new procedure was inaugurated. Tensquare
was constructed by a wealthy sportsman named Michael Jandt,
who blew his entire roll on the project.
After a year on the Eastern Ocean, he returned to file
bankruptcy. Cariton Davits, a playboy fishing enthusiast, then
purchased the huge raft and laid a wake for lkky's spawning
grounds. On the nineteenth day out he had a strike and lost one
hundred and fifty bills' worth of untested gear, along with one
ichthysaurus elasmognathus. Twelve days later, using tripled
lines, he hooked, narcotized,  and began to hoist the huge
beast. It awakened then, destroyed a control tower, killed six
men, and worked general hell over five square blocks of
Tensquare. Cariton was left with partial hemiplegia and a
bankruptcy suit of his own. He faded into waterfront
atmosphere and Tensquare changed hands four more times,
with less spectacular but equally expensive results.
Finally,  the big raft, built only for  one purpose, was
purchased at auction by ANR for "marine research." Lloyd's
still won't insure it, and the only marine research it has ever
seen is an occasional rental at fifty bills a dayto people anxious
to tell Leviathan fish stories. I've been baitman on three of the
voyages, and I've been close enough to count lkky's fangs on
two occasions. I want one of them to show my grandchildren,
for personal reasons.
I faced the direction of the landing area and resolved a
resolve.
"You want me for local coloring, gal. It'll look nice on the
feature page and all that. But clear thisIf anyone gets you an
lkky, it'll be me. I promise."
I stood in the empty Square. The foggy towers of Lifeline
shared their mists.
Shoreline a couple eras ago, the western slope above Lifeline
stretches as far as forty miles inland in some places. Its angle of
rising is not a great one, but it achieves an elevation of several
thousand feet before it meets the mountain range which
separates us from the Highlands. About four miles inland and
five hundred feet higher than Lifeline are set most of the
surface airstrips and privately owned hangars. Hangar Sixteen
houses Cal's Contract Cab, hop service, shore to ship. I do not
like Cal, but he wasn't around when I climbed from the bus and
waved to a mechanic.
Two of the hoppers tugged at the concrete, impatient
beneath flywing haloes. The one on which Steve was working
belched deep within its barrel carburetor and shuddered
spasmodically.
"Bellyache?" I inquired.
"Yeah, gas pains and heartburn."
He twisted setscrews until it settled into an even keening,
and turned to me.
"You're for out?"
I nodded.
"Tensquare. Cosmetics. Monsters. Stuff like that."
He biinked into the beacons and wiped his freckles. The
temperature was about twenty, but the big overhead spots
served a double purpose.
"Luharich," he muttered. "Then you are the one. There's
some people want to see you."
"What about?"
"Cameras. Microphones. Stuff like that."
"I'd better stow my gear. Which one am I riding?"
He poked the screwdriver at the other hopper.
"That one. You're on video tape now, by the way. They
wanted to get you arriving."
He turned to the hangar, turned back.
"Say 'cheese.' They'll shoot the close closeups later."
I said something other than "cheese." They must have been
using telelens and been able to read my lips, because that part
of the tape was never shown.
I threw my junk in the back, climbed into a passenger seat,
and lit a cigarette. Five minutes later, Cal himself emerged
from the office Quonset, looking cold. He came over and
pounded on the side of the hopper. He jerked a thumb back at
the hangar.
"They want you in there!" he called through cupped hands.
"Interview!"
"The show's over!" I yelled back. "Either that, or they can
get themselves another baitman!"
His rustbrown eyes became nailheads under blond brows
and his glare a spike before he jerked about and stalked off. I
wondered how much they had paid him to be able to squat in
his hangar and suck juice from his generator.
Enough, I guess, knowing Cal. I never liked the guy,
anyway.
Venus at night is a field of stable waters. On the coasts, you
can never tell where the sea ends and the sky begins. Dawn is
like dumping milk into an inkwell. First, there are erratic
curdles of white, then streamers. Shade the bottle for a gray
colloid, then watch it whiten a little more. All of a sudden
you've got day. Then start heating the mixture.
I had to shed my jacket as we flashed out over the bay. To
our rear, the skyline could have been under water for the way it
waved and rippled in the heatfall. A hopper can accommodate
four people (five, if you want to bend Regs.and underestimate
weight), or three passengers with the sort of gear a baitman
uses. I was the only fare, though, and the pilot was like his
machine. He hummed and made no unnecessary noises.
Lifeline turned a somersault and evaporated in the rear mirror
at about the same time Tensquare broke the forehorizon. The
pilot stopped humming and shook his head.
I leaned forward. Feelings played flopdoodle in my guts. I
knew every bloody inch of the big raft, but the feelings you
once took for granted change when their source is out of reach.
Truthfully, I'd had my doubts I'd ever board the hulk again.
But now, now I could almost believe in predestination. There it
was!
A tensquare football field of a ship. A-powered. Plat as a
pancake, except for the plastic blisters in the middle and the
"Rooks" fore and aft, port and starboard.
The Rook towers were named for their corner positionsand
.any two can work together to hoist, co-powering the graffles
between them. The graffleshalf gaff, half grapplecan raise
enormous weights to near water level; their designer had only
one thing in mind, though, which accounts for the gaff half. At
water level, the Slider has to implement elevation for six to
eight feet before the graffles are in a position to push upward,
rather than pulling.
The Slider, essentially, is a mobile rooma big box capable of
moving in any of Tensquare's crisscross groovings and
"anchoring" on the strike side by means of a powerful
electromagnetic bond. Its winches could hoist a battleship the
necessary distance, and the whole craft would tilt, rather than
the Slider come loose, if you want any idea of the strength of
that bond.
The Slider houses a section operated control indicator which
is  the  most  sophisticated  "reel"  ever  designed.  Drawing
broadcast power from the generator beside the center blister, it
is connected by  shortwave with the sonar room, where the
movements of the quarry are recorded and repeated to the
angler seated before the section control.
The fisherman might play his "lines" for hours, days even,
without seeing any more than metal and an outline on the
screen. Only when the beast is graffled and the extensor shelf,
located twelve feet below waterline, slides out for support and
begins to aid the winches, only then does the fisherman see his
catch rising before him like a fallen seraph. Then, as Davits
learned, one looks into the Abyss itself and is required to act.
He didn't, and a hundred meters of unimaginable tonnage,
undernarcotized and hurting, broke the cables of the winch,
snapped a graffle, and took a half-minute walk across
Tensquare.
We circled till the mechanical flag took notice and waved us
on down. We touched beside the personnel hatch and I
jettisoned my gear and jumped to the deck.
"Luck," called the pilot as the door was sliding shut. Then he
danced into the air and the flag clicked blank.
I shouldered my stuff and went below.
Signing in with Malvern, the de facto captain, I learned that
most of the others wouldn't arrive for a good eight'hours. They
had wanted me alone at Cal's so they could pattern the pub
footage along twentieth-century cinema lines.
Open: landing strip, dark. One mechanic prodding a
contrary hopper. Stark-o-vision shot of slow bus pulling in.
Heavily dressed baitman descends, looks about, limps across
field. Closeup: he grins. Move in for words: "Do you think this
is the time? The time he will be landed?" Embarrassment,
taciturnity, a shrug. Dub something."I see. And why do you
think Miss Luharich has a better chance than any of the others?
Is it because she's better equipped? [Grin.] Because more is
known now about the creature's habits than when you were out
before? Or is it because of her will to win, to be a champion? Is
it any one of these things, or is it all of them?" Reply: "Yeah, all
of them.""Is that why you signed on with her? Because your
instincts say, 'This one will be if?" Answer: "She pays union
rates. I couldn't rent that damned thing myself. And I want in."
Erase. Dub something else. Fadeout as he moves toward
hopper, etcetera.
"Cheese," I said, or something like that, and took a walk
around Tensquare, by myself.
I mounted each Rook, checking out the controls and the
underwater video eyes. Then I raised the main lift.
Malvern had no objections to my testing things this way. In
fact, he encouraged it. We had sailed together before and our
positions had even been reversed once upon a time. So I wasn't
surprised when I stepped off the lift into the Hopkins Locker
and found him waiting. For the next ten minutes we inspected
the big room in silence, walking through its copper coil
chambers soon to be Arctic.
Finally, he slapped a wall.
"Well, will we fill it?"
I shook my head.
"I'd like to, but I doubt it. I don't give two hoots and a damn
who gets credit for the catch, so long as I have a part in it. But it
won't happen. That gal's an egomaniac. She'll want to operate
the Slider, and she can't."
"You ever meet her?"
"Yeah."
"How long ago?"
"Four, five years."
"She was a kid then. How do you know what she can do
now?"
"I know. She'll have learned every switch and reading by this
time. She'll be up on all the theory. But do you remember one
time we were together in the starboard Rook, forward, when
lkky broke, water like a porpoise?"
"How could I forget?"
"Well?"
He rubbed his emery chin.
"Maybe she can do it, Carl. She's raced torch ships and she's
scubaed in bad waters back home." He glanced in the direction
of invisible Hand. "And she's hunted in the Highlands. She
might be wild enough to pull that horror into her lap without
flinching.
". . . For Johns Hopkins to foot the bill and shell out seven
figures for the corpus," he added. "That's money, even to a
Luharich."
I ducked through a hatchway.
"Maybe you're right, but she was a rich witch when I knew
her.
"And she wasn't blonde," I added, meanly.
He yawned.
"Let's find breakfast."
We did that.
When I was young I thought that being born a sea creature
was the finest choice Nature could make for anyone. I grew up
on the Pacific coast and spent my summers on the Gulf or the
Mediterranean. I lived months of my life negotiating coral,
photographing trench dwellers, and playing tag with dolphins.
I fished everywhere there are fish, resenting the fact that they
can go places I can't. When I grew older I wanted bigger fish,
and there was nothing living that I knew of, excepting a
Sequoia, that came any bigger than lkky. That's part of it . . .
I jammed a couple extra rolls into a paper bag and filled a
thermos with coffee. Excusing myself, I left the galley and
made my way to the Slider berth. It was just the way I
remembered it. I threw a few switches and the shortwave
hummed.
"That you, Carl?"
"That's right, Mike. Let me have some juice down here, you
doublecrossing rat."
He thought it over, then I felt the hull vibrate as the
generators cut in. I poured my third cup of coffee and found a
cigarette.
"So why am I a doublecrossing rat this time?" came his voice
again.
"You knew about the cameramen at Hangar Sixteen?"
"Yes."
"Then you're a doublecrossing rat. The last thing I want is
publicity. 'He who fouled up so often before is ready to try it,
nobly, once more.' I can read it now."
"You're wrong. The spotlight's only big enough for one, and
she's prettier than you."
My next comment was cut off as I threw the elevator switch
and the elephant ears flapped above me. I rose, settling flush
with the deck. Retracting the lateral rail, I cut forward into the
groove. Amidships, I stopped at a juncture, dropped the lateral,
and retracted the longitudinal rail.
I slid starboard, midway between the Rooks, halted, and
threw on the coupler.
I hadn't spilled a drop of coffee.
"Show me pictures."
The screen glowed. I adjusted and got outlines of the
bottom.
"Okay."
I threw a Status Blue switch and he matched it. The light
went on.
The winch unlocked. I aimed out over the waters, extended
the arm, and fired a cast.
"Clean one," he commented.
"Status Red. Call strike." I threw a switch.
"Status Red."
The baitman would be on his way with this, to make the
barbs tempting.
It's not exactly a fishhook. The cables bear hollow tubes, the
tubes convey enough dope for an army -of hopheads, lkky
takes the bait, dandled before him by remote control, and the
fisherman rams the barbs home.
My hands moved over the console, making the necessary
adjustments. I checked the-narco-tank reading. Empty. Good
they hadn't been filled yet. I thumbed the Inject button.
"In the gullet," Mike murmured.
I released the cables. I played the beast imagined. I let him
run, swinging the winch to simulate his sweep.
I had the air conditioner on and my shirt off and it was still
uncomfortably hot, which is how I knew that morning had gone
over into noon. l.was dimly aware of the arrivals and departures
of the hoppers. Some of the crew sat in the "shade" of the doors
I had left open, watching the operation. I didn't see Jean arrive
or I would have ended the session and gotten below.
She broke my concentration by slamming the door hard
enough to shake the bond.
"Mind telling me who authorized you to bring up the
Slider?" she asked.
"No one," I replied. "I'll take it below now."
"Just move aside."
I did, and she took my seat. She was wearing brown slacks
and a baggy shirt and she had her hair pulled back in a
practical manner. Her cheeks were flushed, but not necessarily
from the heat. She attacked the panel with a nearly amusing
intensity that I found disquieting.
"Status Blue," she snapped, breaking a violet fingernail on
the toggle.
I forced a yawn and buttoned my shirt slowly. She threw a
side glance my way, checked the registers, and fired a cast.
I monitored the lead on the screen. She turned to me for a
second.
"Status Red," she said levelly.
I nodded my agreement.
She worked the winch sideways to show she knew how. I
didn't doubt she knew how and she didn't doubt that I didn't
doubt, but then-
in case you're wondering," she said, "you're not going to be
anywhere near this thing. You were hired as a baitman,
remember? Not a Slider operator! A baitman! Your duties
consist of swimming out and setting the table for our friend the
monster. It's dangerous, but you're getting well paid for it. Any
questions?"
She squashed the Inject button and I rubbed my throat.
"Nope,"  I  smiled,  "but I  am  qualified  to run that
thingamajiggerand if you need me I'll be available, at union
rates."
"Mister Davits," she said, "I don't want a loser operating this
panel."
"Miss Luharich, there has never been a winner at this game."
She started reeling in the cable and broke the bond at the
same time, so that the whole Slider shook as the big yo-yo
returned. We skidded a couple feet backwards as it curled into
place, and she retracted the arm. She raised the laterals and we
shot back along the groove. Slowing, she transferred rails and
we jolted to a clanging halt, then shot off at a right angle. The
crew scrambled away from the hatch as we skidded onto the
elevator.
"In the future. Mister Davits, do not enter the Slider without
being ordered," she told me.
"Don't worry. I won't even step inside if I am ordered," I
answered. "I signed on as a baitman. Remember? If you want
me in here, you'll have to ask me."
"That'll be the day," she smiled.
I agreed, as the doors closed above us. We dropped the
subject and headed in our different directions after the Slider
came to a halt in its berth. She did say "good day," though,
which I thought showed breeding as well as determination, in
reply to my chuckle.
Later that night Mike and I stoked our pipes in Malvern's
cabin. The winds were shuffling waves, and a steady spattering
of rain and hail overhead turned the deck into a tin roof.
"Nasty," suggested Malvern.
I nodded. After two bourbons the room had become a
familiar woodcut, with its mahogany furnishings (which I had
transported from Earth long ago on a whim) and the dark
walls, the seasoned face of Malvern, and the perpetually
puzzled expression of Perrin set between the big pools of
shadow that lay behind chairs and splashed in corners, all cast
by the tiny table light and seen through a glass, brownly.
"Glad I'm in here."
"What's it like underneath on a night like this?"
I puffed, thinking of my light cutting through the insides of a
black diamond, shaken slightly. The meteor-dart of a suddenly
illuminated fish, the swaying of grotesque ferns, like nebulae
shadow, then green, then goneswam in-a moment through
my mind. I guess it's like a spaceship would feel, if a spaceship
could feel, crossing between worldsand quiet, uncannily,
preternaturally quiet; and peaceful as sleep.
"Dark," I said, "and not real choppy below a few fathoms."
"Another eight hours and we shove off," commented Mike.
"Ten, twelve days, we should be there," noted Malvern.
"What do you think lkky's doing?"
"Sleeping on the bottom with Mrs. lkky, if he has any
brains."
"He hasn't* I've seen ANR's skeletal extrapolation from the
bones that have washed up"
"Hasn't everyone?"
".  .  . Fully fleshed, he'd be over a hundred meters long.
That right, Carl?"
I agreed.
". . . Not much of abrain box, though, for his bulk."
"Smart enough to stay out of our locker."
Chuckles, because nothing exists but this room, really. The
world outside is an empty, sleet-drummed deck. We lean back
and make clouds.
"Boss lady does not approve of unauthorized fly fishing."
"Boss lady can walk north till her hat floats."
"What did she say in there?"
"She told me that my place, with fish manure, is on the
bottom."
"You don't Slide?"
"I bait."
"We'll see."
"That's all I do. If she wants a Slideman she's going to have
to ask nicely."
"You think she'll have to?"
"I think she'll have to."
"And if she does, can you do it?"
"A fair question," I puffed. "I don't know the answer,
though."
I'd incorporate my soul and trade forty percent of the stock
for the answer. I'd give a couple years off my life for the answer.
But there doesn't seem to be a lineup of supernatural takers,
because no one knows. Supposing when we get out there, luck
being with us, we find ourselves an lkky? Supposing we
succeed in bailing him and get lines on him. What then? If we
get him shipside will she hold on or crack up? What if she's
made of sterner stuff than Davits, who used to hunt sharks with
poison-darted air pistols? Supposing she lands him and Davits
has to stand there like a video extra.
Worse yet, supposing she asks for Davits and he still stands
there  like  a  video  extra  or  something  elsesay,  some
yellowbellied embodiment named Cringe?
It was when I got him up above the eight-foot horizon of
steel and looked out at all that body, sloping on and on till it
dropped out of sight like a green mountain range . . . And that
head. Small for the body, but still immense. Flat, craggy, with
lidless roulettes that had spun black and red since before my
forefathers decided to try the New Continent. And swaying.
Fresh narco-tanks had been connected. It needed another
shot, fast. But I was paralyzed.
It had made a noise like God playing a Hammond organ . . .
And looked at mel
I don't know if seeing is even the same process in eyes like
those. I doubt it. Maybe I was just a gray blur behind a black
rock, with the plexi-reflected sky hurting its pupils. But it fixed
on me. Perhaps the snake doesn't really paralyze the rabbit,
perhaps it's just that rabbits are cowards by constitution. But it
began to struggle and I still couldn't move, fascinated.
Fascinated by all that power, by those eyes, they found me
there fifteen minutes later, a little broken about the head and
shoulders, the Inject still unpushed.
And I dream about those eyes. I want to face them once
more, even if their finding takes forever. I've got to know if
there's something inside me that sets me apart from a rabbit,
from notched plates of reflexes and instincts that always fall
apart in exactly the same way whenever the proper combina-
tion is spun.
Looking down, I noticed that my hand was shaking.
Glancing up, I noticed that no one else was noticing.
I finished my drink and emptied my pipe. It was late and no
songbirds were singing.
I sat whittling, my legs hanging over the aft edge, the chips
spinning down into the furrow of our wake. Three days out. No
action.
"You!"
"Me?"
"You."
Hair like the end of the rainbow, eyes like nothing in Nature,
fine teeth.
"Hello."
"There's a safety rule against what you're doing, you know."
"I know. I've been worrying about it all morning."
A delicate curl climbed my knife, then drifted out behind us.
It settled into the foam and was plowed under. I watched her
reflection in my blade, taking a secret pleasure in its distortion.
"Are you bailing me?" she finally asked.
I heard her laugh then, and turned, knowing it had been
intentional.
"What, me?"
"I could push you off from here, very easily."
"I'd make it back."
"Would you push me off, thensome dark night, perhaps?"
"They're all dark, Miss Luharich. No, I'd rather make you a
gift of my carving."
She seated herself beside me then, and I couldn't help but
notice the dimples in her knees. She wore white shorts and a
halter and still had an offworld tan to her which was awfully
appealing. I almost felt a twinge of guilt at having planned the
whole scene, but my right hand still blocked her view of the
wooden animal.
"Okay, I'll bite. What have you got for me?"
"Just a second. It's almost finished."
Solemnly, I passed her the wooden jackass I had been
carving. I felt a little sorry and slightly jackass-ish myself, but I
had to follow through. I always do. The mouth was split into a
braying grin. The ears were upright.
She didn't smile and she didn't frown. She just studied it.
"It's very good,"  she finally said,  "like most things you
doand appropriate, perhaps."
"Give it to me." I extended a palm.
She handed it back and I tossed it out over the water. It
missed the white water and bobbed for awhile like a pigmy
seahorse.
"Why did you do that?"
"It was a poor joke. I'm sorry."
"Maybe you are right, though. Perhaps this time I've bitten
off a little too much."
I snorted.
"Then why not do something safer, like another race?"
She shook her end of the rainbow.
"No. It has to be an lkky."
"Why?"
"Why did you want one so badly that you threw away a
fortune?"
"Man reasons," I said. "An unfrocked analyst who held
black therapy sessions in his basement once told me, 'Mister
Davits, you need to reinforce the image of your masculinity by
catching one of every kind of fish in existence.' Fish are a very
ancient masculinity symbol, you know. So I set out to do it. I
have one more to go.Why do you want to reinforce your
masculinity?"
"I don't," she said. "I don't want to reinforce anything but
Lubarich Enterprises. My chief statistician once said, 'Miss
Luharich, sell all the cold cream and face powder in the System
and you'll be a happy girl. Rich, too.' And he was right. I am
the proof. I can look the way I do and do anything, and I sell
most of the lipstick and face powder in the Systembut I have
to be able to do anything."
"You do look cool and efficient," I observed.
"I don't feel cool," she said, rising. "Let's go for a swim."
"May I point out that we are making pretty good time?"
"If you want to indicate the obvious, you may. You said you
could make it back to the ship, unassisted. Change your mind?"
"No."
"Then get us two scuba outfits and I'll race you under
Tensquare.
"I'll win, too," she added.
I stood and looked down at her, because that usually makes
me feel superior to women.
"Daughter of Lir, eyes of Picasso," I said, "you've got
yourself a race. Meet me at the forward Rook, starboard, in ten
minutes."
"Ten minutes," she agreed.
And ten minutes it was. From the center blister to the Rook
took maybe two of them, with the load I was carrying. My
sandals grew very hot and I was glad to shuck them for flippers
when I reached the comparative cool of the corner.
We slid into harnesses and adjusted our gear. She had
changed into a trim one-piece green job that made me shade
my eyes and look away, then look back again.
I fastened a rope ladder and kicked it over the side. Then I
pounded on the wall of the Rook.
"Yeah?"
"You talk to the port Rook, aft?" I called.
"They're all set up," came the answer. "There's ladders and
draglines all over that end."
"You sure you want to do this?" asked the sunburnt little
gink who was her publicity man, Anderson yclept.
He sat beside the Rook in a deckchair, sipping lemonade
through a straw.
"It might be dangerous," he observed,  sunken-mouthed.
(His teeth were beside him, in another glass.)
"That's right," she smiled. "It will be dangerous. Not overly,
though."
"Then why don't you let me get some pictures? We'd have
them back to Lifeline in an hour. They'd be in New York by
tonight. Good copy."
"No," she said, and turned away from both of us.
She raised her hands to her eyes.
"Here, keep these for me."
She passed him a box full of her unseeing, and when she
turned back to me they were  the same brown that I
remembered.
"Ready?"
"No," I said, tautly. "Listen carefully, Jean. If you're going to
play this game there are a few rules. First," I counted, "we're
going to be directly beneath the hull, so we have to start low
and keep moving. If we bump the bottom, we could rupture an
air tank . . ."
She began to protest that any moron knew that and I cut her
down.
"Second," I went on, "there won't be much light, so we'll stay
close together and we will both carry torches."
Her wet eyes flashed.
"I dragged you out of Govino without"
Then she stopped and turned away. She picked up a lamp.
"Okay. Torches. Sorry."
".  .  .  And  watch  out  for  the  drive-screws,"  I  finished..
"There'11 be strong currents for at least fifty meters behind
them."
She wiped her eyes again and adjusted the mask.
"All right, let's go."
We went.
She led the way, at my insistence. The surface layer was
pleasantly warm. At two fathoms the water was bracing; at five
it was nice and cold. At eight we let go the swinging stairway
and struck out. Tensquare sped forward and we raced in the
opposite direction, tattooing the hull yellow at ten-second
intervals.
The hull stayed where it belonged, but we raced on like two
darkside satellites. Periodically, I tickled her frog feet with my
light and traced her antennae of bubbles. About a five meter
lead was fine; I'd beat her in the home stretch, but I couldn't let
her drop behind yet.
Beneath us, black. Immense. Deep. The Mindanao of Venus,
where eternity might eventually pass the dead to a rest in cities
of unnamed fishes. I twisted my head away and touched the
hull with a feeler of light; it told me we were about a quarter of
the way along.
I increased my beat to match her stepped-up stroke, and
narrowed the distance which she had suddenly opened by a
couple meters. She sped up again and I did, too. I spotted her
with my beam.
She turned and it caught on her mask. I never knew whether
she'd been smiling. Probably. She raised two fingers in a V-for-
Victory and then cut ahead at full speed.
I should have known. I should have felt it coming. It was just
a race to her, something else to win. Damn the torpedoes!
So I leaned into it, hard. I don't shake in the water. Or, if I
do it doesn't matter and I don't notice it. I began to close the
gap again.
She looked back, sped on, looked back. Each time she looked
I was nearer, until I'd narrowed it down to the original five
meters.
Then she hit the jatoes.
That's what I had been fearing. We were about halfway
under and she shouldn't have done it. The powerful jets of
compressed air could easily rocket her upward into the hull, or
tear something loose if she allowed her body to twist. Their
main use is in tearing free from marine plants or fighting bad
currents. I had wanted them along as a safety measure, because
of the big suck-and-pull windmills behind.
She shot ahead' like a meteorite, and I could feel a sudden
tingle of perspiration leaping to meet and mix with the
churning waters.
I swept ahead, not wanting to use my own guns, and she
tripled, quadrupled the margin.
The jets died and she was still on course. Okay, I was an old
fuddyduddy. She could have messed up and headed toward
the top.
I plowed the sea and began to gather back my yardage, a
foot at a time. I wouldn't be able to catch her or beat her now,
but I'd be on the ropes before she hit deck.
Then the spinning magnets began their insistence and she
wavered. It was an awfully powerful drag, even at this
distance. The call of the meat grinder.
I'd been scratched up by one once, under the Dolphin, a
fishing boat of the middle-class. I had been drinking, but it was
also  a  rough  day,  and  the  thing  had  been  turned  on
prematurely. Fortunately, it was turned off m time, also, and a
tendon-stapler made everything good as new, except in the log,
where it only mentioned that I'd been drinking. Nothing about
it being off-hours  when  I  had  a right to  do  as  I  damn well
pleased.
She had slowed to half her speed, but she was still moving
crosswise, toward the port. aft corner. I began to feel the pull
myself and had to slow down. She'd made it past the main one,
but she seemed too far back. It's hard to gauge distances under
water, but each red beat of time told me I was right. She was
out of danger from the main one, but the smaller port screw,
located about eighty meters in, was no longer a threat but a
certainty.
Each air bubble carried a curse to daylight as I moved to
flank her from the left.
She had turned and was pulling away from it now. Twenty
meters separated us. She was standing still. Fifteen.
Slowly, she began a backward drifting. I hit my jatoes,
aiming two meters behind her and about twenty back of the
blades.
Straightline!  Thankgod!  Catching,  softbelly,  leadpipe on
shoulder SWIMLIKEHELL! maskcracked, not broke though
AND UP!
We caught a line and I remember brandy.
Into the cradle endlessly rocking I spit, pacing. Insomnia
tonight and left shoulder sore again, so let it rain on methey
can cure rheumatism. Stupid as hell. What I said. In blankets
and shivering. She: "Carl, I can't say it." Me: "Then call it
square for that night in Govino, Miss Luharich. Hub?" She:
nothing. Me: "Any more of that brandy?" She: "Give me
another, too." Me: sounds of sipping. It had only lasted three
months. No alimony. Many $ on both sides. Not sure whether
they were happy or not. Wine-dark Aegean. Good fishing.
Maybe he should have spent more time on shore. Or perhaps
she shouldn't have. Good swimmer, though. Dragged him all
the way to Vido to wring out his lungs. Young. Both. Strong.
Both. Rich and spoiled as hell. Ditto. Corfu should have
brought them closer. Didn't. I think that mental cruelty was a
trout. He wanted to go to Canada. She: "Go to hell if you
want!" He: "Will you go along?" She: "No." But she did,
anyhow. Many hells. Expensive. He lost a monster or two. She
inherited a couple. Lot of lightning tonight. Stupid as hell.
Civility's the coffin of a conned soul. By whom?Sounds like a
bloody neo-ex. . . But I hate you, Anderson, with your glass full
of teeth and her new eyes . . . Can't keep this pipe lit, keep
sucking tobacco. Spit again!
Seven days out and the scope showed lkky.
Bells jangled, feet pounded, and some optimist set the
thermostat in the Hopkins. Malvern wanted me to sit it out, but
I slipped into my harness and waited for whatever came. The
bruise looked worse than it felt. I had exercised every day and
the shoulder hadn't stiffened on me.
A thousand meters ahead and thirty fathoms deep, it
tunneled our path. Nothing showed on the surface.
"Will we chase him?" asked an excited crewman.
"Not unless she feels like using money for fuel," I shrugged.
Soon the scope was clear, and it stayed that way. We
remained on alert and held our course.
I hadn't said over a dozen words to my boss since the last
time we went drowning together, so I decided to raise the
score.
"Good afternoon," I approached. "What's new?"
"He's going north-northeast. We'll have to let this one go. A
few more days and we can afford softie chasing. Not yet."
Sleek head . . .
I nodded. "No telling where this one's headed."
"How's your shoulder?"
"All right. How about you?"
Daughter of Lir . . .
"Fine. By the way, you're down for a nice bonus."
Eyes of perdition!
"Don't mention it," I told her back.
Later that afternoon, and appropriately, a storm shattered.
(I prefer "shattered" to "broke." It gives a more accurate idea
of the behavior of tropical storms on Venus and saves lots of
words.) Remember that inkwell I mentioned earlier? Now take
it between thumb and forefinger and hit its side with a hammer.
Watch yourself! Don't get splashed or cut
Dry, then drenched. The sky one million bright fractures as
the hammer falls. And sounds of breaking.
"Everyone below!" suggested loudspeakers to the already
scurrying crew.
Where was I? Who do you think was doing the loudspeaking?
Everything loose went overboard when the water got to
walking, but by then no people were loose. The Slider was the
first thing below decks. Then the big lifts lowered their shacks.
I had hit it for the nearest Rook with a yell the moment I
recognized the pre-brightening of the holocaust. From there I
cut in the speakers and spent half a minute coaching the track
team.
Minor injuries had occurred, Mike told me over the radio,
but nothing serious. I, however, was marooned for the duration.
The Rooks do not lead anywhere; they're set too far out over the
hull to provide entry downwards, what with the extensor
shelves below.
So I undressed myself of the tanks which I had worn for the
past several hours, crossed my flippers on the table, and leaned
back to watch the hurricane. The top was black as the bottom
and we were in between, and somewhat illuminated because of
all  that  flat,  shiny  space.  The  waters  above  didn't  rain
downthey just sort of got together and dropped.
The Rooks were secure enoughthey'd weathered any
number of these onslaughtsit's just that their positions gave
them a greater arc of rise and descent when Tensquare makes
like the rocker of a very nervous grandma. I had used the belts
from my rig to strap myself into the bolted-down chair, and I
removed several years in purgatory from the soul of whoever
left a pack of cigarettes in the table drawer.
I watched the water make teepees and mountains and hands
and trees until I started seeing faces and people. So I called
Mike.
"What are you doing down there?"
"Wondering what you're doing up there," he replied.
"What's it like?"
"You're from the midwest, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
"Get bad storms out there?"
"Sometimes."
"Try to think of the worst one you were ever in. Got a slide
rule handy?"
"Right here."
"Then put a one under it, imagine a zero or two following
after, and multiply the thing out."
"I can't imagine the zeroes."
"Then retain the multiplicandthat's all you can do."
"So what are you doing up there?"
"I've strapped myself in the chair. I'm watching things roll
around the floor right now."
I looked up and out again. I saw one darker shadow in the
forest.
"Are you praying or swearing?"
"Damned if I know. But if this were the Sliderif only this
were the Slider!"
"He's out there?"
I nodded, forgetting that he couldn't see me.
Big, as I remembered him. He'd only broken surface for a
few moments, to look around. There is no power on Earth that
can be compared with him who was made to fear no one. I
dropped my cigarette. It was the same as before. Paralysis and
an unborn scream.
"You all right, Carl?"
He had looked at me again. Or seemed to. Perhaps that
mindless brute had been waiting half a millennium to ruin the
life of a member of the most highly developed species in
business...
"You okay?"
. . . Or perhaps it had been ruined already, long before their
encounter, and theirs was just a meeting of beasts, the stronger
bumping the weaker aside, body to psyche . . .
"Carl, dammit! Say something!"
He broke again, this time nearer. Did you ever see the trunk
of a tornado? It seems like something alive, moving around in
all that dark. Nothing has a right to be so big, so strong, and
moving. It's a sickening sensation.
"Please answer me."
He was gone and did not come back that day. I finally made
a couple wisecracks at Mike, but I held my next cigarette in my
right hand.
The next seventy or eighty thousand waves broke by with a
monotonous similarity. The five days that held them were also
without distinction. The morning of the thirteenth day out,
though, our luck began to rise. The bells broke our coffee-
drenched lethargy into small pieces, and we dashed from the
galley without hearing what might have been Mike's finest
punchline.
"Aft!" cried someone. "Five hundred meters!"
I stripped to my trunks and started buckling. My stuff is
always within grabbing distance.
I flipflopped across the deck, girding myself with a deflated
squiggler.
"Five hundred meters, twenty fathoms!" boomed the
speakers.
The big traps banged upward and the Slider grew to its full
height, m'lady at the console. It rattled past me and took root
ahead. Its one arm rose and lengthened.
I breasted the Slider as the speakers called, "Four-eighty,
twenty!"
"Status Red!"
A belch like an emerging champagne cork and the line
arced high over the waters.
"Four-eighty, twenty!" it repeated, all Malvern and static.
"Baitman, attend!"
I adjusted my mask and hand-over-handed it down the side.
Then warm, then cool, then away.
Green, vast, down. Fast. This is the place where I am equal
to a squiggler. If something big decides a baitman looks tastier
than what he's carrying, then irony colors his title as well as the
water about it.
I caught sight of the drifting cables and followed them
down. Green to dark green to black. It had been a long cast, too
long. I'd never had to follow one this far down before. I didn't
want to switch on my torch.
But I had to.
Bad! I still had a long way to go. I clenched my teeth and
stuffed my imagination into a straitjacket.
Finally the line came to an end.
I wrapped one arm about it and unfastened the squiggler. I
attached it, working as fast as I could, and plugged in the little
insulated connections which are the reason it can't be fired with
the line. lkky could break them, but by then it wouldn't matter.
My mechanical eel hooked up, I pulled its section plugs and
watched it grow. I had been dragged deeper during this
operation, which took about a minute and a half. I was
neartoo nearto where I never wanted to be.
Loath as I had been to turn on my light, I was suddenly
afraid to turn it off. Panic gripped me and I seized the cable
with both hands. The squiggler began to glow, pinkly. It
started to twist. It was twice as big as I am and doubtless twice
as attractive to pink squiggler-eaters. I told myself this until I
believed it, then I switched off my light and started up.
If I bumped into something enormous and steel-hided my
heart had orders to stop beating immediately and release meto
dart fitfully forever along Acheron, and gibbering.
Ungibbering, I made it to green water and fled back to the
nest.
As soon as they hauled me aboard I made my mask a
necklace, shaded my eyes, and monitored for surface turbu-
lence. My first question, of course, was: "Where is he?"
"Nowhere," said a crewman, "we lost him right after you
went over. Can't pick him up on the scope now. Musta dived."
"Too bad."
The squiggler stayed down, enjoying its bath. My job ended
for the time being, I headed back to warm my coffee with rum.
From behind me, a whisper: "Could you laugh like that
afterwards?"
Perceptive Answer: "Depends on what he's laughing at."
Still chuckling, I made my way into the center blister with
two cupfuls.
"Still hell and gone?"
Mike nodded. His big hands were shaking, and mine were
steady as a surgeon's when I set down the cups.
He jumped as I shrugged off the tanks and looked for a
bench.
"Don't drip on that panel! You want to kill yourself and blow
expensive fuses?"
I toweled down, then settled down to watching the unfilled
eye on the wall. I yawned happily; my shoulder seemed good as
new.
The little box that people talk through wanted to say
something, so Mike lifted the switch and told it to go ahead.
"Is Carl there. Mister Pen-in?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Then let me talk to him."
Mike motioned and I moved.
"Talk," I said.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes, thanks. Shouldn't I be?"
"That was a long swim. I1 guess I overshot my cast."
"I'm happy," I said. "More triple-time for me. I really clean
up on that hazardous duty clause."
"I'll be more careful next time," she apologized. "I guess I
was too eager. Sorry" Something happened to the sentence, so
she ended it there, leaving me with half a bagful of replies I'd
been saving.
I lifted the cigarette from behind Mike's ear and got a light
from the one in the ashtray.
"Carl, she was being nice," he said, after turning to study the
panels.
"I know," I told him. "I wasn't."
"I mean, she's an awfully pretty kid, pleasant. Headstrong
and all that. But what's she done to you?"
"Lately?" I asked.
He looked at me, then dropped his eyes to his cup.
"I know it's none of my bus" he began.
"Cream and sugar?"
lkky didn't return that day, or that night. We picked up
some Dixieland out of Lifeline and let the muskrat ramble
while Jean had her supper sent to the Slider. Later she had a
bunk assembled inside. I piped in "Deep Water Blues" when it
came over the air and waited for her to call up and cuss us out.
She didn't, though, so I decided she was sleeping.
"Then I got Mike interested in a game of chess that went on
until daylight. It limited conversation to several "checks," one
"checkmate," and a "damn!" Since he's a poor loser it also
effectively sabotaged subsequent talk, which was fine with me.
I had a steak and fried potatoes for breakfast and went to bed.
Ten hours later someone shook me awake and I propped
myself on one elbow, refusing to open my eyes.
"Whassamadder?"
"I'm sorry to get you up," said one of the younger crewmen,
"but Miss Luharich wants you to disconnect the squiggler so
we can move on."
I knuckled open one eye, still deciding whether I should be
amused.
"Have it hauled to the side. Anyone can disconnect it."
"It's at the side now, sir. But she said it's in your contract and
we'd better do things right."
"That's  very  considerate  of her.  I'm  sure  my  Local
appreciates her remembering."
"Uh, she also said to tell you to change your trunks and comb
your hair, and shave, too. Mister Anderson's going to film it."
"Okay. Run along, tell her I'm on my wayand ask if she has
some toenail polish I can borrow."
I'll save on details. It took three minutes in all, and I played
it properly, even pardoning myself when I slipped and bumped
into Anderson's white tropicals with the wet squiggler. He
smiled, brushed it off; she smiled, even though Luharich
Complectacolor couldn't completely mask the dark circles
under her eyes; and I smiled, waving to all our fans out there in
videoland.Remember, Mrs. Universe, you, too, can look like
a monster-catcher. Just use Luharich facecream.
I went below and made myself a tuna sandwich, with
mayonnaise.
Two days like icebergsbleak, blank, half-melting, all frigid,
mainly out of sight, and definitely a threat to peace of
minddrifted by and were good to put behind. I experienced
some old guilt feelings and had a few disturbing dreams. Then
I called Lifeline and checked my bank balance.
"Going shopping?" asked Mike, who had put the call
through for me.
"Going home," I answered.
"Hub?"
"I'm out of the bailing business after this one, Mike. The
Devil with lkky!  The Devil with Venus and  Luharich
Enterprises! And the Devil with you!"
Up eyebrows.
"What brought that on?"
"I waited over a year for this job. Now that I'm here, I've
decided the whole thing stinks."
"You knew what it was when you signed on. No matter what
else you're doing, you're selling facecream when you work for
facecream sellers."
"Oh, that's not what's biting me. I admit the commercial
angle irritates me, but Tensquare has always been a publicity
spot, ever since the first time it sailed."
"What, then?"
"Five or six things, all added up. The main one being that I
don't care any more. Once it meant more to me than anything
else to hook that critter, and now it doesn't. I went broke on
what started out as a lark and I wanted blood for what it cost
me. Now I realize that maybe I had it coming. I'm beginning to
feel sorry for lkky."
"And. you don't want him now?"
"I'll take him if he comes peacefully, but I don't feel like
sticking out my neck to make him crawl into the Hopkins."
"I'm inclined to think it's one of the four or five other things
you said you added."
"Such as?"
He scrutinized the ceiling.
I growled.
"              "Okay,   but   I   won't   say   it,   not   just   to   make   you   happy   you
guessed right."
He, smirking: "That look she wears isn't just for lkky."
"No good, no good," I shook my head. "We're both fission
chambers by nature. You can't have jets on both ends of the
rocket and expect to go anywherewhat's in the middle just
gets smashed."
"That's how it was. None of my business, of course"
"Say that again and you'll say it without teeth."
"Any day, big man," he looked up, "any place. . ."
"So go ahead. Get it said!"
"She doesn't care about that bloody reptile, she came here to
drag you back where you belong. You're not the baitman this
trip."
"Five years is too long."
"There must be something under that cruddy hide of yours
that people like," he muttered, "or I wouldn't be talking like
this. Maybe you remind us humans of some really ugly dog we
felt sorry for when we were kids. Anyhow, someone wants to
take you home and raise youalso, something about beggars not
getting menus."
"Buddy," I chuckled, "do you know what I'm going to do
when I hit Lifeline?"
"I can guess."
"You're wrong. I'm torching it to Mars, and then I'll cruise
back home, first class. Venus bankruptcy provisions do not
apply to Martian trust funds, and I've still got a wad tucked
away where moth and corruption enter not. I'm going to pick
up a big old mansion on the Gulf, and if you're ever looking for
a job you can stop around and open bottles for me."
"You are a yellowbellied fink," he commented.
"Okay," I admitted, "but it's her I'm thinking of, too."
"I've heard the stories about you both," he said. "So you're a
heel and a goofoff and she's a bitch. That's called compatibility
these days. I dare you, baitman, try keeping something you
catch."
I turned.
"If you ever want that job, look me up."
I closed the door quietly behind me and left him sitting there
waiting for it to slam.
The day of the beast dawned like any other. Two days after
my gutless flight from empty waters I went down to rebait.
Nothing on the scope. I was just making things rea'dy for the
routine attempt.
I hollered a "good morning" from outside the Slider and
received an answer from inside before I pushed off. I had
reappraised Mike's words, sans sound, sans fury, and while I
did not approve of their sentiment or significance, I had opted
for civility anyhow.
So down, under, and away. I followed a decent cast about
two hundred ninety meters out. The snaking cables burned
black to my left and I paced their undulations from the
yellow-green down into the darkness. Soundless lay the wet
night, and I bent my way through it like a cockeyed comet,
bright tail before.
I caught the line, slick and smooth, and began bailing. An
icy world swept by me then, ankles to head. It was a draft, as if
someone had opened a big door beneath me. I wasn't drifting
downwards that fast either.
Which meant that something might be moving up,
something big enough to displace a lot of water. I still didn't
think it was lkky. A freak current of some sort, but not lkky.
Ha!
I had finished attaching the leads and pulled the first plug
when a big, rugged, black island grew beneath me . . .
I flicked the beam downwards. His mouth was opened.
I was rabbit.
Waves of the death-fear passed downwards. My stomach
imploded. I grew dizzy.
Only one thing, and one thing only. Left to do. I managed it,
finally. I pulled the rest of the plugs.
I could count the scaly articulations ridging his eyes by then.
The squiggler grew, pinked into phosphorence . . .
squiggled!
Then my lamp. I had to kill it, leaving just the bait before
him.
One glance back as I jammed the jatoes to life.
He was so near that the squiggler reflected on his teeth, in his
eyes. Four meters, and I kissed his lambent jowls with two jets
of backwash as I soared. Then I didn't know whether he was
following or had halted. I began to black out as I waited to be
eaten.
The jatoes died and I kicked weakly.
Too fast, I felt a cramp coming on. One flick of the beam,
cried rabbit. One second, to know . . .
Or end things up, I answered. No, rabbit, we don't dart
before hunters. Stay dark.
Green water, finally, to yellowgreen, then top.
Doubling, I beat off toward Tensquare. "The waves from the
explosion behind pushed me on ahead. The world closed in, and
a screamed, "He's alive!" in the distance.
A giant shadow and a shock wave. The line was alive, too.
Good-bye Perrin, Violet Eyes, lkky. I go to the Happy
Fishing Grounds. Maybe I did something wrong . . .
Somewhere Hand was clenched. What's bait?
A few million years. I remember starting out as a one-celled
organism and painfully becoming an amphibian, then an air-
breather. From somewhere high in the treetops I heard a voice.
"He's coming around."
I evolved back into homo sapience, then a step further into a
hangover.
"Don't try to get up yet."
"Have we got him?" I slurred.
"Still fighting, but he's hooked. We thought he took you for
an appetizer."
"So did 1."
"Breathe some of this and shut up."
A funnel over my face. Good. Lift your cups and drink . . .
"He was awfully deep. Below scope range. We didn't catch
him till he started up. Too late, then."
I began to yawn.
"We'll get you inside now."
I managed to uncase my ankle knife.
"Try it and you'll be minus a thumb."
"You need rest."
"Then bring me a couple more blankets. I'm staying."
I fell back and closed my eyes.
Someone was shaking me. Gloom and cold. Spotlights bled
yellow on the deck. I was in a jury-rigged bunk, bulked against
the center blister. Swaddled in wool, I still shivered.
"It's been eleven hours. You're not going to see anything
now."
I tasted blood.
"Drink this."
Water. I had a remark but I couldn't mouth it.
"Don't ask how I feel," I croaked. "I know that comes next,
but don't ask me. Okay?"
"Okay. Want to go below now?"
"No. Just get me my jacket."
"Right here."
.   "What's he doing?"
"Nothing. He's deep, he's doped but he's staying down."
"How long since last time he showed?"
"Two hours, about."
"Jean?"
"She won't let anyone in the Slider. Listen, Mike says come
on in. He's right behind you in the blister."
I sat up and turned. Mike was watching. He gestured; I
gestured back.
I swung my feet over the edge and took a couple deep
breaths. Pains in my stomach. I got to my feet and made it into
the blister.
"Howza gut?" queried Mike.
I checked the scope. No lkky. Too deep.
"You buying?"
"Yeah, coffee."
"Not coffee."
"You're ill. Also, coffee is all that's allowed in here."
"Coffee is a brownish liquid that burns your stomach. You
have some in the bottom drawer."
"No cups. You'll have to use a glass."
"Tough."
He poured.
"You do that well. Been practicing for that job?"
"What job?"
"The one I offered you"
A blot on the scope!
"Rising, ma'am! Rising!" he yelled into the box.
"Thanks, Mike. I've got it in here," she crackled.
"Jean!"
"Shut up! She's busy!"
"Wa? that Carl?"
"Yeah," I called. "Talk later," and I cut it.
Why did I do that?
"Why did you do that?"
I didn't know.
"I don't know."
Damned echoes! I got up and walked outside.
Nothing. Nothing.
Something?
Tensquare actually rocked! He must have turned when he
saw the hull and started downward again. White water to my
left, and boiling. An endless spaghetti of cable roared hotly into
I the belly of the deep.
I stood awhile, then turned and went back inside.
Two hours sick. Four, and better.
"The dope's getting to him."
"Yeah."
"What about Miss Luharich?"
"What about her?"
"She must be half dead."
"Probably."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"She signed the contract for this. She knew what might
happen. It did."
"I think you could land him."
"So do 1."
"So does she."
"Then let her ask me."
lkky was drifting lethargically, at thirty fathoms.
I took another walk and happened to pass behind the Slider.
She wasn't looking my way.
"Carl, come in here!"
Eyes of Picasso, that's what, and a conspiracy to make me
Slide...
"Is that an order?"
"Yes-No! Please."
I dashed inside and monitored. He was rising.
"Push or pull?"
I slammed the "wind" and he came like a kitten.
"Make up your own mind now."
He balked at ten fathoms.
"Play him?"
"No!"
She wound him upwardsfive fathoms, four . . .
She hit the extensors at two, and they caught him. Then the
graffles.
Cries without and a heat lightning of flashbulbs.
The crew saw lkky.
He began to struggle. She kept the cables tight, raised the
graffles...
Up.
Another two feet and the graffles began pushing.
Screams and fast footfalls.
Giant beanstalk in the wind, his neck, waving. The green
hills of his shoulders grew.
"He's big, Carl! " she cried.
And he grew, and grew, and grew uneasy . . .
"Now!"
He looked down.
He looked down, as the god of our most ancient ancestors
might have looked down. Fear, shame, and mocking laughter
rang in my head. Her head, too?
"Now!"
She looked up at the nascent earthquake.
"I can't!"
It was going to be so damnably simple this time, now the
rabbit had died. I reached out.
I stopped.
"Push it yourself."
"I can't. You do it. Land him, Carl!"
"No. If I do, you'll wonder for the rest of your life whether
you could have. You'll throw away your soul finding out. I know
you will, because we're alike, and I did it that way. Find out
now!"
She stared.
I gripped her shoulders.
"Could be that's me out there," I offered. "I am a green sea
serpent, a hateful, monstrous beast, and out to destroy you. I
am answerable to no one. Push the Inject."
Her hand moved to the button, jerked back.
"Now!"
She pushed it.
I lowered her still form to the floor and finished things up
with lkky.
It was a good seven hours before I awakened to the steady,
sea-chewing grind of Tensquare's blades.
"You're sick," commented Mike.
"How's Jean?"
"The same."
"Where's the beast?"
"Here."
"Good." I rolled over. ". . . Didn't get away this time."
So that's the way it was. No one is born a baitman, I don't
think, but the rings of Saturn sing epithalamium the sea-beast's
dower.