Free Undersea Fleet by Frederik & Williamson Pohl Page B

whole thing!”
    “Hold on a minute, Roger!” I interrupted. “There’s no sense blackmailing David!”
    David Craken smiled at me, then looked at Roger Fairfane. “Blackmail is the word,” he said. “But bear this in mind, Roger. I’ll never tell you where the Tonga pearls come from. Men have died trying to find that out—I won’t tell. Is that perfectly clear?”
    “Listen,” Roger blustered, “you needn’t think you can scare me! Mv father is an important man! You’ve heard of Trident Lines, haven’t you? My father is one of the biggest executives of the line! And if I tell my father—”
    “Wait a minute,” said David Craken. His tone was oddly placating. He suddenly seemed struck with a thought. “Trident Lines, you say?”
    “That’s right!” sneered Roger. “I thought that would straighten you out! You can’t buck Trident Lines!”
    “No, no,” David said impatiently. “But—Trident Lines. They’re one of the big subsea shippers, aren’t they?”
    “The third biggest line in the world,” said Roger Fairfane with pride.
    David Craken took a deep breath. “Roger,” he said, “if you’re interested in the Tonga pearls, perhaps we can work something out. I—I need help.” He turned to us, imploringly. “But not from the Fleet! I don’t want anything reported!”
    Roger said, puffed with pride now that things seemed to be going his way: “Perhaps that won’t be necessary, Craken. What do you want?”
    David hesitated. “I—I want to think it over. I came here to do something for my father, and without the pearls, I can’t do it—unless I have some help. But first we’d better get out of sight. Is there any place we can go to talk this over?”
    Roger said: “There’s a beach house about a mile below here—the Atlantic manager of Trident Lines maintains it. He isn’t there, but he told me I could use it any time.” He said it proudly.
    “That will do,” said David. “Can you take me there?”
    “Well—I suppose so,” said Roger, somewhat unwillingly. “Do you think it’s necessary? I mean, are you that worried about someone from the Academy seeing you?”
    David looked worriedly out to sea, then at Roger.
    “It isn’t anyone from the Academy that I’m worried about,” he told Roger Fairfane.
    We made our arrangements. We left David waiting for us in a boathouse on the beach, and Roger, Bob and I hurried back to the Academy to sign in. Every swimmer who completed the marathon was entitled to an overnight pass as a reward, so there was no difficulty getting off the reservation. The cadet on guard, stiffly at attention in his sea-red dress uniform, gave our passes only a glance, but he examined the little bag Roger was carrying very carefully. “Civilian clothes?” he demanded. “What are you going to do with those?”
    “They—ah—they need cleaning,” Roger said, not untruthfully. “There’s a good cleaner in Hamilton.”
    The guard winked. “Pass, cadets,” he said, and returned to stiff attention. Still and all, I didn’t feel safe until we were out of sight of the gates. Roger hadn’t actually said we were gong to Hamilton—but he had certainly said enough to make the guard at the gate start asking questions if he saw us duck off the road in another direction.
    We got back to the beach easily enough, and found David waiting. I was almost surprised to see him there—it would have been so easy to believe the whole thing was a dream if he had been gone. But he was there, big as life, and we waited while he got into Roger’s dry clothes.
    And then the four of us headed down the beach toward the ornate beach house that belonged to the Atlantic manager of Trident Lines.
    Overhead there was a ripping, screaming sound—the night passenger jet for the mainland. It was a common enough sound; Bob and Roger and I hardly noticed it. But David stopped still in his tracks, frozen, his face drawn.
    He looked at me and grinned, shamefaced. “It’s only an