Free Undersea Quest by Frederick & Williamson Pohl

what?
    A fresh puzzle. I couldn’t guess at the answer. Certainly it was not for spying—you couldn’t see past the towel bar from the other side. For listening? Hardly; there were electronic devices that were much, much subtler and more reliable.
    But certainly it was for something…
    If I couldn’t figure out for what, at least I could take a sensible precaution. I called a steward, and told him I had decided to vacate the room.
    If I had known what the consequences would be…
    But I didn’t. How could I have guessed?
    The steward looked dismayed when I told him what I wanted.
    “ Very irregular, sir!” he sputtered. “Is the room unsatisfactory?”
    It was not the same steward of the morning. I said, as haughtily as I could: “Steward, I want another room! That’s all; get it for me, please. I understand that I shall have to pay for two rooms. I am quite prepared to do so.”
    It was a silly role to cast myself in; but the alternative was to tell him about the hole that had been drilled in the wall, and I wasn’t quite ready to take anyone into my confidence.
    He sputtered and sputtered some more; but I found a suitable bill in my pocket, and when it had been transferred to his he was much more co-operative. He shrugged. “This way, sir,” he said, with the resignation one expects in those whose careers make them deal with many people…
    I slept like a baby that night. Soundly—
    But by no means as soundly as I would have if I hadn’t moved.

10
The Long Sleep
    When I woke it took me a moment to realize where I was. My shaving gear, with everything else I owned, was still in Stateroom 334. I should have gone back for it; but the whisper of sound from the screws told me that something was happening; they were changed from the sounds of the day before.
    I dressed quickly in the clothes I had worn and stepped out into the corridor. A passing crewman told me we were about to dock at Black Camp, first of the dome cities of Marinia. I would just have time for breakfast and a quick trip to the ship’s barber for a shave.
    I put off going back to my cabin.
    The ship’s barber tidied me up quickly; I left him feeling much improved, and headed for the dining salon.
    On the way, I met the little man in gray.
    For the first time he seemed actually to see me.
    He stared at me unbelievingly with his pale eyes. He gasped; his thin-lipped mouth opened as if to speak. Every trace of color drained from his gray face.
    He was trembling as, abruptly, he turned and fled.
    One puzzle more…
    Why had he been so startled to see me? I couldn’t guess; I dismissed the question and went in to breakfast.
    I had just finished eating when we docked at Black Camp—having made the run of two thousand miles and a bit in just over thirty-three hours. I hurried to the promenade, peered out through one of the shielded ports.,
    My first view of a city of the sea! Its weirdness and its wonder almost made me forget the web of mystery surrounding my life.
    The vast, level plain of radiolarian ooze, shining with a cold, pale phosphorescence. Through some illusion of optics it seemed to stretch to infinity, though actually, owing to the turgidity of the water, the visibility was only a few hundred yards at best.
    The “sky”—the cold ocean above us—was utterly black.
    Strange world: Luminous plains and glimmering mountains, under a black, black sky.
    But all this was familiar to me. What was new was Black Camp itself, the huge hemispherical dome of Edenite that rose ghostly from the luminous plain. The massive bubble of metal armor that sheltered the city from the awful thrust of the sea.
    The docking arrangement was the same as in all the deep-sea cities: tubes ran out from the city, under the rock of die sea-floor, the docks above them. The docks themselves were magnetic metal platforms, which the sub-sea vessel squats down to while a lock in her belly opens to join the tubes below.
    From my stand on the promenade I could see only the