Seas of Venus(134)

"Has the eel . . . ," Brainard asked, pausing to kick again. His exhausted muscles trembled with the effort of keeping his head out of water, but his eyes were indomitable. " . . . shown itself?"

"It's moving inside the plenum chamber," Wilding said. His tone was calm, soothing. He was a part of Nature. "It'll come soon."

All of their clothing was in rags. Leaf knelt beside the officer-trainee. His feet were turned outward. The soles of his seaboots were a synthetic which combined a gummy grip with the toughness of mild steel and stability at temperatures up to 880o.

A purple fungus had devoured half the thickness of the right sole and was sucking a dimple from the heel of the left boot as well.

"Do you know what we're fighting for?" Wilding asked softly.

A twenty-foot shark curled in toward the hovercraft. A rifle on the deck beside Wilding pointed out over the sea. He knew the weapon was unnecessary at the moment.

The shark banked and fled toward the safety of its distant fellows, showing its pale belly. Its pectoral fins were spread like wings.

"For our lives, you bloody fool!" Leaf gasped. "That's what we're fighting for!"

Sweat blinded the motorman. He was desperately afraid that the sweat sliming his palms would cause his hands to slip when Ensign Brainard's life depended on him.

"No," explained Wilding, "that isn't why we're still fighting, still here."

His fingertips knew the surface of the grenade. On the deck lay the safety pin. The grenade's spoon handle pressed upward against Wilding's palm, straining to ignite the fuze train. The safety pin could be reinserted if the moray refused the bait . . . but Wilding knew that the beast would come.

Soon.

"Any one of us would have given up long ago if he'd been alone," he said aloud. "Even you, sir. Even you."

It was a wonder the way his tongue shaped to the words.

"For God's sake, man!" Caffey snarled. "Are you watching for the fucking eel?"

"I'm ready," Wilding said. "I understand."

Brainard's face lifted toward the officer-trainee. The ensign's face showed no concern; no expectation, even. Only the physical strain of making his wracked muscles kick the water to bring the jaws of a multi-ton monster down on him. . . .

Miniature fish darted in and out, confused by the thrashing. One of them snatched at the pus-soaked fabric of Brainard's sock. The scavenger's jaws stayed clamped although a kick lifted it from the water. When the fish splashed down again, one of its fellows sheared through its body just behind the head.

The torpedoman muttered a curse or a prayer.

"We're fighting for each other," Wilding said. "That's good, but it's not good enough. When we get back, we have to fight for all Mankind."

The crabs scurried away like a mob fleeing a madman with an axe when Brainard started to kick. They resumed their sidelong advance, each moving individually but marching in lock-step because identical imperatives ruled their rudimentary minds.

The crustaceans pulsed forward and dashed back; but a little closer with every cycle. Soon one of them would spring from the sea floor with its claws wide to seize the man in the water. . . .

"Otherwise we're part of the jungle," Wilding said. "And the jungle will win."

"Oh God!" Leaf cried in despair. "I can't hold—"

It was the moment.

"Now!" shouted the officer-trainee. As the word came from his mouth, electric motion slid out of the tunnel.

The moray was green. Its jaws were open. The ragged fangs were up to ten inches long.

The sharks and lesser fish at the edge of vision vanished. The ranked crabs exploded backward behind a curtain of sand, tumbling over one another in their haste to escape nemesis.

The moray struck through the sea more swiftly than gravity could have pulled a boulder in thin air. The undulant movement slapped water violently against the hovercraft.

The grenade left Wilding's fingers as if it were playing its part in a marionette show in which strings connected all existence.

"Hah!" shouted one of the enlisted men as the four straightened and lunged backward in unison. Ensign Brainard lifted toward the shell-torn gap in K44's railing.

Brainard was still in the air. His head and shoulders were over the deck, but his legs flailed above the sea.

The moray's head slid out of the water. Its palate was a cottony white. Leaf threw himself forward to block the monster's spearpoint teeth with his body. Wilding knew what was about to happen. He held the motorman's shoulders with the strength of a madman.

The grenade went off in the moray's throat. The creature's head flew apart. The thick slime coating its body was bright yellow, and the scales beneath were blue.

The spray of the moray's blood in the air was red, and the spreading red blur in Wilding's mind overwhelmed his consciousness.