“It’s strange to think of wars going on down there just as they have here, and one race enslaving another, as the Swimmer’s people did. I thought at first they were—well, call it evil. I saw how they ruled. Evil is a foolish word. The Swimmer people are so beautiful and strong and wild, you can’t apply our rules to their lives. I lived among them. I saw that other race, in the dark of the sea-bottom, banished from that wonderful, strange light a human couldn’t even see.
“At first I thought it was cruelty that kept the—the others—enslaved. And then I happened to see one of the Others.” His voice faltered and a shadow of revulsion crossed the bandaged face. “I saw what was left after a minor uprising, and I saw how the Others kill, and what they look like. After that I knew. If the decision were mine, I’d exterminate them all. I can’t help that feeling. It’s instinct. There are things too degenerate to live.
“It’s all been going on down there for I don’t know how many centuries, how many milleniums. Think of it, Black! Empires rising and falling, races ruling and races enslaved, sciences developing along lines we’ll never understand and nobody guessing it until the Swimmer came to the surface.
“His race is intelligent. They must have realized the new radiations and the explosion had come from another intelligent race. They’ve seen sunken ships and drowned men, they knew we lived here in the air. But they’re so alien … No communication is really possible between us. If it weren’t for the accident that did—whatever it did—to my brain, no human might ever have known.
“Well, I’m going back. There’s trouble down there. They need help.” Gresham paused and laughed harshly. “Why do I keep thinking I can help them? I can’t even share their thoughts. All I can do is find some creature to take me down into the depths, so I can see with its eyes. I can watch, if I can’t help. I can move through those wonderful cities again, and see the Swimmer’s people.” His voice faltered and he gave his mind up for an instant to the memory of that race and its beauty and wildness and strange, alien enchantment.
“The Swimmer himself had to stay,” Gresham said. “The machines—you’d never guess they were machines to see them—weren’t working well. All who could had to help the machines, help to keep the dark race—the Others—away from the cities. So the Swimmer’s mind let go of mine and I had to come back.”
“What can you do?” Black asked. “Is there any way to get in touch again?”
Gresham turned his blinded face toward the ocean. He was silent for a moment.
“That shark,” he said. “The big one. He’s still following us.”
Black had to rise and lean over the rail to make sure.
“Yes, I can see him now. He’s with us.”
“That’ll do,” Gresham said confidently. “An intelligent mind can control a non-intelligent one for awhile. I’ll take the shark’s body and go back.”
“You’re tired, Gresham,” Black said. “We can talk about this later. I’m going to give you a sedative and I want you to rest.”
Gresham laughed. “See that gull up there? What would you say if it circled three times and landed on the rail beside you?”
Black looked up. The gull sailed in one wide circle, two circles, three—and swooped down toward the rail. Its yellow feet gripped and closed and it perched there turning its head from side to side and looking at Black with eyes that fantastically seemed to him for a moment Gresham’s eyes, as if the blind man in the bird’s dim brain looked out and saw him.
Gresham laughed again.
“You’ve got a notebook on your knee,” he said. “You have no idea how queer you look through a bird’s eyes, Black. All out of focus and strange.”
“Let it go,” Black said in a choked voice. The gull tipped forward and spread its wings, its eyes going blank again with mindless bird-thoughts.
“Yes,” Gresham said. “The shark will do. …”
Black sat beside the bunk and watched the sleeping face of the blind man, his own mind in a turmoil. He could not believe or accept Gresham’s story, but in spite of himself he found images slipping through his brain as he saw emotions flicker across the cataleptic face. He saw the green abysses gliding by, he saw the nameless undersea dawn brightening in the depths, felt the great shark’s body bend its banded muscles and drive on and on toward a city of floating spheres that illuminated the dark like lanterns lighted by no human hands.
Suddenly Gresham sat straight up among the blankets. The blood rushed into his face and he said, “Huh!” in a choked, inarticulate voice.
“Gresham?” Black said, laying a hand on his arm. “Are you awake? What is it?”
He was not awake. He did not turn his head or feel the hand or hear the voice. All his faculties were focused on something very far away, deep down in the abysses beneath the boat. He was like a man in a nightmare. His breath came fast now, through bared teeth, and his face convulsed into the lines of a man fighting for his life.
“The dark!” he said thickly. “The dark! Where did the lattices go? What’s wrong? Oh, what’s happening here?” But that was the last articulate speech he made, and the last words Black had time to hear, for suddenly Gresham began to struggle violently with the blankets, striving to throw them off, lashing out with clenched fists whenever Black tried to hold him.
In the end they had to strap him to the bunk to keep him from injuring himself and those around him. He lay there struggling furiously, resting in panting silence and then fighting against the restraining bands again. His face was wild with a ferocity that sent
