The Deep

He was having a look-see. If he’d have got serious, you’d have seen the excitement ripple along his body; he’d’ve got real agitated. And soon as I spotted that, all we had to do is gather together in the air-lift cloud. Sharks won’t go in it, or if they do, they’ll get the hell out in a hurry without waiting to bite anything. The sand clogs their gills, and they hate that: it can kill ’em. I had his grandfather try to eat me once—a big bastard of a tiger shark, all of fifteen feet long comand I just waited him out in the cloud. But sticking him with a knife is the last bloody thing in the world you want to do. The last! When you’ve got no other choice, when it’s either stick him or be dinner, then you stick him. But not before.”

“Why?”

“He’s liable to bite you. They’re not supposed to have enough brains to get angry, but I tell you, I’ve seen ’em do a right fancy imitation of being pissed off. You want to see another reason, get in the water.”

“What? Where?”

Treece tossed him a face mask. “Put this on and hang off the platform.” He said to Gail, “You, too. But for Christ’s sake, don’t go tooting off somewhere.”

Tentatively, not knowing what to expect, David and Gail slipped off the platform and clung to the chains that attached it to the boat. They held their breaths and put their faces in the water.

The scene thirty feet away, on the reef, looked like a gang fight. All that remained of the shark Sanders had stabbed were a few mutilated pieces, and those were being fought over, with savage frenzy, by countless other sharks. Half a dozen large tiger sharks flailed in a blurred ball around a piece of offal. A smaller shark chased a shred of flesh to the bottom, took it in his mouth, and sped away, pursued by two others. There were sharks everywhere, swimming in frantic bursts, responding to smells and sounds and commotion in the water, searching for prey. Some were gray, some brown, some striped.

Large sharks took random swipes at smaller ones, who darted out of reach-or, when they were not quick enough, were wounded and set upon by the mob.

As the Sanderses watched, more and more dark, sinuous shapes glided out of the twilight blue. One cruised directly beneath the boat, and, seeing something on the surface, rose toward them. They hoisted themselves onto the platform and climbed into the boat.

Treece and Coffin were counting ampules on the deck. Treece did not look up. “See what you did?” He was not gloating; his tone of voice said simply: Now you understand.

“I see.”

Gail said, “How long will they stay around?”

“Till the food runs out. But if they’re beating up on each other like they usually do, the food won’t run out. They’ll be there a good long while.”

“So today’s wiped,” Sanders said. “I’m sorry.”

“Aye.” Treece relented. “It’s no great tragedy. We got a fair load for today, and one thing about those beasts: They’ll keep anybody else from messing around down there.”

Gail shivered. She removed her wet-suit top and dried herself. “How many have you got?”

“Four thousand”-Treece looked at Coffin-“eight hundred and seventy,” Coffin said, wrapping the last plastic bag of ampules.

“Not enough.” Treece looked at the shore. “And not much bloody time. I imagine Cloche has had people on the bluffs all day.”

Coffin said, “He can’t make ’em into good divers in two days. And he’ll have to build an air lift.

Can’t send a bunch of bunnies out here to pick around in the sand with their fingers.”

“Two days, no. But not much more than that, to make ’em middling competent. And when he’s ready, they’re going to come fast. I think maybe we’ll be working nights, too.” He saw a look of chagrin on Gail’s face, and he said, “Not tonight. We’ll give your bugle a rest.”

“What will you do with this?” Sanders rested his hand on the artillery shell.

“Nothing, for now. I just wanted to get it out of there.

Later on, I’ll clean it up and sell the brass.”

“Is it really live, after thirty years?”

“Aye.” Treece said. He set the shell in a vise bolted to the starboard gunwale. From a locker he took a huge wrench which he fit to the bottom of the shell. He tugged on the handle, but the wrench didn’t budge. “Corroded into a bloody weld.” He braced his foot against the bulkhead, wrapped both hands around the wrench, and leaned back.

His biceps balled into tight knots; the sinews in his neck strained against the skin, and a red hue suffused his face.

There was a metallic squeak, then the sound of a crack, and the wrench handle moved. Treece heaved again and

broke the seal. He unscrewed the bottom of the shell and dropped it on the deck. “Look here.”

The interior of the shell was filled with stiff, gray, spaghettilike strands, bunched tightly together.

Coffin handed Treece a pair of pliers and a box of matches. Treece fished one of the strands from the shell casing and, holding it with the pliers, gave Sanders the matches. “Light it.”

“What is it?”

“Cordite. That’s what makes everything explode.”

Sanders held a match to the end of the cordite strand.