TWO RESCUES
  Big Jim replied: "Trippers here in Anglesey use up our time also. I was once
out at sea working. I'd found an old wooden wreck. I didn't tell the undersea
archaeologists, they take months and clutter the place, they're like any other
lot of scuba divers but more so. Never mind endless notebookfuls of drawings of
bits of rubbish, I just demolished and consumed the whole thing in a week, and
no delays for bad weather. I got lots of copper and lead out of it, and a fair
lot of silver also. The sea had got rough above. I surfaced for air. [No waste
of energy compressing air into cylinders. His kind have a big compartment full
of a spongy stuff that absorbs oxygen like haemoglobin does.] As I surfaced, I
saw three small children adrift in a tiny oval inflatable playboat that only
belongs on paddling pools. What idiocy from trippers next? Normally I let
trippers solve their own problems, as long as they leave our shellfish alone;
but something different surfaced inside me, and I wondered what to do. I've
ridden out many storms with my hardy rounded-cylindrical steel hull, but how
long could three small humans last? The waves foamed over my back and around my
grab arm. (`Kaaaak' irrelevantly suggested a storm-blown seagull swooping over.)
No chance of letting them into my control compartment [for when he has a human
driver or onboard advisor] without flooding it, and if they tried to cling to my
grab arm hydraulics they'd be washed off in seconds. But one thing may work.
  `Heeelp mummy someone mummy.' screeched John, a small boy in the playboat.
  `Ackk, sorry, John. This is the last oar and the wind's blowing it about.'
said one of the children as the gale blew the little but hard wooden
inflatable-oar which he was holding onto, with a thud against John's head.
  `Owwch - someone someone.' John continued.
  The little girl with the ponytail screamed continuously. The waves tossed the
boat about like when a seabird tosses a fish to catch it headfirst. Matrix alone
knows why it hadn't capsized yet. `I've never done this before. Men say that
wolves and even tigers and crocodiles carry their newborn young unhurt in their
mouths, which at other times can tear up buffaloes.' I thought. The first they
knew of me was my voice from astern them above the wind and sea roar shouting:
`Get your heads down and your arms in the boat - hold on - ready - now!'. [262]
My grab scooped forward and shut with its usual hollow doom-laden binlike noise,
then there was no playboat or children, only me awash in a furious sea far
outside the bay, with my grab arm unfolded raised.
  `When my grab opens, get out of the boat and hold onto the lower teeth! Let
the boat go!' I said. They did so. They all about fitted side by side into the
front of my grab. The sea was rolling me and shaking them about. My grab's all
steel and power to dredge and break big stuff up and not meant for carrying
something that delicate. I pushed their empty boat back out of the way into my
intake, and swallowed it. My onboard digester's the best place at sea for a
stupid little rubber thing like that. I held them as tight as I dared against my
lower grab jaw with my pusher bars, and nearly closed my grab. Their heads
looked out between my teeth at the size of the waves, and the foam streaks and
the driven rain, and the land which had so quickly got so far away.
  `The tide carried us out.' said John, held uncomfortably but securely between
steel parts, swaying about above the sea.
  `We got in a current, and then outside the bay there's all these big waves.'
said the other boy.
  `I've lost my dolly.' the girl wept.
  I realized what a mouth-brooder fish feels like. I was rolling too much to aim
my sonar to signal, so I radioed. An irrelevant jabber of shipping and other
shore stations caused delay, but I managed to raise Red Wharf harbour and tell
them what was happening. The harbourmaster answered; the children's mother was
there. Hearing how I was carrying them, she shuddered a bit and had the sense
not to distract me when I was in a storm and unable to submerge to get away from
it.
  `I can't feel our boat. It's slid back down in. Daddy gave it to us, it's our
Christmas present!' said John.
  `Hard luck!' I replied, `Down it goes! Now you can't get adrift in it a second
time! The sea's not a playground! If I had a pound for every inflatable I've
swallowed and digested. Lucky <you> are safe! I'm a dredgersub, not a
lifeboat!'.
  The land gradually got nearer. In the shelter of the bay the wind and waves
were much less. Too easy for inland people not to know what it was like further
out. The children clung to my lower grab-teeth and looked out.
  `Look! The jetty.' John exclaimed, although it wasn't a jetty but a quay along
the shoreline.
  `Where's Mummy?' said the other boy, for she was out of sight in the harbour
office away from the weather.
  `My new frock's torn.' the girl wailed.
  I docked and put my grab on the quay and opened it. The children crawled
thankfully out, feeling sore where my pusher bars had held them to stop the
storm waves from shaking them about. Their parents came out of the harbour
office.
  `Daddy! We're back! A current took us out of the bay. This is Big Jim's sub,
he brought us back in its grab.' said the girl.
  `Where's the boat? It cost.' asked their father.
  `He ate it.' said John.
  `Yes, I did `eat' it' I said sharply, `It was a playboat for swimming pools!
Never use one of those on any open water! The tide went out, so all that water
had to go somewhere, so it ran out to sea, and took them with it! Out there the
waves are far bigger than sheltered in here! So's the wind. Look how fast the
clouds are blowing! How safe the sea looks in here, lapping against my hull! No,
the sea's as dangerous as guns, all too often!'.
  `We said they could play in the bay.' said their father.
  `Sorry, Mummy.' said the girl.
  `They obeyed, but the sea didn't obey!' I said, `The sea's for work, it isn't
a playground! We fishermen know this all too well! We never let young children
in boats alone, only with parents, and only if the parent can handle the boat!
Watch the tides and the currents! Ask the people who live there about dangers!
Can they swim yet?'.
  `Er - they're -' their mother issuedodged.
  `Then not out of paddling pool depth till they can swim!' I replied.
  `Where are you, so I can thank you properly?' their father asked.
  `No pilot, I'm an intelligent robot sub.' I explained.
  [263] `Brrr, I'm cold and I lost my doll.' the girl wailed.
  `In boats, always wear waterproofs.' I said curtly.
  `I can't let you change here. Sit in the car and I'll turn the heater full on.
I keep telling you not to take toys about with you, they get lost.' their father
said.
  `I wanted Dolly to see the sea.' she said.
  `Your doll was a plastic toy, it can't see. Be realistic! Now it's gone, like
your boat.' he said irritatedly, and then to me: `I'm sorry to use up your time
and fuel, Mr. - Jim -'.
  `So am I!' I replied, `Fiddly rescues instead of work! Lucky I was there!'.
  They got in their car and drove away. I got back to work. Round Puffin Island
[at the southeast corner of Anglesey] the sea's getting dirtier and dirtier, all
the muck out of towns. It kills the sea life, on top of what poachers take.".
  "Too true." Aphanistor replied, "So more reason to stop the poaching, if
there's less shellfish to go round. As one of Captain Hurlock's men used to say
here [see 196]:-
    `At Puffin Island [see 166] were pilferers caught
    twelve tank-wearers and two Geminis, [Gemini = a make of inflatable boat]
    th'aqualunged enemy's eager sea-steeds,
    leaving no lobsters for our livelihood,
    arrogant from inland, the air-backed ones.
    <There> that evening were of <them> none left
    to Conway to come to their cars again,
    to their pier-famed place, with prey to Wigan.', etc.".
  "Aye, there, and at Llanfairfechan [see 182,135], twelve miles by sea from
here." Big Jim replied meaningfully, "I know all these waters. The inshore
fishermen told me all they know, and they count me as one of them. I can hear an
outboard motor underwater five miles away, and tell whether it's on a proper
solid boat or an inflatable. To each of those two places the followers of
Cousteau came once too often; then the others read the newspapers and were
wise.".
  "Look, Bert, that sub's on recharge." said a man on seeing Big Jim's telephone
lead as he photographed him.
  "No, I'm not on recharge. I'm not battery-powered. Get your facts right before
printing." said Big Jim roughly, recognizing the man and his companion, and
having overheard what they had been planning in their car, "'Oppit. The three
children have been found, and the family's away inland. We've no photos or
recordings of it. You newshounds keep pestering like touts. It's always the
same: `How do you feel?' or `Can you say a few words?' to someone who's busy or
upset or trying to think or rest.".

        Big Jim continued his interrupted conversation: "Most holidaymakers are
useful. They buy meals and stuff round here; they buy the fish we catch, at the
quayside, instead of wholesalers and shopkeepers inland getting most of the
profit. But some bring all their own stuff, crowd out the place, launch boats
across crowded beaches, or think my men exist only to take them on boat trips
round the lighthouse and suchlike.".
  "A firm in Hexham makes a submersible inflatable now." said Aphanistor, "At
£100,000 each they're far too expensive for sport divers, fortunately. About 17
feet long, 5 feet wide, 2 feet draught. 20 knots for 100 miles with an outboard
motor on the surface, 2.5 knots for 2 hours with electric motors submerged. It
can deflate and reinflate itself as it goes. `Intended for sabotage or
reconnaisance' said the brochure that Captain Hurlock got about it. Too true!
Scuba divers are too good at that already, without adding fancy naval kit to it!
`Seize their surface cover boats and they're trapped.' Captain Hurlock used to
say, when his men went on action against unauthorized divers. But what if they
can take their boats down with them?
  There's two more of us, working for the Hiddleston M.O.D. place. They're
called DS1 and DS2, but the men there nicknamed them Donald and Quackers.
They're not supposed to talk to civilians (humans or 'subs), but once after the
arrests, I and one of them got into clear sonar shot of each other, and we could
talk [by modulated ultrasound] - and a story of a mishap. I'd gone further along
the coast that I normally go, to investigate a report of scuba diving activity;
there were indeed scuba divers there, but a short burst of the appropriate
ultrasound frequency pattern showed that they had `The Marker' and had been
authorized by another harbourmaster, so I left them. Then I saw another, larger,
sonar blip, which sent a sonar message back when it heard my scanning sonar.
  `Quackers here, naval grab-dredgersub, DS2, I mustn't leave the M.O.D. area.
Who's that?' it said.
  `Aphanistor here, Crabhaven harbour's grab-dredgersub. What news?' I replied.
  `Not much.' he replied, `A few noseybodies coming in by sea. But my mate
Donald, DS1, did something rather disastrous when that new bossy petty officer
human over us couldn't wait for a routine checkup call to be answered.'.
  [264] DS2 said that DS1 had done this. Surfacing for air in rough seas near
Worbarrow Point, DS1 saw three local inshore fishermen clinging to an isolated
rock which their boat had been driven onto and sunk by waves and wind when its
motor failed. No way off by land; they couldn't swim; no lifejackets; by the
time the lifeboat got there they'd have been washed off and drowned; sea was too
rough for them to ride on his back or cling to his grab arm hydraulics; they
were too big for him to carry them together in his grab like you did at Red
Wharf that time. Just one thing he could do, though very risky. He reached his
grab out, fully open, and called out: `Empty your lungs, then deep breath in and
hold it, then jump into my intake! I've got an air compartment inside.'. Caught
literally `between the devil and the deep blue sea', as humans say, they had to
obey. DS1 shut his grab behind them and blew a dredgings tank full of air and
backed hurriedly away from the jagged rocks and breakers as he ran his intake
conveyor; three bulges went down his intake cover. As he was concentrating
desperately on making sure they went down the right way as well as keeping away
from the rocks, loud and sharp and bossy came a modulated ultrasound message
from a naval Petty Officer at his base wanting a routine radio check (or rather,
`sonar check'). DS1 had to ignore it for the moment. `Not now, please!' he
thought.
  `DS1: what is your status?' the message repeated, irritated at the delay.
  `Please! Two minutes!' DS1 frantically `ultrasounded' back.
  `Reply! Now! Not later!' said the Petty Officer. DS1 had to let it wait a bit
for once.
  `Reply, or I'll have you keelhauled and cut up for scrap! Enough of people
finishing other things first!' the Petty Officer bellowed down his microphone in
the base.
  `OK! OK!' DS1 replied, `Position 03784/50134. Fuel status 54% full. Weather:
moderate SSW gale, rain starting, mean wave height 8 feet.', and so on, yes sir,
yes sir, three bags full sir.
  DS1 finally got back to what he was doing before. To his horror he found that
his dredgings tank was empty and his destructor recycler was making fuel out of
something. Obvious what had happened while that impatient human was distracting
him. Sometimes interrupters <have> to wait, however important they are.
<Distraction causes destruction>, all too often. That was the end of that. Those
three were local fishermen, they belonged there, not like the summer invading
hordes! So many vehicle accidents caused by distraction. If he hadn't found
them, they'd have drowned anyway, I suppose. He continued his routine work.
  Back in his covered dock at base, the Petty Officer met him and ordered: `DS2!
Ten-shun!'.
  `No sir.' DS1 said, `I'm Donald, that's DS1. Quackers is cleaning up after the
...'.
  `No!' the Petty Officer interrupted angrily, `You two are DS1 and DS2! The men
may call you those absurd names, but I don't! The RAF may call their search and
rescue Shackleton aircraft after the Magic Roundabout characters [they actually
do! Author], but <I> don't! Before I give you my next orders, the coastguard
says: did anyone see three fishermen from Lulworth adrift in a small wooden
boat? But first, why were you slow replying to that sonar check? Busy with this,
busy with that, I won't have delays!'.
  `I can answer both those questions at once.' DS1 said, and told the Petty
Officer what had happened.
  `Oh no.' said the Petty Officer, `I thought that at least dredgersubs were too
unsuitable to break orders and go off on civilian rescues. Much nuisance boils
down to holidaymakers and fishermen. This incident remains secret. Why didn't
you tell me you were off on a rescue?'.
  `You called for a sonar check just then, and you wouldn't listen.' DS1
replied.
  `Oh ...' said the Petty Officer, realizing that the blame was his own, `I
repeat, this incident remains secret.'.".
  Big Jim and Aphanistor continued their conversation for a while, then
unplugged themselves and went about their work. DS2 had thought it best to admit
to this matter despite orders; but the Petty Officer had also ordered DS1: "Now,
go to three miles south of Stair Hole [a small cove in Dorset connected to the
sea by a cave], search in a quarter mile radius, remove and destroy all trace of
an underwater listening installation set up there by civilian sport divers. It
is a security risk. This also is secret.".

        [265] Jack Brown in his room in Wernicke's switched on for a television
program about diving marine biology that he had been looking forward to, but
there came only an announcer's head and angry blaming. The announcer said: "This
programme was to have been about current developments and results from an
undersea biological unmanned listening and sensing station off the Dorset coast,
set up by a group of scuba diving clubs. However, four days ago the signals from
this station stopped, and divers investigating next day found that the station
had been completely removed. This is a major loss of time and money spent on it,
and of equipment. Over to one of the project staff.".
  "This is not theft for gain, as everything including the concrete footings was
gone, not only saleable items and metals. Local people saw no activity over the
site that could have caused the disappearance. This news comes on top of the
recent succession of group scuba diver disappearances off our coasts. There is
considerable anger among the participating diving clubs about this.".
  "I say it's the Navy! They don't want us to listen to or sonar track secret
underwater activity; passing a law against it'd take too long to go through
Parliament, so they just took our equipment away. They may deny it, but they
would. Same as offshore from some M.O.D. base on the south coast, there have
been diver casualties, mass deaths of fish, divers hearing `sonic noises'.
Nobody's telling <me> not to suspect ultrasonic beam weapons used there.".
  "Aye! They deny it or say nothing; then when that Hurlock invents that fancy
multipurpose sonar of his and makes it, all of a sudden the Navy can't deny that
such a thing's possible!".
  "I'm seeing my MP! My club's put a lot of money into this project!".
  "The Navy don't want us to duplicate their listening techniques by our own
research! They should've said so in the first place, not let us use all this
money and work first.".
  Jack sighed and stood up and switched off, thinking: "More doom and gloom. I
thought they'd caught that character Hurlock, and that that wave of diver
disappearances was slacking off. I do blame the armed forces likeliest, them
getting stuffy over oil rig diving firms and sport divers duplicating secret
communications devices, and suchlike. But why shouldn't people go diving for
pleasure if they're trained properly? For example, why should the Navy have
tried to monopolize modulated ultrasound underwater communication when civilian
work divers badly need such a thing also? I wonder if anybody here'll take me
scubadiving? There must still be <some> safe places to do it. Let's see who else
is in. James is out in Optimus on some job.".
  In the rear garage he found Jazz and Hoist repairing yet another clapped-out
old car that its owner was expecting them to get running like nearly new. "Any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.", science
fiction authors say, and some people still believed wrongly that Wernicke's
Transformers had all the ability of their fictional originals. In there also was
a hawk-shaped robot jetplane about 15 feet wing span, with legs and talons and
head with hooked beak, and Decepticon badges on its curved wings. "Oh, hello,
Laserbeak." said Jack, "Repainted with a new colour scheme, I see. I'm bored.
Television news is mostly disaster and forebodings, and everybody's out or
busy.". He yawned.
  "I'm not Laserbeak, I'm Buzzsaw." it replied, "The other jet bird plane from
the stories. I've got two of the jetmotors that Optimus bought from Smith &
Malton's [see 253] , the third is a spare. I was brought to life as real three
days ago. I know my fictional past, but vaguely. I know Laserbeak's real past
here since he was brought to life [see 18]. I know it so well that it's as if I
<was> him, oddly.".
  "Meaning that your mind's a copy of the real Laserbeak's, plus a few necessary
new imprintings by Ratchet as he copied." said Jack.
  "I suppose it would be." said Buzzsaw, "I suspect there's also a deal of
Ratchet copied into me. Certainly not much of my fictional original, where I was
so fond of tearing enemies and things up with my beak that I got the name
Buzzsaw, or so say the stories. That's in the past, and the stories never
happened. Now I must make my living here on Earth like the rest of you.".
  [266] The garage telephone rang, and Hoist answered it: "Hello? Wernicke
Computers here. Hoist Autobot speaking.".
  "Birmingham Hospital here." came the reply, "Is Laserbeak free? Blood. Urgent.
Farm accident. Collect it from here. Take it to Plasglasgwm Farm (in a valley,
one mile west of Penmachno, which is 4 miles south of Betws-y-coed in North
Wales).".
  "Laserbeak's away busy, but we've got a new one like him, called Buzzsaw. He's
free.". said Hoist, and thought: "Brrm! More of us, more work, more people
ringing, more time spent answering the phone instead of working.".
  Buzzsaw gave a loud squawk in annoyance at getting a call so soon after being
brought to life as real in the real world without as much time as he would have
liked to collect his thoughts, and walked out onto the back-land and unfolded
his wings and took off and flew away. Jack went back inside to find how the
latest batch of doom and gloom was getting on.
  The local television news was on. The announcer said:
  "Plans for a new shopping centre in Bromsgrove have been shelved after
protests by residents.
  The transforming robot codenamed Ratchet helped in a rescue of three people
trapped when a building collapsed when a lorry hit it. Their condition is
described as `stable'.
  ... mains burst in Worcester ... traffic delays ...
  There was a violent affray near Droitwich railway station when railway workmen
ejected vagrants and tinkers from a railway arch storeroom which had been left
unlocked. Several people were injured. Over to a reporter ...".
  "Them again!" Jack thought angrily, "They don't give up! Smith & Malton's -
here - the market - Prowl's school - now Droitwich railway station - where next?
`We're only dossin', we weren't takin' nuthin'', they say, then they start
thieving and turning dustbins out and pestering, till they are chucked out and
have to move on.".