THE NINE RETURN
  [316] Captain Hurlock's nine followers (but not himself) returned home to
Crabhaven and went to the harbour. "Agh!" exclaimed one of them, Trelane, in
disgust at seeing two scuba divers on the quayside and nobody apparently going
anything about it, "Three months in `The Scrubs' for defending our living
against scuba divers; we come back to find the place full of scuba divers
again.".
  "Yaah!" said another of them, Polwerran, "Scuba diving magistrate sent us
down, townified new harbourmaster, the poachers come back.".
  "Not so fast!" one of the two divers replied, "I'm Tregear, I live here! I do
a lot of the harbourmastering, me and Affy.".
  "I'm Pendane." said the other diver, "I was a frogman in the Marines. I and
Mickelson and Malling came from other villages when we heard you'd lost ten men.
We've kept the fishing going; all the money from it's stayed in the village, we
supported your families; but for $#@'s sake keep as tight as Affy's grab about
it, or the SS [= Social Security] 'll dock them pound for pound for it and say
they're `sorry-but' all sorts of different excuses not to give them their
allowances, the mean idle officious pigs.".
  "Yes, but why the diving gear? Forgotten how to set pots?" Polwerran asked.
  "Affy told the men to learn to scubadive, and I agreed." said Pendane.
  "Affy!? What got into <his> oversized steel braincase to encourage our own men
to go diver?! I better ask him!" Polwerran exclaimed.
  "Huh!! Like a cat I heard of, it caught all the mice, then it brought in mice
to restock the house so it'd still have something to hunt! Too clever!" said
Trelane, "How's our boats? Police took them, I suppose.".
  "No. Affy sank them out of sight. When the cops gave up looking for them, he
helped us to refloat them. Here he is." said Tregear. A familiar large steel
bulk floating awash came up to the quay and stopped alongside. "Oh, here's you
nine back at last!" it said.
  "Affy!? What's all this about you turning our men into divers?! Enough of
divers!" exclaimed another of the nine, Z.Penlane.
  Aphanistor floated alongside with his powerful hydraulic grab-arm and
five-foot-wide clamshell grab folded on his roof. The grinder and digester
recycler inside his rounded-ended cylindrical hull had consumed without trace an
endless list of unwelcome stuff which had got into the local men's fishing
areas. In his silicon brain deep inside him was an intelligent mind now close in
feelings and loyalties to that of Captain Hurlock (ex RN) who had bought him
from Smith & Malton's of Droitwich. In an electrosynthesized voice he said:
"After you ten went, that left just two men able and willing to do much fishing.
Three more came, as Pendane said. That's still only five, and that's not really
enough. (The five new men and their action numbers are: #10 = Pendane, #11 = the
new Mickelson, #12 = Tregear, #13 = Polzean, #14 = Malling.) I was getting all
the work, patrolling, finding lost gear, even servicing pots and nets. Then one
day, on the same day [see 268-273]: I found three divers acting suspiciously
near Black Rock Head and scared them off; five divers were camping at Dobbits
Cleft and I caught them red-handed offshore there with catches and lobsterhooks;
then seven drug smugglers attacked, three by sea and four by land, and I and
Tregear only just managed to catch them in time. Meanwhile two other lots of
divers were getting away with it at the other end of my area. (I don't know
whether they were poaching or not.) I can't be in two places. The sea part of
the drug gang came on a submersible inflatable called a subskimmer, with four
sets of diving gear with rebreathers that don't make bubbles to be seen from the
surface. I kept their gear, and I talked with Pendane and we two trained the
rest in diving and how to arrest poaching divers underwater or make them
surface, so they can act against poachers when I'm away. Also I got Smith &
Malton's to fit me with retractable road wheels. That gang had six Emperor Ming
nailguns. I've got two of them fitted to me, one fore and one aft: when that
gang came the only thing I could do was to regurgitate and throw at them one of
those five poachers' aqualungs that I hadn't yet ground up to digest it along
with all the other rubbish that gets in the sea.
  We still had [see 278] a hard-hulled inflatable that the men got when they
warned off a lot from Bromsgrove. We had two electric motors in store, and old
lorry batteries; with those, and some cylinders off poachers had a second life
as reinflation cylinders, and other parts, we `subskimmerified' it. Not as good
as the real thing, but it works. We got that diving gear selling and hire shop's
stock when it shut down - all those group diver disappearances in the papers
were scaring its custom away. Anyway, they've already earned my image on their
shoulder badges! Trelane, you dived once. I guess some others of you'd like to
dive also: salvage, underwater work, and going underwater after poachers like
French diving sea-police can [see 278-281]. I can't be in two places at once,
and after you ten's arrest was in all the papers and the telly, the poachers
from the towns came like small fish to a broken-open mussel.".
  "Me be a shellfish diver? @#$ off! Me wear that stuff?" Polwerran exclaimed
indignantly.
  "Some of you'll have to." said Aphanistor, "We've started having those new big
sea-woodlice that eat the pot baits first. Proper diving, work and patrol and
underwater assault diving, each dive authorized and logged and listed.".
  "That is, naval and Marines-type diving! You sound more and more like Captain
Hurlock! I suppose so, if I must." said Polwerran.
  "We're rid of `The Big Belly', that cabin cruiser `La Parisienne' that kept
plaguing us in Captain Hurlock's time raiding pots and keepboxes and sailing
through drift nets cutting them." said Aphanistor, and told them what had
happened about a fortnight before.
  Various attempts to catch La Parisienne in Captain Hurlock's time failed. It
was too high-sided to board easily at speed in a fight from a small boat, and
could outrun any of Crabhaven's boats. Its name is French for `the woman of
Paris' (`or of Babylon', as Trelane said, in distaste against the atmosphere of
`naughtiness' and luxurious elegance and soft living), but, as Captain Hurlock
said, if treated as Greek it contains `laparos', the abdomen, `for its crew
fatten themselves off us'. Trelane remembered the time when he and Nick
Mickelson were in a boat servicing pots behind a rock, when La Parisienne
approached. Trelane had fitted both his outboard motors in case of any sudden
needs for fast chasing on action callout, although he was only running one; he
started the other and rushed to intercept. Not burdened by a bulky hull full of
the apparatus of luxury and shelter, he had much better acceleration, and long
before La Parisienne could reach full speed he roared across La Parisienne's
stern lashing a thick rope into its propeller to foul it. After that, they would
radio the coastguard or take the law into their own hands. But the rope bumped
in vain against a strong metal mesh cage round the propeller. Trelane swore, and
a man in La Parisienne gave a mocking cheer.
  Aphanistor continued: "I noticed prop noise and disturbance in the surface
echo clutter, like a cabin cruiser. I surfaced to look at it. It was La
Parisienne!, coming from where #2 keepbox should have been, going straight for
#3 keepbox. I looked around at the sonar echoes: one of your boats; a diffuse
echo from a shoal of fish; real rocks; some imaginary ghost rocks created by an
echo bounced twice; #3 keepbox; a group of echoes that may have been scuba
divers, but too far away for me to investigate then; and our subskimmer. Tregear
was in its front seat and Malling was in its back seat, running submerged,
collecting crabs and scallops on sand bottom with a few small rocks. Seeing that
sort of thing makes my intake-conveyor and grinder and recycler twitch; I'll
have to get used to my own people fishing that way. I aimed my front sonar in
message mode, then remembered that of their two underwater ultrasonic receivers
one was in the workshop being serviced and the other had developed a loose
connection that morning. Nothing for it but to watch that flash playboy take
away the keepbox with its contents and have our fishing hindered until we could
get another keepbox, like happened before. Or, but it was risky to the two:-
  `I hope Affy always does recognize us in this frogman's gear and crash helmets
and breathing masks that show just our eyes.' said Tregear, `Whoa, lets look
here. Did we really need to have brought <that> with us?. What if it went off?
Lets start earning.".
  Malling suddenly felt dizzy and strange. "Ooh, dizzy. we're being ultrasound
beamed. I told you Affy'd mistake us for poachers some time, us going below into
all this cold water among the fish wearing all this dredgersub-fuel." he moaned,
and then heard something that he realized that he certainly better not tell of,
if he didn't want his sanity doubting: a voice in his head.
  `K'k!' Tregear said in dismay, "Affy mistook, and now <we> end up as recycler
input along with our kit! and a voice in my head saying that La Parisienne's
back. Must be my imagination and that beam on my brain. Why did I ever listen to
Affy and Pendane?'.
  `No!' Malling exclaimed, `I've got the same voice also! It's real! Some part
of my head's pulling the modulation out of Affy's ultrasonic signal! Back to the
'skimmer and surface! Don't blow the tubes. La Parisienne's at it again! To the
#3 keepbox!'.
  I was relieved to see their echo surface at an angle, as it showed that they
had survived and were obeying me. I had to direct them, for their own sonar
wasn't up to the job. They surfaced and saw that it was indeed La Parisienne.
`Full speed submerged south 23 degrees east' said my voice in their heads.
Meanwhile the keepbox was now on La Parisienne's deck, and its crew were looking
in it, full of greedy thoughts of Lobster Thermidor and dressed crab and all
sorts, while glasses were drained repeatedly below. `And the neksht toasht'sh
for -hic- - that bosshy shub and itsh maitsh that shtill can't catch ush -hic-.'
came a voice from below.
  A small shark swam past - no danger to men in our waters, but a robber of
nets. `Now south 31 degrees east.' said Tregear, wondering how long he could
last unhurt in my power-beam, `The idea of me obeying a head voice like some nut
case! Only a quarter of a mile to go, it says. What a way to receive a signal!
Arm `that' and get it ready!'.
  `You should see La Parisienne now.' I modulated-power-beamed at them.
  `One chance only, #14, and mind its prop! Uncover the blades and the adhesive
pads. Target'll be on our port side - get ready -' Tregear ordered steering the
subskimmer just below the ceiling of waves as looked intently through his round
black breathing mask's eye-windows for any sign of his target. Suddenly it
appeared: the heavily green-streaked white side of a fibreglass hull overgrown
with seaweed `seedlings' and sea organisms. He steered to brush against it,
keeping above its propeller.
  `A souvenir of Crabhaven!' Malling thought as he leaned out of the
subskimmer's port side and reached over and pressed the limpet mine against La
Parisienne's hull. The hull was not magnetic, but small blades on the mine's
underneath scraped away enough of the fouling marine growth for suckers and then
adhesive to take hold. Then Tregear steered away, but his little submerged craft
was sucked into La Parisienne's spinning propeller. He feared the worst, for
propellers can be as lethal as dredgersubs' grinders; but the subskimmer merely
rubbed against a metal mesh cage round the propeller: the same cage that had
foiled Trelane's attempt. They collected shellfish while their breathing sets
and the subskimmer's battery lasted, then surfaced and blew the subskimmer's
tubes and returned to base, checking some lobster pots on the way, and resumed
normal life.
  From what I heard on the local radio, and what I overheard the coastguard say
once (people discuss all sorts of things near me, forgetting that I'm alive and
can listen), it seems that the party on board, with much champagne and gambling,
continued for 27 miles further. Huge sums of money passed across the gambling
tables, safely away from national gambling laws, while a highly-paid cook made
delicacies, including from the contents of the looted keepboxes: lobster
thermidor, and sole bonne femme from a net of ours that they'd looted. All that
fancy cooking's lost on me, being electromechanical. Then came the explosion,
and water came in, far too fast to bale out. The five men on board blamed a
cooking gas explosion and ran for the inflatable on the rear deck as their
supposedly secure floating island of comfort disappeared about them. They
couldn't radio, as the explosion had broken something. The stern sank, then the
bows with the flowing backsloping script writing `La Parisienne', then the
superstructure; then only bubbles and an eddy marked the final journey of their
business papers which they had not yet used or discussed, after drink and dice
and cards had taken fast and strong hold of their minds. Many of the crabs and
lobsters were alive and escaped from the stolen keepboxes as La Parisienne sank
into 170 feet to her final fatal meeting.
  Luckily for them their inflatable had a built-in compass. (`Go a bit more to
the left' said the man in the bows, watching it, unused to sea-language.) It was
their first time ever in a small boat at sea. None of them had waterproofs.
Their hands blistered and their arms hurt like torture from much unaccustomed
hard rowing. It was overcast and cold. They lamented money and important
financial and investment papers and share certificates and correspondence, and
feared much delay to many matters. Nor in the heaving waves and cold spray did
three of their stomachs long hold onto the elegantly laid out dinner which their
cook had skilfully prepared from their loot. At last they reached land and waded
ashore sodden, blaming alternately the cook for letting gas leak, and whoever
installed La Parisienne's cooking system. As soon as possible to recover the
papers they hired salvagers, who in thorough search found nothing despite having
reports from three underwater listening stations and two geological siesmo
stations who had heard the explosion. The salvager said hard words to them about
their lack of skill and knowledge at sea.
  My name, Aphanistor, means `he who causes disappearance'. Hull, wooden
decking, light metal, fittings, furniture, stores, papers, office equipment,
navigation equipment, all the apparatus of maintaining a company's boardroom at
sea, vanished up my intake in grabfuls of fragments and were ground up and
dissolved and recycled. Twice I returned to port to unload metal oxides and
hydrocarbon fuel thus produced. I ejected a waste-sump-ful of indigestible glass
fibre from the fibreglass hull. But I kept the stolen keepboxes and brought them
back. I also brought back the motor and its attached prop shaft and propeller.
  `Nearly new marine diesel engine! Very nice!' to me said a man who ran a
nearby boatyard that I knew of, `La Parisienne - unfortunate, cooking gas leak,
they say - some bossy swank came here in it wanting me to serve him first. It'll
go with that other one you brought in [see 197], to make two for that flotsam
and driftwood collecter that Hamburg harbour in Germany wants. I've about got
used to you wirebrains. Sometimes I scuba dive to attend to moorings and
suchlike, I better let you see me in my diving gear so you'll recognize me if we
meet underwater.'.
  `Yes, you better, and you best show me any new diving gear that you get,
before you go in the sea in it.' I replied.".
  So Aphanistor finished telling of La Parisienne. "Well!" exclaimed Trelane,
"That's a bit of news! In that case they <have> done some useful diving and
merited your image on their shoulder badges. Captain Hurlock'd have been proud
of you!".