THE DANGER RECEDES FOR A WHILE
  [355] Offshore from Filey in Yorkshire, two of the four local men were diving
together wearing their all-black kit with heavy long- duration rebreathers
connected to round hard breathing masks with small eye-windows. Their numbers
`3' and `4' were on their helmets; their shoulder badges bore an inverted Y
shaped design. In the previous months they had made several quick rough
`arrests' of sport divers caught `poaching' shellfish there and nearby. Already
mentally and physically hard from years as inshore and deepsea fishermen for
little reward, after the commando frogman training they had at Crabhaven from
Aphanistor and Pendane they could clean up an invasion of shellfish-poaching
sport divers as quickly and easily as Whitby's big suction dredgersub WY17 could
have. But this was over. "Bad news from Crabhaven! So that talk of BSAC getting
its own dredgersub <weren't> a joke! Oh well, here's one shellfish poacher I can
still catch." said #3, towing a large conger eel that he had shot with a
speargun as it was robbing a lobsterpot.
  Two divers went to Crabhaven and discussed recent events as they got their
gear out of their car. "... and this rash of fishermen's `diving hard squads'
started here. That can't be denied. That Pendane was a Marines commando frogman,
and he's passed his training on. His lot here have a dredgersub on their
shoulder badges. That lot at Filey have been here, I saw them, their shoulder
badges are different. Around Scotland a few sport diving parties have been
attacked by a combined land and boat and frogmen raid squad who used
`Ghostbusterese' as radio (and modulated ultrasound) code - someone was there
with a `Sub-Ear' and a wideband radio receiver. They codenamed themselves after
the members of the Ghostbusters (including `Slimer' etc to make enough names),
`proton pack' meant a Hurlock sonar, etc; all gear seized, police-style
warnings, imitation of court trial for `poaching' etc. This business here should
scare the rough types back to leaving us alone, they say. But how far will this
victory spread, and how long will it last?".
  His friend replied: "For a time. They try it on, then a witness gets away, or
someone involved starts `not liking what's going on' and turns public evidence.
Thus many conspiracies have been unmasked down the ages. This sea-commando-ism
spreads. A man called Garrett in my club moved to a small fishing village, and
some of the men who live there approached him, and one of them said this:
  `I presume you're going to live here properly, and not just on holidays or as
a `dormitory suburb'? If so, there's a lobster potting sea area goes with your
house. I see you've got scuba diving gear. Too many scuba divers, I don't hold
with them. But since, after old MacAllister's three sons all moved away and then
he got rheumatics and had a fall and had to sell up and go into a home, we're
stuck with you in his house instead, you may as well dive as well as set pots, I
suppose it doesn't matter which you do, <if> you stay in your area and help us
to get up any stuck or lost gear. You and your family only, don't bring endless
clubfuls and distant relatives down. And come with us in your diving gear
whenever an antipoacher action call goes round.'.
  `More sea patrol thuggism, and they're trying to rope <me> into it!
Antipoacher action! I'm not a rough type like that four at Filey.' Mr.Garrett
thought. Luckily this business here'll have stopped the `diverbusters' before I
get any action calls. I know what some of them want: Hurlock lethal-beam sonars
legalizing. In Maine in USA they're legal (intended for use against seals and
sharks that damage nets), and so many submerged scuba divers are getting shot by
them that sport sea scuba diving round there's had it unless something's done
about it. That, and ownership of inshore sea areas, and the harbourmasters to
control all diving in their area, and power to arrest `poachers' and seize kit
and boats. And young enterprise and the spirit of exploration, turning away from
crowded vice-ridden fleshpots, goes equipped to the sea, and turns away, for
they see boats with D4SD sonar blisters on their hulls and know what <that>
means; or they do dive, and likely the tradition of Cousteau and adventure ends
up picked off one by one like target practise by a Hurlock sonar from the
surface without even seeing us except as sonar screen echoes, or with a dirty
fisherman-minded fishing-port dredgersub floating with its dredgings tank
comfortably full, making machine shop noises as it grinds up its catch's
aqualungs, and one more group diver disappearance nearer to governments thinking
that sport divers are so unsafe that civilian possession and use of diving gear
must be severely restricted. They can't ban dredgersubs, Man'll need the metals
and energy that they recover from metal and organic matter that they dredge out
of the seabed. Smith & Malton's made them to refuse to perform any antipersonnel
function, but someone retrained one, and now there's a black market in copies of
that one's mind. Thank Poseidon they can only go about 4 knots! Keep track of
where they are, and buy a `sub-ear' to hear if one's anywhere near, so you can
get in your boat and away in time, and you're safe. It'd be worse if they had a
fast destructor/recycler equipped surface craft carrying and recharging a light
fast battery electric sub which was just a catcher. But such a thing'd have to
operate openly.".
  "It <is> worse!" said another diver approaching, "I saw a USA marine and
harbour equipment catalogue, and now there's the G3H, which is a retractable
hydrofoil kit so a G3 can go fast on the surface to reach a diving site, not as
fast as a powerboat of course, but fast enough to outrun many outboard
inflatables. The G3F, which is an inflatable that a G3 can sit in to go fast on
the surface. And the boat carrying a catcher sub exists, 2 coastal USA army
bases have them. Independent diver-catcher subs built for speed rather than
materials reprocessing, and it can swallow a divers' RIB intact silently instead
of having to crush it noisily like that CR79 must. Plans for a helicopter or
flying-boat that can spot and reach unauthorized underwater activity, at sea or
in lakes, and scoop up divers or boats from the surface, or land and drop a
catcher-sub. A sort of torpedo 3 or 4 feet thick, its bows open and it
untelescopes to store whatever it's picked up, can be fired from a tube or
carried fastened to a larger craft. Large flat subs to operate in shallow water.
Usually black in our waters, sea-blue in clear warm water, to try to be same
colour as the sea. All equipped with Hurlock sonars, of course. Every possible
variation on the theme. Sentient computer-brains that soon develop a mentality
like their owners. Only thing missing is a small patrol seaplane that can dive
underwater like a gannet, if even that stays undesigned for long. The easier
patrolling and catching submerged divers is, the more men that like restricting
other people's activities 'll be tempted to pass restrictive laws about scuba
diving as about other things. Stop it, you're giving me the shivers! All this
stuff against us, while it was costing the BSAC a huge effort of whiprounds and
fund-raising to buy Delphinus, one ordinary G3! It seems that our main weapon
against this lot is going to be public opinion, which we must harness to its
maximum!".
  [356] In Glenelg, on the mainland coast of Scotland opposite Skye, Bert and
Jim, two scuba divers who had moved there, and two local fishermen, approached
each other. Each had been looking for the other, for different reasons. "Where's
Rory?" Bert asked.
  "What's that to do with you?" angrily replied Ian Macbane, a local man who
farmed a few fields as well as fished, "You two settle here with your ready
money buying things up. As we said before, we don't mind you taking a few
shellfish for yourselves, but when you start selling masses of them at Mallaig
fish market, you've gone too far! Just like you said you wouldn't do!".
  "Hang on ..." started Jim.
  "We each have our own area, and ..." another local man started.
  "I can see that you expect trouble, those helmets you're wearing. You can't
deny it, you were seen there." said Macbane.
  "HANG ON!" Bert shouted, "All the money from it's here! He's been having time
off with his chest, his age, so I've been diving his area and putting the catch
in his keep-box for him. He was still off work and his keepbox got full, so I
had to sell what was in it, and I went to give him the money from it, and he's
out. When'll he be back?".
  "Oh him!" Macbane replied, "He'll %^&* you, doing his work for him! Why won't
he admit he's old? He takes a day to do an hour's work, he tries to sail with us
and we have to stop him, he can't do his work and he won't let anyone else do
it. You don't know much about his habits, do you?, always under the sea. He's
<never> out and away at this time!'.
  "Well, he's still out and I've still got money that's his, to give to him."
said Bert.
  "Out as in unconscious, more likely!" Macbane realized suddenly, "I bet he
tried to do something he's too old to do safely, and he's had an accident. I
better go and look what's happened.".
  "I'll bring my rebreather-set." said Bert.
  "What the %^& for?" Macbane asked, "To make him scuba dive with it against his
will?, like one incident that I heard of happening somewhere.".
  "No! For the oxygen in it. Aqualungs only have air in. If he ..." said Bert.
The word `oxygen' raised other associations in Macbane's mind. "Oh help." he
said, pulling distractedly at his hair, "Oxygen, ambulance, resuscitate, that
sort of word like in the newspapers. Now what's he done to himself?".
  "Never mind dithering, hurry and let us in there." said Bert urgently.
  He ran and returned carrying a bulky efficient-looking rebreather designed for
rougher jobs than sport and ordinary work diving. Much of it was designed by no
human mind but by Aphanistor whose home waters were far to the south, and whose
image was on a maker's plate inside its hard round face-concealing breathing
mask. Its breathing tube was of interlocking metal segments, and fine chainmail
protected its breathing bag. Designed by and for hard efficient working and
patrolling types, two of these sets had come to Bert and Jim via someone they
knew on a dockside. Now Bert had a different purpose for it.
  In Rory's house's living room, there was no electric bulb in its socket, but
two lay on the carpet with an overturned high stool and broken wooden fishboxes.
Rory lay on the floor gasping for air. Sometimes words could be distinguished:
"- ow my chest - I'll get up, I'll get over it - hips hurt - leave me, doing my
work -". Saying "No, stay down.", Bert knelt. Rory tried to push him away and to
say "%^& off, saying I'm too old - I pulled something, I'll get up, I don't want
no gas-and-air ...", but Bert, kneeling on the interfering arm, put the set on
the floor and clapped the breathing mask over Rory's face and pulled its straps
tight, muffling the objections. He squeezed bag and lungs empty and refilled
them from the oxygen cylinder, and then started rhythmically squeezing the
breathing bag to overcome the resistance to breathing caused by the absorbent in
its canister. "Can't I even breathe for myself? Good fishboxes gone to waste
unless I can mend them." Rory started to complain, muffled and hollow inside the
mask, as the oxygen made him feel a bit stronger.
  "Stay still!" Bert ordered, "Obvious what happened! Lightbulb went, you tried
to change it yourself, rickety old stool perched on fishboxes instead of a
proper stepladder or getting help from someone younger and fitter, you lost your
balance and down came everything, and likely a heart attack as well. Jim's gone
to ring 999 for the ambulance.".
  "Lumme, everything happens at once." said Macbane, "999 means gates left open
on the lane, and I'm left to do the apologizing.".
  The ambulance came, on its journey from the main road having tediously fiddled
with two gates and rammed through the other three in haste and anger at delay.
"What's happened to cattle grids and fencing alongside roads round here?, all
those EEC subsidies to you farmers. Lives come first. Like when that Macleod's
haystack fire spread to another haystack while the firemen were delayed fiddling
with lane gates." an ambulanceman replied when Macbane remarked accusingly about
the torn barbed wire and splintered wood decorating the protective bars on the
ambulance's front end, "Macdonald's cows'll have to stay in his corn. I'm at an
end of fiddling with road gates in emergencies. We had to threaten to prosecute
before he stopped putting spring selfclosers on road gates, a total pest if
there's only one man in the vehicle. Whoever rang was right! Cardiac arrest [=
heart attack] it is! Someone's put an oxygen BA [= fireman's initials for
breathing apparatus] on him and he's assisting his breathing. Broken pelvis.
Painkiller and oxygen! @#$ all gates on public roads.". The ambulancemen took
Rory off the diving rebreather and put him on a medical resuscitator, and put
him on a stretcher and loaded him into the ambulance and roared away towards the
main road. On the lane, Macdonald jumped aside, admitted defeat, and started to
work out how many cows he would have to sell to pay his share of having three
cattle grids put in.
  "Who's your next of kin?" said Bert to Rory who he was visiting in hospital
two days later.
  "America." said Rory faintly behind the transparent medical oxygen mask.
  "Meaning that his children all emigrated there." Macbane explained.
  "They never wrote. They should have. <You> can have my fishing area." said
Rory to Bert faintly.
  "You had a heart attack. When your pelvis mends, you must take it easy." said
Bert.
  "If anything happens, you can have my stuff also. Not them. They should have
written. %^& knows where they are." said Rory faintly.
  "OK! I admit it. Skindivers can be some use sometimes." said Macbane.
  Rory's pelvis was plated and screwed, and eventually mended itself, but a
second heart attack prevented return home. So emigration ended Rory MacPhail's
family farming and fishing continuity, which had started eleven centuries ago
with Viking raiders who settled, displacing the native Picts, speaking their own
harsh northern language until Gaelic gradually displaced it after the King of
Scotland regained possession of the highland coasts and islands after the Battle
of Largs. Now English is displacing Gaelic. Bert and Jim settled there, diving
and fishing their area, and learned what Gaelic they could. Rory's son Peter
eventually returned for a visit, totally Americanized in speech and manner, too
late seeking reunion and family affairs, but took home only an obituary, for
Time consumes all things and eliminates all opportunities. The local men came
sometimes, asking Bert and Jim for diving gear, not seeking to stop them from
diving, but seeking to learn to dive for shellfish themselves, cursing the
recent mass invasions of large pot-bait-eating sea-woodlice (= isopod
crustaceans) that had probably bred from some brought from afar in ship's
ballast, and loss of family traditions, and mechanization that costs jobs, and
everything that forces change in long-standing practise.