The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub

We were only twenty minutes late, but Freddy Whittier might have been desiccating for some hours from the urgency with which we were swept into the bar. He disappeared into the mob round the counter with a nicely-controlled violence and presently emerged with a selection of double and single sherries on a tray.

'Doubles first,' he said.

Soon his mind broadened out of the single track. He looked more himself, and noticed things. He even noticed Phyllis's hands; the abraded knuckles on the right, the large piece of plaster on the left. He frowned and seemed about to speak, but thought better of it. I observed him covertly examining my face and then my hands.

'My wife,' I explained, 'has been down in the country. The start of the bricklaying season, you know.'

He looked relieved rather than interested.

'Nothing wrong with the old team spirit?' he inquired with a casual air.

We shook our heads.

'Good,' he said, 'because I've got a job for you two.'

He went on to expound. It seemed that one of EBC's favourite sponsors had put a proposition to them. This sponsor had apparently been feeling for some time that a description, some photographs, and definite evidence of the nature of the Deeps creatures was well overdue.

'A man of perception,' I said. 'For the last five or six years —'

'Shut up, Mike,' said my dear wife, briefly.

'Things,' Freddy went on, 'have in his opinion now reached a pass where he might as well spend some of his money while it still has value, and might even bring in some valuable information. At the same time, he doesn't see why he shouldn't get some benefit out of the information if it is forthcoming. So he proposes to fit out and send out an expedition to find out what it can — and of course the whole thing will be tied up with exclusive rights and so on. By the way, this is highly confidential: we don't want the BBC to get on to it first.'

'Look, Freddy,' I said. 'For several years now everybody has been trying to get on to it, let alone the BBC. What the —?'

'Expedition where to?' asked Phyllis, practically.

'That,' said Freddy, 'was naturally our first question. But he doesn't know. The whole decision on a location is in Bocker's hands.'

'Bocker!' I exclaimed. 'Is he becoming un — untouchable, or something?'

'His stock has recovered quite a bit,' Freddy admitted: 'And, as this fellow, the sponsor, said: If you leave out all the outer-space nonsense, the rest of Bocker's pronouncements have had a pretty high score — higher than anyone else's, anyway. So he went to Bocker, and said: "Look here. These things that came up on Saphira and April Island; where do you think they are most likely to appear next — or, at any rate, soon?" Bocker wouldn't tell him, of course. But they walked; and the upshot was that the sponsor will subsidize an expedition led by Bocker to a region to be selected by Bocker. What is more, Bocker also selects the personnel.

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