Stairway to the Stars | Page 2

dials and switches added to it to furnish the dashboards of several Rolls Royces.
Ray held up a hand--purely for drama, since there was silence already. "This is a great moment in the course of human history," he said. "You are about to witness the first demonstration of Ray's Ray, the work of genius which will allow mankind his first really close contact with the last remaining frontier on his home planet--the bottom of the sea!"
Farmer looked impressed, then began to realize what some of this meant. He caught himself, straightened out his face, and licked his lips. "You mean you've never tried the thing before?" he protested. "How do you know it will work?"
Ray's glance took on a touch of icy fury. The launch rocked gently in the swell for a long, silent minute, and Farmer began to feel slightly afraid. Was he alone, in a spot like this, with a madman? The salty breeze turned colder.
Then Ray smiled--a smile that was surprisingly soft and sweet. John Andrew reached two decisions: that he was safe, and that he liked the "Judge." (One of Farmer's weaknesses, in fact, was that--though thoroughly masculine himself--he completely distrusted women, and was too trusting with men.)
"I could go into theories and scientific details," Ray said; "I could explain principles of operation and the construction of the machine for hours. But you would be bored, and wouldn't understand anyway. It is sufficient to say that the Ray will work because--I invented it!"
Farmer caught himself nodding, and blamed the boat's motion. He shifted uneasily on the built-in seat, and got a splinter in a vital spot. He frowned.
Ray was bending over his machine, making motions designed to impress as well as to make it work. "In very simple terms," he was saying, "this is a combination of color television and super-radar. It will bring in a perfect color picture of the ocean at whatever depth I set it for, or will set itself automatically to present a view of the ocean floor. It will...."
His voice trailed off. The machine hissed, snapped, and crackled. The television set flickered, hummed, gave out a flashing dance of surrealistic doodles, and abruptly presented a picture. It was a picture of Milton Berle.
Ray looked mad, started to aim a kick at the screen but thought better of it. A small wave almost made him sit down on the deck before he got both feet planted again. He swore and started to check the wiring.
"Maybe there's something wrong inside the dingus itself," John Andrew suggested tentatively.
Ray turned on him with a look that would have seared the Sphinx. "There's nothing wrong with the machine!" he said, almost-but-not-quite shouting. "There's nothing wrong with the television! There's nothing wrong with the wiring! There must be something wrong at the other end--where the Ray is focussed! And I intend to find out!"
Farmer pondered the idea of a transmitter that worked under water like a ball-point pen, broadcasting weary vaudeville routines. He scratched his head and looked wistfully at the New England shoreline--or was that Long Island? He wasn't sure any more....
* * * * *
A clank and clatter brought his attention to the launch. He gawked; Ray had thrown back a deck hatch and produced a diving suit which looked as un-shipshape as the rest of the boat's equipment.
Ray looked it over hastily, then turned a speculative glance on Farmer. He shook his head. "Too small for you," he murmured. "You wouldn't know what to look for anyway; I'll have to go down myself."
Farmer changed his mind again about Ray's being cracked. "Listen." He said the first thing that came to mind. "Didn't you say you rented this boat for the first time today? How do you know that thing doesn't leak?"
Ray smiled again, as he climbed briskly into the suit. "I'll be all right," he said serenely. "You just keep an eye on things here--but don't touch anything. I'll be right back...." He settled the helmet on his head, motioned for Farmer to help him check the connections of the suit's self-contained oxygen supply.
John Andrew was straightening up from doing this when he saw the nonapus for the first time. It was climbing over the rail at the stern, and already beginning to make a puddle on the deck. Farmer froze, and gulped wordlessly.
Behind the barred faceplate, Ray looked puzzled, then annoyed. From the corner of his eye, Farmer could see Milton Berle still cavorting silently on the television screen, and this seemed to add the final touch of insanity to the scene. Farmer finally succeeded in pointing, and Ray clumped slowly in a half-circle, just as the nonapus dropped to the deck with a plank-shivering thump.
The scene assumed some of the aspects of a bad movie comedy. The background was an out-of-focus blur, although