Murder Beneath the Polar Ice

The Arctic Sea was deadly in every way--its icy water, crushing ice, avid beasts. Still something there was more lethal than these!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Wavelets of cigarette smoke drifted across the comfortably lounging enlisted men in the air-conditioned compartment of the Fleet Ballistic Missile submarine, as they sat watching Barney. Sweat streaming from his swollen-veined forehead, hurried and grotesque in his black rubber diving suit, exploding triumphant curses like underwater demolition charges, Barney finished tightening the control cables of what resembled a torpedo with two open cockpits. "This time the little gal raises her hydroplanes!"

At this contrast of men, the Murderer had to grin, but carefully in order not to sweat and ruin the insulating qualities of his three woolen layers of longjohns. The submariners seemed quiet-talking and cooperative, as well adjusted as sardines in a can. The diver, Barney, was foul-mouthed and fiercely individualistic, a wonderful guy--his diving buddy.

A legend in his own time, Barney was reputed to have arisen from the mine-strewn waters of the Korean coast at the time of the Wonsan-Inchon landings to give advice to General MacArthur.

As an Underwater Demolition Team diver, Barney dated clear back into the Murderer's childhood recollections of World War II, to dim names like Kwajalein and Guam, where former Seabees became combat divers to wire and blast Japanese underwater obstacles and leave welcoming signs for the Marines.

Barney was only quiet about two things, his age and his circumference. He still fancied himself a baseball catcher, and his stubby fingers showed the deleterious effects of grabbing at foul tips with a bare hand, but those same fingers could expertly repair a wristwatch and the automatic transmission of an admiral's car and hock one and "borrow" the other.

Barney had managed to put his homely younger sister through college and was now maneuvering to marry her off to a lieutenant commander on the staff of Admiral Rickover. And he could expertly joke the fears out of his diving buddy.

Winking at his comfortably smoke-filled audience, Barney dumped a sack of non-magnetic tools into the forward cockpit of the minisub he personally had built, and cocked his head.

"Murderer, here, is hoping the villain is a sea serpent. Don't laugh, you sea horses. The latest scuttlebutt from Alaska has it that every time a picket buoy goes dead out here under the ice, the last sound it broadcasts is a sort of toothy crunch."

* * * * *

He pushed the joke a little further. "Turn your periscopes on the blade Murderer's wearing! John Paul Jones used to issue those for cutlasses! Murderer's hoping to fight the sea serpent hand to hand."

His grin widening with embarrassment, the Murderer felt called upon to retort. "I'll give you a better suspect for stealing our picket buoys. Santa Claus. These are his territorial waters. Are you aware that in the Middle Ages Santa Claus was the patron saint of thieves?"

"Now, Mr. College Boy," Barney began, "you just want to show us you also studied history, not just marine biology. This boy will even tell you a long Latin name for a little something that floats like dandruff in the water." A touch of pride appeared in Barney's voice. "He can tell you its whole life history and what eats it and why it's important and why it will be a lot more important fifty years from now when your kids will need a lot more food from the sea."