He went aft. Deirdre came up with sandwiches. Terry took the tray from her and followed her toward the others.
"Cigars, cigarettes, candy, sandwiches?" she asked cheerfully.
Davis was back at the task of measuring the angle subtended by the patch of shining sea, and then closely estimating its distance from the Esperance. He said, "It is smaller. Eleven hundred yards, now."
"When La Rubia was here today," said Terry, "it might have been a couple of miles across. Even that would be a terrific concentration of fish! They're not all at the surface."
Davis said with impatience, seemingly directed against himself, "It's narrowed two hundred yards in the past half-hour. It must be tending toward something! There has to be a conclusion to it! Something must be about to happen!"
Deirdre said slowly, "If it's the equivalent of a seine being hauled, with a hum instead of a net, what's going to happen when it's time for the fish to be boated?"
Davis ignored her for a moment. Then he said irritably, "Everyone seems to have more brains than I do! Tony, break out those gun-cameras. Nick, get back and report if the bright spot's getting any smaller. I wish you weren't here, Deirdre!"
The two crew-cuts moved to obey. Terry, alone, had no specific duty assigned to him on the yacht, unless tending to the recorder was it. He bent over the instrument which was playing in the air anything that a trailing microphone picked up under water. He raised the volume a trifle. He could still hear the singular noises of the agitated fish mixed in with the thin, strangely offensive humming sound. He heard small thumpings, and realized that they were the footfalls of his companions on the deck of the Esperance, transmitted to the water. He heard ...
Tony came abovedecks with an armful of mysterious-looking objects which could not be seen quite clearly in the slanting moonlight. He put two of them down by the wheel and passed out the others. He silently left one for Terry and another for Deirdre, while Terry adjusted tone and volume on the recorder for maximum clarity.
"What are those?" asked Terry.