"All the towns, though drifting near fishing reefs or sea mounts, were in essentially open ocean. The biggest quake on this world might shatter someplace stable like Mou'anui, but it would send only a swell rippling under the floating towns. They're immune to quakes."

"You said you found pieces of the polymer sec- tions?"

"Yes. Shattered and torn. Not only sections of the town foundations but buildings, equipment, structures;

but not a single body. Not one corpse. Either the cause of the destruction has a ghoulish nature, or it's a red

herring. True, corpses will eventually sink, or be taken by the numerous scavenger species, but it does seem unlikely that not one out of twenty-five hundred has been found."

"Did all the wreckage show similar damage, the effect of identical forces?" Merced was making notes on a recorder.

"Everything was just-splintered." Mataroreva shrugged enormous shoulders.

"You've been out to the sites?" Rachael asked the question respectfully.

"No, but I've seen the tridee tapes that were brought back."

"There was no sign of melt-down in the debris?"

Mataroreva looked approvingly back at Merced. "I know what you're thinking. No, no meltage. No in- dication of the use of energy weapons. The polymer sections would show that for sure. We discarded that possibility long ago."

"Then you've discarded weaponry as a cause?"

"No, of course not. We have our own specialists working on sections of broken buildings and raft, on the chance that a more exotic variety of weapon might have been used. But the molecular structure of the polymer fragments is unaltered. That rules out, for example, the use of supercryogenics, which could freeze the material and cause it to fragment."

"What about ultrasonics? That could produce a similar effect without affecting structure."

Mataroreva threw him a peculiar look. "I thought you were all just oceanographers."

"Physics is only a hobby." Merced sounded apolo- getic.

"Sure. Yes, I suppose that's a possible explanation.

But I've been told by our local peaceforcer computer that in order for ultrasonics to produce that kind of universal destruction, a different frequency setting would have to be used for each element of the town.

42.

CACHALOT.

CACHALOT.

43.

One for the polymers, one for the stelamic walls, an- other for seacane furniture, and so on. Practically every object of any size that was recovered was in pieces. It seems incredible that an attacker could have enough weaponry or could adjust frequencies rapidly enough to obliterate everything before counteraction could be taken."

"They wouldn't have to destroy everything," Merced argued. "All they'd have to do is jam or eliminate a town's communications. Then they could proceed with methodical annihilation under cover of the storm.

You said your satellite system was sophisticated. Can't it monitor the towns through a few clouds?"

"Certain energy weapons, yes, they'd be detected if used. That's one of the things that has contributed to the frustration. Our satellites have given us nothing in the way of explanatory information. It seems self- evident that there are weapons which can operate without being detected."

Merced nodded. "I know of a couple which prob- ably could, no matter how advanced the orbital scan- ning system."

"For example?"

Merced squirmed uncomfortably, aware he was very much the center of attention. "As I said, it's a hobby. Now, I'm not positive about this, but I've heard that the Commonwealth armed forces have access to devices which can affect the interatomic bonds of elements. The explosive result would be very much like the destruction you've described, Sam. The device could be adjusted far more rapidly than a subsonic projector and would be unlikely to set off a town's warning system, which, I presume, would be directed to keep an eye out for much more conventional weaponry."

"Some of them aren't even equipped to detect that," their pilot admitted. "Our primary source of danger on Cachalot has always been inimical local

life-forms, not other people." He looked unhappy.

"By this world's nature, by the way the population is concentrated yet dispersed, we have to maintain a peaceful society.

"Oh, we have our occasional troublemakers, but we've never, never experienced anything on this scale of ma.s.s murder. The local peaceforcers have always been able to cope. Our problems run more along the line of drunken brawls or jealous husbands. And there are some who become frustrated because they're un- able to adapt to our world and our ways. But frus- trated enough to organize and commit wholesale slaughter? I doubt it."

"If we rule out human or off-world attack," Cora declared in measured tones, "that leaves something from the sea."

"That's your department. That's why you've been brought in. Human or other intelligent a.s.sailants will be dealt with by the peaceforcers, but . . . well, the Commonwealth has had people on Cachalot for over four hundred years and the original settlers for four or five hundred years before that, and we're still com- paratively ignorant about the local denizens."

"That's nothing new," Cora said. "There's still much we don't know about life in Earth's oceans. You needn't apologize."

"I wasn't apologizing," Sam said matter-of-factiy.

"I'm not the apologetic type."

"Well, we can rule out the storms as direct causes,"

Merced allowed. "I don't know about you ladies, but I personally am not ready to deal with human attackers. All we could do is determine that they ' were the likely cause of the trouble."

"That would be sufficient," Mataroreva told him.

"You're not here to provide final solutions. Only to determine causes."

Odd thing for him to say, Cora mused. Oddly de-

44 CACHALOT.

finitive. "Sam, you've never told us exactly what it is that you do."

"That's true," Merced agreed. "Are you attached to the scientific community here, or are you independent, or what?"

"Neither," Sam finally confessed, with that same easy smile. "I'm a government employee."

"Communications." Cora snapped her fingers. "That why you were sent to greet us."

"Not exactly, Cora. Communications is only a part of my job. All that talk about less-than-benign human agencies at work on this world is taken quite seriously by the government as well as by local authorities. I gave you my name, but not my t.i.tle." He used his free left hand to turn down a blank section of his belt.

Cora saw a radiant olive branch glowing on a circular blue field. Beneath the olive branch was a pair of tiny, glowing gold bars.

"It's Captain Sam Mataroreva, actually. I'm the commander of the peaceforcer contingent on this world. My primary task wasn't to greet you. It was to protect you."