Copyright 1968 by Carl L. Biemiller
Published by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 68-25597

CHAPTER SEVEN

Kent rode back to the Lab with Dr. John Colin in Colin's car, leaving David Dart and Leo snugging down the boat.

"It's nearly four o'clock, and your father's due out here. You have time to clean up some first. This albino bluefish of yours is beginning to make big waves around here for us. But we'll talk about it in Dr. Vernon's office. No fish out there, eh?"

"Just Leo's shark," said Kent thoughtfully. What next, he wondered.

He was not long in finding out. Dad flicked a grin at him when he walked into Dr. Vernon's office. He walked over and sat down beside him on the davenport. Dr. Vernon, his craggy face poised as if it were about to recite something, nodded a grave welcome. John Colin slicked his pipe from the its holster.

"I'll get to the point," said Dr. Vernon. "The albino blue, despite our reluctance to discuss it, has turned into a sea monster. In short, it has captured some public imagination. What's more, and more important to us, and to you Palmers as well, is that it has also captured some private imagination."

He paused.

"Do you know anything about the Boat Owner's Association, Mr. Palmer?"

Kent's father nodded.

"Well, then you know it's a group of commercial fishing boat operators, and a big one with members here in Jersey and New York, who take sports fishermen to sea. The members own charter boats and the big so-called head boats, which charge varying sums per fisherman. They operate every day in the summer, and many in the winter when the weather makes it possible. The Boat Owner's Association represents a lot of business. It also represents a big part of the resort attraction of the Jersey coast. Its members pay a lot of taxes, keep a fair number of people employed. And those members are important to this Lab and its work. They co-operate with us. In a sense, their industry, the business of sports fishing, is one of the big reasons why we exist at all, and why the Federal Government is interested in sports fishing and ocean conservation."

Dr. Vernon's ears got pink at the tips.

John Palmer Esquire looked at him as though her were an opposing lawyer in a courtroom.

"The Boat Owner's Association would like to do more business," said Dr. Vernon.

"One of their people called me," said Dad.

"I didn't know that," continued Dr. Vernon, "but they reached us this morning before I called you. Anyhow the Boat Owner's want to offer a thousand-dollar prize to the fisherman who catches the albino bluefish. The Association wants the Lab to co-operate with it, and it wants the Palmers to aid in the publicity. That's it."

John Palmer looked at his son.

"Sure, Dad," said Kent. "I understand. Just like TV and the baseball players saying they use certain razor blades or the little TV kids who only eat certain cookies."

John Colin's voice flowed syrup. "You understand our position?" he asked.

Kent felt stubborn, and he felt somehow trapped. He thought of the albino cruising rare and splendid. Certainly anybody might catch it someday, but there was a difference in everybody chasing it, and for a prize, only money, as some sort of. He didn't know what. He stared at his toes.

"Where's the science in that?" he asked.

Dr. Vernon sighed heavily. John Colin hid behind a blue smoke cloud.

"Get your things, son," said Dad firmly. "It's time to go home."

"Not so fast," snapped Dr. Vernon. "We've got a few days to let those people know. This is a government research establishment. I told you before that we were not in the circus business. Neither are we in the advertising business." He waved a finger at Kent. "Young man, we are in the science business." His face softened. "Science is part of life. It does not live alone. Our work belongs to everybody, and, in a special way to the Boat Owner's Association. You stay right here with us for a few more days, out of touch, as it were. That is, if your father agrees."

Dad put his hand on Kent's knee.

"I'd like that," said Kent. "There's an awful lot I'd like to know about."

"Settled," said Dad. "I'll hold the fort at home."

John Colin twirled his pipe in a reverse gun-fighter's roll and slipped it into his holster.

"End of meeting," he said.

Leo was waiting for Kent when he finished saying goodbye to Dad. Dr. Vernon and John Colin had been long gone about their business.

"Come on, come on," said Leo. We have time to see the tank before dinner. We have to see it now anyhow. Dr. Todd is starting a new experiment tonight and we won't be able to see the tank for six weeks."

"What are you talking about?" asked Kent.

"Bluefish behavior. What makes 'em tick? The man Mr. Dart mentioned on the boat. How bluefish act and why. Oh, come on and see. First, the tank, and then Dr. Todd. Mr. Dart set it up. I'm your guide. Come on."

Kent followed Leo down a flight of rickety steps through a dark, wooden corridor, through a small office into what looked like a maze of pipes and plumbing and muttering pumps. Leo seemed mighty sure-footed, thought Kent as he caught up to him.

"This is the machine room for the tank," explained Leo.

"This is where the seawater in the tank is filtered, cleaned of impurities, and where its temperature is controlled at any degree set by Dr. Todd for his experiments. The water is also balanced. You hear about balanced diets? Well, this is the same thing. The water is balance for nutrients of food, and for its chemical content the amounts of salts and minerals that are in it, like the sea."

"Where's the tank?"

"Come on."

Leo led the way through a door and a walkway. There were six windows set into a huge, concrete wall.

"That's the wall of the tank," said Leo. "We're at the bottom of it. The guys look through these windows to see the fish. Take a look."

Kent did so. There were six bluefish, schooled, and swimming idly. He watched them glide from one end of the tank to the other, turn and return in endless motion.

Leo spoke in his ear. "The tank, really a big aquarium, is thirty-five feet long, ten feet deep and fifteen feet wide. Those fish are adults, grownups, taken in Florida and shipped up here a couple of years ago. They are the teachers. The Lab people are the students. Come on again. We're going up to the tank room itself."

They scampered up another flight of stairs and into a large room completely painted a dull white. There were banks of fluorescent lights on the walls. On one wall, set alone, were four boxes which also contained lights. The room was hushed in a church-like quiet, and the surface of the water in the big pool was without a ripple.

Leo spoke softly. He screwed up his face and concentrated as though he was searching for words.

"This room is sort of a fake world," he said. "It is a fake world that can be made to act like a real world to the bluefish in the tank. Or it can be made to act like a new, sort of crazy, world to the fish to see if the fish can change the way they are used to doing things to live in a new world.

"Most things in nature have a clock set into their bodies. You, too. It tells them when to eat when to sleep when to do other things. But usually something outside of the body makes that clock give the right time. In fish and birds and animals it is mostly something in nature, a change of tide, a change of seasons, cold or heat. And the fish, for instance, build up a pattern, a routine, and sort of a rhythm for doing things at certain times. Man does, too, but other things besides changes in nature make his inside clock tell time, fake things mostly, like traffic lights or working hours. Strange things, either real as in nature or invented, can make man's inside clock tell new time, and make us act differently to survive. I bet that when we get into outer space, where everything is new, the clocks in our bodies, which makes us work, will get set all over again."

"You mean that the Lab is changing bluefish?" asked Kent.

"No," said Leo. "Just seeing how they act to keep their own clocks running on a right time for them."

"I think I understand that," said Kent.

"Well, I've only had it all explained to me about nine thousand and a half times. Anyhow, Dr. Todd and his men started out by asking themselves if bluefish behavior, swimming habits, feeding habits, had anything to do with two of the biggest things in nature--light and dark, day and night. They do. And we can prove it. You see all these lights?" Leo waved a hand grandly.

"They are all controlled. They can be bright, dim or any kind of light in between. Dr. Todd can make sunrise, sunset or moonlight. He can give you a cloudy day if he feels like it. Then they study how the fish act."

Kent peered into the tank. "They ever stop swimming?" he asked.

"Nope," answered Leo. "They are always in some kind of motion beginning with dawn or what they think is first light. They ease up and idle at night."

"Do they sleep?"

"Ask Dr. Todd. One of the divers around here thinks they sleep. He was forty feet under the ocean one night and saw a school of small blues dozing, and in a funny position. They had their heads down and their tails up. Vertical, like this." Leo stuck up his middle finger. "Head's my knuckle."

"Are they hard to raise in captivity? Tame like this?"

"Very," said Leo. "Some of this original school have died."

He grinned. "None has ever had babies or spawned. And Dr. Todd doesn't really know whether he had boy bluefish or girl bluefish in this tank."

"Then how could you raise bluefish, tame ones, that is?"

"John Colin and David Dart messed around with that problem in a big experiment once, but they started with eggs. They fertilized the eggs artificially in the laboratory. It had been done once before in this country and once in Russia. They got little bluefish, the eentsy ones called larvae, and kept them alive for nine days. They didn't know how to feed them so they died. They're still working on it. But come on now. We have time to talk to Dr. Todd for a few minutes."

Leo and Kent found Dr. Todd at the end of another maze of corridors in a narrow office. Dr. Todd was shouting out a window at some man on the lawn below, something about fishnets. He filled the window. He filled the office too, when he straightened up and said hello. Dr. Todd was a big rumpled man who overflowed himself. He was friendly and smiling even if he did look a bit as though he had just been blown up like a cheerful giant in the Thanksgiving Day Macys Parade. His voice was soft and his face, while it had a few lines in it, also had that look of youngness Kent had noticed so much around the Lab.

Leo introduced Kent and Kent lost his hand in Dr. Todd's.

"I know Leo showed you the tank," said Dr. Todd. "Before I tell you anything about it, you tell me about the albino. All about it."

"Yes, sir," said Kent, and he did. He was getting used to it.

Dr. Todd didn't say a word. He listened. All he said when Kent had finished was "ummm." He looked very dreamy, very warm and sleepy.

Kent awakened him with a question.

"Would your studies so far give anybody an idea of where to look for the albino again?"

"Not really," said Dr. Todd. "Your fish is special, and we're studying ordinary fish, normal ones. But I've got a few theories."

"I was expecting that," muttered Leo.

"You mean you've heard theories before around here," smiled Dr. Todd. "So keep listening."

He stared into space, and then turned on his voice.

"First, your fish could be a long way from these parts right now," he said. "Our calculations on the swimming speeds of bluefish indicate that they can travel as much as thirty-five miles a day if they feel like it, although they don't feel like it often. Second, I don't think there's much sense in looking for him as part of, or one fish in, a school. I think he's been thrown out of school because he is so different. I've seen that happen before when fish of a certain age group chase younger fish from their school. They don't try to chase the older ones often. The older ones might decide to eat a few younger ones. Anyhow, I think your albino is a mighty lonesome fish. And, if he's lived this long he's apt to be smart.

"Blues have a certain intelligence. We feed them killies, small minnow-type fish, now and then. The killies hide in little corners or cracks. The blues are too big to get at them so they gang up and rush at them to scare them out where they can be eaten. Also, we've put small mackerel in the tank for food. Blues love them for dinner. But the mackerel is a faster swimmer than the blues. He can outrun a single blue. So what happens? Well, the blues take turns chasing the mackerel until they have him tuckered out and easy to catch. That takes some brains.

"If your fish is living alone, and I really think so, he's denied the advantages of living in a school with thousands of other fish. A shark or a porpoise or a bigger bluefish attacking a school of fish for dinner gets confused with the crowd. He has trouble singling out a target. But a shark or a swordfish chasing a single blue can zero in on him and gobble him easy. That means your fish has learned to hide pretty well or somehow swim faster. Maybe, because he's snow white, he can lay near the surface and hide in sunlight or white water in the surf.

"As to what he does for food, I'd guess he follows schools of his fellow blues, small ones, and eats the relatives that happen to straggle. You're a fisherman, Kent. You know that bluefish are not nice characters. But then the sea is not a sweet place in which to live. Everything in it feeds on everything else in it. As for what other things he finds for food, being a loner, this area of the ocean is heavily used by man. Your albino could be a garbage eater, and any of our coastal bays and rivers are full of it. He is a most special specimen."

Kent and Leo were thoughtful.

"I hope he's smart," said Kent.

Dr. Todd floated himself upright in his chair.

"Anything that's different from the ordinary, and this goes for people, too, has to be smarter or bigger or tougher or able to hide. Your blue, from what you tell me, is smart and tough. He's alive."

"Thanks for talking to us, Dr. Todd," said Leo. He gave Kent a lightening pinch on the arm. "Let's find some garbage for dinner."