My wife often tells me that I know all about the harbor but practically nothing about half an inch inshore of high water mark. This is not quite the truth; I don’t know quite as much about the harbor as I should, even though I hold a pilotage exemption certificate for the port. Nonetheless, my knowledge is somewhat greater than that of any non-seafarer, and on the occasions that we are visited by overseas friends she will lay on a tour of inland points of interest in the car, and I will play my part by organizing some sort of harbor trip.

The run from the Circular Quay to Manly is a very pleasant one, especially if it is a fine day and if the short voyage is made in one of the old-fashioned, double-ended ferries. The hydrofoils are all right for people in a hurry, but not so good for sight-seeing. And there is so much to see — points of historical interest such as Fort Dennison (known in the co nvict settlement days as Pinch gut) and Bradley Head, where stands the foremast of H.M.A.S. Sydney, famous for her sinking of the German surface raider Em den in the First World War. There are all the new things, such as the Opera House (regarding which I say nothing further) and all the mushrooming additions to Sydney’s skyline. There is the Bridge, of course. And there is all the traffic, military and commercial, to anybody who loves ships a continual source of pleasure.

There were three of us making the ferry trip to Manly that day two American friends, man and wife, both writers, and myself. We enjoyed the trip over and then, having disembarked, d ecided to stroll along the har borside promenade to Marine Land. Most of you will know what it is like — Marine Land, I mean — but just in case somebody hasn’t been there I’ll give a brief description of it. It’s a huge, cylindrical tank, with ports of heavy glass in its sides. From the levels surrounding it you can look in at the inmates, while the inmates look out at you. There are the inevitable sharks and rays; the- ‘ are one or two mossy-backed turtles; there are hordes of smaller fishes, all of them swimming round and round and round — for most of the time. As advertised, there are the merman and the mermaid.

The merman, an athletic young man in aqualung and black, skintight suit, was spending most of the time tinkering with the plumbing at the bottom of the tank. What exactly he was doin g we never found out, but there were metal pipes down there in the sand, and there were joints in them, and he, with a Stilson wrench, was either tightening these or slacking them off. The fish ignored him.

The mermaid, an attractive girl similarly attired, was not ignored. She had brought a metal tucker box with her, and it was obvious that one and all knew what was in the box — and obvious, too, that the small fry knew that they weren’t in the running. Her special pets seemed to be a largish shark, an evil-looking black ray, and one of the turtles. These fawned around her, more like persistent cats or dogs than the cold-blooded creatures that they were. The way that the ray was carrying on, as she took morsels of food from the box and put them into its mouth, reminded all three of us of the more lurid magazine covers. You know the sort of thing — beautiful Earth girl on the point of being raped by some alien monster. All of us had, from time to time, sneered at those covers — now it almost seemed that there might be something in them after all.

All the same, it was fantastic, and I said so. Those beasts — two fishes and one reptile — were behaving in a manner more typical of mammals than of their own species. I could see, I said, how a close bond of affection could develop between a human being and a porpoise — but between a girl and a sting ray it seemed neither right nor possible … .

“Everything is possible,” suddenly said the little man who had been peering through the port next to ours. “I know.” We all turned to look at him. He was, as I have said, a little man — at first glance a very ordinary little man, casually attired in slacks and open-necked shirt, with brown shoes that had been polished last at least four days ago. His face was wrinkled and sun-tanned; his scanty, sandy hair had been brushed to cover a large bald spot, and his eyes were a faded blue. A fisherman, I thought. Professional or semi-professional.

“I know,” he repeated, with a change of emphasis.

It is always rather embarrassing when complete strangers break into a private conversation, and this man who had assured us that he knew (about what?) also knew how we were feeling. He went on rather hastily, “I heard you talking. You’re writers, aren’t you?”

We admitted it.

“Then I can talk to you,” he said. “At least, I hope I can. I have to tell my story to somebody. I told it to the cops, and to their headshrinker and to quite a few more quacks in the same line of business. But they didn’t believe it. They wouldn’t believe it. After all, I’d been adrift in my dinghy for days, and it had turned my mind. It didn’t occur to them that I should’a been at least half dead of hunger and thirst … . ” He looked back into the tank, where the girl was now feeding the turtle. “That’s why I come here, you know. So I can see for myself that such things do happen. So that I can be sure that it wasn’t all in my imagination.”

Edward and Nola Edwards looked at me, and I looked at them’ Something very close to telepathy was estab lished among the three of us. Th e man was a nut, we were thinking. But now and again nuts have stories to tell — and stories, after all, were our bread and butter.

“Isn’t there a … pub near here?” Edwards asked me.

“More than one,” I told him.

“Then I suggest that we … ah … adjourn for some refreshment.” He turned to the little man. “And will you join us, sir?”

He said that he would.

We were a little surprised when the stranger — Clary Simpson was his name —insisted on paying for the first round. And then, as we sat around the table, our cold beer before us, he started to talk.

There are compulsive drinkers, and there are compulsive talkers. He came in the latter category.

I have to tell this story, he said. I have to tell it, and I hate myself for doing i t, ’cause I know that every time I do they’re saying, “Clary’s off again. Been proper round the bend ever since he lost that Sue of his.” Sue? you ask. No. Not a wife nor a girl friend. Just my boat — and a better friend to me nor any woman could’ve been. My apologies to you, lady.” Yair … Sue. We were on our way back from up the coast, Norah Head way. We were well outside, well outa the way o’ those blasted collie rs an’ the like. Just meself th ere was; I was never one to be bothered wi’ crew. Just meself, an’ Sue’s diesel chuffin’ away happily. Hardly any wind, an’ a sky full o’ stars, an’ the loom o’ Macquarie light bright on the starboard bow an’ the glare o’ the city lights fillin’ the sky beyond that.

Not a care in the world I had. A good catch — even singleHand-ed you can manage quite well once you’ve got the hang of it — that’d fetch a good price alongside. More’n enough to pay all expenses wi’ enough left over for coupla nights out. Can’t say that I was payin’ much attention to anything. As I always uster say, T84

Sue could find her own way home without me botherin’ her.

Then I heard it.

Like a big electric motor it was. Didn’t pay much attention at first — there’s so many fancy flyin’ machines an’ the like these days, an’ the Air Force is always out playin’ silly buggers round the coast at night. But I did look up, after a bit. Couldn’t see any navigation lights, but that made sense. The R.A.A.F. out on exercises doesn’t show any. There was somethin’ there, though. I saw it, blottin’ out the stars. An’ I got scared. It was too flamin’ big, and too flamin’ slow. I’ve seen helicopters, an’ this wasn’t one. There was far too much of it, an’ it didn’t sound right.

I opened her up — Sue, I mean an’ damn the fuel consumption. (She was an extravagant little witch at anything like full speed.) I opened her up — an’ for all the good it did I might just as well ha’ stopped her, there and then. That flyin’ thing was directly over me an’ it stayed there, an’ I could feel some sort o’ force pus hin’ down on me. It was more th an just feelin’ it. I could see that the water around the boat was shoved down in a sorta depression. It was like bein’ in the middle of a big, deep saucer.

Then the searchlight dazzled me. It was so bright, so blinding that I didn’t realize that Sue and I had beam lifted clear o’ the water — though I realized it soon enough when her engine started to race. By the time I had her stopped I’d just time ter see that we were bein’ pulled up through some sort o’ round hatch. No, there weren’t any winches or cables. Musta been magnetism or somethin’ like it.

So there we were, Sue and I, shut up in a big, steel box like the hold of a ship. There were lights, but I couldn’t see much by them; they were a funny sort o’ blue an’ very dim. But there was a three-cell torch in a clip in the wheelhouse, an’ I used that to see what was what.

It was like bein’ in a ship’s hold, like I said. But there wasn’t any way out. No ladders, no escape hatches, nothin’. An’ I couldn’t see any way o’ openin’ that hatch at the bottom that we’d been pulled up through. Just as well, perhaps, though I wasn’t ter know that by this time we were miles up an’ still climbing. Oh, yes, I could hear machinery, a whinin’ sort o’ noise, but it didn’t make no sense ter me.

There was a hissin’ sound, too, an’ that didn’t make no sense neither, not until I got a whiff o’ the gas that they were pumpin’ in like a mixture o’ garlic an’ talcum powder it was — an’ passed out.

After Edwards had bought a fresh round of drinks he went on.

When I woke up, he said, I wasn’t in Sue’s wheelhouse. I wasn’t in that ship’s hold. I thought at first that I was out in the bush. I was lyin* on rough, sandy ground. I could feel it without lookin’ at it; somebody’d taken me shirt an’ me strides an’ even me jockey pants. It wasn’t cold, luckily, an’ it wasn’t too hot. But it made me fed … naked. Damn it all, I was naked. An’ I could tell that I was bein’ watched.

I opened me eyes — and there was another pair o’ eyes lookin’ into mine. Cat’s eyes. “Puss,” I said. “Nice puss.” I opened me eyes properly. It was a cat ell right, but a big one. Too bleedin’ big. Bengal tigers is all right when they’re on one side o’ the bars an’ you’re on the other, but when you’re in the same bleedin’ cage it ain’t no bleedin’ joke. I let out a yell you coulda heard from here to the black stump an’ I was on me feet an’ startin’ to run — but I couldn’t run. That was the worst part of it. I could only shuffle over that sandy ground, an’ I could hear that blasted tiger shufflin’ an’ snifflin’ behind me, an’ all the time I was expectin’ to feel his claws in me back.

An’ then — how shall I put it, my fear sorta wore off. There was the feelin’ that I had ter get some exercise walkin’ around and walkin’ around, an’ everybody an’ everything else in the big, transparent dome musta had the same feelin’. An’ there all of us were lions, an’ tigers, an’ a smallish elephant, an’ a pair o’ giraffes, an’ — you name it, they had it. There was a sheila too, a black wench, as naked as I was, an’ I was able ter catch up wi’ her, but she didn’t have no English an’ seemed more scared o’ me than she was o’ the animals. It’s a blow to yer pride, I tell yer, when a girl makes it plain that she’d sooner have the company o’ a dirty great gorilla than yours t So there we were, a regular Noah’s Ark, in this enormous glasshouse affair about the size o’ the Domain. There were trees, which looked fairly healthy, an’ some sizeable patches o’ grass, an’ rocks, an’ a shallow stream o’ fresh water, an’ bushes. But there wasn’t a proper sky overhead. You could see the sheen an’ shimmer o’ the glass dome, an’ beyond that what looked like plumbing. An’ out towards the sides there was glass again — or somethin’ Tike glass — an’ outside that again there was … people. No. Not men an’ women an’ children. Their shapes was always changin’. Like big jellyfishes walkin’ on their hind legs — if jellyfishes had hind legs, which they don’t. But those did, an’ arms of a sort, an’ they were usin’ ’em to point with.

Sorta lost count o’ time, I did. Hadn’t got my watch no longer, o’ course. But every few hours the lights’d go out an’ we’d sleep. Believe it or not, I got quite pally with that tiger an’ I think he quite liked me. Like turnin’ in with a big dog or cat on your bed, it was. Not that there was any bed — just the softest patch o’ grass I could find. For drink there was the stream. At feedin’ times the right sort o’ tucker for everybody’d come droppin’ down from up top somewhere. My friend Puss — I called him that — use-ter get some kind o’ raw meat, an’ Td get a loaf o’ bread an’ a tin o’ sardines. They musta checked up on what was in the locker in Sue’s wheelhouse.

Every now an’ again there’d be a new animal. The rhinoceros I remember — it looked at first as though the gas or the ray or whatever it was that they were usin’ to keep us from flyin’ at each other’s throats wasn’t goin’ ter work. But before he did any damage he was as tame as the rest of us. An’ there was a couple o’ dirty great bears, an’ some o’ those little black an’ white ones, an’ a hippopotamus. They widened an’ deepened part of the stream for him during a sleeping period.

But the animals … I’d seen ’em all in the Zoo or in pictures in books or in films. It was the people — I’ll call ’em that — who had me puzzled. I’d got the idea, somehow, that this was a big flying saucer that we were in, and that smaller ones had been coming down to Earth to collect … specimens. Yair. That’s all we were. An’ these people in the saucer weren’t little green men from Mars or beautiful blondes from Saturn. They were … different. They were different, an’ they were kiddin’ themselves that they were as far above us as we’re above dogs an’ cats.

Perhaps they were, in some ways. But not in all.

Anyhow, one day a couple o’ them came down into the dome with us. Like the man an’ tiie girl in the tank they were wearing suits. Perhaps our air was different from theirs. Perhaps the suits were armor just in case any o’ us was too handy with teeth or claws.

But the suits made them look more like people. A head, two arms, two legs, an’ the sight o’ transparent innards churnin’ away decently hidden by stiff, white cloth. One o’ them was carryin’ a bag of odd-lookin’ tools an’, after he’d scraped the sand away from a manhole coyer, started to fiddle around with a worm’s nest of pipes an’ wires that was under it. Needless ter say, I was interested. But every time that I got within four feet of him it was like gettin’ an electric shock. After half a dozen tries — the last shock nearly flattened me — I decided to leave him alone.

The one in the other suit wasn’t a “him” — it was a “her.” Don’t ask me how I knew, I just felt it. She was carrying a box. She squatted down under one o’ the bushes an’ opened the lid just a little. An’ she … whistled. I don’t know to this day if she was really whi stling, or if she was just mak in’ the noise of it happen inside the brains of some of us.

But Puss heard it, an’ that dirty gorilla heard it, an’ the rhinoceros heard it. An’ I heard it. So there were the four of us the tiger, the gorilla, the rhino and the man — all of us running to where that . . , that girl was sitting under t he tree. The smell that was com in’ out of her tucker box was really something. You’d never appreciate it unless you’d been on a steady diet of dry bread and sardines. It was steak an’ fryin’ onions, rare steak at that, with a hint of grilled tomatoes.

Puss was all over her like a big house oat, until the gorilla managed to elbow him aside. (I wonder what they were smelling?)

The rhino, not too roughly, managed to shove them away, and there was I, trying to get past that flesh-and-blood armored tank. I could see that she was giving them something out of the box. It seemed to satisfy them — and then it was my turn.

Her hand — yes, she had a hand — stretched out an’ popped something into my open mouth. Yes, it was steak all right, just the way I like it done, an’ so tender that it hardly required chewing. Yet that one little mouthful seemed to be lastin’ an’ lastin’. While I was eating I looked at her. Was I seem’ her the way that I wanted to see her, or the way that she wanted me to see her? Somethin’ of both, I guess. But she was a blonde, nicely tanned, an’ she was wearin’ one o’ those bikinis that make a woman look more undressed than when she hasn’t a stitch on, an’ she had all the right things in the right places, an’ her wide, red mouth was smilin’ at me.

I swallowed what was left in me own mouth an’ reached out for her. She came inter my arms willin’ly enough, or so it seemed, but it wasn’t much of a kiss. It didn’t last long enough. In no time at all she was pushin’ me away, an’ I could see why. That cobber of hers, the one who’d done the repair or maintenance, was standin’ there glarin’ at us. 188

But he was only a … blob in a sort o’ skin-diving outfit, an’ she was a woman. Even though she was changin’ back, slowly, to the way she ‘had been when she’d come inter the dome, she was still a woman.

Well, that was the start of it.

Every day — if they were days — the pair of them ’d come inter the dome among the dangerous animals. He’d be playin’ around the plumbin’, an’ she’d be feedin’ her special pets. I don’t mind admittin’ that if I’d seen her as a purple octopus I’d a put up with her for the sake o’ that steak, although it wasn’t always steak. Now and again there’d be chicken — or somethin’ that tasted like chicken — or prawns, or crayfish. An’ there’d be little bulbs o’ some plastic that burst in the mouth an’ made you feel like you were gettin’ outside a schooner o’ good, cold beer. All that — an’ a shape better’n anything you’ll ever see at Manly or Bondi or even Surfers ….

She must’a seen the way that I was startin’ to feel about her. In any case, I couldn’t hardly hide it. An’ those people outside the glass — it didn’t matter about them. They weren’t real people, you see. But she was, somehow. Every time that she put on her act — that we put on our act — it was costin’ me more an’ more effort to keep me paws off her. It was gettin’ to be quite a strain, believe me.

Then one night, when I was sleepin’, sh e came into the dome by herself. I woke up sudden like. There she was, standin’ there. There was just enough light for me to see that she was wearin’ a sort of transparent robe — although most o’ what light there was seemed to be cornin’ from her body. She was all woman —or she looked to be all woman, an’ What did it matter, anyhow?

She said, “Come with me.” Her voice matched the rest of her.

“So you can speak English,” I said.

“Of course,” she told me. “We have been monitoring your radio programs for many years.” I was bloody annoyed then. “Then why do you treat me like a bloody animal?” I asked.

“Because, my dear, that is all that you are. That is all that any of your people are compared with Us.” Then she said, all sweetness, “But you’re a nice animal.” I should’a been ropeable. Where was me pride? I should’a been ropeable, but I wasn’t. How does a dog feel when his mistress is nice to him? How does the ray in that tank back there feel when the girl lets him sort o’ crawl all over her? There’s more to it than just cupboard love, I’m sure o’ that now. An’ we’ve all heard the stories, haven’t we, about men an’ women an’ the so-called lower animals ….

So I followed her, through the dome, walkin’ around all the sleepin’ beasts. It reminded me, somehow, o’ the Garden of Eden. But there was the wench who should’a been my Eve, that black girl, cuddled up to that dirty great gorilla o’ hers an’ snorin’ her head off. She was too fat, anyhow. I wondered what I’d ever seen in her.

We came to the wall of the dome. Suddenly there was a circular opening in it. She walked through, then she turned and said, “Don’t worry. You’ll be all right without breathing apparatus for about two hours. Our air’s not exactly poisonous to you, although it should have quite a strong euphoric effect.”

I asked her, “What’s that?”

She said, “It will make you feel a little drunk.”

Things, I thought, were getting better and better. I followed her along a sort of ship’s alleyway, and in one part of it there were big ports or windows, and there was light shining through, Eke moonlight, but brighter. I had ter look out, of coarse, an’ I rather wished I hadn’t. It’s one thing ter see the world from thousands of miles up in a film, an’ it’s another thing entirely ter really do it. But this air of theirs was doin’ things to me. That was the Earth down there. So what? I could hardly care less.

She said, “We shall be moving on soon. We have almost a full set of specimens from your planet. By the time t hat we arrive at Lala’au their training should be completed.”

“Their training?” I asked.

“Yes. Polardnor and I are the trainers attached to this expedition. But come.” Again I followed her. Finally she led me into a cabin — and it would’a made a first-class suite in the Queen Mary look like an aboo’s humpy. Was it really like that? I don’t know. Probably it wasn’t —any more than she was really like the long-legged, lovely blonde that I was seeing. But there was a low table, an’ on it a big bottle of champagne in a silver ice bucket, an’ all sorts o’ good things to eat ….

An’ there was a bed, as wide as a footie field.

An’ there was her.

I don’t know what you’ll think o’ me when I tell you what I did. I know what I think o’ myself. But she’d told me that we had two hours before I’d ter get get back inter the dome, an’ there was that champagne, that I’d had only once, years ago, at me sister’s wedding, an’ there was that caviar (I think it was) that I’d never had at all. So we sat down, facing each other across the table, an’ I worried at the cork o’ the champagne bottle until it came out with a noise lik e somebody firin’ off a six-inch gun, an’ I poured the bubbly inter the two glasses. Oh, it was good, all right. Just like I remembered it, but better.

An’ I never got around to tastin’ that caviar.

The cabin didn’t change — but the outlines of everything got sort of wavery, an’ you could almost see through them. She didn’t change — but she was fading and frayed, like, round the edges. The two who’d come in were in their own natural forms, jelly-men with a pair of arms too many, just blobs where their heads should have been, all sorts of wriggling, brightly colored coils inside them. One of them, I kne w, was her partner Polordnor. Th e other one was the captain.

They weren’t saying anything. Not out loud, that is. But they were thinking. Telepathy’s the word for it, isn’t it? I could pick up her thoughts, but only a word or so of the others’. It was almost like listening to only one end of a telephone conversation.

Bestiality. That was from Polordnor.

I have my methods. That was from her. They are always successful .

Then the thoughts were crack - lin’ around me like lightning bolts. I’ve had ter tangle with jealous boyfriends an’ husbands before — I still don’t know which this Polordnor was — but the jealousy in this case was more than … sexual. It was professional. And as for the sexual part of it — haven’t you often wondered just what sort of relationship exists between lady animal tamers and their beasts? Maybe I’ve a dirty mind. And maybe I’m speakin’ from experience.

Well, I was just sittin’ there, wonderin’ what was goin’ ter happen ter me. Polordnor was wantin’ to have me shot at once, or somethin’ equivalent. The captain, I sensed, was inclined to take her side. But it all seemed to be somethin’ like the system of command in a whale factory ship. You know. When she’s functionin’ as a factory the factory manager gives all the orders. When the whalin’ is finished, the Old Man takes command again.

Then she said to me, speaking this time, “You will not be harmed. We shall return you to where we found you.” What they used on me I don’t know. It could have been gas, it could have been some sort of ray. But I blacked out, and when I came to I was in the dinghy, bouncing up and down in a bastard of a swell, an’ with t he lights of Sydney just a glow in the sky to the south’ard. What happened to Sue I don’t know. Could be that the engineers in that blasted flyin’ saucer took her apart ter see what made her tick.

Almost got run down twice that night — or early morning, rather. Then it wasn’t too bad. The first ship along — Dutch, she was — spotted me an’ picked me up. An’ they were decent enough, too, to break out one o’ their cranes to hoist my dinghy aboard. Just as well, that was. Although it was just as well, too, that nobody found that ingot of gold hidden under the bottom boards. Almost never found it myself. Then it was a helluva worry flogging it without losing too much on the deal.

And there was somethin’ else I found — although it had faded by the time that I was picked up. It was like a tattoo, a luminous tattoo, on the skin o’ me belly. There was only one sentence.

I shall be back.

There was a silence. I looked at Edward and Nola Edwards. They looked at me. None of us wanted to look a t the little man, but he looked at us

“Well?” he demanded angrily. “Well?”

“It’s … It’s a good story,” I said.

“Do you believe it?”

Again we looked at each other. Professional writers are apt to take a very dim view of outsiders who actually see flying saucers and make contact with their crews. And, even in this case, one of the crew had turned out to be a beautiful blonde after all, although not from Saturn.

“Do you believe it?”

“There’s a certain absence of definite proof,” I said at last.

“I could” said the little man, “let you know where I disposed of that gold. But gettin’ meself murdered isn’t my idea of fun. But —” he was very bitter —“I thought that you people’d believe me. But no. You’re as bad as all th e other bastards — the cops and the head shrinkers.”

“A very good day to you all.”

And that was almost the end of it.

The real end was I suppose a few days later, when I read in the morning paper that a search was being made in coastal waters for the missing Sue II, the owner and sole crew of which was a Mr. Clarence Simpson.

At about the same time, too, there were one or two UFO sightings off the New South Wales coast.

—A. BERTRAM CHANDLER