Seen through the eyes of a scriptwriter and his wife, this is the story of a terrifying threat to the world from beneath
the surface of the sea.
It began so unrecognizably. Had it been more obvious, things might have turned out differently. But until the danger had been established, they had no means of knowing that it posed any danger at all. The things existed, but they did not appear to do anything. At least, not anything that anyone seemed to know about.
The things were not a natural phenomenon, nor were they random. All the concentrations were in deep-water areas. All descents, with no reports of any fireballs coming up.
The sun beat fiercely on the decks and the flag hung limp, barely stirring. There was scarely a sound, except for the muffled voices in the mess and the quiet drone of the winch. From time to time, the voice of a deck hand was heard calling out the tally of fathoms, as the bathysphere was lowered into the depths.
The fused cables and the destruction of ships must be viewed as the work of
intelligence in the ocean depths. Almost as if lightning had struck upwards from the sea.
Since
intelligent beings could not have evolved there, they must have come from somewhere else. However, given the extreme habitat, the “invasion” need not be regarded as hostile. But the Bocker hypothesis, as it came to be known, was met with widespread skepticism.
For a long time, everything was intensely still. There was no sign that anything had occurred, save the red smoke drifting slowly way. For a while, the whole world held its breath. Then it came. The placid surface of the sea suddenly turned into a vast white cloud which spread upwards. A tremor passed through the ship. The shores were littered with dead and decaying fish for weeks afterwards.
Even if that part of the world was of no use to people, they were not content to leave the things down there alone.
It was a matter of instinct, not of reason. The very idea of an alien intelligence provoked hostlity. Given two intelligent species on one planet, it was almost inevitable that sooner or later they would come into conflict with each other.
They knew of nothing, and could imagine nothing, that could produce the effects in the Deep. But nobody was really prepared for what happened next.