 Recorded books presents Three Miles Down by Harry Turtledove. Nariated by me, George Waddell. CHAPTER I Jerry Stieglitz sat cross-legged in front of the stereo on the bottom shelf of one of the bookcases in his apartment. The thick red-shag carpet was nearly as comfortable as the nubby nylon that covered the sofa. His powder-blue cord bell bottoms almost glowed against the crimson and scarlet background, he was too used to that to notice. He had two cassette tapes. One came from his advisor, the other he'd bought a couple of days before at the Westwood warehouse. Without hesitation he put the commercial tape in first. He brushed back his long brown hair so his headphones fit more snugly, then he turned the volume up, side two of Petzl Logic filled his brain. He liked cant by a thrill and countdown to ecstasy a lot and the new Steely Dan album was at least as good as the first two. Nice to find a band that didn't run out of ideas after a couple of records. Too many dead. Parker's band and through-with buzz Jerry's head bobbed up and down enough to make him straighten his wire-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose. It worn cheaters for a long time, sometimes he straightened them even when he wasn't wearing them. Anna had caught him doing it once or twice. His fiancee thought that was hilarious. He just thought it was stupid. Mr. Charlie Freak ended, he hit the stop button and took out the tape. For one thing he didn't like the last two tracks as much as the rest of the album and for another he really wanted to hear the cassette Professor Crickorian had given him. Because Jerry had been working with Haggub Crickorian for five years now he had no trouble deciphering the scroll on the tape's label. Humpbacks, it said. Northern Pacific, July 1973. Only the summer before, or off the press or near enough in marine biology. He turned the volume up some more. Sealy Dan was electric guitars and keyboard and drums. Humpback songs, some people call them vocalizations but Jerry thought songs was more descriptive and more accurate. Put him in mind of sad trombones grooving with bassoons. They weren't of course but that was what they reminded him of. In 1970 a couple of months after Jerry got his BS at UCLA pioneering scholar Roger Payne had released an album called Songs of the Humpback Whale. It became one of the most improbable top sellers of all time. One of the tracks was sped up to fourteen times its actual speed and sounded astonishingly like birdsong. Jerry appreciated the accelerated version's different beauty but he liked the whale sounds better at their true pace. They tried to find patterns in them and to work out why the humpbacks sang the way they did. Were males courting females, as birds did with their melodies, were they talking about where the krill was thickest, or were they just singing? Nobody knew. Looking for answers, though, was endlessly fascinating to him anyhow. Since he had the headphones on and the volume cranked up he didn't hear people coming up the stairs to the second floor, his floor, of the apartment building. He felt the footsteps, though, through his legs and backside. He was too focused on humpback sounds to notice that those footsteps stopped in front of his door. He didn't notice the knocks on the door right away, either, but they got louder and more insistent. He glanced at the stereo. When he put on the headphones he usually remembered to poke the button that took the main speakers out of the loop. But he wasn't perfect about it, he'd already irked the couple downstairs two or three times. Did they have humpbacks swinging through their ceiling at heart-stopping volume? As a matter of fact, they didn't. The knocking kept on, anyway. Muttering Jerry stopped the tape, stood up, went to the door, and opened it. Three men he'd never seen before stood on the walkway outside his apartment, one in front and two behind. They all wore suits. One of the men in back carried a briefcase. The guy in front was in his fifties, short and burly. There was hair in a greased pompadour as if he'd decided he liked the style in 1946 and never noticed the times had changed. You are Jerome Samuel Stiglitz? He barked. Yeah, that's right. Jerry answered automatically. Uh, who are you? He hoped like hell they weren't cops. He had a couple of joints stashed in a kitchen drawer. Instead of answering, the burly man pushed past him and into the apartment's long, narrow front room. His two buddies followed. As soon as everybody was inside, one of the henchmen closed the door again. Who are you people? Jerry repeated. As if he hadn't spoken, the guy with the pompadour said, I'm going to need to see some ID, Stiglitz. He had a good command voice. That was what Jerry. Sample complete. Ready to continue?