Arthur C. Clarke’s "The Great Deep," a summary

The novel transfers the frontier motif to the ocean depths, subordinating the grazing of whale herds to the task of global food supply for humanity. This book is a detailed portrait of twenty-first-century underwater animal husbandry, where shepherds in nimble submarines protect giant mammals from deep-sea predators and systematically harvest raw materials for the continents. Arthur C. Clarke completed the work in 1957, expanding on his own 1954 story after scuba diving near the Great Barrier Reef.

Return from the Void

The patrol submarine Scoutsub 5 is on duty in the South Pacific. Don Burley protects a female whale and her twins from a great white shark. A precise shot with a poisoned dart from the bottom compartment neutralizes the predator. A radio message from Brisbane orders the caretaker to admit the trainee.

In the director’s office, Walter Franklin keeps to himself. The former lead engineer of the Martian cargo-passenger liner Arcturus conceals a profound mental trauma. During routine repairs to the propulsion system on the interplanetary route, the specialist fell into the icy void and drifted for four hours among the silent stars without radio contact, having lost hope of returning to the departing passenger liner. Psychiatrists restored his sanity by forbidding him from any high altitude. Earth’s gravity has forever cut him off from his family. His sons, Roy and Rupert, born on Mars, would have perished under the weight of their own bodies on Earth.

Heron Island greets the newcomer with coral shoals. The training program overloads the trainee’s memory with hypnopedic courses in navigation, ichthyology, and acoustics. On the beach, Franklin encounters biology student Indra Langenburg, dissecting a three-meter tiger shark for its liver vitamins. The training facility’s pressure chamber tests the trainee’s resistance to forty atmospheres of pressure. During maneuvers on underwater tugs, Burley deliberately disables the trainee’s steering system. Franklin steers with his palms. Turning his hands toward the taut current at ten kilometers per hour, the trainee confidently moors at the slipway.

A catamaran sailing trip with Indra to Masthead Reef suddenly turns disastrous. The smell of synthetic motor fuel is reminiscent of an airlock. Franklin spots a satellite passing in the twilight. Fear overcomes reason. In a panic, he falls face-down on the coastal sand. Late that night, a desperate cadet maneuvers the torpedo tube beyond the reef barrier. The tube’s speed increases. The towboat plunges into the darkness, to a depth of over three hundred meters. The water column paralyzes his breathing.

The line of the abyss recedes.

The raider submarine "Sea Lion" lifts a motionless body through the airlock. Poaching captain Bert Darril performs decompression just in time and abandons the rescued swimmer on a deserted sandy beach. Dr. Myers convinces Franklin to recognize the limits of human strength. The instructor steers the training submarine into the midst of a pod of thousands of blue whales. Forty meters of living flesh rise above the waves near the open hatch of the conning tower. Spray blinds Franklin. The bipedal explorer finds his home in the ocean. The medical board approves his inspector’s diploma.

Hunting in the Abyss

Five years pass. Franklin marries Indra and is raising his first child, Peter. His duties require constant patrols across the vast Pacific Ocean. Patrols protect pearl farms in the Persian Gulf from predatory starfish and escort schools of pearls to the Antarctic ice caps. Near the Hawaiian archipelago, whales break sound barriers and devour the spring harvest of diatoms. During the hunt for the escapees, sonar picks up a 30-meter spindle-shaped echo at a depth of three kilometers. Oceanographers attribute this contact to the legendary sea serpent.

The economic department is alarmed by the repeated disappearance of sperm whales. Sucker marks on the bodies of the dead animals exceed fifteen centimeters in diameter. The chief orders Franklin to capture the monstrous squid Percy alive. The boats dive to a depth of 1,200 meters. Colored spotlights attract the predator. The forty-meter-long mollusk grips the submarine’s steel hull with its tentacles. Burley attaches a harpoon-type ultrasonic beacon to the monster’s back. A month later, the partners track Percy down in a crevasse, tranquilize him with chemical charges, and take him to a floating reinforced concrete dock.

The search for the sea serpent receives the support of Scientific Research Committee Director Farlan. Three automatic sonars at a depth of half a kilometer form an equilateral tracking triangle with sides measuring twenty-five kilometers. The instruments confirm the presence of a huge animal at a depth of six kilometers. Franklin prepares for his final deep-sea voyage before transferring to a shore-based staff position. A daughter, Anne, is born. The friends send research vehicles to the base of the deep-sea ridge.

A deep shock shakes the water column. An underwater earthquake fractures the basalt bedrock. Billions of tons of rock fall in a colossal cascade of boulders, sediment, and sand, while a solid landslide wall inexorably fills the instrument panel screens with a chaos of reflected ultrasonic echoes. Franklin pushes the turbines to their limits. An updraft carries the boat to safer waters. The mud gradually settles. A rockfall buries Don Burley’s boat.

A challenge to conscience

Franklin’s appointment as head of the Whale Division plunges him into a rut of administrative chores. Production plans crumble under the pressure of cheap protein from plankton farms. Promising personnel are leaving for the terraforming of Venus. Meanwhile, laboratory director Lundquist achieves astonishing results at Heron Station. The researcher tames two ferocious killer whales to herd them and designs milking machines to extract whale milk directly from the sea.

A magazine article attracts the attention of Buddhist leader Alexander Beuys, known by the spiritual name Mahanayake Thero. The high monk announces a public campaign to end the slaughter of cetaceans. Franklin accompanies a Scottish preacher to a Greenlandic processing plant. A 50,000-ampere electric shock kills the giant mammal in a split second. Automatic circular saws dismember the carcass within two minutes. Thero calls on earthlings to shed the burden of guilt toward the animal kingdom. The preacher predicts an encounter with powerful cosmic civilizations, ready to judge humanity by the laws of compassion for the weak.

The Secretariat orders Franklin to serve as the chief advocate for the slaughter at the investigative committee. The department head is torn between departmental duty and growing sympathy for his opponent’s position. A sudden distress signal cancels the trip to Bern. Offshore, an associated gas explosion collapses a half-kilometer-long rig onto the inspection submarine carrying Senator Chamberlain. At a depth of 330 meters, the steel hull cracks under the rubble. The damaged central compartment fills with seawater.

Franklin takes command of the rescue operation. The former caretaker dons a diving suit and connects to a breathing system that uses a hydrogen-oxygen mixture. The frigid abyss paralyzes the swimmer. While forty atmospheres of pressure continuously squeeze his chest like a chilling shell, Senior Diver Henson maintains hydrophone communication, deliberately hurling obscenities at his superior to keep the rescuer sane. Franklin makes his way through twisted beams and secures shaped charges to the support trusses. The detonators destroy the steel derrick. The submarine crew is saved.

The rescuer’s voice sounds free.

National fame gives Franklin a rare opportunity to act in good faith. At hearings, the official openly supports Thero’s program, rejecting narrow economic regulations in favor of the ethical progress of society. A global referendum approves the transition of whale farming to dairy production and protein synthesis from plant plankton. At the spaceport, a father sees his son Peter off to the interplanetary liner to Mars. The young astronaut sets off to meet the stars. Franklin remains on Earth, ready to protect the ocean and encounter distant extraterrestrial worlds with a pure soul.