DEEP SEA VISION

By Clement Masloff

Two psychiatrists, a father, and daughter provide their patients an immersion to the bottom of the ocean. Three patients, a landscape artist, a musician, and a lawyer receive treatment in the deep-sea globoid, but there occur collisions three times, with a giant monster shark, a great jellyfish, and a gigantic squid. 

At the seaport c

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Mulberry Books
• Release date: Jun 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781950850044

Clement Masloff

The author has been involved with science fiction and speculative literature since teaching himself to read in 1941-1942. He served in the Army as a linguist and translator in four Balkan Slavic languages. For several decades, he taught sociology in Ohio after graduating research in Russian social history. In his retirement years, he has been writing science fiction, a return to dreams of the early 1940s.

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Copyright © 2019 by Clement Masloff.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher and author, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author. It is intended to provide helpful and informative material on the subjects addressed in the publication. The authors and publisher specifically disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

ISBN:

978-1-950850-05-1 [Paperback Edition]

978-1-950850-04-4 [eBook Edition]

Printed and bound in The United States of America.

Published by

The Mulberry Books, LLC.

8330 E Quincy Avenue, Denver CO 80237

themulberrybooks.com

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Part I

I

Oego Biffen, standing on the balcony of his hotel room, looked out over the harbor of Porto Lago. Though an experienced landscape artist, he had not traveled to this beautiful coastal scene in order to paint it on canvas. His purpose was to restore and re-energize the creative drive that seemed to have deserted him a little over a year before.

Can the type of treatment only available in this place bring back what my mind and hands have lost? the painter from the interior asked himself as he took in the quiet oceanic waters and the ships and boats floating about or docked on the wharfs.

The tall, stringy artist with sandy brown hair let his coppery eyes roam over the sunny, picturesque port, absorbing everything that drew his dormant aesthetic interest. Could Porto Lago reinvigorate his inner gifts to what they had once been? Would he ever succeed in recapturing colors as brilliant and vivid as those he was now gazing upon? he wondered.

Oego suddenly looked down at the timepiece on his index finger.

He had an appointment with Dr. Malten Cacoe in one hour and had to get into his silk outfit for their first meeting together. There was no time to lose, the visiting young painter told himself. His future was at stake.

  

The office of the psychiatrist with whom Oego had exchanged electronic messages lay only a block away from the main dock of Porto Lago. He felt a nervous chill as he rang the sounder beside the door with the name of Dr. Cacoe graven on it.

A short, petite young woman with straw hair and ginger eyes stood in the doorway once it was opened. The painter gave his name and announced he was there to see Dr. Cacoe.

She gave him a radiant smile. "You must be seeking my father, Dr. Malten Cacoe. I too call myself Dr. Cacoe, because that is also my name as his daughter and partner in our practice.

Please come right in, Mr. Biffen, she told him as she stepped back and made way for him. Father has been expecting and waiting for you. He is eager to make personal acquaintance and become familiar. That will be the main purpose of this introductory session between the two of you.

Oego slowly stepped into the reception room, noticing an impressive, large figure in a dark, formal business suit standing in the doorway to an interior chamber of the office.

This is Mr. Biffen, father, said the daughter. He is here for his first meeting with you.

Welcome to Porto Lago, smiled Malten Cacoe. Come into my office so that the two of us can become acquainted. There must be a lot of things that you want to ask me about what lies ahead for both of us.

Oego made his way into the inner office. Malten went back to his iron desk and sat down, pointing to a chair in front of him where his patients would be seated whenever present for treatment or consultation.

The daughter closed the door to the office, leaving the two males to speak by themselves.

How was your trip to Porto Lago? asked the doctor. I hope that your accommodations are pleasant and comfortable.

Yes, they are, answered the new patient. This city and its beautiful harbor have deeply impressed me. They form a wonderfully impressive environment for the kind of mental therapy that I am seeking.

Maltem grinned upon hearing this. We here enjoy close contact with the Pelagic Sea, which will serve to benefit the new kind of treatment that I have devised in my practice. I guarantee that you shall come to share my deep and fervent love for the quiet waters that flow by our coast. The experience that you have while here will always remain with you, regardless where you may go or settle in the future.

I can hardly wait to begin these dives below in the Psycho-Globe submersible, murmured the patient in a lowered tone. It promises to be an adventure full of great hope for my renewal in my profession as an artist.

The undersea journey is a new, original kind of psychiatric treatment that I have spent many years planning and working out, explained the therapist. "It is now ready for application in actual practice. I believe that it will bring you solid curative benefits, my friend.

You shall never regret having come to Porto Lago for psycho-globular treatment, I assure you.

When will we be beginning? asked the painter with spirited curiosity and enthusiasm.

My daughter, Data, is a licensed psychiatrist and assists me with new patients. She will be in charge of your introductory descents into the undersea’s upper levels, preparatory to further travel downward into the zones of the abyss and the bottom sea floor. Those areas will be reached later, when you have become acclimatized to the dark, lightless levels of the world of the water.

My movement will be a gradual descent into the depths, then? said Oego with a measure of surprise in his voice.

"That’s right. We will begin by accustoming you to being undersea in what is called the Sunlight Zone, where solar radiation continues to penetrate and have its effect on plant life through photosynthesis. You shall be exposed to the marine animal life of that upper region of the sea.

"Only when you are adjusted to being in the Psycho-Globe will you descend into the darkness of the Twilight Zone. That may take a variable amount of time that is unpredictable, varying with each of our patients.

"Beyond that zone, there is the deeper Midnight Zone of even greater darkness. You shall see your first biolucent creatures at this level. After that, there will be what we refer to as the Abyss. This layer of the sea water takes you over 19,000 feet down. You become increasing used to the high amount of pressure at these ever colder levels. This must by its very nature be a gradual process of accommodation of both your mind and your body.

"Finally, the Psycho-Globe will transport you downward to the sea bottom, close to the Great Trench that exists on the oceanic floor. This will place you in what will seem a unique, different world that lies outside the planet that you know and are familiar with.

"That is the location where my daughter will lead you through the main phrase of your psychoanalysis and mental treatment. It will not occur at the beginning, but as the final phase of the therapy pattern that we have mapped out and programmed for our patients.

This will not be an easy course to follow and fulfill, my friend. It will demand dedication and persistence from you, as it does from all of the patients we take on to treat.

Oego surprised Malten Cacoe by breaking out in a wide, noticeable grin. I am eager and ready to begin, Doctor, he said with energy and spirit.

  

An early breakfast with the father and his daughter was scheduled for the following morning in the home of the Cacoes close to their office.

You and Data can spend a few hours talking over your first trips on the Psycho-Globe today, then take your first dive below the surface tomorrow, said Malten as he finished his gruel and fried ova. Data has finished years of study and observation that have prepared her for guiding patients on their voyages to the depths.

My father has been a skillful teacher of both theory and practice, noted the daughter who had been assigned to lead the new patient’s treatments. What I plan to do with you will follow the principles that he himself has formulated for our profession. They are strong and proven, as you shall soon see for yourself.

Malten began to speak as if giving a lecture to a class.

"My guiding concept is that of the duality of human mental operation. By that I mean that our minds and personalities possess a double nature containing opposites and contradictions. This is by no means an original idea first conceived by me, but I have adopted it as my central principle.

"From my years of experience, I have come to recognize the inner tension between the conscious and the unconscious, the rational and the emotional, the subjective and the objective aspects within each and every individual self.

"That dualism is the very essence of the existence of our species. When it crosses over a certain limit, there arises conflict and internal problems.

"My own original discovery is the great effect that the depths of the sea can exercise in overcoming the troubled conditions of persons unable to overcome these divisions and contradictions by themselves.

The natural luminescent lighting visible down at the sea floor where the trenches lie can make changes in troubled minds. That is the knowledge that provides the therapeutic success found aboard the Psycho-Globe that takes us down there.

That is what has drawn me to Porto Lago, softly confessed Oego. I am eager to undergo such descent into the waters.

Malten appeared to become abstracted and dreamy as he spoke again.

"There is a mysterious process when a person is far below under the sea. It is a process of clarification that seems to occur inside a mind. I have not been able to give a complete explanation of what happens, but the various portions of an individual’s personality melt together and fuse with each other.

The effect, after a time, is to solve many of the questions and problems that cause conflict and pain inside a person’s mental processes.

All of a sudden, the psychiatrist pulled himself together in the present moment. His chestnut eyes focused with sharpness on the face of Oego.

You will not be descending alone, he announced. "Data plans to take two other new patients along on this first, short journey into the sea. One of them is a young female musician, the other is a male whose profession is that of a lawyer.

"Data will be introducing the three of you patients to each other when she meets with your trio tomorrow morning, when all of you assemble together on the dock where the Psycho-Globe is tied up.

Be certain to have yourself a good night of rest and sleep tonight, Oego, grinned the mental therapist.

  

The rising solar star filled the harbor of Porto Lago with light red and yellow rays of brilliant light.

Feeling fully restored both physically and mentally, Oego headed for the distant end of the wharf where the Psycho-Globe of the two Cacoe doctors had its berth. The first familiar face he recognized there was that of Data, standing with and talking to an athletic-looking young male figure.

Oego approached and greeted his new therapist. The latter did the same, then introduced him to the patient who was to be a fellow-passenger on the submersible they were to travel in.

"This is Nogo Jatist, who is an attorney from one of