Chapter 12
Seome
Omsh’pont, kel: Om’t and Ponk’t, kel: Ponk’et
Time: 766.4, Epoch of Tekpotu
With the shield project underway, Longsee worked with Kloosee and Pakma to have Chase and Angie join the expedition as apprentices, becoming part of a formal team of engineers, craftsmen and weavers who would journey to the city of Ponk’t, on the far side of the world. There, the Omtorish and the Ponkti would hopefully cooperate on completing the shield and then ferrying it north to Kinlok Island and the Time Twister.
Not everyone was in favor of this arrangement.
So it was that a formal message went out from Omsh’pont, from Iltereedah, Metah of Omt’or to Lektereenah, Metah of Ponk’et. The message proposed a joint effort, to design and build a shield to dampen or eliminate the destructive effects of the wavemaker. The message proposed a joint expedition to Kinlok to put the shield in place.
Our two nations have much to gain from this endeavor, Iltereedah had said. Unity in the face of this grave threat is the only way we can succeed. It is imperative we put aside our differences and present a strong, common face to the Umans.
Tulcheah kim, the Metah’s chief diplomat, helped the Metah write the message. When the thing was done, it was Tulcheah who saw to it that the message was conveyed through the ootkeeor, properly formatted for the repeaters who would sing the song of the proposal across the seas of Seome, across the Omt’orkel and the Sk’ortel, across the Serpentines to the Ponk’el Sea.
The Metah Iltereedah didn’t know that Tulcheah had composed her own private message to accompany the formal one. The annex Tulcheah had composed was coded for the ears of a single Ponkti citizen, one Loptoheen tu, Master of Tuk and military advisor to Lektereenah. Magnificent, courageous, undefeated in tuk, Loptoheen would understand what was happening…and he would make sure Ponk’et could take over dealings with the Umans when the shield failed…as inevitably, it would.
Tulcheah planned to be at his side, roaming with the great master himself, when that happened.
The Metah of Ponk’et made her reply soon enough and it was affirmative. Ponk’et would concede to join the Omtorish effort, though not without some stipulations. Outfitting and equipping the expedition proceeded and twelve kip’ts were made available for the journey. Chase and Angie would ride in one of the lead kip’ts with Kloosee and Longsee, had who gathered up his courage and stamina for what he knew would be arduous trip. Longsee seldom left the confines of Omsh’pont, but his knowledge of the shield design was needed and he was directed to join the crew by no less than the Metah herself.
“I’d sooner lower myself into the volcanoes of the Sk’ort than show up in Ponk’t,” he grumbled, but there was nothing he could do in the face of a direct order.
Kloosee would pilot the lead kip’t. Only he and one other craftsman had ever been in the vicinity of the central city of the Ponkti. Ponk’t was well hidden and even Kloosee wasn’t sure exactly of its location.
When Chase learned of this, he asked Kloosee about it.
“The Ponkti are isolated. They like it that way,” Kloosee explained, as he was loading up his kip’t one day. “They live like hermits. They’re suspicious of everyone, even themselves. Use your echopod…it can tell you all the details. Personally, I’m not sure why we need the Ponkti for this shield. We can do this ourselves. I think Tulcheah has stolen the Metah’s ears and convinced her the kels should cooperate. The Ponkti complain all the time that we Omtorish monopolize the Farpool, that we’re actually working with the Umans, that we plan to dominate all the seas and make slaves of the other kels. Kah, it’s all nonsense. Let the Ponkti be…that’s my opinion.”
Chase decided to let his echopod explain more….
…the great, ice-cold northeastern sea is called the Ponk’el and it is home to the kel:Ponk’et. Bounded on the north by the polar ice-pack, to the east by the ridge T’kel, to the south by the ridge-chain Ork’nt and to the west by the sinuous Serpentine, the Ponkti are an aloof, relatively militant and generally untrustworthy kel…that made Chase smile…”Jeez, I wonder who wrote this stuff,” he asked…the Ponkti usually keep to themselves, preferring to refine their well-known martial skills . They are renowned as the originators and masters of the deadly dance art known as tuk. The Ponkti believe that they are doing God’s will by preserving their isolation and self-sufficiency. The Ponkti believe that the future will bring a great upheaval, a giant, globe-circling wave called ak’loosh, which will destroy all kels. They are preparing to meet this apocalypse….
Chase listened a while longer, decided the echopod was simply spewing some kind of Omtorish propaganda and went back to helping Kloosee load up and check all the kip’ts. He was uneasy as he finished securing gear to the aft cargo sling of their sled…more and more, it seemed like he and Angie were being sucked into kel politics, becoming pawns or worse in some greater struggle. The thought that he and Angie might become prizes in some clash between the kels troubled him. But he decided not to confide any of this to Angie. She was already morose enough about the trip.
“So how many Ponkti are there?” Chase asked Kloosee. He swam alongside his friend as Kloosee roamed the length of the kip’t convoy, examining fastenings, checking cargo pouches, playing with nosy pal’penk who had drifted over in curiosity, verifying seals and hatches and jets and circulators.
“Maybe twenty-five million kelke in all,” Kloosee said. “No one really knows. And the Ponkti certainly won’t tell anybody. “
“One of the weavers…I think his name was Kobo tel or something like that—said the Ponkti live in caves.”
Kloosee continued his leisurely roam, checking every detail, every nuance of the convoy sleds. Chase struggled to keep up. “I’ve heard that too. I’ve never been there but the rumor among the kip’t drivers and the pal’penk herders is that the Ponkti are concentrated along the divide between Ork’te plateau and the T’kel’tong decline, some kind of interconnected caves there. There are whirlpools and chaotic currents around there too, so we’ll have to be careful.”
“Don’t you have maps? GPS? Navigation aids, things like that?”
“I pulse what I know. The echoes I have up here—“ he tapped his beak and head. “And the scents also. We’ll find them. Nobody smells and farts like the Ponkti.” With that, Kloosee snapped off a sharp tail slap and moved smartly away.
Kloosee deemed distracted, even distant. Chase figured he’d better leave his friend alone.
I guess he’s got a lot on his mind right now. Chase turned about and went back up the length of the convoy again, looking for Angie.
Kloosee roamed for a few more minutes, then on a whim, dove back toward a warren of caves halfway up the Torsh’pont seamount. Here was Putektu, his own em’kel. Family. Home. Familiar scents. He plunged into the caves and found his way to his own berth. There, he extracted a pair of scentbulbs from a shelf and activated one.
The sharp tangy smell of seamothers in heat filled the berth. Kloosee tried as best he could to relax for a moment…the scents brought back favorite memories, ascending toward the surface, caught up in the chaos of a seamother heard seeking Notwater…it was magnificent, it wondrous, it made him shiver just to think of it, the harsh light, the low pressure, the pain in his gut as his insides tried to burst…you had to be insane to love seamothers and their realm but Kloosee did love it and he would never apologize for that.
Deep into the olfactory daze that scentbulbs brought on—it was even a bulb that Pakma had done and given him as a gift—Kloosee was startled when a familiar face came nosing into his berth.
That smell was familiar. He knew that pulse when it echoed back.
Tulcheah kim.
“Pakma give that bulb to you?” she asked, nuzzling Kloosee’s beak. She invited herself in and straight away began nosing her way along Kloosee’s flanks, rubbing his pectorals, his flukes, his belly….
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bsp; “Tulcheah, stop. Please don’t do that now. I’ve got a long journey ahead and I need some rest.”
“Not feeling too good about the trip, is that it?” Tulcheah teased him. “Wondering if you can even find Ponk’t?”
“I’ll find it…I’ve roamed Ponk’el before.”
Tulcheah slipped away and circled the small berth space, intentionally knocking scentbulbs and utensils off the shelves. Faint currents carried them toward the opening and Kloosee snapped them up with annoyance.
“You know the Metah asked me to join this expedition too.”
Kloosee went back to his bulb, waving it in her face before sniffing the seamother scents himself. Her face wrinkled in disgust and she shoved it away.
“I heard. You manage to insinuate yourself into just about anything.”
Tulcheah sniffed, feigning indignation. “I’m half-Ponkti. Iltereedah knows that. She doesn’t think the Omtorish can pull off this shield by themselves. They need help from real tchin’ting weavers. Plus I can find the city…I lived there as a midling.”
“Until they kicked you out.”
Tulcheah approached Kloosee again, that hurt look on her face. She was an athletic female, though small in stature. Smooth and supple alabaster skin, delicate armfins, strong tail flukes, big eyes…Tulcheah was a lot of things. But she was never boring, never predictable. She delighted in surprising people.
“I left Ponk’t on my own…I wanted to see things. Maybe live a little. What’s wrong with that? At least, I don’t spend all my time roaming around philosophizing, like the Omtorish.”
“You got tired of living in caves like some ancient mudworm. The rest of us left caves thousands of metamah ago.” He bumped her away again and she veered off angrily.
Tulcheah pulled up sharply at the entrance and glared back at Kloosee. She looked around at all the shelves and niches filled with scentbulbs. Putektu, Kloosee’s em’kel, hoarded scents and especially treasured scents of the Notwater, something Tulcheah professed she would never understand.
“What is all this stuff anyway? Pakma’s work, I’ll bet. You can’t seem to get enough of that fat pal’penk.”
“Not all of it,” Kloosee said. “Other kelke do bulbs too, you know.”
Tulcheah grinned. She pulsed Kloosee…already, she could see the telltale stream of bubbles fizzing inside…she was beginning to have an effect, she could pulse that now. “You always liked my scent…here, have a whiff—“ She scooted over, sideswiped him around the beak. “Can’t get enough of that, Kloos…how about it? One last time, before the trip starts…you know, for good luck. Before we have to keep shoo’kel for everybody.”
“The Metah should never have allowed you on this expedition. Nothing but trouble, that’s what will happen.”
Tulcheah shifted into advisor mode now. “The Metah shouldn’t keep the Farpool to herself. There are other kels, you know. They have as much right to know and use the Farpool as you do. I’m chief of diplomats…I have to deal with this all the time. And the Umans…by Shooki, she’ll be signing an alliance with them in no time. That’s what this is all about, Kloos. Can’t you see it? Keeping the Ponkti away from the Farpool, from the Umans, from your precious little eekoti visitors. Keep the Ponkti in their caves…they can’t do any harm there. We’ll see what the Ponkti can do once they build this shield and fix all your mistakes.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Tulcheah. The Umans don’t care about the kels or our differences. They care about their blasted machine…fighting off some enemy beyond the Notwater, who knows what they care about. Now, we’ve got Chase, we’ve got Angie. They’re Uman too, or almost Uman. We can speak their language. Know their culture. Learn from them. Live among them.”
Tulcheah laughed, started to dart outside, then stopped and came back, hanging at the entrance like some malevolent dreamthing. “Kloos, you’ve spent too much time with those bulbs …it’s made you mad. Listen to yourself…living among Umans. Living in the Notwater. That’s the sort of stories they tell midlings…or maybe in Omt’or, they tell them that. Not in Ponk’et. “
“No? In Ponk’et, you just fight each other all the time. And everybody else too.”
Tulcheah was more serious now. “The Metah needs me. This expedition needs me too. You know that as well as I do.” She looked around at all Kloosee’s scentbulbs. “Why don’t you get rid of all this stuff, especially Pakma’s crap. We don’t leave until tomorrow.” Her voice lowered and she bubbled at him mischievously. “I’ll be back later…we’ll do this right. Pakma will never be able to treat you the way I do.”
“I’m sure of that,” Kloosee said. “And thank Shooki for it, too.”
With that, Tulcheah hummphhed and sped off into the murk.
The expedition left Omsh’pont the next day, to great fanfare from the kelke of the city. Kloosee knew a lot of hopes were riding on the outcome. If they could get the shield built and placed around the wavemaker, the sound should be greatly reduced and the vibrations dampened enough to make life livable throughout all the seas of Seome. If the expedition failed…well, Kloosee had never put much stock in Longsee’s idea but it was beginning to echo around the kel anyway, whispered in hushed tones, clucked over in the em’kels and the cafes, scoffed at and embraced and discussed in a thousand corners and niches of the great city, even sung about on lengthy roams about the plains and hills surrounding Omsh’pont.
Use the Farpool. Emigrate from Seome. Populate the oceans of the eekoti world…from what Kloosee and Pakma had brought back, it was doable. It was at least thinkable. A mass exodus, a few at a time, through the Farpool—as long as that vortex-wormhole held up and the Umans didn’t do anything stupid. Abandon Seome…now that was truly unthinkable. Yet, Kloosee had to admit, even the unthinkable was now beginning to be thought about.
No, he told himself, that could never happen. By Shooki, the shield had to work. The Umans had to give in. The two sides, and all the kels, had to get together and make this work.
There was no other way.
So the expedition cruised off the Torsh’pont seamount, twelve kip’ts in all, and was soon lost to view. Kloosee, Longsee, Tulcheah, Tamarek, Chase and Angie and others. Pakma stayed behind. There was little she could contribute to the effort and the Metah wanted everyone’s focus on building and installing the shield.
Tulcheah went along to smooth things over with the Ponkti. That brought a snorting laugh to Kloosee as he turned the kip’t to its northeasterly heading and felt along gingerly for the first faint tugs of the Sk’ork Current. They would have to negotiate that southward flowing river of water before they could transit the Serpentine gap and spill out into the broader Ponk’el Sea.
Relying on Tulcheah to smooth things over with the Ponkti, with anybody really, was like kissing a pal’penk right in the mouth. You did it when you had to and you held your breath when you did.
Kloosee settled in for the long first leg, the ride up to the Serpentines. On the sled cockpit dashboard, he had placed a small scentbulb from his em’kel…more Notwater reminders. They were going there and he was both glad and a little anxious about it. This would help get him in the mood.
Behind him, Chase and Angie said nothing.
But Longsee, the old Kelktoo leader, was not amused. “You don’t have to rub my nose in it,” he muttered. “Turn that thing off. I’ve got work to do back here.”
Kloosee chuckled quietly at that. Minutes later, Longsee was snoring, sound asleep.
They had cruised for several days along the lip of the Ork’te Divide, searching for some sign of Ponk’t in the abyssal wastes but without success. Kloosee knew from the descriptions of the repeaters and from Tulcheah’s insistent directions, that the Ponkti capital lay just over the edge of the plateau, where the broad tongue of land called the T’keltong’tee met the plain in an overthrust cliff. Somewhere in that junction lay the entrances, probably w
ell hidden by thick beds of sediment and rock. Beneath the crust lay the vast underground caverns of Ponk’t itself.
Kloosee dropped the lead kip’t down to a half beat above the mud, leaving a tail of silt behind him as he slowed for a closer look at a suspicious slump in the area. The kip’ts following behind had to dodge and weave through the silt clouds as best they could to avoid collision, which led to great deal of grumbling but fortunately, no accidents. The city portals were supposed to be underneath a shelf which thrust out over the decline and which was nearly invisible even a few beats away. Finding it was going to be hard, Kloosee could see that already and Tulcheah, murmuring and dictating over the comm circuit, wasn’t much help either. This was the way the Ponkti wanted things. Kloosee imagined that Ponkti kip’ts and repeaters had the benefit of knowing where exactly to pulse. Uninvited visitors weren’t so fortunate.
“They have to know we’re coming,” Kloosee said, to himself, as much as anyone. “The city has to be somewhere along this ridge. “Maybe we passed over it.”
The comm crackled with Tulcheah’s snarly voice. “If you’d listened to me, we would have turned at that last ridge and headed south.”
Kloosee didn’t answer. If I listened to you, I’d be your third armfin.
Longsee was sullen, glowering out of the cockpit bubble at the bleak surroundings. The waters were murky with silt and the ooze seemed to extend forever in all directions. Not a single ting bush or weed broke the monotony. He shuddered.
“What a desolate wasteland. Can’t you pulse through this stuff?”
“It’s too deep,” Kloosee told him. He let the kip’t settle gingerly on top of the mud. It sank a bit before holding. “I think it would be better if I got out and did a little roaming. We must be near the city by now.”
“A little roam would do all of us some good,” Chase said. “It’s cramped back here,”
Chase helped Kloosee lift the cockpit bubble and the two of them emerged from the sled. Chase did a few spins around, just to get the kinks out.
Kloosee wandered off, looking for some sign of the Ponkti city. Behind them, the rest of the convoy had halted as well. Others were getting out, stretching, chattering, pulsing the strange surroundings. He had traveled three beats away and had turned around to head back when he thought he saw something move, not far from the kip’t. Chase was headed that way too…he hadn’t seen it. When he pulsed more closely, the sediment moved again.
Kloosee pulsed around for a few seconds, finding only echoes from a distant mountain range, then he rushed over to the disturbance, wondering if it were a signal, or a door. He probed the upper layers with his hands. Curious, Chase drifted by and studied the scene.
“Find something, Kloos?”
“I’m not—“
In an instant, they were on him, on both of them. Chase and Kloosee were both surrounded before Kloosee could pull his hand out, entangled in a sticky web of white tendrils, almost before they could take a breath. Longsee and Angie had been caught too; through the tendrils, he saw them struggling furiously.
“K’orpuh!” Kloosee yelled. “Get back…get back--!”
“Kloosee…” it was Tulcheah, rushing up. “—get…away!”
Kloosee could feel their fuzzy skin brush his fins as they wove a cocoon around him, pulling the filaments tighter and tighter. A choking cloud of silt swirled around him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chase fighting and flailing.
“Don’t struggle!” he told Chase. “They’ll just pull tighter—“
“What the—“
Even through the murk, he occasionally caught a quick glimpse of their snake-like bodies. They darted in and out of his vision like fat, mobile weeds, slick and gray as the silt itself. He knew they carried a fatal electric charge but so far he had escaped any jolt. They could also extrude a tough fiber and encase a prey in seconds. That seemed to be their goal.
Kloosee heard Angie’s voice, muffled but terrified, somewhere nearby. She’s going to be stung, he thought, crying out like that. He tested the cords encircling him and found them pliant but strong. There was nothing he could do for the others now. And with their stingers primed and ready, it would have been suicide for Tulcheah or Tamarek or any of the others to try to get him out.
They had blundered into a k’orpuh hold and had little choice for the moment. Soon enough, the snakes would finish wrapping them up. After that—
A few minutes later, almost on command, two of the k’orpuh slipped their tails through the cords and started to pull. The cocoon lifted from the floor and he was on his way—where he couldn’t say. He saw Chase in the same predicament and decided to settle down for the ride.
Better to wait for the right moment, he thought. He hoped Chase understood that too.
He couldn’t see where they were going and could only hope it wouldn’t take long to get there. He pulsed other k’orpuh nearby, dragging their cocoons with them.
“Angie! Longsee! Are you hurt? Where are you?”
There was no reply; perhaps, they had only been stunned. Kloosee made himself believe that. With any luck, once in the hold, the k’orpuh would gnaw through the fibers and he would be able to escape and help them. He tried pulsing to see what was ahead but the k’orpuhs’ motion broke up his echoes.
For a long time, there had been rumors among the repeaters and kip’t pilots that the Ponkti had found a way to train the k’orpuh to act as guard animals around Ponk’t but Kloosee had always discounted those stories as unproven. The k’orpuh were notorious for being unreliable, not to mention deadly, much like the Ponkti themselves. The only known breeders were the Eep’kostic, who raised the snakes in the south polar waters for their skins and for sport purposes. It didn’t seem likely they would trade their secrets to the Ponkti.
The cocoon bobbed along for awhile until Kloosee became fatigued. He should have been more careful…he should have known better—he had led the convoy right into a feeding ground of the snakes—but it was too late for that now.
Suddenly, he thought he saw shapes ahead of them, moving shapes, just beyond pulsing, headed their way. Kloosee struggled in the cocoon to find the leverage to probe the dim gray more carefully. He wasn’t mistaken. Five bodies were approaching and each pulse made him more certain they were Seomish—in fact, probably Ponkti. In a few minutes, they came into view.
They were Ponkti soldiers—there was no question about that. Each of them wore heavy harnesses behind their dorsals. They were armed with prods. Two of them carried long metal prods as well, insulated at the grip, and they used these to poke the k’orpuh away from his sack. The k’orpuh buzzed and slithered around the ends of the prongs for awhile, but at last, they sulked off, burrowing beneath the sediment. Kloosee thought to explain their mission to Ponk’t but it was clear the prodsmen were in no mood to listen. He said nothing as one of the prong-carriers hooked his device through the cords of the sack and dragged him along, much as the k’orpuh had done. Through the veil of the sack, he saw Chase getting the same treatment. And beyond, he pulsed others in the convoy coming up. Maybe Tulcheah could explain—
But the prodsmen would not be dissuaded from their duty. They had traveled perhaps ten beats or so when the sediment beds that had seemed to stretch to infinity dropped away abruptly. They drifted out over a precipitous slope that fell below them into a deep canyon, buried under scores of beats of silt. Slowly, they descended, the entire convoy now shepherded along by more prodsmen, and Kloosee watched wide-eyed as the cliff inexorably gave way to a row of dim recesses in the rock face, cave mouths he presumed, all arranged in a ragged line across the cliff.
The prodsmen bore all of them toward one of the openings. They reached it and the prodsmen pushed the sacks containing Kloosee and Chase through ahead of them.
It took a few minutes for Kloosee to adjust his eyes to the darkness and while he did, he pulsed about the cave to learn more.
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nbsp; It was more of a narrow tunnel, he soon found out, roughly rounded at the ceiling and, not unexpectedly, filled with baffles, false chambers and row upon row of slender metal cones lining the walls. A stunning field, he surmised, to kill anything that got this far into the city.
The prodsmen dragged and pushed the k’orpuh sacks and the rest of the Omtorish convoy through several tortuous turns, then up to the edge of a long sloping ramp. An oval of pale amber light glowed at the foot of the ramp and Kloosee pulsed a very large cavern down there, beyond it.
The soldiers nudged the sack down the ramp, along with the others, and they came at last into the heart of the city of Ponk’t.
Kloosee’s first impression was that he had somehow made a complete circle and returned to the open sea. Yet it couldn’t be for here was life in greater abundance than he had ever seen before. Dense, teeming, raucous and restless, more crowded even than Omsh’pont, before the coming of the Sound.
The light was low and pulses were useless with so many people, but Kloosee could feel the size of the place. Even as crushing as the mass of life was, he could still sense the spacious dimensions. There had been rumors about this for a long time. Longsee himself had told him once that Ponk’t was like a great vishtu, a roam so large it boggled the mind. And he had also said there were cavernous chambers the size of small oceans here, dozens of them, buried under the plateau, all connected like the radii of a starfish. Pulsing as far as he could, Kloosee found that even Longsee’s description didn’t do justice to the sight.
For his part, Longsee himself seemed speechless as he bumped and bounced along behind Kloosee. Behind Longsee, others from the convoy had been ordered out of their kip’ts and were being herded further into the city by ever-vigilant prodsmen.
As the prodsmen took them deeper and deeper into the city, they passed through innumerable scent fields. The presence of the Omtorish aroused considerable curiosity and the soldiers had to fight to clear a path at times.
They were taken to the very bottom of the cavern. They drifted down through layer after layer of roaming citizens, through holds and berths made of sheer tissue that parted for their passage, then closed again, through squabbling em’kels and solemn lectures, prodigal feasts thick with the aroma of tongpod and ertleg, games of kong’pelu and tonkro, debates, sexual couplings, tuk matches, a fight and myriad other scenes.
They followed the spine of a pillar that buttressed one wall, passing in their descent, hundreds of small, dark recesses, cavities, niches and hollows at every level, all of them full to bursting with kelke. Kloosee, with Chase and Angie nearby, never grew tired of the extraordinary diversity of life in Ponk’t, even though they traveled for what seemed an hour or so. Always, when he thought he had seen everything, another sight would replace it almost immediately and he would have to watch that too and study it. And there was no way they could take in the entire pageant at a single glance; it was far too complicated, shifting, much too spontaneous for that. Kloosee knew that Chase and Angie had many questions. He also knew he didn’t have any answers. All he could hope to do was see what came before him at the moment and let it leave whatever impression it would on his mind. He couldn’t make sense of it now.
But he also knew that somehow, some way, the Ponkti and the Omtorish would have to overcome their mutual suspicions and cooperate if there were to be any chance of defeating the Umans and ridding Seome of the hated wavemaker.
They were bearing the convoy toward a group of canopies at the bottom, delicate pastel structures that seemed to drift slightly in the prevailing currents. As they approached, Kloosee could see that the canopies were attached by cords to flat stone foundations on the cavern floor. Hundreds of Ponkti streamed in and out from beneath them and the entire area seemed to be the focus of great attention.
His escorts let the k’orpuh sack hit the floor with a hard bump, then cut the fibers of the sack with stubby knives. While they sawed through the tough cords, Kloosee craned to see what was happening beneath the canopies.
His first impression, confirmed with Chase who was nearby, was that it was a fight, but a closer look showed that such was not the case. Though it was difficult to see through the swarming bodies that flitted in and out, Kloosee was able to see enough to realize that he was witnessing the ancient art of tuk, the ritual dance discipline that was virtually unique to the Ponkti.
When he was finally free at last from the sack, he saw Chase hovering a short distance away, flexing his arms. Angie was there too. They spotted Kloosee and darted over.
“Are you all right?” Kloosee pulsed them both for injuries, until a burly prodsman separated them with an abrupt wave of his weapon.
Kloosee backed away. “I’ll live,” he said. “What about you?”
Chase was rubbing a pinkish welt on his left arm. “Just a little sting—nothing serious. Where’s Longsee?”
A partially muffled voice replied, “Over here.”
They all turned and saw him helping a prodsman rip away the remnants of his cocoon. A head emerged and stared in amazement at the scenery around them.
“I have a feeling we’re not in Omsh’pont anymore, eh Kloosee? Help me out.”
Kloosee took him by the arms and brushed the last fibers off. He pulsed the old teacher and satisfied himself that Longsee was unhurt. He looked up, found the nearest soldier and went to him.
“We’ve come from Omt’or…here to work with your tchin’ting weavers. Here to build a great shield. Your own Metah knows of this—“
The prodsman said nothing but gestured with his weapon toward one of the canopies. Longsee pulsed the soldier and found him remarkably quiet and well-disciplined inside. Unusually calm considering he had just handled one of the sea’s deadliest creatures. He decided it would be prudent to respect the Ponkti.
They were herded together, the entire convoy, and conveyed toward the canopy where the tuk match was still in progress. Ponkti swarmed around them as they approached but the prodsmen held them back. Chase noticed that most of the people seemed very correct in their actions and in complete control of themselves—Kloosee had pulsed around and let that be known—very unlike the Omtorish, he added. Perhaps it was the influence of arts like tuk, but whatever the explanation, he was impressed with this feat of self-mastery. It was like pulsing an army of identical reflections.
In the center of the main canopy, the crowds were thickest, huddling around a large, blubbery female of medium-gray skin. Not surprisingly, the Metah Lektereenah kim, was the center of slavish affection—an unending stream of Ponkti filtered down from outside the cavern and paid their respects by nudging, kissing and stroking her. She was dining on stuffed pal’penk, from the aroma of it, while studying the tuk match before her. A young servling brushed her tail flukes.
Chase and Angie watched as the prodsman worked his way through the line of admirers and, reaching the Metah at last, told her of their captive visitors. She showed no reaction at all, but merely shooed the horde away. At her command, the prodsman beckoned Kloosee, Chase, Angie and Longsee to approach.
Right away, Kloosee noticed a radical difference. He could easily pulse that Lektereenah was a fickle, nervous woman—her innards seethed without pause. He had thought the Ponkti would admire shoo’kel more in their Metah, but either she was so popular that she could do as she pleased or the Ponkti held their leaders to different standards. In any case, she paid them little attention when they arrived; indeed, the presence of non-kelke worried her attendants more than her. They quickly erected a partition of sheer tissue around the Metah, then scattered to the corners of the pavilion and scowled at the visitors.
Longsee was the first to speak. “I am a scientist, Affectionate Metah. An Omtorish scientist. You’ve received a message, a proposal from the Metah of Omt’or, Ilteeredah, to purchase tchin’ting fiber and cooperate on building a great shield.”
She seemed not to have heard and continued munching on a
rib of palpenk. In front of them, one of the tuk players scored a dramatic blow against his opponent, stunning him with a sharp tail-slap. The move brought forward a chorus of honks and cheers from the people around them.
At last, Lektereenah deigned to notice them.
“I have received Iltereedah’s proposal. But you are no doubt tired from a long journey. You will eat.” It was not a request and Longsee stood aside to let the Metah’s words be carried out. Almost instantly, the canopy was full of servants, grabbing them by the arms and tugging them toward a basin in front of the Metah, where pal’penk portions were piled high. But instead of leaving them to eat, the servants proceeded to clean and groom everyone in the convoy with their beaks and with fine brushes. Kloosee tried to smother a smile at Chase’s reaction: already, he had stretched out and was directing the brushes to the sorest places.
“I could get used to this,” he told them.
Angie just sniffed. “Yeah, well don’t expect me to do the same thing when we get back to Scotland Beach, Your Highness.”
“It is a long ride from Omsh’pont,” Lektereenah said. “We have not had visitors from Omt’or for twenty six mah. The attendants will help you to relax, unwind. Kip’t traveling is so tiring, is it not? Such tiny craft. I’m not at all sure that we need them. There are better ways to travel.”
Longsee tried to protest. “Affectionate Metah…we have so much to discuss…the shield…the project—“
But Lektereenah would hear none of it and turned away. The servants closed in and Longsee was soon enveloped in their capable hands.
Chase was pleasantly surprised to find that the brushes were coated with a narcotic relaxant. The odor was unfamiliar but the effect was most welcome. Even the beaks of the servlings seemed special. Each of them knew just where his muscles were knotted and just how much pressure to apply. He shivered with comfort, only dimly aware of Angie and the others.
Lektereenah went on, talking and chewing pal’penk at the same time. “Before the kip’ts, people used to roam from kel to kel, freely, with no machines to help them. Imagine that. Oh, of course, they sometimes rode tillets—you know, we still ride them around here—but even so, it’s not the same. I suppose the Orketish don’t breed them anymore.” She studied her visitors out of the corner of her eye. Each was dazed and semi-conscious, mumbling inaudible things. The servling attending Chase drove her hands deep into his flesh, pinching him as she did so, uttering soothing nonsyllables, feeding him pal’penk. When she looked up at the Metah, Lektereenah nodded silently and she resumed her attentions.
“They are such gentle animals,” Lektereenah went on. By now, her voice had settled into the same monotonous drone as her servants. All around them, kelke watched the entrancing with hushed fascination. Slowly, but surely, Kloosee, Longsee, Chase and Angie were losing control of themselves. Only Tulcheah was unaffected. She stared grimly at the entrancing, not daring to approach the Metah. Lektereenah ignored her.
“Reliable too. When I was only a midling—that was not so long ago—I was on a roam to T’kel’rok and got sick. Bad waters, you know; terribly onkelte in there. And my tillet brought me back to Ponk’t by itself, saved my life in fact. The most amazing thing. Do you know I took that tillet for a pet later; the breeder was going to slaughter it for food but I persuaded him to let me keep this one. They’re cannibals in captivity, but you must know that already.” She paused, staring at Longsee, her eyes hard.
“Tell me: why do you wish to purchase tchin’ting fiber? Why should we cooperate with you on this shield…the Umans aren’t enemies of Ponk’et.”
Longsee muttered something.
“Speak louder. What’s your interest in Ponkti fiber?”
“We’re under attack…Aff—Metah. There …is a…a, ah, there is a great sound. Wrecking Omsh’pont, all of Omt’or, all of the world, really. We need fiber for a shield—“
“A sound? What kind of sound? Explain.”
Kloosee answered this time. “The surface. A great sound near the surface. Aliens…Umans…the Notwater…there’s a wavemaker that is…ah, it is—“
Lektereenah frowned. In front of her, another tail-slap brought murmurs of appreciation from the crowd. The tuk match filled the waters with distant grunts and groans, while Lektereenah puzzled over the answers.
“Is this the truth?”
A servling spoke up. “I believe it is, Affectionate Metah. There was something on ootkeeor about disturbances near Kinlok…and Kok’t and other cities were being damaged. The repeaters mentioned a sound…much vibration and sound.”
“That seems unlikely. Repeaters spread falsehood as well as truth.” To Kloosee, she spoke sharply. “The sound—this project Iltereedah mentioned—is this why you have come? There are no other reasons?”
Kloosee seemed to be coming out of his daze. When the servling reached to put him back under, he fought her off and shuddered. He blinked at the crowd staring at him.
A prodsman came to restrain him but Lektereenah waved him off. Her voice had now lost its droning quality and she directed the servlings to leave.
“Now you are more rested. Refreshed. Here.” She reached through the gossamer veil and handed Kloosee a short section of bone. “Eat this.”
He sucked at it for a few moments and felt better for it. His head cleared enough to focus and he passed the bone on to Longsee.
“What happened to me?”
Lektereenah smiled coldly. “You were all exhausted. My servants are skilled at refreshing weary travelers.”
“I feel much better. Thank you.”
“It was stated that you wish to purchase tchin’ting fibers here. Iltereedah’s message talks of a great purchase and designs for this shield you speak of.”
Kloosee nodded. Longsee then chimed in, explaining in detail to her about the Sound and how Kloosee had first encountered the Tailless People at the surface. “Omt’or is under attack…we all are, most Affectionate Metah. We have designed a shield to stop the sound from doing any more damage but we need great quantities of fiber to build it, to give us time to prepare an assault on the wavemaker…to rid the world of the Umans.”
Lektereenah had now resumed her pose of indifference. The tuk match was reaching a climax and both players were landing blows now.
“Why should I care what happens to Omt’or…or Ork’et?” she replied. If it’s to the fortunes of Vish that a kel owes its suffering, then so be it. Shooki is not to be questioned. It would be wrong for us to interfere.”
“Most Affectionate Metah,” Longsee said, “we’re desperate. Maybe it is Shooki who punishes us. The point could be argued but maybe it’s so. It could also be Shooki’s wish that Omt’or be punished to test the Ponkti.”
Lektereenah bubbled apprehensively at that. She didn’t bother to conceal it. “How do you mean?”
“Maybe Shooki wishes to test Ponkti feelings about Ke’shoo. You’ve got a reputation for being aloof and isolated, having no interest in the other kels. Now, with the Tailless and their weapons, all the kels are threatened.”
“We’re ready for akloosh. That’s Shooki’s plan for the world.”
“Then we hear his Voice differently, Affectionate Metah.” Longsee knew he was risking the whole purpose of their trip in antagonizing Lektereenah this way, but he had no choice. She was excitable as well as coarse; who could really say how a Ponkti would react?
“I think not. We’re not as isolated as you think. We listen to ootkeeor and all the repeaters. We hear what’s going on. We know what you think of us.” When one of the tuk players scored a jarring blow to the head of his opponent, she honked in appreciation, encouraging her court into similar applause. “It’s the same with all of you. So many mah, epochs even, of Omtorish superiority, in everything—you can’t even conceive of anyone else having influence. You’ve been so arrogant, so contemptuous, so certain of yourselves for so long, that you th
ink the rest of us are like pets to be trained, if only we’ll listen and obey. But that’s going to change—it’s already changing—and the time will come when Omt’or will be left behind…in the most literal sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that when akloosh comes, your opinions and comforts will be useless. Ponkti ways will dominate the seas. People will flock here in desperation, because only here will survival be possible. Why do you think the Pillars of Shooki are in Ponkti waters? Maybe this attack you speak of is the beginning of akloosh. It would be pointless for Ponk’et to waste assistance on a doomed kel. And all kels are doomed, Longsee. This you know, even if you won’t speak it.”
Longsee could pulse that he was losing the argument. He looked helplessly at Kloosee and Tulcheah. Then Kloosee had an idea.
“Most Affectionate Metah,” Kloosee began, “there are some important articles in a holdpod we brought with us. It’s in the kip’t outside. If one of your prodsmen could retrieve the pod, I’m sure we could come to an agreement.”
Lektereenah seemed annoyed by the request but she ordered the pod to be found and brought to the pavilion. They watched the end of one tuk match and the start of another before the prodsman returned, bearing the pod. Kloosee took it, released the catch and extracted the echopod inside, the pod containing Iltereedah’s instructions, careful not to expose the potu pearls to view. He shut the pod quickly.
“Most Affectionate Metah, this echopod holds our instructions for this occasion. The voice is that of Iltereedah, Metah of Omt’or. If you will consent to listen, I think you’ll understand our problems.”
Lektereenah seemed distracted by the furious action of the tuk players. She waved her armfin and Kloosee took that for permission to start the echopod.
There was an immediate hush in the pavilion. The heavy blows of the tuk players could still be heard in the distance, but the Metah’s court had fallen silent in order to listen.
In the background, the shriek of the Sound was clearly audible, though muffled, an ominous undertone to the shouts and panic that were louder. Voices slipped in and out of hearing, most of them hoarse, strained, worried. The anxiety and the tension of the first hours of the Sound’s coming came through clearly and both Kloosee and Longsee were secretly pleased when they began to pulse those very same feelings in the servlings and attendants around them. Sympathetic reaction, Kloosee thought. Lektereenah showed no emotion outward, but inside, she was boiling. She would never be able to ignore something like this.
At last, the husky, hesitant voice of Iltereedah won out. Lektereenah stilled her stomach to listen more closely, as the Metah invoked the mercy of Shooki on the travelers and then calmly authorized Longsee to speak for her in any negotiations. She decreed Longsee and Kloosee both as tekmetah—arms of the Metah—and again beseeched Shooki to show them safe passage. With that, Kloosee switched the pod off and waited for the reaction.
There was a low murmur among the servlings, quickly cut off by Lektereenah.
“The noise in the background, that is—“
“The Sound, Affectionate Metah,” Kloosee interrupted, “the Sound of the wavemaker.”
Lektereenah ignored his boldness. “Iltereedah speaks of an evacuation.”
Longsee spoke up. “That’s true, Metah. The ancient city of Kok’t, in the south Ork’et sea, was evacuated to the seamounts surrounding the valley. It was the only place sturdy enough to withstand the waves.”
Lektereenah looked around at her court, pulsing each one in turn. Their concern was plain enough. Her own agitation was too violent for even Kloosee to pulse. She closed her eyes wearily.
“I’m distressed to hear these things. Akloosh is necessary, it’s coming—we all know this—but I’d hoped it would be…kah, Shooki will never forgive me this weakness.”
Sensing victory, Longsee said, “We’ll pay well, Metah, for fifty racks of your tchin’ting fiber. This is the best way to weaken the Sound, with your fiber, woven into a great shield and placed beneath the wavemaker. Iltereedah has explained all this.” He took the holdpod and opened it again, this time pulling back the shell completely, so that everyone could see the bags of pearls. “In potu.”
Lektereenah’s eyes widened at the sight and she drifted over to examine one of the bags herself. Longsee drew the string for her and emptied the contents into her hands. Lektereenah rolled some of the jewels between her fingers, then held them up to the light. A prodsman nearby grabbed a skittish glowfish and held it up by her hand.
“All we ask, Affectionate Metah, is the right to negotiate with Ponkti weaving em’kels. As you can see, we’re able to pay a fair price.”
Lektereenah scrutinized her visitors carefully. “Fifty racks is a lot of fiber.”
“The shield must be large enough to completely cover the wavemaker,” Kloosee told her. “The machine is like a large metal island.”
Lekterenah was thoughtful. She avoided Tulcheah’s pleading stare…what do you want me to do, Metah? Lektereenah willed her insides to calm down, unsuccessfully, Kloosee noticed. She was too vigorous for that and he felt a sense of momentary kinship with her. Keeping Shoo’kel was no easier for her either.
“That much tchinting can be difficult to handle,” she said. “Ponkti have been working it for ten thousand mah. Maybe you’d like to hire some of our best weaving em’kels, instead of trading with them.”
“I appreciate your generosity, Metah. With your permission, that is one reason we made this journey.”
“Then you may go and seek them out. I’ll dispatch someone from the court to supervise negotiations. Prodsmen! Show our guests to the emtoo of Halkling. Understand me well: I give permission for you to talk. Omtorish merchants have taken advantage of Ponkti traders too often in the past. Final approval of any exchange will be mine.”
“It is understood, Affectionate Metah,” Longsee said.
“All of you are declared tekmetah, arms of the Metah, by Iltereedah?”
“Yes, Metah.”
“Then act like it and show some affection.”
Her rebuke startled them. Ponkti were nothing if not direct. Longsee darted forward and placed a light kiss on her flanks. Then he backed away but Lektereenah grabbed his armfin and held on to it.
“If that is an example of Omtorish refinement, then it’s clearly in the world’s best interest that Omt’or be destroyed. In Ponk’et, we’re not afraid to show our feelings.”
Longsee accepted the criticism with a chastened pulse…and barely submerged irritation. His eyes found Kloosee’s as he backed off.
After Kloosee had nuzzled her for a moment, she straightened him up and pulsed him deeply.
“You’re different from the others, aren’t you? I get an echo more refined than normal for Omtorish.”
“I’m half Orketish,” Kloosee admitted.
“And daring by nature, I would guess. Perhaps we may talk of Omt’or and Ork’et sometime.”
“Metah, I would surely welcome the prospect.”
Lektereenah studied Chase and Angie, hanging in the rear of the entourage. “These two…they’re not Omtorish either, I see. This is a costume?”
Kloosee said, “No, Metah, they’re guests. They come from…a kel far away. Not of this world. They are related to the Umans, Tailless people from their world. They came through the Farpool…to help us.”
Lektereenah scooted over to Chase, circled him completely and admitted her pulsing made her confused. “He doesn’t pulse like Omtorish…these are coverings of some type?”
Kloosee explained the em’took procedure. “This was the only way these Tailless people of the Notwater could survive on our world. This one is Chase. That’s Angie, there. They came to help us…help us deal with the Umans.”
“I see…what I pulse are echoes I can’t explain. Confusion, perhaps. Anxiety…especially from that one—“ she indicated Angie, “—a little indecision
…things I don’t have words for. These visitors…they are part of your expedition?”
“They are,” Longsee interjected. “It’s a sort of exchange, with the eekoti…that’s what we call them. A cultural and scientific exchange—“
Now Lektereenah addressed Chase directly. “You do speak, don’t you, eekoti? What have you say about all this?”
Chase didn’t know what to say. He looked from Longsee to Kloosee to Tulcheah hovering in the background. Help me, guys.
“Your Majesty—“ he wasn’t sure of the right honorific, “—we’re just guests. We just want to help out. Kloosee and Pakma—she’s not here today—they came to Earth. That’s our home. They asked for help. So we said we would help.” Chase looked around at the assembled court, and the Omtorish visitors. How did I ever get into this? Now, Turtle Key Surf and Board doesn’t seem so bad…boy, you wanted to be a great explorer but this….
Lektereenah seemed satisfied for the moment. “They seem harmless enough. If Iltereedah blessed this expedition, then we Ponkti will treat them with respect. Their needs are the same as yours?”
Longsee indicated that they were. “We understand their needs. For some time now, we’ve been visiting the eekoti world, conducting this exchange. We’ve--“
Here, Lektereenah immediately interrupted. “And such exchanges must involve more than just Omt’or. We know about this Farpool. Ponk’et won’t be denied the use of this resource. I have made that clear to Iltereedah…any help we give you must be returned. We expect you to assist us in our own Farpool expeditions when this wavemaker is neutralized.”
Longsee started to reply but thought better of it. Lektereenah was already changing the subject again; she flitted from one train of thought to another. Longsee found it unnerving.
“I pulse that you’re still of appetite. It must never be said that Lektereenah kim ignores Ke’lee. You have the right to demand satisfaction of me…of any Ponkti.” She turned to the prodsmen who had escorted them in. “See that they are fed properly. From the Metah’s stocks.”
As they were leaving, Lektereenah gave a stern look to Tulcheah, a look that couldn’t be ignored. Come to me when they rest. We must talk. Tulcheah then disappeared with the rest of the Omtorish. After they had left, Lektereenah turned to a nearby servling. “What a story. I suppose the Omtorish have something in mind they don’t want to reveal yet. Some plot, I suppose. Kah, they must think I pulse like a blind woman.”
“But why would they send travelers tekmetah to spy, Metah?” asked the servling. “To be discovered would be terribly embarrassing to any Metah. To be associated with something like that—“
“Makes no sense,” Lektereenah finished for her. “That’s what bothers me. My dealings with Iltereedah have been sparse; I don’t know her as I should. That’s why Tulcheah is so important…she’s my ears and eyes. She pulses for me…she’ll let us know what’s really going on there.”
“Shall I let the affections resume?”
“No. Not just yet. There may be undercurrents I don’t pulse accurately here. Bring me the echopod record of any repeater transmission where Iltereedah’s voice appears.”
“Where shall I bring it, Metah?”
“To the tuk match. I want to visit Loptoheen.”
Trailing an entourage of supplicants, petitioners and admirers, Lektereenah left the pavilion and crossed over to the canopy of the tuk match, which was still in progress. A path was cleared for her and she slid into position just outside the screen.
Loptoheen tu was having a difficult time of it. His opponent was younger and quicker but he didn’t have Loptoheen’s strength or experience. The audience demanded not only adroitness and agility, but also a proper adherence to the canons of moves that were part of tuk. Loptoheen was a stylist as well as a veteran; he knew what made excellence in the art. While Lektereenah and the others looked on, he drew on all his reserves of experience.
Tuk demanded intense concentration of its artists. There were thousands of minutely choreographed moves in each set, moves composed of complex patterns of thrusts and jabs, counterpointed by feints, reversals and whip-like snaps of the tail. The practitioner had not only to maintain position and execute perfectly from memory all of these moves, but also to do so in such a way as to prevent his opponent from performing his sets. In an actual match, such efforts required speed and agility, for only at certain designated points in the performance, between sets and during some reversals, were preventive thrusts allowed. The performer who reached those points first, could throw a punch or a slash and interrupt the opponent who lagged behind. And the one who finished first won.
Chase and Angie had prevailed on Kloosee to let them come to the match. “I just want to see how the locals live,” he insisted. Angie added, “It’s for my journal.” Kloosee gave in and found that the prodsman assigned to guard them was reluctant, but a few potu pearls eased his concern. Now, the three of them occupied a crowded corner at the very back of the canopy. Their eyes widened when the Metah herself showed up, surrounded by her staff.
Chase was mesmerized by Loptoheen’s lightning quick thrusts and moves. “I want to learn how to do that.”
“I don’t think the Ponkti will let eekoti join in,” Kloosee argued. “It wouldn’t be right…no shoo’kel.”
Chase was disappointed. “What is it with this shoo’kel? Everybody’s so concerned about appearances.”
Angie just rolled her eyes, then realized that nobody could tell she had done it, looking like a lizard thing the way she did. “That’s the way he is, Kloos. Always go, go, go. I don’t know what to do with him.”
Kloosee watched Loptoheen and his opponent advance through the formal tuk moves and thrusts, admiring their form. “Shoo’kel is simply peace, tranquility, inner calm. It’s something we all strive for…a kind of perfection but we don’t often achieve it.”
Angie said, “Peace and inner calm…something Chase doesn’t know a whole lot about.”
“Hey, I can be calm,” Chase retorted.
“Sure you can. Chase, they’ve got radar. Or sonar or something. They can see right through each other. If everybody was as messed up as you are, there’d be nothing but confusion. It’d be like me reading your thoughts. Or you reading mine.”
“God help us.” Chase definitely didn’t want that. “I just want to know more about how they live. Go native…whatever you call it. We came here to help. Kloos, I’m not sure how much we’ve helped.”
Hearing that, Kloosee was thoughtful for a moment. “I think you can help best when we deal with the Umans. As for ‘going local,’ be careful of the Ponkti. They’re not like us Omtorish. You can’t trust them.”
Chase started to say something but felt Angie’s fin on his. Her eyes, even shrouded like a lizard’s, were unmistakable. Don’t, okay? Just don’t. We’ve got a lot to learn about the culture here. Zip it for now.
Chase reluctantly had to agree. Angie was probably right. But they were missing an opportunity. He resolved not to let any more opportunities like this slip by. And he really did want to learn how to lunge and thrust and move like those tuk players.
It was only a training match that Loptoheen was engaged in but he found his partner a willing opponent and able to deliver savage blows almost at will. Loptoheen had been tukmaster of the kel once in his career and then declined and made a triumphant return. He didn’t give up easily. With the crowd on his side, he bore down and worked through his sets with mechanical smoothness until at last he could deliver a few blows of his own. And with these blows, Loptoheen’s superior strength showed. Time and again, at the preventive points, Loptoheen slammed his opponent with his tail or speared him with his beak, until at last, the younger one was worn down and couldn’t complete the match. He backed away, to jeers from the audience, and conceded to Loptoheen.
The screen was lowered and re-strung for another match while he
rested. In the interlude, most of the crowd had left the vicinity and were roaming elsewhere. That left Lektereenah and Loptoheen together under the canopy, watching the attendants work.
The Metah made sure Kloosee and the eekoti had moved away, no doubt heading back to their kip’ts. “You’re getting old,” Lektereenah teased him. “Even sparring partners are too much for you now.”
“Don’t believe it,” Loptoheen wheezed. He gingerly applied cold disks to his skin, to stop the swelling of several bruises. “Hekto’s still learning his craft.”
“He learns well. You must be an outstanding teacher.”
Loptoheen smiled at her. “I suppose I am at that. What brings you over to see a sparring match? Don’t the kelke give you enough affection?”
“Shut up! Don’t be so insolent. I received some interesting visitors a while ago. Non-kelke. Tekmetah-bound, at that.”
“Tekmetah? Where are they from? What’s happened?”
“They’re Omtorish, it turns out. With eekoti visitors…like the Umans at Kinlok, so I’m told. Ugly freaks, if you ask me. They pulse confused, anxious, it’s hard to pulse them for long. Something to do with that disturbance we heard about. Evidently, all the destruction is being caused by some kind of strange machine at the Notwater. That was the explanation given anyway. They brought the eekoti here to help them…through the Farpool. That big whirlpool interests me more and more. We could make use of it.”
Loptoheen stopped applying the cold disks and pulsed the Metah carefully. “If we understood how to use it. From what I hear, the Omtorish try to keep that knowledge close. You act like you believe all this nonsense.”
“Don’t speak like that to me, Loptoheen. I won’t stand for your patronizing, not today. As a matter of fact, they came to Ponk’et to trade for tchinting fiber. They want to build some kind of shield against this Sound…we don’t hear it much down here. But above the seabed, they say it’s wreaking havoc everywhere. The repeaters even talk of it.”
“I’m surprised at you, Metah. How could you give any credit to this? Have you nothing to do but follow Omtorish rumors and stories?”
“I’ll cut out your tongue if you speak to me that way again. They’re offering to trade in potu, Loptoheen. I’ve seen the pearls myself.”
Loptoheen was skeptical. “And how far do you think you can trust the Omtorish? Why even bother with them? Let akloosh take care of it.”
“I’ll tell you why,” said Lektereenah. She waved the tuk attendants away from the arena. They were momentarily alone. “Because akloosh is in the future and I am speaking of what we could do now. Suppose we use this opportunity to break Omt’or’s monopoly of the potu trade. Suppose we gain knowledge of how to use the Farpool for Ponk’et…travel far and wide to other seas, bring back eekoti who could help us. Think what that could mean. When akloosh does come, we’d find Ponk’et in such a dominant position that Seome would flow our way for ten thousand metamah. Maybe forever.”
“You dream like a midling, Lektereenah. Your predecessor wouldn’t have been so gullible. Or naïve. Honestly, I sometimes feel like you’d destroy shoo’kel for the whole world, if it got you what you wanted.”
Lektereenah stiffened with anger. She shot out at Loptoheen and speared him with her beak. He winced and threw her off, not really surprised, and smirked at her.
“Keminee wouldn’t have been so impulsive either.”
Lektereenah spoke now in a cold, thin voice. “You remember what happened the last time you crossed me.”
“Very well,” Loptoheen said. “I didn’t think a Metah should be doing things like that.”
“But when I had them bury you alive in that cave, for trying to intimidate the Kel’em into changing the laws of succession, you were frightened, for the first time in our life. You didn’t think I would go that far, did you?”
“A needless display. It’s not enough for you to have the power of a Metah. You’ve got to intimidate everyone else with it too. Keminee was more subtle.”
“Keminee is dead! I’m the Metah now—me, Lektereenah kim! Kah, I hear her voice everywhere I go! Even her scent lingers!” She realized that her screaming had attracted the attention of some uninvited roamers. She pulsed them angrily until they darted off, then looked back at Loptoheen. “Forgive me. But comparing me with Keminee infuriates me. I know it’s wrong but I wish there was a way to scatter her old scents. I mean no disrespect by that. Only that I think it’s important to be able to forget things that should be forgotten. And when I bring the Farpool to Ponk’et, such things will be forgotten.”
“No doubt, it’s the tekne’en drug. Keminee felt it was a burden too. But the Metah has no choice.”
“I know that. In any case, I can do better than Keminee.”
That assertion intrigued Loptoheen. He took her armfins and held them together. “Just what do you have in that ever-devious mind of yours?”
Lektereenah smiled and pulled away, pleased with herself that she had captured his fascination again. She went to the center of the tuk arena and waited for him to return, slowly, reluctantly, enjoying his mounting curiosity. “Learning two things: the secrets of the potu. And learning the secrets of the Farpool. I can bring both to Ponk’et. Then you’ll forget all about Keminee.”
Loptoheen stopped at the edge of the arena. He refused even to pulse her any longer.
“Listen to me before you argue. The Omtorish want to buy tchinting fiber from us. To build their precious shield. We can use that. They’ve even admitted—Iltereedah said so in her own voice, her own echoes—that they’re desperate and when I suggested they might like to hire some of our weaving em’kels to construct and emplace the shield, they liked the idea. But suppose a few of our kelke were not just tchinting craftsmen. One in particular I’m using as a spy inside their project. Suppose they were curious enough to do a little roaming about Omtorish waters and among the expedition as they put up the shield. Might they not accidently come across the secret techniques of the potu? And the secrets of the Farpool…how the Omtorish predict its timing, how they use it, how they go through and back and somehow survive. Especially, what they see on the other side. Perhaps I could even suggest that the fiber used in the shield be woven in such a way as to ensure the shield’s collapse at a strategic moment. The confusion would make obtaining the knowledge less risky…and perhaps the Umans will even reward us for that.”
Loptoheen circled the arena restlessly—you could pulse him thinking—his stomach a mass of bubbles. He stopped by a feeding pit and reached in, pulling out a tongpod claw, which he sucked on thoughtfully.
“Lektereenah, this is too dangerous. Wouldn’t it be better to leave the Omtorish to Vish. Do you think even for a moment that it’s so simple to acquire something they’ve guarded jealously for so long? No. There’s no sense in hurrying akloosh. It will come. What can we gain from this that will not be ours after the akloosh?”
“You’re pretty timid for a tukmaster, Loptoheen. And ignorant. You live with Keminee’s scent because she was afraid of you. I’m not. The tuk players had real power in the kel when she was Metah but now the tuk dancers are only one among many em’kels. To have so little influence…doesn’t that gall you now?”
“We tuk’te have survived many Metahs. This whole plan interests you because it makes your scents stronger than Keminee’s. You’re afraid of her effects on the kel and she’s been dead for fifteen mah. Lektereenah, you ask the impossible. A strong scent is eternal. You can’t scatter the past; you can’t make the kelke give up part of themselves. Keminee, Eelandrah, all of them exist. You can’t destroy them no matter what you do. You can only join them.”
Lektereenah let her insides seethe with anger. It would have been safer to pulse an explosion. “Not only the Metah will benefit from all this,” she hissed. “but all of Ponk’et. The kelke will abandon all other scents and memories when I’m don
e, you can be certain of that, Loptoheen. I want to enjoy the fruits of akloosh now and not when it pleases Shooki.”
“Lektereenah—“
“Be silent for once and listen to me!” She glared at him, daring him to pulse back. “You will pose as my select tekmetah, responsible for this mission of assistance to the Omtorish. The em’kels will be under your authority—and you under mine. You’ll see that as much information about Omtorish potu culturing techniques as possible is obtained, surreptitiously, if you can. And you will see that this great shield they want to build never works. It must fail at a strategic moment.”
“I can’t offend Shooki by doing this.”
“Then I will see that you are stripped of the title tukmaster and shame-bound to me for the rest of your life. I know you too well, Loptoheen. You live for tuk—that’s your whole life. Speak of memory to me and as you do, remember how it was when I disciplined you. Has time weakened that humiliation? The injured pride? You lost shoo’kel for many mah over that, didn’t you? Personally, I don’t think you’d survive that kind of disgrace again. Do you?”
Loptoheen roamed a great distance from the arena, so far in fact that Lektereenah had difficulty pulsing him. He turned about and came charging back, swooping by a half beat or so from the Metah. He flippered to a violent halt.
“I’ll do what you want—this time. And when it’s over, Affectionate Metah, tuk’te will take this to the kelke. I’ll see to it that ootkeeor is flooded with the truth. Repeaters will sing of nothing less. The people will know everything.”
But the threat had no effect on her. “By that time, the wealth of the potu will have long since turned their minds from such matters. And we will own the Farpool.”
Loptoheen hovered overhead, poised as if to strike. His dorsal was rigid. “You’re a menace to the future, Lektereenah. The kelke won’t put up with this much longer. I’d be saving shoo’kel if I killed you here and now.”
Lektereenah enjoyed the scent of fear. She rose to meet him and they bumped beaks. “There’s no stronger scent than that of a martyred Metah.”
After Loptoheen had left, Lektereenah summoned Tulcheah to the Metah’s chambers. The half-breed Ponkti came zooming up to the pavilion from deep in the rear of the vast cavern. It was clear she had been coupling, with more than one male, Lektereenah decided. A mixture of musky scents…not altogether unpleasant. Strong males, too, she figured. Tulcheah liked strong males.
“Tulcheah kim, since you try to mate with anything that has a pulse, I have a mission for you that should be just perfect.”
Tulcheah always had an energetic pulse, as if she were a motor that could not be turned off. Even drifting still before the Metah, she quivered with energy, ready to burst out on a roam, strike ahead, pulse new things. “What is it, Affectionate Metah?”
“I already know how you feel about that Omtorish shark Kloosee. I know you two couple frequently when you’re in Omsh’pont.”
“Affectionate—“
Lektereenah held up an armfin to shut off the debate. “Don’t bother denying it…anybody can pulse it. I want you to take your…talents, shall we say, and use them for the good of Ponk’et…for once.”
Tulcheah was confused. “How, Metah?”
“The Omtorish visitors…the eekoti…one of them is male. I’m not sure which one. You’ll have to find out.”
“It’s the larger one, Metah…very strong, very muscular. A lot of females—“
“Yes, yes, I know all that. I want you to seduce this eekoti male. Become friendly with him. Make love with him.”
Tulcheah seemed even more confused. Was the Metah joking? “Metah, I’m not sure whether we’re—“
“Nonsense…you’ll figure out a way. Bring the eekoti completely under your charms. Find out how this Farpool works. How does it operate? What must be done to go through it…and come back. Ponk’et must pull this treasure away from Omt’or. You can help.”
“Affectionate Metah…I don’t…I’m not sure what to say—“
“Don’t be such a prude, Tulcheah. You have certain natural talents. Natural charms. Kloosee likes you. Make sure the eekoti does too. That’s all you have to do.” Here, Lektereenah turned stern. “And bring back what you learn of the Farpool to me personally. Is this understood. You will be tekmetah…an arm of the Metah. An official mission…I’ll register it with the council.”
Tulcheah bowed and swam off, not sure exactly how to go about what Lektereenah wanted. Seduce Chase? What would Kloosee think? Of course, he didn’t have to know. But getting the eekoti away where she could work her magic…that would take some thought.
Tulcheah roamed many laps around the caverns and niches of Ponk’et that day, deep in thought. The Metah had given her a mission.
Then, suddenly an idea came to her.
Construction of the great shield began immediately. Lektereenah organized an assembly in a small canopied space just below the cavern ceiling. She wanted all the parties to get to know one another.
“It’s a great undertaking,” she droned on for a few minutes. “Ponk’et has many craft em’kels. Of course, we’re proud to assist our neighbors the Omtorish in their time of need.” She indicated Loptoheen, in one corner of the platform, which was surrounded by prodsmen and curious swimmers from throughout the city. A steady buzz filled the area. “This one you must know. He is tukmaster of all Ponk’et. He speaks for me at all times. Over there is Shoneeohnay pik’t. She is also tukmaster. A skilled threadcarrier too. You’ll need her.” A young female of slender build and dark gray flukes dipped her beak to acknowledge. Her eyes momentarily locked with Chase’s. Nearby, Tulcheah stiffened with annoyance.
“The others are from Cheeoh, for the most part. One of our best fabric em’kels; the tissue that is transparent is one of their products. You call it mong. You may pulse them if you like.”
The Metah had everyone present introduce themselves. The names were said and pulses exchanged—Kipto, a placid sort; Okeemah, rather quirky inside—her stomach was a parade of bubbles; Oolandrah, careful and meticulous; Telpy’t, an arguer—you could tell it from the eruption of bubbles when he was pulsed. The Omtorish learned that this one was also a trangkor player, a minstrel from the musical em’kel Tanklu’tong.
Kloosee and Longsee made introductions from the Omtorish side and both noticed more than a casual interest from Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay in Chase. Even Angie noticed it, though she wasn’t sure what she was noticing.
“Chase,” she whispered through her echobulb, “those two over there…if I didn’t know better, I’d say they’re smiling at you. Are you giving off some kind of scent or something. They act like they’re in heat.”
Chase had noticed it. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he whispered back. “It’s your girl vibes, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well don’t get too close…I don’t like the looks of those sluts.”
That’s when Chase realized just how jealous a girlfriend could really be.
It was quickly decided that the Omtorish would accompany Shoneeohnay and several others to the weaving em’kel Cheeoh. The guild was located in narrow crevice-like opening about halfway up the side of one hill that formed part of the cavern wall. The guild chambers were partially recessed into the craggy walls, but platforms extended out and gave more space to the work of the weavers. Great nearly translucent mats of fiber hung from racks mounted in rows all around the edges of the platforms. Glowfish drifted lazily throughout the space, giving dim light to the scene and baffles lined the platform edges to eliminate echoes or errant pulses while the delicate work of the weavers went on.
Kipto was the master weaver and he explained what the others were doing and why the tchinting fiber would work well for the shield.
“It’s light, as you can see, and very strong, like the seamother’s hide, if we do our job right.” That got Kloosee’s attention. “We lay up multi
ple strands in different directions and secure the ends with these knots, then cement them with k’orpuh blood. Simmered right---you see the vats over there—it makes a perfect adhesive. But then you must know that already.”
Chase nudged Kloosee. “Isn’t there some way Angie and I can help out?” Kloosee seemed uncomfortable with the request, but raised the question with Kipto. “My eekoti friends want to learn how to weave…they want to help. Is there something they can do?”
That’s when Shoneeohnay darted forward with an idea. “This one can carry fiber through the racks with me. Threadcarriers can always use extra guides.”
Longsee was startled by the exuberance of Shoneeohnay but Chase was up for the idea. The Ponkti craftsperson took a stretch of the fabric in her beak, then kneaded it with her fingers and handed it to Chase. He took it, found it light and strong, very sheer.
“This is strong enough for a shield?”
Shoneeohnay dipped her beak. “It’s stronger than you think, eekoti. We’ll weave a basic pattern. Follow me—“With that, she was off to a cavern wall, carrying the knotted end of a fiber in her beak. She stopped short of the wall, made an abrupt turn, then pirouetted upward, then downward in a series of corkscrewing spirals that made Chase dizzy just to watch. Kipto, the weaving master, and Loptoheen stifled smiles and chuckles. Shoneeohnay came zooming back and landed right next to Chase.
“That’s called the elt’chee spinner…it makes the knots extra strong. Think you can do that?”
Angie frowned as Chase started off, carrying his knotted end of the fiber in both hands. He kicked and pushed, not as sleekly as Shoneeohnay, but doggedly trying to follow the same pattern. Chase’s fiber went back and forth to the wall, then up and down, twisting and turning, and when he was done, his end of the fabric was a complete tangled mess.
In spite of herself, Shoneeohnay laughed. “It’ll come with practice…here, let’s try something simpler. Perhaps, your friend--“ She gestured to Angie, who at first hesitated, then took a separate knot and tried it herself.
In minutes, the humans were looping and spinning, whizzing back and forth, steadily weaving together a corner of tchinting fabric with Ponkti weaving spins and moves.
“Not bad,” Chase told Angie, as she completed one loop and started on another. “At least, you’re not all fiddle fingers like me.”
Angie was determined that the Ponkti female wouldn’t monopolize Chase’s attention. “I just hope our end of the shield holds up.”
So they went resolutely to work, helping Kipto and Shoneeohnay and other weavers get to work on pulling tchinting fiber into swatches of tough fabric, knotting the ends and building larger and larger stretches of the shield. Both Chase and Angie were glad to finally be doing something to help.
And as Chase found Shoneeohnay’s antics more and more attractive, another weaver became more and more jealous of what he saw. It was Telpy’t, the onetime minstrel and arguer. His insides fluttered with annoyance and he didn’t even bother to hide the bubbles. Others noticed but no one wanted to argue with the arguer.
Telpy’t decided right then and there that he would have to put a stop to this budding romance.
Work proceeded around the clock on the shield, with all of Cheeoh and other em’kels involved in some way. After an initial period of wariness, other Ponkti joined in; word quickly spread throughout the city that something was being done to stop the great Sound and before long, so many were involved that someone was working on the shield at all times.
Kipto and the other weavers were grateful for help from the Omtorish and amused at the antics of the eekoti, but he insisted that only Ponkti be allowed to work with tchinting, which they let hang from bolts in the wall. They were secretive about their methods, allowing few to enter the cave niche where the fabric sheets were coming together. Kloosee found himself annoyed by this and tried to persuade the Ponkti to let the Omtorish help out in the final assembly but without success. They were clannish and aloof inside the weaving em’kel.
“Like a family,” Kloosee told Chase one day. “They have their secrets and they want no one else to know. They don’t trust us Omtorish. And you—“ he indicated Chase and Angie as they roamed about the em’kel spaces, “you two are famous. They’re curious about you.”
Angie was just trying to keep up. Roaming with Kloosee was an effort; he was a way better swimmer even than Chase.
“I think we’ve become celebrities, Kloos. That’s the way they look at us…like we escaped from a zoo…or an aquarium.”
“As it was for me and Pakma on your world,” Kloosee reminded them.
It was a kind of fame and notoriety that Angie figured she could do without. She had already confided to one Ponkti female—Oolandrah was one of the threadcarriers—that she was beginning to miss home, Earth and Scotland Beach. Especially her mother. Oolandrah listened politely, but seemed not to understand.
Now, I’m like stuck here in this giant aquarium, modified for life like a big frog. She wondered about her future, hers and Chase’s and the future of the Seomish. They fought constantly among themselves. Then they made love. It made no sense. How could they relate that way? And they could almost see right through each other; you couldn’t hide anything here. Sure, she and Chase had arguments. Sure, they always made up. But this—this was truly wicked.
And then there was Chase, panting after some of the females like a dog in heat. What was up with that? One night, semi-alone in their emtoo pod—nobody was ever truly alone on Seome—Chase confided that he and Kloosee were hatching a plan. They were going to sneak in to the secretive Ponkti hold where fabric final weaving took place and see just how the Ponkti worked their magic.
“Why?” Angie complained. “It’s their place…let them run it like they want. What will you gain by annoying them like that?”
Of course, Angie knew the real reason Chase wanted to slip inside the hold. She knew that was where Shoneeohnay did most of her work. Even Tulcheah knew something was up and she still had the Metah’s commands to seduce Chase, though Angie didn’t know that. The truth was Chase was too popular to get close to and wouldn’t stay still long enough to be seduced. Tulcheah would have to find a way to get Shoneeohnay out of the picture.
For many days, Kloosee had told Chase he was curious about what went on inside the Ponkti weaving hold. “There should be no secrets on a large project like this…it’s important that we all trust each other and learn from each other.” He had studied their activities for days, watching Chase learn from Shoneeohnay, noting that the only time most of the weavers left the hold was when another rack of tchinting was needed from the racks along the cavern walls. He was determined to find out just what it was the Ponkti were doing inside the hold, what secret techniques they were using to spin such strong fabric. For his part, Chase was equally determined, for something else.
So they waited for the right moment, and one day, it came. Kloosee and Chase hovered a short distance from the edge of the platform where the initial weaving was done and watched Kipto lead a pack of them off into the far reaches of the vast cavern city, and when they were beyond pulsing range, the two of them slipped inside.
They were startled to find the hold was not unoccupied. Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay were inside, carrying thread in complex patterns back and forth across a rack. Terpy’t was there too, knotting and crimping.
Kloosee pulled up short upon entering. “I didn’t know anyone was here. Litorkel ge. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
Terpy’t held thread ends in his beak. “You’re not permitted here…the prodsmen should have—only Ponkti—“
Kloosee spied a web dangling from the ceiling. “What’s that?”
Suspended above them was a fine web of tightly spun filaments. It covered the entire ceiling, from the entrance to the sleep niches in the back. Kloosee forgot all about courtesy and drifted up to examine the web, Chase right behind him.
; “You’re not permitted—“ Terpy’t shot out from his position and tried to bump Kloosee away. But he stopped short before hitting him and glared nervously. “You should leave now—you’re Kloosee ank, aren’t you? This is wrong. If Loptoheen returns—“
Kloosee could pulse that Terpy’t was quite old. Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay went about their thread carries while keeping a close eye on the visitors. “Terpy’t, don’t flutter like that. You’re shaming Ponk’et like that…Litor’kel.” Kloosee stuck his beak into the web to test it, causing an eruption of bubbles inside Terpy’t. “I’m just curious.”
Terpy’t dropped his end of the thread and took Kloosee’s fin by the hand. He pinched it until Kloosee reacted.
“I’m sorry for that but you can’t stay here any longer, Kloosee.”
“What are those little red humps along the filaments?”
“Kloosee—those are terpoh colonies—please, before Loptoheen returns. Otherwise, we’ll all be punished.”
Chase prodded one of the clumps experimentally. Kloosee examined the reaction. “It has a hard shell…how do you control them?”
“Kloosee!” Terpy’t draped his arms around himself and bubbled in embarrassment. Even Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay had to turn away. Even through the screen, Kloosee could pulse the mess. It was disgusting, even sickening. Still, he continued.
“Terpy’t, old man, stop that. We’re not hurting anything.”
Terpy’t gathered himself into a ball and stared glumly out. “Nonkelke irritate the waters with their scents. The terpoh become erratic and make filaments that won’t last. They’ll know you were here.”
Kloosee was fascinated. The Ponkti were as careful with their terpoh knowledge as the Omtorish were with potu. “But how do you control them?”
Terpy’t closed his eyes and settled to the floor, where he groped for the end of the thread. He hoisted it up in his beak and made ready to continue his rounds, gesturing to Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay to start up again. “They’re programmed…engineered to follow a pattern.”
“Amazing. Self-awareness for such a small organism. Maybe they’re smarter than we are…see how they work together? No bad pulses to distract them. No sense of the shoo’kel.”
“The currents say you disrupt things.”
Kloosee suddenly felt sorry for what they had done. He went to Terpy’t, gliding alongside.
“There are many currents. Some dominate. Some don’t. I don’t want to see you suffer…maybe a little roam outside…we can talk, pulse, take the waters together.”
“I have work to do, Kloosee.”
“Look, I don’t want to make trouble. I want to make this right. Ponk’et and Omt’or have to work together, like the terpoh. Loptoheen will never know we were here. Chase, you stay here, learn what the threadcarriers do. Terpy’t and I will roam…come on, old one—“ Gently, he removed the thread end and knot from Terpy’t’s mouth and guided the old knotter outside the hold. The two of them disappeared into the distance and were gone.
Chase drifted about the hold, examining the web and keeping a close eye on Shoneeohnay and Tulcheah. They both dropped their threads and came over, playfully bumping Chase.
It was Tulcheah who spoke. “Do all eekoti look so ugly as you?”
“Hey, this was some kind of surgery…you know, to let me and Angie live in your world better. Normally, I’m just a stud.”
The females laughed at that. Tulcheah nuzzled up under Chase’s chin with her beak. “You have funny words, eekoti Chase. You know about Ke’shoo and Ke’lee?”
As Shoneeohnay bumped him again and rubbed herself along his side scales, Chase said, “Love and life…I think I understand it. You like to have a good time.”
Shoneeohnay pulled up and stared into Chase’s eyes. She had black button eyes, and they gleamed in the faint light. “You pulse anxious…no need for that. Just relax…we carry thread for old man Terpy’t, that’s all…here, I’ll show you. Take this knot in your mouth—“ She gave Chase an end of the thread.
Chase stuffed the filaments in his mouth. It tasted like rope. “Like this?—“he mumbled.
“Hold on to it and pull. Tulcheah and I will guide you.” Each female took an arm and together, the three of them swooped up and down the hold, spinning and weaving dense strands of the web, back and forth. It was erotic and sensuous, all the more so as the females rubbed themselves against his sides with each cycle.
Blast this scaly skin…I’m getting turned on…can’t feel what I—
The mat of fiber grew thicker as they made turn after turn.
Tulcheah asked, “Where is the other eekoti? Female is this one?”
Chase was in a heavenly daze and had to shake himself to clarity. “Huh, oh…Angie? Yeah, female. A girl. My girlfriend…yeah.”
“And where is this eekoti Angie?”
“Right now, I really don’t know.”
By some unseen signal, Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay stopped the spinning and hovered on each side of Chase. They both nosed up and down his body with their beaks, clearly looking for something, poking, probing, sniffing.
Tulcheah stopped, looked up into Chase’s eyes. “I’m not familiar with this em’took…where is the ket’shoo’ge?”
“The what?”
Shoneeohnay laughed. “All of us have ket’shoo’ge…how do you translate this?…little lover…maybe, small…em’too… love hold?”
“Hey, mine isn’t that small, if you’re asking. Hell, if I know…this skin is so scaly…I don’t really know where—“
Then Tulcheah found it.
Later, after they had coupled, Chase remembered seeing something on Nat Geo, a vid or something, about how fish had sex. Many females just ejected eggs into the water. The males ejected sperm. The eggs got fertilized…end of story. But some marine animals had specialized organs called claspers. That’s when things got interesting.
Tulcheah had found Chase’s claspers. The Omtorish, in their infinite wisdom, had designed the em’took procedure so that the Lizard Man that Chase had become would have claspers.
And both Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay knew what to do with claspers.
When Chase and Angie made love, the best time for Chase was in the little fishing boat in Half Moon Cove. You had to have lots of blankets to make a soft landing. It was awkward at times…you had to be clever and inventive on how to use the space—but when the boat was rocking in the swells and you had the right rhythm…it was …really awesome!
That’s what Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay did to Chase.
Chase found his claspers exquisitely sensitive. The three of them formed one body and glided softly about the weaving hold, occasionally getting entangled in the webs, tearing them, pulling them apart.
Terpy’t won’t like that, someone hissed. More giggles and laughter. And bubbles. Lots of bubbles. Bubbles and claspers…that was the key.
Chase was in heaven.
So they glided and undulated and rolled and bubbled and poked and tickled and rubbed and squeezed and Chase thought he was going to die, the feeling was so intense. Thank God for em’took! he told himself. It was the first time he was really glad he looked like a giant frog. Those wacky Omtorish really did know what they were doing.
Through it all, Chase thought he imagined Tulcheah whispering in his ear: tell me about the Farpool…how does it work…how do you survive it?
That’s when Terpy’t and Kloosee returned to the hold.
Terpy’t knew immediately what had happened. He saw the torn web filaments dangling from the ceiling. He saw Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay coupled with Chase, drifting down toward the floor. He fluttered in anger. Then he went straight for Chase.
The fight wasn’t much of a fight. Terpy’t was enraged and speared Chase right in the side with his beak. Hard. Again and again.
“Ouch! Hey…don’t…that hurts!”
Terpy’t came at his face with his hands a
nd Chase reacted instinctively, pushing Terpy’t away, boxing the old weaver, grabbing at his beak, thrashing him about.
Kloosee tried to intervene, to separate the two but he couldn’t. Terpy’t was holding on tight and Chase was pummeling him in the face again and again and again…
It took five prodsmen to separate them…with their prods.
The electric shock stunned Chase into a stupor. The hold swam crazily in circles and he found himself convulsing with spasms as one prodsmen shocked him over and over. He lost consciousness and when he woke up, he was restrained in some kind of netting, just like when they had been brought into Ponk’et itself. Two prodsmen carried the mesh bag into which he had been dumped out of the hold.
They didn’t stop until he was unceremoniously stuffed in a small opening in the seamount walls, a dark hole, still enmeshed, and tied to a stake in the walls. There he hung, suspended and bobbing at the entrance, like the old stocks of Pilgrim days, he imagined, for everyone to see and everyone to pulse and bump into.
After an hour of that, he figured he knew how a volleyball felt. Or a punching bag.
How long he slept or was unconscious, he couldn’t say. He had no sense of time. But when a small crowd began to gather around his restraint mesh and dozens of prodsmen assembled in a semi-circle to form a barrier around the crack he was tied to, he knew something was up.
Finally, the Metah herself, Lektereenah kim, showed her face.
She circled the opening, sizing him up. “Well, eekoti Chase…what am I to do with you now?”
“Your Majesty,” Chase tried to explain, “this is all a big mistake. Really. I never meant to cause any trouble…Kloosee and I just wanted to know how the weaving was done—“
Lektereenah was stern. “Harvesting and weaving the tchinting is one of our greatest secrets. You’ve violated many laws…I can’t even name them all: entering the weaving hold without escort, attacking a Ponkti female, witnessing how the tchinting is handled—“
“Attacking?” Chase was incredulous. He struggled against the restraint mesh but it was useless. “I didn’t attack anybody…the two females came after me.”
Loptoheen came into view. He was a powerfully built Ponkti male, though older than the Metah. His armfins and tail flukes spoke of crushing strength. And he was quick; Chase had seen that in the tuk match.
“Affectionate Metah…perhaps this is a time for wisdom. Nothing would speak of the magnanimity of the Metah more, her wisdom and compassion, than to show leniency toward our unfortunate eekoti visitor.”
For a long moment, Lektereenah glared at Loptoheen. Chase thought she might just bite his beak off. Then she recovered her composure.
“Perhaps you’re right, Loptoheen.” She nosed up closer to Chase, stuck her beak through the mesh and enjoyed poking and prodding at him for a few moments. “Eeekoti Chase, there are many punishments that apply here…do you know of these?”
Chase could only imagine. Actually, he couldn’t imagine. The truth was he didn’t want to. Maybe the echobulb didn’t translate her words correctly. Punishments?
“Uh, no, Your Majesty…I’m not-“
Lektereenah was pleased at the fear and anxiety she pulsed in him. That could be useful, when the time comes. “I could order you to be stung by the k’orpuh, until you pass out. Until you convulse, drown in your own vomit and die. That’s one punishment the Metah can order in cases like this.”
Chase didn’t much like the sound of that. He’d seen what the k’orpuh could do when they first reached Ponk’et.
“Or in extreme cases, where the greatest penalty is applied, I could order that you be banished forever…to the Notwater. For Ponkti, for all Seomish, that is death.” Lektereenah found some humor here. “Of course, for you, it would be life. You’re from the Notwater, are you not?”
Chase didn’t quite know what to say. He didn’t want to say anything and risk nudging her one way or another.
“However, as my advisor Loptoheen suggests, and in the interest in better relations with our Omtorish cousins—“ here the Metah made a slight nod toward Kloosee and Longsee, “I have decided I will release you into the custody of your kelke. I insist, however, that proper justice be applied by our Omtorish cousins to this matter—“ Lektereenah whipped her tail and darted away, cruising smartly outside the restraining cave, making all the spectators back away, carving out a space for herself. Prodsmen jostled with the crowd for a few moments. “Release the eekoti—“
Two prodsmen came forward and cut an opening in the mesh. Chase squeezed out and fumbled his way, paddling and kicking, toward Longsee and Kloosee. Lektereenah followed him, poking and probing at his sides as he swam.
“See that Omtorish justice is swiftly applied to this one…he’s insulted all of Ponk’et.” She stopped short when she saw Tulcheah hanging off in the distance. “And violated the sanctity, even the purity, of our kelke.” Tulcheah covered her insides with her arms in shame. To fail the Metah was—
Longsee was stern as Kloosee wrestled Chase into submission and held on to him. “Affectionate Metah…Omtor’s justice will be swift and sure. This eekoti will understand that he has done Ponk’et a grievous wrong.”
Nearby, Angie drifted up next to Chase and whispered in his ear, through the echopod.
“Way to go, Casanova. You’ll wind up getting us all killed.”
After that, the Metah left and the prodsmen spent the next few minutes dispersing the crowd.
Despite the misunderstandings, scraps and occasional insults between Omtorish and Ponkti, the shield grew visibly every day, until it covered fully a third of the vast cavern and had to be folded and pinned together, to keep from dragging the floor. When it was finished, it would stretch six beats on a side and be manipulated with draw cables at each corner, with a steadying cable in the center. Longsee’s plan, worked out with Kipto and other Ponkti weavers and engineers, was to take four kip’ts with them to Kinlok Island and use them to raise the shield into position. A fifth kip’t would then attach it to the wavemaker.
The shield was substantially complete by the end of the emtemah of Shookeem. Longsee was secretly pleased at the way the Omtorish contingent had finally been accepted into Ponk’et, as more or less equals, slowly at first, with a great deal of suspicion, then with increasing trust as pulses became more familiar and shoo’kel re-asserted itself. “The shield is worth it just for this,” he told Kloosee one day. “To bring the kels closer together in the face of a great threat…that is most satisfying.” Kloosee wondered how long it would last. And he kept a close eye on Chase, whose affections for Shoneeohnay and Tulcheah, had not subsided.
Angie was more and more annoyed with her boyfriend.
The kelke of Omt’or and Ponk’et shared their meals with increasing frequency, swapped stories and lies, slept together and even competed in the games which always seemed to be springing up. Not that there weren’t disputes and an occasional argument. No subject seemed to touch off more conflict than the question of which kel was superior in the practice of Ke’shoo and Ke’lee. But these arguments had perplexed thinkers for thousands of mah.
When the shield was finally done and been checked for rips and tears, the kelke working on it were jubilant. They got up dozens of games in as many different sports to celebrate. Even Chase got involved, when Kloosee was challenged by some of the Ponkti to a match of kong’pelu. Though there was still much work ahead of them, he relented to the pleas and jeers of the others to join, and finally Longsee had to relent and allow it.
When Ke’shoo and Ke’lee were ignored, so said Longsee paraphrasing the old saying from Shooki, serpents took over and drove one to despair.
It was time to regain the proper shoo’kel for the hard days ahead.
So Chase took part. That’s when Angie retreated to one of the Omtorish kip’ts and wouldn’t come out.
Angie’s Journal: Echopod 3
“Wel
l, so here goes, Gwen…I’m dictating this journal again into my echopod…if it’s working. Sometimes, this pod thing goes haywire but I think I’ve got the hang of it.
“Oh, Gwen, you won’t believe what we’re doing here. I don’t believe it myself. There’s this big machine north of here, making a hell of a racket. Really, Gwen, it’s destroying the cities and the lives of the Seomish. I hear it too…vibration, a steady drone and some thumps. Mountains are crumbling. Buildings are falling down. Its driving everyone nuts, me included. So the Seomish have devised some kind of shield to wrap around this machine. The thing is all the tribes…kels, whatever…have to cooperate. And, Gwen, they fight like all the time, like teenage girls.
“We’re leaving for a trip up north tomorrow…I don’t know what will happen. I do know one thing. I want to go home. Bad. I miss Mom. I miss you, girl…I miss our jogs down to Turtle Key and back. I miss hanging out at Citrus Grove. All the late night jam and vid parties, in our T-shirts and underwear. This machine is near the Farpool, so I’m told. Maybe I can convince Chase it’s time to bring this little adventure to an end and go home. We could just jog on over and slip through…of course, they’d have to change me back. Gwen, you wouldn’t believe what I look like now…the Seomish modified us to live here, to survive here. Chase and I both look like gigantic frogs. And I can’t get a straight answer on whether we can be changed back…I don’t think they really want us to go back. We’re like celebrities here. They actually fight over us.
“Speaking of Chase…well, he’s living up to his name again. Doesn’t matter whether it’s fish or mammal…if it’s got a tail, he’ll ‘chase’ after it. Chase has found a few females he likes…that makes me feel really swell. Honestly, Gwen, sometimes…I could just—
“Now, he’s really done it…I think he must be chasing somebody else’s girlfriend…and he got into a fight about it. Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up….they sort of arrested him and this one tribe where we’re currently located was going to charge him, I think, but then they decided not to and turned him over to the Omtorish…that’s our friends, Kloosee and Pakma’s tribe. It’s all very confusing. We’re supposed to keep Mr. Don Juan on a short leash so he doesn’t cause an incident again…I mean, really, c’mon, man….
“Of course, one minute, I’d like to kill him. The next minute, I love him. Maybe it’s the em’took procedure that modified us. Although, Chase has always had a roving eye…that hasn’t changed. In a way, I suppose that’s good. Here we are jillions of miles from home, living like frogs with a race of talking fish and Chase is still good ol’ Chase. Maybe I should be re-assured…after I kill him.
“Gwen, gotta go now. They’re getting ready to load up the sleds for the big trip. Me, I’m just looking forward to going home. I swear, somehow, I’m going into that Farpool. I’ve had the strangest craving for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich…they don’t have those here.
“I’ll keep this journal going as long as I can…until next time, girl, keep on trucking and keep running those laps.
“So, okay…this is Angie Gilliam, over and out.”
End Recording