Chapter 2
Seome
Omsh’pont, kel: Omt’or
Time: 764.2, Epoch of Tekpotu
The lifeship jetted out of the Farpool in a blinding light, a roaring rush of deceleration, throwing Kloosee and Pakma hard against the cockpit windows. Caught in the whirlpool, Kloosee rammed the ship’s rudder hard over, while firing her jets to counteract the centrifugal force of the spin. For a few moments, they were both pinned sideways against the cockpit, until the force of the jets shoved them through the core of the whirlpool and out into calmer waters.
Pakma breathed hard, wiping her beak with her hands. She checked the instruments.
“Sounding meetor’kel water, Kloosee….rough water but visibility improving. I can pulse ahead…looks like we’re home.”
Kloosee fought the lifeship controls to bring them into a stable attitude. “Thank Shooki we came through that one…a rough ride, rougher than most. How’s our cargo doing back there?”
Pakma checked behind. A cargo pod was in tow, connected by line to the aft end of the ship. The captive dolphin from the Terran seas was inside, thrashing about, frightened, perhaps even injured.
“Pod’s still there…I don’t know how he’s doing…maybe we should stop and check.”
Kloosee shook his head, gently massaging the controls with the tips of his forepaddles. “No time…we’re behind schedule as it is…now if I can just find that blasted kip’t station….”
The lifeship slowed down poking through the murky waters of the upper Ponkel Sea, riding faint currents for a few moments. Kloosee hunted methodically for the station where they had docked the kip’t; the sled was the only way they would get back to Omsh’pont. The lifeship was just for transit through Farpool. It would never survive the rough currents of the trans-Serpentine route.
Finally, the beep-beep-beep of a contact sounded through their headsets. “There…that’s our ride home…sounds better than a tillet baying.” He dove toward the signal, which emanated from a narrow ledge carved into the side of a seamount. They would park the lifeship there, secure the vessel and transfer everything to the kip’t, including their cargo pod. After that, several hours of cautious maneuvering to get beyond the whirlpool fields and the two travelers would be headed home at last.
Pakma exited the ship, once Kloosee had brought them to a complete stop at the dock. She immediately went back to the cargo pod and unhooked its line, murmuring soothing nonsense at the bottle-nose dolphin as it snorted and banged against the cage.
“Come on, little one…come on…just a little while longer…I know the water’s different here…this place is colder, saltier, rougher than your homewaters…but we won’t be long….” She secured the tow line to the cleats on the aft end of the sled, while Kloosee powered up the vehicle and grabbed an ompod shell out of a sack for a quick bite to eat. “Got some gisu here…you want one?” He pulled out the fruit, jammed a hole in it with his beak and began sucking and slurping the pulp loudly. “Mmm—I’m starving—“
“Leave me one inside…I’ll just be a minute…our little traveler’s spooked…I’m trying to calm him down now.”
“Use the drug…the kelt…that’s what it’s for.”
Pakma tried calming the creature, running her own forepaddles against its flanks, murmuring an old tune she learned as a midling. “There…there…it’s okay…I think he’ll be all right, just a little shaken from the ride.”
“Aren’t we all?” Kloosee powered up the kip’t and tested its control surfaces and jets. “Come on…we’ve got two thousand beats to cover and we’re late as it is.”
“All right, all right…let me secure this thing.” Moments later, Pakma drifted up into the cockpit, pulled the hatch down and secured herself. “Okay…now where’s that gisu--?”
They lifted off and Kloosee put them into quarter-speed drive as he sounded ahead for the line of opuh’te that enclosed the seamount. He knew the Time Twister was above them, slamming the water with its displacement nodes like a great fist, and the whirlpools infesting the waters around Kinlok Island were just a side effect of the Twister, minor details the Umans who operated the weapon paid no attention to, but the sound and the vibration were steadily rendering much of Seome’s ocean uninhabitable. The Umans found time to negotiate with the Seomish when it suited them, which wasn’t often and the damage the Twister was doing to their world was of little concern to them.
It made Kloosee angry but there wasn’t anything he could do about it now and he forced himself to concentrate on navigating their way through the vortex fields ahead. The only good thing about the Twister was that one of the vortexes had mutated long ago into a wormhole in space, a tunnel to other times and places, a conduit even to the homeworld of the Umans themselves, they had learned. That one they called the Farpool.
It was a rough, shuddering, jolting ride through the vortex field but Kloosee had done it before and brought the kip’t out into the colder, calmer waters of the Ponkel Sea in good order. Pakma finished off her gisu, sucked on another one, and promptly dozed off to sleep. Kloosee pulsed her briefly and could sense her belly full and satisfied. He wished he could say the same for himself.
It was going to be a long ride back to Omsh’pont and the project labs.
The Pomt’or was the northern arm of the great Pom’tel Current and it was the only current that directly led to the gap in the Serpentines they would have to negotiate, the gap that led to the Omt’or Current and the long slog across the abyssal plain of Omme’tee to Omsh’pont…and homewaters. To get there from the Farpool and the Time Twister meant a long tedious trip through the northwest Ponkel Sea. The waters were cold, dense and sluggish away from the Current, stagnant far to the south at the equator and brimming with foul-tasting and dangerous mah’jeet fields, so thick in patches no kip’t could get through without clogging its jets. But there was no quicker way to the Serpentines and the gap.
Kloosee’s plan was to cross the Ponkel until they had reached the junction of the Pomt’or and Tchor Currents, then turn south through unsounded waters, paralleling the northernmost arc of the Serpentines, hunt for the gap until they felt the first faint tugs of the Tchor Current, then scoot through the gap and ride that underwater river across the abyssal plain. Then he would home on the seamounts surrounding Omsh’pont City, listening for repeater signals and the murmuring voices of the oot’stek, until the echo layer brought them safely into local waters. That was if all went well….
Kloosee was glad that Ponkel sounded calm today, litor’kel was how you said it, he remembered. The bottom pulsed fifty or so beats below them, thick with mud and hidden, from time to time, by a tricky ootkeeor layer of warmer water. The thermals of the northern seas sometimes played havoc with kip’t navigation and even the locals sometimes got lost in the churning sediment and confusing echoes of the area. Kloosee was confident he could make it; he’d come this way for the first time in his Circling many mah ago, so the complex echoes didn’t bother him. It was just as well that Pakma was asleep. She pulsed like the Farpool itself when she was scared.
The kip’t slid easily through the trackless waste and outside the vast swirl of the Pomt’or Current, the sea was as barren as any sea in the world. The water was a clear blue-green, almost sterile of life but for the ever-present gruel of the ertesh, thin and oily in this area. Few creatures found it appetizing enough to school here.
Far to the north, off their starboard quarter, Kloosee could read the faint echoes of the polar ice pack itself. The Pillars of Shooki were up there. He frowned, thinking about that. Someday, perhaps—
They traveled alone for hours, droning on and on, through the Ponkel, while Kloosee occupied himself with savoring comforting smells from a favorite scentbulb he had opened up, scents that spoke of faraway places and great adventures: the Klatko Trench and the seamother feeding grounds, the tchin’ting forest south of Likte Island, the caves of the Ponkti…Kloosee had alway
s loved these scents. They were like warm water, soothing, comforting, old friends. Like old kel-mates.
Pakma began to stir from a drowsy nap, stretching and flexing herself in the cramped cockpit. Kloosee checked his sounder, noting they weren’t far from the point where the Pomt’or and Tchor Currents separated, a place of rough churning water. The kip’t was no more than a hundred beats from the turbulent T’kel’rok zone when they came upon a furious battle between a hungry mesodont, scavenging through a field of scrubby bushes at the bottom and a seamother it had startled. Kloosee braked quickly and steered the kip’t toward a dome of rock that poked above the mud, unwilling to risk the attention of the seamother Puk’lek when she was angered.
Pakma was now fully awake. Her insides bubbled nervously. She and Kloosee pulsed in awe at the fierce struggle.
The seamother had a considerable advantage in quickness. Her favorite weapon was her tail, ribbed with spikes and deadly. Back and forth, the tail thrashed, scraping the tough hide of the enemy. The mesodont lashed out with sharp pincers, seldom striking its target, but persistent enough to avoid a direct attack.
They skirmished for nearly an hour, each trying to wear the other down. The seamother tried several times to lunge in and flip the mesodont over with her tail but each time caught a pincer in the side and had to retreat. The waters frothed with blood and viscera and still they fought on.
The battle raged in near stalemate until the nightwaters came. Both creatures were exhausted, yet fought automatically, as if guided by unseen hands to destruction. The mesodont had lost three of its eight legs, pincers and all, while the seamother bled freely from deep gashes in her belly and head. One eye was shut, ripped out and scabbed over. Squeals of pain and anger had long since been replaced by a deathly chittering, clicking away the last moments of life.
Somehow, despite its crippling injuries, the mesodont mustered enough strength to burrow so deeply into the mud that it became impervious to continued attack. The seamother was enraged by this and tore furiously at the mud and silt but not fast enough to catch up. Soon, only a bruised gray hump was all that protruded from the mud. With that, the seamother bellowed forlornly.
Twisting her broken body, she bounded for the surface, several hundred beats above them. The waters of the Orkn’tel were clear enough to see when she breached it in an explosion of foam and bubbles. The paroxysm of anger lasted for several minutes, then suddenly, the seamother was quiet. She drifted at the surf ace, dragged by waves toward some distant shore, unknown to the Seomish. They pulsed in fascination at the sight.
Kloosee spoke first, after a moment’s reflection.
“When they die, they seek Notwater. That’s homewaters to them…like the Umans.”
“Amazing,” was all Pakma could say.
Kloosee waited a few more moments but the way seemed clear and he lifted the kip’t on its jets and resumed their journey. “I haven’t see Puk’lek in these waters before. She was well south from her normal feeding grounds.”
“Probably the Sound from the wavemaker,” Pakma surmised. “Everybody’s trying to get away from it.”
Kloosee piloted them on, toward the Serpentine gap and the rough waters where the great currents split apart, the P’omtor continuing west and the Tchor slicing through the gap toward the abyssal plains to the south, toward Omsh’pont and home.
Pakma turned about her cockpit sling and watched the cargo pod dangling behind them. For the moment, their captive was quiet, floating without motion in the enclosure. She wondered what it thought about the seamother. Was it even still alive?
“Kloosee, those creatures we saw, the ones in the Notwater…they seemed pretty intelligent. Don’t you think? I’m wondering if we shouldn’t get a specimen the next trip.”
“Assuming Longsee approves another trip.” Kloosee was concentrating on bearing the kip’t toward the left, fighting through tricky cross-currents. “The last few times, we’ve always brought back the same creatures…they seem intelligent, but they don’t add much to the project. I don’t think they’re going to help us very much…Longsee told me that himself.”
“The ones we saw that came after us…the Tailless…did you see their eyes, Kloos? They had that look, you know…that sparkle…like that ‘I don’t know what you are but I’m curious’ look. We’ve always used curiosity as a measure…maybe we should be looking elsewhere. Are you going to say anything to Longsee…those Tailless did try to attack, after all. Good thing you had the blinder…that knocked them out.”
Kloosee steered them deftly toward a huge V-shaped notch in the Serpentine. He slowed down and let the faint fingers of the Tchor current grab them, first shaking them like an angry fist, then hurling them through the decline. The kip’t sounded ahead, tasting turbulence and the sled shuddered as it passed through the gorge. Steep craggy flanks surrounded them, not visible in the heavy silt and murk, but Kloosee knew danger was near and he was careful with the controls, adding just a touch of rudder or jet as needed. Pakma held her breath…one little eddy, one little bump, a few seconds drift in the wrong direction—
Only when the water calmed did both of them catch a breath. Kloosee checked the sounder…clear ahead and the rocky seafloor was opening up and spreading out, giving onto a steep tongue of seafloor that led straight down to the Omme’tee, the vast abyssal plain that covered much of the central Omt’orkel Sea.
The seamounts of Omsh’pont were now less than two hundred beats away.
Kloosee had been thinking about what Pakma said. He liked Pakma; they had a lot in common. Sure, she wasn’t too keen about joining his em’kel; but she was strong and smart and she had her own ideas about things. She was an artist with the scentbulbs….people still talked about her first big show, the Puk’lek it was called. Really, it took something special to do that.
He knew Pakma had learned to create and appreciate scentbulbs from an early age. One of her first accomplishments as a scentbulb artist was to capture and catalog scents from seamothers who occasionally wandered into Omtorish waters in small packs. In this, she exposed herself to considerable danger, but she was able to obtain scents and smells from seamothers in a variety of states: eating, sleeping, copulating, in distress, fighting. The traces were in the waters of the Om’metee, south of the traditional seamother feeding grounds…not far from where they were now. Technically, the waters were off-limits, but Pakma ignored the regulations.
That’s what Kloosee liked about her. He was attracted to Pakma, so he always liked to say, because she was so sure of herself. She was gifted, and she knew it. She was strong willed and he liked that too. He particularly enjoyed sparring with Pakma, physically and intellectually, though Kloosee knew he himself was no great intellect.
“I am going to tell Longsee what we found,” he decided. “The project’s not going anywhere…the Mektoo are getting restless. And if the Metah decides to stop supporting us…” he let that lie where it was, not wanting to finish the thought.
“I just hope they let us make another trip…and the Umans don’t do anything to mess with the Farpool…they don’t even realize what we’ve found.”
“No, and we should keep it that way. The Umans can fight their wars, if they want. Leave the Farpool to us….”
They both grew more and more excited as the echoes of their home became stronger and clearer. Presently, the towering seamounts of Omsh’pont sounded strong and sure and when the murk cleared, the great city finally lay before them. Kloosee slowed the kip’t down to approach speed and homed on the signals from the Kelktoo lab, occupying several domes and pavilions along the southwest ramparts of the central mesa of the city.
“Homewaters—“ breathed Pakma, taking in a big gulp. She savored the scents and odors and whiffs and aromas of everything she had grown up with…the accumulated wisdom and noisy clamor and clashing pulses of the only place she had ever called home.
Omsh’pont…heart and soul,
the shoo’kel of life itself. Calm and clear waters everywhere you pulsed.
“Litorkel ge,” she breathed.
Kloosee had to agree. It was a hoary old saying but it was comfortable too. “Litorkel ge—“
They drifted toward the landing pads of the Kelktoo labs.
By sight, Omsh’pont could barely be seen in the silt and murk of the central sea of Omt’orkel, but even a cursory pulse would betray the outlines of a great city. The main axes were wedged in between towering seamounts, held, as it were, in the bosom of the mountains atop a flat mesa-like plateau in the middle.
Pulse in any direction and you would learn of domes and pavilions and floatways and more domes, interspersed with cylindrical structures and pyramids and cones, a geometric forest of cubes and humps and tent-like coverings, all of it crammed and pungent with noisy, honking, bellowing, clicking, snorting life…that was Omsh’pont, the city of Om’t.
The Kelktoo was the largest and most influential of all the em’kels…the traditional house of learning with its academies and labs and observatories and institutes and societies and foundations and studios. The project leader was none other than Longsee lok kel: Om’t, a name that evoked respect in every sea around the world.
Kloosee and Pakma parked the kip’t and supervised lab attendants as they unhooked the cargo pod and steered it off to a nearby conservatory for initial exams and feeding. The two of them headed for the floatway leading to the Lab itself, situated under an array of tents and canopies halfway up the outer flanks of the seamount T’or, the tallest sentinel in the city.
Longsee was studying something under a beatscope when they arrived. He looked up, pulsed them happily and they all hugged like long lost friends.
“How was it, going through Farpool this time? I’ve heard it’s getting rougher…harder to navigate…did you come out at the right place and time?” Longsee’s innards bubbled like a steam vent; he did that when he was excited and the old Director didn’t get excited about much lately.
Kloosee told him. “It was rough…you have to be very precise how you control it. We were able to hit our target within a few weeks and close to our location…but it was close.”
Longsee understood. “Instabilities are growing. We’ll need to do more analyses, do a better job at predicting how it operates. Probably the Umans are doing something with their weapon that’s affecting it.”
Pakma added, “That’s what we want to talk to you about…the Umans.”
But Longsee was already focused on other things. The project director was single-minded in wanting to learn more about the home world of the Umans…it was only by chance the Farpool had made that possible. “You’ve brought back more specimens I see.”
Kloosee looked at Pakma. “The same type. Only one this time. We had trouble with the breathing pod…the creature didn’t want to use it, so we had to sedate him. Now—“Beyond the canopy of the lab, they could see their captive inside the containment tank, part water, part Not-Water, circling and probing the tank confines restlessly. The structure was an enclosure built out from the side of the seamount. “—this specimen seems to be male, possibly very young.”
Longsee was already moving in that direction. “Let’s see—tell me about the capture…did you talk with it?”
The three of them floated to the containment hold. The transparent pen was filled with treated water, but air captured from Seome’s atmosphere, the Not-Water, had been added to the hold, as the captive was an air-breathing creature.
They couldn’t pulse directly through the structure, so they listened to its squeaks and whistles, and watched.
Longsee ventured a question. “You had no conversations?”
Pakma felt sorry for the thing. “We don’t understand its language at all. It’s not like anything here…maybe it’s not so intelligent after all.”
Longsee adjusted some controls, bringing up the bio-luminescent lighting to full. “That’s still to be determined…from what I can tell, the specimen is of the same category as others you’ve brought back. It’s just a matter of analyzing the sounds it makes—“
“They seem to use no tools we can find…they live in open water, in small groups—that’s true—but they have no observed technology, no communities like ours, no obvious civilization of any type,” Kloosee said. “Longsee, we both saw something that made us think these creatures are not the most intelligent beings on the planet of the Umans.”
Longsee turned sharply. He pulsed Kloosee, finding only shoo’kel, calm and controlled. No lies, no deceit there. “What are you saying? That there’s another species?”
Pakma related what had happened with the Tailless people in the surface craft, how they had assaulted Kloosee with a long rod. “We had to suppress them…they were interfering…but they were like the Umans here, true beings of the Not-Water. It was their eyes…the intelligent way they looked at you—the way they reacted…I think this should be investigated.”
Longsee was skeptical. “We’ve always believed the klek were the dominant people on that world…the most intelligent. But I’ve been discussing this with the Mektoo and I have to admit there are those on the council who think these klek you’ve been bringing back have so far exhibited nothing like the sentience or intelligence of a level that could be helpful to us. There was even a proposal to show the Umans one of these klek and ask their opinion. I think that is a bad idea, personally—“
Kloosee was dubious. “The Umans think of us as really intelligent pets, no more. We won’t get anything from them.”
Pakma wanted to press the issue. “The creatures that attacked us…whatever we call them—I think we should propose a mission to capture one or more of them…bring some back for study. They do resemble the Umans, in a lot of ways.”
Longsee watched the klek circling, nosing at them through the glass, staring, wondering at them. It was clearly a curious creature. But the language—much more study would be needed, much more time. It was time they didn’t have.
Longsee seemed to have come to a decision. Kloosee and Pakma both could tell. The Director pulsed like the rough waters of the Serpentine gap when he had to make a decision, weighing all the pros and cons, judging all sides. No shoo’kel inside Longsee…he was a turbulent cauldron that never showed externally…that was always calm and placid. But inside—when you were a director of a project directly authorized by the Metah and her council, you could get away with that. It was bad form, even offensive, for most Omtorish, but Longsee was never one to follow convention. Kloosee had always liked that about him.
“I’ll take this up with the Mektoo. You’re both right…we seem to be at a standstill in what we can learn from the klek. But more study will need more time. The Metah is already impatient…the wavemaker, the Sound, it’s getting worse. And the Umans don’t care what they’re doing to the waters…they’re fighting their war and we’re no concern of theirs. But, Kloosee—“ Longsee came over and drifted directly beside him, “the lifeship will need modifying…how large are these creatures?”
“Like the Umans, in every way. A fraction of beat in length, similar width and mass. They’re full breathers of the Not-Water….”
Longsee was already figuring out the details. “The lifeship and the kip’t will have to modified to accommodate that. Do you think you can do that? Can you bring back a specimen or two?”
Kloosee said, “It can be done. But I’ll need your help. And the lab. The more mass we add to the lifeship, the greater the instabilities inside the Farpool.”
“Yes,” said Longsee, now warming to the idea. “Yes, yes…we must work on this. I have a technician—Tamarek lu, you know him, I think…he can help. He’s very good with these things. Tamarek can fashion anything…just give him the right tools.”
“Then you’ll take this before the Metah?” Pakma asked. She eyed the klek circling and circling, anxious, she could tell, though they couldn’t pul
se the thing directly. Poor thing. It’s lost, frightened.
“Of course. We have no choice. The Umans won’t listen to our problems. They won’t even talk with us anymore. ‘It’s the War…we have a mission…you’re just exaggerating.’ Already there’s talk of building some kind of sound shield to cover up the wavemaker, even talk of making an attack on the Tailless base at Kinlok…Bikloo ank tried that many mah before, but the mission failed. Time is growing short…no, I’m sure the Metah will listen. And if she decides, the Mek’too will have to go along.”
Kloosee tried swimming alongside the klek as it made a circuit, swimming along the front of the hold. Curious, even annoyed, the creature stopped short and nosed up to the glass. It has sad eyes, Kloosee thought. Forlorn, even. Captured by strange beings like us. Prisoner in a strange sea. Maybe the Umans feel the same way. Stuck on Seome, a world they don’t like, fighting a war they didn’t want, against an enemy they don’t understand. Neither side really understanding what the other side needs.
Just like this klek, he decided.
Longsee was as good as his word, taking the request for a new expedition to the Metah and her council. Debate was limited; they could all hear the Sound and feel the vibrations from the wavemaker. Already, seams of rock from the seamounts had been loosened, falling and damaging structures inside the city. Much of Omsh’pont’s life was conducted outside anyway; people roamed and chatted, but not so much now. Life in the largest city of the kel was muted, people were depressed, conversations were hurried, clipped, pulses were becoming useless, you couldn’t tell what anyone was thinking or feeling anymore.
It was the same throughout the world. Even the ootstek, the repeaters who roamed between the kels, passing messages on that didn’t reflect properly, were muted and their voices muffled and subdued, lost in the clamor that the Uman weapon created.
The Metah, Iltereedah luk’t, was a vigorous older female of nearly two hundred mah, arthritic and stiff in places but much loved and respected by all. She had only one question for Longsee and his entourage.
“These eekoti you speak of…you say they resemble the Umans at Kinlok? Can they help us with the Umans…speak with them…convince them to move the wavemaker?”
Longsee tried to keep shoo’kel. You didn’t go before the Metah with your insides bubbling like a steam vent…calm and cool, that was the answer.
“Honorable Metashook’let, the travelers tell me this. We think the Farpool takes us to the homeworld of the Umans, but back in time, many metamah back, so that the eekoti they observed are like ancestors, perhaps like our Five Daughters with Shooki.” It was protocol to address the Metah in highly stilted, formal language…Longsee had to think about the forms and what to say and how to say them. “Their words are similar, so their language must be similar. If we could bring back a specimen or two, it’s possible they could talk with the Umans…that would make communication much easier. Then we could convince them of the damage the wavemaker is doing.”
Iltereedah considered that, methodically pulsing Longsee and his assistants from the lab, one by one, seeking deceit, other purposes, the telltale bubbles of doubt. She found none and so approved the expedition. Kloosee and Pakma would make the trip.
Longsee then accompanied the two of them to the em’kel Tu’klek, on the far side of the city, to meet the master craftsman Tamarek lu. It was a sobering excursion through Omsh’pont, through the floating spheres and domes and platforms and canopies, all stayed with guidewire and cable to the seamount, a three-dimensional lattice of enclosures and domiciles and shops and berthing spaces and restaurants, now largely empty of the usually gregarious roamings of the people. The water was m’eetor’kelte, rough and turbid, not good for strolling around.
So the citizens stayed away, roaming in the lee of the seamounts and beyond, seeking calmer water.
Tu’klek was a small em’kel, the shop tucked in the folds of the seamount Meta’shpont, a small cave-like place dimly lit with luminescent bulbs drifting like seaweed. Tamarek lu ran the place with a small force of interns and apprentices, hovering over his charges like a stern father, never pleased, barking at their mistakes, offering faint praise for jobs well done.
He and Longsee nosed each other and pulsed formally. Tamarek scrunched up his face at what he got back.
“Longsee, you’re upset. Or excited, maybe. I see it. Look at all that commotion inside you…what’s got you so riled up?”
The Lab director explained what had happened, the Metah’s approval of a new expedition, the modifications that would be needed to the transfer pod.
“These creatures, Tamarek…we’re calling them eekoti for lack of a better word…they breathe Not-Water. Hard to believe, but it’s true. Kloosee here, and Pakma, saw them on their last trip through. And they’re going back. We’re hoping they can bring us a few specimens. The Metah thinks these eekoti can help us with the Umans at Kinlok.”
Tamarek chewed on that for a moment. “Yes? I’ll believe that when I see it. Umans are like k’orpuh, only not quite as long and slimy. But they’ll sting you given half a chance. You want a new transfer pod, eh? Let’s see what we can do—“
The next few days were taken up with Tamarek and his crew building and testing a new pod that could be towed through the Farpool by the lifeship, a habitable space suitable for creatures that only breathed Not-Water. While Longsee worked with Tamarek, and Pakma drifted away to visit old friends somewhere in the higher spaces of the seamounts, Kloosee decided to look up an old em’kel-mate…Tulcheah kim. It wasn’t a roam he wanted. Or a chat over old times. Kloosee wanted something more, something closer. A coupling like they used to do.
He found her in the em’kel’s berth space, occupying herself with a scentbulb. She seemed pleasantly surprised to see him and they nuzzled for a few moments.
“Well, look at you,” she teased, circling to inspect her visitor. “I never expected such a famous kelke to come nosing around his old homewaters…all sleek and shiny. And such happy bubbles, my word…litorkel ge, old friend.”
Kloosee let her have her way. “Calmwaters to you too, Tulcheah. I wanted to see you. Pakma and I are going back—“
Tulcheah stopped him with a playful poke in the sides. “I know that…nothing stays secret around here for long, you know that. How’s Pakma…I hear she couples like a fat pal’penk.”
Kloosee knew it was best to let Tulcheah get all the ribbing and jealous sneers out of her system. You could pulse the envy inside her…no one could hide all those bubbles.
“I won’t dignify that with an answer. Pakma’s a good person. She’s smart, lots of stamina…I’d like to see you in the Farpool, Tulcheah…you’d be plastered all over the lifeship, screaming the whole time.”
Tulcheah played at being hurt. “So try me. I’ll make the trip. I’m not afraid of the Farpool.”
“That’s not why I came.”
“I know why you came…it’s written all over your insides. A blind tillet could see it halfway around the world. What makes you think I’m in the mood?” Tulcheah held up her scentbulbs; she had a tray of them and she was methodically opening and inhaling each one.
“For the love of Shooki…the whole place smells like a seamother herd…what do you think you’re doing?”
Tulcheah sniffed indignantly at a bulb. “Pleasing myself with old odors…these are from childhood…remember when you used to chase me around the Torsh’pont, pinch my tail and belly?”
“I’ve got something better than old bulbs,” he told her. Kloosee swam up close and bumped her. “Look, I’ve got to get back to Tamarek’s place…how about we—“
But she put a hand to his mouth, fondling his beak, the way she always did. “Kloosee, you never change. Come with me, o’ great and famous traveler. I’ll show you things you never imagined—“ And she slapped her tail at him, disappearing into a small cleft in the space, a narrow fold in the ro
ck. It was dark, but the scents were strong. Kloosee followed.
They made love for hours.
A day later, Longsee and Tulcheah and a small crowd of onlookers watched as Kloosee and Pakma loaded up their kip’t with supplies. Tamarek made sure the new pod was secured with towline to the kip’t. The trip to the Farpool would take many days.
The privy councilor to the Metah was also there, one Encolenia mek’t. She represented the Metah and her council.
“Our prayers are with you, Kloosee ank and Pakma tek. You have a long journey ahead of you and what you’re doing is critical to Omt’or, indeed to all the kels. Litorkel ge, both of you. The Metah hopes and prays that you will be successful in your mission. Bring us eekoti who can help us.”
Pompous old windbag, thought Kloosee as he boarded the kip’t. Pakma was already in the rear cockpit. The new pod was attached. The lifesuits and other gear were refurbished, now with new mobilitors, like legs, like the seamother’s limbs, Kloosee suggested, to give their lifesuits ground mobility in the Not-Water. “You’ll waddle like a pregnant seamother,” Tamarek described them. “But at least, you can move around.”
Longsee had one last word of advice. “Don’t be heroes. You’re not immortal, Kloosee. Omt’or needs you both to come back, alive and in good health and with eekoti specimens if you can. But don’t jeopardize yourselves for a specimen. Others can make the trip after you.”
Not if I can help it, Kloosee thought. He lived for the chance to explore Not-Water; it had been in his blood since childhood, since the Circling, since he’d seen seamothers breaching the surface like drunken revelers. Nobody’s taking this away from me.
Kloosee closed and sealed the kip’t cockpit. He waved at the assembled crowd, then fired up the sled’s jets and rose on the current, climbing swiftly through the domes and floats of Omt’or, past the Torsh’pont until they felt the first tugs of the Omt’chor Current.
They would have to tack and beat against that current to reach the P’onkel Sea and the Farpool.
The trip would take days and there was no guarantee the great vortex would even be there when they arrived, not if the Umans continued to tweak and adjust their Time Twister weapon.
Both of them were grim and silent as Kloosee steered them past the seamounts and set course for Ommetee and the abyssal plains to the north. He tried to occupy his mind with more pleasant things: the smell and taste of Tulcheah kim, the gisu and tongpod he’d gorged on the evening before, the swoosh of the water against the kip’t cockpit.
But he was troubled and he couldn’t say why. Just a feeling. Maybe a foreboding sense that this would be a different kind of journey. And the knowledge of how much Omt’or was depending on them….that was a lot of responsibility to put on someone the kelke called an outsider, a loner, a tchuk’te who liked licking icebergs more than pulsing his family.
That hurt. But it was probably true. Kloosee shook himself out the funk and tried concentrating on his instruments, on the tug of the current, on the echoes that gave him their course.
Three days to the Farpool. He knew he would do a lot of thinking in that time.