“They are not to report on an open frequency,” Ale said.
“But—”
“We will send out a foil,” she said. She crossed to the communications desk and issued a low-voiced order, then returned to Panille. “Rescue subs are too slow. We must act with speed here.”
“I didn’t know we had the foils to spare.”
“I am assigning new priorities,” Ale said. She moved back one step and addressed the room at large. “Listen, everyone. This has happened at a very bad time. I have just brought the Chief Justice down under. We are engaged in very delicate negotiations. Rumors and premature reports could cause great trouble. What you see and hear in this room must be kept in this room. No stories outside.”
Panille heard a few muttered grumblings. Everyone here knew Ale’s power, but it said something about the urgency of the situation that she would give orders on his turf. Ale was a diplomat, skilled at cushioning the distasteful.
“There’re already rumors,” Panille said. “I heard talk in the corridors as I came over.”
“And people saw you running,” Ale said.
“I was told it was an emergency.”
“Yes … no matter. But we must not feed the rumors.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to announce that there’s been an Island tragedy and that we’re bringing in survivors?” Panille asked.
Ale moved close to him and spoke in a low voice. “We’re preparing an announcement, but the wording … delicate. This is a political nightmare … and coming at such a time. It must be handled properly.”
Panille inhaled the sweet odor of the scented soap Ale used, touching off memories. He pushed such thoughts aside. She was right, of course.
“The C/P is from Guemes,” Ale reminded him. “Could Islanders have done this?” he asked. “Possibly. There’s widespread resentment of Guemes fanaticism. Still …”
“If a sub did that,” Panille said, “it was one of ours. Islander subs don’t carry the hardware to do that kind of damage. They’re just fishermen.”
“Never mind whose sub,” she said. “Who would order such an atrocity? And who would carry it out?” Ale once more studied the screens, an expression of deep concern on her face.
She’s convinced it was a sub, Panille thought. That sonde report must’ve been dangerously revealing. One of our subs for sure!
He began to sense the far-reaching political whiplash. Guemes! Of all places! Islanders and Mermen maintained an essential interdependency, which the Guemes tragedy could disrupt. Islander hydrogen, organically separated from sea-water, was richer and purer … and the impending space shot increased the demand for the purest hydrogen.
Movement visible through the plaz port drew Panille’s dazed and wandering attention. A full squad of Mermen swam by towing a hydrostatically balanced sledge. Their dive suits flexed like a second skin, showing the powerful muscles at work.
Dive suits, he thought.
Even they were a potential for trouble. Islanders made the best dive suits, but the market was controlled by Mermen. Islander complaints about price controls carried little weight.
Ale, seeing where he directed his attention, and apparently divining his thoughts, gestured toward the new kelp planting visible out the plaz port. “That’s only part of the problem.”
“What?”
“The kelp. Without Islander agreement, the kelp project will slow almost to a stop.”
“Secrecy was wrong,” Panille said. “Islanders should’ve been brought in on it from the first.”
“But they weren’t,” Ale said. “And as we expose more land masses above the surface …” She shrugged.
“The danger that Islands will bottom out increases,” Panille said. “I know. This is Current Control, remember?”
“I’m glad you understand the political dangers,” she said. “I hope you impress this upon your people.”
“I’ll do what I can,” he said, “but I think it’s already out of hand.”
Ale said something too low for Panille to hear. He bent even closer to her. “I didn’t hear that.”
“I said the more kelp the more fish. That benefits Islanders, too.”
Oh, yes, Panille thought. The movements of political control made him increasingly cynical. It was too late to stop the kelp project absolutely, but it could be slowed and the Merman dream delayed for generations. Very bad politics, that. No … the benefits had to be there for all to see. Everything focused on the kelp and the hyb tanks. First recover the hyb tanks from orbit, and then deal with the dreamers. Panille saw the practicalities,
recognizing that politics must deal in the practical while speaking mainly of dreams.
“We’ll do the practical thing,” he said, his voice almost a growl. “I’m sure you will,” Ale said.
“That’s what Current Control is all about,” he said. “I understand why you emphasize the kelp project to me. No kelp—no Current Control.”
“Don’t be bitter, Shadow.”
It was the first time since entering Current Control that she had used his first name, but he rejected the implied intimacy.
“More than nine thousand people died out there,” he said, his voice low. “If one of our subs did it …”
“Blame will have to be placed squarely,” she said. “There can be no doubts, no questions …”
“No question that Islanders did it,” he said.
“Don’t play games with me, Shadow. We both know there are many Mermen who will look upon the destruction of Guemes as a benefit to all Pandora.”
Panille glanced around Current Control, taking in the intent backs of his people, the way they concentrated on their work while appearing not to listen to this charged conversation. They heard, though. It dismayed him that even here would be some who agreed with the sentiment Ale had just exposed. What had been up to now just late-night scuttlebutt, cafe chatter and idle stories took on a new dimension. He felt this realization as an unwanted maturation, like the death of a parent. Cruel reality no longer could be ignored. It startled him to recognize that he had entertained dream fancies about the essential good will underlying human interactions … until just moments ago. The awakening angered him.
“I’m going to find out personally who did that,” he said. “Let’s pray it was a horrible accident,” she said.
“You don’t believe that and neither do I.” He sent his gaze across the awful testimony of those flickering screens. “It was a big sub—one of our S-twenties or larger. Did it dive deep and escape under the scattering layer?”
“There’s nothing definite in the sonde report.”
“That’s what it did, then.”
“Shadow, don’t make trouble for yourself,” Ale said. “I’m speaking as a friend. Keep your suspicions to yourself … no rumor-spreading outside this room.”
“This is going to be very bad for business,” he said. “I understand your concern.”
She stiffened and her voice took on a coldly clipped quality. “I must go and get ready to receive the survivors. I will discuss this with you later.” She turned on one heel and left.
The hatch sealed with a soft hiss behind him and Panille was left with the memory-image of her angry back and the sweet scent of her body.
Of course she had to go, he thought. Ale was a medic and every available medic would be called up in this emergency. But she was more than a medic. Politics! Why did every political crisis have the stink of merchants hovering around it?
Chapter 11
Consciousness is the Species-God’s gift to the individual.
Conscience is the Individual-God’s gift to the species. In
conscience you find the structure, the form of consciousness,
the beauty.
—Kerro Panille, “Translations from the Avata,” the Histories
“She dreams me,” Duque said. His voice came strongly from the shadows at the edge of the great organic tub that he shared with Vata.
A watcher ran
to summon the C/P.
Indeed, Vata had begun to dream. They were specific dreams, part her own memories, part other memories she inherited from the kelp. Avata memories. These latter included human memories acquired through the kelp’s hylighter vector, and other human memories gained he knew not how … but there was death and pain involved. There were even Ship memories, and these were strangest of all. None of this had entered a human awareness in quite this way for generations.
Ship! Duque thought.
Ship moved through the void like a needle through wrinkled fabric—in at one place, out far away, and all in a blink. Ship once had created a paradise planet and planted humans on its surface, demanding:
“You must decide how you will WorShip me!”
Ship had brought humans to Pandora, which was not a paradise, but a planet almost entirely seas, and those waters moved by the unruly cycles of two suns. A physical impossibility, had Ship not done it. All this Duque saw in the flashing jerks of Vata’s dreams.
“Why did Ship bring its humans to me?” Avata had asked.
Neither humans nor Ship answered. And now Ship was gone but humans remained. And the new kelp, that was Avata, now had nothing but a toehold in the sea and its dreams filled Duque’s awareness.
Vata dreamed endlessly.
Duque experienced her dreams as vision-plays reproduced upon his senses. He knew their source. What Vata did to him had its own peculiar flavor, always identifiable, never to be denied.
She dreamed a woman called Waela and another called Hali Ekel. The Hali dream disturbed Duque. He felt the reality of it as though his own flesh walked those paths and felt those pains. It was Ship moving him through time and other dimensions to watch a naked man nailed to a crosspiece. Duque knew it was Hali Ekel who saw this thing but he could not separate himself from her experience. Why did some of the spectators spit on him and some weep?
The naked man raised his head and called out: “Father forgive them.”
Duque felt it as a curse. To forgive such a thing was worse than demanding revenge. To be forgiven such an act—that could only be more terrible than a curse.
The C/P arrived in the Vata room. Even her bulky robes and long strides couldn’t disguise the fine curves of her slim hips and ample breasts. Her body was doubly distracting because she was C/P, and because she was imprisoned inside that Guemian face. She knelt above Duque and the room immediately went silent except for the gurgle of the life-support systems.
“Duque,” the C/P said, “what occurs?”
“It is real,” Duque said. His voice came out strained and troubled. “It happened.”
“What happened, Duque?” she asked.
Duque sensed a voice far away, much farther away than the Hali Ekel dream. He felt Hali’s distress, he felt the ancient flesh she wore for Ship’s excursion to that hill of terrible crosses; he felt Hali’s puzzlement.
Why were they doing this thing? Why did Ship want me to see this? Duque felt both questions as his own. He had no answers. The C/P repeated her demand: “What happened, Duque?” The faraway voice was an insect buzzing in his ear. He wanted to slap it. “Ship,” he said.
A gasp arose from the watchers, but the C/P did not move.
“Is Ship returning?” the C/P asked.
The question enraged Duque. He wanted to concentrate on the Hali Ekel dream. If only they would leave him alone, he felt he might find answers to his questions.
The C/P raised her voice: “Is Ship returning, Duque? You must answer!”
“Ship is everywhere!” Duque shouted.
His shout extinguished the Hali Ekel dream completely.
Duque felt anguish. He had been so close! Just a few more seconds … the answers might have come.
Now, Vata dreamed a poet named Kerro Panille and the young Waela woman of that earlier dream. Her face merged with drifting kelp, but her flesh was hot against Panille’s flesh and their orgasm shuddered through Duque, driving away all other sensations.
The C/P turned her protuberant red eyes toward the watchers. Her expression was stern.
“You must say nothing of this to anyone,” she ordered.
They nodded agreement, but already some among them were speculating on who might share this revelation—just one trusted friend or lover. It was too great a thing to contain.
Ship was everywhere!
Was Ship in this very room in some mysterious way?
This thought had occurred to the C/P and she asked it of Duque, who lay half
somnolent in postcoital relaxation.
“Everywhere is everywhere,” Duque muttered.
The C/P could not question such logic. She peered fearfully around her into the
shadows of the Vata room. The watchers copied her questioning examination of their surroundings. Remembering the utterance that had been repeated to her when she had been summoned, the C/P asked: “Who dreams you, Duque?”
“Vata!” Vata stirred sluggishly and the murky nutrient rippled around her breasts.
The C/P bent close to one of Duque’s bulbous ears and spoke so low that only the closest watchers heard and some of them did not hear it correctly.
“Does Vata waken?”
“Vata dreams me,” Duque moaned.
“Does Vata dream of Ship?”
“Yesssss.” He would tell them anything if only they would go away and leave him to these terrible and wonderful dreams.
“Does Ship send us a message?” the C/P asked.
“Go away!” Duque screamed.
The C/P rocked back on her heels. “Is that Ship’s message?”
Duque remained silent.
“Where would we go?” the C/P asked.
But Duque was caught up in Vata’s birth-dream and the moaning voice of Waela, Vata’s mother: “My child will sleep in the sea.”
Duque repeated it.
The C/P groaned. Duque had never before been this specific.
“Duque, does Ship order us to go down under?” she demanded.
Duque remained silent. He was watching the shadow of Ship darken a bloody plain, hearing Ship’s inescapable voice: “I travel the Ox Gate!”
The C/P repeated her question, her voice almost a moan. But the signs were clear. Duque had spoken his piece and would not respond further. Slowly, stiffly the C/P lifted herself to her feet. She felt old and tired, far beyond her thirty-five years. Her thoughts flowed in confusion. What was the meaning of this message? It would have to be considered with great care. The words had seemed so clear … yet, might there not be another explanation?
Are we Ship’s child?
That was a weighty question.
Slowly, she cast her gaze across the awed watchers. “Remember my orders!”
They nodded, but within only a few hours, it was all over Vashon: Ship had returned. Vata was awakening. Ship had ordered them all to go down under.
By nightfall, sixteen other Islands had the message via radio, some in garbled form. The Mermen, having overheard some of the radio transmissions, had questioned their people among the Vata watchers and sent a sharp query to the C/P.
“Is it true that Ship has landed on Pandora near Vashon? What is this talk of Ship ordering the Islanders to migrate down under?”
There was more to the Merman query but C/P Rocksack, realizing that Vata security had been breached, invested herself in her most official dignity and answered just as sharply.
“All revelations concerning Vata require the most careful consideration and lengthy prayer by the Chaplain/Psychiatrist. When there is a need for you to know, you will be told.”
It was quite the curtest response she had ever made to the Mermen, but the nature of Duque’s words had upset her and the tone of the Merman message had been almost, but not quite, of a nature to bring down her official reprimand. The appended Merman observations she had found particularly insulting. Of course she knew there could be no swift and complete migration of Islanders down under! It was physically impossible, not to me
ntion psychologically inadvisable. This, more than anything else, had told her that Duque’s words required another interpretation. And once more she marveled at the wisdom of the ancestors in combining the functions of chaplain with those of psychiatrist.
Chapter 12
They that go down to the sea in ships,
That do business in great waters;
These see the works of the Lord,
And his wonders in the deep.
—The Christian Book of the Dead
As he fell from the pier, the coracle’s bowline whipping around his left ankle, Brett knew he was going under. He pumped in one quick breath before hitting the water. His hands clawed frantically for something to hold him up and he felt Twisp’s hand rasp beneath his fingers but there was nothing to grip. The coracle, an anchor dragging him down, hit a submerged ledge of bubbly and upended, kicking him toward the center of the lagoon and, for a moment, he thought he was saved. He surfaced about ten meters from the pier and, over the howl of the hooters, he heard Twisp calling to him. The Island was receding fast and Brett realized the coracle’s bowline had broken free of the dockside cable. He hauled in as much air as his lungs could grab and felt the line on his ankle pull him toward the Island. Doubling over underwater, he tried to free himself, but the line had tangled in a knot and his weight was enough to tug the coracle off the bubbly below the pier. He felt the line whip taut, dragging him down.
A warning rocket painted the water over him bloody orange. The surface appeared flat, the momentary calm ahead of a wavewall. Roiling water rolled him, the line on his ankle pulled steadily and he felt the pressure increase through his nose and across his chest.
I’m going to drown!
He opened his eyes wide, amazed suddenly at the clarity of his underwater vision—even better than his night vision. Dark blues and reds dominated his surroundings. The ache in his lungs increased. He held the breath tight, not wanting to let go of that last touch with life, not wanting that first gulp of water and the choking death behind it.