“What about the media? What do we do about all the hysteria…Atlantis and space aliens and all?”
They discussed the matter for a few minutes. Bergland offered this:
“Madame President, I think we should be reasonably transparent with the media, without revealing too much of our plans. As of now, per your orders, we’re just watching M-1 and the creatures…they call themselves Seomish, I’m told. We have extensive surveillance assets in the area, surface, sub-surface, aerial and satellite. We have additional capabilities and assets as well. We feel…Admiral Davies and I feel…that we have the assets to deal with any eventuality at the moment. If the Seomish…make any threatening, hostile or intimidating move away from their base around the Muir seamount, we’re prepared to engage immediately.”
“On my orders, Mr. Bergland,” she reminded them both.
“Of course, Madame President. And we’re coordinating worldwide with CIA and foreign intelligence services in case the Russians or the Chinese try anything. You know, it’s just possible this is a diversion and some big move may be coming in the Pacific…or the Indian Ocean.”
Kendrick allowed the possibility. “My Igbo ancestors in Cameroon used to have a saying, gentlemen: Ukpala gbabara n'ikpo okuko na-ala ala mmuo. It means ‘the grasshopper that runs into the chickens’ nest ends up in the land of spirits.’ We need to be careful with our allies…and the Russians. Plus we have other parties…other grasshoppers…in the area. Like our friends from Woods Hole. My national security advisor thinks we should keep them away from M-1.”
“So do I,” Davies said. “If you designated M-1 a national security site, that becomes a lot easier.”
“Consider it done. I don’t want any interference with what our civilian scientists are doing…as long as it’s just observation and research. The ocean is a commons and everybody has the same rights.”
Davies had a thought. “Madame President, I’d like to propose something else as well. I’d like to try to re-engage with the Seomish. Re-establish contact. As you can see from the vid footage, several of the creatures looked a little different. That one there—” Davies pointed to Chase Meyer on the screen “—the one that looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon…he actually claimed to be human…from Florida no less. He spoke through some kind of device, but his words, his voice…it sounded American. He’s the one who explained more or less what the Seomish want.”
Kendrick looked up from the nearest screen. “And what is it they want?”
Davies shrugged. “Basically, as I understand it, and I’m paraphrasing what Commander LaRue was told in that wardroom: the Seomish came from a world that was doomed. They came through some kind of gateway…those were the waterspouts the Navy saw all around the area. They’re like immigrants…like Mexicans or Asian immigrants. They want to build a new home in the sea here, under the sea. They’re true marine creatures, so I’m told…except for this Chase Meyer guy. He claims to be human, just modified somehow to be able to live on their world.”
“The doomed world,” Kendrick repeated drily.
“Exactly. That’s what came out of the meeting, on board Mackinac Island and at Norfolk. I heard different variations but that’s the gist.”
“Do you believe this, Admiral?”
Davies figured the question would eventually come up. He hadn’t yet figured out an answer so he tried being honest. “Madame President, honestly, I’m not sure what to believe anymore. I’ve met these creatures in person. Part of me, the Naval and rational side of me, says this is some kind of game. It’s a trick. A diversion. And the Russians and/or the Chinese are behind it. I can’t prove it, but that’s what the Navy part of me says. Strategic deception.”
“And the other parts…assuming there are other parts?”
Davies shook his head, picked up a small-scale model of a fast-attack submarine off his desk, the newest Oregon-class boat and turned it end for end. “There is a small part of me that wonders…what if the Seomish are exactly what they say they are…immigrants… visitors from another place. Another world that was destroyed. It’s not likely, but it’s also not impossible.”
“And what of it, Admiral?”
Davies put the model down and stared right at Kendrick, right at her walnut-brown eyes. He could see his own reflection in them. “Then this is the greatest discovery ever made in human history and we need to take advantage of it. Before others do.”
“Like the Russians,” Bergland added.
Kendrick nodded faintly. “I tend to agree. Here’s another saying: ‘when the vulture doesn’t hover over the sacrifice, there’s something going on in the land of spirits.’” It was clear from her posture that LaTonya Kendrick had made some decisions. She stood up and stretched herself to her full six-foot two-inch height, eye-level with Davies and Bergland. “Keep the civilians and the Woods Hole expedition under very close surveillance, but don’t interfere…yet. Try to re-establish contact with this fellow that looks like a frog…I see in the vid, there’s a girl there also?”
“Yes, Madame President. An American…she’s in diving gear in the vid. Name’s Angie Gilliam, we believe. We’ve already checked her background and story out.”
“She’s in the States?”
“Scotland Beach, Florida. She’s a high school senior and a volunteer at a hospital in Gainesville.”
“Pick her up,” Kendrick told them. “I’d like to have a more intensive interrogation of this person. Completely legal, you understand. I read the transcripts and I’m convinced she knows more than she’s letting on. Maybe she can help us.”
“She could be a valuable intel source,” Davies admitted. “I’ll contact Jacksonville District and get them on it.”
Kendrick ended the meeting. “Gentlemen, I need more information. You could be right. This may all be just a diversion, perpetrated by our adversaries. But diversion from what? Or it may be something else. Either way, I need to know more. Jim—” she said to the SecDef, “work up a plan to take complete control of Site M-1 at a moment’s notice, on my orders. And make sure this plan has some means of rounding up all the creatures, the Seomish. Call it whatever you want…protective custody, humanitarian assistance, medical quarantine, just make sure there’s a plan: resources, everything. On my desk by tomorrow morning.”
“Of course, Madame President. I’ll bring it personally.”
Kendrick was already pulling open the door. Naval personnel and Secret Service came to attention just beyond.
“I want a daily briefing on all this, starting tomorrow at 0800 hours. Make it part of the President’s daily brief. I won’t bore you with any more Igbo sayings, but understand this: the United States will not be caught flatfooted by these developments. I want to be on top of everything at all times. I want to be able to move quickly, if circumstances warrant. Admiral, Mr. Secretary, we shouldn’t fear immigrants, no matter where they come from. My ancestors came from Cameroon several hundred years ago, unwillingly, I might add. One of their descendants is now your Commander in Chief. Think about that today.”
LaTonya Kendrick then disappeared into a throng of escorts, Secret Service and staff, heading out into the Navy Hall and down the fourth floor of the E-ring to the flag officers’ elevator.
Bergland and Davies just looked at each other, saying nothing. Their eyes said it all.
There was one hell of a lot of work to do.
Keenomsh’pont
The Muir Seamount, near Bermuda
June 4, 2115
12:00 hours
The Neptune expedition was still two days away when the kels’ exploratory teams started off, to much fanfare and excitement. The seamount was alive with kelke as thousands gathered to cheer on their teams. The Eepkostic and the Ponkti had congregated in caves and niches and warrens and burrows along the base of the mountain, while the Orketish, the Skortish and the Omtorish had built their own encampments in folds of volcanic tuff across the seabed to the south.
Each settlement had bee
n demarcated by bubble curtains and natural seabed topography, along with hundreds of tents, canopies and rock barriers to set itself off from its neighbors. The Metahs had decided that, for the corps of exploration, each kel would select six explorers to travel in two kip’ts. The kip’ts gathered atop a slight rise in the ocean floor, in the center of ring of venting hydrothermal smokers, forming a sort of natural stage that had become a gathering place for all immigrants in the days after the Landing.
Speeches were made, mekli priestesses blessed each team, ribbons and prizes and honors were bestowed, songs were sung and traditions observed, the ancient currents of Seome remembered, historic sounds and scents released were into the waters and all of it was a great and glorious, even raucous time, for the tu’kelke had allowed themselves few such days since arriving in the seas of Urku and by now, the tensions had already started to boil over.
Few gave any thought to what the Tailless might make of all the racket. But one who did was Chase Meyer.
Chase had been assigned to pilot one of the two Omtorish kip’ts. Manklu tel, the old kip’t driver from the days of the P’omtor Current and the Serpentine Gap, would pilot the other.
“I’m sure they can hear all this,” Chase told Manklu before they boarded their kip’ts. The Metah of Omt’or was already on her way to give final blessings and instructions to the explorers.
Manklu grunted, checking out final fittings of his own kip’t, peering into the thruster cones, checking flaps and planes and rudders, running fingers along the canopy seals. “Kah…what if they do? What can they do about it? We’re thousands…they can’t get rid of all of us.”
Chase, mindful of how many species had been hunted to extinction in the past, wasn’t so sure. “Maybe not but I’m pretty sure Humans won’t take too kindly to the idea there’s another intelligence down here. They know we’re here…we’ve already met with some of them onshore. Frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t sent more officials.”
Manklu was publicly unconcerned. “They live in the Notwater…what would they want with us…or these waters?”
“Don’t underestimate us Humans,” Chase told him. “When there’s competition around, we’re capable of anything.”
Mokleeoh soon appeared, surrounded by her court, including her much-loved privy councilor Oncolenia. Likteek had come along too, with last minute guidance.
Likteek handed Chase a scentbulb. “Official orders. The route you must follow is here, laid out in the scents. Follow it closely, reconnoiter the seas, gather as much information as you can and record everything.” The kip’t was already crammed with blank bulbs for recording.
“It’d be easier if I had a map I could read,” Chase said. “I don’t smell scents as well as you guys.”
Mokleeoh seemed unconcerned. “Eekoti Chase, you’re still a creature of the Notwater. And these are your waters. But Manklu will guide you.”
Chase had discussed the route with Likteek over the last few days. He knew, from their experience with the U.S. Navy a few weeks before, that the Farpool had dropped all the tu’kelke in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, not far from Bermuda. The waters allotted to the Omtorish explorers was west of the Landing, west toward the Gulf Stream and North America. Chase had done most of his diving in the Gulf; only once had he and his dad Mack Meyer ventured into the Atlantic, and that had been in the seas around the Bahamas. He figured if they ever reached the Gulf Stream, he’d have some idea of where they were.
And even the possibility of going home to more familiar waters excited him.
Mokleeoh gave them her final words—something about the glory of Omsh’pont and the steadiness of the Sk’ork Current and the comforting grind of the polar ice cap floes up north—Chase didn’t quite catch all of it—and they were off. A great cheer erupted behind them as the two kip’ts lifted away from the seabed and turned west by southwest, heading for the lower flanks of the Bermuda Platform.
Soon, the two kip’ts were alone in the vastness of the Mid-Atlantic, and only the somber moans and murmurs of distant whales accompanied them. Chase fell in behind Manklu’s sled, homed on its steady thrumming sound and let his mind wander, now alone with his thoughts.
Mokleeoh had said something that both disturbed him and made him think: You are still a creature of the Notwater, eekoti Chase. And it was true, wasn’t it? He’d gone through the em’took and most Seomish thought of him as at least partly one of them, didn’t they? Well, maybe not the Ponkti, but even Mokleeoh had made him a sort of ambassador to the Tailless…the Humans. But what was he really? Half human? Half Seomish? Half breed, a hybrid? No longer quite the beach bum his dad was sure he was, but maybe not quite the intergalactic diplomat Mokleeoh envisioned. All he’d ever really wanted to do was play his go-tone with the Croc Boys, jam and make music. That and fool around with Angie Gilliam. Now, look at him….
His thoughts were roughly interrupted by Manklu’s gruff voice, spilling over the comm circuit. Manklu spoke with a thick accent more typical of the Skortish, a result he often said of riding the Sk’ork Current back and forth into the southern seas to Tostak and Kekah and the lava trenches and back. Chase had to adjust his own echopod to make any sense out of Manklu’s growling.
“Sounding something ahead, eekoti Chase. I don’t recognize it the echo…pretty big. Hard material, too—maybe metal of some kind.”
Chase had it too on his sounder and was equally puzzled. “Better give it a wide berth, Manklu. It’s probably a submarine of some type. We don’t want to tangle with one of those.”
Manklu steered onto a heading further south, away from the target, but the thing maneuvered to adjust its own course and slipped directly into their path. Both of them could hear the pinging of active sonar.
“It’s detected us,” Chase said. “They’re tracking us.”
But before they could maneuver again, Chase saw it. It was a sub.
It materialized out of the murk so suddenly he had to swing hard right to avoid a collision. Manklu had swung left, and both of them passed by on either side of the thing.
Against Manklu’s orders, Chase slammed his own kip’t to a halt and swung around again, parking himself only a few dozen meters away. He peered out at their unwelcome visitor.
It was a small submersible, painted in bright yellow and black, with a bubble nose and a sail, its bow festooned with all manner of effectors, manipulators and sensor pods. There was an open sample basket protruding from the bow, like some kind of chin, and a quartet of thruster pods attached to the stern. Above the chin of the craft, Chase was startled to see faces moving in a porthole; the thing was manned. At least two humans were inside a pressure sphere and they were leering back at him even as he was unsealing his own canopy.
“Eekoti Chase, get back inside and let’s be on our way. We need to give this creature a wide berth…remember our mission…remember our orders.”
“Our orders are to reconnoiter and gather information,” Chase reminded Manklu. “That’s what I’m doing…reconnoitering. There are people inside that thing.”
Against Manklu’s stern orders, Chase left his own kip’t and stroked his way over to the sub. Stenciled on the sail was a name in block letters: P-O-S-E-I-D-O-N.
Chase positioned himself to peer into the porthole and quickly realized that one of the crewmen was female…a willowy-looking, rather lean female with long blond hair, a dimple in her chin and a comm headset around her ears. He was about to rap on the porthole and wave, try to get a dialog going, when he felt something bump him from behind.
Startled, he turned to see one of Poseidon’s manipulator arms closing in fast. He struck out, banging his hand on its effectors and quickly found himself pinned against the hull of the sub.
“Ugghh…hey…wait a…errgghhh…!” He thrashed a bit, kicked and scratched the manipulator arm and managed to loosen the pressure a bit, but by then Poseidon had started to move away and was turning about, with Chase still trapped in its metallic embrace.
They
were underway, with Chase as an unwilling passenger, when Manklu realized what was happening.
“Eekoti Chase…get out…get away--!” Manklu started to exit his own sled, then stopped.
“I…can’t…I’m…like, trapped…kind of…ugghhh…pinned here.” He grunted out.
Already Poseidon was ascending, heading for the surface. Manklu was stunned at the sight for a moment, then had an idea and got back inside his own kip’t. He cranked the canopy down, gunned her jets and lifted briskly up, planing up and racing to catch up with the Human craft, now clearly heading for the surface.
Manklu bore down on the sub, intending to approach it from the side opposite to where Chase was trapped, intending to ram the beast and shake and jar it enough to give up its prey.
The impact shattered the kip’t’s bow and nearly buckled its canopy. The sub shuddered from the impact, rolled a bit, then dropped more ballast blocks from her side trays and shot upward like a bubble. The kip’t was sluggish responding to Manklu’s controls and when she finally heeled about, the sub was already breaching the surface, nosing into the Notwater and Manklu knew there was no way he could go there…neither the kip’t nor he was equipped for such a venture.
He broke off the ascent, swore loudly and circled twenty meters below the sub as it wallowed at the surface. Presently, he sounded a much larger ship approaching from the west. It droned on toward them, her keel and twin screws raking the waters with serious turbulence and Manklu found it expedient to back off, descend and watch for a few moments.
“Manklu, what are we going to do?” came a strained voice from behind. It was Kalomee, an Academy engineer from Likteek’s group, riding with Manklu on the voyage of exploration. “The Tailless have eekoti Chase…we can’t go up there, can we? We have to do something!”
“Calm down, calm down…I’m sending a message back to Keenomsh’pont…to the Metah. The repeaters will pick it up.”
The Farpool_Exodus Page 5