Chase glanced over at Satsuyama and his people. They were huddled as well, gathered around several slates at the other end of the table, pointing, arguing.
What was the right thing to do here? I’ve never been in anything like this before. Working in a T-shirt shack on the beach didn’t exactly prepare you to be intergalactic ambassador. Sure, sometimes the Croc Boys argued with each other…over how to carry a song forward, how to do the harmony, who should lead, who could riff. Disputes like that were usually resolved by playing the song different ways, listening to the sound, hashing it all out over a few beers, and trying again.
But Manklu and Pakto didn’t do beer. And he figured Satsuyama didn’t either. Jeez, the guy looks like a scarecrow with a rod up his ass. And what’s with that smile…it must be welded on.
The meeting resumed a few minutes later. Chase took a lesson from his practice jams with the Croc Boys as a guide.
“My…er, colleagues here, say they would like to consult with the kel, with their advisors, before committing to anything. Could we, like, adjourn for a few days and come back together? Maybe one of you or some of you could come to Keenomsh’pont and meet the Kel’em…even the Metah. You could see how these people live.”
Satsuyama squinted like he was sitting on a nail and was about to argue, but Josey Holland, who had come back in, spoke up.
“I think that’s a very good idea, don’t you, Keko? The Seomish might feel more comfortable in familiar surroundings.”
Satsuyama was about to say something but the others around the table nodded and there was a chorus of nods and general assent to Holland’s idea. In the end, the Japanese biologist was outnumbered.
“I’ll put it to the UNISEA Council,” he offered. “It’ll be up to them…and to the Security Council as well. That’s all I can do.”
Holland pressed the point. “I think I can speak for Woods Hole in saying that such a meeting—under the sea, as it were—would offer a lot of possibilities, not only diplomatic but scientific as well. If the two sides could get to know each other better, I’m sure we can find common ground for some agreements.”
Satsuyama knew when he was beaten. “Then, it’s settled. We’ll adjourn this meeting, and I’ll contact the Secretary-General and make the case. To our Seomish delegates, I’d like to say thank you for coming and we do have your signaler device, I believe…we have a way of being in touch?”
Chase explained how the device worked and by common consent, Josey Holland was given the responsibility for keeping the signaler and acting as point of contact. She cradled the pod-shaped thing in her palm and watched in fascination as first Chase, then Manklu sent signals to it. It vibrated and chirped and squeaked and changed colors and Chase explained all of it to her slowly and carefully.
“Seems simple enough,” she decided. The signaler fit nicely in her purse. It seemed about the size of a baseball, but oblong, with control studs and small vibrating knobs along one side.
“When the color turns orange inside,” Chase told her, “just hold it up to your ear. You should hear the message. Hopefully, the translator will work and you’ll understand.”
The meeting broke up and, as Manklu and Pakto made their way in their mobilitors outside, Holland drew Chase aside at one end of the porch. Satsuyama and his delegates were crowded around Manklu and Pakto, touching their mobilitors while the Seomish demonstrated how the suits worked, actuating various motors and effectors, much to the glee of the delegates.
Holland turned to study Chase from close up. “So you’re really human…under all that skin and hide?”
“Florida born,” Chase said. “Scotland Beach…the Lost Coast.” He’d already explained about the em’took procedure.
“May I touch it”
“Sure.”
Holland ran her fingers across the skin of his torso, feeling the scales and bumps and ridges that formed his outer shell. “I didn’t get to study this before…when your friends showed up. This must have taken some really unique technology…to do something like this.”
“I guess. I don’t really understand it myself. The Seomish say it can be reversed…it’s not easy but it can be done. In fact, my girlfriend, Angie Gilliam, had that done.”
“She was altered…same as you?”
“She was but she wanted to go home so the Seomish were able to change her back…that’s all in the future. I don’t fully understand that either, but the Farpool was a sort of time machine.”
“So you say. I’d really like to learn more about this…this em’took business. And about your people…the Seomish. How they live, how they work and play. What interests them, that sort of thing.” Her face turned apologetic. “And I’m sorry we grabbed you with Poseidon. That’s was wrong.”
“It hurt too, but we worked it out. Excuse me, Dr. Holland, for saying this but you look like something’s bothering you. Is it all this—?” he indicated the crowd around Manklu and Pakto…the National Guard troops prone and in position with their weapons trained…the crowds gathering along Woods Hole Road, behind metal fence barriers, the signs and placards.
Holland looked around ruefully. “This is becoming a circus, for sure. No…I…it’s just…you know, some family problems. My husband—”
Something in her voice caught Chase’ attention. A bit of a catch in her voice, some emotion flaring like a match, then quickly suppressed. Angie did that sometimes….
“Your husband…is he sick or something?”
Holland smiled. “In a manner of speaking. We’re getting a divorce. He’s trying to take the children from me.”
Chase was sympathetic. “Bummer. My girlfriend Angie…her dad ran off and abandoned the family. I guess I never had to deal with that.”
“Look…may I call you Chase--?”
“Sure.”
“—Chase, I meant what I said back in that room. I’d really love to come see your settlement. Meet people. For a marine biologist, this is about as close to heaven as I can expect.”
Chase watched Manklu and Pakto waddle down to the kip’ts, still wallowing in the waves of Little Harbor. Coast Guard boats formed a protective arc around the sleds. “We could probably make room in one of the kip’ts. But the water…and the pressure…I don’t know.”
“I’m scuba qualified. Open water, down to five hundred feet.”
Chase shook his head. “Keenomsh’pont is on the sea bed. Probably five thousand feet down. But I have an idea.”
“What is it?”
“Let me talk with Manklu. If he and Pakto could double up in one kip’t, you could ride with me. Those two are waterbreathers. Me, I can do both, water and air. I could pressurize my kip’t with air and you could come along. Trouble is, you’d have to stay in the kip’t the whole time. I mean the pressure alone—unless-“ Chase suddenly thought of something. “I don’t know whether it will work…it depends—”
“What is it?” Holland was instantly intrigued. She just couldn’t pass up this kind of chance.
“Well, back on Seome, there was something called a Notwater pod…I don’t know the Seomish words. It was a pressurized space, filled with air. Angie and I used it, before I became em’took. The Seomish also have something called kee’too…I think that translates as lifesuit or something like that. But if they brought a Notwater pod along, or could build one, we could drop you into the pod from my kip’t and you could put on the lifesuit and maybe that way you could roam around and see things…meet people…with me as your guide, even.”
Holland was already heading inside. “Let me talk with my boss Dr. Wriston. Can you wait a minute…wait for me?”
Chase saw that Manklu and Pakto were already climbing into their kip’t. “Sure. I’ll go talk with the others.”
Chase ambled across the bike path, down the sea wall and sand bank and had a few words with Manklu. From the museum parking lot, Holland called up Dr. Walter Wriston on her wristpad and explained her proposal.
The department chief’s face showed obvi
ous annoyance on the little screen. You could always tell by the eyebrows…they lifted like little question marks.
“Josey, this is insane. We need to talk about this. You’ve got responsibilities right here…the cetacean hearing project, there’s that seminar at Princeton you’ve got to get ready for, the Florida conference—”
“I know, Dr. Wriston, but think of it: this is the chance of a lifetime. The chance for Woods Hole to really shine and dance with the top institutions on earth. Look, I don’t know who or what these Seomish creatures really are. Nobody does. But if I can lead Woods Hole into a really close relationship with them, gain their confidence, learn their secrets, the Institute can write its own future for a generation. Think of the papers. The conferences. Think of the grants and the funding…NSF will be showering money on us after this. Okay, maybe that’s a stretch but still—”
Wriston just shook his head. “Josey, you’re like my pet cocker spaniel Prissy with an old t-shirt…you just won’t let go when you’ve got your teeth into something. What about the...er, you know…the divorce? Stephen and the kids?”
Holland took a deep breath. She was not going to let Stephen and his blood-sucking lawyers take this away from her. One of her assistants, Rita, even thought she was using the Seomish as an escape…a way of avoiding her responsibilities to Hannah and Timmy, a way of avoiding having to deal with a difficult situation.
Damn you, Rita. I don’t need this right now.
She looked back at the little screen on her wristpad. Was it her imagination or had Dr. Wriston’s face suddenly morphed into an avuncular, almost grandfatherly look?
“Dr. Holland, it’s against my better judgment. This isn’t the right way to do science and you know it. There will be about a million questions and I don’t have answers for all of them. There will probably be inquiries. People will question my competence. The board will want my hide, if this blows up.”
“But you’ll send me off with all your misgivings and some blessings as well?” Holland asked hopefully.
Was that a crack of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth? Holland held her breath and squeezed her fists together so hard they hurt.
Wriston pursed his lips. “Bring back a Nobel prize, young lady. And stay out of trouble, will you?”
They both had a good laugh at that. Wriston signed off.
Holland went back to the lawn above the sea wall. Chase was ambling back up from the beach.
My God, he does look like walking gator, she told herself. She explained her talk with the department chief.
“I just have to get a few things from my office. Won’t take ten minutes.”
Chase could see the woman was so excited she was dropping papers and clips left and right. True, I do have that effect on females, he told himself. But out loud: “Don’t be too long. Manklu wants to cross the continental shelf and get deep before the sound channel shifts again. There are thermal inclines out there he doesn’t know that well.”
“Just be a sec, Chase.” She reached out for his hand, which he extended, and she squeezed it. It was scaly and yucky and clammy, but she didn’t flinch or seem to mind.
Chase didn’t mind either. Even Angie closed her eyes when they touched. Chase watched Josey Holland bound across the parking lot to her lab and office in the McLean building and wondered.
She really is pretty cute, he decided, but then put that thought out of his mind. The logistics of hosting a human female at Keenomsh’pont were going to take some real thinking and figuring out before all this was done. Best to concentrate on that for now.
The trip out to the settlement at Muir seamount took the better part of three days. In that time, Chase and Holland talked a lot and laughed even more.
The first echoes of Keenomsh’pont had just come into range when Holland shivered at the strange, almost moaning sound that seemed to fill the seas around their little fleet.
“What on earth is that? Doesn’t sound like any cetacean song I’ve ever heard before.”
“Those are the repeaters,” Chase told her. “Back on Seome, repeaters roamed the seas between the kels picking up messages and sending them on. They were a whole social group, kind of like a union, with their own traditions and practices. The Seomish have continued that here…but they tell me the waters are different. They’re having to learn new methods.” Chase scanned his echo sounder board, listened to the staccato clicks and whistles of the sonic controls. “Ah, that sounds familiar. We should be almost there.”
Holland peered out of the sled cockpit. “How can you tell? I can’t see anything but black.”
“I recognize the pattern of sounds. That’s how the Seomish navigate…by sound and scent. We’re almost six thousand feet deep here. You won’t see much of anything.”
Holland nodded, impressed. “Of course, that makes perfect sense. Where are we going?”
Chase didn’t answer for a moment, concentrating on maneuvering the kip’t first one way, then another, corkscrewing above Keenomsh’pont as he searched for one particular set of echoes.
“I just received a signal from the Kelk’too…that’s the Academy. They’re guiding us in, pretty much automatically. We’re in luck…they do have a Notwater pod and they’re setting it up now. With any luck, this kip’t will follow the homing signal and put us down right inside the pod.”
“What’s a Notwater pod?”
“You’ll see. Hang on.”
The kip’t slowed almost to a halt. Holland looked out and saw that Chase was maneuvering to settle their pod onto some kind of landing pad.
“It looks like a big mushroom, split open at the top. Or a giant hand, with fingers sticking up. Cool….”
The pod deftly landed in the center of the “palm” and, as it did so, the fingers of the hand slowly began to close.
“Dr. Holland, look—“ he shifted aside so she could see. “The fingers are retracting, like a big fist closing.”
Holland watched as their little pod was completely enveloped in the bigger pod. The view became dark outside the porthole and the little pod rocked slightly.
“Is it eating us?”
“I don’t think so—" then Chase’ echopod erupted. They both listened.
…open pod hatch…you are in Notwater pod…
Cautiously, Chase did so, cycling the hatch grip. He pushed up and water flooded in. But there was air…breathable air…stale, but nonetheless air….
Grateful, he squeezed up and out. Then he helped Holland out of the pod and they stood shivering and drenched together in the palm of the great hand, standing on some kind of soft, tissue-like floor inside the Notwater pod.
That’s when Holland realized the fingers that had closed around them were translucent. She could barely make out lights outside. And eyes. Armfins and flukes, dozens, scores of them.
They had an audience, staring in at them.
“It’s like a zoo cage,” she muttered. Or an aquarium.
Chase instinctively wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “At least, we can breathe here. But I want something to eat. Maybe we can get some tong’pod…“ he indicated their audience—“…with tartar sauce.”
There was some kind of commotion along the side. The echopod chirped. It was Manklu…with Likteek from the Academy. They were at the edge of the enclosure, waving.
Chase dragged Holland over to the translucent flap. “We’re both hungry, Manklu. Is there something we could eat?”
Manklu drifted down and produced something in a small sac. He pressed it against the translucent finger. Chase and Holland both watched in amazement as the finger contorted and twisted around its axis, revolving and carrying the sac inside their enclosure. Almost no water squeezed through.
The sac was dropped at their feet.
…is called tong’pod…crack legs…eat tissue….
“Sort of like a crab,” Chase told her. He sat down next to Holland and they set to work. The meat inside the tong’pod legs turned out to be sweet tasting…and slig
htly narcotic. Soon enough, Holland pitched over and fell asleep, curled up like a baby.
Chase had eaten tong’pod before. He waited until he was sure Dr. Holland was fully asleep, then worked with Manklu and the others to ready a lifesuit for their human visitor.
Holland startled awake and jumped half a foot at the sight of the grotesque creature lying next to him, staring at her. It had scaly, armored skin, with a blade-shaped head and two forelimbs, at the end of which were some kind of manipulators, in fact a whole kit of them. The legs were flukes, with open ports…what on earth….
After a few minutes to calm down and get her bearings, Holland became more intrigued than frightened. Looking closer, she could see it was a machine, a device, though it looked just like a living creature, something like a mix of the Creature from the Black Lagoon and a turboscooter.
“Dr. Holland…hold up…don’t lose your breakfast…it’s just a suit…we brought it inside while you were out.”
“How long was I out? What happened to me?”
“Maybe an hour. You were just exhausted, I guess.”
Holland nodded weakly. “Yeah, but it looks alive—“
“It’s made that way…here, let me try something…. “Chase touched the skin of the suit experimentally. It felt rough and scaly to the touch. Tough stuff, he told himself. “It’s designed to hold an atmosphere, or something breathable.”
Slowly, bit by bit, guided by cryptic instructions over the echopod by Likteek and Manklu, Chase managed to find a seam along the spine of the suit, which split apart as if slashed with a sword. He helped Holland stick her head up through a neck dam, found the fit tight but workable, then helped her climb completely in. From outside the Notwater pod, though Chase’ echopod, Likteek explained how to close and seal the kee’too.
…press along opening…find small pads…press pads…kee’too will contract and seal….
Chase did that and was startled, momentarily panicked, when the suit did exactly as Likteek had described. Pressing against a series of small finger pads, contractile fibers along the spine stitched the suit shut. He mimed for Holland what she should do and following his instructions, she worked her head up into the blade-shaped helmet.
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