“Yes. I was just leaving the store the other day when you arrived. You smiled at me.” Understatement of the decade! She had conquered him with that devastatingly innocent expression.
“Oh, yes, now I remember.” She squinted. “But apart from that, you look familiar, somehow.”
Elmo smiled, carefully, not parting his lips. “I should. I am Martha's brother Elmo. I have the same oddities of form she does.” He held up one hand, opening it and spreading the fingers to show their unusual configuration.
“Oh, the name! Samules. I didn't make the connection.” Now she smiled radiantly, as she had before. He could have sworn the whole store brightened in that moment. “I'm Lisa James. You saved me some real trouble, I think. I didn't know what to do.”
“Glad to do it for a lovely damsel,” he said, hoping this would come off as clever praise rather than oafish exaggeration.
She flushed, evidently taking it the right way. “I—I have to take this to the back room. If you can wait a moment.”
“Gladly, Lisa.” It was an unexpected pleasure to be talking with her like this. Sheer luck, but he would take any luck he had.
She carried the container to the back room. She returned in a moment, brushing back her long reddish hair with one hand. She was a breathtakingly lovely creature whom Martha probably demeaned. Martha did tend to resent pretty people. But of course Martha resented all people. “I really appreciate how you helped me,” she said. “Now what can I do for you?”
Oh. She assumed he had come here for a reason, naturally enough. As indeed he had. He would have liked to ask her for a date, but knew better. She surely saw him as a grim older man, as he was. “I came to see Martha.”
“She's not in. She—”
“I heard.”
“Could I take a message for her?”
“I don't know if this is a suitable message. There has been a death in the family.”
Lisa's face clouded. “Oh, I know how that is.”
“You do?” he asked before he thought. Of course she did; he had known that all along.
“My brother Garth—I mean his wife Kalinda—the monster got her. She was a really nice person. She made my brother very happy.”
The right woman could do that for a man, he was sure. A woman like Lisa? “You're Garth James’ sister? I saw him in the hospital.” It was easier not to try to explain how deeply involved in that whole business he had been.
“Yes. He—he's delirious. But what happened—it's so horrible.”
Elmo wished he could put his arm around her trembling shoulders, to comfort her. But he couldn't. “I don't believe he is delirious. He's speaking the truth. There's a giant sea spider out there. Something unknown to science. It's my job to find that thing and kill it before it wreaks any more havoc.”
“Oh, I hope you do, Mr. Samules! It's so awful.”
“We're going to ride the ferry to where the thing struck, the day after tomorrow. We're organizing a party. We need to know more about it. Exactly what it is, where it ranges, and what is likely to stop it.”
“Why not just shoot it, Mr. Samules?”
He hesitated, then gambled. “Call me Elmo, if you wish. After all, I didn't call you Miss James.”
She smiled hesitantly. “All right, Mr.—Elmo.”
Score one for the home team! “But as to why we won't just shoot it,” he continued. “We might kill it, and it might sink out of reach, and we would never know exactly what it was. That would be a loss to science. And there might be others of its kind. We must try to immobilize it. To capture it, if that's possible. We need to come to understand it well enough to deal with any number of its species, if the occasion requires it. That's the only truly practical course.”
“Oh, I see,” Lisa said, her face lighting with comprehension. “Yes, of course you're right. I hope you do catch it.”
Another notion occurred to him. “Perhaps you would like to join us on the ferry, when we make our search. You certainly have a personal interest in this matter.”
“Oh, I do! But won't it be dangerous?”
“Yes, it may be, if we locate the creature. Of course it's more likely that we won't see anything, and it will be wasted effort. We may have to try it a number of times before we connect, if we do connect. It's likely to be a cold, nervous vigil. I shouldn't have mentioned it.”
“Oh, I'm interested,” she protested. “I just don't want to get in your way. I wouldn't be any help at all in a crisis, I know it. And I wouldn't know any of the people.”
Was fate tempting him to overreach himself, and lose everything? He had to play it out and see. “You would know me, Lisa. And perhaps others we hope to have along, like Nathan Smallwood—” But she looked blank. “And Natalie Sheppard.”
She brightened. “The policewoman! Yes. She's nice. But if anything happened, I'd probably just scream and grab on to the nearest person. I'm not very brave.”
“I assure you that I would not mind having you grab on to me, Lisa. Not that you would want to.” He held up his splayed fingers again, reminding her of his ugliness.
She looked at the fingers, visibly set back. “Do you also—the teeth—?”
“Yes,” he said, not showing them. “But in other respects Martha and I are not at all alike. I don't have anything against ordinary people.”
“That's nice,” she said uncertainly. It was clear that she was somewhat in awe of him, and not in a wholly complimentary sense. Then she decided. “But I think I would like to go. My brother—” She clouded up again.
“I understand.” It was time to leave, before he messed up this phenomenal chance. “I think I will leave my message for Martha. It is that our mother has died, and we must approve her cremation so the hospital can release the body.”
“Oh. Yes. I'll tell her. She should be in soon.” She looked up, meeting his gaze for a moment. “I'm sorry. For your mother.”
“Thank you. I'm sorry for your brother and his wife. But I think he'll make it.”
“Thank you.” She tried to smile again, but didn't succeed. Her effort was touching, however.
Elmo turned resolutely and left the store. He did not want Lisa to suspect how interested he was in her, lest he turn her completely off. Probably it could come to nothing, but he would spin out the dream as long as he could. The death of his mother, the discovery of Lisa—they did offset each other, in their peculiar fashion, and that helped stabilize him.
It was a dark cloud, he thought, that lacked a silver lining. This cloud was exceedingly dark, but the lining was very pretty.
CHAPTER 21
Hatch
AFTER DONNING SCUBA gear and an oxygen tank, Martha climbed into one of the huge pycnogonids that waited for her in the shallow waters off the coast of Bonavista Bay. It did not fear her because it had become accustomed to her presence since hatching. It saw her as the source of its food, and of pleasure and pain.
To gain entry to the beast, she approached it from its front and waved her arms back and forth in a signal she had worked out so that it would recognize her. As if taking a cue from a director, the pycno squatted so that Martha could lift herself into the hatch. Inside, there was room enough for her to sit comfortably. A battery powered light on her helmet illuminated the eerie cavity, casting shadows off the glistening gray walls that surrounded her. Various fibers and muscle groups contracted along the walls as if in anticipation. The scene gave a whole new meaning to “living room.” Entirely satisfied with her cozy home away from home, Martha closed the chitin hatch door.
The door to the pycno had been relatively simple for her to engineer. One day she had gone to her local department store and purchased some door hinges and knobs. Later she had cut a hatch in the sea spider using an underwater circular saw, and then screwed the hinges on one side and the doorknob hardware on the other. Before she affixed the hinges she painted them the same color as the pycno so to camouflage their presence. The pycnogonid did not move when she cut the hole, because it had be
come thoroughly accustomed to her constant cutting and probing since its origin.
Now that she was comfortably seated within the spider she quickly oriented herself, intimately familiar with all the bumps and ridges of the living room. First, Martha pulled out some optical fibers she had implanted in the floor of the creature. The fibers functioned as periscopes. She had mounted two such fiber optic periscopes about a month ago. They protruded ever so slightly from the beast's abdomen, so that she could get a crude image of the pycnogonid's surroundings while still inside it. If the primary periscope should break or become dirty, she could use the second as a backup.
She stuck one end of the periscope to her specially designed diving mask and with her hands began to rotate and twist the tube to see all around her. Yes, all systems seemed operative.
Finally she pressed upon the ceiling of the living room to give the pycno a signal to begin walking away from the coast and into deeper waters. As they descended, bubbles of spent air from the scuba tank began to accumulate in the internal cavity she sat in and made their way out of the spider via the small cracks between the chitin hatch door and the main body.
Training of the pycngonid to do her whims seemed like a lifetime job. Gradually, as a result of rewarding the sea spider by leading it to food within a half hour of opening its hatch, she conditioned it so that it gladly submitted to her invasion of its body. She also could stimulate some of the nerves which enervated its reproductive organs, thereby giving it a pleasurable feeling when it did as it was instructed. She also found various pain centers, which she used only seldom when the pycno misbehaved.
But then she found a more immediate way to influence it, though this had its risk. She tested it once, then saved it for the time she had need. All she required was a hypodermic and a particularly potent drug.
The cocaine shot into the pycnogonid's dorsal tubular heart in a concentrated injection from the syringe. Suddenly, the spider's plasma enzymes called cholesterases attacked the cocaine, splitting many of the molecules to render them inert. However the chemical onslaught was simply too great for the pycno's natural defenses. Within five seconds, the cocaine was coursing from the hemocoel, a blood cavity consisting of spaces between its muscle tissues, into the legs and returning to the heart by the dorsal hemocoel. The pharmacological effects of the cocaine were intense and instantaneous. The creature's tubular heart started thumping like a conga drum played by a jazz musician.
At the same time, the cocaine molecules streaked to the brain. Like a hot poker boring through an ice block, the cocaine penetrated the blood brain barrier and stimulated the primitive pleasure centers. Hundreds of neurons began to pulse their own neurotransmitters in a chemical dance of pleasure. However, the biochemical orgy lasted for a few minutes, soon to replaced by a more ominous emotion—rage.
Yes, this would do. If natural hunger did not encourage the creature enough to do what needed to be done, this should make the difference. She would keep a sufficient supply with her when she traveled with pycno.
CHAPTER 22
Storm
THE STORM DIDN'T wait. They had hardly started traveling on the motorcycle before the seemingly small cloud shoved up past the horizon and revealed itself as the leading edge of a monster. Stiff gusts of wind preceded it, becoming bad enough to make Nathan Smallwood distinctly nervous. He pulled over to the side of the road, perforce. “I'm afraid we'll be blown into a ditch,” he said over the rising howl of air.
“Me too!” Natalie agreed immediately. “It was starting to feel like drunken driving.”
And she would be especially sensitive to that, he realized, because of her alcoholic ex-husband. “I'm afraid my notion of using the motorcycle wasn't a good one.”
“No, it was a good idea, just bad luck.”
“Maybe we can find shelter close by. We're not far from Sunnyside, though I'm inclined to suspect at the moment that this name is a misnomer.” He was trying to ease the tension of an event gone bad, and feared he wasn't succeeding.
“I don't remember any houses in this vicinity,” she said. “We had better just wait it out.”
“But we'll get soaked.”
“I confess I don't relish the prospect. But I'd really rather not ride on that cycle right now.”
He appreciated that; he didn't want to ride it either, in this treacherous weather. “Maybe we can take shelter under a tree.”
“No way; that's the first place lightning would strike.”
She was right. So they waited as the first drops of rain spattered around them. Then, having tasted earth, the storm got serious, and there was a sudden downpour. They were completely soaked in a moment.
“Damn, I'm sorry,” he said miserably.
“Not your fault, Nathan. I suggested this region. If I'd been satisfied to scout around closer to home—”
“If I'd been satisfied to use a car—”
“If I'd kept an eye out for the weather, instead of talking so much—”
“I wanted to learn about you.”
“We were careless, and we got soaked,” she concluded. Indeed, her hair was sadly bedraggled and hung in lank black tresses across her shoulders.
“I can't think of anyone with whom I'd rather get soaked.” Again he was making an effort at humor, but he realized as he spoke that he meant it literally.
She rewarded him with a wan smile. He wished he could kiss her, but of course anything like that was out of the question. So they just stood there in separate islands of discomfort.
After what seemed like an interminable time there came a lull in the storm. “Shall we risk it?” he asked her.
“Maybe we can get into Sunnyside,” she agreed.
“To somewhere we can get warmed and dried.”
They got on the cycle and proceeded cautiously south. But the storm, as if realizing that they might escape, revved up again, threatening to blow them away. Worse, there seemed to be nowhere to stop in Sunnyside. The sky wasn't sunny, he thought, so Sunnyside had turned its back on the world. They had to go on to Come By Chance.
And there, just as the rain got serious, he spied an inn, or the equivalent. A sign said VACANCY. He pulled in.
“I don't mind paying for a room, if there's a washer and dryer,” he said. “We could take turns getting our clothes fixed, and go on when the storm abates.”
“Good idea,” she agreed. “We'll go Dutch.” He saw that her lips were slightly blue; his own were probably similar. They had to get dry.
He parked the cycle under cover, hoping it would survive the wetting it had already had. Then they entered the house. “Do you have a—”
“Yes,” the woman said immediately. “And bathrobes you two can borrow while you're getting those things dried.”
“How much—”
“Double occupancy, one night,” she said, pointing to a posted sheet with the rates.
“Oh, we'll pay for it, but we aren't staying the night,” he said.
“Yes you are.”
“No, we just got caught by the storm. We'll be riding back to St. John's when it passes.”
“And it will pass in the night,” she said. “This is an eight hour storm; you can see its spread on the TV weather. You don't want to be out in it on that little cycle. Not to worry; supper and breakfast are included in the tab, and nobody's ever complained about our food.”
He exchanged a glance with Natalie. They were obviously stuck for it. “Two rooms, then, please,” he said.
“One room is all we have.”
“But we're not married,” he blurted.
The woman's glance moved from him to Natalie, appraisingly. “But close enough to it,” she decided.
He looked helplessly at Natalie, who was now shivering. “Close enough,” she agreed.
So Nathan paid for double occupancy, and the woman showed them to the room. “The washer and dryer are down the hall, there,” she said. “I'll bring robes. Don't run the TV too loud, too late. Supper when you're ready.”
>
In the room, Nathan faced Natalie, quite out of sorts. “I never anticipated—”
“I know it. Now we'll both have to strip completely, and we can take turns using the shower. We're adults, after all. Suppose we flip a coin for first shower?”
“You can have it,” he said quickly. “You're shivering.”
“All right. You take care of the bathrobes, meanwhile.”
“Gladly.” He turned to the door, resolutely facing away from her. But his imagination pictured her peeling the sodden clothing off, stepping naked into the shower. He felt guilty for not restraining it.
Soon the woman came with the robes, and he accepted them with thanks. He closed the door, but did not turn around until he heard the shower starting. Then he took the robes to the little bathroom and hung one within easy reach of the shower stall. He saw her wet jeans lying on the floor, about the only place where they wouldn't be in the way.
He retreated to the main room and stood gazing out the window, not daring to touch any of the furniture in his present state. The rain had intensified; certainly they did not want to be out in that.
He jumped as something touched his shoulder. “Your turn,” Natalie said. She was in her bathrobe, decorously tied. Her hair was still wrung out straight, but looked much better now. So did she.
“I didn't hear you,” he said, bemused.
“Water is flowing outside at the same rate as inside. You would have heard me if you had turned it off outside.”
“Surely so,” he agreed, smiling. He liked her humor, especially because it was occurring in a situation that would have brought out the worst in most women. He went into the bathroom, peeled away his sodden things, laid them on the floor by hers, and stepped into the shower.
The hot water was glorious. It washed away the clammy misery and restored the joy of living to his skin. Natalie had experienced the same restoration, he realized. It was intriguing to think of her as having been so recently naked in this same shower. This was about as close as he was ever likely to get to a naked woman. He would not care to admit it to others, but during his brief marriage he had never seen his wife naked. She had changed in locked-bathroom privacy, and had worn a negligee under the covers even for sex. He had known that wasn't normal, but had lacked the fortitude to protest it. And even if he had protested, what good would it have done? A person couldn't make another person want to have sex, or to be sexy, simply by protesting. But Natalie was not of that type, he was sure. If she gave herself to a man, it would be completely. He envied that man, whoever he might be.
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