Summer's Mermaid (Mermaid series Book 3)

by Dan Glover

  The first dam he came to lay in ruins, eroded and collapsed, and so he had no problem continuing his journey up the river. But a number of days later he arrived at a high dam strong and solid which still held back an enormous reservoir of water. Stopping, he climbed to the top where a lake stretched out before his eyes until he could scarcely see the other side.

  Leaving his boat behind, he commandeered a craft sheltered in a still existent boathouse. Though this boat had a motor, he could not understand the starting mechanism and so continued using the sails as he made his way across the lake and farther down the river. The days grew hotter as he finally left the desert behind and entered a vast rain forest filled with the sounds of ancient nature.

  The trees were primordial. Enormous vines the size of his body encircled their trunks as if two lovers were fain to stay together forever. Gigantic palm fronds whirled in a breeze dulled amid deep vegetation growing feral and vivacious under a sun thick with heat and surrounded by moisture.

  Monkeys with thick white collars and blazing red asses screamed and flung fresh fruit at him from high tree tops as if offering him supper while at times he caught glimpses of gorillas in the undergrowth grunting and watching him warily as he sailed past. River dolphins poked their snouts out of the water to chatter at him, calling out to come and play.

  He found it odd how he understood their language and shedding the clothes that protected his skin from the harsh rays of the sun he dove deep beneath the surface engaging in a game of water tag. The river was florid with life of all kinds... tiny schools of iridescent fish swooped about as one when startled by his presence as enormous crocodiles floated languidly on the surface paying him no mind.

  Lazy hippopotamuses sunned their fat bodies in the thick mud with only the tops of their noses visible above the water line as plump bundles of copper colored snakes coiled together in an inseparable mass like so many heads of Medusa twirled by him along the fast moving currents on their way to oblivion or perhaps paradise. He wondered if they would know the difference.

  Later as he pulled himself from the embrace of the current he hunkered down on a sandbar watching as elephants and tigers, hyenas and antelopes, lions and musk oxen all made their individual ways to the river bank drinking their evening fill of water before fading back into the forest.

  He seemed to be an anomaly to them all... something never seen before and quite likely never to be seen again. Pulling his vessel from the river he made camp under the green canopy of jungle watching as daylight began winking out.

  Everywhere he looked he saw the image of Lily's face smiling back at him. He awoke at night screaming her name. Once he thought he caught sight of her in a clearing a hundred meters or so ahead of him. Rushing forward through the tangled jungle he reached out to touch her just as he collapsed from heat exhaustion.

  He was home.

  Chapter 12—Hiccups

  He never liked the greenery of the land.

  In his estimation, the entire continent would be overrun with his tiny creations in less than a century. In two hundred years, the world should be his. The vegetation would be replaced with seething corpuscles of sand; eruptions of gray stalagmites were destined to cover the earth as far as the unblemished eye can see; yet he knew there would by then be no living being with eyes.

  One little problem vexed him, a miniscule annoyance, nothing more, like a mosquito flitting about his room annoying him while he tried to sleep. It was a habit that try as he might he could not succeed in breaking and besides he enjoyed the little interludes of peace that came with shutting his eyes on the world.

  He didn’t understand why he reverted to his old patterns when Karen and her cohorts visited his domain. His machines seemed to lose their potency in the presence of a being he couldn't yet identify.

  Karen called her Lily.

  She made outrageous claims about how the presence of this creature had enabled her to live through not only the plague that killed off the rest of humanity but for over a century as well. What's more, Karen not only survived, she thrived.

  If he was to succeed in planting his mark on the world—indeed, upon the universe—he knew he must confront this rather bothersome triviality. If there was a biological agent capable of doing everything his nanobots could do and yet hadn’t the side effects, then his cause was a lost one.

  He wondered how the small irritations of the world could cascade into an avalanche of destruction. If only this small band of people—the singular remnants of a bygone era—would understand their time was over. If they would simply lie down and die.

  It bothered him that he couldn't remember his name. He wondered what else of importance he had forgotten, not that a name meant anything. Perhaps this glitch, this hiccup of memory, was only a fragmentary article of a personality no longer extant.

  The animals were changing.

  Though the different species seemed to maintain their own unique characteristics, they no longer preyed upon the weaker: the wolf was lying down with the sheep. Now that such needs as eating and procreating had abated a peace settled over the gray land. If only he could show her, he knew Karen would approve.

  He never should have let her go.

  It was a momentary lapse of will. He considered the wisdom of bringing her back yet he knew the time was not yet ripe. Patience had never been one of his many virtues though with the passing of eons he had hopes of acquiring even that.

  There was no reason for anything or anyone to grow sick and die. If only the creatures of this world would open themselves up to reason, they would not fight him so. It made no sense to struggle pathetically against an eventuality that was bound to happen.

  His hordes were as indestructible as they were persistent. They were dust in the morning breeze that by afternoon had become the sole reason for living. They were a whispering of sweet nothings that portended the sleep of contentment. Their song was a silken thread upon which hung heaven.

  There would be no second chance.

  If his efforts failed, the world would once again become a wild thing spinning out of control into the abyss of hate. The awful rush to the nothingness of freedom would descend upon the land bringing with it a night of terrible torment and endless suffering. The cycle of birth and death would continue to rage until time itself succumbed to the lure of the grave.

  He considered waiting until his strength was such that he could take them all in one fell swoop. Leaving stragglers behind might only exasperate the inevitable thought of failure that haunted his every waking moment and even at times leaked into his dreams.

  Surprise was his advantage in the face of defeat.

  The uninitiated foe disguised as a friend might walk unseen into any home and take what it would. He knew this through his naïveté. Throughout his long life he had never had a friend. Therefore the hatred that drove his every movement was in fact derived from a deep seated sense of love.

  No one ever understood that. Everything he ever did he accomplished out of love: love for his family, love for his fellow beings, love for the universe. He and he alone knew the secret. If more of them would have listened, they'd be alive today. Instead, their bones were stacked like so much driftwood.

  Without ever knowing him they labeled him a freak. His genius intimidated them. Rather than acknowledge his obvious superiority they instead took great joy in deriding his physical limitations.

  His so-called peers took delight in humiliating him at each opportunity. They snickered over his infirmities as if he was incapable of hearing them. The heavy braces he was forced to wear upon his legs became objects of derision. His eye glasses with their heavy lenses earned him snide monikers like Coke Bottles and Four Eyes.

  His own mother and father could not abide his presence. They sent him away. They told him how much better off he would be on his own when in fact they were the ones hoping to rid their home of the hideous thing that he was.

  He never loved them anyway.

  Love was a chemical imb
alance in the brain caused by overactive imaginings of impossibilities. He understood this implicitly. His life became ruled by reason and tailored around the corpuscles of science. He had no need of tenderness and mercy; those qualities only portended weakness and led inexorably to death.

  He once had the temerity to think of Karen as a friend. He longed for her touch all the while knowing she had no interest in him outside of what he could teach her. She feigned interest in the terminal illness with which he'd been afflicted yet she could offer no hope for him.

  He asked her to stay, not once but twice, and both times his request was refused. Oh she was polite about it, respectful even to the point of tears. He had nearly worked up the nerve to go with her that first time before the old fear surfaced.

  He would have gladly died just to spend a few more months with her, even a few more days... a few minutes more. He ached. Even when he assured himself he was better off alone, he disbelieved.

  The creature called Lily was the answer. If he could somehow bring her here to Cornell University he might well learn the secrets she held in her hands like so many unfulfilled desires. Life everlasting had been his dream ever since he learned of the terminal disease his broken body was infected with and how his death was all but a certainty.

  Lily had healed him once; there was no doubting it. Instead of the monster he saw staring back in the mirror, a young man proud and strong and beautiful met his hesitant gaze. The only explanation made no sense yet the fact that Karen was still alive verified her story of immortality in the presence of the Ladies of the Lake.

  Once he possessed the biological agent responsible for retarding aging, he might be able to program his nanobots to infiltrate living flesh without the horrendous side effects that now bedeviled his every attempt at arresting.

  He didn’t grow up wanting to be a monster.

  Chapter 13—Two Times

  Life in old France was far different than that at Orchardton Hall.

  Though they'd been in Toulon for more than two hundred years the days flowed past so quickly it seemed as if they moved there only yesterday.

  Flooded in sunshine and good humor Nate and Kirk spent their time cultivating grape vines which they harvested and fermented into wine using oak casks. Some they bottled and traded with the other colonies. Though he preferred the agricultural side, Kirk had become a renowned connoisseur of fine wines and was constantly suggesting they branch out into whites.

  "We'd need to move north to cultivate the grapes needed for white wine, Kirk."

  Nate knew his old friend was loath to leave the south of old France. Both their families grew by leaps and bounds and ever since Amanda moved there the children seemed to arrive in droves.

  Amanda and Ginger were friends with each other from long ago. Together with Nate, Kirk, and Delilah, they often sat around a campfire far into the night talking and laughing while the children slept upon blankets strewn upon the beach and the adults drank the fruits of their labors.

  Nate remembered when Amanda appeared in Toulon over a century ago, shy and seemingly feeling out of place.

  "Why haven't you taken a man, sweet Amanda?"

  "Who is there to take, darling Ginger? All the good ones are married off already. Perhaps when some of your boys come of age..."

  Though Ginger had a difficult birth with her first son, Joshua, her succeeding pregnancies were easy ones. Together, Nate and Ginger had eight sons. He often wondered if they would ever have a daughter though the boys were an endless source of delight.

  "Which one do you have eyes for? I'll make sure to warn him."

  "Very funny, Mr. Nate... you know I would never do something like that. I'm just an old woman. What do I need with some youngster?"

  "You're not even two hundred years old yet, darling Amanda. I see how they adore you. Any one of my boys would be honored to take you as a wife."

  "Why, thank you, my lovely Ginger. I do know you're going to have your hands full with Blane. That kid is simply gorgeous."

  Blane was the youngest, a boy of sixteen with his father's build, tall and slender, and blonde hair he wore long and tied back. His eyes were the color of irises and long legs lent a grace to his stride. High cheekbones accented full lips sporting an ever-present smile. It seemed to Nate that Blane had never met anyone he didn’t like.

  Chester had set up an ambush of females that he introduced to everyone at Toulon Castle estate. The cats were as tame as kittens. Any errant males in the area were driven away by the impressive size of Chester.

  A stranger walking up to the campfire would be startled to see a dozen tigresses lounging on the sand alongside their cubs with Chester standing guard over all, people and cats both.

  Toulon Castle was not as large as Orchardton Hall yet it was spacious enough to accommodate the ever-growing families with room to spare. Once every year or so a few of the People showed up accompanied by one of the Lake people requesting permission to settle down in the village that surrounded the castle. Their requests were always granted.

  Nate's grandson from the Isle of Skye arrived unlooked for. Though he was still a young man Niall was two meters tall, wide across the shoulders, and like Nate he wore his black hair long and hanging loose over his shoulders.

  Nate had always admired the way the boy held himself, walking tall and proud. He had gone sailing with Niall several times and he took instructions well, performed work as told, and never argued when assigned a chore no one else enjoyed like swabbing the deck or cleaning the head.

  They talked in Nate's workshop while the rest of the family was busy tending the vines. The grapes were rapidly ripening and needed to be tied up with ribbons in order not to break off under their own weight.

  "How is your mother?"

  Nate hadn’t been to the Isle of Skye for too long... the vineyards took more of his time each year.

  "She is well, grandfather."

  "And your father?"

  "He stays in the Grampians more than we would like but he is fine as well."

  "He has always been a loner. I never understood why your folks stayed in the north of old Scotland. The weather at Orchardton Hall was disagreeable but it must be twice as bad at the Isle of Skye?"

  "I never liked it... but mother says they will never leave."

  "Why did you leave, Niall?"

  "I'm tired of the cold and rainy weather, Grandfather Nate. Nothing ever happens there. Luciana told me that here in old France the days are sunny and wine flows freely. I thought I might try my hand at growing grapes. Could you teach me?"

  "How old are you now, son?"

  "I just turned fifteen last month."

  "That's very young to be traveling on your own. Do you have your mother's permission to make this trip?"

  The boy's face turned red as he stared down at the ground without answering. Nate knew he would be aghast of one of his sons were to have left home at that age.

  "What do you say we give your mother a call just to let her know you've made it here unscathed? I have no problem with teaching you everything I know about growing grapes. I'll even teach you how to make wine. But I hate to think of Ena worrying about you."

  "You won't make me go back?"

  "No, Niall. I'll talk to your mother and let her know you're safe here. Just promise me if you decide to take off on your own again that you come to me first."

  "Thank you, Grandfather. Nate. Grandmother Lily was right."

  "You've spoken to Lily?"

  "Yes... it was she who suggested I come here. She advised me to wait a few years, though. I didn’t have the patience."

  "Where is she living now? Is she still with Kāne?"

  "Oh no... she lives north of Orchardton Hall now. Sometimes she comes to visit us with Lady Lauren. I understand that Kāne has moved off the Isles and is living somewhere in old Africa. He doesn’t stay in contact much."

  Nate called his mother at Orchardton Hall every six months or so for news but he had always been reluctant to as
k about Lily and Natalia seemed just as hesitant to speak of her. Even though he'd been with Ginger for years he still dreamed of his old flame.

  Ron and Freddi had managed to re-establish contact with the old satellites circling Earth and had even talking about launching new ones into space. Together with Pete, Karen, Maon, and Sileas they often flew to Toulon for a few weeks each summer. Last year, they approached him with a request.

  "We're tantalizingly close to discovering a method for utilizing anti-gravity, Mr. Nate. I have some schematics I'd like you to look over. I think with your expertise we might manage to develop a workable model within the next hundred years."

  "Why not use the old rockets, Ron? I know there are some workable units still sitting inside abandoned silos in old Kurdistan."

  "We feel those rockets are too dangerous for manned flight, Mr. Nate. An explosion could wipe out dozens of passengers."

  Nate dreamt of flying into space ever since as a child he read Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles. Though he knew Mars was uninhabitable, he felt it was reasonable to assume there might well be other nearby planetary systems that harbored livable worlds. Still, with the existent propulsion systems it would take upwards of forty thousand years to make such a trip.

  Now, with the prospect of anti-gravity units, such a trip became an enticing possibility.

  Chapter 14—Tribes

  Amanda didn’t mean to fall in love again.

  After her dalliance with Alpin resulted in heartbreak and disappointment, she told herself men were no good, especially men of the Lake. She was genuinely taken with Ena and for a time entertained the notion of having a relationship with the girl. When they returned to Orchardton Hall, however, Ena went back to Alpin to renew their love affair and once again Amanda was left alone.

  There were times when she still tasted the kisses showered on her by the girl, like after a sudden spring rain or when she stood upon the seaside early in the morning feeling the mist envelop her and licking the brine settling upon her lips.