The Farpool

by Philip Bosshardt

  Chapter 24

  The Western Atlantic Ocean and Scotland Beach

  August 11, 2199

  8:45 p.m.

  Coming through the Farpool was like the craziest, neck-snapping roller coaster ride Chase had ever ridden. Rougher than Space Mountain. Faster than Monster Kong. When you first hit the water on the other side of the wormhole, it felt like your stomach was going to fly right out of your mouth, and take your intestines along with it.

  The two kip’ts jetted out of the Farpool in a blinding light, a roaring rush of deceleration, throwing Kloosee, Chase and Loptoheen hard against the cockpit windows. Caught in the whirlpool, Kloosee rammed the ship’s rudder hard over, while firing her jets to counteract the centrifugal force of the spin. For a few moments, they were all pinned sideways against the cockpit, until the force of the jets shoved them through the core of the whirlpool and out into calmer waters.

  Chase breathed hard, wiping his face with his hands. He checked outside the cockpit.

  “I wonder where the hell we are now?”

  Kloosee managed to stabilize the kip’t and ascertained that the second kip’t, with Habloo, Koboh and Yaktu, had come through the Farpool intact as well. The two kip’ts exchanged messages, with Kloosee and Yaktu, the Sk’ortish pilot, doing most of the talking. Chase’s echobulb translated some of it.

  “What’s he saying?” Chase asked. They were in a tangle of seaweed now with Kloosee trying to chop their speed to negotiate the forest of waving stalks.

  Kloosee said, “Yaktu says we should get our instruments going. Both kip’ts have recording instruments to take measurements and samples of the waters here. We need to setup a scan pattern, so the instruments will have some background measurements. Already, I pulse these are different waters than we saw before.”

  Chase agreed. “This ain’t the Gulf, that’s for sure.”

  Loptoheen was the third person in their sled. “Perhaps your Uman machine operates differently now…it was rebuilt, after all.”

  Chase was defensive. He’d led the rebuilding effort. “So what are you saying…that I screwed up?”

  Loptoheen seemed puzzled until the Chase’s echobulb settled on the right translation. “No, eekoti, I am just saying that if the Uman machine operates erratically, the Farpool may operate differently as well.”

  “Crap, I hadn’t thought of that. I hope we’re where we’re supposed to be…Earth…22nd century. We might be somewhere else.”

  “I think this is your world,” Kloosee seemed satisfied.

  “I’d really like to find out if Angie’s around, Kloos.”

  Now Kloosee honked some commands into the sound controls of the kip’t. The sled settled down to a set course and speed. “I’m putting us on a spiral course for the time being. Yaktu will parallel us as we go. I’ve started the recording…now the Kelk’too will get their data.”

  “Ponk’t gets the same data,” Loptoheen said. “We share everything.”

  “Of course,” Kloosee said. Stupid Ponkti. “Eekoti Chase, I brought along a special instrument too, something that Pakma developed.”

  “What kind of instrument?”

  “Pakma loved scents. She was an artist in the scentbulb…all her scents are famous. Three mah before we went to Likte, she had worked out a new sniffer. Very sensitive…parts per trillion sensitive. She trained it on eekoti Angie’s lifesuit, just to get started. It still has that trace in its memory. I could deploy this sniffer and see if it can detect your friend.”

  “Yes, yes, let’s do that.”

  “Not if it interferes with our mission,” Loptoheen said. “We’re all tekmetah here…we have to get as much data as we can. The emigration councils need it. We can’t deviate from that.”

  Kloosee found the Ponkti tukmaster increasingly annoying. “We’ll get all the data, Loptoheen. All we’re doing is sniffing for extra traces. More data.”

  But before Loptoheen could retort, Yaktu’s worried voice came over the comm circuit from the other kip’t. “Kloosee, I’m pulsing something coming this way, something big. A seamother, perhaps…we’re changing course to avoid it—“

  “We don’t have seamothers,” Chase muttered. “Whales, maybe but—“

  Kloosee studied his instruments. “I’ve got it…very large…dense, solid…not like anything I’ve seen. I’ll stay with Yaktu…turning now—“

  The kip’t banked to starboard and took up a position a half beat off Yaktu’s bow. The two kip’ts slowed and scanned the approaching object with all their instruments.

  A strong wave rocked them just as a monstrous cylindrical casing barreled right by them. It was easily scores of times bigger than a kip’t, perhaps a full beat in length. It was no seamother but it was as big. It was no animal either, but a manufactured ship.

  “It’s a submarine!” Chase marveled. Gray, featureless, except for her bow and fairwater planes, the submarine droned past, seemingly an endless wall of metal. As she passed by, the two kip’ts rocked violently in the backwash of her single, shrouded propeller. Only after the submarine had put some distance between them, did the waves subside.

  “Fantastic,” Chase said. “Fantastic. I never saw one this close.”

  Loptoheen was intrigued. “This is a ship, eekoti? Some craft your people have built? Not a beast of some kind?”

  Chase explained what he knew. “It carries a crew of eekoti, my people. They cruise around underwater, attack other ships, launch missiles, that sort of thing.”

  “Then it is a weapon, “ Loptoheen questioned him closely. “Perhaps we should follow it.”

  Now it was Kloosee’s turn to point out their mission. “Remember why we’re here…to take measurements and samples. Study the seas.”

  Loptoheen just clicked back with irritation but he said nothing.

  “I have Pakma’s sniffer deployed now,” Kloosee told Chase. “There do seem to be traces, very faint traces…Pakma tuned the scent bulb to Angie’s ot’lum, her lifesuit. Just to test it. The traces bear off to our left. I pulse a very strong current in that direction too...stronger than the Omt’chor.”

  “Can we investigate?”

  Kloosee turned the kip’t toward the current and advised the other kip’t what they were doing. “We’ll alter our scanning to follow this trace…perhaps the waters are different in this direction.”

  Loptoheen scowled and glared out the cockpit, but said nothing. In time, mah’pulte Kloosee…in time, at the right time, you will be food for the beasts here.

  The kip’t was soon rocking and rolling in the throes of a fierce underwater river. Kloosee fought the controls for awhile, then decided to change course to put them just beyond the core of the strong current. The traces detected by Pakma’s sniffer were detectable, but faint and scattered.

  “I know what this current is,” Chase announced, after they had cruised for a few minutes. “It’s the Gulfstream.” He explained it all to Kloosee and Loptoheen. “We must be going against the current, moving southwest. Now I have an idea where we are. Wow, the Farpool really put us down in another ocean.”

  “The traces are almost not there,” Kloosee announced. “I’ll put us as close to this current as I can…the outer edges, but it’s stronger than my controls.”

  The two kip’ts tacked against the Gulfstream for half a mah, while stopping from time to time, taking measurements, taking samples, surveying, listening and recording on blank scentbulbs. On one occasion, Habloo stopped their kip’t to chase and bag a few specimens, one he found almost too big to stuff in their specimen compartment in the kip’t belly. Chase helped out and reported he’d caught a prize-winning tuna.

  After half a mah, Habloo requested a short roam with Kloosee. The two kip’ts stopped and drifted down to a sandy seabed, strewn with colorful coral and limestone arches.

  “I’m pulsing a very large sea off to our left, Kloosee. I think we should split up. You continue this
course. We’ll bear left and reconnoiter this large sea…take more measurements and samples, record on the bulbs.”

  The two crews discussed the pros and cons and it was decided. Kloosee, with Chase and Loptoheen, would continue along the outer fringes of this great current Chase called the Gulfstream.

  Only Loptoheen expressed concerns. “We must share all findings. The Metahs have agreed to this. No kel can withhold knowledge.”

  Habloo seemed annoyed. He could pulse something bothering Loptoheen. For a tukmaster, he seemed awfully anxious. “Don’t worry, we’ll make copies of everything recorded. You can examine all samples. Nothing will be hidden.”

  Loptoheen scowled at all of them. “It has to be this way…coming to a new world, coming to this world…there can’t be any secrets…not anymore.”

  “No secrets,” Habloo agreed, heading off to his own kip’t. So what are you hiding, Ponkti? Anybody can pulse it. But he said nothing more and soon the second kip’t had receded from view.

  Kloosee drove them on. The eekoti seas were warmer here than any on Seome, except for the volcanic regions near the Shookengkloo Trench in the southern seas of Eep’kos. Sea life was abundant and varied too and Kloosee wandered if any had built kels or cities in this strange world.

  Chase laughed. “None that I know of, Kloos. The whales and the dolphins are pretty intelligent. But they don’t have a civilization.”

  “Perhaps we can teach them.”

  Now it was Chase’s turn to feel uneasy. “You’re really coming here? I mean, I heard the Metah. This emigration…it’s for real?”

  “Our world is dying, eekoti Chase. You know this. If the new Farpool checks out and operates in a predictable way and our surveys show compatible seas, the emigration will proceed quickly. The Metahs are working out the timetable even now.”

  Chase gave that some thought, aware that Loptoheen, right behind him, was listening carefully to everything. “Maybe we should let somebody know at this end. You know, like the UN or the Coast Guard, or something. If thousands of Omtorish and Ponkti and Eepkostic and so on start showing up in our oceans, somebody’s going to be disturbed. Questions will be asked. There could be efforts to stop you…a lot of people will think all these new creatures are a menace, upsetting the balance.”

  Loptoheen said, “We can handle that. Metah Lektereenah has already assembled a force of prodsmen to come through as the first Ponkti contingent. We can defend ourselves.”

  “But that’s my point,” Chase said. “Conflict doesn’t have to be inevitable. The two sides, my people and yours, could talk. Negotiate. Set aside certain seas, certain zones, for you to live in. There’s enough room. But I’m concerned that no one knows what’s about to happen. My people, humans, don’t react too well to surprises like that.”

  Kloosee agreed that talk would be helpful. “But we don’t have a lot of time, eekoti Chase. Our sun dies more each day. You have said this. The other Umans have said this. Already are seas are changing. The great ak’loosh comes and Shooki tells us to be ready. The Farpool is our only hope.”

  It was the way he said it more than what he said that made Chase sad and uneasy about what the future would bring. Humans and Seomish knew nothing of each other…at least not the humans Chase knew. He couldn’t help but remember how Kloosee and Pakma had been treated at Scotland Beach when they’d first stumbled in their lifesuits up out of the water and scared the bejeezus out of all the beachgoers. Multiply that encounter a few million times. Great migrations had caused problems and conflict on Earth for centuries. Now the greatest migration the world had ever seen was set to begin…a wholesale re-population of Earth’s oceans by a race of intelligent, marine beings from beyond Earth.

  Chase, feeling Loptoheen’s armfins poking him in the back constantly, was sure the two sides weren’t ready for each other.

  And somehow, he had become mixed up right in the middle of all of it.

  Kloosee turned the kip’t slightly to the right as he tried to follow the still faint traces of Angie’s otlum scent. “It’s slightly stronger in this direction. I’m amazed we can detect it at all…Pakma’s sniffer is very sensitive.”

  They crossed through to the other side of the great current and soon found themselves in warm tropical seas, with sandy seabeds and waters thick with schools of fish. Chase had the growing impression they had finally made their way into the Gulf itself. The waters, even to his eyes, looked more familiar. Their pulses were cluttered with the sounds of marine craft at the surface, along with vast mats of red fibers and patches of seaweed everywhere.

  Dirtier than I remember, Chase thought. But I’d bet my right eye this is the Gulf. It just feels right.

  A quarter mah later, Kloosee brought the kip’t to a stop, hovering over some rusting hulks on the seabed below them. Chase had a dawning suspicion that one of them was the old Chevy he and his Dad had often dived to.

  “I’ve circled this area several times, eekoti Chase. The scent of Angie’s otlum seems to be concentrated here, strongest here. Beyond, the traces fade out. Perhaps we’ve reached the limits of what the sniffer can detect.”

  “Can we get out? Those wrecks down there look vaguely familiar to me.”

  Kloosee pulsed them himself. The echoes brought back a memory of their first trip through the Farpool with Chase and Angie, now so long ago. “And to me.”

  They exited the sled and cruised around the area. Finally, Kloosee drew Chase aside, waiting until Loptoheen had receded into the distance, taking his own measurements with a suite of Ponkti instruments.

  “Eekoti Chase, there’s something I must know. Tell me as a friend, we pulse each other deeply now—“

  “Yeah, sure, Kloos, what is it?” Chase poked around the rusting cars and old refrigerators and wreckage he wasn’t sure what it was.

  “If you find eekoti Angie, what will you do? Will you stay here? Or will you come back with me, back to our world?”

  That made Chase sit up straight. The question hit him with a force he didn’t expect. “I guess you’re asking me if I’m still human or now Seomish or what, exactly.”

  Kloosee circled his friend, pulsing, looking for echoes he could read. He knew Chase well, knew his insides well, you couldn’t hide much from the Seomish. In spite of himself, Chase wound up holding his arms over his midsection, as if that would stop the pulsing.

  “You must decide now,” was all Kloosee said back.

  Chase tried a shrug. It never worked when you looked like a frog on steroids. He didn’t know if Kloosee would even understand the gesture of a shrug. “Jeez, I hadn’t really thought about that. I’d like to see her, see how she’s doing. But would I stay?”

  “The Metah is counting on you, eekoti Chase. All Omt’or is counting on you. You helped rebuild the Uman machine. You gave us back the Farpool. You gave us a future…all Omt’or looks at you, eekoti Chase, and they see a great one.”

  “Kloos, I’m no hero. I can’t even hold shoo’kel like you…I can’t pulse very well. I’m not Seomish…hell, I’m not even human anymore. It’s--I don’t know what I am anymore. But I know one thing…I just want to see Angie. Can we go up…can we go up to the surface? Look around. The water’s shallow here…we may be near the coast.”

  Kloosee agreed and they ascended. The Notwater was a few beats above them, brilliantly flooded in light, very warm, teeming with life.

  Both of them breached, but Kloosee stayed just below, hovering in gentle surf, while Chase bobbed like a beach ball and looked around.

  As he suspected, the shore was in view, although distant. He figured about two kilometers, at most. The waters were dizzy with jet skis and skiers and windsurfers and scores of people. The sky was blue, cloudless and the sun was high, hot and bright.

  If it wasn’t Scotland Beach, it had to be nearby. There was a lighthouse down near the horizon, probably Apalachee Point, if he was right. Chase watc
hed the traffic speeding around him for a few minutes, a smile growing inside of him. It felt good to be home. Maybe that was the answer to Kloosee’s question.

  Chase was unaware of what was happening below him until he felt something brush against his legs. Instantly, he thought shark! and ducked below, but it wasn’t a shark.

  It was Kloosee. And Loptoheen. They were joined in a fierce battle, butting heads, spearing beaks, thrashing and wheeling furiously.

  Loptoheen! Chase had never trusted the Ponkti tukmaster. He dove into the melee, to help his friend.

  He never saw the Ponkti swing a prod around, discharging its full charge right into his side.

  Stunned into semi-consciousness, Chase rolled upside down and drifted to the surface. And below him, the struggle continued, as Kloosee and Loptoheen circled each other warily, thrusting and slapping, each trying to gain the advantage.

  Chase fought to stay conscious. His whole body had gone numb.

  It was a birthday party and Namma was just a day shy of ninety-four years old. That might as well have been a bazillion years old to Angela Gilliam Watson’s grandchildren, Jake and Riley. They hugged her and laughed and poked at her, as she rocked back and forth in her wicker rocking chair on the deck. The cake had only one big candle and she’d already blown it out, after making a wish. Now, she was doing what she loved most, frolicking and cutting up with the grandkids. Pretty soon, they’d go inside and have the fried chicken and potato salad that Joe and Jean Gable had cooked up and brought over for the big day.

  After that, Joe’s homemade peach ice cream, hand-churned right out there on the deck, with all the kids helping out, laughing and getting salt and cream all over their faces.

  It was a swell day, according to Angela and after dinner and a short movie, her son Sam and his wife Dana decided it was time for the kids to go home.

  “Can’t stay that late…school’s coming up in a few days,” said Dana, as she piled the boys into the car. “And there’s Net Tutor…they’re both working on advanced math and logic.”

  “And Code for Kids!” Jake and Riley both yelled from inside the car.

  Sam grinned. “I’ve got ‘em excited about making algorithms and writing code. Even got ‘em a little playbot they can tinker with.”

  Angela gave everybody a kiss. “I’ll just hang out with Joe and Jean for awhile. Thanks for everything…it’s always a special day when Jake and Riley come over.” And she meant that.

  The car sped off. The Watson kids lived in a nice ranch-style on the other side of Highway 19, Fanning Springs.

  “How ‘bout a drink and some more of that ice cream?” suggested Joe Gable. “Out on the deck…won’t be long before sunset, you know.”

  Jean said, “I’ll start cleaning up. You two go on…I’ll be along.” Jean Gable was a thin brunette—not a gray hair on her head anywhere to be seen—and Angela liked it when Jean came over and they could do a little girl talk, just the two of them,

  Joe poured a little Zinfandel and fixed up two bowls of ice cream. They both settled into rocking chairs on the outside deck. The deck overlooked Sunset Beach, just a short Frisbee toss from the lighthouse and the Coast Guard station at Apalachee Point.

  Neither said anything for a few minutes, just enjoying the freshening breeze—it had been mid-90s during the day—and chuckling at few last-minute body surfers trying to coax another ride out of what passed for surf along this part of Florida.

  Presently, Angela finished her ice cream, set the bowl down and sipped at her wine. Then she sat up abruptly.

  Joe was startled out of a light doze. “What—what is it? See something?”

  Angela pointed out to sea. “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?”

  “That. Those waves out there past the little boat with the flag…see where I’m pointing?” Now she stood up, helping herself with the rocking chair arms. “Something thrashing around in the water out there. Shark maybe?”

  “Not around here. Porpoise, most likely. Boats draw ‘em. They think they’re getting something to eat.”

  For a few long moments, Angela watched the water churn and foam. She thought she saw something gray breaching the surface, something with a hint of fin, some tail flukes. It could be a shark. It could be several porpoises cavorting with the boat. But she didn’t think so.

  A long lost memory of something that happened nearly eighty years ago came to mind and it brought a smile to Angela’s face. Joe saw it and asked.

  “What are you smiling about? You look like the cat that ate the canary.”

  Now Angela had started to gather up her purse. “Joe, take me out there. You got your boat all gassed up?”

  Now it was Joe’s turn to look puzzled. “Out there? Now? It’s almost bedtime. Sun’ll be down in half an hour. Why’d you want to go out there now?”

  Angela leaned over and patted him on his cheek. It was a weathered, pocked and scarred cheek and Joe told a different story about it every time you asked. “Humor me, old man. Call it a birthday present. Let’s get your boat and go see what that is.”

  Joe Gable knew better than to argue with Angela Gilliam Watson. He told Jean about the sudden trip and the two of them ambled along a pebbled path to the next building, where the Gables lived in Unit B-17. Down the wooden plank walkway to the pier that The Landings maintained for its residents and out almost to the very end.

  The twin-screw cruiser bumped and scraped along the wharf pilings as if she knew they were coming. Joe helped Angela aboard, got her seated up by the pilot house, checked a few things, then started her up. Her twin diesels rumbled into life. Two teenagers, cleaning up after a day’s sailing along the coast, were willing to help them with their moorings, catching the ropes and securing them to the deck cleats as Joe backed them out of the slip.

  He steered them out of the marina, scrupulously observing the posted speed limit of five knots and the No Wake signs and headed them out into deeper waters. The sky was light, but the sun had dropped below the horizon and twilight was darkening the sea surface, which was gentle until they reached the “Bend”, where the coast line turned due south. The chop picked up smartly there and long rolling swells slapped them as Joe opened up the throttles a little.

  They reached the thrashing foaming area in about ten minutes. The other boat had disappeared.

  Now Angela craned forward, straining to see what was causing all the foaming and turbulence. Joe cut the throttles and let the Simple Sturgeon drift a bit, while Angela went down to the side and peered over the edge, clinging to the railing.

  A small group of creatures were cavorting at and just below the surface. It almost looked like a fight. She heard honks and squeaks and clicks. They butted and slapped at each other and she thought she saw a flash of light, like an electric discharge. It could have been lightning, reflecting off the water; in August, Scotland Beach was darn near the lightning capital of the world. They didn’t look like porpoises. Or sharks either. She wasn’t sure but—

  The flashback came like a slap in the face. Joe came down too and stood next to her, saying something, talking about some kind territorial dispute among porpoises, but Angela barely heard him…

  She was just seventeen, just a rising senior at Apalachee High and his name had been Chase…Chase Meyer. They often made love in his canoe, not here, but further north. Half Moon Cove. Then one day, while they were pretty much naked in the canoe, they had seen…

  “Seen what?” Joe was saying. “What were you about to say?”

  Angela bit her lip. “I didn’t realize I was talking, Joe…I was just remembering something.”

  “So I gathered. This Chase guy…an old flame?”

  Angela smiled in spite of herself. “You might say that. Maybe a little more than an old flame. We talked about getting married.”

  “So what happened? The dirtbag run out on you?”

  Now it was Angela
’s turn to wear a broad grin. “Well, you might say we had some adventures. Then…he just kind of disappeared—“

  “Yeah,” Joe was chewing on a piece of straw he’d picked up from a deck chair, “boys are like that.”

  “Oh, not this one—“ but she stopped in mid-sentence. One of the creatures had now come fully to the surface and was staring right at her. It bobbed in the surf, a blade-shaped head with two black, fathomless eyes, and seemingly two arms with fins on the ends of them. Angela shuddered in spite of herself. The eyes regarded her with something she would describe later as a special kind of curiosity, almost warm, kind eyes.

  Damn, she’d seen those eyes before. She was sure of it. She went to her knees and stretched out a hand…the creature was not more than two meters away.

  “Angela, don’t---I wouldn’t do that…you don’t know what it might do. What the hell kind of dolphin is that anyway?” Now, Joe stepped back and grabbed for a long aluminum pole he sometimes used when maneuvering around the wharf. He brought it over to the railing.

  “No, Joe, don’t do that. You’ll scare it…it’s friendly…look at those eyes. I know those eyes. I’ve seen those eyes. It’s…he’s just curious.”

  For a long moment, Angela wrestled with a thought that kept popping insistently into her mind and she brushed it away and tried to bury it and shoo it off just as insistently. There was no way. It simply could not be. It wasn’t possible…not now. Not after eighty years….

  But the memory of her and Chase in that canoe in Half Moon Cove, the memory of seeing creatures very much like this, and the waterspout that danced offshore for much of the afternoon that hot June day off Scotland Beach…the memory would not go away and would not be swept into some closet in the back of her mind.

  She could see Chase’s blond brown hair in her mind’s eye, with the wave on top, short on the sides, and the lock that he combed down over his right eye. She could see the faint blond beard and the faint moustache, the blue eyes, the scar above his right eye due to a fishing accident, the chin dimple he tried to hide, the big ears, the broad shoulders. She called him Flip and he called her Cookie, for reasons she could no longer recall.

  She could see all of that as if were right in front of her right now, but when the memory faded, all she saw was the alligator-face of this creature staring back at her with obvious interest and curiosity.

  In spite of a shiver, she felt a strong flood of rapturous joy washing over her. In some way she couldn’t explain, in some way Joe would never believe, she knew she had found Chase Meyer. She didn’t know how. She couldn’t explain it.

  But the feeling wouldn’t go away.

  “Angela, I don’t like the looks of those clouds out there.” Joe pointed out to sea. Dark thunderstorm clouds were boiling away on the horizon. Flickers of lightning strobed behind the clouds. Several clouds dipped closer to the surface of sea. A slow rotation had started up and from up in the pilothouse, as he started up the engines, Joe said something about a waterspout. She didn’t see one. But she wouldn’t have been surprised.

  The Simple Sturgeon left the scene, turned about and headed back to The Landings wharf, seeking Slip Number Twelve and the relative safety of the marina. A stronger gusty wind fetched up across the marina, and boat masts clanked and clinked around them as they put in for the night. Joe wasn’t sure what had happened to Angela. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. Her face was almost pale but she had a broad smile on her lips, stuck on her lips like a video freeze-frame.

  “Come on, old lady…you’ve had too much, of everything today. Let’s get you home and tucked into a warm bed.”

  Then hiked back to A Building and Jean Gable was waiting for them at the door when they came in.

  Angela Gilliam Watson was firmly put to bed, after taking all her meds and brushing her teeth. The Gables said an uneasy good night and locked the front door behind them.

  Up in her single bedroom—her husband Ken had gone ahead to be with the Lord ten years before and she’d moved his bed to another part of the unit, Angela was still smiling. A great feeling of warmth washed over her and her face became flushed and red.

  It had to be Chase.

  Sometime the next morning, when Jean Gable came calling and no one answered the door, a great flurry of commotion erupted outside A-6 at The Landings. Duncan County EMS showed up. Scotland Beach Police sent a cruiser too. Even a fire truck came by to offer help. The paramedics checked her wristpad. The biomonitor lights were all dark.

  Angela Gilliam Watson had died in her sleep overnight, in her bed, clothed in lavender chiffon pajamas and clutching a strange bulb-like object, with buttons along one side, clutching it with both hands. When the paramedics bent to check for a pulse along her neck, they could hear sounds emanating from the object, voices, squeaks, honks, clicks and grunts. Some kind of strange recording device, one medic surmised.

  Angela still had a broad smile on her face when they discovered her.

  Epilogue

  Scotland Beach

  August 14, 2199

  6:45 p.m.

  Joe Gable brought the Simple Sturgeon to a full stop, some two kilometers off shore, near Half Moon Cove, and dropped anchor so the swells wouldn’t drive them back toward the rocks that lined the seabed and the sides of the inlet. Dr. Michael Skellar, senior pastor of Grove Street Community Church, clutched a small Bible and walked a bit unsteadily down from the pilothouse, with Joe right behind him.

  Sam and Dana Watson, Angela’s son and daughter in law, met Skellar’s eyes with a tight, meaningful smile. Sam showed Skellar Angela’s wristpad. He’d kept it in his pocket since the night his mother had died.

  “She always wanted to be buried at sea,” Sam told the pastor. “Not cremated, just buried at sea, right here off the Cove. It’s even in her own words on this pad. We all listened to it.”

  Reverend Skellar was somewhat perplexed. “I’m surprised she didn’t want to be buried with her husband. He’s interred at our Grove Street columbarium, you know.”

  “Those were her wishes.”

  The body of Angela Gilliam Watson had been enclosed in a canvas shroud. A gurney with a tilting top had been borrowed from Wilson’s Funeral Home. The shroud was strapped to the top of the gurney. Once the Sturgeon reached the site, just a few hundred meters to seaward of Half Moon Cove, the straps were released.

  It was late evening offshore and the swells were picking up, rocking the boat, slapping the hull with sharp cracks. The flag stanchion and antennas clanked in the breeze. Thunderstorm clouds were boiling on the horizon and the seas were building. Lightning veined the still-blue skies between the clouds.

  Sam re-fastened the wristpad to Angela’s wrist and cinched up the shroud.

  They were all there: Reverend Skellar, Angela’s son Sam and his wife Dana, the grandkids Jake and Riley, sniffling and sobbing, each bearing a wicker basket of rose petals Dana had bought for them. Joe and Jean Gable stood to one side.

  “Reverend,” Sam said solemnly, “I think we’re ready.”

  Skellar pulled out a small Bible, its pages well thumbed, and crammed with scraps of paper. He intoned grimly:

  “Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our sister departed, and we commit her body to the deep; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the sea shall give up her dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed, and made like unto his glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust—“

  Skellar nodded to Joe Gable and Sam Watson. As one, they tilted the gurney top up and the canvas shroud bearing Angela’s body slid off into the water. It made almost no splash and sank quickly.

  “Okay, kids…go ahead,” Dana prodded.

  Jake and Riley took their baskets to the raili
ng and scattered rose petals on to the water.

  Waves continued building and the seas were getting noticeably rougher.

  Joe Gable muttered, “Looks like quite a blow coming up. That cloud out there worries me—“ He indicated a low-hanging dark cloud, its bottom layers dipping nearly to the sea surface several kilometers away, its boiling girth clearly rotating slowly. “Could be a ‘spout coming.”

  A few solemn moments passed. At a silent nod from Sam and Dana, Joe climbed up into the pilothouse and restarted Sturgeon’s twin diesels. They rumbled to life and he turned the boat around smartly, heading out of the Cove, back along the coastline, past Turtle Key and Apalachee Point, to the marina at The Landings.

  Back at Half Moon Cove, or just a few hundred meters beyond, the canvas shroud containing the mortal remains of Angela Gilliam Watson thudded end first into the sandy seabed. Tricky cross-currents carried the shroud out toward open sea over the next few hours, rolling the canvas over and over again, until it came to rest in a shallow hollow…not far from some rusting car hulks. One of the rusting frames was an old Chevy. It had been dumped into the ocean decades before and was now cloaked with the faint white and lavender of a growing nest of brain coral.

  A day later, Kloosee and Chase came up to the burial shroud. The seas above them were rough and stormy. Vortex fields had developed over the last few hours and the Farpool had re-appeared, this time in a new location, closer to shore than ever before. It danced and corkscrewed liked a drunken sailor, as Kloosee sniffed and nosed about the shroud. He compared the scents to a scentbulb he had brought along.

  “It’s her,” he announced.

  “It has to be her,” Chase decided. He was sad at the passing of Angela Gilliam (now Watson), but resigned to try what they had come to do.

  Kloosee used his beak to tear two small slits in the side seams of the shroud. This would give him and Chase a better grip to tow the body to the kip’t, which was parked a few beats away, inside the vortex fields, not far from the spinning froth of the Farpool.

  “Where’s Loptoheen?” Chase asked. He got a firm grip on the shroud through the slit. Kloosee was on the other side. They hoisted the shroud up and began pulling and kicking, stroking with their load through the turbulence of the vortexes. Neither of them saw Angela’s hand and wrist, wristpad still attached, fall dangling out the slit opening. It trailed behind, bobbing along with the shroud.

  “Loptoheen’s gone,” Kloosee replied. “Probably looking for Habloo and the others. He may even stay here. He’s injured, I know that much. I don’t know what that prod did to him. Come on—the Farpool’s not stable. We’ve got to hurry.”

  They had to twist and swerve to avoid being sucked into the smaller vortexes, each whirling column a little spinoff of twisted spacetime, each daughters of the Farpool, which even now churned and throbbed with foam and froth and bubbles ahead of them.

  The kip’t was just below and they dove with the shroud between them, angling down toward the seabed. As they did so, the bottom end of the shroud sliced through the corner of a narrow vortex stream, a column writhing and snaking and flexing in the currents like it was a thing possessed. The vortex nearly snatched the shroud out of their hands and they wrestled with it until it could be pulled free. They continued their descent down to the kip’t on the seabed.

  Neither of them saw the wristpad on Angela’s dangling hand and wrist come to life. Its biomonitor lights cycled on, winking one after another…red to green, red to green, red to green.

  End

  Appendix

  (downloaded from Angie’s Echopod Journal)

  The Language

  Seomish is designed phonetically to carry well in a water medium. Hard, clicking consonants are common. The ‘p’ or ‘puh’ sound, made by violent expulsion of air is also common. Modulation of the voice stream, particularly at high frequencies (sounding much like a human whistle) produces the characteristic “wheeee” sound, which is a root of many words. Translation from Seomish to human languages like English requires some inspired speculation, since so many Seomish phrases seem to be little more than grunts or groans, modulated in frequency and duration.

  Most Seomish words are grouped according to several characteristics: (1) Who is speaking (the personal); (2) who is being spoken to (the indicative); (3) state of mind of the speaker (the conditional); (4) the kel-standing of the conversants (the intimant).

  Each classification has a set of characteristic pre-consonants, to indicate the nature of the coming words, etc. Thus:

  1.k’, kee, t’

  2.tch, g, j, oot

  3.m’, p’, puh’ (both anger, dislike, distaste, etc), sh, sz (both joyful)

  4.each kel identifies itself with a unique set of capitalized consonants, like a vocal coat of arms. Example: t’milee, or CHE’oray…Seomish versus Timily or Chory…English.

  The World

  Seome is a planet somewhat smaller than Earth, 98% covered in water. There are approximately 30 islands that comprise the total land mass of the planet. Most of them are only a few kilometers wide but about ten exceed 50 square kilometers in size. Most of the islands are clustered near the equator, or branch out in chains or arcs from the cluster, often following the submerged ocean ridges that trisect the waters.

  Seome is one of four planets, two large gas giants and two smaller terrestrial rock-core worlds, orbiting the star-sun Sigma Albeth B. The other planets are uninhabited.

  Neither small planet has any natural satellite but both gas giants have literally scores of satellites in orbit about them.

  Seome is about 11,500 kilometers in diameter and its gravity is slightly less than Earth’s. Of particular note is the planet’s perpetual cloud cover, permanent except for one location: the summit peak of the island of Ordeld in the northeastern sea, at certain times of the year.

  Seome has two seasons: high storm and low storm, roughly corresponding to periods of greater and lesser storm activity. The planet rotates nearly twice as fast as Earth, so the “day” is only half as long. However, the low light level doesn’t really reflect the speed of rotation. It is uniformly low.

  The planet has a magnetic field and an iron core. Earthquakes are common, often creating tsunamis that dwarf anything seen on Earth.

  The period of solar revolution is about 18 Earth months, 50% longer. In other words, one Earth year is 2/3 a Seome year. A Seome year is called a mah and it corresponds to one complete north-south-north migration cycle of the planktonic mah’jeet organisms.

  Seomish Physiology

  Although the Seomish resemble dolphins and porpoises externally, they are not mammals. They are fish, true marine creatures. They average about 3 meters in length and possess two forearms that have evolved from pectoral fins into prehensile limbs approximately ½ to ¾ meter in length, with five fingers and one opposing thumb at the end of each arm.

  The Seomish breathe through gills, extracting oxygen from the water that is strained through gill slits on either side of the head, which is really only an extension of the main body trunk. The body is streamlined for speed (up to 20 km/hr for healthy males at maturity) which is generated by lateral undulations of the caudal, or tail fin. The peduncle is the muscle that moves this fin.

  The Seomish have two dorsal fins, one over the midsection and one just forward of the peduncle. Along with a pair of anal fins (beneath the second dorsal), a small pair of vestigial pectoral fins attached to the forearms (above the wrist) provides anti-roll stability. The arms and the tail give maneuvering and braking power and the arms are tucked against the sides for speed.

  The Seomish have evolved an internal gas bladder, dorsally located, to help them maintain buoyancy. The presence of this organ limits the depth and vertical range of their natural movement but technological developments can overcome these obstacles.

  The Seomish have relatively poor eyesight, good vision not being essential in the often
dark, murky waters of Seome. They have no tear ducts or eyelids.

  The Seomish senses of smell and hearing are keen, however. A great deal of the standard Seomish language is concerned with scent information and is unconveyable by sight or sound. There is an olfactory vocabulary of chemical odors that are often captured and stored in scentbulbs, called ot’lum, in the spoken vernacular.

  The Seomish can smell the difference not only in body odors but in various kinds of water, according to its salt, dirt, or nutrient content. They have words for all these. Because olfactory impressions tend to disperse slowly, the Seomish do not separate the past from the present as readily as humans. Instead, they view the past as living in the present, as a shadow or ghost or alternate spirit of the present.

  The Seomish sense of hearing is acute and far-ranging. Just below the mouth, at the rear of the throat and forward of the gill cavity, is a small bag-like organ, called a soundsac, or shkelt. It is an echo-location system that emits low-frequency waves that can carry for upwards of thirty to fifty kilometers, depending on the location of the deep-level sound channel (the ootkeeor, or “discovering water”). Much of the Seomish language consists of grunts, whistles and clicks, all sounds that travel well in water.

  The Seomish also possess a pressure-sensitive lateral line organ. The organ functions as a true sixth sense and is sensitive to low-frequency vibrations. It is used for short-range guidance, collision avoidance and for determining the present state of the ambient water as well as local currents.

  Seomish are heterosexual and reproduce by copulation, the female bearing live young after a gestation period of about one and a half mah.

  Seomish males usually live to an average age of 150 mah (see Seomish time-keeping) and females somewhat longer, 160 mah.

  The Seomish have silvery-gray skin, smooth, non-scaly at maturity. They are born pinkish-white and aging gradually darkens the skin.

  Average weight for a mature Seomish male is 230 kilograms. Females weigh somewhat less.

  The Flora and Fauna of Seome: Some Examples

  Mah’jeet: a microscopic, plankton-like creature, shaped like filaments or sickles, that emit a toxic substance poisonous to most Seomish. Small concentrations of the toxin aren’t fatal but the creature tends to horde and this increases the danger. The toxin is neurological in nature, causing convulsions, respiratory difficulties, heart attacks and finally death. So prevalent are the mah’jeet and so precise are their seasonal migrations that the Seomish regulate their calendar by them. Concentrated in a horde, they cause the water to take on a deep purple stain.

  Tillet: a pack animal, used mainly for transporting cargo. About ten to fifteen meters in length, black on top, white on the bottom, the tillet is a fairly docile beast, though occasionally cantankerous. Generations of genetic engineering have created a close, almost psychic relationship between the Seomish and the tillet. Some are so highly trained that they can travel thousands of kilometers completely untended, usually in herds of from thirty to fifty. The tillet is so valuable that all kels have mutually agreed to a ban on hunting them. They can carry upwards of 200 kilograms of cargo in three specially bred belly pouches, which open underneath broad pectoral fins (the Seomish are now working on a cybernetic tillet, a genetically engineered design with a computer-assisted brain).

  Stek’loo: a true, hybrid life form, the stek’loo is the result of generations of research and development in electronics, cybernetics, and genetics. It is a thinking fish, a living computer, whose nervous system is composed of logic elements and switching circuits and who feeds on electric current. The results of its internal computations are displayed on the swollen flanks of its side in bioluminescent numerals and light patterns. The stek’loo resembles a flounder in shape and size, flat and rounded. Information and program instructions may be entered through a power rod attached to its mouth, by feeding the stek’loo sequential electrical impulses. The handle of this rod is a binary key for controlling the impulses. The stek’loo is physically sluggish and is often kept in a transparent bowl.

  K’orpuh: a deadly, eel-like snake found mainly in polar waters (and bred commercially by the Eepkostic). K’orpuh sometimes grow to 20 meters in length and are easily mistaken for plants and weeds. They carry an electric charge of up to a thousand volts, which is fatal to Seomish. In addition, the k’orpuh are able to lay down a sticky, web-like filament by quickly encircling their prey, enmeshing it in a cocoon and making escape impossible. The pelt, skin and oils of the k’orpuh are valuable commodities, but the Eepkostic have a monopoly on this trade, as well as on the training of the snake for military and sport purposes.

  Pal’penk: a herd animal, huge and bloated, somewhat resembling a Terran sunfish. Growing to average lengths of ten meters and weights of a thousand kilograms, the ‘penk is a staple food raised in vast grazing herds, desired mainly for its naturally spicy flesh. It is raised in temperate waters, largely by the Likti (an Omtorish ethnic group) and grazes on planktonic nutrients and spider-weed, called mahp’te, among other things. A genetic variant of the ‘penk =, somewhat smaller and able to graze in colder waters, is the pal’pod.

  Puk’lek: sometimes called the seamother, the Kelm’opuh (Destroyer of Nations) and mythologically, Keeshoovikt (The One Who Swims Against the Current or goes against God), the puk’lek is the most fearsome beast in the waters of Seome. The mythology of the race speaks eloquently of the mixture of fear, veneration and fascination the serpent holds. Occasionally reaching a hundred meters in length, with a powerful horned and spiked tail and a reptilian head with a broad veined crest, the puk’lek roams the seas of Seome unmolested, usually alone. It is carnivorous and easily provoked, usually preferring to feed off teng (a shark-like fish but longer) and various scapet (a tunnel-shaped fish with a colorful head stripe and water-jet escape mechanism. Puk’lek are known to prefer the continental slopes as feeding and spawning grounds and they occasionally leave the water altogether for several hours at a time. What happens to them on land is not known and has been the subject of mythology and speculation for ages. One theory has it that the puk’lek are not true sea-dwellers at all but some kind of hybrid land-sea dweller, and that they were punished by God long ago for the transgression of leaving the water by having to endure both environments in order to survive (in other words, amphibious.). There are myths that say the puk’lek fathered a new race of beings on the land and must leave the sea periodically to care for them. But there is no proof of this. From a distance, the puk’lek resembles a fat, scaly k’orpuh, but the puk’lek is silvery white and gray whereas the k’orpuh is very dark and mottled like seaweed.

  Tchin’ting: a long, stringy weed (like kelp) grown for food, mainly in temperate waters (tropical strains are oily-tasting). Tchin’ting is harvested after a growth period of one full mah, when it is uprooted and processed into a meal that forms a staple of the Seomish diet. Tchin’ meal is a waxy, pasty substance rich in protein and suitable for mixing in as a filler or extender with other foods, particularly flesh foods.

  Ter’poh: a planktonic creature unicellular algal in nature, that drifts in the upper reaches of the water by the uncountable trillion. Usually processed into meal paste.

  Tong’pod: a bottom-dwelling, shelled creature, similar to a clam, growly wildly in abundance only in tropical waters west of the Serpentines and nurtured artificially elsewhere. Sweet-tasting and slightly narcotic.

  Potah: an oyster-like creature that manufactures a small pearl, called a potu, used as currency.

  Eelot: a deep-dwelling fish of dazzling radiance and delectable fin flesh.

  Ertleg: a crustacean, common to Omtorish waters, especially south of the Serpentines. Rare and considered a delicacy by the Omtorish.

  A Note on Cooking: Cooking with fire is, of course, unknown on Seome. Many foods are processed into pastes however and used to garnish meats. Most plants are eaten raw or with very little preparation. The structure of the tong’pod
has influenced the gastronomic arts on Seome by providing an easily obtainable (easily imitatable) container for mixed, semi-solid foods. Indeed, the empty tong’pod shell was the preferred means of holding and consuming most non-whole foods right into contemporary times. About a thousand mah ago, an artificial shell was developed, completely edible and often seasoned. It is known as an om’pod, a “spicy shell” and is now the most popular way of holding and consuming meals. The most recent models of the om’pod even heat their contents biochemically.

  Theology and First Things

  The aquatic world of Seome is conventionally subdivided into five great seas (or’keln), though there is in fact only one world ocean.

  Each sea is the dominion of one of the five great nations, water-clans, or tribes (the meaning varies in context): these are the kels. The kels are both political and familial in nature. In Seomish mythology-history, each kel is descended from one female ancestor, countless millennia ago, who was impregnated by God (Shooki or Schooke) for the purpose of filling all the waters with life. The first females are known collectively as the Five Daughters, and all life on Seome is descended from them (they are revered as demi-gods.).

  Each Daughter begat two offspring (after the creation of the lower orders), one male and one female. These were the First Mortals and each kel considers its F.M.s as the ultimate ancestors of everyone who has lived since, or will ever live. The F.M.s are the direct parents of the kel.

  In Seomish theology, Shooki created and impregnated the Five Daughters because he was lonely and wished companionship. Accordingly, three extremely important religious-moral-ethical concepts in the culture are friendship, fertility (or appetite) and what could best be described as a kind of internal tranquility (see Shoo’kel). The Seomish are playful and gregarious by nature, generally promiscuous (within bounds) and pleasure-seeking. They are not psychologically disposed to dissatisfaction or self-sacrifice, normally. The universe was created by the confluence of three great currents, say the Seomish: Ke’shoo, Ke’lee, and Shoo’kel, or figuratively, love, life and happiness. This view is applied to many things, especially kel ancestry, or specifically, which First Mortal most possessed which trait. It is a subject of endless debate.

  The Hierarchies: Kels and Em’kels

  The organization of the kel is the most important hierarchy of all. Each kel differs slightly in certain details but major similarities remain. For simplicity’s sake, the House of Omt’or will serve as a good example.

  Omt’orkel claims a line of unbroken, uncontaminated descent from Omt’or, Daughter of Shooki and from its First Mortals, Kreedake and Pomel. Since descent is figured matrilineally, the eldest female of the kel is the nominal head of the family and thus chief of state, designated the Metahshooklet, or Metah (the One who lives in God). In most instances, the Metah designates a younger person to take responsibility for major decisions. In Omt’or, this choice is traditionally the eldest and most sexually productive female of the largest em’kel (see below).

  Each em’kel selects one male and one female to represent its interests before the appointed chief, who is called the Mektoo. The combined assembly of em’kel representatives if called the Kel’emtah, or Kel’em (literally, the “family of the Mother”). It meets once every mah in each city of the kel and all kelke (citizens, members of the family) have the right to petition the Mektoo at these gatherings for redress of grievances.

  In general, the Seomish are not a terribly political people. Since each member of the kel is nominally related to everyone else, questions of authority and patriotism seldom arise. The lines of power and command are clear and based on age and blood. Seomish law is officially codified in the mind and memory of the Metah, which the Seomish have learned to enhance through severe training and regular consumption of special substances designed to improve memory, called tekn’een. These are drugs devised by Seomish chemists that improve recall and recollection and permit the application of considerable information to legal and judicial problems. Only the Metah may take these drugs, which theoretically assure her infallibility.

  Judicial proceedings against law-breakers are normally the responsibility of the Metah’s staff. The theory is that since the Metah made the laws—and is in effect the Law herself—only she can determine if they have been broken. The most common form of punishment is exile; the moral and social theory behind this is suspect though because it is believed that the individual cannot really ever be severed from the kel—his blood relationship persists, even into exile. Another form of punishment is an officially sanctioned silence, called the jee’ot. On occasion, mutilation is permitted and in extreme cases, execution by live burial or flotation is practiced. But these are rare.

  Practical enforcement of the laws is usually left to the em’kel, which is legally and morally responsible for its members. Although membership in any em’kel is voluntary and theoretically anyone not in an em’kel could be above the law, in practice, the Seomish are too gregarious to be loners. Legal offenses can be dealt with by group censure, usually effective, or by taking the matter to the Metah.

  The em’kel is the basic subdivision of the Seomish kel. It is a difficult concept to define because it is so broad and flexible. Simply stated, an em’kel is any sub-grouping that considers itself distinct from the kel at large.

  Em’kels can be based on virtually any distinction: occupation, theological agreement, sexual compatibility, age, preferred roaming waters, mutual interests of all kinds. They form and dissolve constantly, gaining and losing members, but the underlying divisions by interest seem to persist through the ages. Like-minded people congregate in any culture. The durability of specific em’kels is remarkable. Many of them are thousands of mah in age, having developed certain customs and traditions and possessing a collective heritage that ensures their continuance.

  An individual’s first exposure to the em’kel system is the mandatory five-mah membership in the oldest em’kel of all: the Kelk’too, or teachers’ em’kel, in effect, an Academy of Learning. After leaving the Kelk’too, the Seomish child must select an em’kel to associate with, his first major decision. He soon learns that the em’kel is his family, and that he is responsible to them.

  If he wants to become a legal adult, and have the right to form and found his own em’kel, the Seomish child must prepare himself for the arduous ritual of the Circling, to be attempted on the occasion of his twentieth birthday. Upon the successful completion of this rite of passage, most Seomish youth choose to change em’kels, to emphasize their new status.

  Essentially, the em’kel is so organized that everyone is about equal in stature. It is customary to accord slightly more deference to the individual (or individuals) who founded the group. There are rarely any terms of membership and no penalties upon leaving. One may belong to as many em’kels as desired. Many people prefer to give their allegiance to one, however.

  Behavior in the em’kel is based on the fact that all members are equal and deserve love and attention and respect. Personal problems, in matters of work, sex, health or whatever, are properly the concern of everyone and most em’kels hold regular meetings of the membership to air and discuss grievances. These are called ke’teeoh. Other topics that arise are items of discussion before the Kel’em and the Metah, matters of law enforcement and how to punish offenders, domestic matters of expenses, repairs, duties, disputes over the outcomes of games, blood relationships, roaming protocol and other projects and goals the em’kel has planned.

  Most Seomish em’kels maintain a home chamber, called an em’too, where the members live and spend time when not otherwise engaged. Often, the em’too is the place of work as well as sleeping, eating, etc. The average Seomish probably spends no more than 30-40% of his day in the em’too, preferring to get out and roam.