He was not to be disappointed. But the first action, when it came, was not visible at all. It was a thought-scream of outrage from the spectators—dissonant mistuned chimes, and bashing cymbals, and piercing horns all hurling their awful cry directly into his skull. Seth reeled; the outcry drilled, and drilled, and echoed and drilled in his head without letup. Finally, he shouted back, exploding in anger at the pain in his skull, the blinding, deafening pain—but his cry fell deadened, he had neither the skill nor the power to muster a telepathic cry. Lo'ela, beside him, touched his hurt nerves, ready to intervene to mute the deafening shrill at its receiving point—him—but he shouted back her help, he would have no relief without wresting it for himself.
He bellowed his pain, his voice a watery moan . . . and the clamor died. But not on his account; the two players had been primed, loosened, and now they fell to in their roles, circling one another in their projected thoughts, circling, playing and toying, and toying and waiting for openings. If Seth expected a physical demonstration, he was in that regard disappointed. The assault when it was launched was mental—but none the less brutal for that. Sem'bol had challenged A'nit, and the challenge was joined—it would be a test of unleashed wills, bloodied emotions, crimson dark hate: the anger-drama. A match of treachery, of panic, of betrayal.
A'nit led with a taunt, an awful feedback screech that rocked Seth to his bones—and summoned forth a thundering vision of mountain peaks quaking in concussions of sound, escarpments trembling and shivering and slowly, helplessly coming apart as the whole mountains disintegrated in endless avalanches. Sem'bol maintained dignified silence for the moment, withstanding the cataclysmic noise tearing at his strength; he allowed his anger to build, like tectonic strain, beneath the smooth surface of his outer calm. A'nit paused for a moment to consider the effects of his efforts—and that was when Sem'bol exploded, driving lances of derisive fire into A'nit's smug calm, lightning bolts crackling in a dry forest kindling the primal fury of consuming fire. Burning, dark choking vengeance, while Sem'bol strutted high in the clouds crowing his riposte, his quick victory over the attacker.
The return of A'nit was slow, as he seemingly gathered himself, weeping and broken, from the ashes of debacle. But quietly, into the deep flowing currents of ground water, he poured the venom of his anger, his humiliation, his spite. And as Sem'bol danced his satisfaction, the winds buffeting with his laughter, he grew thirsty, and after a time came to earth and drank deeply from the sweet valley wells. Slowly, in a trickle of pain, of numbness and horrible dizziness, he became aware of the treachery, of his folly in trusting the very earth beneath him—while in the breezes of the air now was heard the shrieking laughter of A'nit, the trickster, the foe. And Sem'bol's reply was shattering—the explosion of the earth, the wind, the end of all that was, in the heat and tidal fury of a passing rogue sun. The shock waves boomed, reverberated nonsensically in the darkness, and the smoke of vengeance.
Armies collided on the night plains of unknown worlds, stirring Seth the watcher to the darkest abyss of his own soul, releasing a swirling flood of hatred from noisome reservoirs, and without being aware of it Seth was growling, spitting, screaming his own bitterness, his own venom at faceless assailants. The storm of blood-lust around him, of aroused dark souls, grew in orchestration—the energies mushrooming in sweetly bitter musical focus, in violently conceived kinetic-motion focus, in the liquid aching beauty of anger-hatred focus.
There was no way of knowing the time for which the drama played, or when it might end—the laughter and the strutting, the undercutting and bludgeoning. He lost knowledge of time and place in a frenetic eagerness for violence, the will to destroy with his thoughts, with his soul. Only when he heard the rasp of his own shriek over the background mutter, the hoarse cry of his own bloodied brain, did he slowly, confusedly become aware that the energy, the source of the hatred had died, had withered and gone away. And then he knew that the drama had ended, it was over, and that all were quiet except him . . .
. . .and that Lo'ela was shaking him, trying to reach him through his insensible shouting. It has ended, it has ended! And there was the sea-woman floating before him in the mist, her hair any like gold-dust, her eyes wide and frightened and staring, reaching.
He brought himself to a shuddering silence, held every muscle of his body rigid until he felt calm taking hold. He swallowed hard. "Yes," he managed, suddenly half laughing, half crying, spirit pouring out of him in enormous relief. He was floating upside-down, though he had felt no motion, no turning. The chamber was dark and quiet, still—no players in sight—and the rest of the Nale'nid were already leaving or were gone.
He nodded, still laboring sternly to control himself. "Yes, I see," he said. It was a shock to realize that he was still underwater, still encased in a divesuit. He had forgotten. "Who won?" he said—and forced a grin.
No winners, Lo'ela said. Come. She swam off toward the exit of the chamber, ignoring Seth's querying expression. What was the matter? he wondered. Why was she upset? But he had no time to ask as he hurried, kicking his fins to follow. No doubt she would let him know in her own time.
He had completely lost his bearings by the time Lo'ela took him to a higher place, which gave way to another cavern, much larger and almost as dark as the last one. Wheeling lightly in mid-space for a quick survey of this new place, Seth was surprised to see the shimmering mirror of an air-water interface. They were, apparently, back in the high chambers of the grotto. Lo'ela headed with one sharp, smooth kick to the surface. Seth followed.
Water broke around his head and ran in rivulets down the outside of his film-mask, and he struggled ridiculously for a moment, discomfited by the feeling of his heavy head pushing him back down into the water; then he breathed easily once he got his water-sense back and sculled quietly after Lo'ela to the nearby solid rock bank, which turned out to be the edge of a broad ledge or floor extending some distance back into the cavern. He heaved himself out of the water with a great show of clumsiness, and a good natured grumble about the ease with which Lo'ela had accomplished the same thing. He stood, dripping and shivering, and said, "What now?"
You may take off your diving suit here. She was already reaching to assist him.
Seth was glad to be rid of the suit for a while, minor encumbrance though it was. He breathed sharply and rubbed his arms, trying to get his circulation back to normal both for full gravity and for the damp, chilly air. "You set?" Lo'ela asked aloud, studiously. Seth nodded, and they set off back into the cavern. He was amazed at how clearly he suddenly could see; the faint mistiness of the water was coming to seem natural to him. As usual, the illumination was apparently from indirect bioluminous sources—or perhaps it was indirect sunlight, he was finding it hard anymore to tell.
A number of Nale'nid were congregated in a narrower off-shooting cave, and they went to investigate. Seth peered through the group eagerly, his senses warmed up for something intense like the anger-drama. "What is it? Can you tell?" he asked Lo'ela with a quick sideways glance. She had squeezed close to him, and he slipped an arm around her waist. She acknowledged the action with a tight glance, but she was tense.
"You—" she started, then switched back, you may not like this.
"Oh?" He stared at her, and shrugged. "Well, let's find out." Whatever had tempered Lo'ela's enthusiasm had not affected his own, so he pushed forward with her into the crowd until they found a spot from which they could see.
The view was not particularly upsetting: a young Nale'nid girl was reclining on a flat, smooth stone slab, and standing next to her were a sea-man and a sea-woman. Doing nothing, apparently. Seth stared, whispered sideways, "What are they doing?" Lo'ela gulped, watched, and said nothing. "What's happening?" he whispered insistently.
Her focus, came the answer, finally, though Lo'ela kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, is upon the senses beneath her aura, the senses stripped bare—and the others are suppressing her aura, depriving her of it to help her focus. They have on
ly just begun.
Seth rolled that answer over in his mind, and decided that it was an intriguing idea, though surely it must be traumatic in execution—being stripped of the most basic outward manifestations of self, being left without aura-contact with others or with the physical world. The result surely would be, at the least, dreadful fear and loneliness—and perhaps irreparable autism, or catatonia. And yet it was a voluntary thing; it apparently was what she wanted, and whether or not she would still wish it after a prolonged time was a moot point. Interesting; he decided he would like to see more, perhaps something developed to a higher extreme.
But Lo'ela—she was so subdued. Was she developing a conscience—that most unNale'nidlike of faculties—even while Seth was losing his?
"Let's move on," he urged. "Is there something further advanced that we can see?" Lo'ela gave him a thoughtful look, and reluctantly agreed. They went deeper into the cave, which turned out not to dead-end but rather to continue for some distance. There were noises, not quite identifiable, coming from the deeper chambers. They stopped to listen more carefully. The sounds wailed, echoing queerly from the convolutions of the walls, so queerly in fact that it took Seth a minute longer to realize that it was a voice, a peculiarly tortured voice—like the howl of a demented cat, or an enraged grissom pony. It reverberated quaveringly, making Seth shudder, even as it quickened his interest.
He urged Lo'ela forward, hurried with her around a bend. The wail was peaking—its source was clearly undergoing exquisite torment—and for a moment Seth was afraid that it would halt, or the victim would pass out or die before he could get close enough to watch and to feed on the intensity of its pain. There was another crowd in the chamber ahead, and he made ready to push by anyone in the way. His heart was racing, his neck muscles tense, quivering—was this another aura-deprivation, a victim driven all the way to gibbering insanity?—but as he tugged forward, Lo'ela resisted. He wheeled irritably, and was shocked for just a moment by the dread filling her eyes. Then: "What?" he demanded impatiently.
She shrank from him. I am afraid of this.
Still holding her hand, he edged sideways, trying to see what was happening beyond the crowd as he spoke to Lo'ela. The wailing trailed off to a moan.
You—you will not like this!
"These are your own people!" he rasped. He let go Lo'ela's hand and pushed forward through the crowd. They were an equally determined audience, so finally he had to be content to stretch high and peer over the front lines of watchers. The setting was the same as that of the other aura-deprivation, except that here two sea-men were standing over a third man on the stone slab. The subject at the moment was lying motionless, unprotesting; but his face was utterly masked by horror, by naked emotional stress, and he was breathing in strange, inhumanly melancholy tones.
Seth stared intently, absorbing the scene, focusing on the torment being wrung from the victim's soul. And then he froze, paralyzed in a half step forward.
The man was not a Nale'nid at all. It was Racart.
Curious thoughts engaged in Seth's mind as he tried to react to this revelation. His excitement remained strong, but it was suspended in a timeless moment of horror and of guilt; the energy of his body was directed toward the focus, and a part of his mind clung tightly to that even as his deeper thoughts churned in a terrible quandary.
Where did he stand! Racart's face was a contortion, a caricature, the face of a man driven to the edge of a bottomless psychosis. My friend! My friend whom I'd nearly forgotten! Lo'ela, how could you have made me forget him?
Racart, what have they done to you?
Racart's head turned slightly, his eyes lifted, flickered, as if he had heard Seth's unspoken cry. Stricken with grief and hope Seth stared past the sea-people at him; and some inner restraint parted, unleashing a fury that was no Nale'nid focus but the blind rage of a human grievously wounded—no matter that it was by forces beyond his control and understanding. "RACART!" he bellowed, stunning the crowd into attention.
He pushed forward roughly, elbowing past the sea-people to reach his friend's side. Only Racart's breathy moan, now subdued, filled the silence. The Ernathene showed no signs of consciousness, but something in his face seemed to have eased. "Racart!" urged Seth, leaning close—"Come out of it!" There was no response from his friend except a fluttering tic in his left eye; his gaze was straight upward, his eyes dilated, unfocused. Seth's blood flowed hotter, and he turned with a cry back to face the Nale'nid audience.
With no more thought than warning he leaped into the crowd, swinging wildly. His fists rained blows onto people he could scarcely see for the blur clouding his vision—and several went down as he jumped sideways, and back, turned and leaped forward again, his arms wind-milling brutally. He screamed as he swung, his wordless cry as hideous as Racart's had been just moments before. The crowd edged away. Most of the Nale'nid were merely confused, and neither defensive nor sympathetic; they stepped clear of Seth's attack only as a kind of delayed reflex. When a space had cleared so that he was swinging at empty air, Seth suddenly stopped. He stared at them all in stupefied silence.
"What have you done?" he croaked after a minute. He turned back to Racart—and noticed the two Nale'nid standing nearby. These, then, these were the people who had tortured his friend. Racart made no sound, no sign of wakefulness. "You!" Seth called, gesturing vaguely at the two Nale'nid. "Why have you done this?" His voice dropped sharply, guilt and anger mixing turbulently in his thoughts; he knew quite well why they had done it.
"Seth!"
He heard his name in his ears, shook his head.
"Seth!" The cry was insistent. Lo'ela was standing behind him, nervously, at a distance. He scowled as he turned, focusing his eyes slowly on the sea-girl.
Seth. She started to approach, hesitated, then mustered her courage and very deliberately took the steps forward. She was trembling, quaking. She opened her mouth, trying to form words; she seemed unable, so she spoke directly. This was the focus you wanted. Thought you wanted.
He glared threateningly. His anger was so great that he felt an urge strike again, against her—but he clutched his arms together across his breast and said, shaking, "What I wanted? What I wanted!" His self-control broke, and he grabbed her and shook her so violently she cried, helplessly, "Ai, ai, ai, ai!"—even as she pleaded with her mind.
Seth—yes! My people did it, and you wanted it too! If not to your friend then to someone else! Can you have forgotten? Her mind-voice was anguished, begging for recognition, for understanding. She was right and he knew it, and he knew it hurt her to say it, hurt her human feelings. He had wanted it: the anguish, the intensity of torment. Lo'ela's eyes were blinking wildly, her hair was tangled and pushed to one side, her mouth was twisted in fear.
What woman was this, a Nale'nid who reached to him with human fear, human terror he could understand in the bottom of his soul? Is this the woman, the Nale'nid I love? Yes . . . no . . . I don't know. Is that why she resisted, she knew that Racart was here?
I did not know—but I sensed something, yes.
Seth stared dumbly, bewitched by her power to read his thoughts at their most desperate. Lo'ela clung to him hard, her face, her hair, her breasts pressed to his bare, shivering chest. Then she tore free and ran past him to the two Nale'nid who were with Racart. Seth heard her cry in her rapid, incomprehensible tongue—then he forgot them and hurried back to Racart. His friend was still, his eyes blank, and Seth suddenly wondered if his own presence, his aura, might possibly be harmful to Racart.
He frowned, and placed a hand gently on Racart's right arm, and felt for a pulse—rapid, weak. He pushed Racart's hair lightly back from his forehead. The Ernathene's eyes flickered; he was breathing more quietly, but he remained lost in whatever world had captured him. Seth spoke softly: "I have not forgotten you, Racart, no." Not really, he thought, gritting his teeth. "I'm here with you now."
Utterly drained of energy, he stood for what seemed an endless time, all others forgot
ten—until Lo'ela appeared at his side, clutching his arm tightly. Several other Nale'nid, including the two who had been working on Racart, surrounded the Ernathene and touched hands to him. Seth began to protest, but Lo'ela stopped him. Stand quietly for a moment, my starman.
Seth glowered but obeyed. The cavern silently dissolved into the chaos of the world within the world, and when that disappeared they were standing once more in Lo'ela's dwelling in the city beneath the sea.
His legs buckled without warning, and he staggered in Lo'ela's tight grip. He lost awareness before he touched the floor.
Chapter Fourteen
Andol Holme stood at the railing of the harvester Morgendale, where he had stood for most of the afternoon staring out over moving water. The sky seemed moody to him, as it had all day—changing from gray to blue to gray nearly as often as he glanced up. The sun, when it was out, was hot, burning.
The flotilla had been underway for three days, now, and although Holme was ready to perform as necessary, he still had not completely reconciled himself to the actions to come. His actual duties were relatively ambiguous; he was the exec of the handful of Warmstorm crewmen on board, but with the exception of the weaponry crew the Warmstorm personnel were present as a formality mainly—they watched the Ernathene crews at their work and assisted in small ways when possible. The mood of the Morgendale crew was subdued and apprehensive, and he rather suspected that the same was true throughout the flotilla. There reigned an unspoken fear that the mission was pursuing a deadly course: with every vessel armed and capable in one fashion or another of destroying underwater targets, the flotilla wielded frightening power. But to what end? They could (probably) destroy the Nale'nid city if they wished—which they didn't—but could they intimidate the sea-people, induce them to change their behavior? Some thought yes; more, it seemed, thought no.
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