Autumn Mermaid (Mermaid Series Book 4)

by Dan Glover

  "I would exercise caution, my beautiful Ginger... but perhaps you are correct. We may finally be free from the Lake sickness."

  "Will we begin aging again like human beings used to do, darling Amanda?"

  "I have no way of knowing that, my gorgeous Ginger... but I doubt it. I think the nanobots were engineered to combat both aging and disease... they must have evolved far enough that they are finally achieving Micah's original vision."

  "But why did they attack us, sweet Amanda?"

  "I'm not sure, precious Ginger... perhaps they didn’t actually attack us. Maybe they were merely acting on orders, sort of like those monkeys were doing when they attacked the Ladies in the north of old France.

  "Centuries ago, when the nexus was destroyed... when Pete flew his jet into the middle of it... the attack in the north of old France fell apart too... remember? Perhaps the same thing occurred now. Maybe Micah managed to construct a new nexus."

  Ginger shivered involuntarily remembering how close they had been to being overwhelmed by the hordes of degenerate apes... they were surrounded on all sides, their ammunition was running low, and as soon as she thought they might be making progress against the attackers a thousand more appeared on the horizon.

  Amanda was right. At the worst moment... when all seemed lost... the angry apes had suddenly turned as docile as lambs, ambling about as if they had no idea where they were or what they were doing there.

  Had the same thing happened here? If so, and Micah had created a new nexus, something must have happened to it just like before. Thoughts of Ena rushed to the forefront of her mind... how she had arrived in Toulon unlooked for, acting like a lost child, and how they had all fallen in love with having her around.

  Something didn’t make sense, though.

  "But Micah has been here, sweet Amanda... how could he have created something like that right under our noses? Wouldn’t we have noticed him acting oddly? All I ever see him do is sit at the beach soaking up the sun.

  "He seems like just another boy now. I think he actually enjoys being here... I mean, he seems shy but lately he's gotten more talkative. He even came to the dance last month. Why would he put us all in jeopardy like that?"

  "Maybe that's exactly what he wants us all to think, darling Ginger—that he's happy here, at least for the time being. He could have surreptitiously manipulated his nanobots by uploading commands to them from here. From what I understand, all those tiny machines are entangled with each other... if one of those little nanobots receives a bit of information it is disseminated to all of them instantaneously."

  "Is that why Ena made him go with her?"

  "I thought going to old America was Micah's idea, my precious Ginger. Why do you say Ena made him go?"

  "I heard them arguing. I wasn’t eavesdropping... I just happened to be working in the vineyard when Ena approached Micah while he was sitting on the beach. I was close enough to hear them talking. He didn’t want to go with her... she insisted that he come along, though.

  "She said it was his fault that Niall had gone there to recover Kirk's body. I didn’t realize that's where Niall went... I always thought he had gone off with one of the girls of the People and started a family somewhere.

  "Ena was convinced otherwise. She claimed her son was in danger... she told Micah she needed his expertise... that she didn’t know old New York City like he did. Even though he kept arguing, she pushed him into the flying machine and took off."

  "So she left us here to die... I don't understand why Ena would do that, my beautiful Ginger. I thought she loved us."

  "Everyone said Ena lived backwards, my sweet Amanda. Rather than experiencing reality from the past like we do, she saw it from the future. Maybe she knew we would be okay."

  "So she might have foreseen what was going to happen here? I suppose that's possible, darling Ginger... but we might well have died... maybe she thought Joshua was still here and we'd be safe with him."

  "I never realized how hard it must have been for the Lake people to always be looking out for us, my gentle Amanda... maybe that's what drove Nate away."

  "Do you think he'll ever come back?"

  "No... I think Nate belongs to Lady Lily now... maybe he always did, my sweet Amanda. We were just playthings for him until she decided to take him back."

  She didn’t mean to sound as vindictive as the words sounded... but she couldn’t help it either. The men of the Lake were all such unreliable creatures. Ginger knew that Amanda had an affair with Alpin about the same time she had been taken with Kāne.

  They were both deserted by their lovers, left behind as if they had never even existed. And about the time she had put her life back together, Nate arrived at her doorstep bearing flowers and precious words of love.

  Of course she had been taken in by it all. She had adored Nate from afar for as long as she could remember, and all of a sudden there he was, actually talking to her, offering her gifts, and touching her the way she had always longed to be touched.

  He had only taken advantage of her. Still, she knew that even as it was happening. She could have walked away from him at any time. Instead, she stayed. She lied to herself all the while knowing all the love she felt for Nate was unrequited.

  He had been hurt, and badly. Perhaps unconsciously he thought by hurting someone else it would make him feel better. She hoped it did, and she told herself none of what Nate had done to her and Amanda was intentional.

  He didn’t mean it to happen. Love wanted what it wanted. Still, she had never known it could hurt so badly to lose someone like that. She should have known better than to pour her entire heart and soul into the relationship with Nate, or any man of the Lake.

  "Look, my precious Ginger... is that a sailing ship approaching?"

  Chapter 60—Scenes from the Past

  It was imperative that he get to Toulon.

  The thought had occupied his attention to the extent that Kāne failed to notice he was being watched from afar. It was only when a voice sounded that he realized he was not alone.

  "Hey, old man... need a hand?"

  It was like looking into a mirror. For a moment, Kāne wondered if he had an unknown twin wandering the world... a doppelganger, maybe... but then recognition struck like a lightning bolt.

  "Alpin... your name is Alpin."

  "That's right, old man. Looks like you have your hands full with this old villa... I'd just give up the ghost and move if I was you."

  "Luciana won't have that... she insists upon staying here so I thought I could at least mend the roof to keep the rain out."

  "That girl always was a bit batty... too much like her mother. Is she around?"

  "You'll find her inside."

  "Tell you what, old man... I'll help you with the roof if you give me a ride to Toulon. I have business there."

  "I don't know that it's safe to be around me for that long, Alpin. I give off these vibes, or so the Ladies tell me."

  "Do you need some help or not, old man?"

  Kāne had to admit the quicker he finished here, the faster he would get to Toulon. Was it a coincidence that Alpin wanted to tag along? He doubted it. They were both being pulled to the south of old France and probably for identical reasons.

  "You look like you've been sleeping in the weeds, Alpin."

  "I've been sleeping lots of places, old man... the weeds are probably the best of them. Tell you what... I'll twist up the grass and hand it to you... that will make the work go better so we can get off this rock they call an Isle."

  The man worked like a machine. By the middle of the afternoon the roof was fully thatched and Luciana appeared with news that dinner was ready, if they cared to eat. She did not acknowledge her father at all.

  Kāne wondered if she had indeed crossed over the insanity line while musing that it might be better not to eat what she had fixed... whatever sort of meat it was smelled as if it had turned a week ago.

  "We need to go, Luciana... come with us."

 
Kāne spoke knowing beforehand that she would defer. She only walked away. For a moment he considered following her, trussing her up, and taking her along against her will but the moment passed.

  It was good to be back aboard the ship and better to have a mate along. The odor of the decrepit villa had lodged in Kāne's nostrils but a few deep draughts of sea air dispelled the lingering stench and simultaneously filled him with hope.

  It was a foreign feeling. Heretofore he harbored no ambitions while eschewing either optimism or pessimism. He lived for the moment, nothing more. Now, though, he was needed. Still, he had yet to understand why.

  "We need diesel."

  He spoke not expecting an answer... he had grown accustomed to speaking aloud in his solitude, as if knowing the practice was crucial to not only making himself understood should he meet up with others but in maintaining a grip upon a reality fast slipping away.

  "There are tanks just down the coast, old man... we can make it there by dark if you get a move on. Do you always travel so slowly?"

  It was like being ordered about by himself.

  Alpin took on the persona of whoever he was around, it seemed. Kāne wondered if it was a good idea to be taking up with the man but he didn’t seem to have much of a choice. If he knew where good diesel was stored it would save them several days travel time to the south of old France.

  He didn’t particularly appreciate being called old man but Kāne supposed that's what he seemed, at least to a boy like Alpin who couldn’t be more than a thousand years old, if that. If the kid had only seen what he, Kāne, had seen he might have a little more respect.

  "Those tanks are probably full of water, Alpin."

  "No matter... we can filter it easy enough... I'll show you how to do it quickly. It might come in handy for you on future trips."

  The kid was right. It was simple to siphon off the water from the diesel fuel since it had sat so long that all on their own the two incompatible ingredients separated. Kāne wondered if the boy was always so handy and if so he considered it might not be a bad thing to keep him around even though he had a tendency toward rudeness.

  "Ramp up the engines, old man... we have the wind behind us so while you're doing that I'll set the sails... that is, if you have any on this old scow."

  Kāne felt like the first mate rather than the captain of his own vessel. The boy seemed to naturally assume leadership which seemed odd given what Luciana had told him about her father.

  "Why doesn't your father help you around the villa, gentle Luciana?"

  "I haven’t seen Alpin in centuries. When mother lived here he would stop by every couple of years to see her but since she left for Toulon, my father never comes around any longer."

  "Does Alpin live close by, darling Luciana?"

  "Not that I know of... I think he lives in the mountains south of here. He took me with him once when I was just a girl but I said something wrong. I guess I made him mad. Anyway, he never took me with him again after that."

  Kāne couldn’t help but wonder what kind of man would simply abandon his child to a decrepit villa ready to fall in on top of her but then he realized he had only to look into a mirror and he would see.

  It was good to be on the open sea again, to feel the salt spray in his face, and to sense the ship bucking gently beneath his feet like a wild stallion gone tame. Looking back at the boy he saw he had a smile upon his face too, as if Alpin was as happy to be here as he was.

  A waxing half moon rode high overhead bright enough to illuminate the swells of the deep that bore them along as they sailed the reach before the following sea making for the trades to the south.

  A sudden realization hit him... he had been around the world always searching for that which was right in front of him. All he ever needed was a woman soft and tender, one who gave back the same love that he had in his heart.

  A sudden yearning to see Ginger again rose out of dormant memories long paved over with the miasma of the moment. She would doubtlessly shun him... or would she? Luciana had mentioned that her Grandfather Nate had left Ginger in Toulon so he could take up with Lady Lily once more, even though the Lady would have nothing to do with him.

  In another lifetime, he had loved the Lady too... perhaps too much. Thinking they could somehow rekindle the old feelings they once had for one another had been but of a myriad of mistakes he had been prone to making in prior days.

  The recollections pouring forth startled him... he had always been stuck in the now. When he parted company with someone he promptly forgot all about them, even the great loves of his life. All of sudden, he was remembering old bones long buried but apparently in shallow graves.

  It was like watching scenes of himself unfold before his eyes.

  Chapter 61—In the Beginning

  She had never known such peace.

  The waters were warm and full of life, so blue she couldn’t tell it from sky, and the currents took her into their embrace like old lovers. She knew this place... having spent time here far in the distance past she never thought she would feel so at home here.

  The Lake was young yet old at the same time. Though newly formed it teemed with living creatures that had waited an eternity for its existence to come into being... she was no different.

  She had never belonged anywhere.

  As a girl, she knew she was an anomaly. Though she loved her family she didn’t fit in... she was an outsider, a stranger, a hermetic incongruity even to herself. Her peers, sensing the incredible distances between her and them, shunned her, labeling her a freak of nature.

  For the longest time she thought it was on account of the gills... but her infirmities ran much deeper than that superficiality. She heard the music, and that alone branded her a person of consequence.

  Even the Ladies knew it. Though they in their own gentle ways sought to sooth the insults heaped upon her, they had no permanent solution to the turmoil of questions arising in Ena's mind.

  She was that which was split in two, forever sundered from the reality she knew was approaching and yet forever in flux, like the discordant music that plagued her for centuries.

  She could see the nature of that which was coming and yet she hadn’t the capacity to get out of the way before it hit her... or maybe she did and she subconsciously desired the unexpectability of it all.

  This was something completely new and unlooked for. All her life she had heard tales of the old days of living beneath the waters of Lake Baikal never imagining she would actually experience it for herself.

  Wondering absently what she would do when the cold descended over the land and the waters she scouted out sources of food as well as a place where she might sleep when the need overtook her.

  She surfaced for a brief moment but the surrounding lands were unappealing, filled with cracked rock and bitter fumes belching forth from deep rents in the earth. Beneath the waters, it was warm and luscious and the sweet liquid filling her gills lent her a sense of energy she never before realized was possible.

  Being fond of swimming in the salty oceans had inured her to hurtful fresh waters of the Lake. Heretofore it always felt as if she was diving into a bucket of pins and needles as the crystal blue waters closed over her. She hadn’t visited there in centuries. For some reason, now its waters called out to her, luring her into both the depths and the shallows with whispers of the secrets contained therein.

  It occurred to her that she had never in her life been more alone. Not that her solitude troubled her... still, it seemed a shame there was no one with which to share such an exotic experience with... nobody who could understand, anyway.

  She knew there was no going back. Still, being twenty five millions years in the past had its advantages... she was both the first and last of her kind. She would be the progenitor of a whole new species, one that had been foretold from the beginning and one that would be here at the end when the stars began to wink out leaving the universe as dark and desolate as it had been before all this had started
.

  She hoped the scientists back home would realize that the impact force of her anti-gravity craft colliding with the mass of nanobots taking shape in old America could be calculated and that by doing so they could send someone else through the wormhole she had so laboriously created.

  It had been Micah's idea. The boy had once postulated how the singularity of the anti-gravity craft might act as a well both in time and space siphoning anyone or anything into the wormhole it created in order for the machine to fly.

  He of course had merely been talking idly about such possibilities but it had set the mental wheels to turning in her mind, ruminating over the precise inclination and speed needed to achieve what she had seen... but she couldn’t do it alone.

  She had left careful calculations at Toulon addressed to Karen and Pete, the only two she judged who might understand the gist of what she had in mind. Grandfather Nate would only dismiss it all and besides, she doubted he would ever return to the south of old France.

  Alpin had been gone for so long. She wondered if he would hear her cry of distress and even if he did, would he come? He had never been one to believe in the music. She supposed it had a lot to do with her... he had always seemed to oppose anything she said or tried to do... but he did love her. Of that, she had no doubt.

  An estimate wouldn’t be good enough... they had to be precise in all matters... the collision time, impact force, inclination, and even the inevitable bounce factor. If the calculations were off even minutely, anyone seeking to join her here could end up a million years apart from this time as well as light years away.

  Normally she was so sure of it all but now her certitude had leaked away like the air out of a balloon leaving her tingling with doubt. Still, she had done the only thing possible at the time. If Kirk had been allowed to extend his influence any further, they all would have eventually come under his dominion.

  Destroying the obelisk had been a minor matter... it would have grown useless anyhow with the recalibrating of Kirk. By effectively nullifying the nexus planted inside his brain, Ena reduced the nanobots back into their primary properties—sand and water.