Seas of Ernathe Page 8

  "I agree," Holme said forcefully. "Seth is too careful a person to have let this happen unless something extraordinary were going on. And, since we found the flare casings, it's clear he must either have walked away of his own free will or been taken."

  "So we put him in the same category as that Ernathene fellow, Bonhof," Mondreau said. "Conditionally lost."

  Holme shrugged, and agreed.

  Mondreau turned to discuss strategy with Gorges and Kenelee Savage, who had just finished going over another party member's report. Aside from the disappearance of the starpilot, nothing of note had occurred during the search. Holme, though not specifically invited, stayed around and absorbed the exchange among the three officers. Savage suggested a wait-and-see approach, noting that there was no reasonable action they could take that would be likely to impress the sea-culture (presuming that there was an actual culture among the sea-people), and meanwhile the latest batch of process-mynalar was being run without difficulty, with unarmed guards stationed heavily about the plant.

  Mondreau was distinctly dissatisfied with that proposal. "At the very least," he said, "we ought to have more parties out searching. We know—" and he pinched his eyebrows together to emphasize the point, "we know how effective security measures have been. With all respect, Kenelee." To which the Ernathe Manager made no reply.

  Again, Holme spoke up. "Isn't one of the search ships due soon, with some kind of report of a sighting?" He looked questioningly at Savage.

  "Should be docking now," Savage acknowledged. "They got through enough of a radio report to say that they had found something." He turned up empty palms. "So let's see what they have."

  "You won't have long to wait," said an Ernathene aide from near the window. "Here comes an officer from Orregi, now. It's Jonas."

  The officer entered and reported. Sonar probes had found hollow structures, apparently chambers, on or near the seafloor in two different locations. "Both clusters of structures were located by probe-dragging drones, about two thousand kilometers to the northwest," he said, pointing out the coordinates on a chart. "That's the Jamean Sea, about four days' journey by surface ship. We have only rudimentary details on the sightings, since they were made by roving drones, and by the time we had analyzed the recordings it was too late, fuel-wise, to send them back for another look. But the structures seem too regular, too perfect to be natural. They could be Nale'nid dwellings."

  "On the seafloor?" Mondreau asked skeptically.

  "Yes sir. There were unconfirmed reports of Nale'nid dwellings underwater from the original hemisphere surveys. Though those reports placed them even nearer the equator than the ones we found." Jonas hesitated. "No doubt, sir, you're wondering how a nontechnological people would be living in structures underwater. Well, we'd like to know, too."

  "There's a lot we'd like to know," Savage said softly. His voice hardened. "Barring objections from our Warmstorm friends, then, I'll instruct the masters of Orregi and Barsuthe to prepare for another trip north to examine the sightings in detail. Barsuthe will carry two subs for a good close look if her master deems it advisable. Richel?"

  Mondreau scowled. "Can you airlift a search? Four days there and four back is a long time."

  Savage scratched his throat thoughtfully. "Well, we have two seafliers available; we'd have to send both for safety, which would leave us without an air backup here. Still, they could make sonar mappings, and relay them by line-o-sight to the ships. Save some time. All right."

  "You can't make a submergence?"

  "The subs can only go by ship—and that leaves divers," Savage said. "How deep were those sightings—fifty-three meters? No, I won't risk divers—not until we know more."

  Savage was firm on the point, and though Mondreau was nominally the senior officer, he could not very well order Savage with respect to his own men. The meeting broke up with little more discussion. Holme left, moodily, with Captain Gorges. "It's the Ernathenes' job, now, I suppose," he muttered. "Beginning to wonder just what good we're doing here."

  The Captain walked silently, and stopped near the spacepad shuttle-van. "Well now," he offered, "just remember what Perland's attitude was about his friend, that fellow Racart. If there's nothing you can do, you might as well simply hope for the best and trust the Nale'nid." He nodded genially and entered the van before Holme could even begin to think of an answer.

  * * *

  Crossing the harbor avenue, Holme came out of his reverie to notice a familiar young woman angling across the street toward him; familiar, though he could not quite place her. The woman met his gaze and approached. She seemed nervous. "You're Seth's friend, aren't you?" she asked.

  "Yes—yes, I am. Andol Holme. I'm afraid I've forgotten your name, though," he said awkwardly.

  "Mona. You haven't actually met me—"

  "Of course. Racart's—"

  Her jaw became rigid for a moment: an acknowledgement. Holme pressed his lips together sympathetically. "You've heard about Seth, then?" Mona nodded, her face darkening. He went, "I guess that you and Seth had a disagreement of some sort, but that can't be as important as the fact that he's—"

  "No, no! Yes, we did have at first—or I did—but that doesn't matter. You were there—do you think he was taken by the same people who took Racart?"

  Her hopeful tone made Holme a bit wary, but he answered truthfully that he didn't know. He could only hope, as she did. Mona accepted that thoughtfully. She seemed to be considering what next to say. Holme prompted her.

  "It was the way Racart talked," she said, frowning, "when he spoke about the afternoon he spent out with Seth. He didn't say a lot, but it was enough that I knew something important had happened, something that he was too nervous about to tell me right then—and he hadn't told Seth, either, so Seth couldn't have really known what it was all about. But that something changed, somehow, the way Racart felt about the Nale'nid."

  "How do you mean? For them? Against them?"

  Mona sighed. "I don't know, and that's part of what is bothering me. I think his feelings were divided and he didn't know quite how to handle them. A part of his sympathies were with the Nale'nid, and a part of them with Seth, with you people. And I suppose that includes us, as well."

  Holme was silent, considering for a moment her unflattering appraisal of the relationship between Ernathe and the Mission; he decided that she had not meant it to be insulting. "I would like to think," he said, "that the interests of Ernathe and the whole Cluster are the same—and that they're not irreconcilable with the interests of the Nale'nid. Perhaps that's naive. And, since your people so rarely go offworld, maybe you can't easily appreciate the value of interworld exchange." He paused, thought again, and gestured helplessly. "Perhaps a lot of things."

  For the first time, Mona laughed, though gloomily. "Okay, your intentions are good. I guess I can believe that." Her face dropped. "But it doesn't help about my worry—and that's Racart."

  "It doesn't much help Seth, either," Holme reminded her.

  She looked up again. "Guess I'm worried about Seth, too. And I know Racart would be."

  "Then let's go worry together over a solid meal, okay?"

  "Right," she said, with the closest thing yet to a smile.

  Chapter Eight

  Pal'onar was an impossibility, Seth had decided at one point; but the judgment hadn't lasted—the city was too real, too visible outside Lo'ela and her brothers' fragile-looking dome. He was in a fishbowl looking out, his mind filled with question after question, and no answers. He wished that Lo'ela would hurry and return—from tasks having to do, he had gathered, with the communal harvesting of food. Seth put on his jacket. The dwelling was chilly; there was apparently little more to it than the protective bubble, the floor and several partitions, and two portals, one to the city and one directly out to the sea. There were few furnishings—sleeping mats, some bowls, a basin of fresh water (brought from where, he didn't know), some garments and personal items he had refrained from handling.


  He wondered what time it was here. He wore his timepiece, still, but had no idea of the city's longitude on the globe; as nearly as he could guess, it was midafternoon. The blue light percolating downward through the sea was steady and, in its diffuse way, full; but he judged it to be somewhat less intense than a while ago. The scene outside was still, though occasionally a few fish, or a school, would pass within his sight. From time to time, when he looked carefully, he could glimpse sea-people moving about inside the shadowy worlds of the other seafloor domes; and occasionally he would see Nale'nid swimming in the sea—in a leisurely, fishlike fashion, from place to place or from dome to dome, or just moving about on the bottom. The sight was puzzling, to say the least. The Nale'nid wore no swimming equipment, no breathing aids, and they did not—Lo'ela had assured him—hold their breaths while swimming. What then? Did they breathe water? Another of the questions he would have to ask, probably several times.

  He became engrossed in the undersea view and totally failed to notice Lo'ela's approach. When she stirred at his side, he was so startled that she said: Don't be afraid!

  He turned, laughing, and answered, "I wasn't afraid—only startled."

  You noticed me very suddenly?

  "Yes. Yes, wouldn't that startle you, also?"

  Startle? Lo'ela studied him with keen eyes, flickering; her face was framed by wet brown hair, as if she had been swimming. No, not startle . . . we notice things slowly, not suddenly.

  Seth looked at her in amusement.

  You are different . . . interesting.

  Reddening, Seth looked out again. "Is that why you . . . 'focused' on me?"

  Of course.

  "Of course," he mimicked, and could not help laughing again. Lo'ela laughed, too (shyly, he thought), and walked across to a point under the dome from which the densest part of the city could be viewed. Seth stood a little behind her, gazing into the sunlighted mist of the ocean. He experienced, curiously, the feeling that she had turned to face him, though she had not in fact moved. Perhaps, he thought wonderingly, he was beginning to grow more adept at reading her attention. Or her focus.

  You are hungry. Would you like to eat and see the city? This time she really did turn to him. Her face was pixielike—a young girl asking her older man-friend to go for a stroll.

  "Yes—both. Will I have to swim?"

  Not immediately. She led him out of the dome and into another, connecting dome and then through a series of large, echoing passageways to what Seth had to think of as a "hall"—a much larger dome-section divided by partitions and scaffolds of various sorts, mostly made, as were the dome structures themselves, from a plasticlike seaweed product Lo'ela called glid. Seth had yet to find out how glid was made; he was beginning to wonder, actually, how many of his questions might never be answered. As they walked through the hall he felt that he was strolling through a transmogrified seafloor garden, flowering with great rigid fronds, smooth and glossily translucent, and with hanging filmy sheets fairly frosted with particles of sea-growth. There were also several alcoves exiting to the sea: open wells in the floor from which occasionally a Nale'nid would emerge, shedding water, or into which someone would drop as nonchalantly as Seth would walk through a door, and disappear with barely a ripple.

  Mostly, the other Nale'nid either ignored Seth or observed him with indifferent curiosity. There were many of the people moving about in the hall, and he was disconcerted by the casual reception. Couldn't they see that he was of the outside race—weren't they supposed to have some quarrel with him? The fact was, though, that he could not gauge the reactions of the Nale'nid with any precision. Though apparently quite human, they had facial and muscular expressions that he found incomprehensible—an assortment of quick feature-changes and ripplings of the skin. Only Lo'ela communicated with him in recognizable smiles and lopsided grins—the execution of which she was mastering rapidly as she spent time with Seth.

  She gave him one of her flashing smiles now and hopped up to a higher deck, nearly a full meter above the floor. Her jump was light, effortless, causing her thin wraparound garment to swirl and cling softly against her figure. Come up. She grinned down at him, beckoning.

  "Uh, sure," he mumbled, and boosted himself up clumsily onto his knees, then clambered to his feet. "Now what?"

  The next step was not quite so high, and Lo'ela brought him around a partition to an alcove, where an aged sea-man sat, overseeing several large baskets of shellfish, and several more baskets of fruits, which apparently had been harvested from benthic plants. Lo'ela made a silent gesture to the man, as she told Seth, Sit on the cushions and prepare yourself to eat. Seth obeyed, though he had not the faintest idea what she meant by "prepare yourself." The cushions she indicated were stiff but comfortable, leathery and slick on the surfaces—apparently also of seaweed origin.

  Lo'ela brought a handful of the fruits, put them before Seth, and returned for two bowls of shellfish, which the old sea-man had quickly and expertly shucked. She seated herself beside Seth, looked at him quickly without speaking, then shifted her position nervously, crossing one leg over the other. A moment later she shifted again, rather awkwardly, and finally settled into what appeared a relaxed attitude, legs drawn up and crossed beneath her. She glanced at him again, but still did not speak.

  Though somewhat puzzled by her behavior, Seth picked up a fruit and rubbed it on his sleeve until it shone. He hesitated. Finally it dawned on him; what Lo'ela probably was doing was refocusing her attention from him to the food, or to the act of eating. He wondered if he should refrain from speaking. Perhaps she always ate in silence. Or perhaps she thought he did. Best to play it safe and keep quiet, he decided.

  He bit the fruit, took a good mouthful; it was soft inside and watery sweet. Malan, he was told. He smiled to himself, stealing a glance at his concentrating friend, and consumed the fruit with relish. Next, following Lo'ela's example, he tasted the shellfish, and found that a different matter altogether—it was raw, tough, and gaggingly bitter. Seth steeled himself, and gulped it down. He gasped at the burning aftertaste. Bollins, he was told, sorrowfully. Apparently Lo'ela, despite her concentration, was still sensitive to his reactions, which was always reassuring in case he became ill from the food. He ate one more bollins, to prove he was made of strong stuff, and he glared indignantly when Lo'ela's chuckle filled his head.

  "Fine . . . food," he choked with mocking enthusiasm. Lo'ela's face darkened, filled with uncertainty. He hastily explained that he was joking, good naturedly. She relaxed and hummed softly in his mind. She still was learning basic things about him; but he was beginning to realize what a good companion she was.

  Thank you.

  Thank you? he wondered, startled. He asked, suspiciously, "Did I transmit—focus—that thought to you?" Her chuckle filled his head again, and he grinned helplessly. Apparently Lo'ela was not the only one learning and adapting. When are we going to see the city? he wondered. No reply. Oh well. "When are we going to see the city?" he asked.

  As soon as you eat that other malan you are hungry for.

  Seth ate.

  * * *

  When they began touring the city, finally, Seth could not contain his wonder. It was one thing to see myriad shapes in the distance, blurred by seawater—but quite another to actually walk through dome after dome, all thirty to forty meters (he estimated) beneath the surface of the sea. This was not the work of a primitive or undeveloped folk, as his own people considered the Nale'nid. But neither was it the work of a technological people. What was it, then—aside from a marvel?

  Though most of the dwellings were clear domes, some were opaque or translucent. Interior illumination in the opaque structures was provided by bioluminous, anemonelike animals, which were kept and nurtured in many clear glid basins; it was not bright illumination but it was sufficient. Many of the structures were not domes at all, but spheroids or toroids. Many were unconnected by the main passageways, and apparently only accessible by water; others began above the seafloor a
nd extended downward, straight into bedrock. Seth stopped in a passageway, pressed his face to the glid wall, and looked down at one such burrowing structure.

  Many craft-focusers live there, Lo'ela said, anticipating his question.

  "They are builders?"

  Yes, many of them.

  "But they don't have machinery, do they, Lo'ela? How do they build structures like this? Our engineers couldn't do what your people have done—not with seaweed, for heaven's sake." Seth shook his head, and tapped on the rigid glid surface. He ran his fingers along the fused seams of the woven ribbons. The material was moist and cool.

  Focus. I can't tell you, because I know little of their craft.

  "But—" Seth sighed. He could see from the wrinkles of confusion in her face that he was unlikely to get farther on that tack. Still—"Lo'ela, if there is no machinery, how do you get your air and circulate it through the domes?" He had wondered about that often. From time to time he was still conscious of the effort he constantly put forth in breathing, of the considerable density of the air at this depth and pressure.

  Lo'ela tapped the glid wall. From the water. We do not need machinery. The wall lets in good air, releases bad.

  A selectively permeable membrane? Conceivable, in a laboratory. But here? "Lo'ela."

  "Yes?" she said aloud.

  "We're going to—" He stopped. "Did you just say 'yes'?" Lo'ela was grinning mischievously. "Oh. And I was just getting used to your speaking the other way."

  Yes, I like this better, too.

  "Lo'ela, please stay serious for a minute. There are a lot of things confusing me, but right now I want to know about this focus business."

  Of course.