Hidden in Sight (21 page)

“I'm not—” the green deepened. “You know what I mean.”

“Old enough?” He reached out and patted the ridge of suit over my lower left limb. “You will be, one day. Don't mind them. Honeymooners. They can hardly tell your age while you're in the suit, can they? An honest mistake.”

I wasn't sure if I was offended or reassured.

Paul, as befitted the father of two grown offspring, changed the subject. “So, Esippet Darnelli Swashbuckly. Anything you'd care to reveal about our destination, now that I most definitely can't refuse to go?”

I managed a flash of happier amber. “The Nirvana Abyss.”

“What?” The com picked up the sound of his swallow. “I thought the Abyss was only a rumor—a myth!”

I had him.
I could tell by the tone of his voice as it translated into vibration against my membranes. Paul was feeling the thrill of curiosity again.

“No rumor,” I told him. We were forced back against the straps with all the rest as the Busfish made a sudden turn. Passing out of Mouda Cove, I surmised. I hoped this particular Busfish hadn't been responsible for damaging the hazard markers. The Oietae cheerfully ricocheted from one side of the mouth to the other, doing a few unnecessarily intimate spins as they went.

“You've been there?”

Maybe a little too much curiosity for an open com.
I tapped his leg with my pole. “I'm much too young to have been here before. One of the founders of my cluster has leased chambers on the Brim. I've tasted—I've seen images. I believe you will be impressed.”

“The Nirvana Abyss.” Paul stretched out the name, as if he could taste the memories in it for himself. “It's legendary! I can't believe you never told me it was real until now.”

“I was saving it for a—” I couldn't utter another word. My suit saturated with black and red.
Despair.
Everything came smashing down again, my mind reeling with perfect recollection: the chase, the crater that had been our home, the attack in the greenhouse, the dreadful look on Joel's face—on Paul's—our flight here. We weren't safe—My left mid-arm floated to the control of my suit before I considered what I intended, caught and stopped by Paul's quicker hand.

“You were saving it for when we needed it,” he finished for me. “Which is today.” There was nothing more than a pleased anticipation in his voice.

But my web-kin, whose memories were the same as mine, kept hold of my arm.

Otherwhere

 

 

THEY found what remained lying on the eastern slope of the Edianti, cracked but not shattered beyond coherence. What remained conveyed a warning, passed along the dreadful truths discovered on the heights. Then, having completed its duty, what remained fractured along the cleavages of its kind for the next night and true day, the sequence as old as rock itself, becoming a glittering powder that was ceremoniously delivered into the boiling waters of the Geyser of Rebirth.

When the ceremony was complete, the message began.

The initial chimes were dissonant and sorrowful, with undertones of fear. Tumblers who heard took the sounds inward for consideration, then chimed the message onward. The alarm spread along the floor of the Edianti and into the smaller valleys that cut into its crystal walls; it traveled up and over the valley rims to the Assansi and plunged downward again. In this way, it swept across Picco's Moon, slower than any com signal yet more profound, as every listener added both reaction and decision to the message.

By the time it had returned to its source, the message had become answer:
The flesh-burdened were no longer welcome on Picco's Moon.

13: Mouth Afternoon

“WAKE up!” I poked Paul's suit-encased ribs with my lefthand pole. “We're here.”

“I wasn't asleep,” he muttered.
He wasn't awake either.
My Human was capable of remarkably lucid conversation in this semicomatose state, something he denied when fully conscious. Adamantly. Along with any recollection of what had been said. It had taken seven years and some months for me to become convinced this wasn't a trick; once I was, it was hard to resist the temptation to play some of my own. But his memory might improve with age and I was usually in enough trouble without trying for more.
Not that I deserved it,
I reminded myself.
Not all, anyway.

“Es!”

I pulled my pole from his outraged grab for it, my swimmerets trying their best to move me around inside my suit. “We're here,” I repeated. “Finally!”

He stretched, then pretended to consult a wrist chrono. “It's been less than four standard hours, of which you've only let me have one for a nap.”

“Well, it felt longer than the trip from Minas XII,” I grumbled, then flattened my pre-gills as I heard what I'd said, my happy amber stained with green.

The silence between us had a shape, as amorphous as my memory of those three days, as impossible to ignore.

“Understandably.” No condemnation in his voice.
There didn't need to be.

Before I could become more embarrassed—and green—if that were possible, a Prumbin attendant swam up to us. “Brim administration requires a suit check before passengers may disembark.”

A standard, if somewhat meaningless precaution. The mouth wasn't sealed against the outside. The Busfish would suffocate, if it were. My suit, unlike Paul's, didn't resist the growing pressure or cold. I'd felt my swim sacs compressing as we traveled deeper and deeper, their contents more nitrogen than oxygen by now as my circulation took over resupply to maintain volume. It was wasteful as well as more difficult to make bubbles for my mandibles to play with—adding to the boredom of the last hour. Which Paul had slept through.

I could see the Prumbins' side of this, however. Those running the underwater resort wanted some assurance they weren't going to lose new guests in a messy and difficult-to-retrieve-for-relatives' manner. The fact that it was too late by the time those guests arrived spoke volumes about the similarity of insurers of every species.

I endured the Prumbin's inspection, with its finale of a sharp tug on each of my poles, as if trying to take them from me. They were, of course, affixed to the material covering my arms. Had my poles been loose, the attendant would have tied them on the pallet, hopefully near the bag of our belongings already so secured.

Satisfied, the would-be pole thief went to check Paul's suit. When done, instead of leaving Paul and going to the next passenger on the platform, the Prumbins came back to me. Its goggle-enlarged eyes, vertically-pupilled and bloodshot, peered into my helmet. “Sure you want to stay closed, Little Oieta?” it asked, seeming concerned I wasn't enjoying myself like the others.

It probably was.
In one of those ironies Ersh had found meaningful and I found frustrating, Oietae considered the Prumbins to be stoic bores at best, while the Prumbin word for my form's species translated, literally, as “gorgeous dimwits.” No gathering at the Abyss was considered complete without colorful Oietae swimming about. There were transparent, water-filled corridors in every Prumbin building in Nirvana—a feature Oietae tour guides extolled to their travel-loving culture. Would they, if they knew the corridors had been designed to allow the Prumbins to view Oietae at whim?

My Oieta-self seemed to have no problems being displayed as living art.
I did,
I thought, suddenly even more nervous. Camouflage beige threatened to climb up my back.

“Go ahead, Esippet.” An annoyingly awake Paul poked me in exactly the spot where the suit chafed my antennae. “Your frisky friends are buckled in anyway.”

I knew that, having been fascinated by the efforts of the slower-moving Prumbins to net and tie down the cavorting Oietae nearby. It hadn't taken them long—something, I thought, that implied a disquieting skill at fishing.

Perhaps the Human sensed my hesitation.
More likely,
I told myself much later,
he'd learned to distrust my desire to stay inside what could be a self-serve bar.

Regardless, I was as shocked as the Prumbin when Paul reached over and hit the auto-release on my suit. I hadn't realized there was such a dreadfully unsafe control within reach of others. As alarms went off, mine as well as the suit's, I started composing a letter of complaint to the manufacturer, along with dire plans for my so-helpful friend.

Then, the sea herself entered my gills.

I remember this,
I realized with urgent joy, pushing and squirming my way out, as this form would have freed its way from the confines of its egg. Information flooded my senses: the Busfish, our neighbors in its mouth, the steady current of replacement ocean flowing between gaps in its lips, the rush of oxygen toward its gills—passing mine first.

And fresh food. The suit may have sustained me, but nothing compared to the way the constant flutter of my swimmerets and arm combs pushed the life-rich ocean through the fine hairs lining my mandibles, the way tasty, tiny morsels collected there, the way my mandibles automatically swept this harvest into my mouth.

There was something to be said for eating at all times,
I decided, blissfully amber, even as I continued to struggle from the suit.

But the instant every limb was free, something grabbed my lowermost appendages and hauled me backward. I struggled helplessly as a net imprisoned my newly outstretched antennae.

In final insult, the other Oietae were laughing at me, bodies bright yellow. The vibrations they sent tickled my entire surface, let alone my tympana.

Not only their vibrations. Paul was trying to say something using the external speaker on his suit. Sound traveled exceedingly well through water—even random noise, which was about all I could gather from his Human sounds. I worked my antennae through holes in the netting before aiming my oculars at him. The noise stopped as Paul doubtless remembered that without my suit, my tympana couldn't translate his vocalizations into understandable speech.

Twenty-three pairs of appendages allowed me to shrug expressively and with just a touch of satisfaction.
This wasn't my fault.
Then I relented and flashed a calm, forgiving blue, the true color, no longer approximated by technology.

In answer, my perceptive Human held up his thumb.

His wasn't the only reassurance. True speech, bubbling with laughter, played along my sensitive membranes ::Won't be long, Too-Young::

I was unsure if the older Oieta meant my maturation time or our mutual wait to be released from net and mouth. It might have been both. This was a species fond of double meanings.

Playing it safe, I answered with the courtesy due an elder ::I value your counsel, Old-Enough-for-Joy:: The appellation was required and appropriate; I blushed anyway, feeling the stripe of green flaring down my dorsal surface.

More laughter from all three, but kind. They'd been netted into a happy mass of limbs, antennae, and segmented body parts. If I hadn't known there were three, I'd have estimated more—or less—individuals. One was expected to acknowledge such a tight group. ::Greetings, Joyous-Ones,:: I vibrated, settling into a chaste if envious amber in contrast to their glowing orange. ::I am Esippet Darnelli Swashbuckly. My Soft Companion is Paul Gast::

This was,
I thought,
the cleverest part of my planning thus far.
Oietae preferred to travel with a Soft Companion, if they could afford it: a nonaquatic someone to stand in line-ups, handle luggage, and look after the myriad tasks that being in a suit made awkward, if not dangerous for the species on land. Humans were most commonly hired, being adaptable and about the same body mass. The latter was a practical concern, since shared seating was more economical. There was, of course, certain status gained by traveling with more challenging species, as exemplified by the brief trendiness of Ganthor as Soft Companions. Since the only solitary Ganthor were rutting males or insane, such partnerships had cut short several tourist excursions.

The Oietae's names arrived as nonsense, confused by interfering currents as all the Prumbins began lifting braces into position around the tongue at once. I felt another laugh, then, more clearly: ::Well met, Swashbuckly! Our Soft Companions left our service when the starship docked.:: A tint of pink on all three—remembered annoyance. I imagined they'd flashed quite another color on being abandoned mid-vacation. ::The tour guide arranged this one. She is called—:: a pause during which body parts were rearranged.
I hoped they were conversing.
::She is called Wendy Cheatham.:: Three antennae merged to point at a hunched figure on the opposite platform, seated slightly apart from what I took to be a family of three, probably also Human given the attention paid to the smallest member throughout the journey. ::Would you care to trade? Yours seems more fun. Ours hasn't moved since the mouth shut. Dull, dull, dull::

Fun?
Given the frenzied activity of this group throughout the trip—and the work looking after not one, but three Oietae entailed? Unlikely they'd have noticed if their Soft Companion expired from exhaustion, although I hoped the Prumbin attendant would. I gave their poor Human a glance of sympathy and resolved to be nicer to Paul.

::Maybe another time, Joyous-Ones:: I told them.

::There's time at the Abyss! No one should ever miss ...:: This being only the first lines of a long and bawdy song, I resigned myself to having to feel the entire thing, sung in an enthusiastic three-part harmony, interspersed with giggles. Elder Oietae were notoriously fond of embarrassing younger ones in public.