Hidden in Sight (25 page)

... through multiple eyes, each so exquisitely sensitive starlight would burn. No light here. Muscles shudder as they are pushed past fatigue. No rest here. Danger follows, its taste contaminating above and ahead. Only the depths remain free of the taint. For now.

There
.

A glow only these eyes could see marks home.
Triumph!
A final drive forward—

Pain!
A stab through scale and muscle tissue that becomes a grip, a pull.
Upward to the danger.

Cunning serves better than anger. Ersh/I recognize the harpoon's barb shaft, understand its purpose, know the three-fingered hands at the other end of the line. We've seen the newcomers who hunt this ocean.

Rise, slowly, offering no resistance. When there's enough slack, whirl with mouth gaping and sever the line tied to the fish-riders, a motion that continues with a fluid dive into the safe dark of the abyss.

Listen, taste, feel for signs of pursuit. The depth the airbreathers have already come in their pursuit is unprecedented. The new is dangerous.

There!
Turn, a move so powerful and swift it drives a wake against the wall of the abyss, disturbing ancient clouds of what had once been the shells of green and dancing life. Slip through the clouds into a fissure unseen from above, a cavernous hiding place large enough for a dozen more of her/my kind.

Except that her/my kind was as alien to this ocean as those left to hunt in vain above . . .
Amusement
. . .

 

... I came out of Ersh-memory to find myself shocked. While the bits of Ersh I'd consumed years ago often had that effect on me, being prone to arriving when least expected and always containing what I couldn't imagine, this time was different. I'd never felt her amused before.
For all I knew,
I thought with some distress,
there could be memories of Ersh laughing buried in my mass.

I wasn't ready for such disturbing revelations about the founder of my first Web. Shuddering, I climbed back up beside Paul. “Sorry,” I mumbled, gesturing further apology with my swimmerets. “Old memory.”

“I hope it was a good one.” He might be angry, smelly, and very tired, but I had no doubt of the sharpness of Paul's mind under any circumstances. He knew what I meant.

“Nothing to worry about,” I assured him. Although the upwellings of Ersh-memory came less often, I shared any new knowledge with Paul, my web-kin, immediately.
Or fairly soon
, I told myself, then added a more honest
eventually
. At least the important—must be shared or there could be a huge misunderstanding later to the lasting detriment of a young web-being—bits of Ersh-memory. The rest I tended to store away, on the basis that Paul hardly needed to know more about another web-being when, as he frequently told me, he was doing his utmost to keep up with one.
How
, I reasoned,
would it help him to know more about Ersh?
She and I had been as different as two individuals could be, and still claim the same biology.

I gazed out at our destination as our school of young Busfish zigzagged closer. The fissure that rent the side of the Abyss was no longer dark but webbed with colored light, as if filled by a whisper-thin cocoon, in turn filled by the half-seen form of a winged insect about to emerge in all its glory. As we moved nearer still, my Oieta-oculars could distinguish the individual strands crisscrossing the fissure from side to side. Each appeared deceptively thin, given these were enclosed corridors, and beaded along their length. The beads were rooms of various sizes, some in combination, others alone.

I put my mid-arm around the shoulders of Paul's suit. “Welcome to Anienka's Happy House.”

Ersh-memory overlay past and present, discovery and result. I found myself believing I'd done the right thing after all—something I usually postponed until the distant future, when there was some hope of evidence to prove it. “Remind me, Paul,” I said, “once you've washed and eaten, and we've both slept, to tell you the legend of Etienka the Fisher and the Guardian of the Abyss.”

I was sure the Human would enjoy the tale of how Etienka, revered as the discoverer of the Nirvana Abyss, had been guided through the depths by a vision of the largest Prumbin of them all—a saintly figure who had magically disappeared within the Abyss after showing Etienka the way.

I had a feeling Ersh had been amused by that nugget of irony, too.

 

I slept our first night in Nirvana cradled in a watery bed, caressed by exactly the right amount of current to make my Oieta-self perfectly comfortable. It was a complete waste of luxury, since I was exhausted to the point where I could probably have rocked myself to sleep with one suit pole. I wasn't the only one. When I checked on Paul before bed, I found him asleep inside the 'fresher, leaning into the spray. It had taken considerable thumping from my side of the ceiling to rouse him. From what I'd seen through the mist—an unsettling phenomenon to my Oieta-self, given it was just enough moisture so one died slowly rather than quickly—his skin had already pruned.

Perhaps it hadn't been exhaustion alone that finally made us let down our guard enough for sleep. The Human hadn't told me if he'd been concerned about my remaining an obligate aquatic, but I thought his first sight of Anienka's Happy Home must have reassured him. Water and air competed for visual space in every direction. It was less a building than an exercise in interactive plumbing.
Mixs
, I thought,
had done the Web proud.

Take our suite of rooms. Paul's door from the wet corridor—Prumbins were fond of the obvious in naming—was an air lock, complete with storage for his suit; mine was a simple door. Our doors to the dry corridor? The mirror image, with my room opening through a wet lock. His side of our suite, or rather its lower floor, was dry and filled with what appeared to be species-appropriate furnishings. I'd been too tired for an inventory. Mine was a lovely series of concurrent bubbles, shaped by a force mesh; predators were an unspoken natural hazard. There was no weather in the Abyss—another feature the Prumbins found heavenly.
Well
, I corrected to myself, discreetly cleaning my filters of nonconsumables with the brushes on the inner surface of my arms,
there was always detritus.
But the rain of solids through this watery sky never varied enough to be worth forecasting.

If I preferred, I could invoke the exclusion casing over the mesh and use the House's internal water supply; even, had I wished, selected an optimum temperature and pressure, since not all aquatic life-forms enjoyed the physical environment of the Abyss as much as the Oietae. Any water entering my rooms would be rich with life—room service took on an entirely new meaning when it came to filter feeders.

There were sections of the Happy House where any distinction between ocean and air blurred, corridors half-flooded, rooms that were pools with islands in their midst. You could wade, float, or swim, depending on physical ability or preferred technology, all at a temperature and pressure suited to your species' optimum. I supposed even flying species could have managed, if they could fit inside a suit for the trip down. To the best of my, and Ansky's, recollections, none had been tempted.
Perhaps sky dwellers weren't interested in a paradise without one.

Most importantly, however, my floor was Paul's ceiling, made from a transparent, membranelike material the Prumbins had discovered, called “clearfoil.” Clearfoil resisted pressure, becoming stronger as more was applied to it. It was thus, unsurprisingly, the perfect building material for the Brim. From Paul's side, there was a control to invoke a privacy mode, temporarily opaqueing the clearfoil. I didn't have that option, but any aquatics choosing this particular accommodation knew they were on display. Most, like real Oietae, wouldn't be bothered at all. Best of all, our suites contained a com system that allowed us to freely converse—or listen to the same music—through our respective media.

The almost intimate arrangement of living quarters between species who couldn't survive one another's natural environment unprotected was all Ansky's doing. Before falling to sleep, I remembered hoping I wasn't going to have to explain “why” to Paul.

When I awoke and looked around myself for the first time, I realized it was likely too late. The lowermost walls of my room were a ring of interesting objects.
Oieta objects.
I bent my oculars into my ventral surface, as if that would help. When I dared look again, the interesting objects were still there. When Ansky was running the place, such things had at least been discreetly inside an orange-and-black trunk.
And what was that?
I sculled into an upside-down position to try and comprehend the use of one I'd never seen before. It had these twisty fibers . . .

“Good morning! Or is it night?”

I scooted backward so quickly my dorsal ridge hit the mesh and I rebounded into the center of my bubble. “G-good morning,” I ventured, peering down at Paul.

Clean, dressed, and smiling. Amazing recuperative powers, Humans.
And already busy
, I noted with satisfaction. Paul may have greeted me, but he was occupied with what he'd probably planned to do before falling asleep in the 'fresher—scouring his room for listening devices.

“You don't need to do that here,” I told him rather smugly.
Esen the Clever.
“The Brim takes privacy very seriously. Snoops and other devices are illegal.”

He grunted and climbed on the oversized bed to check behind a painting. “They usually are. Doesn't seem to matter.”

“Then what might is that the Prumbin screen all incoming luggage—and bodies—in the processing area for anything that could be used to spy or record. Not to mention Ansky and Mixs took special care here, when they built the Happy House. Ansky wanted to be sure no other owner would be able to modify her building to eavesdrop on her guests.”

“Why—” Paul began, then appeared to really look at the painting in front of him. I sculled closer to the floor to see him better. “Oh,” he said.

“She was interested in relationships,” I said defensively.

He tilted his head to one side and continued to study the painting. “I see that.”

“She enjoyed her work,” I added, then blushed so dark a green I might have been black. “What I meant—”

Paul looked up at me. His lips quirked and there might have been a twinkle in his eyes. “I did meet her, as you recall. A being of rare charm and warmth.”

Since he could equally well have said: of rare appetite and boundless enthusiasm, and, from his apparent mood, probably would say that—or worse—if I let him continue, I quickly changed the subject: “There is room service, if you're hungry.”

“I'd rather go exploring.”

Any remnants of green were swept from my shell by pleased amber and yellow. “Wonderful! This is a—”

“On my own.”

Ersh.
I burped a bubble from my swim sac and settled to the floor, trying in vain to keep my shell from turning a confused mix of red and gray.
I might as well hold up a sign
, I scolded myself, imagining it saying: See Esen's feelings! Now showing: resentful hurt.

Still standing on the bed, Paul stretched up to press his hand against the ceiling under my limp arms. I thought I felt its warmth and rolled my oculars so I could see his face. “You are a goose,” the Human said inaccurately, but in that calm, gentle voice that implied he understood something I didn't.
Wouldn't be the first time
. “I only meant I want a chance to scout without attracting attention. Your idea of a Soft Companion was very clever, Esippet, but anyone hunting us will be looking for a Human paired with an alien. We're conspicuous together.”

“Not here,” I mumbled, flashing green again.

A dark eyebrow lifted. Paul opened his mouth as if to speak, then seemed to notice my color. He lowered his hand and rubbed his lean jaw, a habit when mulling over a new thought.

I sighed and rose from the floor to a more dignified posture. It didn't help, but I went on anyway, carefully not looking at Paul or the devices in my own room. “Ansky built this place for members of different species who wish to—experiment with their biological urges—but had—” if I'd had teeth, I would have gritted them myself here, “—technical difficulties. The Happy House is quite—renowned—in some circles for the capabilities of its staff.” Though not as much as it would have been if Ansky had permitted word to spread. She'd relied on the Prumbins' desire to keep their undersea paradise from being overrun by air-breathing tourists. No one was ever turned away, but, to be blunt, Nirvana wasn't on any maps.

Lesy, the only one of my web-kin who'd been prone to giggle at the universe, had explained to me that it wasn't so much that the Prumbins made an effort to keep the Abyss secret, as that other sentients tended to be confused by the entire concept of paying to tour Prumbin Heaven.

One-way pilgrimage and interspecies' confusion aside, Nirvana and the Brim had become popular destinations for the handful of adventurous and colorful aquatics like the Oietae who enjoyed the rarity of decent accommodations at abyssal depths. They didn't appear to care that the Prumbin offered discounts for beauty—or that the Happy House offered them for ardor. Not that those individuals of varied species aware of the special opportunities offered by Anienka's establishment were prone to discuss them with the uninformed. They were—too busy.

It was,
I realized,
an apt name for a place where one being's pleasure was literally another being's joy. Or more.
There were larger suites.