The Farpool (15 page)

…we travel…three (days)…go Omsh’pont…our
home. We must find kip’t, re-connect tchee’lum to kip’t…the
wavemaker you see…makes great Sound…destroys all…we need your
help….

After some discussion, Pakma agreed to allow
Chase and Angie to don their own scuba gear, and exit the pod.
Pakma shut the hatch and led the teenagers below the surface,
hauling themselves along the tow line to the lifeship. Kloosee was
at the controls. Chase and Angie squeezed inside, with Chase trying
to form words into the echopod. He found that by pressing the
echopod to his throat—an old diver’s trick he’d learned from his
Dad—he could form the words well enough and get the signal through
the echopod. The Seomish seemed to understand.

Pakma climbed inside the pod and
Kloosee steered the lifeship below the surface, probing and
sounding for the
kip’t
station nearby. They would need the sled for the trip
home.

Chase found the throbbing sound
painful, even deafening this close to the wavemaker. The water
among the vortex fields was turbid and choppy and Kloosee had all
he could do to keep the lifeship on course, homing for the
kip’t
station.

He dove toward the signal, which
emanated from a narrow ledge carved into the side of a seamount.
They would park the lifeship there, secure the vessel and transfer
everything to the
kip’t
,
including their cargo pod. After that, several hours of cautious
maneuvering to get beyond the whirlpool fields and the four
travelers would be headed toward Omsh’pont at last.

Chase winced at the booming of the
wavemaker.
How do they stand
this
, he wondered? He pressed the echopod to his
throat, tried to form a question.

“How do you put up with this noise? It’s
deafening.”

Kloosee’s reply was
scratchy….
the Sound….also
vibration…destroys our homes and cities…we call this
mee’torkel’te
…rough water…hurts
ears…many problems…need your help….

Angie indicated by hand motions that she
wanted the echopod. She imitated Chase, pressing the pod to her
throat.

“How long has this sound been going on?”

Kloosee guided the lifeship steadily
deeper, pinging for the
kip’t
station. Finally, he got the signal he was seeking and
steered them toward the side of a huge underwater cliff. A niche
came into view through the murky water. Tucked into the niche was a
small sled with an enclosed cockpit. Kloosee brought them to
all-stop abeam of the niche.

…the Sound and the wavemaker…many mah…we
tried shielding in past…shield failed…the Umans do not listen…

Angie wondered. What the hell’s a mah? She
would have to ask about that later.

Kloosee indicated they should exit the
lifeship. He sprung the hatch and Chase and Angie emerged
cautiously into the water.

Jeez this is
cold
, Chase thought.
Dirty as
hell too
. The water was dense; he had no idea how deep
they were but the pressure on his ears was building. He tried the
old Valsalva technique—pinching and blowing and it helped. Then he
made sure his feet were straight down and his head straight
up.
How the hell do they see
anything?
Then he answered his own question:
they don’t see.
They
don’t have to. They can range and ping with their own sound. No
wonder this blasted machine causes such problems,
he
realized. He glanced at Angie as she came out. She seemed to
understand, shaking her head, trying to clear her own
ears.

Under Kloosee’s guidance—Pakma had also
emerged from the transfer pod—several bags and satchels were moved
from the lifeship into the
kip’t
. The tow line was unhooked and re-attached
to the sled. Kloosee slithered inside the
kip’t
and powered up the vessel, then gently
maneuvered it out of its niche and into open water, hovering just
beyond sight, while Pakma drove the lifeship into the cradle and
parked it.

When all the cargo transfer and
maneuvering was done, the
kip’t
was attached by tow line to the
tchee’lum
and the lifeship secured in its
parking bay.

Kloosee started chirping and chattering and
Chase put the echopod back to his ears.

…Pakma tek rides in
tchee’lum…
you ride with
me…

Chase and Angie squeezed themselves into the
sled cockpit, as best they could. Behind them, Pakma disappeared
back inside the pod.

Chase pressed the echopod against his throat,
forming a question. “Can we see this machine, this thing that’s
causing such a ruckus?”

For a moment, Kloosee didn’t respond.
He was concentrating on steering the
kip’t
away from the cliff. Chase wondered if his
word ‘ruckus’ didn’t translate.

Then…
will try
to approach wavemaker…surface water is rough…secure
yourselves…

And with that, Kloosee pressed forward,
accelerating the
kip’t
with
its propulsors. The sled angled nose up and Chase could see the
surface above them, light streaming down in translucent shafts.
Something like kelp or seaweed draped itself over the cockpit as
they rose and Kloosee waggled the sled a few times to throw it off.
The sea was filled with the stringy mass drifting in huge clouds
just below the surface.

Suddenly they breached in an explosion of
foam, into a world of gray and gloom, with rising swells and rough
choppy surf, bobbing like a paper cup in a hurricane. Above the
surface, the ocean was roiling in heavy surf and gale-force winds
slammed them up one wave and down another. Kloosee did the best he
could to keep them at the surface.

…pulse that
direction…
he pointed with an armfin off to the
right…(
shkreeeah
)
wavemaker creates
mee’torkelte
…many, many
opuh’te
…many vortex…

Chase and Angie strained to see. An island
was on the horizon, its cliffs partially obscured in heavy mist.
The cliffs seemed to rise out of the water at a vertiginous slope,
a rugged shoulder of gray-brown rock, slick with moss.

But it was what lay off to the left of the
island cliffs that caught Chase’s attention. He grabbed Angie’s
shoulder and pointed.

What he had first mistaken for a whale or
another island was in fact no such thing. A dark hump emerged from
the surface, poking above the waves and arching out of the water at
a shallow angle, rising to a low apex some distance away, veiled by
the ever-present mist that never seemed to lift. The part of the
machine above the surface was a vast, squat cone, patterned with
blister-like bumps from the water’s edge to the apex and completely
around its circumference. Directly above each bump, the mist
swirled in sparkling convolutions, forming spiral rainbows that
seemed to expand as they curved overhead and disappeared into the
gray of what Kloosee always called the Notwater.

Angie burbled into the echopod. “What is
it?”

Kloosee answered…
it is a weapon…the Umans fight their war with this…it affects
time…creates
opuh’te
…you say
vortex…many vortex…one vortex is the Farpool….

Angie thought she had misheard. “Did I hear
you say ‘humans’?”

Kloosee fought the
kip’t
controls for a moment, then decided it was
best to submerge. The sled was made for underwater travel and the
ride was decidedly smoother below the waves.

…we say Tailless People of the Notwater…they
call themselves Uman…theory may be descendants of your race…many
thousand mah in your future…

Angie looked at Chase. He hadn’t heard the
echopod and had no idea what Kloosee was saying. She would have to
explain later.

Umans? Humans? Descendants? They had come
through the Farpool and traveled a long way in time from Scotland
Beach…Angie was beginning to have a sickening feeling. Suddenly,
she wanted to go home. Be with her Mom. Work afternoons at Dr.
Wright’s clinic and chug down Loopy Juice at Citrus Grove with Gwen
and her other friends.

Girl…this is nothing like
Scotland Beach
. She handed the echopod back to
Chase.

“Kloosee, where are we going? How long?”

Kloosee had already steered them into deeper
waters, almost black waters from the lack of light at this depth.
The pulpy strings of the weed had dissipated and a faint pinging
sound, interspersed with clicks and pulses, could be heard. Chase
realized Kloosee was steering them by sound alone, kind of like
sonar.

That made sense.

…we ride P’omtor…two hundred beats…then turn
toward Serpentines…Likte gap…rough water…six emtemah…you say…two
days…

Two days,
Chase sank back in his little niche, looked at Angie.
I hope our air holds out.
He now
knew they were completely at the mercy of Kloosee and
Pakma.

Kloosee’s plan was to cross the Ponkel
until they had reached the junction of the Pomt’or and Tchor
Currents, then turn south through unsounded waters, paralleling the
northernmost arc of the Serpentines, hunt for the gap until they
felt the first faint tugs of the Tchor Current, then scoot through
the gap and ride that underwater river across the abyssal plain.
Then he would home on the seamounts surrounding Omsh’pont City,
listening for repeater signals and the murmuring voices of
the
oot’stek
, until the echo
layer brought them safely into local waters. That was if all went
well….

After a few hours aboard the
kip’t,
Chase found himself dozing
off and half-dreaming of some cave diving he and Stokey Shivers
used to do.

Around the beginning of ‘14, Stokey and Chase
had been exploring caves out along a ridge off Coral Road.
Underground were some partially submerged limestone caverns. Chase
had been warned against this by Mack, his father. They had scuba
gear, but found they didn’t need it. They dared each other to veer
off the main cave branch into an unknown and unexplored branch,
known locally as Crocodile Corner, or colloquially as ‘The Croc.”
They promptly got lost.

Stokey became very frightened. But Chase
viewed it as a simple matter of figuring things out. He remembered
he had been tinkering with Bailey, his old pet flying drone, after
his Dad had given it to him. He had added some voice recognition
routines and some olfactory sensors. Now, lost deep inside The
Croc’s Corner, he yelled at the top of his voice, even with the
echoes, in the hopes that Bailey the Flying Dude would detect his
voice, and his scent, and come to rescue them. And, after a few
hours of listening to Stokey’s sniffling and whining, Bailey did
come and found them and led them out of the Coral Road caves and
Croc’s Corner.

Thank God for Bailey.

Mack and Cynthia were elated to finally have
Chase home safe and sound. They had smothered him with hugs and
kisses. Then they paddled him good and sent him to his room. He was
grounded for three months. After that, he began drifting apart from
Stokey, though a complete break took several years.

I could use old Bailey
about now,
he figured. He put the echopod to his
throat.

“Kloosee, excuse me…about these Umans. You
said they’re fighting a war. That the sound machine is a weapon.
But who are they fighting? Why is the machine here?”

Kloosee had been concentrating on his
controls, probing, sounding ahead, hunting for the faintest tickle
of the Tchor current.

…Umans fight enemy we cannot see…beyond
Notwater…

“Somebody offworld,” Chase decided. “Why do
they fight? What’s this big weapon do for them?”

Kloosee seemed intense, distracted,
even a little upset by the question. His armfins shook as he
manipulated the
kip’t
through
cross-currents. Outside the bubble cockpit, Chase couldn’t see a
thing.

…Umans fight to fight…we do not know the
enemy…wavemaker affects time…Umans use it to sweep enemy from this
area…control this area…time is changed…distorted…

Chase gave that some thought, checked his air
gauge. Less than three hours. He would have to talk with Kloosee
about that.

“So they can manipulate time somehow…is that
how this Farpool works?”

Kloosee slowed the
kip’t,
changed their heading slightly. Chase
noticed the controls had no lights, gauges or anything he could
recognize. Small circular membranes vibrated at different
frequencies, filling the water inside the cockpit with a symphony
of beeps, clicks, whirs, whistles and chirps.

Control completely by
sound
, Chase realized.
Cool
.

…Farpool is
opuh’te
…a whirlpool…you say
vortex…there are many…it is a passage to your world…from
Seome…ah…(shkreeee)…there they are…

“There…what--?”

But Kloosee was busily maneuvering the sled.
Chase soon saw why. They had located and fallen in behind a herd of
large, bulbous fish, dozens of them, gliding majestically through
the murk. Chase could only make out a few in dim outline. Each one
was several times their size, like a giant sunfish on Earth, but
with distended bellies and longer tail flukes.