The Farpool (18 page)

“Kloos, are you all right? I saw you still
for a long time—“

“Stung by mah’jeet, I was. I’m fuzzy-headed
but I am okay. Come on—“

Kloosee herded the two humans back
inside the
kip’t
cockpit,
while Pakma returned to the pod. She dogged its hatch
shut.

When we surface, I’m switching places with
the humans. They should be riding in this thing.

Kloosee fired up the
kip’t
jets, which sputtered into
life, lifted them away from the ledge and carefully skirted the
outer shoals of the
mah’jeet
bloom. The rounded humps of two dead tillet could be pulsed
just inside, floating aimlessly, slowly being decomposed by the
creatures.

They saved our lives and
gave their own
, he told himself.

The
kip’t
angled upward and headed for the
surface.

Topside, the surface was in heavy
rolling surf. It was nighttime on Seome and fierce winds and sheets
of salt spray their only welcome. Kloosee put the
kip’t
and its pod on the surface and
stayed submerged while the humans popped the hatch and stood up in
the cockpit. Even through the distortions of faint light in the
water, Kloosee could see them heaving in great gulps. On his own
Circling many mah before, he’d felt Notwater in his gills. It
burned like hell. But the humans needed it to live.

By using the echopod and frequent
gestures, Kloosee got Chase and Angie out of the
kip’t
and aft to the pod, switching
places with Pakma, who came forward. By this time, Chase had an
idea how to manipulate the air flasks that looked like faces. You
had to squeeze them in the right place and the “lips” sucked air in
and stored it in some kind of vesicle. Chase tried to cram as much
of Seomish salty air in as he could.

“We’re going to need it,” he told Angie. When
Kloosee told him the flasks were at capacity, he nodded and laid a
hand on Kloosee’s head.

The Seomish male made something resembling a
bemused smile.

…now you have Notwater…enough to reach
Omsh’pont…

“How far is it?”

Kloosee’s face wrinkled in thought.
“Half mah…a day or more, to you…
shkreeah
…stay in
sshhh
…pod—“

So they stayed in the pod.

Kloosee made sure the hatch was shut.
He went back to the
kip’t
,
closed himself in with Pakma and fired up the sled’s jets. They
angled down and soon were in darkwaters.

Inside the pod, Angie started to cry
softly.

They were both wedged in so tightly they
could hardly move. “Ang…what is it? Have you got enough
air…anything hurting?”

He could feel her body shaking with sobs.
“Noooo….I…it’s just….oh, Chase, what have we done? Where are we? I
think I want to go home.”

Chase tried to take a deep breath. Seomish
air had a burned smell to it, like ozone, like after a thunderstorm
at Scotland Beach. He twisted enough so they could face each
other.

“That’s probably not happening today…I’m not
sure where we are…but it sure as hell isn’t Half Moon Cove.”

“Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,
huh?”

Chase said nothing. He twisted around more,
so he could peer out of the porthole. It was black as night.
Occasionally, a streak of light erupted out of the darkness,
smearing itself against the porthole.

“I can’t see a thing.”

“Where are we going?”

Chase shrugged. “I don’t know. Kloosee called
it Omsh’pont…something like that. It must be a city. But we have a
problem.”

“A problem…what do you mean?” Angie sniffed,
wiped her eyes. They were red and puffy.

“Well, we have air, for the moment. But
Kloosee and Pakma are marine creatures…people…whatever. They don’t
breathe air like we do. So I’m guessing this city’s underwater. But
we still need air.” Chase rubbed stubble on his chin. He should
have shaved this morning. “I guess Kloosee’s got something in
mind…he and I need to talk. I love scuba diving but I don’t want to
live my life that way….”

Angie said no more and they both soon
drifted off to a fitful doze, rocking gently as the
kip’t
towed the pod deeper and
deeper into Omt’orkel Sea.

Unseen by Chase and Angie, Kloosee was
fully alert at the
kip’t
controls, hunting for faint currents that crisscrossed the
upper Serpentines and fed through the Gap. Once they had transited
the Gap, they could make a speed run across the Om’metee abyss to
the seamounts that surrounded Omsh’pont. Then they would be
home.

And some decisions would have to be made
about the humans.

Kloosee was glad that Ponkel sounded
calm today,
litor’kel
was how
you said it, he remembered. The bottom pulsed fifty or so beats
below them, thick with mud and hidden, from time to time, by a
tricky layer of warmer water. The thermals of the northern seas
sometimes played havoc with
kip’t
navigation and even the locals sometimes got lost in the
churning sediment and confusing echoes of the area. Kloosee was
confident he could make it; he’d come this way for the first time
in his Circling many
mah
ago,
so the complex echoes didn’t bother him.

The
kip’t
slid easily through the trackless waste
and outside the vast swirl of the Pomt’or Current, the sea was as
barren as any sea in the world. The water was a clear blue-green,
almost sterile of life but for the ever-present gruel of the
ertesh
, thin and oily in this area.
Few creatures found it appetizing enough to school here.

Far to the north, off their starboard
quarter, Kloosee could read the faint echoes of the polar ice pack
itself. The Pillars of Shooki were up there. He frowned, thinking
about that. Someday, perhaps—

They traveled alone for hours, droning
on and on, through the Ponkel, while Kloosee occupied himself with
savoring comforting smells from a favorite scentbulb he had opened
up, scents that spoke of faraway places and great adventures: the
Klatko Trench and the seamother feeding grounds, the
tchin’ting
forest south of Likte
Island, the caves of the Ponkti…Kloosee had always loved these
scents. They were like warm water, soothing, comforting, old
friends. Like old kel-mates.

Pakma’s voice startled him. “I hope Longsee
has some ideas on how we can sustain the humans.”

“You mean Notwater…just before we left, I
heard some talk about modifying a lifesuit, so Tailless could use
it…maybe Longsee’s ordered that to be done. They need something
like that.”

Pakma smiled. “You want to use these Tailless
to go into the Notwater yourself, don’t you? I pulse it in
you…Kloos, you can’t even hide it.”

“Why should I hide it? That’s why I formed my
own em’kel. Putektu has one goal: open up the Notwater for
everybody. We could be like the seamothers, Pakma…just think about
that. Able to live and work and play in our own world and above
it.”

“You’re obsessed with seamothers.”

“I guess you’re right. But they know things
we don’t…we can learn from them. And it’ll help us with the
Umans.”

Pakma made a face. “
Kah
, I’ll never understand Umans. Ugly beasts,
all of them. And you think these Tailless are related? Maybe
ancestors.”

Kloosee concentrated on driving
the
kip’t
. “That’s my theory.
We’ll see what Longsee says.”

Pakma shivered. “I wish we hadn’t brought
them with us…they’re more trouble than they’re worth. How much
further? I’m bored.”

Kloosee knew how to fix that. Even
without trying, he could pulse Pakma’s insides. Something was
bothering her. “Half a mah, at most. Ke’shoo and Ke’lee, as they
say. Come here….” He twisted about and slid up close to Pakma and
after a few moments, they coupled, while the
kip’t
bore itself on through the trackless
wastes of the abyssal plain, surging ahead on auto.

They both grew more and more excited as
the echoes of their homewaters became stronger and clearer.
Presently, the towering seamounts of Omsh’pont sounded strong and
sure and when the murk cleared, the great city finally lay before
them. Kloosee slowed the
kip’t
down to approach speed and homed on the signals from the
Kelktoo lab, occupying several domes and pavilions along the
southwest ramparts of the central mesa of the city.

“Homewaters—“ breathed Pakma, taking in a big
gulp. She savored the scents and odors and whiffs and aromas of
everything she had grown up with…the accumulated wisdom and noisy
clamor and clashing pulses of the only place she had ever called
home.

Omsh’pont…heart and soul, the
shoo’kel
of life itself. Calm and
clear waters everywhere you pulsed.

“Litorkel ge
,”
she breathed.

Kloosee had to agree. It was a hoary
old saying but it was comfortable too. “
Litorkel ge
—“

They drifted toward the landing pads of the
Kelktoo labs.

The
kip’t
slowed down as it maneuvered into the
center of Omsh’pont and homed on the project labs at Kelktoo. The
twists and turns soon brought Chase and Angie to fully
awake.

Angie yawned. “Where are we? Feels like we
slowed down. Can you see anything out there?”

“Friggin’ porthole’s too small,” Chase
muttered. “I see lights, long beads of lights. And some shapes: a
few spheres, tubes, pods. Looks like these lights are some kind of
bioluminescence. I wonder if they have electricity.”

Angie saw one of the air flasks make a face
at her. Its lips pursed into an “O” and it expelled a heavy sigh.
Then the lips fluttered and the face seemed to disappear.
Involuntarily, she shuddered at the sight.

“How’s our air, Chase?”

Chase looked around at the circumference of
flasks. “As long as their cheeks, or whatever the hell they are,
are puffed out like that, we have air. I see a few that have gone
flat.”

“Like that one just did.” She pointed at the
flask that had sputtered its last breath.

Just then, the echopod chirped and squeaked.
Chase pressed it to his ear.

It was Kloosee.

…this is Omsh’pont…we travel to Kelktoo…not
long…there is Notwater pod for you…

“What’s that?” Chase asked.

…you will pulse this in the near….

Chase told Angie, “He says they’re taking us
to a Notwater pod…something new, I gather. Just for us.”

Angie’s stomach gurgled. “I’m hungry. Maybe
they have tacos.”

The
kip’t
slowed almost to a halt. Chase looked out
and saw that Kloosee was maneuvering to settle their pod onto some
kind of landing pad.

“It looks like a big mushroom, split open at
the top. Or a giant hand, with fingers sticking up. Cool…..”

The pod was deftly placed in the center of
the “palm” and tow line released. Chase saw the sled jet off into
the murk and, as it did so, the fingers of the hand slowly began to
close.

“Angie, look—“ he shifted aside so she could
see. “The fingers are retracting, like a big fist closing.”

Angie watched as their little pod was
completely enveloped in the bigger pod. The view became dark
outside the porthole and the little pod rocked slightly.

“Is it eating us?”

“I don’ know—“ then the echopod erupted.
Chase and Angie both listened.

…open pod hatch…you are in Notwater pod…

Cautiously, Chase did as Kloosee had
taught him, cycling the hatch grip. He pushed up and water flooded
in. But there was air…breathable air…stale, with the burned smell
he had come to associate with this world, but nonetheless
air
….

Grateful, he squeezed up and out. Then he
helped Angie out of the pod and they stood shivering and drenched
together in the palm of the great hand, standing on some kind of
soft, tissue-like floor inside the Notwater pod.

That’s when Chase realized the fingers that
had closed around them were translucent. He could barely make out
lights outside. And eyes. Armfins and flukes, dozens, scores of
them.

They had an audience, staring in at them.

“It’s like a zoo cage,” Chase
muttered.
Or an aquarium.

Angie sat down and wrapped her arms
around her shoulders. “At least, we can breathe. But I want
something to eat. Maybe one of
them
—“ she indicated their audience—“…with some
tartar sauce.”

There was some kind of commotion along the
side. The echopod chirped. It was Kloosee…with Pakma. They were at
the edge of the enclosure, waving.

Chase dragged Angie over to the translucent
flap. “We’re both hungry, Kloosee. Is there something we could
eat?”

Kloosee drifted down and produced something
in a small sac. He pressed it against the translucent finger. Chase
and Angie both watched in amazement as the finger contorted and
twisted around its axis, revolving and carrying the sac inside
their enclosure. Almost no water squeezed through.

The sac was dropped at their feet.

…is called tong’pod…crack legs…eat
tissue….

“Sort of like a crab,” Chase decided. He sat
down next to Angie and they set to work. The meat inside the
tong’pod legs turned out to be sweet tasting…and slightly narcotic.
Soon enough, Angie pitched over and fell asleep, curled up like a
baby.