“Peace,” he replied simply. “On the surface, when one nation is in danger of being overwhelmed by another, it sues for an end to hostilities, signs treaties, submits to any terms imposed. Sometimes it suffers humiliation, I agree, but at least that’s better than annihilation.”
“I’m afraid it’s even too late for that,” Shara said. “The enmity between us runs too deep. Our history is too riddled with hatred, going back to the earliest days of the mines, when Hellixians were in bondage.”
Aladdin, noncommittal in his own position, leaned toward the girl. “Bondage? You mean they were your slaves?”
“Those we could catch, yes. Prisoners of war, pressed into — Aladdin, don’t you know any of this? Didn’t Damian tell you?”
The adventurer shook his head slowly; he felt a chill move down his spine. “I know nothing of this, Shara. Damian and the others only spoke of the ceaseless war. The vying for supremacy by two empires...”
Shara’s mouth opened slightly as if to speak. Looking at him long and hard, she shook her head. “Our history,” she said at last, “you don’t know about it?”
He recalled the many frustrating times he’d asked questions, important questions, only to have them skirted and left unanswered. He’d suspected from the start that his Cinnabarian friends had been holding back, unwilling to tell everything. Now he was certain of it. “There is another perspective on this war, isn’t there?”
“There is,” the girl admitted.
“A perspective your leaders and your military hide?”
“Our shame, Aladdin,” she said quietly. “You see, we weren’t always heroes. Not then. Not in those terrible early years.”
He realised that these matters — “Our shame,” she had called them — were difficult for the lovely Cinnabarian girl to discuss freely. Aladdin wondered how much of the real truth of ancient events between the two warring peoples had been buried with the secrets of the sea.
“In those very early years,” she said, beginning her tale in a quiet tone, “we both struggled to cope with the aftermath of the terrible cataclysm, which hurled our surface lands beneath the sea. Our scientists and leaders have feared the worst — that our protective bubble would collapse beneath the enormous pressure of the ocean, and that all of the Two Plates, Hellix and Cinnabar, would be crushed.
“During these days there had been efforts to bring our diverse peoples together. Fate had imposed the sea upon us, Aladdin, and a few among us championed the idea that animosities must be forgotten, and that Hellix and Cinnabar must strive together to achieve a new life.” Aladdin tried to picture in his mind those pitiful survivors of what must have been the surface’s greatest volcanic eruption ever, as they struggled to survive thousands of feet below the surface. That any survived the cataclysm at all was a miracle, much less the forging from upon those ashes of devastation the magnificent empire he visited now.
“There were great debates in Cinnabar,” Shara said. “One faction sought to aid and join the more desperately situated Hellixians; the second and larger faction warned of the folly of such a proposal. You must understand us, Aladdin. We could barely survive on our own; the idea of taking in those of Hellix, as well, seemed suicidal. We have not the basic resources to share — food, fresh water, air — ”
“So your governing body decided to allow the survivors across the Plate to fend for themselves. To either perish or survive on their own.”
Shara nodded. “Yes — at first.” The way she said that sounded ominous. “Our science, as I’ve already told you, was far more advanced than any other, even in those dark times. Slowly, painfully, we learned to harness the sea and to create a safe and secure haven for our peoples. But we were still too few in number to accomplish all our goals. If Cinnabar was to survive and prosper, we needed to build at a rapid pace. We didn’t have the resources, so — ” She paused for a moment, grimly reflecting upon the momentous decisions that had to be made.
“So, it was decided. Hellix was weak; its people were on the verge of extinction. The Pavilion Council did what it thought it must — harness the weak so that the strong might have a better chance to live.”
“Then that was how the wars began? Cinnabar raiding the pitiful remnants of Hellix?”
“Not exactly. We made overtures to Hellix, offers of our help in return for theirs. They welcomed us with open arms, Aladdin.” There was bitterness in her voice now, he noticed. “They put their able-bodied to work in our mines. Seen as human guinea pigs, our scientists experimented with them to find out how well men endure the stresses of the deep. When they died — due to either tragic accidents of the sea or to our meddling — there was always the remaining population of Hellixians to draw from. We fed them and propagated their species — then took them away. Sometimes in chains, sometimes — ”
“You made them slaves.”
“Yes. And when they began to fight us, we devised other ways to deal with the situation. We lured them to us; then, like surface fishermen, we netted them. We hauled them in, bred them, and then shipped them to the darkest reaches of our watery empire. They died by the thousands, Aladdin. By the thousands. This was the beginning of the enmity.”
Aladdin sighed. So the wicked institution of slavery had even found its way down here, beneath the sea. The subjugation of one people by another had always sickened him. That Cinnabar had embellished its own glories at the expense of the helpless only increased his anger.
“Don’t judge us too quickly,” Shara implored, aware of his thoughts. “There were always those among us who fought against this forced labour. Eventually we would have won, I’m sure. But the first of the insurrections began before we could do anything. The Hellixian slaves had learned from us and learned well. They had not learned our science, for that had always remained top secret. But they did know how to use the sea to survive. In bloody conflict, in which many died, they won their independence from us. And they fiercely guarded their own land from further invasion. We might have taken all of the Twin Plates by brute force, but that would have been costly, and by the time Hellix had gained its freedom, Cinnabar was well on its own way to prosperity. The Pavilion decided to leave them alone — isolate them. They were no threat to us as long as our people governed the sea. Many in Cinnabar were certain that the citizens of Hellix would eventually perish.
“But they didn’t.”
“No, they didn’t. We underestimated them, Aladdin. Badly. They adapted, slowly at first, but then faster and faster. In many ways they began to overtake us. By then it was too late for peaceful overtures. They hated us too deeply — and we had begun to fear them. With good reason. Their raids upon our frontier outposts, mines, and quarries, were brutal affairs. Our citizens were slaughtered. They showed no mercy. A swift death was the best a captured Cinnabarian could hope for. So we took countermeasures, drawing upon our science to develop new ways to combat the raids. Conflict after terrible conflict...”
“During those early years of war, your science, surely, could have found a way to destroy them entirely — puncture their protective air bubble, for example.”
Shara sighed deeply. “Perhaps. But our own air pockets were no less fragile than theirs. Hellixian reprisal would have been swift, I assure you. They would have done unto us precisely what we had done unto them. And who could blame them for it? Our hot-headed Legion Commanders argued for such a strike of course, but the folly of it was evident even to the Pavilion. An eye for an eye would have meant the total destruction of Cinnabar as well. They realised this, and so did we. Protecting our air was the one common threat of decency left between us. A weapon of doom which neither side dared employ.” She paused once more, hand to the metal throttle, her grey eyes searching beyond the pod of light beaming in front of the turtle.
“Then things took a turn for the worse. After centuries of stalemate, countless wars, and countless deaths, the forces of Hellix began to. evolve into amphibians, with the ability to breathe without air. Now, our ultimate weap
on, destroying their air umbrella, would soon no longer be a weapon at all. Fortunately, at least for now, they retain some dependence on air. But when they become fully water-breathing...” She did not have to complete the thought. The implications were plain enough. Cinnabar — if it wasn’t already — would soon be at the complete mercy of the gilled half-humans of Hellix.
“So that was Shaman’s urgency,” he muttered.
“We are badly outnumbered; each year we see the circle drawn in a little more tightly around us. Rufio, old Flavius, they won’t admit it to you, of course. But they’re not stupid men. They see the future as clearly as any.”
Cinnabar was like a condemned man with his head on the block, Aladdin saw. The axe may not have fallen yet, and he didn’t know precisely when it would; however, fall it must, sooner or later. If Shara was right in her grim predictions, then there wasn’t much time to Fix things up.
“Now do you understand why I say your coming here is futile?” she asked.
Aladdin nodded sourly. “Surely it isn’t too late to sue for some sort of peace between you?” he said with little hope.
“The time for solving our differences has passed. For many centuries, Cinnabar reigned supreme. The tables have turned against us with a vengeance. I see no chance.”
“And these people of Hellix; are they so cold-blooded they’d willingly destroy an entire civilisation, which has so much to offer them?”
“We are a despised enemy. Hellix and its leaders shall never forget the lessons of history. They trusted us before, remember? Slavery was the price they paid. Now they want the sea as their own, to rule as they will. That Cinnabar must be crushed is a small matter. They loathe everything we stand for — our connections to the surface, our stubborn clinging to our humanity. To them we must seem like fools. Why fight the sea? they ask. Join it. It’s their natural order of things.”
In a twinge of emotion for the beautiful girl and the culture she represented, Aladdin leaned close and brushed his fingertips against the side of her face. “There must be a way to forge understanding, Shara. It can’t conclude the way you see it. It can’t!”
“Oh Aladdin, I curse my father for bringing you here! How many times must I say it — you don’t belong. It doesn’t matter how many battles you win for us or how much new glory you manage to reap upon Rufio’s stubborn head. The result will be the same.”
Aladdin leaned back in his co-pilot’s seat, while the yellow-haired scientist directed her research vessel farther and farther across the depths. Soon the landscape outside began to alter radically. Where the seabed had been hilly, sometimes even flat, now it became choppy and mountainous. Peering through the starboard porthole, Aladdin saw the dim glow of Cinnabar in the distance. The waning whitetime cast a lovely rosy pall over the domed city. Ahead, loomed — he didn’t quite know what to call it — what seemed like dark walls rising endlessly toward the surface. Shara broke the silence by saying, “We’ve crossed the Outer Circle. Ahead is the Hellixian domain. This is a no-man’s-zone.”
“Should we turn back?”
Shara shrugged her shoulders and looked at him with an engaging smile. “I’m game to go on if you are.”
Aladdin shrugged as well, feeling suddenly uncomfortable in his green wet suit. “I said I wanted to get as close as possible,” he reminded her. “As long as you feel we’re not in too much danger of being spotted by enemy swimmers — ”
Shara turned off the steam-powered engine, as Aladdin listened to the rotary blades grind down and whine to a halt. The bright pod dimmed and flicked on a single amber navigational light. The submersible drifted ahead into a canyon, and then moved forward toward Hellix in silent running.
Chapter Twenty-One
A sinister silence greeted the turtle as it passed through the black waters of the no-man’s-zone. Gloomy walls of rock, some smooth, others with menacingly jagged peaks and outcroppings, rose up on either side of a fairly wide canyon. Inside the turtle’s cabin there was no light; the pall of dim light cast by the single amber blinker bathed the submersible’s passengers in soft outline. Everything else was in shadow.
“Are you sure we’ll be safe?” asked Aladdin.
Shara showed few qualms about this dangerous excursion. “This quadrant is vast, Aladdin,” she assured him. “Spotting us would be like singling out one fish in a school of thousands. The frontiers are deserted. Even Hellix doesn’t have the manpower to patrol every inch of these sectors. Besides,” her eyes flashed as she grinned and looked Aladdin’s way, “I’ve made this voyage before.”
“You have?”
“For scientific purposes. The Academy is constantly required to obtain new samples of ocean life from the Hellixian domain. We study seabed scrapings and vegetation meticulously; it’s the only way to discover if Hellixian evolution encompasses more than its own species.”
“And what have you found?”
The grin disappeared. “Inconclusive — but we suspect that all ocean life — plants, even fish — is also undergoing dynamic alterations.”
Aladdin was astounded at the idea of an entirely altered world.
In silent running, the craft traversed the elongated canyon and came upon a new landscape which made Aladdin’s jaw drop. Suddenly they were surrounded by massive new peaks, each rising higher than the last, each darkly covered with jungle-like growths of moss and weed and all manner of strange life forms he couldn’t identify. Below, along the flat bed, the floor was rich with similar life. Huge, treelike plants and weeds, weird eels, and other deep-water species, swam by passively completely unaffected by the passage of the submersible. Lacking colour, this drab garden of life clung in shadows and darkness, quite different from the colourful seabeds of Cinnabar.
Here and there he saw evidence of what had been mines, great fissures in the mountainous walls, now filled and overgrowing with wild clinging weeds.
“Those used to be our mines,” explained Shara. “Long ago, during the time of servitude. When we abandoned them, they were never used again.”
“Don’t the Hellixians mine? How do they draw their minerals?”
“They need them less and less. Relying little on what you and I would consider — ” She glared obliquely from the window. Shadows and undefined images crossed the dark waters. Fish, she wondered? Or something else. There were large species at these depths — but she had the feeling it was something else.
“Aladdin,” she said, glancing sideways, “I think I’ve spotted enemy swimmers.”
The adventurer regarded her with disbelief. “Amphibs? At this depth? Can’t be, Shara. The pressure... No human being could move down here without a submersible.” No human being. Tensely tightening his gaze, he chewed his words, as he leaned forward and braced his hands against the padded edge of the control board. “Are you sure, Shara?” He could hardly see a thing in the dismal murk outside.
“No, I’m not sure,” she answered emphatically. “But it’s better not to take any chances.” Aladdin nearly toppled over as the young scientist banked the turtle in a sharp manoeuvre, brought it around, and began a thirty-degree ascent.
Both pilot and passenger held their breath; if indeed Hellixian amphibs were about, and the turtle was spotted, it could spell disaster. Quickly, the submersible rose, away from the point of contact. Long minutes passed without any sign of impending attack.
“I think we’d better turn home,” Shara said, the colour coming back to her face as she breathed with relief. “It must have been an illusion. That can happen at these depths, you know. Even in a stabilized atmosphere.” But Aladdin could tell from the tone of her voice, that she wasn’t convinced by her own explanation.
“We’d better report the sighting to the military,” he said glumly.
“What — and have them know I took you out past the Outer Circle?” It would be a foolish thing to do, exposing themselves to Rufio’s wrath, which was sure to be great after Aladdin’s last close call. On the other hand, she had seen something and
at this depth, any peculiar sighting, no matter how seemingly insignificant, could have great importance. Shara mulled this over when, once again, shadowy forms were seen to lurch before the craft.
“There!” she cried. “Did you see it, too?”
Aladdin nodded. Dark, lithe forms, they could have been Amphibs. But the very idea defied his imagination. “Pull up,” he said.
Shara did exactly that; the submersible’s rotors screamed as the turtle picked up speed. Aladdin stared down into the deepest reaches, trying to follow the almost formless figures. “I think they are Amphibs,” he said.
The girl shook her head. “No. Can’t be. Can’t... Unless...” She looked at him haltingly.
“Unless they’ve accelerated their evolution again, and somehow learned to adapt even down here.”
“At more than five tons per square inch?” The concept was mind-boggling. But if it were true... If it were true...
Her complexion whitened; she flung off her goggles and played with the dials on the panel, checking and rechecking her readings. The aft rotor hummed smartly at half power. Then she took a long gulp of air and said, “Aladdin, I don’t know what to make of this, but let’s get the hell out of here!”
She turned on the switch to full power, and the turtle pressed forward. Shara maintained a course of inclines and zigzag manoeuvres until, moments later, they were approaching the canyon once more. Its walls glared in the beam of the white pod. The thick, dense jungle spurted below.
“You may be right, Aladdin,” she said with urgency. “We may have discovered something tonight. Something hidden from us. A secret of Hellixian development which dwarfs anything that came before.” She chewed her lip anxiously, afraid to even think of the implications. If the Amphibs had truly developed the ability to move across the ocean floor unimpeded, then Cinnabar was headed for double disaster. The empire could receive, from below as well as above, two-pronged attack, which could render her helpless. Shara tightened her grip on the throttle. “We must get back to the Academy, to warn them — ”
The Thief of Kalimar; Captain Sinbad; Cinnabar Page 97
