Mer-Cycle

by Piers Anthony

  “Maybe we should just drop down to the center of the trench,” Pacifa suggested.

  “I wouldn’t,” Gaspar said. “The trench is not your ordinary innocent sea floor. Remember what I said about the Bahamas platform?”

  “No.”

  “How it filled in at the beginning of the great continental crackup? Well, the Puerto Rico-Cayman trench runs right under it, cutting off the bottom part. That makes it especially hazardous for us.”

  “You talked about the trench, but not about any platform,” Pacifa said.

  Melanie broke in. “You weren’t there, Pacifa. That was just before you joined the party.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Don protested. “Why should a crack in the platform or under it or whatever—why should that be bad for us? Worse than any other crack, I mean?”

  “Because the great trenches of the ocean are not just cracks. They are stress points of the globe. They are where the spreading ocean floor pushes down under the land mass, because it has nowhere else to go. They are in motion, swallowing mountains. Such regions are deep and jagged, and always the raw material for volcanism and earthquakes.”

  “Volcanoes and earthquakes,” Melanie said morosely. “And I thought this trip might be fun.”

  “I just don’t see that,” Pacifa argued. “A volcano is an eruption of lava and ash, while an earthquake is a shaking of the ground. This is just some ground going slowly down, you say. Maybe an inch a century?”

  “I can’t go into the whole of sea-floor spreading right now,” Gaspar said, exasperated.

  “You don’t need to. I know about the magma coming up and pushing apart the sea floor and continents. There is surely some violence there! But why should there be earthquakes and volcanoes here at the other end?”

  “Because when the leading edge of one plate collides with another above a certain speed, one plunges under the other to make room. It descends into the asthenosphere—that is, deep down—and is destroyed by pressure and heat. That impact and that action are responsible for both the local quakes and the local volcanoes.”

  “You are beginning to make sense,” Pacifa admitted. “Does that mean we’ll get sucked into the crevice if we aren’t careful?”

  Gaspar smiled. “Unlikely. These are the processes of many millions of years. Sea floor spreading occurs at the rate of a few inches per year, average.”

  “Inches a year,” she said. “That’s certainly faster than an inch a century. But you made it sound like a ravening maw.”

  “It is, geologically. A few inches is plenty, when you consider the masses of the material involved. The Caribbean is a twisted area, and the heart of that twist is that trench, because it is at right angles to the nominal direction of spreading. I think one of the Pacific plates has crossed over the continent and ridden sideways across the Atlantic plate. Now it’s coming up against the Bahamas platform, which is a considerable mouthful even for this process. We don’t know what we’ll find down there.”

  “You really want to see it, don’t you,” Melanie said.

  “Not as much as I want to see the dinosaur crater. But yes, the whole ocean is interesting, and this especially so.”

  “Just as Don wants to excavate New Atlantis on the Yucatan,” Gaspar agreed. “But I don’t want to travel the length of this crevasse. Better to make our next depot, then make forays from there at our convenience.”

  “So you won’t be tempted to stop at every sexy outcropping on the way,” Pacifa said. “I know the problem. All right, why not travel the rim to the next depot? Then we’ll see.”

  “You are assuming that simple exploration is our mission,” Eleph said. “I remind you that we do not yet know what we are getting into.”

  Pacifa nodded. “Good, grim point. Well, let’s travel.”

  Easier said than done. The rim of Cayman was knifelike in places, with an overhang on one side and a precipice on the other, and cut into segments by transverse cracks yards or miles across. The rope and pulley were too tedious, so they kept the balloons inflated just under the necessary amount of air needed for full flotation, and added to them when a bad section had to be traversed. This was tedious, as the balloons had to be dragged at other times, making progress extremely slow. But the terrain was so jagged they had to take what precautions they could.

  One section was terraced like a contour farm, the individual ridges seeming to continue indefinitely. They deflated the balloons and cycled along the broadest ledge, making better time. Here too there were cracks, but most were less than a yard across, and negotiable. Occasional breaks in the wall gave access to the more regular ocean floor beyond the trench—but that was such a wilderness of crosshatched ridges that they stayed on the terrace. It was somber and impressive and rather peaceful.

  That peace was suddenly to end.

  CHAPTER 10

  DECOY

  Proxy 5–12–5–16–8: Attention.

  Acknowledging.

  Status?

  The party is approaching the next challenge. It is integrating well. I believe it will accept the mission.

  Why not acquaint it with the mission now, in that case?

  Because it will be more certain after the last two challenges. I do not wish to risk loss by premature presentation.

  They still are not aware that one of them is a local government spy and another is an agent from another world?

  They do not know. I will acquaint them with this information when the challenges are done. Then they should be ready for it.

  Yet if they are ready now, and you delay, you risk the interference of some outside factor.

  I believe this is a risk that must be taken. It seems slight at the moment.

  Even a slight risk is unwise, if it is unnecessary.

  I deem the risk of rejection at this point to be greater than the risk of random interference.

  That is your assessment to make. Continue.

  “What’s that?” Melanie cried, alarmed.

  They all looked. A light was coming through the water, floating over the abyss.

  “That couldn’t be Glowcloud,” Pacifa said.

  It was huge and bright, reminding Don of a Cyclops: a giant with a single glowing eye in its forehead. Fantasy, surely—but whatever was coming was surely trouble.

  “That’s not natural,” Gaspar said. “That’s—”

  “A submarine!” Eleph cried. “Douse the lights!”

  In a moment the five bicycle lamps were off. Now they could make out the big machine’s outline: a monstrous barrel with small bulging ports and large fins. It was absolutely silent.

  “Why no sound of engines?” Pacifa inquired from the darkness.

  “Don’t talk!” Eleph cried with dismay.

  Too late. As they spoke, the great headlight rotated, orienting on the sound. The machine’s listening devices were sophisticated, evidently distinguishing their faint noises from the background cacophony.

  Don threw himself down and hauled his bicycle after him, seeking the cover of the nearest stone. Where was it? If only he had made a note before turning off his light!

  The sub’s beam swept near, splashing across the jagged rock and highlighting two stages of the terrace wall. Don saw to his relief that he was sheltered behind an upthrusting ledge, and was hidden from the sub. Melanie was almost behind him, similarly sheltered. Gaspar and Pacifa were not in sight, so must also have found concealment. But Eleph—

  Eleph stood frozen, and the beam had already picked him out. Don cursed the man’s ineptitude—then saw that Eleph was stranded on a narrow platform. He could not move without falling into the trench. It was the luck of the draw.

  “Who are you?” Eleph shouted suddenly. “You’re not native to these waters!”

  Why was he calling attention to himself? Don was tempted to run over and haul the man back out of the light. But how could he manage it on his bicycle? That pause gave him time to realize the foolishness of such a gesture. He could only expose himself. And the sub
could not actually harm Eleph, considering the phase.

  “So you have found me!” Eleph continued, doing something with his bicycle. “But I’m going to lose you!” Then he pedaled on.

  Now Don saw that Eleph had unhitched the safety rope. He was going off by himself!

  That was it, of course. Eleph had been spotted, and knew it. He had nothing to lose, and might find out something that would help the others, while they stayed hidden. He was serving as a decoy, so that the main party could escape undiscovered. He had spoken aloud to cover Pacifa’s blunder; the sub oriented on sound, and knew that someone was there.

  This must be a foreign sub; an American one would not have been sneaking about silently. No—perhaps it was a bathyscaphe, a research diver, checking for life in the trench, quiet so as neither to disturb the fish nor to foul its own auditory receptors with mechanical noise. But Eleph had said it wasn’t native, and Don had a feeling the man would not make a mistake about such a thing. Not with his military background.

  Whatever the truth, Eleph had demonstrated intelligence and courage in a crisis, and perhaps self-sacrifice. How could they know the intention of that submarine? If it represented a foreign power, it might seek to eliminate anyone who saw it. It would have trouble doing anything directly to a man who was phased out, but if it managed to shove him into the trench, that would do it.

  The spotlight followed the moving man, the sub gliding smoothly after, still silent. The decoy was working.

  They waited for several minutes. Then Gaspar stood up. Don saw the glow of light from the man’s covered lamp, and felt the tug of the rope. That was what Eleph had been doing: detaching himself from the rope, so he could travel alone. Don stood himself, and carefully walked his bike over.

  The four of them met by that faint glow. Gaspar pointed back the way they had come, one finger limned against the headlight. Away from the sub.

  They moved, quietly. Gaspar seemed to have a good memory for the terrain, for he proceeded with greater confidence in the dark than Don could have.

  They diverged from the rim of the canyon at the first opportunity, climbing to the upper levels and thence through a mountain pass. Only when they were well clear of the great trench, concealed by myriad and labyrinthine projecting stones, did they stop to confer.

  There were no recriminations. They all understood what Eleph had done. They had let him do it because there was no better choice. The less the enemy sub knew, assuming that it was hostile, the better off they were. They had to preserve their privacy for the sake of their as yet unknown mission. Perhaps it concerned—submarines.

  “Suppose we split,” Gaspar said. “Each look for him alone, keeping out of sight. He’ll slip the sub all right; it can’t touch him and can’t possibly follow where he can go. But he’ll probably lose himself in the process, and we can’t use the whistle while the sub is near. So we’ll have to locate him visually. Rough job.”

  “What about the radio?” Don asked. “We’re all on the same private circuit—” He stopped, appalled. “The radio! Can the sub intercept it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Gaspar said. “We’re transmitting in the phase world, and it shouldn’t cross over.”

  “Light crosses over,” Don said. “Sound crosses over. How can we be sure the radio doesn’t?”

  “Good question,” Melanie agreed.

  “Eleph’s the only one who can answer that,” Gaspar said.

  “And he’s maintaining radio silence,” Pacifa said, snapping off her radio. The others jumped to do the same.

  Now they were cut off from their missing member. If anything happened to him, such as a fall into the chasm, they might never be able even to verify it. They had not been using the radios much, once all of them were together, but had known that they could not get truly separated as long as the radios were functional. Now Don felt a bit naked.

  “What is a foreign sub doing here?” Pacifa asked.

  “When we know that,” Gaspar replied slowly, “we may know our mission. That’s a deep-diver.” He paused. “Now suppose we meet here in four hours? We can’t afford to get permanently separated.”

  Don and Pacifa agreed, but Melanie looked doubtful.

  Gaspar glanced at her. “No offense, Mel, but maybe you shouldn’t go alone. Why don’t you go with Don?” She nodded gratefully. The notion of being separated in the deeps evidently appalled her. She might have been emotionally isolated all of her life, but this was a rather special physical isolation. She lacked both the muscle of the men and the expertise of Pacifa, and with radio silence she would be even more alone.

  They split up. Gaspar took the trench, because he was most familiar with its hazards. Pacifa took the encircling approach, because she could make the best time. She would be trying to intersect the trench ahead of Eleph, and work back. If Gaspar and Pacifa met, they would know that Eleph was not on the terraces. Don and Melanie took the mazelike periphery.

  Four hours deadline: in his present toughened condition, Don might have done eighty miles in that time, on a decent level surface. But he would have to reserve half his time for the return, and the surface was anything but decent. His effective range—the most distant spot he could check—was probably about twenty miles. He would use up much of that winding about the interminable projections. It didn’t matter; he wasn’t going anywhere, he was searching for a lost man.

  But with Melanie along, they could double the width of the search path. They could ride parallel, keeping each other in sight while extending their range. That would help not only in effectiveness, but because they were keeping each other company. Because Don didn’t like the notion of being alone in this dangerous murky region either. It was indeed lonely, being alone. He understood the ocean much better than when he had first entered it, but its dark immensity still cowed him when he became aware of it. He was aware now.

  “… when I was in college,” Melanie was saying.

  Don realized that she had been speaking, and he hadn’t been hearing. She must have started quietly, really talking to herself, when they were at a farther separation, and then he picked it up when they veered closer to each other. So he listened. He doubted that the sub could pick up on this, if it were even in the vicinity; only because he had become accustomed to picking a human voice out of the constant background noises was he able to hear her at all.

  “I liked my favorite very much,” Melanie continued equably. “Mostly he just listened. Most of the time he just looked as if he were going to sleep. I guess he wanted me to start thinking aloud about some of the important things in my then-current life. He would just prod me now and then. After a while I noticed that he seemed to give quite a number of compliments. Sometimes they were strange. One day he said that I had erected one of the most formidable barriers around myself that he had encountered in all his years of practice. In fact that was my favorite of all his compliments.”

  “That was no compliment!” Don snorted. “He just wanted to seduce you.”

  “What?” She seemed confused.

  “That dumb writer you visited. Telling you about barriers. That was just his l-line.”

  She choked and made strangled sounds. It dawned on Don that she was suppressing laughter.

  “It’s not funny,” he said. “A man like that—you didn’t tell him about your hair, did you? So—”

  “That was my psychiatrist,” she said. “Long before I visited the—”

  Oops! Don felt his face burning. He had gulped his foot to his knee that time.

  “You’re jealous,” Melanie said.

  “I—I—” Damn that stutter! He couldn’t get anything out.

  “I’m thrilled and flattered,” she said, sounding pleased. “I don’t think anyone was ever jealous on my account before. You really do care.”

  “Of course I care!” he snapped. “Y-you visiting s-strange men, and taking p-pills, and—”

  “Pills? I never—”

  “B-birth control pills. You told me—”<
br />
  She laughed again. “Oh, that. Don, I only took those pills because my mother insisted. Just as she insisted about the psychiatrists. While I was in college. She wanted me to be a normal, extroverted girl. Not to be afraid of foolish little things. Like pregnancy.”

  “Your mother!”

  “She was pretty domineering, in her fashion.”

  “But that’s white slavery. To make you—”

  “Oh, Don! I took the pills. That was all. The only thing they ever did for me was to foul up my analytical ability. As soon as I got out on my own, I dropped them. It seemed pointless to waste the money any more. Even with the pills, I could analyze things to that extent.”

  He had definitely blown it. “I—I’m sorry. I a-apologize.”

  “Oh, don’t be! I’m reveling in the feeling. You know me as I am, Don. Words I never quite know whether to believe, but jealousy I believe.”

  Then maybe his miscue hadn’t been as bad as it could have been. “Okay.”

  “You know, Don, I’ve been thinking. It seems to me that I was told that the radio has no crossover. Otherwise we’d be getting Earth broadcasts, interference, and—”

  “So the sub can’t intercept!” Don said, hugely relieved. “And since we had our radios on before, and the sub didn’t seem to know about us until it spied Eleph, probably it wasn’t following any radio signal. But why isn’t Eleph talking, then? He knows more about the equipment than we do.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he turned his radio off automatically, as we did, before thinking it through, and then forgot to turn it on again.”

  “Him? He’d be the first to remember it.”

  “Or he might be hurt.”

  “Hurt too bad even to talk?”

  “I don’t want to guess,” she said.

  “Well, we have to find him. Where do you think he is?”

  “Maybe we should think like a fifty-year-old conservative physicist with a military background,” she suggested. “Where would he go?”