Mer-Cycle

by Piers Anthony

  The hatch to the interior had what seemed to be a watertight covering, so that storm waves could not swamp this ship unless a hole had been bashed in. But the hatchcover had been removed; it lay to the side, and his hand passed through it. Near the stern stood several cages, built into the deck. Those would have been for pigeons, those invaluable aids to ancient navigation.

  Don took a deep breath. This was Minoan, all right! There were markings on the base of the mast and on the inside of the bulwarks: script “Linear A,” the writing of the Cretan heyday. These were mainly cautions about the care of the equipment, as nearly as he could tell without more careful analysis. Probably marked by the manufacturers and of course ignored by the illiterate crewmen.

  The ship was about seventy five feet long, and fifteen wide across the mid-deck: in the middle range for seagoing craft of the period. And it was seagoing, despite the oars; in all its appointments and arrangements it spoke of the long haul.

  “What do you see?” Pacifa called from the ground.

  Don was jolted out of his preoccupation. He flashed his light around again, organizing his thoughts for a coherent reply—and saw a mermaid.

  She had just floated up out of the open hatch. Her hair hung about her in a dark cloud, and her black eyes were piercing in a pale face. She had two splendid breasts, a narrow waist, and overlapping scales that gleamed irridescently from naval to flukes. She carried a small, dim lantern that highlighted her remarkable characteristics.

  “S-splendid!” Don breathed idiotically.

  “Say, are you all right?” Pacifa called.

  The mermaid spun around at that, orienting on the sound of the voice. But immediately she returned to Don, shielding her eyes against his bright beam.

  She was real! On top of all the other incredible developments, this fish-girl was alive!

  “Don, answer me!” Pacifa called more urgently.

  But he couldn’t answer. That dazzling female torso, so abruptly phased into piscine anatomy. That fantasy amalgam of woman and fish. If the mermaid were genuine, what was she doing here, four miles down, far below normal light and warmth? It was nonsensical.

  Which meant that he was having a vision. Too much or too little oxygen must have saturated his field, affecting his brain. He wasn’t sure which way led to hallucination.

  “Knock once if you can hear me,” Pacifa called.

  Numbly, Don knocked his heel against the deck.

  The mermaid turned, lithe and sleek as any living fish, and swam rapidly away from him. Her tail worked powerfully, so that she used her hands only for course corrections. Her luxuriant hair streamed behind her as she disappeared over the rail.

  Now Don was able to speak. “Splendid!” he repeated.

  After a moment Pacifa spoke again, hardly loud enough. “Don—did you see that?”

  “I—I—yes!”

  “I declare, I thought for a moment it was my idiotic daughter, reincarnated as a sylph. Until that tail—”

  “I—I thought it was—brain damage,” Don admitted, walking his bike across the deck to peer down at her. He didn’t know whether to be relieved for the state of his brain, or apprehensive for the state of reality. A live mermaid!

  “You realize, of course, that this is ridiculous,” Pacifa said matter-of-factly. “The real mermaids were dugongs—and you’d never find any of those down here! They’re air breathers.”

  “B-but she didn’t have g-gills,” Don pointed out.

  “Yes, of course. She’s mammalian. You must have noticed.”

  Don had noticed.

  “Here’s my speculation,” Pacifa said. “See what you make of it. A bathyscaphe was photographing this region of the trench, looking for geological features of stray foreign fusion plants, and it caught one shot of this preserved sunken ship with a mermaid on deck. Later the analysts went over the material and called their experts, and the archaeologist said ‘That’s a 1723 B.C. Minoan craft of the Zilch II class from the shipworks of King Tut-Tut!’ and the artist said ‘That’s a statue of a mermaid by the hand of Artisan Smut-smut!’ and the archaeologist said ‘Impossible, you dolt, the Minoans didn’t make any statues of mermaids that year!” and the artist said ‘Oh, yeah? Then it must be a real mermaid, stupid!’ and the psychiatrist said ‘Tut, smut, calm down, boys, what you need is another picture.’ But the next time the bathyscaphe stopped at that station, the mermaid was gone. And the artist said ‘See, it’s all your fault! You didn’t believe in her!’ and the archaeologist slugged him.”

  “Archaeologists don’t slug people!” Don protested, laughing.

  “So they packed up a bicycle party with a nonslugging Minoan scholar on board, but they didn’t want to prejudice the case by mentioning the mermaid …”

  Don had to smile. “Must be. We had no idea what to expect! But what do we do now?”

  “Maybe it’s time to break radio silence.”

  “Yes. We’ve found what we were sent for, obviously.”

  “Then again, we don’t know that either ship or mermaid are genuine. Maybe we should make quite sure before we say much. If we make a wrong report—”

  “Somebody might slug us! I’d like nothing better than to stay here and study this ship in detail,” Don said fervently. “But we have to rendezvous with the others, or contact them by radio, so they won’t—”

  “Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “But if we’d reported as we went along, we’d have had them depth-bombing the trench for that atomic plant. There are still enough incongruities so that we know we have only part of the story. We’ve kept our noses clean so far by being cautious; let’s hang on a little longer.”

  “I agree. But still—”

  “Look, Don. You’re the expert, here. I could prowl around this ship for the rest of the year and never find out anything worth knowing. So I’m expendable, as far as this part goes. I could go back—”

  “Alone?”

  “Don’t look so horrified! I’m no tender violet. I can rejoin the others faster by myself than with company.”

  Surely that was the truth. Don thought ruefully. “But Melanie—”

  Pacifa nodded. “It would be difficult at best to get her up there with you, though you will be able to let yourself down by the rope when you’re through. I’d better take her back with me. You should be safe here, and you won’t be going anywhere soon.”

  “That’s for sure! I could stay here a year and never notice the time. The things I can learn here—”

  “And maybe it’s best if she doesn’t see that mermaid, right now. All that hair, you know.”

  Don hadn’t thought of that. “It could be awkward, yes. That mermaid is not of our phase; still—”

  “All right, we must act with dispatch. Let’s compromise: you can turn on your radio and keep company with Melanie that way, while she and I travel back. We’ll have quite a climb to make, even with the ropes in place. Just don’t give away any details on this situation. There’s no danger of Glowcloud zeroing in on you here—not in this hot freshwater. But anything you broadcast just might be intercepted by parties unknown. Not worth the risk of giving away anything of substance. Meanwhile I’ll tell Melanie not to mention me, so no one knows where we are, and when we get back we’ll acquaint the other two with what we know so far. If Gaspar or Eleph tunes in, you just pretend I’m here with you.”

  “But—”

  “Because we’re really not sure that that sub can’t pick up our radios. It may know we’re here, but it doesn’t know what we’re doing or where we’re going. Best to play it safe.”

  Don mulled this over. He did not like the deception entailed, but there seemed to be considerable merit in her caution. There was indeed so much they didn’t know! Meanwhile, he could study the ship with complete freedom and without distraction, and Melanie on the radio would be a comfortable hedge against the specters of isolation. It would only be for a while, after all, until the entire group returned here, or he returned to the base camp to rejoin them.r />
  Still, he argued. “Yet with the phase—there’s been no evidence that there’s any other party on our radio circuit.”

  “Do you think we’re the only ones ever to go through the tunnel? They could easily have a man sitting just this side, monitoring everything we say. They’d be fools not to.”

  “Oh.” Ever the practical mind! “But what if the mermaid comes back?”

  “For God’s sake, don’t blab on the radio about that! Gaspar would think you’re crazy, and Melanie would be insanely jealous.”

  “Melanie jealous of a mermaid?”

  “Imagine Melanie in the husky arms of a handsome triton.”

  “Triton?”

  “Merman. Man with a fish tail. Picture him kissing her and running his slippery hands over her torso—”

  “The bastard!”

  “See? And you’re not in love with her.”

  “W-what?”

  “You wanted to know about jealousy, didn’t you?”

  “N-not that much!”

  “Well, if that mermaid comes back, study her too. We have to ascertain the truth, and that’s part of it. Just don’t talk about it on the air, because another misunderstanding—”

  “That sub might fire torpedoes!”

  “Or something. All through your nice Minoan artifact. Want to gamble that men like Eleph aren’t running this show?”

  Men like Eleph. How cunningly she planted her barbs. This one was misdirected, for Eleph was a fine man under his crust. But no, Don didn’t want to gamble on the militaristic mind, and there was surely one in that mystery submarine. Silence was a mandatory virtue, here.

  It was done with dispatch. Soon Pacifa and Melanie were on their way back, leaving Don at the ship. They had never pitched their tent; the appearance of the mermaid had given them reason to change plans immediately.

  Don explored the ship plank by plank. This was not as easy as he had expected. He could not leave his bicycle; he needed its field to breathe, and its light to see. There was not enough oxygen in the water inside the ship for his purpose. He had to haul himself topside regularly, lest he be asphyxiated. He could not conserve oxygen by sitting still, because the bike had to be in motion for the generator lamp to function more than a few seconds. In addition, he took a surprise tumble over a heavy beam that crossed the hold. It was invisible until he concentrated; it existed only in the phase world. He decided that it had been placed deliberately, to brace the ship against the outside pressure of the canyon walls, and it felt like metal. Which meant that someone had been here, in phase, before him—a lot less than four thousand years ago. Highly significant—but that was one thing he was not going to discuss on the radio.

  There were no amphorae, those large two-handled point-bottomed jars used for the transport of grains and liquids in ancient times. Ordinary folk wondered why big jars should be pointed at their bases, so they could not stand up; the reason was that those points were wedged into pegboards, so that they were firmly planted and could not be dislodged by the heaving of the ship. Only a few pottery sherds remained, the kind that were so valuable archaeologically for the identification of cultures—when there was no chance to save the complete urns.

  But far in the stern, in a nook in the galley section, stood a greater treasure: two intact pithoi, the monstrous ornate wide-mouthed storage jars typical of the Minoan society. Each had eight small handles, hardly large enough for a fingerhold, arranged around the top and near the base. No doubt these eyelets had held rope, so that the jars could be securely anchored as the ship heaved. But the rope itself had long since dissolved away.

  Don peered inside, but could not bring his headlamp to bear conveniently. His hand passed through the jar without effect. They existed only in the other world: another frustrating dichotomy.

  What had happened to the cargo? A ship this size might have had a capacity of several hundred tons, and carried a thousand amphorae. All the sherds remaining could not account for more than a dozen. They would not have been washed out when the ship sank, for the hull remained tight. In fact, the ship should not have sunk. Yet here it was, with a phase-world beam supporting it.

  Was it a plant, after all? A manufactured artifact, placed within the past few years or months? All his experience with Minoan artifacts told him no, that the ship was genuine—but these logical incongruities were weighing heavily.

  “You’ve been quiet too long,” Melanie said on the radio. “Don, what are you up to?”

  “I’m short of oxygen, I think,” he said. This was true enough. As he spoke, he remembered what Pacifa had said of Melanie, indirectly: And you’re not in love with her. That spoke volumes! But it wasn’t necessarily true.

  “Well, get yourself into a better current,” she said, her concern coming through. Yes, she was perhaps in love with him, but that did not mean that he did not return the feeling. Why had Pacifa suggested otherwise?

  He hauled himself up to the main deck again, short of breath. He was glad he had some physical justification for his discomfort, because with every discovery he made, his intellectual certainties took another battering. It was becoming difficult not to blab something on the radio that would give away more than was wise.

  On the deck, walking the bike for oxygen and light, Don blinked. The mermaid was back.

  CHAPTER 12

  SPLENDID

  Proxy 5–12–5–16–8: Attention.

  Acknowledging.

  Status?

  Complicated. Dissension is occurring, and I fear that this is going to be difficult. The mission is in peril. I cannot make a proper report at this time.

  Still dizzy from his interior explorations and the effort of getting himself and the bicycle clear of the hatch, Don nevertheless had the presence of mind to snap off the radio. “Splendid!” he exclaimed. There really seemed to be no better name for her, considering her attributes. That cloud of hair surrounding her head in the water …

  She retreated with a graceful flexing of torso and tail. Her natural swimming motions only accented the flair of her wide hips. Don realized that she was afraid of him. That gave him confidence. He was as strange to her as she was to him!

  The remaining mysteries of the Minoan ship could wait for a bit. Right now there was the living mystery of the mermaid.

  He studied her carefully. She was beautiful, from hair to waist; he could imagine no more perfect attributes in the female of the species. Her breasts in particular stood out, being full-bodied and supported by the water so that there was absolutely no sag. “Splendid,” he said once more.

  Actually, her nether portion was beautiful too. The smooth green scales began as her narrow waist expanded into what would have been a remarkable derriere of a normal woman. From there her body tapered into a strong, sleek tail, with only a suggestion of thighs near the origin.

  Why had she returned, if she feared him? Where had she come from, really? She was mammalian, not piscene; there were no gill slits in her neck, and he could see her handsome chest expanding and contracting as she breathed.

  Yes, breathed. Through her nose and mouth.

  Was she phased?

  No, for she swam. She had to be breathing water.

  Okay, he thought. Accept her as she is. And find out WHAT she is.

  “Come here, Splendid,” he said. “Let’s talk.”

  She heard him. But she seemed not to understand. She hovered off the edge of the deck, beyond his reach, and surveyed him nervously. At least she did not swim away, this time.

  “Are you as curious about me as I am about you?” he asked her, pleased to note that he had no stutter. “Is that why you’re h-here?” Oops.

  She surveyed him a moment longer, then upended attractively and swam swiftly to the ground.

  “Don’t go away!” he cried. “I won’t hurt you. I only want to know—”

  But in a moment she was back, carrying something flat. It was a slate, like those once used for school lessons. ENGLISH? she wrote.

  “A
merican!” he exclaimed. “You do understand!”

  Then, again, he wondered whether his mind had been affected. Fresh water under the sea; a preserved Minoan ship; a mermaid—who comprehended his own language. The stuff of dreams!

  WHY DO YOU COME? she wrote.

  And to her, he was the stuff of dreams! “I’m an archaeologist,” he said.

  Her eyes widened, I, TOO, she wrote.

  A mermaid archaeologist? How far could credulity be stretched?

  More and more, this reeked of a setup. Someone had been expecting him. Yet the problems of technique and motive remained. Who could do such a thing—and who would bother?

  Which suggested again that the principle error lay within his own brain.

  National security be damned, if that was what it was! If he was inventing all this, talking about his delusion could not hurt anyone but himself. If it wasn’t all in his mind, the others needed to know. He needed to discuss it with someone.

  He turned on the radio. “Melanie?”

  There was a pause, and he thought she wasn’t going to answer, but then she did. “Don, I wish you wouldn’t just cut off in the middle—I mean, I’m afraid that you’re hurt or—”

  “Melanie, something came up.”

  Abruptly she expressed concern. “Are you all right? Say you’re all right, Don!”

  “Yes. I hope so. I—” But what could he say now?

  RADIO, Splendid wrote. WHO?

  “That’s Melanie,” Don explained. “I—”