Hidden in Sight

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Size aside, it was a remarkably ordinary creature; Ersh-memory gave it an amusing resemblance to the cod which had been so pivotal in early Human history. Its tall, thin dorsal fin flopped untidily in the air, having temporarily lost the support of water. Antennae and other rigging were leeched to the thickened scales of its back, just in front of the fin. Its eyes were protected by goggles, while its gills were covered by plas domes, much the way a respirator would seal over the mouth slit of a humanoid. The plas on the wharf-side gill-cover was scratched and dented, explaining some of the corresponding damage to the wood. Any metal and the older of its blue-yellow scales were coated in a crust of tyr-barnacles or showed white remnants of glue where previous hitchhikers had been scraped free. My Oieta-self itched with sympathy.

  Boarding wasn’t for the weak of circulatory pumps. I led the way, having experience in the matter—if not previously in a form that would actually be a food item for a wild Busfish, which I suddenly discovered added a significant level of apprehension. It wasn’t exactly panic, but I might not have poled myself down the ramp as swiftly if it hadn’t been for a shove from behind. I flashed an indignant red.

  Paul chuckled. I thought various dire thoughts about when best to shove him into something’s mouth, but didn’t slow down again.

  The ramp met another which protruded like a tongue from the Busfish’s now gaping mouth. Green-tinged seawater trailing lines of froth poured over and around it as the mouth emptied, revealing dripping platforms built over the lower tooth ridge. The upper tooth ridge had been removed—a safety precaution of which I highly approved. My shell would have been no protection whatsoever—and a fleshy being such as Paul? I shuddered, sending a curtain of tiny bubbles rippling past my oculars so I could hardly see where I was poling.

  Someone, I assumed my Human, grabbed my suit’s upper arms and stopped my forward motion. Just as well, since when the bubbles cleared I was hanging half over the side of the ramp, looking down at the churning waves being forced between fish and wharf. I waved a pole in what I hoped was a carefree and reassuring manner, then poled myself the rest of the way down the center of the ramp.

  Only to wind up teetering on a wet, spongy surface that I wasn’t going to think about. A surface with taste buds and mucous glands, and no doubt a dangerous enzyme or two in the puddles filling every dimple.

  A mouth easily twenty of Paul’s strides wide and three times that in length. A removable ceramic mesh covered the hall-like opening to the throat, looking dangerously flimsy for something intended to guarantee the Busfish didn’t digest paying customers. Figures in suits similar to Paul’s were either clamped in seats on the platforms or moving between them. A few were a reassuring blue, a color my Oieta-self interpreted as calm professionalism. Attendants.

  One of the latter approached me as I teetered—a Prumbin, I assumed, though there were few other clues from the suit beyond that balloonlike width around what would correspond to Paul’s waist, hips, and thighs. This close, the suit lost some of its blue under algae stains and glasslike fragments of Busfish scale. “Please turn off your antigrav. Do you want closed or open?” The words were in a monotone that suggested boredom rather than a pattern of speech.

  Ah. The moment I’d been waiting for, I thought. Then I stared up at the pinky-white irregular surface my mind said was the roof of a reliable means of transportation, and my instincts screamed was the roof of a hungry mouth—the inside part, no less. “Closed,” I whimpered, turning beige, white, and gray as if my natural camouflage could possibly help. The fluid in my suit warmed as I dumped heat.

  The Prumbin didn’t comment, just waited for me to signal my antigrav was off before picking me up and tossing me toward the nearer arc of the platform. There, two other suited figures ignored my worried coloration and started to tie me to a most uncomfortable seat. A humanoid shape in vile green climbed up beside me, seeming to have little problem with either tongue or ridge, and waved them aside. “I’ll look after her.”

  “Don’t you dare say a word about food,” I told my Human as he fastened my safety harness as deftly as if he routinely did such things inside a giant fish. “Not one word.”

  I didn’t need to see Paul’s face to know he was grinning as he fastened himself in beside me.

  Next down the ramp was a trio of Oietae—likely spawn-sibs. They paid no attention to me or any of the other passengers, obviously eager to accept the “open” option. Their attendant pulled them to one side, then used a hooked pole to pry up the tongue along that edge. Beneath, a long puddle of seawater beckoned, appealing even with its telltale gleam of fish mucus. The Oietae slithered out of their suits and into this pond, their shells blazing an almost orgasmic orange as they sank beneath the surface.

  I envied their pleasure, but not enough to make me play morsel-in-the-maw.

  It wasn’t long before the Busfish prepared to leave, having consumed its passengers, their luggage, and an awkward though functional pallet stacked with containers of varied size. The Prumbins had eventually wedged the pallet along the back left of the tooth ridge using what appeared a tried-and-true technique of ramming themselves against one side until some containers toppled sideways and lodged under the ridge itself. I hope the contents survived the process, but this cavalier treatment didn’t appear to bother the Busfish, which was becoming alarmingly lively as it must have sensed it would soon be submerging.

  “This is certainly different.”

  “What?” I twisted within my suit so I could focus on Paul. “Oh. Yes.”

  “Will you tell me now?”

  “Tell you what?” The Human must be trying to distract himself, I decided. After all, this had to be an alarming, possibly terrifying experience. Especially as the attendants had started knocking down the braces holding the mouth open and you could almost feel how anxious the Busfish was to slam its mouth shut on those inside—

  “Fem Swashbuckly. Esippet. You promised to tell me where you were taking me. I think now’s a good time, don’t you?”

  “Now?” I repeated, torn between looking at Paul, which was polite, or checking the rate at which the braces were being removed, which seemed prudent.

  “Now, Esippet. Es!”

  Paul’s sharpening voice reached me when probably nothing else could have, given Ersh was now part of her mountain. I unlocked my swimmerets, which had somehow taken a death grip on one another, seriously hampering my breathing, and focused on my green-suited Human as though he was the anchor to my part of the universe. “I’m a little nervous,” I confessed.

  “I can see that. And it’s perfectly reasonable,” he said soothingly. “Keep talking to me. Don’t!” This as I craned around to see the last brace dropping onto the tongue, right beside the tips of my poles. “Try not to pay attention to anything else for a minute, Old Blob. Switch to suit-to-suit and we’ll check if the com works. No guarantees on privacy, remember?”

  I flashed a wan yellow down my sides.

  “Good. Here goes.” Paul made the adjustment with his chin; I echoed it with my mandibles. “Can you hear me, Esippet?”

  There was no difference in tone or quality I could detect, which made sense: our suits still had to translate sound through both air and water, simply those media were now within rather than without. But his warning about potential eavesdroppers chilled my circulatory pumps; the old familiar cautions had new significance. “Yes, I hear you. How do I sound?”

  “Sweet as ever,” he said.

  “Silly Human. It’s not even my real voice,” I chided, but resolutely kept my oculars from the slowly disappearing beach, wishing I could see more of his dear face than the distorted image of his eyes through the suit’s goggles. “I know you are a resilient species, but how can you take this so calmly?”

  A kind laugh. “Let’s leave it that my biological heritage worries more about the dark.”

  “There are interior lights,” I promised.

  “Good to know.” A pause. “Feeling any better?”

/>   I tested myself by glancing around the inside of the Busfish before answering. The mouth was closing, no doubt of that. The view beyond was now restricted to the bottoms of buildings, sand, and the retreating ramp. But the movement downward was so gradual as to be almost imperceptible.

  I ignored the regrettable conclusion that this gave beings a final chance to jump for their lives.

  “Better,” I said with determination.

  A well-trained creature, this Busfish, obedient to its handlers now seated before a tiny console I hadn’t noticed before. The controls would be relatively simple. Open, close. Up, down. Port, starboard. Fast, slow. The Busfish could do the “how” of each by itself. It could even find its way home.

  Ah, the advantages of biology over tech.

  Mind you, that home wouldn’t be anywhere my Human could survive without his suit. Petty detail.

  A spasm, like some Busfish-quake, signaled our transport was starting to wriggle itself into deeper water. The straps held us in place, but those who’d chosen the “open” option were sliding along the tongue. From their actions, I concluded they were either writhing in agony or having fun. Since the attendants ignored them, it had to be the latter, although I couldn’t fathom the “fun” in living out one’s worst nightmare.

  Then, we were under the surface, smoothly, quickly, with all the grace of living flight and all the power of surf rushing to fill the mouth over and between the gaps in its rock hard lips. The covers over the gills must have been retracted, as the inflowing water went down the throat but didn’t return. Sunbeams stroked their way past just outside, then faded, then were gone. As I’d promised, the interior of the mouth began to glow—not only with the lights beading each suit, but also those growing on the ceiling and along the platforms, natural symbionts of the Busfish who normally lured their host’s prey in to its doom and now reassured its passengers.

  Meanwhile, the mouth closed as much as it could. Ocean stopped beating against our suits and teased at them instead, making me long to tear off mine. It didn’t help when two of the Oietae scooted past me, still that wanton orange but now with telltale mottlings of aroused black, mingling their swimmerets in what I was shocked to realize was reasonably advanced foreplay. The third flicked his antennae in a debauched manner along my side before following the rest up to the lights. Not spawn-sibs after all. A mating group.

  I turned to face Paul, trying and failing to keep my suit from displaying my humiliation with a green matched to his.

  “Well. You are cute,” the Human observed, after a long pause. He’d probably struggled not to laugh at me, I thought rather glumly.

  “I’m not—” the green deepened. “You know what I mean.”

  “Old enough?” He reached out and patted the ridge of suit over my lower left limb. “You will be, one day. Don’t mind them. Honeymooners. They can hardly tell your age while you’re in the suit, can they? An honest mistake.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was offended or reassured.

  Paul, as befitted the father of two grown offspring, changed the subject. “So, Esippet Darnelli Swashbuckly. Anything you’d care to reveal about our destination, now that I most definitely can’t refuse to go?”

  I managed a flash of happier amber. “The Nirvana Abyss.”

  “What?” The com picked up the sound of his swallow. “I thought the Abyss was only a rumor—a myth!”

  I had him. I could tell by the tone of his voice as it translated into vibration against my membranes. Paul was feeling the thrill of curiosity again.

  “No rumor,” I told him. We were forced back against the straps with all the rest as the Busfish made a sudden turn. Passing out of Mouda Cove, I surmised. I hoped this particular Busfish hadn’t been responsible for damaging the hazard markers. The Oietae cheerfully ricocheted from one side of the mouth to the other, doing a few unnecessarily intimate spins as they went.

  “You’ve been there?”

  Maybe a little too much curiosity for an open com. I tapped his leg with my pole. “I’m much too young to have been here before. One of the founders of my cluster has leased chambers on the Brim. I’ve tasted—I’ve seen images. I believe you will be impressed.”

  “The Nirvana Abyss.” Paul stretched out the name, as if he could taste the memories in it for himself. “It’s legendary! I can’t believe you never told me it was real until now.”

  “I was saving it for a—” I couldn’t utter another word. My suit saturated with black and red. Despair. Everything came smashing down again, my mind reeling with perfect recollection: the chase, the crater that had been our home, the attack in the greenhouse, the dreadful look on Joel’s face—on Paul’s—our flight here. We weren’t safe—My left mid-arm floated to the control of my suit before I considered what I intended, caught and stopped by Paul’s quicker hand.

  “You were saving it for when we needed it,” he finished for me. “Which is today.” There was nothing more than a pleased anticipation in his voice.

  But my web-kin, whose memories were the same as mine, kept hold of my arm.

  Otherwhere

  THEY found what remained lying on the eastern slope of the Edianti, cracked but not shattered beyond coherence. What remained conveyed a warning, passed along the dreadful truths discovered on the heights. Then, having completed its duty, what remained fractured along the cleavages of its kind for the next night and true day, the sequence as old as rock itself, becoming a glittering powder that was ceremoniously delivered into the boiling waters of the Geyser of Rebirth.

  When the ceremony was complete, the message began.

  The initial chimes were dissonant and sorrowful, with undertones of fear. Tumblers who heard took the sounds inward for consideration, then chimed the message onward. The alarm spread along the floor of the Edianti and into the smaller valleys that cut into its crystal walls; it traveled up and over the valley rims to the Assansi and plunged downward again. In this way, it swept across Picco’s Moon, slower than any com signal yet more profound, as every listener added both reaction and decision to the message.

  By the time it had returned to its source, the message had become answer: The flesh-burdened were no longer welcome on Picco’s Moon.

  13: Mouth Afternoon

  “WAKE up!” I poked Paul’s suit-encased ribs with my lefthand pole. “We’re here.”

  “I wasn’t asleep,” he muttered. He wasn’t awake either. My Human was capable of remarkably lucid conversation in this semicomatose state, something he denied when fully conscious. Adamantly. Along with any recollection of what had been said. It had taken seven years and some months for me to become convinced this wasn’t a trick; once I was, it was hard to resist the temptation to play some of my own. But his memory might improve with age and I was usually in enough trouble without trying for more. Not that I deserved it, I reminded myself. Not all, anyway.

  Poke. Poke.

  “Es!”

  I pulled my pole from his outraged grab for it, my swimmerets trying their best to move me around inside my suit. “We’re here,” I repeated. “Finally!”

  He stretched, then pretended to consult a wrist chrono. “It’s been less than four standard hours, of which you’ve only let me have one for a nap.”

  “Well, it felt longer than the trip from Minas XII,” I grumbled, then flattened my pre-gills as I heard what I’d said, my happy amber stained with green.

  The silence between us had a shape, as amorphous as my memory of those three days, as impossible to ignore.

  “Understandably.” No condemnation in his voice. There didn’t need to be.

  Before I could become more embarrassed—and green—if that were possible, a Prumbin attendant swam up to us. “Brim administration requires a suit check before passengers may disembark.”

  A standard, if somewhat meaningless precaution. The mouth wasn’t sealed against the outside. The Busfish would suffocate, if it were. My suit, unlike Paul’s, didn’t resist the growing pressure or cold. I’d felt my sw
im sacs compressing as we traveled deeper and deeper, their contents more nitrogen than oxygen by now as my circulation took over resupply to maintain volume. It was wasteful as well as more difficult to make bubbles for my mandibles to play with—adding to the boredom of the last hour. Which Paul had slept through.

  I could see the Prumbins’ side of this, however. Those running the underwater resort wanted some assurance they weren’t going to lose new guests in a messy and difficult-to-retrieve-for-relatives’ manner. The fact that it was too late by the time those guests arrived spoke volumes about the similarity of insurers of every species.

  There was that expression concerning locked doors and escaped livestock.

  I endured the Prumbin’s inspection, with its finale of a sharp tug on each of my poles, as if trying to take them from me. They were, of course, affixed to the material covering my arms. Had my poles been loose, the attendant would have tied them on the pallet, hopefully near the bag of our belongings already so secured.

  Satisfied, the would-be pole thief went to check Paul’s suit. When done, instead of leaving Paul and going to the next passenger on the platform, the Prumbins came back to me. Its goggle-enlarged eyes, vertically-pupilled and bloodshot, peered into my helmet. “Sure you want to stay closed, Little Oieta?” it asked, seeming concerned I wasn’t enjoying myself like the others.

  It probably was. In one of those ironies Ersh had found meaningful and I found frustrating, Oietae considered the Prumbins to be stoic bores at best, while the Prumbin word for my form’s species translated, literally, as “gorgeous dimwits.” No gathering at the Abyss was considered complete without colorful Oietae swimming about. There were transparent, water-filled corridors in every Prumbin building in Nirvana—a feature Oietae tour guides extolled to their travel-loving culture. Would they, if they knew the corridors had been designed to allow the Prumbins to view Oietae at whim?

  My Oieta-self seemed to have no problems being displayed as living art. I did, I thought, suddenly even more nervous. Camouflage beige threatened to climb up my back.