Quofum

by Alan Dean Foster

  Transferring gear from the craft allowed her to equip the small dwelling with adequate security. It was acceptable to like the seals—but not to trust them. The art of patient duplicity was not a skill reserved solely for humanxkind. Still, as the days passed, she grew progressively more comfortable in the company of her hosts and in sleeping among them.

  While the shallow, wood-framed ovoid filled with dried and fluffed plant matter that was located in the rearmost room provided a tolerably restful bed, she preferred the expandable she brought from the skimmer. Though her own dwelling as well as every one she visited displayed an admirable level of hygiene, there was no telling what kind of parasites might inhabit the depths of such bedding. Insofar as she could tell, her hosts did not take this preference for her own sleeping platform as a slight. Indeed, they showed the same level of curiosity toward her tools and gear as she did to theirs.

  Village society was as evolved as its technology. There were several schools for the young. In the absence of books, knowledge was inscribed on bound sheets of a large echinoderm that was collected by divers. Dried and pounded flat and thin, this organic material had the consistency of flexible cardboard. Paper, she had no doubt, would be the next step up in the advancement of seal writing technology. She did not show them the screen on her communit. Too much magic could overwhelm simple minds. Worse, the history of contact with less advanced species showed how such repeated revelations could lead to suspicion and jealousy.

  There were bakeries, facilities for processing the wondrous variety of creatures netted in the depths and gathered from the shores of the cove and the deeper sea beyond, something akin to a restaurant, two gathering places that might on another world have qualified as taverns (a tavern on a world whose oceans were nine percent alcohol seemed decidedly superfluous), and shops for making and repairing clothing, utensils, and other goods. As her knowledge of the local language increased, abetted by relevant programs embedded in the skimmer’s AI, she was able to confirm that the villagers obtained the majority of their needs from the sea.

  Most exciting of all was the information that there were other seal villages scattered up and down the coast and on offshore islands with whom her hosts engaged in regular trade and social intercourse. Truly, in the absence of the unknown species who had built the now deserted inland city, these congenial folk represented the apex of contemporary Quofumian society.

  Occasionally her studies would be interrupted by a perfunctory query from base camp. So as not to unsettle or over-awe her hosts, she would reply only when by herself. Valnadireb informed her that he was hard at work in the forest and staying close to camp. Utilizing one of the expedition’s four small rechargeable scooters, N’kosi had chosen to range farther afield. Their respective work was going well. Each was making astonishing discoveries. Though their sporadic conversations were underscored by the kind of calm and composure that attends the condemned, they were devoid of despair or self-pity. Gloom had long since given way to resignation. While she could not speak for her colleagues, Haviti felt like someone who had contracted a terminal disease yet felt no physical pain. Their condition was one to be regretted, but not dwelled upon.

  On the morning of the day in the middle of the fifth week she had planned to sit in on one of the local school’s most advanced study sessions in hopes of learning more about the history of the town. Instead, when she emerged from what she had whimsically dubbed Cove Cottage, she found herself confronting Ba-fel. Tall for his kind, the male was one of several villagers who had spent enough time in the presence of the pale-fleshed alien to become comfortable with her. Though Haviti’s command of the local language was still crude, she could now make simple concepts understood. Talking seal was easier than, for example, trying to speak High Thranx. Haviti likened the latter to gargling without liquid.

  “Ti-ah-reh well morning today?” Ba-fel inquired politely.

  “Ti-ah-reh well yes.” Better to keep exchanges simple and comprehensible than to strive for eloquence and fall on one’s linguistic face, Haviti had always firmly believed. Besides, there was little room for elaboration in the seals’ language. It was simple and straightforward and functional, which suited her mood just fine. High literacy could come later.

  The native gestured. Not in the direction of the town and the school where Haviti was expected, but toward the cove. “Ti-ah-reh has ask often about other peoples. Ba-fel talk with friends. Believe Ti-ah-reh good person.” The attenuated, backward-facing ears flapped lazily back and forth, serving to pick up sounds while simultaneously cooling the speaker’s body. “Ba-fel and friends think time okay now show Ti-ah-reh place other people leave behind.”

  Haviti’s heart skipped a beat. The chronicle of the town could wait. What the ingenuous Ba-fel seemed to be offering was a history lesson of a different sort.

  She closed the cottage door behind her. There was no way to lock it, and no need to. “This place,” she asked her friend and guide, “is located in cove?”

  “Not in cove.” Ba-fel’s long legs seemed to slip and slide over the cobblestones as they made their way toward the pier. “Beyond.” A short arm rose to gesture northwestward. “Other side Sharp Point. Must take boat.”

  This would be a first, Haviti realized. Until now, all her time had been spent in the village and its immediate terrestrial surrounds—except for on those occasions when she had gone swimming. Her sporadic bathing excursions invariably drew a crowd, as curious about her method of aqueous locomotion as they were about her unclad form. But no one had offered to take her out on one of the double-prowed fishing craft. Having access to the skimmer, she had not thought to ask.

  She had no compunction about making a short journey in one of the native boats. Though unbeautiful and strictly utilitarian in design and purpose, they were broad-beamed and solid. She had seen them riding storm waves, bobbing over big swells like corks as they ventured out in search of a catch or returned heavily laden with water-dwellers who were the equal in biological variety of anything she had encountered on land. Sturdy masts held single or double sails made from dried and treated animal hides. As none of the simple craft had sunk during the course of her visit she felt reasonably safe in anticipating that one would not sink while she was aboard.

  She did detour to the shuttle to add a few additional items to her utility belt. Exiting and locking the canopy behind her, she indicated her readiness to the patient Ba-fel and followed him the rest of the way to the pier. The fishing boat that was waiting for them had its nets neatly rolled and stored, ready for deployment. Their presence caused her to smile to herself. While the seals clearly desired to show her something they felt was of significance, they were not about to waste the opportunity to do a little fishing.

  Her hosts had timed the departure to coincide with the morning winds that blew outward off the land. Funneling by the narrow cove increased the strength of these warm gentle breezes so that departing boats made good time outbound from the village. In the absence of any moons, tidal action was minimal. There was virtually no surf to surmount.

  She had no idea what to expect. Ba-fel had not elaborated and she saw no reason to press him for details. Anything worth discussing would present itself soon enough. The panorama as they rounded Sharp Point and set sail northward was something of a letdown. As near as she could see, the coastline north of the village was identical to the coast south of it. Certainly nothing distinctive presented itself. In the absence of revelation she stretched out on the central deck and allowed the alien sun to warm her.

  Several hours passed before Ba-fel approached her and leaned over to declare, “You might want stand up now, Ti-ah-reh. We here.”

  As she sat up, her visor immediately adjusted to the difference in brightness. Looking around she saw more coastline, more sky, flat sea. The view was no different from the one to be had at Sharp Point. Seeing her confusion, Ba-fel beckoned her to the rail. Those seals not attending to shipboard duties were watching her with interest.


  As the morning heat intensified, she found herself growing irritable. Had she wasted a day because some of the natives wanted her company on a fishing outing? “I don’t see anything different, Ba-fel. What you here bring me for?”

  “Come see, Ti-ah-reh. Here.” Leaning over the side of the boat, the native pointed. Not toward the shore, but downward. Stepping up alongside him Haviti peered into the sea—and caught her breath.

  The water was clear as crystal. Just below the surface was the top of a building. Beyond, she could see a good twenty meters into the depths. The rest of the building was clearly visible—as were the structures that surrounded it. She turned to her host.

  “Who build this, Ba-fel? Not your people.”

  “No, not mine. We not know. This place always here, since beginning of memory. We come often.” He made the seal equivalent of a smile. “Always much here to catch. Is suits your interest, yes?”

  “Yes. I am very pleased, Ba-fel.” Turning away from him she sought the box where she had placed her boots and service belt. “I am going swim.”

  “Here?” He looked surprised. “Water is deep. You go deep, Ti-ah-reh?”

  “As deep as I can,” she told him.

  The mask she donned was self-equalizing. Its miniaturized built-in rebreathing system would vent CO2 and draw oxygen from the surrounding water, allowing her to stay down as long as she wished. Powerfins would allow her to descend and move around with ease. A liquidrive would have extended her underwater range. The expedition had two of the powerful underwater propulsion units, but both were back in camp. She would have to make do.

  Ba-fel was removing his simple clothing. So was one of the other sailors. “Safer Ti-ah-reh go with company. Are sometimes dangerous animals here.”

  “I be all right,” she assured him. Her beamer would work just as well underwater as above. But she did not object to the offer of an escort. In any case, it would have been impolite to turn it down.

  As usual, the water was warm and faintly aromatic. After hovering near the surface to make sure both the mask’s re-breather and the powerfins were working, she arched her back and headed downward. Unable to draw oxygen from the water, Ba-fel and his friend remained near the surface, tracking her progress through their simple glass eyeshades.

  Despite the clarity of the water she could not see all the way to the bottom. The structures that rose from darkness and from depths unknown were profoundly unsettling. Touching the side of one, examining it while hovering in the slight current, she could not identify the building material. It was as far in advance of the cut stone of the inland city as the lens of her mask was from the simple sand-glass goggles worn by her hosts. She was almost certain the wall before her was made of metal. Seamless and devoid of rivets or other imperfections, it plunged downward in a single sheet, unmarred by windows or other openings. There was not a speck of rust.

  Leaving it and dodging curious ocean-dwellers, she swam across the open space between the first building and the next. Structurally, the second edifice was utterly different from its neighbor. Where the first boasted sides that were severe and straight, the second was a riot of entwined arcs and curls, free-ranging, free-flying arches of metal and what appeared to be some kind of translucent white super-porcelain. Aesthetics aside, Haviti was unable to divine the purpose behind the radical architectural motif.

  It soon became apparent as she let the powerfins push her through the sunken city that such extreme embellishment was the norm. The building at whose summit she had been dropped turned out to be the exception, the only one with simple, straight sides. No two submerged structures were alike and each was more fantastic in design than the next. As she swam her survey, Ba-fel and one or two other seals were always with her, paralleling her progress and watching from above. The longer she spent exploring the sunken metropolis, the more comforting she found their presence. There were ghosts here, in a metaphorical if not tangible sense.

  It had been apparent from the first that whoever had built this city had achieved a level of technological sophistication that dwarfed anything else she or her companions had previously encountered on Quofum. Parts of it appeared to have been spun instead of built, as if some mad cake decorator had been given giant tubes of metal and glass and ceramic to work with instead of buttercream frosting. Touching the smooth skin of several structures she found herself wishing for more advanced analytical equipment than she had on the skimmer. In its absence she could only guess at the composition of some of the construction materials.

  The powerfins drove her through and around edifices that gleamed golden in the bright light filtering down through the clear water. A visitor from an earlier time might have been forgiven for thinking the towering spires were constructed of polished brass. An enormous stadium whose purpose she was unable to construe occupied the entire top of a small seamount. Though increasing pressure at depth only allowed her to swim through its uppermost reaches, the shafts of light that illuminated immense hallways and vast gathering areas reminded her of images she had seen of ancient cathedrals.

  While the sunken city was rife with life, with one exception its present population either avoided her entirely or paused at a distance to consider the curious creature that darted through their midst. The exception took the form of a seven-meter-long length of undulating ribbon, silver glazed with crimson, that tried to fasten needlelike teeth on her left arm. A burst from her beamer left it writhing and twisting as it drifted away, its narrow toothy skull seared and smoking. A host of attentive scavengers magically materialized from every direction. They proceeded to quickly and efficiently reduce the writhing, coiling corpse to shards of drifting flesh that filled the water like so much chrome confetti.

  Though she learned a great deal in the course of her awestruck, hurried underwater survey, she found nothing that allowed her to identify the creators of the oceanic Oz. Unlike the overgrown corridor she had discovered in the inland city, there were no bas-reliefs, no engravings, no depictions whatsoever of the community’s builders. Nor were there any images that might have given a clue as to how the metropolis came to subside beneath the waves. Like its builders, the cause of its fate remained a mystery.

  Ba-fel and his friends were looking anxious by the time she surfaced and returned to the boat. She felt guilty. She had not expected to be down so long. As she unsealed and pulled off her mask, shaking water from her hair, she eyed him apologetically.

  “I sorry, Ba-fel.” She held out her mask for him to see. “With this, my kind can stay underwater long time.”

  “Was concerned for Ti-ah-reh.” The seal’s ears quivered anxiously. “Was worth see this place?” he added hopefully.

  “Was much worth,” she assured him as she picked up a drying pad and began to pat herself down. “Must come back again.” With more advanced equipment and the ability to go deeper while avoiding the need for decompression, she added silently to herself.

  As sail was raised and the boat turned back toward the village, she soaked up the warm sun and wondered at the sunken metropolis and its origins. Who had built it? What had happened to sink it beneath the waves? Some kind of natural geologic subsidence, perhaps. If the latter, it must have been violent and rapid. Many of the buildings she had investigated looked as if they had been completed only yesterday. Yet if an earthquake or some similar phenomenon was responsible, why had she not found any evidence of the kind of physical damage one would expect to see resulting from such a cataclysm?

  More important, what had happened to the city’s inhabitants? While her examination had been necessarily brief, she had seen evidence of technology, or at least metallurgy, that approached Commonwealth norms. Certainly the city had not been built by the seals, or for that matter by the fuzzies, or the hardshells, or any of the other sentient species she and her colleagues had encountered thus far. Why had such an advanced culture vanished without a trace? Or had it? She and her friends had spent only a couple of months studying a minuscule portion of a tiny part
of a large world. Who knew what remained to be discovered in its other hemisphere? Or even a few kilometers distant in any randomly chosen direction?

  It seemed that the longer she and her colleagues remained on Quofum and the more they learned, the greater grew the mystery that shrouded the whole planet in confusion and illogicality.

  She could have spent the rest of the day pondering that greatest of all the questions posed by the world on which she and her friends had been stranded. She should have been able to. Instead, the unexpected intervened. Quofum intervened.

  The rising agitation among the sailors manifested itself before anyone thought to explain it to her. Before one of them could, she saw the explanation for herself.

  Smoke was rising from the village. The first dark puffs, clouds of ash and smoke pushed out to sea by the offshore breeze, were visible even before the sturdy craft rounded the Point. By the time it did so her hosts were breaking out spears and crude projectile weapons. At full sail and working feverishly to tack landward, they made their way back into the cove.

  Haviti’s spirits fell as she saw the havoc that was being wreaked on shore. Several of the village buildings farthest inland and up the canyon were on fire, sending up streamers of furious smoke. The sounds of battle, of the primitive but still deadly pop-pop of gunpowder-fueled weapons, of seals screaming and shouting, of the faint metallic ring of metal on metal, drifted out to sea along with the smoke.

  She had no idea who was attacking the village. As soon as the boat reached the single pier, everyone on board leaped off. Long legs eating up the ground in great, loping strides she could not match, they raced up the beach and toward town. In the absence of pikes and swords and guns some of her companions, including Ba-fel, brandished razor-sharp fishing gear. Others vanished into streets and buildings in search of better weapons. No one took the time to inform the visiting alien who was their guest as to the nature of the attackers. She could hardly blame them.