Manklu sang out the details of what had happened, hoping that the waters of this strange world of Urku would carry the signal as well as they did on Seome. It was a simple message, describing what had happened: we were attacked by a Tailless craft…eekoti Chase tried to intervene…he was taken and is being carried away even now…we need help.
The song was sung—even Kalomee joined in—and then all they could do now was wait. Manklu continued circling below the surface while the craft named Poseidon surfaced and was hoisted on board the larger ship, the mother ship. He even chanced a brief visit to the surface, breaching the waves and foam only a few meters aft of the big ship, momentarily caught in its prop wash, trying to see what had happened to eekoti Chase.
Meanwhile, the repeaters that Omt’or and the other kels had already deployed soon picked up Manklu’s message and passed it on, lending their own tones and harmonics to the urgency of the communication.
When she received the signal, Mokleeoh became furious. She was on a short roam about the Omtorish settlements, now burrowed well into the flanks of the seamount, so that the kelke infested every niche and fold in the great mountain, when her privy councilor Oncolenia heard the songs and brought them to the Metah’s attention.
“Affectionate Metah…they’re in great trouble…Manklu sings of a Tailless craft, two of them…and how they captured eekoti Chase…even now—”
Mokleeoh stopped her roaming abruptly and glared at her councilor. “Eekoti Chase…captured…by the Tailless?”
Oncolenia dipped a beak. “It is so, Affectionate Metah…here are the details.” And she sang out the contents of the message. With each word and refrain, the Metah grew angrier and more agitated, until she finally stopped Oncolenia in mid-sentence, with an abrupt wave of her forepaddles.
“Enough! I’ve heard enough. This cannot be allowed to stand. Eekoti Chase is vital to Omt’or, to our plans for making a home in this world. He knows the Tailless…he can secure advantages for us with these creatures.” To Oncolenia, she barked out: “Summon the Kel’em. We’ll roam…I need to advise Oolandra, Keelemah…even Lektereenah, they all need to know this.”
“But, Metah…how shall you reply…the message is urgent…they need help.”
Mokleeoh resumed her roam with an angry snap of her tail. Oncolenia and the rest of the court hastened to keep up. They headed down slope, to the canopies of the court at the very base of the seamount, a rise of volcanic tuff mangled into strange, even bizarre shapes by the heat of nearby hydrothermal vents. Columns of steam issued from the seabed, forming a natural curtain around the Metah’s compound. Prodsmen surrounded the rise as well, lending additional security, shooing away petitioners and curiosity-seekers by the dozen.
“Tell them this: tell Manklu to continue his mission. Proceed as planned with the expedition. Stay on their original course and leave the Tailless craft. We’ll form a rescue mission to bring eekoti Chase back to us. Hurry! Get the message out immediately.”
“At once, Honorable Metah,” Oncolenia streaked off to find the Metah’s repeater and pass on the words. The repeater would take the message and put it into the proper format, and ensure that it went out at the right volume and frequency—they were still learning the characteristics of the waters of Urku—so that more distant repeaters would hear the calls and pass them onto Manklu and his team.
Meanwhile, Mokleeoh already had in mind who she wanted to rescue Chase from the clutches of the Notwater people.
She reached her own canopy and issued a rapid-fire string of commands to her guard: gather the Kel’em…we will roam around the circumference of the mountain, where the currents change and mix and the waters are m’tkel’te, rough and mixed…a rescue mission will be created…send for Kok’tek as well…he’ll lead the mission.
So the leading members of all the em’kels…the Kel’em…gathered with Mokleeoh and made a roam about the perimeter of the guyot, halfway up its rugged slopes, cruising in perfect synchrony with a minimal guard force for the region was turbulent, salty and rough, not popular with any of the kels below.
Mokleeoh had chosen these waters to have some privacy.
Kok’tek was an engineer of some fame among the Omtorish, for it was he who had befriended eekoti Angie some time ago, on Seome, when she had come through the Farpool with the mortally injured Kloosee, to let them know that Chase was being held by Ponkti renegades back on Earth. Kok’tek was clever, resourceful, determined and technically savvy. He had worked with eekoti Chase to re-start the Farpool, to rebuild the wavemaker, after the Umans had pulled out of their base at Kinlok Island. Kok’tek had a visceral understanding of the Tailless.
He, of all kelke, would be able to find Chase and bring him home.
“Name your own team, Kok’tek,” Mokleeoh told him. They were circling the mountain through the turbulent water at a pretty high rate of speed, and Kok’tek found it hard to keep up; Mokleeoh loved to roam and she was a vigorous, almost effortless swimmer. “Take whatever weapons and gear you need. Mobilitors, prods, stunners, scentbulbs…we still have some mah’jeet in capsules…you can use them if you need to…whatever you need, I will approve. But find eekoti Chase and bring him back. He’s vital to our future.”
Kok’tek dipped a beak respectfully, peeled off from the roam, and quickly collected a small special forces team of five, all known to him, expert with prods, not afraid of the Notwater, accomplished in mobilitors, physically tough and courageous, dedicated to the letter of the Metah’s words and orders.
As they departed Keenomsh’pont in a small fleet of kip’ts, Kok’tek told them: “we’re going into Tailless territory…into their waters, into their world and probably into the Notwater. All of you have done this before.”
One prodsman, Gurlik, the one with the beak bent at an impossible angle, growled, “I’m not afraid of the Tailless. They bleed and die, just as we do.”
Kok’tek admired his courage, but wondered about his judgment. “It’s fine to be brave, Gurlik, but we have to be smart as well. They’ll have the advantage, especially in the Notwater. We have to be smarter than they are, do what is unexpected, catch them off guard, move quickly, move quietly when we find eekoti Chase…get in and sting like the k’orpuh, and get out. That’s how we’ll do this mission.”
“We’re not tekmetah in this mission…free-bonded to the Metah?” another prodsman asked.
“There’s no time to be official,” Kok’tek said. “Consider yourselves bonded to me. Your lives and your scents and your honor are mine…now, waste no more time. Mount up and get your gear ready! We move out in two minutes.”
The team, who had decided to call themselves Me’k’orpuh…meaning sting of the k’orpuh snake…departed Keenomsh’pont with little notice from the kelke and sniffed and sounded ahead to locate the Tailless fleet now many kilometers off to the west and moving rapidly toward land.
It would take many hours for them to catch up but Kok’tek now had the echoes in his ears and the Omtorish closed the distance steadily.
Aboard Neptune, Dr. Josey Holland was practically speechless when Poseidon was finally secured in the ship’s aft well deck and she clambered out onto the platform, with her pilot Rick Leventhal, brushing back her hair which clung to her forehead with damp perspiration. She gaped at the creature squirming and struggling in the claws of Poseidon’s remote manipulator, which held Chase Meyer fast to the side of the hull.
“My God, Rick…what a moment! Never in my life did I think we’d be so lucky…look at him…a live specimen!”
Leventhal grinned, slurped down something cold a technician had given him, and nodded. “If we’d just taken photos, nobody would believe us. Photos can be faked. This…this you can’t fake.”
Holland was concerned the creature would injure itself, trying to get free. “We’d better sedate it…before we transfer him to the tank. Jeez, in all my years, in all my dreams, I never imagined such a creature could exist…what the hell is he, amphibious, mammalian, some kind of pelag
ic throwback?”
Leventhal had the sense to go find a locker and withdrew a small gun. He loaded the magazine with several tranquilizer darts—the tray label read Impact-Actuating Inoculating Hypodermic Syringe—Maropitant citrate. He shoved several crewmen aside and cautiously approached the beast, still writhing and squealing in its snare on the deck.
It looked like a gigantic frog to both of them. Spade-shaped head like a little dinosaur, long legs with feet and fins, arms with hands and fingers…it was trying to tear at the netting with its fingers. It was strong too, several crewmen ventured too close and were knocked backwards by its kicks and slashes.
Leventhal crept up, took aim and fired several times, once into the stomach, several times into the chest and neck.
The tranquilizer began to take effect a few moments later. The beast’s kicks and flails began dying off, becoming more and more intermittent, weaker, slower, until finally, after what seemed like forever, it lay still and quiet, dripping salt water puddles onto the deck.
That’s when Neptune’s Captain, Joe Melroy, finally showed up, having made his way down from the bridge. Already, Neptune was heeling to port, picking up speed—Melroy had ordered flank speed from the engine room, in an effort to get their strange catch back to Woods Hole and into the lab as quickly as possible.
Melroy stooped down as close as he dared and studied the now-still creature.
“My God, gentlemen, what on earth have we captured here?”
Two kilometers to the southeast of Neptune’s position, the U.S.S. Juneau was running quiet two hundred meters below the surface, her screw barely turning at seven knots. Her skipper had been studying the thermal, visual and hyperspectral imagery from their Superfly micro-drone orbiting a thousand meters overhead, watching all the surface activity aboard the Neptune. He’d seen the Poseidon surface with her unwilling catch, the thrashing and struggling beast eventually tranquilized and moved deeper into the ship, probably to some kind of tank or wet lab or pool.
Commander Sam Cartwright snapped his fingers. “Recall Superfly…I’ve seen enough. And spool this feed for a squirt to Norfolk. This we gotta call in. And Jim—" he snagged he arm of tactical officer Jim Beecham, “add this to the squirt: what does Fleet want us to do? Keep watching…intervene…or what? I need further orders…some kind of clarification on the rules of engagement. My orders right now say ‘maintain surveillance of site M-1.’ But the situation has now changed. The eggheads from Woods Hole have moved in and are now interacting with the creatures. Does Norfolk…or Washington…want us to engage? Send it…right now.”
Beecham snapped off a salute. “Aye, aye, sir.” He disappeared through the hatch, heading for the comm shack.
Cartwright stood alongside the periscope well and stroked his chin, thinking. “Helm, come about to two eight five and make turns for ten knots. I want to follow that ship for awhile. If she’s heading home with that specimen, we may need to keep an eye on her.”
Chapter 3
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
Woods Hole, MA
June 5, 2115
Tank B was one of several holding pools that McLean Lab maintained away from the public areas. It was just beyond the Frommer Aquarium, up at the front entrance to the building, behind locked doors and connected by a narrow channel to a smaller research pool, equipped with all the gear that Woods Hole could afford, which wasn’t much. Holland always sighed when she saw the layout inside the pool suite. If only we had more donors, she would say to herself, and to anyone else who would listen. A few more rich benefactors. And about a hundred million in loose change would help. Then we could really fly.
She felt sorry for the dolphins in the Dolphin Gallery and the belugas and the penguins and seals and especially, Ernie, the tiger shark, who was one of Woods Hole’s more popular attractions. They deserved better. A lot better.
Holland supervised off-loading the creature—for some reason, she had already named it in her mind Ralph, thinking of the Kramdens and the Honeymooners—and immediately changed into her wet gear. She entered the pool and laid out all her instruments, tugging up the nanobot unit, with its containment tank full of nano-critters and a control panel, even a small joystick for flying through the innards of her marine animal patients. Holland wasn’t too sure about driving the small flotilla of medbots and surgicytes—she’d skipped the detailed training the manufacturer offered because Woods Hole’s McLean Aquarium wasn’t the Georgia Aquarium or the Shedd Aquarium and money didn’t grow on trees.
Holland helped her intern Tracey Rook and her technician Rob maneuver Ralph into the pool, positioning him as best they could in the float sling, then securing the animal with straps and hooks.
Rob just shook his head, looked up quizzically. “Tursiops truncatus, do you think, Doc?”
Holland shook her head, sizing up the animal with her hands and fingers. “Chordata, I’d say…that’s what it looks like to me…but this guy must be twelve, maybe fourteen feet long, weigh a ton or more. I would say definitely ectothermic…and probably vertebrate. Some kind of amphibian.”
Tracey Rook sniffed and ran her fingers lightly over the skin. “This skin is weird…feels like chitin, like some kind of composite—“
That’s when they found the echopod implant.
To Josey Holland’s ever-lasting surprise, what she had thought was a particularly tough outer skin membrane turned out to be more like a suit of some kind, like a wet suit. And surgically embedded in the neck of the suit/skin was a small device, a round pod with a flashing pair of lights winking at them.
Tracey put hands to her mouth. “My God—“
Longer and bulkier than a dolphin, Ralph had a short snub beak, a melon, forelimbs and rear limbs, like a dolphin. He had dorsal fins, in fact two of them. Tail flukes. Medial notch in the rear flukes. But it was the hands. The forelimbs, with fingers. Six in all, a thumb and five metatarsals. And the blinking pod.
No one said a word for a full minute. They all just stared in awe.
Holland took a deep breath. “Okay… so we have a new species here…Woods Hole may have a new exhibit. Now, we just have to wake him up and keep him alive.”
“And figure out what the hell that gadget is,” Tracey muttered. “It’s not ticking, is it?”
Ralph was starting to thrash about in the sling, so Rob immediately pulled up the anesthetics shelf. It hung down from an articulating arm over the pool. “What do you think, Doc? Sodium pentathol with halothane?”
“I’m thinking…I’m thinking…let’s see, I make him about a ton…two thousand pounds, make it three, set the dose for that. And let’s do a separate dose cocktail of fentanyl and sevoflurane. Right there, anterior to the pectoral fin—“She indicated a spot below one of Ralph’s fins. “Hopefully there are veins nearby—“
Tracey was pulling up another piece of gear. “I’ll get URI ready.” URI was the Ultra Resonant Imager. “If I can fit the thing over top of him—“
Anesthetic was administered to Ralph and he lapsed into a deep sleep again.
The scanning was done in silence, only briefly interrupted by a few mmm’s and wows and a lot of head scratching and throat clearing. Someone threw in a ‘What the hell is that?, too.
Holland did her dictation to URI’s recorder. “I’m seeing things I have no idea what they are…lesions in what I think is the reticulum…possible enteric vein damage…if this is the stomach area like I suspect. Some tissue damage to what looks like the caudate lobe of the liver, also suprarenal glands and gastroplenic ligaments—could be Poseidon’s manipulators did that, when he struggled so.“
“Those could be metal fragments in and along the pyloric sphincter,” offered Rob, studying the images. “Severely detached mucosae—“
“And there’s no blowhole,” said Tracey. “Definitely not a mammal at all. If he’s amphib, the skin may allow for cutaneous respiration.”
“At least, we won’t have to worry about aspiration. Let’s get the big guy prep
ped immediately. I’ll fire up the bots.”
Ralph was going to need nanobotic intervention right away.
Approximately, a quarter mile from the research pool at McLean Lab, a small reservoir off what the tourist maps called Vineyard Sound began stirring in a light breeze. It wasn’t a fetch caused by wind, however. To the utter consternation of several technicians walking along a graveled path alongside Oyster Pond Road, the waters of the Sound suddenly turned quite rough, though there was no appreciable wind. Breaching the surface out of the churn of foam and froth, arose several humpback craft, riding the offshore currents along the shell-covered beach for awhile, before nosing themselves into the sand. The tops of the craft popped open and half a dozen creatures, clad in glistening black armored mobilitors, emerged, stunners and prods at the ready.
Sergeant Steve Purvis had been with Woods Hole’s Uniformed Division for seven years, half of them with the Quissett Campus Squad. It was interesting work, interesting in the same sense his pathologist friend Wally Ng talked about dead bodies…conversation you didn’t want to have at the local coffee shops, not if you wanted people to stick around. Cops and pathologists…Steve had often joked with Wally about what it would be like to attend a pathologist convention, with all the slide shows and the jokes and the conversations in the hallways over bagels and coffee.
“Yeah, probably like a proctologist convention,” Wally always came back. “I’d pay not to attend one of those.”
Purvis had never seen anything like it in all his years on Quissett Campus. One minute, scientists and lab techs and admin types were strolling along the sidewalks, chowing down sack lunches at the gazebo or spinning wild-hair theories to each other in animated talks under the elm trees and the next moment, five or six wackos who looked like creatures from the Black Lagoon were waddling up out of the Sound, scaring the bejeezus out of everybody.
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