Chase was growing increasingly nervous. He told Josey Holland what was he was seeing, hearing and pulsing.
“They’ve got the sub propeller all tangled in fiber, Dr. Holland…Josey. There are about a hundred people surrounding the boat, with grenades and electric prods. But the worst thing is the Ponkti…or somebody…released two seamothers and they’re keeping the boat pinned to the bottom. And they’re attacking and bumping that sub and now they’ve caused some kind of leak. Seems to be getting worse every minute, too. The crew must be going crazy inside.”
“What are seamothers?”
“Oh, they’re like serpents…or dragons. Big suckers. Mean too. I’m afraid for the crew of that sub. The seamothers and all the other attacks have caused some kind of leak.”
“You’ve got to help them, Chase. You’ve got to do something.”
“Like what…I’m nobody. There are hundreds of people trying to destroy that boat. And the seamothers—”
“Didn’t you tell me you were elected as some kind of big chief or leader? Can’t you make them stop…or help that crew?”
Chase shrugged, a useless gesture but he couldn’t help it. Holland was right, he knew. I am Kel’metah, for all that’s worth. Sometimes, his Dad’s voice came to him at times like this. Chase, stop picking your nose and do what’s right. You’ll never go wrong if you just do what’s right. As a young kid, Chase had often thought of Mack Meyer as an arrogant dictator, a sort of Gulf Coast Hitler meting out discipline and punishment to all who crossed him. Not only that, he had seriously hated his Dad’s guts. But as he had grown older, Chase realized that somehow, some way, his Dad had gotten smarter and smarter about life.
Okay, Dad, you win. Chase told Holland to stay put. “I’m going in there, see what I can do.”
Holland agreed. “I’ll hold onto this bush…whatever it is.”
“Looks like some kind of coral or something. Don’t let go…there are still tremors and tricky waves around here.”
“Don’t worry…just do what you can, Chase.”
Right. There are only about a million things that could go wrong with this stunt.
He stroked off and dove into the throng, working hard to stay on course, against strong, shifting, chaotic currents, not to mention hundreds of agitated Seomish.
Deep inside the melee, he could pulse the deafening cascade of bubbles emanating from the submarine, in several places…at the base of the sail, where one seamother continued butting and tearing at the hull plates and forward near the bow. The ship was settling bow down at a steady rate and seemed about to slip off her perch at any moment. The rock overhang onto which she had settled arched out over a fairly deep ravine, easily several thousand meters deeper and if she slid off, the submarine would likely head bow first into that gully.
Chase brought himself to a stop in the midst of the melee, where he was knocked and kicked and shoved sideways up and down by streams of angry attackers. Prod discharges sizzled through the water and Chase occasionally felt a faint tingle from the currents. Sound grenades went off in the distance, momentarily deafening him, but he shoved and battered his way deeper into the frenzied crowd and soon began shoving back.
Several Omtorish attackers recognized him and quickly formed a protective barrier around Chase with their bodies.
“It’s eekoti Chase…move aside!”
“It’s Kel’metah…give way! Stop!”
“Make space…make a hole…move away and let Kel’metah speak!”
For a moment, Chase felt like he was riding some mad, out-of-control merry-go-round, with the swirl and tumult of feverish, hysterical roamers flying around him so fast they were a blur.
But moment by moment, the blur lessened and individual kelke came into view. The waters swirled and silt thickened but in time, Chase found himself at the very center of an agitated, anxious but mostly still crowd, hovering in concentric rings, waiting for him to say something.
What do I say now? Working in a T-shirt shirt shack on the beach had never prepared him for this. Let’s see: four score and seven years ago…nope, not that. Yesterday, December 7, 1941…a date that will live in…nope…ask not what your country…
Chase knew he could only be himself.
“Kelke…stop now! Pull back…all of you…right now! Leave that submarine alone. And let’s herd those seamothers back to their pens. There are people inside that craft…people kind of like me. Humans. Tailless. They deserve to live.”
Now voices erupted out of the crowd…angry, enraged, wrathful voices, bent on vengeance.
“The Tailless cause the mountains to shake. They make destruction…ak’loosh in our kels…m’pul’te…the water burns…we can’t live like this—”
Agreement swelled like a big wave, rolling outward, slamming into Chase’s face.
“Listen to me…there are people in trouble in that submarine. Pull your nets off! Put down your prods and grenades. If we don’t help them, they’ll die, right here in front of us. You want that? They breathe Notwater. We have to help them get to the Notwater…up there—” he pointed upward, “—to the surface.”
“Shooki wants them to die…all of us do.”
Now the words came more easily to Chase. “If they die, what do you think will happen? More Tailless will come. Many more. More than you and with great weapons. They’ll destroy Keenomsh’pont. Is that what you want? We have to find a way to live with the Tailless…it’s their world and we’re the intruders.”
He saw a rather husky Omtorish male emerge from the crowd and come forward. He was easily fifteen feet long, muscular and young, full of confidence, probably fresh from ke’toovish’tek…the adolescent’s circling of the world…in this case back on Seome. He circled Chase slowly, a menacing scowl to his face.
“Who says we have to stand back and let ourselves be attacked by these pal’penk? We’re just trying to survive here…and why are we here anyway?”
Chase saw others drifting forward. Okay, this isn’t looking good…maybe I should back off. Then he remembered what happened when you did that in high school….
“Guys, the Farpool brought you here. It was set up that way. Earth…Urku…has oceans. Lots of water. Humans live on the land…in the Notwater. This was the best place. But it’s not really your place. If we can’t get along with the Tailless, they’ll destroy you…all of us. Believe me…I’m part Tailless myself…humans have hunted species to extinction many times in our history. You’re outnumbered. If we can’t find a way to get along, it’ll happen again.”
A hundred meters away, Josey Holland clung to a coral reef, hearing just enough scratchy words through her echopod, including some of Chase’s, to make out what was happening. She had a hard time believing what she was hearing…or seeing.
I must be dreaming. Talking fish. Cities below the sea. Arguments over who should be here and why had they come here anyway. Holland pinched herself. No, this is plenty real enough and somehow this young man Chase is in the middle of it all.
She willed her thoughts to Chase. The submarine, the submarine…there are people dying inside that ship….
Chase seemed to have the same thought. Beyond the gathering, the submarine teetered on its rocky perch, streams of bubbles issuing from several hull breaches. A strong wave could send it over the edge, deeper into the ravine. All around, landslides and mudslides continued, while chaotic currents washed across the seabed, picking up rocks and chunks of coral, a blizzard of debris surging across the settlement.
Now, calmer heads seemed to be prevailing.
“What do you want us to do, Kel’metah?” someone said.
“We have to defend ourselves…we have a right—” came another voice.
“They don’t want us Ponkti as enemies…we’ll see to that right now!”
Chase decided to do what he had seen the Metah Mokleeoh do when making public statements. Seomish liked to roam. I’ll roam.
He stroked his way around the center of the gathering, intentionally
passing close by the inner circle of faces, close enough to brush against them, trying in some strange instinctive way to be a little intimidating, taking up their ‘space,’ making them react to him. Hey, it worked in the school yards and hallways at Apalachee High.
“The first thing we’re going to do,” he told them, “is to help the people in that submarine. Pull those nets off the props and free it up. You, you and you—“he selected some vigorous looking males, Ponkti by the looks on their faces—“get something to patch those leaks. Those men will die if they can’t get to the surface…I don’t want to hear from humans that there are things Ponkti can’t do. Move, man…move!”
Momentarily stung by the crisp orders coming out of Chase’s mouth, the Ponkti hesitated a moment, looked in puzzlement at each other and then set off toward the small collection of huts and tents that comprised the Ponkti part of Keenomsh’pont. Minutes later, they returned with several sacs of mah’jeet, dangerous, toxic creatures that had an affinity for swarming and coagulating around objects of interest.
Chase drew back, while the crowd dispersed, then seemed to get with the spirit and set to work untangling the submarine’s props. Soon, the seven-bladed shaft began spinning, at first hesitantly, then more smoothly.
At the same time, gangs of Ponkti males, assisted by Omtorish and Skortish midlings, not to be outdone or shown up by their peers, approached the hull breaches with their mah’jeet sacs. Carefully, the sacs were emplaced and held fast with thick residue, then draws were pulled and the dangerous cloud of organisms released. Entrained and agitated by the streams of bubbles, the organisms clung to the breaches like a strong handgrip, slowly, but surely reducing the size of the leaks and eventually shutting off the flow of escaping air altogether.
Chase knew how toxic and deadly mah’jeet could be to Seomish bodies, so he watched the midlings carefully, but they were cautious and precise in their movements and backed well away from the clinging clump of stinging creatures before they became fully agitated.
Nobody knew how humans would react to mah’jeet and Chase was pretty sure nobody cared either.
Chase hovered and drifted about, darting in and among the hundreds of gathered kelke, making sure there were no fights or conflicts that could erupt and spoil his little project of putting angry minds to cooperative work.
As long as they’re preoccupied with this, they might think less of getting into trouble…or doing something stupid with dozens of surface ships now gathering over their heads. He had heard the repeater’s songs in the last few minutes and knew that submarine rescue forces were even now converging on the area.
“If we can get that sub to the surface,” Chase told Holland when he found her still clinging to the coral reef, “all those ships up there won’t be as likely to come down here and make mischief among the Seomish.”
Holland had marveled at Chase’s diplomacy. “That was pretty brave of you, Chase…what you did out there. You got them competing among themselves and focused on that, rather than picking fights with humans.”
“Yeah, well I was pretty good at diverting attention in school…at least long enough for me to get away. I figured it might work here.”
They both watched as the submarine began to rock back and forth on the overhang, then with a mighty explosion of bubbles, she lifted off and planed upward, beginning a slow, awkward ascent to the surface.
A great cheer erupted among the Ponkti and Skortish and Chase could see some playful head butting and spearing going on as the ‘rescuers’ celebrated their accomplishment. More importantly, the mah’jeet swarms didn’t slough off the hull as it rose, but stayed clinging to the still-seeping leaks and streams of bubbles.
“It didn’t hurt that they seemed to want to do what Kel’metah commanded,” Chase remarked. “I don’t know what I would have done if they hadn’t.”
“What exactly is a Kel’metah?”
Chase shrugged. “Sort of cross between a drill instructor and a nanny, I think. But we’re not out of the woods yet…the repeaters are already singing of a great many ships converging on this area…probably a rescue force. What needs to happen now, is for the humans to stay up there on the surface and let the Seomish cleanup this mess and rebuild their camps.”
Holland was developing a growing respect, even affection, for Chase and she decided not to try hiding it. “Chase, I don’t know quite how to say this but I’ll just go ahead: you have some marvelous abilities. You’re brave, decisive, but patient, even curious…no, wait…let me finish…I think there was a reason that metah person picked you to be a leader. I mean, think about it: if I’m to believe what you say, you’re human too, but modified somehow. I can’t pretend to understand that. Yet you’re respected by all these…people... down here. You’re like a natural leader and you seem to have a real empathy for what they’re going through, coming here like refugees. I think they sense that too. That’s why they did what you wanted with that submarine. Chase, you did say you have a girlfriend, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes…Angie Gilliam. Back in Scotland Beach. We had a lot of classes together. Now…well, I’ve graduated…I’m working with my Dad at the Turtle Key Surf and Board Shop. At least I was. Angie and I met at a hospital…my dad was hurt in a holdup at the shop, shot in fact. He’s going to be okay…in fact, he should be home now. I need to go see him. But I met Angie for real while she was a volunteer at the hospital. We realized we had had some classes together at school.”
Holland watched the swirl of Seomish passing by all around them. Recovery activities were already underway and teams were hard at work hauling debris away, rolling boulders off tents, clearing the seabed, re-erecting huts. It was clear that the Seomish were an industrious and resourceful people, when properly led. Maybe Chase was what they needed.
“Can I be honest with you?”
“Sure,” Chase said, a little puzzled.
“My husband and I are getting a divorce back home…that’s Woods Hole. Massachusetts. We’re in a pretty bitter custody battle over our two children. Timmy’s my son, he’s five. And Hannah my daughter is eight. Hannah’s a challenge. She’s a Downs girl, so there are special needs and challenges raising her. My husband and his blood-sucking attorneys are trying to have me declared unfit to be a mother…they say I’ve abandoned them because of my work. I mean, look…that’s ludicrous on the face of it. Yeah, I love my work, but it’s not true I’d rather be with my fish and my dolphins than Timmy and Hannah.”
Chase didn’t know quite what to say to all this. “Dr. Holland, I’m sorry about that. I know it must be hard.”
“Josey, please…I was just thinking…well, kind of hoping, really, that you—” But she was interrupted by a pair of Omtorish workers who came by with a question. Both of them bore electric prods, weapons that had been used against the sub.
“Kel’metah, we hear from repeaters of a great force gathering above us. Shouldn’t we form a defense…prepare to attack if they come after us?”
Chase could see that both were males, midlings, and were likely part of the group that had gone after the submarine. He knew he had to tread carefully with these two. Even with his limited pulsing ability, he could tell they were agitated, primed, ready to take on anything.
“Go find your em’kel and help them clean up the mess. Help them rebuild their huts and camps. I know about the Tailless fleet above us. When the time comes, I will command a team to deal with the Tailless.”
He could see they weren’t satisfied with his answer—it was clear they really wanted to bash somebody bad—but it was better to put them to work on something constructive. They hesitated, looked at each other, pulsed Chase and finally gave in, unwilling to confront the authority of the Kel’metah…for the moment. They scampered off into the gloom.
Chase was relieved and turned back to Holland. “You were saying--?”
Holland definitely wanted to get to know Chase better. She wanted to know more about the Seomish, their history, their culture, their whole
civilization. What did they do when there was a custody battle over their children? Did they even get married? Josey Holland’s thoughts swirled and clashed like the currents at the base of the seamount.
“I was saying…uh, that I should probably be getting back to Woods Hole. I need to inform Dr. Satsuyama and UNISEA about what’s going on.”
“I thought you wanted to see more of the settlement. Meet more Seomish.”
“I do but…well, getting relations straight between humans and Seomish is way more important now. Tensions are getting worse. If conflict is to be avoided, Chase, both sides will have to meet more often and work out some kind of accommodation. After that’s settled, researchers like me will have time to study our new neighbors.”
“You may not know this but there are tu’kelke…that’s the Seomish word for refugees…that are setting up settlements and camps in other seas…the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and the northern Pacific. The Metahs all agreed to set up a kind of corps of explorers from all the kels and some of them have found these distant seas to their liking.”
Holland understood. “We’re hearing about that on the surface. You can bet the Russians and the Chinese will be opposed. Chase, there really should be a moratorium on new settlements until some kind of territorial regime can be worked out.”
“Actually, I agree with you but it’s kind of beyond my level. I guess I understand how politicians feel with me being Kel’metah. I can suggest things but I can’t lead the kels somewhere they don’t want to go. It’s the Ponkti that are behind a lot of these other settlements. They were oddballs even on Seome. All the kels want their own territories and waters.”
“Not so different from humans,” Holland said.
Chase and Holland looked at each other for a moment, saying nothing. Holland was clad in a Seomish lifesuit, which made her look like a dolphin with a spade-shaped helmet. Chase looked like a gator with legs and arms.
The Farpool_Exodus Page 19
