by David Mason
“You must breathe,” a dolphin called warningly. “We dive now.”
Daniel had barely enough time to fill his lungs; then he was slanting downward, through green-lighted water, down, and under a great arch of rock. Then, suddenly, his head broke through the water again. His mount slid suddenly away, and he found his feet touching a sandy bottom; he stood, shaking water from his hair.
There was a cold, pale light that seemed to sift down from far overhead, lighting the water’s surface and the gigantic columns all around. It was a cave, but clearly artificial; enormous as a cathedral, its halls stretched away into the distance on four sides. Everywhere, water glimmered; there seemed to be wide canals down each columned passage. And between the columns, broad-leaved plants grew like giant ivy.
But that immense space seemed totally empty of living creatures, to Daniel’s eyes. Then he saw that the canal surfaces rippled constantly, and bubbles broke in many places, as though something moved beneath. In the pale light it was difficult to see clearly, but there were small dark shapes that moved swiftly along the distant canal banks. And the air was filled with a constant whispering sound.
“This is…” and the dolphin, floating behind Daniel, made the bell-like sound again. “Our Great Place, where many come together.” There was a deep chuckle of laughter. “But you are the first of your kind to come here, for a long time. Go, stand on the shore, man. Your folk must not stay too long in the sea, we know.”
Daniel moved forward, climbing up onto the shelving bank; he sat down, facing the sea pool, studying the dolphins that lay there looking toward him.
“Why have you done this?” he asked, cold-voiced.
There was another ripple of sound.
“The Morra-ayar say you must be kept safe till they come,” a dolphin said. “Many in the sea and on the land seek to find you. The oldest one, he who is alone, sends messengers.” There was a curious pause. “He wishes to make a certain use of you, we know. And… some of our own folk there are, who wish to slay you, though the Morra-ayar forbid it.”
“I don’t understand,” Daniel said. He stood up, shivering slightly as the water dried on his skin. He repeated, “Damn it, I don’t understand! What do you want, you and your Morra-ayar? Why did you bring me here when my woman and my friends are in danger from those others, the men in those ships?”
His voice had risen to a shout that echoed in the vast arches overhead. The pool before him was quiet; the dolphins floated, silently.
Then one of them spoke.
“You are angry,” it said. “We regret. You do not understand. Remain with us a short time. The Morra-ayar will come soon, then we will take you back to wherever you wish.”
Another joined in. “We would explain all to you, but we do not know how. Your mind is not like ours. Many things we know, we cannot say in your words, there are no words.”
The voice was genuinely apologetic, Daniel realized, listening. He controlled his anger again with a new effort.
They meant it, he thought, amazed. They seemed to have a real difficulty in expressing thoughts in speech, somehow; but that was logical, now that he thought about it. Their own speech was not like this, labored words spoken slowly in a form that was not their own. When dolphins spoke together, under the water, it was a kind of music; images coming directly without the distortions that were a part of land men’s speech.
“We will bring food,” the dolphin voice said. “It will not be long. Look about you, at the Great Place, see. No man living has seen this. You will learn much.”
“What’s this place, then?” Daniel asked, curious.
“Like a… city, of your land people,” the dolphin said. “But not the same. Many sorts of people. Work is done, many things are made, in this place.”
The dolphin uttered a curious whistling sound. “See,” it said.
There was a rustling and rattling noise; Daniel turned toward its source and stared in amazement
They were climbing up out of the canal behind him, and marching in a close formation like soldiers; line upon line across the sandy shore toward Daniel’s feet. Crabs!
He stiffened involuntarily and stepped back a pace, cold fear gripping him. In the sea pool, the dolphins laughed quietly, seeing his startled retreat.
“They will not harm you,” the voice said.
The line stopped a few feet away, and Daniel stared at them.
They were huge, dark green and long-limbed, each with its claw held overhead; a smaller claw, Daniel noticed, than the common sea crab he remembered from his other life. These were different; the color was brighter, for one thing, and the brilliant black eyes that stared solemnly at him seemed somehow more intelligent than those crabs of the distant future.
“They are not very clever,” the dolphin voice said, as if it had read his thought. “But they obey. These guard, and keep our waters clear…” The whistle came again. The crab ranks wheeled and marched back, dropping into the canal with regular splashes, rank by rank.
Where they had been, three silver-sided fish flopped on the damp sand. Daniel bent and picked one up, looking at it closely. It was a small sole, apparently; he remembered he was hungry, as he looked at it. But he did not care for the idea of raw fish, somehow, and he had no way to make a fire.
“It is the food we promised,” the dolphin said. It chuckled. “We know also that land folk like to burn that which they eat. Go with this one, and he will show you fire.”
A sleek dark head broke the water, among the dolphins, a whiskered, grinning face that seemed so human that Daniel was startled for a moment. But as the creature slid up onto the shore, he saw that it was not human at all. It was furred, mahogany-colored, and once ashore, it sat up on its hind legs, huge dark eyes on Daniel’s face, tail balancing its body.
An otter? He had seen pictures of otters, but, like the crabs, this one was very different in subtle, small ways from those of his own time. The head was larger, for one thing. And the creature was huge, almost as tall as his shoulder’s height, sitting as it was. Then he saw it wore something that glittered; bright stones, in a sort of gorget about its neck, and metallic bands about its middle.
Daniel grinned wryly at it.
“An otter that wears jewelry!” he said aloud.
The otter’s grin widened. “Iss ssomesing funny, man?” it said in a sibilant voice.
“You talk?”
“Not easy, sspeak your way, but try,” it said. “My name Esharr. I show you Place.” It slithered forward at a rapid pace, but paused at the still-flapping fish. “You give me one?” Esharr inquired hopefully, whiskers quivering.
“A fish? Surely,” Daniel said, smiling at the beast. It grabbed one of the fish and trotted ahead, nibbling at its prize. Daniel followed, catching up with it as it went along the canal’s edge.
“Fire, there,” Esharr said, gulping the last bit of his fish.
Down a new passage, Daniel saw a reddish-orange glow, at a distance. The air here was warmer and there was no canal; the passage was floored with flat, dry stone. Esharr scuttled along at a good rate of speed and Daniel was forced to a jog trot to keep up with him.
Now the passage opened into another high-domed hall, but this one was more startling than the first had been. He paused, in wonder, and Esharr stopped too.
It’s a workshop, Daniel thought in shocked surprise.
In a great circle, hundreds of feet across, the flat stone floor was polished and smooth, reflecting the light of a dozen flares of fire that leaped up like great torches. Each flame burned in a tall conical mass of green stone, shaped and smooth; Daniel could easily see that they were not natural forms. Around each tall cone there were oddly shaped blocks of the same green stone; and against the nearest block, Daniel saw what he knew were tools of some kind. They had strangely made handles, but they were obviously hammers, chisels and forging tools.
The fires hissed quietly, tall orange-red spires that burned with little smoke and with heat that could be felt eve
n at a distance. Far across the huge room, Daniel saw that one of the work places was occupied; small creatures moved near one of the anvils, and a distant clatter came to his ears.
He stared, trying to discern what they were; three of them were much like Esharr, probably otters. But there were half a dozen others as well, and each seemed differently made. Daniel could not even guess what they might be, but they weren’t human.
“What are they doing?”
Esharr made a snorting sound. “Work at thing. Make metal for cut, hammer.”
“Metal?” Daniel said, wondering. “You have knives, and tools?”
“Oh, yess,” Esharr said. “What is needed, we…” he used an odd, unfamiliar word, “we make. We have hands, like you.” He held up his forepaw. Daniel, looking at the fingers, realized now that the otters did indeed have hands, in a sense.
“You wish fire?” Esharr said, and not waiting for an answer, moved toward one of the tall green stone fire-cones. He manipulated a plug and a small opening appeared, out of which a tongue of flame licked. Daniel saw that it was a kind of pipe, leading into the base of the fire cone, stopped with a stone cylinder; there were a dozen such plugs around the cone’s base.
He picked up a metal rod that leaned against the stone; in a moment, he was broiling the fish over the fire jet. Esharr watched him with apparent interest.
“You land people, alwayss do thiss?”
“Well, most of the time,” Daniel told him, pulling a bit of the fish free and beginning to eat.
“Sstrange,” Esharr said.
Eating, Daniel began to feel calmer, his earlier anger cooling somewhat. There were plenty of well-armed men in the river country, he thought; Ammi would be safe, even if the raiders tried to fight their way in. In the meantime, there were other questions, too.
He moved around the green fire-cone, looking at the flame carefully. It was certainly natural gas, he thought. But in such quantities as he had not thought possible. There were the hot springs, in Eloranar, he remembered, and wondered again how far in the past he was. A younger, hotter earth… but how long ago would that be? He wished again that he had read more in other fields of science… but it was too late now, he thought.
Esharr followed him, making the odd cluttering sound that might mean anything from interest to surprise in his kind. The otter watched him, as he bent to study the stone anvil.
“Strange,” Daniel said. “I’d never realized that the sea folk were so advanced.” He straightened up. “Are there many… ah, people, here in these caves?”
Esharr chittered again. “Oh, yess, many, many,” he said vaguely. “Like me, many, like all kinds. You wish to ssee?”
Following the otter, Daniel wandered on through more of the columned halls. There were no more of the fire-lighted ones, at first, but other, even more mysterious workshops were plentiful. In each of them odd beings performed incomprehensible work, dodging shyly out of sight if Daniel came too close. In one such place there were piles of wood, and what seemed to be power tools; but when Daniel looked more closely he saw that the lathelike tool was being turned by a small creature that looked very much like an octopus. It clung to a wheel, arms spinning, in a water pool, and the wheel drove the lathe through a pulley.
In another hall, pungent smells assailed his nostrils; here there were several deep pools and canals, and immense, tentacular arms came snaking out to manipulate tubes and pipes. The smell was definitely nitric acid, Daniel realized. He watched with fascination, trying to understand what was being done… and what kind of beast did such work. But when he moved too close, Esharr chittered warningly.
“They do not… like!” the otter said, gesturing.
One of the arms had turned, its tip pointing at Daniel as though it could see. A second arm lifted from the pool and then a huge, barrel-shaped head came up. Dark eyes like pools of ink gazed toward the man and the otter, silently.
“They don’t talk,” Esharr said. “Only… different way. They very clever, sso, but never make noises, don’t like noises.” The otter’s own voice was lower now. “They get excited, hurt, maybe,” Esharr added.
Octopi, Daniel thought, stunned. Octopi, doing complex work, obviously also intelligent… if Esharr was right, as intelligent as a man, at least. They had big brains, Daniel knew, even in his own time; but he had always thought of them as creatures no more intelligent than fish or insects.
He followed Esharr as the otter moved quietly away into a farther hall. There he stopped, staring back at the entry to the chemical plant, trying to understand the whole implication of that.
“In this world, every creature seems to have some sort of intelligence,” Daniel said aloud, half to himself.
“Not sso where you live, man?” Esharr asked. “Is said, land creatures very sstupid. Except man creatures, of course.”
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “I haven’t seen enough of your world to know about that.”
“They ssay you come from a far away,” Esharr said, staring at him. “It iss so, then?”
“A very… far away,” Daniel said. “In that place, only men do such things as I’ve been seeing down here. We are the only intelligent ones there.”
Esharr giggled. “Oh, no, that iss not possible! Maybe you have only forgotten how to sspeak with… others?”
Daniel grinned at him wryly. “That’s possible, too.”
“All living things are intelligent,” Esharr said with great certainty. “Ssome different, some not very clever, some… oh, for eat, like fish, you understand? But all kinds of clever ones, too. Sea people, most of all. Do many things, big, under sea, where my kind don’t go.” He giggled again and spread his queerly fingered paws in a very human gesture.
Daniel opened his mouth, but he had no opportunity to say anything. A deep, booming sound, like the note of an organ, came throbbing through the cavern, echoing and vibrant. The giant sound rose and fell in a pattern; Esharr stiffened, rising on his hind legs. As the sound ceased, he chittered excitedly.
“They call for you, man! The Great Ones have come!”
There were six of the galleys; long, narrow, cleaving the sea to the steady beating of sixty oars apiece. On each foredeck the warriors of Esmare were crowded, waiting; tall dark-skinned men, each plumed with white feathers and armored in leather.
Bowmen crouched, waiting, along the rails; the broad sails were slatting down as the galleys came about, heading toward the forested coast. Men furled the sails hastily and the rowers bent harder to their work, to the thudding of drums.
The lead galley turned, the pilot seeking the river mouth. In the bows, the Warleader Ullf gripped a stay, his black beard salt-stained and his hard eyes fixed on the line of coast.
“Remember, now,” he said to the man at his side, “the stranger must be taken alive. He must.” Ullf’s grim face was terrifying.
“I have warned all, many times,” Rorin said nervously. He shifted the round shield on his shoulder as the galley rolled. “Yet… there will be fighting, and men will be slain. How can we be certain, in the heat of…”
“You may be certain of one thing,” Ullf said. “If he is slain, I’ll have the man that does it… and all his kin. I’ll give him such a death as no man has ever had.” His teeth gleamed. “And as for knowing the stranger… why, he'll be known to most of these jungle folk. We’ll catch a few first, and twist ‘em till they tell us where he bides, and the shape of his face.”
“A ship!” the lookout, on the mast, cried out and pointed ahead.
“Ah!” Ullf barked. “There! Why, the rabbits come leaping from their holes, into our hands! There’s our prize—the slaves who’ll show us this great stranger!”
The thud of the drums increased, and the long oars slashed at the water in a faster tempo, the galley leaped forward like a hunting cat. Ahead, the smaller vessel was coming about, hastily; evidently its crew had seen the oncoming galley, but too late. Far behind it were canoes emerging from the river mouth, and these raced
toward the smaller ship as well. But the galley was much closer.
The galley came sweeping down, passing the other ship, and at a sudden order, oars backed and the galley slowed.
“Why, it’s naught but a fisher boat,” Rorin said, leaning ahead to look at the nearing vessel.
“Still, there will be some who can…” Ulff began, and then cried out a furious oath. An arrow had thudded into the deck, between the two men, and a second whistled past.
“Board her, damn it, but mind you take ‘em living!” Ulff roared out. The galley swung closer.
There were four on the little vessel’s deck, one a woman. But she bore a bow as well as the three men, and her aim was, if anything, better than theirs. She stood, legs apart, loosing arrow after arrow at the galley as it drifted closer; roars of pain and fury came from those who were hit, and from the others, forbidden to return her fire.
But now the prow overhung the smaller vessel’s deck; with a concerted yell, a dozen warriors sprang, landing on the other ship and meeting the four defenders hand to hand. They struggled back and forth; the warriors hampered much because of Ulff's order, but fearing their lord more than any weapon’s bite. As they fought, more dropped on the deck; till at last the defenders were literally borne down under their weight.
Canoes filled with yelling tribesmen swung around toward the galley’s stern; arrows and spears showered in both directions. But the attackers had already pinioned the four on the smaller ship, and tossed them up into the galley. Two of the other galleys, forging ahead while the first was occupied, had almost reached the rivermouth, with the other three close behind.
Now Ulff’s galley sped forward again, plowing through the increasing throng of canoes, following the rest of the fleet. On deck, Ulff roared an order, and the captives were hauled under the shelter deck, out of danger from the arrows that twanged in a deadly rain over the main deck. An arrow bounced from Ulff’s own leather helmet, but he paid it no attention; he was glaring furiously toward the distant shore.
