Drowning World

by Alan Dean Foster

  Sitting back from the canopy through which he had been watching the Viisiiviisii slide past below, he spoke without turning: “Family always thought me strange. On rare nights when rain would stop and sky clear, others would stay inside houses to avoid attentions of possible predators. I more inquisitive than fearful. Especially at night. Would go outside, sit on porch or branch, and look up at stars. Unreachable lights shimmering through the mist. Always wanted to touch them.”

  “Now you very much can,” Masurathoo observed approvingly, “thanks to the great Commonwealth.”

  “No, not yet.” Jemunu-jah turned to regard his companion. “Other things must be settled first.” He did not elaborate, and Masurathoo did not press for details. “Besides, I have not enough money. Enough . . . credit. That one reason why I finally decide take this task—though not really wanting to.”

  “Something else we have in common then, sir. I admit openly this was not my first choice of assignment for this and forthcoming weeks. However, as you have so clearly stated, the remuneration is very good indeed. Also, it provides a most excellent opportunity to ingratiate myself to the Commonwealth authorities, whose contacts are of significant assistance in improving one's standing within the local business community.”

  Jemunu-jah knew of a human term that was both more succinct and more applicable to the condition Masurathoo was describing. It was sucking up. The Deyzara were masters at it. No Sakuntala could do it. We have too much pride, he told himself. Too much individual dignity and self-respect. Where the line was to be drawn between pride and arrogance, however, was still a matter of some debate among those Sakuntala who had done successful business dealings with the humans and the thranx—and the Deyzara themselves. Couldn't one have both self-respect and credit? The contradiction led many Sakuntala to simultaneously despise and envy the Deyzara. That was not a healthy condition.

  “Why do the Deyzara work so hard to please the humans?” he blurted. “Why you abase yourselves before them so blindly?”

  Masurathoo looked over at him in surprise, his trunk weaving in mild agitation. “It's not blindness that is at work, dear me, no. We know exactly what we are doing, my friend. It is much easier to do business with a friend than with an enemy. Most intelligent beings are susceptible to flattery. Humans and thranx and many others of the Commonwealth are no different, no. It is simply good business practice.”

  “Then why,” Jemunu-jah asked pointedly, “don't you do the same to us?”

  He expected the Deyzara to hesitate and was surprised when Masurathoo did not. “No reason to. We do not do enough important business with the Sakuntala. In such instances, flattery would not only be a waste of time, it would be seen for what it was: a calculated falsehood.”

  “But it would improve relations.”

  “I can see that.” Masurathoo adjusted a control, and the softly humming skimmer turned a half degree to port. “It works both ways, my friend. Perhaps if the Sakuntala would treat us with more respect and less contempt, we would be inclined to respond more warmly, with an expression other than fear.”

  As he returned to scanning the Viisiiviisii below, Jemunu-jah reflected on the Deyzara's words. Clearly, if real progress was going to be made in defusing the tension that had been growing between the species, there were going to have to be changes made on both sides. His great and honest fear was that the Deyzara might be more amenable to such modifications than his own kind. Patience was a virtue not even the Sakuntala associated with themselves.

  It was while he was contemplating ways of breaking through such an impasse that the glint of something not organic sparked behind his retinas and set off an alarm in his brain.

  5

  Wiping warm, clinging raindrops from his face, the only part of him that was not directly protected by the rain suit, Hasa labored over the open compartment that held the inert emergency beacon. It was incumbent on him, as a freelance bioprospector, to learn how to repair in the field a good deal more than just the gear he used to study plants and other growing things. If he'd had a partner, it would have been easier. Responsibilities could have been divided, specialties shared. He'd tried a partnership some seven years earlier. Following its dissolution Hasa hoped the man's arm would regenerate fully under treatment and that he would enjoy his enforced retirement.

  That was the one and only time Hasa had worked with a partner.

  Others had offered, only to be rebuffed. Hasa was smart enough to know his personal limitations. They did not include having to deal with the individual peccadilloes of others less competent than himself. Since he believed firmly that nearly everyone else in his field fell into the latter category, it seemed that he was destined to always work alone.

  Others would have listened to music or maybe watched a headsup while they were working in the heat and the rain. In contrast, Hasa's efforts in the field were accompanied by a steady muttering the likes of which were unlikely to ever make the numerous lists that charted the rise and fall of popular culture. He couldn't even keep himself good company, the realization of which fact did nothing to improve his demeanor.

  Reaching back for the small laser welder, he touched something sticky. Turning, he saw that a branch or root had fallen through a crack in the canopy and onto the skimmer's slanting deck. The broken wood was oozing sap, into which he had inadvertently pushed a few fingers. The same yellow-tinged goo covered half the welder. His muttering rose in intensity for a moment as his face twisted into an even tighter grimace than usual.

  His fingers would not move.

  They might as well have been welded to the deck. Cursing aloud, he turned around and grabbed his imprisoned right hand with the other. As he did so, rain slid down the front of his rain cape and the shirt beneath, warm and cloying and alien. A sharp yank failed to dislodge the blond substance. So did a steady pull. His booted feet slid on the smooth deck, unable to gain much of a purchase.

  By this time the goo had crept over his hand, up his wrist, and was making steady, silent progress up his arm in the direction of his elbow. It emerged from a seemingly unending supply provided by the root or branch. From the wrist to the tip of his fingers, it had already hardened into a transparent polycarbonate-like casing. Nearby, a second branch was creeping visibly in his direction. Sinister yellowish gunk oozed from its open, hollow tip.

  What would happen if he became completely covered in the rock-hard substance was a vision he chose not to entertain. It would not be a pretty way to die.

  His mind working furiously, he considered his options. The laser welder would probably melt the material, but the welder had been sealed to the deck by the first oozings. With his right hand now firmly stuck, he strained with his other hand to reach back down into the small tool chest that was secured beside the open compartment. The small hammer he picked up bounced harmlessly off the hardened saplike material. When he missed and accidentally struck the still soft portion of the ooze, it threatened to grasp and hold the hammer fast. There was nothing else like the welding laser in the tool chest.

  The crawling goo had ascended past his right elbow and was climbing toward his shoulder. The second invasive root had been joined by a third. He had to twist and shuffle his legs and lower body sideways to keep them from being enveloped by the new invaders.

  Nothing in the tool chest worked on either the roots or the fluid they were so copiously disgorging. A couple of bottles of strong solvent proved useless. The directions on one claimed that its contents had the ability to dissolve metal. Maybe so, but the powerful liquid had no effect on the creeping golden goop. Jabbing the ooze with assorted sharp instruments was an exercise in futility.

  The stuff was up to his shoulder now and showing no signs of slowing down. His right arm was completely immobile, and he couldn't move his legs any farther without dislocating his hips. A couple of brightly colored legless miwots had settled in one of the trees opposite. Fortunately for him, they were scavengers only of curiosity. He cursed them anyway, adding a few choi
ce words for the root system of the large epiphyte that was threatening to entomb him alive inside his own vessel.

  Reaching down into the open compartment one more time, he risked electrocution by grabbing a live conduit and yanking hard. Desperation and adrenaline lent strength to his efforts. The conduit protested at this treatment by parting in a small shower of sparks. Desperately he thrust the raw end against his inhumed right arm and was promptly rewarded with a truly terrible stink.

  The yellow material dissolved away like so much solidified piss. Whether the flow of electrons upset its internal pH or shocked the host epiphyte or affected the molecular bonds of the substance he didn't know and didn't care. A couple of moments later he was completely free. Rain washed the dissolving yellow goop away as freely as if it had been lemon soda.

  First he fixed the conduit, shoving the torn ends back together until they automatically resealed. Then, picking up the liberated welder, he thumbed it to life as he climbed out of the skimmer and into the full force of the morning rain. Tracing the intruding roots back to their origin, he proceeded to cut the offending epiphyte from which they emerged into quarter sections and then to further slice the quarters into smaller and smaller pieces. A flurry of finger-size winged things, long and blotched but with oversize sucking mouthparts, appeared as if from nowhere to feed on the exposed chunks of goo-giving plant that were now open to the elements. A grim-faced Hasa welcomed their help.

  Coming to the realization that expending so much energy in the taking of revenge on a simple plant was neither efficacious nor good for one's mental balance, he left the final annihilation of the glue root (as he named it) to the delirium of small flyers who had swarmed to feed greedily upon it. His anger at his narrow escape did not keep him from taking samples of the plant body, the motile goo-dispensing roots, and the yellow gunk itself. It might well contain the genetic source material for any number of possible useful materials in addition to a tremendously powerful adhesive. These samples he filed as carefully in the small armored specimen case built into his pack as if the organism in question had not tried to subject him to a slow, agonizing death. Escape, retribution, and scientific assaying completed, he returned to the open compartment in the deck and was preparing to resume work on the emergency beacon when he heard the whine.

  Looking up through the rain, he saw a dim shape emerging from the low-hanging cloud cover. It floated just above the tops of the tallest emergents. Lights glowed along its sides and bottom.

  It took him a moment of anxious fumbling to pull the short-range emergency flasher from his service belt and activate it. Intended to be visible only over a modest distance, its glow was largely suffocated by the falling rain. But if those on board the slow-moving craft had the proper equipment operating, it should automatically detect the signal from his handheld and set off an internal alarm.

  Sure enough, the craft began to veer toward him almost as soon as he activated the pen-size device. Though it was unlikely to improve any chances of detection, instinct took over and he began waving the device along with his arms.

  “That's right, yes! Over here, I'm down here!”

  No question now but that they'd detected him. It was a small skimmer, he saw, squinting up through the rain. Now it was descending rapidly in his direction. He could finally relax and save his curses for whoever had set him up. Soon he would be back in Taulau, sipping something cool and sweet while giving his story to the authorities. For once, he would be glad to cooperate with them.

  The skimmer continued to head for him. By now they ought to have spotted his own downed and useless craft, if not the gesticulating, waving figure standing atop part of the broken canopy. They were still heading rapidly in his direction. Rather too rapidly. He frowned. Behind him, unexpectedly and inexplicably, a couple of telltales on his skimmer's own main emergency beacon had sprung to life, after being dark ever since his abortive touchdown.

  His rescuers should be slowing down by now. But there was no indication they were reducing velocity preparatory to making a soft landing alongside his vehicle. It was close enough now for him to notice an occasional shudder, as if the skimmer was proceeding under competing forces. Fascinated by the sight, he was as rooted to the spot as the trees that emerged from the slow-moving water around him. Only when it became clear that the oncoming craft was not only not slowing down but also showing no indications of stopping did he make a frantic last-second dive for the safety of those same trees.

  “Hauea, do something!”

  Masurathoo's eyes bulged out even farther than usual as he struggled with the controls of the bucking, plunging skimmer. Moments earlier the craft's automatic detection equipment had signaled the nearby presence of a suddenly activated emergency beacon. Homing on it, they had quickly made visual contact with a downed skimmer that could only belong to the human they had been sent to rescue. The instant the Deyzara had locked their skimmer's tracker on the signal, control of their own craft had been lost.

  Now Masurathoo was desperately trying to regain it, fighting the manual instrumentation as they sank downward in an uncontrollable dive. He was too busy to wonder what had happened. The agitated Sakuntala waving his long arms in the seat next to him was not helping matters.

  “I assure you that I am doing the very best that I can!” At the moment Masurathoo was wishing for more than his two arms. “Nothing is responding properly. It is as if, I am remorseful to say, control of our craft has been taken over by an outside source.”

  “Override it!” Jemunu-jah stared helplessly at the bank of instruments. Though he could not pilot one himself, he knew that flying a skimmer was not as complicated as operating certain other Commonwealth machinery. It was designed to be easy to operate. What was the problem? Why was the stupid Deyzara letting this happen? It served him right for placing his life in the hands of one of the two-trunks! The fact that if they crashed Masurathoo might also die was not allowed to intrude on this line of reasoning.

  Crash they did, snapping off branches and smashing through small trees before coming to rest alongside the same craft they had been sent out to find. Water erupted in every direction, scattering all manner of small life-forms. As the skimmer began to settle, Masurathoo leapt from the pilot's seat (which is to say he extricated himself as rapidly as was possible for one of his kind to do so) and began grabbing food paks and other items from an emergency locker. Stunned by the sudden turn in their fortunes, a dazed Jemunu-jah joined him.

  As if in a dream, their mortally wounded craft began to slowly sink into the depths of the Viisiiviisii. Though Fluva was in the first third of the Big Wet, there was still twenty to thirty meters of water under their vehicle, which was not designed to cope with an extended period of submersion. As Masurathoo threw the emergency release and several portions of the canopy slid aside, Jemunu-jah found all his childhood fears of being trapped in the water flooding in on him.

  “This way. Hurry, please!” It was not so much that Masurathoo was desperate to save his Sakuntala companion as he was fearful of being caught alone out in the Viisiiviisii.

  Jemunu-jah snapped out of his reverie long enough to grab some gear of his own. Shoving the compact food containers into the storage pouches that hung from his waist and chest straps, he sprang clear of the subsiding skimmer, easily passing the less athletic Deyzara in the process. Pausing on a lower half-submerged branch, Jemunu-jah reached back to help his companion to safety. Together they stood there in the rain watching as the skimmer sank beneath the surface. Loud bubbles constituted its only tombstone.

  “What happened?” Standing in the rain in now sodden bright wraps of fabric, clutching a couple of food paks in one two-digited hand and a small pistol in the other, a despondent Masurathoo gazed blankly at the spot where the skimmer had been swallowed by the Viisiiviisii. “What could I possibly have done wrong?”

  Jemunu-jah paid little attention to the Deyzara's mumblings. As soon as they had emerged from the skimmer, old instincts had taken over. His s
harp eyes were scanning their immediate surroundings, looking for any sign of the numerous and resourceful predators that stalked the flooded forest.

  “I don't know you do anything wrong, two-trunk. But I do know we stand here very long on this place by the water surface where so much disturbance occur, we quick-soon have nothing to worry about except how fast something else can digest us.” He glanced upward. “We have to get higher. Up away from water.” Eyeing a suitable branch, he swung himself upward.

  With a resigned sigh, Masurathoo moved to follow. Everything Jemunu-jah accomplished with ease was a struggle for the Deyzara. But he persisted. His kind had determination, if not physical ability. Several times, Jemunu-jah waited for his companion to catch up. Occasionally, shaking his head in disbelief at the typical inherent Deyzara clumsiness and lack of athleticism, Jemunu-jah reached down and back to help him.

  Eventually they reached a sheltered place beneath a brace of saminio leaves that were growing close enough together to give them some shelter from the steady downpour. Not that Jemunu-jah needed it. His kind were as comfortable out in the rain as they were inside a house. Masurathoo, however, was inordinately grateful.

  “I am so very terribly sorry to have let you down like this.” Drenched and hunched over in his colorfast wraps, he looked thoroughly miserable. His speaking trunk drooped down over his face, blocking one of his eyes—the physical equivalent of a whisper.

  “We don't know it at all your fault.” Without quite knowing why, Jemunu-jah found himself inclined to be forgiving. “Maybe something fail seriously within skimmer's controllers.”

  “Certainly it did.” His speaking trunk rising as his eating trunk sucked up a casual drink from a small puddle in a hollow on the branch, Masurathoo eyed his indigenous companion. “But I am puzzled and concerned as to how and why it should have done so just as we made contact with the one we were sent to find.”