Ghost Point

by James A. Hetley

  “Give!” This time, the creature’s tone seemed obvious. Then she extended the claws on one hand, pointed at them with the other, and then pointed at his back. She made a swiping motion with the claws, retracted them, and then covered them with her other hand.

  Sure looked like a non-verbal apology.

  Alice blinked and shook her head again, before nodding. “I’ll take that as informed consent.”

  Where the hell did Alice get off, throwing terms like that around at her age? The kid was a freak.

  No, hallucinations. All of it. Obvious. Wounds must have gotten infected, just like back in ’Nam. Maybe he was still in ’Nam, still doped to the gills and raving and strapped to the bed.

  Then warmth flowed into his shoulder, at the base of his neck. It felt goooood. The pain died back to a low murmur and then vanished as he relaxed away from it. But that had happened in ’Nam, too, good old-fashioned drugs. To hell with “Just say no!” It’d been a week or two before he even noticed the missing foot, and he hadn’t really cared when he found out. That came later.

  He wondered what he’d lost this time. Unless this was the same time . . . .

  “Jesus fucking Christ . . . .”

  Alice’s voice. He opened his eyes. Alice crouched in front of him, crossing herself with her right hand while blowing on her left as if she’d scorched it on the stove. Then she switched to blowing on her right hand. “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum; benedicta tu in mulieribus . . . .”

  “I think starting out with blasphemy may weaken your case, though you get points for the Latin.”

  That sounded like Tranh’s voice. Dennis shook his head to clear it and then looked past Alice, a pale Alice with wide eyes. The creature squatted just beyond her, head down and hands braced on the floor, panting like she’d just run a mile. Or swum a mile under water. Whatever.

  And Tranh stood behind her. Ms. Doctor Tranh, excuse me for getting familiar.

  She stared from Alice to the Swimmer to Dennis. “Mind telling me what’s going on? It’s pretty dark in here, and I’d swear all three of you glowed.”

  To hell with her. Dennis felt stronger than he had any time since that afternoon by the wind-thrown spruce down on the cobble beach. And his back didn’t hurt.

  Alice squatted in front of him, still blowing on her fingertips, first one hand and then the other. “What’s going on? Our guest there has enough chi in her to light up the friggin’ Navy base, that’s what. Aunt Jean never warned me about trying to pull energy from the spirit people. Learn something new every day.”

  Aunt Jean would slap Alice silly if she heard the language the kid was using. Wash her mouth out with soap. Generation gap. Dennis didn’t care. The kid could blaspheme the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost plus all the saints and angels for all he cared. He felt good.

  XXI

  Strange sounds puzzled her ears. Strange smells twitched her nose. She still did not know if she had wakened in some kind of trap. The land-dwellers fed her and cared for her wounds, but would they let her leave?

  And if she left, where would she go? Could she ever find her nest again? She could not taste familiar water. She could smell something, distant and buried in other tastes, something like the bitter slippery strangeness that had formed around her and twisted her swimming, stabbed pain into her head, brought her to this winter storm-land, but she feared that. And it did not carry any hint of nest.

  She felt weak. As weak as when they poked those tiny spears through her hide to sting her with the venom that killed pain. She had learned to welcome those stings, even if they left her helpless.

  Weak, not sick—she knew she had caught that “fish” and eaten it and swum on, but she could barely hold herself on hands and knees. She had known what “give” would mean, had felt strength flowing into her from the touch of these strange land-dwellers. But the flow from them seemed a trickle compared with the flood the one called Alice had drawn and fed to the one called Dennis.

  Her kind recovered faster than the land-dwellers. She should be able to move again before they would expect. Then she would explore this space, this maybe-trap. Then she would learn what waters she swam. She sniffed the air for danger, trying to sort the taste of all this strangeness into familiar flavors riding the currents. She knew the smells of meat and fat and “fish” and burning wood. She knew the smells of land-dwellers, males and females.

  She had thought they hunted her when she came to this place. She had seen a spear in a land-dweller’s hands and found darkness on the point of it, but then woke to warmth and food and care.

  Maybe they had hunted her, but they seemed to hunt to help rather than to kill. She knew that seeming now. She had to trust, until she tasted the truth behind the seeming.

  She had just not known how much “give” would pull from her. She crouched and drew deep breaths and fought to bring the world back to stillness around her. If she tried to stand now, to face these strangers as an equal, she would fall down. She must show strength.

  She did not know these waters.

  She did not regret “give.” She had hurt the one whose smell was called “Dennis,” when he was trying to help her. She must even the balance between them. That was how swimmer could live with land-dweller. That was the way from ancient times, told in ancient songs. That was why she would bring “fish” to their dens after the thrill of stealing from their nets even as they pulled them from the water.

  “Fish.” “Drink.” “Give.” “Water.” “Susan, Alice, Dennis.” She must remember the sounds and the smells that went with them. Those sounds and others heard in the sickness, words in the speaking of these land-dwellers—she could tie to things or actions. The sounds were strange, no nest-mates to words of the land-dwellers that she knew.

  Strange sounds and strange smells now and remembered from the time of sickness. Her nose told her things that made no sense. This den made no sense. She knew the smells of land-dwellers.

  When she first swam in the waters near this place, her nose had told her that the male lived alone. Some land-dwellers denned that way, even some swimmers. They did not take mates. Since then, her nose had told her of two males and three females close enough for touch, even when she could not see. One male and two females had given her sound-names as well as smell-names, the male called “Dennis” and the females called “Susan” and “Alice.”

  “Susan, Alice, Dennis,” smell-names and sound-names. One male and two females often made a den, with swimmers and even with land-dwellers. That balance made hunting and the raising of nestlings easier. She thought of Nest-sister and He-who-smells-of-mating, and of her nestlings, and moaned deep in her chest. She ached to smell them again, to sing with them, to slide into the warm dark comfort of her nest and find them waiting.

  But her nose told her these land-dwellers were not mated. Her nose told her this den held no nestlings. And yet they were old enough for mating. Land-dwellers did not mate by seasons, like the swimmers. They mated all the time. This made no sense.

  Strength grew in her arms, her legs. Her heart calmed. Now she needed food, to remain strong. “Hungry,” that was the sound that went with food. Her nose told her of meat and fat in this room, this maybe-trap, as well as three kinds of “fish.” She would find out what the strange land-dwellers allowed.

  She lifted her head, sniffing, finding direction. Fat, sweet fat, it smelled like that branch-chewer she had killed near this place. She rose to her feet, towering over the small females and the crouching male. The females stepped back from her, the male watched, none of them moving to stop her.

  “Hungry.”

  The females stepped back further. She followed her nose to a cold dark corner of the maybe-trap and found what the smells had promised, meat heavy with fat, meat already stripped of hide and guts and bone and cut into lumps with some strange knife that left a smoother edge than she had ever seen before. No chipped stone would leave a cut like that.

  She had no way to know i
f this meat was safe. It smelled clean and fresh, but land-dwellers sometimes hunted and fished with poison. Sometimes killed four-legged hunter rivals with poisoned meat left as a trap. She lifted one lump and looked at the closest female, the young one, Alice.

  “Food. Meat.” Alice repeated the sounds. Then she pointed at one of the kinds of scaled-swimmer. “Food. Fish. Herring.”

  Trust. One had to trust. These strangers had healed her wounds, had stung her with the venom that washed pain away, had fed her, had used “give” with her. She did not think they would do those things and then poison her. She bit into the sweet fat and tore off chunks and chewed and swallowed. She felt her belly warm to the strength of it.

  “Food. Meat.” It was good.

  And then sound caught her and washed the thought of food out of her head and pulled her. She followed it. It could not be. It sounded like, but it could not be. She found no smells, only voices . . . .

  One of the land-dwellers opened a space in the darkness, she did not notice which hand released the brighter beyond, the stronger song. Smells stronger, as well—burning wood, land-dweller food, hot and savory, but those did not matter, they held no strength compared to the sound. The song . . . .

  She followed it. She touched it. Hard edged lumps, not living, too small to hide the singers, not swimming, but the sound came from them. She crouched. She sniffed. Wood, plant, stone, nothing living, nothing swimming. She touched. Soft face, like the woven skins the land-dwellers made from plants or fur. Hard sides and back, she felt the song in them, felt the vibrations.

  She crouched. She followed the singing. Pure voices, three, four, they mixed and merged and swam apart. One made a current of song and another waited and then followed and then another, repeating, changing, inverting, reversing, adding notes between the notes of the first song, changing those.

  Song swimming. This way she sang with Nest-sister. This way she sang with He-who-smells-of-mating, sounds swimming as their bodies swam, nest song, hunting song, mating song, rising, falling, turning, twisting. This way the great smooth-swimmers sang, the huge dark shapes of the open water, slowly, changing song through the seasons.

  She found a place in the song and joined it, humming deep in her throat, her chest, vibrations filling her of first song and first changes and then changes of her own. She dreamed that the other voices could be the quickness of Nest-sister and the slower deep voice of He-who-smells-of-mating, of high-voiced nestlings first learning the song and the swimming. Her body followed the song, twisting and swaying through the currents as the sounds twisted and swayed. She lost herself. She dreamed that the voices would answer, would take her changes and mix them into the water of the song.

  o0o

  “What’s the music?”

  “J. S. Bach. Fugue in G minor, organ, played by E. Power Biggs.”

  Dennis stood for a moment, wondering, listening, before he realized that Dr. Tranh had whispered and Alice had replied the same way. The music seemed to demand that kind of quiet.

  “How can she know it?” Dr. Tranh again.

  “She doesn’t. She’s improvising, more polyphonic melody lines and variations. Bach never wrote that.”

  “Her voice, it’s not like those organ pipes but it fits so beautifully . . . .”

  They stood and listened. They’d followed her from the treatment room, they’d found a place that held back from her and respected her, they’d stood, they’d listened. All silent, all focused on She Who Swims, as she had been focused on the music. Dennis didn’t understand what was going on, but he’d be damned if he would break the spell.

  “I think she’s crying.”

  Dennis blinked, his own eyes gone blurry. That was the stone-faced, stone-hearted Ms. Doctor Tranh speaking there, anthropomorphizing all over the floor.

  But he could feel the sadness in that voice, see it in her body. Listening hurt her. She had lost her home, her family, even her world. He could hear it in her song. She sang to the stereo as if the speakers were her flesh and blood that she would never see again.

  He felt something squeezing his hand. He looked down. Brown fingers, Tranh’s hand, she’d reached out for human touch. Any human. Her other hand clenched Alice’s. The three of them stood, frozen, joined in awe. Tranh caught his glance, looked at their joined hands, didn’t pull away.

  “Whale songs.” That was Alice, still whispering. “That record of humpback whales. The pods all sing the same song, adding variations as time passes. The sound travels for miles, maybe for hundreds of miles underwater. It’s how they know each other.”

  The fugue ended. Chorale preludes followed it, more Bach but no more counterpoint and variations from She Who Swims. She sat in silence, staring at the speakers. That silence hurt Dennis more than her singing had, as if she’d realized that whoever sang would not take what she’d added to the song and weave more magic from it. The stereo wasn’t listening. It wouldn’t answer her.

  It wasn’t alive.

  A buzzing hiss filled the speakers, harsh overtones distorting the Thomaskirche organ. Cross-modulation from those damned Navy VLF transmitters again. The Swimmer grabbed her head, covering her ears from the noise, and swayed as if she was going to faint.

  No. Not her ears. Her paws, her hands pressed to her temples in front of her ears as if she felt a sudden migraine stabbing there. The hiss ended and she dropped her hands. She stood up and turned and glared off through the wall behind Dennis and flexed her claws as if something out there had attacked her and she damned well intended to rip it to bloody shreds. That direction faced the Navy towers.

  The hiss started again, the next dot or dash of whatever vital national security message the brass needed to send to the shadowy submarines lurking in the deeps. She stumbled to her knees and then dropped into a crouch, head down and shaking. Dennis jumped across and found the stereo switch and killed the sound, but she didn’t move. It wasn’t the sound that bothered her, it was the VLF transmission itself.

  Tranh crouched next to her, hands smoothing fur, whispering something. That was one damned brave woman, or maybe too stupid to know her danger. She glared up at Dennis, tears streaking her face. “Stop it, dammit! You’re torturing her.”

  “Not me. It’s the Navy.”

  Alice had joined her, also crouched, one hand on the swimmer’s forehead, the other at the back of her neck, eyes closed and face tight with concentration. “Navy transmitters, right across the cove. Megawatts, low frequency, screws up electronics for miles around. Signal’s getting into her head.”

  “Well, make THEM stop!”

  “No chance. That’s submarine communications, nuclear defense. Hell, if that transmitter went silent for too long the missile subs might launch on sealed orders.”

  The swimmer relaxed but stayed in her crouch, panting. For a wonder, she didn’t lash out at the women helping her. She could have killed either of them with one paw. One hand. More rational than she has any right to be. That creature is smart. And controlled.

  Her body went rigid again, almost a seizure, Dennis had seen a grand mal epileptic once at a veteran’s outreach meeting. Alice must have thought the same thing, because she pushed at the swimmer until she flopped over on one side and then probed at the swimmer’s mouth until she could reach a finger past those deadly fangs and make sure the critter didn’t bite or swallow her own tongue.

  Relax, seizure, relax, seizure, Dennis just watched because he couldn’t think of a damn thing he could do to help and he’d just get in the way. Tranh and Alice soothed the swimmer as best they could, soft voices, soft and comforting hands. And the swimmer accepted it.

  Rational. A thinking person. Dennis didn’t think he could have done that well. He’d have hurt somebody. Hell, he had hurt somebody, some poor Spec Four orderly in the hospital ward, broke the kid’s jaw, that was when they’d ended up strapping him down to the bed.

  The seizures stopped. The swimmer lay on the floor, panting, sweat dark on her fur, musk thickening the air. S
he moaned deep in her throat, changing to a growl that sounded dangerous. At least her rage seemed to be aimed out through the wall, at the Navy base.

  I think I know why she attacked the base, attacked that shithead lieutenant. She knows where her pain comes from. She was trying to make it stop.

  Maybe this had been just a routine test, short. They didn’t transmit all the time, might go days between messages.

  And today was the first day they hadn’t kept her drugged. Drugged, like the docs had kept him when the infection knocked him clean out of his skull.

  Seizures could kill, either her or one of the humans helping her. Dennis shook his head, walked back into the treatment room, and loaded his spare trank stick, loaded it for a knock-out rather than just pain suppression. Now that he knew her weight, he could figure the dosage right.

  Hit her with that load if the Navy felt the need to get chatty again. Then he thought for a moment about the way the swimmer had accepted help from Alice and Tranh. She was not a critter. “Informed consent,” those were the words Alice had used.

  He loaded a syringe as well, carried both back into the other room, and showed them to her. She looked from stick to syringe to his face. She did it again. She pointed at the syringe. She understood.

  “Screw the drugs. Why the fucking hell are you keeping her near that transmitter? You can see what it does to her!”

  Tranh, Ms. Doctor Tranh, getting in his face. Oh, Christ! Just when I got to thinking that she might pass for human.

  Dennis clenched his fists and then forced himself to relax. Punching her out wouldn’t do anybody any good. “Never happened before. We were keeping her sedated, that wound looked nasty. A lot of pain. Safer for us, too, after what she did to me when I first tried to help. But she was healing so fast, she seemed to understand what we were doing, I decided to take a chance. Cut off the drugs this morning.”