Involution Ocean

by Bruce Sterling

  That was the major facet of the attraction. But there was a strong subliminal one, that Dalusa had perhaps deliberately fostered.

  All of us have sadomasochistic qualities. Mine, though well controlled, seemed strong. I had admitted to myself long ago that my use of drugs was killing me. The whole concept had become only another part of my self-image. But cruelty to oneself is the first and most crucial step in cruelty to others.

  I thought it all out and it all bored me. I decided to go on deck and see the plankton Calothrick had mentioned. I put on my dustmask.

  As I stepped up through the hatch, the last sunbeams dipped upward off the eastern lip of the Nullaqua Crater. It was night.

  Yet there were stars, and a dim green glow arose from the sea around us. I walked to the rail and saw that all around the Lunglance were square miles of krill, burning with bioluminescence. It was magnificent. Suddenly I smiled inside my mask. I was glad I had done the things that had brought me to this spot I was glad to be alive, since I needed life to see this.

  As I leaned over the rail a dark, winged shape flitted quickly before me and a narrow, dark swath opened in the closely packed crystals. A glowing bundle of them moved outward and upward with a swallow’s grace, then, suddenly, was directly over me. Green coals cascaded around me, falling like nuggets of lava from a cool volcano, scattering and pattering across the deck.

  The hair on the back of my neck was stirred by the wind from her wings as Dalusa settled beside me. A weblike black net was still strapped to one of her ankles.

  She had brought me jewels in the seagull’s severed foot.

  Chapter 6

  The Storm

  Next morning at breakfast Calothrick sat next to Murphig at the table in the dining tent Palming his dropper, he squeezed a massive dose of the brew into Murphig’s gruel. Then he caught my eye and winked.

  We both examined Murphig anxiously. Stolidly, the young Nullaquan cleaned his bowl, rose with perfect composure, and walked out of the tent. I had always known syncophine to have a powerful and rapid effect, but I kept an eye on him for a full hour anyway. Nothing. Obviously it was still much too weak.

  When we killed our next whale I appropriated two buckets of intestines and started work. Calothrick met me after lunch that day and we had a hurried consultation.

  “Still too weak,” I said. “Maybe there’s a certain organ that yields the Flare. The spleen maybe, the pancreas …”

  “Spleen my eye,” said Calothrick testily. He was always on edge now, his eyeballs were yellowed and bloodshot “What the death good will that do us? Neither one of us knows anything about anatomy, much less a whale’s. They probably don’t even have spleens.”

  “We’ll just have to do what we can,” I said patiently. “Sooner or later we’ll get it right You want to try out some of the brew? Maybe there’s something physically abnormal about Murphig.”

  “Why torture me?” Calothrick said savagely. “We’ve fed it to him for four days now, stronger every time, and nothing. Nothing! Y’know, I’m starting to wonder about you. You’re taking it mighty easily; you’re as cool as a fish. No trembling, no jitters. Maybe you’ve got something I don’t know about. Like a bottle.”

  “Really,” I chided.

  “You got it soft, you know? You stay down here where it’s cool, serving that slop you call food—Don’t you shush me, man! You know what I have to go through up there? They order me around like a dog, tell me to do things I obviously never heard of before, and I can’t even ask a question, man. Not with that mask on! If I want to ask something, I’d have to take it off and bloody my lungs with raw air. Every speck of dust is just like a needle inside your chest. No way! You realize that there are seven different kinds of ropes on this tub? And that doesn’t count the halliards, the braces, the downhauls or the clew lines. And there’s twenty sails on this thing! Uppers and lowers and mizzens and gallants … how am I supposed to get ’em straight? So they send me to do the shit jobs. The stuff nobody else will touch. Look at this hand!”

  Calothrick thrust his hand in front of my face. He had barked three of his knuckles. His fingers trembled noticeably. “I had to overhaul the secondary generator this morning. I did all the work while Grent stood by cleaning his fingernails and telling me what to do. And this afternoon I start work on the sewage recycler. No water for a bath. Hardly enough to wipe off with a sponge every other day! No, we save every drop. And down in the hold we have dozens of barrels full of cool, clean water. ‘Bound for the Highisle,’ they say. Shipowners wallow in luxury while we cook on deck.”

  “You volunteered,” I said pointedly.

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “And you’re not the only green hand on board.”

  “Murphig was born here, man. It makes all the difference. Anyway, I’ll take care of Murphig in my own way.”

  “Cheer up,” I said flatly. “I’ll have the new brew ready by tonight. Half a bottle full. That’ll do it if anything will.” Calothrick stared sullenly at me for a few seconds, then went back on deck.

  Human blood poisoned whales, I told myself. I wondered If Calothrick would poison the sharks if I kicked him overboard.

  That night Calothrick met me in the kitchen just before supper. “Have you got it ready?” he said, slapping his dustmask down on the counter.

  “Yeah,” I said, “but I’ve been thinking. It’s odd. After all, Nullaquans have been here for five hundred years. You’d think that everyone would be doing Flare by now. Or at least know about it.”

  “So? Let’s go, you’re wasting time.”

  I was annoyed. “Wait a minute, hear me out,” I said calmly. “I’m not sure you know this, but the first settlers on Nullaqua were a very small group. Only about fifty.”

  “What in Oblivion’s name are you talking about?” Calothrick had a flair for Nullaquan profanity.

  “Keep listening. They cloned of! the first generation, you see, to fit in with Nullaquan conditions. Hairy noses, thick eyelids, the whole thing, you understand? There were no direct descendants of the original fifty. They’d all had themselves sterilized. So, maybe, in all that genetic manipulation, there was a gene that causes immunity to Flare.”

  “Immunity?” said Calothrick aghast.

  “Why not? I suppose it’s possible. The founders were opposed to unorthodox drugs in general. Death, they probably knew about Flare from the beginning. They were cranks, but they weren’t stupid.”

  “You mean we fed that bastard a whole bottle of Flare for nothing?” Calothrick said. He had turned pale.

  “I’m not sure of it. I’m not a geneticist.”

  “Give me the bottle,” Calothrick said flatly.

  I did. “What I said about it’s being dangerous still holds, of course.”

  “Shut up.” Calothrick pulled his eyedropper out, tilted the bottle, and sucked up a minimal dose. “I suppose I’m an idiot to do this.”

  “You said it, not me.”

  “On the other hand … well, here’s greasy luck.” Calothrick squeezed out a shot onto his tongue. He swallowed. We waited. “Any effect?” I said finally.

  Calothrick opened his mouth, but choked on words. Finally he emitted a strangled, “Wow!”

  “If it’s that good I think I’ll have a small blast myself. Lend me your dropper.” I plucked it out of his nerveless fingers. Ideally I should have waited to see if Calothrick suffered any adverse side effects, but I was hurting. Besides, it seemed to have done him a world of good. A blasted grin was plastered on his face and the yellow withdrawal tinge was already fading from his eyes. I sucked up a normal dose and swallowed.

  By the time I got up from the floor, the food had grown cold and I had to reheat it. But it had been worth it.

  I felt reasonably content about the bottle. There was a good five months’ worth in it for one man, maybe two months for Calothrick and me. Calothrick was something of an enthusiast I hid the bottle in the cupboard. At night, after the washing up was done, or rather sc
rubbing up—I used sand, not water, I wrestled with my self-control about a second dose. I almost always limited myself to one a day, less than that most of the time. Or at least a great deal of the time. Sometimes I even quit for two or three weeks at a stretch. But my alcohol intake went up sharply then, and, coming from a frontier planet like Bunyan, I knew the debilitating and addictive effects of booze. I wasn’t sure about the long-term effects of Flare. But better an unknown devil than one known only too well, I thought. Besides, this new discovery called for a celebration. Abstinence was ridiculous.

  I took my eyedropper from its hiding place under the counter and measured off a healthy dose—perhaps more then healthy. I turned off the lights in the kitchen, laid down on my pallet pulled the quilt up to my chin, and took the blast. I had just enough time to put the dropper under my pillow before the rush hit me.

  Hallucinations filled the darkness. Electric blue networks expanded across my field of vision. They were replaced by glittering silver dots, linked in inextricable, inexplicable geometric patterns. Bright energy surged up my spine. I felt that my brain was dissolving.

  Someone stepped over me. A sudden conviction overcame me—it was the Angel of Death. I felt sudden panic. I fought it down, repeating internal mantras: Tranquillity. Peace. Calm. Repose….

  The same someone pulled open the cupboard. The click as it opened was as loud as a gunshot. Aural hallucinations now, echoes, alien voices speaking. I struggled to get a grip on myself. Someone was definitely in the room. I tried to pull myself up on one elbow; dizziness overcame me. I sank back onto the pillow, grinning helplessly.

  “Who is it?” I tried to say, but the words came out sounding like “wizard.” A bad omen. I was helpless.

  I heard the distorted thuds of feet on the steps. The hatch snapped open. It shut again.

  I suddenly realized that it must have been Calothrick who had come down for another dose and been unwilling to wake me. The image of Calothrick appeared in my mind’s eye, recognizably him, although his narrow head was adorned with bulbous gray spines. Calothrick, of course. Nothing to worry about. I fell asleep.

  Next morning I discovered that my bottle was gone. Calothrick and I argued, he holding forth the absurd theory that I had hidden it for my own use, myself convinced that he had squirreled it away somewhere else on board. The third’ possibility, that someone else had lifted it, aroused mutual apprehension. Since there was nothing we could do about it, we resolved to keep our eyes open and hoper for the best.

  The Lunglance could have stayed by the Seagull Peninsula until she had filled her holds. But too many planets had been raped and made worthless for mankind to indulge in this kind of exploitation any more. We did not stop; we were bound on the Grand Tour, to sail the entirety of the Sea of Dust on the slow, circular winds.

  Nullaqua’s weather patterns were peculiar. There was a very slight temperature differential between the middle of the Nullaqua Crater, located on the equator, and the upper and lower margins. This was enough to power a weak double convection cell. Heated air rose from the equator and diverged northward and southward. Traveling, it cooled, to sweep slowly downward along the cliffsides and back to the equator. Though most of the dust had precipitated out of it, there were still enough microscopic rock grains to chew slowly away at the base of the cliff. Over the eons the base was slowly eaten away; eventually, the top of the cliff, weakened, would shelve off and crumble downward. Then there would be a pile of rubble at sea level to protect the cliff from further damage. Ages would pass before the wind could get at the cliff again. And it was never strong.

  Or almost never. My first hint that it might be otherwise came when I was awakened one morning, six weeks into our cruise, by a loud series of blasts from the lookout’s horn. I did not recognize the code; it is one infrequently used.

  Captain Desperandum emerged from his cabin, looked to the southeast, and immediately ordered all the sails furled. I followed his gaze. I saw a mighty gray wall; behind it was the shadowed backdrop of the Nullaqua Crater. A minor island, I thought. We must have drifted toward it during the night.

  No. Even as I watched, the wall grew longer. The crew ran up the ratlines and began to tug at the sails. I looked up. There was a man in the lookout’s nest; Dalusa was nowhere in sight. Anxiety struck me.

  The tents were folded quickly and stowed belowdecks. All loose objects were tied down or taken below. Mr. Bogunheim had a single word for me in response to my gestured queries. “Storm,” he said.

  Sailors were already deserting the deck, leaping quickly through the hatches. I went below with them. Tramping through the kitchen, they went through the door into the storeroom. Other crew members were already there, sitting glumly on barrels and lighting up their rank pipes. Calothrick leaned against the false bulkhead, slipping his eyedropper back into his belt. Seeing me, he burst into a series of uncontrollable giggles.

  Dalusa was not there. I rushed past the startled second mate, ripped open the hatch, and jumped up on deck. Shrugging, Grent slammed the hatch behind me. There was no sense in getting us all killed.

  The deck seemed deserted. Then I spotted Desperandum standing beside the hatch that led to his cabin, notebook in hand. He was staring at the storm front with a critical eye. His mask was cream colored and haphazardly marked with mathematical symbols in blue.

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?” he offered. His gravelly bass came tinnily through the mask’s speaker.

  I flapped my arms. Desperandum stared at me nonplussed. Then comprehension dawned. “The lookout. Isn’t she down in the storeroom with the others?”

  I shook my head. “Well, she’s not with me,” Desperandum said. “She must still be out on her morning scouting trip. That’s a shame. She was quite a help to us.” He shook his head regretfully. “Bad luck. These things don’t happen often. Freak wind conditions, or perhaps seismic disturbance. They say there’s a heat vent in the far edge of that bay, the one the storm came from. We’ll just have to weather this out, I suppose. Let’s go down to the cabin. Come along now; we don’t want to lose you, too.” Desperandum took my wrist casually. His grip was as secure as steel manacles.

  We went down to his cabin together. Desperandum pulled off his mask and ran one hand over his short-cropped reddish blond hair. He glanced at the thick glass windows in the back of the cabin and clicked his tongue regretfully. “Those windows,” he said. “And after all the trouble I went through getting them installed. When the dust blast gets through with them they’ll be opaque. Useless.”

  I was in an agony to get back on deck. So psychotically strong was my urge to aid Dalusa that I was unable even to stop and rationally consider my motives. I pulled off my mask with an elaborate charade of casualness, but Desperandum, his insights into human behavior sharpened by hundreds of years of experience, saw through me. “You’re agitated,” he said. “Try to calm yourself. There were a few things about Dalusa that I think you ought to know—”

  “Look!” I shouted. “Isn’t that she, outside the window?” The response to a cry like that is automatic. As Desperandum turned, I pulled on my mask and leapt up the stairs and through the hatch. Desperandum’s shout was cut off short as I slammed it behind me. I hoped he would have more sense than to come up on deck after me.

  But I reckoned without a captain’s devotion to his men. The hatch slammed open and I barely had time to flatten myself behind a try-pot before Desperandum leapt up onto the deck. He glanced around quickly for a few seconds, saw the approaching storm, and leapt back down into his cabin. The hatch was slammed and locked.

  There was no lightning, no thunder. The wind was dead calm. I stared in fascination at the approaching wall. It was not as solid as it appeared at a distance; horizontal flattened strata of wind-driven dust sleeted out before the storm’s main front, and long curls and involutions reached out like gaseous tentacles before expanding into nothingness. The light dimmed, and the morning sun was already obscured by an encroaching gust. Adrenalin poured int
o my bloodstream. Already my overly vivid imagination was hard at work; I had a sudden vision of the ruthless sandblast stripping away my skin, blasting my mask’s plastic lenses into a frosted blur, abrading my tough rubbery mask into useless shreds, scouring my face away with a million crystalline impacts. In seconds I would be lacerated into a gooey skeletal framework, my bones stripped clean, cut thinner and thinner by the merciless gusts and finally annihilated. A total panic rush stung me; I leapt up from behind the try-pots and ran across the deck.

  Then I saw a winged blur silhouetted against the approaching wall. Wind puffed past me, sharpened particles stung my exposed hands and throat. The light was going out. Dalusa was out of control, blowing like a leaf, almost pinwheeling. She was going to cross the Lunglance’s bow. Now I could hear a dim roar as I ran across the plastic-clad deck. A strong gust struck the stern and the Lunglance’s wire braces sang like violin strings. Another gust stung me and almost knocked me off my feet, but I scrambled to the bow. I was in time. But Dalusa was too high, flying out of my reach—no, she swooped downward. But was it far enough?

  Then, as she passed, I jumped overboard. And, to my own surprise, I caught her legs in a panic grip. We hit the dost and went under, but only for a second. Its specific gravity was higher than that of water and we floated like corks. I grabbed Dalusa’s dust-caked hair and struck out for the space between the Lunglance’s middle and port hulls.

  I tried to draw a breath and started to strangle. Dust had completely plugged my mask filters. With an immense effort of will, I stopped my frantic inhalation and breathed outward sharply. My ears popped, but the filters cleared.

  Dalusa was choking, clawing at her mask with sharp red fingernails. Whacking the back of my head against the center hull, I loomed out of the dust and struck her sharply with the side of my clenched fist, into the solar plexus. Dust spurted out of the end of her mask filter and she drew in a shuddery breath.