Involution Ocean

by Bruce Sterling

  I walked with excessive care out into the street and stepped onto a narrow, sluggish slidewalk. At length I slid by a bar that looked slightly less sleazy than most and stepped off the walk. Foot-high block letters, painted with greenish enamel that contained the bioluminescent juices of Nullaquan plankton, read “Merkle’s Bar and Grill.”

  I walked inside and put one foot on the brass rail at the bottom of the bar. Merkle, a squat balding man with a tanned face and braided nose mustachios, appeared before me.

  “What’ll it be, sailor?”

  “Give me a shot of old redeye,” I growled in authentic sailor fashion.

  “What the hell’s that?”

  I explained. “Sorry, you won’t find any of that here,” Merkle said virtuously. “Nothing stronger than twenty proof.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s illegal.”

  Surely I might have known. “Give me an ale,” I said. Even the relative mildness of the drinks was not enough to force a determined Nullaquan sailor into a state of sobriety. I was sluicing the taste of Flare from the back of my throat when I heard a sudden bellowing outbreak of hostility from the denizens at the end of the bar. There was a clank and a slosh as someone dented a metal tankard of beer against someone else’s head. It was followed by the quick meaty rap of knuckles on teeth.

  “We’ll have none of that” roared Merkle, picking up a long aluminum cudgel dotted with brass studs. “Go outside and settle your differences like gentlemen.”

  “I’ll break his teeth in,” promised one of the combatants, draining the remnants of the beer in the dented tankard. Leaning across the bar and staring past the line of pale, inebriated sailors’ faces, I recognized Blackburn, the Lunglance‘s harpooneer. He and his opponent, a brawny Nullaquan whose nosehair was inextricably mingled with a large red mustache, walked out underneath a hanging whale-oil lamp.

  I finished the ale. Scooping up a tip left for a waitress on a nearby round, plastic-topped table, I paid for the drink.

  “Do you deliver?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure do, sailor.”

  I ordered three quarts of the strongest ale he had delivered down to the Lunglance and wrote our dock address on a plastic pad. Then I left.

  Outside, Blackburn and his acquaintance were still at it. I shouldered my way through the crowd that had gathered and watched them shoving and squirming on the pavement. The hair in one of Blackburn’s nostrils was soaked and dripping with blood; his opponent had a split lip. Unable to regain their feet, they were raining blows on one-another’s midsections. Their punches were growing weaker and weaker, but since both men were also weakening, the blows had about the same effect as before. With every knuckly impact they opened their mouths and bawled, short basso profundo howls cut off by gasping intakes of air.

  Finally, bruised and wheezing, they clung helplessly to one another, pulling in deep, quavery, achy breaths.

  Slowly, with agonizing attention, the red-mustached sailor clenched his fist Blackburn weakly lifted one hand. “To death with this,” he said through puffed lips. “Let’s get up off the street and go get laid.”

  “Yeah,” said the other, nodding. Mumbles of disappointment arose from the crowd as the two shakily helped one another to their feet and stumbled arm in arm to a cheery bordello just across the street.

  It was time for lunch, I concluded, glancing up at the sun. I took the slidewalk up off Starcross Street into a more respectable part of town, where I stopped at a small outdoor restaurant and indulged myself with a beefsteak. It was not up to par, the Nullaquan spices added in its preparation gave the juices a thin acid sting, and the salad that accompanied it had been assembled with startling incompetence. I left without tipping and decided to go back to the Lunglance to check on Dalusa.

  My progress was impeded slightly by a massive brawl on Starcross Street. Several Lunglance crewmembers were involved, and if they had seen me they would probably have insisted that I join in. I took a detour through Tailor Street. Perhaps that avenue had once been occupied by tailors, but if so, they had been displaced by mask salesmen. Store after store was open, their windows stocked with an amazing variety of paints. I still had some left over in my duffel bag, from when I had bought my mask in the Highisle. It seemed like years ago. It was only two months.

  Remembering the elevator’s irritatingly slow crawl up the Amarian cliffside, I expected a similar long wait to reach the docks below. Imagine my surprise when the machine fell so swiftly that my feet were actually floating several inches above the elevator floor. My companions in the elevator already had their masks on; they floated as solemnly as would a Confederate jury handing down a death sentence. I quickly unclipped my own mask and fumbled it on before the dust had a chance to attack my unprotected eyes and lungs.

  When we reached the bottom quarter of the cliff the car began a deceleration that almost brought me to my knees. I stepped shakily out onto the docks and took a deep breath. At sea level the air was thicker and richer.

  Aboard the Lunglance, shipwrights were repaving the deck, gluing long translucent strips of whalebone plastic onto the deck with a thin watery adhesive. Already new masts had been stepped and a half-dozen ship’s repairmen were replacing the lines aloft with tough new braided cables. I whistled softly to myself inside my mask. It had taken a substantial sum to get this much work done this quickly. Most whaling captains caught in a similar situation would have applied to the Arnar branch of their whaling corporations, but Desperandum had no such backing. All the money was his alone. Impressive.

  Dalusa’s tent was not set on deck. Not surprising. Shipwrights were repaving the spot where it was usually pitched. Perhaps Dalusa was aloft somewhere. I decided to ask Desperandum if he knew where she was. Although my obsession—already I was wondering if I should call it love—did not have Desperandum’s wholehearted approval, I felt reasonably confident that he would tell me.

  The hatch to Desperandum’s cabin was open, so I went down the stairway into the dining room. Desperandum had been eating on board; the litter of several meals, dirty plates with congealing gravy, covered the captain’s table.

  I took off my mask and knocked on the door to Desperandum’s cabin. “Come in,” Desperandum rumbled.

  I swung the door open and was instantly aware of a strained silence. Desperandum was seated in his swivel chair; by the bunk, standing stiffly and facing the captain, was the Nullaquan sailor, Murphig.

  “Ah, Newhouse,” Desperandum said with false joviality. “Am I intruding?” I asked.

  “No, no. Crewman Murphig here has just made me a rather interesting proposal. Would you like to tell him about it, Murphig?”

  Murphig only stared sullenly at the wall.

  “No? Well, Murphig learned that I am something of a scientist, and he came here to discuss … an apprenticeship.”

  I said nothing.

  “But I’m afraid that Crewman Murphig and I differ rather radically on our ideas of the scientific method. Crewman Murphig has pronounced opinions.”

  Murphig had apparently reached the limits of his self-restraint. “You think we’re barbarians, don’t you?” he said tightly. “You come out of nowhere in those shiny interstellar ships, and you think you’re dealing with a race of subhumans. Well, God knows we’re sinners. God knows we’ve lost some of our ideals, but that doesn’t give you a right to treat us and our ideas like dirt.”

  Desperandum smiled indulgently. “Crewman Murphig is upset because I revealed to him that his ideas are more mystical than scientific.”

  “We’re not blind,” Murphig stated flatly. “We’re not stupid. We don’t talk about it, but we know there’s something under the dust, something old and awful and strong. It … they … have been down there for millions of years, miles of dust over their heads, learning, living, always growing stronger, until they are wise in ways we can’t possibly understand, until they’re like … like gods of the deep.”

  “Gods of the deep,” said Desperandu
m analytically. “A classic form of superstition. Understand, Murphig, that my refusal of your offer does not mean any lack of esteem for you personally. You’re a fine sailor. But that’s all you are.”

  “What about the sharks?” Murphig said. His mouth tightened. “I’ve been watching them. I’ve been watching everything.” He speared me with a quick glance. “They’re always here when we kill a whale. They can’t see it. They can’t smell the blood, because the dust soaks it up. Their ears are tiny, they can’t hear it But they know when something has died. I watched you cut one up, Captain. I know their brains are very small. But they’re cunning and vicious; they have more intelligence than any beast has a right to have.”

  “We’ve been over this before,” Desperandum said resignedly. “They have pilot fish, remember? Surely you were watching them, little beasts with wings and large, perfectly functional eyes.”

  Murphig was silent.

  “Have you had your say, crewman?”

  “One more thing, Captain,” said Murphig, his voice trembling with suppressed emotion. “We’ll see by the end of the voyage whose ideas are closest to God’s own truth. But I’ll say this. You’re putting your life and maybe more than your life in danger when you tamper with things you don’t understand.”

  Abruptly, Desperandum burst into deep bass laughter. Finally, he stopped and wiped tears of laughter from his small, wrinkle-crusted eyes. “I apologize, Murphig, if I failed to show the proper regard for your people. It was just that until now I had never realized your potential for amusement.”

  Murphig’s pale face turned paler. With clumsy, knotted hands, he pulled on his target-spotted dustmask, went through the cabin door, and then ran up the stairs three at a time.

  “I didn’t enjoy having to snub him like that,” Desperandum said earnestly. “I like the man’s attitude. But it’s the gene pool, you understand. When a planet is settled exclusively by mystics, by religious fanatics, the fuzziest among us, those with the fewest redeeming tinges of rationality … well, I’m sure you understand, Newhouse.”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “And when that situation is complicated by an essentially rigid and conservative culture … well, it’s a question of human materials. You can’t make an oscilloscope out of wood.”

  “Very true,” I agreed.

  Desperandum leaned back in his swivel chair; it adjusted with a creak. “What can I do for you, Newhouse?”

  “I was wondering if you had seen—”

  “Oh yes, the lookout woman. I seem to recall that our last conversation on this subject was broken off rather abruptly.”

  I said nothing, but tried to look a little chagrined. “Do you know where she is, sir?”

  “I have a lot of respect for you, Newhouse, as a man, as a Terran, and of course as a cook. It’s the first time I’ve eaten decently since I came to the crater.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And I have a high regard for Dalusa, too. She was with me on both my previous voyages. But I view your relationship with considerable apprehension. I wonder if you’ve ever thought about the kind of motivation that would make a person change her planet, her body, even her entire species.”

  “She mentioned something about never quite fitting in.”

  “She was a freak,” Desperandum said bluntly. “She was hideous. None of her, ah, tribe would touch her or talk to her. She was a pariah.

  “Then the expedition came, creatures like gods in infection-proof suits. They were willing to talk. They were willing to tell their ideas to anyone who would listen. So, an occupational hazard, they were ripped to shreds.” Desperandum shrugged. “So, Dalusa’s tormentors died in hideous agonies, contaminated by the blood of their victims. When the next expedition came, as they always do, Dalusa was ready. And she left with them to go under the knives.”

  “A laudable decision,” I said.

  Desperandum frowned. “It’s unwise to apply human standards to an alien, I know. But did it ever strike you that Dalusa might not be sane?”

  “Captain, there are no objective standards for determining sanity. As you say, it is absurd to apply human standards to her, and, if she were insane by her own standards, I fail to see how it would be of any relevance to me. After all, I have no idea what poses for sanity among her native people, but from what you have told me, they seem markedly unpleasant.”

  “What if I told you it had something to do with blood?” Desperandum said. “Human blood, the agency of her salvation. What if I told you blood was her obsession, even a sexual fetish?”

  “Frankly, Captain, I think I’d ask where you got your information.”

  There was silence for a few seconds. “I guess I won’t tell you that then,” Desperandum said finally.

  “Then to turn to our earlier topic of conversation: I want you to keep a sharp eye on young Murphig. He won’t jump ship. For a Nullaquan whaler, that’s unthinkable. But he has been acting strangely lately. Sometimes sluggish, sometimes almost jittery, as if he were under the influence of some—” I held my breath while Desperandum searched for a word. “—some form of religious excitement You have to expect a kind of prophet syndrome in cultures like this. If there’s any unrest aboard the Lunglance, Murphig is likely to be at the center of it.”

  “I’ll watch him, Captain,” I promised.

  “Fine. Oh, by the way. Could you clean up that mess on the dining table on your way out?”

  “Captain,” I said gently. “What about my question?”

  It was then that I knew for sure that Desperandum was an old man. A blank, almost terrified look flashed across his face, an expression I had seen before on the faces of old Timon Hadji-Ali and the Undines. A desperate search among the accumulated centuries of memory, memories packed and distorted by the inadequate human brain.

  But Desperandum found it fast. “Dalusa. She’s in the kitchen, waiting. Waiting for you.”

  I stacked the greasy dishes and put my mask back on. Then I carried them Up on the deck, where the workmen were still working industriously, and went into the kitchen.

  It was dark. I turned on the light switch with my elbow and set the dishes on the counter.

  Dalusa was sitting on the stool next to the door leading into the ship’s stores. She still had her mask on; her hands were folded at her throat and her wings hung from her arms like black velvet draperies.

  I hoisted myself up on the counter next to the dishes and faced the woman. I took off my mask. “I want to talk to you, Dalusa. Won’t you take off your mask?”

  Dalusa reached for the strap on the back of her mask and slipped it up over her head slowly. Her attempt at drama was so transparent that I became impatient But I restrained myself.

  She lifted the mask slowly from her face, still keeping it between us so that I could not see her face. Then she suddenly dropped it.

  I could feel the blood drain away from my face, could swear that I felt it trickling through a million arteries down into my neck and away. Dalusa’s pale, ruined face turned gray in my vision. Feeling cold and sick, I gripped the edge of the counter with both hands.

  Dalusa looked as if she had sucked on a spongeful of acid. Her mouth was swollen and hideous; her lips were so puffed and distorted that they looked like small purple sausages. White shreds of damp, dead skin adhered to the outer edges of her lips, and her ruined mouth was dotted with black and yellow ulcerated blisters.

  I looked away. Then Dalusa spoke. I was so amazed that she was able to talk, that I almost missed her words. She talked slowly and lispingly, and her lips seemed to have an unnatural adherance. They parted stickily with every consonant.

  “Do you see what you’ve done to me?”

  “Yes,” I said. It would only increase her torment to point out that it was more her responsibility than mine.

  But she said nothing, and the silence stretched out agonizingly. Finally I said, “I had no idea that it would be so bad. The punishment is all out of proportion to the poor shred of
Joy—God is cruel to you, Dalusa.”

  Her mouth moved painfully then, but I could not hear any words. “What?” I asked.

  “Do you love me?” she repeated. “If you do, then it’s all right.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said, and though it had begun as a lie, when I finished I realized with a strange trapped bewilderment that I had told the truth.

  Dalusa began to weep silently, thin glistening tears that slid down her pale perfect cheeks with unnatural speed to touch the swollen edges of her mouth. Almost reflexively, I stood up to embrace her, but stopped. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, I was torn by an aching frustration.

  “You don’t believe me,” I said, and my mind made a sudden intuitive leap. “You want me to hurt like you do. Your love is pain, so you can’t believe me unless I share your agony.”

  Dalusa moaned, a strange gutteral sound that made my hair stand on end. “Why, why can’t we just touch each other? What have I done; what has been done to me?”

  “Did you know I have a pair of gloves?” I asked.

  Dalusa stared then broke into hysterical laughter. “Gloves? What are gloves doing on a whaling ship?” She suddenly leapt off the stool with a rustle of wings and, grabbing her mask, she ran clumsily up the stairs and out through the hatch.

  I sat down on the stool and then sniffed at the air. Dalusa was wearing perfume.

  Chapter 8

  The Voyage Continues

  After I finished the dishes I went back on deck. Dalusa had flown away. On my way back to the elevator I was met by a delivery boy from Merkle’s Bar and Grill with my order of ale. He was wearing a plain black duskmast that marked him instantly as a lubber. I paid him and took the bottles down into the kitchen. Then I cleaned out the distilling equipment with a stiff wire bottle-brush and started brewing whiskey.

  Growing hungry again, I decanted the loathsome stuff into a bottle and put it away in a cupboard. With luck, I would never have to drink it Then I went back to the elevator. It crawled slowly up the shadowed side of the cliff. The sun was bisected by the western horizon, and the eastern wall of the crater was providing most of the light. The first stars were dim flecks on the darkening sky.