The Merman's Mark

by Tara Omar

  “I’m not a child, father; I can speak to whom I choose,” said Kajal.

  “You are a child in your arrogance,” said Uriel.

  “You are being very inhospitable,” said Kajal.

  “Inhospitable? If your mother had been inhospitable with… with…”

  Uriel breathed deeply.

  “Already I have compromised against my better judgement. It would be wise not to push me further,” said Uriel.

  “We have yet to see who is the wiser in regard to him,” said Kajal, rising to leave, “though I know for myself I shall stand by my choice.”

  “Tell me, are you going to make a habit of this, smuggling mers into the Palace in sacks?”

  Kajal turned.

  “Don’t fool yourself into thinking you care for this boy’s welfare,” said Uriel. “He is a line in your argument, nothing more.”

  Kajal offered a stiff bow in reply and left her father alone in the dining room.

  C H A P T E R 4 9

  David awoke to the hard thump of his head knocking against a splintered floor, which smelled faintly of urine. He was in the Brigadier Hostel for temporary workers. It was just before dawn, and someone had overturned his hammock.

  “Michelson,” said a scruffy voice.

  “Yeah?” asked David, rubbing his head.

  “You have five minutes.”

  The mer dropped a hard hat and a pair of diamond toe boots next to him before trudging out. David quickly dressed and followed after him, tucking his frilly shell purse under the floorboard near his hammock. By the time he left the hostel, the mer that woke him was already rounding the corner toward the industrial side of town.

  “Where are we going?” asked David, sprinting nearer.

  “Central Docking Station,” said the mer. “Name’s Wayne Dudley. I’m your new boss.”

  Wayne walked with long, determined strides so that David had to jog to keep pace. As they walked David got his first real look at Larimar, which looked surprisingly similar to Aeroth but still decidedly merish. Solid ground lay under his feet and a sky shone overhead, which was filled with clouds that seemed to unfold in an intricate lacework of snowflakes as David walked. David shook his head and wiped the sleep from his eyes.

  “So what’s the job?” asked David.

  “The clutter that is Merish Resources has assigned you to cumulus construction,” said Wayne. He led David through a fenced area marked Restricted, toward what looked like the service elevator in a mine shaft.

  “That means you get the pleasure of dealing with me for the rest of your sorry time here,” said Wayne. “Did you pass your matric exam?”

  “My what?”

  “Have you ever operated heavy machinery before?” asked Wayne.

  “No,” said David.

  “This ought to be good.”

  Wayne jammed the lever on the elevator. It descended to what looked like an underground airplane hangar with a pool at the far end. A pile of mechanical, bronze spider crabs, each one the size of a bulldozer, lay in the centre of the hangar with their stomachs cut open, as though a giant had just finished a metallic seafood dinner. Wayne walked past them toward a group of guys that were talking nearby. When they saw him they shuffled into line.

  “Lotkin?” asked Wayne, turning toward a middle-aged mer near the end.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “I’m assigning this soft shell to you. Take him over to sector F3,” said Wayne, handing him a slip of paper. “Don’t let him cause any hurricanes.”

  “Yes, Sir,” said Lotkin.

  “Alright you daisies, if you want any hope of getting to construct the clouds over Larimar, you’d better damn well be impressive today,” said Wayne, pacing in front of them. “Let’s move.”

  He had barely finished speaking when the mers broke ranks and sprinted toward the pile of metal spider crabs. They climbed into their fronts, one mer per crab, and closed the armoured stomachs behind them.

  “Well, get going, soft shell,” said Wayne, looking at David. “Take the crab over there, the one with the bandanna around the middle.”

  David hurried toward the bronze crab with a bandanna and climbed inside. There was what looked like a racing seat, with a complicated control panel and two bubbled windows in front of him, as though he were in the back of the crab’s head. He sat down and buckled himself in. He heard a sound.

  Psst.

  David looked around.

  Psst went the sound again.

  “Over here.”

  David looked up. The middle-aged mer named Lotkin was smiling at him from a grainy flat screen in between the windows.

  “Hi,” he said.

  As David looked out his window a nearby crab waved his hand in greeting.

  “You’re a lucky mer, going into sector F3 on your first day,” said Lotkin from the flat screen. “A lot of moisture in that area. You should be able to make some pretty cool stuff. You excited?”

  “More nervous than anything,” said David, looking at the spread of knobs and dials in front of him. Lotkin laughed.

  “No worries. I’ll be with you the whole time. I can take over your controls remotely if something happens, though not much can go wrong. Name’s Jonathon Lotkin, though you can call me John. Very nice to meet you.”

  “David Michelson, pleasure,” said David. “So what exactly am I doing anyway?”

  “Making clouds. Isn’t that what you applied for?” asked John.

  “It’s a long story,” said David.

  “Don’t worry. There are worse things you could be doing. Once you get the hang of it, I reckon you’ll quite like it,” said John. “It’s very peaceful.”

  “So do these things fly, then?” asked David.

  “Fly?”

  “You said we’re making clouds. I just thought—”

  “What did you think, softie,” asked another voice, “that clouds were puffs of cotton woven by dancing fairies?”

  “Get off our wavelength, Corkey,” said John.

  “Better watch it, Lotkin. That scab’s gotta earn his stripes. It’ll be bad for you to get in the way,” said Corkey, eyeing David through the screen.

  “See you around, scab,” said Corkey. He hit the back of David’s crab with one of his claws and slunk away.

  “Come, let’s go. Use the joystick in the centre to drive,” said John. He used the mechanical claws to hook a cord around David’s crab and tied it to himself, leading David toward the pool at the far end of the hangar. John dropped his crab down into the pool, positioning himself and David among a host of others on the back of a massive mechanical manta ray. A translucent elephant fish wearing a hard hat swam around the crabs. It had a long, curved snout and buck teeth and was carrying a light stick in its fin, directing their descent. As the last crab attached itself, the elephant fish swam back and shook its light stick. The sides of the manta folded upward and began to flap like wings, pushing the colossal body down through the Abyss.

  “Well, now that we’re in transit, let me fill you in on the details,” said John. He pulled an interactive map up onto David’s screen. It showed a ball of water with two almost hemispherical pockets of air and land. One was marked Larimar and the other he recognised as Aeroth. John continued.

  “As you know, the world is like a crystal geode that’s filled and surrounded by water,” said John. “The land in this bubble is Larimar and this is the humans’ land, protected by this clear, ragged rock we call the sky.”

  “The sky is hard?” asked David.

  “Yes, but you don’t see it. The rock is hidden by a haze, which is what you see from Larimar,” said John. “Then there’s the watery Abyss, which is what we’re in right now. The Abyss separates the two lands and also surrounds the outside of the sky, which is where we cloud constructors work. There’s a few natural tunne
ls in the skyrock near Larimar, which we use to get to the water above the lands. Right now we’re heading to sector F3, over the human land.”

  “Why would you make clouds for the humans?” asked David.

  “The sky above the human land is our practice grounds. Only the most skilled get to work over Larimar,” said John. “Working over Larimar is definitely something to aspire to. Those guys are absolutely amazing. You should see my friend Herb at work. He can make clouds that look like chandeliers of magnolias.”

  The manta swam through a narrower patch of water; David’s ears felt very full and muffled, as though they needed to pop. He could tell they were gaining altitude, though they seemed to be swimming straight across. His map showed a tiny dot moving up the surface of the sphere. Underneath them an uneven, rocky terrain covered the surface, like a mix of uncut diamonds and ice. David looked at the map, which also showed a lighter patch of water near Aeroth, between the land and the Abyss.

  “What’s the water near the human land? Is that part of the Abyss?” asked David.

  “That’s the Oceana, human territory,” said John. “Our domain is everything else.”

  The Manny slowed its pace and settled down on a smooth patch of crystal ground.

  “This is our stop,” said John. “Sector F3. Something, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, something,” said David, following John off the manta. As he looked up David could see the stars and a bit of the rising sun, as though he were looking at space from the bottom of a swimming pool that had a floor like a jagged glacier. According to his map they were right above Faerkbërde.

  “Now the first thing you have to do is find an ice pocket,” said John, tapping the ground with his crab legs. “Be careful you locate the right one; the skyrock will damage the crab arms if you try to drill it. Hardest thing in the world, that is. Nothing can cut it.”

  He tapped the ground again between two tiny peaks and this time the sound was slightly different, with a faint hint of scratching. John smiled.

  “Here we are,” said John. “That’s mostly the hardest part. Once your arms are in, you’re ready to start making clouds.” He pressed a button and David’s crab moved forward on its own and dug its legs into the ice. Inside, David saw different levers and buttons move and light up as though an invisible hand were moving them. John had taken over his controls.

  “There’s your temperature, suction, and vibration controls,” said John, lighting up the levers on David’s panel respectively. “And here’s your humidity gauge. You simply use the suction to create an updraught like so, adjust the temperature, and voilà, your first cumulonimbus. F3 isn’t due for a thunderstorm so you don’t have to worry about the vibration for now. Otherwise we shake the ice particles a bit, just to get it going.”

  John switched the controls back to David.

  “Now you try,” he said. “Pull your arms out, so you get practice picking the ice.”

  David carefully pulled his crab arms out of the hole John had drilled. The water instantly froze solid so that David couldn’t tell where the water ended and the crystal skyrock began. He tapped the rock, listening for a subtle scraping noise.

  “That’s it, you got it,” said John. “Now drill.”

  David pulled on a lever, biting his lip as the crab pushed its arms through the ice. They slid into position like a hand into a glove. Then he turned a knob for suction and checked the temperature, which was steadily dropping toward minus fifty centigrade. David twisted his crab arms around and the moist air condensed into a puffy cloud.

  “Not bad,” said John. “Keep that up and you’ll be on sunset duty in no time. If you want to try any shapes, I’d start with an anvil. That’s the easiest.”

  “How do you sculpt them? I can’t see a thing past the haze,” said David.

  “You’ll get used to it,” said John. “Feel the cloud. Eventually you won’t even realise the haze and skyrock are there.”

  David tried a few more clouds in different parts of sector F3. He tried to sculpt an anvil, but all he could manage was a sort of lumpy, earless rabbit. He pulled his crab legs out of the skyrock and tried again in another spot, but this time something was wrong. His vibration and suction controls had switched on, and he couldn’t turn them off.

  “Uh, John,” said David, as he beat the button with his fist. “John!”

  John pulled his crab arms from the skyrock and ran toward David, whose crab was now shaking violently.

  “What are you doing?” asked John.

  “I don’t know,” said David. “My controls are going crazy.”

  John circled around toward the back of David’s crab.

  “Damn that Corkey, he must have loosened your wiring. My control override button isn’t working. You’ll have to press your emergency stop button,” said John.

  “Where?”

  “Red button in the centre,” said John.

  David scanned his control panel as the crab continued shaking. The ice particles in the cloud attached to his crab arms were hitting against one another, building up charge. As David looked for the button he could feel the air inside his crab growing drier, almost electric.

  “Press it!” shouted John.

  “I am pressing it. It’s not working,” said David. He felt a zap. A line of electric current connected from his crab to the skyrock. John reeled back.

  “Hang on,” said John, running away from him.

  Another zap connected David’s crab to the skyrock, as though he were a live wire. David slammed buttons and pulled levers but nothing cut the power to his crab.

  “John!” shouted David.

  “Be right back,” said John, waving his arm. He kept running.

  “JOHN!” shouted David again, but it was already too late. David covered his face with his hands just as his crab erupted with a shower of sparks—this time with disastrous consequences.

  C H A P T E R 5 0

  Raphael knelt near a cascade of blue orchids in the eula grove, pruning back a branch of stringy, white flowers on a witch hazel tree. A shudder went through him. The air was growing colder, and a strange, ominous wind began rustling through the trees. He could hear the eucalyptus saplings bending toward their parents, reaching for protection.

  That’s odd, thought Raphael.

  He put the sheers under his arm and walked toward the crumbling cottage, his eyes following the menacing, dark cloud that was rapidly building overhead. He pulled out a stone from the wall, examining the mercury barometer underneath. Raphael frowned. The air pressure was dropping, and fast.

  That’s very odd, he thought.

  As he fitted the stone back into the wall, Raphael noticed the fine hairs on his arm were standing on end. He threw the sheers as far from him as he could manage and dived behind the crumbling wall; in the next instant a bolt of hot lightning struck the fallen shears, followed by a deafening crack of thunder. He started to stand, but quickly crouched again as two more lightning bolts fried his sheers.

  The trees, he thought. The pouring rain illuminated his markings and heightened his senses; Raphael felt the winds, temperature and charges around his body. He dived over the cottage wall, shooting a metal crescent into the air above a eucalyptus tree just before another bolt struck the spot. The metal intercepted the current with an enormous crack, leaving the tree intact. Raphael turned and shot several metal crescents above the moat before he took off through the forest, intercepting bolt after bolt of the relentless lightning while he worked on forming a long, metal rod with filament. In less than a minute a massive web of lightning lit up the sky like an electric spider’s web, sounding a gargantuan boom that rattled the ground. The struck rod melted into a puddle on the grass. Then the rain lessened, the clouds lightened from dark, steel grey to a dirty white, and there was no more lightning. Raphael scooped up the puddle, hardening the metal into a sculpture of a tree b
efore returning to his house via the trap door under a boulder. He hurried down the spiral stairs to the library, shouting as he walked.

  “Patsy?” asked Raphael.

  By the time he reached the end of the library, Patsy was waiting at the wall-length window, looking for him.

  “Any sign of him yet?” he asked.

  Patsy swam in a circle and shook her head.

  “Put the sturgeons on alert. I want word as soon as he surfaces. Something very strange is happening in Larimar,” said Raphael, looking toward his reef, “something very strange indeed.”

  C H A P T E R 5 1

  “Partly cloudy. My report specifically said partly cloudy. And what do I get? A severe, electrical thunderstorm with flash flood warnings across not one, not two, but three sectors,” said Wayne, slamming his fist on his office desk.

  David shifted on an uncomfortable, wooden chair across from Wayne. John sat next to him.

  “He was supposed to be under your supervision, Lotkin. Did you think you could take a siesta, while the soft shell fired at will?”

  “No, Sir,” said John, looking down.

  “Michelson, I’m docking your pay by one percent; Lotkin, by three. Maybe next time you’ll think before disobeying orders.”

  “That’s not fair. John didn’t do anything wrong,” said David. “If Corkey hadn’t messed up my wiring, none of this would’ve happened, and actually it was John who put a stop—”

  “Looks like there’s a new boss in town,” said Wayne, raising his hand. “Would you rather I fire Corkey, Boss? I can do that. Is that what you want?”

  “No, Sir,” said David.

  “Then shut your open shell,” said Wayne. He pulled two forms from a metal file near his desk, at the top of which read Employee Misconduct. “If there is even the slightest hiccup in the next month, you’re history, do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Sir,” said John.

  “Sign here,” said Wayne. He turned the forms around and handed them a pen. David and John signed their papers.

  “Now get out.”