The westering sun glittered on their backs as they surfaced and dove, swift as torpedoes, breaching and swerving, each graceful stroke multiplied by thousands. In the middle distance, Yarden could see their flashing sides dart through green-gold water. She looked down and saw that she, like all the others gathered on the shore, was striding through knee-deep surf, wading out to welcome the fish.
Yarden felt excitement ripple over her. There were shouts of joy all around her, and she added her voice to the merriment, her heart beating wildly. “Welcome!” she cried, picking up the chant from those around her. “We greet you in joy!”
The creatures slowed as they came closer, and the school separated, each fish proceeding alone to a waiting human, emitting squeaks and clicks of pure pleasure. The Fieri furthest out were met first, and the fish leaped in the water or swam circles around their human friends, who laughed and plunged after the playful animals.
Yarden laughed, too, to see the joyful play and then looked and was surprised to see one of the creatures regarding her, its head lifted out of the water, its large, clear eyes watching her with bright amusement.
The animal was much larger than Yarden had anticipated, and bore a passing resemblance to the pilot whale of Earth. It had the same smooth, streamlined shape and rubbery-looking skin. But it had no dolphinian snout and sported not one, but two large dorsal fins on its powerful back. Its forebody was large, with a swelling mound atop its head over two large, disturbingly human eyes the same color as the sea.
The creature was a beautiful deep sky blue at the tips of its great dorsi and along the spine ridge of its back. The color faded gradually, however, so that its underbelly was white—it looked as if the fish had been held upside down and dipped in blue ink. The male of the species, Yarden learned later, had two brilliant parallel yellow stripes running the length of its stomach from its lower mandible to its ventral slit.
Instinctively, Yarden held out her hands, murmuring soft sounds of welcome. The fish twitched its broad, fluked tail and slid closer. Yarden lowered herself in the water and floated toward it. Her hands reached for the gleaming skin and found it warm to the touch. Warm-blooded! The animal was mammalian. She caressed the beautiful skin and said, “You’re no fish; you’re almost human!”
With nimble movements the creature circled her body, brushing against her, bumping her playfully, exploring her with long, jointed front flippers. Yarden dove and swam with it, holding the forward dorsal fin like she’d seen divers do in pictures. The creature swam with easy strokes of its powerful tail, propelling both of them through the water. Yarden felt the tremendous life-force of the animal engulf her, and her heart soared. She felt like a child in the great, calming presence of a wise and gentle giant.
She regained her feet in the chest-deep water and the fish swam close, nuzzling her. She put her hand on the mound of its head, and stared into the very human eyes. It was a natural enough gesture, and although she knew the creatures communicated, she was unprepared for the result.
Instantly, a feeling of tremendous warmth and serenity inundated her. It was as if she had touched a live current and received a most unusual jolt. Yarden jerked back her hand, and the contact was broken.
She floated in the water and gazed at the creature wonderingly. Beneath that swelling mound of its forehead was a brain—a wonderful, intelligent, and extremely powerful brain. She reached out to the animal once more, using both hands this time and concentrating on sending a message—much as she would employ the sympathic touch—to the talking fish.
Her message was a simple greeting: Hello, I am Yarden. I’m glad to meet you. The words were secondary, however; the primary communication was in the emotional charge she delivered with them—welcome and acceptance.
Placing her hands on the smooth blue skin, Yarden sent her message and waited. All at once, as if rushing up through her fingertips, she felt a tingle of wonder and then excitement as the creature recognized what she had done. The excitement subsided almost as quickly as it had risen, but was replaced at once with a strange emotion, utterly alien to Yarden: a feeling of vast, boundless energy and equally expansive pleasure—an infinity of restless delight.
In a flash of understanding Yarden realized what she was sensing: the ocean! The ocean as seen through the fish’s eyes. But there was more, too—a breezy, buoyant cheer combined with a sense of winsome audacity which Yarden did not understand at first.
Her puzzlement must have been communicated instantly, for the series of emotional impressions was repeated. Extraordinary! thought Yarden. It’s very like the sympathic touch, only emotion-oriented rather than image-oriented.
The affect phrase was repeated yet again, and Yarden understood that the aquatic creature was giving her its name, its sense of self.
Yarden projected understanding, replaying, as far as she was able, the affect string she’d received, and was rewarded with a flourish of glee. That’s what I’ll call you, thought Yarden: Glee.
She concentrated for a moment, deciding how best to interpret herself for Glee, then sent an affect phrase that went: elation/hope/amity/wonder/zest and also, after a moment’s hesitation, a touch of disquiet.
Glee played back understanding which was followed by a moment of fleeting uncertainty and the same disquiet—as much to say, Why uneasy? This was accompanied by a long, lingering, brushing stroke of a flipper against Yarden’s side.
Yarden stared in disbelief. The animal was asking her about the source of restlessness in her soul. Would it understand? Indeed it seemed to be an extremely understanding creature. She gazed into the deep green eye closest to her and projected fear/anxiety/depression in roughly equal proportions.
Glee was silent, and Yarden thought she’d broken the delicate contact between herself and the animal by projecting a negative emotion. But Glee replied with an outpouring of sorrow and sympathy which took Yarden’s breath away. It was pure empathy, powerful, undiluted by any sense of self.
Yarden, misty-eyed at the unexpected response she had received, gave back heartfelt gratitude and, in a spontaneous gesture, threw her arms around the beast and hugged, pressing her face against the warm, wet, pliant skin. Glee presented Yarden with a sensation of peace and acceptance such as Yarden had rarely felt in life.
Then, abruptly, Glee turned and swam away. The action was so sudden Yarden opened her eyes and glanced around for her friend. With more than a twinge of regret, Yarden watched the triangular blue dorsal fins racing away from her. Apparently the meeting was over.
Yarden treaded water for a moment, looking at the spot where she had last seen the fin before it disappeared beneath the easy swell. Then, feeling sand under her feet, she turned and started back to shore.
She had not gone far, however, when she heard a squeak behind her. She turned to see Glee streaking toward her, and counted three other sets of fins speeding in her wake. Yarden waited; the fish slowed as they approached. Glee nuzzled her and clicked something to the others, who came close and stroked her with their flippers.
Yarden sank down among them and caressed each one in turn, projecting welcome and acceptance. They surrounded her then, and pressed close. Glee nudged Yarden’s hand and with a mewing squeak indicated that she wished Yarden to reestablish contact. Yarden placed her hand on the bulging cranial mound and received once more the affect phrase for inquiry.
Without additional prompting, Yarden understood that Glee wanted to tell the others what she’d shared with Glee. So Yarden sent the fear/anxiety/depression string while flippers continued to stroke and caress her.
The animals went still in the water, as if stunned. Then without any of them having moved a muscle, Yarden felt herself rising up out of the water. The sensation was so strong, it took a moment for Yarden to realize it was not physical; they were buoying her up emotionally. She felt as if she were riding the crests of a rolling sea as wave after wave of consolation and kindness washed over her. The tears rose up, overflowing the barriers of her eyelashes to
spill down her cheeks as Yarden allowed herself to float on the ineffable charity of the wise creatures.
The emotional tide gradually subsided, and one of the newcomers rolled over on its back, showing Yarden the two parallel yellow stripes. He repeated the action twice, leading Yarden to name him Spinner. He put his head forward, and Yarden placed her hand on his cranial mound. The fish sent welcome and acceptance, and then empathy. I understand.
The quality of Spinner’s speech, while quite similar to Glee’s, was different in some respects. There were nuances of secondary emotions interlacing the primary, making his communication feel more abstract. Before Yarden could respond to the initial string. Spinner sent a complicated string which had to be repeated twice before Yarden could make sense of it. Its main component was a feeling of vast darkness and brooding menace: danger and lurking disaster.
When Yarden responded with understanding, Spinner gave the affect phrase for inquiry, repeated the danger/disaster string and added Yarden’s designation of herself. Again Yarden found herself staring at the remarkable animal. Spinner had not been anywhere near when Yarden had given her self-sense to Glee; yet Spinner knew it. Perhaps the constant interplay of flippers among the whales served to link the others to the conversation, creating a communication network.
Spinner repeated the string and waited while Yarden deciphered its meaning. He seemed to be asking whether Yarden felt the same sense of impending doom, and whether the awareness of its presence was what caused her depression.
She sent puzzlement/inquiry, and Spinner backed away; he slapped the water impatiently with his flukes. When he came up under her hand, Yarden received the sensation of threat with a virulence behind it that shocked her. The threat was powerful, all-consuming, ultimate in its expression. She pulled back her hand, and Spinner raised his head from the water to look her in the eye, as if willing her to understand.
Yarden placed her hand back on his head, and he sent the grim danger/disaster string once more, adding a soft note of hope at the end. This time, Yarden experienced a completely different reaction. The hope, however subdued, seemed to overshadow the danger/disaster motif and offer the suggestion that the menace was not certain. It was real and palpable, but not inevitable, or at least not indomitable.
Spinner gazed at Yarden with his intelligent green eyes, and slowly his meaning became clear. With a clarity that chilled her, Yarden understood what Spinner was trying to communicate to her: Dome.
Spinner’s triple barrel roll in the water let her know she was right.
Dome was on the move. Treet’s prophecy was coming true.
FIFTY-SIX
Treet lay inside a piece of old fibersteel pipe, part of a smokestack, no doubt, now nearly buried behind a collapsed bank of permastone bricks which formed a slope down to the broad plain of the Isedon below. It was a good vantage point and safe; the fibersteel formed a turret around him and the permastone a bulwark.
Safe and sturdy it might be, but comfortable it wasn’t. He had spent the night in the pipe, dozing fitfully, waking at intervals to listen and look out on the night-dark plain. Now, as dawn tinted the filthy scales of the Old Section’s translucent roof a sickly yellow, there was still no sign of the invaders, and Treet had begun to think that perhaps the invasion had been canceled. The blasting had stopped hours ago, and there was no indication of movement around the ruined duct.
If the ambush went according to plan, however, it would be a massacre. The Invisibles would be surrounded in the open to be picked off at will by the hidden rebels. The site was well chosen from that perspective; Tvrdy had shown his genius once again. Treet found himself feeling a little sorry for the hapless Invisibles.
The radio monitor lay at his feet; he had brought it with him so he could hear any communication between Kopetch and Tvrdy. He surveyed the battlefield. It was roughly rectangular, the burned-out shells of buildings forming the sides of the rectangle, which was open at the back end where the Invisibles would enter. At the far end, two big mounds of rock and debris formed the fourth side; the faces of these mounds were covered with straggling bushes and wispy thin trees. It was behind these and in the rubble at the foot of the mounds that Cejka and Tvrdy waited with their men. Treet could not see any trace of them, which was good. They were well hidden.
Treet yawned and rose to stretch himself; he did a few torso twists, windmills, and overhead arm pulls to loosen the kinks. He was in his fifth deep knee bend when there came a muffled rumble in the distance. He stopped to listen, and a few seconds later the monitor at his feet whispered with Kopetch’s voice: “The duct is open.”
Treet imagined Invisibles boiling up out of a still-smoking hole in the ground, blasters between their teeth. He waited, holding his breath, listening for the far-off sound of battle. But he was too far away. He slumped back down into his turret to wait, balancing the monitor on his knees, but the box remained silent. Most likely, Kopetch and the others were too busy to report. At any rate, it wouldn’t take long. Even now the Dhogs were probably attacking the first of the Invisibles.
God help them, he thought—and then wondered if praying for an enemy’s death was kosher. He amended his prayer to, God help us all.
The ambush began sooner that expected. Treet was sitting in his foxhole wondering how long it would take for the Dhogs to reach them when he heard the sound of thermal weapons echoing from across the Isedon.
He raised his head to look down upon the battlefield and saw Dhogs already running into the rectangle. They scattered as they came in, spreading out and heading for the nearest cover. At first Treet thought their actions very convincing. Too convincing. Something about the way they were running—headlong, flat-out, without looking back—let him know that something was wrong.
The first wave of Dhogs had entered the Isedon, a squad of Invisibles hot on their heels. Where were the rest? There should have been more Dhogs—at least twice as many.
Then he saw the reason for the Dhogs’ severely decreased number. Clattering slowly onto the battlefield came a large, heavily armored em, spitting lightning from at least four ports as Invisibles crouched and dodged around it, laying down a blanket of deadly fire.
A tank! The infernal Invisibles have a tank!
Treet’s heart sank to the pit of his stomach. We’re going to lose, he thought. There’s no way we can fight a tank. They’ve already cut down half of Bogney’s squad—they’ll wipe out the rest of us just as quick.
Why was there no warning? Could it be that Kopetch and Piipo had been killed before they could send the alarm?
As Treet looked on, horror-stricken, the improvised tank moved into position in the center of the battlefield and began unleashing its terrible firepower. Bolt after bolt of blue lightning streaked from its ports, screaming through the air to shatter the mountains of debris. Cejka’s men are down there, he thought desperately; they’re getting murdered!
The Dhogs began fighting back tentatively. But each time someone managed to get off a good shot, the tank retaliated and took the sniper out.
Where was Tvrdy? How could he stand by and watch the slaughter? Why didn’t he do something?
If only I had a weapon, Treet thought. I’d … I don’t know what I’d do, but I wouldn’t sit here and wait for them to blast me to smoldering jelly. Somebody’s got to do something!
His palms were wet; he glanced at his hands to see blood weltering up where his fingernails had dug into the soft flesh. Help us! Please, God! Help us now if You’re ever going to!
Under the scream of the thermal weapons, Treet heard a low droning noise. Glancing at the far end of the battlefield, he saw another tank lumber into view, and behind it another and yet another. Four tanks! And each with a contingent of Invisibles hovering around it.
We’re lost! he thought. They have us outmanned and outgunned. We’ve had it!
As the last tank came in, the others rolled forward, spreading out across the field, each taking a quadrant to scour.
In a f
ew minutes it would be all over. There was nothing left to do now but roll over and die.
Why didn’t Tvrdy act?
What could he, Treet, do? The Tanais Director was pinned down with enemy fire bursting over his head. If Treet showed himself now, it would be swift and certain death. But someone had better do something, and quickly. The Invisibles would have the whole battlefield secured in a matter of minutes. The only resistance came from the few Dhogs still foolish enough to risk popping off at one of the tanks.
But soon enough even that activity ceased. The Invisibles kept firing for a few seconds and then, seeing no further resistance, stopped. A stifling silence claimed the battlefield. The air stank of ozone and hot metal.
Treet peered from his perch. Could it be over? So soon?
The Invisibles began moving out across the field toward the mounds of debris where the Dhogs had hidden. They searched the still-smoking rubble, pulling bodies out. The corpses were lined up out in the open where, lest there be any doubt, they were scorched once more for good measure.
The stupid, sadistic scum! Treet’s clenched fists pounded his thighs. Where was Tvrdy?
Yarden sat cross-legged on the sand, hands resting on knees, palms upward in the classic meditation pose. She had disciplined herself to sit this way for hours at a time, without making the slightest movement, without breaking concentration. She had spent most of the flight to Empyrion in her cabin aboard the Zephyros in just this way: sitting immobile while her mind practiced the exercises of the sympathetic art, keeping the pathways open, the process sharp.
Now, here on a different world beneath a different sun, she sat facing the dark green water as the foaming surf flung itself upon the shore before her. She had been sitting this way through the night, and now dawn broke the gloom in the east, stripping night from the horizon and peeling it back to reveal a new day.
Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome Page 34
