The Farpool (19 page)

Chase fought sleep for as long as he could,
but he could hold out no longer. He lay back and passed into a
deep, dreamless slumber.

Chase startled awake and jumped half a
foot at the sight of the grotesque creature lying next to him,
staring at him.
It had scaly, armored skin, with a
blade-shaped head and two forelimbs, at the end of which were some
kind of manipulators, in fact a whole kit of them. The legs were
flukes, with open ports…
what on
earth
….

The echopod squeaked nearby. It was Kloosee.
In fact, Chase could see Kloosee waving at him through the
translucent fingers of the pod walls.

…lifesuit…we call
kee’too
…you live in water…climb into
suit and close….

Chase looked up skeptically.
Huh? Climb into that? How the--?

That’s when Angie woke up. “EEEyyyeeeww--!”
Fast as she could move, she started backing away on all fours,
scrambling as quickly as she could. “Chase….Chase…what is
it--?”

By now, Chase had become more intrigued than
frightened. Looking closer, he could see it was a machine, a
device, though it looked just like a living creature, something
like a mix of the Creature from the Black Lagoon and a
turboscooter.

“Ang…hold up…don’t lose your breakfast…it’s
just a suit…they must have stuck it inside when we were out.”

“A sss…suit—“ Angie didn’t stop backpedaling
until she was a good twenty feet away. She bumped her head against
the finger-walls of the pod and sucked in her breath. “It looks
so….”

“I know…” Chase crawled toward the thing.
“Kloosee called it a lifesuit…crap, you know what this thing is?
It’s the suit we saw them wearing off Half Moon Cove, when we saw
that spout. Remember all the armor plating?”

Angie nodded weakly. “Yeah, but it looks
alive—“

“It’s made that way…here, let me try
something…. “ Chase touched the skin of the suit experimentally. It
felt rough and scaly to the touch.
Tough
stuff
, he told himself. “Must be designed to hold an
atmosphere, or something breathable.”

Slowly, bit by bit, guided by cryptic
instructions over the echopod by Kloosee and Pakma, Chase managed
to find a seam along the spine of the suit, which split apart as if
slashed with a sword. He stuck his head up through a neck dam,
found the fit tight but workable, then climbed completely in.
Kloosee explained how to close and seal the
kee’too
.

…press along opening…find small pads…press
pads…kee’too will contract and seal….

Chase did that and was startled, momentarily
panicked, when the suit did exactly as Kloosee had described.
Pressing against a series of small finger pads, contractile fibers
along the spine stitched the suit shut. He worked his head up into
the blade-shaped helmet.

“Now what…how do I control this thing--?”

…kee’too controlled by sound…make sound like
this…(shkreeah)…clickclickclickclick…krrrrr…this activates
kee’too….

Chase listened carefully. “Kloosee, you’ve
got to be kidding…oh, well, here goes—“ He tried making some of the
same sounds Kloosee had given him. At first, there was nothing.
Then his legs involuntarily straightened out and the attached
flukes started oscillating, dolphin-kick style, as if he were
swimming.

“…
don’t think I want that…” he
grunted.

Kloosee did something…he heard it over the
echopod…wait, there was no echopod. He’d left it outside. But
Kloosee’s voice came through some kind of headset inside the
helmet. Kloosee managed to stop the dolphin-kick and the suit was
quiet.

“Thanks…I don’t think I could have taken much
more of that—“

He looked out through the slit-eyes of the
blade-helmet and saw Angie gingerly approaching. On impulse, he
swung his huge armfins around and growled at her, leaning forward
menacingly.

“Grrrrrr!”

Angie jumped five feet. “Stop that! Are you
okay in there? Can you breathe?”

“I can breathe okay…don’t ask me how. But I
can’t control anything…it’s like the thing has a mind of its
own.”

For the next hour, Kloosee and Pakma
worked with Chase, and later with Angie, to explain how the
kee’too
worked.

The lifesuit was controlled with sounds
and scents. Chase eventually found a small control panel inside the
helmet, just below his chin. More controls were on the armfins. He
learned that the echopod translated Kloosee’s description of the
legs as
mobilitors
…multi-purpose propulsors, suitable
both for water and Notwater…that is, land. With some experimenting
and practice, Chase found he could waddle around inside the pod
like a drunken penguin. Kloosee assured him the mobilitors would
work equally well in water.

For Angie, learning took longer, but she was
determined she could do anything Chase could do. She wasn’t going
to let a guy beat her at anything. So, she sucked up her breath and
stuck her head inside. It smelled like mothballs and Angie had a
brief memory of trying on her Mom’s dresses and gowns one rainy
afternoon in Scotland Beach in a closet that smelled just like
this.

Chase had said the suits could also be
controlled by scent. She wondered, started to pecking at her chin
controls with her chin and wound up pirouetting into the pod walls
like a klutzy ballerina, which she had once been as a child.

Well, this sucks…maybe I shouldn’t touch
anything in here….

Kloosee worked with both of them, with great
patience and, not a little humor, to make sure the humans could
manage their new gear.

It was Pakma who observed: “At least,
they’re not afraid to try. You can pulse the change…especially the
female. I sense
shook’lee
now…not so much fear…more a curiosity.”

“They want to be with
us…
tet’ee’ot,
I pulse that
too. Cooperation, fellowship…this is good…very good…they’re
learning. ”

Longsee lok had come to the edge of the
pod. He pulsed through the walls, was thoughtful. “They seem
intelligent. Already, I pulse
tet’ee’ot
as well. We need their help. When we
pulse
shoo’kel,
that’s when
they’ll be ready.”

Kloosee knew it was bad form to disagree with
the Kelktoo master but he couldn’t help it. “Maybe we shouldn’t
expect so much of them. They’ve got a lot to learn. They’re Uman or
at least related. But we shouldn’t think of them as anything more
than that.”

Longsee always hated coming outside into the
thudding of the great Sound. Even as they watched the Tailless gain
some kind of mastery over their lifesuits, he could also sense the
thin streams of rock rolling down the distant seamount peaks,
loosened by the ever-present vibrations of the Uman weapon up
north.

“We don’t have the luxury of being so
particular. Time is short. Other kels are abandoning their homes
and cities, hiding out in caves. There are those around the Metah
who want that here. We’ve got to make the Umans understand…bring
these creatures to the labs at once….as soon as it’s safe.” With
that, Longsee darted off, snapping his tail flukes to get back
under cover.

The water around the Notwater pod was growing
murkier and siltier every day. One by one, the crowd that had
gathered to stare at the Tailless began to drift away

Kloosee told Chase and Angie to button
up their lifesuits. …
you have Notwater
inside…do not worry…be of litor’ke…calm and serene…we open
pod…Pakma and I will guide you…

“Wait…what? Hold up, will you---? But Chase
could only stare in disbelief as water began rushing through the
gaps in the pod fingers, quickly filling their small pocket of air,
roaring, foaming and hissing until they floated with it right up to
the top, where the fingertips began parting….

“Chase…
Chase
…I can’t—“ Angie panicked but moments
later, her voice was drowned out.

Incredibly, the lifesuits seemed to know what
to do. Even as the water thundered into the pod and enveloped them,
the suits sealed themselves shut. Chase found he could breathe the
burned air just fine…take a small breath, then another, there, see?
You’ve got air.

“Angie…Angie, just breathe normally—“ He
didn’t even know if she could hear him. But a quick look through
the narrow slit in his helmet showed she was fine, her eyes wide
and her arms thrashing about, but otherwise fine. Finally, she got
herself under control and let the suit take her where it
wanted.

Both of them found themselves propelled
forward, with gentle undulations of their flukes and some judicious
waterjet props providing the kick.

Two figures swam into view. It was Kloosee
and Pakma. Kloosee made gestures and Chase understood he was to use
his chin controls. In time, he found the echopod switch.

…we go to Kelktoo…to lab…meet project
master…I will guide…

Kloosee reached for something on Chase’s
right arm and depressed switches Chase hadn’t even seen. A staccato
series of clicks and screeches sounded inside the helmet. Then his
tail flukes started up again, dolphin-kicking like he’d never been
able to do in swim meets. They moved off together, Angie and Pakma
alongside, out of the pod, whose fingers had now peeled back like
flower petals, and off into the murky waters.

Chase couldn’t see much through the
helmet eye slits but he heard a steady pinging, along with a
symphony of clicks, squeaks, grunts and chirps. Fully
sound-controlled, he realized.
Cool.
And something liked sonar. The lifesuit
was like a little ship, like a midget submarine. With
legs.

Though he couldn’t see much, he felt the
presence of life all around him. Cubes and spheres, pods and
strange glowing filaments flashed by. He wondered if Angie could
hear him and tried just speaking in a normal tone of voice.

“Angie…Angie, can you hear me? This is
so cool…
look
at this place.
They’re all around us…look at those light filaments…what are
they?”

“I
can
hear you—“ Angie was in the other lifesuit, jetting along
just behind him. “Wow…this is like a submarine…it does what it
wants. I can see some things. Look at all the fish—“

Indeed they were enveloped in vast throngs of
Omtorish residents, roaming in knots and groups across the mesa
that served as the center of the city, a flat tableland between
towering seamounts, dense with canopied pavilions, strange coral
shapes, lighted tubes and a dizzying variety of platforms, spheres,
globes, pyramids, every kind of shape imaginable, some secured by
lines to the seabed, some attached to the sides of the seamount, so
many that the mountains seemed to heave and throb with life, as if
they were alive themselves.

Ahead of them, other creatures swam,
including Kloosee and Pakma. Chase had trouble distinguishing one
from another. And even as they headed for some place called
Kelktoo, Chase had seen how other swimmers joined their little
group for a few moments, then peeled off to disappear, only to be
replaced by still more swimmers.

A gregarious place,
Chase decided.
Everybody’s out for a
stroll, just like Shelley Beach and Turtle Key on a Saturday
afternoon back home.

“Angie, how’s your suit? Can you breathe
okay?”

Her voice sounded like it was coming out of a
barrel. “The air smells and tastes funny, but I seem to be
breathing okay. Chase, I have no idea how to control this thing,
what anything does. I don’t even see any controls….”

“It’s all controlled with sounds, Kloosee
told us. We’ll have to learn how to make the same sounds they
do.”

“Swell. Like learning a new language. I’m
still hungry, by the way. And I have to pee—“

They followed Kloosee and Pakma across the
breadth of Omsh’pont until they came to the base of one of the huge
seamounts. Uncommanded, Chase’s suit began a shallow dive. He
peered out the narrow eye slits. They were heading for what looked
like a coral reef, but lit up with bioluminescent light, strings of
light.

Approaching the reef, Chase could see
it was a structure of some kind, open to the sea, filled with
throngs of swimming, cavorting, Seomish residents.
Maybe they work here
, he surmised.
There were dozens of platforms at every level, each one an
organic-looking thing lined with rough, scaly walls, but every
shape you could imagine: pillows, hats, sponges, beds, brains, a
kaleidoscope of structures all hanging off the side of the
seamount.

The echopod in his suit clicked. It was
Kloosee. …
Kelktoo here…we go lab…meet
kelmaster and engineers….

They entered the Kelktoo along one side, swam
through a maze of corridors and tubes and floatways until they came
at last to an inner vault-like chamber, a chamber lined with
undulating tubes on the floor and walls, and a small group
attending some kind of equipment on mushroom-shaped tables in the
center. One entire wall appeared to be an enclosure almost like the
Gulfside Aquarium galleries. Indeed, when Chase looked closer,
inside the gallery were two animals that looked suspiciously like
bottlenose dolphins.

Maybe from an earlier
trip,
Chase thought.

The Kelktoo was the largest and most
influential of all the em’kels…the traditional house of learning
with its academies and labs and observatories and institutes and
societies and foundations and studios. The project leader was none
other than Longsee lok kel: Om’t, a name that evoked respect in
every sea around the world.