The Farpool (20 page)

Longsee came over to greet them. He was
smaller than Kloosee and Pakma, wrinkled in the face, with some
mottling and stippling around his beak and fins.

This guy’s a lot older. A
supervisor, perhaps
, Chase said to himself.

Longsee circled Chase and Angie with great
curiosity, pulsing what he could, examining them from head to toe.
He had directed that modified lifesuits be made available for the
humans. Now, he scrutinized the work of the lab techs.

“Most curious, these creatures. From what I
can pulse and see, they could well be ancestors to the Umans
here.”

Kloosee always found it expedient to agree
with the kelmaster. “That’s was our thinking, too. Pure
land-dwellers, pure creatures of the Notwater.”

“Mmm…” Longsee said. “That
would
be of interest to you,
wouldn’t it, Kloosee. Thinking of making off with these specimens
to your own em’kel, I imagine. Well, not just yet. There’s a lot of
study to be done here first. They can speak, I presume. Equipped
with echopods?”

Chase had been listening to the guttural
words of the kelmaster, coming through his own suit echopod.

“Yes, sir…we understand you, sort of.” The
kelmaster’s voice sounded like a distant rustling wind. “We can
speak. I’m Chase. This is Angie.”

Longsee stopped abruptly. “Strong
vocals from this one. And I pulse anxiety, nerves, some confusion—“
he confronted Kloosee. “You have instructed them in
shoo’kel?
I won’t have such turmoil
messing up my lab. That would be a disgrace. To Chase: “You
understand why you were brought here?”

Chase struggled to answer. “We came with
them---Kloosee and Pakma. We wanted to see your world. Kloosee said
you needed help—“

Longsee considered that. “This is the truth.
You’ve heard the great Sound…felt the vibrations?”

Chase indicated they had. “We saw the
wavemaker when we got here. It’s making a hell of a racket—“

Longsee started circling again,
restless. “We understand you don’t know our words…perhaps the
translation…but if I pulse correctly, you feel what we feel. The
agitation, the trauma, the pain we cannot endure…already, many have
left. Omsh’pont is dying. Many kels are dying.” Longsee stopped
directly in front of Chase, peered into the eye slits of the
lifesuit, as if trying to find something there. “We brought you
here because you are Uman, perhaps ancestors to the Umans at
Kinlok.” Longsee didn’t know whether to address the thing’s head,
or pulse its gut.
How do you talk with
these Umans, these Tailless beasts?

He tried to explain the project to them.

“We want the Umans to shut down their
wavemaker. The Sound is destroying our way of life, destroying
everything. Our cities, our kels, our ancient caves, our economy,
everything. No doubt you’ve seen this—“

Chase said they had. “I felt it myself. How
do you stand it?”

Longsee said, “We’ve endured, for some
mah now. But no more. We need relief. You were brought here because
you are Uman, you can talk as Uman, with the Umans. The Sound
devastates us. We try to talk with the Umans but they won’t listen.
They think of us as pets, as curiosities. They make sport of trying
to catch our people, take them up into Notwater….this must stop. We
have designs for a soundshield, even designs for the wavemaker that
reduces the sound, but the Umans pay no attention. They tell us:
“
We’re fighting a war here…we don’t have
time for experiments…this weapon has to work or your world is
lost….”

Chase wasn’t sure what to say. Kloosee had
alluded to needing some help. Now it was staring them in the face.
“I’m not sure what we can do…or what you want us to do. These
Umans…who are they, exactly? What are they?”

“We have a theory,” Longsee said. “The
Farpool is a passageway from our world to your world. But it’s also
a passageway in time. Our time is not the same as your time. Our
theory is that you and your people are ancestors of the Umans at
Kinlok. We don’t know how great the time difference is, but that’s
why you were brought here…to negotiate with your own people. We
want you to go to Kinlok…you came through the Farpool near
there…and plead with the Umans…shutdown the wavemaker. Can you help
us?”

Chase looked at Angie. In her lifesuit, she
looked like some kind of amphibious monster. “Sure…we’d love to
help. I don’t know what we can do, but if there’s anything—“

Kloosee spoke now. “First you must undergo
some modifications.”

Chase was wary, not sure he understood what
had come through the echopod. “What kind of modifications?”

Kloosee explained. “To be able to survive and
communicate better in our world.”

Longsee added, “It’s a surgical
procedure…we call it the
em’took.
You will be able to breathe and eat and live as we do. Your
lungs will be modified, your arms will grow fins as we
have—“

Angie’s eyes grew wide. “Uh…I’m not so sure
about this…Chase?”

Chase let her grasp his hand with hers. She
tried to intertwine their fingers, but it was awkward. “This
procedure…how long does it take? What’s involved?”

Kloosee darted forward and did
something to some nearly invisible buttons on Chase’s forearm.
Inside his helmet, the echopod erupted in a stream of words, some
incomprehensible, but some he could understand. Chase realized
Kloosee had put his echopod into something like encyclopedia
mode….it spat out a description of the
Em’took
….

“
The
Em’took
begins by
placing the subject in a sort of cocoon, a variant of the
lifesuits.

“
The procedure lasts about 2 days
and is largely automated.

The subject is not conscious during the
procedure.

“
Seomish science has perfected
this technique to enable Umans to visit Seomish in their natural
habitat, but very few have done this.

“
Most Seomish who must visit
Not-Water prefer to remain unmodified and use their lifesuits to
survive out of the water.

“
The modification procedure
entails some risk. It is considered more or less permanent.
Reversing the procedure entails heightened risk.

“
Seomish science uses a
combination of surgical (bacterial) and pharmaceutical steps to do
the modification.

“
The name of the
modification cocoon or lifepod is
em’took
, a variant of the Seomish
word for a berth or living space, also connoting a place of new
birth. Also the name of the entire procedure.

“
The procedure uses bacterial or
microbial technology to accomplish most modifications.

“
The
em’took
procedure has
multiple (7) stages:

“
Seomish medical technology is
largely based on use of genetically modified and programmed
bacteria and microbial organisms.

“
The
em’took
begins with a
genetic sequencing and a neural scan. After the sequencing and
scans, the bacteria and microbes are selected and ‘tuned’ to match
the recipient. The sequencing and scanning process is known
as
vish’tu
.”

Both Chase and Angie heard the description
over their echopods. Chase looked at Angie. Her face seemed pale
white.

“This…uh, procedure…the voice said it was not
reversible. That means, like, permanent?”

Longsee indicated that was so. “We
recommend the
em’took
. You
will live as we live. You will be one of us. This is, of course,
your choice. If you choose the
em’took
, you won’t be able to live in the
Notwater unassisted anymore. You must use these lifesuits to
survive. The procedure may or may not be reversible…it’s never been
tried. If you wish to return to your own world—“

“We do,” Angie blurted out. “This is all
fascinating. But we’re human beings…what is it you call us—“

“Tailless People of the Notwater,” Pakma
suggested She could pulse Angie getting quite agitated and had to
turn away. To churn and burn like that was bad form, it was an
insult. They had so much to learn—

“I don’t know,” Chase said. He looked from
Longsee to Kloosee to Pakma and back. It was getting a little
easier to tell them apart, especially Longsee. He was visibly
older. “This is a big step…it’s a lot to ask. We want to help.
Couldn’t we just stay as we are? Talk with these Umans as we are?
It’d be hard to talk with them if we’re modified.”

Longsee said, “The
em’took
could be done after you meet with the
Umans. However, you would have to live in the lifesuits for this
time. The
em’took
, if it’s
successful, will make life better for you.”

Chase tightened his squeeze on Angie’s hand.
“I think we need to talk about this…between us. It’s an awfully big
step.”

Longsee pointed to a small pod-shaped
enclosure on the other side of the pavilion. “You can stay there.
Inside that
em’kel
, you won’t
need the suits.”

“Like the Notwater pod we were in
before…jeez, there’s so much to learn. Just give us a little time,”
Chase begged. “We’re both tired and a little hungry.”

“And overwhelmed,” Angie added.

“Of course,” Longsee said. “Eat and
rest. Then roam with Kloosee and Pakma…it’s our custom and our joy.
The water is silted…and there
is
the Sound. Perhaps beyond the Tor’shpont, the sound will be
less. But Omtorish water is famous for being
vish’m’tel
…a fast current, a smooth
flow.”

With that, Kloosee and Pakma led Chase and
Angie into the Notwater pod that would be their home. Like the
larger pod they had inhabited earlier, it resembled the open palm
of a hand, with fingers folding in to seal the enclosure and the
same face-shaped air sacs spotted around the perimeter to give them
breathable air.

Once inside, pressurized with air, Chase
managed to wriggle himself out of the lifesuit. He helped Angie
with hers. It was like backing out of a small closet in the
dark.

They sat together on the warm, slightly
vibrating floor pads and held hands in silence for a long time.

Finally, Angie looked over at Chase. “We’ve
got a lot to talk about, don’t we?”

Chase nodded, deep in thought. “It’s a
big decision, for sure,” he agreed. He spied a rack of
tong’pods
along one wall. “I say we
eat first and talk later.”

Chapter 8

Seome

Omsh’pont, kel: Omt’or

Time: 765.6, Epoch of Tekpotu

Angie wasn’t sure exactly when they had
really made their decision. She only knew that somehow a decision
was made and it didn’t make any sense but there it was.

Chase never missed a meal and he
attacked the
tong’pod
with
great energy, cracking legs, sucking out the meat, slurping and
sucking on his fingers.

“Only thing we’re missing is butter,” he said
with meat dribbling down his chin. “Try some, you’ll like it.”

But Angie just wasn’t that hungry. She
watched the shapes and shadows drifting by the translucent walls of
the pod, walls that looked like fingers jammed together.

“Look at them, staring at us. It’s like we’re
the ones in an aquarium now. I guess that makes us even.”

Chase sucked on another pod…Kloosee had
called it
gisu
. It tasted
like orange, sweet, a bit tart. Refreshing. He finished off five of
them. “At least, we have plenty to eat.”

“Is that all you can think about? Chase, I
want to go home. I don’t like this place. It gives me the creeps. I
miss Mom. I miss Dr. Wright’s clinic and all the patients. I miss
working out with my girlfriends at the track, running laps,
laughing and cutting up. We need to get out of here. Go back
through that Farpool or whatever it is.”

“We just got here. We’ve hardly seen
anything. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

Angie just stared at her boyfriend. She
really did love him but
honestly
, sometimes—

“Chase, remember when we talked about what we
wanted to do with our lives? It’s called the future.”

“Sort of—“

“I wanted to be a doctor. You know… help
people.”