The Farpool (69 page)

“Wow…what the hell happened…did I pass out or
something? Did I make a mess?”

Kloosee and another em’kelmate fed him
more gisu. “You took the Metah’s blood…now you’re
tekmetah
. How do you
feel?”

Chase felt like he’d swam across the entire
Gulf of Mexico. “Well, it’s sort of like a hangover….you sure I
didn’t gulp down a whole bottle of tequila?”

A few hours later, Chase had recovered enough
to take a short roam outside with Kloosee. They cruised gently
along the slopes of the T’orshpont seamount, visiting, chatting
with neighbors, nosing into and out of small caves and niches.

Kloosee seemed troubled. Chase noticed it.
“What is it, Kloos? Did I do something wrong?”

“No, but in order to lead the expedition back
to Likte and oversee the rebuilding of the Uman machine, you have
to be inducted into an em’kel. The Metah wants you to be part of
Kelk’too, the academic em’kel, the house of learning.”

“You said ‘lead’ the expedition. When did I
become the leader?”

Now Kloosee chose his words carefully.
“The Ponkti don’t trust us. Even the Eep’kostic don’t trust us.
With the waves and the tremors and the seas changing, everything is
in turmoil.
Eekoti
Chase,
you’re Uman. The Metah thinks a Uman must lead this project. She
believes you think as they do, that you’ll know how to
proceed.”

Chase pulled up short and Kloosee circled
back. They drifted for a moment, face to face, or more correctly,
snout to beak.

“Kloos, I don’t know anything about how to
put this machine back together. I’m no engineer. Doesn’t your Metah
understand that?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s kel politics.
You’re
eekoti
, an outsider.
From the Notwater. None of the other kels trust each other. There’s
no shoo’kel anymore. No good feelings. The
akloosh
is upon us and every kel is fighting for
every advantage, trying to grab whatever they can. You have to lead
this.”

Chase thought about his Dad. Nobody ever
believed Chase Meyer would ever be anything other than a beach bum.
Even Mack Meyer put him to work at the Turtle Shop to keep him from
winding up in the gutter…he’d said that enough times. Now, the
Omtorish wanted him to lead a project to rebuild some time machine
and bring back the Farpool. Maybe selling T-shirts wasn’t so bad
after all.

“So what do I have to do?”

Here Kloosee indicated they should continue
the roam. He brought the two of them to a small ledge higher up on
the seamount, not far from the summit. Canopies and tents and
domiciles dotted the slopes. Kloosee pointed out over the city with
a sweep of his armfin. Chase couldn’t see much, just shapes and
hints of shapes identifying the tubes and floatways, domes and
pavilions and platforms, some shattered in mudslides, many covered
in silt.

Kloosee explained. “Every midling, at
age twenty mah, must do
ketuvish’tek
. It means the Circling. It’s a
coming of age ceremony. Only after this, can a young kelke join an
em’kel…or start one of his own.”

“A circling…sounds difficult. You’re saying I
have to do this. Kloos, I can’t see two feet in front of me. How
could I go anywhere?”

“The normal
ketuvish’tek
requires a midling to
circum-navigate all the seas, the entire world. No kip’t either. He
collects specimens to prove where he’s been. He encounters
predators and must fight them off. It’s a journey,
eekoti
Chase. A journey of stamina
and dedication. When the midling returns,
if
he returns, he’s ready for adult
life.”

“Well, Kloos, if I attempted to circle your
world without a kip’t, even with a kip’t, I’d get lost in ten
minutes.”

Now Kloosee nudged Chase playfully around the
chest, pulsing the growing anxiety fluttering inside. “You don’t
have to circle the world. Just Omsh’pont. Circle the city, outside
the seamounts, and return. Then you can become Kelk’too. Then, as
tekmetah, you’ll be a natural leader for the expedition to
Likte…the other kels will respect you. They will follow your
directions. Chase, it’s the only way. It’s the Omtorish way. You
must do this.”

“Like I said, I can’t see two feet in front
of me. I’ll wind up at the bottom of that big trench. Or eaten by
some creature.”

Kloosee said, “You have an echobulb. I’ve
taught you how to pulse. Use the bulb.”

“I can’t read the echoes. I can’t even
hear them. Kloos, you and I are good friends. I’d do anything for
you. But
this
—“ Chase
squinted through the murk. He still couldn’t see
anything.

“Then I will teach you.”

“I assume you’ve done this Circling. What
happened with you?”

Kloosee seemed embarrassed. “I used
my
ketuvish’tek
to approach
the Notwater. And I did it…I breached. I was out of the water. It
was…incredible…like nothing I’d ever experienced before…I can’t
describe it.”

“So what happened?”

“I almost died. Then I was arrested by a
Ponkti prod squad…but that story is for another time. Now, we must
teach you to become fully Seomish…like us. To do that, you must
pulse and live by sound.”

And over the next few days, Kloosee took
Chase on short roams around the city, into and out of the city and
off into waters unknown to Chase, all to get him used to navigating
by sound, pulsing with his bulb and listening to the echoes and
learning how to interpret them.

On the third day, Chase said, “I guess I’m as
ready as I’ll ever be. Kloos, I’d only do this for you.”

“You are doing this for all of us. Chase, you
are the bridge. You are the best hope we have.”

“How’s that?”

Kloosee replied, “Our world is dying.
You can surely see that. The Metah, my em’kelmates, all of us, we
talk of emigrating. Of the Farpool. Of Urth and what it’s like.
I’ve been there, me and Pakma, so they listen to what I say. But
it’s sad. It depresses me…I struggle to maintain shoo’kel in
this…balance, tranquility. The days of shoo’kel are gone. Now we
must roam to a more distant sea…your sea,
eekoti
Chase. And the Metah believes you are the
only one who can do this.”

“Jeez, Kloos, what am I…Moses? I don’t think
I can lead anybody.”

“In this you are wrong. Other kelke listen to
you. When you are Kelk’too and you pulse like the rest of us…even
the Metahs will follow you.”

Now the full import of what Kloosee was
saying hit home. Chase swallowed hard. Just a little trip around
the city. A stroll, a roam, a jaunt. And then he’d win his merit
badge and join the scouts…no, that wasn’t quite it.

This was for real. He tried not to think
about. But the thought that the other kels, the other kelke, all
his Omtorish friends, the Ponkti prodsmen, the cool and aloof
Sk’ortish, all of them, would follow his orders, do what he said
do, go where he said go…Chase didn’t have words for the feeling. In
English or in Seomish.

Ketuvish’tek.
The Circling. The whole point of the Circling was to come
back to where you started a changed person, a man of new stature
and bearing.

Chase knew his Dad, Mack Meyer, would never
believe any of this.

The day of the
Ketuvish’tek
came and Chase was nervous and
didn’t try to hide it from Kloosee.

“I don’t take anything…no kip’t, no tools, no
weapons?”

“Nothing,” Kloosee said. Other kelke from
Putek’tu surrounded him, nosing at him, nipping at him, pulsing,
jostling. It was all part of life in an em’kel. They tussled like
brothers and sisters on a family trip. “The starting point is on
the other side of Metash’pont…the other seamount. We go there
now.”

The starting point proved to be a small cliff
high up on the slopes of the mountain. Chase was stunned to see a
large crowd gathered about the area. It was like the start of a
great race.

“They’re not all here for me?”

“They are,
eekoti
Chase. They’re even betting on the
outcome.”

Chase found that amusing, and in a way,
strangely motivating. “Well,
some
of them are going to be disappointed. Wish me
luck.”

“Remember what I taught you. Read the echoes.
Listen to how the echoes fade and grow stronger as you move. Form a
picture in your mind. Then follow that picture.”

Chase almost laughed.
The only picture in my mind is the day Dad took
me scuba diving and we made the hundred- foot level.
And in a way, the whole affair was like that.

Chase kicked off.

He grunted and worked his echobulb as Kloosee
had shown him. Echoes came back and he struggled to form an image
of what they were telling him….

Okay, slope over there…more slope…now it’s
going down…still more slope…whoops, no echo…okay, that’s open
space, a gap maybe…wow, these currents are strong…uh oh, what the
hell’s that? It’s moving…coming toward me, better slip
sideways…hope it’s a tillet…they’re like cows…now it’s past…what’s
that…more distant echoes, broken echoes…maybe that’s the city…jeez,
this is kind of tiring….

By keeping a running commentary on what the
pulse echoes were telling him—he hoped—Chase found he could keep
his focus on the task at hand. He figured his path probably looked
like a drunken circus clown wobbling around an arena but he didn’t
care. Kloosee had said he had to keep the distant, jumbled
echoes—those were the city buildings on the plateau—to his left,
always to his left. If he did that, he would be moving in a circle
and in the right direction. So he concentrated on that.

The whole trip seemed like it took days. He
saw in his mind, and heard in his ear, a kaleidoscope of
echoes…things he had no idea what they were…screeches, honks and
bellows, whistles, grunts, chirps, lots of those, then more
screeches.

Finally, he came to a place where there was a
strong echo off to his left, it seemed like a slope, and a
veritable symphony of honks and shouts and then, before he knew it,
hands and fins and other things were grabbing him and pulling him.
He resisted for a moment, then opened his eyes.

Somehow, he had managed to circle Omsh’pont,
in a circuitous, laughable, sloppy, fumbling way and make it back
to the starting point on the slopes of T’orshpont.

And there was Kloosee, grinning in spite of
himself, honking with the others, butting and slapping Chase
sideways.

He’d never made a trip before that ended in
such a joyous, riotous uproar.

“You did
Ketuvish’tek
!” Kloosee nudged Chase repeatedly,
horsing around with him. “Just like a midling…”

“—
he made the Circling…I don’t believe
it,” said another kelke, a muscular fellow with gray slashes around
his dorsal. He honked with delight.

“Amazing,” said others.

“Impossible for a Tailless kelke.”

They roughed with Chase for a few
minutes.

“Did anyone lose money on a bet?” Chase
asked. He was grinning as broadly as his armored face would let
him. “Did anyone clean up…beat the house?”

Kloosee said, “It doesn’t matter. You did
it…that’s all that matters.”

They all sucked on gisu and made bad jokes.
Most of them Chase couldn’t figure out.

“What’s next?” he asked.

Kloosee turned more serious. “Now, we go to
Kelk’too. You are inducted into the house of learning, the most
prestigious em’kel in Omt’or. Longsee would be proud.”

“Yeah” said Chase. “I miss old Longsee.
Nobody can fill his shoes…er, fins…er, whatever.”

Kloosee and Chase left the area and made
their way through heavy, jostling crowds and silt so thick they
couldn’t pulse or see, through tricky currents and tremors on the
seamounts, to the academy.

Inside, Kloosee gathered around many of the
kelke. An older member, Tamarek lu, came up, with a small amulet on
a fiber loop. He handed it to Kloosee.

“I remember Kloosee had one of these,”
the old technician said. “We gave it to him for finishing his
own
Ketuvish’tek
. He was so
proud—do you remember?—I thought his mouth would split.”

Chase took the amulet and felt it. It was
rough, not polished, with dozens of edges and facets. “Like a medal
of some kind?”

Kloosee explained, taking the loop and
draping it around Chase’s neck. “I have one. So does Tamarek. It
creates a unique echo when you pulse it. The amulet identifies the
wearer as Kelk’too. Every em’kel has their own…see?” Kloosee felt
at his own forward dorsal. Sure enough, a similar stone amulet was
tightly looped at the base of the fin. In fact, there were
several.

“What is that other amulet for?”

Kloosee said, “It’s Putektu. The em’kel I
founded. Chase, I want you to join, after you become Kelk’too.”

“So what do you do?”

Now Kloosee warmed to his explanation.
“Putektu wants to learn the secrets of the seamothers. We study
them, follow them, measure them. Try to understand why they rise to
the Notwater so often…what they do there, where they go. We want to
know why.
Eekoti
Chase,
you’re a creature of the Notwater too. You belong in
Putektu.”

Chase smiled in spite of himself. “Kloos, you
sound like a car salesman. Or a Boy Scouts leader. I’ll stick with
Kelk’too for now.”

Tamarek rattled off a rapid-fire stream of
clicks that Chase’s echobulb couldn’t translate. He seemed
agitated.