Seas of Ernathe (17 page)

The creatures held forth their battle with the grace and intricacy of dancers and the ruthless ferocity of the animals that they were. One seemed to tire, to break from the struggle more desperately than the other and to rejoin with greater reluctance—but as the second lashed harder to gain an edge the first returned with astonishing energy and threatened to tear off its foe's head with a single convulsion. And so the struggle mounted and seesawed in its course, and yet never was there a sign of a cut or a slash-mark on either of the eels. Never, that is, until the forgotten two of the four joined in, one following the other, and raised the tempo of the battle to a blinding, terrifying blur.

Now there was no respite, there were no breakaways. There was only motion, whirling motion: it was a ball of flying pieces floating suspended in blue watery space, now and then dropping low enough to kick gusts of sand to cloud the water. And then the bits of flesh began to fly. First ragged little chunks, timed with the glitter of knifing teeth, and then smaller bits, powder-like, and leaking circulatory fluids. The water around the battling four grew hazy with shredded bits of eel, and the struggle took on an aspect of gruesome reality, a chilling, grim, and terrifying promise of death.

It lasted only moments longer. The entangled mass disintegrated, fell away into a number of torn pieces, some still and some wriggling but none intact. Amidst the slowly clearing cloud of organic debris, those pieces that were still moving were slowly consumed by death—and when they drifted asunder, the performance was over. The two Nale'nid, forgotten for a time as the second two eels had been, moved to one side, but did not leave until a small school of thin-bodied gray fish emerged from the entrance path, picked at the pieces of eel until all were gone, and then departed the way they had come. The Nale'nid, too, then departed the way they had come.

For Seth, the scene was not yet over. The audience of sea-people was left quiet, entranced by the now-completed performance. They stared as if battle still raged; their faces were tense, intent, focused upon the terror, the cruelty enacted for their benefit. Was this the grotto-heralding? The battle, the destruction of four small creatures by the controlling Nale'nid had been the sole end-goal of the heralding, so far as Seth could tell. He looked at Lo'ela. She was as mesmerized as the rest, but she was starting to come out of it, now, perhaps stimulated by Seth's eyes upon her, and she quickly returned to full alertness, full concentration, full
focus
upon her friend lover, Seth. He said nothing. He could only stare, not certain if he wanted to believe the apparent meaning of the eel fight he had just watched.

Lo'ela frowned, seeming to read his thoughts, and her eyes told him that he had interpreted the situation correctly.

Focus
. They had
focused
upon the blind cruelty, the vicious desperation of the eels. Many of them still
focused
upon it, or upon the memory afterimage. That was the motive, the only motive. To become so intensely involved in the power, the emotion for good or evil of the moment's display—to
focus
upon the consuming and single-minded extinction of the energies of the eels' lives.

No other purpose. To see, to feel, to understand and embrace.

Seth shook, as Lo'ela gripped his hand and pulled him forward to a horizontal swimming position. He was shocked to be reminded that he was still underwater, to be aware of his weightlessness again; and that distracted him enough to pull his thoughts back to a reasonable semblance of calm. But he was almost afraid to see where Lo'ela might take him next.

Leaving Ga'yl, they swam upward to the
krael-
encrusted rim of the amphitheater and along the edge of the intricately eroded grottoes that bordered it. Seth followed clumsily, waiting for Lo'ela to make up her mind—they glided back and forth, the sea-girl gazing into several of the openings—and then he nodded, with some slight hesitation, as Lo'ela indicated an archway, wide and beaming in the sun.

This you will find quiet, pleasant. Perhaps it will help you to find our grotto less distressing.

It was the first time that she had spoken to him since—and he was astonished on glancing at his timepiece—since two hours before, just prior to the start of the grotto-heralding. There was a deep gentleness to her thought, but no explanation as to her feelings. And Seth remained silent, requesting none. Whatever sense he made of this place he would have to make on his own.

The archway opened into a small, skylighted basin or pool. The bottom here was a multicolored mixture of fine-grained sands; and a number of marine plants stood incongruously, but not unattractively, in the center of the space. One aged male Nale'nid hovered about the bases of the plants, and several other sea-people were just leaving the place. The old sea-man ignored Seth and Lo'ela completely, devoting his full attention to the plants which, Seth gathered, were his
focus
.

Seth felt a wave of mood cross him—Lo'ela's; she was letting him sense her frame of mind. Watchfulness. Expectancy of pleasure. Impressibility. She did not look at him, but a slight twist of her body toward him made it plain that she wanted him to join her in her concentration.

Curiously, he felt an urge to resist. It was not a rebellion against Lo'ela that he felt, but a hesitation about what was happening to him here. For a moment, he remembered his starship, his homeworld, his home in space, the people he was supposed to be helping. He experienced a vertiginous surge of guilt; he struggled for the briefest of instants to reassemble the motivations swirling in his head—and in his confusion was thrust for a moment back into the cataclysmic trauma of the
mynalar-g
so long ago, seemingly centuries: the ripping of the fabric of his mind, the shredding of the reality with which he formulated his world, and the awful plummeting into the frigid chaos of flux-space, the world within the world . . . and then it passed like a dying roar of wind in his ears, the pounding of blood, and he focused his eyes suddenly again on Lo'ela, on the bright watery pool of the sea-grotto, on the Nale'nid and their crazy inexplicable games of the senses.
Focus
. The word was a rending thought in his brain. A vital, a precious word. A word he had to learn to accept.

A gnawing sense of loss caught him, churned at his stomach, pressed the plastic film of his mask tight against his face until he felt he could not breathe. He choked, suffocated. And then he was free again, remembering where he was. But something else, though, nagged at him—a worry, a fear, perhaps a host of fears. Something he meant to think, meant to do; a responsibility. It had passed, now; it was submerged. He looked at Lo'ela, sensed concern in her even as she pored over the sight of the old Nale'nid and his sea-plants.

He joined her in looking.

The plants were a sculpture—living sculpture. Fernlike, kelplike, a strange combination of the two; rooted in the sand of the grotto, they spired and bulged upward, buoyed but not controlled by the water. It was the man who controlled them, the old Nale'nid. A picture rushed Seth's mind, an encapsulated memory: the old sea-man laboriously molding the plants, wielding control by the power of his thoughts, of his
focus
. Tiny plants sprouted, shot upward in an accelerated, time-compressed growth. The shape grew—was strengthened here, made delicate there—forming itself with asymmetrical precision. No, not precision, quite, but a randomness brought together with exquisite care. A joint project, the man and the self-willed plants.

They drifted slightly, swayed with the movement of the water. They were red-flushed green, shiny and soft. Hard, where the sculpture needed to be hard. They might have been an elaborate growth of crystals, grown in a zero gravity melting pot. They were beautiful—astonishingly, and stunningly so.

An edge of clarity grew in Seth's mind; and he knew that he was quite uncomfortable here in the presence of the Nale'nid. (Except for Lo'ela, though—always except for Lo'ela.)

The intensity of emotion, of understanding, of seeing. That was
focus
for the Nale'nid, whether eels or plants or colors or humans. Cruelty or kindness, beauty or appalling ugliness, brutality. In
focus
there was no morality, no accepted standards of right or wrong. Meaningless terms.
Experience
mattered, intensity of experience. Life had merely to be interesting, and interest could be found in anything.

Yes. Your words have confused me: right and wrong
. Peripherally, he heard Lo'ela's thought addressing him.
Perhaps you can make them clear for me?

Seth hesitated. The thoughts, worries of the last moment were buzzing unresolved, but they were slipping to the back edges of his mind—to be displaced by more Nale'nidlike thoughts. And again he was ready to follow Lo'ela through the grotto. Lo'ela, the sea-girl who loved him. It occurred to him that her
focus
may have been more than she had bargained for.

They toured other parts of the grotto. They witnessed a builder creating materials, and pressing artifacts from sea-kelp. Cloths, parts of domes, small items for touching and handling. They entered a dark cavern and watched an "aura play"—Nale'nid with their outward aura manifestations accentuated so that they were lightning-ghosts, moving figures of color, of shimmering and wavering electro-organic energy.

Eventually Seth began to feel chilled by the water, and they both became weary. They rejoined Ga'yl, and traveled again back to the city Pal'onar. Seth relaxed with Lo'ela in her home the remainder of the day, a great many wondering thoughts burning through the daze within his mind.

* * *

Lo'ela again that night wanted to see the stars. Seth obliged, and once more they stood in a pleasant darkened land, Seth pointing to the sights in the fiery sky, Lo'ela touching him frequently and gently to bring him back to the realm of her presence.
You are bewildered, my starman, but that is all right.
Seth tightened his arm around her and did not answer, but he wondered just how it was that he had gotten here, and where it was he was going.
If you find out, I would like to go with you.
Laughing, he met her flashing, starlike eyes and held her more closely still, her body a glowing warmth in his arms.

And later, much later, he decided that it was the going itself, rather than the arriving, for which he cared.

Lo'ela eyed Seth wonderingly. He had awakened this morning bursting with a great enthusiasm for returning to the grottoes. Yesterday's negative feelings had vanished altogether, and in fact he was confused now as to why he had been so upset by the fascinating grotto displays. The emotional intensity of the eel drama, and the aura plays, the sculpture—all were bright, illuminating memories, flooding him with new energy. Perhaps he perceived them now in light of Lo'ela's thinking, or perhaps his own feelings had matured—but either way the memories were now powerful, exhilarating. He was so anxious to return he practically demanded that Lo'ela take him back today.

You have changed quickly, friend Seth,
she observed, thrusting a piece of fruit forcibly into his hand.
I wonder at that
—
it surprises me
.

"Me too," Seth admitted, but that did not change his desire.

We will go, then
. There was no hesitation on Lo'ela's part, but she seemed less eager; there was perhaps a trace of suspicion, of unease in her thoughts. Nevertheless, she got Seth's diving gear from its storage place, and—after insisting that he eat his fill—helped him put it on. She scrutinized him after he was geared up, ignoring his impatient grunts, and then when she was satisfied that he was properly set, said,
We will go quickly, directly
.

Traveling, they arrived on dry shoreland. She gave Seth no chance to look around, but nudged him immediately into the water. They sank quickly, comfortably, coolly through the evening-blue depths and came to the Grotto Gateway. They swam in through the front cavern and into the amphitheater, where a number of Nale'nid were present, though nothing specific was going on, around to the far side of the arena and to what Seth thought of as the "back set" of grottoes. Here, they plied back and forth for a while, peering into various chambers. The plant-sculpture was still there, somewhat larger than yesterday; and in one of the darkened chambers another variation of the aura-viewing had drawn many interested spectators. Lo'ela and Seth did not remain in any of these places, but instead looked for something new.

Seth had his mind on yesterday's grotto-heralding, the eel-fight. He wanted to again see something driving, exciting, something violent. He was not beyond feeling surprise at his new frame of mind, but he was happy with it, and even impatient with Lo'ela's cautiousness. Her attitude surprised him more than anything else, actually—and he wondered if she had somehow managed to assimilate the shock, bordering on revulsion really, which he had so absurdly felt yesterday. It would be ironic, would it not, if he the human
focused
upon the emotionally intense plays of the grottoes while Lo'ela, the Nale'nid, shied away from them. Perhaps, he reflected, it was just a matter of an equal and opposite reaction. Or perhaps she was just worried about
him,
though why that should be he couldn't imagine.

"You are subdued today, Lo'ela," he said, coming to a gentle, weightless rest by a
krael
archway. He touched the flexible bulge covering his mouth, felt a momentary urge to tear it away, to free himself of the strictures of the divesuit. He made a face.

I am focusing on you, love. To learn what it is, exactly, you feel
. She opened her mouth wide, staring at him from within a suspended halo of golden-brown hair. She tilted her head slightly, and finally broke into a helpless grin.
You are a most curious human, Starman
.

"Am I?" he said dryly, mockingly. "Am I, indeed?" He extended a hand to touch her, to cradle her cool shoulder. He remembered last night's touching, and on an impulse moved his hand through her flowing strands of hair. What would she learn about him? he wondered. That he had found the meaning, for himself, of "focus"? That he had lost his awareness, except in the intellectual sense, of hurt, of pain, of the distinction between wondrous pleasure and wondrous torture, wondrous excitement? That he had learned that there need be no value distinction?