Seas of Ernathe (19 page)

Where did he stand! Racart's face was a contortion, a caricature, the face of a man driven to the edge of a bottomless psychosis.
My friend! My friend whom I'd nearly forgotten! Lo'ela, how could you have made me forget him
?

Racart, what have they done to you?

Racart's head turned slightly, his eyes lifted, flickered, as if he had heard Seth's unspoken cry. Stricken with grief and hope Seth stared past the sea-people at him; and some inner restraint parted, unleashing a fury that was no Nale'nid
focus
but the blind rage of a human grievously wounded—no matter that it was by forces beyond his control and understanding. "RACART!" he bellowed, stunning the crowd into attention.

He pushed forward roughly, elbowing past the sea-people to reach his friend's side. Only Racart's breathy moan, now subdued, filled the silence. The Ernathene showed no signs of consciousness, but something in his face seemed to have eased. "Racart!" urged Seth, leaning close—"Come out of it!" There was no response from his friend except a fluttering tic in his left eye; his gaze was straight upward, his eyes dilated, unfocused. Seth's blood flowed hotter, and he turned with a cry back to face the Nale'nid audience.

With no more thought than warning he leaped into the crowd, swinging wildly. His fists rained blows onto people he could scarcely see for the blur clouding his vision—and several went down as he jumped sideways, and back, turned and leaped forward again, his arms wind-milling brutally. He screamed as he swung, his wordless cry as hideous as Racart's had been just moments before. The crowd edged away. Most of the Nale'nid were merely confused, and neither defensive nor sympathetic; they stepped clear of Seth's attack only as a kind of delayed reflex. When a space had cleared so that he was swinging at empty air, Seth suddenly stopped. He stared at them all in stupefied silence.

"What have you done?" he croaked after a minute. He turned back to Racart—and noticed the two Nale'nid standing nearby. These, then, these were the people who had tortured his friend. Racart made no sound, no sign of wakefulness. "You!" Seth called, gesturing vaguely at the two Nale'nid. "Why have you done this?" His voice dropped sharply, guilt and anger mixing turbulently in his thoughts; he knew quite well why they had done it.

"Seth!"

He heard his name in his ears, shook his head.

"Seth!" The cry was insistent. Lo'ela was standing behind him, nervously, at a distance. He scowled as he turned, focusing his eyes slowly on the sea-girl.

Seth
. She started to approach, hesitated, then mustered her courage and very deliberately took the steps forward. She was trembling, quaking. She opened her mouth, trying to form words; she seemed unable, so she spoke directly.
This was the focus you wanted. Thought you wanted
.

He glared threateningly. His anger was so great that he felt an urge strike again, against her—but he clutched his arms together across his breast and said, shaking, "What
I
wanted? What
I
wanted!" His self-control broke, and he grabbed her and shook her so violently she cried, helplessly, "Ai, ai, ai, ai!"—even as she pleaded with her mind.

Seth
—
yes! My people did it, and you wanted it too! If not to your friend then to someone else! Can you have forgotten?
Her mind-voice was anguished, begging for recognition, for understanding. She was right and he knew it, and he knew it hurt her to say it, hurt her
human
feelings. He had wanted it: the anguish, the intensity of torment. Lo'ela's eyes were blinking wildly, her hair was tangled and pushed to one side, her mouth was twisted in fear.

What woman was this, a Nale'nid who reached to him with human fear, human terror he could understand in the bottom of his soul?
Is this the woman, the Nale'nid I love? Yes . . . no . . . I don't know. Is that why she resisted, she knew that Racart was here?

I did not know
—
but I sensed something, yes
.

Seth stared dumbly, bewitched by her power to read his thoughts at their most desperate. Lo'ela clung to him hard, her face, her hair, her breasts pressed to his bare, shivering chest. Then she tore free and ran past him to the two Nale'nid who were with Racart. Seth heard her cry in her rapid, incomprehensible tongue—then he forgot them and hurried back to Racart. His friend was still, his eyes blank, and Seth suddenly wondered if his own presence, his aura, might possibly be harmful to Racart.

He frowned, and placed a hand gently on Racart's right arm, and felt for a pulse—rapid, weak. He pushed Racart's hair lightly back from his forehead. The Ernathene's eyes flickered; he was breathing more quietly, but he remained lost in whatever world had captured him. Seth spoke softly: "I have not forgotten you, Racart, no." Not really, he thought, gritting his teeth. "I'm here with you now."

Utterly drained of energy, he stood for what seemed an endless time, all others forgotten—until Lo'ela appeared at his side, clutching his arm tightly. Several other Nale'nid, including the two who had been working on Racart, surrounded the Ernathene and touched hands to him. Seth began to protest, but Lo'ela stopped him.
Stand quietly for a moment, my starman
.

Seth glowered but obeyed. The cavern silently dissolved into the chaos of the world within the world, and when that disappeared they were standing once more in Lo'ela's dwelling in the city beneath the sea.

His legs buckled without warning, and he staggered in Lo'ela's tight grip. He lost awareness before he touched the floor.

Andol Holme stood at the railing of the harvester
Morgendale
, where he had stood for most of the afternoon staring out over moving water. The sky seemed moody to him, as it had all day—changing from gray to blue to gray nearly as often as he glanced up. The sun, when it was out, was hot, burning.

The flotilla had been underway for three days, now, and although Holme was ready to perform as necessary, he still had not completely reconciled himself to the actions to come. His actual duties were relatively ambiguous; he was the exec of the handful of
Warmstorm
crewmen on board, but with the exception of the weaponry crew the
Warmstorm
personnel were present as a formality mainly—they watched the Ernathene crews at their work and assisted in small ways when possible. The mood of the
Morgendale
crew was subdued and apprehensive, and he rather suspected that the same was true throughout the flotilla. There reigned an unspoken fear that the mission was pursuing a deadly course: with every vessel armed and capable in one fashion or another of destroying underwater targets, the flotilla wielded frightening power. But to what end? They could (probably) destroy the Nale'nid city if they wished—which they didn't—but could they
intimidate
the sea-people, induce them to change their behavior? Some thought yes; more, it seemed, thought no.

Weaponry technicians were still busily installing and tuning delivery systems, adjusting control-locks, and tinkering to devise new protections against Nale'nid meddling. The weapons would be hellishly complex to fire, what with multiple combination locks on the vital controls and safety systems requiring simultaneous count-sequences; but it was hoped that the systems would deter even the cleverest of the sea-people from causing malicious firings. Holme had objected to the inclusion of explosive projectiles among the armaments, maintaining that intense light charges could effectively scare the Nale'nid without necessarily being destructive or fatal; but the point had been overruled by Mondreau, who insisted upon a full range of choices. There was logic in that, of course; but Holme was less than fully convinced as to the effectiveness of the safeguards.

He watched the passing lands and sea. Water plunged noisily under the harvester's wide bow, and rushed past the hull like crumpled cellophane, blue green and brilliant in the sun. As the flotilla had progressed northward from one semi-enclosed sea to another, the waters had changed to a clearer, deeper blue, relatively devoid of the plankton haze. The seas ranged deeper, with steeper and more irregular bottom profiles, while the land masses here were narrower and more twisted, more like island chains. They were venturing into unfamiliar territory, not only to the star-crew but to the Ernathenes as well. The rules of the sea might well be different here—weather, sea conditions . . . and inhabitants.

Holme could not help silently comparing the number of unknowns with the probability of trouble. He rather wished that he were aboard the flagship
Ardello
, where he would at least be more immediate to the crucial decision-making. The shores were angling closer, now, suggesting the approach of yet another strait. Holme leaned out over the rail to look ahead and back, and he saw that the flotilla was being stretched along its length to negotiate the narrows. He had the feeling that he was back on his home world, Rorcan, on just one ship of a steady traffic flow: hulking gray merchantmen crushing the waves both to the fore and aft, laden with ores for the foundries of the continent. His thoughts came moodily back to the present. Though he was glum about the prospects of this mission, he was still quite curious about the Nale'nid and their home—and if nothing else he was moving closer to them. Then, too, there was Seth's fate, and Racart's, to worry about—and the chances for their survival. He remembered Mona's stoic expression as she had boarded
Ardello
, her eyes alert but withdrawn, her mouth set in a straight line. As part of the sonar crew, she could well be called to contribute to action endangering Racart; yet she would not have stayed behind in Lambrose if ordered.

"Mr. Holme?" A crewman was at his elbow—Stanton, one of his own men. He looked disturbed. "Word just came down from the bridge, Mr. Holme. Line-of-sight from the air units—they've completed all the sonar mapping and survey, and have pinpointed targets. The implication was that flag-command is considering a demonstrative strike to pay them back for that ruckus on board
Barsuthe
." That ship, with
Orregi
, was still in the Jamean Sea; the Nale'nid had recently invaded it in a manner reminiscent of the
Ardello
incident. Stanton added, "No word on sending a contact party."

Holme nodded, unsurprised. He looked at the sky, saw that it was clouding, this time with dark, angry clouds from the northeast. "Rough weather coming," he said, scowling. It occurred to him that the flotilla was right now militarily at its most vulnerable—strung out to navigate the strait.
Ardello
was probably already in the narrows. How easy it would be for the Nale'nid to strike, to throw the fleet into chaos—they could have every one of the Ernathene ships on the rocks with only minor effort.

But then, it did not seem as though the Nale'nid worked that way, or even thought that way.
Did they?

The fleet continued on through that strait, and the next, and the next, toward the rendezvous with
Orregi
and
Barsuthe
. There was no harassment, nor sign that the approach had been noted by the Nale'nid.

But the weather, as Holme had predicted, turned bitter and turbulent. The following day, as it sailed into the southern limits of the Jamean Sea, the flotilla received a taste of tropical electrical storms. High chop frosted the water, and winds gusted alarmingly, bringing lightning and rain combined with steamy, oppressive heat. Altogether it was strange weather, and. more than one sailor's thoughts drifted back to the weather that had afflicted Lambrose for a time and the speculation that had caused concerning the sun.

Nonetheless, the way ahead seemed clearer, and the fleet continued sailing, undelayed, toward the waters of the undersea city.

* * *

A wordless gabbling filled his cranium, the echoes of a mind awash in fear. For a time, as he wandered into the dark of an unrestful sleep, Seth thought that the fear was his own. That it was his soul that was weeping. Later, he drifted higher in the dark seas and, just before breaking the fragile surface to consciousness, perceived that the sounds were not his own, but another's. Later still, he opened his eyes. The inside of a dome curved like an eggshell over his head, transparent and green and full of light in the undersea morning. The mat beneath him was hard, uncomforting, and cool; and he wondered how he had managed to sleep so soundly, or at all. It took a minute more to notice the soft, strange quilt covering him, and even longer to remember Lo'ela's catching him, as he was falling unconscious. He still felt drained, barely awake.

He turned his head, recalling the unhappiness that had stirred him to awakening. Lo'ela sat near his feet. She was hunched over, her back to him, crying, and trying to stifle the sound of her sobs. Seth looked at her in confusion, turned his head back to stare up at the top of the dome, and tried to sort things out. Lo'ela's crying. His feeling as though he had made six flux-drive passages in one night, and then fallen over a cliff at the end. So far, they wouldn't sort. Racart—

Where was Racart?

He rolled his head the other way. Racart was lying on a mat on a higher floor-level. Apparently he was asleep. That seemed satisfactory, no problem. What should he be thinking of, then?

As though a switch had clicked closed, images flashed on in his mind. Lambrose: baffled people shaking their heads at another ruined batch of
mynalar
, guards struggling with their own rebellious, deadly weapons. The scarred dead man, the Nale'nid.
Ardello
: chaos, rollicking Nale'nid. The
Warmstorm
Mission: not understanding—not without help, his help. Racart: aura-deprivation, terror. And him; the control pit of
Warmstorm
, or the rig of a new kind of ship,
mynalar-g
pulling him into the deadly, precarious dreamland of flux-space, the splintering, sparkling, misty world within the world,
between
the worlds.

Or was it to be the caverns of the Nale'nid,
focusing
upon the dramas? The image of Racart, again: suffering.