The Godwhale (S.F. Masterworks) (27 page)

‘They seem to be getting more numerous. I guess it’s time to seed the yard with predatory starfish again.’

‘She nodded and began pounding the abalone.

‘Can you return these crab traps for me? Goose and Mudd wanted to put them out early in the morning.’

‘Fine. I’ll bring them a couple of abalone feet to chew.’ He tied the concertina nets into a tight bundle and towed them off.

Sunfish nursed Tad then fell asleep beside him. She was awakened by the dome’s frantic warning light. The intensity of the red pulses frightened her. Tad screamed.

‘What is it, Dome?’

She gathered up her son and searched the surrounding night waters for a clue. Hazy green bioluminescence increased. Vibrations told her that something approached – a new, unfamiliar sound that shook her home.

The sharp blade of a grapple struck the dome four feet above the rim, penetrating the air pocket and puckering the thin, translucent walls. A ring of wavelets danced off the raft as the dome buckled. She fell struggling towards the edge of the raft. The dome split with a bang – blasting her air away in a cloud of bubbles. She found herself sandwiched between the buoyant raft and heavy fragments of the arched ceiling. A painful pop in her right chest told her she was no longer at level four. They were rising fast! She kicked against the wreckage. Her baby screamed out a thick string of bubbles which tickled her left breast. She tried to exhale quickly, but her bubbles were already pink.

Injured Benthics moaned in the dark. Heavy chunks of debris bumped on the waves. A searchlight swept the scene. Sunfish tried to slap some life into little Tad, but the chubby form only trembled, open-eyed and silent. She attempted to blow breath into his mouth, but her own lungs wouldn’t work. She could only exhale. Each attempt at inhalation was blocked by an agonizing pressure under her right arm – a torn lung. Small, sharp pains stabbed at her fingers and toes, spreading up her extremities. Her writhings activated surface phosphorescence, pinpointing her location. The spotlight found her. A Nebish harpoon ended her suffering. A school of small hungry fish was attracted by her blood. They found Tad.

Furlong walked with his entourage through the icy lockers of Pursuit Five. He counted the frozen Benthics and nodded at the body count.

‘Sixty-four of the enemy killed. Good. We had no casualties. There was no sign of
Rorqual Maru
.’

The representative from Security smiled.

‘I do believe we have come up with the perfect anti-Benthic device – the Iron Tuna. Putting fins and an optic on the grappling hook enables the crane operator to knock out their domes with a great deal of accuracy. I don’t think we missed a single dome on the reef. Look at these scans before and after our attack. The reef is called Two Mile. Notice how the occupied domes glow – making them easy targets.’

They passed around the stills.

Three men from Hunter Control removed spear barbs from the stiff remains.. ‘It was easy game; lots of protein. We’ll have all the volunteers you’ll need for this kind of duty. Our Hunters enjoyed the night shooting with the spotlights.’

‘A success all the way around, I guess,’ said Furlong. ‘Don’t rush these specimens down to Synthe too quickly. I want the Biotecks to have a chance to stud them – see what we can learn. I know how short we are of good protein, but it will keep until we get a good analysis of these creatures – their bodies and their minds. Send me the reports as soon as possible.’

Clam huddled in the air pocket of a small umbrella. His swollen right thumb throbbed where the rotating fin had pinched it. He had witnessed the destruction of his dome village. At first the approaching grapples had resembled bizarre, one-eyed tuna. Their searchlights told him they were machines, so he had tried to avoid them. He had hidden in a crevice until he realized what they were doing. The bursting domes had brought him out but the mechanical devices easily tossed him aside. Now he was alone.

The bottom wreckage told him nothing of his family. Scavenger fish tore at table scraps, but no bodies were in sight. After decompressing at level two, he floated his polymer outrigger canoe and began his surface search. The trail of debris was easy to follow. The horizon was clear. The ship had vanished.

When Clam began paddling he was numb, but each new fragment jolted and awakened his anger. A wooden bowl was just a bowl until he recognized the carvings as his own. By noon he had caught up with the main mass of wreckage – numerous rafts and dome fragments. He picked up a familiar blanket, small and tattered. When he found his home raft he ran the bow of the canoe up on to it and crawled out, weeping. His hands moved across the familiar textures. A broken harpoon was wedged deep. The blood-stains told their story. He sat through the night, face cradled in his arms. A small nosy fish searched through the debris.

At dawn Clam pulled himself together and paced around the raft. Nothing remained at the home village. Every living dome had been systematically destroyed. There were other villages on other reefs. They would have to be warned. He pulled out the broken harpoon. And there would be revenge!

Rorqual
tracked the school of
Thunnus thynnus
and transmitted the data to Larry’s console. The hemihuman squirmed around in his hammock and read the report.

‘Bluefish Tuna,’ he mumbled. ‘Two-hundred-pounders.’ He climbed down and scampered along the companion-way to the control cabin. The view on the big screen was impressive. The eyes on 2-L sensor crane were sharp, picking up the details of coloration and short pectoral fins. ARNOLD joined him.

‘Nice herd,’ said Larry. ‘Should we catch a few for the islanders?’

‘Why not? One per family won’t spoil them. We’ll use a few for the deck hands and the women too.’ The Captain patted the ship’s console. ‘Go, girl. Catch us a few.’

The aft cranes spun lines and extruded spoon and spinner lures with five-inch hooks. The school was sampled. Forty-eight identical fish flopped on the poopdeck – scaly muscle, unblinking eyes. The thick-suited Nebish crew stood aside while naked Benthic women took their time deciding on the choicest for the evening meal.

‘Which finny beast do you want?’ asked ARNOLD.

Six sweaty wives watched his approach. Blood and scales speckled their arms. Hooks and knives filled their hands. He wandered among them – chatting, joking, and patting. The sun was high, the work heavy. Beads of sweat streaked their bodies. He paused in front of a young mother whose damp skin was streaked with white – lactating. He held out his hand.

‘Give me your knife. Go feed your child.’

She stepped under the deck shower, rinsing in seawater, and scampered off the elevator. ARNOLD turned the blade over and over thoughtfully.

‘It wasn’t too long ago when she would have tried to stick me with this,’ he mused.

At dusk he found the hemihuman perched on the edge of the aft hatch. Orange light from the living quarters outlined the small form. Sounds of women, babies, and utensils filled the air.

‘Join us,’ said the giant.

‘Maybe for just a lettuce-and-whole-wheat sandwich,’ said Larry, swinging down the hatch on one of his knotted ropes.

One of the Crayfish girls, mother of triplets, greeted the hemihuman with a squeal and offered to set a place for him next to her. The table was round, fifteen feet in diameter and eighteen inches high. Pillows and cushions surrounded it. It was being set in the middle of the elevator that had stopped at the second level. ARNOLD took the stairs down and helped carry the heavy platter of fishsteaks. White Belly tied on her lavalava (Hive issue) and walked around the table setting out baskets of fifteen-amino-acid bread and buckets of bayberry tea. She made room for the captain next to her, since she had the eldest son-of-ARNOLD. Other wives approached, chatting. They carried pickles octopus salad, edible kelp, steamed clams, boiled crabs, and a variety of
Rorqual
’s more anonymous dishes.

‘We should reach the first of the islands tomorrow,’ said ARNOLD.

‘It is good to see them green again,’ said Larry. ‘I can understand why Big Har wanted to settle here. I filled his head with visions of these places while we were Tweenwalls back in the Hive. I’m sure he’d not be happy anyplace else.’

Rorqual
nosed into the cove and rested her chin on the sand. There was no sign of the habitation on the lush green island. White Belly was worried.

‘Are you sure we’re on the right island?’

The ship quietly overlaid the two charts and projected the composite. The topography and coordinates matched.

‘I’d think they would have done something to the place in two years – houses, boats, nets. But it looks as wild as ever. You don’t suppose they moved to another island?’

‘They are here,’ said
Rorqual
. A sensitive infrared view of the vegetation indicated squarish defects – dwellings hidden behind a screen of shrubs and vines. ‘They are still a bit cautious about advertising the fact, that is all.’

ARNOLD squinted up the beach. ‘Remember that there were just twelve of them. Looks like two or three hundred acres to hide in. Let the wives go ashore with the gifts. We’ll leave two sets of catamaran hulls here – twenty-four foot and thirty-six foot. Garden tools. Spear heads. Invite them on board for the evening meal.’

White Belly carried her two children into the clearing. Har and Opal ran out and hugged her. They chattered and passed the children around.

Later Har came on deck to talk with hemihuman Larry. Both had darkened and hardened considerably since their days Tweenwalls. They clicked glasses and toasted ARNOLD. ‘May the King always rule the sea.’

The evening meal was punctuated with song and dance. The ship extruded a large variety of colourful polymer toys for the children. Island living had made the Benthic women even more calloused and leathery. Muscular and wide of pelvis, they had a pregnancy every year. The island population approached twenty. ARNOLD’s wives showered them with small gifts: cooking utensils and sewing supplies.
Rorqual
picked up bushels of seeds and cages of small wild meat creatures to seed on other islands.

‘We are very happy here,’ said Har. ‘You should stop your wanderings and live with us.’

‘No,’ said Larry. ‘I enjoy the voyages of
Rorqual Maru
. We throw a few seeds out and watch them grow. The little wild pigs thrive everywhere. I don’t know what sterilized all these islands, but I am having fun planting them.’

Har nodded. ‘It is like those stories you told me – about Dever’s Ark. Only you are seeding life right here on Earth.’

‘Yes, I suppose I’m having all the fun of a starship colonist – with none of the hazards.’

The celebrants spent the entire night on the ship. They were disturbed at dawn by a speck on the horizon.
Rorqual
’s second pair of cranes went up. The image was thrown on ARNOLD’s screen.

‘An outrigger. One of ours,’ said the captain. Larry and Har went to the rail.

‘It’s coming from the northeast. Who could it be?’

Clam’s story was incoherent – alternating from rage to despair. The 2-R crane sniffed around the canoe and came up with a baby blanket and the bloodied harpoon.

‘The Hive has returned to the sea!’ said
Rorqual
. ‘Clam’s family has been killed.’

‘And probably most of the Benthics from Two Mile Reef,’ added ARNOLD.

Larry didn’t like it. ‘Those robot grapples sound like a specific tool for destroying domes. I’m afraid we’ve underestimated the Hive’s determination. It wants to destroy us pretty badly.’

‘Let’s destroy it,’ mumbled Big Har.

The men huddled on the deck talking of war. The ship listened.

‘War with the Hive is not possible,’ said
Rorqual
. ‘It covers the continents with a single nervous system and 3.5 × 1012 citizens. Its Embryo Departments turn out 5 × 108 units per day. They can build a copy of ARNOLD in ten years – and a
Rorqual
in five. You are few in number and scattered. You have no flying machines or explosives. You have no army.’

Har shook his fist. ‘We must make them pay. Those were our people at Two Mile.’

Clam pointed to a broken harpoon. ‘This is our Ocean. I will kill any Hive creature that comes into it.’

ARNOLD nodded. ‘The Hive ship must be destroyed.’

‘I will send boys to the nearby islands,’ said Big Har. ‘We might be able to raise twenty or thirty men. If the Hive ship has a few Lesser Arnolds we should be able to handle them with axes and spears.’

The neighbours began to arrive with their simple neolithic tools-turned-weapons. Most were just boys in their teens – naïve and enthusiastic. The final count was eighteen males and fourteen burly females. All were extremely bitter about the atrocity at Two Mile. The children were left on shore with the pregnant wives.

Listener, another survivor of Two Mile, made his way to South Reef. He told his story to a small gathering in Long Dome.

‘It is our domes they destroy. Their weapons can tell which domes house Benthics. Only those are attacked.’

Bent Nose, a leathery female with nine children, turned to her half-grown son, Razor, and asked: ‘How could they do that?’

Razor was the tribe expert. He had spent a whole day hiding in the Gardens, watching a sentry pole. Afterwards, he had given a detailed report to the Deep Cult. ‘The Hive has little eyes and ears,’ he said. ‘Some see better than our eyes, some worse. I think we should try to make our occupied domes look as much as possible like the dead domes. If these underwater eyes are worse than our own, we may be able to hide our homes.’

Listener nodded. ‘There may not be much time.’

They watched young Razor lead a group out into the cloudy waters. When they returned they all spoke at once.

‘We must make our air bubbles smaller.’

‘It’s the light. We’ll have to use only the natural bio_ luminescence.’

‘It’s the heat. Warm domes have families.’

‘No. It’s the marine scum. Dead domes are covered by sessile creatures and algae. We must try to camouflage our homes under seaweed, urchins and starfish.’

Bent Nose raised her hands for silence. She nodded for her son to continue. ‘It could be any one of those things. I don’t know. but we should try them all. The domes’ hot spots and lights must be turned off. Most of the domes’ class-eleven brains should cooperate. Those that won’t must be abandoned for the time being. I think the women should be able to weave a weedy shroud to cover the outer skin. Suckers and tube feet won’t cling to the dome’s bare skin when it lives.’