The Summer Queen (94 page)

But there must be some way, with the resources Gundhalinu
had available to him, to pick a single mer out of the herd, stun it, and get a
blood sample. He wondered again why it hadn’t been done. The oversight was so
obvious, it was almost as if Gundhalinu was intentionally stalling the research—or
looking for something else ....

Reede considered the pseudo-linguistic gibberish of the mersong
again. There were flawed but meaningful patterns there; he didn’t have to be
told that by the studies, he felt it in his gut. And their meaning was
important—Something helpless and hopeless rattled its cage inside his brain,
and he swore. “Not to me!” he shouted furiously. The wall of rock flung his
words back at him, and the fog swallowed them up.

Maybe Gundhalinu was only stalling the research because he
was afraid that reintroducing a smartmatter drug into human society on a large
scale would do to the Hegemony what it had done to the Old Empire. Gundhalinu always
worried too much about the big picture—as if he could control anything, anyway.
If he didn’t do this, someone else would; there was always someone who would,
and damn the consequences. That was Gundhalinu’s flaw, it muted his natural
instincts; he didn’t trust even himself enough. Reede remembered the look of
exhilaration and release that filled Gundhalinu’s eyes sometimes when they had
worked together ... the look that had always been one step away from terror.
But he had never stepped over the edge, and with Reede forcing him to face his
own potential, he had never stepped back, either. And together they had made a
miracle happen once, against the odds ....

He stopped abruptly, as the black wall of volcanic rock rose
in front of him, blocking his way. He moved forward to it, putting out his
hands until they touched it; feeling it support him, feeling the rasp-sharp,
porous surfaces scrape his flesh as they stopped his forward motion. He could
not turn back, he could not go around it—he could only go over it, flaying
himself against its inevitability.

He began to climb, because there was nothing else that he
could do, picking his way from broken surface to broken surface, pulling
himself upward heedlessly, mindlessly, with bleeding hands; scrambling, leaping,
letting his perfect reflexes carry him instinctively to safety from one jagged
ledge to the next. Somewhere above him water geysered upward, exploding through
a natural funnel in the rocks, showering down on him. Far below he glimpsed
shadowy motion as the sea insinuated its way beneath the seeming solidness of
the stones, relentlessly undermining their stability; waiting for him to make
one misstep .... He felt the stone beneath his feet begin to shift under his
weight; he leaped again, scrambled up another steep, angled surface, breathing
hard.

He had reached the crest of the rockfall. He raised his
head, stabilizing his balance as he looked out across an unobstructed view, and
saw them at last, waiting for him. The mers ...

He watched them moving below him, dozens of them; heard
their voices dimly through the voice of the sea. He made a sound that was half
laughter, half incredulity, as a nameless, sourceless joy filled the emptiness
in his mind and soul. “I know you ...”he whispered, “I know you. You’re mine.”

He swore and shook his head, frightened by the incomprehensible
words. The wild, profound joy he felt was crushed beneath sudden despair as he
reached back over his shoulder, reaching for his gun Knowing what he was about
to do, he knew suddenly that he was committing an obscene crime, the ultimate
act of self-deniaj and perversion that would damn him forever .... But he did
not know why, didn’t even know how he knew it.

He had been sent here by the Source to get answers. He had
been sent here by the Source to kill a mer, and bring back its blood for study.
If he failed, if he resisted, he knew what his punishment would be. Desolation
filled him, and hopeless grief, as if he were about to murder one of his own
children. The sound of the sea was like the black laughter of the gods, and he
knew that he was the butt of their joke.

“They’re fucking animals, damn it!” His own blinding, animal
fury rose up in him, consuming the fear, the grief ... the other fury that
would have stopped him from what he was about to do. He had been ordered to
kill, and he would. All he needed to let him do it was to see in his mind’s eye
that faceless, soul-eating mound of corruption who had sent him here. And then
he wanted to kill something, anything; needed to, had to—

He began to work his way down the far side of the rockfall,
moving single-mindedly now; taking care not to make his movements sudden, or do
anything that would attract the attention of the mers before he could get
within range. He had to be close enough to kill one with his first shot,
because he had no way of knowing how they would react when he started shooting.
He would kill one, and if the others didn’t flee, he had come equipped with the
kind of sonic scramblers the mer hunters had always used, to drive them into
the sea in a blind panic and leave him alone with the corpse.

He was close enough now to make out the colors of their fur
clearly, the brindled brown backs, the V of golden fur on the chests of the
females. Their heads nodded gently on long, slender necks; their eyes were
filled with peace. Their flipper-footed movement on land was hardly graceful,
but its pragmatism and dignity struck him as oddly poignant. He hod done well,
he had made them strong. He had made them—

He swore again, unslinging his gun; forcing himself not to
see the vulnerability of the unsuspecting creatures below—to see only the
formless shape of his rage He pushed to his feet, balancing on the canted
surface of the rock, raising the rifle He took aim, letting his gunsight range
randomly over the herd; let it lock in on a single mer chosen by chance. He
took a breath, held it, trying to make himself fire.

Wave-driven water exploded through the blowhole on his
right, showering down on him. Drenched and blinded by icy spray, he felt his
feet go out from under him on the wet ledge. He dropped his gun, heard it
clatter down through the rocks as he scrambled frantically for a handhold. He
caught a lip of stone behind him, felt his arms wrench as they took the full
weight of his body. And then he felt his fingers lose their grip on the
algae-slick surface, letting him fall free, following his gun down into the
throat of stone.

He cried out as he fell; cried out again as his fall
abruptly stopped. He shook his head in stunned disbelief; tasted blood from his
bitten tongue. As his eyes cleared he saw black stone in front of his face ...
black stone all around him, like the shaft of a well. Far above was a slit of
blue, all he could see of the sky. Blocking his sight were his own upflung
hands, flailing like insect wings. Pain screamed along the length of his left
arm, down his side, up through his jaw as he tried, futilely, to pull them
down. He was wedged like a bug between pincers of rock. His feet were not touching
a solid surface; his legs were not free to kick or even move more than a few inches.
They were numb .... He looked down, straining to see past the angles of the
rock, and found the restless gleam of light reflected on water. A wave rolled
into his prison, breaking against his hip, chilling him to the bone a few centimeters
farther up his body. He was nearly waist-deep in water ... and the tide was
coming in.

He lost control as the realization took him; as if he had
fallen into a sea of acid, and it had already begun to eat the flesh off of his
bones. His panic-stricken struggles wrenched his arm until pain blinded him,
and only drove him deeper into the water. Terror rose in his throat; he
swallowed it down, fighting himself for the right to stay sane. There was a
remote in his backpack; he could call for help, if he could only get to it.
Niburu would come for him, pull him out of here, save him. There was still plenty
of time, if he could only reach his pack—

He tried again to shift position, moving cautiously this
time, groping along the slippery, unyielding walls for leverage, for a hold
that was never there; punished by pain every time his desperation grew and he
struggled too hard. He tried for a foothold, somewhere in the cold, surging
water below, but there was no foothold to be found.

He went on trying, for an hour, two, three, mindlessly;
refusing to accept what a part of him had known from the beginning: that it was
impossible. The digits changed on the watch strapped to his right wrist, more
accessible and more clearly visible to him than anything else in the universe.
Marking time ... his time, running out. His entire body was trembling
convulsively, but it seemed to have lost all sensation; even his battered,
aching hands had grown numb with cold and restricted circulation. Only his mind
was still clear, still registering every excruciating, humiliating second of
his last moments of life. He could not get to his remote, and even if he could,
there wasn’t enough time left now for Niburu to get here before he drowned. The
cold, inexorable sea was lapping against his throat.

He groaned softly; his helpless hands made fists in the air
above his head. Another sea swell rolled into his prison; for a moment water
lapped his chin. Something gray-green and tentacled clung to his parka, groped
his face with a pink, pulsing extrusion from its body, before it slid off him
again. He shut his eyes, feeling his mouth begin to tremble .... Feeling
something jar his dangling foot, jar itagain. He swore and struggled,
panicking, until pain shocked him into immobility

Something broke the water surface beside him. He jerked his
head around, breathing in ragged gasps—tound the dark, impenetrable eyes of a
mer staring back at him. He cried out again, in surprise, and the mer cocked
its head It pushed its face toward him, snuffling at his exposed flesh, nudging
him curiously.

“No—!” He swung his own head, hitting it in the face, his
feet flailing under the water. “Get away from me! Goddamn you, don’t touch me,
don’t touch me’”

The mer jerked back, startled, and disappeared under the
water surface He felt it jar his legs once more, hard, and then nothing.

Alone again, he felt the sea swell kiss his chin with cold
hunger, as if he were Death’s chosen lover, and Death was growing impatient ....
He felt the stunning heat of his own tears spill out and down his face, tasted
them as they ran into his mouth, salt water like the sea. He went on weeping,
as the sea reached up to wash away his tears.

“Hello—”

The sound spiraled down to him, echoing from the walls of
rock, some freakish turn on the crying of sea birds, or the distant voices of
the mers. But he raised his face toward the sky far above him, gaping into the
light. Another wave washed over his head, catching him unawares; he inhaled
water, choking and coughing.

“... help you ...”

This time he was sure he had heard it: a high, clear voice,
speaking Tiamatan He shook his eyes clear, and now he could see what seemed to
be a woman’s form, surreally limned with light, peering down at him from above.
She seemed to be made of light, impossibly shining. The Tiamatans called the
sea a goddess, the Mother, the Lady, who gives and who takes away .... “Help
me,” he gasped, echoing her, in Trade, and then in Tiamatan. “Please help me. I’m
sorry. Forgive me. Save me ....”

“I’m coming down,” she called. “I’m coming—” The radiant
vision of a woman’s form took on sudden substantiality as she moved, blocking
and unblocking the passage of light. He watched her bare feet, the strong
muscles, the paleness of her legs, as she eased herself deftly down between the
precarious walls of the cleft until she was kneeling on a shelf of rock just
above his head, with the cold stone pressing her rainbow-lit shoulders. Her
hair was silver, splintering light, as she leaned toward him, reaching out.

Another wave broke over his head, drenching him, filling his
eyes and his mouth with water; he gagged and spat.

Her hands closed over his, he felt the contact of her flesh
warm and firm against his own cold-deadened fingers. “It’s all right,” she
said, and he became aware that he was sobbing again. “It’s all right, I’ll get
you out ....” She reached down, one hand touched his face briefly.

“I’m stuck,” he said; his voice sounded like a stranger’s in
his ears. “I’m stuck I can’t move—”

“If I take your hands, if I can pull you up, maybe you can
reach the ledge “ She had hold of both his hands again; he clenched his teeth
against the coming pain as he felt his arms stretch taut, as she slowly climbed
to her feet on the narrow ledge She straightened, pulling harder, and he
screamed as the agony in his shoulder suddenly became unbearable.

She dropped to her knees, releasing the pressure, still
holding his hands. “You’re hurt—?”

He clung to her, his own grip tightening spasmodically. “I
can’t do it ....”He spat water, coughing, sucked in a long, deep breath of air
that reeked of the sea. “Need ... need a rope. In my backpack—”

He felt her shift, searching, reaching past his shoulder. “I
can’t reach your backpack!”

“Oh, gods ...”he moaned, not even sure what language he was
speaking. “Not like this ...”

“We’ll get you out,” she said fiercely. “We will! Silky—!”
she called out, following the words with a series of strange trills and clicks.

The sounds were incomprehensible to him—and yet something
stirred inside him, profoundly eager, ready to answer—He opened his eyes, only
realizing then that he had closed them. He turned his head, following her gaze;
jerked in startled surprise as he found the mer’s face beside him again in the
pool. “No!” he cried. “No—”

“Let her help you!” the woman said, pulling him back with
her voice. “We’re here to help you. Let us—!”

He looked up at her again, his eyes burning.