Down to a Sunless Sea

22 The Monster

When they became hungry or thirsty, the golden children ate or drank, careless of whether their fellows were hungry or not. There seemed to be no particular discipline or regularity about the faery ship that Brant could see.

And when they became sleepy, they simply lay down carelessly wherever they were, and curled up for a nap.

“These kids obviously don’t have any enemies to worry about,” Brant observed to Harbin. “If they did, they wouldn’t be so lax about regulating the things they do. It’s a wonder they ever get anything done.”

“I’ve been wondering why they were flying over the mainland, myself,” mused the scientist. “Maybe just for a boyish romp. …”

Brant called his friend’s attention to two youngsters who were casually making love a little ways apart from where the two men sat.

“Wonder how they keep the birth rate down,” chuckled Brant. Then, as the two lovers reversed position, he reddened and looked hastily away. For they were both boys of about fourteen or so.

“Maybe that’s how!” chuckled Doc.

They ceased puzzling over the motive for the flight of aerial riders who had captured them a bit later on, when a similar flight of whooping boys and girls took off from the perches, and headed out to sea, waving their glassy lances and calling to each other. They returned to the ship an hour later, their lassoes heavy with fat, glistening creatures that flopped and wriggled.

“Sea-slugs,” Harbin decided. “Floating on the surface in schools or whatever the proper term would be, perhaps feeding on algae. The sea has some life, after all!”

Brant grunted a heavy monosyllable, chewing on his under-lip and wondering queasily to himself if that had been the source of the lumps of meat in the peppery sauce of which they had eaten earlier. He put the question firmly out of his mind, deciding he would rather not know.

They watched as the laughing children sliced up the greasy, glistening sluglike creatures, prying out the more succulent inner meat, which they popped into bubbling kettles swung from the rafters of the galley. The superstructure of the ship, by the way, was quite open. There were no walls, just posts and braces, covered with rattan screens you could easily see right through.

Doc ambled over to investigate the cooking pots, and returned with a baffled frown on his face. “Boiling hot water, with herbs and spices in it,” he announced.

“So,” yawned Brant, who was getting sleepy.

“There’s no sign of a fire,” Harbin said. “Be hard enough, even dangerous, to maintain any kind of a fire or oven on a ship as flimsy, and as flammable, as this one is. One strong wave, and the deck would be afire in dozens of places, just from the scattering coals!”

Brant suggested they put the problem down as one more of the many mysteries of this fantastic cavern-world, and rolled over to go to sleep for a while.

Brant awoke a time later when a large hand was laid upon his naked shoulder, then removed. He sat up on one elbow to find Tuan squatting on his heels nearby, looking at him gravely.

“Well, what is it that the chieftain Tuan wishes of Brant?” he asked, using the more polite and formal mode of the Tongue.

“Tuan has conferred with his warriors,” said the other gruffly. “All of us are being borne away into slavery; there is no other answer to the question of why the Strange Ones captured us and are carrying us away.”

“Brant doubts the truth of that supposition, but continue.”

“The children are without weapons—even the strange spears they bear are used only for the control of their riding-beasts,” observed the chieftain. Brant nodded: he had examined one of the lances, finding the flat, leaf-shaped blade dull, with neither edge nor point that was sharp enough to do injury.

“Say on.”

“It is true, even as Brant has spoken, that to fire upon the children would cause a warrior to lose Honor,” muttered Tuan. “But we are all stronger than they are, being grown men and women, and can overpower them with ease, merely binding them. Then we can return to the place of the stair …”

“How does Tuan plan to run the ship?” countered Brant. “Do the warriors of Tuan’s band, stalwart and brave men all, as Brant has no doubt, think to ride the flying-beasts?”

Tuan opened his mouth, then blinked once or twice, eyes dulling. Obviously, he had not thought of that.

“And is Tuan certain of the direction in which the ship must travel, for us to return to the place of the stair?” continued Brant. He knew very well that the People had a mysterious, inborn sense of direction that was often uncanny to Earthsiders, but he doubted if the instinct would work very well down here.

“We … ah … need only go back in the opposite direction,” said Tuan, but he sounded uncertain.

“It seems to Brant that we may have changed direction slightly, or more than slightly, when we slept or feasted or conversed, ceasing to notice such things.”

“What, then, does Brant suggest? Does he wish to become the slave of careless children, and he a grown man, even a warrior of sorts?”

“It is the suggestion of Brant that there be truce between us, the warriors of Tuan and those who accompanied Brant hither, for the time being. Once we have arrived at our destination, whatever it is, there will be time enough to take such actions as seem best to us all. Remember,” he added, falling out of the formal mode of speech and into the vernacular, “the children have not disarmed your warriors, O Tuan. I doubt if they even realize the guns are weapons. So we will get to where we’re going with our arms intact and ready.”

Squatting there, humming a tuneless song under his breath, Tuan chewed it over, finally nodding.

Rising to his feet, he said, “It shall be as Brant advises. A truce—for now.”

“And remember one thing I mentioned earlier,” Brant said. “We don’t know what strange powers these people may have—”

With a nod of acquiescence, Tuan stalked off to rejoin his band.

And Brant went back to sleep.

He was awakened suddenly by a shrill chorus of cries of alarm and consternation. Spring to his feet, he stared around him so as to discover the cause of the commotion. It took him only moments to spot the thing that had alarmed the children.

For, rising out of the luminous sea was something resembling the sea-slugs the flying hunters had captured for their larder. The main difference was the matter of size. While the hunters’ prey had been no bigger than small dogs, this sea-slug—if that is what it actually was—must have been the great-grand-daddy of them all, for it was as big around as a house, and must have been three hundred feet long.

Like the smaller versions they had seen earlier, its jellylike flesh was lucent to the point of transparency. As it broke the waves again, heaving its glistening, glassy bulk high, he saw that it was blind and faceless, save for a wet, working sphincter-like orifice which must have served it as mouth.

It looked harmless enough, for all its appalling size. But the sheer tonnage of the sea-monster could easily swamp or crush their flimsy vessel.

Will Harbin and the others joined him at the rail, staring with wide eyes at the huge sea-thing, while the golden children squealed and milled in confusion.

Tuan and his warriors came to the rail, hefting their power guns determinedly. Brant grabbed the chieftain’s arm.

“Don’t fire unless the monster heads in our direction,” he said in urgent tones. “These people have not yet recognized what we carry as being weapons. Why let them find out so soon?”

Tuan nodded grimly, muttering a curt order to his outlaws.

But, as things turned out, the energy weapons were not needed, although suddenly the monstrous sea-slug turned and came for the ship.

Some of the older youths had gone down into the cabins, and now came pelting up the stair holding strange objects in their right hands. These looked for all the world like glass doorknobs, with a rod small enough to hold in the palm of your hand and pointed knobs at either end.

These peculiar implements were carved from some dark, cloudy semilucent mineral that rather resembled lead-crystal, except that within the pointed knobs an eerie spark of blue flame flickered.

The youths pointed the crystal rods at the sea-beast as it came wallowing through the sluggish waves toward the ship.

Brant uttered an exclamation. Zuarra clutched his arm. Harbin stared wildly.

Darts of blue fire shot from the points of the crystal weapons, to stab and burn the jellied flesh of the sea-monster! Its sphincter-like maw opened and shut as if gasping in pain. It writhed, shrinking from the needle-thin bolts of uncanny blue fire. Then it turned away, sinking beneath the surface, and did not reappear.

The travelers looked at one another, wordless.

The youths watched vigilantly for a time, but when the giant slug failed to emerge a second time, they went below to the storage-space to return the strange weapons to their place.

Shaken, Tuan looked at Brant with something like a touch of admiration in his eyes.

“Wise were the counsels of Brant, when he gave warning to Tuan against using our weapons against the children, saying that we knew not what powers they might possess,” he said unsteadily.

Brant nodded. So, the ship-people had energy weapons of their own! That was something to think about… .