Medusa's Children

CHAPTER THREE

The light grew stronger as they neared the surface of the world, and Myrah had to narrow her eyes to screen out the excessive brilliance. Even in her mood of detachment, she was intrigued, as always, at the way in which her skin and that of the other swimmers began to show colour changes with the increase in brightness. Her fingertips developed tinges of red and her nipples slowly altered from near-black to a pinkish brown. As the livid quality faded from the bodies of the others she noticed that lips were now pink instead of blue, that fair hair was shining like newly-cut brass, and that even the swimmers’ eyes displayed variations in shade.

The idea crossed Myrah’s mind, not for the first time, that it was curiously wasteful for human beings to possess colour attributes which were not visible in their normal environment at the level of the Home. To her this seemed almost an indication that humans were meant to live close to the surface, although her logic was defeated by the daily temperature variations which made the uppermost levels of the world unsuitable for habitation.

The ice sheet was close above her now, and she could feel chill currents brushing across her skin. A canopy of green leaves spread out through the ice from the top of the root column, and in the distances opened up to her vision by the brilliance she could see similar giant plants, hugely motionless, forming a backdrop to the immediate scene. The other members of the group, all swimming separately now, were unfolding their bags of watertight skin and slowly paddling upwards with spears at the ready. In between the areas of foliage the surface shone with an intolerable cloudy brilliance which gave the drifting air bubbles the appearance of solid globes of silver, and made the fish darting through them glitter like multi-hued jewels.

Braving the coldness of the water, Myrah swam close to the ice and began chipping out a large section with her spear. The ice was thicker than usual because they had arrived at the surface so early in the day, and she had to work hard to cut through to the emptiness beyond. Finally the section came free, opening an irregular window to the outside, and Myrah saw the white fire of the sun burning through the encircling mist. Air bubbles crowded past her, elongating as they disappeared into the void, and she kept her head well back to reduce the risk of losing the bubble from her cage.

She drew the bag over the transparent block, being careful to exclude salt water, and sealed it by pressing the mastic-coated edges together. As soon as she had secured her quota of ice, Myrah swam down into warmer waters and waited for the rest of the group to reassemble. She was not timid by nature, but every member of the Clan knew about the strange death which awaited those who were incautious enough to let themselves be carried outside. It was said that their faces turned black as they floated away in the mist, and that—even though they were obviously screaming in agony—no sound emerged from their mouths. This was evidence enough for Myrah that the surface of the world was, in fact, the edge of an alien universe, and even the prospect of someday drifting down into Ka’s dark fronds was preferable to the thought of being suspended for ever in the sterile white loneliness outside.

Geean approached Myrah with her ice bag in tow, her hair glinting oddly red in the plentiful light. She paused to trap a bubble and said, “Give me your bag, Myrah.”

Myrah shook her head. “I’ll take it back.”

“But you came up alone—you’re entitled to swim back with one of the men.”

“I’m going alone, thanks.”

“Well … can I have your place?”

“You’re welcome to it.” Myrah spoke with a show of disinterest.

Geean smiled uncertainly. She was barely sixteen and had a fragile slimness of form which suggested to Myrah that she would begin to cough at an early age. “Don’t you want your chance, Myrah? It might be a long time before you’re on another ice trip.”

“I’m not superstitious,” Myrah said curtly.

“It isn’t a superstition.” Geean looked hurt. “Everybody knows that God makes women more fertile while they gather water for drinking. It’s been proved.”

“How do you know it isn’t something to do with our being midway between periods when we go for ice?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Myrah looked at the pinched, pretty face and was immediately sorry she had tried to weaken any structure of faith which was helping Geean through what was likely to be a short existence.

“Why don’t you give me your bag and start getting yourself a partner?” She smiled and held out her hand. “We’ll be going back soon.”

“Thanks, Myrah.” Geean squeezed her hand in gratitude while she was transferring the bag, and then darted away through the shimmering brilliance with the agility of an elver. Myrah attached the thongs of the two bags to her belt and cruised in a small circle while looking for delicacies which might be available near the surface. There was no food visible, but she found a clump of stingweed growing on a branch. It was a tough material which contracted violently when removed from contact with the water, and it was used to power the Home’s air pumps.

By the time she had cut the clump free and put it in a carrying net the other members of the group were ready for the return journey. Young Geean, looking pleased with herself, had managed to pair off with Lennar. Myrah, Caro, and the other two females who had been with men on the way up formed an outer ring. Lennar stared at Myrah for a moment, obviously wondering why she had surrendered her rightful place in the centre of the formation, but voicing any query would have implied a rejection of Geean and she knew he would not do that. He gave the signal to descend and the group swam downwards, away from the light.

Myrah had been swimming only a short time when she became aware of Caro approaching from the left. Caro closed in until their bodies were touching and merged their bubbles with an abrupt forward movement of her head.

“Why did you do it?” she whispered.

“Do what?”

“You know what I mean. Geean couldn’t make a child if she lived to be fifty.” Caro’s face was taut with anger and the filigreed petals of her bubble cage clicked against Myrah’s.

“Get back to your station,” Myrah said quietly. “You’re supposed to be on guard.”

“Nothing ever happens up here and you know it. You’re jealous of me, aren’t you?”

Myrah gripped her shoulder. “If you don’t get back to your station I’ll report you to the Council—and you won’t gather ice again until you’re too old for it to make any difference.” She pushed Caro away with a powerful thrust which spun both of their bodies.

Caro’s air bubble broke up into a flurry of tiny spheres and she had to swim a few strokes to one side to pick up a fresh one. She turned back to Myrah, intent on continuing the quarrel, and failed to see the dark brown shape darting towards her from a deep crevice in the nearby root columns.

“Behind you!” Myrah screamed, and from the corner of her eye she saw the couples in the centre of the circle break away from each other.

Caro froze for a fatal instant, her mouth wide open with shock, before twisting round to level her spear. The Horra grazed past her in a characteristic attack and its major tentacles, trailing behind the conical body, snaked around Caro, pinning her arms to her sides. She was upside down in relation to the Horra, and Myrah caught a glimpse of the ghastly organic spear of its sexual arm stabbing upwards into Caro’s throat. Caro’s body convulsed and suddenly the water all around was stained with arterial blood. The Horra, with its propulsion siphon jetting spasmodically, circled back towards its hiding place. Its course took it near the centre of the group and one of the men, Toms, lunged at it with his spear. The sharpened tube entered its mantle cavity, just behind one of the eyes. The Horra shrilled in pain, but was not slowed down.

With Caro’s body clutched against its central mouth, it continued its pulsating flight towards the root column, the two ice bags which Caro had been carrying spinning in its wake. It reached the vertical cleft and writhed inside, using the longest of its ten tentacles to give it purchase. Toms was close behind the Horra, and Myrah saw him grasp the protruding end of his spear and try to drive it further into the unseen shape. Without any fixed point to provide leverage, his limbs threshed water ineffectually as though he too had been wounded.

“Come back,” Lennar shouted to him. “There’s nothing you can do, Toms.”

“I can kill it.” Toms’ voice was cracked and distorted by the commotion in the water. “I’m going to kill it.”

Lennar signalled the rest of the group to continue moving downwards. “There’s no need, Toms—look around you.”

Toms steadied himself in the water and his face altered, the instinct for self-preservation returning, as he became aware of the amount of blood which was hazing his immediate area. He backed off immediately and swam downwards just as the first flecks of silver-blue light came speeding out of nowhere. The ripperfish were as small as a woman’s finger, but so voracious that even one of them could inflict serious wounds on an adult human. Normally unobtrusive, they appeared so quickly on the scent of blood that in Clan legend they were reputed to materialise from the water itself. Within the space of a few breaths the slow-curling billows of redness issuing from the Horra’s lair were obliterated by blankets of silver needles. Toms came swimming down to the comparative safety of the level where the group had assembled, his eyes wide with shock.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “A Horra! What was a Horra doing so near the surface?”

One of the other men handed him the spear which Caro had failed to use. “It might be something to do with the new current again, or perhaps they live on the surface in other parts of the world.”

“I don’t think so,” Lennar said. “If they were used to moving in ripperfish territory they’d know not to take any food they couldn’t swallow whole.”

“That one will have learned its mistake by this time.”

“Stop it! Stop it!” Geean’s limbs were rigid and quivering with hysteria. “Caro wasn’t food.”

“She was,” Lennar said firmly. “As soon as you stop keeping guard you turn yourself into a piece of food. It’s the first rule.”

Geean turned to him, her small face contorted with grief. “Rules! How can you talk like that when you’d just swum with her. She was carrying your rotten seed when it happened.”

“Personal feelings don’t change the rules,” Lennar said, his voice harsh. He broke away to capture an air bubble, then came back to Myrah, spreading his hands to check his forward movement. “I saw Caro with you. Why did she leave her station?”

Myrah glanced at Geean and guessed she was not ready to hear what Caro had been saying. “She thought the seal on one of my ice bags was opening up.”

“Not a good enough reason to go off guard. What did you say to her about it?”

“I told her to get back in formation “

Lennar gave Myrah a thoughtful stare. “At least I’ll be able to report to the Council that somebody did something right.”

“I want to go home,” Geean said in a quavering voice. Her face was blank, the eyes flat and lifeless.

Lennar shook his head. “Not just yet—we can’t afford to leave Toms’ spear.”

Myrah followed his gaze upward and saw that the swarm of ripperfish had already begun to thin out, its food supply almost exhausted. In a few moments all the small glittering bodies had vanished. Lennar swam up to the crevice and looked inside. Myrah knew he would see nothing but one human skeleton and the single pen-shaped, subcutaneous shell which would be all that remained of the Horra. He put his arm into the lair, withdrew a spear and swam back to the group, collecting Caro’s slowly tumbling ice bags on the way. His face, behind the reflective veil of his air bubble, showed no trace of emotion, but to Myrah’s eyes he seemed older than at the start of the trip.

There was little conversation during the return to the bottom of the euphotic zone. The members of the group swam separately, but in close formation, one of the men adopting a feet-first attitude so that he could scan the water above and behind them. It had never been known for any of the Horra to approach the surface before, but if it had happened once it could happen again and, as the leader of the group, Lennar did not want to take unnecessary risks. Myrah found herself wondering if the loss of Caro would affect the long-established mating rituals of the ice-gathering swims. It was hard to accept that a custom so central to the Clan’s way of life might have to be abandoned, but her mind kept returning to a remark Lennar had made early in the day.

The world seems to be changing, he had said. At that time, still fresh from her night’s sleep, Myrah had been scornful—now she was filled with a gloomy certainty that he had been right.

The Home was a scene of unusual activity when they descended on it out of the silent blue waters.

Everywhere that Myrah looked on the vast, amorphous structure she glimpsed the figures of men and women either carrying ropes from one point to another, or busy reinforcing the anchorages of the outer defensive mesh. In those places where the dark shapes of houses projected through the mesh they were criss-crossed with new lines, like whales which were being prevented from making ponderous escapes.

Myrah was disturbed by what she saw. With the almost complete lack of gravity it was easy to secure an edifice as large as the Home, its various attachments to the root columns being used principally to prevent the inner air net from deforming under the action of stray currents. Now, however, it seemed that the Home was being reinforced to withstand an abnormally powerful attack from outside. Myrah turned her head, taking a general view of her environment, and became aware of the fact that the endless shoals of air bubbles, upon which her people depended for their lives, were drifting downwards at a more noticeable rate than had been the case in the morning. Her sense of being threatened grew stronger.

They reached the smaller netted bubble which surrounded the Topeast entrance and went into it one by one. Old Shire, who was back on sentry duty, urged them through with excited gestures which made Myrah resolve not to betray her own fears. She manoeuvred her position so as to be the last of the group to go inside and paused by Shire. The skin bags she was transporting, their contents now melted down into water, surged against her legs as she stopped.

“Keep moving,” Shire commanded impatiently.

“What’s going on?”

“Solman has called a Clan meeting.”

“Why? What happened?”

“The Home has shifted and …” Shire paused, scowling, suddenly aware he was weakening his new-found authority. “It isn’t for the likes of you or me to question the Council, is it?”

Myrah shrugged, handed him her spear and went through to the protected inner waters of the Home. Four strokes took her to the nearest opening in the interior net and she passed through its clinging folds into the giant, artificially maintained bubble in which the people of the Clan spent most of their lives. She took off her bubble cage, closed up its leaves like a fan, and hooked it into her belt. Adapting easily to the change of environment, she propelled herself through the air in a series of gentle flights from guide rope to guide rope, eventually arriving at the dark oval mouth of the water store. The custodian, Jule—a fat woman whose eyes were featureless milky orbs—accepted the water bags from her with a fixed smile. She steered the bulging skins into a net which held others brought in by the group.

“Thank you, Myrah love,” she said. “Had a good trip?”

“No. Didn’t they tell you? We lost Caro.”

“A pity.” Jule’s smile faded, but was quickly renewed. “Razorfin? Shark?”

“Horra.”

“Up at the surface?”

“It might have been lost,” Myrah said sarcastically. She was as familiar with premature and violent death as any member of the Clan, but she disliked the blind woman’s casual acceptance of the news about Caro. Deciding to change the subject, she glanced around the interior of the water store. It had been chosen for its purpose because, unlike other houses in the Home, it was small and constructed of a whitish metal which seemed immune to serious corrosion. The metal was much thinner than in the bigger houses and its reinforcing ribs were pierced with large circular holes, presumably for decoration.

“I’d love to know where this house came from,” Myrah said, touching a sawn edge of metal which protruded from the mastic which held the net in place around the entrance.

“The Clan fathers built it.”

“Why?”

“To store water, of course.”

Myrah considered asking Jule why a water store should have three large fin-like extrusions at its closed end, then decided there was little point. Jule was quite capable of saying that a house which enabled humans to live in water like fish ought to be shaped like a fish. She had lost her sight many years earlier in an encounter with a cumberfish, an immobile species which defended itself by explosive evisceration of its own body when it felt menaced. Usually this resulted in no more than a scare for the swimmer concerned, but the cumberfish had been in a poisonous condition and Jule had contracted an eye disease. Since then she had survived by being optimistic about everything, and Myrah had no wish to infect her with her own mood of depression.

Looking outside the house she saw a fairly steady stream of people flying down into the central region and guessed the Clan meeting was about to start. She said goodbye to Jule and propelled herself from the lip of the water store entrance and slanted down through the webs of rope, suddenly aware that she had had no food since the previous day. There was still time to go to the Artisan family house and pick up a tablet of dried fish—large meetings were always difficult to organise—but her curiosity about what Solman was going to say was too strong. She continued her downward flight to where the Clan had assembled in the largest open space, ranged along guide ropes like complicated beads.

There were less than two hundred of them, and yet this was the total strength of the Clan, excluding infants and the few adults who were engaged on essential work such as guarding the entrances. Myrah had often heard that there had been many more Humans in the Home in the old days, but it saddened her to realise that, even were their numbers to be doubled or trebled, the people of the Clan would still be as nothing compared to the teeming life forms beyond the nets. It seemed to her that their status in the order of things was not merely insignificant, but that it was dangerously close to not existing at all. They were dependent on the fine balance of too many forces; their resources were dwindling to the point at which a single disaster could be sufficient to wipe them out altogether.

And, for all she knew, the final tragedy had already begun. The new current, the disappearance of the best edible fish from their usual feeding grounds, Horra spreading upwards from their dark domain to the surface of the world—all of these could be portents….

“I’d like to know what’s wrong with you today,” Lennar said, coming down from behind her and grasping the same rope. He caught her belt with his hand and drew their bodies into momentary contact with a courtesy which was at variance with the terseness of his voice.

“Perhaps I don’t like seeing people being eaten,” Myrah replied without looking at him.

“It started before that.”

“L …” Myrah turned reluctantly to face him. “I think I’m afraid, Lennar. I can’t see the Clan going on like this for much longer.”

“Is that all? I thought it was something serious.”

“I’m serious, Lennar.”

He pushed his wet black hair away from his forehead and droplets of water slowly swam away in the air, twinkling like minnows. “I told you I don’t think about that kind of thing—but if the Clan has always been here why should it suddenly come to an end.”

“Has it always been here?”

“Where else is there? Be logical, Myrah.” Lennar smiled at her and gave a gentle, tentative thrust with his pelvis. She responded automatically, comforted by his practicality and strength, then her attention was distracted by a low murmur from the assembly as Solman appeared at the entrance to the house of the Council. He was by far the oldest member of the Clan—thought by some to have reached the age of fifty—and the remaining wisps of his hair had turned fish-belly white. Arthritis, which was so common among elders, had restricted the mobility of his limbs to the extent that he rarely was able to enter the water, but he could still fly accurately in air, with a kind of rigid majesty which was somehow in keeping with his position of authority. Circular blue scars patterned his body, proclaiming a veteran of many battles against the Horra.

Myrah watched him with interest, and a perverse flicker of pleasure. She had long been of the opinion that the Clan’s leader should concern himself with broader issues than the daily work schedules and the other endless petty details of Home life which appeared to occupy all of Solman’s thoughts. Unable to pursue his own activities, he used his power to control the lives of his people in dozens of different and irksome ways. He had, for example, instituted the procedure under which no woman was allowed to pass beyond the defensive mesh without the tally from her House Mother. Myrah regarded the system as both a denial of her individual liberty and an insult to her intelligence. Now, however, Solman was faced with a situation which was a genuine test of leadership, and she was eager to see how he would cope with it. Solman raised his hands to bring silence to the assembly.

“This should be interesting,” Myrah whispered.

“Let him speak before you judge,” Lennar said.

“He’s only going to….” She broke off as Lennar tightened his grip on her belt and twisted it warningly.

“My children,” Solman began in a hoarse voice which scarcely reached the outer circles of his audience, “by this time you will all be aware that we, as a people, are faced with a problem which is unprecedented in our history. The steady downward transfer of water which began twelve days ago has now….”

He paused to allow an audible ripple of surprise to die away. “I know that the existence of the current became obvious only three days ago when its speed began to build up, but it was detected some time earlier. The Council decided against making any announcement or taking any precipitate action until we were certain that the current was not merely a freakish—but nonetheless natural—phenomenon which would eventually correct itself.

“Today, as you know, it became necessary to strengthen all the anchorages of the Home to prevent movement of the houses and nets … and it is my duty now to inform you that, in the opinion of the Council, we are facing a major crisis. The speed of the current increases slightly each day as it establishes itself. We do not know how long this process will continue, but even if we could reinforce the Home to withstand it, there is the inescapable fact that it will eventually rob us of our air supplies.

“The Council have debated the problem for many hours, and we have chosen a course of action. I will not pretend to you that we are sure our choice is the correct one, or that it will necessarily end the threat to the Home. All I can tell you is that it is the only positive plan we can conceive, and that—to implement it—some of you will be called upon to display the ultimate degree of courage.”

There was an immediate uproar which prevented Solman from continuing, and a visible wave of agitation swept through the hemispherical duster of men and women he was facing. Myrah had listened to his words with a growing sense of astonishment. This was not the fussy, trivialising Solman she had previously encountered in the day-to-day life of the Home. His face was grave and yet calm, and the formality of his speech—with liberal use of terms whose meaning she had to guess from context—had created in her mind a new impression of him, a semblance of one of the mysterious and dignified king-figures of her childhood. It came to her that all along she might have been too superficial and facile with her estimates of Solman’s character and worth. The realisation brought with it a feeling of shame mingled with pleasure over the discovery that the Clan’s leaders were more capable than she had supposed.

Is it possible, she wondered, newly hopeful, that they know what to do?

Solman raised his hands again, commanding silence. “We are almost certain,” he said, “that the new current is not one of the natural mechanisms by which the world adjusts to temperature changes, and that its motive force must lie close to the centre of the world.”

There was a second commotion among his audience, and this time Myrah detected an undertow of fear, a sinking of the communal spirit. Her skin prickled coldly as she began to have premonitions about what was coming next.

“We have a number of choices,” Solman continued. “We could cut the Home free, before it is destroyed, and perhaps go with it wherever the current takes us. We could abandon the. Home, and take one or two houses to another, safer location where we can begin rebuilding. Or we could decide to fight the current and keep on strengthening our ties and anchorages.

“But if we can act at all in this matter, it can only be on the basis of definite knowledge. If we can act at all, it cannot be done at a distance. The Council is therefore asking for six volunteers who are prepared to follow the new current as far into the darkness as it will take them.”

Paradoxically, Myrah’s first reaction was one of relief. Ka was waiting at the heart of the world, and it suddenly came to her that, no matter how unsatisfactory her life might be, she was immeasurably better off than any of the six who would journey down to meet him. It was good, marvellously good, to know that—while they were sinking, heroically but so foolishly, into death’s domain—she would sleep in the security of the Home. She looked around her, luxuriating in the warm sense of being one of the crowd, curious to see which of the others would be sufficiently vainglorious, sufficiently suicidal, to go forward.

Her whole body stiffened with shock as, before she could move to prevent him, Lennar cast off from beside her. He flew downwards in silence, through the sad blue light, and was caught and steadied by Solman’s right hand. Myrah saw Solman whisper something to Lennar before embracing him.

Insufficient reward, she thought. That’s not enough.

There was a flicker of movement to her left as another member of the Clan went forward, a woman named Treece who had always been something of an enigma to Myrah. In the distance she saw a man beginning to move, but her attention was distracted by an event closer at hand. Myrah shook her head in disbelief as she identified the pale, slim form of young Geean, the immature girl who had been overwhelmed by the sight of one unremarkable death only a short time earlier. Geean’s flight took her straight to Lennar, and Myrah began to wonder if there was some kind of emotional fixation involved. If there was she might have contributed to it by bringing Geean and Lennar together during the morning’s swim.

“This is madness,” she said aloud, launching herself free of the guide rope. During the first few moments of her flight she was almost able to believe she was moving to intercept Geean, but then—as Solman’s arms spread to receive her—she understood that only by surrendering her life had she any hope of giving it real meaning.