Humanx - Cachalot Part 1

Humanx.

Cachalot.

Foster, Alan Dean.

Mustapha Ali sat on the end of Rorqual Towne and was not seasick. There was nothing any save an outsider would have found remarkable in this. Mus- tapha had lived all his long life on Cachalot, and those who are bom to that world know less of seasickness than a worm does of Andromeda. All born on Cacha- lot rest in two cradles: their nursery, and the greater nursery of the all-encompa.s.sing Mother Ocean. Those who arrived on Cachalot from other worlds did not long remain if they proved susceptible to motion sick- ness.

It was a great change, wrought by history and ac- cident, Mustapha thought as he let his burl-dark legs dangle over the side of the dock. They moved a meter or so above the deep green-black water. His ancestors had come from a high, dry section of Earth, where the sea was only a tale told to wide-eyed children. And here he lived, where most of the land was imported.

His ancestors had been great players of the game.

That was his only regret, not being able to carry on the tradition of the game. For where on Cachalot could one find fifty fine hors.e.m.e.n and a dead goat? Mus- tapha had settled for being a champion water polo player, having mastered that game and its many local variants in his youth. Compared with the game of his forebears, all had been gentle and undemanding.

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Now he was reduced to experiencing less strenuous pleasures, but he was not unhappy. The old-fashioned fishing pole he extended over the water had been hand- wrought in his spare time from a single piece of broad- cast antenna. A line played out through the notch cut in the far end, vanished beneath the surface below the dock. The antenna had once served to seek out invis- ible words from across the sky and water. Now it helped him find small, tasty fish at far shorter distances.

Mustapha glanced at the clouds writhing overhead, winced when a drop of rain caught him in the eye. The possible storm did not appear heavy. As always, the sky looked more threatening than it would eventually prove to be. Thunder bl.u.s.tered and echoed, but did not dislodge the elderly fisherman from his place.

Behind him the town of Rorqual rested stolidly on the surface. The nearest actual land, the Swinburne Shoals, lay thirty meters beneath. For all that, the town sat motionless on the sea. A vast array of centerboards and crossboards and complex counterjets held it steady against the rising chop. Held it steady so as to provide its inhabitants with a semblance of stability, to provide old Mustapha with a safe place to fish.

The dock was empty now, the catcherboats and gatherers out working. The long stretch of unsinkable gray polymer disappeared beneath a warehouse, the dock being only one of dozens of such supports for the town.

But there was no counterjet or centerboard to hold the dock completely motionless. Four meters wide and equally thick, it bobbed gently to the natural rhythm of the sea. That was why Mustapha chose to fish from the dock's end instead of from one of the more stable outer streets of the town. When he was playing with the ocean and its occupants, he preferred the feel of their environment. It was a cadence, a viscous march that was as much a part of his life as his own heart- beat.

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The rain began to pelt him, running down his long white hair. He ignored it. The inhabitants of Cachalot's floating towns had water next to their skin as often as air. Here near the equator the fat drops were warm, almost hot on his bare upper chest. They rolled down from his bald forehead and itched in his drooping mus- tache.

The pole communicated with his fingers. He lifted it.

A small yellow fish wriggled attractively on the hook, its four blue eyes staring dully into the unfamiliar me- dium in which it now found itself.

Mustapha debated whether to unhook it, decided the fish would serve him better as bait for larger game.

He let the fresh catch drop back into the water. An electronic caller would have drawn more food fish than he could have carried, but such a device would have seemed incongruous functioning in tandem with the hook and line. Mustapha enjoyed fishing in the tradi- tional way. He did not fish for food, but for life.

An occasional flash of awkward lightning illuminated the dark underbelly of the storm, forming drainage sys- tems in the sky. The flare made candle flames of the wave crests. He knew there was more heat than fury in the discharges. Then" frequency told him the storm would not last long. Nor was it the season of the heavy rains.

Occasional drops continued to wet him. He was alone on the dock. Thirty minutes, he thought, and the sun will be out again. No more than that. Perhaps then I will have more luck.

So he stayed there in his shorts and mustache and waited patiently for a bite. Some thought the pose and activity undignified for the town's computer-planner emeritus, but that did not bother Mustapha. He was wise enough to know that madness and old age excuse a mult.i.tude of eccentricities, and he had something of both.

A few deserted gathering ships, sleek vessels wide of beam, were secured two docks away from him. A cou- ple of magnetically anch.o.r.ed skimmers bobbed off to his right. Their crews would be on their week of off- duty, he reflected, home with family or carousing con- tentedly in the town's relaxation center.

An affectionate but uncompromising type, Mustapha in his early years had tried life with two different women. They had left more scars on him than all the carnivores he had battled in the name of increasing the town's catch.

His reverie was interrupted by a new, stronger tug at the line. His attention focused on where it inter- sected the surface. The tug came again, insistent, and the antenna pole curved seaward in a wide arc, its far end pointing like a hunting dog down into the water.

Mustapha held tight to the metal pole, began crank- ing the homemade reel. There was a lot of line, and it was behaving oddly. It was almost as if something were entangled in the line itself, not fighting the grip of the hook.

A shape was barely visible down in the dark water.

Whatever it was, it was moving very quickly. It came nearer, growing until it was altogether too large. The old man's eyes grew wide above the gray mustache.

He flung away the pole and the laboriously fashioned reel. The rod bounced once on the end of the bobbing pier before tumbling into the water.

Mustapha ignored it as he ran toward the town. His raised voice was matched by the sudden cry of the town's defense sirens. He did not make it beyond the end of the pier. As it turned out, it would not have made any difference if he had.

Two days later the first of Rorqual Towne's wander- ing fisherfleet returned, a gatherer loaded several heads high with the magical Coreen plant and many crates of sleset-of-the-pennanent-spice. The wealth the cargo represented was now rendered meaningless to the men

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and women of the ship's crew by what they did not find.

Though they crossed and recrossed anxiously and tearfully above Swinburne Shoals, they found no sign of Mustapha Ali. Nor did they find their families or sweethearts, not a single one of the eight hundred in- habitants of Rorqual Towne.

Shattered bits of household goods, a few sc.r.a.ps of clothing, fragments of homes, and pieces of families mixed in with chunks of gray-white eggsh.e.l.l polymer, were all that remained of the town. These, an engima, and the memory of once happy lives.

And for some on the woe-laden boat, the worst of it was the knowledge that this was not the first time . . .

Far, far above the sc.r.a.p of green sea once occupied by Rorqual Towne, a vast, quiet shape rested silently in a much more diffuse ocean. The occupants of the bulbous metal form were divorced by time and dis- tance from that oceanic tragedy and its cousins.

A comparatively tiny, sharp shadow of the gleaming hulk detached itself from the great stem and dropped like a silver leaf toward the atmospheric sea immedi- ately below. Though it displayed the motions normally indicative of life, the shadow was but a dead thing that served to convoy the living, a shuttlecraft falling from the KK drive transport that dwarfed it like a worker termite leaving its queen.

The argent arrowhead shape turned slightly. Its rear exuded puffs of white, and the craft began to drop more rapidly, more confidently, toward the world be- low, a world of all adamantine blue-white, a great azurite globe laced with a delicate matrix of cloud.

A full complement of twelve pa.s.sengers stared out the shuttle's ports as the vessel curved into its approach pattern. Some stared at the nearing surface expectantly, thoughts of incipient fortune percolating through their minds. Others were more relaxed. These were the re- turning inhabitants, sick of s.p.a.ce and land, anxious once more to be on the waters. A few regarded the growing sphere with neither antic.i.p.ation nor greed.

They were full of the tales of the strange life and beauty that slid tantalizingly through the planetary ocean.

Only one stared fixedly at the surface with the gaze of a first-time lover, youthful exhilaration mixing with the calm detachment of the mature scientist. Cora Xamantina kept her nose pressed against the port. An air release below prevented her breath from fogging it.

Intense reflected light from Cachalot's star made her obsidian skin appear polished behind the gla.s.salloy. It shone on the high cheekbones that hinted at Amerind heritage, on the delicate features almost eclipsed by those protruding structures. Only the vast black eyes, coins of the night, stood out in that heart-shaped face.

They darted excitedly from one section of the globe to another. Her hair, tied in a single thick braid that ran to her waist, swung like a pendulum with her move- ments.

Physically Cora Xamantina was in her midforties.

Mentally she was somewhat older. Emotionally she was aged. She was no taller than an average adolescent and slim to the point of boyishness. A surprisingly deep voice, coupled with a vivacity that was anything but matronly, was all that kept her from being mistaken for a child.

Even when she was quiet, as she was now, her hands and shoulders seemed always in motion, her body lan- guage elegant and personal. She came from stock that included both slaver and slave, both of whose destinies had been molded and sacrificed to the recovery of the sap of a certain tree. Slavers and slaves were part of history long past now. For the most part, sadly, so were the trees.

She commented frequently on the beauty of the world they were steadily approaching. Her descriptions were intended for the younger woman seated next to her. For the most part, they were accepted with an air of helpless resignation by the taller, far more volup- tuous shadow of herself. Where Cora's movements were frequent and full of nervous energy, those of the younger woman were all languorous stretchings and physical sighs. She cradled a peculiar and very special musical instrument in her arms and made no attempt to appear anything other than bored.

"Isn't it beautiful, Rachael?" Cora leaned back in her deceleration lounge. "Here-lean over and you can see, too." The enervated siren made no move to peer outward. "Don't you want to see? We're going to be living down there, you know."

"Only temporarily." She sighed tiredly. "I know what Cachalot looks like. Mother. G.o.d knows how many tapes of it you've made me study since you found out we were being a.s.signed there. Maybe I have got a year's work left to finish at the Inst.i.tute, but I still know how to do homework." Her eyes turned to study the narrow aisle running down the center of the shuttle. "The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can get back to Terra and the better I'll like it!"

"Is that all you can think of to say, girl? We're not even down yet and already you can't wait to leave?"

"Mother ... please!" It was a warning.

"All right." Cora made calming gestures with man- nequin hands, the long fingers fluttering restrainingly.

"I'm not asking for commitment until we've been down there for a while. You're only my special a.s.sist- ant on this a.s.signment, just as it says in the directive.

The fact that you're also my daughter is incidental."

"Fine. Suits me fine."