Involution Ocean

Wonderful, I thought. A few hundred camouflaged kill­ers would add spice to the Nullaquan existence. I wondered how large the creatures grew. Ten feet? Perhaps as much as twenty? There appeared the image of a venomous mon­ster as big as a sequoia, biding its time in the dry black darkness beneath the ship. One massive barbed tentacle wrapped around the Lunglance, a negligent tug, and there would be another quick addition to the mysteries of the sea. Hunger would be too strong a motive; why, mere curi­osity would be abundantly fatal.

Dalusa spotted a pod of dustwhales that day, but by the time the Lunglance reached the spot they had vanished.

The anemone continued to grow. Desperandum pru­dently put a weighted iron grating on top of the urn. Hie crewman gave the jar a wide berth whenever possible, es­pecially when the creature would stick its barbed appen­dages out into the open air and wiggle them energetically. As it grew, the anemone was growing darker; now its arms were the color of dried blood.

When young Meggle came in for the officers’ lunch at noon, he told me sullenly that the captain wanted to see me. I reported to the cabin after a suitable lapse of time. Desperandum was just finishing his meal.

We went to the cabin; Desperandum ostentatiously shut the door. “I suppose you must have heard the rumor that I’m thinking of heading the ship for Glimmer Bay.”

That was the reputed home of the last anemones. “Yes, I’ve heard it,” I lied decisively.

“What do you think of it?” he said.

I felt that his frankness called for an evasion on my part.

“I’d like to hear your reasons for going first.”

“Very well. It concerns the specimen, of course. I’d like to keep it on board and study its habits, perhaps donate it later to the Church Zoo in the Highisle. On the other hand, it would be unethical to deprive an endangered species of a potential member of its gene pool. I’d have to see the situa­tion for myself, take a census of the anemone population. Of course, that could be inconvenient.”

The captain did not seem inclined to go further. He leaned back in his swivel chair and steepled his blunt broad fingers.

“Let’s count up the advantages and disadvantages of each course of action,” I said at last. “First the case against going. It’s out of our way and will lengthen the voyage. It’s a voyage into essentially unexplored territory, with danger from shoals and currents. And the Lunglance might be attacked by anemones.”

“There’s not really much danger in that,” Desperandum interrupted mildly. “Even at their heyday the largest known anemone was only thirty feet long. Not large enough to menace the ship as a whole.”

“We might lose a crew member, though.”

“Possible. And you’ve left out a hazard. Glimmer is a very small bay, almost completely landlocked. The sun shines there for only about an hour a day. The gloominess and the walls are said to cause acute depression, melancho­lia, claustrophobia, even for the native Nullaquan.”

I lifted my brows.

“Oh, it’s quite plausible,” Desperandum said. “Have you ever visited Perseverance?”

“No, sir.”

“I have, of course. It’s quite depressing there, too; it’s built half a mile up fhe cliff on the western side of a narrow bay, with an unpleasant climate and an overwhelming sense of the presence of thousands of miles of solid rock. I have little doubt that the choice of that site as a center of religion and government has had a profound effect on the Nullaquan character.” Desperandum sighed and folded his hands over his stomach.

“Well, then, sir, considering the advantages of this side trip,” I said, when an uncomfortable silence had hobbled by on crippled feet. “I can only think of two. First, knowl­edge about the anemone population; second, a decision as to what to do with your little specimen! Now, as I see it, the first erne involves danger to both the crew and the wild­life. And as for the second, well, it depends on the rarity of the specimens. And since you caught one in a single day, with a single net, I can hardly believe that they are really very rare.

“And one last thing. We’re approaching Perseverance now. It would be simple to stop there and consult the Church about mounting a special expedition.”

Desperandum looked at me stonily. “I tried that four years ago. They listened politely and then asked me for my Academy diploma.”

I thought about apologizing and decided against it. It would have only have heightened the captain’s sense of in­feriority, his resentment at his lack of legitimate status. “Your arguments are good, but I’m not convinced,” Des­ perandum said. “We will explore the bay.”

I had expected as much.

The crew showed no surprise when ordered to sail north, tacking against the wind. Theirs was not to reason why. Besides, by this time they were probably incapable of it.

Later, I leaned on the starboard rail and looked at the tier after tier of ridged and battered rock that rose and rose in ragged rows to the planet’s surface. It was a dry, bright morning, like all Nullaquan mornings. The monotony irri­tated me. A blast of freezing wind, a thick fog, or a savage hailstorm would have been a relief. My sinuses were giving me trouble; my chapped and itchy hands were slick with some unpleasant lotion that the first mate had given me. I didn’t like the lotion much. Below in the kitchen, where I could remove my mask, it stank.

I heard the rasp of thorns on an iron grating. The anem­one had been growing quickly on Desperandum’s pam­pering diet, as if it were only too eager to reach breeding age and help in its species’ promised comeback. It seemed cramped In its jar and pulled repeatedly on its grating, as if building up its strength.

Dalusa was out on patrol, trying to locate the narrow inlet into Glimmer Bay. Desperandum navigated using ae­rial maps of the crater, made by the original colony ship. They were five hundred years old. Glimmer Bay had not even existed then.

I saw Dalusa come winging in from the north-northwest. She alighted neatly in the crow’s nest, honked her horn to alert the crew, and then leapt into space. She fell in a neat parabola, opening her wings and with a snap just before breaking her ribs on the rail. She enjoyed that.

Dalusa flew swiftly away until she was a white speck against the dark background of cliff. There she caught a thermal and circled as the Lunglance tacked sluggishly after her.

When we reached an immense promontory of fallen rock, Dalusa swept gracefully around it, out to sea. Sud­ denly she shot southwards, flapping energetically but mak­ing no more headway than a swimmer in a rip tide. It was a wind, a strong one. Dalusa wheeled to face it. She still made no headway, but began to gain height. The ship sailed nearer. I was able to see a thin, sleeting fog now, at the dust-air interface. There were no waves.

Dalusa seemed to be tiring. She kept gaining height, but now she was losing ground out to sea.

Suddenly she entered an area of calm. She slowed her climb, but was then caught by another wind, equally pow­erful but blowing in the opposite direction. She backed against it, tried to turn, looped sickeningly when she hit a patch of turbulence. Wind tore at the loose dress that was all she wore.

Recovering, Dalusa shut her wings and dropped. She gained speed, corrected her trajectory slightly in mid- fall, then opened her wings and swooped toward the ship. She had judged the windspeed beautifully. She faced the edge of the promontory. She faced it—there had always been something a little odd about the structure of her neck. Tlie two vectors, correcting one another, sent her gliding to­ward the ship. She made it, soared gracefully over the port rail, and collapsed silently on the deck in a wing-shrouded heap.

Mr. Flack was at her side in an instant. He extended a hand to touch her shoulder, remembered in time, and drew back. Dalusa’s long thin arms trembled with fatigue. She had hidden her face—her mask, actually—under one wing. Flack could do nothing for her. His medical knowledge did not extend to nonhumans.

“Get the lady a pallet,” Flack said harshly. “Water. Rest.”

The doctor’s panacea for those beyond his comprehen­sion. I took a blanket from our harpooneer, Blackburn, wrapped it carefully around Dalusa, and lifted her effort­lessly. She weighed perhaps forty pounds, that was mostly muscle. Dalusa’s pale shapely legs were mostly decoration. They had the texture of human flesh—more or less— but they were no denser than cork.

I carried Dalusa down to the kitchen, turned my pallet over so that no residual contamination could reach her, and set her down. She pulled her mask off.

“I’m all right,” she said. “You shouldn’t have troubled yourself.” She immediately fell asleep.

There was nothing more to be done. I went back on deck.