its own concealment in a blind environment and makes it easier to detect the vibrations of its prey, any of several varieties of tiny segmented creatures, predominantly isopods. The brain of the left is interesting, containing an unusually developed odor-perception center and two vibration-reception centers. Its organ of balance, or hidden “ear,” is also unusually large, and is connected with an unusually large balance center in its brain. Its visual center, on the other hand, is stunted and undeveloped, a remnant, a vague genetic memory of an organ long discarded in its evolution. Among the lefts, too, were, here and there, tiny salamanders, they, too, white and blind. Like the lefts, They were, for their size, long-bodied, were capable of long periods of dormancy and possessed a slow metabolism, useful in an environment in which food is not plentiful.
Unlike the lefts they had long, stemlike legs. At first I had taken them for lelts, skittering about the rafts, even to the fernlike filaments at the sides of their head, but these filaments, in the case of the salamanders, interestingly, are not vibration receptors but feather gills, an external gill system. This system, common in the developing animal generally, is retained even by the adult salamanders, who are, in this environment, permanently gilled. The gills of the lelt are located at the lower sides of its jaw, not on the sides of its head, as is common in open-water fish. The feather gills of the salamanders, it seems, allow them to hunt the same areas as the lelts for the same prey, the vibration effects of these organs being similar, without frightening them away, thus disturbing the water and alerting possible prey. They often hunt the same areas. Although this form of salamander possesses a lateral-line set of vibration receptors, like the left, it lacks the craneal receptors and its lateral-line receptors do not have the sensitivity of the lelt’s. Following the left, not disturbing it, often helps the salamander find prey. On the other hand, the salamander, by means of its legs and feet, can dislodge prey inaccessible to the lelt. The length of the stemlike legs of the salamander, incidentally, help it in stalking in the water. It takes little prey while swimming freely. The long lees cause little water vibration. Further, they enable the animal to move efficiently, covering large areas without considerable metabolic cost. In a blind environment, where food is scarce, energy conservation is essential. The long, narrow legs also lift the salamander’s head and body from the floor, enabling it, with its sensors, to scan a greater area for prey. The upright’ posture in men delivers a similar advantage, visually, in increasing scanning range, this being useful not only in the location of prey, but also, of course, in the recognition of dangers while remote, hopefully while yet avoidable. But it was not the lelts nor the salamanders, which explained our interest in the waters.
“There!” cried the man. “There it is again!” But then it was gone. I had not seen it.
In the pits there is no light, save that which men bring there. Without light, there cannot be photosynthesis. Without photosynthesis there cannot be the reduction of carbon dioxide, the formation of sugar, the beginning of the food chain. Ultimately, then, food is brought into the pits, generally in the form of organic debris, from hundreds of sources, many Of them hundreds of miles distant; this debris is carried by the fresh-water feeds, through minute faults and fissures, and even porous rock, until it reaches the remains of the ancient seas, now sunken far beneath the surface. On and in this debris, breaking it down, are several varieties of bacteria. These bacteria are devoured by protozoons and rotifers. These, in turn, become food for various flatworms and numerous tiny-segmented creatures, such as isopods, which, in turn, serve as food for small, blind, white crayfish, felts and salamanders.
These latter, however, do not stand at the top of the food chain. Sometimes one picks up the lelts and salamanders in the cones. It was not these that had excited the interest of the men.
“Is it the Old One?” asked one of the men.
“I cannot tell,” said another. The steersman stood ready with the lance.
“There!” cried one of the men, pointing.
I saw it then, moving in, slowly, then turning about. The lelts and salamanders vanished, disappearing beneath the water. The thing disappeared. The waters were calm.
“It’s gone,” said one of the men.
“Was it the Old One?” asked one of the men.
“I do not know,” said the steersman, with the lance. The Old One had not been seen in the pit for more than a year.
“It is gone now,” said another of the men.
“Look!” I cried. This time it was close, surfacing not ten feet from the raft.
We saw the broad, blunt head, eyeless, white. Then it submerged, with a twist of the long spine and tail.
The steersman was white. “It is the Old One,” he said. On the whitish back, near the high dorsal fin, there was a long scar. Part of the dorsal fin itself was rent, and scarred. These were lance marks.
“He has come back,” said one of the men.
The waters were still.
At the top of the food chain in the pits, a descendant, dark-adapted, of the terrors of the ancient seas, stood the long-bodied, nine-gilled salt shark.
The waters were calm.
“Let us gather salt,” said a man.
“Wait,” said the steersman. “Watch.”
For more than a quarter of an Ahn we did nothing.
“It is gone,” said a man.
“We must make our quotas,” said one of the harvesters.
“Gather salt,” said the steersman.
Again we took our ropes and cones, and bent to the labor of dredging for salt.
“The lelts have not returned,’’ said the steersman to me.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“That the Old One is still with us,” he said, looking at the dark waters. Then he said, “Gather salt.” Again I flung out the rope and cone.
It was growing late.
The oil in the lamps, on the poles at the comers of the raft, grew low.
On the surface it would be dusk.
I wondered how one might escape from Klima. Even if one could secure water, it did not seem one could, afoot, carry water sufficient to walk one’s way free of the salt districts. And, even if one could traverse the many pasangs of desert afoot, there would not be much likelihood, in the wilderness, of making one’s way to Red Rock, or another oasis. Those at Klima, by intent of the free, their masters, knew not the trails whereby their liberty might be achieved. I remembered, too, the poor slave who had encountered the chain on its march to Klima. He had been the subject of sport, then slain. None, it was said, had come back from Klima.
I thought of Priest-Kings, and Others, the Kurii, and their wars. They seemed remote.
It came very suddenly, from beneath the water, not more than five feet from me, erupting upward. I saw the man screaming in the jaws. The head was more than a yard in width, white pits where there might have been eyes. The raft tipped, struck by its back, as it turned and, twisting, glided away into the darkness.
“Poles!” screamed the steersman. “Poles!” The poleman seized the poles, lowering them into the water.
One of the lamps sputtered out.
I heard screaming now, far off, then silence. Because of the saline content of the water the salt shark, when not hunting, often swims half-emerged from the fluid. Its gills, like those of the lelt, are below and at the sides of his jaws. This is a salt adaptation which conserves energy, which, otherwise, might be constantly expended in maintaining an attitude in which oxygenation can occur.
“I cannot touch the bottom,” cried one of the men, in misery. The raft had drifted.
“Paddles,” cried the steersman, leaning on the sweep. The polemen seized up the broad levers near the retaining vessels. Another of the lamps sputtered out.
Slowly the raft turned.
Only two lamps now burned.
“You others,” said the steersman, “take poles!” We did so. It was our hope that the men with the paddles could move the raft sufficiently to bring it to a place we could use the poles.
“It is gone now,” said one of the men with paddles.
“It is the Old One,” said the steersman. “It is dusk.” I then understood, from his words, the meaning of the scarcity of food in the pit. When the hunting is good, one hunts. One can return later to earlier kills, driving away scavenging lelts. Further, I wondered at the salt shark, blind, living in total darkness.
Yet it hunted at dusk, and at dawn, driven apparently by ancient biological rhythms. The long-bodied, ghostly creature, hunting in the black waters, followed still the rhythms of its dark clock, set for its species a quarter of a billion years ago in a vanished, distant, sunlit world.
“Make haste!” cried the steersman. “Make haste!”
The third lamp sputtered out. There was now but a single lamp burning, on the port side, aft. Then it, too, sputtered out.
We were in darkness. Somewhere near, below us, or about us, moved the Old One.
We were in absolute darkness. There was no moonlight, not even starlight. In the world in which we stood even a Kur would be blind. We stood waiting, alone, in the world of the Old One.
When it came, it came swiftly, hurling itself upwards from the water. We, in the darkness, felt the salt water drench us, heard the great body, more than twenty feet long, fall back in the water.
Then, for a time, it was quiet again.
We heard the raft bumped, felt the movement in the wood. We then felt the body of the Old One beneath the raft. The raft tipped, but fell back. We clung in the darkness to the retaining vessels, the salt tubs. Twice more the raft tipped, and fell back.
More than a quarter of an Ahn passed. We thought the Old One no longer with us.
Then the raft, on the port side, seemed to dip into the water. A man cried out, in horror, striking with a paddle. The heavy head slipped back into the water.
The Old One had placed his head on the raft, sensing in the darkness.
We drifted for more than an Ahn in silence, in the darkness. Then, suddenly, hurling itself from the water, the great body, thrashing, fell across the raft, twisting, the mighty tail flailing and snapping. I heard splintering wood, the retaining vessels, the salt tubs, struck and shattered, flung bounding and rolling from the frame. I heard men scream, sensed men struck yards from the raft, heard them strike the water.
I threw myself on my stomach into the remains of the splintered frame, clutching at torn wood.
There was screaming in the darkness. I beard more than one man taken. “I cannot see!” cried one man.
