now.”
“Simpler beings,” I said, beginning to understand what he was hinting at, “with tentacles?”
“Yes.”
“And claws that can crack armor?”
“Do you think you are prepared to see us?”
I thought of those things in the swamp, with their clutching tentacles and snapping claws and dozens of beady eyes.
I took a breath and said shakily, “Yes, I’m ready.”
“Very well.”
The sea around me brightened and I saw that I was surrounded by dozens of writhing tentacled creatures. They were huge, immense, like gigantic pulsating jellyfish with long wriggling tentacles and lipless round mouths that opened and closed, opened and closed, coming nearer and nearer to me. My skin crawled and I felt panic rising inside me, surrounded by these enormous engulfing undulating horrors pressing closer and closer, tentacles reaching out for me, mouths pulsating…
“Can you rise above your fears, Orion?”
I wanted to scream. Those enormous gaping mouths, like suckers big enough to swallow me whole, they seemed to be bearing down upon me, coming to devour me, coming to grasp me in those powerful tentacles and stuff me into one of those gaping maws. I could feel their digestive fluids burning into my flesh. I felt smothered, suffocating.
“Can you see beyond your terror, Orion? Can you look upon us as we truly are?”
I realized my eyes were squeezed shut, my fists pressed so hard against my temples I thought my skull would burst. They saved you! I raged at myself. They’re healing your wounds. They are intelligent beings. Go beyond their appearance; look at them as they see themselves.
Shaking with dread, I opened my eyes and forced myself to look at them again. They hovered all around me, huge, engulfing. I took a deep, shuddering breath. They came no closer, floating silently in the deep waters. Yet they were so enormous that they filled my vision wherever I looked. There was no escaping them. I fought against the panic that surged through me, deliberately forced my heart to slow its terrified beat, calmed my breathing to something close to normal.
I stared at them for long, long minutes. They hovered all around me, pulsating slowly, lights flickering within their undulating bodies, patterns of color glowing and shifting rhythmically across their translucent skins. There was a certain dignity to them, I slowly recognized. Even a certain kind of beauty as they floated throbbing in the deep waters. They moved gracefully, I forced myself to admit, trying to avoid looking at those dilating mouths.
And they were watching me intently. Each of them possessed two giant, solemn eyes that seemed focused on me.
“You are… beautiful,” I managed to croak.
“We are glad you think so. After your experience in the swamp we were afraid that you would be biased against us. Xenophobia is one of the deepest traits of your species.”
“We were created to be warriors,” I replied. “It makes it easier to kill your foes if you are frightened of them.”
“And yet the dolphins vouched for you.”
“The dolphins?” I blurted. “Are they here?”
“Not in this era,” the voice answered.
I realized that these Old Ones could travel through time the way the Creators could. The way I had myself.
“When we first made contact with you, Orion,” the voice continued, “we sensed nothing but a warrior intent on slaying his enemies. But the dolphins told us you were a good friend to them, so we probed deeper.”
It was the Old Ones whom I had sensed earlier, then. Yet I had no memory of how I got to be a good friend to the dolphins. Was I sent on a mission into the ocean, in another era?
“We find that although your basic instincts are those of a warrior, there are other desires struggling within you.”
“I have a will of my own,” I told them, “even though my Creator looks upon me as nothing more than a tool for his use.”
“That is a part of the problem you present to us.” The voice sounded slightly perturbed despite its silky smoothness. “We have been observing your kind since you first arrived. You humans are bloodthirsty as well as xenophobic.”
“We were made that way,” I admitted. “Although some of us have tried to rise above it.”
“Have you?”
“Some of us have. There are humans at the Skorpis base who are scientists. They are not warriors, not killers.”
“Why do you not regard the Skorpis as humans?” Although I heard only one voice, I got the impression that more than one of these sea creatures was speaking to me, or perhaps they were all speaking, and what I heard was a blend of their individual thoughts and questions.
“The Skorpis come from another world,” I answered. “They are descended from felines.”
“While your kind are patterned after primate apes.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“What makes you think that the Skorpis come from a different origin than your own?”
“They couldn’t…” I hesitated. “Do you mean that they were also—”
“Produced by your Creators? Why do you find that difficult to believe?”
“Not difficult. Just—a new idea. I hadn’t considered it before.”
“The universe is old, Orion. And your Creators have been very busy.”
“But if the Skorpis were also made by the Creators, why are they fighting against us?” I asked.
“Whatever your Creators touch degenerates into violence,” the Old Ones said. “They are a plague among the stars.”
“But you,” I asked again. “Who are you? What have you to do with the Creators?”
“We are a very old race, Orion. Older than your Creators by tens of millions of years. We have no desire to be dragged into the slaughters that your kind are perpetrating.”
“Why should you be?”
“Because your fellow humans have discovered us. They have tried to make contact with us. They want us to ally ourselves with them against their enemies.”
“I don’t even know who our enemies are,” I said.
“Other humans, of course. And species of similar levels of development, such as the Skorpis and the Tsihn.”
I felt confused, stunned almost, at all this new information they were throwing at me. They sensed my mental turmoil.
“Do not feel anxious, Orion. We will explain everything to you so that you can understand it fully.”
Why? I wondered. What do they want?
As if in answer, the silky voice told me, “You are going to be our ambassador, Orion. You will give our message to your Creators.”
Chapter 12
The city of the Old Ones, down at the abyssal depths of the ocean, was a vast wonderland of delights. Actually, the term
