Mer-Cycle

“I read fiction, mostly. Once I fell asleep during a book, and dreamed the author had come to autograph my copy, but we couldn’t find him a pen.”

“You like signatures?” he asked, not certain she was serious.

“Oh, yes, I have a whole collection of autographed books, back home.” She spoke with modest pride.

“Why? I think it’s more important to relate to what the author is trying to say, than to have his mark on a piece of paper.”

She was silent.

After a moment he asked, “You want to sleep? I didn’t mean to—”

“I heard you. I wasn’t answering.”

“Wasn’t what?”

“Maybe we’d better change the subject.”

“Why?”

“You couldn’t expect me to agree with you, could you? I mean, I collect autographs, don’t I? So what am I supposed to say when you say you don’t think they are very much?”

What was this? “You could have said you don’t agree.”

“I did.”

“When?”

“When I didn’t say anything. I think that should be obvious.”

“Obvious?”

“Well, you seem to use different conversational conventions than I do, and it’s unpleasant to talk to someone who doesn’t understand your silences.”

“Why not just say what you mean? I have no idea what’s bothering you.”

“No more than I did, when you kept cutting me off.”

Oh. “I’m sorry about that. I just had this notion it was all men on this circuit, and I thought something had gone wrong, the way my food did. I would have answered if I had realized.”

“Well, then, I’ll answer you now. I don’t want to be placed in the position of having to defend something I know you don’t like. I mean, if I answered you there would be all kinds of emotional overtones in my voice, and that would be embarrassing and painful.”

“About autographs?” he demanded incredulously.

“Obviously you didn’t mean to be offensive,” she said, sounding hurt.

“What do you mean, ‘mean to be’? I wasn’t offensive, was I?”

“Well, I shouldn’t have said anything about it.”

“Now don’t go clamming up on me again. One silence is enough.” He was feeling more confident, oddly.

“I was trying to hint that I didn’t agree with you.”

“About meaning being worth more than a signature?”

She was silent again.

“Oh come on!” he snapped. “What do you expect me to say to a silence?”

“I’ve already told you why I don’t want to talk about it any more. You could at least have apologized for mentioning it again.”

“Apologized?”

“What kind of unfeeling barbarian culture did you grow up in, anyway?”

“Primitive cultures are not unfeeling!”

There was no answer.

“You’re right,” he said with frustration. “We do have different conversational conventions.” Sane and insane, he was tempted to add.

And so they sat, leaning back against the spongy coral wall, watching the little fish sidle in again. Don wondered what had happened.

CHAPTER 4

ELEPH

Proxy 5–12–5–16–8: Attention.

Acknowledging.

Status?

Three recruits are in motion, with the fourth incipient. The liability of the third has been established, with what impact is uncertain. The group seems to be melding satisfactorily.

Such melding is a two-edged tool. If they unify against the mission, it will be lost.

I mean to see that they react properly. They will not be advised of the mission until the time is propitious.

And if that time does not manifest?

This group must be abolished and another assembled.

You are prepared to destroy them?

No.

Though the alternative is to lose their world?

I will abolish the group without invoking the mission. The individual members will return to their prior lives.

And if you invoke the mission, and they oppose it?

Then we shall have a problem.

“There it is!” Gaspar cried. “Right on time.”

Don jolted awake. It was night, and the rendezvous was upon them. He had slept when he hadn’t expected to, and it seemed that Melanie had done the same.

They scrambled up and walked their bikes out to catch up with Gaspar, who was standing at the mouth of the cave. Then, together, they advanced on the lone figure beyond.

The third man was Eleph: perhaps fifty, graying hair, forbidding lined face. There was a tic in his right cheek that Don recognized as a stress reaction similar to his own stuttering. Don would have had some sympathy, but for the cold manner of the man.

Gaspar tried to make small talk, but Eleph cut him short. He let it be known that he expected regulations to be scrupulously honored. Obviously he was or had been associated with the military; he would not bend, physically or intellectually. There was an authoritative ring in his voice that made even innocuous comments—of which he made few—seem like commands. Yet he also telegraphed a formidable uncertainty.

Don decided to stay clear of the man as much as possible. Gaspar, undaunted or merely stubborn, used another approach. “Look at that bicycle! How many speeds is that, Eleph?”

Eleph frowned as if resenting the familiarity, though they were on a first name basis by the rules. He must have realized that it was impossible to be completely formal while perched on a bicycle anyway. “Thirty six,” he replied gruffly.

Don thought he had misheard, but a closer look at the machine convinced him otherwise. It had a thick rear axle, a rear sprocket cluster, three chainwheels, and a derailleur at each end of the chain. The triple gearshift levers augmented the suggestion of a complex assortment of ratios. The handlebars were turned down, not up or level, and were set with all the devices Don had, plus a speedometer, horn, and others whose functions Don didn’t recognize. What paraphernalia!

“Don here’s an archaeologist,” Gaspar said. “I’m a geologist. Melanie knows the coordinates for our various encounters. How about you?”

Eleph hesitated, oddly. “Physicist.”

“Oh—to study the effects of this phaseout field under water?”

“Perhaps,” Eleph vouchsafed no more.

It was shaping up to be a long journey, Don realized.

“Melanie, where next?” Gaspar asked.

“Twenty five degrees, forty minutes north latitude,” she said. “Eighty degrees, ten minutes west longitude.”

“Got it. Let’s get deep.”

Gaspar led the way through the shallows, pedaling slowly so that there was no danger of the others losing sight of his lights. Eleph came next, then Melanie, and Don last. That put the least experienced riders in the middle, out of trouble.

All four of them would have to douse their lights and halt in place at any near approach of a boat. So far they were lucky; the surface was undisturbed. Once they reached deeper water there would be no problem unless they encountered a submarine. That was hardly likely.

The barren back reef had come alive. Great numbers of heart-shaped brown sea biscuits had appeared. Delicate, translucent sea anemones flowered prettily. Fish patrolled, searching for food; they shied away from the beams of light, but not before betraying their numbers. Some were large; Don recognized a narrow barracuda, one of the few fish he knew by sight.

The outer coral reef had changed too. The polyps were in bloom, flexing rhythmically, combing the water with their tiny tentacles, just as Gaspar had said they would. In one way they were flowers; in another, tiny volcanoes; in yet another, transparent little octopi. What had seemed by day to be forbidding rock was by night a living carpet.

Now Don observed the different kinds of coral in the reef. Some was convoluted but rounded, like the folds of a—yes, this had to be brain coral. From it rose orange-white spirals of fine sticks: yet another kind of flower that Don was sure was neither flower nor even plant. He swerved toward one, reaching to touch it though he knew he couldn’t. As his hand passed through its faint resistance, the flower closed and disappeared, withdrawing neatly into a narrow tube-stem.

Yet there were dull parts, too. In some regions the coral featured little or no life. It was as if tenement houses had been built, used, and then deserted. But surely the landlords hadn’t raised the rent, here!

“Pollution is killing the reefs,” Gaspar remarked sourly. “Also over-fishing, sponge harvesting, unrestrained memento collecting, the whole bit. The sea life here isn’t nearly as thick as it used to be, and species are dying out. But the average man doesn’t see that, so he figures it’s no concern of his.”

“They are wiping out species on land, too,” Melanie pointed out.

“You think that justifies it?” Gaspar asked sharply.

“No! I think it’s horrible. But I don’t know how to stop it.”

“There are just too many people,” he said. “As long as there keep being more people, there’ll be fewer animals. It’s that simple.”

Don gazed at the barren sections of the reefs. Was it that simple? He distrusted simple answers; the interactions of life tended to be complex, with ramifications never fully understood. Still, it was evident that something was going wrong, here.

The moray eels were out foraging. One spied Don and came at him, jaws open. Don shied away despite his lack of real alarm, and it drifted back. Melanie, just ahead of him, was veering similarly.

Then, remembering his own initial reactions, Don looked ahead to see how Eleph was taking it. This was a wise precaution, for Eleph reacted violently. Two eels were investigating him, as if sniffing out the least secure rider.

Both Eleph’s hands came off the handle bars to fend off the seeming assault. The bicycle veered to the side and crashed into the sand.

Don and Melanie hurried to help the man, but Eleph was already on his feet. “The phase makes the predators harmless,” Don explained reassuringly. “All you can feel is a little interaction in the bones.”

“I am well aware of that!” And Eleph righted his machine and remounted, leaving Don and Melanie to exchange a glance.

Angry at the rebuff, Don let him go. For a physicist specializing in this phase-field, Eleph had bad reflexes.

“And they say that pride goeth before a fall,” Melanie murmured.

Don had to smile. Then he seized the moment. “Melanie, whatever I said before, I’m sorry. I—”

“Another time,” she said. But she smiled back at him.

Then they had to follow, orienting on the lights ahead.

Lobsterlike crustaceans were roving the floor, making free travel difficult. Swimming fish were easy to pass, and living bottom creatures, but inanimate obstructions could be every bit as solid as they looked. When a living creature obscured a rocky projection or hole, and the wheel of the bicycle went through the living thing, it could have trouble with the other. Successful navigation required a kind of doublethink: an object’s position and permanence, not its appearance, determined its effect. More or less.

They coasted bumpily down past the outer reef and into deeper water. But more trouble erupted.

A blue-green blob with darker splotches rose up from the sand in the wake of a scuttling crab. Gaspar’s light speared it—and suddenly the green became brighter as tentacles waved. It was an octopus, a large one.

Gaspar slowed, no doubt from curiosity. Don caught up, while Melanie remained behind. But Eleph, in the middle, didn’t realize what they were doing or what was there. He sped straight on—into the waving nest of mantle and tentacles.

Ink billowed. Eleph screamed and veered out of control again, covering his head. Meanwhile the octopus, who had been traversed and left behind, turned brown and jetted for safer water. Each party seemed as horrified by the encounter as the other.

For a moment Don and Gaspar stared, watching the accidental antagonists flee each other. Then a chuckle started. Don wasn’t sure who emitted the first choked peep, but in a moment it grew into uncontrollable laughter. Both men had to put their feet down and lean over the handlebars to vent their mirth. It was a fine release of tension.

When at last they subsided, Don looked up to find Eleph standing nearby, regarding them sourly. Melanie stood behind him, her face straight. Abruptly the matter lost its humor.

Gaspar alleviated the awkwardness by proceeding immediately to business. “We’re deep enough now. Eleph, do you have the instructions for our mission? We have been told nothing.”

“I do not,” Eleph replied. The episode of the octopus had not improved his social inclinations. “Perhaps the next member of the party will have that information.”

Don had thought there would be three members, and Gaspar had guessed four. Evidently there were five.

Gaspar looked at Melanie. “How long hence?”

“Sixty hours,” she replied. She had evidently known, but had kept silent, as it seemed she was supposed to.

Gaspar grimaced, and Don knew what he was thinking. Another two days and three nights before they caught up to the final member of their party and learned what this was all about. Maybe.

“Well, let’s find a comfortable spot to turn in,” Gaspar said. “Maybe we’ll find a mound of gold ingots to form into a camping site.”

“Gold?” Melanie asked.

“From sunken treasure ships. There are a number, here in the channel between Florida and Cuba, and they haven’t all been found by a long shot. Whole fleets of Spanish galleons carried the Inca and Aztec treasures to Spain, and storms took a number of them down. That cargo is worth billions, now.”

“Maybe that’s our mission,” Don said. “To explore this region and map the remaining treasure ships.”

“I’d be disappointed if so,” Gaspar said.

“Yes,” Melanie agreed. “We have to hope that something more than greed is responsible for us.”

“We can best find out by getting on with the mission,” Eleph said. That damped the dialogue.

Gaspar led the way to the more level bottom and located a peaceful hollow in the sand. There was no sign of gold. This time they pitched their tents, which they had not bothered to do before: one for Eleph, one for Melanie, and one formed from Don and Gaspar’s combined canvas.

This really was more comfortable than sleeping in the open, though the difference was more apparent than real. There was nothing to harm them in their phased state anyway. But Don liked the feeling of being in a protected, man-made place. Appearances were important to his emotions. Which brought him back to the subject of Melanie. Her appearance—

He shoved that thought aside. The emotions were too complicated and confused. That business about the autographs—where had he gone wrong? Suddenly he had run afoul of her, and he didn’t quite understand how it had happened. So it was better to let it lie, for now.

“That wig,” Gaspar said.

So much for letting it lie! “You noticed it too,” Don said with gentle irony.

“I want to be candid with you, because it might make a difference. Melanie is one attractive woman, and I’d be interested in her. Except for that wig. If she meant to see whom it fazed, she succeeded.”

Fazed. A pun, since they were all phased? Evidently not. “But there’s more to a woman than hair,” Don said, arguing the other side.

“I know that. You know that. Everybody knows that. But I have a thing about hair on a woman. I like it long and flowing and smooth. I like to stroke it as I make love. My first crush was on a long-haired girl, and I never got over it. So when I first saw Melanie I saw a nice figure and a pretty face, but the hair didn’t turn me on. Too short and curly. But hair can grow, so if she was otherwise all right, that could come. But then she took off that wig, and I knew that her hair would never grow. A wig won’t do it, for me. The hair has to be real, just as the breasts have to be real. I don’t claim this makes a lot of sense, but romance doesn’t necessarily make sense. Melanie is not on my horizon as anything other than an associate or platonic friend, regardless of the other aspects of our association.”

Don was troubled. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I can see you are shy with women. You wouldn’t want to go after one actively. You sure wouldn’t compete with another man for one. Well, maybe you don’t have the same hang-up as I do. In that case, I just want you to know that there’s no competition. If you can make it with Melanie, I’ll be your best man. The field is yours.”

“B-but a woman can’t just be p-parceled out!” Don protested.

“There’s a difference between parceling and non-commitment. I think Melanie needs a man as much as you need a woman. In fact I think you two might be just right for each other. If you were with her, you’d keep her secret, and she’d love you for it, and other men would wonder what she saw in you, and she would never give them the time of day. Ideal for you both, as I see it. I can see already that she’s got her quirks, but is one great catch of a woman. But matchmaking’s not my business. I’ll stay out of it. Just so you know that no way am I going to be with her. She lost me when she lifted that wig, and she knows it. You are in doubt. I mean, she doesn’t know whether you can handle the business of the hair. When you decide, that will be it. I won’t mention this again.”

“Th-thanks,” Don said. His emotions remained as confused as ever. He knew that the best thing he could do was to put all this out of his mind and let time show him the way of his feelings and hers. He would just relax.

Yet sleep was slow, again. He told himself it was because of his recent nap in the patch-coral cave, but he knew it was more than that. There was a wrongness about this project, and not just in spoiled rations or breaking bicycle chains or undue secrecy. Gaspar seemed to be the only one qualified to do anything or learn anything here. Don himself was a misfit, as was Melanie—and what was a man like Eleph doing here? Not a geologist, not a biologist, not even an undersea archeologist—but a physicist! His specialty could have little relevance here. A mysterious mission like this was hardly needed to check out the performance of the phase-shift under water—if that were really what Eleph was here to do. The man wasn’t young and strong, and certainly not easy to get along with. He could only be a drag on the party. At least Melanie wasn’t a drag.

“It’s Miami,” Gaspar said, startling him.

“Who?”

“Those coordinates. Offshore Miami. Must be another inexperienced man.”

Don shook his head ruefully. “I wish I had your talent for identifying places like that! I can’t make head or tail of those coordinates.”

“It’s no talent. Just understanding of the basic principle. The Earth is a globe, and it is tricky to identify places without a global scale of reference. On land you can look for roads and cities, but in the sea there are none. Think of it as an orange, with lines marked. Some are circles going around the globe, passing through the north and south poles. Those are the meridians of longitude, starting with zero at Greenwich, in London, England, as zero, and proceeding east and west from it until they meet as 180 degrees in the middle of the Pacific Ocean at the International Date Line. The others are circles around the globe parallel to the equator; they get smaller as they go north and south, but each is still a perfect circle. Thus we have parallels of latitude. Since we happen to be north of the equator and west of England, our coordinates are in the neighborhood of twenty five degrees north latitude and eighty degrees west longitude. Just keep those figures in mind, and you’ll know how far we go from where we are now.”

It began to register. “Twenty five and eighty,” Don said. “Right here. So Miami is—”

“Actually those particular coordinates would be about ten miles east of Miami, and fifty miles south of it,” Gaspar said. “We’re on the way there. I meant our neighborhood on a global scale.”

“Just as all of man’s history and prehistory is recent, on the geologic scale,” Don said wryly. “Fifty miles is pinpoint close.”

“Yes. Our bicycle meters give us our immediate locations.”

“Still, I’ll remember those numbers. It will give me a notion how far we are from Miami, and that’s a location I can understand. Southern tip of Florida.”

“Well—”

“Approximately!” Don said quickly. “In geologic terms.”

“Approximately,” Gaspar agreed, and Don knew he was smiling.

Don returned to the matter of their next group member, glad to have company in his misgivings. “What do you think he is? An astronomer? An electrician? A—”

“Could be a paleontologist. Because I think I know where we’re heading, now. The Bahamas platform.”

“What?”

“The Bahamas platform. Geologically, a most significant region. It certainly made trouble for us in the past.”

Don would have been less interested, had he not wanted someone to talk to. “How could it make trouble? It is whatever it is, and was what it was, wasn’t it, before there were geologists?”

“True, true. But trouble still, and a fascinating place to explore. You see, its existence was a major obstacle to acceptance of the theory of plate tectonics.”

“Of what?”

“Drifting continents.”

“I’ve heard of that,” Don said. “They’re moving now, aren’t they? An inch a century?”

“Faster than that, even,” Gaspar agreed wryly.

“But I don’t see why those little islands, the Bermudas—”

“Bahamas. The thesis was that all the continents were once a super land mass called Pangaea. The convection currents in the mantle of the earth broke up the land, spreading the sea floor and shoving the new continents outward. North and South America drifted—actually, they were shoved—to their present location, and the Mid-Atlantic ridge continued to widen as more and more lava was forced up from below. But the Bahamas—”

“You talk as if the world is a bubbling pot of mush!”

“Close enough. The continents themselves float in the lithosphere, and when something shoves, they have to move. But slowly. We could match up the fractures, showing how the fringes of the continental shelves fitted together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. All except the Bahamas platform. It was extra. There was no place for it in the original Pangaea—yet there it was.”

“So maybe the continents didn’t drift, after all,” Don said. “They must have stayed in the same place all the time. Makes me feel more secure, I must admit.”

“Ah, but they did drift. Too many lines of evidence point too firmly to this, believe you me. All but that damned platform. Where did it come from?”

“Where, indeed,” Don muttered sleepily.

“They finally concluded that the great breakup of Pangaea started right in this area. The earth split asunder, the land shoved outward in mighty plates—and then the process halted for maybe thirty million years, and the new basin filled in with sediment. When the movement resumed, there was the half-baked mass: the Bahamas platform. Most of it is still under water, of course, but it trailed along with the continent, and here it is. The site of the beginning of the Atlantic Ocean as we know it.” The man’s voice shook with excitement; this was one of the most important things on Earth, literally, to him.

But Don wasn’t a geologist. “Glory be,” he mumbled.

“That’s why I find this such a fascinating region. There are real secrets buried in the platform strata.”

But Don was drifting to a continental sleep. He dreamed that he was standing with tremendous feet straddling Pangaea, the Paul Bunyan of archaeologists. But then it cracked, and he couldn’t get his balance; the center couldn’t hold. The more he tried to bring the land together, the more his very weight shoved it apart, making him do a continental split. “Curse you, Bahama!” he cried.