Medusa's Children

CHAPTER ELEVEN

As a child of Ka, Tarrant was in exactly the same position as Myrah or Lennar—he had become one unit in a composite identity. Like a cell in the body of a human being, he retained all the autonomy that was necessary for him to continue functioning in an efficient manner, but his activities were subordinate to the needs of the gestalt being that was Ka.

At the same time, because the medusa principle is one of reciprocal benefit, his relationship with the overlord was special in that he had a unique contribution to make to the store of knowledge. Not only was his mind the best stocked of any that had ever become available to Ka, but it provided the longest baseline, the philosophical perspective and parallax without which a pool of data can never be effectively organised. Until then Ka had been limited to what he could harvest from the rare human who had strayed into the deep territory controlled by the Ka-Horra—Treece had been one such—but their world-view had been pitifully limited. He had usually returned them to the Home as free-swimming extensions of his own neural system, which had enabled him to monitor the activities of the humans from afar.

To Ka the human colony had represented an important reserve of mobility and intelligence, and he had nurtured it for centuries, sometimes sending armies of the Ka-Horra out to do battle with the Horra when it seemed that the latter were about to engulf the humans. On these occasions some of the Ka-controlled squid had perished, which meant that in a small way Ka himself had died for the sake of the humans, but his instincts had told him the sacrifices would be worth while. And, finally, he had been proved right….

Had there been time for him to be introspective, Tarrant might have found elements of his old personality cowering in an obscure, safe cranny of the mind-brain matrix. That helpless, reduced version of his former self would have been numb with dismay at the thought of a sliver of Ka’s mutated nervenet curling in his right lung, but to Ka-Tarrant its presence within his body was both natural and welcome. The only matter worthy of his attention, the only thing of importance in the entire universe, was the desperate need to find the Bergmann machines and destroy them before it was too late.

He raised Myrah to her feet and helped her to the side of the boat. Somerville had not yet emerged from the cabin so he left Myrah sitting on the deck and ran down the short companionway. The older man had put Geean in one of the bunks, and Lennar and Harld on the cabin floor. Treece was in the other bunk and Somerville was leaning over her while he adjusted the pillow. She was smiling up at him, but he appeared not to notice.

Tarrant moved quietly in behind him, brushed his supporting left arm out of the way and threw his weight on Somerville’s back. Somerville collapsed on to Treece with a startled curse which was stifled as she clamped her open mouth to his. He struggled for a moment, then his body relaxed. Tarrant stepped back and allowed him to regain his feet.

“There’s no point in aiming for the Bergmann transceivers themselves,” Somerville said at once. “There could be as many as a dozen of them all around the world, and even if we could get to them quickly—which we can’t—they’re bound to be fairly indestructible.”

“You’re saying it’s hopeless?”

Somerville shook his head. “I’m saying that particular approach is hopeless.”

“What do we do, then?”

“I think we should refer back to the old master himself.” Somerville took off his bandana and wiped perspiration from his neck with it as he stepped over Lennar’s and Harld’s outstretched legs to reach his book-shelf. “Would you like to bring Myrah down out of the heat? We don’t want to lose any units through sunstroke.”

“Okay.” Tarrant went up on deck, lifted Myrah bodily and carried her down into the crowded cabin. Neither of them spoke during the process, and when he set her on the floor between Lennar and Harld she lay back with complete passivity.

“I haven’t any Swedish,” Somerville said, spreading a book on his chart table, “but this is supposed to be a good translation of Bergmann’s original Balance of Life. It was written five years before he died, which was about the time the history books say dysteleonic radiation was discovered, but listen to this.”

Somerville cleared his throat and began to read. “The advantages of dysteleonic radiation for communications and power transmission would be that there would be virtually no transmission losses over global distances; the beams would be undetectable to all but the most advanced technological cultures; and, finally, they would be immune to interference. Barring the possibility that the hydrospheric balance valves are energised and controlled through a medium of such sophistication that we are unable even to guess at its nature, one must conclude that dysteleonics are employed for this purpose.

“I predict that in the near future, provided that our civilisation emerges intact from its present crisis, men will learn routinely to generate and detect dysteleonic radiation. And when they do they will discover they are not breaking new ground, but merely following in the footsteps of that ancient race to which I have given the name of Paleotechs. And the irrefutable evidence will be all about them in the form of beams of dysteleonic radiation linking the Earth’s hydrospheric balance valves to their central energising and control station.”

Somerville set the book down on the table. “What do you think of that?”

Tarrant shrugged. “Quite a lot of evangelistic fervour, but where does it get us?”

“Bergmann went on to postulate that his control station would be positioned on the equator and somewhere near the centre of the Earth’s largest ocean—which means it isn’t all that far from here. Anybody who could….”

“Wait a minute!” Tarrant snapped his fingers. “There was something about dysteleonics when I was in the Air Force! Seven or eight years ago, it was. One of the men in my squadron was put on escort duty and he did a couple of runs up to Baker Island with a Department of Science turbojet. He had no idea why the top brass thought the missions were so important, but he picked up the word dysteleonics.”

“On Baker Island itself, was it?”

“Yes. No! There was a small island a hundred kilometres or so to the east. It had an odd sort of a name.”

“Harpoon?”

“That’s it. How did you know?”

Somerville sighed as he closed up his book and put it back on the shelf. “It would have saved me a hell of a lot of money and time if we’d got together years ago. Why didn’t you tell me you were in the South Newzealand Air Force?”

“It’s a bit tricky—I’m still supposed to be in it.”

“I see.” Somerville tied his bandana around his balding head again. “Let’s go up on deck—it’s time we were on our way back to the island.”

Oblivious of the watchful gazes of the five other humans, Tarrant followed Somerville up the steps and into the bright, simplistic universe of green ocean and blue sky. A slight breeze had sprung up and Tarrant’s boat was nuzzling The Rose of York like a calf seeking milk from a cow.

“What was all that about saving you time and money?” he said.

Somerville untied Tarrant’s boat and began walking with it to the stern of his own boat in preparation for towing. “I’ve been interested in this Bergmann thing for more than ten years. A couple of years ago I even went to Brisbane and bought myself some time on what’s left of the Oceania computer. Most of it is dead, or electronically gangrenous, and all the links west of Celebes are suspect. It did a kind of search and analysis, though—and indicated a spread of islets and atolls all the way out to the Low Archipelago. Harpoon was one of them.”

Tarrant blinked at him. “You were lucky to get that much. I mean, what does it know about Bergmann’s Hypothesis?”

“I didn’t ask about Bergmann. I was working on reports of unusual military activity, furtive scientific expeditions, compass anomalies—dysteleonic radiation does that, you know. That sort of thing.” Somerville glanced up from hitching the smaller boat to his stern post. “There I was in Brisbane wasting three months’ profits, and you were back here sitting on the facts I needed.”

“Not really,” Tarrant said. “I’d forgotten all about it. I didn’t even know the pilot who went up there, and I only heard him mention it once in the mess.” He pressed a hand to the right side of his chest. “I must have had some assistance.”

Somerville nodded seriously, momentarily touching his own chest. “It would be a double tragedy if we couldn’t save Ka. Obviously his life has to be preserved at all costs, but on top of that there’s the benefit he could bring to other people besides us.”

Tarrant tried to imagine an existence without the companionship of the sentient black jelly which nestled within his right lung, feeding its messages of comfort directly into his nervous system. He drew back from the bleak prospect, and the desperate urgency of the situation began to bear down on him.

“Will,” he said, gripping the older man’s shoulder, “let’s assume there’s some kind of control station on Harpoon Island. It’s bound to be way down below the surface. We wouldn’t be able to touch it, let alone put it out of action, unless we had something like….”

“A tactical nuke?”

“That’s right.”

Somerville grinned his piratical grin. “There’s one back on Cawley Island. Three, in fact.”

Tarrant had to make an effort to prevent his jaw sagging. “What are you saying, Will?”

“It’s true—that’s one of the reasons we’re going back there.”

“But where did they come from? Who has them?”

“Don’t forget the farm’s been in existence for almost forty years,” Somerville said, “and things weren’t so secure around here at first. Spiegel was still raiding out of the New Hebrides, King Tom out of Suva, and the Barrett brothers out of New Caledonia. Into the bargain there was always the chance of pirates coming along and cleaning the place out—food was a lot scarcer in those days, and a shipload of protein cake was worth a fortune.

“When old Patch Cawley and the others settled here to start the farm he had a Mark 89 mortar with him—stolen from a Peruvian sub-killer—and three general purpose nuclear loads for it. He was fully prepared to let fly if anybody had shown up to make trouble, but nothing ever happened. Maybe the word got around. Anyway, the stuff is still there.”

“Nobody told me about it,” Tarrant said.

“It isn’t supposed to be general knowledge, though I imagine nearly every independent island has something similar tucked away. Nobody but members of the Inner Council are told officially, and they’re the only ones who have access to it.”

“Do you know where it is?”

Somerville looked surprised at the question. “Of course! Come on—let’s get back.”

Tarrant went with him to the upper deck and leaned on a rail while Somerville switched on his motors and swung the cruiser around to the south. The Rose of York had much more space for solar panel arrays and batteries, and therefore was faster than Tarrant’s nameless boat in spite of the extra weight. Tarrant watched its bow wave build up on each side and wondered if it was fast enough to out-distance the remaining big squid, the creature he now knew as the Horra. As the farm came into view ahead—a thin white line of booms, topped by a band of vivid green and the misty blue triangle of the island—he fetched his rifle and began scanning the water In the clear light of the late afternoon he could see a considerable distance below the surface.

Somerville glanced over his shoulder. “What are you looking for?”

“Horra. This might sound crazy, Will—but I think I recognised the big one which nearly capsized my boat.”

“You think it might be following us?”

“I’m not sure. It seems malicious enough, but could it be that intelligent?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised.” Somerville locked the wheel and took a bundle of black cheroots from his shirt pocket. “The reason I came out to see you earlier on was that I had never seen a cellular structure anything like theirs before. My microscope was too small for the job, but the plasma membranes seemed to have an extra layer.”

“Would that lead to an increase in intelligence?”

“I couldn’t answer that.” Somerville put a cheroot in his mouth and took out his lighter. “But squid and octopus are fairly intelligent to start off with, and when you have a viable mutation which leads to a big increase in size—coupled with extra cell complexity—anything could happen.”

Somerville lit the cheroot, inhaled deeply and a curious expression appeared on his face. He blew the smoke out immediately, clutching his right side, then stamped out the cheroot and threw the rest of the bundle overboard.

The tomb of Captain Patch Cawley was in a small memorial garden on the island’s central peak.

It was an appropriate place for the storage of the community’s small arsenal—those who were in on the secret thought of him as still keeping his finger on the trigger—and it had the advantage of being easy to secure. The fact that the vault was always locked excited no comment, and even the most adventurous of the island’s young people had no desire to pry inside. There was the additional advantage that the site provided 360-degree coverage of the surrounding sea, making it possible for a trained man to drop a nuclear shell into the midst of an invading fleet regardless of the direction from which it came. After decades of peace, however, this consideration had begun to seem more and more academic, and the garden remained a focus of tranquillity for those who liked to sit on its stone benches and admire the panoramic views.

Tarrant and Somerville crouched in the darkness among the trees and watched the quiet scene. They had spent the latter part of the afternoon and the early evening in obtaining supplies and loading them on to The Rose of York. As darkness had approached they had come up the hill by separate routes, only to find a middle-aged couple and two boys of about ten sitting in the garden opposite the door of the vault. The man was peacefully smoking a cigarette, the woman was talking to him with quiet concentration, and the boys were playing a game with white pebbles.

“They look like being there all night,” Tarrant said in a low voice. “What are we going to do?”

Somerville raised his shoulders. “We might have to kill them.”

Tarrant shook his head. “I thought of that, but the bodies could be found at any time—and we can’t afford to be at the centre of a manhunt.”

“We could put them in the vault.”

Tarrant evaluated the situation and calculated that several days were likely to elapse before anybody went near the door of the vault. “That seems all right. We’ll need to go for the kids first, because they can run faster—then I’ll take the man and you can deal with the woman.”

He took his knife from its sheath and signalled for Somerville to follow him as he moved off through the foliage to get nearer the family.

“Wait a minute,” Somerville said. “I think they’re. …” He parted the wall of shrubs with his hand and they watched as the man stubbed out his cigarette and got to his feet. The woman stood up with him and they walked towards the garden’s west gate, leaving the boys still absorbed in their game. At the gate the man turned and called the children. They gathered up the pebbles and ran to him, laughing, each trying to hold the other back.

“Just as well,” Tarrant said, putting his knife away. “There might have been too much noise.”

The two men waited in concealment for another minute before crossing the garden. Both had crowbars hidden beneath their jackets, and under their combined assault the panelled wooden door of the tomb opened almost at once. They went inside and dosed the door behind them. Somerville switched on a small flashlight and its beam picked out a simple sarcophagus in the middle of the circular building. The air was dry and faintly spicy, a smell which Tarrant found evocative of death and the slow-gathering dust of eternity. He was grateful for the reassuring presence within his ribcage, the reminder that he was no longer alone, no longer subject to the mortality of the individual.

The wavering spot of light jumped to a wooden partition which cut off a segment of the room. Attempts had been made to have the partition blend with the architecture, but the effect was spoiled by an incongruous bolt and padlock on the central door. Tarrant prised the lock off and opened the door to reveal the squat shape of a 500-millimetre mortar beneath a plastic cover. Behind it, resting in low cradles, were three red-and-white striped cylinders with built-in carrying handles.

“That’s handy—they’re still in the ready-use canisters,” Tarrant said. “I was afraid they might be already hooked up to propellent charges.”

“I don’t think there are any propellents. They would have become unstable a long time ago, and nobody has bothered to get new stuff.” Somerville shone his light around the equipment shelves and lifted a pouch of specialised tools and crammed it into his jacket pocket. “That’s all—let’s go.”

They picked up one of the heavy plastic canisters between them and carried it out of the vault. Tarrant closed the doors and pressed the splintered wood of the edges back into place. The night sky was opulent with stars, and Venus was burning low in the west, a steel-white flare so bright that it scribed a line of silver on the ocean. Somerville took off his jacket and draped it over the canister to hide the garish markings, and they set off walking down the hill. They met nobody in the quiet, sloping avenues, there being no sign of life on the island but for the windows which glowed lemon and white and amber among the trees.

The bomb was heavier than Tarrant had anticipated, but in spite of frequent pauses they got it to the boat in less than an hour. They stowed it in a rope locker, and Somerville went below to tend to the five castaways and prepare a meal, entrusting Tarrant with the job of taking them out to sea by way of the north channel. The boat rode quietly between the twin lines of marker globes, with Tarrant’s boat on tow, breasting the scented and oxygen-rich air which lay over the farm in an invisible blanket. About halfway to the rim Somerville emerged from below deck with a tray of food which he handed to Tarrant before taking over the wheel.

“How is it down there?” Tarrant said, sipping some of the rum which his host dispensed in the same way that others poured coffee.

“Hot.” Somerville opened his white shirt to the waist. “Young Geean seems a lot better already, though. First exposure to antibiotics and all that”

“Can they move around?”

“Not much. Ideally they should be in something like a shallow pool—out of the water it’s quite a strain for them even to move their arms. I’d say that if they hadn’t been very active up there, wherever it is, they couldn’t have made it in our gravity at all.”

Tarrant stared into the night sky for a moment. “Is it worth all the trouble to keep them alive?”

“We’ll have to see,” Somerville replied. “Perhaps for recruiting other help.”

“Okay.” Tarrant ate sparingly from the bread, fruit and nuts on his tray, and finished off the beaker of rum. “I think I’ll get a few hours of sleep up here.”

He lay down on the bench seat at the side of the upper deck. It had been a long and tiring day, and he expected to fall asleep almost at once, but the spirit he had drunk was curling warmly in his veins, triggering responses in his autonomic nerve system. All the heat of his body, all the strength and all the blood, seemed to migrate to his genitals, producing a painful, insistent tumescence. After ten restless minutes he sat up.

“It’s no use,” he said. “I won’t be able to sleep until I get rid of this.”

Somerville kept his gaze straight ahead. “You know where the women are, old son.”

Tarrant nodded. He stood up and went towards the head of the companionway, unbuttoning his pants as he walked. The hot air rising from the cabin carried with it the mingled odours of hair, perspiration and human flesh, further stimulating his physical craving. He entered the cabin without speaking. Somerville had left a small globe burning, and the first person Tarrant saw by its faint light was the older woman, Treece, lying in the starboard bunk.

“You’ll do,” he said unemotionally, casually, going straight to her.