Medusa's Children

CHAPTER SEVEN

In the morning they decided to keep the habitat inflated and to swim alongside it like small fish attendant on some greater creature of the sea. Lennar’s reasoning was that, as well as making it more convenient to eat and rest, the bulk of the expanded habitat would discourage many life forms from coming too close. There was a lesser possibility that it might serve to attract the attention of some monstrous predator which did its feeding on a huge scale, but this was something they chose not to dwell on at any length.

Myrah knew they had travelled a considerable distance while she was asleep, because the return of day manifested itself as only a slight lessening of the general murk. Her eyes were adapting better than she had expected, however, and she had no trouble in seeing and capturing air bubbles as she swam with economical strokes, holding the habitat’s outer net with one hand and keeping her spear at the ready with the other.

There was little conversation among the other members of the group and she guessed that, like herself, they were intensely aware of the vast and uninterrupted reaches of dark water through which they were moving. This was the natural element of the Horra, a creature whose large and well-developed eyes would function efficiently in the dysphotic conditions. Lennar, Harld and Dan were equipped with small cages containing shiverfish—tiny, nervous creatures who became agitated when a Horra came within range of their acute senses—but Myrah was not convinced they could give a sufficiently timely warning of danger in the present circumstances. There was, for instance, no guarantee that the band of humans were not under constant surveillance from afar by nameless and unknown entities whose vision was even more penetrating than that of the Horra.

Myrah kept her head turning constantly. Occasionally she made a sudden movement with her spear to frighten off small fish, some of them decorated with luminous spots, which came flitting in to investigate the party of strangers. This had to be done with discretion and only when a fish was particularly troublesome, because of the danger of creating an irregular pattern of movements—suggestive of a creature in difficulties—which might invite the attention of barracudas or sharks. Once she did see a shark nearby and froze into immobility, but it turned out to be a harmless variety which the people of the Clan knew as the gurry and sometimes netted for food. Its meat produced a strange intoxication when eaten fresh, which some of the young men occasionally did in spite of the danger of poisoning, but it became a useful food when allowed to dry or partly decompose.

As the elongated shape wove its sleepy way back into the gloom, Myrah noticed that Geean had turned her back to it and had pressed her face into the pliant surface of the habitat. New doubts about the girl’s presence on the journey sprang into her mind and she decided to remind her of the basic rules for survival as soon as they were alone together. Although Geean’s life was her own to dispose of as she wished, she had no right to endanger the others by not remaining on the alert.

The chance came some time later when Geean signalled she wanted a drink and went through the entrance fold into the habitat. Myrah indicated to Lennar that she would like to go inside as well and he nodded his permission. She found Geean clinging to the net near the intake pump, her mouth wide open as she gulped from the flow of air. The chin strap of her bubble cage was undone.

“What’s wrong, Geean?” she said. “Are you in pain?”

Geean started violently at the sound of her voice, but relaxed a little when she turned and saw Myrah. “I’m trying not to cough,” she said, keeping her voice low to avoid being heard by the swimmers outside. “And it hurts. It’s hurting me, Myrah.”

Myrah’s first and instinctive thought was for her own safety. “Has there been any blood?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“It’ll be all right,” Geean whispered, coming towards Myrah. “I’ve brought some bags with me. Look. I won’t let anything get away.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” Myrah said accusingly. “In some places it only takes one drop to get into the water, and…. You didn’t tell me you were this bad.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“That doesn’t help.” Myrah stared angrily into the childish, doomed face which looked so incongruous within the metal frame of a hunter’s bubble cage, and suddenly her sense of the enormity of their situation returned in full force. She tried to smile, and opened her arms. Geean embraced her and they floated through the air in a slow rotation, their naked bodies clinging together in a fervour which had elements of sexuality. Myrah stroked the moisture-beaded skin of the younger woman’s back and was shocked to realise just how little of her there was. It dawned on her that the very act of facing up to the daily life of the Clan with such inadequate physical resources called for a kind of courage she did not understand.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said in a quiet voice.

“What’s going to happen to me?”

“I’ll do everything I can for you.”

“I knew you would. I wish I could be like you, Myrah.” Geean pulled the bubble cage off her head and kissed Myrah on the breast and navel.

“No.” Myrah caught her and drew her upright. The people of the Clan had no taboos against homosexual love, and Myrah experimented with it when in certain moods, but the idea of congress with the immature and ailing girl was repugnant to her, especially as Geean had misunderstood her words of reassurance. She caught the bubble cage in its slow flight towards the exhaust pump, slipped it back on to Geean’s head and began fastening the chin strap.

“I promised I’d do all I could for you,” she said gently. “And that means getting you back to the Home as soon as possible. I’ll have to tell Lennar.”

“You wouldn’t! Anyway, there’s nothing anybody can do now.”

“We can split up the group. One of the men can take you back.”

Geean caught Myrah’s wrists. “I couldn’t swim that far without a place to rest.”

“I’m sorry, but you and Lennar will have to work that out between you.” Myrah moved to free her hands, but Geean held on with surprising tenacity and a struggle developed. Losing her patience, Myrah applied her superior strength and was prising Geean’s fingers open when there was a warning cry outside the habitat. The man’s voice, travelling partly in water and partly in air, was unrecognisable, but Myrah had no difficulty in understanding the single, dreadful word. Geean immediately released her grip and floated back, eyes and mouth wide open. Myrah snatched their two spears from the adhesive pad near the entrance and pushed one towards Geean.

“Come on,” she snapped. “Outside.”

Geean shook her head. “But it’s the Horra.”

“We still have to go out.” Myrah was turning towards the entrance when she heard the unmistakable churning sound produced by a big Horra swimming at maximum speed. An instant later the side of the habitat burst inwards and its interior was filled with a dark conical body, threshing tentacles, whorls of water, fantastically stretched air bubbles and ribbons of netting. Myrah was hurled into the netting by the impact and the rush of water through her bubble cage stripped it of air. She held her breath and fought clear of the clinging mesh.

The Horra had lost momentum with its destruction of the habitat and it was twisting to bring its tentacles into a position in which they could encircle her. Myrah saw at once that its huge, calm eyes were out of her reach and she knew that if she was going to have any hope at all of surviving she would have to use the cold-blooded fighting technique developed by generations of the Clan’s hunting family.

She identified the Horra’s sexual arm by its almost total lack of suckers and grasped it with her left hand, at the same time allowing the other tentacles to snake around her body and draw her towards the beaked central mouth. At the last possible moment she brought her spear up level, instinctively positioning its blunt end in the special cup on her belt and guided the point into the Horra’s mouth. The theory was that the harder the Horra tried to pull her in, the further it would drive the spear into its own stomach; but putting it into practice called for quick reflexes and strong arms. Myrah fought desperately to fend off the sexual arm and at the same time to brace the spear with her right hand.

She was dimly aware of Geean screaming nearby and of the sound of other struggles, but most of her attention was taken up with the realisation that the tubular metal of the spear was bending with every contraction of the Horra’s tentacles. It had only to buckle in the middle and she was certain to die—and it seemed that this particular Horra was powerful enough to ensure that she did. She twisted the spear, hoping to force its point through the tough wall of the monster’s stomach and into more sensitive regions of its body, but her efforts were having no useful effect, and a pounding in her chest told her that she had to have air very soon.

She forced her head back against one of the loathsome coils, managed to capture a bubble, and then made an even more startling discovery—the Horra was not trying to kill her.

The mind-numbing proximity of the creature made it difficult for her to think rationally, but it became apparent that the Horra was not behaving in a manner normal to its kind. It was not thrusting with its sexual arm and was no longer forcing her towards its mouth, even though its tentacles were still wrapped around her body. Belatedly, Myrah also realised that it had not used its pads to exert the fierce suction which could lift skin and flesh from a human body. It was almost as if—and she found the thought subtly more terrifying than the prospect of immediate death—the creature had set out to make her a prisoner.

Myrah moved her head again, taking more air, and for the first time had a chance to witness the complexity and confusion of the battleground. It appeared that the group had been attacked by at least twelve Horra working in unison. Two of the latter had been mortally wounded and were drifting with aimless twitches of their tentacles amid clouds of black fluid. Geean and Treece and the three men were in same plight as Myrah—each of them held fast by a Horra, in the hideous likeness of a huge fist—but all seemed to be alive and unharmed. The supply pack and the remnants of the habitat were tumbling slowly away, and as an extra bizarre touch one of the pumps had been torn free of the habitat and was swimming off into the gloom, industriously propelling itself by its exhaust, like a strange cylindrical fish. Several Horra—those without captives—were slowly circling the central group, pulsing along with regular spreading movements of their tentacles.

In spite of the evidence of her eyes, Myrah was unable to accept the idea of the Horra suddenly beginning to display human-like intelligence. They had always been dangerous adversaries, but their cunning had invariably been animalistic. For example, it had never been known for one of them to release its grip on a hunter and thereby avoid having a spear driven through its vitals. The thought led to a further notion that perhaps the Horra had learned to avoid that form of destruction and were trying a new battle technique of their own. Myrah strove to hold fast to her spear, then observed that Geean and Dan had lost their weapons and therefore were completely at the mercy of their captors—yet the Horra were making no move to dispatch them.

When she found she was again in need of air, Myrah’s alarm increased as she saw there were no bubbles within her reach. Suddenly she understood just how easy it would be for the Horra to kill her with scarcely any effort—it had only to prevent her from breathing for a short time. She struggled to trap a bubble in her cage and, as if to discount her latest theory, the Horra actually propelled itself into a region of plentiful air and released its coils sufficiently to permit her to take as much as she needed.

The same movement, by increasing the distance between her body and the creature’s mouth, allowed the butt of her spear to come out of the belt cup, and with a convulsive twitch of one of its arms it withdrew the spear from its mouth and cast it aside. Myrah was too intent on breathing to try countering the move, but from the corners of her eyes she received the impression that the Horra holding Lennar, Harld and Treece had performed exactly the same manouevre at exactly the same time.

“Is everybody all right?” Lennar shouted. “Give me your names.”

The others, with the exception of Geean, replied to him, and he spoke her name again. Myrah, who was closest to Geean, saw that she was still moving her hands and feet, and taking air in a normal manner, although her slim body was almost completely hidden by the banded alien flesh of her captor.

“She’s all right,” she called. “I’ll watch her.”

“Good for you,” Treece said, with enigmatic calmness, from a nearby point in the nightmarish ballet formation.

Lennar raised his voice again, miraculously managing to regain some of his authority. “Try not to panic, and whatever you do—don’t struggle. The last thing we want to do is tire ourselves out. There’s something we don’t understand here, but we can….”

Treece laughed sharply. “Lennar, you’re a fool if you don’t understand this.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m telling you these are Ka’s servants.” Treece gave another laugh, a curious barking sound which succeeded in adding to the horror Myrah was experiencing.

“Silence!” Lennar commanded. “We’ll need clear thinking if we’re going to have any….”

He broke off as the entire assembly of Horra turned in one concerted movement and began swimming downwards. There was no tentative following of a current as had been the case with the party of humans. The Horra seemed to know exactly where they were going, and they were out to get there quickly. They swam in typical Horra fashion with their pointed bodies spearing through the water followed by clusters of tentacles, from the base of which their huge, unblinking eyes seemed to regard the universe with quizzical detachment.

The rush of water through the tentacles and the hissing of their propellent siphons made it impossible for the humans to communicate with each other, but in any case Myrah would have had nothing to say. She had to concentrate all her attention on snatching air bubbles out of the turbulence created by the Horra which had her in its grip. Several times she got into difficulties as bubbles shattered and refused to glue themselves into the metal cage around her head, but always—as if sensing what was happening—the Horra swung her to one side and made it possible for her to obtain adequate air.

Try as she might, she could not avoid the conclusion that the cephalopod was behaving like an intelligent being, but for the greater part of the time she was unable to think at all. The feel of the cold, rubbery flesh against her skin, the slow working of the beaked mouth less than an arm’s length away, and the oblique scrutiny of the huge eyes combined to produce in her a mental paralysis. She began to get a vague understanding of why some sea creatures yielded so readily to their natural enemies, even in some cases appearing to assist in their own destruction. Her sluggish and morbid reveries came to an end when she felt the Horra’s downward rush begin to slacken.

With the drop in speed the business of staying alive required less of her attention, even though she was now taking bubbles by feel rather than sight, and she began to look around for some evidence that they had reached a destination. Below the pointed bodies of the Horra, and barely discernible in the near-lightless conditions, was a vast black solidity. Its surface was complicated and appeared to be covered with protuberances and masses of fronds which moved slowly under the action of currents. Here and there, close to the dark surface, Myrah picked out signs of independent motion which could have been more Horra or other creatures going about mysterious errands. One part of her mind, insulated from fear, began to wonder how it was possible for her to see at all in what should have been complete darkness. The answer came when she noticed that some of the moving creatures actually had glowing wakes and it dawned on her that there were quantities of luminescent material drifting in the water all around.

Here, too, was the answer to a question which had long been discussed and argued by the people of the Clan. The world did have an inner core, probably built up of the shells and skeletons of beings which had died over a period of hundreds of years. It was known from experience that the vast majority of corpses were devoured before they had sunk very far, but here was the evidence that some had reached the centre, and had been received by….

Myrah tried to fight off the concomitant thought, but it invaded her mind with irresistible power.

This was the home of Ka!

Somewhere down there, in cavities hewn from a grisly coral, crouched the Unknown One—the dark force which lived and yet was the antithesis of life.

Like all others of her race, Myrah had no direct evidence of Ka’s reality, but she had always believed in him nonetheless. In addition to the legends which had been handed down from the ages in which humans had been able to roam the world in freedom, there was her unshakable inner certainty that Ka had to exist as a necessary complement to life as she knew it….

“Is everybody still alive?” Lennar shouted above the decreasing turbulence. There was a scattered response, in which Myrah joined without conscious volition, then she heard Harld asking a question.

“What’s going to happen now?”

“We have to face up to it,” Lennar replied in a strained voice. “The Horra have never wanted us for any other reason than to….”

“You’re a fool, Lennar,” Treece cut in hysterically. “These are not ordinary Horra. These are the servants of Ka. They’re taking us to Ka!”

Myrah felt a renewed awareness of the creature which was holding her in such monstrous intimacy and for a moment almost yielded to the need to scream, but Lennar’s voice cut through the red mists of panic.

“Pay no attention to the mad woman,” he ordered. “They aren’t gripping as hard now, so this is the best time to break free. Take as much air as you can, and when I give the word—start fighting them. Go for the eyes with your feet, and if you manage to get free don’t wait around for anybody else….”

His voice was lost in a multiple cry, a strange sobbing gasp, which issued from the throats of the other humans. Myrah felt her own breath sighing away, adding to the chorus of despair, as the black core of the world—the entity she had taken to be an inanimate mountain of coral—spread its arms to receive them.

There followed a period of indeterminacy; of time outside of time; of fear beyond fear.

Myrah was distantly aware of spinning and tumbling as in a powerful current, of night wings curving around her and blotting out the entire universe, of a growing darkness which made it impossible for her to find air bubbles, of the bursting force within her ribs. Then there was the envelopment by Ka, the constriction of a cold and cavernous womb, the smothering pressure of its jelly-flesh on her face.

And, finally, there was her submission.

Myrah yielded with a guilty pleasure, grateful that the escape was being made so easy, and so desirable.

She drew the living tissue of Ka into her mouth and lungs.