I was annoyed. “Mmm,” I said. I changed the subject. “What do you think of the behavior of those sharks?”
“Sharks? I dunno. Murphig was talking to me about diem just a while back. He spends a lot of his time watching things, just sort of looking at them. He says they can smell death at a distance. Maybe, he says, smell it before it happens. The kid’s as nuts as Desperandum. Yeah, and. speaking of Murphig . . . how’s the stuff coming?” . I swung open a cabinet door and took out a metal bottle. In the bottom was a thin scum of syncophine. “Terrific,” said Calothrick, sniffing the bottle. He pulled his plastic packet out of his shirt and poured in a thin rivulet of the brew. “Ugh. It’s black,” he commented, sealing the bag. “First thing tomorrow, then, Murphig gets it.”
“Not too much,” I said. “It could be extremely powerful stuff.”
“Yeah, yeah, right, IH be careful,” Calothrick said impatiently. “Oh, by the way, d’you see that plankton out there tonight? Quite a sight.” He strapped his mask back on, slipped the Flare inside his shirt and went up through the hatch.
I sat down on the kitchen stool and began to clean out the still, meticulously. Sooner or later I would have to brew some spirits with it, if only to divert any possible suspicions of Dalusa’s. I wondered about my attraction to the woman. There were mixed motives, I decided.
Not least of which were the amplified joys to be derived from her company. It may seem strange to you, reader, but put yourself in my place. Did your mistress, lover, companion, ever lean forward to breathe hotly on your neck? Do ypu remember the quasi-erotic shiver it sent down your spine? Then Imagine • like stimulus from Dalusa, whose body temperature exceeded that of a human being. Remember the contagious excitement received when your partner’s heartbeat grows more rapid? Dalusa’s was almost twice that of a normal woman. If the idea of woman as an object of mystery appeals to you, well, Dalusa’s alien origin gave her a permanent romantic shroud. And she was beautiful. What matter if her classic loveliness was the gift of surgery? Surely you agree that it is the soul inside that we love, rather than the mere exterior. You agree with it, whether you believe it or not.
That was the major facet of the attraction. But there was a strong subliminal one, that Dalusa had perhaps deliberately fostered.
All of us have sadomasochistic qualities. Mine, though well controlled, seemed strong. I had admitted to myself long ago that my use of drugs was killing me. The Whole concept had become only another part of my self-image. But cruelty to oneself is the first and most crucial step in crudity to others.
I thought it all out and it all bored me. I decided to go on deck and see the plankton Calothrick had mentioned. I put on my dustmask.
As I stepped up through the hatch, the last sunbeams slipped upward off the eastern lip of the Nullaqua Crater. It was night.
Yet there were stars, and a dim green glow arose from the sea around us. I walked to the rail and saw that all around the Lunglance were square miles of krill, burning with bioluminescence. It was magnificent Suddenly I smiled inside my mask. I was glad I had done the things that had brought me to this spot I was glad to be alive, since I needed life to see this.
As I leaned over the rail a dark, winged shape flitted quickly before me and a narrow, dark swath opened in the closely packed crystals. A glowing bundle of them moved outward and upward with a swallow’s grace, then, suddenly, was directly over me. Green coals cascaded around me, falling like nuggets of lava from a cool volcano, scattering and pattering across the deck.
The hair on the back of my neck was stirred by the wind from her wings as Dalusa settled beside me. A weblike black net was still strapped to one of her ankles.
She had brought me jewels in the seagull’s severed foot.
Chapter 6
The Storm
Next morning at breakfast Calothrick sat next to Murphig at the table in the dining tent Palming his dropper, he squeezed a massive dose of the brew into Murphig’s gruel. Then he caught my eye and winked.
We both examined Murphig anxiously. Stolidly, the young Nullaquan cleaned his bowl, rose with perfect composure, and walked out of the tent I had always known syncophine to have a powerful and rapid effect but I kept an eye on him for a full hour anyway. Nothing. Obviously it was still much too weak.
When we killed our next whale I appropriated two buckets of intestines and started work. Calothrick met me after lunch that day and we had a hurried consultation.
“Still too weak,” I said. “Maybe there’s a certain organ that yields the Flare. The spleen maybe, the pancreas . . .”
“Spleen my eye,” said Calothrick testily. He was always on edge now, his eyeballs were yellowed and bloodshot “What the death good will that do us? Neither one of us knows anything about anatomy, much less a whale’s. They probably don’t even have spleens.”
“We’ll just have to do what we can,” I said patiently. “Sooner or later we’ll get it right You want to try out some of the brew? Maybe there’s something physically abnormal about Murphig.”
“Why torture me?” Calothrick said savagely. “We’ve fed it to him for four days now, stronger every time, and nothing. Nothing! Y’know, I’m starting to wonder about you. You’re taking it mighty easily; you’re as cool as a fish. No trembling, no jitters. Maybe you’ve got something I don’t know about. Like a bottle.”
“Really,” I chided.
“You got it soft, you know? You stay down here where it’s cool, serving that slop you call food—Don’t you shush me, man! You know what I have to go through up there? They order me around like a dog, tell me to do things I obviously never heard of before, and I cant even ask a question, man. Not with that mask on! If I want to ask something, I’d have to take it off and bloody my lungs with raw air. Every speck of dust is just like a needle inside your chest. No way! You realize that there are seven different kinds of ropes on this tub? And that doesn’t count the halliards, the braces, the downhauls or the clew lines. And there’s twenty sails on this thing! Uppers and lowers and mizzens and gallants ... how am I supposed to get ’em straight? So they send me to do the shit jobs. The stuff nobody else will touch. Look at this hand!”
Calothrick thrust his hand in front of my face. He had barked three of his knuckles. His fingers trembled noticeably. “I had to overhaul the secondary generator this morning. I did all the work while Grent stood by cleaning his fingernails and telling me what to do. And this afternoon I start work on the sewage recycler. No water for a bath. Hardly enough to wipe off with a sponge every other day! No, we save every drop. And down in the hold we have dozens of barrels full of cool, clean water. ‘Bound for the Highisle,’ they say. Shipowners wallow in luxury while we cook on deck.” “You volunteered,” I said pointedly.
“Don’t remind me.”
“And you’re not the only green hand on board.”
“Murphig was born here, man. It makes all the difference. Anyway, IH take care of Murphig in my own way.”
“Cheer up,” I said flatly. “I’ll have the new brew ready by tonight Half a bottle full. That’ll do it if anything will.”
Calothrick stared sullenly at me for a few seconds, then went back on deck.
Human blood poisoned whales, I told myself. I wondered If Calothrick would poison fhe sharks if I kicked him overboard.
That night Calothrick met me in the kitchen just before supper. “Have you got it ready?” he said, slapping his dust-mask down on the counter.