There was an indeterminate period—a flashing of lights, the thunder of organic pumps—during which Tarrant felt nothing but a dark satisfaction that he had not been an easy prey; then he was forced to open his mouth and let himself be invaded by the sea. …
“… Never seen anything like … thought it was some kind of leech, but the … seems to be a complete lack of specialised organs. …”
The voices came and went for a long time, meaningless as the drone of bees on a summer afternoon.
Tarrant opened his eyes and saw a flat, whitish plain crossed by parallel black canals which receded into infinity. Here and there on the Dali landscape were monstrous objects which might have resembled shoes but for their enormous size. He became aware of a weight on his back, of the insistent pressure of hands. At first he accepted the incomprehensible new world without question, suffused with a vague relief at being able to see or feel anything, then one of the shoe-like things moved and he knew he was lying with his face pressed against the wooden deck of a ship. He tried to speak, but renewed pressure on his back turned the unborn words into a rasping moan.
“We’ve got him,” a man’s voice said. “For a while I didn’t think he was going to make it.”
With the return of consciousness, the natural mechanisms of coughing and retching took over the job of expelling water from Tarrant’s body and he gave himself up to it for minute after minute. Finally the muscular spasms began to ease, and the authoritative voice spoke again.
“Wrap those blankets around him and take him inside. Get some hot coffee into him.” There was a pause. “And bring that bucket with you.”
Tarrant was lifted and carried across the deck, during which process he glimpsed naval grey superstructure, a broad upraised bow reminiscent of that of a trawler, and a distant golden fire on the horizon which told him the sun was rising. He was taken into a spacious deck-house and placed in a chair. In spite of the predominant battleship grey, the men who carried him were wearing an assortment of lightweight civilian clothes. The senior man wore an officer’s peaked cap, but with a careless jauntiness which—in conjunction with his loose red shirt and open sandals—made him look like a weekend sailor. He was a stoop-shouldered man in his fifties, with crisp waves of greying hair, steel-rimmed glasses and a look of quizzical intelligence.
Tarrant watched him blankly over the rim of the mug which was being held to his lips, and tried to drag himself fully into the present moment. He liked this man who was standing before him, he liked the feeling of being cared for, he liked the warm and dry airiness of the deck-house … but bad things had been happening to him, something terrible had come into his life. Tarrant let his gaze rove around, taking in the watchful faces, the profusion of electronic equipment on shelves and benches, the white plastic bucket on the deck near his feet, the eel-like sliver of black jelly which lay in the bottom of the bucket. …
“Kill it!” he screamed, throwing himself forward. “Kill that thing! Kill it!”
“Take it easy, son.” Strong hands pushed him back into his chair and held him immobile.
“Burn it,” Tarrant pleaded. “Do you hear me? I want it dead!” He renewed his struggles to get out of the chair, but in his weakened condition the others contained him easily. Tarrant began to sob.
“That thing was inside me, for God’s sake! It made me …” As his memory returned in full, he doubled forward in a paroxysm of nausea, and coffee spurted from his mouth on to the deck.
“Take the bucket out of his sight,” the senior man ordered, “but be careful with it.”
When the bucket was carried away Tarrant slumped back in his chair. “Thank you, thank you—but don’t let anybody touch it. Don’t let it get near anybody’s mouth, because if you do …”
His jaw clamped and tears welled into his eyes as he recalled some of the horrors of his Ka-existence. He had been prepared to kill a whole family to gain perhaps an hour, and the people, the children, had been nothing to him. He had been more inhuman than the Horra themselves. He had left two nuclear weapons in an unlocked building, where they could be found and tampered with by children. And there had been other things. Using a helpless woman like a. … Tarrant gave a deep sigh and huddled himself up in the blankets, rocking from side to side in the chair.
“I’m Theo Martine,” the grey-haired man said, gripping Tarrant’s shoulders and holding him steady. “And this is a research vessel of the South Newzealand Navy. What’s your name?”
“Hal Tarrant.”
“What were you doing in the sea? Did you go overboard from a ship?”
Tarrant shook his head and almost managed to smile. “You’ll never believe me.”
“Try me.”
“It’s no use, I tell you.”
Martine’s face became less kindly, more determined. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Would it help you if I told you that the squid we picked up along with you is like nothing else on this Earth? And that you owe your life to that fact?”
“In what way?” Tarrant said cautiously.
“It’s an outsize version of the common squid, which is a nektonic-pelagic animal. All nektonic species are slightly heavier than water, which means that when they die they sink to the bottom. The one you managed to kill floated to the surface, bringing you with it, so I knew immediately that giantism wasn’t its only peculiarity. Things like that intrigue me, Mr Tarrant. And things like that mobile jelly we pumped out of your lungs intrigue me even more, so I want you to start telling me what you know about them. All right?”
Tarrant nodded, his mind plagued by doubts, then a new thought occurred to him. Will Somerville, Myrah, Lennar and the others were on their way to Harpoon Island with the intention of exploding a nuclear bomb on it. Detonating such a bomb was a fairly straightforward matter for a man with military experience, but because it was intended for artillery use the maximum delay available on the fuse circuits varied from only thirty to sixty seconds, depending on the type of weapon. This consideration had not troubled Tarrant while he was aboard The Rose of York, and he understood now that Ka had suppressed it. Somerville still had that lethal blind spot, and therefore he was going to his death—as were the group of lost, hag-ridden men and women travelling with him.
“Big decision?” Martine said.
“Not really.” Tarrant met his gaze squarely. “Does the name Ulrich Bergmann mean anything to you?” He saw the muscles of Martine’s face sag momentarily.
“Just a minute,” Martine said briskly, making an immediate recovery. He turned to the small group of men who were with him. “I’m taking Mr Tarrant to my room, where he can rest properly. In the meantime I want that squid sectioned and examined. Keep an eye on the other thing and let me know if it shows any sign of change.”
Martine helped Tarrant to his feet. They went aft, climbed a flight of steps and entered a roomy cabin which was furnished as living quarters. Martine handed Tarrant a towel, then opened a drawer and passed him clean underwear, a shirt and a pair of shorts. As he moved about the cabin his eyes watched Tarrant unblinkingly.
“I did tell you,” he said finally, “that this is a ship of the South Newzealand Navy.”
“You did.” Tarrant began to dry his hair with the towel. His arms felt weak, difficult to control.
“You sound like a Newzealander yourself.”
“I am.” Tarrant began to wonder where the interview was leading.