Humanx - Cachalot Part 63

"You're as crazy as they are!"

Mataroreva rushed the Commissioner, both mas- sive hands raised to strike,

Cora found herself on his back, pounding at his ears with her tiny fists. He shook her off, threw her to the floor. She lay there, head ringing from the im- pact.

Merced slipped in between Mataroreva and his spindly quarry and did something Cora didn't see.

Mataroreva grunted in surprise, then sat down, hold- ing his middle. Merced stood nearby, hands in front

of him, ready to defend himself or retreat depending on the larger man's actions.

But Sam's gaze was already clearing. "Th-thanks, Pucara." He smiled wanly. "They almost had me again." He looked up at Hwos.h.i.+en. "Yu, I-"

"Never mind." The oldster spoke thoughtfully.

"Evidently they won't wait for our air to run out.

They'll keep trying to control us that way. Eventually I think they'll get what they want." Then he frowned at the sweating, panting Cora. "Are you all right?"

"We're going to die. I know that now." She looked up and across to her daughter. "And since we're going to die, there's something you should know, Rachael."

"They're working on you now. Mother. Con- trol ..."

"No. No." She slimbed to her feet, slumped into one of the control chairs. She rested the back of a wrist against her forehead, closed her eyes, and tried to force out the words. It was difficult. She had worked to suppress them for twenty years.

"I've been hard on you, Rachael. I know that, and I'm sorry. I've been taking out on you the resentment I held against your father. I loved him once, origi- nally. I grew to hate him. Yet when he died I felt guilty. Maybe I should have been more of a woman ... I don't know what it was. I've just been trying so hard ever since to see that you didn't make the same mistakes, that you didn't fall into the same traps that life sets for us. That..."

Rachael was shaking her head slowly, and smiling.

"I know how you felt about him. Mother. Do you think children are blind?" Cora's arm slipped and her eyes functioned. Her daughter stood staring calmly down at her. "I noticed everything. I knew what was going on."

"So many years," Cora whispered. "Why didn't you ever tell me you knew?"

"I was afraid. Children don't mix in adult affairs.

264 CACHALOT.

It's an unwritten law of nature. I could see how it, how he, hurt you. So when you hurt me back"-she shrugged-"I took it. You had suffered enough."

She bent, hugged hard. It was reciprocated. "I hated him, too."

"You never showed it. I always thought you loved him."

Rachael's expression twisted. "I hated him ever since I was old enough to understand how he was hurting you. But I thought that if I loved him enough, it would make him stop making you cry so much.

You're very good at understanding the ways of echinoderms and teleosts and alien water-dwellers, Mother, but not so good with little girls." Then she started to sob. Cora joined her.

Mataroreva turned away, looked at Merced with great respect. "That's the second time they nearly made me kill someone. I would have, if not for you, Colonel. Maururu an. I thank you."

"Not as much as I do," Hwos.h.i.+en murmured.

"Just trained." Merced winced. "There . . . they just tried me again. It's hard to fight. Sooner or later they'll turn subtle again and make us do something that we think we're doing because we want to. Everyone has to consider everyone else's actions from now on with the greatest caution.

"We can't surface," he observed, changing the sub- ject. "The first thing we should do is communicate all we've learned to the s.h.i.+p waiting above so they can relay it to Mou'anui. They'll be safe, with that herd of catodons to protect them from any induced baleen attack."

Mataroreva started to comply, then turned away disgustedly from the console. "Forget it. They're gen- erating enough distortion at this range to jam any kind of broadcast we can make. I juggled frequencies like mad, but they're too fast. We're not getting through to the surface."

265.

"Let me see. I remember a few broadcast tricks."

While Hwos.h.i.+en and Mataroreva worked at the console, Merced divided his time between studying the internal galaxy of the CunsnuC outside the ports and watching his companions for signs of illogical action.

Time pa.s.sed. Mataroreva and Hwos.h.i.+en were un- able to punch a word past the watchful CunsnuC. An hour of life remained to the inhabitants of the sub- mersible. Outside, despite the brightness supplied by the CunsnuC, the watery dark and cold pressed close on the five travelers trapped in their metal bubble.

Cora found pleasure in those last minutes by watch- ing her daughter, studying every smooth curve of her face and form. She listened to the soft music, won- dered that it could ever have troubled her. A little understanding, and it would never have gotten on her nerves. She had pushed Rachael too hard in her own image. Let her have fun. You've spent twenty years not having any. Why deprive someone so full of life as she? Of course, it is likely that opportunity will now never be granted. So let her enjoy the music, and pre- tend you enjoy it even more than you do. Pretend-

She s.h.i.+fted so rapidly in the chair that Merced moved toward her from the port.

"No, Pucara, I'm okay. Rachael, show me how you work that thing."

"It's a little late to begin music lessons. Mother."

"It's not music I'm interested in, and the less musi- cal I can be, the better I'll like it."

A puzzled Rachael explained the workings. "Be careful with these two, Mother. Amplitude on axonics is dangerous. These have a built-in override, of course.

Otherwise you could seriously injure someone."

"Can you take out the override?"

"What? I-I don't know. I never considered it ...

I guess you could, but the failsafe might keep the instrument from playing."

"Then we'll just have to try it this way first." She

CACHALOT.

266.

snugged the device in her arms, trying to match Ra- chael's actions. Then she gritted her teeth and com- menced a most distressing and atonal song. Her teeth screamed. Her legs twitched. One time the pain in her head was so great it felt as if her eyes would burst

from the pressure.

But several minutes later the submersible tumbled sharply and they felt themselves rolling toward the ceiling. Mataroreva fought his way into a chair, worked frantically at the overwrought stabilizers. With his help, the automatics soon leveled them out.

Cora had not let go of the neurophon. She located the same setting, struck it once more. Again the sub- mersible was jolted by outside forces, though not as severely as before. She pushed the power to maximum and held down the combination of controls she had

located by chance.

Outsid& flowed an amazing display of energy and light. Colors far deeper than the gently pulsing pastels they had originally observed rippled through the CunsnuC. The chromatic storm raged through its sub- stance as internal structures quivered and swelled.

Then the creature was moving away, the violent dis- play fading only slightly.

Mataroreva jabbed several switches hopefully. Mo- tion possessed the craft. "They're no longer above us."

"Fifty-five hundred meters. Fifty-four." Merced spoke triumphantly from his seat. "We're ascending!"