Drink The Water

Chapter 3

3

Triangular blue tubes coursed through bedrock, sparkling with energy, pulsating at each juncture, like neural signals in some vast underground brain.

Janine sat up, startled, her coke beeping insistently, her dream fading.

The spider-bot was alerting her it had obtained the samples she'd requested.

She was out of bed in a moment and only the icy floor reminded her she needed to dress. Pants, shoes, shirt and jacket, and Janine was out the door, valise in hand.

The compound, although fenced, had only a cursory gate which always stood open. She headed for the nearest hover and cursed it to life, its liftoff slow, comming Doctor Carson.

Her geopositioner showed the spider-bot a mile down the hill, at the marina. Engines screaming, the hover banked and shot that way, the bay-side cluster of houses looking like a quaint seaside village of old New England, manicured hedges separating stone-faced cottages.

She landed the hover beside the boathouse, noticing a knot of people at the dockhead. A few looked her direction as she leaped from the vehicle.

The cluster parted for her. On the dock sat the bot.

Intact.

She knelt beside it, not quite believing. “Who put it together?”

An old salt with peppered hair and a half-mechanized face gestured vaguely out to sea. “Found it on the dock like this when I got here.”

She looked it over.

Undamaged, not a screw missing.

Did I imagine its coming apart? she wondered, opening her valise beside the bot. “All right, monkey, in your nest.”

“Yes, monkey mama,” it replied, and climbed into its setting. The bioanalyzer beeped and lit up, its cover closing automatically to prevent contamination.

The approaching whine of a hover alerted Janine. That'll be Carson, she thought. She looked at the old sailor. “I'm Janine Meriwether, Xenobiologist at the Alien Microbiology Institute on Sydney.” She stuck out her hand.

“Cap'n Baha, Abraham Baha. Pleased.”

They shook. “Likewise. Ever seen this happen before?”

Cap'n Baha shook his head. “Every sea eventually gives up its drowned, but not this one.” He gestured vaguely again out to sea.

“What happened?” She pointed to her own face to indicate his half-mechanized one.

“Harvester got tangled in the w**d. We were chopping ourselves loose when it yanked the whole rig under. Net-shank whipped past my face and took half off, exposed all the way to the brain. I was the lucky one.”

Janine frowned. “How's that lucky?”

Cap'n Baha shrugged. “I lived. No one else did.”

Doctor Carson ran over, his hover powering down behind him. He stopped, puzzled.

She gestured at her valise. “Intact, not a screw missing.”

“But …” His brow wrinkled with bewilderment.

Janine shook her head at him. “I've never seen anything like it.” She looked out to sea, wondering what they were dealing with.

“You've been on eight, ten drowning search-n-rescues, right? Worked with teams half across Nartressa, and you know this Xeno, too, eh?”

Randall nodded at the Chief, fidgeting uncomfortably. He stood in front of the Chief's desk, and he'd just been asked to accompany the Xenobiologist Janine Meriwether to multiple snatch sites for the next two weeks.

“Look, Randall, I've got a crew to run, rescues to attend to, medical emergencies to respond to. I need someone to keep this offworlder out of my office long enough for me to do my job. And you're looking haggard, Randall. Needing a break, I can tell. Not sleeping well, nightmares, panic attacks. How about something different for awhile?”

Randall left the office, blinking away tears in the stiff breeze, looking across the saddleback between the EMT compound and the research station.

The island's twin peaks were connected by a road, and off the road were twenty or so cottages, one of them Randall's. The best he'd been able to wrangle from the Chief had been, “I'll have to discuss it with my wife.” Dejected, he walked along the road, wondering what he'd tell her.

The late summer grasses lining the road waved in the wind, just a tree or two between him and a view of the ocean. The planet was virtually devoid of larger vegetation, these few trees having been brought from off-planet.

Unless you counted the w**d, he thought.

The water was a dull metal gray, the surface calm with occasional patches of w**d visible just above the waterline. From a distance, it just looked like seaweed. The detritus lining every shore, washed up by the tide and the waves, looked like the seaweed that Randall had seen in stills from Old Earth, the leaves rubbery, dark green-brown, the connecting branches looking like the tentacles of some menacing alien creature and, on the ends, some bulbous nodules that served as floats.

The washed-up seaweed was poisonous, and no matter how it was processed, it couldn't be used as food. How the indigenous fish population managed to eat it was a mystery, as well as how the fish ended up being edible. Someone had explained it once to Randall, but he'd been unable to follow the logic. How the w**d could be smoked was another mystery, but he'd been told that the smoke induced euphoria and visions.

He walked up the path toward his home, the disarray of the front yard reminding him it needed tending. Little else grew except the native grasses, the imported trees requiring nutrients that didn't occur naturally in the rocky soil.

The house was empty, his wife not yet home from her job at the hospital, three hundred miles and two hours away.

He fixed himself some tea and sat in the living room, still not sure what to tell her. He knew if he didn't take the offer, the Chief would put him on disability. Too many of his coworkers had gone out on stress-leave for the Chief not to see the signs in Randall's face. But going with the Xenobiologist seemed like admitting to failure.

He yawned, knowing he needed to cry, knowing he needed to sleep, the steam from the tea warm against his face.

The triangular blue tunnel led slightly downward, its ribs pulsating evenly, the sound of rushing fluid all around him. The apex of the tunnel was high enough above his head that he didn't need to bend over, but the walls leaning in from the sides caused him to feel claustrophobic. He put his hand to one of the blue, rubbery ribs. Warm to the touch, and reactive, pulling away slightly as though unaccustomed to touch.

The ridged floor also gave slightly as he walked along the tunnel.

He came to a six-way intersection, wondering which way to go. Each tunnel curved away slightly, and he realized as he looked among them that he didn't know which way he'd come. Panicked …

He woke, chilly, sweating, his breathing rough.

Randall wiped his brow, looked around his living room. Beside him on the table, the tea was cold. The windows were darker.

From outside, he heard the whine of an approaching hover, its engine high-pitched.

His wife's shuttle.

What will I tell her? he wondered.

Brian Franks slipped a ten-galacti chit to the valet as his hoverlimo purred to a stop in front of him. He slid into the back seat and the door was closed behind him, shutting out the revelry still pouring from the Chancellor's palace.

The array of electronics lit up as the hover lifted off. Usually, he welcomed the soft voice over his coke, the arrays of symbols across his corn, the soft hum of machinery under his hand.

“Remote office off,” he said, stiffing a yawn.

Coke and corn shut off.

The reception with the Chancellor had gone well. He'd received Brian with all the pomp and circumstance of a visiting dignitary.

Although no contracts were signed, no agreements made, no details discussed, the Chancellor's greeting alone had assured Brian that his company had already been chosen for exclusive rights to trawl Bora Bora's waters.

Aquafoods Interstellar was the largest operator of seagoing fish trawlers in the galaxy, and Brian had made it that way. He'd taken a small company with just four worlds under contract and had extended its reach to the breadth of the galaxy. Now, nearly two thousand watery worlds depended on the distribution that his company provided.

Premier among its products were the Nartressan lines, the crown jewel of Aquafoods Interstellar, making up fully a quarter of its volume by weight. But because the catch from the Nartressan waters was such premium quality, the product cost half-again more than comparable seafood and was fifty percent of AI's profit margin.

The Chancellor's favor in AI's contract would sway the watery world's legislature to grant the company exclusive rights to the rich fisheries of its tropical seas, Bora Bora being eighty-five percent water.

Brian yawned again, realizing he'd been awake more than twenty hours since landing his yacht that afternoon.

The hover entered a triangular blue tunnel, which narrowed, seeming too small for the ship. The clear plasma ball enclosing Brian hurtled through the tunnel, ribs passing so fast they appeared to go the other direction. The ball shot into pool of pulsating liquid, a clear green fluid with fingertip-size bubbles suspended in it, the pulses compressing the plasma ball with each beat, beat, beat.

Brian started awake, gasping as though he'd been drowning. The city lights rushed past below, the hum changing as the hover slowed.

What was that? he wondered, wiping sweat away and trying to still the rapid beating of his heart, heart, heart.

He pulled himself from the hover, stepping onto the penthouse hover pad as though expecting it to fall way from under him.

The curtains were drawn across the floor-to-ceiling windows of his suite, just one lamp visible though the curtains.

He scanned himself in, the door sliding aside.

In the dim glowglobe light, a woman stirred restlessly on the divan.

Wanting to put his terror and disorientation behind him, he sat beside her.

Honeydew Diamond screamed as she plunged into the warm pulsating liquid, a clear green fluid with fingertip-sized bubbles suspended in it. The breath she drew of that same liquid went in without the sensation of drowning, but she screamed again anyway. The pulsating became pushing, and the liquid hurtled her toward an aperture, which opened, opened, opened, in time with the pulsating liquid.

She fought for something to grab, being pushed toward the aperture, the gigantic valve flapping opened and closed.

She flailed—

“Hey, come on, you're all right,” the man said, catching each of her arms by the wrist.

The echo of her own scream remained a memory in her ears. “I'm sorry I—”

“Shhh!” he said.

She shushed, a distant memory of gentle voices calming her. How many years had it been since she'd heard a calming voice or felt a calming touch?

The hands that held her wrists were gentle, the eyes that beheld her face were older but kind.

“Not very seductive, huh?”

The man snorted. “You've had difficulties.”

Honeydew shook her head. “Compared to some, I've been lucky.” She remembered the liquid. “Drowning in green water,” she said, shaking her head.

“Green—?”

She saw his eyes narrow, his gaze becoming vacant. “Sorry to bother you with that. It was nothing.” She put her hand to his face. “You're so kind. And handsome.” She pitched her voice just so and gave him a soft smile.

She saw his eyes drop to her breastline. She drew him close.

“Tell me about the green water.”

Laying on her back, his moistures trickling from her, Honeydew glanced at his darkened face, was surprised to find him fully attentive. Most men just wanted to drift off to sleep afterward.

Because he'd been so kind and gentle, she'd pleasured him deeply in the experienced ways available to her, and he'd reciprocated without her asking, and the culmination had brought her an uncommon pleasure and deep satisfaction. From his breathing, she'd thought he'd surely fallen asleep.

“I'm here for you,” she said, “not you for me.”

“I'll double your fee.”

“No, thank you. It's time for me to go.” She rose and reached for the gown.

“I had a similar dream.”

Something in his voice stopped her, some quality of tone. “What was it about?” She slipped into her gown anyway.

“A tube, triangular and blue. I was shooting through it in some kind of orb, and then I burst into this thick green liquid, pulsating and squeezing the orb, compressing it.” His gaze looked hollow in the dim light, the curtains beginning to brighten with dawn.

“I was drowning in the liquid, but I could breathe it, but the pulsing—”

They looked at each other.

“Like a heartbeat,” they both said.

Honeydew shuddered.

“The thick green liquid,” he asked, “what do you remember about it?”

“Clear,” she replied, “I could see shapes. Bubbles suspended in the liquid, small, none of them larger than my fingertip.”

He nodded his gaze vacant. “No blue tube?”

She shook her head. “What does it mean, to dream something so similar?”

He shrugged. “Some connection, somehow. Listen—”

“Steve's awake,” she said.

His eyebrows went up.

A soft knock at the door. “Mr. Franks?”

“Breakfast, please,” he said toward the door. “For two, please.”

A moment of hesitation. “Breakfast for two, Sir. The usual.” The sound of retreating steps.

She looked at him. “I should be going.”

“You knew he was there before I did.”

She shrugged. “A survival skill.”

“What's my name?”

“Brian Franks, CEO of Aquafoods Interstellar.”

“Who did I meet with, tonight?”

“Chancellor of Bora Bora.”

“And how'd that go?”

She found herself knowing without knowing how she knew. “It went well, you're sure you'll get the contract for …” She wasn't able to say and shook her head.

“What did I do before meeting with the Chancellor?”

“Sailed halfway across Bora Bora in a rental yacht. Alone.” She shook her head, again not knowing how she knew. “I'm not supposed to know that, am I?”

“No one but Steve knows it. What happened when I docked?”

Honeydew shook her head and turned to find her clothes. “I don't know. Look, all this is interesting—”

“I dreamt I was pulled into the water.”

She froze. “How'd you know?”

“That you dreamt the same?”

“Except mine wasn't a dream. How did you know?”

“I don't know how I know. You don't either, do you?” It was almost an accusation.

Honeydew couldn't hide the fact. “Look, Mr. Franks, I need to go. Whatever wild idea you've got in your head needs to stay in your head. You're a nice man, and you've been more kind to me than anyone has been in a long time, and for that I'm really grateful.”

He propped himself on his elbows. “But you need to go.”

“Yeah, I do.”

He sighed and nodded. “All right. Call on Steve if there's anything you need, ever. I'm probably a fool to make that offer, but there it is.”

Honeydew Diamond walked out of the Hilton with a greater sense of loss than she'd experienced in a long time.

Each time she sold herself, she experienced regret about the encounter, doing what she did, that she had to do what she had to do, but it was a loss dulled by the many times she'd experienced it. This time, she had the unmistakable feeling she'd missed an opportunity, a feeling compounded by the fact that she'd had far too few opportunities in her life to begin with.

She sent a curse back over her shoulder, knowing that tomorrow night's customer would be far more difficult to handle because tonight's customer would still be on her mind.