There Is No Darkness

  “No, I mean if you don’t have a partner. Fighting alone.”

  “Alone?” He looked puzzled, then astonished. Then he laughed. “No, nobody fights alone. Never. If you left your back unprotected, you’d be hit from behind immediately. The sharks’d have your kidneys for breakfast.”

  “But I’d planned — “

  “Mr. DeLavore,” Pancho interrupted, “sometimes it takes this big boob a long time to catch on. I’m going to be his partner, of course.”

  “Pancho!” I was aghast. “You can’t risk —“

  “Risk, nothing. I’m not going to let you have all the fun.”

  “Well, fun … uh, before either of you decide, there’s one more tape I’ve got to show you.”

  It started out like all the others, except that one of the fighters was a woman. They drifted down in the shark cage, a framework of close-spaced metal bars, and swam out of it when it reached camera level. Each of them was wearing a weight-belt with a freshly-killed fish attached (the sharks won’t normally attack a human being; they go after the bait and the human kind of gets in the way). They swam out a short distance and took the normal back-to-back position. There were about a half-dozen small sharks circling them. They threw away their shark billies and held hands.

  “Until then,” DeLavore whispered, “we hadn’t known they were suicides.”

  Before the billies had sunk out of view, one of the small sharks shot in for the attack. He opened his mouth impossibly wide and slammed into the fish on the girl’s belt. His teeth evidently sunk into her abdomen and got hung up on the leather belt. He started thrashing around, stuck, and she tried to push him away with feeble gestures. Then a huge striped shark, bigger than me, slid up from underneath them and, ignoring the people, swallowed half of the small shark and just kept on going. But the little shark had too good a grip on her and she … unraveled as the two fish sped upward. The people disappeared in a cloud of blood and suddenly there was nothing but sharks, dozens of them flying in from every direction. And inside the billows of blood, a dim scene of incredible ferocity; sharks twisting and worrying away at their quarry, fighting with each other over choice bits …

  “Whew.” The picture faded. “Things like that happen often?”

  “No. Definitely not. Sharks look dangerous, and, although singularities like this are horribly impressive, they’re actually afraid of people, most of them. And they’re cautious, anyhow, by nature.” He slid the curtain back in place.

  “By our statistics, an untrained man — as long as he can swim with a tank and is reasonably careful — has less than a two percent chance of being bitten during the show.”

  “That two percent is what the people watch for, though,” Pancho said.

  DeLavore reddened, shrugged his shoulders. “That may be. We’ve never made a survey.”

  “If you do get bitten,” I asked, “how badly are you likely to be injured?”

  He hesitated, then looked straight at me. “You’ll die. Most likely, you’ll die.”

  He didn’t seem to be fudging on that statistic.

  “I don’t want to mislead you as to the danger. A single shark probably won’t kill you. When people normally get bitten — outside the show, that is — it’s usually no worse than a lost limb or a large chunk of meat. If they manage to get by the shock, they can go to a regeneration clinic. But most of them are attacked by a single shark. There are literally hundred of them near the camera site for Shark Show. Once you start to bleed, you’ll attract the attention of every shark in the neighborhood. Even if you’re right above the cage it’s not likely you’ll get to shelter in time. They can move very quickly, as you have seen.”

  “Well, Carl?” Pancho said.

  “ ‘Well’ yourself. I’m in this for the money, and you —“

  “You’ve got yourself a couple of shark fighters, Mr. DeLavore.”

  Never try to figure out a Selvan.

  VII

  They fitted us out with tanks and got some flippers for Pancho. I didn’t get flippers; my feet were almost as big as the largest size they had. They adjusted our weight belts — I had to wear two — and gave us our billies. We decided we weren’t quite crazy enough for vibroclubs.

  For about thirty minutes we practiced swimming — floating, actually — in the protected pool below the ready room. It was a lot like exercising in the zero-g gym on Starschool. No sweat.

  Then we ended up waiting in the ready room until just before seven. It was cold and damp, not at all like the plush offices. It was awkward sitting on the low wooden benches. Pancho and I spent a long time staring at a bunch of empty lockers. Finally a bored attendant came in and gave us some last-minute instructions. He was pretty scarred up and missing a couple of fingers. Guess he hadn’t made it to the regeneration clinic in time.

  “If you just never let ‘em know you’re scared, you won’t have no trouble. Just keep calm and keep pushin’ ‘em away. Keep looking at your feet, don’t forget that — look at your feet. The biggies usually attack from below. Don’t even think about your back unless you feel your partner get hit — and that’s the only time you hurry; get back in that cage fast. Every shark in the neighborhood’ll be after you. One at a time, you can take care of them, not matter how big and mean. But you can’t handle fifty. Got it?”

  “Do we get paid for all the time we’re underwater?” I asked, trying to seem equally bored.

  “No, just from the time you leave the cage to the time you return. With luck, though, you’ll get five or ten free minutes before the first shark gets interested.”

  “What if they never get interested?” Pancho asked.

  He shrugged, spit on the floor. “Ain’t happened yet.”

  The cage he led us to was smaller than I’d expected. I had to squeeze into the opening and couldn’t stand up straight when I was inside. Everything on this world was built for midgets. As they craned us over the water, Pancho and I went over our simple strategy for the last time.

  We’d stay as close to the cage as possible, keeping it directly below our feet to keep the biggies from charging straight up the way that one did on the suicide tape.

  One tap on the back would mean “back to the cage” and two taps would mean “back in a hurry”. We didn’t figure there’d be any other kind of message of any importance.

  I braced myself for the shock of entering the water and found that it was pleasantly warm, almost body temperature. Must have held my breath for a full minute before I remembered to breathe through the mouthpiece. I tried to get my body to relax a little. It wouldn’t. I felt like bait on the end of a fishing line.

  We dropped past the cameramen, invisible inside their silver bubbles, and as the cage reached the end of its tether, we stopped with a soft bounce. No sharks around yet. We swam out the cage door and took up our position about two meters above. Back to back.

  We floated, waiting. I could see only one of the cameramen, about twenty meters away, directly in front of me. A broad ray of light, dim green, almost exactly the color of the water, came from the silver bubble. That was the holograph laser — people could sit in their living rooms drinking beer and watch us get bitten in three dimensions.

  Maybe I hadn’t been paying close enough attention, but suddenly it seemed that there were quite a few sharks circling us. They were staying some ten or fifteen meters out and didn’t look particularly aggressive, but I kept a wary eye on them anyway.

  Pancho moved a couple of times and I assumed he was fighting. I still wasn’t worried, because these fish were only a meter or so long and didn’t look like they could give you too much trouble, even bare-handed.

  Suddenly, all the sharks I could see swam off in a hurry. They were instantly replaced by a herd of individuals about twice their size. We’d been warned that groups of sharks are usually sharply segregated by size and you rarely saw a big and a little one together. There was an obvious reason; the little one would soon end up inside big brother.

  They must
have circled for five minutes before the first one approached. He slid to within two meters of me — one shark length! —and stopped obediently when he ran into my shark billy. He turned and swam lazily away. I started to relax a little.

  We had several encounters like that. I could feel Pancho’s activity against my back. It wasn’t too terribly frightening, since the big sharks didn’t seem to be all that interested in us. One by one, they went away to more fruitful pursuits.

  I just floated there counting my money, 150 pesas every minute. Two hours’ worth of air in the tanks — a fortune if they kept that way.

  I suppose I had about ten minutes’ worth of that kind of optimism. The next group was a bunch of really tiny sharks, about half the size of the first pack. They came in closer than the others, but few of them seemed disposed to attack. Every now and then one would make a mad dash for the fish on my belt — faster than the big ones — but I always managed to push him away in time.

  Suddenly Pancho pounded on my back, twice. During the split second while I was deciding whether it was an accident or a signal, I could see blood starting to diffuse through the water.

  As we’d arranged, I jerked the fish from my belt and flung it to the sharks, then swam downward with all my strength. What he hadn’t arranged was that Pancho and I would arrive at the cage door at the same time. Or that it would be stuck. Without thinking, I pulled the door off its hinges and shoved Pancho inside. The sharks were really moving now and there was blood everywhere. Pancho must have been hurt pretty bad. I felt sick to my stomach, but I couldn’t take the time to check him out as I backed through the narrow opening, pushing away the most aggressive sharks with my billy.

  Some of the sharks had been attracted to the fish we’d thrown, but most were heading for the cage. They were hauling us up, but not nearly fast enough to suit me. I faced the open cage door with my back to Pancho, pushing wildly at the sharks trying to get inside. Most of them were small, but there were a lot of them and I knew they could kill us as easily as the big ones.

  I got a momentary break as a huge shark came up from below the cage and scattered the small ones around the door. It left with several wiggling in its mouth. I hoped one of them was the one that had bitten Pancho.

  In cold horror, I watched the large shark turn in a sharp circle back to the cage. It was heading right for the opening.

  I braced myself and pushed him square in the nose with the billy. The force of the impact sent the cage swinging. Pancho kept trying to help but I was so big I nearly filled the cage and there was no way he could up by the door anyway. I had my hands full. The shark was not backing up like he was supposed to do. Larger than me, he filled the door, jaws opening and closing blindly. I pushed him and I pounded him and he still kept coming.

  Suddenly we surged out of the water. That damn shark was more inside than out and he just wouldn’t quit. Pancho came up from somewhere behind me and, working together, we finally shoved him out. He made one hell of a splash.

  I got all tangled up spitting out my mouthpiece and turning to Pancho. He wasn’t bleeding.

  I was.

  Pancho pointed at my foot. Sure enough, that was were all the blood had been coming from — I was missing a big chunk out of my ankle. I put my hand on it and blood streamed out between my fingers. Then it started to hurt. Plenty.

  “God, Carl — I’m sorry. I just couldn’t reach that little dighter until —“

  “Forget it.” He couldn’t help being only a meter and a half tall. “They’ll patch this up just like the other one. I’ll be as good as new tomorrow.”

  Then I passed out.

  They glued a new heel on with plastiflesh, all right, but this time it was a little more incapacitating; I was not supposed to put any weight on the foot for two days. Well, I was ready for a rest, anyway.

  Sitting in the motorized chair made me exactly as tall as Pancho. It was a strange sensation, being able to talk to people without looking down. We walked and rolled back to Mr. DeLavore’s office.

  He was there with our money, but unfortunately he wasn’t alone. B’oosa and the Dean were waiting with him.

  “Carl,” B’oosa said, “this is ridiculous.”

  I’d had enough. “Mr. B’oosa,” I said, trying hard to hold my temper, “this may seem ridiculous to you. But you have never tried to scratch out an existence on a barren planet. You have never felt the pains of a wind wiping out an entire crop, or the futility of trading with people who take advantage of you, knowing full well there is nowhere else you can go. You could probably buy my father’s farm ten times over, a hundred times over. There is no way you can understand what this means to me.”

  I rolled up to the desk. “How long did we stay, Mr. DeLavore?”

  “Carl …” B’oosa said.

  “Mr. B’oosa,” I said, not looking at him, “this is my affair, and Pancho’s. You have no right to interfere and no right to bring the Dean …”

  “I asked to come,” Dr. M’bisa said.

  “How long?” I repeated.

  Mr. DeLavore glanced at B’oosa and the Dean and licked his lips. “Eighteen and a half minutes.” He handed me a check. “That gives you P2775 to split.”

  B’oosa laughed humorlessly. “Get bitten about twelve more times and you’ll have your 17,000, Carl. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll get bitten in the head and they can grow you a new brain.”

  “It’s not that dangerous,” Mr. DeLavore said, glowering. “Only one out of fifty —“

  “Normal-sized people,” M’bisa snapped. “There’s nobody on this planet large enough to protect a giant like Carl. We saw the fight. It was a cheap and dangerous stunt. And the faulty equipment —“

  “Don’t worry, Dr. M’bisa,” I said. “I won’t be fighting the sharks again.”

  “Oh, really,” B’oosa said. “No more sharks and no more bulls. What next? Elephants?”

  I stared at him for along second. “Depends on how much they offer.”

  “Carl …” Dr. M’bisa looked really pained. “You can’t continue this, this absolute nonsense. I forbid it!”

  I tried to control my voice. “You can’t, sir. I am a free agent. In space you can give me extra work, flunk me, whatever. When we’re dirtside my time is my own, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, yes, technically. But this is Earth! The cradle of mankind. You’re losing so much, so much to learn.”

  “I’m learning,” I said. I stared at the check and did some rapid mental arithmetic. P14,662.50 to go. “I’m learning a lot.”

  VIII

  I was supposed to stay with the class. I was supposed to stay in the wheelchair. I was supposed to start behaving myself and forget about trying to pay back the Extraweight Alien Tax. Forget it? No way.

  Doing something about it, however, was a bit of a problem. B’oosa watched me all the time, like some sort of an appointed guardian. Could hardly go to the bathroom without him.

  I hobbled across the hotel room to the window.

  “Don’t you think you should stay off your foot until it heals?” asked B’oosa, looking up from his books.

  “It doesn’t hurt too much,” I lied.

  “It’s your body,” he shrugged, putting his feet up on the table and going back to his books.

  Francisco bounded into the room. He looked pretty peppy for a guy who was yesterday’s shark bait. “Mail call,” he said, as he plopped a small pack of envelopes on the table beside B’oosa’s feet. Mail? Who got mail around here?

  I got mail. They were all addressed to me, c/o Starschool. The holo of the shark fight must have attracted a lot of attention. Springers are pretty rare on Earth and it’s unusual, to say the least, to find one fighting animals.

  Most of them were job offers. A lot of them mentioned bulls. I’d had enough of bulls and sharks to last me ten lifetimes. Some were from girls, wanting something called a date. They often enclosed small holos. Not bad looking, some of them; but small, small, small.

  “Wha
t’s all that?” asked B’oosa, picking up one of the discarded letters.

  “Business,” I said.

  “This doesn’t look like business,” said B’oosa, picking up one of the holos. I blushed.

  “Most of them are.”

  “You won’t have time for any of that. We’re leaving this afternoon to tour the Boswash Corridor, remember? Or have you even bothered to look at the itinerary?”

  “Boswash. Humph.”

  “It’s educational. You could use some enlightenment.”

  “I could use some money.”

  “Forget it, Carl. When will you get it through that thick Springer skull of yours that nobody blames you for the tax and nobody expects you to pay it back?”

  “That’s easy for you to say. Your family could probably buy my entire village.”

  B’oosa looked thoughtful for a second. Maybe he was counting it up. “That’s most likely true,” he said seriously. “But beside the point.”

  I gave up. He’d never understand me. He started pushing letters around on the table. “Quaint custom,” he said with a slight smile. “Mail. Actually written by the sender, not facsimiled. Quaint.”

  I saw a name I recognized and palmed the letter before B’oosa got a chance to get his hands on it. It was from Markos Salvadore, the Heller I’d met in the Plaza de Gladiatores. I slipped the letter into a fold on my tunic. Don’t think B’oosa saw me.

  “What’s a Boswash Corridor?” I asked, feigning interest.

  B’oosa looked startled, laid down the letter he was scanning. “Glad to see you’re showing a little healthy curiosity. Boswash is a megacity along the northeast coast of this continent. Very historical. Here, let me show you.” He got up to get a book off the dresser.

  While his back was turned, I flipped out the letter, opened it. All that was on the paper was a phone number. I memorized it, crumpled the paper.

  “This is Boswash,” said B’oosa, spreading open a book to a brightly colored map. “We’ll be heading for Deecee this afternoon and tomorrow we’ll go to New York. When this planet was made up of a lot of separate countries, Deecee was the capital of this particular country and New York was the largest city. There will be a lot for us to do and see in these cities.”