Three volunteers climbed into the submersible and it was winched overside. It rested a moment on the surface of the water; then its operators thrust out the retractible claws with which it was equipped, and like some fat glossy crab it began to dig its way under. It was a slow business, for the dragon-grass clung close to it, reweaving its sundered web almost as fast as the claws could rip it apart. But gradually the little vessel slipped from sight.
Galimoin was shouting something over a bull-horn from another deck. Lavon looked up and saw the two boats he had sent out, struggling through the weeds perhaps half a mile away. By now it was mid-morning and in the glare it was hard to tell which way they were headed, but it seemed they were returning.
Alone and silent Lavon waited on the bridge. No one dared approach him. He stared down at the floating carpet of dragon-grass, heaving here and there with strange and terrible life-forms, and thought of the two drowned men and the others in the submersible and the ones in the boats, and of those still safe abroad the Spurifon, all enmeshed in the same grotesque plight. How easy it would have been to avoid this, he thought; and how easy to think such thoughts. And how futile.
He held his post, motionless, well past noon, in the silence and the haze and the heat and the stench. Then he went to his cabin. Later in the day Vormecht came to him with the news that the crew of the submersible had found the divers hanging near the stilled rotors, shrouded in tight windings of dragon-grass, as though the weeds had deliberately set upon and engulfed them. Lavon was skeptical of that; they must merely have become tangled in it, he insisted, but without conviction. The submersible itself had had a hard time of it and had nearly burned out its engines in the effort to sink fifty feet. The weeds, Vormecht said, formed a virtually solid layer for a dozen feet below the surface. “What about the boats?” Lavon asked, and the first mate told him that they had returned safely, their crews exhausted by the work of rowing through the knotted weeds. In the entire morning they had managed to get no more than a mile from the ship, and they had seen no end to the dragon-grass, not even an opening in its unbroken weave. One of the boatmen had been attacked by a crab-creature on the way back, but had escaped with only minor cuts.
During the day there was no change in the situation. No change seemed possible. The dragon-grass had seized the Spurifon and there was no reason for it to release the ship, unless the voyagers compelled it to, which Lavon did not at present see how to accomplish.
He asked the chronicler Mikdal Hasz to go among the people of the Spurifon and ascertain their mood. “Mainly calm,” Hasz reported. “Some are troubled. Most find our predicament strangely refreshing: a challenge, a deviation from the monotony of recent months.”
“And you?”
“I have my fears, captain. But I want to believe we will find a way out. And I respond to the beauty of this weird landscape with unexpected pleasure.”
Beauty? Lavon had not thought to see beauty in it. Darkly he stared at the miles of dragon-grass, bronze-red under the bloody sunset sky. A red mist was rising from the water, and in that thick vapor the creatures of the algae were moving about in great numbers, so that the enormous raftlike weed-structures were constantly in tremor. Beauty? A sort of beauty indeed, Lavon conceded. He felt as if the Spurifon had become stranded in the midst of some huge painting, a vast scroll of soft fluid shapes, depicting a dreamlike disorienting world without landmarks, on whose liquid surface there was unending change of pattern and color. So long as he could keep himself from regarding the dragon-grass as the enemy and destroyer of all he had worked to achieve, he could to some degree admire the shifting glints and forms all about him.
He lay awake much of the night searching without success for a tactic to use against this vegetable adversary.
Morning brought new colors in the weed, pale greens and streaky yellows under a discouraging sky burdened with thin clouds. Five or six colossal sea-dragons were visible a long way off, slowly eating a path for themselves through the water. How convenient it would be, Lavon reflected, if the Spurifon could do as much!
He met with his officers. They too had noticed last night’s mood of general tranquillity, even fascination. But they detected tensions beginning to rise this morning. “They were already frustrated and homesick,” said Vormecht, “and now they see a new delay here of days or even weeks.”
“Or months or years or forever,” snapped Galimoin. “What makes you think we’ll ever get out?”
The navigator’s voice was ragged with strain and cords stood out along the sides of his thick neck. Lavon had long ago sensed an instability somewhere within Galimoin, but even so he was not prepared for the swiftness with which Galimoin had been undone by the onset of the dragon-grass.
Vormecht seemed amazed by it also. The first mate said in surprise, “You told us yourself the day before yesterday, ‘It’s only seaweed. We’ll cut our way through it.’ Remember?”
“I didn’t know then what we were up against,” Galimoin growled.
Lavon looked toward Joachil Noor. “What about the possibility that this stuff is migratory, that the whole formation will sooner or later break up and let us go?”
The biologist shook her head. “It could happen. But I see no reason to count on it. More likely this is a quasi-permanent ecosystem. Currents might carry it to other parts of the Great Sea, but in that case they’d carry us right along with it.”
“You see?” Galimoin said glumly. “Hopeless!”
“Not yet,” said Lavon. “Vormecht, what can we do about using the submersible to mount screens over the intakes?”
“Possibly. Possibly.”
“Try it. Get the fabricators going on some sort of screens right away. Joachil Noor, what are your thoughts on a chemical counterattack against the seaweed?”
“We’re running tests,” she said. “I can’t promise anything.”
No one could promise anything. They could only think and work and wait and hope.
Designing screens for the intakes took a couple of days; building them took five more. Meanwhile Joachil Noor experimented with methods of killing the grass around the ship, without apparent result.
In those days not only the Spurifon but time itself seemed to stand still. Daily Lavon took his sightings and made his log entries; the ship was actually traveling a few miles a day, moving steadily south-southwest, but it was going nowhere in relation to the entire mass of algae: to provide a reference point they marked the dragon-grass around the ship with dyes, and there was no movement in the great yellow and scarlet stains as the days went by. And in this ocean they could drift forever with the currents and not come within reach of land.
Lavon felt himself fraying. He had difficulty maintaining his usual upright posture; his shoulders now were beginning to curve, his head felt like a dead weight. He felt older; he felt old. Guilt was eroding him. On him was the responsibility for having failed to pull away from the dragon-grass zone the moment the danger was apparent; only a few hours would have made the difference, he told himself, but he had let himself be diverted by the spectacle of the sea-dragons and by his idiotic theory that a bit of peril would add spice to what had become a lethally bland voyage. For that he assailed himself mercilessly, and it was not far from there to blaming himself for having led these unwitting people into this entire absurd and futile journey. A voyage lasting ten or fifteen years, from nowhere to nowhere? Why? Why?
Yet he worked at maintaining morale among the others. The ration of wine—limited, for the ship’s cellars had to last out the voyage—was doubled. There were nightly entertainments. Lavon ordered every research group to bring its oceanographic studies up to date, thinking that this was no moment for idleness on anyone’s part. Papers that should have been written months or even years before, but which had been put aside in the long slow progress of the cruise, now were to be completed at once. Work was the best medicine for boredom, frustration, and—a new and growing factor—fear.
When the first screens were
ready, a volunteer crew went down in the submersible to attempt to weld them to the hull over the intakes. The job, a tricky one at best, was made more complicated by the need to do it entirely with the little vessel’s extensor claws. After the loss of the two divers Lavon would not risk letting anyone enter the water except in the submersible. Under the direction of a skilled mechanic named Duroin Klays the work proceeded day after day, but it was a thankless business. The heavy masses of dragon-grass, nudging the hull with every swell of the sea, frequently ripped the fragile mountings loose, and the welders made little progress.
On the sixth day of the work Duroin Klays came to Lavon with a sheaf of glossy photographs. They showed patterns of orange splotches against a dull gray background.
“What is this?” Lavon asked.
“Hull corrosion, sir. I noticed it yesterday and took a series of underwater shots this morning.”
“Hull corrosion?” Lavon forced a smile. “That’s hardly possible. The hull’s completely resistant. What you’re showing me here must be barnacles or sponges of some sort, or—”
“No, sir. Perhaps it’s not clear from the pictures,” said Duroin Klays. “But you can tell very easily when you’re down in the submersible. It’s like little scars, eaten into the metal. I’m quite sure of it, sir.”
Lavon dismissed the mechanic and sent for Joachil Noor. She studied the photographs a long while and said finally, “It’s altogether likely.”
“That the dragon-grass is eating into the hull?”
“We’ve suspected the possibility of it for a few days. One of our first findings was a sharp pH gradient between this part of the ocean and the open sea. We’re sitting in an acid bath, captain, and I’m sure it’s the algae that are secreting the acids. And we know that they’re metal-fixers whose tissues are loaded with heavy elements. Normally they pull their metals from sea-water, of course. But they must regard the Spurifon as a gigantic banquet table. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the reason the dragon-grass became so thick so suddenly in our vicinity is that the algae have been flocking from miles around to get in on the feast.”
“If that’s the case, then it’s foolish to expect the algae jam to break up of its own accord.”
“Indeed.”
Lavon blinked. “And if we remain locked in it long enough, the dragon-grass will eat holes right through us?” The biologist laughed and said, “That might take hundreds of years. Starvation’s a more immediate problem.”
“How so?”
“How long can we last eating nothing but what’s currently in storage on board?”
“A few months, I suppose. You know we depend on what we can catch as we go along. Are you saying—”
“Yes, captain. Everything in the ecosystem around us right now is probably poisonous to us. The algae absorb oceanic metals. The small crustaceans and fishes eat the algae. The bigger creatures eat the smaller ones. The concentration of metallic salts gets stronger and stronger as we go up the chain. And we—”
“Won’t thrive on a diet of rhenium and vanadium.”
“And molybdenum and rhodium. No, captain. Have you seen the latest medical reports? An epidemic of nausea, fever, some circulatory problems—how have you been feeling, captain? And it’s only the beginning. None of us yet has a serious buildup. But in another week, two weeks, three—”
“May the Lady protect us!” Lavon gasped.
“The Lady’s blessings don’t reach this far west,” said Joachil Noor. She smiled coolly. “I recommend that we discontinue all fishing at once and draw on our stores until we’re out of this part of the sea. And that we finish the job of screening the rotors as fast as possible.”
“Agreed,” said Lavon.
When she had left him he stepped to the bridge and looked gloomily out over the congested, quivering water. The colors today were richer than ever, heavy umbers, sepias, russets, indigos. The dragon-grass was thriving. Lavon imagined the fleshy strands slapping up against the hull, searing the gleaming metal with acid secretions, burning it away molecule by molecule, converting the ship to ion soup and greedily drinking it. He shivered. He could no longer see beauty in the intricate textures of the seaweed That dense and tightly interwoven mass of algae stretching toward the horizon now meant only stink and decay to him, danger and death, the bubbling gases of rot and the secret teeth of destruction. Hour by hour the flanks of the great ship grew thinner, and here she still sat, immobilized, helpless, in the midst of the foe that consumed her.
Lavon tried to keep these new perils from becoming general knowledge. That was impossible, of course: there could be no secrets for long in a closed universe like the Spurifon. His insistence on secrecy did at least serve to minimize open discussion of the problems, which could lead so swiftly to panic. Everyone knew, but everyone pretended that he alone realized how bad things were.
Nevertheless the pressure mounted. Tempers were short; conversations were strained; hands shook, words were slurred, things were dropped. Lavon remained apart from the others as much as his duties would allow. He prayed for deliverance and sought guidance in dreams, but Joachil Noor seemed to be right: the voyagers were beyond the reach of the loving Lady of the Isle whose counsel brought comfort to the suffering and wisdom to the troubled.
The only new glimmer of hope came from the biologists. Joachil Noor suggested that it might be possible to disrupt the electrical systems of the dragon-grass by conducting a current through the water. It sounded doubtful to Lavon, but he authorized her to put some of the ship’s technicians to work on it.
And finally the last of the intake screens was in place. It was late in the third week of their captivity.
“Start the rotors,” Lavon ordered.
The ship throbbed with renewed life as the rotors began to move. On the bridge the officers stood frozen: Lavon, Vormecht, Galimoin, silent, still, barely breathing. Tiny wavelets formed along the bow. The Spurifon was beginning to move! Slowly, stubbornly, the ship began to cut a path through the close-packed masses of writhing dragon-grass—
—and shuddered, and bucked, and fought, and the throb of the rotors ceased—
“The screens aren’t holding!” Galimoin cried in anguish.
“Find out what’s happening,” Lavon told Vormecht. He turned to Galimoin, who was standing as though his feet had been nailed to the deck, trembling, sweating, muscles rippling weirdly about his lips and cheeks. Lavon said gently, “It’s probably only a minor hitch. Come, let’s have some wine, and in a moment we’ll be moving again.”
“No!” Galimoin bellowed. “I felt the screens rip loose. The dragon-grass is eating them.”
More urgently Lavon said, “The screens will hold. By this time tomorrow we’ll be far from here, and you’ll have us on course again for Alhanroel—”
“We’re lost!” Galimoin shouted, and broke away suddenly, arms flailing as he ran down the steps and out of sight. Lavon hesitated. Vormecht returned, looking grim: the screens had indeed broken free, the rotors were fouled, the ship had halted again. Lavon swayed. He felt infected by Galimoin’s despair. His life’s dream was ending in failure, an absurd catastrophe, a mocking farce.
Joachil Noor appeared. “Captain, do you know that Galimoin’s gone berserk? He’s up on the observation deck, wailing and screaming and dancing and calling for a mutiny.”
“I’ll go to him,” said Lavon.
“I felt the rotors start. But then—”
Lavon nodded. “Fouled again. The screens ripped loose.” As he moved toward the catwalk he heard Joachil Noor say something about her electrical project, that she was ready to make the first full-scale test, and he replied that she should begin at once, and report to him as soon as there were any encouraging results. But her words went quickly out of his mind. The problem of Galimoin occupied him entirely.
The chief navigator had taken up a position on the high platform to starboard where once he had made his observations and calculations of latitudes and longitudes. Now he cape
red like a deranged beast, strutting back and forth, flinging out his arms, shouting incoherently, singing raucous snatches of balladry, denouncing Lavon as a fool who had deliberately led them into this trap. A dozen or so members of the crew were gathered below, listening, some jeering, some calling out their agreement, and others were arriving quickly: this was the sport of the moment, the day’s divertissement. To Lavon’s horror he saw Mikdal Hasz making his way out onto Galimoin’s platform from the far side. Hasz was speaking in low tones, beckoning to the navigator, quietly urging him to come down; and several times Galimoin broke off his harangue to look toward Hasz and growl a threat at him. But Hasz kept advancing. Now he was just a yard or two from Galimoin, still speaking, smiling, holding out his open hands as if to show that he carried no weapons.
“Get away!” Galimoin roared. “Keep back!”
Lavon, edging toward the platform himself, signaled to Hasz to keep out of reach. Too late: in a single frenzied moment the infuriated Galimoin lunged at Hasz, scooped the little, man up as if he were a doll, and hurled him over the railing into the sea. A cry of astonishment went up from the onlookers. Lavon rushed to the railing in time to see Hasz, limbs flailing, crash against the surface of the water. Instantly there was convulsive activity in the dragon-grass. Like maddened eels the fleshy strands swarmed and twisted and writhed; the sea seemed to boil for a moment; and then Hasz was lost to view.
A terrifying dizziness swept through Lavon. He felt as though his heart filled his entire chest, crushing his lungs, and his brain was spinning in his skull. He had never seen violence before. He had never heard of an instance in his lifetime of the deliberate slaying of one human by another. That it should have happened on his ship, by one of his officers upon another, in the midst of this crisis, was intolerable, a mortal wound. He moved forward like one who walks while dreaming and laid his hands on Galimoin’s powerful, muscular shoulders and with a strength he had never had before he shoved the navigator over the rail, easily, unthinkingly. He heard a strangled wail, a splash; he looked down, amazed, appalled, and saw the sea boiling a second time as the dragon-grass closed over Galimoin’s thrashing body.