“What?” Melanie asked.
“I—I’m all confused.” Lame apology for what Melanie could hardly understand. But with the mermaid right here, what was he to do? “I’m not sure I’m quite sane at the moment. Too little oxygen—though I have enough now.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone! But you can tide through, Don. As soon as—” Then she evidently realized that she was breaking the rule herself, because she was supposed to pretend that Pacifa was with him.
Her voice was reassuring, because it was so familiar. But Splendid remained before him, observing and listening. It was evident that she understood the nature of the radio, and heard it. Don’s headlamp had faded, so he saw her by her own lantern. Of the equipment that required power, the light went first, then the radio, and finally the battery-operated oxygenation field. He lifted the front of the bicycle and spun the wheel with his hand, to keep the radio going.
“Listen, Melanie,” he said urgently. “I—when you’re alone, do you ever see things? That don’t make sense?”
“You’re hallucinating? Oh, Don—”
WIFE? Splendid inquired on her slate.
“No, I’m single!” Don said. Then, to the radio: “I mean, Melanie, I’m not alone, exactly, and—” But how could he explain, without saying too much? He had made a bad tactical mistake, calling Melanie in the presence of the mermaid. “I’m-—I’m just not sure I—I think the sea is—”
“You’re seeing things, you mean? And you’re not sure whether they’re real?”
Splendid things—and they looked completely real. “Well, I—that is—Melanie, suppose I met another archaeologist?”
“In the sea?”
“Yes. Right here. In the trench.”
“Another archaeologist—under the sea?” She was having understandable trouble with this.
“I’m trying not to say anything, until we—we muddle this through. Let’s make it hypothetical. If I met—”
“Would you be seeing things?” she finished. “Not necessarily. There could be another party with the same mission. That makes as much sense as a sub with an eavesdropping radio. More bicycles starting from another point.”
“Not on a bicycle,” he said, eyeing Splendid’s tail. The mermaid, catching on to the problem, flipped a fluke.
“Well, I suppose they could walk. It would be slower, but the phase would still—”
“Not phased.” Fortunately?
“That submarine!” she exclaimed. “You mean it’s ours? With archaeologists aboard? And they can’t get out to check what’s at the coordinates, while you can, so—”
“Not exactly. The sub’s not here.”
Melanie paused. “What are you trying to tell me, Don?”
“I’m trying not to tell you! It’s just that I—”
“Oh, forget all the secrecy! I’m not going to blab. Tell me.”
“Well, all right. I’m where you left me, only there’s a mermaid here.”
“A what?”
“A mermaid. A woman with the tail of a fish. She’s hovering about fifteen feet away, and she’s an archaeologist.”
“Don, are you serious?”
“Afraid so,” he said dubiously.
“You didn’t fall and hit your head or something?”
“That’s why I’m talking to you. It seems so crazy I hardly believe it myself, but here she is.”
“Right there? Physically?”
“Completely.” Splendid laughed silently, her breasts heaving. “Except for the phase, of course.”
“Can she talk?”
“No, I don’t think so. At least she hasn’t, so far.”
“Then how do you know she’s an archaeologist?”
“She wrote it. With slate and chalk, or the equivalent.”
“In English?”
“Yes.”
There was a short silence. “Don, I hate to disappoint you. But I do think you’re cracking up. Maybe you’d better talk to—to Pacifa.” She was trying, belatedly, to pretend that Pacifa was with him.
“I did. She saw Splendid too.”
“She what?”
“Saw Splendid. The mermaid, I mean. While you were exploring.”
“What do you call it?”
“I don’t know her real name.”
“Splendid?”
“Well, I—”
“What’s so splendid about her?” Melanie demanded.
“She—” Don looked nervously around, hesitant to mention breasts and knowing that hair would be disaster. His eye caught that of the mermaid, who was smiling above her splendors, her hair spreading out like a cape. That made it worse. But it gave him the inspiration of desperation. “Maybe you can talk to her!”
“Oh, now she talks!” Melanie said coolly.
“Through me, I mean. I’ll read you what she writes.”
“Don, this is—” Then she reconsidered. “All right. Ask her how she breathes.”
He looked at Splendid, but she was already writing. Obviously she had grasped enough of the situation to participate, and her fear had dissipated. How could anyone be afraid of a man as bumbling as he was proving to be?
OUR LUNGS ARE ADAPTED TO ABSORB OXYGEN FROM WATER.
Don read it off to Melanie.
She did not sound convinced. “Where did she learn English?”
I STUDIED IT WHEN YOUNG.
“Don,” Melanie said. “I can’t keep ahead of your subconscious invention. These answers prove nothing.”
Splendid frowned. It seemed that she did not appreciate being doubted.
“Melanie, she’s really here! I’m not inventing this. I hope. Ask her something I can’t answer.”
“What color is George Washington’s white horse?” she inquired sarcastically. “Look—did she study any other languages? Where is she from, anyhow?”
FROM CHINA. STUDIED SPANISH, GERMAN.
From China! Now he realized that part of what he had taken to be mer-features were actually the oriental cast, especially the eyes. He remembered that the orientals had adapted to the rough climate of their region with slightly different patterns of the distribution of fat, and flatter faces. These might also help in the rigors of the deep sea. They in no way diminished Splendid’s beauty.
“Well, now,” Melanie said. “It happens I know some German. Do you, Don?”
“No. Nothing except nein.”
“And that’s probably a number to you.”
“No, I—”
Melanie fired off a paragraph in what sounded to Don’s untrained ear like German. He was amazed: he had had no idea she knew any foreign language.
Splendid blushed. Splendidly. Then she looked angry.
“What did you say to her?” Don demanded.
Melanie sounded smug. “If I told you, you’d know. I want her answer, not yours.”
“She’s blushing. I didn’t know mermaids could blush.”
“They’re female, aren’t they?” Melanie inquired with satisfaction.
Now Splendid was writing furiously.
“I can’t read her answer to you,” Don said. “It’s German, I think.”
“That’s all right,” Melanie said. “Just spell it out. I’ll copy down the letters and read it here. Then we’ll know.”
“Know what she says? Or that I’m not imagining—?”
“Yes.”
Don sighed and began spelling out letters. “D-A-S M-Ä-D-C-H-E-N …” When he had spelled out the slateful, Splendid erased the tablet and started over. The transcription seemed interminable, because Don wasn’t familiar with the alphabet, which had some funny squiggles, and had to read or describe each letter with extraordinary care. For example, there were two dots over the A in MÄDCHEN. The nipples of breasts? “… D-E-M A-B-O-R-T. H-A-B-E-N S-I-E V-E-R-S-T-A-N-D-E-N?”
“You bitch!” Melanie exclaimed.
“What?” Don asked, startled.
“Not you, dope. Her. With the splendid bosom.”
“You mean
you b-believe in her now?”
For an answer, Melanie let out another torrent of German. Her fury was manifest. This was an aspect of her Don had not encountered before. But this time Splendid merely turned her back, not deigning to respond. Don noticed that she had buttocks shaped under her scales, and there was a stronger suggestion of bifurcation, rear-view.
And he realized something else: the mermaid resembled a Cretan court lady, with her terraced skirts (scales) and generously open bodice. That was one reason she had been so appealing to him at first glance. A Minoan ship, with a Minoan lady? That sense of visiting the past …
“Well, what does she say?” Melanie demanded. There was a sharpness in her voice that he had not heard before, in all their long conversations. It did not become her.
“Nothing. She’s just facing away. I think she’s ignoring you.”
“Of all the nerve!” Melanie cried, and clicked off.
Now Splendid turned to face him. There was a new look of confidence on her face. She had evidently had the best of it, despite the initial setback. It no longer seemed so strange to be talking to a mermaid on an ancient ship, in the depths of the deepest trench in the Atlantic Ocean. “What were you two saying?”
WOMAN TALK, she wrote noncommittally. HOW DID YOU COME HERE?
How much could he afford to tell her? He hardly knew her! On the other hand, how could he learn about her, if he didn’t exchange information? She was a tough bargainer. “I rode my bicycle. How about you?”
She looked at his bike, and her eyebrow lifted as she noted the way the tires sank beneath the visible deck when he rode it, picking up oxygen and recharging his headlamp. Then she looked at his feet as he stopped, for they also sank. Some of her confidence dissipated. She had to admit he resembled a ghost in this respect.
WE ARE AN EXPERIMENTAL COLONY, ADAPTED TO LIVE UNDER PRESSURE IN WATER. HOW DO YOU SURVIVE THIS?
So she was willing to trade information. “I’m phased into another framework,” Don said, making sure his radio was off. “I’m not subject to pressure, and the water’s like air. You say you’re adapted. You mean you were born on land? With—with legs?”
YES. I STILL HAVE LEG BONES, FUSED AT THE BASE ONLY. FOR FLEXIBILITY. She rotated her nether portion, switching her tail. It was remarkably supple, and the motion reminded him vaguely of a hula dance. It certainly accentuated her anatomy provocatively. HOW CAN I PERCEIVE YOU, IF YOU ARE NOT HERE?
“Well, I am here—in a way. I am of this world. But I’m not very solid, as far as this world goes, right now. Here, I’ll show you.” He walked his bicycle toward her.
Splendid backed off, then reconsidered and propelled herself forward by means of little swimming motions that accentuated her various attributes intriguingly. She put out a hand to touch his.
The two hands passed through each other with that odd temporary meshing of bones. Splendid’s mouth opened, and she catapulted herself backward with a grand flip of her tail.
“It’s just the phase,” Don said reassuringly. “I’m not a ghost.” Then he remembered to ask his question. “If you’re Chinese, why are you here? In the Western hemisphere?”
WE NEED TO MATCH THE PRESSURE OF JUPITER’S ATMOSPHERE. THIS IS ONE STAGE. BUT FIRST WE MUST HAVE WARMTH AND FRESH WATER, AND THERE IS NONE THIS DEEP NEAR CHINA. CAN YOU SURVIVE ANYWHERE?
Jupiter’s atmosphere! Were the Chinese planning a colony there? Don had no idea whether the pressure of four miles of water on Earth came anywhere near approximating that of the atmosphere on monster Jupiter; it probably depended on how deep in that atmosphere they went. It did seem reasonable that what could be adapted to survive in the one medium, could also be adapted to survive in the other. A fish tail here; wings, there?
“Pretty much,” he said, answering her question. “But it has its limitations. I can’t do anything much in the real world, and I can’t leave my bicycle. And I have to keep moving around, to pick up oxygen, unless there’s a good current.” Was this too much information? American relations with China varied through the years, and changed as the administrations of either country changed. No, she couldn’t use the information against him, because she couldn’t touch him. He had told her nothing that wouldn’t be evident if she watched him for any length of time. “And are you studying this ship?”
It turned out that she was. She was part of a mer-colony whose main object was mere survival at this depth. Pressure per se was not the greatest hurdle to overcome, for anyone could live at any depth provided there was a life support system and no sudden or extreme pressure flux. But it was a convenient starting place, and much had to be learned about the long-term complications of such existence before the sophisticated aspects of alternate-medium colonization could be explored. Later there would be other adaptations, to compensate for the cold, and the methane atmosphere, and turbulence of liquid Jupiter. Meanwhile, the hot fresh water enabled the human beings to survive naked without osmotic dehydration—and also preserved remarkable artifacts, such as this ship. That was an unplanned bonanza! So Splendid, an amateur archaeologist, had expected, before being selected for this experimental mer-colony, to specialize in one of the pre-Columbian American Indian cultures and to trace the connections between it and the prehistoric Mongolian cultures from which the Amerinds derived. She had given up her first dream to realize the second: mankind’s exploration of a really new world. Now she was making herself useful by returning to her first specialty, recording the ship’s anomalies to the best of her abilities. She knew little of Minoan culture, to her regret, but did recognize this as an Old World vessel of considerable antiquity. She had cleaned up much of the interior and had taken all but two of the unbroken pithoi jars to her village for transshipment to China by submarine.
“But that’s plundering!” Don protested. “The relic should be preserved intact!”
WE DID NOT EXPECT ANY OTHER PARTY TO HAVE ACCESS TO IT, she explained contritely. WE DARE NOT REMOVE THE WOOD, FOR IT MIGHT DISINTEGRATE ON LAND. BUT THE AMPHORAE ARE GOING TO OUR BEST ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUMS. THERE ALL THE PEOPLE WILL SEE AND LEARN AND BENEFIT, INSTEAD OF ONLY THOSE FEW WHO DWELL IN THE DEPTH OF THE SEA.
What could he say? The Chinese were perhaps the most culturally aware people in the world; they would not be hawking invaluable ancient relics on the streets. The deep reaches of international waters were open to any party for salvage—anyone who could manage to reach them. It would be a criminal waste not to recover as much of the ship and its contents as possible.
“I’m sorry,” Don said after a bit. “You’re right. Except about the amphorae. They’re pithoi—wide-mouthed, flat-bottomed jars. But I don’t think it’s fair to remove everything before I have a chance to study it. This entire ship represents an artifact of my specialty, Minoan Crete.”
Splendid drifted toward him excitedly. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no sound came. Obviously she had once talked, and still tried to do it when she forgot herself. Probably her vocal cords had been exchanged for some liquid filtering device. But he needed no words to grasp what was on her mind.
“Yes. That’s why I’m here. I—”
But it wasn’t that simple. Splendid tried to take his hand, and failed. But this time she did not recoil. She beckoned to him as she swam across the deck.
Perplexed, Don followed, walking his bicycle. She dived down into the hold, but he balked at the access hole, fearing that there was not yet enough oxygen. The water changed slowly, here. But he did crank up his light and shine it down inside so that he could watch her.
She passed through the cross-timber as if it did not exist, which was true for her, then drew up to the two remaining pithoi, and reached inside one. There was something there. She lifted it and carried it back, breathing rapidly.
Don realized as she angled up through the hatch that she, too, suffered from lack of oxygen. Her chest was heaving strenuously. This was impressive for an irrelevant reason, as he tried to remind himself.
As she recovered her
breath in the fresh water topside, she offered him the object she had taken from the jar. It seemed to be a flake of stone, rectangular and flat.
“Sorry—the phase won’t let me touch it,” Don said regretfully. He passed his hand through it by way of illustration.
Disappointed, she held it up so that he could see the face of it. It was a tablet of some sort: clay, not stone. At least it had a ceramic coating. He cranked up his light again and flashed the beam across the surface.
There was writing on it! Don recognized the typical configuration of Minoan Linear A or B: the lines, boxes, and slashes. It was an ancient manuscript!
He had thought that the discovery of the ship was the ultimate in his career desire. Now he knew he had been too conservative. A document relating to the ship and its business, perhaps dated, putting things into context—it was probably the A script, considering the age of the ship. Ideal!
Smiling, Splendid turned the tablet away.
“Wait!” Don cried. “I can read it!”
She wrote on her own tablet. BUT I CAN’T.
“You don’t understand! I can read some of the Minoan signs—but you have to hold it up, because I can’t touch the tablet myself. I need your cooperation!”
She nodded affirmatively, her hair flaring in the trace currents the action made, but did not expose the face of the tablet.
“What do you want?” he demanded, frustrated.
She wrote: IT MUST BE SHARED.
“You mean you want to know what it says? I certainly don’t object to that.”
TRANSLATE ALOUD.
“But that’s a long, tedious task! Nobody can decipher such a document at a mere glance! When I said I could read it, I meant—given time. A day, a week, perhaps more, depending on the clarity and dialect. There’ll probably be many symbols I can’t make out at all, so the narrative will be fragmentary.”
She nodded as she wrote. BOTH JARS ARE FILLED WITH SIMILAR TABLETS—ALL DIFFERENT.
It was like being informed of victory in a million dollar sweepstakes. A sizable cache of narrative Minoan Linear A! His single glance had told him that this was no list of accounts; he could recognize numbers instantly, and this contained few. It was text!