They went as a group to the depot. “Your direct route is to cut east of Cuba, while Pacifa circles it to the west,” Gaspar said. “She won’t go to the Yucatan, but will ride up into the Cuban coastal water if she has to. Once she intersects our prior route north of Cuba, she’ll be sure of her destination. Unless that sub takes you to the Bahamas platform, you’ll still have trouble beating her there.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Don said.
“And your bike may fail. Your rear wheel is warped.”
“Yours is no better,” Don said.
“Mine is available,” Eleph said. “It should not be difficult to adjust it to you.”
Don considered the offer. “I’d feel more comfortable on my own bike. Thirty six speeds would just confuse me.”
“Now you’re being stubborn,” Melanie said. “I’ll bet Eleph’s bicycle weighs half yours, and so does Pacifa’s. You’re an idiot if you race her using your old rattletrap.”
Don had to concede the merit of the case. “Okay. Eleph’s bike.”
Eleph instructed Don on the proper use of the various mechanisms, while Gaspar selected and loaded supplies. They set the seat and handlebars and adjusted the pedal straps. The taped metal in lieu of handgrips was disquieting, as was the narrow saddle, and it all felt ludicrously off-center, forcing him to hunch way over. The toe straps made him fear for his equilibrium should he need to put out a foot suddenly, and the reversed handles seemed impossible to use effectively. The entire machine felt strange, with everything not quite where it should be and with a different feel to the action. How was he going to steer this thing, let alone ride it? He regretted allowing himself to be browbeaten into the change.
But before he could formulate an effective resistance, he was on his way. Once the bike was in motion, it seemed to make much more sense. He was able to ride, and that was what counted. He concentrated on cadence and ankling and shifting gears and guiding it with his hands set in near the stem, so he wouldn’t have to lean over quite so far. He practiced pulling up on the pedals as well as pushing down, a trick impossible without these toestraps.
It seemed he had only started, but he looked up to find himself already at the submarine. He slid two fingers over each brake lever and coasted to a beautiful stop, even remembering to disengage his feet from the straps in time. He was becoming a pro! The feel of this bicycle was growing on him.
There was a language difficulty, compounded by the phase. Don tried to explain that he needed a ride across the trench and as far around the island of Cuba as possible. They did pick him up and move—only to deliver him instead to the mer-colony.
Don simmered while the tritons stared at him contemptuously. He was trying to save the colony too, as well as to save the world, if only they would comprehend.
In due course Splendid appeared, swimming in from elsewhere. She must have been at the ship, making further notes from the tablets. She had been picking up on the Minoan Linear A, evidently having a ready mind for interpretation. He had been wrong to see her as mainly a creature of myth and sex appeal.
Don explained the present-day situation to her, stressing the need for speed. Pacifa had a one day start on him, and she could travel faster, but his route would cut the distance almost in half. If Pacifa averaged two hundred miles per day, she would reach the base in nine or ten days. If Don averaged a hundred and fifty a day, he could do it in seven or eight, and just catch her. If the trench didn’t stop him.
OUR MACHINES ARE NOT PERMITTED BEYOND THE ENVIRONS OF THE TRENCHES, she wrote. ESPECIALLY NOT NORTH OF CUBA, WHERE AMERICAN PATROLS ARE HEAVY.
This made sense. Relations between America and China were chronically mixed, with minor thaws and re-freezes occurring periodically. A Chinese submarine there would be asking for an Incident.
Yet his need was urgent. “If I don’t catch that woman, the Americans will learn about your colony, which she thinks is part of a conspiracy to build a military base of some bad sort within ready range of the continent. My situation turns out to have only coincidental connection to yours, and I hope to avoid mention of your presence here, or to clarify its beneficial nature if it must be told. I know she will be persuaded, but I must catch her before she reaches the base in Florida and gives an alarm that could be very bad for you.”
Splendid conferred with the mers. Don reminded himself that these were carefully selected and modified and trained people, but somehow his errant eyes kept centering on the women, with their phenomenal breasts and clouds of hair around their heads. Superficial characteristics, perhaps the largess of the same surgery that had formed their tails and modified their lungs and metabolism, but impressive regardless. The eye of the human male was fashioned to lock onto such things, and it was hard to resist this imperative. In all the time he had worked closely with Splendid, he had never become inured to the sight of her. Melanie’s jealousy had been justified to that extent.
But a woman was more than body, and a man’s interest was in the long run governed by more than that. Splendid had in her fashion proved to Don that such a body, even had it been fully human through to the feet, was not what he sought for a permanent association. It wasn’t that Splendid’s mind was bad, for it was excellent; it was that the peculiarities of Melanie’s personality were a better match for the peculiarities of Don’s own.
So why hadn’t he said that to Melanie? Well, he would do so, the first chance he had. He had his good radio installed on Eleph’s bicycle, and it was a private circuit.
Splendid swam toward him. YOU ARE CORRECT, she wrote. WE MUST ASSIST YOU DESPITE THE DANGER. THE SUB WILL TAKE YOU TO THE THOUSAND FATHOM DEPTH IN THE OLD BAHAMAS CHANNEL, HERE.
She showed him on the map. It was well around Cuba, about a third of the way along his route, and beyond the trench. From there the channel was comparatively level all the way up to Florida. That might well cut his time in half, and provide him an ample margin.
“Yes!” he exclaimed, giving her a misty kiss that made the jealous triton clench his fist. “That’ll do it.”
So the sub-lift resumed, though the mers were uneasy. It seemed that the danger from foreign military patrols was formidable, there in the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti. But the colony’s supply route came through there, along the entire length of the Puerto Rico trench, so Don suspected that their apprehension was exaggerated. Splendid might trust him, but the others did not.
For an hour he passed through the nebulous reaches of the middle ocean levels. It was dull and hypnotic, and he was tired, and he nodded off to sleep astride his bicycle.
Melanie stood before him, trim and pretty. She removed her blouse, showing her bra, and then opened the bra to reveal her breasts. “How do these compare to the fishwife’s?” she asked.
“Not as large,” he said. “But that’s not the point. I—”
“Then how does this compare?” she asked, drawing down her skirt and stepping out of it.
“Well, her, uh, she—the scales of her tail cover—but the point is—”
“She can’t exactly spread her legs.”
“The body doesn’t matter!” he exclaimed. “I mean, not that much. She has hair, you have legs. The point is, you have all your hang-ups, and I have mine, and they make a good fit. The—the bodies—any two bodies fit, when you come down to it, but any two personalities don’t mesh. I like you when you’re sweet, and I like you when you’re angry, and if we were two hands of cards, I think we’d make a winning combination. Maybe that’s not exactly commitment, but it’s a solid base for it, and if you agree I’d like to try it.”
“Well, here is my body. Try it.”
“That too. But I mean love. Marriage. The long term. Whatever I’m doing, I want you with me. Your body—oh, yes, I’ll take it with or without the wig, and it’ll be great. But your convoluted, elliptical, deviously logical mind—that’s what I love.”
“Is that a proposal, Don?”
“Yes! Marry, me, Melanie, after we save the world.??
?
“After we save the world,” she agreed.
“Is that an elliptical yes?” he asked, excited.
“An elliptical yes,” she agreed.
That shocked him awake. He was still riding beneath the submarine. “Damn it! I was dreaming!”
“No you weren’t,” she retorted.
He glanced down. His radio was on! He must have done that in his sleep. “You mean I was talking in my sleep?”
“You mean you didn’t mean it?”
“I meant it! If I said what I dreamed I said.”
“You said the mesh of personalities was more important than the mesh of bodies. I gather there was some body-meshing going on.”
“Not yet. But if you care to repeat what you did there, outside my dream—”
She laughed. “With or without the wig?”
“Yes!”
“Then it seems we have a date.”
“Date, hell! We have an engagement.”
“That, too,” she agreed.
His radio was fading. It lasted only a few minutes when he wasn’t riding. He reached down to spin the wheel, cranking it up again. “Oh, Melanie, why couldn’t we have had this dialogue when we were together?”
“My, you are eager to mesh!”
“That, too.” They laughed together, and it was great. Maybe their physical separation had enabled him to be bolder. He hadn’t stuttered at all. The luck of his dream, and of the radio being on—
No, they had to be linked. He had unconsciously turned it on, and gone into his fancy—and she had joined it and accepted. He had been able to do in partial reality what had balked him in reality, and then it had turned real, and now it was wonderful.
He was jolted by a sudden change of course. He grabbed onto his bike and fought to maintain equilibrium. “Hoo!” he exclaimed.
“What’s happening?” Melanie cried faintly, for he was no longer spinning the wheel.
He grabbed it and turned it vigorously. “The sub is maneuvering wildly! It’s going down. I’m straining at my balloon-moorings.”
“But why?”
“Wish I knew!”
But in a moment he figured it out: the sub had passed close to the American naval base at Guantanamo, an action which begged for trouble. There had been no choice, because the trench passed that region. So an American sub had fired first, asking no questions.
Then a shark-shape swam in from behind, following the sub unerringly, and he understood. A homing torpedo. The threat of this region had not been exaggerated!
A smaller fish shot out of one of the sub’s ports and moved to intercept the torpedo. There was an immense explosion.
Don was not directly affected, because of the phase. But the sound was deafening, and the bucking of the sub seemed about to tear him and his bicycle loose. It seemed that the sub was not defenseless.
“Don! Don!” Melanie cried desperately.
“I’m here,” he gasped. “Torpedo—they stopped it—but we’re going down.”
Now the vibration of the sub’s motor was gone, and the machine was drifting as if dead. Don wondered why, since it hadn’t been hit. Then he realized that this was part of its defensive strategy. Whoever had fired that torpedo would record the blast, spot the descending hulk, and maybe assume that the job had been done and move on. If they were tuning in on the faint motor, that was gone, with the obvious implication.
Don hoped the ruse worked. What would happen to him if the sub were blown up? He was attached to it, and even with the phase he doubted that he could survive that kind of shock. This whole business was his fault, too; the sub was trying to do him a favor, and had gotten into real trouble.
No other torpedo came. The sub kept dropping. The radio was silent, and he didn’t dare spin the wheel for fear that the motion or the sound of the radio would be picked up by the enemy. He hated to have Melanie worry, but stillness was necessary now.
Down, down. This was a deep-diver; it could handle the depths of the trench, as perhaps the attacking sub could not. Probably it would go all the way to the bottom and lie there until it seemed safe to resume. Hours later, or even days.
In which case Don’s mission was doomed.
But there was a much more immediate and personal danger. His bike was firmly tied to the bottom rails. If the sub struck the ocean floor, the balloon fastenings would transmit its entire weight to the bike beneath, crushingly. Don himself could walk through the sub and escape, but what good would that be without his bike?
Feverishly Don tried to untie the knotted balloons. But they were under the stress of his own weight and that of the bicycle, and would not budge. Two loose balloons were in his hands, so that he could also hold on directly, but he could free those hands only by putting his full weight on the bike.
Then he had a second and worse realization: the sub was sinking at moderate speed, its fall restrained by the resistance of the water and its own calculated buoyancy. If he let go, he would fall at his own rate, as if through air, and smash to death below. He couldn’t afford to desert the submarine!
He was trapped. His choice was between dooms: crushing or smashing. And he had no idea how soon. The murk blocked any sight of what was below.
He put his hand to the wheel to recharge the radio, so that he could tell Melanie. She might have a clearer head in this emergency, and figure out his best course. But the enemy sub might still be watching, with sonar or radar or whatever sophisticated devices it possessed, and his activity could still bring ruin. He had to remain silent, so that he wouldn’t inadvertently endanger the friendly sub more than he already had.
Don knew he was on his own, for this crisis.
Then, as if his brain clicked into a new mode, he knew what to do. He took out his pencil and pried at the balloon anchoring the front of his bicycle to the rail. The graphite snapped off, but slowly he worked the taut knot loose, until it gave way and snapped free. The front wheel sagged, forcing him to support it by hand, with his other balloon-gloved hand clenched over the rail. Now he really appreciated the extreme lightness of the bike; it was no trouble to hold.
The second bike balloon was too much for him to untie this way, so he got out his penknife, hooked his elbow over the rail with balloon-padding, and hooked both feet into the chassis of the bike. Then, laboriously he cut the balloon. It parted with extreme reluctance, because of its half-phased condition, but finally the rear wheel also hung loose.
Now he carried the entire bicycle on his legs, hanging onto the rail with left hand and right elbow. But he could not rest. He let go with his left hand and brought it down to his mouth. He used his teeth to wrench off the glove. His small packet of maps was tucked inside that same balloon; he hoped they would be legible after taking this beating. He cupped both balloons under his elbow, his sole support, and got ready to tackle the last connection, his right hand still gloved. The sub might be drifting relatively slowly through water, but his own weight was excruciating, because his full weight was hanging by that one arm.
The ocean floor came into view. Don snapped at his right hand with his teeth. He bit painfully into his own fingers, cursing the awkwardness of his position, but the balloon refused to come.
There was no time! Don let go, dropped the last eight feet, hauled the bike up over his head as a kind of counterbalance to break his fall, and landed running.
The sub came down on top of him. Its substance could not touch him or the bike, but it caught his balloon-hand with a glancing blow and shoved it down irresistibly. Don was felled as if clubbed, but momentum carried him forward. He spun free of the bike and rolled.
In a moment the world settled. All was still.
Don took stock. He was lying under and within the resting sub, but his outstretched gloved hand lay just outside. He had made it.
He got up, pulled off the glove, dropped the balloons to the ground and walked back through the sub to carry out his bike. “Thanks for the lift,” he told the crew. “I know you did the best you c
ould, and risked your lives on my account. Now I’ll do the best I can. So long.” He felt a bit like a carefree hero, dismissing severe wounds with cheer.
But maybe the others saw him that way too. A couple of them waved back as he walked on.
Three balloons and the maps were lost, pinned some-where under the sub. He picked up the fourth, rolled it into a tight ball, attached a length of string, and pocketed it. If he had any further trouble with the real world, he would dangle the balloon behind him. Better that than getting himself crushed or knocked around.
He checked his position. North latitude 20°30’; west longitude 73° even, approximately. Now he could have used the maps! But his recollection showed his position as north of Haiti and east of his projected route. The sub had gone far astray during its evasive action, not that he blamed it. The Chinese were lucky to have survived.
Now he had a doubt about his prior conjecture. Who had really fired that torpedo? An American submarine—or some other? He hoped American, because that would be less of a threat to him.
The depth was twenty two hundred fathoms, or about two and a half miles. He wished the sub hadn’t sunk so far; he would be exhausted long before he made it to the shallows, but there was no choice.
Fortunately he had a fair notion of his route, even without the maps. All he had to do was follow the Puerto Rico trench west until it branched into the Old Bahama Channel, then bear north along the Santaren Channel until he reached the vicinity of Florida. Most of that would be between 250 and 450 fathoms—deep enough to keep well out of sight, shallow enough to keep him out of serious trouble with the terrain. He hoped. If he had to surmount a cliff, he would inflate the balloon. It would take a long time to fill it full enough, and he hoped it wouldn’t burst, but it was better than nothing.
Time, time! That was his constant enemy, now. The sub had helped him on his way, but not enough. His easy interception of Pacifa had become chancy.
He rode on. He was learning to respect this bicycle. The narrow seat had grown uncomfortable for sitting upright during the sub ride, but for serious pedaling it was superior, because it did not interfere with his thighs the way a broad seat would have. He was making better time with less effort than normal. There was a gear ratio to accommodate his slightest whim, and this did save him energy. And it was a much lighter machine; even fully loaded, it moved along more readily than his old one ever had. No wonder Eleph had kept up so well, even after his injury.