So weak were they that neither saw the slim form which swam nearby, staring at them sadly. Rela.
A glint of metal as the wave receded elsewhere caught her eye and she kicked toward it, her flippers propelling her rapidly through the water. Holding her breath, she poked her head and arms out of the water and examined the shards and scraps with a kind of resigned curiosity. Several of the pieces were bigger than she was and were almost intact. She noticed that one seemed to have some kind of writing etched into it. With her finger, she traced the cryptic indentations.
U.S.S. Enterprise . . . the bumps meant nothing to her, of course.
Another section, caught high up on a rocky projection, caught her eye. She took a deeper breath, raised her head and stared. It seemed to be part of a dome . . . a dome of some strange, transparent material. Judging from its curve, it must have enclosed a substantial area, though she couldn't get any good idea of its original size or shape. She clambered out onto the rocks, struggling clumsily.
Beneath the broken dome was a section of metal lined with interesting instruments. There were also several sealed cases which had broken loose from their catches and tumbled about within. One was jammed shut, but two of the others lay broken open, their contents scattered nearby.
She picked up the remains of what seemed to be a book—but the material was impossibly, incredibly fragile. Opening it carefully, she thumbed through it, her eyes growing wider and wider at each subsequent waterlogged revelation.
There were pictures of strange vessels, others of absurd underwater creatures she had never seen, and others—of air-dwellers! Such incredible monsters couldn't possibly exist . . . on her world, she realized with a start.
And that meant . . . she plunged into the water, swam furiously, perilously close to the sharp edges of the rocks. Taking another deep breath she scrambled up onto the flat boulder to which Kirk was bound, knelt over him.
"Conserve your strength," she bubbled, "I will free you . . . somehow."
She tugged at the cords, trying to loosen the knots. She dug her flippers into a crack in the rocks and pulled with all her strength, gasping, straining, water running out her mouth and down her chin. No use.
While Kirk continued to gasp weakly she turned and plunged her head back under the surface for a long moment. Coming back up she said in that odd, gurgling voice, "The mesh is too strong!"
"Go," Kirk somehow managed to sputter, "toward the big island . . . assistance there, maybe . . . friends . . ."
Rela nodded, or at least that was the impression Kirk had. After giving both men long draughts of fresh water, she plunged back in and disappeared.
If, Kirk mused painfully, she decided not to come back . . .
Clayton looked over the side of the gig. A moment later, Scott, the lime-yellow aura of his life-support belt still glowing brightly, popped up. He reached up, clung to the side of the small craft.
"See anything?" asked Clayton. Scott shook his head dispiritedly.
"Still no sign of 'em. I wish we carried more underwater equipment. The captain and Mr. Spock are adapted for gettin' around in this environment. We just can't match 'em, tryin' to swim in a life-support aura.
"Besides which, the directional tracker isn't pickin' up their signal anymore. Lost it a while back and I'm damned if I know why . . . unless their translators are broken." He patted the one affixed to his own chest beneath the green bodysuit.
"The only signal I get now is from mine, and I'm not too sure it works. I thought I saw some big, man-shaped form watchin' us from one of the big kelp beds. I yelled at it and it disappeared."
"It might have been a fish," Clayton argued, "but I suppose it could have been one of our mysterious locals. I don't think it's the translator, sir, I . . ." He broke off, staring, as an alien shape broke the water only a couple of meters from the gig. His phaser came around automatically.
But it lowered at the same time they were given proof of the translator's efficacy.
"Follow me, quickly!" Rela implored. Without waiting for a reply, she turned and started off in the direction of the distant boulders.
"Wait a minute!" Scott shouted hurriedly, "who are . . .?"
Rela whirled in the water, yelled back at them. "Follow me. Your friends need your help." She ducked her head and shot off again.
While Scott climbed into the gig, Clayton focused his telefocals on the distant, moving fin. "I've got her clearly, Mr. Scott. She's swimming just under the surface."
Scott nodded, switched off his life-support belt and moved to the controls of the gig. A second later the powerful side jets came to life and the compact vessel shot off in pursuit.
Kirk's chest felt like the rotten leather of an old bellows, and his hoarse rasping sounded like one. There were more pleasant ways to die, he thought, than suffocating to death. He sensed its nearness, and the first hallucinations confirmed it.
It started with the gurgling shout he dreamt he heard nearby. Vague forms seemed to move before his glazed eyes, almost human . . . angels, perhaps? It seemed that hands fumbled at his sides . . .
A warm coolness washed over him . . . a temperature incongruity? No . . . he drew in another breath, felt himself growing stronger, drew another and another.
His vision cleared with awesome abruptness, and he found himself staring into the non-angelic but no less welcome face of an anxious Scott. He sat up, looked around. Spock stared back at him across the sandy bottom.
Scott joined them, once again activating his yellow halo. Kirk seated himself on something soft and, he hoped, nonlethal.
"Good to see you, Scotty."
"Not as good as it is to see you, Captain." The look in the chief engineer's eyes embarrassed Kirk. He turned to Rela.
"Rela, this is my chief engineering officer, Mr. Scott. Tribune Rela is an Argoan-Aquan, as their name for themselves translates. Their city is a short distance away. I'm afraid Mr. Spock and I didn't make a very favorable impression on its rulers."
"We're obliged for your help," Scott said hurriedly, forcing gaze and curiosity away from the drifting Rela. "Captain, we've been trying to contact you for two hours. There's a severe quake due in this area soon. According to the seismology people, it will disrupt this entire region. That won't bother us, of course, but . . ."
The translators were good, not perfect. Some of the strange mouthings of the air-breathers came to Rela garbled and devoid of crucial nuances. But if some of the terminology was vague, the look Scotty gave her was enough to put his point across.
"There are many legends of such events," she told them. "When the great surface places sank into the sea. Much of the knowledge of the ancients was destroyed."
"I still do not understand," put in Spock, "how such a radical, complete racial mutation could take place in such a short time."
"You are right, Mr. Spock," Rela complimented him. "Evolution played no part in it. When the surface places began to sink, many air-breathers—my distant ancestors—were altered to breathe and live beneath the sea by surgery, as you were. Such surgery extended even to the . . ." it came out "genes."
"Thus, the change was made hereditary—for those who accepted the change. There were those who did not . . . hence my people's instinctive fear of you."
"Strange that the air-breathing remainder of your race should turn to useless violence," Kirk wondered, "considering their accomplishments."
"It seems as if those who remained on the surface didn't believe the continental subsidence would be this extensive," Spock theorized. "I would guess that somewhere, sometime, they lost the ability to change themselves into water-breathers. A few generations would serve to breed sufficient hatred and envy for those immune to the coming catastrophe."
"They hunted and killed among us," Rela recounted grimly. "We learned to hate anything that lives in the air. That is why it has always been forbidden to mutate back to such a state."
A startled glance passed between Kirk and Spock before the Captain commented excite
dly to her, "Then reverse surgery is possible. Domar lied to us."
"Not wholly," Rela corrected. "There are stories of sealed places in the ancients' air-city where many records remain. It is rumored that . . ."
A dull rumbling echoed through the water around them. Sand was jolted upward, fish scurried frantically for the nearest cover, and Kirk and Spock found themselves bounced from their seats. The turbulence sent Scott and Rela tumbling slightly.
Sand continued to cascade in gritty falls from clumps of rock, clouding the water with drifting debris.
"Less than two hours," Scott warned them.
"How far are these ruins, Rela?" Kirk asked
"Not far . . . in a direction away from the city."
Kirk already had his mind made up . . . but a second opinion was always good policy. "Mr. Spock?"
"We have no choice, Captain. If there is a chance for us, it lies there."
"But these are only stories," said Rela, alarmed at the reaction her information had produced. "In any case, I cannot take you there. It is against the Ordainments."
Kirk swam close to her. "It's vital, Rela. Not just for Mr. Spock and myself, but for the population of another world much like yours, threatened with similar disaster. Argo's ancient knowledge could help save them."
The Aquan hesitated, staring at the three aliens. If she chose to whirl and swim away it was doubtful that either Kirk or Spock could catch her. She made a sharp, enigmatic gesture.
"I will take you as far as the reef barrier." And before anyone could thank her, she had turned and started off at a right angle from the course back to the sunken city.
Kirk and Spock followed, having to push themselves to keep pace. It seemed as if they swam for hours, traveling over the endless amber-tinted plain, dodging coral heads and dunes.
Kirk noticed the way the fish thinned out as they moved on, and he wondered. Maybe it was something in the water, or maybe a lack of nutrients.
Rela seemed to be growing more and more nervous the further they swam, her eyes darting constantly in all directions. Looking for an aqueous poltergeist, he decided, would be a particularly difficult proposition.
It turned darker as they neared a barrier. A long, winding reef, much like the one he and Spock had encountered on their way to the Aquan city. Only this one was still living.
Rela came to a stop, gestured upward toward a wide-mouthed hole in the rampart, lined with plants which jerked and swayed violently.
"The ruined city lies through there. Take care, the currents are strong."
"Aren't you coming with us?" Kirk asked.
"No," she replied emphatically, backing away, "I can go no further. I will wait for you with your friends."
She turned and, kicking powerfully, raced off into the distance. They would be wasting time and probably effort in trying to convince her to come with them. As one, both officers moved cautiously toward the gaping cavity.
Kirk soon felt a slight rippling of water over his body. It increased rapidly. Soon he was exerting all his strength just to stay in one place—but to no avail. The current had a firm grip on them and was pulling them inexorably into the cavern.
The interior of the cave soon showed blue sky overhead . . . it was another reef rift, not a tunnel. But the walls of this one were lined with jagged spikes of dead coral, twisted spines representing the combined toil of a billion tiny lives.
He fought the current, glad of his webbed hands and feet, as the suction pulled at them. Kicking furiously to stay level and at the same time avoid a reaching coral pike, he found himself wondering why Rela simply hadn't directed them to go over the top of the reef. The currents might be strong there, too, but could they be this violent?
Then it came to him. The reef probably stayed near the surface in most places, even breaking through. The idea of walking across the reef on one's flippers had probably never occurred to her.
Without warning, they were ejected from the reef. They came to a tumbling halt, still amid stone, but stone whose edges were not formed by a patient nature.
They were drifting in a giant's playpen of crumbling blocks and archways and unbalanced pylons—all jumbled together by some unimaginably violent cataclysm in Argo's past.
Down they drifted, past spires, turrets, towers, structures that resembled great temples, others that encircled a coral-encrusted marketplace. All alien, but still more familiar than the underwater city of the Aquans. This was a city made to live in the currents of wind, not water. A broad avenue curved away before them, lined with a crazy-quilt pattern of broken stone and paved here and there with the ever-present amber moss. Much of the sunken metropolis was overgrown with waving plant life. It stretched off to the horizon, dwarfing the city of the Aquans.
"Fascinating," Spock murmured. "Probably an entire portion of the continent sank within minutes and with minimal upheaval."
"Rela said the records repository would be a tall, triangular structure," Kirk reminded him. They started down the relatively clear avenue, eyeing dark crannies and long shadowed areas cautiously.
Of course, the Aquans' "Ordainments" were standard, susperstitious taboos, but that didn't mean this skeleton city couldn't be home to some less ecclesiastical dangers.
As they moved deeper into the ruins they encountered buildings in a better state of preservation. Slanted towers rose around them, jagged cracks showing in their walls. But they still stood. How many more serious tremors their weakened foundations could stand Kirk could not tell.
The boulevard made a sharp turn to the right and they found themselves facing a broad plaza. At its far side stood a tall, pyramidal building. A deeply etched, gold-colored medallion was set into its top. The Argoan hieroglyphics were hardly eroded, testament to the knowledge of Rela's ancestors. The medallion shone brightly in the urban graveyard, catching the filtered sunlight
At first it appeared the structure was blessed with a multitude of entrances. Ruined windows, broken doors—but all were blocked by internal collapse. They began to circle the building, checking each opening.
Then Spock spotted the large block that projected outward at the base of the building. Brushing aside sand, prying away encumbering shells, they uncovered a flat stone of a substance substantially different from the rest of the building. It looked more like alabaster than anything else, yet it was clearly artificial. Most important, there was a metallic emblem set into its front that matched the big disk at the building's apex.
Spock swam to the far side, dug webbed feet into the sand and shoved. For a moment nothing happened, then the block suddenly slid aside as though oiled.
Their lights revealed a clear passageway leading upward as far as the beams would reach . . . and steps, honest steps.
A short swim brought them to the first of many interconnected chambers. Every other room was lined with drawers and cases of metal. After a little initial tugging, they came apart and broke open easily. Most of the cases were badly corroded, their contents long since destroyed.
Some, however, remained sealed, and these all had tiny plates of gleaming gold set into them. Each plate had a miniature bas-relief engraved in it, underlined by more of the indecipherable hieroglyphics. They went through a seemingly endless stream of sealed containers. In the sixth chamber Spock held one of the containers out and called to Kirk. Kirk dropped the one he was studying and swam over.
Alongside the expected rows of hieroglyphs was cut the form of an upright human figure, split down the middle. One side of the torso was normal. The other resembled, more than anything else, the body of a fish.
"I do not think the meaning could be more clear, Captain." Spock gestured at the open case behind him. "There are three others set with the same engraving, a fourth with something rather nauseating. I only hope they hold medical records and not the reproduced work of some long-dead Argoan surrealist."
The men swam rapidly now, tracing their path back out of the temple or museum or hospital or whatever it had been, back toward the
edge of the city.
A long, curved pillar marked the end of the avenue, a roadblock to fleeing inhabitants during the age-old disaster, but not to swimmers. The obstruction lay across the road from still upright cousins, supporters of a dark mausoleum to their right.
Spock started upward then halted in mid-stroke. Kirk pulled up just as sharply behind him. He had noticed the movement in the fallen column, too.
Another column joined the first, fluttering. A huge form rose into view from behind the partly ruined structure. They weren't stone, those columns; and Kirk frantically damned himself for not recognizing the first.
They were the arms of a creature they had met before, a creature capable of blind fury and incredible strength. If anything, this snake-squid was even bigger than the one that had destroyed the shuttle.
They turned and swam furiously back up the avenue. The snake-squid started to follow, its roars rattling Kirk's water-filled ears. Evidently they had stumbled across one that had been half asleep, or they would both have been fish-fodder already.
He looked back over his shoulder. The muscles in his legs were starting to knot up under the unaccustomed demand. The monster was still well behind them, but closing ground fast. It still wasn't fully awake.
Another roar shook him—literally. A deeper, grinding scream that sent him tumbling head over heels. Walls and towers came crumbling down around them as the quake tortured the old buildings. Kirk held onto his two cylinders for dear life.
One gigantic block of cut stone struck their pursuer near the skull. It paused, drifted motionless in the water for a moment, stunned. Then it suddenly turned—all thoughts of tiny prey forgotten now—and rocketed away.
For long minutes they lay in the protective shadow of the hospital-temple, ready to dart back into the entranceway at the first sign of a probing tentacle.
"A most interesting creature," Spock commented. "Instinctively aggressive and blessed with remarkable offensive equipment. It would be interesting to . . ."