THE OTHER BIG SECRET 2: RABBIT STEW / CH. 6:DIVING SCHOOL
2ND NOVEMBER 1975.
It had taken them longer than Rose expected to get to Norfolk. And it was pitch black out in the fens. Rose had had the idea that spending some of James' remaining money on a fairly large inflatable dinghy would help them avoid attracting attention by hiring a rowing boat in the middle of the night. But even with the car vacuum cleaner to help, it had taken another half an hour to get it ready for the first load, by the time they put the first box on board, it was almost midnight.
There wasn't even a moon to help them see. But, somehow, James seemed to find the way, almost directly to the relevant patch of reeds.
Rose didn't see the sub at all, to start with. There was just a gap in the reeds.
“Has someone stolen your sub?”
“Of course not. But I didn't want it being seen from a passing plane, did I?”
“So where is it?”
“Buried in the mud.”
“You are joking, aren't you?”
“No. Hold onto the oars, can you?”
In the light of the little torch, she saw him taking off his shirt, then his trousers too. “James, it's November, did you notice?”
“I told you I didn't want to wait until winter.”
“Just don't get hypothermia. What are you going to do?”
“Swim to the bottom, grope around until I find the button that tells it to surface, and press it.”
“Whatever happened to remote control?”
“Only on more recent ones. I bet Karella's practically comes when she calls.”
“Oh.”
“This one has a button.” He slipped over the edge of the dinghy and vanished into the dark water. Rose waited. Intellectually, she was aware of the mammalian diving reflex, she was aware that James had said he could hold his breath for far longer than she could without ill effect. But still, she held her breath thinking that he ought to the surface for a breath of air soon after she took her first gasp. Or her second. After five gasps, she was wondering if he'd got caught underwater and she was about to be a widow, or if he'd swum away to surface elsewhere as part of an elaborate practical joke. She checked her watch. It didn't help much, because she hadn't looked at it when he jumped in. Two more minutes ticked by and she was beginning to seriously worry. Then she realised that she could use her gift to see where he was. He was there just above a bulbous shape. He was obviously fine, much to her relief, still prodding around. Suddenly there was a massive stirring of the water as bubbles surfaced around her, and she realised that her boat had drifted until it was directly above the submarine.
She pulled on the oars and moved to the edge of the reeds.
James pulled himself on board and she wrapped him in the towel he'd brought. He felt icy to her kiss. “James, if you've frozen yourself on our wedding night
I'm going to be very miffed.”
“I'm sure you can work out a way for us to warm me up, doctor.”
“That sub had better have heating.”
“It does. Don't worry.”
“It's yellow.” Rose realised, looking at the wall of metal in front of her.
“Shiny, too.” he said, and she realised he was teasing.
“You're not going to tell me its made of gold, are you? That'd be crazy.”
“Not solid gold, no. Actually it's an alloy. But the outer skin is mostly
gold. For corrosion resistance.”
“I see. And how do we get in, now that it's floating so high?”
“I go up on top, open it up and adjust the buoyancy a little.”
“You're not going to get into the water again, I hope.”
“Not unless I slip.”
“So do you want to climb all over that cold gold with hardly anything on?”
“Of course not. I'd much rather climb all over you.”
“I hope there's washing facilities on board. You smell of river mud.”
“Hot and cold running water.” he said. Rose wasn't sure if he were joking or not.
“So, I need to let you go?”
“Yes.”
“Bother. Come back to me soon.”
“It'll only take a minute.”
“It didn't last time.”
“Last time I was looking at the back of the sub for a button which is near the front.”
“Why?”
“I got turned round.”
“Go on, I want to get into that nice warm sub.”
“I didn't say it's warm yet.”
“Oh joy. My first night of married life in a golden icebox.”
“Sorry.”
“Don't be. You're going to help keep me warm, I hope, once I've warmed you up.”
He kissed her and headed up a ladder. More bubbles stirred up the water, and soon it looked actually possible to load the submarine from the boat.
----------------------------------------
“Next trip should be a lot shorter, Rick.” Rose reassured her brother.
“Oh yes? What were you doing, then?”
“James was swimming around the wrong end of the boat, for something like eight minutes, looking for the button to let us in, then he gave me a quick guided tour while he turned on the heating.”
“Oh. All right. I don't hear an engine.”
“No.” James said. “You won't.”
“Oh, like that is it? Electric power?”
“Yes. It'll run for something like eight hours on battery before I need to turn the generator on.”
“Heaters are going to kill your battery, surely?” Rick said.
“Don't worry. We need warmth more than range at the moment.”
They repeated the loading and unloading cycle, until the fifth load emptied the van.
“Rick, it looks like we'll be going now.” Rose said.
“Yeah. Urm, keep in touch.”
“I will, via Karella if nothing else.”
“Thank you, Rose. She's a special woman.”
“Glad you think so, it'll make life a lot less complicated.”
“So, what's so special about his boat?”
“James says it's an older model than Karella's, but yeah, you can tell it's not made round here.”
“You've got something like four hours of night left before it starts to get light, then. You'd better go. Take care of my sister, Mr Turnbull.”
“I fully intend to, Mr Abbot. And take care of my cousin; she likes you.”
“I like her a lot too.”
“Rick, just so you know...” James said.
“Yes?”
“A lot of the confidence she projects is a sort of mask. Don't make the mistake of falling in love with the mask, OK?”
“You're saying go slowly.”
“I'm saying... confident Karella might not be real Karella. If she lets you see her cry, then you're meeting the real woman.”
“OK. I'll try to keep that in mind. That mask is pretty dazzling, you know?”
“I know. I'm not saying it's not her at all, I'm just saying that if that's all you ever see, then she's still hiding.”
----------------------------------------
They rode on the surface for the first part of the journey. Rose was up top, holding the deflating dinghy steady on the back of the sub, while James carefully steered them along the river. The submarine just had the one hatch in the top of the curved exterior, it didn't have a flat deck or anywhere that Rose could safely stand except the ladder of the airlock. Standing on a ladder, holding on to a big cumbersome inflatable that wanted to fall into the water wasn't ever going to feature on Rose's list of favourite activities for three o'clock in the morning. But they'd stirred up a lot of mud when they floated the submarine. James explained that, tempting though it might have been to sink back down to the bottom and stay until the next night, it would have been a big risk. Rose had replied that she hadn't even thought of it as an option. Finally, enough of the air had gone out of the dinghy that Rose could pull out the decking boards from the bottom, stack them in the airlock, and start to fold it up. She did all of this one-handedly. She didn't want to risk falling off the ladder. Eventually, she pulled the wet heavy plastic into the hatch.
“James, I'm in, finally. Do you want to go underwater?”
“It'd be a bit slower. Any sign of light or lights?”
“There might be a town coming up, I'm not sure about the distance. It might not even be on the river.”
“Sorry, Rose. Can I ask you to go back up to check? This sub wasn't exactly designed for river-work.”
“Of course. Who needs sleep?”
“We both do. Can you tell me when you can see any sign of humans?”
“Sure, but what if we turn the corner and find someone looking out of their house-boat window?”
“Urm. You wave, and if they ask you say something about a university project?”
“I guess so. OK. How long did it take you to come up here?”
“About four hours. I thought it'd be faster going back.”
“I must be tired.” Rose announced.
“Something to do with the time.” he agreed, yawning.
“No. I mean I'm not thinking straight. Why don't I look for people who are awake?”
“I don't know, why don't you?”
“I've just answered that, remember.” she said and kissed him.
----------------------------------------
About half an hour later, Rose checked for people, and kissed him again.
[I think you're finally warming up properly, James, now I'm not letting all the heat out.] Rose thought to him. [How much longer will it take us? I've just checked again, there's some people on our route who are going to be awake in an hour.]
[We need to go faster, then, I think.]
[Can we?]
[Oh yes. Faster is no problem. It's just we'll be making more wake, disturbing the birds, breaking up the river banks, that sort of thing. You've probably got laws about it. But there's a big lake up ahead. We can cross that quite quickly, then it's only half an hour or so. What I should have done though is check the tide. There's a narrow passage from that lake, through the middle of a town, out to sea. We need high tide or we'll be visible.]
[Ah...]
[We'll have to check how high the water is. Otherwise we're spending the day in the lake.]
[Is that a problem?]
[It's deep enough. Hopefully no one is going to be looking. Or coming the other way as we leave through the channel. That would be rather sad.]
[As in, collision?]
[We might have to turn round.]
[Would you spot them?]
[Of course, I'll have the sonar going. Those clicks — can't you hear them?]
[No.]
[Ah. I guess it's too high for you.]
[You're not saying you're navigating by hearing the echo are you? Like dolphins?]
[Of course.] he was surprised. [Can't you do it at all?]
[No.]
[I guess it's not a land-man skill.] James thought.
[Not one I'm aware of.]
[Still sure we're not different sub-species? And did you notice my toes?]
[What about your toes? Do they need kissing too? {Surprise} They're webbed.]
[Yes. Hey, that tickles.]
[Webbed feet, ultrasonic hearing, lots of iron in your muscles. All useful if you're underwater.]
[Very.]
[Also good self control.]
[Hey!]
[Just to say I love you. But you still smell of river mud.]
[You probably do too, given how close you've been standing to me. So, can we put some clothes on?]
[If you really want to.]
[I really want to get us out of this river system safely, Rose. I love you a lot, but us getting spotted might mean disaster for my whole people.]
[{sorrow} I'm sorry, James, I was being selfish, wasn't I?]
[Not selfish, just... not thinking of everything. Can you check who'll see us if we cross this lake like a speedboat?]
She did [Nobody. We really can?]
[See that panel on the left?]
“This one?”
“Yes. Press it at the top, please, it will flap open.”
“Oooh. Looks like writing. On a TV screen.”
“It is, sort of. Same sort of principle, anyway.”
“Electrons hitting a phosphor?”
“Not quite. But I expect you'll have a factory churning out thousands of these a day, one of these decades, whereas ours takes a team of well trained technicians about a month.”
“I see the issue. So, what do I do with the writing I can't read?”
“See the red circle?”
“Yes.”
“Pretend it's a coin. Put a finger on it and drag it all the way to the right hand side of the screen.”
“Oh! It moves!”
“It does. Your grandfather apparently said he though a big switch with lots of sparks was more appropriate, when he first saw it.”
“What have I just done?”
“We're not running on batteries any more.”
“So... I've just removed some control rods from a reactor?”
“What, you think we use that horrible messy fission? We stopped using that
around the battle of Hastings.”
“I meant to ask. What's moving us through the water? I didn't see any propeller.”
“The water's moving us through the water.”
“Pardon?”
“There's a very strong magnet on either side of us. Put some current through the water, and the water gets a force on it, and so tries to move. We let it. Everything else is just vanes and things to send the water where we want it to go. That will be straight backwards. And it's about to be a big current through the water. Which is noisy, disgustingly inefficient, but fast.”
“I'll sit down.”
“Excellent idea.”
James turned on the ship's radar. He'd no desire to swamp any other boats on the lake, and sonar wasn't going to let him navigate fast enough. He eased the power control forward. It had been a very deliberate design decision to make it forward to go faster. It meant if you did it too fast then as you fell back you turned it off. If anyone had seen them, they'd have seen a golden whale rocketing through the water, kicking up a 'rooster tail' of spray that would have made any power boating enthusiast cry with envy. Crossing the lake normally took about forty to fifty minutes. They did it in a not very comfortable four.
“James?” Rose asked as they settled down to more normal speeds.
“Yes, beloved?”
“What would happen if we went at that speed through the channel?”
“Urm... I'm not sure. Anyone nearby would get very wet. The channel walls might collapse from the wake. We might crash too, that channel is a bit winding. Oh, and there are low bridges. If we were fully underwater at that speed, we'd almost certainly damage the channel. Or dredge it, I suppose.”
“OK. Let's not then.”
“Unless we're about to be boarded. An outsider trying to board one of our vessels gets counted as an act of war, and a direct threat to the survival of my people. In that case, I have two options. Get us away or blow up the submarine.”
“Oh. And blowing up the submarine means using the fusion generator?”
“Yes. It wouldn't be the size of one of your atom bombs, don't worry about wiping out the whole town.”
“Just us?”
“Fairly likely. Sorry, Rose. I'll try reason, but I can't let this technology fall into land-folk's hands. The good news is that it looks like being close enough to high tide for us to be leaving.”
“And then we go into one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.”
“Where we go off the normal track a bit, sink gently to the bottom, and get some rest. Can you put that slider to the middle of the screen, please?”
“OK. What does that do?”
“Recharges the batteries. Far right means ignore the batteries for the moment.”
“Could we have done that sprint on the batteries?”
“Probably, for a bit. But it's not good for them.”
“I just can't think why. Wow that was fun, James, But why have that capability at all?”
“Rescuing people, emergencies, plus because they could, I expect. I told you we show off.” James pointed out.
“OK. Now, something tells me this wonderful little boat wasn't put together in the village you've described to me.”
“No. It was put together in our city.”
“And Karella's trading trips go from village to village collecting what they produce or pick up and selling it to folks in the city?”
“And then taking what she's bought in the city and selling on the return journey, yes.”
“And now you're going to tell me your city's called something other than Atlantis, aren't you? Please. Any time mer-people in fiction have a city it's always called Atlantis. Please tell me you called it something else.”
“Sorry. I can't do that. But that's just because of Plato. His story came first, and someone decided that our capital just had to be called after it.”
“Oh. So everyone's copying the same basic idea?”
“Yes.”
“When was it founded?”
“Oh, Just after Plato wrote the Republic. But it's been rebuilt a few times since.”
“Now, what else did I want to know?” Rose asked.
“Lots and lots. All those things that I said I'd tell you here.” James replied.
“No, it was something specific, and more important.”
“You're the one with a mind-reading gift.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“I'm not sure I can use it on myself. Oh! I remember.” Rose said, and actually blushed.
“Yes?”
“Are you thinking of us consummating our marriage before or after we get some sleep? Because I was thinking if you were going to be busy piloting, and don't need me to keep watch, I could just sort of curl up here and have a nap.” she yawned, and curled in a ball where she'd been sitting. “Very easily, in fact.”
“Have a nap, my beloved wife. I've got a bit more piloting to do before we can hide and sleep. But there is a bed, you don't need to curl up at my feet.”
[Then why don't you be a lovely husband and carry me there, when it's a convenient time?] she thought to him as she kissed his webbed feet.
----------------------------------------
1ST DECEMBER 1975, ATLANTIS.
“We greet you, Sathzakara Farseer Evangelia. It has been a long time.” Helen, the chair of the welcoming committee, said.
Sathzakara smiled in agreement. “It has, Helen. Mostly because I prefer sunlight.”
“You know why we're based here.” another committee member said.
“Of course I do. I just prefer to swim in sunlight, like quite a lot of people I know.” she looked around her capital city, its glass tunnels and crystal spires. Jacob had been utterly shattered when he realised what level of technology her people had. It had been so far beyond his learning, when he'd expected to educate them not the other way round. But she'd persuaded him that he needn't feel useless. He had other skills, other important knowledge. He still played with his steam engines and crystal radio sets to entertain the children and help them understand where this had all started. But as she'd pointed out, even at a snail's pace, three thousand years of uninterrupted progress ought to get you somewhere. “We're a strange people, aren't we?” she observed. “Half of us living like savages in the sunlight, the others living in fairy castles under the oceans. I wonder how long we'll stay undiscovered.”
“You did us a great favour, Sathzakara, in marrying your husband, bringing us his language, and knowledge of how quickly the land-men are catching up with us.” Helen said.
“They've overtaken us in many areas.” Sathzakara pointed out. Talking to Rose had convinced her of that.
“Yes, mass-production, mining, things like that where discovery is not a problem. We know.” Helen replied.
“They're also exploring in space, now. We heard that on the radio.” Sathzakara pointed out, “And soon will have a passenger plane that can cross half the world in a few hours, another thing we've never done. More importantly than all this, I believe, is that they're conquering diseases. Their population is expanding so quickly that even some of them are getting worried.”
“It has often expanded in the past. Then a new plague comes and knocks them back.” a young archivist replied.
“Plagues tend to be from bacteria. They mass produce antibiotics now. New ones are still being discovered. The only plague that will knock them back is going to be a virus. And even then, I do not doubt their survival. Another worrying thing is that there's also a new sport among them.”
“A new sport? How is that worrying?”
“They call it 'scuba-diving'. The whole nation should be warned. They have discovered the beauty of coral, the technology of compressed air, the demand-feed regulator. It is a fun experience for them, to swim for an hour under the sea. More and more will be doing it, I'm sure, as their television programmes show the sights that fifty years ago only we had seen. Also, they have remote control and they have submarines. How long before they put the two together, if they haven't already? They are saying, 'We've exploring the solar system, we've got all this planet to explore too.'”
“Once again, you bring us extra knowledge, Sathzakara. How this time?”
“Once again, but not myself. James, my grandson, I sent to the world of land-men. He has returned with an encyclopedia of technology. We knew they
have harnessed the power of breaking atoms for war. The quiet submarines we have learned to avoid in the last decades harness it for power, as we guessed, and the largest of them carry fusion warheads. They hope that they will have controlled fusion power in two decades. Perhaps it will take them longer — they are ever optimistic. But how long did it take us to go from steam engine to nuclear energy? They've done it in barely a century!”
“We are James' debt.” Helen replied “He did not accompany you?”
“My grandson is still enjoying a period of quarantine, just in case.”
“We thank him for his patience. You said 'enjoying' in irony, I presume.”
“Not entirely. He also brings another treasure; she is called Rose, and has the same gift from God that my husband did. A medical doctor, though not fully trained. They married before leaving her homeland.”
“May God grant that the inherited immunity their offspring will carry will help our race survive.”
“I'm sure it will. But you will be aware that we have not been careful guardians of the genes my children and grand-children carry. Too many have been shark-food.”
“It is the way, Sathzakara. We cannot force them to remain in safety.”
“No, but we could encourage them more, couldn't we? Our children are dutiful, they think they see a need for food, so they hunt and fish. They forget the tales, that we hunt and fish to enjoy life, not to live.”
“You would overturn our culture again?” protested a man even older than Helen. Sathzakara couldn't remember his name. She was getting old herself.
“The land-men will. The question is whether we adapt first, or only in response to discovery. But I mentioned our losses for another reason.”
Helen smiled at her old friend “You always do things for multiple reasons, Sath.”
“You should no longer expect to feel the regular bite of trading with my granddaughter, Karella Eudora Matthew Iron-trader Gold-taker.”
Concerned sounds came from a number of throats. She waved them down. “Karella still lives. But, for now, she walks among the land-men. May her inherited immunity be sufficient to keep it that way.”
“Her purpose?”
“To avoid sharks, to live. Also, she has a hope, encouraged by Rose.”
“Yes?”
“First, I must force more new knowledge upon you, sorry. According to the laws and customs of land-men, all people are part of a country, are its citizens. We knew this from my husband, but not even I was really aware of its significance, not really. Rose has explained it to me. If you have no country, you cannot easily move among them. If you do have a country, you may travel in your own country, but maybe you can only stay in another for a few weeks, unless you seek permission. And to get this permission, you must first obtain one of the documents called a passport we have often found on the drowned. The complicated pictures and words that they sometimes hold is called a 'visa', which is this permission to stay. The passport, you see is not just for going through a port. Nor is it just a letter of introduction. It is a document that records that you can be where you are without arrest. At the moment, Karella does not have this document, of course. But she hopes to obtain one, and Rose thinks it should be possible. It should be possible for all my grandchildren to obtain one, because of my husband's citizenship, and once they have a passport, they can obtain passports for their wives and register the births of their children and get passports for them in turn. But my great grand-children will not be able to claim citizenship on their own, their laws have that strange limit. Karella hopes to arrange this passport for her cousins. She will probably have to talk convincingly, but we know she's good at that.”
“You are saying that some of us should try to pass as landmen?”
“Yes. I say that soon we will need to learn from them, perhaps already we should. I say that we should use their medicine, and vaccinate our children against the diseases they can already catch from the dirty land-men practices. I say that we should take every opportunity to make sure we that we will survive the day when they record us on camera and spread word of us round the world. Already, they can communicate faster, more effortlessly than we can. That cannot be a good thing. I do not believe our technology will keep us unknown to them for another five hundred years, unless we put far more effort into it. Perhaps we should be sending our brightest and best to their universities, as my husband envisaged we might want to, before realising they would learn little. Now, I don't know. But, just as we've changed so much in the last sixty years, it makes sense to think that we'll need to change more, as the landmen claim every inch of land and more and more of the sea.”
Sathzakara could see the acceptance of change on their faces and moved on to her final point.
“And to that end, Rose has a suggestion. When we have people who can walk among them, buy and sell among them, we could swap some of our gold, which the land-men value as much as we value iron, for land. We could buy the coast-land we live on, so that the experience of our people on the Costa Brava is not repeated all over the world.”
“They value gold like iron?”
“Yes. And Karella tells us they value the finest pearls and diamonds even more than gold.”
“How then do they value iron?”
“They turn it into boats and don't bother collecting them when they sink. Does that not tell you something?”
“That they can't?” Helen asked.
“It used to be that way. Now, it's more than that they can't be bothered.”
Sathzakara corrected. “They even deliberately sink some of their old ships. It isn't worth trying to reclaim the iron in them.”
“But....”
“Mass production. Rose tells me that a new iron is worth at least ten thousand times less than gold to them, and old iron is less than a tenth of that.”
“So... when your Karella next comes back...” Helen started.
“Iron becomes far less valuable, if she trades in it.” finished one of the other members of the council. “And more so when Sathzakara's grandchildren go and get themselves documented. But iron will always be useful.”
“Yes. In fact, even the warning that iron will devalue, will make it more available, as people start to sell rather than hoard.” Helen pointed out.
“In which case, maybe gold will become as scarce as it is for the landmen.”
“For the moment... can we ask your Karella to keep her landman iron on dry land?”
“Of course.” Sathzakara agreed. “What concessions she'll ask for are another matter, of course.”
----------------------------------------
A new song
/Landmen have a saying,
they live it loud and clear.
Maybe now time has come, for us to stop and hear.
-you can't stand in the way of progress./
Three thousand years of hiding, lurking in the waves
living in Atlantis or dwelling in the caves.
Remember fishing's just for pleasure, hunting is a game.
Progress is a coming, things cannot stay the same.
Landmen have a saying....
We don't want to be shark food
We don't want to be caught
We don't want to be squeezed out
May we listen when we're taught.
Landmen have a saying....
Landmen are encroaching,
Coastline's getting small
The alternative to hiding is learning to stand tall.
Landmen have a saying....
Better get your papers,
play the landmen game.
Always keep the secret,
things won't be the same.
----------------------------------------
JANUARY 1976, NEW ZEALAND.
“So, let me get to the crunch question, Doctor.” the man at the office asked.
“Why do you want to buy that deserted stretch of wild coast-land, which won't support more than one cow and a whole heap of rabbits these days?”
“Well, firstly.” Rose answered, “Because it is a deserted stretch of wild coast-land which won't support lots of cows. That has two great advantages for me, the coast is a diver's paradise, the fishing looks good and the way it won't support cows means the price is right. Plus, we don't mind the occasional bunny stew, it's got water, some woodland for fuel, and yet it's not too far from civilisation.”
“Are you planning on living off the land, or looking to develop?”
“Living, certainly, developing, not much. Not much at all. The lodge gives us enough accommodation at the top of the cliffs, but we might want to add a room or two for friends and family if that's OK. Based on what I know of the currents I really think it'd be a great place for a diving school, but not right away, and even then we won't develop much. We like it the way it is. Right now, I'm just looking to put some steps down to the cove.”
“Cutting into the cliff, or bolted on steel?” he asked.
“I would love to learn about the different options and relevant planning laws.”
“You're in the right place then, Doc. By the way, is that title of yours medical, or something else?”
“Medical. But... I got provisionally registered with the G.M.C, then couldn't get a house officer position. Not really sure why, except maybe because I liked camping out, rather than living with a drunken father and a screaming mother. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me, and I agreed when the university called it an unusual lifestyle. Unfortunately, it seems that when anyone reads that on an job application back in Britain it gets interpreted as me being a drug-taking hippie liable to help themselves to the pharmacy or something.”
He looked at her entirely non-hippie appearance, and decided that British hospitals must have far too many doctors. Which was fine with him.
“Right. So... you're sort of four-fifths-qualified?”
“Good description.” she agreed. “And now I'm married, here and have no idea what the rules are.”
“Well, Doctor, I can say that one rule is that we help each other round here, and we always need medical people we can call on in an emergency.”
“I'll be very glad to be of service.”
“It'll be great to have you as a neighbour then. What do you think of Rugby?”
“I saw the ground on my way in. I'm not volunteering to play, but when's the next match?” she asked.
He grinned, scrawled something on paperwork in front of him, and said “Take this down the hall, second door on the right.”
She did as instructed and was rather surprised, not very long after, to leave the office with title to the abandoned cattle station, permission to cut steps, expert advice on how to do it, information on obtaining permission to start a business, and a lot of hints about where to get the tools she needed.
She was really surprised to see that they'd written the tile deed in both hers and James' name, and hadn't asked for more than her marriage certificate as documentation. It seemed they were genuinely happy to have the farm lived in, and the rabbit population depleted. She hadn't told them that James' family had been living at the foot of the cliffs and helping to do that for a generation already.
----------------------------------------
8PM, TUESDAY, SEPT 13TH, 1977. NEAR LOCH LINNHE
“Karella, love.” Rick asked yet again. “Why is it that you've insisted on organising the honeymoon? Isn't that supposed to be my job? And why did we need to check out of the hotel today? I thought we where having two weeks up here.
Please don't say trust me or anything like that. We really need to be checking in to somewhere, don't we? And while I'm asking unanswerable questions from my beloved wife, why are we sitting on an isolated pier, with our suitcases? Not to mention why didn't we drive up, like I suggested.”
“Did you notice, it's a New Moon tonight?” Karella asked, totally ignoring the questions.
“Yes, I did. The stars are very pretty. Like you. What are we waiting for?”
“Rose to tell me the coast is clear. There's someone coming, apparently.”
“Hold on... Isn't this near where Rose found you?”
“It is indeed. I came ashore on this very jetty. My first step on British soil.”
“No, no, no... Karella are you planning what I think you're planning?”
“What might that be?” she asked, embracing him.
“Are you planning to show me your mysteriously vanishing boat?”
“I am.”
“And you plan that we sleep aboard it tonight?”
“Indeed.”
“Did I tell you I get sea-sick?”
“Not on my boat, you don't. I hope. You know, Rick, one thing I really like about you is that you're really good at not being curious. But we're married now, in case you hadn't noticed. You've seen my toes, too.”
“Very nice ones they are too. Very kissable. And I've seen you swim three lengths underwater. And you didn't have a verruca, did you? You were hiding your toes.”
“Correct.”
“So, you're part mermaid, or something?”
“Mer-woman now. Biologically adapted to life on the edge of water. It's not like I've got gills, but I swim well, I can hold my breath about ten times longer than you can at the moment, and then I have my give-away toes which add not much at all to my swimming ability.”
“You said at the moment?”
“There's this really disgusting gloop I could give you which would make you able to hold your breath until you pass out. It makes swimming underwater much more fun, but there is that little risk of doing it too long. It makes most people throw up for an hour or two the first time they drink it, but not always.”
“Sounds pleasant.”
“It's not. But the breath-holding thing is handy.”
“Any more surprises?”
“Ever wanted to visit New Zealand?”
“What?” It wasn't what he'd expected at all.
“You know, some people might think, Hmm, I've got relatives in New Zealand, I've got a wife with a top secret submarine, she's got relatives there too, why don't pay them a visit.”
“It takes weeks, months to get there by boat.”
“That depends on the boat, Rick.”
“Karella, don't tease.”
“Eleven thousand and something nautical miles, if we went through the Panama canal, but you have to go really slowly through there, so it's not worth it. Twelve thousand two hundred via cape horn, without any serious speed limits. If we went at, say a hundred knots, then that'd be a hundred and twenty two hours, or five days and a bit. How about we try and do it in four days?”
“Are you being at all serious? Nothing goes that fast, well, maybe a torpedo, I guess.”
“What do you think, Rick?”
“I think you're beautiful.”
“Stop evading the question.”
“What, do I think that you're being serious? I presume you have some serious point behind it. But I've no idea what it is. I'd love to go and pay Rose and your family a visit, but it's too far.”
“Tell you what, Rick, if you're right and we don't manage to get there by time for Church on Sunday, you can tell me you told me so. Otherwise you get to tell me I've got the loveliest little boat in the whole wide ocean.”
“Karella, just tell me something, OK?”
“Yes?”
“If you've got that sort of technology, why are you hanging around with a dumbo like me?”
“Because technology doesn't love me, Rick. Technology just gets me to where I can sell things. But there's plenty of those in London.... Though I do think I'd love to do a little bit of trade between your people and mine. That's one of the reasons I bought all those books.”
“I wondered. I didn't see you reading any of them.”
“Well, I used to read when I got really bored. Oh, look, I've got myself a husband to keep me company. Sorry, books.”
“You're a fascinating person, Karella.”
“Oh! Rose says we can go. Wait a moment.” She pulled a little stick from around her neck, fiddled with it a bit, and dangled it into the water.
“What's that?”
“It was originally intended as a thing to get the attention of whales. It doesn't work very well, they just sort of shrug and think 'What's that? Oh, it's those silly merfolk again, let's get on with important things.' If you can imagine a whale shrugging. I'm not sure I can, having said it. Anyway, it makes a noise that a whale can hear and ignore, but I'll be very cross if my boat ignores it. Not to mention wet.”
“Wet?”
“I'll have to swim down into the middle of the loch and get it.”
“That's a long way down, isn't it?”
“Yes. And not very warm either.”
“How long will it take to get here?”
“Not long. See those ripples coming towards us?”
“Nice necklace you've got there. Karella, why didn't you tell me?”
“Scared, I guess.”
“I could have brought some stuff for Rose.”
“What like?”
“I don't know. Maybe some stock from the shop, but I expect that's coals to Newcastle, isn't it? Chocolate or something. Oh — your last minute shopping trip?”
“That's it. One bar of her favourite chocolate. I wonder if she's introduced the devil food to the rest of the family. Bother.”
“You were of thinking of international chocolate smuggling to the list of your professions?”
“Why not? I'm already smuggling you and a whole lot of gold. Plus a lump of high purity iron which I expect isn't going to be worth much by the time I sell it.”
“Iron?”
“Imagine the crisis your country would have been in a few 1decades ago if someone discovered that next door they had this great big mountain of gold. That's what our people are just coming to terms with. When I bought my lump of iron it was worth about a quarter of my boat. I thought, I know, rather than carting this gold around, why don't I put it in a good valuable metal like iron. That's safe. Arrgh.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Try to sell it on the way. Right now, I'd like to sell it for pretty much anything near parity with gold.”
“Parity with gold?”
“Rust-free iron under the sea? It used to be much more valuable than gold.”
“It's a good job business is doing OK, then, isn't it?”
“Rick, I love you, and it's not for your money, OK? Come aboard and you'll see what I mean.”
Rick ran his hands over the hull. “I don't need to. Nice boat! You're really going to upset me if you tell me this is just a special brass.”
“The gold is only as thick as your front door key, and it's an alloy, too. There's something cheaper under that.”
“I still think it's a lovely boat.” he said as he hauled himself up the ladder.
“Wait until you see her go. Don't worry, once we're in open sea I'll turn on the autopilot, and then I'll show you how I dress at home.”
“Wow.”
“Just a little place I like to think of my home from home.” she said. It wasn't a spartan working boat, like the one James had travelled in. The foot of the ladder had wooden racks and shelves which could have been anywhere, except that they held enough gold and gems to make a pirate think of retiring. Rick thought a bit and decided he'd been wrong. A whole boat-load of pirates. Past the racks, however, was the front of the boat and Karella's home from home, and it was actually that which had caused him to say wow.
“I'll let you get us underway and underwater before I ask you for a guided tour.”
“You did close the hatch?”
“Urm, no. How do I?”
“You... no I'll do it.” She dragged her finger towards the middle of what looked like a T.V screen, and headed back to the hatch. The lighting seemed to brighten.
“I don't hear anything, but your lights look like you've just turned the engine on.”
“Perceptive man. See that big wall at the back, there?” She waved with her foot.
“Yes.”
“That's where what's roughly a battery is. Behind that is the thing that does what's needed to charge the battery. Behind that is the thing that compresses air if we're on the surface or takes it from the sea if we're under water too long. Behind that is where the electricity comes from.”
“If this was a science fiction film.” Rick told her, “You'd now tell me that you're using some incredibly rare element in a nuclear reactor which lets your submarine work for a hundred years without refueling, or that there's this forcefield keeping the antimatter under control.”
“Naah. Just boring old nuclear fusion, like in the sun.” she said, giving him a kiss.
“No one's got that working yet.” Rick pointed out.
“We have, about a thousand years ago.” Karella said.
“You know, I'd really love to learn your history.”
“I might be easiest for you to learn our language. At least for me. It'll be far easier for me to sing you the histories than translate them and make them come out right.”
“Well, how about a compromise. I promise to try and learn for an hour, and you give me a summary of your history for an hour.”
“You're serious? You'd learn our language?”
“Why not?”
“It had never occurred to me that you would, sorry.”
“Never throw away an advantage, as my Grandad used to say. Imagine being able to discuss a deal without being understood by anyone in London.”
“Are you just making up excuses, or are you serious?”
“Hmm, Exotic merchant I've just married, who turns out to be richer than the Medicis, wants me to say whether I'm trying to make up excuses that give me a reason to make her happy, or if I genuinely think that making slightly better deals in our little pawn shop is going to make much difference to our living standard. Hmm, maybe I'm not as obvious as I thought.”
“Mr Rick Abbot, I love you.”
“Mrs Karella lots more names Abbot, I love you too. I think that's why we're man and wife, isn't it?”
“You don't mind that your wife doesn't need your financial support?”
“Except that you might get arrested if you tried to sell any significant part of this, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“No, I don't mind that at all. I think what it really means is that I'm a total novice in this environment and you're still learning in mine. Somehow I think I'm going to be learning yours a lot longer than you are learning mine. But we do need each other. Which is good.”
“I absolutely need you, Rick. Here as well as there. Oh, who are the Medicis I get the feeling I've heard of them somewhere.”
“Rich family in urm.. Venice, maybe? Somewhere in Italy. Bankers, I think.”
“Oh! Yes. OK.”
“You've heard of them, then?”
“Yes. Italian wool trade. Quite lucrative.” she shook her head “That silly man!”
“Who?”
“One of my ancestors. Want to hear the story?”
“If you can drive this thing and still talk?”
“I've been doing that haven't I?” Karella pointed out.
“I didn't notice we'd started moving, actually.” Rick confessed.
“We're not, really. We're just pottering along hardly causing a ripple. I'll speed us up later on. And get the gas compressor going when we're out at sea. You'll hear that.”
“I thought you said we could get air from the water?”
“Not for the trick I'm about to play. We'll blow a jet of air out of the front of the submarine, so the nose is going through nice compressible bubbles, not incompressible water. We collect quite a lot of the air back again, so we'll only need to refill our air-tank every so often.”
“Sounds high tech and extremely complicated.”
“Yes. James' boat's too old to do it, they can only go at about seventy knots on his, and it's terribly inefficient. But by the time this one was made, we'd seen what you were capable of. These days, they don't make any boats which can't out-race one of your submarines by a considerable margin. So, top speed is something around a hundred and fifty knots, underwater. I won't push my baby that hard though. If we wanted to be really uncomfortable, we could be a surface boat and go faster than that.”
----------------------------------------
THURSDAY, SEPT 15TH, 1977. VILLAGE MEETING.
“Karella and Rick are going to be here next week. Do we go for it?” James asked.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Abigail, one of James' cousins asked her husband. It was the third time she'd asked.
“I think it'll work.” Barnabas, her second husband replied. “And it's that or we move. You've seen how many scuba-divers are poking their noses around, more every year.”
“Grandmother?” Abigail asked.
“I like Rose's idea, and it'll work elsewhere, too. It gives us cover, for the past too. Rose has already heard rumours of sightings. If we go ahead then we can say, oh, yes, we've been playing with the idea. We can also say, if someone gets close enough to see a face, that yes, they're auditioning, or practicing or something like that. We might want to hire some land-boys and girls to be occasional 'wild mermaids' on an occasional basis.”
“Oh! I like that idea.” Abigail agreed. “We'd need to train them how to swim, of course.”
“We'll need to train everyone we employ how to swim.” Rose said, “And that gives a role for quite a few family members. Who then become familiar faces in town, and so no one is surprised if they see you.”
“You say family members. Is that deliberate?” one of the villagers who wasn't in the family asked.
“Yes.” Rose replied. “I'm immune to a whole lot of things that you're not. Partly that's because I've met viruses and bacteria, sometimes by immunisations, sometimes from getting sick and recovering. But partly it's because we land-folk have been breeding immunities into ourselves. By mostly cutting ties three thousand years ago, the mer have avoided diseases, but also lost that genetic advantage. Sathzakara's children should have that a bit better than most, thanks to Jacob's genes.”
“So, for most of us, it's life as usual?”
“Except that even with more land-men around, you don't need to be nearly so worried about being seen.” James pointed out.
There was some excited discussion about the implications of that.
“So, do we tell the town we're starting a diving centre?” James asked after the discussion died down.
The agreement was unanimous.
----------------------------------------
MONDAY SEPT 19TH, 1977
“You're winding me up.” the man who would give them the approval exclaimed.
“Nope. Serious business proposition. We've got the right coastline, a very distinctive tourist-attracting feature, and a long-term investor, also known as my big brother, who's just got here. My husband's got his dive-instructor qualifications, I'm all registered as a massively over-qualified nurse in case of accidents, and we've tested out the fish tails. With one on I can outswim my husband in normal diving flippers. Which we think is a real bonus in terms of tourist safety.”
“You've been testing them out?”
“Oh, not just me. My husband has some family members who've been playing mer-folk in isolated places for ages, fiddling with the design.”
“You've been planning this a long time?”
“It was one of the reasons I chose the location. We'd chatted about setting up something like this. But we think we've got all the details straight now.”
“So, let me get this straight. You're going to have the tourists in normal scuba gear, but the staff will be in scuba gear plus artificial fish-tails?”
“Yes. Hollywood's had people swimming that way for ages, but apparently the actors end up like beached whales if they're on dry land. The side of the tail is held together with magnets in our design, so walking is no problem, you just kick free. But put your legs together, add a bit of forward motion and it self-seals. You have no idea how many prototypes we tried, but we've got it.”
“So, you've got a unique selling point at the moment, but what happens when someone copies you?”
“We've got the trade-mark paperwork ready, just as soon as you approve us, and we're keeping the manufacturing in the family. There's more to it than just magnets, I assure you.”
“You've been busy.”
“We've got quite a lot riding on it. We want it to work.”
“Next question on my list. What does it do for or to the rest of the community?”
“Ah, now, that's something we hope that we've thought of too. We're not planning on offering accommodation, or meals beyond maybe arranging for a bread delivery. You'll see that we're asking for permission for a camping area, but again, no shop. We're not at all opposed to the idea of someone saying they'll run deliveries, in fact we'll encourage it as soon as we've got some custom for them. Basically, we've decided we're going to concentrate on running the diving school side of things safely, not pandering to some tourists' desire to have a wake-up call at the crack of dawn or to sit down to a three-course a-la-carte meal.”
“So, you're thinking that you'll be pulling people in, increasing trade in the town here.”
“Yes. We've also got the crazy idea on page four, which some of the youth might like.”
“This thing about an occasional acting job for fit people?”
“Yes. It's all very well to call ourselves 'Merfolk cove' and run diving courses in fancy dress, but every one can see the scuba tank. Where's the fun in that? We had the idea that we could have some unfamiliar faces swim past without tanks on, just at the edges of the tourist's sights. I'm sure you can imagine the sort of thing: Swim in, spot the tourist, act surprised, and vanish again. All part of the show for the tourists. We might even put up a map showing mer-folk sitings. But we don't want it to be that every trip sees a mermaid, just, maybe one in five, or one in ten. We thought we could hold acting competitions to see who can be the most natural at it. More people in the water of course means more eyes open for trouble too.”
“And more people to get into trouble.”
“It's the tourists who are most likely to be in that category.”
“Unless there are sharks around. They might think half-human, half-fish is a good combination.”
“Yes. We're aware of them. Vigilance is part of our strategy. Plus we were thinking of netting.”
“That's no guarantee.”
“No. Nothing is a guarantee. But a double net, suitably separated, with patrols whenever sharks are sighted in the area, and even when they're not? I think that's pretty good.”
“What are you thinking of doing to any shark that gets between your nets?”
“I don't hold with needless killing.” Rose said.
“Ah huh.” she heard him as he decided she was obviously another vegetarian, who was going to suggest releasing a dangerous creature so it could have another go.
“So, I expect we'd probably eat it. Or maybe turn it into fashion accessories or something like that.”
“You'd eat it?”
“If it's gone to the effort of crossing the first barrier, then its not just curious. Maybe it's had a chunk out of someone already and wants another bite. I'd say: don't take chances. If it stays outside, that's fine, but if it crosses a barrier, I'd say that's evidence of intent. If it's that eager to come to tea, it can be supper. And I'm sure the bunnies would be happy.”
“The bunnies?” he asked, confused.
“Do you need to come out for a site inspection? My husband makes an excellent bunny stew.”
“No need for the site inspection, Doctor. All your paperwork's in order, and you sound like you've got the right ideas. Best of luck!”