THE OTHER BIG SECRET 3: SAFELY OUT AT SEA / CH. 6:MOVING DAY

WEDNESDAY, 18TH JULY, 2277, 7 A.M. LOCAL TIME.

[Christoph? Just how dangerous is starting the reactor?] Karella asked, as she piloted their boat away.

[Not very, beloved.] Christoph reassured Karella.

[But the old songs...]

[Are out of date. But there is some danger. Not really from the pump, your ancestor made that much safer, more from the reactor.]

[What might go wrong with the reactor? And if you know these things, why don't I from my time on the council?]

[I'm not sure. Maybe because it's easier to not come up with new songs. Land-folk still sing 'London's burning', after all. We do want everyone safe. Just the song is wrong.]

[So, tell me about the reactor, and tell me why we haven't replaced it.]

[Replace it? How? Electric heating elements? That'd be hard, but I'd hate to think of how we'd spread the heat from a fusion-fed laser.]

[The land-folks have forcefield contained reactors that produce heat. In fact that's the main sort of reactor they have. I don't know if they do any direct conversion.]

[How archaic!] Christoph thought.

[So... tell me what the problem is with the reactor, and why a few forcefields wouldn't help.]

[OK, love. The biggest problem with the reactor is that after a maintenance cycle there might be a leak in it, or someone dropped something and no one noticed. There might be a magnet that isn't held down properly, or something like that, that would only show up when we start it. There might be some metal fatigue we didn't spot. Some of these make for a radiation leak, others for the reactor to just not start, or not stay running. Equally there might be a problem with a gas leak from the pump. There is enough hydrogen in the pumps to flood Atlantis with gas and burn the city. But the chance of them all leaking is low, I admit. It's the piston shafts warming up and that sort of thing that causes the biggest leak problems.]

[So... what if you didn't shut down the reactor, just left it working at minimum power?]

[We'd keep pumping.]

[Yes. And at one percent power?]

[We'd keep pumping at one percent, I guess. And scrubbing the barnacles off wouldn't be fun, if we couldn't shut them out.]

[But at full power that's not a problem?]

[The barnacles don't get much chance to hang around, then.]

[So, forcefield versus magnets?]

[Forcefields do fail, beloved. Especially big ones. What we could do is replace the whole thing, take out the pumps, and drive the whole thing with magnetohydrodynamics. There isn't much point doing any other change. And if we're going to do that, we'll need to be fairly close to the surface, for the diver's safety. Karella, you do remember the main reason we need to have all the people gone and submarines out don't you, my beloved wife?]

[No. What's that?]

[So we can alter buoyancy. We need to pump a lot of the water out of the sub-park. Nasty currents if anyone's swimming.]

[I'd quite forgotten that!]

[That's why we have the order of evacuation that we do, so we can make sure the sections are clear, and then we can get the pumps going in the unoccupied sections as soon as possible.]

[And that's why you shut the shark-gates? To stop anyone swimming back for something?]

[Exactly. But if anyone forgets to untie their boat like they were told to, then they might end up with it dangling on the rope, which would make a funny picture, but be rather annoying if we had to refill that section.]

[Yes, it would. Hold on, I'll just check for intruders.]

[And I'll check for people who haven't untied their ropes.]

----------------------------------------

Karella looked for non-mer military in the exclusion area. Two dots there and there. She investigated further. One was a soldier on a cruise ship.

The second was a naval officer, under water, not very deep, a submarine.

She contacted the pilot of the nearest submarine, which happened to be her youngest brother. [Amos, it's me. Are you picking up the submarine, about five nautical miles north of you?]

[I've heard something very small. Electric propellers. I guessed it was a drone.]

[It is a submarine. There's two people on board, one is a naval officer, the other person isn't military. I'm guessing it's some kind of research submarine. But, please check.]

[Certainly, your majesty.]

[If you 'your majesty' me again then I'm going to make you drink a bath of potion.]

Quarter of an hour later, she called again. He confirmed it was indeed an unarmed research vessel. She asked him to keep an eye on it.

----------------------------------------

WEDNESDAY, 18TH JULY, 2277, MID-DAY.

The static gas pressure in the Sterling engine counteracted the water pressure correctly; the magnetic field in the torus was stable, and first stage ignition had gone smoothly: there was sufficient fusion in the plasma for the reaction to continue. Tests were run, no anomalies were found. The command was given. “Increase fuel flow to one percent.” The plasma held steady. Then the reactor power was increased to two, three, four percent. “Hydraulic rams, go.” the rams started the Turnbull ring moving, then huge electric motors, which might have burnt out had the ring been static, took over. Huge quantities of gas were slowly moved, back and forward, through the heat exchangers. This movement did many things. It would eventually help the heat exchangers to reach operating temperatures, stop the walls of the hot-end of the engine from overheating, for the moment, though, it simply ensured that the lubrication on all the joints was spread correctly after their long rest. The pulse of heat from the warming reactor would take some more seconds to reach the inner wall of the Stirling engine. The only drawback with this step was the noise of the driving gears meshing for the first time, which rang through the city.

On the small research submarine, the decision was made to head towards the strange noise that the hydrophones picked up.

“Motion in power piston three!” a voice rang out. “Motion in power piston seven!” The gas was heating, expanding, moving water. Soon all the power pistons were be moving in response to the position of the heat-exchanger displacer, which moved the gas from hot to the cold. It was rather feeble, jerky motion to start with, but it soon became stronger, more certain as the few unwary barnacles which had decided that the piston housing made a nice home were pushed out of the way by the pressure of the gas. As the pistons moved, water and dislodged barnacles were ejected from the outlets. Fish found themselves moving sideways. Others found themselves pulled into deep tunnels. Almost all swam out the other end, confused, but otherwise unharmed. A few, however, had been cut in half by the valve mechanisms. The scavengers enjoyed cleaning those up. Some of the water was directed by massive valves below the city. Sediment rose, as the city, positively buoyant, broke free of the silt where it had lain for decades.

Agile workers climbed up the ponderously moving rods from the power pistons, levers were moved and catches at the ends of the rods engaged in their places, linking the power pistons the to the phasing wheels. Current draw from the motors reduced to zero, as the power pistons took over and drove the displacers and the Turnbull ring. “Disengage motors!” The pumps were running. “Steady increase to ten percent power!”

----------------------------------------

THURSDAY, 19TH JULY, 2277, 3PM

“Edwin, just remember, if this goes wrong, you are taking the fall, OK.”

commander Sue Reynolds told her oceanography scientist brother. She'd told him that approximately every waking hour for the last two days. Especially since the decision to seek out the source of strange noise. Against her quite vocal objections, she'd been assigned to work with his research project. Why was it a good idea to put her with the one person in the world she could sustain an argument with for weeks?

“Of course. But what could go wrong? We aren't carrying a warhead. I just want to see what's going on down there. It is my project area, after all, and volcanic ridges should not go 'clang'. Look the terms of the embargo were very clear: nothing military that's carrying a warhead.”

“Yes, very clear, and you've just misquoted. No military vessel that would normally or abnormally be equipped to launch a torpedo with a warhead of above five kilos of TNT. This sub can be equipped with an externally mounted torpedo. I don't know how big a warhead it can take, but it can launch one.”

“But it obviously isn't carrying a warhead.”

“On your head be it.”

“What's that?” she asked, seeing a light flashing on one of his instruments.

“Echo clicks. Dolphins near by, or maybe Orca. Again. Or even still. I wonder if it's still the same one that was hanging around yesterday.”

“So, what do you think would make the U.N. Security Council ban people from an area of the ocean where the rocks go clang?”

“We're in the impact area. My guess is someone's getting ready for the impact, putting some kind of detector buoys out.”

“So, why no military?” Sue asked.

“Don't want their top secret detector buoy laying vessel detected.”

“You mean blown up.” Sue corrected, thinking on the ban on warheads.

“Urm. Yeah.”

“Or used as target practice. What was that?” she said, looking out of her side window. They were running close to the surface, so that they didn't need any lights on.

“Dolphin?”

“I saw scales.”

“Fish then, jumping dolphin style. And dolphin-sized, according to the splash detector. Are you sure you didn't just see bubbles?”

“I saw bubbles, I also saw a dolphin-shaped tail with scales.” she wasn't going to admit what she'd thought she'd seen at the head end. “What would you say to a little sonar burst?”

“Fine.” He flicked a switch on his panel to send out a quick burst. He muttered something, undid some catches, and slid the device out of it's mounting cage. “Who's been playing games with my equipment, Sue?”

“Why?”

“Someone's just made it show a mermaid off the starboard bow.”

“Man.” Sue said, stopping the motors, and continuing to look out of her window. “Mer-man, not a mermaid. You can tell by the muscular chest and the goatee beard.”

“Very funny.” Edwin muttered, not looking up from his investigations of his device. “I can't see any sign of tampering.”

“Edwin.” Sue said in a strange voice. “I'm very calmly asking you to look out of my window and tell me what you see, and then according to naval law and custom I'm handing the com over to you.”

“Urm, I see a man with a goatee beard, a belt-knife, and a fish-tail, Sue, apparently writing on a note-pad.”

“Cameras?”

“Running.” he said, flipping the switch.

Amos finished writing his note. He then swam towards the sub and held it to the window. It read 'The world is changing. Have a nice trip though our kingdom. Do no harm, and you may continue your trip. Don't get too close to Atlantis — some very strong currents.'

“Atlantis?” Sue asked. He obviously saw her mouth move and understood, and wrote some more on his pad. “Pop 0.5M. About 500m below you.” Then he swam away.

“Five hundred metres below? What does the downward looking sonar say, Edwin?”

“It says that we're five hundred and thirty metres from the bottom.”

“The sea is a lot more than a thousand metres here.”

“Urm. Maybe my sonar's seeing Atlantis then. Population half a million.”

“I'm going to surface and call in. We need to charge the air tanks anyway.”

“First they're going to laugh, and then they're going to lock us away for psychological evaluation.”

“Depends what I say, doesn't it?”

Sue typed 'Research vessel RV7404 to Azores base. Checking in. N30.4354 E34.5632. Anomalous sonar result shows sea floor depth 530 metres.'

'RV7404, why are you in middle of exclusion zone?' came back the immediate reply.

'My civilian researcher heard something, DEMANDED we investigate. Query any recent seismic activity?'

“Seismic activity?” Edwin asked “You're suggesting it might be a volcano? We'd be boiling!”

“Well what other sensible, rational, explanation would you give? Atlantis is a myth! And as for mermen....”

A little while later, after a call to headquarters had been made, came: 'Negative to natural causes. Proceed with extreme caution, avoid any hostile acts. Do we presume no contact yet from patrol sub or diver?'

“What do we say to that one?” Sue asked her brother, who was looking over her shoulder.

“Well, I suppose he was a diver.”

She typed 'Unexpected diver made contact at 20m depth. Permission given to continue trip.'

There was an even longer pause at the other end.

After a while the response came: 'From Admiral Jackson, Naval press office: Diplomatic contact established. Press release expected 1400 UTC Friday. Any footage you can get will be appreciated. Please dive to obtain.'

“They know.” Sue said. “They're not saying but they know.”

“I noticed you carefully avoiding saying anything either.”

Sue typed back 'Diver advised us to avoid strong currents at circa 500m depth.'

The admiral was obviously still on the line: 'Adml Jackson: Take any advice or warning seriously. Be advised sonar anomaly may take 2km travel to resolve.'

“You're joking. Two kilometres? He's saying that place is two kilometres across?” Edwin exclaimed.

“I guess it's crowded.” Sue said. “I wonder how close too close is.”

“Why don't you ask?” Edwin suggested. The submarine that had surfaced looked rather different to their research sub, but Edwin was interested to see that it had even more windows that theirs.

Sue opened the hatch, and wriggled her head and arms out of it. The other submarine had a larger hatch, she saw enviously, as it was opened. The merman she'd seen earlier climbed up something as though he had legs, rather than a tail.

“Urm, hello!” she called, once she had her head out of her sub

“Hello.” Amos replied, “I'm Amos.”

“I'm Sue. My brother's called Edwin. We've just heard there's going to be a press release tomorrow.”

“That's right.” Amos agreed. “Would you like to go down and see Atlantis? The water's pretty clear down there. You won't see it all of course.”

“We were just wondering how close too close was.”

“Oh, well, don't get in front of it, or your sub might get sucked into the intake port.”

“That doesn't sound healthy.” Sue replied.

“No, it wouldn't be. Sharks and fish survive, normally, but I doubt a sub would. The reactor's only at ten percent at the moment, they'll be pushing it higher later on, though, I expect. What's the power source for your sub?”

“Fuel cell.”

“And you've been going at top speed?”

“No.” she said cautiously. It had been close though.

“That's good. If that was your top speed then you'd be in trouble if you got into a current. But if you've got reserves for a burst then you can probably get to within a hundred metres of it safely.”

“How much burst do I need? It was close to top speed, but we've just been asked to take some pictures, if that's OK.”

“Taking pictures is OK. Being that underpowered, urm. I don't know.”

“What's your sub's top speed?” she asked, partly from curiosity, partly insulted about being told that her versatile little long-range research sub was underpowered.

“Fifty knots unless I cheat, but then it's got a fusion reactor.”

“Oh.” Compared to a fusion reactor, she guessed that her fuel cells would count as underpowered. She didn't want to ask what he meant by cheat. And she wondered how his sub fitted the reactor, not to mention the turbine and everything else. It was considerably smaller than any nuclear submarine she knew of.

“I'll escort you.” He decided. “Just in case. Unless you'd like to hitch a lift?”

“And just leave my sub in the middle of the ocean?” But it was tempting. It sounded like a wonderful opportunity to look at an alien technology.

“Well, your brother could stay on it if you like. Or he could come and you stay.” he scanned the horizon. “But I don't see many would-be thieves around.”

“Very funny.”

“Your choice.”

“OK if I radio for orders?”

“Of course.” Amos replied.

She wriggled back through her hatch.

[So, how's first contact going, Amos?] Karella asked him.

[She's called Sue, her brother's Edwin.] He said needlessly.

[I could have told you that. And?]

[She's pretty.]

[Amos this isn't about you finding yourself a girlfriend. Though, hold on a moment.] Karella checked for Christians in the sub. [But on the plus side they're both Christians.]

[Thank you, your Majesty.]

[Enjoy your potion, brother. I warned you.]

[Sorry, Ella.]

[Much better.]

[Anyway, they'd like to take some pictures of Atlantis, but the reason their little electric sub was plodding along at about ten knots is apparently that's almost top speed. I offered them a trip on my sub.]

[Very generous of you. So, how pretty is she?]

[Much too pretty do let her get mashed by the pump.]

[So, Sarah's just been telling the world that we're not going to interbreed, and you're planning to make a liar out of her?]

[Ella! This isn't about me finding a wife, it's about keeping people safe.]

[Of course it is. So, they're getting on board now?]

[She's calling in for orders. Apparently a bit worried about abandoning her boat in the middle of the ocean.]

[Wouldn't you be?]

[Of course. But I'd be worried about them finding it. It's not the same.]

[No. Hers belongs to her employer, and I bet you forgot to tell her how many

other subs there are near by, didn't you?]

[Urm, yes.]

[So, she thinks that if she abandons her boat there's a chance she'll need to call out search and rescue to find it again.]

[Oops.]

[Put out a yell for someone else to do some subwatching, OK?]

[Of course.]

[And if they want to see inside then I'd be interested in talking to her. Actually, why don't you just escort them in first? Then her sub's safe, they get to use their built-in cameras and sensors and whatever, and then you can give them the outside tour, followed by the inside tour.]

[Ella, you're a wonderful monarch and an adorable big sister. I'll go over and suggest it.]

“Knock knock!” Amos called from the water. He wasn't sure if he ought to climb up.

Edwin pushed himself out of the hatchway. “Hello?”

“Hi. My sister, urm, our queen, has a suggestion: rather than leaving your submarine on the surface, why don't you park it in Atlantis, that way it won't drift away or anything embarrassing like that. Then, I can give you a safe tour of the outside of the city and then inside the city too, if you like.”

“That sounds very generous of her.”

“Oh, it probably comes down to public relations or something.” Amos said.

“Sue, did you hear what we've just been offered?” Edwin asked .

“No, someone's plugging up the hole with his flab.”

“Can I climb up this ladder? I don't want to capsize you or anything.” Amos asked.

“Sue, is Amos climbing the ladder OK?” Edwin relayed.

“Urm, yeah, sure.” Sue replied, wondering how you did that with a tail.

“Sue says fine. Urm, Wait a bit, I'll get all the way out so I can act as a counterbalance.” Edwin said.

As Edwin got out of the way, Sue clambered up. “Hi again.” she said.

Amos spoke formally. “I'd like to extend to you a formal invitation on behalf of Karella Farspeaker Homebringer, queen of all merfolk and undisputed ruler of the deeps and shallows, that you follow my submarine on a safe approach to our city, park in one of our garages or marinas or whatever you want to call them, and then swap to my submarine for an external tour before it gets dark. And then you are invited for a walking tour of our beautiful city, with cameras. By which time it'll probably be time to eat. Since Karella also wants to meet you herself, you're almost certainly invited to dinner.”

“Oh wow! Offer accepted, as long as I can persuade my superiors. They've just said they don't want to search for my sub if we can't find it.”

“Given that we've got thousands of submarines, I don't think losing yours for long would be very likely.”

“Thousands?”

“You land-folk used to own cars; we still own submarines.”

“Wow.” Sue said, her mind reeling at the concept “Your English is very good.”

“Thanks. So's yours.” Amos said with a smile “I grew up speaking it. Not all of us speak it, but anyone who speaks it makes sure to pass it on to any kids they have, along with our own language, of course.”

“You know quite a lot about us.” Sue said.

“I know, puts me at a terribly unfair advantage, doesn't it? I know all sorts of things about your people and history whereas you probably don't even know I've got legs.”

“You have?” she asked, surprised and relieved. Maybe he wasn't so alien.

“Very handy while climbing ladders. The tail is just swim-wear.”

“I'll just go and check with head quarters.”

“No problem. I think I've just spotted dinner swimming past, so if you don't mind, I'll go catch it.”

“Dinner?” she asked.

“How does fresh-caught skipjack tuna steaks sound?”

“It sounds very good, but you don't seem to have a net, or fishing line.”

Sue pointed out.

“You haven't seen merfolk hunt, milady, so I won't take that as an insult.”

Amos responded in his best approximation of an upper class accent, then added “I must admit that it's a while since I've tried catching tuna, but I always did like a challenge.”

He lowered himself in to the water slowly, so that he didn't rock the boat too much and swam off in search of the tuna he'd seen, while thinking to himself: 'You are being such a show-off, Amos, and the lady doesn't even know it, not to mention the fact that you don't even know she's not married or dating someone.'

----------------------------------------

[Well, Amos? Why are you radiating so much smugness?] Karella asked.

[Wait 'till you see what's for supper. I assume we're eating together, yes?]

[Yes. I was thinking that one of the girls could cook. But if it's something special I guess I ought to do it myself. You realise I could just look, don't you?]

[Oh, don't spoil my moment of glory, please!]

[I hope you've not shown you barbarian prowess by hunting down a shark.]

[Not a shark. But if you could bring some wheels down...]

[OK, and I'll bring the girls so you can have all the glory you want.]

[Thank you, Ella. Urm... you don't happen to know if Sue's single do you?]

[No. You'll have to ask that on your own.]

[I'm going to get tongue-tied again.]

[So don't push either of you. Just start with getting to know her.]

----------------------------------------

“Have I said wow yet?” Edwin asked.

“Yes, but you can say it again. This is amazing!” Sue replied.

Amos had taken a path that started with them approaching the city from below, off the rear starboard flank of the city, and then up and over the dome. There had been some turbulence when they got too close, but it wasn't strong. Right now, they were above one of the windows, able to see the city below. They saw the multicoloured glittering towers and balconies. It was awesome. Then they dropped back, almost to the rim, and into a pocket where there seemed to be a no current relative to the city at all. “We're in an eddy.” Sue realised, able to relax at last.

“He's pointing.” Edwin said.

“Tunnel?”

“I think so.”

“This isn't going to be fun.” Sue said.

“But it's going to be awesome.”

“Maybe. Just make sure the cameras keep running.”

“How big is his sub compared to ours?” Edwin asked.

“I'm not sure. Why?”

“That tunnel's bigger than I thought.”

“It's enormous!” Sue agreed.

They entered the tunnel. There was plenty of space. Suddenly the depth-gauge went crazy. “What's happening to the depth gauge?” Edwin asked.

“No idea. Strange pressure flux. What's it saying? I need to concentrate on following Amos and missing the walls.”

“Urm, that we're five metres below the surface.”

“Interesting.”

“Vital parts of our equipment go wrong and you say 'interesting'.”

“Did you see Amos swimming?”

“What's that got do to with anything? Other than his muscles, of course.”

“If you'd been deep diving all your life, would you happily be in an out of the water like that? Or would you be very careful to adjust your pressure

really slowly, so that nitrogen didn't come out of your blood and tissues? Of course you would. Therefore Amos is not used to living at five hundred metres pressure. I guess they've got airlocks. I didn't see any, so I'm guessing automatic forcefields. See that stripe in the wall?”

“I did wonder how they coped with the pressure. It's easy, isn't it? They don't.” Edwin realised.

“What else does that tell us?”

“Urm. Pass.”

“Edwin, they're surface dwellers. Living underwater, watching us, not being seen, or only occasionally? Doesn't that strike you as odd?”

“They don't like us, you mean? They're some kind of high-tech pilgrim fathers?”

“Edwin, I know you took some marine biology, it says so on your degree certificate.”

“I don't get where you're going.”

“How long was he underwater the first time we saw him?”

“Oh. Longer than I'd be.”

“Yes, lots. Gimme a mechanism.”

“Implanted oxygen supply.”

“Assume it's biological.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm the captain of this ship, and you'll walk the plank otherwise.”

“If I had to assume it was biological, then I'd say urm, oxygen storage in the muscles, like dolphins.”

“Me too. And?”

“And they've been hiding from us since the year dot.”

“Or at least, since the Romans or something. Think about it, mer-man, mermaids crop up in almost every ancient civilisation I can think of. Unknown in recent history except for 'lost sailor' sort of encounters. We thought they were a myth, but they've been hiding from us, much like thought-hearers. We know what their city's called, so there was some contact before Plato wrote about them.”

“Unless they named it after his one, and they speak English, though not an accent I recognise. There's been contact. He as much admitted that. So I vote for a high-tech doomsday cult or something like that, deciding to hide away during the twentieth century, say. After the invention of the aqualung, anyway.”

“And they've grown to half a million?”

“Yes. Three hundred years, start off with a hundred people, every generation of twenty years you have ten kids....”

“Not according to my understanding of procreation you don't.”

“Ooops. Every forty years.”

“I still say ouch. You're going to have a lot of deaths by childbirth, at that rate.”

“Fine!” he gave in “Every forty years, five children on average. So you've got urm, three hundred divided by forty.”

“Seven and a half of course. Three over four? This is a really long tunnel.”

“There have been some turnings.”

“Oh. I'm just going after Amos.”

“I'd noticed.” he said with a smile. Solving his sister's singleness had been an aim in his life ever since he'd got married. The other one was spending far more time with his wife. This trip wasn't exactly helping that. “So, anyway, seven generations, five fives are twenty five, one twenty five is generation three, six twenty five is four, three thousand and something is five, fifteen thousand is six, forty five thousand is seven. It works! Ten people to half a million in seven generations!” He was actually a little shocked.

“Banana brain.” she declared. “First off, five fifteens is not forty five, it's seventy five. But the more serious problem is that if you start with two parents and end with five children, that does not give you a factor of five. It gives you two and a half.”

“Oh. Oh yeah.”

“So I'll give you seven generations and according to my calculator you get six hundred and ten times the initial population. Assuming no deaths. I somehow expect that if a thousand people had vanished, someone would have noticed.”

“Maybe not... during war-time.”

“So, your theory is that during wartime, an elite group of a thousand top scientist-engineers run away from their country of origin to make a little home for themselves. They take up a water-based lifestyle involving submarines and swimming for a long time underwater, chasing down some of the fastest fish in the sea, invent water-proof force-field generators, micro-fusion plants that can power submarines at at least fifty knots or more if they cheat, while also building for themselves a massive underwater submarine-city with diamond or something like it as a construction material. And, of course, remaining totally undetected by anyone ever since.” she summarised.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Urm, yes.”

“I bet you a week of washing up that I'm closer to the truth than you are.” Sue said.

“No bet.”

“Coward.”

“He's stopped.”

“I know. Did you see how many propellers he's got?” Sue asked.

“None I saw.”

“That's because he doesn't have any. I just saw straight through the ducts beside his submarine.”

“What does that mean?”

“Don't put anything metal near there whatever you do. There must be crazy magnetic fields for that to work.”

“Oh, right.”

“So that's another tech area for your theory to come up with, people have been trying to get that working for generations. And I wonder where they get their metal. There's another issue for you to solve.”

“What's wrong with them mining it?”

“Satellites would see the spoil, silly.”

“Oh. Yeah. Why don't you have to solve any of these technology issues?”

“I'm giving them over two thousand years to address them. Most of which time they could have be above water, except when they were chasing down tuna.”

“You're impressed aren't you?”

“Maybe it's normal for them.”

----------------------------------------

After gallantly helping Sue off their submarine, and accidentally leaving Edwin to almost fall in the water, Amos apologised and bowed floridly to his sister. “My beloved sister, may I present Edwin and Sue whose last name I forgot to ask, incredibly brave travelers of the deep. Edwin and Sue, may I present to you her majesty Queen Karella Farspeaker Homebringer, undisputed ruler of the deeps and shallows, servant of the Lord God almighty, Queen over all the mer-folk by will of the high council of Atlantis.”

“Your majesty.” Sue curtsied, and Edwin bowed.

“Oh stop that, Amos. You know I didn't want this job. So, where's your marvelous catch?”

“In the fridge, of course.” Amos looked around “Urm, no trolly?”

“Christoph's bringing it. The one with the winch.”

“Oh, great! I'll wait until he gets here to get it out then.”

“That big?”

“Well, I did decide to lower the sub to get it on-board.”

“What is it, uncle Amos?” Sathie asked.

“A surprise.” Amos said. “Oh, sorry, I'm remiss. I also have the pleasure of introducing their royal highnesses princess Sathzakara and princess Mabel.”

Mabel stuck her tongue out at her uncle.

“Your highnesses.” Sue curtsied.

“Mabel, apologise to your uncle.” Karella said. “The title's yours, you'd better get used to it.”

Sue decided she wouldn't ask why it sounded like they were new to the titles.

“That's very polite of you, but it's not secret.” Karella replied, “The answer to your question is that for about fifteen hundred years we've been ruled by the high council of Atlantis, but we — I used to be on it — decided that with us ending our long hide from land-folk it would be distinctly advantageous to have a monarch. Then they went and gave me the job, over my objections. And in case you're wondering how I knew what you were thinking, like most merfolk, I'm a thought-hearer, and we're more sensitive than land-folk thought-hearers, if you're wondering about the range.”

“Most merfolk?” Sue said, surprised.

“About sixty or seventy percent, yes.”

“Wow. So... a whole society where it's just.. normal?”

“Yes.”

“No need to hide it from anyone.” Sue continued.

“Exactly.” Karella said. [So does your brother know?]

[No. How do you hear me?]

Karella continued, “I don't even hide the fact that I have the mind-reading gift. That's why they call me far-speaker. And the utter pains on the council decided that would be an immense bonus for a queen.”

“Isn't it?” Sue asked.

“Oh, probably. But that made me the only candidate, which really wasn't fair.”

“You don't want the job.” Sue summarised.

“Would you? All that responsibility. Historians teaching the kids things like 'It was during Karella Farspeaker's reign that mer culture was decimated by too much contact' or 'many trading opportunites were lost because of over restrictive policies.' or 'the great plague came because Karella overestimated how much our immune systems had improved over the previous two centuries.' Sorry, I'm too proud to want to have any of those things said about me. I'd much rather be someone remembered as the woman who sold chocolate for its weight in gold.”

“You did?”

“Yes. Of course, the woman I'm named after sold pearls for their weight in iron, which sounds scandalous to you, but pearls used to be as common as marbles and iron scarce as platinum.”

“When was that?”

“Three hundred years ago.” Amos replied.

“Ha! I think I win, Edwin.”

“What's this?” Amos asked.

“On the way here, urm, I hope I'm not trespassing any sacred law or something...”

“I doubt it.” Karella said, “Don't accuse anyone of breaking an oath, try to make someone do so, or misuse the name of the Lord, but otherwise you can pretty much say what you like. We're something like ninety five percent Christian, by the way. Millennia of being pagans has left it's scars we'd rather not reopen.”

“Urm. Wow. You almost certainly win, Sue. Exhibit my shame.” Edwin said, resignedly.

“With pleasure. Well, on the way here we were coming up with ideas to try and explain all the things we'd seen. We'd seen Amos swimming, far longer than we could, we heard what he said about his submarine having a fusion plant, which is quite amazing. And we'd seen him write that this amazing place is called Atlantis. Edwin guessed that you were descendants from some doomsday-cult of scientist-engineers who'd decided to abandon life on the surface during the cold war, and that Amos had a micro-miniature aqualung. I was guessing that you're genetically different to us, maybe with oxygen-storing muscles. I also guessed that you'd started hiding from us in isolated spots sometime around the time of the Greeks or Romans, and that was how Plato knew what your city was called and how your technology is so different to ours. And that since there aren't many isolated spots now you've moved underwater.”

“You worked all that out?” Amos asked “I'm really impressed.” he said. He also decided that he probably could fall in love with pretty Sue. Sue hid her own thoughts on catching that snippet.

“The only thing you got wrong is that we copied the name and the idea of Atlantis from Plato.” Karella said.

“The idea?”

“Yes.” Karella confirmed and then explained “We got on well with the Greeks and unashamedly stole lots of their ideas, steam engines, levers, pulleys. We made ourselves a raft, and when we wanted to hide — mostly from the Romans, who thought we made good targets for their archers — we turned the big handle and sunk the raft, houses and all. Pretty quickly we came up with things like waxed sail-cloth to keep most of the water out of our homes, and then beaten metal was even better, of course. We did have a running war with the Romans, but we were losing, just like everyone else. There weren't enough of us, and their crossbows were too powerful. The war did start with a bit too much pride, and we didn't want to be destroyed so we decided to sink the city ourselves, and we started hiding.”

“And you've hidden ever since?” Sue asked.

“Not entirely.” Karella corrected “We've been spotted by sailors and the like, and there have been some of us who walked among you for a while, bringing back news and new languages.”

“That's how you learned English?” Edwin asked.

Karella shook her head. “No. That was a little different. First a missionary came, in the early nineteen hundreds. He eventually married one of our leaders, who mostly single-handedly converted the rest of us, then a few generations after that, late twentieth century, we tried hiding in sight, as it were. Running diving centres that employed actors as mer-folk. That worked for seventy or eighty years, then that stopped working.”

“Why?” Sue asked.

“Two reasons:” Karella answered, “visiting relatives who showed up in your computers got spotted, and all their friends got asked 'Isn't this mermaid there your friend?' and the owners got accused of having workers not on listed in the official records.”

“Oh. Not good. That'd close a company down very quickly these days, and put the owners in jail.”

“It happened, yes. So, we started running from the Romans, who shot us, we hid in isolated beaches and you built hotels on them, we started businesses among you, and you put us in jail when you saw our relatives visiting. So we hid deep in the sea, but we can't do that any more without you dropping unexploded bombs, or depth charges on us. We hope by now you've grown up enough to not shoot us, but can let us live peacefully. We're a simple people, really. We just want some peace and quiet and the ability to fish in safety.”

“Speaking of which, here comes Dad.” Mabel said. “So, what have you caught for us, uncle Amos?”

“It's a secret until it's landed.” he grinned.

“Why?” Sue asked.

“Because my little brother is not only a natural born show-off, but he's also good at hunting fish. It's a little bit of a family tradition.”

“I guess what surprised me...Ow!” Edwin started.

“Shh!” Sue said, who'd kicked his shin. “Don't break secrets, and you don't know what's a secret so shut up.”

“Wonderful relationship there.” Christoph asked in the Mer language as he arrived “Siblings?”

“Yes.” Karella confirmed. Switching to English she introduced everyone “Sue, Edwin, my husband, Christoph, he's just asked if you were siblings. He understands a lot of English, but prefers not to speak it.”

“I don't speak good.” Christoph said.

Amos grabbed the sling and disappeared into his submarine. Christoph winched the fish in.

“Good size.” Christoph told his wife.

“Fifty or sixty kilograms of whole fish coming up.” Karella said, glancing at the scales. “I guess we're having a party to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?” Sue asked.

“Amos's catch, if nothing else.” Karella said, “but hopefully new friends too.”

“I wonder if there's anyone planning on having a wedding tonight where they've not worked out the food yet.” Mabel suggested.

“Great suggestion.” Karella agreed.

“Is that likely?” Edwin asked.

“Fairly.” Mabel said “You've made weddings incredibly complicated, we've simplified them.”

“We don't leap into an engagement until we're sure,” Karella said, “Once the

decision is made... well, it depends how many relatives they want to invite.

The wedding might be the same evening. Often people will just bring whatever they were planning to eat that evening anyway.”

“Bet you wish you and Pam had done it that way, don't you, Edwin?” Sue asked.

Edwin shrugged. “I don't know, we made a lot of important decisions during our engagement. Plus there were the marriage preparation classes at church. It wasn't all about the wedding day.”

Karella checked where Pam was. Within quite easy range, and she knew there was a submarine nearby. “Edwin, would you like us to invite your wife to dinner too? There's plenty of food by the looks of it, and there's time for her to get here from the Azores in one of our subs. You're most welcome to spend the night, by the way. I don't know if Amos has said.”

“And Sue, do you have anyone you'd like us to invite?” Amos asked. He'd emerged from the hatch just in time to spot the perfect opportunity to ask what was quite an important question in his mind.

Sue was about to reply when Edwin said “I'd be delighted! It wouldn't been too much trouble?”

“If it were too much trouble, then I wouldn't have asked. There's a submarine not very far from her at all, just delivered our ambassador to the capital.”

“How did you know she was in the Azores?”

“I see nothing wrong with using the gift God gave me to see if I can extend hospitality to God's people.” Karella said. “I presume you have some way to contact her? If not we've been given a thing called a 'portable network to satellite connection' that Amos could put on his sub. It's supposed to 'just work' according to a very distant relative of mine, but since hardly anyone here has a wrist unit it's not so very useful to us yet.”

“I'd be honoured to try it. Otherwise we'd need to go via the military system, which might be a breach of protocol.”

“It would.” Sue confirmed, “And it would almost certainly get me in all sorts of trouble.”

“We wouldn't want that.” Amos said.

Sathie was looking at the fish coming out of the submarine. “Uncle Amos, is that fish what I think it is? No one can swim that fast!”

“I've been practicing.” he said modestly, “It thought the two submarines were interesting, and it liked turning left. But yeah, I sprinted at it and it was too slow.”

Mabel looked not at Amos but at Sue. “Do you realise what my uncle did?”

“Brought home a really big, really fast fish?” Sue suggested, feeling she was missing something.

“He's just gone down in history and got his name extended. Normally, the only way of catching one of these is to encircle it with about twenty people.”

Karella said. “Amos Tuna-speed you have truly excelled yourself. Now, go give your guests a tour. The girls and I have to spread your fame and cook your prey.”

“Can I ask what I got kicked for earlier?” Edwin asked. “Apart from this particular fish being an impressive one, is it normal for one your people to be able to catch enough fish for a day in just a few minutes?”

“Not normal in deep water. But in our natural element, along the coasts, absolutely.” Karella said. “We're the undisputed apex predator at sea, and we do pretty well on land too.”

“The thing is, sharks think they are, too.” Amos added with a wry smile, “Sharks might eat us close to the shore, when the water's too shallow for us to swim in, or they might surprise us when we're really distracted. But otherwise, if it the shark is stupid and presses us to one on one battle, the shark becomes the meal, not us. Which is a shame, most of us don't like the taste.”

Sue found herself liking this man.

----------------------------------------

Once the satellite receiver had been provided, Amos took them aboard, and Sue was immediately shocked by the lack of controls. “Where's your sonar? Where's your depth gauge? Where is... everything?”

“Reactor and cheat controls are safely behind a hidden panel. Sonar is safely between my ears, why would we need a depth gauge?”

“Urm, so you don't go too deep?”

“That's what the sea bed is for.” he said, dismissively, then apologised “Oh, sorry, your submarines can't cope with much depth, can they?”

“Yours can?”

“Yes.”

“You're telling me this submarine can go to the bottom of the Atlantic, yes?”

“Anywhere, actually.”

“But presumably not the Mariana Trench.”

“That's what you call that canyon south of Japan, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I went down there, urm... three years ago, I think it was. It was sort of interesting to see the odd creatures. The biggest problem was dodging all the science experiments.”

“In this submarine?”

“Well I certainly wasn't swimming. Yes, in this submarine.”

“What's it made of?”

“We call it submarine metal, for obvious reasons. Non-corroding alloy of this, that and the other, but a lot of gold.”

“Gold?”

“Yes. Mix it with the right other elements and you get a lovely hard alloy, much stronger than you'd expect. Some incredibly patient metallurgist a long time ago had quite a lot handy, and tried an exhaustive search, because gold on its own is really rather useless.”

“He had quite a lot of gold handy? How on Earth do you have quite a lot of gold handy?” Edwin asked.

“Have you read of Ophir in the Bible?” Amos asked.

“Place where Solomon got his gold from?” Sue asked.

“Yes. We used to live there. Solomon got his gold from us in exchange for nice tasty dates, according to an archive I once looked at. Not such a good rate as Karella got for her chocolate, but still.... One basket of dates for one lump of Ophir gold, I think it was. Anyway, the story says he tried all sorts of things and found a good mixture or two, and since then the recipe's been improved, but it was already better than iron. We've got stronger stuff, too, of course, but it corrodes like anything, so we use a skin of submarine metal on anything that'll get near the water.”

“So, I'm in a submarine made of gold?”

“Only about eight hundred kilograms. The rest is other stuff, mostly extracted from sea water. We don't do mining.”

“But this submarine is yours?”

“It is now. My grandfather's before me and his grandfather's before him.”

“Wow, that's old!”

“We build to last. It's had some updates since it was first made, of course. Mainly the anti-sonar coating, and to the cheat mechanism.”

“The cheat mechanism is how you beat cavitation?”

“Yes.”

“Compressed air?” Sue guessed, knowing how some torpedos worked.

“Old technology. Late nineteen hundreds. Fast, but much too noisy. Your microphones detected us, and we had to pretend to be unknown geological processes: we could only use it up and down the mid-Atlantic ridge.”

Edwin looked at him in surprise and then started to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

“What so funny?”

Once Edwin had managed to control himself he said “Let me guess, you called a sudden stop to their use in about the twenty seventies?”

“About then, yes.”

“I knew it, oh that's precious!” he started laughing again.

“What?”

“I shouldn't laugh, really. It's sad. My old PhD supervisor, the most persistent man I've ever met, has been trying to persuade funders for the past four decades that someone ought to send an exploration team to find out what's so special about the rocks around the mid-Atlantic ridge, that they'd produce those strange long chains of gas releases. Even though they've not happened once for the last two hundred years.”

“Well, I know someone who's got an unmodified sub. Assuming we don't need to carry on being so quiet, I'm sure could be persuaded to start using it up and down the ridge a few times, then maybe write 'Yes, you heard us.'”

“I like your style. My superiors might not see the funny side though. I presume your modern method is top secret?” Sue guessed,

“Probably. Speaking of which, if you get any ideas about hijacking my submarine, I'd have to trigger the self-destruct.”

“Oh, bother.” Sue said, “There goes my plan for world domination.”

----------------------------------------

Even accounting for the company, the trip to the surface was, Sue noticed, considerably faster than her sub could have managed. “You don't exactly have much space up here for sun-bathing, do you? I hope this transmitter doesn't slip off.” she commented, climbing out of the airlock. As the only one of them who'd met a satellite receiver, she had appointed herself the job of setting it up.

“Oops, Sorry, I should have thought of that.” Amos said and fiddled with something down below. Sue saw that suddenly the waves that had been coming up the rounded sides of the sub were stopping.

“What have you done to the sea?” She asked.

“Forcefield.”

“No, no, no, Amos.” she corrected. “Everyone knows you get a forcefield in the middle of the emitters. You can't make one on the outside It's against the rules and therefore must be magic.”

“Oh. OK. It's high technology magic.”

“Much better. What does that do for me?”

“You may now walk on water, or possibly more usefully, set up the tripod on water.”

“Won't I just tip over the submarine if I do that?”

“Probably not, and not quickly either. We've got a forcefield, sorry, a magic keel too. It's quite handy when you're trying to get a big lump of rock home.”

“A big lump of rock?”

“Yes. We don't have wood, there's plenty of rock, so we use that instead.”

“So, You want me to tread on this.... magic luggage rack?”

“Yes. It's safe.”

“Forcefields are incredibly slippery. You just want to watch me slip off and get wet, don't you?”

Amos climbed out and slipped down the side onto the invisible field of force. “Some are. This one isn't. It all comes down to the mix of forces.”

“The mix of forces... this is obviously another of those times when I'll just decide to trust you.”

“I thought you had forcefields.”

“So did I. I think our forcefields are different to yours, though.”

“I guess so. So, who are you going to invite?” He asked, offering his hand to help her down.

“No one.” Sue replied, smiling slightly as she took his. [Do you hear thoughts? I do, but My brother doesn't know.] She didn't move from where she was sitting; Edwin was still below.

[I do.] He replied.

[{embarrassment} I heard some of yours earlier.]

[Urm, {embarrassed} about you?]

[Yes. I'm... flattered.] She edged down the slope of the sub, on hearing Edwin climbing [Let's talk more sometime. OK?]

[Very.]

“Your forcefields are definitely different to ours. This feels sort of spongy.”

“Yours are hard and slippery?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting.” he said.

“What?”

“We've had this sort a lot longer.”

----------------------------------------

“Hi Pam.” Edwin said into his wrist unit, once Sue had shown Amos how to set everything up, and then he'd repeated it.

“Edwin? Aren't you in the middle of the Atlantic somewhere?”

“Yes. And I have a very strange invitation for you. Would you like to come to where I am for dinner, and to spend the night with some people I've met?”

“Where are you?”

“Roughly in the middle of the exclusion zone we were talking about.”

“And now you've got a dinner invitation?”

“Yes. The exclusion zone is to stop anyone panicking about a big sub which is moving around here. There's apparently a world-wide press release tomorrow. I don't suppose you've heard anything about it?” She had two part-time jobs. One was as the research centre's secretary, the other was as a reporter.

“I got asked to check up on some bits of it. So yes, I would love to come, Edwin. Can I bring my camera?”

“I've got mine, so I expect so. You'll be too late for the full outside tour we're about to get, but.... wow, Pam!”

“Impressive?”

“Very. There ought to be a sub waiting for you where I normally get on Sue's sub. You know where that is?”

“Of course. Urm... dress code?”

“Skirt, and blouse, guessing from the queen and her daughters.”

“You've met their queen?”

“Yes. Very gracious Christian lady.”

“Next question... should I bring a some sort of gift?”

“Hold on, I'll ask. Amos? My wife is asking should she bring a gift?”

Amos thought for a bit. “Fresh fruit would be really welcome, I expect. We're about chocolate'd out right now. By the way, Karella says there is a wedding. But that doesn't mean she should wear anything fancy. Most people there will just be wearing their scales.”

“Did you hear that, Pam? Apparently we're invited to a wedding by dint of

Amos catching a fifty kilo tuna this afternoon.”

“Fresh fruit. Nothing fancy, but OK for a wedding. What does scales mean?”

“Scales are their urm...” Edwin didn't want to be too explicit, and floundered.

“National costume.” Amos supplied. “For which you should understand our preferred working clothes. Skirt with blouse or T-shirt is very acceptable.”

Pam heard and said “Oh! OK.”

“Pam? Could you bring something for me? Sue too, I expect. You know all about the laundry facilities on Sue's sub.”

“Of course.”

Sue grabbed Edwin's wrist unit. “Pam, if you can, get hold of Tina and ask her for my dress uniform. I think it's appropriate. But don't delay if you can't. No, actually, I'll try and get hold of her to meet you there. About twenty minutes?” Tina was Sue's flat-mate.

Pam considered all she needed to do. “Yes, OK.”

“Great. If she's not there, then don't wait.”

----------------------------------------

Amos gave them the complete tour of the outside. He took them past the inlet and outlet nozzles, deliberately entering the strong currents, even allowing the submarine to almost be sucked down the inlet pipe, so Sue could describe the dangers to others.

“I hope your drive is a hundred percent reliable.” Sue said to that stunt.

“It has been so far. No moving parts. Now, if you'd mark the position of this lever, say with a finger?”

“Like this?” Sue asked.

“Exactly.” Amos said. “Now I'll break us free and then let's see how fast you'd need to go to escape that flow. With only about fifteen percent power.”

“You could really do with a speed indicator, you know?” Sue commented. Trying not to move as he accelerated away from Atlantis.

“Maybe. But will one of your speed indicators still work in a two hundred years time, without more maintenance than a scrubbing brush?” Amos asked.

“That's all the maintenance you'd give this sub in two hundred years? That's it?” Sue was impressed.

“Unless I bang into something really solid, yes.” Amos replied.

“I want one. Can I have one if I say please?” Sue asked, it was amazing how much better she could hear the sounds of the sea in this submarine.

“How good's your internal sonar?” he said, listening. “Ah! Dolphins are that way.”

“You can hear where they are?” Edwin asked. He thought he'd heard something.

“Yes. Our hearing isn't quite dolphin-good, but I can certainly hear where they are.”

“And you're going to chase dolphins as a speed measure?”

“No. I'm going to let them swim beside us if they want to and see how fast they're swimming.”

“That should work, actually! If the dolphin's cruising, of course.” Edwin said.

“I still think a dial is easier.” Sue said.

“Yes, but fundamentally less reliable.” Amos replied.

The dolphins were happy to play, and after watching them a while Amos said “About twenty five, twenty six knots. Now lets see if I'm right.”

“How?”

“Check what the reactor display is saying, of course.” he said with a cheeky grin to Sue's protests. “Sue, you have the helm. Please don't crash into the boat which is over that way.”

“How do I steer?” She said, looking at the two levers she had. There was no wheel.

“Don't move, and you're OK.” He left her and tapped a code on the relevant panel. It slid open to reveal a data display. “Ha! Spot on!”

“It looks... mostly greek to me.” Edwin said. “Can I take a photograph?”

“Yes. Sue, Please pull both levers back towards you.”

“I thought I'd had my last driving lesson.” Sue said, but did it all the same.

“Bit more.” Edwin instructed.

“Yes sir.”

“Now we're going about the same speed you're used to in your sub. Now, lean your body left, keeping hold of the handles.”

The boat started to turn left. “It's like a bicycle!” she realised.

“That's how you steer. Now, take us back towards Atlantis.”

“I don't have a compass, I don't have anything!” she protested.

“So guess, rely on your instincts.”

“My instincts tell me to give the com back to you.”

“No, that's just fear. Don't worry, I know which way to go, so we won't get lost.”

Sue leaned and turned the sub in a complete circle. She made a total guess, and then decided she was wrong, it was more to the left. That felt better, though she didn't know why. “Why does it feel better to go this way?”

“Because it's the right way. Your subconscious has been noticing details even if your conscious hasn't. You don't have instruments to confuse you, it's quiet, which helps too. The hull isn't magnetic, and the drive magnets don't leak much, so there's not much magnetic field in here, which some people think affects people. Personally I doubt it. I expect for you it's visual signals: the light through the waves. Oops, boat coming. I'd better take over.”

She gladly handed back the controls.

“That was weird. Amazing, but weird.” Sue said “Thank you.”

“You thought travelling with mer-folk would be normal?”

“Ah, no.”

“That's all right then. What would I do to go up?”

“You pull back to slow, push forward to go faster. Pull left to go left, pull right to go right. So I'm guessing, urm, pull up?”

“Correct. Do you know why? What would happen if we suddenly went into reverse?”

“We'd be thrown forwards. Oh! It's a negative feedback thing? You overcome the force that the motion you want will exert on you, so that if you move too quickly it compensates!”

“Well done.” Amos said. “You're quick.”

“So, now you've taught my sister how to steal your submarine, what's next on the agenda?” Edwin asked, in an amused voice.

“I thought maybe you'd like a try.”

“No thanks. I'll sick to marine biology and geology.”

“Oh! That's what you were doing?”

“Not really.” Sue replied. “The microphones heard a big clang yesterday, and he decided he wanted to see what was going on.”

“Oh, I didn't show you that window.” Amos exclaimed. “How could I have forgotten that!”

“You know what it was?” Edwin asked.

“Almost certainly the Atlantis engine being started up.”

“How does it work?”

“Not incredibly efficiently. It turns fusion into heat and heat into motion. But on the other hand, it's only been modified slightly in the last twelve hundred years. The clang was part of the modification, and it's always worried us, but otherwise the modification is a very good thing. You can ask for details from Christoph.”

“Do I take it that your fusion drive doesn't turn fusion into heat and heat into motion?” Edwin asked.

“No.”

“Oh. Yet another slap in the face for land-folk science and technology.” Sue said.

“Sorry. We did have a two thousand year head start on you though. You don't need to feel too bad.”

“Oh, that's OK. I'm just a taxi-driver for my brother at the moment. He's the scientist.”

----------------------------------------

Eventually the tour was over and Amos led them to Karella's home.

“Welcome to the house of our queen, the undisputed sovereign of the deeps and shallows, ruler over the navies of the Mer people, and mother of three lovely children, who may not be quite so obedient at times.”

Sathie stuck her tongue out at Amos.

“See what I mean?”

“They might build us a palace one day.” Mabel said. “But I hope not.”

“Welcome, come and have a seat. I can offer you water or something you probably won't like.” Karella said.

“What's the 'probably won't like' option?” Edwin asked.

“It's a hot drink we make from sea-cucumbers.”

“Water please!” Edwin decided quickly.

“Why didn't you just tell them it tastes a bit like hot chocolate?” Sathie asked.

“And hide what it's made of? Why would I do that?” Karella asked.

“So we can watch them turn green, when you tell them what it's made of after their first mouthful, of course.”

“You... teenager!” Karella said.

“It really tastes of hot chocolate?” Sue asked.

“Slightly according to Sarah.”

“A distant relative.” Karella supplied.

“Then if I may, I'd like a tiny bit of the strange and interesting, and plenty of water on hand just in case.” Sue decided.

“This,” declared Sathie “is a brave woman.”

“I should have asked if you drink it.”

“Of course. But I'm not sure I'd make it. That's icky.”

Sue not only managed her first swallow, she asked for more.

----------------------------------------

“I did invite you here for a reason, Sue. As a society, we face death far more often than you do. There are always more sharks, and we must sometimes kill them or be killed. But we have loved peace for thousands of years. One proof of that is that though we have had fusion for a thousand years and fission before that, we have never used them against you. It is our great fear, in this time when the world changes, that you will make us turn to war once more. So, this is one reason I wanted to talk to you, Sue. You're in the military, and I presume trained to kill, yes?”

“If I have to, yes.”

“On someone's orders?”

“If the someone is my superior, and the order is lawful, yes. With my speciality, and rank, I'd be more likely to be placing limpet mines on enemy ships, or telling people to fire torpedoes or shells, than actually shooting myself, but... yes. And yes, I've been trained to shoot also.”

“So... would you shoot men and women doing nothing more than defending their children, and their homes?”

“I hope I would never be ordered to. If they're civilians, then they should be left in peace. If they're foreign military, and we're at war... I don't know why they're fighting. Maybe there are children in the home, maybe a cache of weapons. If I was a new recruit and I'd been ordered to search the home and I find someone inside pointing a gun at me... I'd probably shoot.”

“And if it was a knife?”

“I don't know. If they were holding it like they were going to throw it at me, probably. If they were holding it like it had been on the table and they were terrified, probably not. It depends how frightened I was. But I don't expect to ever be in that situation, or ordering people to be in that situation. We do not normally attack, but we do defend: our laws, our territory, our people, our ships.”

“So, as long as everyone agrees where the territory stops, there is no problem.” Amos said, “One problem comes that a few hundred years ago you decided that what for thousands of years was our territory should be yours. We have hidden, you have forgotten, but we have not. Now you are reminded, how will you react?”

“Yes. That undisputed ruler bit in your title makes me nervous, your majesty.” Sue said. “It sounds like fighting talk.”

“It is a title, agreed on by many ancient rulers. So far, no one has disputed it. Therefore, it's true.” Amos said.

“Urm... who have you asked? Recently, I mean.” Sue asked.

“We've opened diplomatic relationships with the UN security council, and lots of individual countries.” Karella replied. “Israel has affirmed the covenant and treaty we had with king Solomon. The country of Greece has affirmed the treaty we had with the city-state of Athens, and we are now in negotiations about how we apply it to the whole of Greece. So... one and a bit countries have agreed to our historic title, and we have agreed legal terms about who can do what where. It's a beginning.”

“So, you have some allies already. Do you have a military force if needed?”

Karella answered: “In one sense, we have no standing army or navy, In another other sense, all our submarines are considered to be in our navy, and all our able-bodied men and women are reservists, though we wouldn't ask nursing or pregnant women to fight. Very few of us are going to cower in fear if a shark or other enemy comes. Sharks are part of our life; we're much more likely to attack when cornered, than to give in.”

Sue digested that for a while. “I've seen Amos's knife, but... no other weapons. I'm sorry, I don't want to pry, but.... you seem like very nice people and I'm just hoping you don't get annihilated, I guess.”

“We hope the same thing, I assure you.” Karella agreed “As for weapons, you're right, our people don't have purpose made weapons much more powerful than a bow or blow-darts. But... we do have tools which we could use to kill or destroy. We have had no source of wood for three centuries, but stone is available easily, Therefore, we use stone for many things that you'd use wood for. We have hand-held tools which can cut stone, and they've been improved over the years. We've used them to cut refuge caves, or to carve homes for ourselves in the rocks we've recently added to Atlantis. We use them at home to shape rock into chairs and tables. But, if we need to, we could misuse our tools, turn them to killing. It's not our desire, but we have both the warrior outlook that says enemies need killing and the technical ability. Each one of these tools can cut a metre into rock, that metre can be at a distance, above or under water, and we're sure it could cut metal if that was necessary. Some experiments have been done on an old shipwreck. Is the name 'Bismark' familiar to you?”

“Bismark? Yes. a famous battleship from a long time ago. At the time it took a lot to sink it. I don't know how hard it would be to get through its armour with our modern weapons. Not as long as it took then, of course.”

“It makes me sad to have to tell you this, but one mer-person with one of these tools could single handedly cripple a similar ship in under ten seconds. In five to ten minutes more they could a make gash all along the hull, through the thickest parts of the armour we could find. I'm not telling you this as a threat, this is not why we made these tools, but we have them. If the land-folk fought us, I don't think a single one of your ships would survive. I don't doubt our people would die also. Maybe not all. I don't know.”

“I really hope that never happens.”

“Us too. Oh. you don't know. We've spoken in the United Nations about terrible, disgusting weapons that we made in the past. We plan to disarm them, but they exist.”

“Nuclear weapons?”

“Worse. Antimatter. They were meant as an emergency response, if we were found, we could say: 'Don't blow us up, or the antimatter device beside each of your coastal cities will explode.' A disgusting abuse of another tool. We do love peace, truly. I say this knowing that land-folk often say you love peace just before you go to war. The truth is that some of your countries still love war, others... used to and are trying to love peace instead.”

“So back to your question, we have a military force, yes. We just don't want to use it.” Amos concluded. “We'd much rather stick to carving stone and catching fish. But if you claim that the coastal waters are all yours, and refuse peaceful relationships because of it... I don't know what we'd do. Especially since you can't uphold your claim, and we could.”

“We can't?” Sue was surprised.

“Oh, I'm sure you could drop bombs and place mines along your coastlines, randomly killing children just playing in the waves. Or one torpedo would crack this dome and kill everyone. But actually win a war against us without resorting to such extermination tactics? Can a bear defeat a beehive without destroying it? I doubt it. If we abuse our beautiful stone-cutters and make them kill, then we will have a worse sting than bees. Very few of your boats are able to match the speed of ours, and you have so few. There are a lot of you on land, you outnumber more than ten-thousand to one, so I'm sure you could eventually beat us in the sea, if you set your minds to it, but not immediately. I don't know what your society would do with no shipping at all. Would your society survive long enough to be able to beat us without it turning into a war of extermination?”

“Urm... probably not.” Sue said.

Karella returned to her question “So, the stone cutter tools we love for their ability to let us create and carve and make, could quickly decimate your navies, probably your airforces too. We could make you fear the sea for a generation, or more I expect. But we don't want to. We're happy to share, but the question is, are you? Or will you, like spoilt children, say 'If I can't have it, no one will.' That's part of why our antimatter bombs are so disgusting to us, they are a reduce us to that level.”

“I am sure that there are countries that will dispute with you that title, who will challenge you.” Sue said. “What would be your response to them, assuming it's not a global attitude?”

Karella shrugged “Add a 'most' in my title, I guess, just before 'deeps' or 'shallows'.”

Sue's jaw dropped. “With no reprisals at all?”

“Oh, we would not make a treaty with them, we would not agree to defuse the nightmare weapons if they do not guarantee us our right to exist. Nor would we trade with them. We would allow their merchants free passage across our waters. They might find their military vessels became adept at picking up lost fishing nets. You do drop so many! Officially, unless they declared war on us, that is probably all we would do. Unofficially, some people might, perhaps, herd fish away from the nets of their fishermen, that is a very easy thing to do. Perhaps someone would demonstrate how foolish they are to dispute our mastery of the seas by painting 'I could have sunk this boat' on their warships. Teenagers are like that, sometimes. If they declared war on us, but did not yet shoot, I don't know what I would do, but I know what has happened in the deep past: Pleas for peace, demonstrations of how silly that decision was, threats issued, rudders cut, ships made unseaworthy.”

“And if they really went to war?”

“If they did more than just declare war, then their ships would suffer worse. If they used their planes against us, our rock cutters could cut those too. In all-out war, God preserve us, our construction submarines, which have more powerful lasers, could cut apart their harbours, or even cut down any building on their coastline that we choose, and if we thought our very existence was under threat, may the Lord never allow it, I expect we'd use those revolting antimatter bombs. Just as a mother of my children I have killed sharks to protect them, so as ruler of my people, I would have to use the weapons I have to protect my people, and I would have failed in my duty if I allow them to be annihilated. I hope, I pray, that if that terrible day came, I would be able to give warning, so the innocent could flee. Is it not the same for all rulers? What same person would ever want a job such as this?”

Sue saw the tears running down Karella's face. “I am sorry, your majesty, that I make you think of these terrible things.”

Karella shook her head. “You are right to ask, and I asked first. These possibilities must be thought of, planned for.”

“Then, if I might ask, your majesty, what if a nation who had a treaty with you, then tore up that treaty.”

Sue was surprised at the force of reaction from all of them.

The teenagers asked, in shocked unison, “And make themselves shark-food?”

Amos expanded “The fundamental law of our culture and society: an oath must be kept, for an oathbreaker is shark or shark-meat. A country that tore up it treaty with us would be shark until its rulers were shark-meat and the treaty restored. Its trade ships would be warned to not enter the sea or deep waters, lest we be blamed for divine judgment. Its navy would be shark, until its rulers were shark-meat and the treaty restored. Not all sharks need to be killed. If its navy ran for port, they would not be dangerous sharks. If they left port, seeking us out, they would be dangerous sharks. If they did not run when challenged they would be dangerous sharks. It is the duty of all adults to protect the children from dangerous sharks. A dangerous shark might be warned to mend its ways, for example with a small gash to the belly or a fin. If it heeds the warning it is no longer dangerous, But if it presses its attack it needs to be killed. We do not like causing pain. We do not torture. The dangerous shark should be killed quickly.”

Karella added, in a deadly calm voice, “This is the law of the deep, it cannot be changed. We have warned the Security Council of this. Better no treaty than a broken oath. Better a treaty that must be renewed each year, than a broken oath. We cannot alter this law, for we ourselves are bound to it by oath. We will not make our children to be shark-meat, waiting for the teeth they know will come.”

“All oaths? All vows?” Sue asked.

“All. The oathbreaker is shark-food or shark. None will save an oath-breaker from the shark that has been sent by God to eat him. If the oath breaker still lives, he or she is shark. Not all sharks need to be killed, just the dangerous ones, those who seek to harm others.”

“You have capital punishment, then.” Edwin said.

Karella answered, “Our law allows us to strike to kill if it is in self defence, or the defence of our children, and our knives are sharp. It has been a long time, for most of us are Christians, but normally our response to a thief or swindler who is caught has been to demand reparations, and an oath of reform. Other crimes might result in exile. As for returning from exile, that depends on the motive. Normally it is not a good idea.”

“And for a murderer?” Sue asked.

“We have different categories of things you would probably lump together in that word. Was it murder for profit or murder for petty revenge? Was it a fight which wasn't over honour? Was it a dispute that turned into a fight that turned into a death? Was the dead person a dangerous shark? Was the dead person not a dangerous shark but the person killing them believed they were? It has been a long time since any of these came to trial. For the worst of these, our law allows execution by what in our language we call stoning, but it is not the same as the Bible calls stoning. The criminal was pinned down under a net at low tide, the net is held down with stones. The whole village puts heavy stones on the net.”

“So no one person is responsible for the death?” Sue asked.

“Exactly.” Amos agreed.

“You mentioned petty revenge, and a fight which wasn't over honour...” Sue asked.

“You're wondering what about fights over honour, and revenge for something that isn't petty?” Karella asked.

“Yes.”

“Where there is some doubt about whether the criminal should die, then they must take a long long swim, without any weapon, in an area where we know there are sharks. Even in our pre-Christian days, this we left in the hands of Yah, the judge of all the world. We were idol-worshipping pagan polytheists, but we knew who was in charge of life and death.”

“You said where there is some doubt? Is there ever no doubt?”

“Absolutely.” Karella said “Again, I speak from our pre-Christian days. If a man tried to chain a woman, to take her as his unwilling concubine, she could call on help to defend her honour. Once he had chained her, then no one could interfere between them, but an unwilling concubine was always allowed to kill or castrate her master, as she chose. After a while she could take an oath that she'd stay with him and protect him from harm, which was almost the same as marriage. We changed these laws when we became Christians. She can now always call on help to defend her honour, and we accept no form of slavery. So, there is no doubt, no guilt that comes from self-defence, for defending another, or for executing or castrating the dangerous shark who treats a woman so.”

“Sometimes, among us... alcohol is involved, not force. If a woman woke and found she had been urm... dishonoured?.” Sue asked.

“The law says if she did not make a decision when sober, it was force.”

Amos said “But how she reacts is up to her. All options are up to her: she can kill, castrate, call for judges and find out if there were witnesses, or perhaps if she loves the man and the alcohol just caused them both to act without thought, she can can decide to call another sort of witness, and they can take marriage vows to each other.”

“You might think we are barbaric in this.” Karella said “Sarah told us, when she visited, that you hide from death. That while you eat meat, you hide the killing, and let machines even do it for you. That you even are worse than Sathie, who likes to drink cucumber, but not the preparation of it. I say worse, because not even one as sensitive as she would shy from killing her own fish. We do not like death, but we do not fear to look at its face.”

“That is... a very different attitude, yes.” Sue agreed “So you're saying that if a woman had been dishonoured, while we might think 'I wish he was dead, that someone would kill him for me', your people would not expect someone else to take his life. But... do you then train your daughters to fight?”

“What mother would not train her daughters to defend themselves, as she herself was trained by her mother?” Karella asked with a smile, “We know, we're different in this too. Our men we expect to hunt, our women we expect to protect themselves and their children from sharks, no matter how many legs they have.”

“You don't think that this... expecting people to fight and kill one another is against the teaching of Jesus?” Edwin asked.

“I think you should ask your sister that.” Karella pointed out.

“I have. Numerous times,” he admitted.

“And?”

“She said that she doesn't fight to establish her rights, but to defend others. But you speak of a woman executing her attacker, isn't that taking vengeance out of God's hands? Shouldn't there be a trial and a judicial process?”

“Doesn't that just prolong the anguish of the man's victim, and dishonour her even more? She knows she has been raped. If she was not raped, and she attacks an innocent, that would be murder, and she would be punished for it. If she was raped, and she has the means of justice to hand and the strength of arm, why tie her hands? We do not kill easily, not now. It takes a lot to provoke us, because we see the image of God in each other. There have neither been rapes nor deaths since this law. Even before we became Christians, a man would tread carefully, judging how strongly the woman he was interested in would object to his advances. Deaths were few and far between.”

“You are sure you have had no rapes? It is rare, and very sad, but even in our churches, sometimes it has happened. And... failing to report it is not unknown.” Edwin asked.

“For fifteen years I was on the high council, which is the government and court of Atlantis. One of the things my fellows asked me to use my gift for was to check that the reason we knew of hardly any crimes amongst us was that they have not happened. I do not know if it is because we are all Christians and seek to encourage one another in our faith, or because we have had other things to worry about. Also, of course, we have plenty of opportunities for our men to display their skills.” Karella said that last with a smile at her brother. “But it is time to go and meet your wife, Edwin.”

----------------------------------------

Tina had managed to get Sue's dress uniform to Pam, and after the walk around the city, Sue changed into it, did her hair and inspected herself in the mirror. Yes, it was going to make her stick out like a sore thumb, but... that was the whole point. To her mind it showed she was military but could still celebrate a wedding. Hopefully everyone else agreed.

“I thought this was more appropriate than my grubby T-shirt.” Sue greeted Karella, who'd changed into her scales, with a simple white blouse, but also had put her royal circlet on.

“Absolutely. I'm afraid I still don't know your rank or surname, Sue.”

“Commander Suzanna Reynolds at your service, your majesty.” Sue said formally.

“Oh, well, if you're at my service... could you tell me what the rank commander means, and help me carrying the fish?”

“Of course! Commander means, basically, that I can command a frigate or a destroyer class, or a medium sized attack submarine, but not anything bigger. In other words, be in command about two hundred crew. It also means that my skill set is totally wasted being taxi-driver for my brother. Unfortunately for me, when I was young and foolish I qualified in deep-water submarine navigation, which is a speciality most people don't have.”

“Hence you're in command of your research submarine?”

“Yes. Which I could have been doing ten years ago, yes. When they realised that it was my brother running the project they decided that I was the best person for the job, despite being significantly overqualified.” Sue said, quite aware it was something she needed to get over. “Urm... I should probably admit that it can abnormally carry a limpet mine or a torpedo.”

“But it wasn't, which is what that phrasing was really about. Whereas if you'd been in an attack submarine frigate or destroyer then you'd have been outside the exclusion area in case you put a hole in our city. Do you think you might have panicked if you'd been on patrol and seen it coming?”

“Without having any idea there was anything here? I think it would depend if I saw it from the front, the back or the top. Or only on sonar, of course. We don't normally have windows in our submarines.”

“We've noticed. Why not?”

“Too brittle, the water's too dark, and murky normally anyway, we don't go near the bottom either, there's too much chance that when someone drops a depth charge the glass doesn't respond in the same way that the steel would, and use a periscope so we can stay underwater without being seen, and if you want to have a look around then a periscope is more efficient than a whole heap of windows.”

“Except of course it means you've no hope of seeing the mermaid who's pulling faces at you behind where it's looking.”

“... are you serious?” Sue asked.

“I must admit that I did it once for a dare, when I was young and foolish. Both I and the boy who dared me got in severe trouble.”

“I bet. Putting your people's safety in danger for a dare? And now you know what a burden looking after them is. What happened to your partner in crime?”

“I married him.”

“Well, that solves that problem.” Sue said.

“Which problem was that?” Karella asked.

“Rumours about the queen's errant youth.”

“Oh, it's very well known. Christoph and I had to spend the next six months scrubbing the pipes, pistons and valves of the engine. We spent the first month arguing about whose fault it was, but by the end of it we'd decided we worked together well as a team. That six months gave him a really good appreciation for how the pump works, too, and now he's one of the chief reactor engineers.”

“He learnt to appreciate the pump, what did you appreciate?”

Karella blushed “His muscles, his dedication to his job, his kindness... See? Why did they make me queen? I'm totally unsuited to the job.”

“I think you're doing very well so far, your majesty.”

----------------------------------------