EFFECTS OF OPENNESS / CH. 7: SEIZING THE MOMENT.

RUTH'S COMPLEX, MONSOL 5TH SEPTEMBER, 10.30AM.

Robert Young wished he'd washed his hair this morning. He'd no idea when Dr Findhorn-Bunting had invited him to his house to chat about work it was going to turn into a visit to an -another- embassy. Oh well, it wasn't like he was going to invite her out. No matter how strong her faith and attractive she might be, you don't go inviting ambassadors out on dates when you're hoping to get their support for a project. Belatedly, he decided to hide his thoughts, he'd read that lots of Mer were thought-hearers.

“Hi, Ruth,” James said, “Boris sends this doctoral student of Simon's, by the name of Robert Young, with a message intended to make you a happier woman.”

“Oh yes? What's my favourite mad scientist cousin done now?”

“I thought the term was bold and intrepid researcher?” Robert asked, then blushed that he was correcting an ambassador. She looked like she ought to be a student. Maybe that was the problem. He'd heard she was young and pretty, but wow, she was gorgeous. Good job your thoughts are hidden, he thought to himself. The fruit of the spirit includes self control. Please Lord?

“Hmm, he wishes,” Ruth replied, “what's the message?”

“Here it is, Maam,” Robert said.

“Oooh, and he wrote it in middle Mer? Why?”

“I guess because we don't use it much,” James said “and there's no way a computer is going to easily decode such a mess.”

“Hmm. Interesting,” Ruth commented, then whistled “Fifteen kilometres diameter?”

“That's what he wrote to me too. He said that three of those a year would be much easier to manage than three a day. The cube of seven and a half is four hundred and something.”

“Urm, right. As long as it works,” Ruth said, “He said something about an interesting collaborative project in exchange for which he'd like swimming rights and an introduction to a non-related, unprejudiced brunette. I guess it all starts to make sense.”

“A non-related, unprejudiced brunette?” Robert asked aloud, his curiosity overcoming his reticence.

“He doesn't come across that way when he writes, but he's really shy,” James explained, “you can't go marrying relatives, and obviously he's got a thing for brunettes.”

“And the unprejudiced bit?”

“Spinal injury when a child.” James said, “He's got no function in his legs.”

“But...” Robert started thinking that that ought to be possible to fix.

“For the past five hundred years,” Ruth said, “research on Atlantis has focussed on technology that would help our people avoid detection, evade capture, or survive discovery. We've never had enough people to include medicine in that category, or done anything except keep making progress at a much slower rate that you. People who dedicated their lives to those research fields were encouraged, fed by the rest of the population and allowed a certain amount of time devoted to private projects, as a motivating factor. Boris' hobby of forcefield research with the aim of space exploration and exploitation was definitely in the private projects category, but I understand that some of what he's done is stuff that's been recognised as generally useful too. If he hadn't been injured then he'd probably have been kicked onto food collecting duty, given how much time he spends on his own stuff. But he's my cousin and, without him my position as ambassador would be about to be confirmed by a tiny little metal pod that might not have been spotted by anyone before it whizzed past, whereas thanks to him I'm due to get about a tonne of nice little home comforts. So, I'm considerably more tolerant of him than most.”

“Oh, right.” Robert said, reassessing Boris's place in things on Atlantis.

“So, having said all that about how little time he spends on proper work, What's his involvement going to be in this scheme?”

“Limited to what you see, I think.” James said, indicating the paper.

“He's letting it go with just a feasibility sketch?” Ruth asked.

“And basic design equations, yes.” James agreed.

“I don't know whether I should be impressed at his maturity or horrified. We're really supposed to trust the lives of everyone on Mars to something made out of land-folk experimental technology, when there's a fifteen kilometre comet on its way at how ever many kilometres a second? No offence, Robert, but that's crazy.” Robert inwardly cringed.

“I think, Ruth,” James said, “this is where you tell Robert you're interested in it or not, and he does some very small scale demonstrations, say on something the size of footballs across the room, then once all the bugs are ironed out you get Council approval for some bigger scale demonstration projects, say something part-way processed by the comet shredders, which might even scale up to a full-sized comet from a string, I guess, and you then bring politics to bear to get Karella to authorise the final design to be properly fabricated on Atlantis, using our reliable components. Assuming you want it to work.”

“Of course I want it to work. O.K. Got it, a proper collaborative work, where he gets some glory, and Robert does all the hard work. So Robert, tell me all about yourself,” Ruth said.

“Myself?”

“Yes. Faith? Hopes? Dreams? Vision? Musical taste? Can you swim? Where were you born? Do you have any brothers or sisters? Are your parents still alive? Do you normally date blonds or brunettes? Who are you dating at the moment? Can you dance? What are your long term plans to move somewhere else, anything like that. Think of it as a trust building exercise. Then we can get to detailed questions about the project.”

“Urm, Maam, some of those... I don't really understand what relevance...” Robert floundered.

“Then answer the questions and I'll explain more towards the end. Help me get to know the person bringing me this project, for all I know you sacrifice innocent tomatoes to Odin in your spare time.”

“I'm Christian, I was brought up Brethren to be precise, baptised aged sixteen, my parents are alive, I was born on Mars, I've got three sisters, two older than me, one twin. The older pair are married, my brunette twin isn't. I don't normally date anyone. Musical taste, I'm Martian so I like all things folk.”

“Doesn't necessarily follow,” Ruth said, “but OK. When you say you don't normally date anyone is that because you've had bad experiences in the past, or because you're still waiting to find her?”

“Urm, still waiting, maam.” he said, blushing.

“Swimming, dancing?”

“Yes, maam.”

“Hopes and dreams?”

“I'd like to visit Atlantis, one day, maam. That was sort of behind my paper. I don't want to leave here for years, but I'd like to visit.”

“Your paper?”

“I sent a copy to Boris.” James said, “Robert had an idea that you could send shuttles back and forward very cheaply and quickly just with on-planet forcefield generators.”

“Boris wrote that it'd be risky, and might upset our economy.”

“Fast cheap transport? I bet. Why do you want to visit Atlantis?”

“I hear it's a beautiful city, Maam.”

“It is. How long have you wanted to visit?”

“Since I was little, Maam. My grandmother told me some stories her grandmother told her... living under a dome under the sea, in a secret city, selling pearls for nuts because iron was so valuable.”

“Really? Sometimes it seems everyone I meet has heard something. How long is your range?”

“Maam?”

“Call me Ruth, Robert. I heard you decide to hide your thoughts when you were coming in. Don't do it too long or you'll get stuck. So, how far away can you hear decisions?”

“Three metres.”

“Typical land-folk range then.”

“Yes, Maam. Sorry, Ruth. My sister's is better.”

“I've got a range of about twenty to thirty meters. Now, if you can convince me you think this will work, then I'd be very happy to turn some craters into swimming pools.”

“Seas, Ruth.” James corrected. “The correct word for that much salt water is a sea.”

“Why salt water?” Robert asked.

“Because I want a relatively complete food chain from plankton up to cod and tuna. If we're going to make this place fit to live in then I want oxygen generating carbon-dioxide removing seas to help stabilise the atmosphere and fish to catch.”

“A fishing industry?” Robert asked.

“Industry? You mean nets? No, I mean by hand and knife, like God intended. I guess we might allow some areas for rod-fishing, but no, if Mer are going stock the seas of Mars, then we're not doing it so you can de-stock them again in the name of profit. Subsistence fishing only.”

“Theological question for you to consider, Ruth.” James asked. “Should there be sharks?”

“There are always sharks, James, but yes, it's a good question. I think it depends on how well the lesser fish do. But maybe it'd be a good idea, to keep people on their toes. The biggest down-side is I don't like shark meat.”

“Not all sharks need to be killed, Ruth.”

“Certainly not if we want a self-sustaining population, no. Just the dangerous ones. But I'm certainly not importing any while the water's less than two meters deep. Come along Robert.”

“Where to?”

“Mars Council. Let's get you permission to melt some snow from the ice caps.”

“But, maam...”

“Robert, you're talking to a mermaid. We Mer are true apex predators, like cats, dolphins, and so on. There is a time to play and time to rest, a time to lie in wait and a time to chase down and strike. It's time to move. You don't catch a fish by moving slowly. The first law of the deep is an oath must be kept, I hope you've learned that one.”

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

“Yes.”

“The second, is not all sharks need to be killed, only dangerous ones.”

“Yes.”

“The third is: what is hunted is not possessed, what is caught is owned, what escapes is free.”

“I don't understand.”

“You can't say 'that's my fish, I was going to catch it,' or 'that's my girl, I was going to ask her out.' You can say 'hands off that fish, it is mine, I killed it,' or 'get away from my girl, she's going out with me', but if a fish escapes or a girl dumps you, you have no more claim on them.”

“Err...”

“It's a bit like 'finders keepers, losers weepers,'” James said “But it's more complicated than that. Things can't escape, nor can killed prey, so they stay owned. People and live prey can escape. Back when our laws permitted slavery, a girl being chased could call on friends to help, but once caught as a concubine she couldn't receive help from anyone else, but if she later escaped her master then she was free to do what she wanted, for example slit his throat or castrate the guy who'd dishonoured her.”

Robert swallowed audibly.

“But we haven't allowed slavery for a few centuries, so while the response to rape remains, there's no rule protecting the guy. But anyway, what it boils down to is my cousin here is saying that if a mer has decided to do something, then they don't hang around waiting for a better time. There's an opportunity, maybe it's not perfect, but seize it anyway, it might be the last chance, someone else might grab the girl, fish, etc. So you're here, Ruth's obviously free since she's quoting 'seize the day' type stuff at you, you know you need to talk to the council, why wait?”

“Urm... does abject terror count as a motive?”

“You're scared of the council?” Ruth asked.

“Not really, maam.”

“Ruth,” Ruth corrected.

“No, Ruth.”

“Come along then, let's talk about what you're scared of on the way.”

“See you sometime, Ruth,” James said.

“Before you go, how's your harvest coming along?”

“Very soon now.”

“What does Margaret think of your scheme?”

“She's happy.”

“And everyone else?”

“Pastor Tom thinks we're crazy to keep everyone on tenderhooks about the date until a week beforehand and Alice says she guesses she can't object since she set the condition.”

“Robert is looking really confused, James.”

“Feel free to educate him about our culture, cousin. You are ambassador.”

“Go check on your cabbages then, and make sure you let me know.” James gave a mocking bow, connected his breather and headed off.

Ruth continued, “So, simple explanation, Robert, James and Margaret, being embassy staff, need permission to marry. If the harvest is good then James'll have enough to support them, which is one of their embassy rules, and Alice said they had to set a date after James' main root vegetable crop was going to be harvest-ready. They talked about it, and decided that one week after harvest-ready ought to give them time to get the first-fruits of the harvest in, demonstrate to Alice they had enough, and would also mean they didn't need to wait longer than necessary.”

“Oh. Right, so everyone's wondering when that'll be?”

“Exactly. So, you're terrified of cultural differences?”

“I'm realising that I don't know much.”

“That can change,” Ruth said.

“Yes.”

“So, are you going to seize the day, or let it swim away from you? Does your schedule with Simon mean you won't be able to work on this?”

“I ought to be able to, it's related enough to my research field, but I don't know. And I don't know if I'm up to this, and the thought of being responsible for a comet crashing to the planet is terrifying.”

“Right, let's stop off at Simon and Alice's first, then. Anything else that terrifies you?”

“Yes.”

“And that's why you're risking getting stuck?”

“Urm.” Robert replied. Ruth took that as an affirmative.

“I have no bodyguard, no security force, no honour guard, no assistant even. Therefore I carry two weapons I learned as a young woman at home, the sort any young woman would carry at home. Except the knives you have here are useless, and I can't get the ingredients to make the preferred muscle relaxant for my blowpipe, which means I'm going to hesitate to use it, just when that hesitation might mean the difference between life and death. I know that there have been attacks on several ambassadors. Hopefully my queen hasn't made sufficient enemies that I'm a target, and my dreams of flooding a crater or getting some proper domes built here don't upset anyone too badly. But I don't know that.”

Ruth drew a breath and continued: “Lacking much else, I rely on my native reaction speed and the warning I get from having a good range. People hiding their thoughts makes me nervous.”

“Sorry, I wasn't thinking along those lines,” Robert said.

“I understand that in your eyes, I'm probably a scary authority figure form a strange and wonderful country with a seemingly magical level of technology. I would much rather you thought of me as a young woman, far from home, who's been taken from a job she enjoyed and plunged into a world where she has more responsibilities than she knows about, struggles to understand the rules and is terrified of what might happen if she breaks them. I am a naturally social person but sometimes I'm afraid of my own shadow, let alone big groups. I do have some friends, but I would not object to another.”

“You'd have heard me decide I'd like to be a friend, except that although I'd like to unhide, I am stuck.”

“I understand from the truthsayer association that you normally think of yourself as a bubble, yes?”

“Yes. I'm trying, but.... I think I hid far too long, I feel very stuck, more than ever before. I didn't think I was hidden that much longer than normal.”

Ruth heard the concern in his voice, “Look into my eyes, Robert, and try to trust me. You are in a bubble, but not just any bubble. Your bubble is special, because you know the secret of forcefields, your bubble has a sharp blade above it, cutting all the way to the surface, so as you rise, the mud is already parted, and you can also make a cone below you. Do you feel the cone? To start with it slows you a little, but the mud does not stick to it, so it does not slow you much. You are probably rising about as quickly as you would with no forcefield.”

“Yes, I feel it. I'm moving, but not much.”

“Good, now you know you can adjust your cone angle, but you must do it quickly, or there will be no real effect. Take my left hand and when I squeeze yours you must collapse the cone as fast as you can. You will then come shooting out of the mud so quickly you might be surprised, but I will catch you. Will you trust me?”

“Yes, Ruth.”

She squeezed, and caught him as he staggered at the onslaught of thoughts he heard. Her thoughts, loud and clear, his own thoughts, bouncing around the room, even echos of her thoughts. And her emotions too. It was an intimate moment. He heard echos of her concern for him, overlaid with joy that he had trusted her, she heard his wonderment at the intimacy they shared in that moment and he heard her self-rebuke as she regretted she'd known what this intimacy might be like and hadn't warned him clearly. He heard her hoping she hadn't abused his trust. As the moment faded, he also felt his own reaction to the intimacy of the moment, awareness that he felt protective of her as well as attracted, and glad for that fleeting closeness. “Wow. I don't think anything could have prepared me for that, Ruth. Thank-you for... sharing that much of yourself with me.”

“I should have warned you,” she said, letting go of his hand.

“You said you'd catch me. I could have asked what you meant.”

“But you trusted instead.”

“I did, I do. Ruth, urm, I've never, urm...”

Gently, she put her finger on his lips, and he knew she'd hidden her thoughts for that brief moment, because all he sensed was her touch. “Before you go further, you've just experienced something like the light turning on in a pitch black room. Your filters weren't ready for the onslaught, and were overloaded temporarily, you heard my thoughts. Of course you did since we were touching, and you got my emotions too. And I was concerned that I'd left you hiding too long, and it was all in glorious stunning brightness. Mix that with my earlier plea for friendship and I expect your reaction is going to be very flattering. After all, I don't need to read minds to notice you finding me attractive, but none of this makes me 'the one', in the eyes of God. Yes, what's just happened has probably broken down a lot of natural reserve, but alcohol might do that, and I hope you wouldn't want to trust a decision made when influenced by alcohol. Not that I'm rejecting what I'm guessing I didn't let you say, just... making up for not warning you better.”

“You chose to open yourself to me,” he said.

“I did.”

“Thank you. I think that means that you see me as potentially more than just a friend.”

“Ah, well, yes. That's where it gets complicated. I thought James might be more than a friend when we were on the ship here. I turns out he's my third cousin, and my fourth cousin and my third cousin once removed. So, before we get emotionally involved it'd be very good to make sure that we're not close relatives. And given how small the population of Atlantis is, and how long we've been isolated, we don't marry third cousins.”

“I heard you thinking of family trees. Thank you for explaining. I do want to be friends, Ruth.”

“Good.”

“And is it greedy of me to want to do that again?”

She laughed, “Certainly unwise, anyway. Playing with temptation, don't you think? I'd say normal hand holding ought to be enough. I'm not saying never again, but you could just have lain down, you realise.”

“So why...”

“Because that's the way I learned it, and it is a thing that's better done as a couple. Trust in the other is important for it to work, as was my willingness to open up to you, otherwise you might be overwhelmed with negative feelings, and plunge deeper into the mud out of embarrassment. Next time you do it, it probably won't be as intense, you realise, as you know what to expect.”

“Oh.”

“But if you've heard married or engaged couples talking about feedback, I'm told that's pretty similar closeness, but it grows rather than fades.”

“Can I ask... who taught it to you?”

“My mother. So no, it wasn't the same. In case you're wondering, by the way, I'm pretty amazed at what's just happened between us myself, and I only got it second hand.”

“Then you've not done it with anyone else?” Robert asked.

“What do you take me for, Robert?” Ruth asked, stepping away from him, upset.

“Pardon?” he asked, confused.

“Do you think I routinely open myself like that to men?”

“No. Sorry. I just.... I don't understand.”

“Someone once described me as a 'grab first, think later' person. I grabbed at James, he turned out to be a cousin, too late for us to avoid tears. I grabbed at someone else, before I was a Christian and his sister very quietly pointed out to me that I'd be making him break his oath to God if I carried on that way, so I told him I'd been stupid, and a few weeks later I left Atlantis, because someone who makes someone else break an oath is a dangerous shark. I didn't grab at either of them in the way I've grabbed at you. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done it.”

“It was a very generous thing.”

“It was a very stupid thing to do before we'd compared family trees, because I smashed through the barriers of natural shyness and now we both know that we're attracted to each other and we enjoyed that sense of emotional union and think we're on the verge of being in love.”

“But we're not?” Robert asked, gazing into her eyes. She gazed back for a while before turning away.

“Robert, I need to see your family tree, or know the names of your great-great grandparents. It would be incest to me, if we're third cousins. Understand?”

“Can I introduce you to my parents, then? Because I don't know it. They might. Or my sister, maybe.”

“You can. Before or after the Council?”

“This feels more urgent to me.”

“And it's personally important too,” Ruth said.

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

YOUNG FAMILY COMPLEX. 11.30AM

“Hi Dad, allow me to introduce Her Excellency the ambassador of Atlantis, Ruth, err.. sorry, I only know your first name, Ruth.”

“Hello, Mr Young.” Ruth said, “Robert never got introduced to me formally. Among my people I'm formally known as Ruth bnt Emilia Yzella Edwin hi Matthew Wilma Boris, which is mostly my parents and grandparents, the shorter version which just lists my parents is Ruth Emilia Matthew, which almost works on land too, so my landing card said Ruth Mathews.”

“Welcome, your excellency,” Mr Young said, totally unsure what was going on here.said

“Oh, call me Ruth, please. Robert's recent paper got into the hands of my cousin Boris back on Atlantis, and Boris replied, and from my perspective, it looks like Robert might be helping realise my dream of flooding some craters to act as Martian seas. I had my eyes on Hellas to start with, since everyone talks about that turning into a lake, but I'm told it's a bit too big. Plus of course there are lots of people with claims down there who might not like water being deliberately piped there.”

“Water from where?”

“Comets, Dad. Boris thinks my idea of a forcefield-shot shuttle service might rather break the economy, but suggested the receiving end could be turned into a ground-based comet shredder, for much bigger comets than they send in strings.”

“I guess I should add that Boris is a forcefield designer,” Ruth said, “but anyway, as you might have guessed from my name, genealogies are rather important to my people, in all sorts of areas, and I'd find it helpful to know as much of Robert's genealogy as possible. He spoke of stories from his grandmother which might make him my distant cousin.”

“And that'd be important?”

“Absolutely, Mr Young. If he's my third cousin then I'm not allowed to find myself falling in love with the lovely kind man who's working to make me a nice big swimming pool to play in. I'd much rather learn that now than later.”

“Well, I guess you'd better have a seat. Does Hathellah know anything about this Robert?”

“No, Dad. It's all happened this morning. Hathie is my twin, Ruth.”

“Your twin is called Hathellah” Ruth asked, in shock.

“Yes. It's an odd name, but it's been in the family a long time.”

“Yes, millennia. Unless someone's been copying what they shouldn't.” Ruth said.

“You recognise the name?” Mr Young asked.

“From stories, history lessons, laws.”

“Laws?”

“Hathellah was the queen of the Outer Mer, from before the Exodus.” Ruth said, “The name was passed down from grandmother or great-grandmother to a single child, ever since then. No one else may use it.”

“My mother was very upset we didn't call either of your big sisters after her and her grandmother, Robert.”

“I thought the last Hathellah had died.” Ruth said, shaking her head in amazement, “Wow. Your mother will have kept a careful family tree, I assume, Mr Young.”

“Yes. Hathellah keeps it.”

“So she should,” Ruth said, nodding, “it goes with the name.... Robert, does your sister have any interest in politics?”

“Politics? No. Why?”

“I hope she gives me the right answer to a question I've got to ask her.”

“A question?”

“You'll see. Where is she, do you know?”

“That's what made me ask,” Mr Young said. “She told me she was going to be home for lunch. Your mother will be Phome too.”