Part 26 (1/2)

Even as he said it, it was clear that it was useless. The biosuits themselves gave an audible click and a hiss with every breath they took.

It didn't take the jellyfish long to find them.

One landed on Tane's arm, and he watched it, horrified, yet fascinated for a second as it extended its long filaments and probed the black armor of the biosuit, trying to find an opening. The suit was strong enough to withstand it, though, and he flicked it away with a yelp of disgust.

It was back a second later, though, so he squashed it, flattening it with a sharp slap. It fell away into the mist.

The next one he squashed stayed there, stuck to his suit, but when he looked back at it a moment later, it was mostly gone. Dissolving, it seemed, back into the fog.

More came, though, and more still. He slapped at them, smashed them, shudders running through his body at the thought of the fine tentacles needling their way inside the suit. He looked at Rebecca's back and realized with a shock that her black biosuit had turned white. Her back was covered with the jellyfish, the odd Y shapes fitting into each other like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Smothering her.

He forgot his own creatures for a moment and began hammering on Rebecca's back, screaming wildly as the creatures went flying, unable to get a grip on the smooth surface of the suit.

”The jellyfish can't penetrate the biosuits,” Crowe said calmly.

”It's not them I'm worried about,” Fatboy muttered.

There was a swirling in the fog near the door to the fire escape, and Tane thought he glimpsed a white shape through the mist.

”Here they come,” he breathed.

”The pool,” Rebecca suddenly said. ”Water works. Get in the pool!”

”Everybody in the pool,” Crowe ordered. ”Now!”

”What about Xena?” Rebecca asked, but a pair of hands cut short the argument, shoving her violently in the back, toppling her headfirst into the water. She didn't see who did it, but Tane did. It was Lucy Southwell.

Tane let himself over the side of the pool and splashed into the deep water. He sank like a stone and fought a rising panic, until he realized that he was in a fully self-contained suit, with its own oxygen supply. He hoped the metal case of the Chronophone really was watertight.

Fatboy was talking, but Tane could not hear him. Crowe motioned them all into the center of the pool and held out a hand. Manderson laid his hand on Crowe's, and after a slightly confused moment, the rest followed.

Crowe's voice sounded suddenly in Tane's ear. ”The radio signals don't travel underwater. But if you touch one of the other biosuits, the signal will travel directly from one to the other.”

”The entire suit acts as an aerial,” Manderson explained.

”Still think it's terrorists, Dr. Crowe?” Rebecca asked, a little cynically.

Crowe ignored her.

”How do you know we'll be safe in here?” Fatboy asked.

Crowe replied immediately, ”They can only survive and move in the mist. You kids were right. The fog can't penetrate the water, so the creatures can't either.”

The suits were all black again. The jellyfish released their hold the moment they hit the water and floated to the surface. They bobbed around there for a little while, hundreds of them, and gradually disappeared.

It was left to Tane to ask the next obvious question as vague shapes moved around the sides of the pool and across the surface of the water above them. Large, whitish shapes, indistinct and blurred through the water of the pool.

”How much oxygen do these tanks have?” he asked. ”How long can we stay down here?”

EPIPHANY The water above Tane rippled with the pa.s.sage of one of the- with the pa.s.sage of one of the-what were they?-above him. The sun, still high in the sky, diffused down through the opaque whiteness of the mist above, then softened and soothed further by the wash of the pool water into the dull brightness of a child's toy lamp.

When one of them them pa.s.sed over the surface of the water-never breaching the surface-the resulting ripples created undulating patterns over the light blue walls and floor of the pool. pa.s.sed over the surface of the water-never breaching the surface-the resulting ripples created undulating patterns over the light blue walls and floor of the pool.

Tane sat with his back to the pool wall and watched the soft light play over the faceplate of Rebecca's suit. Here under the water, the tinted faceplates turned to mirrors, preventing any glimpse of the face inside.

She could be smiling at him. She could be scowling. He had no way of knowing.

What were they? The snowmen. snowmen. The human mind always tries to rationalize things. To fit what it sees to what it already knows. To judge new experiences by previous experiences. Tane's mind wanted to believe that the creatures that now ruled the world above them were human, in some strange costume perhaps. But no matter how hard his mind tried to rationalize that, the image kept recurring of the shape at the door, just as it exploded into a million shards of gla.s.s. And human beings couldn't walk across water. Besides, he had a horrible feeling that they had seen one of these things being born. In the fog tank. The human mind always tries to rationalize things. To fit what it sees to what it already knows. To judge new experiences by previous experiences. Tane's mind wanted to believe that the creatures that now ruled the world above them were human, in some strange costume perhaps. But no matter how hard his mind tried to rationalize that, the image kept recurring of the shape at the door, just as it exploded into a million shards of gla.s.s. And human beings couldn't walk across water. Besides, he had a horrible feeling that they had seen one of these things being born. In the fog tank.

A darker shadow blocked the light for a moment by the edge of the pool. Xena. She had been wandering around the poolside since they had jumped in. Looking for them. Wondering when they would resurface. Rebecca hadn't mentioned Xena again. Fortunately, the snowmen were no more interested in Xena than the jellyfish had been.

Xena moved on, lurching around the poolside. She must be just about as confused as they were, Tane thought with an ironic inward laugh.

He looked around the bounds of their underwater prison. Rebecca sat opposite him, unmoving. Maybe even sleeping, although he doubted it. Southwell was next to her. Just to his right, Fatboy and Crowe were sitting next to each other against the end wall of the narrow pool, and Manderson had stretched out full length on the bottom of the pool, as if resting.

It was surprisingly comfortable, once you got used to the hiss and click of the oxygen valve. The water bore most of his weight, cus.h.i.+oning him in a soft cradle.

He checked his oxygen levels again. Half full. Crowe had said they had about four hours on a single tank, which was all they had.

Crowe touched him on the arm and his voice came over the radio.

”You went to a lot of trouble to save that suitcase, son.”

Rebecca looked up, and Crowe motioned her to join in the conversation. Southwell did also, but Fatboy and Manderson remained where they were.

Crowe repeated his comment, then added, ”These cryptic comments you keep making. 'Water works' and 'Don't go mist.' And the submarine. They're written down in that notebook of yours, aren't they? It seems that you know more than you are letting on.”

”Tell him, Rebecca,” Tane said, pressing his radio b.u.t.ton. ”It can't do any harm now.”

After a moment, Rebecca's voice came through his earpiece. She said, ”Do you remember telling us that we did not know what you might believe?”

”I remember saying something like that.”

”Then would you believe me if I told you that we've been receiving messages from the future, warnings about what is going on now?”

Crowe said, ”I remember Tane blurting something about that just before you jumped off my s.h.i.+p. Go on, convince me.”

Rebecca said, ”We discovered a way of deciphering messages embedded in bursts of gamma radiation, picked up by a NASA satellite.”

”From whom, exactly?”

”From ourselves.”

There was a brief silence. Then Crowe said, ”Okay. It's a bit far-fetched so far, but under these circ.u.mstances...Carry on.”

Rebecca explained, ”Only so many characters can fit into a gamma-ray burst, so the messages have been extremely short and cryptic. But we figured out enough to buy the submarine, to try to stop the Chimera Project, and to end up in the mess we're in now.”