Part 8 (2/2)

Tucker had knotted his safety line on the second lift. Now he paid the slack out into the wind, where it blew away in a huge curve. Tsia frowned at the stretch of rope. She looked up at Wren. He mouthed something, and started to coil her own safety line. She shook her head and pointed at Tucker's line. ”I'll go,” she shouted. ”You get this line.” Quickly, she unknotted the line from her body and shoved it in Wren's hands. Then she shot the lift up and away from the waves, leaving Wren, cursing, behind to clean up the line.

Already, Tucker was down in the waves where the sea smashed the leading edge of the raft against his piling. As the island tangled at the base of the leg, the mere grabbed for the growth. Tsia, now at the top of the southern leg, halted her lift to watch with her breath caught in her teeth. The wind shadow of Tucker's body allowed the water to crawl right up his chest, where it sprayed out like a fountain over his head. He disappeared into the sea. A second later, he broke up out of the water empty-handed. Tsia snarled silently. The node-the flickers that spoke of active webs... G.o.ddammit, she cursed, there had to be some way to reach him-to tell him about his line. But the node was still down. There was nothing. Nothing but the fading sense of a predator that made Tsia's neck p.r.i.c.kle as much as the brutal wind that dried the salt like tiny saws on her skin.

Tucker dropped the lift again, timed it wrong, and caught the surge on its way up. He went under, then broke free of the foam. His eyes were screwed closed against the grit in the water, but even so, when he shot up on the lift, he held a handful of green that slapped his legs in the wind, and a dripping jelly a meter across that wrapped itself on his arm.

Violently, he shook the jelly from his hands and threw the weeds away. A second later, he dropped the lift again. Behind him, the discarded jelly tangled on the trailing rope and submerged. In the water, Tucker tore at the weedis, dragging its ma.s.s toward him in a shredded mess. He shouted something at the cougar, but the creature cowered on its sinking brash, away from the platform and the grasping human arm. The trapped fear of the cat clogged Tsia's mind. The water still sprayed up to her face, and she didn't notice; the salt crusted on her cheeks, but she didn't sc.r.a.pe it away. As Tucker went down into the waves a third time, she jumped from the lift and sprinted across the metaplas path. A moment later, Wren reached the deck and followed.

At their backs, the wind first lifted their feet, then staggered them with its violent gusts. Tsia caught her balance like a cat, but Wren slid off the narrow walkway into a patch of sponge. The sticky mucus sucked at his trousers, and he cursed at the turpentinic scent. Tsia did not pause to help him, but ran for the middle leg. ”Please, please,” she prayed to the wind. Hold on, she sent to the cub.

Almost before her feet hit the support pipe, she grabbed the controls to start the lift's descent. Nothing happened. Cursing the loss of the node, she hit the b.u.t.tons again. In her mind, as clearly as if it were shouted in her ears, she could feel the cub's agitation, see it circling and yowling as the sea smashed its vanis.h.i.+ng raft. She could see Tucker below, and the dimness of his shape confused her till she realized that she was seeing him visually as a shadow in the gloom, not sharply as a mental image that she sensed through her gate. Behind him, a dark line ran back, ungently curved between the pull of the wind and the tug of the water through which it now dragged.

”Tucker,” she shouted. ”Watch your line!”

He did not look up. The wind tore her words out of her mouth, whipping them away before they reached his ears. Suddenly, he was waist-deep, the water smas.h.i.+ng him against the pipe. One of his arms splashed through the water to grab more of the weedis and haul it closer. He missed, lost his footing, and barely managed to get back to the lift before the wave swept him past. When the water dropped away, he was gasping for breath, and his safety line was pointing sharply down.

Tsia leaned out. 'Tucker,” she shouted. ”Your line. Get your line out of the water!”

Wren reached her as she punched the b.u.t.tons again. He grabbed her arm hard. ”Not without me-” She nodded urgently, and as one they punched the controls. Still, nothing happened. The weedis was half past Tucker, and Tsia could see its shockingly thin line. There was almost no body to the island now, and the kitten was almost swimming in the barely woven growth as its paws merely took it from one sinking spot to the next. Far past the platform now, the rest of the mother's island swept toward the coast, while in Tsia's head, the feline claws pierced her thoughts. Like a child, she cried out. Wren grabbed her arm and shook her. Flattened, spray-soaked ears seemed to twitch; her lips curled until she shook her own head to clear it.

I'm coming, she told the cub through her gate. Her mental tone was harsh. ”Wren, G.o.ddammit, help me! Why won't it go down?”

”His safety line.” The small man pointed down with one of his clublike hands. ”He locked the lift to hold it. We'll have to slide.”

Tsia did not wait. Even so, Wren was faster. His thick hands clasped the vertical lift and, like a monkey, he swung his body down so quickly that Tsia was meters behind by the time he lowered himself to the top reach of the waves. Above, Tsia struggled to control her descent. Her hands could not hold her weight against the slickness of the pipe, and she slid quickly down in choppy drops, heedless of her grip and jamming her hands painfully at each footbar.

Below, she could feel the jellies pumping, rising to Tucker's line, tangling their tendrils in its length and turning over to dive. The stench of the weedis clogged her nose. For a moment, she clung halfway down. ”Tucker!” she shouted uselessly. ”Wren, free up his line. Get those jellies off.”

The ocean surged; the wind sprayed all three of them with gritty, fluid bullets. The safety line plunged like a cable to the sea, cutting through the waves and snapping out of the troughs with each wave. What was left of the weedis was wrapped around one end of the station leg, and the strain of that hold against the current tore the island more.

Clinging to the lift above Tucker and blinded by the spray, Wren groped for the line, but even his thick hands could not pull it out of the water. It was like a shaft of steel. He cursed volubly.

Tucker did not notice. His face was set with determination. He no longer bothered to get out of the waves. He stayed waist-deep on the lift, going completely under when the surge caught him wrong. Time after time, he grabbed at the weedis to pull it closer, but he only shredded the edges as if he were a jelly himself. And the cub, clinging to a small bubble of seedpods, capsized and disappeared.

Tsia cried out. Water seemed to close over her head; slimy tendrils slapped her face. She let go of the lift to tear the weeds away, and almost fell. It was the gale, not her balance, that pressed her to the lift and ground her ribs into the pipe to keep her body upright. An instant later, the cub clawed back to the surface. Tsia's hands, curved and grasping, clung to the lift. She yowled, caught her breath, and stared down. Her eyes were filled with the fear she caught from the cat.

Tucker, swamped by weeds and water, gave up and reached toward Wren, but the other mere, hampered by the coil of flexan, could not get down before the next wave took Tucker under. Again, the older mere hauled at the safety line. It did not budge.

Tsia leaned away from the lift. She could feel the pumping, white-clear cloud that gathered on the line. ”The jellies,” she yelled down to Wren. ”They have hold of it. You've got to get them off or they'll drag him completely under.”

Wren tried to use his hand, then the length of his arm as a lever to force the line to bend, but the flexan cord was too taut. Tucker, twenty meters below, went under the water again. There was a dark splotch across his face as he resurfaced, and Tsia felt a flood of relief as she realized he had put his nose-breather in. With the tapers of the enbee plugging his nostrils, Tucker stroked hard for the widening pool of weeds where the cub was paddling, trapped and tangled, in the brash. A wave slammed the shreds of the raft against the platform leg, tangling Tucker in their sodden ma.s.s, and the mere disappeared again. His hands, white against the slick, gray water, splashed up two meters away. Instantly, Wren abandoned his footing on the stationary bar and swung to Tucker's lift. His ma.s.sive hands groped in the water as he slid down to the waves and was covered in spray and foam.

Tucker came up again six meters from the piling. His mouth was open, his face tight. His enbee was gone. He shouted something and tried to swim toward Wren, but he submerged before the wind carried his words off the waves. Tsia lowered herself to Wren's position. ”The jellies,” she yelled. ”They're pulling him down. Hang on to me when I go in. Pull us both back on my line.”

Wren whipped a loop of the cord through her harness. She unsealed one of her harness strips and took her enbee out, then jammed the tapers up her nose. The chemflaps glued themselves to her cheeks with a tightening sensation.

”Take my enbee for Tucker,” Wren directed as he worked. She fumbled with the seals of his harness until she found and jerked the chemflaps out. It took a moment to seal the extra enbee in her gear; then Wren pressed two fingers against his heart, then against her sternum. ”For luck,” he shouted. She nodded. When Tucker's dark-haired head broke the surface again, she threw herself against the water in a fiopdive to stay on top. The impact was a stinging slap across her front, but her arms and legs were already moving, stretching out for the mere.

She barely made contact with the other mere's fingers, but Tucker was ready for her grip. His fingers clamped down like a steel-jawed trap. She drew her breath deep in her lungs through her mouth, not her nose, and did not fight the sea as it took them both down in the surge. In front of her, Tucker's legs were pumping, kicking to keep him near the surface. As Tsia struggled to bring her body next to his, she unsealed her harness with one hand and pulled Wren's enbee from it. She waited for the water to slam them together again, then, her fingers clenched like a fist, pressed the enbee awkwardly against the other mere's cheek. Instantly, he grabbed it. A moment later, the tension in his biofield lessened.

A crest caught and smashed them together, then tried to tear them apart. Curled against the wrenching force, Tsia slid her knife from her boot and tried to hold it against her sides. The wave crest seemed to pa.s.s; the current steadied. Tsia brought the knife up to Tucker's hands. He felt the steel against his skin and squeezed her fingers to acknowledge it. He had lost his blade, she realized. Now he guided her hand to his safety line.

Water pushed them together. Water pulled them apart. It took precious seconds to slide the knifepoint into the knot in the safety line, and just as she did, Tucker's knee hit her stomach when he kicked to bring them both up. She lost her air. Above her, Tucker's head broke the surface, but hers did not. They were sucked below again.

Their hands clenched each other. Seconds, and the current steadied out, pus.h.i.+ng them both toward the platform, while the jellies tugged down on Tucker's rope. Their legs continued to kick. They breathed harshly through their noses, and the enbees split the oxygen from the sea so that their lungs were filled with air that they used up far too soon.

Another minute, and in the smash of the surge, Tsia traced Tucker's safety line to his harness and reset the metal knife. A jelly traced her hands with its tendrils, and she smashed it against Tucker's chest with her shoulder, then blasted it through her biogate. It crumpled and washed away.

How long did she pry at the knots in that stubborn cord? How many times did the waves smash their limbs and tighten the knots back up? She cursed the line, but flexan fibers would not be cut by knife. She needed her flexor or raser to cut that molecular strength. Nor could she slice his harness off him- its flexan was thicker than the cord. And the cord was looped through his harness so he could not separate the straps. He could not peel it from his body. She could not cut him free.

She clung for an instant and tried to think, but the sting of a tendril touched her jaw and crawled across her lip. Startled, she jerked in disgust. The jelly found the edges of her enbee and latched on to it. The tapers ripped from her nose. She dropped the knife and grabbed at her face. She barely caught the chemflap as it was folded into the jelly's rubbery body. She held her breath while her lungs, expecting air, began to suck at her closed throat. Tucker tapped a message on her arm, but she could not respond in the surge. Instead, ignoring the acid that burned her hand, she curled her fist around the inner jelly organs and crushed the flaccid tissues. The churn of the surge tore at her limbs like wolves, but the jelly refused to let go. The pumping flesh stung her neck and throat. Her lungs burned, and her chest began to convulse as it sucked at nothing through her clenched jaw. Tucker's body tumbled against hers with the change in current. His knees slammed into her legs. They hit the surface, and Tsia arched up. She choked on air and sea. In the slack that caught them for an instant, Tucker became tangled in his line. It yanked cruelly taut around his leg, but Tsia did not notice. The jelly had gone limp and she tore her enbee from its grip. As they went down again, she jammed the enbee up her nose and barely noticed the touch of the acid that seared the inside of her nostrils.

They sank faster this time, but Tsia clung to Tucker's blunter like a leech. Without his legs to stabilize them, they twisted in the current until Tsia was underneath, then rolling to the side before her own safety line straightened them out. Tucker's fingers dug into her upper arms. Brute strength held her body to his. The surge seemed to tear at her; her lungs began to burn. It was the acid that ate at the filters. Like steam breathed in from a cooking cube, the searing proteins of the jelly's venom washed into her lungs.

She ignored the burning and grabbed for Tucker's hand. A fast-finned message, and he pressed back his understanding. His fingers worked frantically at the knots.

Tsia's ears popped. The cold water ached on her body, and another jelly brushed her arm, then encircled her with its tendrils. She blasted it through her biogate, sending its mental shadow a sharp attack of anger, will, and the thought that she was its predator. The soft body crumpled in on itself and washed away in the surge, and Tsia, blind in the water, did not feel the ones that attached to Tucker's back. The mere jerked against her; soft bodies probed his trousers and sleeves to find the gaps to his flesh.

Now it was Tsia's fingers that dug into his. It was Tsia who choked on the sea. Through her gate, she could feel the ache in his lungs. Had he lost the enbee again? Had the filters finally clogged? Between them, pulling cruelly back, her safety line cut into her breast and neck. Her heart pounded in her ears. Something was tearing her from the other mere, and it took a moment to realize what it was. Not his safety line, but hers. Wren was pulling her back, but the jellies still had Tucker's rope. The younger mere felt the water surge between their bodies. He made a watery grab for the guide, and his fingers scratched her neck, catching in her collar. The jacket pressed against her windpipe and she choked. Instinctively, she bucked and twisted. Tucker lost his hold. The current tore them apart. Tsia's safety line held her in place, whipping in the rush of the water; the jellies dragged him down.

She screamed into the murk and lost the last of her breath. Tucker's fingers were like white ghosts stretching out. Ghosts she had seen before. White hands in the water. White hands in her past. Children drowning in the mud off the slough. In a tide, drowning and reaching out... Tsia struggled wildly against the safety line, against Wren. Water rushed past her mouth and nose. She did not notice that her enbee was gone.

The sea drove itself into her ears. The force of Tucker's desperation cut into her mind, and she could almost feel the pressure build in his sinuses and ears. She could feel his arms beat at the jellies till they enclosed him in their tissues. Taste the stinging poison of their tendrils as they crept across his face and found his nose and eyes. She did not know, as a ma.s.sive hand dragged her up out of the water, that she was still screaming as he died.

Wren shook her like a doll, until her body hung out limply over the surge. She stared at him as if he were a stranger, and he shook her again. Not until the senselessness left her eyes and her feet found the lift bar did he loosen his grip. When she finally clasped the pipe on her own, he let go. ”Okay?” he yelled over the wind. ”Okay?”

She nodded jerkily. She could not look at him. There was horror in her eyes, and she could not tear her gaze from the sea. Her biogate was closed down tight. She did not even let the cry of the sargie through. Wren stared down at the line still taut in the water. ”Is he alive?” he snarled.

She stared at him blankly.

His grip tightened. ”Alive?”

”No. G.o.d, no...”

”Where's your enbee?”

”Gone.”

”Mine?”

”Gone.”

”s.h.i.+t!” he cursed. ”Well, that was useful, then.”

Tsia lifted her head to stare at him. This time, there was a spark of anger in her eyes.

”Good,” he snapped. ”You can be shocked later. If Tucker's dead, there's nothing you can do about it

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