Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

“The car won’t hurt you,” she said carefully. “But keep clear of the Tine. They invented these sports cars to do their hunting and to make religious sacrifices, injuring victims in interesting ways for the purpose of their worship. They’re keen on fast, fast cars, the faster the better, like this rocket; the best that meat can buy. To build speedy cars they need good athletes. You are an athlete, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Tine will do anything to lay their hands on a runner as excellent as you. If they knew about Rhydanne you would already be dead. They need athletes, that’s what makes these babies go,” she said, tapping a flipper lovingly on the steering wheel. “Take a look.”

She pressed a button and a trapdoor popped open at the front of the vehicle. I sloped around and peered inside.

Lying under the bonnet, a mass of green-purple guts quivered and heaved. Clear rubber tubes ran red liquid around them. They stank of ripe meat. Diagonally across the center were six big hearts, doubled up in a line. Solid red-brown muscle pumped in unison. I had an impression of the mighty strength they produced to drive the spoked wheels.

At the top two pale pink lungs inflated and deflated of their own accord like bellows. They were joined to the depths of the engine by a windpipe ringed with cartilage. Dark clots lay slickly around it. Nearest me was a blood-smeared glass tank of water; gleaming veins ducted it out to cool the hearts. I saw about twenty red-brown kidneys attached by a network of ligaments to a porous gold pipe that led toward the rear of the car. As I watched, hot yellow liquid spattered out of the pipe onto the forecourt making a steaming puddle; the car relieved itself.

“Ugh.” I shrank back. “God, it’s disgusting!”

“I bought it to help me in my search,” Tarragon said. “I’m looking for a way to save the sea kraits. That’s why I’m here in Epsilon instead of at home studying, basking and eating tuna.”

Sea kraits were the largest animal I had ever heard of, but I had thought they’d all died out centuries earlier in the worst disaster Insects ever caused. “I don’t understand. Why are you bothered about sea snakes? And anyway, aren’t you a bit late? Their ocean dried up a long time ago-and good riddance.”

“Yes, but I have ways to talk to them. Sea kraits are intelligent animals with a sophisticated knowledge all their own. I think it’s a great pity they died out. All their learning was lost, Jant; don’t you care? I saw you free the porcupanda just now.”

“There’s a difference between a porcupanda and a kilometer-long sea snake! The Shift’s better off without foul, slimy sea creatures!”

“So says the Rhydanne. Take care you’re not threatened with extinction yourself. The Tine will want to make sports-coupés out of you. Wait! Don’t run away! Be a nice Rhydanne and look after my car for a minute while I pay.” Tarragon hefted a slab of succulent steak, which was lying on the spare seat. She jumped down from the running board and turned her shark’s waddle into a very sexy walk as she strode into the kiosk.

I leaned on the car’s curved side, staring all around for approaching Tine. If Tarragon was right they would be waving cleavers and bent on my demise. She had called this vehicle a sports car, but I have never seen one play sports, and if you ask me it is quite unsporting, sitting in a car when one is expected to run.

Tarragon reappeared, unwrapping a chunk of the Tine’s red water frozen to a flat wooden stick. She gave it a big lick, then offered it to me.

“No way!”

“Suit yourself. Weird air-breather. You shouldn’t visit Epsilon, Jant; you don’t belong here. It makes me so sad to see you poisoning yourself. I hoped you had given up drugs.”

“Well, I’m having a bit of a relapse.” I explained the island, my fear of the sea and my current predicament on board Stormy Petrel.

Patches of gray sandpaper skin blotched her body and faded. “A voyage of discovery!” she said enthusiastically. “Well, in that case I’ll help. I fancy taking a look at your vessels. I’ll follow them at depth for a while so you don’t have to fear the sea. If anything untoward happens to your ship while I’m in the vicinity you should be relatively safe.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Tarragon. What can I do in return?”

“Learning motivates us Sharks. An edifying experience is reward enough. And although I’m cruising distant waters right now, it shouldn’t take me too long to swim to you…”

I frowned.

“All the seas are connected. Actually all the oceans in every world are one ocean. The sea finds its own level across the worlds; you can reach anywhere if you swim far enough. As long as the water is to our taste, what matters it what sea we breathe?” She continued, “I wish I could see the ocean from the outside-an immense orb of water hanging in vacuum, so my school tells me. That’s one Shift I can’t make.”

I thought about this for a while. The same sea that is surging into Capharnaum harbor laps on the beach at Awndyn, backs up the sparkling Mica River at high tide-brackishly flows into Epsilon market, glistens in Vista Marchan two thousand years ago, and is swept the next minute by Tarragon’s fins in the deep abyss. The land changes, but the ocean is a still pool, a pool like a sphere, hanging in the universe.

I decided that Tarragon was making fun of me so I giggled and she gave me a contemptuous look. “It’s true. You don’t think angler fish and manta rays originated in your world?”

I shrugged, not knowing the animals to which she referred.

The Shark sighed. “Jant, call yourself a scholar? No real student would mess with their mind the way you do. Why destroy yourself? Do you want to be found lying dead, a stiff corpse with a needle in its arm? What’s cool about that? I get here through study and you get here through pleasure. I can smell it on you. Pleasure is actually bad where I come from.”

“And what is good where you come from?”

“Little bits of fish.”

“I’m sorry, Tarragon. I Shifted by accident. I’m only here because the ocean unnerves me and I OD’d.”

“There are other methods to achieve enough disconnection to Shift.” She smiled triangularly. “By pain, or the way us Sharks do it-by thought. Promise you won’t do drugs again and I’ll teach you! You may eventually be able to Shift at will, just as I can-but probably not as well, because air-breathers aren’t very intelligent. For example you would never be able to Shift as far as my world. The degree of dislocation would certainly kill you. You must be near death to get this far.”

“Shift at will? How?”

“You can will yourself to wake up from a nightmare, right? This is no different. Your body’s not here; you’re a tourist, a projection same as me. If you must travel to Epsilon, do it by meditation-you need a relaxed state of mind to project yourself. Of course, it’s easier to leave the Shift than it is to arrive so you can either meditate or force yourself back home. All I do is wake from my trance and I return to my sea.”

It never occurred to me that I could find a different way to Shift. I had thought traveling to Epsilon city was a side effect of scolopendium, and that I could only wake when the drug wore off. “I don’t think I can.”

“Oh yes. You can travel along what, let’s face it, is a well-trodden path. It just takes patience-and concentration. I’ll show you!”

She leaned over the car’s low door, grabbed my belt and shirt front, and pulled me into the car. Her strength was incredible. I sprawled onto the passenger seat, into the footwell. My long legs waved in the air as I thrashed about trying to find purchase to jump out.