Nicola Griffith - Slow River

And then Lore wonders if time really does slow to molasses when one is in fear for one’s life, because the beast doesn’t fall upon them in a snarl of sleek pelt and glinting teeth, it… stretches.

She blinks, thinks perhaps she is a little mad as the huge panther thins and seems to shudder before her. And then it bursts, exploding into thousands of small birds, all soaring and swooping and twittering at once. The air is filled with bright avian song.

“They’re birds!” someone shouts. And Lore is laughing, climbing to her feet, unable to turn away from the swoop and flutter in the air.

Birds.

Sarah is holding out a glass. Champagne. Lore takes it. Her hands are shaking. “Electromagnetic control,” Sarah says. But Lore doesn’t want to hear the mechanics, just savor the wonder, She gulps the champagne, holds it out for a refill from one of the passing waiters. Sarah slides her arm around Lore’s waist. Her fingers are very warm just above Lore’s hip. The birds wheel twice, then begin to pour back into the tunnel.

The water room is sixty by sixty, tiled in an intricate pattern of blue and azure with walls of aquamarine and turquoise glass block. Vitrine sculptures of fish and mermaids stand in the corners. There are fountains everywhere, and water runs down the walls. The air is damp and full of the music of liquid. The tank, about twenty feet square, is sunk into the center of the floor.

Lore takes off her dress, kicks off her shoes, then peels Sarah out of her green silk sheath. Her stomach is not flat but slightly rounded, with the side ridges and sliding muscles of a belly dancer. Her navel looks naked, as though an emerald should glint there. Lore dips the tip of her little finger in. Sarah tilts her chin up: Take me.

“In the pool.”

She wants to soar and swoop and mate on the wing, gulp at the medium that buoys her, like a bird.

Lore is nervous and excited. She takes Sarah’s hand and they step to the side of the pool. The heavy pink liquid laps idly at the tiles. The first ledge is about three feet deep.

They step down, slowly, and the liquid, body temperature, slides up their ankles, their calves, and behind their knees. Up, further.

Sarah bobs a little, letting the surface tension rub between her legs. Lore moves behind her, circles her waist, and throws them both in. She keeps hold of Sarah as she kicks for the bottom, twenty feet down. She wraps one leg around the ring there and waits, shuddering with fear that she tells herself is anticipation.

It is not water, of course, but perfluorocarbon, and when Lore has no breath left in her body, she opens her mouth and breathes in. It is like breathing a fist.

Her body shoots toward the space, ancient habits demanding that she cough up the liquid and breathe air, but her lungs are full long before she reaches the silvery pink of the surface, and she can still move, still think, and the panic recedes. She is alive! She laughs, a strange, gushing affair, and experiments with pulling the perfluorocarbon in and out of her lungs. The liquid moves in and out, in and out, like a sliding arm.

She swims down and Sarah up; they meet near the middle, porpoising over each other, belly to belly. Even their skin feels different: rubbery and resilient, like that of marine mammals. Lore strokes back over Sarah, turns her face down, covers her, belly to back, and cups the small, cool breasts in her hand. Sarah dives. Clinging like limpets, they swerve at the last minute, then turn this way and that along the smooth bottom. Lore imagines they are seals diving after agile fish. They part by mutual consent, enjoying themselves, playing like children. But they swim around each other, always each other’s focus, like dolphins courting. Lore is exhilarated. Partly the champagne, partly moving in three dimensions, partly the fact that the perfluorocarbon supplies two to three times as much oxygen as air. She swims all the way to the top, until her back and buttocks poke out into the air, and floats, like a hovering hawk, until Sarah is directly beneath her. Then she stoops.

The liquid pouring into her lungs is like a river running through her. She feels as though she could be hauling herself along a rope, a line made of water, the rope running through her, tight, taut, fiercely singing. She catches Sarah and clamps an arm around her waist, a mouth at her throat. Sarah keeps swimming, laughing, until Lore traps Sarah’s legs in her own and thrusts a finger inside her.

They make love for nearly an hour. Each time they come they thrash like fish.

It happened just before one in the morning, and there was nothing anyone could have done about it. I was walking away from the readout station with the latest figures when something in my peripheral vision made me turn back. The numbers on the volatile organic counters were rocketing. All the alarms went off.

It was like a stun grenade: red lights on the ceiling rotating; a mechanical clanging; in electronic shrilling. All designed to pump adrenaline into the system and make you move fast. A computer-generated voice came over the sound system. “Attention! This is not a drill! Attention! Evacuate the premises in accordance with emergency procedures! Attention…”

I pulled off my filter mask, grabbed the emergency-escape breathing apparatus from the shelf, and snapped the mouthpiece over my face. Air gushed, cool and clean. I held the mask in place while I slipped on the head straps and clipped the minitank to my belt. My suit would protect most of my skin, and I had five minutes of air.

Beyond the glass people began to run. I looked at the readouts.

System already locked down and isolated. Influent diverted. Bright amber numerals ticking away the seconds since the alarms kicked in: fifty seconds. Gauges for holding tanks beginning to show increasing volume as the line pumps reversed their flow. Good.

Good, I thought again, and wished my heart didn’t feel squeezed between two plates.

I waited, and waited another ten seconds before I realized no one was giving orders. The emergency-response coordinator had evacuated the plant. Job finished. The rest was up to the regional fire department’s response teams, and the expert system. But that would take too long.

I pulled the microphone free from its hook, switched it to Manualand Primary Sector… “This is Bird. Attention Magyar, Cel, and Kinnis—stand by. Attention everyone else.” My voice was blurred by the EEBA mask, but not too badly. “Emergency escape breathing apparatus available in hatches six, eleven, and fourteen. The air’s good for five minutes. Leave immediately. Attention Magyar. There are two moon suits at hatch six. Suit up, bring the second suit to me here at the monitoring station. And hurry.”

I checked my tank—four minutes left—and the readouts. The system had still not identified the volatile organic compound. I did equations in my head. Protection factor, threshold limit value, maximum use concentration. Worst-case scenario: There were maybe three minutes left before the fumes would be dangerous to someone without a mask. Air for one minute after that. I checked the clock: 2:18.

I was shivering. Run, my body was saying. I began to wheeze. Psychosomatic—it had to be.

“Cel, Kinnis. When your EEBAs are secure, go to locker… Go to locker…” But my mind was blank. What locker, why?

You’re panicking.

Red light skimmed the white concrete floor as the ceiling lamps outside went round and round. Think. Where was the self-contained breathing apparatus stored?

Think! No good. The afterwash of the panic had wiped the memory away.

“Attention Magyar, Kinnis, Cel. I can’t remember which locker the SCBAs are in. Cel, Kinnis: You have four minutes’ air left. Go to drench shower two and wait. Magyar: Find the SCBAs, take them to Cel and Kinnis at drench shower two. Cel, Kinnis: If Magyar isn’t there in three minutes, leave. Otherwise, I want you all here, on the double.”