Arthur Clarke - The Songs of Distant Earth

Yet there was no way in which he could turn down the challenge. As he lay at ease in the stern, watching Falconer at the wheel (how had he acquired that white scar across his shoulders? — oh, yes, he had mentioned something about a crash in a microflyer, years ago…), he wondered just what was going through the Lassan’s mind.

It was hard to believe that any human society, even the most enlightened and easygoing, could be totally free from jealousy or some form of sexual possessiveness. Not that there was — so far, alas! — much for Brant to be jealous about.

Loren doubted if he had spoken as many as a hundred words to Mirissa; most of them had been in the company of her husband. Correction: on Thalassa, the terms husband and wife were not used until the birth of the first child. When a son was chosen, the mother usually — but not invariably — assumed the name of the father. If the first born was a girl, both kept the mother’s name — at least until the birth of the second, and final, child.

There were very few things indeed that shocked the Lassans. Cruelty — especially to children — was one of them. And having a third pregnancy, on this world with only twenty thousand square kilometres of land, was another.

Infant mortality was so low that multiple births were sufficient to maintain a steady population. There had been one famous case — the only one in the whole history of Thalassa — when a family had been blessed, or afflicted, with double quintuplets. Although the poor mother could hardly be blamed, her memory was now surrounded with that aura of delicious depravity that had once enveloped Lucrezia Borgia, Messalina, or Faustine.

I’ll have to play my cards very, very carefully, Loren told himself. That Mirissa found him attractive, he already knew. He could read it in her expression and in the tone of her voice. And he had even stronger proof in accidental contacts of hand, and soft collisions of body that had lasted longer than were strictly necessary.

They both knew that it was only a matter of time. And so, Loren was quite sure, did Brant. Yet despite the mutual tension between them, they were still friendly enough. The pulsation of the jets died away, and the boat drifted to a halt, close to a large glass buoy that was gently bobbing up and down in the water.

“That’s our power supply,” Brant said. “We only need a few hundred watts, so we can manage with solar cells. One advantage of freshwater seas — it wouldn’t work on Earth. Your oceans were much too salty — they’d have gobbled up kilowatts and kilowatts.”

“Sure you won’t change your mind, uncle?” Kumar grinned.

Loren shook his head. Though it had startled him at first, he had now grown quite accustomed to the universal salutation employed by younger Lassans. It was really rather pleasant, suddenly acquiring scores of nieces and nephews.

“No, thanks. I’ll stay and watch through the underwater window, just in case you get eaten by sharks.”

“Sharks!” Kumar said wistfully. “Wonderful, wonderful animals — I wish we had some here. It would make diving much more exciting.”

Loren watched with a technician’s interest as Brant and Kumar adjusted their gear. Compared with the equipment one needed to wear in space, it was remarkably simple — and the pressure tank was a tiny thing that could easily fit in the palm of one hand.

“That oxygen tank,” he said, “I wouldn’t have thought it could last more than a couple of minutes.”

Brant and Kumar looked at him reproachfully.

“Oxygen!” snorted Brant. “That’s a deadly poison, at below twenty metres. This bottle holds air — and it’s only the emergency supply, good for fifteen minutes.”

He pointed to the gill-like structure on the backpack that Kumar was already wearing.

“There’s all the oxygen you need dissolved in seawater, if you can extract it. But that takes energy, so you have to have a powercell to run the pumps and filters. I could stay down for a week with this unit if I wanted to.”

He tapped the greenly fluorescent computer display on his left wrist.

“This gives all the information I need — depth, powercell status, time to come up, decompression stops — “

Loren risked another foolish question.

“Why are you wearing a facemask, while Kumar isn’t?”

“But I am.’ Kumar grinned. “Look carefully.”

“Oh… I see. Very neat.”

“But a nuisance,” Brant said, “unless you practically live in the water, like Kumar. I tried contacts once, and found they hurt my eyes. So I stick to the good old facemask — much less trouble. Ready?”

“Ready, skipper.”

They rolled simultaneously over port and starboard sides, their movements so well synchronized that the boat scarcely rocked. Through the thick glass panel set in the keel, Loren watched them glide effortlessly down to the reef. It was, he knew, more than twenty metres down but looked much closer.

Tools and cabling had already been dumped there, and the two divers went swiftly to work repairing the broken grids. Occasionally, they exchanged cryptic monosyllables, but most of the time they worked in complete silence. Each knew his job — and his partner — so well that there was no need for speech.

Time went very swiftly for Loren; he felt he was looking into a new world, as indeed he was. Though he had seen innumerable video records made in the terrestrial oceans, almost all the life that moved below him now was completely unfamiliar. There were whirling discs and pulsating jellies, undulating carpets and corkscrewing spirals — but very few creatures that, by any stretch of the imagination, could be called genuine fish. Just once, near the edge of vision, he caught a glimpse of a swiftly-moving torpedo which he was almost sure he recognized. If he was correct, it, too, was an exile from Earth.

He thought that Brant and Kumar had forgotten all about him when he was startled by a message over the underwater intercom.

“Coming up. We’ll be with you in twenty minutes. Everything O.K.?”

“Fine,” Loren answered. “Was that a fish from Earth I spotted just now?”

“I never noticed.”

“Uncle’s right, Brant — a twenty-kilo mutant trout went by five minutes ago. Your welding arc scared it away.”

They had now left the sea bed and were slowly ascending along the graceful catenary of the anchor line. About five metres below the surface they came to a halt.

“This is the dullest part of every dive,” Brant said. “We have to wait here for fifteen minutes. Channel 2, please — thanks — but not quite so loud.

The music-to-decompress-by had probably been chosen by Kumar; its jittery rhythm hardly seemed appropriate to the peaceful underwater scene. Loren was heartily glad he was not immersed in it and was happy to switch off the player as soon as the two divers started to move upward again.

“That’s a good morning’s work,” Brant said, as he scrambled on to the deck. “Voltage and current normal. Now we can go home.”

Loren’s inexpert aid in helping them out of their equipment was gratefully received. Both men were tired and cold but quickly revived after several cups of the hot, sweet liquid the Lassans called tea, though it bore little resemblance to any terrestrial drink of that name.

Kumar started the motor and got under way, while Brant scrabbled through the jumble of gear at the bottom of the boat and located a small, brightly coloured box.

“No, thanks,” Loren said, as he handed him one of the mildly narcotic tablets. “I don’t want to acquire any local habits that won’t be easy to break.”

He regretted the remark as soon as it was made; it must have been prompted by some perverse impulse of the subconscious — or perhaps by his sense of guilt. But Brant had obviously seen no deeper meaning as he lay back, with his hands clasped under his head, staring up into the cloudless sky.