The Ascension Factor

A sudden burst of light filled the galley and the foil began to lurch rhythmically. They were on the surface, and Elvira would be going out there to clear the intakes. At each lurch a tiny cry escaped Crista's throat, and tears streaked her cheeks. For the first time he felt as though he wanted to comfort her. He was just beginning to imagine how much Flattery had used her, how terrible and secret her life in the Preserve must have been.

She was a curiosity, a prisoner, he thought, and he made her a monster.

"Did this ever happen to you. before Flattery gave you drugs?"

Her eyes flicked side to side.

"I think that he thought that your toxin would kill us. Then he would get you back and be a hero, warning the world again about how dangerous you are. And if I gave you this shot," he placed the unopened ampule carefully into his pocket, "then you would die and he would tell the world how we killed you. That would turn the world against us for sure. "

She blinked a "yes," and Rico heard a moan from Ben.

The intercom charged again, then Elvira asked, "Rico, everybody OK?"

Ben's mouth struggled to speak, then he gave up and managed a slight nod. Crista, too, nodded and squeezed out a slow "Yesss."

"Slapshot time," Rico said to the intercom. "They're not great, but improving. I'm all you've got right now. You going out for a little swim?"

"Thought I would. Best watch the helm."

"On my way," he said. He reassured himself that both Crista and Ben were safe, and that neither of them could be hurt where they lay.

"I'll leave the intercom charged," he told them. "Talk to me once in a while, even if it's a grunt, OK? I'll be back when Elvira's finished out there."

Crista raised her fingertips again, and wrenched out a couple of words.

"Kelp. happy."

"The kelp is happy?" He threw his hands in the air, and spoke with undisguised sarcasm. "Then I'm happy. How the hell do you know?"

She turned her palm up like a shrug.

"Free — dom," she said, and repeated the word more slowly, "free — dom."

A glance out the plaz showed him what appeared to be an infinite expanse of kelp lazing in the last of both afternoon suns. Alki, the small, distant sun, had begun a slow pulse almost a year ago and it was pulsing now. A very large, very black cloud was closing from seaward toward them. An occasional kelp frond rose slowly, then fell back with a slap and a splash.

Like a wot in a bathtub, he thought.

He had never seen the kelp play like this before.

"I hope you're right," he said. "I truly hope you're right. It will make life so much easier for us, and so much harder for Flattery's people."

He resisted the temptation to pat her shoulder and Ben's.

"We're going to get you out of this, buddy," he said to Ben.

He kept talking, more to himself than to Ben, as he hurried out the hatchway to the helm. He spoke to Ben over the intercom as he reviewed his instruments, as much for his own comfort as his partner's.

"I hate to say it," Rico said, "but I think Current Control saved our butts. The kelp got us down here, wherever here is, and then started tearing at the cabin with those huge vines. Current Control must have been trying to get the original channel back, because the kelp was obviously fighting some kind of impulse. Either they blew a fuse or they gave the kelp its head completely. Whatever, it was the right thing to do."

He resumed his instrument checkout.

"That electrical pulse through the kelp must have screwed up our Navcom system," Rico said. "Most everything else looks OK. I closed off cooling outlets to the galley to head off that leak, just in case it's ready to pop someplace else. You two might get a little warm there between the engines. Once we're airborne, I'll figure a way to get you both up here."

He finished the checkout and realized that they wouldn't be getting airborne after all. Not unless Elvira could remanufacture the hydraulics that withdrew their hydrofoils and extended airfoils.

Ben doesn't need to know that now, he thought. For that matter, neither do I.

"Speak to me, buddy. Anything."

"Rico. OK."

It came out loud and clear, though painfully slow, but it was enough to put a smile on Rico's face. He felt Elvira tugging kelp out of the inlets and tried the Navcom again. It was dead, not even a burst of static from the speakers.

"Squall's coming in," he told Ben, "things might get rough again pretty soon."

He didn't want to tell Ben that they were going to get really rough, now that they couldn't get above the storm. Without the Navcom, and with the kelp glutting up the ocean as far as the eye could see, Rico himself didn't want to think about how rough it was going to get.

* * *

Anyone who threatens the mind or its symbolizing endangers the matrix of humanity itself.

— Ward Keel, The Apocryphal Notebooks