Heartside

"You lived," Mary stated, helping Muemen from the water.

"I did. Never did I think I would do such a thing. I must be a madman," he replied, shaking the water from his hair. They smiled at each other, and Muemen felt the heat of Mary's gaze.

They headed back to Ratoi and lay together on the white sands, enjoying the view. The sun, behind their left shoulders, painted the ocean, scarlet, the clear sky rose, the shadows pink and bourbon. Mary was breathless. Muemen was, too; he had noticed that the soft light brought to life her small, plump lips, her golden skin, the platinum highlights in her golden hair. Each eyelash sparkled; her eye were full of the light cast by blood red rubies in the blue of the sea...

By some funny trick of the mind, he lost a piece of time. He suddenly realized she was no longer gazing at the view, but returning his admiration- that they were sharing an intimate gaze. His heart swelled.

Mary put a hand on his cheek. "Are you alright? You look most frightening," she said with a laugh.

Muemen took her hand from his cheek, placed it on his broad chest; Mary could feel his pounding heart.

"I do not want to frighten you," he said, his voice strained and husky. They locked eyes.

"You don't," she said earnestly.

**********

In the dark hours of morning, Mary and Muemen returned to the Carbony Crab Inn. Inside was dim and quiet; the keeper on hand had left a rough bell to be rung if he was needed and gone to sleep. They stood with hands on each others hips, trading kisses.

"I have to go. Father will be furious," Mary said finally, pushing away Muemen let her get to arm's length before drawing her back, attacking her lips hungrily. Finally, breathless and blushing, Mary escaped, and darted up the stairs, tripping and looking back again and again.

Muemen watched her go and sighed. She was right- her father would likely be furious. Muemen hoped Tom didn't know his StormSpitter lay at the bottom of the ocean- with all his belongings save his boat, he thought, with a grim shake of his head. His future was suddenly a mystery.

Solar stepped from a dark corner of the inn. Her eyes were wild and full of tears, her lips compressed angrily.

"Her? You abandon me for her?" she sobbed, advancing on him.

Muemen backed away, looking about as if for escape. "Really, Solar, try to be calm. Until the other day, we hadn't spoken for months."

"Because you wanted her! Who next? Barbony?"

"Great sea, why must you be so dramatic? It is this sort of madness that frustrated me!"

That was enough for Solar. She slapped Muemen violently and repeatedly; the first landed smartly on his lean cheek, but the following he was able to fend of with his arms. "Get hold of yourself, woman!"

Solar stopped, spun, dashed up the stairs without another look back. Muemen fell into a chair, holding his stinging cheek. He had been in a tussle or two growing up, but never in his life had he been hit by a woman. It was not to his liking. He stumbled back out onto the Carbony Way and turned towards Bahdin's Imports and Exports.

Bahdin kept a different residence, further up the Way, and the store was dark and quiet. Muemen moved across the dock that ran along the shore-side store's east face and peered in the thin pane of glass. The package he had seen earlier was still there. On a sudden, angry impulse, Muemen smashed the glass with his elbow. He cursed his recklessness as the shatter echoed through the night, but what was done was done and he climbed through carefully.

He tore open the package behind the counter. Inside was a black pressure suit to fit his exact measurements. Why had Bahdin lied? Because he did not want Muemen exploring the depths of Bottomless Bay- but why? Muemen left the way he had come, but now with the suit in hand, and boarded his skiff with a plan forming in his mind.

He came to a halt near the dark line in the water where floor of Dobby Bay dropped away, becoming Bottomless Bay. He could see the waters that his womb had once occupied, now vacant. He tested the built in gill, pressure meter, and light-enhancer before donning the spongy, skin-tight suit which covered his every feature. He attached the leech-sack, still filled with Jigger blood, to his shoulder, and looped a length of coiled soft-cable over his torso. Thus prepared, he dove into the water.

The first light of dawn was beginning to show, and the waters were purple and murky. Muemen swam straight down towards the floor of Dobby Bay, only a fathom or two. The sands were white and smooth, broken only by the odd patch of stringy black seaweed or a rock. He waited patiently as the sun began to peak above the horizon.

Not far away, cruising smoothly near the bottom and trailing off out of sight, came the unmistakable shadow of a Jigger. Muemen was startled by the size of it- not like the monstrosity that had destroyed his farm, but huge nonetheless. Its horn was at least double the length of his skiff. It was headed his way, and would surely sniff him out. He readied his lasso.

The creature slithered closer and closer and just when Muemen thought it might pass without noticing, it turned up towards him and stabbed. Muemen felt the rush of water that followed its sweep, barely dodging in time and looping the lasso over the horn-tip. The length of the black horn slid close past his visor, and with a violent wrench the slack rope snapped tight.

The huge creature swam so wildly that Muemen was unable to drag himself up to the head against the force of rushing water. Slowly, it calmed and, muscles bulging from effort, he hauled himself up. The creature was stubborn and infinitely stronger than Muemen, and attempted to scrape him off on the bay bottom a number of times before finally submitting. The fifty-foot, horned eel, once broken, was a tireless mount that kept a furious pace. Muemen aimed it for the brink of Bottomless Bay.

The ocean bed suddenly dropped away beneath into blackness, and Muemen pushed down on the Jiggers horn hard. It cut an angle so sharp that Muemen was almost dislodged, but he held fast and together they veered down into the Bay.

In a second, all was pitch black, above and below and all around. He couldn't even see his own hands on the cable, or the Jiggerdart he rode upon. He was simply hurtling through the void. He flicked a small switch on his visor and the light-amplifier screen blinked on.

It was like flying. Straight down along the chasm wall they sped. On its rocky ledges in the gray, filmy light of the amplifier, Muemen saw a forest of swaying, luminous seaweed and feathery limbed sea-anemone. As he gazed on this, a pack of twenty smaller Jiggers rushed up from below. Muemen expected to be impaled on the oncoming wall of horns; but by some sense or instinct beyond him, his mount sensed their approach, as they sense its, and at the last second all swayed and shifted past each other, and they were left behind to resume their previous formation.

Muemen shivered and held himself close to his Jigger, despite the strange feel of its flailing body against his legs. Down and down they went. They passed sections of small Jigger tunnels, through streams of the slithering black creatures. He saw shoals of Rogers Blade Fish, like flying ranks of a hundred buzzaws; and Tanzanel Martins by the thousands, slow moving, undulating sheets of deep red flesh, one bulbous eye on top, two on the bottom; and sparkling clouds of rainbow krill and orange schism fish.

Finally, the floor of the bay came into view below. If Muemen could have gasped, he would have. It looked like the floor of Jigger Bay, but on a grander scale. It was riddled with huge gaping black holes, and in between these a thousand more of varying sizes. His Jigger- the only in view- suddenly swerved back up as if driven away, and only with great effort could Muemen veer it back down and into one of the lager tunnels.

On and on went the tunnels, twisting and turning, this way and that, sometimes wider, sometimes narrower. Muemen knew that to find his way out might be a miracle, but he was already lost in marvel at the seemingly endless network of veins. He passed connecting chambers where the walls were covered in Jigger eggs; he saw flat fish by the dozens, bloated from gorging themselves on the abandoned unborn.

He started to panic; he was beginning to tire and his mount still fought him vigorously. Finally, he could struggle no more, and it was all he could do to wrap his reins around his wrists and hold on. He closed his eyes, expecting to hit a wall, but no impact came. He opened one eye. His mount, blinded by his lasso, yet somehow knew where the tunnel entrances were. Over and over it would veer sharply down slim connections Muemen didn't even see until he was in them. Two times he was scraped roughly against the crumbling walls, and once a tunnel collapsed behind them, but Muemen and his pressure suit held fast.

Then, ahead, he saw the open sea. He laughed inwardly and patted his mount, though it didn't even seem aware of him. It had known the way. Just as they cleared the entrance, headed straight up like a bullet, something caught Muemen's eye.

He had rested, and with new strength he tugged his angry Jiggerdart back towards the opening. He whisked past along the ocean bed. Ahead near the tunnel entrance he had just come from, a metallic ball the size of a human head was wedged. As he came along side Muemen released his mount. It was a simple metal ball, with a small control panel behind a plastic cover, and air-jets dimpling its surface, blowing into the water. He looked about; fifty feet away he saw another, and bit further still, another. It was not heavy, and he hoisted it up and swam for the surface.

It was a long, dull swim, rising slowly until his pressure gauge told him to stop, waiting till a small green light appeared, then rising slowly again, until finally he breached the surface and tore the head cover off. It was past midday. He'd been under a long time. He looked about for his skiff, found it bobbing where he'd anchored it a couple hundred feet away.

Once aboard, he examined what he'd found in confusion. It was noisy, small air-jets all over it still blowing. Muemen flipped open the control panel cover and stared in wonder at the multitude of blinking buttons and lights. He pressed a few at random. The vents shut off suddenly, retracted inside; this was followed by a few strange and negative buzzing noises. Satisfied, he decided it would be best to seek the council of the other farmers, back in Dobbyton.

Muemen found the angry man, still in his charcoal suit, at the Carbony Crab, speaking privately in the corner with Tom. The metal orb hit the bar with a wooden "thump" and Muemen, Jotan, and his youngest son Traz, gathered round.

"What is it? asked Jotan.

Traz cocked his head and scratched his chin. "Looks pretty fancy. What's it do?"

"I don't know," Muemen answered to both.

They watched the angry man stomp from the inn, and Muemen thought to catch the barest of glances towards the orb. Tom came over to join them.

"Offered his condolences for my loss and then double for my remaining fry. I told him to take a hike. What's this here?"

Muemen related where he'd found it. As he did, Traz flipped open the control panel cover and stared in wide-eyed wonder. He danced his small fingers across the buttons.

"Back, boy, back!" bellowed Jotan, smacking his hand away. The orb responded, though, with a loud ding. They watched as from a small circular opening extended a thin metal arm, which held tiny flask of dark ichor.

"Jigger blood!" they said in unison.

Tom whistled. "Let's take it to Bahdin. He might know what it is."

Muemen lagged behind as they crossed the Way. He stopped to watch the angry man, suitcase in hand, stalking quickly up the Way towards Dobbyton's tiny spaceport. When he entered Bahdin's, he found that Tom and Jotan already had him cornered near the broken window.

"I know nothing! Leave me be," he complained.

"Why so nervous, then?" demanded Jotan.

"Come on, Bahdin. Fess up. We'd hate to beat it outta ya," added Tom. Even Traz had his fists up.

Bahdin looked in horror at each, and finally threw up his hands. "Alright. It is an olfactory stimulator, used for synthesizing odours. The off-worlder, Mr. Gamble, had a number of them brought in as part of a special order. I swear I had no idea what he intended!" Tom spit on his floor and they left him, spouting excuses.

Once back on the Way, Tom could no longer contain himself. "Seed our waters with these freakish contraptions, run us from our home, then try to buy up our fry!"

"I saw him headed for the spaceport," Muemen reported. Jotan sent Traz to inform the others, and the three of them dashed up Carbony Way.

They found Mr. Gamble sitting alone on sagging wooden bench, waiting the next connection to the orbiting transport station, staring at his thick hands. He looked up as they approached.

"Sorry, kid," he said to Muemen. "Was just following orders."

Mr. Gamble was taken before the Port Authority, who found him guilty and sentenced him to 50 years hard labour. Jotan Muddywater, Tom Rundey, and Muemen Heartside formed the Pyfin Farmers Union, and received significant settlements from the BrightFuture Co. Many months later, after the synthesizers were removed, they stood on Muemen's new farm in the heart of Dobby Bay, drinking rum-punch together to celebrate his marriage to the recently come-of-age Mary- who also happened to be a few months with child.

Tom patted his stomach. "Well, son, it's all hard work from here. As I've said before- guard your shoals well, gentlemen." And they clinked glasses.

"Still one thing I don't fully understand," said Jotan. "How did they find out about the Jiggers' hatred for the smell of their own blood?

Tom glared at Muemen.

"Haven't a clue," he said, drowning a strange look in his glass.

"Me either," grumbled Tom.

The End.