The Godwhale (S.F. Masterworks) (32 page)

‘It’s just the sedatives. Can you see well enough for a game?’

‘No,’ moaned the Grandmaster. ‘My legs are killing me.’

Drum gathered up the chess pieces and put them away. He was too tired to go to his cubicle, so he slept on a mat in the corner. Wandee glanced at her two friends. Both looked as though they needed rest. She checked pulses and printouts before she exited.

Wandee called Furlong: ‘Chairman, I was just checking with Grandmaster Ode’s White Meck. The readings seem worse now than before the cast came off. He has more pain, and his left eye—’

‘Think nothing of it. That is sometimes seen with surgery of this kind. Pulling the electrodes is expected to irritate the healing bony callus. He will feel better tomorrow.’

Drum awoke to the sound of Ode’s moaning. He stood by the bed until the White Meck had given the HiVol injection. The narcotic failed to alleviate the pain. Drum bounced out into the hall and returned with the Medimeck. A battery of tests were given. Drum didn’t understand the series of numbers. A teck came in with a bottle of calcium disodium edentate and added it to his venous feeding-line. A shaker of powdered dolomite was placed on his eating tray.

‘That’s a little better,’ sighed Ode. ‘I was worried about my stomach pains. They wandered all over.’ He ran his fingers over the front of his trunk, palpating and probing – nothing. ‘The pains were here, then here. Now they’re gone. The muscle spasms have stopped too.’

‘Should I call—?’

‘No. No. I’m fine. Let me drink something and we can get on with that chess game you were talking about.’

Drum set up the board while his old friend drank, arthritic palsied fingers trembling on pawns and cup. Drum won the toss and took the Right King. He opened with 1 – P-Q4, and Left King responded with 1 – N-KB3. The Grandmaster used a Semi-Tarrasch Defence with a series of unorthodox combinations that spiced up the mid-game. Drum was soon faced with the impossible task of stopping two, connected, passed pawns with his king. ‘Good game!’ he said, tipping over his king.

Ode fidgeted with his bedding as his guest put away the chessmen. Drum’s silence made him uneasy.

‘I’ll soon be on my feet,’ he said weakly. ‘How does my new position as ambassador shape up?’

Drum sat down and pulled the charts out of the cubbyhole. ‘Fine. We’re setting up a meck link using “T” scanners to prevent treachery. I have the Psych line on their dominant individuals.’

‘Why all the precautions?’

‘You’ll be our first official representative. We don’t want to get off on the wrong foot.’

‘What else? You aren’t telling me everything.’

The old friends read each other’s thoughts for a moment. ‘They ate our negotiator,’ said Drum. ‘He was out there in the Ocean without their consent – under a truce flag – and they just ate him. It was one of those ceremonial feasts – to flatter us and discourage us at the same time, I guess.’

‘I’m discouraged.’

Drum attempted a feeble smile and patted the Grandmaster’s arm. ‘That’s why all the precautions. Now, the dominant individuals among the Benthics have been catalogued from our CO’s memory. Three of them are from the same clone: Larry Dever, who started the clone; this large Tweenwaller; and ARNOLD. Larry Dever was cut in two at the waist over two thousand years ago. He escaped Suspension when you and I were in the Sewer Service. But he is crippled and should be no danger. The Tweenwaller is large and quiet. He is content on some island and plays no role in policy making. We know ARNOLD – aggressive warrior with a fifteen-amino-acid deficiency.’

Ode picked up the stills of the three men. They did have similar skull features – Har with his gargoyle appearance, and ARNOLD large, and Larry small – but similar cheekbones. ‘Predictable behaviour?’

‘Yes. No problems with those three. However, we do have a problem with this large, angry Benthic male called Clam. Here are stills of his attack on ARNOLD. He is the one who attacked you. We don’t know where he is now or what he is up to. He has been identified on some of the raids into our cities. If you run into him there could be trouble. Be we won’t send you without protection from ARNOLD.’

‘Fine. Who are the females?’

The views of Big Opal and young White Belly were dim deck night scenes – hard to blow up for spot analysis.

‘The young one is probably one of ARNOLD’s mates. The old one is unidentified, just a standard Benthic female.’

Ode nodded. Drum rolled up the charts and tucked them back in the cubby-hole. ‘Get your rest. You’ll be needing your strength.’

‘When do I sail?’

‘Soon. The Chairman is anxious.’

‘Fork!’ shouted Drum triumphantly. His protected queen’s pawn had forked the Grandmaster’s knight and bishop on the fourth rank. It seemed too easy for Drum, and he had spent a long time searching for a trap. There was none.

‘I guess I missed that one,’ said Ode caustically. He played recklessly – hostile and aggressive – but the combinations always ended in very poor position with no material gain.

‘Check!’ said Drum. He had raised his voice as he set down the knight, not out of joy but out of surprise and fear. The Grandmaster had allowed the horse to get a ‘family fork’ on his king, queen, and the king’s rook.

‘“Forked” again!? I didn’t see that! They must be giving me some hallucinogens!’ Ode shouted. He knocked the pieces to the floor. ‘I can’t play you in this damn place.’

‘He’s asleep,’ whispered Wandee. She and Drum stood outside the doorway of the darkened room.

‘Well, he’s terribly sick. His mind seems affected. I beat him in a chess game this afternoon.’

‘But you’re a pretty good player, aren’t you?’

‘Not that good. Nobody gets a “family fork” on a Grandmaster, not even another Grandmaster. His mind is deteriorating. He was loud and violent.’

‘Well, he seems quiet enough.’

‘Check him out. Will you? Please?’

Wandee motioned for the White Team to follow and she tiptoed into the darkened room. Ode just moaned and mumbled. ‘Somnolence,’ she whispered. ‘Get me some blood and urine. Run the screen.’

Drum paced in the hall. He heard the muffled voices: ‘Anaemia, basophilic stippling of red cells, coproporphyrin-three in the urine—’

‘Lead poisoning,’ said Wandee, wiping her hands in the doorway.

‘What? How—’

‘I don’t know where he got it, but it’s right there – all of the signs. The black line on his gums is lead sulfide. The ether extract of his urine fluoresces, and his urine lead is about two micromoles per litre – well above the toxic level. These mental symptoms are probably signs of brain swelling. He should be chelated immediately or he could convulse and go into a coma.’

‘Chelated?’ asked Drum. ‘What is that?’

‘We get the lead out by giving a molecule that combines with it, edatate in this case.’

‘Dyspepsia,’ complained Ode, pushing away his entrée. ‘My head seems a little better today. How goes it with the Benthic wars?’

‘Our beach cities are still under siege,’ said Drum. ‘I was naïve to think they wanted peace. Those water-aborigines have become zealous villains, seeking only vengeance with their clandestine attacks. But Furlong has a scheme that may reduce the losses.’

Ode quaffed his drink, toyed with the dessert, splitting the nougat and picking out the bits of fruit and nut. ‘I’m to act as liaison between the Hive and ARNOLD: The fallacy there is: no one controls the shelf Benthics. How can anyone stop so many small bands?’

‘Maybe they can’t all be stopped, but maybe you can learn why they raid. Is it just a whim? Or do they want something from our cities? You will be authorized to offer them gifts, reparations for our attack on Two Mile, plus a regular tithe placed on the beach.’

‘A tithe? But we’re so poor!’

‘Placate them with a few sleazy items,’ scoffed Drum. ‘When they become less warlike we’ll have no qualms about reneging, but right now it might be cheaper than fighting.’

Ode shook his head. ‘I think they’d rather fight for it than have it handed to them, but I’ll try.’

Ode placed his crutches carefully on the seat beside him and waved weakly towards the dock. Drum and Wandee waved back. The rest of the Hive representatives stood quietly in their ragged formation as the cyber-dinghy started out into the sump with its lone occupant.

‘You can’t let him go like that,’ objected Wandee sadly. ‘He’s not well.’

‘I know,’ said Drum. ‘But the sea voyage might do him more good than that Clinic bed. He has his medicines. We’ll keep in touch with him. This job is very important and requires someone with his abilities.’

Wandee resigned herself to waving. Later, on their way up to her Labs, she glanced through Ode’s reports again. ‘He certainly picked up the metal ions! Look at these – silver, mercury, lead . . .’

Drum shrugged. ‘They did push the electron-flow treatment a little beyond the safety level. I suppose we should expect a little side-effect from that. But there was so little time.’

‘Something still puzzles me. He said they didn’t use the intramedullary rods for his femoral fractures, but our X-rays show rods – and a lot of retained hardware.’

‘Rods are often used – especially when they want to ambulate early. He must have misunderstood.’

She continued to read. ‘And there is this matter of his vision. He complained of scotomas – cloudy patches in his left visual field—’

‘I know. He mentioned them to me too. Furlong thought they might be due to the lead – part of his peripheral neuritis or encephalopathy.’

‘Well, I don’t like it at all,’ she said. ‘That electron-flow treatment is supposed to use gold electrodes to prevent all of this.’

Drum sighed. ‘Well, you know about budget problems. The Clinic is no exception.’

Rorqual
stopped a quarter of a mile from the empty Hive barge. It had been anchored at the meeting point for about six months. Sessile creatures festooned its under-surface and thickened its chains. The deck was salt encrusted. Three Electrotecks took an extruded outrigger to check it for booby traps. Finding none, they motioned for the Harvester to approach. Larry and ARNOLD checked the crumbling deck – oxides and worms.

‘Doesn’t seem too safe,’ said Larry, catching one of his hind hooves on a rotting timber.

‘We can’t meet anyplace else,’ growled ARNOLD. ‘Not on
Rorqual
– not on any island! No Hive bastard will ever set foot on any of our territory.’

Larry nodded. ‘The less they know about us, the better I like it. Can’t let them see our angel gear or all your children. Keep ship optics out of our conversations with Wandee.’

Rorqual
acknowledged the new rule. Her long eye caught a speck in the distant surf. ‘Dinghy approaches.’

‘Give us a close-up. He looks like an old one. Look at him tremble. I can’t see his face through that helmet, but he’s the thinnest Nebish I’ve ever seen – all bent over and crippled. I wonder what all the gifts are—’

‘Probably bombs,’ grumbled ARNOLD.

‘No . . . they’re still in the T-zone. Oh, oh! That fellow is in trouble – doubled up and holding his belly. Helmet’s off – he’s trying to take a drink of something, but the retching is getting worse. He sure is seasick.’

‘Maybe he is infected,’ said ARNOLD. ‘They might be trying to give us something besides gifts this time – something like the plague.’

‘You’re right. Back off,
Rorqual
.’

‘Trying a little germ warfare? That man you sent is sick,’ accused ARNOLD.

Wandee stared at the blank screen. ‘But you can see by the T-scanners that we are telling the truth. Grandmaster Ode has a little heavy-metal overload from his fracture treatment. That is all. Nothing contagious.’

‘Well, he is down on the decking – looks like he is vomiting.’

‘How far away are you?’ asked Wandee.

Larry glanced at ARNOLD. That dinghy must be very poorly equipped for her to have to ask.

‘About five miles – upwind. We’ll keep that raft to the leeward side till morning. Then maybe we’ll go in and talk. No sense sitting down with someone who will die in the middle of negotiations.’

Wandee nodded and turned to Drum. ‘Can you reach Ode? Have him take his calcium again.’

Drum was saddened by the old man’s suffering. His voice was tight as he spoke: ‘They’ll wait until dawn. Then they’ll talk. Try taking more calcium.’

Ode grimaced. ‘I’m fine. Just a little seasick. Choppy water. I’m getting a rough ride. I guess I lost my old sea legs in Suspension. Don’t worry.’

Larry kept the infrared scanner on the raft with 50× magnification.
Rorqual
monitored the dinghy’s channel. The Ocean calmed and a bright moon rose.

‘Looks quiet enough,’ said ARNOLD. ‘Let’s get a bite to eat and catch some sleep. The ship will call us if anything develops.’

The shock wave and the sirens hit the cabin at the same time. Larry tumbled out of his cot in a tangle of meck appendages.

Whoop! Whooop!
called
Rorqual
.

A puff of smoke stood above the barge. The dinghy was capsized.

‘Give me a playback of the minute before the blast,’ shouted Larry, trying to find an explanation. ‘Oh – oh, I see. Looks like the shelf Benthics sent a delegation to the Hive barge.’

ARNOLD rushed in, angry. ‘It’s Hive treachery. Let’s get out of here!’

‘Wait,’ said Larry. ‘There were visitors on the barge at the time of the blast. Give us a magnification and some stills. See – it looks like Clam and a couple of his mussel men. They appear to be peacefully chatting with the old Ambassador. I can’t tell what exploded. Both sides are carrying gifts.’

The dinghy passed overhead in the jaws of a grapple. A line of drops marked the deck.

‘Shall we take a walk on the barge before we go? It is listing badly. We don’t have much time if we want to try to learn something.’ Larry glanced into the dinghy, then rode a grapple to the charred barge. ‘Not much here. All the meat must be out there where those fish are busy. Whatever exploded sure swept the old decks clean.’

Rorqual
sniffed around with a 2-L sensor crane and found evidence of nitroglycerin.

‘Could have been a satchel charge. Either side could have done it,’ said Larry.