The Farpool (39 page)

Kloosee pulled up short upon entering.
“I didn’t know anyone was here.
Litorkel
ge.
I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Terpy’t held thread ends in his beak. “You’re
not permitted here…the prodsmen should have—only Ponkti—“

Kloosee spied a web dangling from the
ceiling. “What’s that?”

Suspended above them was a fine web of
tightly spun filaments. It covered the entire ceiling, from the
entrance to the sleep niches in the back. Kloosee forgot all about
courtesy and drifted up to examine the web, Chase right behind
him.

“You’re not permitted—“ Terpy’t shot out from
his position and tried to bump Kloosee away. But he stopped short
before hitting him and glared nervously. “You should leave
now—you’re Kloosee ank, aren’t you? This is wrong. If Loptoheen
returns—“

Kloosee could pulse that Terpy’t was
quite old. Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay went about their thread carries
while keeping a close eye on the visitors. “Terpy’t, don’t flutter
like that. You’re shaming Ponk’et like that…
Litor’kel
.” Kloosee stuck his beak into the web
to test it, causing an eruption of bubbles inside Terpy’t. “I’m
just curious.”

Terpy’t dropped his end of the thread and
took Kloosee’s fin by the hand. He pinched it until Kloosee
reacted.

“I’m sorry for that but you can’t stay here
any longer, Kloosee.”

“What are those little red humps along the
filaments?”

“Kloosee—those are
terpoh
colonies—please, before Loptoheen
returns. Otherwise, we’ll all be punished.”

Chase prodded one of the clumps
experimentally. Kloosee examined the reaction. “It has a hard
shell…how do you control them?”

“Kloosee
!”
Terpy’t draped his arms around himself and bubbled in
embarrassment. Even Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay had to turn away. Even
through the screen, Kloosee could pulse the mess. It was
disgusting, even sickening. Still, he continued.

“Terpy’t, old man, stop that. We’re not
hurting anything.”

Terpy’t gathered himself into a ball
and stared glumly out. “Nonkelke irritate the waters with their
scents. The
terpoh
become
erratic and make filaments that won’t last. They’ll
know
you were here.”

Kloosee was fascinated. The Ponkti were
as careful with their
terpoh
knowledge as the Omtorish were with
potu.
“But how do you control them?”

Terpy’t closed his eyes and settled to the
floor, where he groped for the end of the thread. He hoisted it up
in his beak and made ready to continue his rounds, gesturing to
Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay to start up again. “They’re
programmed…engineered to follow a pattern.”

“Amazing. Self-awareness for such a
small organism. Maybe they’re smarter than we are…see how they work
together? No bad pulses to distract them. No sense of the
shoo’kel
.”

“The currents say you disrupt things.”

Kloosee suddenly felt sorry for what they had
done. He went to Terpy’t, gliding alongside.
“There are many currents. Some dominate. Some don’t. I don’t want
to see you suffer…maybe a little roam outside…we can talk, pulse,
take the waters together.”

“I have work to do, Kloosee.”

“Look, I don’t want to make trouble. I
want to make this right. Ponk’et and Omt’or have to work together,
like the
terpoh
. Loptoheen
will never know we were here. Chase, you stay here, learn what the
threadcarriers do. Terpy’t and I will roam…come on, old one—“
Gently, he removed the thread end and knot from Terpy’t’s mouth and
guided the old knotter outside the hold. The two of them
disappeared into the distance and were gone.

Chase drifted about the hold, examining the
web and keeping a close eye on Shoneeohnay and Tulcheah. They both
dropped their threads and came over, playfully bumping Chase.

It was Tulcheah who spoke. “Do
all
eekoti
look so ugly as
you?”

“Hey, this was some kind of surgery…you know,
to let me and Angie live in your world better. Normally, I’m just a
stud.”

The females laughed at that. Tulcheah
nuzzled up under Chase’s chin with her beak. “You have funny
words,
eekoti
Chase. You know
about Ke’shoo and Ke’lee?”

As Shoneeohnay bumped him again and rubbed
herself along his side scales, Chase said, “Love and life…I think I
understand it. You like to have a good time.”

Shoneeohnay pulled up and stared into Chase’s
eyes. She had black button eyes, and they gleamed in the faint
light. “You pulse anxious…no need for that. Just relax…we carry
thread for old man Terpy’t, that’s all…here, I’ll show you. Take
this knot in your mouth—“ She gave Chase an end of the thread.

Chase stuffed the filaments in his mouth. It
tasted like rope. “Like this?—“he mumbled.

“Hold on to it and pull. Tulcheah and I will
guide you.” Each female took an arm and together, the three of them
swooped up and down the hold, spinning and weaving dense strands of
the web, back and forth. It was erotic and sensuous, all the more
so as the females rubbed themselves against his sides with each
cycle.

Blast this scaly skin…I’m
getting turned on…can’t feel what I
—

The mat of fiber grew thicker as they made
turn after turn.

Tulcheah asked, “Where is the
other
eekoti
? Female is this
one?”

Chase was in a heavenly daze and had to shake
himself to clarity. “Huh, oh…Angie? Yeah, female. A girl. My
girlfriend…yeah.”

“And where is this
eekoti
Angie?”

“Right now, I really don’t know.”

By some unseen signal, Tulcheah and
Shoneeohnay stopped the spinning and hovered on each side of Chase.
They both nosed up and down his body with their beaks, clearly
looking for something, poking, probing, sniffing.

Tulcheah stopped, looked up into
Chase’s eyes. “I’m not familiar with this
em’took
…where is the
ket’shoo’ge
?”

“The what?”

Shoneeohnay laughed. “All of us
have
ket’shoo’ge
…how do you
translate this?…little lover…maybe, small…
em’too
… love hold?”

“Hey, mine isn’t that small, if you’re
asking. Hell, if I know…this skin is so scaly…I don’t really know
where—“

Then Tulcheah found it.

Later, after they had coupled, Chase
remembered seeing something on Nat Geo, a vid or something, about
how fish had sex. Many females just ejected eggs into the water.
The males ejected sperm. The eggs got fertilized…end of story. But
some marine animals had specialized organs called claspers. That’s
when things got interesting.

Tulcheah had found Chase’s claspers.
The Omtorish, in their infinite wisdom, had designed the
em’took
procedure so that the Lizard
Man that Chase had become would have claspers.

And both Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay knew what
to do with claspers.

When Chase and Angie made love, the
best time for Chase was in the little fishing boat in Half Moon
Cove. You had to have lots of blankets to make a soft landing. It
was awkward at times…you had to be clever and inventive on how to
use the space—but when the boat was rocking in the swells and you
had the right rhythm…it was …
really
awesome
!

That’s what Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay did to
Chase.

Chase found his claspers exquisitely
sensitive. The three of them formed one body and glided softly
about the weaving hold, occasionally getting entangled in the webs,
tearing them, pulling them apart.

Terpy’t won’t like
that
, someone hissed. More giggles and laughter. And
bubbles. Lots of bubbles. Bubbles and claspers…that was the
key.

Chase was in heaven.

So they glided and undulated and rolled
and bubbled and poked and tickled and rubbed and squeezed and Chase
thought he was going to die, the feeling was so intense.
Thank God for em’took
! he told
himself. It was the first time he was really glad he looked like a
giant frog. Those wacky Omtorish really did know what they were
doing.

Through it all, Chase thought he
imagined Tulcheah whispering in his ear:
tell me about the Farpool…how does it work…how do you survive
it?

That’s when Terpy’t and Kloosee returned to
the hold.

Terpy’t knew immediately what had happened.
He saw the torn web filaments dangling from the ceiling. He saw
Tulcheah and Shoneeohnay coupled with Chase, drifting down toward
the floor. He fluttered in anger. Then he went straight for
Chase.

The fight wasn’t much of a fight. Terpy’t was
enraged and speared Chase right in the side with his beak. Hard.
Again and again.

“Ouch! Hey…don’t…that hurts!”

Terpy’t came at his face with his hands and
Chase reacted instinctively, pushing Terpy’t away, boxing the old
weaver, grabbing at his beak, thrashing him about.

Kloosee tried to intervene, to separate the
two but he couldn’t. Terpy’t was holding on tight and Chase was
pummeling him in the face again and again and again…

It took five prodsmen to separate them…with
their prods.

The electric shock stunned Chase into a
stupor. The hold swam crazily in circles and he found himself
convulsing with spasms as one prodsmen shocked him over and over.
He lost consciousness and when he woke up, he was restrained in
some kind of netting, just like when they had been brought into
Ponk’et itself. Two prodsmen carried the mesh bag into which he had
been dumped out of the hold.

They didn’t stop until he was unceremoniously
stuffed in a small opening in the seamount walls, a dark hole,
still enmeshed, and tied to a stake in the walls. There he hung,
suspended and bobbing at the entrance, like the old stocks of
Pilgrim days, he imagined, for everyone to see and everyone to
pulse and bump into.

After an hour of that, he figured he knew how
a volleyball felt. Or a punching bag.

How long he slept or was unconscious, he
couldn’t say. He had no sense of time. But when a small crowd began
to gather around his restraint mesh and dozens of prodsmen
assembled in a semi-circle to form a barrier around the crack he
was tied to, he knew something was up.

Finally, the Metah herself, Lektereenah kim,
showed her face.

She circled the opening, sizing him up.
“Well,
eekoti
Chase…what am I
to do with you now?”

“Your Majesty,” Chase tried to explain, “this
is all a big mistake. Really. I never meant to cause any
trouble…Kloosee and I just wanted to know how the weaving was
done—“

Lektereenah was stern. “Harvesting and
weaving the tchinting is one of our greatest secrets. You’ve
violated many laws…I can’t even name them all: entering the weaving
hold without escort, attacking a Ponkti female, witnessing how the
tchinting is handled—“

“Attacking
?”
Chase was incredulous. He struggled against the restraint mesh but
it was useless. “I didn’t attack anybody…the two females came after
me.”

Loptoheen came into view. He was a
powerfully built Ponkti male, though older than the Metah. His
armfins and tail flukes spoke of crushing strength. And he was
quick; Chase had seen that in the
tuk
match.

“Affectionate Metah…perhaps this is a
time for wisdom. Nothing would speak of the magnanimity of the
Metah more, her wisdom and compassion, than to show leniency toward
our unfortunate
eekoti
visitor.”

For a long moment, Lektereenah glared at
Loptoheen. Chase thought she might just bite his beak off. Then she
recovered her composure.

“Perhaps you’re right, Loptoheen.” She
nosed up closer to Chase, stuck her beak through the mesh and
enjoyed poking and prodding at him for a few moments.
“
Eeekoti
Chase, there are
many punishments that apply here…do you know of these?”

Chase could only imagine. Actually, he
couldn’t imagine. The truth was he didn’t want to. Maybe the
echobulb didn’t translate her words correctly. Punishments?

“Uh, no, Your Majesty…I’m not-“

Lektereenah was pleased at the fear and
anxiety she pulsed in him.
That could be
useful, when the time comes.
“I could order you to be
stung by the k’orpuh, until you pass out. Until you convulse, drown
in your own vomit and die. That’s one punishment the Metah can
order in cases like this.”

Chase didn’t much like the sound of
that. He’d seen what the
k’orpuh
could do when they first reached Ponk’et.

“Or in extreme cases, where the greatest
penalty is applied, I could order that you be banished forever…to
the Notwater. For Ponkti, for all Seomish, that is death.”
Lektereenah found some humor here. “Of course, for you, it would be
life. You’re from the Notwater, are you not?”

Chase didn’t quite know what to say. He
didn’t want to say anything and risk nudging her one way or
another.

“However, as my advisor Loptoheen
suggests, and in the interest in better relations with our Omtorish
cousins—“ here the Metah made a slight nod toward Kloosee and
Longsee, “I have decided I will release you into the custody of
your kelke. I insist, however, that proper justice be applied by
our Omtorish cousins to this matter—“ Lektereenah whipped her tail
and darted away, cruising smartly outside the restraining cave,
making all the spectators back away, carving out a space for
herself. Prodsmen jostled with the crowd for a few moments.
“Release the
eekoti
—“