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he was able to put his feet against the side of the ship and walk on it, to an extent, as if rappelling. Or at
least to brace his feet near the top, while the bicycle banged him. He nudged the prow and caught hold
before his strength gave out. Now he could have used Caspar's muscle! The bike dangled on the rope,
jerking up as his weight came off.
Don held his breath and swung his feet up. He scrambled over the edge and landed on the deck. He
stretched back far enough to catch the bicycle, bringing it and its atmosphere back to his lungs. He had
had much recent practice in similar maneuvers, descending into the Cayman trench. But going up was
three times as hard as going down.
The deck was firm, though his feet stood about two inches below the visible level. The settling of the
phase ship, obviously. Disconcerting, but a useful reminder that what he saw was not necessarily what
he felt. The planks were tight. The support strong. This was a well made ship, in both worlds.
He turned and looked down. He waved at the two women who were looking up. "I'm fine," he said. "But
I'll be going into the interior of the ship, so you might as well take a rest. I'll report every so often, if
you're interested."
"I want to explore some," Melanie said. "I'll go on down the cleft a way and see where it leads, and how
far the fresh water extends. I can't get lost, here. Pacifa can stay in touch with you."
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"But to go alone "
"I've got to learn to do it sometime," she said. She rolled her bicycle under the ship and moved on
beyond.
He realized that she was disciplining herself to eliminate her own weaknesses. This was as good a place
and time as any, since she had nothing to do. If it built up her confidence, good.
"Get to work," Pacifa told him. "I'll pitch a tent."
Don tried to absorb it all at once, greedy for information. The timbers of the hull were mortised together
with precision, and the whole was extremely well insulated with what appeared to be tar. No doubt it
had been on the outside too, but the current had washed it away. The Romans, later, had even
impregnated their ships with lead, for protection against such things as the teredo; but this ship predated
such sophistication. There were portholes along the sides for oars ten or twelve pairs. Later the Cretans
were to distinguish between war galleys and merchant ships, with the former carrying oars and the latter
only sails. This particular ship was evidently a compromise between the two developing types, lacking
the cargo space of the fat wind driven vessels, but also lacking the sleek power of the warships. Not that
the Minoans ever had been much for war; peace was their normal course.
The hatch to the interior had what seemed to be a watertight covering, so that storm waves could not
swamp this ship unless a hole had been bashed in. But the hatch cover had been removed; it lay to the
side, and his hand passed through it. Near the stem stood several cages, built into the deck. Those would
have been for pigeons, those invaluable aids to ancient navigation.
Don took a deep breath. This was Minoan, all right!
There were markings on the base of the mast and on the inside of the bulwarks: script "Linear A," the
writing of the Cretan heyday. These were mainly cautions about the care of the equipment, as nearly as
he could tell without more careful analysis. Probably marked by the manufacturers and of course
ignored by the illiterate crewmen.
The ship was about seventy-five feet long, and fifteen wide across the mid-deck: in the middle range for
seagoing craft of the period. And it was seagoing, despite the oars; in all its appointments and
arrangements it spoke of the long haul.
"What do you see?" Pacifa called from the ground.
Don was jolted out of his preoccupation. He flashed his light around again, organizing his thoughts for a
coherent reply and saw a mermaid.
She had just floated up out of the open hatch. Her hair hung about her in a dark cloud, and her black
eyes were piercing in a pale face. She had two splendid breasts, a narrow waist, and overlapping scales
that gleamed iridescently from naval to flukes. She carried a small, dim lantern that highlighted her
remarkable characteristics.
"S-splendid!" Don breathed idiotically.
"Say, are you all right?" Pacifa called.
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The mermaid spun around at that, orienting on the sound of the voice. But immediately she returned to
Don, shielding her eyes against his bright beam.
She was real! On top of all the other incredible developments, this fish-girl was alive!
"Don, answer me!" Pacifa called more urgently.
But he couldn't answer. That dazzling female torso, so abruptly phased into piscine anatomy. That
fantasy amalgam of woman and fish. If the mermaid were genuine, what was she doing here, four miles
down, far below normal light and warmth? It was nonsensical.
Which meant that he was having a vision. Too much or too little oxygen must have saturated his field,
affecting his brain. He wasn't sure which way led to hallucination. "Knock once if you can hear me,"
Pacifa called. Numbly, Don knocked his heel against the deck. The mermaid turned, lithe and sleek as
any living fish, and swam rapidly away from him. Her tail worked powerfully, so that she used her
hands only for course corrections. Her luxuriant hair streamed behind her as she disappeared over the
rail.
Now Don was able to speak. "Splendid!" he repeated.
After a moment Pacifa spoke again, hardly loud enough. "Don did you see that?"
"I I yes!" "I declare, I thought for a moment it was my idiotic daughter, reincarnated as a sylph. Until
that tail "
"I I thought it was brain damage," Don admitted, walking his bike across the deck to peer down at
her. He didn't know whether to be relieved for the state of his brain, or apprehensive for the state of
reality. A live mermaid!
"You realize, of course, that this is ridiculous," Pacifa said matter-of-factly. "The real mermaids were
dugongs and you'd never find any of those down here! They're air breathers."
"B-but she didn't have g-gills," Don pointed out.
"Yes, of course. She's mammalian. You must have noticed."
Don had noticed.
"Here's my speculation," Pacifa said. "See what you make of it. A bathyscaphe was photographing this
region of the trench, looking for geological features of stray foreign fusion plants, and it caught one shot
of this preserved sunken ship with a mermaid on deck. Later the analysts went over the material and
called their experts, and the archaeologist said 'That's a 1723 B.C. Minoan craft of the Zilch II class from
the ship works of King Tut-Tut!' and the artist said 'That's a statue of a mermaid by the hand of Artisan
Smut-smut!' and the archaeologist said 'Impossible, you dolt, the Minoans didn't make any statues of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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