Realware

"Hello," sang back the lily pad. "Shimmer's expecting you."

"Is that thing a moldie?" asked Yoke.

"Sure," said Onar. "Her name's Turklee. I think the King mentioned her to you last night. The fourth moldie in the know. Turklee's working as a transducer for Shimmer. Radio waves don't travel well through water, you see. Turklee uses blue-green laser light to send signals down to Shimmer's lair. Shimmer needs a good link because she's pulling in so much bandwidth through Cappy Jane." While Onar talked, Oofa rummaged in a cooler chest and took out a bunch of bananas and a bottle of water to pass around.

"I can hear Shimmer," said Cobb suddenly. "She's talking to us. Oh how strange. This is wonderful. Hello, Shimmer. Put on your uvvy, Yoke." Tashtego and Daggoo were gri

"What if she blasts me like Onar did yesterday?" asked Yoke.

"Be gentle, Shimmer," said Cobb. "The person you've been asking for is going to come on line. Oh yes, that's perfect. Try it now, Yoke."

So Yoke put the uvvy on her tender neck and right away she could hear Shimmer's voice, a sound like the piping of flutes, the whining of sitars, and the gentle resonation of a gong.

"Hello, Yoke. You were kind to me on the Moon. I'm grateful that you've come to see me. Let's plan your dive."

Now Shimmer began sending images of divers, figures against a dark undersea background, drifting down next to the blue-green shaft of Turklee's laser beam. In the images, Cobb was shaped like a sphere, with Yoke crouched within him like a tadpole inside a frog's egg. The pictures were clear and beautiful but with a curious multiplicity to them. Like seeing two or three or twenty things at once. In some of the images Onar and Oofa were also present, riding inside Tashtego and Daggoo, and in one of those images, Tashtego bit a hole in Cobb's surface, causing him to collapse and to crush Yoke into bloody pulp.

"Yoke must come alone," said Shimmer.

"The King wants me and Oofa there too," protested Onar through the uvvy, his voice like the chirp of a persistent cricket.

Now one of Shimmer's images showed Onar and Oofa following Yoke. The blue-green laser beam intensified, twitched, burnt holes in Tashtego and Daggoo.

"You will stay on the boat," said Shimmer.

So Onar told the others that they wouldn't be going down.

"That's fine," said Oofa, settling back into her seat.

"HRH pay us imipolex all the same," said Daggoo.

"Bugger all," muttered Onar.

"Are you ready, Yoke?" asked Cobb.

She looked around at the sloshing sea, at pale angry Onar, at lithe Tashtego and massive Daggoo, at calm Oofa and pink old Cobb. The sunlight on the water was beautiful. It would be so odd to die here.

"Don't worry, Yoke," said Shimmer, as if sensing Yoke's thoughts. "You won't die at all. I'll help you find true happiness." She sounded so kind and wise that Yoke believed her.

"Okay," Cobb was saying. "Get on top of me now." The moldie had puddled himself out on the deck like a pancake with a little hump in the center like a footstool. Yoke fit her palladium filters into her nose and sat on the imipolex hassock. Cobb's flesh swooped up around her, sealing itself up to form a translucent sphere. Tashtego and Daggoo whooped, their voices muffled by Cobb's body, and then there was a jarring bump and a splash. Cobb's flesh held onto Yoke's body to keep her from being thrown about.

"I can't see anything, Cobb," protested Yoke. "Make yourself transparent!"

"I can't when I'm in this rigid mode," said Cobb. "But you can use your uvvy to see what I'm seeing. Just focus."

They were floating just beneath the surface. Yoke put her attention into her uvvy, and now she could indeed see a remarkable view of the water's underside, all live and sparkling in the sun, a restless mirror. Cobb moved his gaze about in synch with Yoke's head motions; it felt like she was freely looking around. Yoke could see the bottom of the Sea Cuke boat, also the heads of Daggoo and Tashtego, who were hanging over the edge to stare at them. Turklee the lily pad ante

Quite soon it was pitch-dark in the Cobb bathyscaph. "Can you make some light for me?" asked Yoke. As she spoke, her teeth began to chatter. "And heat. It's getting colder every second."

"Here's heat," said Cobb, and immediately his flesh grew pleasantly warm. "But I'd rather not light up. I don't want the denizens of the deep getting too curious about us. Just keep looking through my sensors. I'll dial my sensitivity down into the infrared."

Gazing through the uvvy, Yoke could see the featureless vertical line of laser light leading down as before. She stared into the abyss, searching for a sign. Time passed, perhaps as much as an hour. Now and then a flicker of small jellyfish flew past, and occasionally an angler fish or a big-mouthed gulper eel.

"We're at five miles," said Cobb. "I'm holding up fine."

Yoke felt oppressed by the sullen weight of so much pressure. The flecks of sea life sped past like snowflakes in a viddy snowstorm. Far, far below was a hint of pale light. But before Yoke could ask about it, there was a distraction.

"Squid!" exclaimed Cobb, and, yes, all of a sudden there were squid everywhere. Big ones, small ones, and huge ones. The largest one looked to be some two hundred feet long. Its body was like an arrow, a great tapered cone tipped with two wild wavy fins. The fins fa

"Oh no," said Cobb. "Brace yourself, Yoke."

And then the squid was upon them. Its bunched tentacles writhed apart to reveal a vile huge beak. Yoke could hear the scratching of the beak against the hardened rind of Cobb's outer skin.

"Oh, Yoke, I can't get loose without--" Cobb began, but just then the giant squid released them and jetted away fins first, propelled by a blast of water from the huge siphon next to its beak. A moment later Yoke could see why. A sperm whale went bucking past, its great flukes madly beating. The squid's speed was no match for the whales. The leviathan opened its long, narrow, big-toothed lower jaw and clamped the squid crossways. The monstrous tentacles lashed about, seeking purchase on the whale's great blocky frame.