The sun was hot on my back as I puffed along, rocks under each arm, feet slipping in the deep sand. After the terror of the Feral’s attack, we still had to complete the rock-carrying event in the Ranking. I didn’t win, and neither did Gil. Chen was one of the strongest, and finished in second place.
“Good job, buddy,” I said, slapping him on the back. “Impressive.”
He grinned and nodded, too out of breath to talk.
We followed the Masters back inside, down the spiraling tunnels to the very bottom of the Hive. The air got more damp as we descended, with brown mold on the walls. Our glow stones lit the way. Maybe that’s where Chen will end up. It was someone’s job to constantly renew the stones all over the Hive, taking out the spent ones to recharge in the sunlight and bringing down the ones that had absorbed enough light to illuminate the tunnels. The Masters didn’t need light, of course. They could navigate in total darkness. I’d seen them coming out of the restricted areas, black tunnels in the center of the Hive. But Lowforms needed light. That wouldn’t be a bad job for Chen. Inside and out, fresh air and protection. I’d still see him sometimes, coming in from the sea if I was a Diver.
The sound of trickling water echoed up the corridors. Down and down we went. Finally we gathered in one of the huge chambers where the underground rivers flowed. There was a great network of water down here, nearly as convoluted as the Master-made hallways above. I had dived through as many as I was allowed, carrying glowstones down into the darkness to search for the little scuttling waterbugs that were another of the Masters’ favorite foods. I preferred the open sea, but Divers had to be comfortable anywhere, and I was determined to win.
There was no need of the glowstones here. The walls were covered in a blue slime that glowed brighter than the rocks. Anywhere the deep river flowed down here was lit with that soft blue light. It didn’t extend into the water, dark and rushing at our feet.
We each grabbed a small bag of stones for our dive, and another empty bag for collection. Chen was eyeing the dark, rushing water with evident terror.
“Just do what you can,” I whispered to him. “I’ll try and get you a couple so you don’t come in last.”
He nodded, hands trembling on his bag of stones.
“If you get too deep, drop the stones.”
He nodded again. We would lose points for dropping stones, but it was all too easy to get lost in the warren of water. He would have to stay very close to this central chamber.
Not me. I was never lost in the rivers. No matter where I was in the water, all I had to do was feel the direction of the current, and I knew where I was. The older Divers said I’d ventured farther out away from the Hive than most of them ever did, popping up into cavern after cavern for air. Some of those hidden caverns were beyond beautiful, with dripping stalactites covered in glittering crystals. Holes in the roofs let sunlight come slanting in, and tiny flying creatures flapped in and out when it was evening. I never got to see the flapping things up close, but wherever they roosted had a horrible, sick smell.
The Master clicked out our instructions. “Waterbugs. Most.” This time each of us had a large basket to put our catch into, instead of a circle scraped into sand like on the beach.
I was first into the water, taking a huge breath as I dove. My strategy was to get far away from the other boys as fast as possible. The waterbugs we were collecting would scuttle away into cracks on the river’s floor as soon as they saw our lights. The more boys that tried to hunt them, the fewer there would be.
I kicked away upstream, knowing I’d be tired after a long hunt. Easier to swim upstream now while I was fresh and drift back down with a full load.
The stones in my bag lit my way where the river flowed under solid rock. I swam hard through the empty water. Up ahead was a small pool of light, with waving plant fronds anchored to the river’s bottom. The plants needed light to grow, and the water was dotted with them. Waterbugs loved them, and for that reason, so did I.
One. Two. Three. Lightning-fast I grabbed them, feeling their hard carapaces wriggling under my hands. Into the bag at my waist.
I rose to the surface, grabbing at the edge of the hole in the cave ceiling where the light shone through. It was just large enough to stick my face up and grab a few long breaths, which I did before diving back down.
Another boy, Miguel, was searching through the fronds I had just hunted, and I swam on, farther upstream. The cave forked up ahead, and I knew anyone following me would turn right. The path down the left corridor was much longer to the next air hole, and no one but me would likely take the chance. I turned left and kicked against the current.
Darkness and water. I knew each turn and counted them off in my head as I swam. Large boulder on the left. Deep hole on the right. Duck under the low pass. Around where the tunnel caved in last year. Right at the fork.
Finally I saw the light, impossibly far away. Kick and glide, pull and stroke. My lungs burned.
I popped up, gasping for breath. The current wanted to pull me back down the corridor, but I swam around to where a huge vine trailed from one of the holes in the roof down into the water and grabbed onto it, resting for a moment. This chamber was huge, with lots of openings to the sky. The air was full of screeching calls from inside the cave and outside. My sense of direction told me I was nearly halfway to the mountains, far out under the forest surrounding the grassy fields.
It was a great place to hunt for waterbugs. All the sunlight and open air meant tons of plants grew all around the edges and bottom of the river. I dove down, darting in and out of the vegetation, snatching up bugs from every dark crevasse. Soon my bag was bulging with squirming bugs. I put even more in the bag that held the few glowstones I carried. After all my years in the water, I didn’t need the light, only the ballast, so there was room for more bugs.
Stuffed to brimming, both bags tickled against my legs.
A large, dark shape shadowed the water beneath me and I pushed myself out of the way as a river beast surfaced next to me. It puffed air out of its hairy face, ignoring me completely. The river beasts were huge, much longer and fatter than a Lowform. They had thick, short hair all over their bodies and soft, furry faces. They were strong swimmers with wide tails that propelled them through the water moving from one patch of vegetation to the next. I was always startled to run into one, but they were no danger to anyone, and often seemed playful when they encountered us.
“No time to play today. I need to win this.”
It puffed again and turned a baleful eye on me, whiskers fluttering, before it dove back down to browse on the plants in the bright shallows.
Time to head back.
The current carried me easily, reversing my course. I flowed along in the darkness until I reached the green glow of the entry chamber. Once there, I paused, looking around. A few of the boys were scrambling around the edges, too afraid to leave the safety of the known. They wouldn’t collect more than a couple of waterbugs if they were lucky.
I spotted Chen, bobbing at the surface. From below, I tugged on his leg and he descended, cheeks puffed.
From my overstuffed bag, I pulled handfuls of waterbugs, carefully pushing them into Chen’s bag before grabbing his hand and pulling him to the surface.
We scrambled out of the water and pulled our bags up to the baskets. Each waterbug had to be smashed on the head with a rock so it wouldn’t scuttle out of the basket. It was messy work, but by the time I was done, my basket was full.
“Thanks, Noah. I owe you.” Chen smashed the bugs I’d given him with a grin.
We were each only allowed one dive for this challenge, and I was almost the last one back. Once my bugs were dead, I scanned the boys, each standing next to their baskets. Gil was there, with what looked like only three or four bugs. Chen had more, and I grinned at that.
Everyone was back except Miguel. He was a strong swimmer, and my heart beat faster with every minute he didn’t return. There were so many dangers in the river. It was easy to get lost in the dark, underwater caves. Some of the passages ended in tunnels too small to swim through. If you swam down one of those and realized there was no way out, you might not have the strength to swim back.
I clicked to the Masters. “Miguel lost. I find.”
They clicked negative.
We waited.
I tried again. “Miguel lost. I go.”
Negative.
Chen shivered next to me, rubbing his wet arms. “He should be back by now. Maybe he’s in one of those caverns you told me about.”
“Maybe.” I watched the water’s surface, flowing by in the dim green light.
I appealed one more time to the Masters. “Miguel good Diver. Lots of bugs. I find.”
They conferred silently for a moment, then clicked. “Yes.”
I dove straight in. Miguel had been searching at the fork upstream. He wouldn’t have followed me to the left, and if he had, I’d have passed him on the way back. He had to have turned right. There were a lot more air holes on that path, but none led to anything as big as my favorite hunting cavern.
Halfway to the next air hole, I saw him. The light from his glow bag lit his face from below. He bobbed in the middle of the water column, anchored to one of the waving fronds that had become tangled in his carry bag. His eyes were open and sightless.
I pulled at the bag, tearing the fronds until he was free, and grabbing his limp arm. He floated along behind me as I darted down the tunnel. When I reached the cavern, the other boys helped me pull him out of the water. We beat on his chest and pushed water out of his stomach, but his eyes stayed fixed and open and he took no breaths. After a few minutes the Masters clicked at us to stop.
One of them picked Miguel up in its huge claws and carried him up out of the chamber. The rest of us watched in silence.
“Carry food,” the other Master clicked, and we all picked up our baskets of bugs.
I won the day’s diving with the most bugs in my basket.
We left Miguel’s empty basket sitting alone in the dim green cavern.