Venus from the Waves
ROGER hunched his shoulders and stretched. Alice had driven south from Waxahachie on Interstate 45. After several hours of rural Texas cropland and an hour of threading past the strip-mall suburban sprawl of Houston, they had crossed the long causeway beyond La Marque and entered Galveston on to Avenue J, otherwise known as Broadway, the backbone arterial of the island city. Broadway was lined with tall palm trees and knife-leafed oleanders adorned pink and white blossoms. Even with the car windows closed and the air-conditioner running, Roger could detect their over-sweet scent.
Roger consulted the screen of his lapstation, studying the detailed street map provided by its holo-ROM-based world atlas and travel guide. “Rosenberg Avenue is coming up,” he said to Alice. “I think you should turn right there, drive to the beachfront, and make another right along West Beach.” They were passing the long blue awning of the EZ Pawn pawnshop. At the intersection, Alice circled a monumental female figure brandishing an ivy-covered sword commemorated the Heroes of the Texas Revolution. The pawnshop awning bore the inscription “Loans - Guns - Tools - Stereos”, while the monument was carved with the words “Patriotism - Courage - Honor - Devotion”. There’s a moral there somewhere, Roger thought.
Alice followed the trolley tracks south to the Galveston seawall and the Gulf of Mexico. Roger opened his back-seat window, inhaling the salt smell of the gulf and getting a better view of the wheeling gulls above the gray-green water. He read aloud from the travel atlas entry on Galveston. “On September 6, 1900, a major Gulf hurricane hit Galveston, flooding the island, destroying much of the city, and killing 5,000 people. Up to this time, Galveston had been the largest city in Texas, but the flood ended the city’s role as a major Gulf seaport. A second flood in August 17, 1915 killed 275 people. The citizens of Galveston responded to these disasters by constructing a long seawall along the side of the long island fronting on the gulf, with elaborate jetties and breakwaters to tame hurricane-driven waves. Galveston has survived subsequent major hurricanes without significant damage.”
Roger clicked on the atlas hyperlink “subsequent major hurricanes” and continued reading. “The major Gulf hurricanes that have impacted Galveston, Texas since World War II include Hurricane Audrey in 1957, Carla in 1961, Beulah in 1967, Camille in 1969, Celia in 1970, Allen in 1980, Alicia in 1983, and Barry in 2001.”
“Goodness,” said Alice. “I’ve been through more than my share of hurricanes in Florida, and I don’t need another one. Remind me to watch the weather reports while we’re here. With satellite pictures, we’d have plenty of time to evacuate.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said George. “It might be fun to watch a good hurricane from a vantage point on the beach and experience the forces of nature at firsthand.” He grinned at her.
She turned west on Seawall Boulevard at the beachfront. The seawall overlook provided a nice view of the now-tranquil waters of the Gulf. In the distance several ships could be seen heading for the eastern tip of the island and the Port of Galveston inlet beyond. Alice drove west, with the ocean on the left and beachfront shops, restaurants, and luxury hotels on the right. Finally the tourist-oriented businesses thinned and the highway, now called Termini Road, veered away from the ocean as the seawall ended. On the left was a strip of land overgrown with tall weeds that ended at the beach.
“Coming up is a cross street called 8-Mile Road,” said Roger. “From the satellite map, it looks as if it might have some beachfront houses on it.” As they approached the intersection they saw a prominent “For Rent” sign. Closer to the beach was a cluster of houses, all built atop tall poles. “Stilt houses!” said Roger. “One of the paintings that inspired Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ was based on a Russian folk-tale about the hut of the witch Baba Yaga. It was built on stilts in the form of giant chicken legs, and the hut could walk around, carrying the witch across the countryside. I wonder if these houses can walk.” He grinned.
“Only during hurricanes,” said Alice, turning the car left toward the beach. “You’ll notice that they’re all relatively new. There are no old houses fronting directly on the Gulf. Hurricanes scrub the beaches clean every decade or so.”
They found the rental office, and George paid two weeks rent in advance for a furnished two bedroom beach-front stilt house that was well separated from the neighboring houses. He gave the real estate agent a personal check for the rent and deposit. Then they drove back to the Food King store on Rosenberg and Avenue P 1/2 and bought a good supply of food and other items. At a hardware store across the street, George bought a large blue plastic tarp to cover Alice’s car. They parked the car under the house between the stilts and Roger and George carefully covered it with the tarp to protect it from the salt spray but also to conceal its conspicuous Florida license plates.
Alice watched the ocean through the picture window that looked out over the beach and the ocean. The waves broke and rolled up onto the sand and into the wave-barrier rocks, making a soothing rush-and-flow sound. Gray-winged gulls wheeled overhead, sometimes diving into a wave and emerging with a fish. In the distance, a white pelican flew east. This view must have looked much the same for a million years, she thought.
She looked across the room. On the coffee table in its nest of white laboratory tissue lay the Egg. George sat on the couch, studying its rough surface as if looking for hidden meanings. The tension was thick in the room. The sound of the ocean’s roar and hiss from outside did not have the usual calming effect.
“It’s clear enough,” said Roger. “We throw the Egg into the water, wait 24 hours, and go back to the same spot. Sounds rather like a fairy tale, doesn’t it?”
“Too damn much like a fairy tale,” said George. “What if the thing carries a virus or something that infests the Gulf of Mexico? The Makers could be bent on taking over or destroying our planet.”
“It could just as well be an airborne virus that has infested the planet already from Waxahachie,” said Alice.
“Exactly,” said Roger. “If Tunnel Maker and his people wanted to do us ill, they would not have needed to enlist our cooperation to do so. Your Egg could just as well have been a flock of nanomachines for converting the planet to gray goo, or into a new race of Makers. They are up to something else, and they are trying to minimize the impact of implementing it. I’m sure that’s why they wanted us away from the laboratory and out of the media spotlight. I’m convinced that we have to trust them, George. I see no alternative.”
George looked at him closely. “If you don’t mind my saying so, Roger, you’re dying anyway. Perhaps you’re more inclined to take risks than the rest of us.”
“George!” said Alice, shocked by his insensitivity.
Roger raised his hand. “No, Alice, it’s all right. George is correct, in a way. In my present condition I am perhaps a bit more inclined to take risks. My previous gamble with synaptine could certainly be taken as evidence of that. But, I assure you, George, I would not be willing to gamble with any life except my own. I believe our only rational course of action is to follow Tunnel Maker’s instructions. If there is a danger, it isn’t from him and his people.”
George stroked his beard for a time. “OK, dammit,” he said finally. “I suppose you’re right. In fact, I have a gut feeling that you’re right. I just needed to make sure that we had thought it through.”
“Maybe Tunnel Maker just wants to introduce himself to us, before revealing himself to the rest of the world,” said Alice.
George picked up the Egg from its nest on the table. “So, let’s get it over with.” He headed for the door.
“George,” said Alice as they were walking back from the beach, “we need to talk.”
For a moment George’s face took on a deer-in-the-headlights look. He took a deep breath and said, “Sure, Alice. What about?”
“I need to tell you about the kind of books I write, about the book I’m working on now,” said Alice.
George looked relieved, if a bit puzzled. “Books?” he said. “I don’t understand.”
Alice told him about her pseudonym, about her previous books, about the present fire-ant novel, and about how she had come to be commissioned by Search magazine to write an article on the SSC. She allowed him to read parts of the current manuscript from her laptop.
“The business with the press credentials was pretty devious, Alice,” he said with a look of dismay. “Sneaky, even.”
“I know,” she said. “At the time I thought it was necessary. How would you have reacted if I’d approached you for information and told you I was working on a novel about giant mutant fire-ants attacking the SSC?”
“I can’t say,” said George. “I might have been willing to help, but it would clearly have been lower priority that helping you with an article for Search.” He was quiet for a while and finally said, “You know, when I think about it, our current situation is probably a lot more bizarre than anything you might have put in your fire-ant book. Fiction has been our-wierded by reality.” Then he looked closely at her. “What I don’t understand is why you choose to write bug-disaster novels, Alice. Somehow, you don’t seem the type.”
She looked at him and smiled. It was going to be all right, she thought. “I suppose I wandered into it, George. In my view, most mainstream literature is an extended and depressing description of losers in the process of losing. I never saw the point of that kind of writing, aside from the fact that it’s currently fashionable and ‘literary’.
“When I made the decision to produce a book, I seriously considered doing investigative reporting and making that into a book, perhaps an exposé of the Florida drug-money laundering scene. However, my late husband was against that because it might offend (or possibly even expose) some of his clients.
“Then I realized that I liked reading bug-disaster novels, as you call them, and that I would enjoy writing one. I sat down and analyzed why it was that I liked them. And I found the answer.
“It’s because they’re actually about change and how people react to it. In all of these novels something terrible happens, some unpleasant change occurs, and the people in the novel must deal with it. Some of them simply give up, lie down, and die. Some of them react, but they do all the wrong things, and they die too. But some of them, either through cleverness or instinct, somehow do the right things, successfully deal with the problem, and survive. Those are the characters we identify with, and when they get beyond their problems, we feel good about it. In some measure we adopt their attitudes, so that when we come to a real problem in real life, we’re perhaps better prepared to deal with it.”
George looked thoughtful and nodded.
“There’s also another aspect of my bug-disaster novels,” Alice said. “Some of the themes I’ve used in my novels are real problems, like the overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and their effect on the environment. I’ve fictionalized the problems and exaggerated their effects, but the problems are nonetheless real. My bent for investigative reporting has been put to good use in developing that part of my books. And I think it’s had an impact. My paperbacks are read by far more people than any fancy hardcover work of investigative non-fiction would have been.
“That’s what I like to think people get from my books. They learn about real problems, and they learn how to deal with change in their lives in a better and more effective ways. I’m not ashamed of what I write. I’m proud of it, and I’m delighted that people are willing to pay for it.”
George looked closely at her. Then he kissed her. “That’s wonderful,” he whispered.
Alice looked up from her lapstation, then saved the file she had been working on. This had been a long and trying 24 hours. Between eating, sleeping, and lovemaking, Alice had continued to work on her manuscript and now had a nearly completed first draft. She hadn’t slept much, and she felt tense and strung out.
Roger had retreated to a big chair in the corner, using his lapstation to go over the Snark data stream and to read one textbook holo-ROM after another. He read at an amazing pace, turning a page every few seconds.
At last George’s alarm watch beeped. “Showtime!” he announced. Alice followed the two men outside to the beach, feeling a rising excitement.
The bright summer day was cooled by a breeze from the ocean. Alice squinted into the light, after the dimness of the cottage. There was a sharp salt smell in the air, and sea gulls wheeled overhead. The tide was coming in, the gray-green waves lapping progressively higher on the beach. She could see children playing in the surf far down the beach, but no one was close by.
George led them to approximately the spot from which he had waded out into the surf and thrown the Egg, and they looked out to sea. In the far distance Alice could see an oil tanker moving past at a stately pace, probably heading for a refinery in Baytown or Texas City. They waited.
She thought she was the first to notice the disturbance in the water. There was a small turbulence almost directly in front of them, about 40 meters out in the water. Then a blonde head broke the surface, moving in their direction.
Alice couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. The Botticelli-perfect young female face smiled at her, streaming water from nostrils and mouth but not seemingly bothered by this. White shoulders appeared.
George and Roger stood frozen, watching. A wave broke over the child’s head, but she came on unperturbed. The water line was down to the chest now. Her form was subtly female, but there were no breasts, only small pink nipples. The golden blond hair reached to her waist. A flat belly appeared, complete with a small belly button. Then the crotch, with a labial cleft but no sign of pubic hair. Definitely female. Finally her thighs and legs. Emerging from the water was a young prepubescent human female who looked perhaps 10 years old.
The child waded toward them through the water and stopped on the beach. She paused to study them with arrestingly blue eyes, and without a word took Alice by one hand and George by the other. Alice could feel a subtle electricity in the child’s damp grip. They walked away from the ocean. Clearing her throat and ejecting some water, the child said distinctly in a low voice, “I am in need of shelter to provide temperature stability. Can we use the structure before us?”