“Kill it! Kill it!” Persis screamed, her eyes dilated, her fingers curved into claws.
“Kill it!” Beatryx echoed, horrified by the narrowness of her escape.
The spears rose and fell in a frenzy of attack. The sea-thing’s gross body twisted and fell, bright red blood dripping down its scales. A kind of groan issued from it; then it collapsed face-down in the sand, the water lapping at the tip of one forelimb.
“It’s dead,” Durwin said with grim satisfaction. “Now let’s go after that other one. Spread out and watch for any more along the beach, too.”
The men moved on, leaving the vanquished hulk where it lay bleeding into the moist sand. It was the women who spread out, facing the ocean, each one scrutinizing the ocean for signs. Their grim expressions differed strikingly from the simple camaraderie of the evening before.
“How fortunate we heard you in time!” Persis said, helping Beatryx to her feet. “In another moment it would have touched you.”
“I thought I was dead, when I fell,” Beatryx said, still shaking with reaction. “I couldn’t get up again, I was so frightened.”
“Dead?” A fine dark eyebrow arched inquisitively.
“I mean, I couldn’t get away from it.”
Persis nodded. “That’s horrible, I know. One of them touched me once, on the arm, and I thought I’d never wash that spot clean. I was an outcast for weeks. Filthy thing!”
Something was strange. “It didn’t hurt you?”
“Of course not. They wouldn’t dare attack a human being.”
A sick feeling crept over Beatryx. “What do they do, then? I mean, if you hadn’t come here in time—”
“Don’t you know? It probably would have touched you, tried to talk to you. Disgusting.”
“They talk?”
“They talk. But let’s get off this depressing subject. You must be very tired, after what you went through.”
Beatryx looked toward the body. “What about it?”
“The men will burn it and bury the suit. We don’t need to look. They’ll put on special gloves, and bury them too, afterward. That’s the worst part of it — having to handle them.”
Something else nagged her. “The suit?”
“The diving suit. They use those rigs for swimming under the water. Didn’t you see?”
Beatryx walked to the body, appalled at what she knew she would find. “That’s a man!”
“That’s a black!” Persis corrected her. Then, horrified: “What are you doing?”
Beatryx ignored her. She kneeled beside the corpse, seeing now the machined parts she had taken for scales. The protective face-mask attached to the large goggles, almost the way the macroscope headgear did. The breathing apparatus — what she had seen as the “snout” — was fastened below the helmet to a ribbed diving outfit. She put her hands to the helmet and twisted, and the mask snapped loose. She worked it away from the face.
The head inside was that of a young man, as handsome in his own way as Hume was in his. This man was dark, however: a Negro.
A black.
Beatryx stumbled along in the dusk. The stones and brush and sharp twigs hurt her feet but did not slow her. The cries of the men and women of the beach village were lost behind her; they would not find her tonight, and tomorrow did not matter.
That such a lovely world could have such horror! It had been so appealing at first, with the delicious climate, attractive seascape, and friendly people. And her own gift-body, youthful and vigorous.
But to kill fellow-men so brutally simply because they came from the sea — she could not comprehend or accept this. Harold would never have abided it. He was a peaceful man but could be moved to severe measures when something really important came up. “The horoscope does not specify race,” he would have said.
So she had fled. Not bravely, not openly; she was not a courageous woman, and she did not know what was best. She had washed her hands again and again, as they demanded, though in truth she was not ashamed of the touch of the black; rather she was painfully remorseful that she had failed to touch the man when it had counted, in her fatal ignorance. She had waited until night, then gone into the forest as though to — to employ the facilities. Then she had plunged into the darkness, though the branches struck cruelly at her bare flesh and the rocks turned under her bruising feet.
No, she did not have physical courage, and the darkness terrified her, with its thousand lurking suggestions of spiders and snakes and centipedes. But there was something she had to do. It was the thing Harold would have done.
She made her way to the beach and found the corpse. Then she moved down toward the mirror-cliff. Even in the night she was sure she could find that landmark, and of course it was not completely dark. The stars were out in vaguely unfamiliar constellations, and the ocean glowed gently. It was cool, now, but her motion kept her warm.
She saw the somber hump of rock and knew that her bearings were good. Only a little way beyond this spot…
Now, cautiously, she began to call. “Black — black, I don’t have any weapon… black, if you’re there, I want to talk with you… black, where are you?…”
For somewhere was the second black. The men had not found it — found him. They had followed the traces, but the man from the sea had eluded them in the brush. Tomorrow they were going to burn the forest here, to drive him out.
He had to be here somewhere, Hume had explained, for in the chase the man’s face-plate had been knocked out. It had fallen to the ground, and Hume had it. He had hurled it into the fire with gloved hands so that it could never be used again. The black could not go under the sea again without it.
Neither could he get far inland, for the second line of defense was canine. The big, vicious dogs would be released if they winded him, and the black surely knew that. They were cunning that way, Hume had explained. They knew enough to stay clear of the hounds. He would not venture out of the shoreline foliage.
Tomorrow, the fire…
“Black,” she called again. “I have the other faceplate…”
It had been a grisly task, in the dark, prying out the plate from the helmet of the corpse. But what else could she do? She could not let them kill another man.
For an hour she tramped up and down the beach, not daring to call too loudly lest the others hear. There was no answer. Then she cut into the forest, hurting her feet again but keeping on, still calling. She could think of nothing else to do.
And finally blind purpose prevailed. Somewhere in the night she had an answer.
“I hear you, white.”
It was a woman’s voice.
And Beatryx found her, lying in the hollow between two fallen trunks. The woman had a tiny electric lantern she had kept hooded until now — until she was sure that the calling voice was not a trap. By its abruptly unfettered light Beatryx saw that the woman had removed her useless helmet and much of the rest of the underwater outfit. She lay on her side, her rather attractive dark head propped against her elbow.
“You have to move,” Beatryx said urgently. “They’re going to set fire to the forest. They’re going to—”
“One place is as good as another,” the woman replied philosophically.
“You don’t understand. Tomorrow morning—”
“Tomorrow morning you be gone from here, white. And don’t tell them you saw me, or they’ll kill you too. I can’t move.”
“But I brought you the face-plate. From the dead man. So you can go back under the water. That’s why I—”
“White.”
The tone stopped her. The woman angled the light of the lantern so that it illuminated the area around her feet.
Then Beatryx understood. Both flippers were off, and one black ankle was swollen grotesquely. The woman could not walk.
“I’ll help you get to the water,” Beatryx said quickly. “You can swim slowly, can’t you? Using your hands and one foot?”
“I could.” But the tone was fatalistic. Obviously the woman did not intend to try. “Where would I go in the sea, what would I do, and my husband dead on land?”