The Bends

Vera woke because the sea was trying to turn her over.

A wave lifted one shoulder, filled her ear, and left her face pressed against coarse white sand. She pushed onto her elbows. Water came out of her mouth before she could take a breath. She stayed there until the coughing stopped, with her boots in the wash and both hands spread beneath her.

The water withdrew through the furrows her fingers had made. It pulled small dark grains out of the white sand, arranging them in branching lines before the next wave rubbed them away. She watched one of those lines because it was close and sharply defined. Beyond it, the shore kept tipping when she tried to look.

Her tongue hurt. There was grit between her back teeth and a bitter taste that belonged to something other than salt. She pushed wet blonde hair away from her mouth, spat, wiped her lips on a wet sleeve, and moved far enough up the slope that the next wave reached only the heels of her boots. The effort left her breathing through her mouth.

The beach rose gently ahead. Beyond it stood low trees with thick trunks and leaves arranged in rigid fans. The leaves moved in sections, each fan folding a moment after the next, although Vera could feel no wind.

Some of the trunks grew sideways before turning up, making a low roof over the edge of the beach. Sunlight passed through their leaves in narrow stripes. The stripes slid over one another as the fans closed, and the shadow beneath the trees changed from a ladder to a nearly solid band. Nothing in the shade answered the movement.

She sat back on her heels.

Her coveralls were intact except for a split at the knee. The company name over the breast pocket had gone stiff with salt. Underneath, her thermal shirt clung coldly to her ribs. She pressed along them, then checked her abdomen and the sides of her head. Everything hurt in the ordinary, diffuse way of a body that had been cold and badly handled. Nothing moved where it should not.

Her left boot contained sand. She emptied it because she could do that, and because having one small correct thing seemed preferable to standing barefoot in a situation she did not understand.

The lace would not come free at first. Her fingers were cold enough to be clumsy, and she had drawn the wet knot tighter by pulling the wrong loop. She put the boot between her knees and worked the knot open with her thumbnail. Inside the tongue, the small square of tape on which she had written her surname was still in place. She rubbed a grain of sand off the last letter.

The other boot needed emptying too. By the time she had tied both, her hands had stopped shaking.

There should have been wreckage.

She looked along the beach in both directions. A long curl of foam, a ridge of dark stones, the roots of a fallen tree. No white flotation, no orange beacon, no oil. Farther out, something broad moved beneath the surface and vanished without breaking it.

The sea beyond the breakers was dark green. There was no vessel on the horizon. She shaded her eyes and searched from one end of the bay to the other, first quickly, then in separate overlapping sections. A low rock became a hull for a hopeful second. White water broke against it and removed the resemblance.

She turned inland again. The beach held only one ragged depression where she had lain and the tracks she had made leaving it. The tide had already reached the depression.

Before the light, there had been work.

She remembered the sub holding just above the seabed, its lamps whitening a little patch of mineral crust. Beyond that patch there was nothing the glass could give her. She had eased the manipulator around a loose sample, waiting for the sediment to clear before closing the jaws. Too much force would turn the useful surface into grit. Her thumb rested beside the release.

Amin had asked for another reading over the connection. She had told him to hold position while she logged the sample. A wax pencil rolled against the raised edge of her notebook. She caught it with the side of her hand without looking away from the viewport.

The sample tray was open. The arm was coming back toward it.

Then a light appeared beneath the manipulator.

Not a reflection. It had illuminated the underside of the manipulator arm, then the arm's shadow had moved toward the light instead of away from it. Amin had said something else over the connection. She could remember the change in his voice, the lost breath before the warning, but not the words.

Then a sound from behind her left shoulder. A joint giving under load.

Her right hand closed, remembering a switch that was no longer there. The panel had been close enough that she could reach it without leaning out of the seat. She knew the worn place under its guard, the way the guard resisted her finger. She could summon those details more readily than what had happened next.

She tried saying Amin's name. Her voice came out rough and smaller than she expected in the open air.

There was no answer to wait for.

She stood too quickly. The trees tilted. She bent, hands on her thighs, and waited for the world to settle.

Above the trees hung a pale moon. That was possible. Beside it was a thin white arc with a gap near its lower end, too large and too fixed to be cloud. She watched until her eyes began to water. The arc did not move.

At its thickest, she could distinguish a faint second edge. The rest disappeared where the sky grew brighter toward the sun. She covered the moon with her thumb, then moved the thumb aside. The proportions did not become more familiar. Below them, a shining bead of water traveled down the side of her boot and disappeared into the sand.

She lowered her hand. Staring at the sky was making her miss things at ground level.

She checked her pockets. A folding knife, a wax pencil, a flat packet of glucose tablets swollen at one edge. Her little inspection torch had water behind the lens. Its switch did nothing. There was no radio.

Vera put everything back except the knife. She opened it, looked at the short blade, and closed it again. It belonged in a pocket, not in her hand while she climbed.

The sun was warm on the back of her neck. Somewhere inland, metal clicked three times.

She followed the beach toward the fallen tree. From its exposed roots she could reach a low bluff and see whether there were buildings beyond the first line of vegetation. She kept above the wet sand. Every few steps she looked back toward the sea.

The animal was lying in the tree.

She mistook it for a pale length of bark until one end opened.

It dropped between her and the bluff with almost no sound. Its body was the size of a large dog, narrow through the hips, the ribs making distinct moving ridges under hairless skin. Its front feet had too many joints. The jaw folded downward and outward, exposing a second line of small teeth inside the first.

It had been resting along the upper side of a root, exactly where a strip of peeled wood might have remained. Now the root rocked behind it. Sand slid from the hollow where its belly had been. Its eyes were set low, beneath shallow ridges of hide, and one eye kept disappearing as its head angled toward her.

The beach was open on her right. The fallen crown blocked the left. Between the animal and the bluff was a narrow shelf of roots that she might have climbed if she had reached it first. She had not.

Vera stopped.

The creature lowered its head. For an instant the space around its shoulders shimmered, the fallen roots bending behind it as if seen through uneven glass.

She moved one foot back. The animal followed the movement with its whole body.

Her boot heel sank into softer sand. The creature noticed. Its front feet spread, each long joint settling separately, and its mouth shut until only the tips of the inner teeth showed. She had seen a dog lower itself before lunging. The resemblance gave her only a moment's warning; it told her nothing useful about where this animal would land.

There was nowhere to get above it and no time to reach the knife. She lifted her left forearm across her face as it sprang.

The impact should have knocked her backward. She felt a blunt pressure at her elbow, then a sharp report beside her ear, small and hard like a stone splitting in a fire.

The animal fell away from her.

It struck the sand on its side, scrambled upright, and made a thin, breathless noise. White fragments dropped from its mouth. One front leg folded when it tried to put weight on it. The jaw that had opened so easily now hung at an angle.

Vera had not moved more than half a step.

Her right foot had cut a crescent in the sand. She looked at it, then at her raised arm. The arm was still in front of her face, elbow high and hand loosely closed, an awkward defense that should have left half her body exposed. She had done nothing clever. She had barely had time to do anything at all.

The creature stared at her. Its ribs drew close together. Then it backed away, turned, and dragged itself into the trees with surprising speed.

It stopped once beneath the low roof of leaves. She could see its shoulder working as it tried to reset the injured leg. One eye remained fixed on her. Then it found a way to bear weight, passed sideways between two trunks, and was gone. She heard its feet for several seconds after she could no longer see it.

She remained where she was until the last branch stopped moving.

Her sleeve had four clean punctures and a longer rip along the seam. Through the rip she could see the skin of her forearm. No blood. She pushed the cloth higher. There should at least have been bruising.

She pressed a thumb against the place where the teeth had closed. Soft skin, warm muscle, an old white scar near the wrist. Her thumb left a pale mark that filled with color again.

She tried bending every finger. She could feel the salt drying between them. When she pinched the inside of her wrist, it hurt in the usual sharp, petty way. The sleeve smelled of seawater and something sour left by the animal's mouth.

Her knees wanted to bend now that there was no reason to keep them straight. She let herself sit against the nearest root, well away from the hollow the animal had occupied, and took three slow breaths. A laugh rose in her throat and came out as another cough.

On the sand lay a broken tooth.

Vera picked it up with the sleeve of her other arm. It was heavier than she expected, translucent along the edge, and split lengthwise. The fracture held a faint bluish sheen.

She wrapped it in the glucose packet and put it in her pocket.

There were several explanations she could have accepted. A sick animal. Brittle teeth. Some mistake in her memory of the impact. None explained the noise or the unmarked arm particularly well.

She climbed the bluff more slowly than she had intended.

Beyond it the trees stood in uneven ranks over shallow gullies. Their roots rose out of the ground in thick arches, and beneath the arches grew clusters of fleshy white tubes. Some tubes were closed. Others opened at the top with tiny wet clicks. A thread of vapor rose from one and disappeared in sunlight.

The sound she had heard from the beach came again. Three notes, then a pause. Not metal this time. A bird, or something serving the same purpose, moved between the rigid leaves on six delicate limbs.

It was no longer than her hand. Its body hung beneath the limbs while it moved, turning gently as though suspended from a framework. At the end of a branch it drew itself up, exposed a bright patch along its side, and clicked again. Another answered from much farther away. Vera stood still long enough to hear the answers travel across the gully.

The ground smelled warm and mineral beneath the wet leaves. Where a root crossed the path, its smooth upper surface had been rubbed dark by the passage of something larger. A bead of clear sap held a small wing in place. Beyond it, sunlight filled a cup of folded leaves with a green so clean that she stopped to look despite herself.

Vera chose a route where she could keep the sea behind her. She would not drink from the first pool she found. She would not eat anything that looked almost familiar. If she found people, she would ask for water and a way to contact the survey vessel before she tried to explain the sky.

The ground under the trees was springy with pale fibers. Once, every fan of leaves in sight folded at the same time. The quiet afterward made her stop. She waited until the small clicking calls resumed.

She began noticing narrow stretches where the fibers had been pressed into the soil. Some led under roots too low for a person. Others followed the high sides of the gullies and crossed them where stones made a passable step. At one crossing she found a short length of dark cord wound twice around a branch. Its ends were cut square.

Vera touched the knot. It had tightened into the wood as the branch grew. Someone had been here before her, and long enough ago that the tree had continued around what they left.

She looked ahead with more attention. The cord was followed by a pale scrape on a root, then another near the next bend. She could not tell whether they marked a route or warned against it. Still, the possibility of an intentional mark changed the woods. She began listening for work sounds among the clicks.

Then she heard a man breathing.

He was trying to do it quietly and failing.

She heard the breath twice before she found its source. The sound came from below the path, where a slab of rock leaned over a hollow filled with leaves. From above she could see only a boot and a patch of dark cloth. The boot moved as she watched, scraping backward and accomplishing nothing.

Vera found him in the angle between a rock and a tree root. His coat was dark and soaked at the collar. One sleeve had been cut open. Something made of wire and dull metal gripped his forearm, and a short length of tubing dragged in the dirt beside him.

He saw her and tried to stand. His knees failed. He landed hard against the rock, caught himself with one hand, and held the other out toward her.

"No closer."

She understood him.

The fact registered separately from the words. His mouth was making unfamiliar shapes, his accent was nothing she could place, and yet she had understood him as clearly as she would have understood someone calling across the workshop.

"Are you hurt?"

"Go back."

His face was flushed. Dark lines extended from the open collar along his neck. He kept swallowing, working his jaw as if something were stuck beneath his tongue. The metal on his wrist gave a faint repetitive tick.

He was young enough that the attempt to grow a beard had left spaces at the sides of his chin. His coat had a careful repair beneath one pocket, with thread a different color from the cloth. One loose end of it trembled against his leg. He pressed the uninjured hand flat on the rock, spread the fingers, and used it to keep himself from sliding lower.

His eyes kept moving past her left shoulder. Whoever he expected to find there frightened him enough to compete with whatever was happening inside his body.

Vera stopped a few paces away and crouched so she was not standing over him.

Up close, the ticking had an uneven gap in it. Tick, tick, silence long enough to expect another, then three close together. A little strip of metal on the housing jerked each time. Vera looked from it to the tube and back to his face. She had no way to tell which part was wrong.

"I'm not with anybody," she said. "I came from the beach."

He looked at her bare wrists. His expression changed, not to relief.

"Where's your collar?"

"I don't have one."

"Then don't touch the line. Don't touch me."

She glanced at the tube. Its open end lay beside his boot. A bead of blue moisture formed there and fell. The fibers under it curled into the dirt.

"What happened?"

"I crossed the spur." He closed his eyes, then opened them with effort. "They said it was quiet. It wasn't."

He breathed in and made a small involuntary sound. One of the dark lines on his neck widened.

"Is that device helping?"

He gave a short shake of his head. "Won't fall. It keeps taking."

There was a dial under the wire on his wrist. Its face was cracked. The pointer trembled against a colored section Vera could not read from where she crouched.

"Can you close it?"

"Tried."

She could see a little lever trapped against the rock. He had been trying to move his wrist to reach it. Every attempt shook the rest of him.

"Tell me what to do," she said.

For a moment he seemed to consider answering. His gaze went beyond her into the trees. She heard distant voices, then nothing.

"Nell," he said. "If they ask. Tell her I didn't open the gate."

"Who is Nell?"

"My sister."

He seemed about to say more. His lips shaped a word without enough air behind it. His gaze dropped to his lap, then returned to Vera with visible effort.

She could hear the distant voices again. They were approaching by another route, beyond the trees to her right. She wanted to call to them. His eyes followed hers, and his fingers scraped once against the rock.

He folded forward. The hand he had held out to stop her dropped into his lap. His breathing became shallow and rapid.

Vera moved before she had decided to move. There was a familiar shape to the emergency: a person alone, frightened, unable to maintain his posture. She knew that shape better than she knew anything else on this shore.

"Stay with me. What's your name?"

He tried to turn away from her. "Lio. Don't."

"All right, Lio. I'm just going to support your shoulder."

She heard her own words and knew he had already told her not to. But his head was falling, and for that fraction of a second keeping him upright seemed more immediate than understanding why he was afraid of a hand.

Her fingers touched the wet cloth over his shoulder.

Something struck her palm from inside it.

The coat tightened across his chest. The ticking stopped.

Lio looked directly at her, startled rather than angry.

The clearing went white, and something hot struck her mouth.

Lio came apart.

For an instant she saw his coat open in several directions at once. Red crossed the white. A brass fragment spun past her eye. Then the blast took her feet away and drove her backward into the rock hard enough to crack it.

Her jaw closed on the inside of her cheek. Nothing tore. She felt the impact, the whole brutal shape of it, and could not make sense of the missing pain.

Branches struck the ground. Something softer struck her shoulder and stayed there. She flung it off before she knew what it was.

She could not hear herself. Her mouth was open, but the only sound inside her head was a high, continuous note. Blood ran from her hairline into one eye. She dragged the heel of her hand across it and made the world redder.

Lio.

She tried to find his face in the clearing. The root was gone. The tree above it leaned over a torn space in its own trunk. A strip of dark-olive cloth hung from a branch beside a wet piece she would not let herself name. Blood pattered from the leaves as the dust came down.

Her right hand was still curved to hold his shoulder. It was red to the wrist. A thread from his coat lay across two fingers.

There was nobody beneath it.

She turned the hand over. Then back again. No cut. No missing finger. She pressed her thumb against the palm until the tendons stood out, looking for something that could explain why the blood belonged there.

Her knees folded.

She caught herself on the torn root, gagged, and brought up a thin string of salt water. The next breath would not come properly. She had to drag it in around the obstruction in her throat. One hand stayed out in front of her, shaking so hard the drops would not fall straight.

"Lio?"

The name broke in the middle. She tried again and could not finish it.

She had been going to hold him up. Her body had performed that small, familiar act and survived everything that followed. She stared at the empty place until the blood on her fingers began to cool.