Excerpt from “The Farpool: Marauders of Seome”

As I write these words, I have reached the approximate halfway point in my current sf novel, entitled above.  To keep the story fresh in the minds of those who follow this blog, I like to post an excerpt now and then.  This story is a follow-on, more or less a sequel to my original title The Farpool.  Herewith, the excerpt:

 

The U-boat pens at St. Nazaire had only recently been opened for operation when Muhler finally guided the U-115 gingerly into her slip at Number Four dock.  The dockmaster and a small crew awaited them on the pier.

Dock crews made the boat fast and the men of U-115 began climbing topside and making their way across the gangways.  Muhler was one of the last and as he crossed the gangway, the dockmaster, Wegener, stuck out a hand.

“Welcome, home, Kapitan.  Good hunting, I presume?”  Wegener was sandy-haired, plump, a former burgomeister in a small Bavarian village. 

Muhler grunted.  “Good enough.”  He started to explain why they had taken such a zigzag course back to base, trying to dodge spurious sound contacts, but decided not to.  Wegener was a clerk and little more.  He’d never understand.

 Then there was that encounter on the surface…or maybe they had dreamed the whole thing.  The odd little pod-shaped craft.  Perhaps the Allies had come up with something new to harass the U-boats.  Muhler signed off on some papers and shoved through a small throng of applauding dock workers.  He wanted to hunt down the Intelligence chief and find out if any other boat had encountered something similar.

The dock area was lined with machine shops, an optical shop, more workshops, a munitions bunker, well-guarded by the Marine Strosstrupp Abteilung, and offices.  Just as Muhler barged into the dock office, a commotion erupted from alongside the pier, somewhere aft of the boat.  Muhler stopped in the door, then stepped back out.

The waters at the entrance of the pen seemed to be boiling and foaming.  Something was surfacing…Muhler’s stomach did a backflip when he realized it was the same tiny craft they had seen at sea several days ago.  The Americans had followed them somehow, after days of playing cat and mouse with Genzbach the sound man.  They’d even shot at the thing.

It had to be the Americans.  Or the British.  And they had been followed right into the submarine pens at St. Nazaire.

Muhler shouted.  “Shoot!  Fire!  Drive them off!”

Wechsler, the boat’s Eins WO, grabbed a pistol from a yeoman, and started peppering the water with shots.  Others joined in the fusillade and soon the sub pen echoed with weapons fire.  Men yelled.  Sailors and marines and dock hands scurried along both sides of the pier, raking the water with fire, seemingly with no effect.

The craft submerged again but didn’t go far.  It glided further into the pen, looking just like a small whale, dorsal fins, stubby forward flukes, its supple body whipping back and forth. 

Muhler had a thought.  Maybe it was a whale, confused, hungry, lost. 

The craft or whale paused at a small diving platform, suspended over the edge of the dock.  Already, inside the dive shop windows, two men half-clad in dive gear had poked their heads out; they would have been inspecting the outer hull of the boat in another hour, looking for leaks, dents, loose fittings, mangled valves.  Now, they ducked back into the shop amidst the volley of rounds flying around the pen.

The water around the dive platform foamed vigorously and two heads poked above the water’s surface.  The heads were beaked, rounded and plated as if armored.

Muhler saw them.  Froschmann, he decided.  American frogmen, combat divers, carried to St. Nazaire to sabotage the boats.   They had to be stopped.

Others saw the frogmen.  They scurried to the side where the dive platform was suspended, momentarily stunned at the sight of the divers hauling themselves up onto the partially submerged platform. 

Only when the first diver was fully in view, standing erect, did Muhler realize this was no American frogman.

“Mein Gott…was ist das?”  What the hell--?

The diver was much taller or longer than any human Muhler had ever seen.  Easily three meters, if not more. The dive suit resembled a dolphin from its mid-section up, complete with beak, eyeholes, forelimbs and odd appendages he had no idea what they were.  Below the mid-section, were two legs, seemingly mechanized, for they moved with a jerky, mechanical action that belied the natural look of its forebody.  One of the forelimbs held some kind of device.  It was cylindrical with a horn-shaped opening at one end.  The diver aimed the device at the startled men. 

A shot rang out.  Then more shots, and soon the gunfire was continuous.  Marines crept along the ladders and scaffolding, trying to get into better position.  But the shots seemed to have no effect.  The frogman was armored, it seemed and the impacts were visible, as the diver twisted and turned to evade the fire, but he continued scaling the dive platform.  And another head was emerging from below the water next to him.

Then came a brilliant flash of light, followed by several deafening sound pulses.  Muhler staggered back, blinded, instantly nauseated, vomit rising in the back of his throat.  He pitched forward onto the deck, barely caught himself and shuddered and shivered as more booms reverberated around the pen.  Windows rattled and shattered and there was a momentary stillness around the dock.  Men lay sprawled everywhere, groaning, their ears bleeding, clutching their faces and eyes.

The Ponkti travelers, Loptoheen and Klindonok, emerged fully from the dive platform and surveyed the carnage, climbing up onto the deck.  Klinodonok had a slight leak in his suit, the result of scores of rounds from the Tailless weapons, but was otherwise unhurt.  Loptoheen was unscathed.  They tested their mobilitors and found they could maneuver in this odd world of Notwater, kicking and shuffling along step by step.  Both trundled forward along the edge of the pier.

Ahead of them, a door opened.  The door sign read Oberkommando der Marine.  Two men stepped out, instantly startled at the sight of the Ponkti visitors.  One was Fregattenkapitan Werner von Kleist, gray white buzzcut hair, with sandy gray sideburns, thinning on top and a trim graying moustache.  Von Kleist had just arrived from Berlin, a fact-finding and inspection mission from the OKM.  The other was Wegener, the dockmaster, who had ducked into the nearest office when the fusillade had begun.

Now, the two Germans and the two Ponkti stared at each other for a long moment.  To von Kleist, the visitors looked like dolphins with legs, somehow thrown up on land and seeming to be lost.  They looked around nervously, checking everything.  The OKM officer had no sidearm, though instinctively he reached for the holster that he had left in his office.  Wegener was also unarmed.

Klindonok pointed the sound suppressor at both men and their hands went up quickly.  The Germans started backpedaling, but Wegener stumbled over a ladder and went down hard, then slid flailing off into the water with a loud splash.  He scrambled to find something to grab onto, but Klindonok handed his weapon to Loptoheen and dropped into the water beside Wegener, grabbing the Tailless under his arms.  The Ponkti flippered them back to the dive platform and deposited a coughing and gagging dockmaster over the railing.  Wegener coughed up water violently and sucked in huge gasps of air.  Then Klindonok climbed back to the deck.

Von Kleist noticed a small pod-shaped device that Loptoheen was removing from a belt around his midsection.  He flinched, started backing…another weapon?

But Loptoheen beckoned him to stop, using the gestures he had learned from the eekoti Chase many mah before.  The Ponkti withdrew the device and held it out, offering it to von Kleist.

The OKM officer slowly put his hands down.  “Was?  You want me to take this…is that it?”

Loptoheen shuffled forward a few steps on his mobilitors, earning another flinch from von Kleist.  Cautiously, the German reached out and took hold of the pod.

It was a small fist-sized object, oval, rounded at the top.  The sea creature had extracted it from a small pouch in his belly; neither of them had seen that.  His hands had six fingers, delicate fingers, and they grasped the object with a dexterity they could hardly believe.

 “Kapitan…watch out…please, don’t—“ But he had already taken possession of the object.  He stood up and examined it.  The dockmaster came up and squinted at the thing in his hand.

“What is it?  Is it a bomb?

“I don’t know—“von Kleist shook it slightly, then nearly dropped the thing when it started to glow…a dim red glow emanated from within.  The outer case was almost translucent and a single red light shone from within. 

The sea creature—von Kleist still thought of them as froschmann—frogmen-- suddenly became agitated, flapping the air with its arms.  He clicked and chittered and screeched, slapping the air again and again.  The other creature soon joined in.  The fracas lasted half a minute. 

“What’s wrong with them?  What are they doing?”

“It seems upset—“ then von Kleist heard it.  Something, a whispering susurration, began issuing from the object.  He almost dropped the thing.  “What the--?”  He shook the can again, brought it up to eye level.  Now the red light had grown stronger and sharper.  He peered in, seeing nothing, then brought it to his ears.  He could clearly hear something.

“Sounds like gibberish to me,” he said.  Similar to the clicking the froschmann were doing, the can emitted a steady stream of sounds: clicks, whistles, grunts and chirps.  He shook his head, then noticed the taller creature trying to mimic his head shakes.  The creature waved his forelimbs, hands extended and von Kleist somehow knew that the creature wanted the object back.  Cautiously, he approached, still hovering on the edge of the deck.

“Maybe it’s a grenade…it sounds like it’s ticking,” Wegener decided.  “We ought to get out of here right now—“

“I’m not so sure.”  Gingerly, von Kleist handed the object back, placing it carefully in the froschmann’s outstretched hand.  The fingers, they seemed so—

The creature seemed to nod and took the can.  The other creature joined him in examining the object.  Von Kleist could tell they were doing something with the object.  The dim red light cycled through more colors before finally settling on an orangish glow.  He handed the object back to the OKM officer.

Von Kleist was intrigued and a little wary.  Maybe it was an American trick, this froschmann with the talking can.  But this was unique, working with dolphins like this, dolphins with hands.  Or whatever they were.  Had the Americans bred and trained these creatures, maybe equipped them with armored suits and weapons?  He took the object back, watching the creature’s hand and beak movements carefully.  In the back of his mind, the creature reminded von Kleist of a math teacher in Hochschule, one dour old Herr Keller.

Here…you want me to do this…like this…up here?…  He raised the can to his ears again.  This time, the whistling and chirping had stopped.  Now…my God!  He could hear snatches of something…sounds …like words….like—

Understand…voice…to your…can…hear…your voice…(unintelligible…) can you…my voice…

Von Kleist practically dropped the thing.  It was a machine.  A translator.  Voice box…  whatever.

“Wegener…come over…listen…you can hear…they’re speaking words….”

Cautiously, the dockmaster bent his ear to the device.  Even as he listened, he could see ‘Herr Keller’ become a bit more agitated.   Clicking.  Whistles.  Chirps, like a radio.

“It’s a radio, Kapitan,” Wegener decided.  “Like a small radio.  They’re singing—“

Von Kleist listened more.  He knew a thing or two about music, having fronted for biergartens all over Bavaria for years. But this wasn’t singing, not exactly.  It was more…

“They’re not singing.  They’re talking…this device’s translating all those whistles and screeches…listen—“

And deep inside, Wegener knew he was right.  It gave him a chill.  To think that the Americans…or the British--

Now, the pod was glowing from within with a warm orange radiance.  Von Kleist told the dockmaster it was warm to the touch; Wegener verified that himself, then his curiosity overcame everything.  “Let me listen—“

Von Kleist gave him the pod.  …you can…can…hear my voice….can understand what…say--?

Both of them nodded.  “We understand some words…yes, I hear your voice…can you understand me?”  Von Kleist sat down on the edge of the deck, a few meters from ‘Herr Keller’ and the other creature.  Wegener hung back by a nearby ladder, still listening, squinting, trying to make out more.

…is called…echo…pod…my voice…your voice…together…can you hear what I…

“Jawohl!” Von Kleist practically shouted.  He grabbed the pod back from Wegener, spoke into it.  “Yes, I hear your words…you talk…I mean, you can actually talk--?

‘Herr Keller’ raised his beak, squeaking and chirping rapidly, forelimbs waving wildly.

…’derstand you…echopod need adjust…give me…hand …pod me…

Von Kleist looked up at Wegener.  “He wants the pod back.”

“Maybe it needs work.”

Von Kleist gave ‘Herr Keller’ the pod.  The creature dropped off the edge of the deck, splashing into the water again, did something once more with the device.  The other creature stayed on the pier.  Finally, the pod’s light had changed from orange to almost a yellowish tint.  ‘Herr Keller’ surfaced, hoisting the pod with his right flipper-hand-thing and handed it back.

By now, Von Kleist knew what to do.  He grasped the pod carefully and raised it to his ear.

‘Herr Keller’ had ducked under again, yet both of them could hear the clicking and grunts and chirps bubbling up out of the water.  Keller’s accomplice—von Kleist had mentally labeled him ‘Herr Schmidt’-- had chimed in too.  Keller und Schmidt—radio comics often used by Dr. Goebbels to entertain the home audiences…that made von Kleist smile.  If they could only see their namesakes now.

And out of the pod poured a steady stream of words.

 

So that’s the excerpt for today.  The story is coming along and should be done late this fall.  I’ll try to include more excerpts as time and space permit.

The next post to The Word Shed comes on August 7.  In this post, we’ll look at the differences between novels, novellas and novelettes.  Are there any real differences?  You find all three types in the world of science fiction and I’ve done all three myself. 

See you in August.

Phil B.