---

Diving on the Wreck

     So you want to be president. Then what is your platform? What, exactly, are you going to do for your home island of Zelzam Demaxus? And how about the island nation of Chalakanesia as a whole? Why should the people vote for you?

     This was a question which Heineman had not yet adequately addressed. Six months previously, Splinton, the best of his political advisers, had been eaten by a shark. Heineman's campaign had never quite recovered from that disaster.

     At present, Heineman's stock of political ideas was meager, and could be summarized as follows:-

     1. Yes, I agree that the mongoose is a good role model for our male children;

     2. No, having a water-lung does not make me feel superior;

     3. Yes, I agree that the government should provide price support to frog farmers, if that is absolutely necessary; and,

     4. No, I do not support the idea of a special tax on adaptive skins.

     And that was it -- that was Heineman's entire political agenda. Somehow, he found it difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was not quite enough. The fourth item, in fact, might even lose him the election -- and yet it was unavoidable.

     The adaptive skins were the tubular animals which allowed people to breathe underwater. Once mated with an adaptive skin, even a normative human could survive beneath the surface of the sea. Thanks to his water-lung, Heineman could do that anyway. However, even for water-adapted individuals such as Heineman, the adaptive skins conferred major advantages, armoring the body, increasing endurance, lengthening survival times and boosting effective strength.

     Unfortunately, the Family Jubiladilia -- Heineman's own Family -- had a monopoly on adaptive skins. (Why? Because they had their own special methods of feeding, training and caring for the skins, trade secrets which the world at large had yet to penetrate.) And the general population had the entirely mistaken idea that the Jubiladilias were, as a result, immensely rich, and were somehow concealing immense wealth from the Taxation Department.

     Hence the pressure -- keenly exploited by Heineman's rivals in the presidential race -- for a special tax on adaptive skins. A pressure which Heineman had to resist unless he wished for his whole Family to go bankrupt.

     "Accentuate the positive," said Heineman.

     Somehow, he had to come up with new, positive, attractive ideas. On his own. His grandfather Zinjanthrop, his political mentor, should have been helping, but had only just recovered from a devastating bout of depression.

     "The ship," said Heineman, for the ninetieth time, examining little boy Loki's scale model of the foreign skyship which had so recently arrived on Zelzam Demaxus on its trial voyage.

     Was there some political capital to be exploited from the visit of the ship?

     Previously, all attempts to use flying machines in the environs of Chalakanesia had met with disaster. The islands lay athwart the so-called metapsychic faultline, which scientists generally explained (or attempted to explain) as being (probably) an ancient weapons system deeply buried (this, at least, was the hypothesis) somewhere far below the archipelago.

     While the precise nature of the metapsychic faultline still resisted explanation (quantum theory, for example, stubbornly refused to even begin to explain it) its effects could be known of a certainty. It trashed unshielded electronic gear (and sometimes subverted even gear which had been carefully shielded with layer upon layer of thick, heavy gold); it produced the short-lived doppelgangers colloquially known as "ghosts"; and it could shunt people, displacing them in time or space (or both). (Could and did -- operating at unpredictable, apparently random intervals.)

     However, the technical experts from Barth Banchup Bakchakris, the capital of the high-technology empire known as the Chasms of Hell, seemed to think they had now got on top of the problem. And if they had? If luxury skyships like the Zuzu Magore began making regular trips to Chalakanesia? What then?

     "Tourism," said Heineman.

     It was the magic word, reeking of money. Before being lunched by a shark, adviser Splinton had made heavy use of it. But why would tourists come to Chalakanesia in the first place, even if they could? To eat frogs? If reports were to be believed, you could already eat frogs in any high-class restaurant in either the Gulf of Heaven or the Chasms of Hell. Why else, then? What unique experience do we have to offer?

     "Being eaten by sharks," said Heineman.

     Yes. Great. What else?

     "Being mated with an adaptive skin. Swim underwater. See the fishes. Talk to the octopus. Meet the shark. The happy, friendly, well-fed neighborhood shark. Your friend in the wonderful underwater world of the ocean."

     Nice idea. But there was one big problem: pain. Linking your body with that of an adaptive skin was an experience which many people found frightening, embarrassing or out-and-out disgusting. But disconnecting afterwards was worse. As everyone knew, it really hurt to tear the connected bodies apart. And, somehow, Heineman could not see a bunch of affluent foreigners paying to be hurt. (Well, a few of the kinky ones, maybe. But just how big was that niche market?)

     Heineman was thinking this through -- uselessly -- when Zinjanthrop entered his office.

     "Heineman," said Zinjanthrop. "The report. Did you file it?"

     Report? Oh, yes. The report on the adaptive skins. It had been demanded by some weird foreign outfit, the Committee for the Prevention of Cruelty to Parasites, a bunch of do-gooders based in Barth Banchup Bakchakris. Heineman had finished the report a good week earlier. In it, he had carefully explained that the adaptive skins were not parasites. Rather, they were symbionts. And, yes, they were well-cared for, and lived very, very happy lives.

     "Good," said Zinjanthrop. "It's critical. If that's not in on time then everything fails."

     Then Zinjanthrop was gone.

     It was only after his grandfather had departed that Heineman finally clicked. His campaign finance report! The next three-monthly report! It was due -- when? Not tomorrow, surely. Check, check. Where's that campaign log? Here . | oh, no! Tomorrow! Well, at least Zinjanthrop doesn't know | |

     Resolutely, Heineman buckled down to work. If he worked solidly, then he could probably have the report done by three in the morning. If not, why, then he would just have to stay up all night. If the accounts were not filed on time, then Heineman would be barred from the presidential race.

     When little boy Loki looked in on the office to tell Heineman that there had been a crash, Heineman waved him away.

     "I'm busy," said Heineman.

     "But it's crashed!" said Loki. "The skyship!"

     "I'm sure it has," said Heineman, not really caring whether this was true or false.

     A crash? It had nothing to do with Heineman. No. His business was with his campaign finances.

     "Can I have my ship?" said Loki.

     "What?" said Heineman. "Oh, yes."

     He gave little boy Loki the model ship, and little boy Loki ran off, joining the other people who were racing to the beach. Heineman concentrated on his accounts, totting up the figures as fast as he could.

     "Heineman!" said his sister Atlanta, discovering him sitting at his desk, working his abacus. "What are you doing here?"

     "Working," said Heineman. "My next campaign finance report has to be filed tomorrow. That's the law."

     Yes. Heineman Yakaskam Jubiladilia was going to be the next president of Chalakanesia, or at least die trying. He might not be the world's greatest speaker, and he might be really short of political ideas, but he had a bean-counter's dogged determination. He would keep on going until the going killed him.

     "Heineman," said Atlanta, with the urgency of someone trying to rouse an unconscious casualty, "A ship has crashed."

     "Okay," said Heineman, who had never found it easy to change gears in a hurry. "So the miraculous ship from Barth Banchup Bakchakris has fallen out of the sky. So what?"

     "So people will drown," said Atlanta. "Unless rescued."

     True. Now the skyship was underwater, somewhere near the Spliars, the offshore pinnacles near the southern end of Eastbeach. Anyone still alive was doomed to die unless helped.

     "And?" said Heineman. "What's that got to do with me?"

     "First," said Atlanta, "we are from a diving family."

     "Speak for yourself," said Heineman.

     "You're my brother, and I'll speak for you too," said Atlanta, fiercely. "Second, this would be the worst of all publicity. Heineman sat at his abacus while the helpless drowned!"

     "But who would know?" said Heineman.

     "Everyone!" said Atlanta. "If you don't get up off your politician's backside and help, I'll tell the whole world!"

     "This is blackmail!" said Heineman.

     "So sue me," said Atlanta. "I'm a lawyer, I love to be sued, it turns me on. Plus I don't have to worry about legal fees."

     Heineman saw there was no way out. Well. Go to the beach, then. Put in an appearance. Be seen in public. Get associated with the rescue effort. Maybe load some gear into the praus. And then, at the earliest possible moment, slip back and return to his accounts.

     So thinking, Heineman accompanied his sister Atlanta to Eastbeach. From the beach, you could see the wavering patch of green light which marked the location of the Zuzu Magore, the fallen skyship. It was faint in the darkness, like something half-imagined.

     Already, a rescue effort was getting underway. Boat teams were dragging the praus of Heineman's Family across the sands toward the waiting sea. The prau -- a type of outrigger canoe -- was the vessel the Jubiladilias used for all their seawork.

     "Come on!" said Atlanta. "Help us, Heineman!"

     So Heineman threw himself into action and helped launch one of the praus. Which, inevitably, meant plunging into the cacophonous shock of the cold night surf. Fighting to stand upright against the onslaught of the jumbled darkness, Heineman was confused, disoriented.

     "Hurry up!" shouted Dug Mantis. "Heineman! Get aboard!"

     "But," said Heineman.

     "No buts," said Dug Mantis.

     Then Dug Mantis -- Heineman's weightlifting cousin, skinmaster supreme -- grabbed Heineman and physically hauled him into the prau. No chance of getting back to his abacus! He was being kidnapped!

     "Heineman," said Atlanta, who was still in the sea.

     She wanted to pass him something. What? Oh. Little boy Loki's model skyship, which had somehow come into her possession. (Poor Loki!) Heineman took it, and then Atlanta extended a hand. Heineman tossed the model down by his feet, and helped drag his sister aboard. A waved buffeted the prau, making Heineman stagger.

     "Sit down!" yelled Dug Mantis.

     Hammered by that voice, Heineman sat abruptly, huddling down beside Atlanta. And Dug Mantis turned his attention to the business of getting the sail hoisted.

     The prau was an intricate mystery of shadows and flaring light, of snaking ropes and rocking water, of ribbed wood and bags of canvas. The adaptive skins, hollow tubular creatures, pulsed rhythmically, excited by the prospect of diving, of melding with humans, of feeding on blood. Flaring light glowed on the whip-thin sensory stalks which fringed their tube-openings. The yellowish white of the sensory stalks writhed, tasting the night air, gathering data. The sight made Heineman feel sick.

     As the little fleet quested out toward the Spliars, the light from the wreck grew stronger and stronger. By the time they were above the wreck, the diffused light filtering up from below was so powerful that it gave a greenish cast to their faces.

     The wrecked ship from Barth Banchup Bakchakris, Chalakanesia's first skyship wreck, lay in the depths below, spilling streams of air to the surface. The wreck was huge, its swollen green carapace dotted by the garish orange sunbursts of emergency lights and the flash, flash, flash of red wreck beacons. A luminous monster, any surviving humans drowning in its maw.

     A little trashed jetsam floated in the bob and buck of the nightsea waves -- a blonde wig, a plastic chamberpot, an orange, an inflatable plastic doll. But the Zuzu Magore was still substantially intact. Otherwise there would had been much more garbage in the sea. Even Heineman was sufficiently sea-smart to tell that much.

     Peering down into the misty realms of flaring light below, Heineman guessed that the topmost portions of the Zuzu Magore were barely three fathoms below the sea's surface. Bleeding bubbles. Bleeding air. There is air down there, so any survivors may still be breathing. But the ship is cracked. The egg is no longer airtight. The bubbles are escaping, and the water will be rising inside. Rising to the gasping mouth, to the --

     "Business," said Heineman, firmly, dismissing the horrifying image which had surfaced in his mind.

     You are an accountant. Right? You are a stable individual. You do not have an imagination. (Let's hope you don't, anyway.) Your role in life is to count things. So let's count. Three fathoms down to the topmost portion of the Zuzu Magore.

     So the bottom of the skyship would be -- how far down? Ten fathoms? More?

     That was when old man Zinjanthrop arrived. While the praus had been questing outward toward the Spliars, Zinjanthrop had hustled to Eastport by rickshaw, had entered the vug machine at La Lantis, and, liberated into the form of a disembodied head, had free-floated his way across the darkness of the Eastern Ocean. Now he was on site -- at least, his head was -- and ready to take command.

     "Report to me!" sang out Zinjanthrop. "Boatmasters -- all divers down, all divers up!"

     The old man would mastermind the salvage operation, and would keep track of who was on the surface and who was down below. That was very important -- and difficult. With multiple boats and multiple divers, it was all too easy to lose someone in a wreck dive, to forget they were down there. Heineman knew as much from anecdote, but was only now starting to appreciate how much confusion was involved in the actuality of an emergency wreck dive.

     "Twelve fathoms of water here," sang out Zinjanthrop. "Boatmasters, sing your divers!"

     Then the boatmasters began to cry out names, each name accompanied by a splash as a diver hit the night sea, descending from darkness to the light.

     Twelve fathoms was well within the safe working limit of divers who owed genes to the Mer, particularly when their own resources were supplemented by those of the adaptive skins. The true danger would be from torn metal, burst steam pipes, caustic chemicals, oil, snaking ropes and other debris.

     And sharks.

     -- Don't even think about the sharks!

     So thought Heineman.

     "Hold this!" said Dug Mantis, passing Heineman a diving rope. "Don't let go! Pay it out! Don't let it get slack! Hold onto it until I tell you otherwise!"

     Heineman nodded. He understood. Dug Mantis was going to dive, and Heineman would monitor his safety rope. Dug's torso was already shrouded with the black torso tube of an adaptive skin. Dug's silverwhite skin gleamed in the night, visible through the vetavetch, the tailored holes cut in the adaptive skin at the level of his floating ribs.

     "Heineman," said Dug, with a note of warning in his voice. "Don't screw up. I'm relying on you."

     "I won't," said Heineman, who was hurt to realize how low he stood in his cousin's esteem.

     Then Atlanta cried out, for Zinjanthrop's benefit:

     "Diver down! Dug Mantis down!"

     "Dug Mantis down," shouted Zinjanthrop, acknowledging, confirming.

     Heineman paid out the rope as his cousin Dug took it downward. The rope was already wet and heavy from earlier use. It was harsh and bristly, offensive to Heineman's fingers. But this is Dug's life you're holding. A human life -- and don't you forget it.

     When the rope went dead, Heineman pulled in the slack. He knelt in the prau, his fingers listening to the rope as a fisherman listens to a fishing line. The rope jerked once, savagely. It was Dug, down below, making sure Heineman got the message: listen up, cousin! Then there was a pause, then the rope was tugged, distinctly, five times. Which meant -- what? Heineman knew only a handful of the salvage codes.

     "Five," said Heineman, speaking to the night.

     "He's anchored the rope to something solid," said Atlanta, explaining.

     Graced with that knowledge, Heineman waited, fingers tender on the rope, listening for an emergency signal, the call for help.

     Soon, the first survivors were brought up alive from the depths -- coughing, gasping, hacking out the occasional word of need or despair. One rescued foreigner from Hell screamed in raw agony as an adaptive skin was torn away from his flesh.

     To Heineman, it was all at least half-familiar -- the rocking rhythm of the night sea, the lights of the neighboring praus, the splash of divers, the glimmer of gel-lights descending to the depths, the cadaverous boat-crew faces lit by light from below. He knew all this from stories, at least, for the work of his Family was the work of the sea, diving and salvage, rescue and wreck-work, pressure and depth. Some of his earliest childhood memories were of being on the beach when the boats departed and returned, and of listening to the wild tales told afterwards over feasts of beer and barbecue steaks.

     But this was his first salvage job, so everything was a challenge, and he soon lost track of the passage of time, too intent on detail to have a firm grasp of the whole. After a while, the pain in his knees told him he had been kneeling on wood for a long time. How long? No idea. He was numb from the night cold, half-hypnotized by the rhythm of the sea-rocked stars.

     "Here," said someone.

     It was Atlanta, offering coffee. Heineman took it. One hand for the rope, one for the mug. The coffee was hot, furnace hot and intensely sweet. And strong. In all his life coffee had never smelt so hot or tasted so good. Its richness made him realize how late the night was, and how cold he was.

     Seeking to ease his cold cramped flesh, Heineman shifted from kneeling to squatting and back again. Suddenly, he realized Dug was standing beside him. Dug had surfaced without signaling on the rope. Must have come up on the other side of the prau.

     "What the hell happened to protocol?" said Heineman, shocked into anger. "You never signaled! I thought you were down there!"

     "Heineman," said Dug, too exhausted to apologize or explain. "You've got to go down."

     "What?" said Heineman.

     "Down," said Dug. "We need you, Heineman."

     Dug Mantis was bleeding. He had torn his scalp on jagged metal while rescuing men from the wreckage of the Zuzu Magore. He was injured and exhausted. And there was Atlanta, holding the heavy torso tube of an adaptive skin. Big sister. The face of duty.

     Accepting the inevitable, Heineman scrambled out of his clothes. The cold night air snatched at his skin. He grabbed the torso tube and wrenched it over him, forcing himself into that clammy embrace.

     "Heineman," said Atlanta, pulling impatiently at the tube as she tried to rearrange it. "Stand up. And stand still!"

     Heineman stood as still as he could. Smothered by the encumbering embrace of the adaptive skin. Heavy, claustrophobic, crushed. Atlanta tugged at the skin, making sure Heineman's floating ribs were exposed by the vetavetch, the vital cutaway holes. Then Heineman cried out as the adaptive skin drove its tendrils into his body, injecting itself into his arteries and veins, matching its blood supply with his.

     Water sloshed and glubbered in the bilges of the prau's V-cut hull, the boat groaning as the creaking swells lifted it and dropped it. The stability of land was just a memory. All around, evolutions of water shaped and reshaped the darkness. Heineman felt small, weak and cold -- fit more for hospitalization than for heroism.

     "Heineman."

     Atlanta again. This time she had a gel-torch, a cold bubble of blue-green light hanging from a rubber strap. She looped the strap round his wrist, and tied it tight so he could not lose it.

     "This is the ship," said Dug, holding a child's model of the Zuzu Magore -- the property of little boy Loki.

     "Yes," said Heineman, waiting to receive instructions.

     "It's canted over, like this," said Dug, tilting the model. "The side that's higher, there's a rent -- a rip. Down here. Here. See? The hull's torn open. That's where you get in."

     "Yes," said Heineman.

     "Go down the rope," said Dug, meaning the salvage rope which Heineman had previously been monitoring. "You're at the bottom. Got it? Good. Hang on the rope. Face the ship. The rip is to your left. Swim left, and toward the ship."

     "It'll be dark."

     "It's plenty bright," said Dug. "The ship, the hole. No problem. Outside, green. Inside, orange. Look for the orange. That's the hole."

     "Okay."

     "There are people inside," said Dug. "In the ship. We think. Find out -- you'll have to get out of your skin. Then get them inside it. No other way."

     Heineman understood. The foreigners trapped underwater were not of the sealines, and so could breathe underwater. To escape from the ship they needed the help of the adaptive skins, the biological exterior lungs which, for Family divers, served merely as supplementary sources of oxygen.

     "Watch yourself," warned Dug. "These crazy foreigners, they've never seen a skin in their lives. Think we're sea monsters or something. Might even fight you. They sure aren't the easiest people to rescue."

     "But we've got to try," said Heineman, as if hoping that someone would contradict him, would absolve him from his responsibility. "Anyway -- where do I look?"

     "The ship," said Dug, demonstrating with Loki's model. "Like three donuts. Sitting on top of each other. Capped here. Like this. By this half a tennis ball. On top of the tennis ball, this carbuncle."

     "Got you," said Heineman.

     "The two lowest levels, they're clear. We think. Probably clear -- we searched. Anyway, we're checking. But you, you take the topmost ring, the topmost donut."

     "From the bottom?" said Heineman. "How about the top? Can't I get in through the top?"

     "From the bottom," confirmed Dug. "Through the hole. There are emergency exits, but they won't open against water."

     "Why not?" said Heineman.

     "Go ask the man who built the thing," said Dug, who never had patience with stupid questions. "It wasn't designed to crash in the sea. Fact is, it wasn't designed to crash, period."

     Then someone handed Heineman a pair of reef boots. He pulled them on, then climbed out onto one of the outriggers of the prau, and jumped.

     The command came to him out of his memory:--

     "Float!"

     Float, more. You have to float. Must. Orient yourself. Get used to the water, give yourself time.

     -- Speed kills! Hurry is the worst thing!

     Remembering these axioms, Heineman floated face-down above the blurred and glowing vastness of the wreck. The adaptive skin was no burden whatsoever now that he was supported by the salt of the sea. And it was starting to make him warm. However, the vetavetch -- the gaps where patches had been cut from the torso tube -- left his floating ribs naked to the sea. Naked, and cold.

     As Heineman floated there, his gill-slits began to open. His floating ribs slid apart, admitting the cold tongues of the sea. Then, with an initiating spasm, his water-lung -- the water-breathing organ centered beneath his naval -- began sucking in the sea. That first liquid convulsion felt a bit like your bowels giving way. Then, settling into a steady working rhythm, the water-lung sucked and pulsed, processing oxygen from the water. An internal masseur, powerful and remorseless, inflicting an overwhelming rhythm on your flesh.

     Heineman had always hated that sensation of being governed and controlled by something which was not quite himself. As a child, he had imagined his water-lung to be a kind of octopus, an alien organism living in his flesh. In early adolescence, there had been times when he had been so suspicious of this appetite beneath his skin that he had refused to take a bath, restricting himself to showers, or, at times of peak neurosis, to a quick sponge-down.

     Control -- that was the key issue. The water-lung was not under volitional control. Heineman owed genes to the sea, tracing one side of his ancestry back to the Mer. He belonged to the sealines: and, in the manner of his kind, had no control over the functions of his water-lung. It inevitably started functioning as soon as he was immersed in water: it was an automatic survival reflex.

     The night sea. Awash with green. Stained with orange and blurting red. The prau's outrigger jarred against Heineman's shoulder, almost bashed in his head. It was dangerous to stay on the surface. Besides -- everyone must be watching him. Assessing how long it took him to nerve himself up for the plunge. Go,then. Time to follow the rope and its blue-green gel-torch marker-lights down to the depths. He was oriented, he was ready, and to wait further would be cowardice.

     Heineman dived, but it was hard to fight his way down. Why? Air: there was still air in his lungs. Exhale, then. No! I need -- you don't need!

     By an act of will, Heineman breathed out, voiding his lungs. The big fat bubbles blurped upwards. His life, escaping. No air! He fought against panic. No air? So what? Air is just surplus buoyancy. An inconvenience. You're doing just fine.

     -- Now dive. Don't think. Just do it.

     Thought threatens insanity. You are alone. The sea extends into darkness, and the darkness is the jaws of a shark. So don't think. Just take it moment by moment. One moment, then the next. Down. Swim down. Follow the rope.

     With the air gone from his lungs, Heineman found it easy to swim down into the depths, descending through the misty nimbus of light, doing his best to forget about the omnivorous darkness of the open sea beyond.

     Descending, allowing the rope to lure him down, he took in the hugeness of the Zuzu Magore. As he descended, he heard, or thought he heard, faint sounds of confused mechanical distress from inside that monstrosity. Three bulging donut curves like gigantic rings of fat set atop one another, obese, swollen, gravid. Glowing green curves studded with lurid orange sunbursts, bleeding red light from pulsing wreck beacons.

     And there was the end of the rope. Knotted loosely to a seabottom boulder. Heineman hauled himself down, twisted, stood. Sand puffed up from his reef boots as he stood on the seafloor, one hand on the rope, looking for the rent, the hole.

     There! Impossible to miss -- a huge orange gash where the ship had torn itself open on one of the rocks of the Spliars. That was the way in. And now could hear, more clearly than before, the asymmetrical tempos of the ship's internal confusion, the bungling percussion of the ship's slow, confused death.

     Abruptly, the sea groaned, horribly. The ship buckled, collapsing toward Heineman. It was toppling, would roll down upon him, would crush him into darkness, nothingness, would mash him beneath its crippled tonnage, would --

     No.

     It was not falling.

     It had merely settled a little.

     But the settling of the ship had opened a new wound in the hull, and bubbles were bursting outwards from an opened seam a fathom uphill from the entrance wound which Heineman was facing. Even has he watched, the swarms of bubbles dwindled to nothing. That breached air pocket has filled. Anyone inside is breathing water. And normative humans can't do that.

     You cannot wait. If you wait, the dying will die. Maybe there's nobody left alive. But you have to do an audit. This is not a write-off. A single life is a hundred per cent profit. Got that? One hundred per cent tax-free profit. So go for it.

     Heineman swam forward, entering via the ship's impact wound, swimming through the gash into the orange arena of the hard, remorseless emergency lighting of the interior. The orange light gleamed on ceramic tiles. Floors of tiles. Walls of tiles. Even when dying, this ship was a hard, polished, gleaming place, a testimony to high-technology hygiene. The very ceiling glittered, clean and orange and aseptic.

     Heineman floated, watching, listening, orientating himself to the new environment. The ship was noisy. Somewhere, there was the rhythmic hammering of air punching water. Somewhere, a sea-boom slap of water testing and retesting a cavity. And there was a pumping gurgling of air bleeding, an amplified aquarium sound suggesting the scurry of a billion bubbles, a high-pitched whine like that of a bearing overheating, and a jibbering arrhythmical thumping from a machine which had torn loose from its task and was destroying itself somewhere in the surrounding mechanical maze.

     The alien, unorchestrated noises emphasised to Heineman that he was in a strange place. This was a ship from the west, from Barth Banchup Bakchakris, ruling city of the Chasms of Hell. This ship was the product of an advanced high-technology society which had precious little in common with his own. Wrecks were always dangerous, but this one particularly so, because it was a fresh wreck, a wreck still in the process of dying, a wreck where machines and processes were still at work, a wreck which might roll or settle or burst or sunder, a wreck which he had every reason to fear.

     Then, as if Heineman's entry into the ship had been a signal for failure, a cue for disaster, the orange lights fluctuated, then abruptly faded down to something close to darkness. There was just sufficient light to see by. Heineman glanced at the blue-green gel-light on his wrist. It would be enough to get him out alive if all other lights failed. He had no excuse to stop.

     Heineman swam through the wrecked hullside chamber, gained a corridor. The corridor curved away to where something gleamed a dull red, like a huge squid's eye, waiting for him. But squid didn't have red eyes. Did they?

     The orange ship lights strengthened without warning, making the faint red disappear. Eye? What eye? Just your imagination. Heineman had to believe that, otherwise he could not go on.

     He glanced back. Looking back through the hullside chamber, he could see the night sea, misty with spilt light. Nobody else was visible. Nobody would know if he merely skulked by the opening, then ascended, claiming his search completed. He could run, then. He could turn tail and run, swimming away from all this, daring no further, venturing no risk of boiling water, chancing no encounters with red-eyed monsters.

     No. He could not, would not go back. Not empty-handed.

     Conscious of the members of his Family waiting on the prau above, conscious of the expectations of his sister Atlanta, his cousin Dug Mantis, his grandfather Zinjanthrop, Heineman began to swim along the curving corridor, looking for a companionway, a set of stairs leading upwards.

     Upwards. You have to go upwards. Search the third level. And that's it? No. Then, above that --

     Business, Heineman. The present moment demands your attention. Does it have it? Good. Thank you. Now. Stairs. Or -- let's be nautical here, for this is a ship, after all -- companionways.

     He knew there were such stairs, he had seen them in little boy Loki's model skyship, the model was true to life, or so he hoped.

     Heineman paused, realized he was floating by a red light -- one of the cold everburn lights which marked the locations of fire extinguishers in high-technology installations. He had seen such lights in La Lantis, the cool and orderly research facility on the shore. He should have known it for what it was. How could he have thought it an eye? He had almost allowed himself to be panicked by a fire-extinguisher light!

     But remember. This is not La Lantis. This is a wreck. Don't let the familiar fool you. This place is not secure. Wrecks are unpredictable . | so be careful.

     Up ahead, a gel-torch. A fellow diver? The light moved slightly. Waving? No.

     Closing with the diver, Heineman found the man was dead. The corpse was being gently rocked by a faint flux of water within the hull of the wrecked skyship. Who? The ship's internal orange lighting strengthened as Heineman rolled the body. The strengthening light seemed to make the water colder. Heineman looked at the dead man's face, fearfully afraid that it would be someone he knew. But it was nobody. A stranger.

     Another diver must have tagged this lifeless corpse with the gel-torch to mark it for later recovery. Well -- why not recover it now? Here was his excuse! He could take this corpse and go.

     But Dug would ask him about the living.

     Heineman touched the dead man with his hand, touched the fine skeins of hair which floated free in the water. Then he started to swim past the blundering obstacle. The corpse rolled to embrace him as he passed. His hand brushed its face. He pushed it away, feeling the hardness of teeth against his fingers. Then he had got past the thing.

     Somewhere, a loud bang. The thumping impact, communicated through the water, made Heineman's head hurt. The ship's lights pulsed with a spasm of blackness, then settled to a dull mango glimmering.

     Momentarily, Heineman was disoriented. Which way was up? His mouth was foul with the taste of stress, of fear. He sucked in seawater, but that tasted worse. Its chemical taste reminded him of burnt plastic. And this foul water was what was being cycled through his own flesh, going straight into his own water-lung!

     Heineman spat out the seawater, then floated. Be cool. Be calm. Deliberately, he made himself look back at the free-floating corpse. It reminded him of something. Dead kittens seen in childhood -- something like that.

     He was getting cold. Just your imagination? No.

     The adaptive skin helped keep him warm, since its cladding kept on warmth. And chemicals from the creature's blood had entered his own, prompting an increase in his metabolic rate.

     But, even so, Heineman was losing heat to the sea, since his water-lung was processing a continual stream of cold sea water. As he gilled water, heat fled his flesh for the ocean. He was being cooled dangerously by the very process which let him breathe beneath water.

     -- So don't hang around. Get a move on.

     Heineman swam on along the orange-flooded corridor. Mosaic by mosaic, the ceramic tiles slipped away beneath him. Tesselated squares, triangles, rhomboids. Hard and polished. Geometry. Trigonometry. He had never liked that. Arithmetic had always been his preference, even as a child. He liked arithmetic, abominated geometry. He particularly hated circles. He was disturbed by the nature of pi, 3.14 whatever it was, the ratio of something to the circumference.

     -- Attend to the wreck! This is reality! And it will kill you if you skimp your attention. This is no place for daydreaming. Focus.

     Heineman hung in the water, trying to center himself, to concentrate on the reality in which he was immersed. Up ahead, a green light. Again, he was reminded of La Lantis. In the public library at La Lantis, every exit was marked with a green light, as was every emergency stairwell. He suspected this light would mark a companionway.

     And he was right.

     Gaining the companionway, Heineman swam upward to the second level of the Zuzu Magore, which was much like the lowest level. No need to search this -- Dug had said the first two levels had already been searched. The third donut, that's what you want. A linking companionway went straight up to that third level. Heineman took it.

     Once in the third level, Heineman began to search individual rooms. In the silence of the very first chamber, he found something floating in the center of the room, a pinkness rimmed with white. He realized it was a set of false teeth. He left them there, floating in the fluctuating light.

     He felt as if he had been in the wreck a long time, so long that he half-imagined that his very skin was turning orange in the orange emergency lighting. Periodically, the internal illumination swooned altogether before recovering to a state of convalescent mango, each swooning plunge precipitating a darkness which would have been utterly utter, but for Heineman's gel-torch. Search as fast as you can, then, before the light goes altogether.

     In some rooms, air pockets. Dank with the sea-slop, foul with the smell of alien chemicals. Rising to one such air pocket, Heineman found his own reflection staring back at him from a mirror. A grotesque sight it made. Wearing the adaptive skin, he looked like a kind of two-legged black-skinned seal with the pale limbs of a corpse, and a head to match.

     The vetavetch, the specially tailored holes in the flanks of the adaptive skin, revealed the gaping fissures between his floating ribs, the membranous tongue-fleshed chasms which went down to his water-lung. Heineman shuddered, gave a quick look round, then dived.

     In the very next chamber, he found a set of free-floating false teeth. False teeth, floating in absolute silence. And he realized he had made a complete circuit of the ship's third, uppermost donut ring.

     That was it. Job done. Go back and report success. Right? No! You're forgetting something.

     On top of the three rings, on top of the stack of three quoits, there was half a tennis ball (the great observation deck) topped by a carbuncle (a bar for first-class passengers). Heineman wanted to deny his knowledge of those details.

     But the truth was that Heineman knew the layout of the ship better than he should. The time that should have been invested in preparing his compulsory three-monthly campaign finance report had been wasted, instead, on playing with little boy Loki's true-to-life model of the skyship. The result? Heineman could not honestly pretend ignorance.

     Reluctantly, Heineman found a companionway and swam slowly upwards into the observation deck, a single dome with a spiraling central staircase which led up to the bar. Ascending, he left the world of failing mango behind him and entered a world of darkest emerald.

     The great dome of the observation deck was flooded, a vast volume of contained water, a huge aquarium with a floor of glowing green. In the glassy curvature of the walls, a crack. The sea had breached the dome and had flooded it utterly, leaving not a single air pocket. Corpses . | one, two . | three . | more . | floated loose-limbed . | no timetables in death, no bank balance . | no stress . |

     Slowly, meditatively, Heineman kicked with his feet, starting a leisurely drifting journey upwards. He was ascending toward the bar for first-class passengers at the top of the spiraling central staircase -- toward the carbuncle on top of the observation dome.

     -- The last thing.

     Realizing that his task was almost over, Heineman felt stronger. Once he had checked out the carbuncle, the ultimate eyrie, the whole ship would be clear. He could claim one of the corpses as proof of courage, proof of effort, and start making his way out of here.

     At the top of the central stairway, a heavy fire door. Heineman manhandled it open, exposing a portal into a realm of unknown darkness. Cautiously, he swam inside. The gel-torch was little help -- he had to feel ahead for wires, ropes, obstacles.

     Heineman broke through the surface. There was an air pocket here, but hosing sprays of water told him that the sea was forcing its way in via cracks in the hull. Before very much longer, this space, too, would be one with the ocean.

     Heineman breathed the darkness. Tasted it. The air was dank, dirty, thick, hot, hard to process. He pulled himself out of the water, felt broken glass grate beneath the toughness of his reef boots, heard a wine glass shatter. Did something move in the recesses of absolute shadow? It was hard to be sure. The place was noisy, alive with splattering water, testament to the relentless ingress of the sea.

     "Get away from us!"

     The fearful voice from the dark so startled Heineman that he almost panicked and fled. He extended his wrist, to maximize the effect of the gel-torch, the bubble of blue-green light which he was wearing strapped on like an wristwatch. He peered into the gloom. Three people. Three . | men? Yes, men. All scrabbling back as if trying to get out through the walls. One had armed himself with a broken bottle.

     Having so recently seen himself in a mirror, Heineman had an idea how he must look to them. Like some kind of sea-monster. Doubtless they were all strangers to Chalakanesia. Even if they had been briefed on what to expect in the islands, briefings had a way of fleeing one's head in a time of trauma.

     "Get away from us!"

     Heineman heard panic in the voice, heard fear. Keyed to that panic, the men started to ghost. Their internal panic, their lack of self-control, made them vulnerable to the destabilizing effects of the metapsychic faultline, which started producing ephemeral doppelgangers of the victims. A mob of half-substantial ghosts filled the air with thrashing blurs.

     But the ghosts were brief-lived, their generation the work of the panic of men close to utter exhaustion. Most perished before they had the chance to even question their own condition.

     As Heineman had spent his entire life living on top of the metapsychic faultline, he could often accurately judge a person's condition by the quality of their ghosting -- and he knew that these strangers were close to physical failure. He had to do something, and quickly.

     In a moment of quick decision, Heineman ripped the adaptive skin away from his body, enduring the necessary lacerating pain as its blood supply separated from his in an action which left him with thousands of tiny blood-spotted wounds. Grief, how that hurt! The jets of water busily flooding the remaining airspace beat on Heineman's tenderized flesh like whips.

     Hold your ground. Show what you are made of. This is your audit, my man. We will find out who you are. You are blood and bone, yes. But is there a man's spirit inside that blood and bone? We will see.

     As the ghosts cleared, Heineman stood there, his naked body illuminated by the gel-torch. He felt calm, now. Resolved. There was pain, yes, but he decided to think about his pain . | later. When? At noon, tomorrow. That is a promise, pain. We will have a meeting, and you will be able to set your demands before me. You want to bring a lawyer? Sure, pain. That's fine by me. You bring your lawyer and I will bring mine.

     Having set up that appointment with his pain, Heineman concentrated on the present moment. The enormous, lubbery, waterlogged weight of the adaptive skin hung over his right hand, writhing slightly. He gave the adaptive skin a shake.

     "It's a kind of suit," said Heineman. "You wear it, you can breathe water."

     "But don't you also need a water-lung?" said one of the survivors, pointing at Heineman.

     Heineman realized the gaps between his floating ribs had not closed completely. Because he had just come out of the water, those gaps stood ajar, so his water-lung was ready for instant action should he submerge again.

     "Genetics," said Heineman, embarrassed, smoothing his skin beneath his fingers to make the gaps close. "Look -- you need an airplane to fly, but a parachute is all you need to survive. This adaptive skin is a parachute -- okay?"

     That was all the explanation he thought he had time for, but the attitude of the men indicated that it was not enough. Another brief-lived ghost popped forth from one, bleated piteously, then vanished.

     "Put this on," said Heineman, pointing at the nearest man.

     "No."

     So much for the strong commanding line!

     "We don't have time to talk," said Heineman.

     No, they didn't. The water level was relentlessly rising. But these people were not yet ready to do what Heineman wanted. To stay was to die. But -- what if monster Heineman was going to eat them? Better to die in twenty minutes rather than die right now.

     Get help?

     No time for that.

     All right, then. Imagine these are your creditors, hungry for immediate payment, and you have to pacify them. Settle them down. Teach them trust. Persuade them to accept your promise that, yes, the company is sound, and the receivables due next month will more than amply cover the present shortfall in funds. Our only problem is a temporary cash-flow thing -- okay?

     "Look," said Heineman, in his most reassuring voice, "I'm not some kind of monster from the deep, or anything. I'm not even a diver. My name's Heineman, Heineman Yakaskam . | well, Heineman Jubiladilia, actually. Heineman Yakaskam Jubiladilia. You probably won't have heard of me, but I'm a senator, a politician, you know, one of those people you like to throw tomatoes at."

     One of the men grunted. A sign of intelligent life! Obviously Heineman had struck a chord. The throwing of tomatoes at politicians was, then, as much a part of the traditions of Hell as it was of Chalakanesia.

     "This is a diving suit," said Heineman, hefting the adaptive skin. "Put it on, you can swim underwater. It'll get you out of here. And, hey -- I'm not the world's greatest salesman, but let me put this proposition to you. What have you got to lose? If you stay here, you're dead. The water's rising. I mean, I don't want to eat you or anything. I just want to help you."

     Heineman had never before felt so calm, so patient, so strangely lucid. The dire desperation of the situation had completely annulled all his usual worries. When things were going well, Heineman worried inordinately about every small trifling thing which might go wrong. But this extreme situation had put things in perspective. He had adjusted his priorities, and, apart from worrying in case one of the men attacked him with a bottle, he felt perfectly at ease.

     One of the three men spoke:

     "Do you have any identity?"

     "Identity?" said Heineman.

     "You know. A Census Card. A flip-disk. A jump-start, even."

     To Heineman, this reaction seemed bizarre. In Chalakanesia, most people knew most other people, and problems of personal identity really didn't arise, except in the case of people who had been shunted.

     If you were shunted in a big way -- displaced into the future by the action of the metapsychic faultline -- then you could find yourself a stranger on your home island. But Heineman had never been shunted -- that was his story, and he was sticking to it -- and massively displaced people were few and far between. Essentially, Heineman lived in a world of recognised faces, so he had never bothered to study the systems of identification and verification so meticulously employed in Hell, where populations numbered in the hundreds of millions made issues of identity a key to social control.

     Obviously, the man was still badly frightened, and so less than completely logical.

     "Look," said Heineman, evading the issue of identity altogether, "how would you like to have a look at this thing? This diving suit, it's a biological construct, a kind of animal. Wearing this, you don't have to worry about the bends."

     "The bends?" said one man fearfully. "What's that?"

     Heineman realized he had made a bad mistake. In Chalakanesia, everyone knew about the bends. Those who were descended from the sealines, like Heineman, had no reason to fear any such danger, since their genetic modifications allowed them to dive as freely as seals. But normative humans like the Gan had no such immunity, and needed the protection of adaptive skins if they wanted to dive to depth.

     Could he explain it?

     No!

     Don't even try!

     This was no time for lectures on the anatomy and physiology of diving.

     "I do scuba, if that's any help," said a man all tattooed with flowers.

     "No, no," said Heineman, now truly fearful of getting bogged down in explanations. "You don't have to worry about insurance," he said, using that bit of nonsense to slide around the question about the bends. Then, cutting off further comments from the tattooed man, he addressed himself to the fearful one: "What's your name?"

     "Ralmond," said the fearful one.

     "Ralmond," said Heineman, repeating it, committing it to memory, as if busy on the presidential campaign trail. Then, using it to confirm it and retain it: "Ralmond, how would you like to introduce me to these people?"

     The others were Grindle-Joyce and Glynn, Grindle-Joyce being the one with all the tattoos.

     "Well, Ralmond," said Heineman, using the names for all they were worth, "Ralmond, Grindle-Joyce, Glynn, if you don't have to go anywhere in a hurry then I'd like to do some explaining."

     His jokes got no laughs, but the atmosphere was easier as Heineman launched himself into an explanation of the adaptive skin and its functions.

     As Heineman had often been told by his fellows in the senate, he was a supremely boring speaker, since he never made alogical intuitive jumps. His mind had been trained in the profession of accountancy, where everything must be proved out step by step, from order form to invoice to check to bank balance. This had given Heineman an unshakable confidence in the merits of step-by-step logic.

     In the face of Heineman's sheer matter-of-fact logic, his unassailable dullness, his complete lack of personal drama, the men grew calm.

     "I'll go," said Grindle-Joyce at last. "I've done scuba, it's not so bad for me."

     "Then help me talk Ralmond here into this diving suit of mine," said Heineman, gesturing at the lubbering tubular horror of his adaptive skin. "You stay here and keep the other guy calm."

     Helped by Grindle-Joyce, Heineman was able to talk Ralmond into the adaptive skin. Then Heineman got him into the water. In politics, Heineman was no genius, but he had learnt something about getting people to do what they don't want to do. First you show them that a little doesn't hurt. Then you take them deeper.

     With Grindle-Joyce assisting, Heineman got Ralmond into the water bit by bit, toe by shin then shin by kneecap, kneecap by thigh, and at last got him submerged.

     "Now try it again," said Heineman. "But breathe out before you go under. Empty your lungs."

     Ralmond complied.

     Then, skipping no step -- do it once, and do it right! -- Heineman brought Ralmond to the surface and told him to explain the sensation to his fellows.

     "It's like," said Ralmond, "it's like you were floating, and dreaming. It's painless."

     Heineman guessed that Ralmond was one of those who become intoxicated when their blood streams merge with that of an adaptive skin. Such things happen. There are also a few individuals who got allergic reactions to toxins in the blood of the adaptive skins, and died. Heineman didn't like to think about that, or what might happen if this man died.

     "Okay," said Heineman. "We're going to swim out of the ship now. I'll be back, or my sister will be back. It may take some time, but, believe me, my sister's worth waiting for."

     "But we don't have time," said Grindle-Joyce.

     That was when Heineman was forced to face the insoluble problem. The air pocket was flooding fast. By the time he got out of the ship with Ralmond, the others would be dead. They had lost too much time going over explanations. You killed them, Heineman. You killed them by talking too much.

     "Others are on the way," said Heineman, lying. "If you can't wait for my sister, try my brother."

     This got a chuckle. Heineman didn't see that it was funny -- he had never found sex amusing -- but Zinjanthrop had taught him the art of making dirty jokes, and in his political life Heineman routinely employed those jokes in accordance with his grandfather's protocols.

     "Let's go then," said Heineman.

     He wanted to hurry, now, because Ralmond was looking woozy, and Heineman guessed he was becoming so intoxicated that he might get seriously blood-drunk, or even pass out. He could do himself a lot of damage if he breathed water in the process. And because he wanted to be away from here. Away from the men he had killed with his incompetence.

     Cut your losses. That's basic accountancy, isn't it? Save something, even if you can't save everything. Go! Go! Go!

     So thinking, Heineman took Ralmond down into the water-depths of the ship. And, as they descended, he remembered. False teeth. Floating in silence. Silence! No incoming water! There was air down below. A stable air pocket, in the ship's third ring. You can bring the men down there in relays.

     As they worked their way down through the ship, Ralmond's actions became erratic, and Heineman guessed he was becoming seriously blood-drunk.

     But Ralmond had enough self-control left to keep his mouth shut, and so sucked no water into his lungs. Ralmond's life was sustained by the adaptive skin, which acted in effect as a set of gills and did his breathing for him. Heineman was sustained by his own water-lung, which gave him air sufficient for the business of guiding his charge through the depths, though not air sufficient for prolonged hard work underwater.

     Air, however, was not Heineman's chiefest problem. His problem was cold. The adaptive skin had helped keep him warm, and, with its loss, he was quickly getting chilled. The activity of his water-lung pumped a constant stream of cold seawater to his gut, and bled him of heat as effectively as if he had been harpooned with a javelin of ice.

     Was this the room? No. This one? No. Ralmond was starting to struggle sluggishly, realizing that something was wrong, that Heineman was lost on the ship's third level. Was this the | .? Yes! In here. Drag Ralmond in. Force him upwards.

     "What?" said Ralmond, shocked by the sudden, unexpected contact with air.

     "A way station," said Ralmond.

     And started to tear the adaptive skin from Ralmond's flesh.

     Ralmond struggled, and screamed. But Heineman prevailed. He got the adaptive skin off the man and left him screaming in the darkness. And went back for the others.

     After taking the second man to the safety of the air pocket, Heineman went back for the third, Grindle-Joyce. Grindle-Joyce he took all the way out. And his strength was still holding up when they got outside the ship, where he spotted the salvage rope thanks to its gel-torches. The gel-torches were at the end of their effective life, and were burning a sickly yellow. But the rope was guidance sufficient.

     - Up, then!

     Up, up they went to the surface, though it was something of a fight, for Grindle-Joyce had also become blood-drunk, so blood-drunk that he was no longer properly oriented to the surface, and started fighting his rescuer.

     When they broke surface, Heineman was shocked by the loudness of the night, the vigor of wave-slap and shouting, the sudden flurry of grabbing and hauling, the confusion of orders and activity. It was like waking from a slow-motion pressurized dream to the babble of a birthday party.

     "Heineman."

     It was Atlanta, again. She was wearing an adaptive skin, and reef boots, and her hands were sheathed with a pair of those metal-armor gloves which are so handy for working a reef, since they allow one to handle coral and sea urchins with impunity. Heineman wished he had a pair, and was almost going to ask for Atlanta's when she forestalled him.

    "Any more down there?" said Atlanta.

     "Yes," said Heineman.

     "How many?" said Atlanta, impatiently.

     "Two," said Heineman.

     "Show me," said Atlanta.

     And they dived together.

      *

     

     Dawn. The beach. Heineman was exhausted. And, though he had made a deal with his pain -- though he had promised that they would meet at noon to settle their accounts -- his pain was getting impatient. It wanted an accounting, in full, right now.

     "Total frog-bleeding disaster," said Heineman exhaustedly, contemplating the disaster which had befallen his affairs.

     Too late, now, for Heineman to file his report on his campaign finances. Unless he could get a special dispensation, then, he would be out of the presidential race.

     "Great work," said Dug Mantis, as he and Atlanta joined Heineman. "Come on, let's go inside. They're barbecuing steaks right now."

     "Steaks?" said Heineman.

     "To celebrate," said Atlanta.

     "What's there to celebrate?" said Heineman. "I'm finished."

     "How so?" said Dug Mantis.

     Realizing that they would find out soon enough in any case, Heineman told them his problem.

     "Your problem is no problem," said Atlanta. "You can get the dispensation, no problem. You saved people's lives, didn't you?"

     "And," said Dug Mantis, "you now have a political platform on which to campaign."

     "Which is?" said Heineman.

     "Character," said Atlanta, supplying the obvious. "The hero of the wreck of the Zuzu Magore volunteers his services to the nation."

     And Heineman saw that she was telling the truth. Yes: you have done it. You have faced your audit, and you have survived it. The books balance. Okay, pain, come on in. You, me and a couple of bottles of beer are going to have a get together. Right now.

     "Will there be fried onion with the steaks?" said Heineman.

     "Of course," said Atlanta.

     "Then," said Heineman, "my happiness is complete."

     And it was.

The End

This story,"Diving on the Wreck", was first posted on the SUCCESS by DESIGN SF&F website www.motordoc.net/sf&f October 2002 (ed. Howard W. Penrose, Ph.D.)(9,830 words)(science fiction).

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