1981-The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge

Author:Joan D. Vinge [Vinge, Joan D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure, sf
ISBN: 9780445205291
Google: ZeI6HQAACAAJ
Amazon: 0445205296
Publisher: Popular Library
Published: 1989-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

He released her; she sank like a stone beneath the surface. But before she could react, the sleek, buoyant shapes were raising her again. Web-fingered flippers enfolded her like the petals of a closing flower, drawing her up into the air--over onto her stomach on the soft, broad breast of a mer at rest in the water. She lay sputtering and amazed, held barely clear of the lapping surface of the sea, her feet still trailing in its insatiable cold. But the mer--it was a female, she could tell by the necklace of golden fur it wore--wrapped her in its flippers like a nurse ling cub, feeding her its body heat as it would warm and feed its own young one. It began a deep toneless crooning, in rhythm with the rocking of the sea. Too exhausted to wonder, Moon lay her head on its silky breast, hands beneath her, feeling the toneless song penetrate her shuddering body. Silky and two of the other mers still hovered nearby; but she did not remember them now, did not remember anything past or future as her existence telescoped down to the present moment.

How long in the time of the greater world she drifted, held in the mer's embrace, she never knew, or wanted to know. The sun had crossed the sky, rolling down the farther slope to its own rendezvous with the sea, before another change came over the face of the water: the long shadow of a ship reaching ahead to greet them, the distant heartbeat of its engines breaking their silence more and more insistently.

"Moon. Moon. Moon." Silky spoke her name, wreathing her neck with dripping tentacles as he tried to make her hear.

But there was no Moon, no moon above, only the sea, the Sea, to answer him .. . the Sea reclaiming Her own.

"Moon .. . can you hear me?"

"No--" It was more a protest against the intrusion on her mindless peace than an answer to a demand. The world was a watercolor painting formlessly flowing.. ..

Something jarred her lip against her chattering teeth; hot, viscous liquid spilled into her mouth and trickled down her throat like flaming oil. She whimpered in pleasure and denial, feeling the watercolor world congeal, take on a form that was without reference in her grayed memory--except for the face centering above her, pulling past and present into a single double-image. "MM-Miroe?"

"Yes," with infinite relief. "She's coming back to us, Silky. She knows me." Beyond him she made out Silky crouched patiently, watching, and the round unblinking eye of a cabin porthole.

"W-where?" She gulped the peppery-sweet syrup convulsively as Ngenet pressed the cup to her lips again. Her shivering, shriveled body was bare of the waterlogged suit and bundled in heated blankets.

"On my ship. Hauled in safe on board at last, thank the gods. We're going home." He replaced a hot compress across the bridge of her nose, over her cheeks.

"H-home .. . ?" Past and present lives ran together again.

"To my plantation, to safe harbor.

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