Jewel of Jarhen by E. C. Tubb

Author:E. C. Tubb [Tubb, E. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction
ISBN: 9780575107779
Publisher: DAW Books
Published: 2011-09-29T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

The universe had exploded.

One second Kennedy had been leaning toward the Jewel, eyes narrowed against the light, his agile mind busy extrapolating presented detail: the shape of the stone, the pattern of the facets, a half familiar association nagging at the edge of his consciousness. The next everything was lost in a sudden gush of stunning brilliance, a blaze of effulgence that penetrated into the innermost corners of his brain.

And then he was in water.

It was all around, a tight envelope of constricting liquid, numbing pressure forcing it into his ears, against his eyes, filling his nostrils, and pressing hard against the lips he had instinctively closed. He was deep, only a dim light illuminated the scene, the spined and questing snout of a creature which darted away with a flurry of fins as, automatically, Kennedy struck out for the surface.

He was a good swimmer, in aquatic sports he could hold his own against men trained to water from birth, and the Divers of Oldemah accepted him as their equal, but now he needed all his skill, the massive air-retention capacity of his lungs. The pressure was immense, the shock of transition too great. Another man would have been lost, slow to respond to the new environment. He would have parted his lips, gulped, filled stomach and lungs with water, rising to float, a corpse if he rose at all. Only the hard training over difficult years gave Kennedy the ability to survive.

The light grew brighter, sunlight blazing as he broke the surface to turn, lying on his back as he sucked in great drafts of salt-scented air. He was, he realized, completely naked; another mystery to add to the other. How he had come here, thrown instantly from the audience chamber to far beneath the surface of an ocean? But questions could wait, now he had to ensure that he survived.

He inflated his lungs, rearing high from the water, turning as he fell beneath the surface to rise again and look in a new direction. The circle complete, he rested again, conserving his strength, face grim as he stared at the vivid azure of the sky.

Nowhere had he seen a sign of land. On all sides stretched the empty expanse of the ocean, the surface broken by a gentle swell beneath the impact of a minor breeze. Above the sun, at zenith, showed a mottled surface tinged with green, the corona prominent, ringing the orb like a fringed halo. A film of cloud hung like a mist, more, darker, low on the horizon.

He was completely lost, naked in an ocean beneath an unfamiliar sky.

He fought the instinct to turn, to strike out and swim away from where he was, to head toward a point on the horizon. Action without a plan would be useless, and to waste his strength now would be to invite death. Already he felt thirst, the sun and brine acting to rob his body of moisture, but he knew the feeling was more a prelude to what would come than actually real.

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