A Merman's Tale 24

Chapter 24: The Power to Persuade



  All we could see of the Bahama Nova from the air was her upturned bottom, bright red with dark spots we soon realized were people as we flew closer. One of her propellers was also visible. It was a sad contrast to the picture of elegance she had presented as she had sailed past us last Wednesday afternoon. A Bahamian Rescue vessel lay at anchor in the channel not far from the wreck, as did two sailing yachts. A small Bahamian Navy ship was anchored near an islet, and a couple launches scurried about nearby. More launches formed a perimeter further out to keep gawkers from venturing in too close.

  All five of us Mers were looking out windows when we saw a wave slap into the hull, which then rocked back and forth from side to side. Sara clapped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming, and I felt as though my heart would have been in my throat even if it had been in its proper place (for a Vulcan). From out the corner of my eye I glimpsed Yuki and Gizella with looks of absolute concern on their faces, then Diane touched my arm and thought [O my God! I wouldn't want to be anyone trapped in there right now!]

  I found myself thinking [If it can be that scary for us just watching from above, what could it be like for any survivors within the ship?]

  [Maybe having a heart attack - or praying] Diane thought back. At the same time we both noticed Gizella and Sara crossing themselves in prayer.

  A few moments later the lieutenant returned from another visit to the cockpit, with some final advice before he pointed toward the Bahamian rescue vessel.

  "She is the Exuma Star. She's the command ship for the rescue and recovery operation. We will drop you on the far side when we get low enough, the water is deep there so you can dive in if you like."

  "Ooo...we will!" Sara answered. Asking a Mer not to dive into water was probably comparable to asking a squirrel not to raid a bird feeder - you can keep trying but you are not likely to enjoy much success!

  "Thank you" the Bahamian lieutenant smiled at Sara's response, then went on "After you five disembark, swim to the stern of the Exuma Star. Captain Outten will meet you there, he and the others will fill you in on the situation and what needs to be done..." After a short pause he continued "Thank you for agreeing to come, all of you."

  "You're welcome" Gizella answered for all of us.

  After looking out the door for perhaps half a minute, the lieutenant rolled the side door back open, then signalled with his hand for us to go 'over the side' when we were ready. One by one Sara, me, Diane, Gizella and Yuki crawled to the doorway, hung our tailfins outside, slid off, and dove into the salt water twenty feet below. Before my change I had never liked diving in from such a height, now it didn't faze me at all. Despite the seriousness of our latest mission, the sensation of breathing salt water as soon as we plunged in was as exhilarating as always. We swam toward the Exuma Star's port side, but didn't surface till after we had swum under her keel and popped up on the opposite side from where we were expected. Nobody seemed to mind however, Captain Outten even had a quip ready when he came to the starboard quarterdeck rail to greet us.

  "I see you know what you are!" he said with a grin on his face.

  "Of course we do!" I replied. "We are water creatures now, we're supposed to swim. Flying is for the birds!"

  I almost regretted saying that a moment later. One of the gulls flying overhead unloaded in mid air, its 'calling card' missed my nose by perhaps an inch. I reacted by slapping the water with my fin, sending water nearly fifteen feet into the air; thereafter the birds seemed to keep their distance a bit further from us Mers!

  "If you five will come aboard, we can discuss what we need to much more easily" the captain now said.

  "No problem!" Yuki answered. The crew then began deploying a stairway for us to climb up, but we swam to a ladder at the very stern and climbed that instead; it was not the first time onlookers were surprised to discover Mers could actually climb ladders!

  "Wow, I had no idea you people could do that" Captain Outten was genuinely astonished at how flexible our tails were, but at least one person on board was anything but...

  "Danielle?"

  "Here."

  "We need to brief our rescue swimmers on the situation. Since you were the first of us to reach the scene we will start with you."

  "We were a few miles outside the channel entrance when we got word of the accident...we came as quickly as we could but were too late to be of much help. When we took the captain on board he told us he believed there were survivors trapped inside because he and others could hear tapping that was too regular to be debris...as soon as the sky began to get lighter my boyfriend and I, and two men from another sailboat that had arrived just after we did began suiting with our scuba gear so we could go down inside the ship to start searching for the missing...we got a gangway door opened but that was pretty much as far as we got...as soon as we four swam into the ship she suddenly rocked rather violently. One of the other divers was knocked unconscious when he was slammed into a bulkhead and I broke my facemask when I hit it...we had no choice but to evacuate ourselves without delay and return to the surface."

  We Mers had immediately noticed the bandages on Danielle's forehead and cheek, plus some lesser scratches, and had wondered what had happened. I think we all had a mental shudder - this could be quite dangerous even for a Mer.

  "Will your dive buddy be alright?" Gizella asked.

  "He will" Danielle said with obvious relief. "He has a concussion, but didn't lose his mouthpiece so we didn't have to rush him to the surface so fast he could have gotten the bends."

  "Did a large wave hit the ship?' I asked in turn.

  "No, it was not all that big. The reason - the problem - is that the wreck is VERY unstable, it is really kind of perched on top of a rock outcropping, and we just had a high tide." The speaker was Captain Barry. Despite being as badly shaken as he was by the loss of his ship, he was determined to do what he could to help us find and rescue his missing crewmen; by some miracle all passengers had been safely evacuated before the ship had capsized and were accounted for.

  "From what your friend Danielle's other two dive buddies saw when they went back down after seeing their injured colleagues safely to the surface, we cannot be sure the ship will not fall off the rock into deeper water when the next high tide comes in."

  "That does not give us much time then" Diane said. "Eleven hours, maybe?"

  "Less than that" Yuki spoke. "It will be dark well before the next high tide, and then we will have sharks to worry about..."

  "And how will we get any survivors to the surface?" I wondered, echoing Diane's query from earlier that morning.

  "How will we teach them how to use scuba gear?" Sara seconded my question.

  "We found a solution to that prob-" Captain Outten began but before he could finish his explanation he was interrupted by the horn of a small boat coming from the direction of the cove. We all looked in its direction as it made for the stairway which was now in place; I immediately recognized some of the passengers who were on board.

  "That is the rest of your support team" the captain now told us Mers, before adding "they can handle any likely medical issues that might come up, and they also came up with a solution that would enable any survivors to breathe while underwater."

  It only took a few moments for the boat to be lashed fast to the stairway. Dr T'Kring stepped out first. Despite her age she proved quite spry and practically bounded up the steps. When she saw me she broke into a grin (at least by Vulcan standards).

  "Good morning, Mr Scott," she said in Vulcan "you do look very well."

  "Thank you, Doctor" I replied in Vulcan. "I am glad to meet you again. I do indeed feel quite well, I have learned much in the past month what I can do."

  By now three others were coming on board, so we changed our mental gears to english. Sally came aboard next, followed by Aayla Secura and Kit Fisto.

  [How did they come to be together?] Diane thought to me.

  [I don't know] I thought back. What would Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas have made of their universes coming together like this?

  We now heard how our multiple universes (Human, Mer, Star Wars, and Star Trek) had come to be in the same place at the same time. Kit and Aayla were a real life husband-and-wife legally known as John and Karyn Levy, who turned out to be the same Fisto and Secura Diane and I had met at our meeting with the Jedi Council the afternoon we had returned to Orlando a week ago today. Unlike some Xanadu survivors they fully remembered who they had been as well as who they now were; meditation enabled them to achieve the balance they needed to be at home in the two worlds they now were calling home. They also were EMT's and friends of Sally in their hometown of Jacksonville. Also like Sally, the Levys were diving enthusiasts who had occasionally dived in the Bahamas. Since his transformation into a Nautolan John/Kit could breathe water as well as us Mers, while Karyn/Aayla was equally at home using either a breather or scuba gear.

  "That is not all" John/Kit told us. He then opened up one of the boxes he and his wife had brought aboard with them and pulled out a device none of us Mers or humans recognized.

  "This is an A99 Aquata Breather" Karyn/Aayla said. "It will allow air breathers to stay underwater for up to two hours without recharging. All they will need to do is this" She  stuck it into her own mouth to demonstrate how to use it, then took it out again and continued "It may take some getting used to, but it is much easier for a novice or non-diver to use than standard scuba gear!"

  The story of how the Levys had come to have several extra breathers with them turned out to be a fascinating one in its own right. Despite, or perhaps because of the scarcity of surface water on their 'home' planet, some of the Xanadu Vulcan 'strangers' including Dr T'Kring, had become very curious about Earth's oceans. As a Vulcan who was also an experienced diver and certified instructor, Sally soon found herself serving as a kind of mentor. The Vulcans she would teach were at least as interested in using breathers as they were in using scuba gear; the scientific background many of them now had may well have been a reason.

  On the same day Diane and I had returned to Orlando, John, Karyn, and Sally took Dr T'Kring and a few other Vulcans on a snorkeling and diving trip to the central Bahamas. All the guests had opted to use breathers, the Levys were able to borrow the extra A99s they needed from some of their Jedi colleagues. The trip itself proved to be an enlightening experience for all involved; one of their Vulcan guests said "As long as we are out of contact with Starfleet, it is most logical that we learn all we can about this planet Earth where we are now making our home."

  I would have no difficulty endorsing that conclusion, I have always had a high level of interest in the rest of the world, and beyond. Send out more unmanned space probes!

  At almost the same hour that the Bahama Nova was meeting her fate, the yacht on which Sally and the others had been sailing dropped anchor off the cay where they planned to spend Sunday as a 'lay day.' The subsequent story of how they learned about the collision, our need for underwater breathing gear survivors could easily use, and their own flight here was a complicated one, but the rest of us were thankful they were able to come. As a bonus they also formed a medical team able to handle almost anything that might happen to us, whether the patient was human, mermaid, or Vulcan merman.

  It was just about noon when we Mers were ready to go back over the side. John/Kit and Karyn/Aayla gave each of us a plastic bag with a breather inside, then she said "The breathers are fully charged, we brought a recharger with us, just in case."

  "Thank you!" I answered.

  Gizella added "We don't really know where any survivors might be, so we don't know how long it might take to bring them out, especially if the are all in different places."

  "We can keep track of how much time is left in each breather, and they do not need much time to recharge."

  That especially could be very good news indeed.

  Captain Barry now stepped forward to give us some final advice of his own. He pointed to a launch astern of us, next to his ship's upturned bottom.

  "The gangway door you will use to enter the ship is directly underneath, then you..."



  As soon as we five Mers splashed in, we swam in the direction of the launch, then dove down toward the gangway door. We had no difficulty locking the door open before entering the ship. When we reached a stairway we swam up (or should I say down?) until we got to the corridor that offered us relatively easy access to the bottom of the ship, where some compartments were not flooded and any trapped survivors were presumably to be found.

  Upon exiting the stairwell, we split up. Gizella and Yuki turned left to head for the bow, while Diane, Sara, and I began swimming the other way towaed the stern. Thanks to the captain's advice we knew which doors to check and which led to nothing bigger than closets, which we could probably ignore. Even though everything was upside down, we had no trouble opening any doors. Occasionally we would get a faint whiff of sewage (Sara thought to Diane and me 'I wouldn't want to see what the restrooms are like now!'), but none of diesel - providentially, the collision and capsizing had ruptured none of the Bahama Nova's fuel tanks.

  The first two compartments we checked were both empty. One or another of us would hold open the door, then the others would scan around with our headlamps, find no one, then close the door again. We marked each door so no one would waste time looking there again.

  The third compartment we entered was a very different experience. Diane held the door open, then Sara and I swam in to do our search. I flicked on my headlamp and immediately beheld a sight that made me gasp, if one can gasp while breathing water. I touched Sara, who was then looking in another direction, on the arm and asked 'Do you see what I saw?' and pointed to where I had been looking. As soon as the light from her own headlamp found what I had seen, her eyes opened wide and she too let out a silent gasp.

  [Yes, I do] Sara answered shakily. Two men, evidently crew members, were floating in the room; we both knew right away there was nothing neither we nor anyone else could do to help them. Sara clasped her hands together and mouthed a silent prayer, then we swam back to Diane at the doorway and told her what we had just seen. She was as shocked as we were, but decided against taking a look for herself.

  There wasn't much for us to say after that. We swam back out of the room and closed the door, then I used a waterproof marker to indicate there were two bodies within. We then resumed our search for the living, recovery of the dead would have to wait.

  Things took a drastic turn at the very next compartment we checked. I stayed at the door while Diane and Sara swam inside and around a corner - this room was L-shaped and we could not see most of it from the doorway. A couple minutes later Sara came racing back to me, her face making clear her excitement.

  [What's up?] I asked her.

  [We have survivors!]

  [How many?]

  [Two. And that is not all I have to tell you.]

  [What would that be?]

  [They told us there may be more suvivors a couple compartments further aft.]

  [That would be fantastic if there are more survivors!] I thought back to Sara. [What door should I look out for?]

  [The door would be marked...]

  [Do you and Diane need help here?]

  [She says no, we have things under control here.]

  [Sounds good, I'll get out of your way and check that compartment they told you about.]

  [The guys here will be very glad to hear tha With that, Sara flicked her tail into a turn and swam back to Diane and the first trapped survivors awaiting our rescue. I made sure the door would not close again on its own, then I was on my way as well.

  Ordinarily swimming alone, especially while underwater is very much NOT recommended, but some of the usual rules of the 'buddy system' did not apply to Mers. Unlike 'normal' humans we who are Mer don't have to worry about the possibility of a scuba gear malfunction, which is the foremost reason divers should always swim in groups. Still, I would need to be careful, an upside-down ship often has an abundance of booby traps lying in wait to snare the unwary, such as loose doors, rope, and all manner of other debris. At least if I got into trouble I could send out a 'distress call' to John/Kit and Karyn/Aayla, and John could respond faster than a human would be able to. As an amphibian he could breathe water as easily as I could. Despite my inability to hear non-contact telepathy all had agreed before we Mers went over the side that I was the best choice to work alone if need be.

  Now was certainly one of those times, I thought.

  While Diane and Sara were bringing the first two survivors that we knew of to the surface, I continued searching for other possible survivors. A quick look in the next pair of doors revealed only water, a little debris, and darkness, then I resumed swimming down the corridor until I reached the  door Sara had told me to be on the lookout for. I jammed a block I had taken from the previous room I had checked so the door would stay open, then switched on my headlamp again and swam inside. This room was another L-shaped affair necessitating a more careful inspection. I dodged a large piece of machinery that had fallen over, turned the corner and saw that there was air above me, and flicked my tail to surface.

  That is when I saw them.



  Bernie, Chet, Claude, Geraldo, and Nigel had spent the last dozen or so hours huddled on a ledge ever since their ship had lost power and capsized. Almost until the last moment they had been able to keep the pump in their compartment running, and to stay in contact with the bridge. Captain Barry had just called them yet again when his voice became garbled, the lights flickered and then went out, and the ship began to rapidly roll over until she was virtually upside down. Despite the chaos of crashing gear and the darkness all five men were able to scramble to tenuous safety on the ledge, and ponder how they could get word out that they were alive, but in need of help.

  Summoning help was not going to be easy, however. All had lost their cell phones when the ship had turned turtle, and none of them knew any morse code at all.

  Except...

  ClangclangclangCLANGCLANGCLANGclangclangclang. Nigel banged on the floor over their heads with a wrench, hoping someone outside would be able to hear their desperate call for help.

  Clangclangclang...every few minutes one of the five would repeat the S.O.S. in hopes of getting a response. For what seemed like ages, none came, then at long last their persistance was rewarded when they heard tapping coming from over their heads. The tapping was too regular to be accidental, that could mean only one thing to the trapped men.

Help is on its way!

  The next several hours were a time of waiting, trying to rest as best they could, occasionally praying or just talking, and wondering when rescue divers would arrive and bring them to safety. At last their vigil seemed to come to an end when they saw a faint glow in the water beneath their feet. The glow quickly grew brighter, then the head of a swimmer popped to the surface.

  The trapped sailors stared in disbelief at the sight that now greeted them.



  I'm sure it was not my 'alien' appearance, with the upswept eyebrows and pointed ears, that had the five seamen staring at me wide-eyed, but my total lack of any diving gear whatsoever. No mask. No mouthpiece with tubing. No wetsuit. No oxygen tank on my back. In the absence of any light except my headlamp and a flashlight held by one of the men I was here to rescue, they couldn't see below the surface of the water and notice that I had a tail instead of legs, a tailfin instead of flippers.

  "How did you get here?" one of the men finally asked, still stunned by my somewhat theatrical (to him) arrival. "It must be dozens of meters to the nearest entrance" he went on.

  "It is" I answered.

  "You didn't just lose your scuba gear, did you?" one of the others now asked.

  "I don't need scuba gear."

  "You can hold your breath that long?!" the man with the flashlight, who said his name was Chet, asked me.

  "I don't need to, I can breathe water as easily as I can breathe air."

  "Really?"

  "Yes, really."

  "How do you do it?"

  "I'm a merman..."

  "You're a what?"

  "A merman, I have a tail just like a mermaid, except I'm a guy. Haven't any of you ever heard of mermen?"

  "We would hear mermaid stories all the time, but we never seem to hear any about mermen" Chet said.

  "Would you guys like to see my tail?"

  "Yes, please!" my audience seemed to chorus as one.

  Without further ado, I did a backflip to show them my tail and fin. When I poked my head back above the water I asked "Would you like to see my gills at work?"

  After a moment a couple of the seamen voiced their interest. I told Chet to shine the flashlight on my chest, then I submerged and rolled onto my back so I was just below the surface, and pointed to my rib area. When I came back up all were as impressed as they had been by my tail.

  "Wow, I would not have believed it if I did not see it" Geraldo, one of the other men said, the others nodded their heads in agreement.

  "You don't have knees, do you?"

  "Nope!"

  It was Bernie who finally brought us back to reality when he asked "How will you get us out of here? Are divers coming with scuba gear for us to use?"

  "I can bring one of you out right now" I replied.

  "How will we breathe? We can't breathe water like you can, or hold our breaths long enough."

  "With this" I unbuckled the pouch that had been belted to my waist, held it up out of the water, unsealed it, and pulled out one of the breathers the Levys had brought with them when they had been called upon.

  "What is that?"

  "It's an Aquata A99 Breather. It's from Episode One of the Star Wars movies, the 'Phantom Menace.'

  "What are the Star Wars movies about?" Claude asked as he and his companions looked at one another.

  "You guys never saw the movies?"

  "No, none of us ever did."

  "You never heard of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Darth Vader?" I asked, astonished.

  "We never were into that stuff, sorry."

  I couldn't believe my ears. During our lunchtime get together the first day of the convention, Alicia Cooper had joked that there were only ten people on Earth who were not familiar with the Star Wars movies. I now seemed to be face to face with five of them!

  "Does that really work? It looks so small" Bernie said, clearly he and the others had their doubts.

  "It does, really. One of my friends has been using one, and really likes it. Take a look." I passed it up to them so they could take a close-up look. Compared to convetional scuba gear it was not much to look at, and perhaps for that reason their skepticism actually seemed to grow.

  "How long will it take to get extra scuba gear here for us to use?" Nigel asked.

  I decided now was not the time to tell them about Danielle and the others' unsuccessful rescue attempt, and the injuries they had suffered. Instead I told them "It will take a while, and your captain really wants to get you out sooner rather than later." That got their attention, and I decided to leave them no more wiggle room. I said "Which one of you is going to try this (the breather), and come out with me first?" Once again the five of them looked at one another, then Bernie looked back to me.

  "I'll go" he said.

  "I was hoping one of you would say that!" I laughed, then said in a more serious tone "Your friends are all worried about you." I gave Bernie some pointers on using the little device he held in his hand, then he stuck it into his mouth and splashed in. When I ducked under myself to see how he was doing, he gave me the thumbs-up.

  [You OK?] I thought to him after touching him on the shoulder.

  [I'm fi- whoa, is that you...is this telepathy?]

  [Yes, that is me you are hearing.]

  [Wow, I've seen those old Star Trek shows, and I thought telepathy wouuld be kind of cool.]

  [It does come in handy for me sometimes.]

  [How did you become a - how did you become a merman?]

  [It's a long story, let's wait till we're all out and safe, and we should tell your friends before we go.]

  As soon as we popped up Bernie exclaimed "We have to get ourselves some of these!" as he held up his breather.

  "That thing really does work?" Nigel said.

  "It really does, it is so cool. I felt like I was breathing normal air, it didn't feel like I was using scuba at all!"

  That seemed to be all the encouragement Chet, Claude, Geraldo, and Nigel needed, and I now told them "I'll come back for the rest of you, I promise." I reached up and shook hands with each of them. Now I truely knew I would return; when a Vulcan makes a promise they do not lightly break that promise.



  Bernie and I quickly swam out of the room; I paused long enough to note on the door that four survivors were still trapped within. As we made our way along the corridor Bernie held on to my arm; without swim fins he would never have been able to keep up with me even when I took only easy strokes with my tail. I also took care to stay as far from the walls as we could, although the Bahama Nova had stayed still since we Mers had swum into the ship, if she were to rock suddenly on her less-than-rock-steady perch we would likely have no advance warning.

  We were about halfway between the compartment where I had found Bernie and his shipmates and the stairway that would lead us out of the ship, when what I had hoped would not happen, did happen. We were in a narrow stretch of the corridor when the wall suddenly lurched our way. Even though I had been alert to the possibility of this happening, my mind had no chance to 'shout' a warning before I was thrown against Bernie, both of us were then slammed against the opposite wall, before everything abruptly went blank.



  The wind thus far that day had been only a gentle breeze, now it began to pick up a bit, as was its habit in these parts. No one was much concerned as yet, the Bahama Nova had remained still since late in the morning. One of the waves that now came in however, proved much stronger than anyone expected when it slapped against the overturned hull, with results that left everyone who was watching feeling as though their hearts had suddenly stopped...