When the story was finished and Melanie was reunited with her mother Pth’thya-l’yi beneath the sea, he sat there looking at nothing in particular for some minutes, thinking of the spires of Y’ha-nthlei and wondering if he would ever see them. Oddly, that thought comforted him, and so did the story, for no reason he could name. The sense of comfort remained with him as he got ready for bed, settled underneath the covers, and went to sleep.

  NINE

  The Silence Between the Stars

  THE NEXT MORNING he woke early, feeling restless and troubled. Whatever comfort had come from reading Laura’s story had trickled away in the silent hours of the night. He considered taking the book with him when he left his room, decided against it—for all he knew, Laura might not want anyone else to know that he’d seen it—and headed downstairs, hoping to find a chance to talk to her about the story that day.

  The housekeeper told him, though, that neither Laura nor Nyarlathotep were there; nor, she said, would they be back for some hours yet. He stifled his disappointment, had an Innsmouth breakfast with Mrs. Eliot—he noted, almost with surprise, that he’d become quite fond of the raw fish—and then perched uneasily on the couch in the living room. The restless feeling wouldn’t let him go, and finally he asked the housekeeper if it would be any problem if he took a walk around Innsmouth.

  She gave him an odd look but said, “No, I can’t see that there would be any harm in it, so long as you don’t go past the town limits—Innsmouth’s well guarded but outside, it’s another matter. You’ll want to be back well before dark, mind you. They’ll be finished at the lodge by then; they’ll likely want to speak to you again, and I don’t know what all else.”

  He promised to be back in a few hours, and let her shepherd him out the back door into the alley behind the Gilman House Hotel.

  It was another bright cold morning, though the clouds had begun to thicken off to the west. Owen wandered aimlessly through the gray streets of Innsmouth, past the few tenanted buildings south of the Manuxet and into the ruined area beyond them. He came to the abandoned railroad station where he’d tried to catch his breath after that last frantic dash into Innsmouth, and glimpsed the drear brown level of the marshes beyond it. The sight put a chill down his back, and he turned and walked the other way, toward the waterfront.

  The town square looked as empty as ever, though Barney’s Seafood Grill and the drugstore were both open for business. He thought briefly about stopping at Barney’s for lunch later, then remembered that he had no money—his wallet had been in his backpack, one of the many things he’d left behind when he sprinted across campus toward the ravine and the white stone. He walked on. A few blocks further he was crossing Main Street, passing the husk of a long-abandoned church, and two more blocks brought him to Water Street and the harbor. To his left, the Water Street Bridge leapt across the Manuxet in an arc of gray steel, leading into the populated part of Innsmouth, but he turned right and walked south along the old harbor front instead. He wanted solitude, not the wary kindness of the Innsmouth folk or the uncanny presence of the Great Old Ones.

  The vague unease he’d felt the night before and the equally undefined comfort he’d gotten from the book had both found a name while he slept, and the name was Laura Marsh. It didn’t matter how sharply he berated himself, or how much he brooded about his ignorance of whatever customs the Innsmouth folk had about relationships; it didn’t matter how often he told himself that he was probably just reacting to the loss of his friends and his college career by seeking comfort from the first kind face to turn his way. He wanted—what? To get to know her better, certainly; maybe more than that, maybe much more. He couldn’t tell. All he knew for certain was that her absence left him feeling troubled and lost, and the book she’d left for him to read—whatever she might have meant by that—made him feel as though, at least for a little while, the world had come round right again.

  He walked down Water Street all the way to the last cluster of warehouses, thinking about Laura, about Innsmouth, about the things Nyarlathotep had told him about the Radiance and the hidden history of the world. He barely noticed his surroundings as he walked. It was only when he reached the last wharf with its rusted siding and roof, just north of the piles of rocks, that something broke into his thoughts.

  It was the sound of a car engine, moving slowly, not far away.

  He blinked and looked around. The car wasn’t visible, but from the sound it was a block or two in from the waterfront, moving parallel to him. Something about the sound bothered him—or maybe it wasn’t the sound; he couldn’t tell. Whatever it was, it roused instincts he’d learned to trust in Iraq, drove a sudden overwhelming urge to hide from the car and its occupants.

  The big rusted doors of the wharf still gapped open on one side, wide enough to admit him. Without thinking, he slipped through into the broken darkness inside. Light filtered in here and there through cracks and holes in the roof, and by that uncertain illumination he could just make out the broken places in the flooring that opened straight down into harbor water. He found a hiding place behind a stack of long-abandoned 55-gallon drums, where he couldn’t be seen from the door, and listened.

  The car came closer, still moving slowly, almost stealthily. He heard the broken pavement crackle under the tires as it slowed and stopped near the wharf. The car doors opened and closed with a whisper of sound; a voice murmured something he couldn’t make out, and a weight came to rest on the gravel just outside the door. The sounds were too close for Owen’s comfort, and he picked his way back across the fragile flooring to another hiding place further away.

  Then, without warning, the world went mad.

  The most terrifying thing about it was that nothing actually changed. The wharf still looked and smelled exactly as it had, the water still splashed against the pilings below, the lonely cry of gulls came muffled through the rusted metal walls and roof. Between one heartbeat and the next, though, all these things lost any connection to each other or to Owen. They became empty and alien, a world of blank surfaces with nothing behind them. It was as though the part of him that perceived meaning and value had been amputated; it was as though the silence between the stars had opened up between him and anything that mattered.

  The transformation came suddenly enough that it nearly made Owen scream. He bit down on his lip, forced himself into silence. As his heart slowed its pounding, he realized that there was something familiar about whatever was happening. It wasn’t anything like the attack he’d suffered that first morning in the hotel, but it reminded him of something. What?

  Sounds by the door, and a voice:

  “Owen.”

  Shelby’s voice.

  “Owen, I know you’re in here. You wouldn’t listen to me before. You have to listen to me now; it’s more important than you can imagine.”

  That was when he recognized whatever was being done to the world, or to him. It reminded him powerfully of the emptiness that he’d seen in Professor Noyes’ bland smiling face, the void that had swallowed Shelby and left a husk in her place, but the emptying hadn’t happened to him. It had happened to the whole world.

  “LISTEN TO ME,” Shelby said again, her voice bland and calm. “I don’t know what lies you’ve been told by the things that live here in Innsmouth, or the entities that control them. It doesn’t really matter. You’ve been sighted in the company of one of their overlords, so no doubt you’ve been getting plenty of their propaganda. That’s all it is, Owen. They’re lying to you, trying to talk you into serving them and betraying the human race.

  “Owen, these creatures are not your friends. They’re not humanity’s friends. They hate us and despise us. They enslaved humanity for half a million years, using our own superstitions and weaknesses against us, because they knew that we’re more evolved than they are. We’re capable of reason; we know the truth about the world. They aren’t and they can’t. All they can do is lie.”

  The sheer blandness of her voice gave it an oddly hypnotic effect. Owen shook his head, tried to force his mind clear. It didn’t do much good.

  “You don’t have to be one of their slaves, Owen. We can get you out of here, take you back to Arkham, break the grip they have on you. There’s a field protecting us now. I know it’s uncomfortable right now, everyone finds it uncomfortable at first, but you’ll get used to it. We can keep them from manipulating your mind, and then close your mind to them permanently. I’ve already had that done. I saw how you reacted to that, but that’s because you were already coming under their control. We can free you. We can give you your reason back. All you have to do is come out of there.”

  An instant too late, Owen heard a floorboard creak behind him. An arm swung across his neck, seizing him from behind. Reflex took over; without thinking, he grabbed the arm in both his hands, dropped to one knee and threw his weight forward. The man who had seized him toppled forward over him and slammed hard into a stack of 55-gallon drums. As the drums came crashing down, Owen twisted away, ran deeper into the dark interior of the wharf.

  “Get him,” Shelby called out, her voice just as calm and bland as before. “Kill him if you have to—you have my authorization.”

  Just in time, Owen saw another dim shape moving through the near-darkness, lunging toward him. He flung himself out of the way behind another dark mass, slamming into something that felt like wooden crates and sending them toppling. He heard a cry of pain not far away as the crates toppled down onto something that wasn’t the floor, and then Shelby’s voice, saying something else he couldn’t make out.

  The end of the wharf was right ahead of him, and there was only one way out. He found the nearest large hole in the floor, drew in a deep breath, and plunged feet first straight down into the black water below.

  The moment his head was beneath the surface, the world suddenly went sane again. The effect, whatever it had been, vanished as though it had been cut off by a knife.

  Down he plunged. The water beneath the old wharf was nearly lightless, but glimmers came filtering down from the surface here and there. The air in his lungs was already turning stale, and he knew he’d need to go back up to take another breath in another two minutes at most. The question was simply whether he could do that without taking a bullet in the brain.

  He guessed which direction led into the deepest darkness, started swimming that way.

  Something brushed against his leg, and then suddenly wrapped around it. An instant later other long shapes lunged out of the darkness, closing tight around him like ropes. A pulsing, buzzing sound rang in his head, confusing him, as whatever had him pulled him deeper into the black water.

  PANIC SURGED THROUGH him for a moment, and then he caught himself, remembered that he was in Innsmouth, stopped straining against the tentacles. As he did so, the buzzing sound in his head turned into recognizable words: “Nod if you can understand me.”

  He nodded.

  “Good,” said the buzzing sound. “I’m going to press a mouthpiece to your mouth. Get it between your lips and breathe normally.”

  Something hard pressed against his lips. He took it into his mouth, let out a long shuddering breath, then breathed in. He’d expected something like the harsh metal-tinged air of a scuba tank, but this was fresh sea air, tasting of salt and seaweed. He drew in a deep breath, let it flow out again, felt the pounding of his heart slow. Something pressed along the sides of his face, fastened behind his neck.

  “I’m supposed to get you out of the way of trouble and keep you there for a little while,”

  said the buzzing voice. “That means down to the bottom and then over to the breakwater. Let me do the swimming. No offense meant, but unless you’re a lot better in the water than most humans, I’ll get us there faster without your help than with it.”

  He nodded, felt most of the tentacles unwrap themselves from him. One stayed coiled around his right arm and shoulder, and drew him downwards into the depths of the harbor. Water surged and flowed around him as the other tentacles sculled through the deep. The patches of glimmering light from above gave way to a dim fading glow spread evenly above them—they were out from under the wharves, he guessed—but of the being that had rescued him he could see nothing at all.

  Finally he felt himself slowing, and the tentacle turned him around and drew him down. Something hard pressed against him; he felt it with his free hand, touched slippery seaweed over firm angular rock, let the tentacle bring him down onto it.

  “I’m sure you’re bursting with questions,” said the voice, “but don’t try to talk. Unless you know the trick of speaking underwater, I won’t be able to hear you. I’ll just have to guess what you want to know.” A bubbling laugh sounded in his head.

  He nodded.

  “As far as I know, everyone in Innsmouth is fine. I don’t happen to know what the Radiance used on you, but the moment they turned it on, every sensitive in town felt it. We’d already gotten word in Y’ha-nthlei—the moment the Radiance crossed into Innsmouth the sentries alerted us—and a scouting party went up first while the main force of Guardians got ready. I came up with the scouting party; they someone who could speak English and handle a half-drowned human if somebody had the good sense to go into the water.”

  Owen nodded.

  “I was surprised, though. You’re not from Innsmouth, are you? But you didn’t carry on anything like as much as most humans do, when I caught you. You must have met children of the Old Ones before.”

  He nodded again.

  “That’ll explain it. Of course we didn’t know.”

  Owen’s eyes had gradually adjusted to the darkness in the water, or maybe it was that the sun had risen further. He found that he could see, very faintly, the pale shape of the tentacle holding his arm and shoulder, and part of another tentacle wrapped around one of the rocks that formed the breakwater, anchoring him and his rescuer safely down at the bottom of the harbor. Further off he could make out next to nothing: a vaguely cylindrical mass, maybe, with the slightest suggestion of another shape atop it.

  He could also see, a little more clearly, the device that let him breathe. It seemed to be made of metal, a complex serpentine shape with many perforations that curved up the sides of his face from his mouth to below his ears, and fastened with a strap in back. He raised his free hand to touch it.

  “It’s an artificial gill,” said the voice. “The Deep Ones have been making those since I don’t know when.” A pause, then: “Look up and you’ll see something that not many humans ever get to watch.”

  He looked up. Dark shapes were swimming across the faint glimmering light from above. They didn’t look anything like frogs or fish, as Lovecraft claimed in his story about Innsmouth. They looked much like humans, as far as he could tell at a distance, except that their hands and feet were webbed and they swam as fast as porpoises. They were naked, but yellow metal glinted on their heads, and each one carried a long menacing object of the same metal that ended in a sharp and baroquely curved head.

  “The Guardians,” the voice told him. “The things they’re carrying are g’thonwe—you’d call them spear throwers. If one of those ever gets pointed at you, put your hands up and do as you’re told. They work just as well in air as in water, and I’ve watched a spear from one of them go straight through a great white shark and out the other side.”

  There were hundreds of the Deep Ones, Owen realized, swimming straight and fast toward the Innsmouth wharves. He watched them go, wondering what was happening on the other side of the water. After a while the last of them went past, and then the dim flickering of light through the water was the only thing moving above him.

  Another quarter hour or so slid by before something that sounded like a different voice, fainter and deeper, buzzed in his head, forming words he didn’t recognize at all. The familiar voice buzzed a moment later, calling out something in the same language. Then, in English: “That was the signal. They’ve driven the outsiders off, and it’s safe for you ashore. Here we go!”

  Water billowed and roiled as tentacles sculled and he rose up from the base of the breakwater. A few minutes later they had crossed the narrow bay, and the surface glimmered not far above. “You’ll need to take off the artificial gill,” the voice told him. “It can’t go out of the water without damaging the membranes. Take a breath.” He did so, and the tip of a tentacle deftly unhooked the thing from behind his neck and pulled it away. “Up you go.”

  He swam upwards, broke through the surface of the water. The first thing he saw was the Water Street Bridge looming gray and skeletal above the mouth of the Manuxet; the second was a little sand beach not ten yards away, where the breakwater ended at a weathered concrete bulkhead and a steel stair with peeling paint rose up toward street level.

  His sodden clothes weighed on him, but he managed to swim over, find his footing and stumble up onto the beach. He turned around, wondering if his rescuer might still be within sight.

  Water roiled, and the head of a young woman emerged from it, brown-haired and brown-eyed, for all the world as though some human swimmer had been in the water with him. Her face seemed familiar, though it was a moment before Owen realized why. Around her, the sculling tentacles moved.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Owen. “Thank you.” Then: “You’re Belinda Marsh, aren’t you? I’ve met your sister Laura.”

  That earned him a sudden smile. “Glad to hear it. Can you bend down?”

 

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