"Mrs. Palmer appeared quite well, and I am commissioned to tell you, that you will certainly see her to-morrow."

"Ay, to be sure, I thought as much. Well, Colonel, I have brought two young ladies with me. You see but one of them now, but there is another somewhere. Your friend, Miss Marianne, too-which you will not be sorry to hear. I do not know what you and Mr. Willoughby will do between you about her. Aye, it is a fine thing to be young and handsome-" Mrs. Jennings blanched again. "Or, well-young, anyway. But Colonel, where have you been to since we parted? And how does your business go on? Do my eyes deceive me, or do you have slightly fewer of those things on your face than previously? No? Ah, well. Come, come, let's have no secrets among friends!"

He replied with his customary mildness to all her inquiries, but without satisfying her in any. Elinor now began to slice off chunks of gelatinous scone loaf to be eaten with their tea, and Marianne was obliged to appear again.

After her entrance, Colonel Brandon became more thoughtful and silent than he had been before, absentmindedly stroking his squigglers and looking blankly about the room; Mrs. Jennings could not prevail on him to stay long. No other visitor appeared that evening, and the ladies were unanimous in agreeing to go early to bed. For some time, however, a school of clownfish organized themselves to batter against the gla.s.s of the Dome for an hour and a half, between midnight and one thirty, making sleep impossible; once they ceased in their efforts, all slept pleasantly.

Marianne rose the next morning with recovered spirits and happy looks. The disappointment of the evening before seemed forgotten in the expectation of what was to happen that day. They had not long finished their toast-and-beans-flavoured gelatin cubes before Mrs. Palmer's gondola was glimpsed being tied up at the dock, and in a few minutes she came laughing into the room, so delighted to see them all.

"Mr. Palmer will be so happy to see you," said she; "What do you think he said when he heard of your coming with Mamma? I forget what it was now, but it was something so droll-touching, I think, upon the uselessness of social visits when one considers the ultimate darkness that awaits us all, or something of that nature. Droll indeed!"

After an hour or two spent in what her mother called comfortable chat, it was proposed by Mrs. Palmer that they should all accompany her to the Retail Embankment, to which Mrs. Jennings and Elinor readily consented, the latter having heard of the dazzling array of specialty items on offer in-Station, from embossed fans made from dorsal fins to crystallized serpent eyes fashioned into earrings; and Marianne, though declining it at first, was induced to go likewise.

It was late in the morning before they returned home; and no sooner had they entered the docking than Marianne flew eagerly upstairs, and when Elinor followed, she found her turning from the table with a sorrowful countenance, which declared that no Willoughby had been there.

"Has no letter been left here since we went out?" said she to the footman who then entered with the parcels. She was answered in the negative. "Are you quite sure of it?" she replied. "No one has swum up and left something? No bottle has floated to the door, a note carefully folded within? Are you certain that no servant, no porter has left any letter or note?"

The man replied that none had.

"How very odd!" said she, in a low and disappointed voice, as she turned away to the observation gla.s.s.

"How odd, indeed!" repeated Elinor within herself, regarding her sister with uneasiness. "If she had not known him to be at the Sub-Marine Station she would not have written to him, as she did; she would have written to Combe Magna; and if he is docked here, how odd that he should neither come nor write!" Elinor recalled rumours of ultra-secret government laboratories in-Station; supposedly men were experimented upon in various chilling ways, with the goal of creating improvements in human anatomy that would allow our bedeviled species decisive advantage over the chordate races. She wondered whether it were possible that Willoughby had submitted to such an experiment, and had his brain exchanged with that of a tortoise or was similarly indisposed? And yet to make such a sacrifice seemed unlike Willoughby-but what did they truly know of him!

Marianne pa.s.sed that evening restlessly; she sometimes endeavoured for a few minutes to read, having acquired at a fashionable Retail Embankment book shop a new volume t.i.tled The Near-Drowning, Near-Starvation, and Subsequent Rescue of the Spanish Seaman Alphonso James The Near-Drowning, Near-Starvation, and Subsequent Rescue of the Spanish Seaman Alphonso James; but the book was soon thrown aside, and she returned to the more interesting employment of walking backwards and forwards across the room, pausing for a moment whenever she came to the window, in hopes of distinguishing the long-expected rap. Instead all she saw was the pa.s.sing gondolas of strangers; or, if looking out the room's gla.s.s rear wall, the teeming hordes of slithering and swimming things, all as desperate to get into the Station as was Marianne to meet again with her lamented friend.

CHAPTER 27

"REPORTS FROM THE SURFACE-LANDS are of sunny skies," said Mrs. Jennings, employing the phrase common in-Station to refer to the world outside, "If the open weather continues, Sir John will not like setting off from the archipelago next week. On fine days, he likes to prowl his grounds, trolling the freshwater ponds for serpents and strangling them barehanded. He will not want to lose a day's pleasure." are of sunny skies," said Mrs. Jennings, employing the phrase common in-Station to refer to the world outside, "If the open weather continues, Sir John will not like setting off from the archipelago next week. On fine days, he likes to prowl his grounds, trolling the freshwater ponds for serpents and strangling them barehanded. He will not want to lose a day's pleasure."

"That is true," cried Marianne with happy surprise. Walking to the back gla.s.s as she spoke, she watched with cheerful fascination as a cutla.s.sfish speared a carp and swallowed it whole. "I had not thought of that. This weather will keep many monster hunters in the country, and treasure hunters, too."

It was a lucky recollection, all her good spirits were restored by it. "It sounds like they are having charming weather, indeed," she continued, as she sat down at the table to stir a packet of tea flavouring into a gla.s.s of water. "How much they must enjoy it! But it cannot be expected to last long. Frosts will soon set in, and in all probability with severity-nay, perhaps it may freeze tonight!"

"At any rate," said Elinor, wishing to prevent Mrs. Jennings from seeing her sister's thoughts as clearly as she did, "I dare say we shall have Sir John and Lady Middleton in-Station by the end of next week."

"Aye, my dear, I'll warrant you we do. My daughter always has her own way; except, of course, when it comes to achieving what she most desires: to flee Sir John's household, never to see him or this country, again."

The morning was chiefly spent in leaving decorated hermit-crab sh.e.l.ls-used as calling cards by fashionable Sub-Station residents-at the houses of Mrs. Jennings's acquaintance to inform them of her being in Station; and Marianne was all the time busy imagining that, through the slightest shifts in atmospheric pressure in the great encased Dome of the Sub-Station, she could divine the temperature in the Surface-Lands. Time and again, Elinor gently reminded Marianne that the weather in Sub-Marine Station Beta was created by the workings of cloud-engines and temperature-stabilizers, all powered by Newcomen steam-devices, and bearing no relation to the warmth or cold of the Surface-Lands. But Marianne would not be deterred from her amateur aerology.

"Don't you find it more pressurized than it was in the morning, Elinor? There seems to me a very decided difference in pressure; my ear drums are continually popping, such that I have to go like this with my face to unclog them."

Elinor was alternately diverted and pained; but Marianne persevered, and saw every night in the shadows of submarines pa.s.sing overhead, and every morning in the subtlest alterations in her inner ear, the certain symptoms of approaching frost in the country.

The Miss Dashwoods had no reason to be dissatisfied with Mrs. Jennings's style of living, and her behaviour to themselves was invariably kind. Colonel Brandon, who had a general invitation to the docking station, was with them almost every day. He came to look at Marianne and talk to Elinor, who often derived more satisfaction from conversing with him than from any other daily occurrence. At the same time she saw with much concern his continued regard for her sister. She noted that his appendages at times seemed to stiffen a bit when he chanced to glance upon Marianne, as if excess blood were flowing into them. It grieved her to see the earnestness with which he often watched Marianne, and discomfited her to see the aforementioned tentacle-stiffness; his spirits were certainly worse than when at Deadwind.

About a week after their arrival, it became certain that Willoughby was also arrived. His hermit-crab sh.e.l.l calling card, marked with the distinctive W W formed from crossed treasure shovels, was on the table when they came in after a brief pleasure cruise of the ca.n.a.ls one morning. formed from crossed treasure shovels, was on the table when they came in after a brief pleasure cruise of the ca.n.a.ls one morning.

"Good G.o.d!" cried Marianne. "He has been here while we were out!" Elinor, rejoiced to be a.s.sured of his being at Sub-Marine Station Beta, now ventured to say, "Depend upon it, he will call again to-morrow." But Marianne seemed hardly to hear her, and on Mrs. Jennings's entrance, escaped with the precious sh.e.l.l.

This event, while it raised the spirits of Elinor, restored to Marianne all her former agitation. From this moment her mind was never quiet; the expectation of seeing him every hour of the day, made her unfit for anything. Nor could she be persuaded to accompany them, the next morning, on their planned excursion to Mr. Pennywhistle's Aqua-Museo-Quarium, a petting zoo and showplace designed for the diversion of children and unmarried women. There some of the gentler and more thoroughly domesticated sea-beasts, such as snails, dolphins, and pollywogs, could be marveled at and even ridden upon.

Elinor's thoughts were full of what might be pa.s.sing in Berkeley Causeway during their absence, so much so that out of inattention she let her hand slip off the reins and was nipped by a pony-sized sea snail upon which she had been riding; the beast's white-jacketed handler apologised profusely, and was heard to mutter darkly to the errant gastropod that "b.u.t.ter could be warmed for you yet."

A moment's glance at her sister when they returned from the Aqua-Museo-Quarium was enough to inform Elinor that Willoughby had paid no second visit there. A note was just then brought in, and laid on the table.

"For me!" cried Marianne, stepping hastily forward.

"No, ma'am, for my mistress."

But Marianne, not convinced, took it instantly up.

"It is indeed for Mrs. Jennings! How provoking! I cannot read a word of it!" (Which was precisely true-the note was written in Mrs. Jennings's native tongue, which used neither vowels nor s.p.a.ces between the words.) "You are expecting a letter, then?" said Elinor.

"Yes, a little-not much."

Mrs. Jennings soon appeared, and the note being given her, she read it aloud.

"Hghgljtxlxthrhralkxvjlklklqrdl," she read quickly, and then, after clearing her throat, explained. The letter was from Lady Middleton, announcing their Descension into the Station the night before, and requesting the company of her mother and cousins the following evening. The invitation was accepted; but when the hour of appointment drew near, Elinor had some difficulty in persuading her sister to go, for still she had seen nothing of Willoughby; and she was unwilling to run the risk of his calling again in her absence.

Elinor found, when the evening was over, that disposition is not materially altered by a change of abode, for although scarcely settled in town, Sir John had contrived to collect around him, nearly twenty young people, and to amuse them with a pirate-themed ball, gentlemen of fortune being very much in vogue that season. This was an affair, however, of which Lady Middleton did not approve. In the country, an unpremeditated thematic dance was very allowable; but in the Sub-Station, where the reputation of elegance was more important and less easily attained, it was risking too much for the gratification of a few girls, to have it known that Lady Middleton had given a small dance of eight or nine couples, with two fiddlers and a small a.s.sortment of appetizer-flavoured paste cakes.

Mr. and Mrs. Palmer were of the party; the former, they knew from Sir John, had been a buccaneer in his youth, and so his general darkness of spirit was compounded on this occasion by a scorn for the inauthenticity of the theme dance. He looked at Elinor and Marianne slightly, shook his head gloomily, and merely nodded to Mrs. Jennings from the other side of the room. Marianne gave one glance round the apartment as she entered, lifting up the eye patch she had affected for the evening to a.s.sure herself that he he was not there-and sat down, equally ill-disposed to receive or communicate pleasure, despite her warm affection for pirate slang and custom. After they had been a.s.sembled about an hour, Mr. Palmer sauntered towards the Miss Dashwoods to express his surprise on seeing them in town. was not there-and sat down, equally ill-disposed to receive or communicate pleasure, despite her warm affection for pirate slang and custom. After they had been a.s.sembled about an hour, Mr. Palmer sauntered towards the Miss Dashwoods to express his surprise on seeing them in town.

"The Island. Pestilent Isle," said he curtly. "You are shut of it, then?"

"We are indeed, though our mother and youngest sister remain," replied Elinor.

"Then pray for them," he said darkly. "Pray for them." And, providing no chance for Elinor to divine his meaning, Palmer turned on his boot heel and stalked away.

Never had Marianne been so unwilling to dance a jig in her life, as she was that evening, and never so much fatigued by the exercise. She complained of it as they returned to Berkeley Causeway.

"Aye, aye," said Mrs. Jennings, "we know the reason of all that very well. If a certain person who shall be nameless, had been at the theme dance, you would have been a most sprightly pirate la.s.s indeed. To say the truth, it was not very pretty of him not to give you the meeting when he was invited."

"Invited!" cried Marianne "So my daughter Middleton told me, for it seems Sir John met him somewhere this morning." Marianne said no more, but looked exceedingly hurt. Impatient in this situation to be doing something that might lead to her sister's relief, Elinor resolved to write the next morning to her mother.

About the middle of the day, Mrs. Jennings went out by herself on business, and Elinor began her letter directly, while Marianne, too restless for employment, too anxious for conversation, walked from the front window to the back gla.s.s, listlessly tapping on the gla.s.s at a school of cl.u.s.terfish-cl.u.s.tered, characteristically, outside. Elinor was very earnest in her application to her mother, relating all that had pa.s.sed, her suspicions of Willoughby's inconstancy, urging her by every plea of duty and affection to demand from Marianne an account of her real situation with respect to him.

Her letter was scarcely finished, when a rap foretold a visitor, and Colonel Brandon was announced. Marianne, who had seen him from the window, left the room before he entered it. He looked more than usually grave; his dark eyes were downcast, and his weird, squiddish protrusions lay like a dark, quivering cloud over his jowls. Though he expressed satisfaction at finding Miss Dashwood alone, as if he had something urgent to tell her, he sat for some time without saying a word. After a pause of several minutes, during which her impatience and the deep, mucousy workings of Brandon's respiration conspired to drive Elinor to the point of distraction, their silence was broken-by his asking when he was to congratulate her on the acquisition of a brother. Elinor was not prepared for such a question, and was obliged to adopt the simple and common expedient of asking what he meant. All the tentacles in the world could not have hidden the insincerity of his smile as he replied, "Your sister's engagement to Mr. Willoughby is very generally known?"

"It cannot be generally known," returned Elinor, "for her own family do not know it."

He looked surprised and said, "I beg your pardon, I am afraid my inquiry has been impertinent; but I had not supposed any secrecy intended, as they openly correspond, and their marriage is universally talked of."

"How can that be? By whom can you have heard it mentioned?"

"By many-by some of whom you know nothing, by others with whom you are most intimate, Mrs. Jennings, Mrs. Palmer, and the Middletons. But still I might not have believed it, for where the mind is perhaps rather unwilling to be convinced, it will always find something to support its doubts. But when the servant let me in today, and stepped past onto the gangplank to tie up the porpoise on which I arrived, I accidentally saw a letter in his hand, directed to Mr. Willoughby in your sister's writing. Is everything finally settled? Is it impossible to-"

He stopped himself, and his fleshy face fingers twisted themselves into knots of awkwardness.

"Excuse me, Miss Dashwood. I believe I have been wrong in saying so much, but I hardly know what to do. Tell me that it is all absolutely resolved on, that any attempt, that in short concealment, if concealment be possible, is all that remains."

These words, which conveyed to Elinor a direct avowal of his love for her sister, affected her very much. She was not immediately able to say anything, and even when her spirits were recovered, she debated for a short time, on the answer it would be most proper to give. The real state of things between Willoughby and her sister was so little known to herself, that in endeavouring to explain it, she might be as liable to say too much as too little. Yet she thought it most prudent and kind to say more than she really knew or believed.

She acknowledged, therefore, that though she had never been informed by themselves of the terms on which they stood with each other, of their mutual affection she had no doubt, and of their correspondence she was not astonished to hear.

He listened to her with silent attention, nodding sadly so as to cause his tentacle-ma.s.s to shake limply. On her ceasing to speak, Brandon rose directly from his seat, and said in a voice of emotion, "to your sister I wish all imaginable happiness; to Willoughby that he may endeavour to deserve her." Then he took leave and went away.

Elinor derived no comfortable feelings from this conversation; she was left, on the contrary, with a melancholy impression of Colonel Brandon's unhappiness. From the window she saw him pause and stare for several long seconds into the ca.n.a.l; it seemed to Elinor that Brandon contemplated abandoning his steed and simply diving in and swimming away-as if in the moment of his heart's defeat he had become more fish than man.

CHAPTER 28

NOTHING OCCURRED during the next three or four days to make Elinor regret applying to her mother; for Willoughby neither came nor wrote. They were engaged about the end of that time to attend with Lady Middleton an event at Hydra-Z, more properly known as the Hydro-Zoological Laboratory and Exhibition Arcade. Admission to the spectacle was an enormous honour, one the Dashwoods could only enjoy through their connection with Sir and Lady Middleton. Hydra-Z was the very heart of the Station's scientific facilities, where captured monsters were submitted to the most rigorous re-training and biological modification programs-and, when the results were satisfactory, brought before paying audiences to demonstrate how completely they had been made to do the will of man. during the next three or four days to make Elinor regret applying to her mother; for Willoughby neither came nor wrote. They were engaged about the end of that time to attend with Lady Middleton an event at Hydra-Z, more properly known as the Hydro-Zoological Laboratory and Exhibition Arcade. Admission to the spectacle was an enormous honour, one the Dashwoods could only enjoy through their connection with Sir and Lady Middleton. Hydra-Z was the very heart of the Station's scientific facilities, where captured monsters were submitted to the most rigorous re-training and biological modification programs-and, when the results were satisfactory, brought before paying audiences to demonstrate how completely they had been made to do the will of man.

As Elinor understood the intention of tonight's amus.e.m.e.nt, they would be seated with the rest of the guests in an amphitheatre, arrayed semi-circularly before a vast pool, and be treated to a command performance by a dozen giant, super-intelligent, domesticated lobsters.

For this spectacle, Marianne prepared wholly dispirited, careless of her appearance, and seeming equally indifferent whether she went or stayed; she listlessly adjusted her Float-Suit and selected a pair of opera gla.s.ses from Mrs. Jennings collection. She sat in the drawing-room till the moment of Lady Middleton's arrival, without once stirring from her seat, or altering her att.i.tude, lost in her own thoughts, and insensible of her sister's presence; and when at last they were told that Lady Middleton waited for them at the door, she started as if she had forgotten that anyone was expected.

They arrived in due time at Hydra-Z and were ushered to Amphitheatre Seven, where the spectacle was to unfold; they heard their names announced from one landing-place to another in an audible voice, and entered to find the whole pool, with surrounding seating area, splendidly lit up. They began to mingle in the crowd-the lobsters had not yet been led in, leaving time for other amus.e.m.e.nt until the performance began. Lady Middleton was able to organize a handful of strangers for a game of Karankrolla, by the sure method of not telling them exactly what it was; as Marianne was not in spirits for moving about, she and Elinor succeeded to the raked seating area, placing themselves at no great distance from the pool.

They had not remained in this manner long, before it was announced that the lobsters were to be brought in. Enthusiastic applause welling up from the crowd, all eyes turned to the pool, into which the twelve magnificent, genetically enhanced Nephropidae were swimming from a small side stream. Trotting parallel to them at the water's edge was a handsome trainer in a bathing costume and cap, holding an elongated lobster-crop in one hand and waving with the other to the crowd.

It was then that Elinor perceived Willoughby, standing by the water's edge within a few yards of them, in earnest conversation with a very fashionable looking young woman; startled, Elinor wondered at first if it was truly he, until she saw Monsieur Pierre, hopping gaily from one foot to another at Willoughby's side. She soon caught his eye-Willoughby's, not Monsieur Pierre's-and he immediately bowed, but without attempting to speak to her or to approach Marianne, though he could not but see her; and then continued his discourse with the same lady. Elinor turned involuntarily to Marianne, to see whether it could be un.o.bserved by her. At that moment she first perceived him, and her whole countenance glowing with sudden delight, she would have moved towards him instantly, had not her sister caught hold of her.

The lobsters had now all swum into the pool, each one half again as big as a cow. Elinor recoiled instinctually from the creatures, but then watched with fascination as, under the trainer's command, they began to swim slow, precise figure eights in the pool. Still holding Marianne by the shoulder, she raised her opera gla.s.ses. Their enormous size magnified the disturbing appearance of the crustaceans-the twin antennae extending from beneath the beady eyes; the ribbed, mottled-brown exoskeletons; the army of skittering pereiopod lining the torso; and of course the claws, each pair like a gigantic brown-black nutcracker, except razor-sharp where it clacked together. Like privates being drilled by a sergeant, these hideous creatures dipped in and out of the water as they swam, bobbing up and down, snapping their oversized claws in the air each time they surfaced.

Marianne could not be distracted, even by the elegant athletic turns of the lobsters. "Good heavens!" she exclaimed. "Why does he not look at me? Why cannot I speak to him?"

"Pray be composed," cried Elinor, "and do not betray what you feel to everybody present. Perhaps he has not observed you yet."

This, however, was more than she could believe herself; and to be composed at such a moment was not only beyond the reach of Marianne, it was beyond her wish. She sat in an agony of impatience which affected every feature. In the pool, the trainer shouted a rough command, and the lobsters were in an instant up on their caudal furca in the shallow water, claws extended upwards in a comically servile posture like so many hunting dogs begging for sc.r.a.p. The lobsters waited at bay for their next command, their antennae wavering tremulously in the air, as the trainer produced from a small valise a croquet ball and hurled it up towards them. The first of the lobsters in the line reached out a claw and deftly crushed the croquet ball to powder. The crowd cheered its approval.

Next the trainer produced a billiard ball, and tossed it before the next lobster in the line, who dispatched it with similar ease. Elinor saw that Willoughby applauded heartily along with his fellow spectators; could he be so at ease?

Now from the valise came the skull of some animal-Elinor thought it was a sheep. After this grim object had been tossed, and destroyed with a swift claw-snap from another of the monster lobsters, Willoughby at last turned round, and regarded the sisters; Marianne started up, and p.r.o.nouncing his name in a tone of affection, held out her hand to him. He approached, and addressing himself rather to Elinor than Marianne, as if wishing to avoid her eye, and determined not to observe her att.i.tude, inquired in a hurried manner after Mrs. Dashwood, and asked how long they had been in-Station. Elinor was robbed of all presence of mind by such an address, and was unable to say a word. As her mind tried in vain to alight on an appropriate response, she saw over Willoughby's shoulder that one of the lobsters had, for some reason, broken the neat line and resumed its natural position, belly in the water.

Marianne was too focused on Willoughby's strange behaviour to note this aberration in the program; her feelings were instantly expressed. Her face was crimsoned over, and she exclaimed, in a voice of the greatest emotion, "Good G.o.d! Willoughby, what is the meaning of this? Have you not received my letters? Will you not shake hands with me?"

Poolside, the scowling trainer set down the enormous ripe casaba melon he was about to throw to the lobsters and jumped in to corral his errant charge.

Willoughby, meanwhile, could not now avoid the insisted-upon handshake, but Marianne's touch seemed painful to him, and he held her hand only for a moment. During all this time he was evidently struggling for composure. Elinor watched his countenance and saw its expression becoming more tranquil. After a moment's pause, he spoke with calmness.

"I did myself the honour of calling in Berkeley Causeway last Tuesday, and very much regretted that I was not fortunate enough to find yourselves and Mrs. Jennings at home. My hermit-crab card was not lost, I hope: It's the one with the shovels formed into a W W."

"But have you not received my notes?" cried Marianne in the wildest anxiety. "Here is some mistake I am sure-some dreadful mistake. What can be the meaning of it? Tell me, Willoughby; for heaven's sake tell me, what is the matter?"

Before her tormentor could proffer an answer, all conversation was stilled by a most terrible and unnatural sound emerging from the direction of the pool, and echoing through the vast room. It was a sound, thought Elinor as she clutched her ears against it, like the squeal of a rat amplified a thousandfold and merged with the screams of a frightened child.

It was the lobsters-all had now broken formation and converged on the unfortunate trainer. In an instant, every exposed inch of his flesh came under a.s.sault by a dozen pairs of gigantic claws; huge chunks of meat were ripped from his arms and from his legs, the very scalp torn from his head. "Help! For G.o.d's sake, help!!-" he managed to choke out, his crop flailing helplessly against the water, before the largest of the lobsters, in fluid motions no doubt learned from this very trainer, clawed himself up onto the man's chest, wrapped its long, whip-like antennae around his neck, and cleanly garroted off his head. As the guests looked at each other, horrified and uncertain, the decapitated trainer's arms thrashed, thrashed again, and then went still, as streams of blood gushed into the pool water from the stump of his neck.

Now, with a redoubling of their unG.o.dly screech of a war cry, the lobsters climbed out of the water and advanced on the guests in a perfect, soldierly V V formation. formation.

"Willoughby!" cried Marianne in terror of the advancing wedge of warlike crustaceans.

"Willoughby!" cried the fashionable lady to whom he had been speaking a moment ago. The lobsters screeched louder and clacked their claws together like nightmarish rust-brown castanets.

Willoughby backpedaled from the water's edge, as his complexion changed and all his embarra.s.sment returned; he contemplated the two ladies, both desperate for his protection and the affection it would imply. At last he turned on his heel and ran to the unknown young lady, where she had scampered up onto the closest row of seats. Marianne, now looking dreadfully white, and unable to stand, sunk into her chair. Elinor slapped her hard, three times, to get her moving; this was no time for a swoon. The lobsters grew closer by the instant, each one scuttling rapidly forward on five pairs of monstrous legs. One stopped abruptly in its forward march and clamped its terrible claws around the exposed neck of a young woman; a river of blood launched from her throat and poured down the bodice of her elegant swimming costume.

The guests, Elinor and Marianne among them, began a screaming stampede for the exit, shoving and fighting past one another to get out of the path of the death-lobsters; only Lady Middleton, who in her former life as an island princess had defended her people from such threats, was vigorously engaged in battle against the monsters. She grabbed one of the lobsters and snapped its bulging fore claw off at the joint, then used the limb to batter at the beast's hideous cephalothorax. The lobster screeched in pain and rage, snapping in vain at the dexterous Lady Middleton with its remaining claw.

"Go to him, Elinor," Marianne pleaded, insensible of the immediate peril, even as a lobster corralled the Careys, a handsome couple of Sir John's acquaintance; with one claw the beast mauled Mr. Carey, carving large gashes from his torso, while simultaneously, with the other claw, it snapped off Mrs. Carey's feet and hands with four snaps. "Force him to come to me. Tell him I must see him again-must speak to him instantly. I cannot rest-I shall not have a moment's peace till this is explained- some dreadful misapprehension or other. Oh, go to him this moment!"

"This is not the place for explanations. Wait only till to-morrow. We must go! We must go!" As a lobster scuttled menacingly towards them, Elinor drove the pointed heel of her fashionable boot into that vulnerable spot, a quarter of the way down the back of a crustacean, where the head meets the thorax. She felt the satisfying crunch of her boot heel driving past exoskeleton and into pure vulnerable meat-the beast was stopped in its scuttling tracks.

THE GUESTS BEGAN A SCREAMING STAMPEDE FOR THE EXIT, SHOVING AND FIGHTING PAST ONE ANOTHER TO GET OUT OF THE PATH OF THE DEATH-LOBSTERS.

With relief Elinor saw Willoughby quit the room by the door towards the staircase, dragging the terrified young lady with him; and telling Marianne that he was gone, urged the impossibility of speaking to him again that evening as a fresh argument for her to be calm and join her in evacuating the premises immediately. The urgency of the situation was paramount; it seemed as if wherever she looked in Hydra-Z, lobsters were furiously clawing and snapping at the maimed and bloodied unfortunates who remained.

Elinor begged her sister to entreat Lady Middleton to rescue them and take them home, although that estimable lady seemed rather to be enjoying herself, picking up lobsters wholly and dashing them to the ground. But Elinor persisted and at last Lady Middleton acceded-the three reached the exit just as a joint command of hydro-zoologists and British marines, wearing thrice-reinforced danger suits, poured into the amphitheatre.

Scarcely a word was spoken by the Dashwoods during their return to Berkeley Causeway. Elinor was still quivering with the exertion of their near escape; Marianne was in a silent agony, too much oppressed even for tears; and Lady Middleton was happily gnawing lobster meat from the giant claw she had earlier torn free from its bearer.

Mrs. Jennings was luckily not come home, so they could go directly to their own room, where water mixed with the contents of two wine powder packets restored Marianne a little to herself. She was soon undressed and in bed, and as she seemed desirous of being alone, her sister then left her, and while she waited the return of Mrs. Jennings, had leisure enough for thinking over what had happened.

That some kind of engagement had subsisted between Willoughby and Marianne she could not doubt, and that Willoughby was weary of it, seemed equally clear; for however Marianne might still feed her own wishes, she she could not attribute such behaviour to mistake or misapprehension of any kind. Nothing but a thorough change of sentiment could account for it. Absence might have weakened his regard, and convenience might have determined him to overcome it-but there was no doubt that such a regard had formerly existed. could not attribute such behaviour to mistake or misapprehension of any kind. Nothing but a thorough change of sentiment could account for it. Absence might have weakened his regard, and convenience might have determined him to overcome it-but there was no doubt that such a regard had formerly existed.

As for Marianne, on the pangs which so unhappy a meeting must already have given her, and on those still more severe which might await her in its probable consequence, she could not reflect without the deepest concern. Her own situation gained in the comparison; for while she could esteem esteem Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in future, her mind might be always supported. But every circ.u.mstance that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby-in an immediate and irreconcilable rupture with him. Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in future, her mind might be always supported. But every circ.u.mstance that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby-in an immediate and irreconcilable rupture with him.

There was something else troubling about the night's events: those lobsters, as best Elinor could tell, hadn't even attempted to feast on their victims, only to savage them and then move on to the next. They were, in other words, mauling and killing human beings for pleasure-the foremost trait that was supposed to have been trained from them in the laboratories of Hydra-Z.

This disturbing fact competed with her contemplations of Marianne's misfortune, until at last she fell into an exhausted, fitful sleep.