The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

The dance of bodies became too rapid to follow. Pastel-coloured lights glowed from deep within the green structure, flickering and stuttering. Naqi thought of lanterns burning from the depths of a forest. Now the edge of the lagoon had become irregular, extending peninsulas toward the centre of the dwindling circle of water, while narrow bays and inlets fissured back into the larger mass of the node. The peninsulas sprouted grasping tendrils, thigh-thick at the trunk but narrowing to the dimensions of plant fronds, and then narrowing further, bifurcating into lacy, fernlike hazes of awesome complexity. They diffracted light like the wings of dragonflies. They were closing over the lagoon, forming a shimmering canopy. Now and then a sprite-or something smaller but equally bright-arced from one bank of the lagoon to another. Brighter things moved through the water like questing fish. Microscopic organisms were detaching from the larger fronds and tendrils, swarming in purposeful clouds. They batted against her skin, against her eyelids. Every breath that she took made her cough. The taste of the Pattern Jugglers was sour and medicinal. They were in her, invading her body.

She panicked. It was as if a tiny switch had flipped in her mind. Suddenly all other concerns melted away. She had to get out of the lagoon immediately, no matter what Mina would think of her.

Thrashing more than swimming, Naqi tried to push herself toward the raft. But as soon as the panic reaction had kicked in she had felt something else slide over her. It was not so much paralysis as an immense sense of inertia. Moving, even breathing, became problematic. The boat was impossibly distant. She was no longer capable of treading water. She felt heavy, and when she looked down she saw that a green haze enveloped the parts of her body that she could see above water. The organisms were adhering to the fabric of her wetsuit.

“Mina…” she called. “Mina!”

But Mina only looked at her. Naqi sensed that her sister was experiencing the same sort of paralysis. Mina’s movements had become languid, and yet instead of panic what Naqi saw on her face was profound resignation and acceptance. It was dangerously close to serenity.

Mina wasn’t frightened at all.

The patterns on her neck were flaring vividly. Her eyes were closed. Already the organisms had begun to attack the fabric of her suit, stripping it away from her flesh. Naqi could feel the same thing happening to her own suit. There was no pain, for the organisms stopped short of attacking her skin. With a mighty effort she hoisted her forearm from the water, studying the juxtaposition of pale flesh and dissolving black fabric. Her fingers were as stiff as iron.

But-and Naqi clung to this-the ocean recognised the sanctity of organisms, or at least thinking organisms. Strange things might happen to people who swam with the Jugglers, things that might be difficult to distinguish from death or near death. But people always emerged afterward, changed perhaps, but essentially whole. No matter what happened now, they would survive. The Jugglers always returned those who swam with them, and even when they did effect changes they were seldom permanent.

Except, of course, for those who didn’t return.

No, Naqi told herself. What they were doing was foolish, and might perhaps destroy their careers. But they would survive. Mina had flagged high on the conformality index when she had applied to join the swimmer corps, but that didn’t mean she was necessarily at risk. Conformality merely implied a rare connection with the ocean. It verged on the glamorous.

Now Mina was going under. She had stopped moving entirely. Her eyes were blankly ecstatic.

Naqi wanted to resist that same impulse to submission. But the strength had flown away from her. She felt herself commence the same descent. The water closed over her mouth, then her eyes, and in a moment she was under. She felt herself a toppled statue sliding toward the seabed. Her fear reached a crescendo and then passed. She was not drowning. The froth of green organisms had forced itself down her throat, down her nasal passage. She felt no fright. There was nothing except a profound feeling that this was what she had been born to do.