CHAPTER VII
I was presently breathing the water with fair normality. Indeed, after the noxious air we had been struggling with so long, it came almost as a relief. Nona’s arms were about my neck; I loosed them, but she clung to my hand. Together we tried to stand upright.
This river bottom seemed a gray sand. But we could not maintain footing. The water was empty—by which I mean there was no marine vegetation here—nothing that we could grip with our hands. And from behind us, the current wafted us gently but irresistibly forward.
I soon discovered that normally we would float in an upright position. We held ourselves so with our toes occasionally touching the soil, bouncing along like feathers in a gentle breeze.
The scene around us now more resembled a misty gray day on one of our sandy Earth-deserts than anything else I can call to mind. The ground was undulating gray sand, sloping upward to one side, and with a steady incline downward in front. And down this slope we were blowing.
Swim, you say? It never occurred to either of us! We were frightened; we clung to each other, striving to remain upright.
Very soon the light from overhead seemed to deepen. But other light—the diffused light inherent to the water itself—grew brighter by contrast. We were swept forward much faster—and down a much steeper hill. I know now that the change was caused by the river having plunged into that cliff-face, to become subterranean.
How far we were carried I cannot say. A mile perhaps. Or more. Rocky cliffs now seemed to pen us in; it was as though we were in a steep canyon, with a powerful wind driving us down through it.
Then abruptly we came to the end of the canyon. Open country lay before us. There were hills in the distance, with the level floor of the sea between us and them. Long stalks of vegetation reared themselves up through the water—so high that I could not see to their tops—slender spires of growing things, rooted below, branching out above with huge air-bladders to keep them floating—the whole waving slowly to and fro. On some of them there seemed what you might term fruit.
It was a strange, but a beautiful and peaceful scene. This, then, was our new home—our new world! And how much better, more hospitable, it was than the one we had left! My heart swelled with pride as, standing beside my mate, I gazed at our new possessions.
A small living thing—slender and elongated and with a flat, waving tail—went past us waist-high. I clutched at it clumsily; but it eluded me and darted away.
On the ground beneath our feet were living things in shells. I seized one, ate it, and called to Nona.
Sounds? It was very still and quiet down here—but no more so than on the surface of the meteor above. The sound of my voice carried to Nona. Indeed, sounds here in the water carried very far, though somewhat muffled and blurred.
Having eaten of the shell-fish, the berries and the fruits, we lay down on the sand with Nona’s hair floating above us. We were in the shelter of a tenuous clump of ferns which spread out like an arbor above us. I twisted my leg in them to hold us from possible drifting; and Nona clung to me.
We would rest and then build our home here.