Morning in the mainland mountains, even on an early summer day, was much too cold for a skinny, young man to be standing outside in his underwear. This thought was on Farmington's mind as he shivered on the rim of a small swimming pool at the downhill end of Cred Faiging's compound.
The hillside had been cleared of trees and surrounded with high electrified fence against all outsiders—scavengers, Revolutionaries and Government people alike. (Faiging, the renowned inventor and manufacturer, treasured his privacy and independence.) The grounds were dotted with long and low manufacturing huts, the main laboratory-residence, and the garages beyond. The scrubby grass was criss-crossed with muddy vehicle tracks running between the structures.
The sun was bright but warmed little, and Farmington, in drenched undershorts, was enjoying very little privacy. The aging, yellow-and-white-haired inventor was strapping a tank-and-hose contraption onto the younger man's back. Faiging's assistant, a drawling stick figure named Kim, was dragging up a duffel bag of other gear.
"The trouble with showin' those brochures around," Faiging was saying, "is that once in a witch's moon you'll make an immediate sale. Big Tom don't know that the only SUB we have is the prototype. But we can't be disappointing an eager customer, can we?"
Farmington's entire pale body was shaking. "He wasn't. . .eager enough to pay. . .cash this time," he stuttered. "Seemed odd to me. Always. . .he always paid cash before."
Faiging sucked in his pocked cheeks as he considered the point and released them again with a comical pop. Like Farmington and many other southlanders, he razored off his facial hair every few days. "Ya said they was a load of red-leggers what Captain Bull brought up. See there? Big Tom's got plenty of money—we can wait for the delivery. Just you get expert at using the SUB, while I see can we throw together a couple more. By time I'm done, you'll be able to demonstrate your merchandise like a proper salesman."
Kim was pretending not to notice the cold little bulge in Farmington's pants. She lifted each of Farmington's feet to strap them into a pair of downward-curving paddles fashioned from old tire rubber. Next, the mask, a thick piece of window glass surrounded by more rubber and sealed to the face with a coating of gum to keep the water out. She secured it by tightening a strap across the back of his head.
"Captain Bull's due back in Edenton in juss three weeks," the younger man said, his nose stopped up by the mask. "Reckon you'll be done then?"
Air whoosed out of the hose as the inventor pressed the mouth piece for a final test. "This I call the air-stager," Faiging said, fitting it into the salesman's mouth. "Think of it as a mouth switch—you suck in, it'll feed you air till you stop. And yeah, I can make a couple more—if the inspectors leave me alone meantime." Faiging and Kim exchanged sober glances. Farmington noticed and wondered what kind of heat the old man was drawing this time.
He breathed in on the mouthpiece and filled his lungs with stale-tasting air, then heaved it out again. Seemed to work. Mouth only—don't breathe with the nose—that would be one of the hard parts.
"How'd you think up a machine like this?" Farmington asked.
"Like a lot of my inventions," Faiging said, rapping the tank, "I just plain didn't. A scavenger, a scummy old bugwart name of Alistar found it nearbout the coast. Didn't know what it was, but knew I'd have a use for it. This tank's an original, ancient stuff. The hose was rotted, just enough there to copy the design."
Not at all reassured, Farmington jumped into the pool feet first. The water was just thirty feet across, muddy looking. It was formed by sloping concrete walls that were hard to see and easy, he had found out during his earlier swim, to scrape knees on. Before, when he had just dipped into the pool, the visibility underwater was virtually nonexistent. Now, he could see at least a few feet away. He stood up, thrust his head out of the water, and nodded his tentative satisfaction to Faiging.
"Good," the inventor called out. "Now go to the deep part—try out those foot paddles."
Farmington obeyed, swimming down, hands out front in case he encountered another wall. The paddles supplied remarkable propulsion, but at a depth of twelve feet or so he could barely see his hands in front of his face. The water was seriously numbing his body, too, and Farmington hoped that vision and temperature were not going to be such a problem in Caribbean waters. The breathing was not too bad, though—an easy hissing intake; a flatulent-sounding rush of bubbles on the exhale.
His right leg brushed against seaweed, and Farmington thought that odd in a concrete pool. He swam upward for better light and turned himself upright in the water to look: A long black band with white speckles was wrapping itself around his ankle. He screamed a torrent of bubbles, losing the mouthpiece, and scraped the creature away frantically with his left foot paddle.
Arms and legs flailing, he scrabbled up the hard bank into the grass at Cred Faiging's feet. He rolled onto his back, the tank propping him up, and examined his numb legs for fang marks. "Snake," he stammered. "Pig-poking speckled. . .big ol' snake."
"Dammit," Kim said, hooking a thumb into her dingy denims, "I thought water moccasins might a got in there! You rest up, and I'll try to rake 'em out."
"Thanks," the salesman said, watching her boney little rear end wobble away.
Faiging knelt and swept aside the blood on Farmington's knees. The scrapes didn't look too bad.
"You did that just right," the older man said, "letting the air out like that."
"Huh?"
"In deep water—you rising fast like that—I figure if you didn't exhale, your lungs 'ud burst."
"Mr. Faiging. . .uh, gawd. Never mind."