City of the Tribes by Walter Macken

Author:Walter Macken
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Island
Published: 2021-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

Homing Salmon

She came from the sea like a silver bullet, glinting, before the great body curved and dived again, the powerful tail and fins catching the mass of the green water, holding it and levering her body forward through its depths at incredible speed.

Behind her there was great commotion as the black bulk of the porpoise scattered the shoal of her companions. The hot sun from above lightened the calm water, reflecting deeply into the fathoms, so that the darting silver salmon looked like many sixpences dropped in a shallow pond.

She was afraid but exultant.

Afraid, because in that leap above into the air she had glimpsed the bulk of the islands ahead and behind them the waters of the enclosed bay, at the end of which she knew the river lay, the river and beyond that home, from which she had been exiled for many years. So fear entered her, lest after her journey of thousands of miles, she should be so near, and that death and oblivion should be so near, too, in the black shape of her enemies.

But she exulted in her strength.

She knew her power as the water opened before her face and she felt the fast flow of it traversing the length of her body. She swerved her tail and darted off to the left, with the instinct of fear sent from behind, where one or two wounded fish were turning gleaming bellies to the sky, their mouths opening and closing spasmodically before the gleaming teeth found and gulped them into the red oblivion of a colossal belly.

She swam faster and faster.

She was fat and full. She knew the way her chest rounded out below her chin and the way it curved powerfully above her head, so that she had width and depth and length, and glorious power. She knew that her flesh was pink and healthy, that her skin was thick and tough and that she was streamlined for speed, the most beautifully streamlined thing that swam under the sea. Her only irritant now was her fear, that and the few lice from the sea that moved over her skin, travelling in their formulated jellies, taking blood from her that she could afford, but making her long for the clear fresh water where they would die. She had a picture of herself, already there, leaping from below into the clear air, halting in the middle of the leap, so that her big body would flop down on the water of the lake and smash the remaining lice into memory.

She went faster still.

She was conscious of the others near her. They swam in ranks, closing together now after the depredations of the porpoises, sending out to each other waves of messages, but all the time watchful. They knew that they were coming home, and many things would try to prevent them from reaching home.

Out there in the great fastnesses of the ocean, they had been safe from all their enemies. A mysterious disease might lay them low, but in the main they had peace.

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