PoraBora

Chapter Sixty-Five

The net was an impenetrable wall. Schools who were ready to feed in the open sea paced behind it, turning in tandem, their silvery bodies glittering in the light as the sea glow was disturbed into a cloud around their singular form. A shark cruised along the edge of it, bewildered. He bumped against the net once, testing it. It didn't budge.

The net's weight pulled it taut. Pora put a hand against it. Every chain link was like the bumpy skin of a sea lemon, but cold and metal and unnatural. He followed the sheet to the edge, where very few animals found their way through. He tried to drag it aside but it didn't move enough, and as soon as he let go, it sunk back into place.

Wai Polu never could have built something like this, Pora thought. Never would it have wanted to. Where it met the sea floor, it crushed coral into powder. The amount of fish it would catch would destroy an ecosystem on its own, and almost all of it would go to waste before it could be salted and preserved, let alone eaten.

But then, had Taipala ever built something Pora could understand? He let bubbles trail from his lips and nose so that he could descend, each one catching blue as it rolled along the jellyfish. He knew the net was in pieces, but how big?

Keasau breached, and Pora heard his great weight collapsing into the sea from the net. A swell would come and the net would move. Not enough to let the god out, but perhaps enough Pora would be able to find where the sheets were separate.

Wait a little longer, Keasau! Pora pleaded.

Keasau didn't. The god roared.

Don't do it, Keasau; you will destroy this place!

Pora swam faster, trying to be careful. But he had to hurry, or all the sea turtles and fish and even Bora would be destroyed by oil.

The swell arrived and Pora was lifted and pushed into the net. It billowed out towards the open sea but remained fastened flush together, without even a hint of where he could detach the hooks.

At the next rumbling of Keasau, Pora had to see. He swam for the surface, snaking between the jellyfish to poke his head up to his nose.

Keasau had grabbed ahold of a ship. A cannonade struck it, ripping off the crabs and causing oil to pulse out with Keasau's heartbeat. The force of its escape sent more of the crabs flying into the sea. If anybody screamed, Pora couldn't hear it across the cavern. All he could hear was Keasau, and the water rising above his ears.

It was too late. Pora sunk back down. Even if he got the net open, Keasau would leak oil into the sea and destroy everything in the cavern. And it would only get worse, as the cannonades continued, as Keasau grew furious, and as an oil storm came through the hole in the ceiling.

Pora had to trust the others would help. He was the only one who could open the net.

Pora had crossed twice the width of a ship before he felt anything different, and he snuck his fingers under a lip of net. This was it, he thought, and he squirmed his arm further in, flailing for the hooks that he knew had to be there.

He felt none. He felt only that the sheet kept going.

He was going to have to swim between them.

Pora went to the surface with the next swell. Not knowing how far he had to swim into the trap, he had to make sure his lungs were ready. He would be fine. Once he unhooked it, he'd be able to get out without a problem, because the next swell would open the whole thing into the sea.

He went back under.

It took more than Pora's strength to hold the pieces apart enough he could slip between. He held the top net back, as a swell took the other, and then pulled his way in.