Mike Eliminates the Special Service Squads Outside Jubal’s Pool

Michael Smith’s elimination of the Special Service squads outside Jubal Harshaw’s pool is a rescue carried out from concealment. While his body lies hidden underwater, Smith perceives an armed force closing on Jill Boardman and removes its members and vehicles one by one. His intervention saves those gathered by the pool, but leaves him with a problem his power cannot settle: whether, at the decisive moment, he acted rightly.

The Hidden Position

Following Jubal’s instruction, Smith swims to the deepest part of the pool and settles beneath the diving board, without understanding that he is hiding. He is to remain there until Jill comes for him; the instruction from his water brother is sufficient. Curled at the bottom, he slows his heartbeat until he seems dead, though he remains in his body and can restart it at will. He stretches his sense of time, making seconds pass like hours while he waits.

The concealment is physical, but his attention is not confined to the submerged body. Smith knows that he has failed again to achieve perfect understanding with Jubal: his use of human language has upset his water brother, and he believes the fault is his. His isolation therefore begins as more than a tactical arrangement. He is already turning over the limits of communication and rapport when danger approaches above him.

Jill checks that he is safe beneath the water, but Smith senses that her distress has another cause. He wants to go to her and share it, then hesitates because he is not certain Jubal intended him to leave the pool. He settles on a compromise: he will be present if needed, without openly disobeying the instruction. From his hidden vantage, he examines a man stepping out of an air car and identifies the gun carried at the man’s waist, comparing it with guns he has seen and with a dictionary definition.

The Attack and Response

The armed men approach Jubal and the others beside the pool. Papers carried by the first man concern human procedures for healing and balance, but Smith does not investigate them: he senses that the wrongness lies elsewhere. The turning point comes when the leader looks from a photograph to Jill. Smith feels her fear intensify, and Jubal’s instruction becomes immediate and unmistakable: protect Jill, and do not worry about anything else.

When the leader points at Jill, two men hurry toward her with their guns. Smith reaches them through his Doppelganger and gives each a slight twist that makes them topple away into disappearance. The leader reaches for his own gun and vanishes next. Four more men begin to close in. Smith would rather stop them than twist them out of existence, but stopping even an ashtray takes effort, and his body is not at hand. He acts with the power available to him: four light touches, and the men disappear.

The remaining danger is not limited to the men on foot. Smith feels a more intense wrongness coming from the ground vehicle and removes it along with its pilot. He nearly overlooks a second car covering the attack from the air. When he notices it descending toward his position, he stretches his time sense to its limit, inspects it, recognizes the same overwhelming wrongness, and tilts it into neverness. The sequence expands from protecting Jill against two approaching gunmen to eliminating the whole force and its air support.

Immediate Aftermath

With the threat gone, Smith returns his attention to the group. Dorcas is sobbing, and Jill is holding and soothing her; Anne seems untouched by the emotions seething around them. Smith senses that the wrongness and the trouble accompanying it have passed. He thinks Jill will comfort Dorcas better than anyone, because she understands hurt fully and at once.

Smith is not entirely at ease. He wonders whether he acted in every respect rightly at the cusp, or whether Jubal will understand him. He returns to the pool, finds his body unharmed, and slips back into it. Rather than immediately contemplate the men he has removed, he judges the events too recent to enfold or cherish. He resumes his earlier task, moving through dictionary words, until Jill’s touch approaches; then he prepares to come up, mindful that she cannot remain underwater for long.

Judgment, Protection, and Trust

The scene’s central contrast is between Smith’s certainty about whom he must protect and his uncertainty about the means. Jubal’s repeated instruction narrows his attention: protect Jill, and set aside other concerns. Smith follows that command without hesitation once Jill is directly threatened. Yet he does not regard the result as uncomplicated. He has removed the attackers and their vehicles, but still questions whether his choices were right, and whether his water brother will be able to grok them.

The attack also reveals the difference between Smith’s physical vulnerability and his reach. His body remains hidden at the bottom of the pool, while his perception and action extend beyond it to the men, the ground car, and the aircraft. The pool keeps him out of the attackers’ immediate view, but it does not make him a passive observer. It becomes the concealed base from which he intervenes, and the place to which he returns before Jill comes to retrieve him.

The aftermath gives protection a quieter form. Smith notices Dorcas’s distress and trusts Jill to soothe her, rather than displacing Jill from that role. When Jill reaches him, he takes her face in his hands and kisses her. He recognizes in the gesture the growing-closer of the water ceremony, while sensing that it also carries something he has not yet learned to understand fully. The episode thus moves from armed force and disappearance back toward touch and relationship: Smith has protected Jill, but his wish for perfect understanding remains unresolved.