by Sean O'Brien
Fozzoli nodded. “Or to any of us. I thought it was just a coincidence, but your recent...adventure makes me sure.”
“You’re saying they think we are like shit?”
Fozzoli shook his head. “No, no. I’m saying the frequency they use for excrement, deviant sexual practices, and us is the same. It doesn’t mean there is a direct lexical match; it just means they think of us in the same ways. All three of those topics refer to the profane, in differing degrees.”
“Which one is the worst?”
“We are.”
Sirra stared at him, then slowly shook her head. “It’s no good, Foz. You read the transcript—they kept referring to me as “Damned Saint” or “Demonic Angel” or something like that. They said it enough times so I’m sure there was no fault in my translator. What’s that about if not religious reverence?”
“I think there is some confusion in the vix religion,” Fozzoli answered wryly. He grinned. “‘Course, that could be said of any religion.”
Sirra ignored the comment. “I think they don’t know what to do with us. It has something to do with the confusion between the Above and the Old Place.”
Fozzoli shrugged. “I had assumed the Old Place was just the undersea volcano. The Above and the Old Place are opposites. That’s why they took you to the Old Place—to try to reverse, or exorcise, the influence of the Above.”
Fozzoli’s reasoning made sense, but something did not feel right. There was something wrong with his logic, through she could not find a flaw in it. She thought back to her experience with Bishop. He had been in ecstasy as he descended—could that be purely religious?
“Foz, what’s the dissolved oxygen concentration at the bottom of the fissure?”
Fozzoli blinked in surprise at the sudden change of topics. “Uh, hold on.” He accessed the data and said, “We haven’t gone all the way down.”
“What is it where I was? Compared to the vix town depth?”
“About eight times higher. Seven-point-nine-four times.”
“You think that would have an effect on one of them?”
“I imagine so. It sure would on one of us in atmosphere.”
“That’s why the religious leaders live below the rest of them. They have access to a higher level of oxygen than the others.”
“I suppose. We know that vix settlements are found only near undersea volcanoes, and that there is a definite radius away from the volcano beyond which vix will not build.”
Sirra nodded excitedly. She felt she was on to something but could not explain what it was. She would have to talk it out. “Depth means more oxygen near a volcano. Okay. That means the surface has less. Above, to them, would mean death.”
“Or at least a loss of mental faculty. Kind of like lightheadedness in us. Do you think they associate the Above with death? Like heaven, or some other afterlife?”
Sirra shook her head. Again, Fozzoli made sense, but his conclusion didn’t feel right. “I think it is a mistake to start ascribing human theology to the vix, though.”
Fozzoli said, “But they have death rituals. We’ve seen them cast off vix outside their cities. Sometimes they float up, sometimes they sink down. Has anyone studied that phenomenon?”
Sirra frowned. “I’m not sure. I’ve never heard of a study on it. But who would study it, aside from one of us?”
“Maybe there’s a reason some of them go up and down. Maybe they send the saintly, good vix up to the surface, the Above, while they make the bad vix sink below, to hell.”
Sirra considered that. “It’s a question I’d ask Vogel, if I didn’t think my mere presence there would result in another exorcism. I’d rather not do that again. And I think we should suspend further dives until we’ve got this figured out.”
“We could go to another settlement,” Fozzoli suggested.
“Yes, but it’d take months, years to learn another language, even with the head start we’ve got here. Plus, there’s no reason to assume a different vix settlement, completely unconnected with this one, would have similar rituals. No, we’ve got to stay here and figure this out ourselves.” Sirra pressed the sides of her head with her knuckles. She could almost feel the answer sliding around in her brain, imprisoned by a discontinuity. There was a crucial fact she and Fozzoli were overlooking—she just didn’t know what it was.
“Hang on,” Sirra said finally, removing her knuckles from her temples. “Just because down signifies hell in some ancient Terrestrial religions doesn’t mean the vix think the same way. Why would they take me down to exorcise me? Why not up?”
“Maybe they want to return you to where they think you came from.”
“But they know we all come from the surface. The surface means something to them—something awe-inspiring but at the same time repulsive. No,” she shook her head at herself, “not repulsive—profane, as you said. Like a bad memory.”
“A bad memory?” Fozzoli said, puzzled.
Sirra was not listening. She could feel the answer forming in her head, but it was still cloudy. She knew what questions she had to ask. “Foz, what was that study done of vix physiology? The one that said there were no blind alleys or dead ends in the vix evolution?”
Fozzoli furrowed his brow. “You mean Doctor Seelith’s piece?” At Sirra’s nod, he continued. “She said something about the evolution of the vix didn’t leave them with any vestigial organs. Like our appendix or our tailbone, stuff like that. The vix don’t have any of that. Hang on, I’ll dig it up.” He turned to the computer, but Sirra waved him away.
“No, don’t bother. I remember it now.”
“But what does that have to do with—”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Sirra squeezed her head gently, palms against her temples. “I need to talk to Khadre.”
Twenty minutes later, Khadre’s holo image stood before Fozzoli and Sirra. The two women exchanged a warm look. Although the two had only corresponded a dozen times in the past thirty years, the five years before that had sealed a bond between them that in some ways rivaled Sirra’s relationship with Yallia.
The moment passed, and Khadre said, “My assistant told me you want to talk about ‘Notes on Missing Vestigial Organs in Vix Anatomy.’ This is the first time in eighteen years anyone has made comment on that paper. Not the most exciting piece of work, but I am happy to discuss it with you.”
Sirra smiled back. “Thanks for taking the time to talk with me, Khadre.”
“It’s been too long.”
Sirra was anxious to get on with her questions. The demands of nostalgia, however strong, would have to wait. “In your paper, you proposed that the vix do not have any vestigial organs or structures, like we do.” Sirra had skimmed the paper while Fozzoli had been contacting Khadre’s research ship. “What can you conclude about their evolutionary process as compared to ours?”
Khadre’s eyebrows rose. “That’s all? You get right to the point, don’t you? You haven’t changed.” She said fondly. “Eighteen years ago, when I wrote the paper, I wasn’t prepared to draw any kind of conclusions. I didn’t have enough data to stick my neck and reputation out.”
“But you do now?”
“No. But I find now I care less about my reputation…and my neck.” She drew a breath and said, “The vix’ evolutionary process was fundamentally different from ours. There had to have been outside factors involved.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
Khadre shook her head. “As I said, I’m not. I have no real data to back me up, just observations and conjectures. But the vix are different from any other life on this planet. We’ve examined other marine life and other animals on land. All of them have vestigial structures or organs. They seem to have followed the same kind of evolutionary paths Terrestrial animals have. Only the vix have arrived at their present state with no leftover genetic debris, so to speak.”
“Couldn’t the vix just be fortunate in heir evolutionary path?”
“Not a chance. Organisms
as complex as the vix would have vestigial structures that were once useful but are no longer. Vestigial structures aren’t a sign of genetic weakness—they’re more of a history, showing where the species came from and what it used to be like.”
“And these vix show no signs of ever being any different than they are now?”
“Right.”
“Why couldn’t the vix be throwbacks from prehistory? Like the Terrestrial alligator? Unless I’m wrong, the alligator is virtually unchanged over millions of years.”
Khadre sighed. “Yes. So is the shark, to some degree. That question was one of the reasons I never published what I’m telling you now. I can’t disprove that with empirical evidence, but my feeling is that an organism as complex as the vix could not possibly have remained stagnant for the millions of years required to eliminate all vestigial traces of preceding forms. Also, while I’m not as expert as you on their culture, I am under the impression that their culture shows signs of rapid development over the last few thousand years.”
Sirra nodded absently and looked at Fozzoli. “Yes. My colleague, Doctor Abromo Fozzoli, has studied that.”
Khadre looked at him. “Oh, yes. I know Doctor Fozzoli.”
Fozzoli cleared his throat and said, “We have reason to believe there was a cultural explosion on the order of eight to ten thousand years ago.”
Khadre nodded. “That would tend to discredit the notion that the vix have been in their current form for millions of years.”
Sirra broke in. “But if all you say is true—”
“I never claimed it was fact. Just speculation.”
Sirra ignored her objection and swept on. “—the vix, as a species, are only eight to ten thousand years old.”
Khadre did not answer.
Fozzoli coughed awkwardly, then said, “I’m not seriously proposing this, but have you thought of punctuated evolution, Doctor Seelith?”
“Don’t be shy, Doctor Fozzoli. I’ve read your papers.” Khadre said, and Sirra suppressed her amusement. “I have indeed thought of punctuated evolution, but no theory ever advanced with any sort of merit postulates wild evolutionary change in such a short time. When added to the changelessness of the sea, the idea is untenable.”
Sirra shook her head. “But what alternative have we? Where did they come from?”
“Another good question. And that’s another reason I never published. I haven’t got even the beginnings of an answer to that.”
“It has to have something to do with the Old Place.” Sirra said absently.
Khadre’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
Sirra started, then looked back at Khadre. “Oh, uh…I had a little problem a short while ago with the vix.” At Khadre’s curious expression, Sirra related the story of her abduction and escape.
When she had finished, Khadre blew out the air in her cheeks. “Well, I think you’ve got a lot of data to integrate. Do you think the Old Place, wherever that is, is where the vix come from?”
“Maybe,” Sirra said, “But where is that? Bishop was descending towards the vent when Vogel told me he was trying to commune with the Old Place. But….”
Khadre completed the thought for her. “But the vix couldn’t have come from the vent. If they had, you can be sure they would look quite different than they do now. The incredible heat and pressure would require quite a different type of organism.”
Sirra was closer to the answer now, she knew it. But there was still a hole in her data that she needed to fill. The vix didn’t come from the vent, but something about it reminded them of their original home.
Sirra and Khadre did not speak for a few moments. Khadre broke the silence. “I think, Sirra, that we had best sign off for now and think about this in isolation. Do you object to my sharing of your discovery with my colleagues on this end?”
“No, of course not.”
“Good. If you need to reach me, I’ll be at the same combo. Please call if you think of anything new. I’ll do the same. Or, you could call just to talk.”
“Thanks.”
Khadre smiled. “I remember you, thirty-six years ago, reaching your hand in the water to talk to the vix after the attack.” Her eyes sparkled. “I knew you would one day make something of yourself with the vix.”
Sirra smiled back, but her memory was tainted with Viktur Ljarbazz, lying in a bloody heap on the heaving deck.
Khadre nodded slightly, as if in acknowledgement of the man’s memory, and switched off.
Khadre was still staring the spot where Sirra’s holo had stood moments before when Kiv entered the cramped comm suite. “What’s up?”
Khadre did not answer immediately. She swiveled her head to face him, her mind still on the conversation. “What?”
Kiv snorted. “You been hypnotized?”
Khadre slowly focused on her son. “Hm? Oh, no. I just….” She hesitated again.
Kiv looked suspicious. His voice no longer tinged with humor, he said, “What’s wrong?”
“Something’s happening with the vix.”
“What is?”
Khadre drew a breath and told him of Sirra’s encounter, leaving out most of the speculation the two women had done minutes earlier.
“We have to stop research. Immediately,” Kiv said when she had finished.
Khadre stared at him. “What?”
“The vix have attacked one of us.”
“But we don’t know why.”
Kiv shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Any human who goes down there is subject to the same risks. I can’t allow any of us to be in that kind of danger.”
Khadre got up and approached her son. “Kiv, listen. We are at a crucial moment in our research. If we stop now—”
“You scientists are always at a crucial moment of research. The vix aren’t going anywhere. I am ordering an immediate cessation of information-gathering. You yourself said that you have more data now than you know what to do with.”
“Kiv, you can’t stop us from researching.” As soon as she had said it, she knew it was precisely the wrong thing to say to her son. She saw his face harden and his shoulders square at her words.
“Yes, I can. These vix have all but declared war on us.”
“What?” Khadre’s eyes widened. “Son, you don’t know what you are saying.”
“No?” Kiv looked away and walked to the other side of the comm suite. He stared at the ground for a moment, then looked up again. “You have told me, many times, that the vix are intelligent. You’ve said that they are tool-making, problem-solving animals. I think they are smarter than you give them credit for. I think they are tired of being prodded by us and are now striking back.”
“Kiv—” Khadre shook her head and spread her hands wide.
“How can we be sure they don’t know about the terraforming process the Domers started one hundred and ten years ago?”
“That was abandoned thirty-four years ago. The vix have roughly the same generation cycle we do—thirty-four years is between two and three generations for them. Vix lifespan is a bit shorter than ours—barring accidents, vix tend to live about forty-two to forty-five years. There’d only be a very few vix who were even alive during the terraforming process, and only a tiny number of them who were old enough at that time to think purposefully.”
“Aren’t we still feeling the effects of the project now? Surely, the planet hasn’t returned to its original state in just thirty-four years.”
Khadre chafed. “No. And it never will, not entirely. But much of the damage has been reversed. The remains of the project really aren’t much of a factor in the day-to-day lives of modern native animals.”
“But as I understand, during its seventy-five year duration, it had quite a profound effect on the planet’s ecosystem. Isn’t that right? Whole species became extinct, and others were forced to change their behaviors in rather extreme ways. Why not the vix, too?”
“I’m sure they did, but they seem to have adapted to it.”
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��But how do we know they don’t have some deep resentment for what we’ve done to them?”
“How could they possibly know what we have done? The concept of terraforming is many orders of magnitude beyond their comprehension.”
Kiv’s eyebrows went up in scorn. “Really? You told me they are skilled in agriculture. They modify their environment to suit them. What else is terraforming but a more extreme version of basic agriculture?”
Khadre opened her mouth to answer and stopped. Kiv was right.
He smirked at her. “Just because I spend most of my time behind a desk, Mother, doesn’t mean I’m not smart.”
“I never said—”
Kiv waved away her objection. “It doesn’t matter.” But Khadre could see the hurt in his eyes. Despite the nature of the conversation, Khadre found herself replaying various encounters she had had with her son over the years. Had she shown him less love than her other children? All her other offspring were in the sciences in some way, although none of them had yet made a name for themselves. Only Kiv, her sole male child, had gone into a different field. Had she been guilty of favoritism towards her science-minded daughters? She remembered the many times she had joked with him about his job as a paper-pusher as he had risen steadily through the political ranks. On the infrequent times she had called him, she had dismissed his work as mere bureaucratic fiddling. Eventually, Khadre realized, he had stopped calling her to tell her of another political victory or legislative triumph. And she had been only too happy to distance herself from him.
“Son, I—” After all the years, she could not find the words to excise twenty-plus years of injustice.
“I’m ordering an immediate interdiction on the vix. No human is to approach them for any reason. That goes for automated machinery as well. I don’t want to take the chance that they will capture some of our technology.” Kiv’s voice was iron. “Besides, we might need you scientists to help us against the Domers should it become necessary.”
Khadre ignored the last comment. “That’s a mistake, son. We won’t be able to learn what they want if we don’t research them more.”
“Right now, we know what they want. They want to kill us. I’m not going to give them the chance.”
