“A show of force might intimidate them,” said Irona. “As you yourself have said, the humans respect rational behavior. I suggest we make violence an entirely irrational option by showing them we can retaliate.”
“I perceive a flaw in that plan: we cannot retaliate against violence. Therefore we must continue with a policy of peace.”
Irona sounded triumphant. “I have a way to get Guardians to you even if the humans remain in control of the elevator.”
“Tell me why I do not know about this, Irona. As the leader of this mission I should have complete knowledge of all our capabilities.”
“I only recently rediscovered the method. Now that we face the real possibility of violent conflict, I have begun searching all our rec ords about warfare. They contain a great many interesting things. I have used the fabricator on board to manufacture capsules capable of matching the pressure at the sea bottom. I can send down the lander with Guardians in the capsules, and simply drop them down the elevator shaft.”
“Gishora, if Irona really can send us a few Guardians, I would feel safer,” said Tizhos. “That would remind the humans of possible consequences, as Irona wishes, without provoking them.”
Gishora surprised her by agreeing without argument. “Very well. Send down some Guardians as a precaution. Now if you will forgive me, Irona, I feel very hungry and would like a meal.”
Tizhos broke the link. Neither spoke for a moment. Then she hung her head very submissively. “I regret disagreeing with you.”
“No, no. You did the correct thing. You stated the truth as it appeared to you. I would prefer truthful dissent to loyal lies. No, I feel sad because Irona may speak the truth.”
“I fear I do not understand.”
“Violence may work. I hate violence, Tizhos, and I hate what the fear of it has done to our people. We cannot control our passions, so to keep from ravaging our world again we must become a civilization of scattered villages, too small to do harm. I thought the humans represented a different way—a civilization of logic and order. But it seems their passions can get out of control just like ours.”
“I know of one encouraging thing,” she said, trying to make herself feel cheerful. “Irona’s project will take quite a bit of time to implement. We can spend that time reviewing all the discoveries made by the humans.”
He still sounded a little sad, but his posture improved. “I agree. We still have so much to learn. Let us make use of our opportunity.”
BROADTAIL is hungrier than he can ever remember being. He is in cold water, far from any active bottom trench or hotspot. His sonar pings reveal nothing but silt on the seafloor. Otherwise the water is almost silent. The ice above is low here, and sometimes he can hear it creak. From time to time he comes upon floating threads soaking nutrients from the water, and devours them greedily. They are thin and bitter and do little to sustain him. His bag of provisions trails empty from his harness. The small growths and bits of weed on his shell are getting thin, starving to death and dropping off. He swims slowly; a hundred or so steady strokes and then drifting until his strength returns.
He has only a vague idea of where he is. There is a big empty basin that separates the Three Domes hotspot from the line of vents that includes Continuous Abundance and Bitterwater. He thinks he is somewhere in that great emptiness, and he thinks that if he follows the current he can reach some settlement. But he doesn’t know how far he must go, and he suspects he is starving to death.
He swims on, his mind drifting as he goes. The hunger and loneliness call up old memories from childhood. He remembers being small and afraid, and trying to flee the adults with their nets and harnesses. He vividly remembers his first full meal, eating and eating the wonderful rich fatvine roots, the adults putting more before him until he actually cannot cram anything more into himself.
The memory of that first meal only reminds him of just how hungry he is. If he can’t find something soon he’s going to start getting sleepy, and if he falls asleep in this cold emptiness, he’ll probably starve to death. He sends out a few pings, hoping to scare up some swimmers or even just some threads, but the only echoes are the sharp irregular sounds of rocks and the endless muffled dullness of silt.
And then he catches another sound. It is faint, a long way off—a tiny tapping noise. Broadtail drifts and listens, getting a fix on how far away it is. Hundreds of cables away, but it’s something. At this distance he can’t tell if it’s civilized adults making something, nomads fighting or cracking open shells, or maybe just a big snapshell calling for a mate. It doesn’t matter to Broadtail; he sets his course toward the sound and calls on his very last reserves of strength for the swim. Either he will eat it or it will eat him.
ROB and Alicia finished their weekly shower together and were getting ready for bed. When you had only limited amounts of hot water, bathing became a tricky part of the relationship. Sure, it was nice to get all warm and clean together, and it was natural to segue directly into getting into bed together—but having sex did raise the problem of spending the next seven days all crusty and uncomfortable, or wasting half a dozen antibacterial wipes just hours after having a bath. So by mutual agreement, they observed a moratorium on sex for at least two days after bathing.
“All the same,” Rob said, “I don’t think I’m ever going to think that the smell of neoprene and urine on your skin is particularly arousing.”
“You Americans worry about smells too much.”
“Try growing up downwind from a paper mill and then tell me that. Anyway—should I stay here tonight or go to my own cabin?”
“Whichever you prefer. But if you do stay here, try to be more quiet when you go sneaking out in the middle of the night.”
There was a pause while Rob looked at Alicia and tried to figure out just how mad at him she was. “Um, sorry. I didn’t want to wake you. I was just—”
She held up a hand. “It would be a very bad idea to lie to me right now, Robert.”
“You know what I’ve been doing?”
“It is not hard to guess. You start slipping out at night and someone is playing tricks on the Sholen.”
“It’s not a big deal, really. Just some harmless pranks.”
“What are you trying to do? Convince them that we are a lot of foolish adolescents?”
“Hey, keep it down. Look, we want them to go away and quit bothering us. Dr. Sen’s the only one who could do that and he won’t. This way at least we can give them an idea of how unhappy we are.”
“It is idiotic!”
“Well, maybe it is, but at least we’re doing something!”
Alicia made a sound of annoyance. “It would be more useful to hit yourself with a hammer. And who is this ’we?’ Are you a king, now?”
“Never mind. Goodnight.” Rob left her cabin feeling angry and embarrassed. Of course playing practical jokes on the aliens was silly. He didn’t need her to point that out, thank you very much. As if she was a 100 percent serious every second of her life. She needed to lighten up. That was her problem: she needed to lighten up. Not get all high and mighty and pass judgment on him for doing a few harmless practical jokes. Euro pe ans had no sense of humor.
He went to the common room to get a snack, then headed for his own cabin. But in Hab One something was going on. Half a dozen people were gathered around the door of the aliens’ cabin, including Gishora and Tizhos. Beyond them the door of the room was blocked by some kind of orange membrane. After a second Rob recognized it as a float balloon. The archaeologists used them to move heavy items. Someone had inflated a really big float balloon inside the Sholens’ room.
Dickie Graves moved up next to Rob and nudged him. When Rob looked at him he winked. Rob grinned. Even Alicia would agree this was a good one. Worthy of Caltech.
Dr. Sen and Sergei were fussing about with some test equipment at the doorway. “Portable spectrometer. They’re afraid it’s filled with hydrogen,” muttered Dickie.
“Is it?” whispered Rob
, suddenly alarmed. Not even Dickie would risk filling a balloon with flammable gas in the confined space of the station. Would he?
Dickie shook his head almost imperceptibly, then nodded toward Sen. The station director peered at the spectrometer display, then made a neat ten-centimeter incision in the balloon with a dissecting scalpel. It gave a sigh and began to wrinkle. Sergei started shoving it into the room, forcing out the air. Dr. Sen turned around and addressed the crowd. “I am reasonably certain that the person responsible for this incident is here watching at this moment, so I would like to make it clear that there must be no more practical jokes of this kind. This may seem to be very amusing, but I am becoming concerned that if pranks of this kind continue they will cause a serious accident.”
Did his gaze rest longer on Rob and Dickie than on the others? Rob wasn’t sure.
Sergei got the balloon squashed down to a manageable bundle, and the two Sholen went inside to inspect their quarters. The onlookers began to drift away.
Dickie gestured for Rob to follow, then led the way down to the geo lab.
“Pretty good,” said Rob when the door was shut.
“The best yet, I’d say, and entirely harmless. Poor Sen looked a pompous ass standing there giving us a dire warning about the dangers of inflating balloons.”
“Yeah. Listen, Dickie—do you think this is working? Are we accomplishing anything here?”
“As to that, we’re achieving three very important mission objectives. First, we’re showing the Sholen what we think of them. Second, we’re having great fun doing it. And finally, as a bonus, we’re getting Sen thoroughly annoyed. What more can we ask for?”
“Do you think it’ll drive the Sholen away?”
Dickie nodded energetically. “Oh, yes—although not for the reason I thought originally. I was expecting them to give up and go home, but now I reckon Sen’s going to ask them to leave just to save his own dignity.”
Rob went back to his own quarters for the night. He thought about stopping to tell Alicia about the balloon gag, but decided against it. Let her find out from everyone else, and wonder if he’d done it himself. He got into bed and dozed off thinking of ways to top Dickie’s prank.
AFTER getting the balloon removed from their quarters, Gishora and Tizhos invited Vikram Sen inside. “We wish to discuss with you the lack of progress in evacuating the station,” said Gishora.
“I believe I have already explained several times to you that we have all agreed we are not leaving,” said the human.
“Yes, but you must understand that tendencies within the Consensus on our home world advocate much stricter controls on human activity beyond your home star system. Possibly even within your own system. Many aboard our ship belong to those factions. They constantly urge action. I cannot put them off forever.”
Vikram Sen shook his head from side to side. “I am very sorry to hear that. Perhaps you should go away and resolve your internal differences in privacy.”
“I fear we cannot,” said Gishora. “Tell me if you remain determined to resist.”
“We cannot prevent your people from doing what you want to do, but we will not help you in any way—unless you choose to leave. I am sure everyone would help you most energetically with that. No, Gishora, if you really wish to make us leave you must carry us bodily to the elevator.”
“Please explain to me why you choose this course of action,” said Gishora. “You cannot prevent us from removing you. Already a lander full of Guardians sits on the surface. I lack understanding of what you hope to accomplish.”
The human expelled air from his nostrils audibly. “We are protesting the use of force to compel our obedience. By refusing to cooperate we are demonstrating that physical force can only control our bodies. It cannot control our thoughts. You can physically remove me from this station, but you cannot make me agree with you. Do you see?”
“I see only a faction resisting consensus. You place your individual goals above the greater good.”
“If we are going to defer to the opinion of the majority, let me remind you that the Earth has a population of more than eight billion, while there are less than one billion Sholen on your homeworld. It would seem that your people are the willful minority,” said Dr. Sen mildly.
Gishora hesitated, his body posture communicating a certain unease. Tizhos jumped into the opening. “We have greater wisdom,” she said. “Sometimes a small group can show the larger community the proper course of action.”
Vikram Sen widened his mouth. “That is what we are attempting to do here. Now if you will excuse me, I would like to get some sleep.”
THAT same night, Rob suited up and swam out to the sub with Dickie and Josef to discuss matters in private. The sub was officially known as the Ilmatar Aquatic Rover, and had been built by a team of Russian and American engineers and hauled to Ilmatar in one piece.
Josef had taken advantage of his position as chief pilot and de facto captain of the sub to name it the Mishka, which was now proudly inscribed over the control station in big Cyrillic letters.
The Mishka was not a graceful ship—the main hull was a fat round-ended cylinder twenty meters long, with tiny viewports at the front, a hatch on the underside, and two impeller pods on each side. It could only putter along at five knots—but its nuclear-thermal generator was rated for a decade of use, and the sub could make its own oxygen out of seawater for life support. With enough food aboard, it could sail clear around Ilmatar.
The Mishka had another feature, which wasn’t mentioned in any of the press releases. The designers at Sevmash and Electric Boat had made her as stealthy as any front-line attack sub in Earth’s oceans. Her ungainly hull was shaped to avoid any flat surfaces, and was coated in rubbery anechoic material that was supposed to make it invisible to the Ilmatarans. Rob suspected it would work as well as Henri’s stealth suit.
He climbed in through the bottom hatch and took one of the seats behind the control station. Josef deliberately kept the internal temperature just above freezing so that passengers could stay suited up without boiling themselves.
“I think maybe we should quit for a while,” said Rob. “I get the feeling Dr. Sen knows what’s going on.”
“He is very wise man,” said Josef.
“Sen?” Dickie snorted. “He’s like a pappadum. All hollow inside. He isn’t capable of anything but bluster. I reckon this means the Sholen are worried and have been complaining to him. That’s a good sign for us. We need to increase the pressure now.”
“You think so?” asked Rob.
“Absolutely. A few more little ’safety lapses’ and they’ll suddenly discover an excuse to return to their ship.”
“Or strike back,” said Josef.
“Let them! That puts them in the wrong.”
“Dickie,” said Rob, “I want you to tone it down, okay? We don’t want to really hurt the Sholen.”
“We don’t? All right, we don’t, then. Don’t worry. I’ve got plenty of ideas that won’t harm one downy epithelial derivative on their heads. But no letting up now! Keep turning the crank!”
“What’s that?” asked Rob. The sonar imaging display over Josef’s shoulder came on, displaying six large targets about two hundred meters up, descending slowly in a neat hexagonal array.
Josef turned and squinted at the screen, then gave them an active ping. “Metal objects. I hear little motor noises, too—like thrusters.”
“What the bloody hell are they? Bombs?” For once Dickie Graves looked genuinely worried.
“Not bombs,” said Josef. “Pods. I have seen something similar to drop underwater commandos from planes. Pressurize pod in advance and drop from high altitude. The pod opens in deep water and troops can go to work without wasting time equalizing. Ours have sonar-damping exterior.”
A hundred meters up the six objects showed clearly on video as streamlined cylinders with fins, very much like oldfashioned bombs. “Are you sure those aren’t going to blow us to bits?” Rob asked.<
br />
“We find out.”
Just then the six pods came apart in a flurry of bubbles. When the video and sonar images cleared up, Rob could see abandoned casing sections dropping rather more rapidly to the sea bottom, and six Sholen in smartsuits making for the station with powerful tail strokes.
“What the hell is going on?” asked Dickie.
“I think the Sholen just decided to turn the crank,” said Rob.
SIX
BROADTAIL wakes to find himself being towed. There’s a rope around him just behind his headshield, and someone is pulling him along through cold water. He listens. Whoever’s pulling him is alone, and is having a hard time of it.
He pings. The person towing him is a large adult with no left pincer, a male by the taste of the water. He has a number of bundles and packages slung on his body, which explains why he’s struggling along so slowly. They’re about half a cable above a silty bottom.
“You’re awake!” The large male stops swimming and turns back toward Broadtail. “I remember thinking you a corpse. My name is Oneclaw 12 Schoolmaster.”
“I am called Broadtail.”
“No more than that? No good number? Or is your full name a secret? Do I rescue someone best left behind? A bandit? A fugitive?”
“An exile. I am Broadtail 38.”
“That is a good number, 38. It signifies ’Warm Water,’ of course, but it is also 2 times 19, or ’Child’ times ’Place.’ A good number for a teacher, though not as good as 82. But 38 is also 4 plus 34, ’Food’ plus ’Harvesting’; and it is ’Property’ plus ’The World’ signifying greatness and rulership; all in all a very good number. I congratulate your teachers.”
“Where am I? I do not remember.”
“I am not surprised. I do recall finding you, drifting and asleep in cold water. I remember being amazed to hear any life at all in you. Have some food.” Oneclaw gives Broadtail a bag full of pressed fronds. “As to where you are, you are about a hundred cables from my camp, and at least a thousand cables from anyplace worth visiting.”
A Darkling Sea Page 12
