A Darkling Sea

by James Cambias

  He covered himself with camouflage netting—no sense in letting the Sholen see him—and warmed up the link to the drones. His poor robot fish were weeks overdue for maintenance, but they were performing superbly. In a little while they’d be scrap metal corroding in the silt of Ilmatar.

  Josef and the sub were gone. It had taken a long argument but at last they’d convinced him that their most important remaining asset shouldn’t be anywhere near the battlefield. If the Sholen captured the last camp, it would be up to Josef to decide whether he should give up or fight on. Rob knew that Josef would never let the Mishka fall into enemy hands. He hoped Josef would find a way to scuttle the sub and then surrender, rather than going out like Captain Nemo.

  Rob reached down and found his spear. It might still come to that. He sent Alicia a quick message over their local network.

  “Here they come. I love you.”

  BROADTAIL and Longpincer confer just inside the net barrier.

  “You are certain?”

  “Builder 1’s silent sense detects them. They approach.”

  “All is ready here. I need only sound the signal.” Longpincer pats the signaling device. It resembles an ordinary snapper, but the stick in it is nearly as thick as one of Broadtail’s minor limbs. When it snaps, he imagines the sound carrying as far as Continuous Abundance.

  “I suggest waiting until they reach the nets,” says Broadtail, and then immediately regrets it.

  “I remember doing this many times before,” Longpincer points out. “Please do not lecture me like an apprentice on my own land.”

  “I mean no offense.”

  “Of course not. All of us are poised with pincers ready. Are you hungry? There is a pile of food back by the house flow channel. All must be full and strong to fight.”

  “I am full.”

  “Then let us listen.”

  They wait in silence. Broadtail can hear the nets waving in the current, the rumble of the vent, and a persis tent hiss from a leaking flow conduit nearby. As he relaxes he picks up more distant sounds: one of Longpincer’s apprentices fidgeting as he waits near the net, the irritating high-pitched buzz Builders sometimes make, the faint clicking of scavengers crawling over Longpincer’s house, and, far away but all-pervasive, the creak of the ice above the world.

  And now he hears the invaders. They are about three cables distant. The bandit adults ping one another carelessly. The devices of the Squatters make a steady hum. The Squatters themselves swim noisily. He remembers a truism: the weak are silent when the strong make noise. Well, that is true enough now. But there is another old saying; he remembers tying it into a reel when first learning to write: a noisy swimmer is soon silenced.

  Though he knows the Bitterwater vent is Longpincer’s, Broadtail cannot rid himself of the feeling that he is the one defending his own property. The Builders are his discovery, and these Squatters and their bandit servants wish to take them away from him. He will not allow it. Broadtail takes up his spear and waits for something to stab with it.

  TIZHOS was miserable. The journey seemed to last forever: a two- day push through endless black water, sealed up in her suit with the smell of her own anger and fear, struggling to keep up with the Ilmatarans and Irona’s Guardians. Her suit’s foodmaker could never create enough broth to satisfy her, and the flavorings seemed particularly artificial today.

  From time to time, Irona switched on the laser link to make leader-like noises. “The humans endanger this entire planet,” he said. “We must drive them away and leave it once again pure and undefiled! All our efforts lead to this moment. We cannot fail!”

  Tizhos noted wryly that not even the Guardians cheered Irona’s harangues anymore. But neither did any of them question the consensus. Since Irona had selected all of them personally, they shared his devotion to the ideal of Tracelessness.

  The war party moved past a jumble of ancient stones, rounded by the water but obviously carved by Ilmataran tools. It felt oddly comforting, Tizhos thought, to live in a world where somebody made everything, even the rocks. Back on Shalina so much effort went into erasing traces of the past, coaxing the planet into a carefully maintained imitation of wildness.

  She looked back at the two great native animals being guided by their Ilmataran allies. They were beautiful creatures, shaped almost like aircraft, with rippling delta wings and a gaping mouth like a jet intake. One was towing a net filled with food for the Ilmataran troops, but the second had a mysterious payload that Irona refused to let Tizhos get close to.

  According to the navigation display, they were only seven or eight hundred meters from the Ilmataran settlement where the humans were hiding. Irona called a halt as they reached a low ridge that gave some visual cover.

  “Tizhos,” he said over the private link. “Tell the Ilmataran troops to get ready. When I give the order, have them move forward to attack the complex.”

  “What about me? Where do you want me to go?”

  “Stay close to me. I need you to translate for the Ilmatarans.”

  “Irona, I believe we should give them one last chance to surrender. Perhaps when they see how many we have brought they will give up.”

  “I consider the situation too far gone for that. The humans did not take the opportunity to surrender before. I do not believe they will do so now. It seems foolish to alert them to our presence.”

  “So you actually intend to just plunge in and begin attacking?”

  “Of course. All moral beings find fighting a terrible thing, yet we must do it to preserve this world. Now I want you to remain quiet, Tizhos.”

  Tizhos could smell her suit flooding with aggression pheromones, and kept herself rigidly quiet and still until the air cleaners could scrub them away. Isolated from each other in their suits, both she and Irona were limited to sound communication only, forcing them to be as emotionless and hierarchical as humans.

  Two of the Ilmataran teamsters guided the second towfin to a position on the other side of Irona and began untying their mysterious payload. Tizhos sidled over to get a look while Irona and the other Sholen Guardians were getting ready. The objects the creature had hauled all the way from Hitode were a pair of big streamlined cylinders with propellers and guidance fins at the back. Irona had kept them secret ever since they had come down from the surface with a supply drop.

  Were they giant impellers? But they had no controls or handles. Camera drones? Perhaps the first camera drones in Shalina’s oceans had been that large; not even the humans used anything so bulky. Maybe they were some kind of long-range drone with lots of batteries on board. But why have them towed, then?

  Then Tizhos realized what the things were. She called up the reference on her helmet computer to be sure. During the age of warfare, ships and submarines in Shalina’s oceans had used self-propelled explosive carriers that looked very much like these objects. They were torpedoes.

  She searched frantically through her computer files, looking for anything about the effects of such weapons. She finally located something in, ironically enough, a description of human military technology. Tizhos did a little calculating, let out a noise of terror, and did the math again just to be sure. Her suit reeked of fear.

  “Irona!” Tizhos scrambled across the sea bottom to where the other Sholen were gathered in a last-minute tactical conference. “Irona, I must make an objection! Those explosive devices— you must not use them!”

  Irona activated the private link and Tizhos could hear irritation in his voice. “Do not broadcast every detail of our tactical plan. The humans have drones and, thanks to your carelessness, may have heard you.”

  “Tell me the explosive power of these devices.”

  “First explain why I should tell you anything. I lead this expedition.”

  “Irona, I fear you do not understand the power of these weapons! The shock from an underwater explosion may kill or injure individuals up to a hundred meters away.”

  “I understand that perfectly, Tizhos. I had th
em made and brought them for just that reason. Now please stop interfering.” Irona switched off the link and resumed his conversation with the others.

  Tizhos was shaken. Was Irona willing to use torpedoes capable of sinking an oceangoing ship just to kill three humans? It seemed impossible. Didn’t he realize how many Ilmatarans would be killed?

  And then Tizhos understood. Of course Irona knew how many of the natives would die. He had planned on it. They were in contact with the humans. Tainted and corrupted, in Irona’s mind. Infected with the knowledge of the universe beyond the ice. Irona wished to kill them all and return Ilmatar to its pristine innocence.

  She had to stop this, right away. Tizhos turned and began hurrying back to the torpedoes. Perhaps she could disable them somehow. She covered perhaps ten meters before two of the Guardians grabbed her, pinning her limbs and bearing her down to the sea bottom. They pulled her arms and midlimbs behind her back and bound them with lengths of cord. She struggled and thrashed, but they were younger and stronger.

  Irona turned Tizhos over and jammed the tip of a tool into her helmet speaker. Tizhos heard plastic snap. “I don’t want you distracting the natives or alerting the humans,” he told her. “You may wait here for the end of the battle. If I feel particularly generous afterward, perhaps I will bring you back to the station.”

  Tizhos switched to laser link. “Who will communicate with the Ilmatarans if I stay here a prisoner?”

  “I have all your notes. I can certainly tell them ’forward’ when the time comes.”

  Tizhos went to general broadcast. “Listen, all of you! Irona plans to use explosives against the native settlement. Dozens may die. You cannot allow—”

  “Please do not humiliate yourself, Tizhos,” said Irona. “They all know and understand the operational plan. We have a consensus. All agree that we prefer the sacrifice of a few Ilmatarans to seeing this world ravaged by human exploiters or Ilmatarans copying human methods.”

  “I do not agree! You do not have a consensus!” Tizhos struggled against her bonds, but the Guardians were trained in subduing and securing violent offenders. “You cannot just ignore my objections!”

  “Tell me why I cannot,” said Irona.

  “Irona, your plan seems—” Tizhos stopped and groped for the right word, finally choosing something archaic and absolute, the kind of moral judgment that had sent millions of Sholen to war in barbaric times. “It is wrong!”

  For a moment, nobody said anything. The others were all startled at what Tizhos had said. Finally Irona spoke. “You have humiliated yourself enough, Tizhos. Stop talking. We must go now.” They switched to a secure link and swam off.

  Tizhos struggled. She thrashed about. She tried to crawl toward the torpedoes. She screamed inside her helmet until her ears hurt. She tried to get someone—anyone—to answer her laser messages. Finally she lay helpless in the cold muck, her joints aching and the cable cutting into her limbs. Maybe her suit would tear and let her die.

  DR. VIKRAM Sen waited until the Sholen expedition were all on their way. That still left a pair of the Sholen soldiers in Hitode.

  He went to the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea, drank it, then took the largest carving knife from the rack and went to the little Operations office that adjoined the common room. His hands were perfectly steady, he noticed.

  One of the two Sholen was in Operations, watching the sonar imager for signs of the returning war party. Dr. Sen had read a text on Sholen anatomy, so he drove the knife into her neck just to the right of the spinal bone, sliding it between the bone and the neck muscle into the right nerve trunk.

  She cried out, a sound like a crow’s call, and swung her left midlimb at him. The blow caught him in the side, and he could hear a rib break even before he felt it.

  The Sholen tried to get up but fell. Her whole right side wasn’t working. Sen grabbed the chair and smashed it down on her, over and over, not caring what he hit. She tried to ward off the blows with her left arm and midlimb. The spindly aluminum tubing of the chair began to bend after he hit her a couple of times, but he didn’t care.

  In desperation she used her one working leg to sweep Sen’s feet out from underneath him. They wrestled for the chair but eventually she got a grip on it with her left midlimb and yanked it away from him. He kicked her in the face, but she bit his foot, her carnivore teeth punching through his slippers and crunching on bone.

  Sen kicked her in the eye with his other foot and scrambled free. There were more chairs in the common room. More knives in the kitchen.

  The other Sholen soldier came through the entrance from Hab Two and saw what was happening. He drew his weapon from its chest holster and fired as Dr. Sen reached the knife rack. The bullet hit him in the shoulder, and Sen wondered idly if any major arteries were severed. He never felt the second shot, which drilled neatly into the back of his head.

  BROADTAIL hears the bandits approach. There are about a dozen, all big and swimming strongly. They come straight on, advancing in a line with no attempt to hide, swimming about a body-length above the bottom.

  Half a cable now; surely they must be among the hidden skirmishers by now. Can Longpincer hear them? Why doesn’t he sound the alarm? Broadtail shifts his spear in his grip.

  The crack from Longpincer’s signal snapper startles him. The noise is so loud that it almost sounds as though his own shell is splitting. The echo lets him sense the entire battlefield very distinctly. There are fourteen of the bandits, advancing in a line with the ends slightly forward of the center. He doesn’t know if this is accident or good tactics on their part, but it is a classic formation. The defenders must either split up to fight the two pincers and thus risk being split down the middle by the center, or clump together and thus risk being outflanked.

  Now the bottom behind and among the attackers erupts in a swirl of silt and pincers as the hidden fighters reveal themselves. The line dissolves into a series of small battles.

  Broadtail recalls Longpincer telling the hidden fighters, “Strike quickly, then flee. Do not stay and become surrounded. If they disperse to pursue you, so much the better.”

  Three of the five hidden fighters remember that advice. Broadtail hears spears crunching into shells as they stab up into unshielded bellies or between back plates from behind. There are sounds of distress and anger and the three swim up and then sprint for the netting with angry bandits behind them.

  But two don’t get away in time. Roughtail is surrounded in open water by four of the bandits. They stab at him from all sides, pinging and clicking angrily. He fights one off, turns to face another, but the pincers keep jabbing in. His movements become random and weary. One of them grapples him from behind, bending back a pincer until there is an ugly crack and Roughtail cries out. Then all four are upon him, gripping, piercing, and cracking until he sinks to the bottom.

  Shortfeeler is a little more fortunate. She hears a bandit above her and realizes she can’t swim free of them, so she drops back to the sea bottom and holds her spear up in challenge. With her underside protected and her legs solidly braced she is a hard target: the bandits must risk getting past the spearpoint to poke ineffectually at her shell.

  Two of them stay with her, trying to get in under the spear and flip her over, but she gives ground, backing away and keeping the weapon between them and her. Finally one drops to the bottom and rushes in with pincers folded. She catches him dead- center in the headshield with her spear, and the force of the impact drives the point through his shell. The bandit gives a last cry as his resonator chamber is breached, leaving him deaf and mute.

  But the spearpoint is caught, and while Shortfeeler tries to free it the second one drops on her back and gets a pincer into one of her shoulder joints. She breaks away and tries to swim for it, but the bandit is faster and catches her before she can reach the netting. With one pincer useless, Shortfeeler must drop her spear. They grapple, there is the crack of a shell splitting, and Shortfeeler stops moving. Horribly, she isn’t
quite dead, and Broadtail hears her faint clicks and pings until the bandits reach the netting.

  ROB couldn’t show any lights for fear of giving away his position to the Sholen, but he kept the passive sonar on and could at least get a vague impression of the battle. The crack of Longpincer’s signal device nearly burst his eardrums even with the automatic volume cutoff, and then he watched the image on his faceplate as blurry shapes emerged from the sea bottom and started mixing it up with the invaders.

  After a bit Rob noticed something interesting: all the sonar images on the battlefield beyond the netting were very much alike. They all had the echo pattern of rigid, segmented objects— Ilmatarans with their armored shells. Where were the Sholen?

  Time for one Robert J. Freeman to earn his pay. He activated Drone One and sent it swimming back toward the main thermal vent at the center of the settlement. He hoped the column of rising water could mask the sound of its little motor.

  The drone stayed in the rising water column until it was two hundred meters above the sea bottom. Rob ordered it to circle wide around the battlefield to where the Ilmataran attackers had first come into view. Were the Sholen back there?

  Yes. The drone’s camera picked up a constellation of pale yellow-green stars on the bottom, just past a low ridge. There were eight Sholen in suits, with safety lights glowing softly.

  “Gotcha!” Rob muttered.

  Four of the Sholen were spread out in a line along the ridge, apparently hunkered down on the sea bottom. In the dim light Rob could see them holding weapons—the same microtorp guns they’d been carrying at the Coquille raid. It seemed weird to Rob that they were just hanging back and not doing anything, but then the drone’s hydrophone picked up the faint whoosh of the weapons. He checked his local sonar image: the Ilmataran attackers were about to reach the netting. He just had time to shout a warning before the explosions.