The Abyss

by Orson Scott Card

  Why am I still sitting here whining to myself? Think about what's going on. Just think about it. Review the current situation. Assets and liabilities. How have things changed with what they're doing to the ROV? They're programming it to go down. Straight down into the Cayman Trench. Think about that.

  The lights were down. The pseudo-night that landside creatures with a built-in twenty-four-hour clock had to have. Catfish, One Night, and Bud were crashed out on the tables in the mess hall, wrapped in blankets. Monk was lying in the galley, nursing his broken leg, sometimes sleeping, sometimes not. The cold was intense. Water dripped everywhere, not from leaks, but from water vapor inside Deepcore condensing on the walls. But with enough of them in the mess hall and the infirmary next door, their body heat kept it from getting impossibly cold.

  Lindsey was making coffee. She had seen when she came in that Monk wasn't asleep. So when the coffee was ready, she poured two cups. She carried a cup over to where he lay, nothing but a face in a pile of blankets. His hand came out, took the coffee.

  As she turned away, she felt his hand touch her sleeve. She turned back to him. "Thanks," he said. With her eyes she acknowledged him, then moved away.

  He wasn't like Lieutenant Coffey. Maybe he used to be, but he wasn't anymore. That tough, businesslike edge wasn't there. That air, of unapproachability. Monk had turned back into a real person. Maybe the pain had done it to him, but he remembered how to be human, how to be a kid in his early twenties, still not sure how to be a grown-up, still not sure he even wanted to be. It was a good sign - maybe there was a human being hidden away inside Coffey and Schoenick, too. Maybe that meant there was a limit to their arrogance. A line they wouldn't cross. She remembered Schoenick gripping her, how helpless she had been. No matter how she struggled, it was like he barely even noticed. He had so much unused strength left over, she knew he could have killed her like that. Just slap her on the side of the head and snap her neck like a pretzel. She hated that. Somebody having that much power over her.

  She walked from the galley into the mess hall. Bud was in there, snoring softly. She went over and sat down beside the table where he was sleeping. The breeze of her movement must have disturbed him a little, or maybe it was her soft footfalls, but anyway his snoring downshifted to a loud rasp. That used to happen whenever she came to bed late. A wordless rebuke, as if he were saying, I was alone here, where were you?

  She spoke to him as she used to do at home. "Virgil, turn on your side."

  Bud grunted, turned on his side. An automatic response. The well-trained husband. She'd almost forgotten that. So much between them that came like reflex now. They might not understand each other, but they knew how to live together, how to be together. They had a lot of mileage on the marriage, more than most people got in so few years, because they'd been together waking and sleeping, on the job and at home. But if the old car won't run anymore, you have to get a new car, don't you? Can't hang on to the old one till it rusts on the front lawn. We were good together for a while, Virgil and me, and then we weren't. That's all. Too bad, yes, but not the end of the world.

  Alone now in the sonar shack, Sonny slept on. If he really believed there was something out there, he might have stayed awake, might have kept watch. But he was a skeptic, and so he slept. He didn't hear the interference that came up on the passive sonar. He didn't see the almost imperceptible trace that appeared on the active sonar screen.

  It arose out of the chasm, a single tube of water within water. Usually sonar completely missed the builders and the porters, because they made no sound, and when sonar transmitted high-frequency sound waves, their bodies absorbed the energy of the sound vibrations within the water, reflecting nothing back for sonar to pick up. Now, though, they were trying something new. Instead of trying to reach the humans in the water, they would reach inside Deepcore itself and observe them, communicate with them if that was possible. It meant developing a new structure that could thrive in a gas environment instead of liquid. It meant reshaping and merging several porters into a flexible tube like a single thick tendril. Within this tube, builders could pass freely. They had to collapse their own bodies in order to fit, just as they did when traveling inside a glider. This was dangerous - they had none of their natural protection against the relatively low pressure this close to the surface. That's why the builders sent out the tube from a glider far down the cliff, so they never had to venture out into the open water. The tube would protect them, allow them to carry the ocean with them inside the gaseous interior of Deepcore. They could see the humans as the humans saw each other.

  Because the new tube had a much thicker outer layer, the builders couldn't draw energy of any kind through it. Sound waves were no longer absorbed; the tube's movement could now be picked up, faintly, by Deepcore's active sonar.

  It also meant that as the tube rose up out of the canyon, there was no dimming of the lights inside Deepcore. The builders knew from Lindsey's mind that there was no energy to spare, and little oxygen - the risk of more human death was a serious matter to them now that they knew how permanent and complete human death was. They would do nothing to increase the risk. Besides, the dimming of power made the humans more fearful. By coming this way, into the gaseous human environment, without any harmful act like the draining of power, surely the humans would not be afraid of them. Then they could begin to converse.

  In the sub bay, Hippy had just finished the modifications to Big Geek. He looked at the front of the ROV, its front bubble window like a single eye, the shark's smile painted under it. "All set, big guy," he said. Then, sternly: "I told you to wipe that grin off your face." Hippy yawned, turned off the lights, left the sub bay.

  Behind him, the builders' probe reached up out of the water into the air - the tetramix - that the humans breathed. The structure solidified, flexed, held. The brightness of the life inside the tube reflected from the water, making shadows dance on the ceiling and the walls. Swiftly, steadily, it followed Hippy out of the sub bay, the tube growing at the tip, water and energy flowing along its length to provide the materials for its growth, drawing them ultimately from the sea far below in the abyss. It was the first time the builders had ever had to make a structure that could move flexibly over solid surfaces while being fully self-contained in fluids and energy. The gliders had to fly through open atmosphere and the wide emptiness of space; they didn't have to move through narrow corridors. So their rigid, skeletized structure wouldn't do at all. Fortunately, the atmosphere inside Deepcore was pressurized to balance with the ambient ocean, so the probe didn't have to withstand a serious pressure differential. All the strength of the structure was spent on holding it balanced in the air, not touching anything unnecessarily, since each friction point would require much greater energy and attention to support the walls of the tube.

  It worked splendidly. It rose out of the water, balancing precisely as it turned and extended over the sub bay deck, then thrust its swiftly-growing tip through the hatch and into the corridors of Deepcore. They had built something new and it worked; even if nothing else came of it, this would be worth sharing with other builder colonies on other worlds.

  But something else must come of this. They were so close to being able to make themselves understood. If the humans could hold off just a little longer, the builders could explain it all to them, so they wouldn't kill each other over offenses that no one meant to commit.

  Hippy trudged along the dark corridor. He reached the men's head and went inside. Behind him, light shimmered on the walls and door. The lead builder took the tip of the probe past the door and went on toward the chambers where the builders outside Deepcore told her the most humans were gathered. Another builder stayed behind in the tube and sent tendrils through the door into the john and began scanning Hippy's brain as he sat there.

  The probe reached into the room where Monk lay sleeping. The builder nearest the tip of the probe sent out tendrils to examine him. He was in pain, but the damage to his leg was structural
only, and the body was healing itself. The builder didn't understand human body structure well enough to meddle. She went on.

  The probe found Jammer next. Here the builder's tendrils brought her more disturbing information. Jammer's oxygen poisoning had caused serious brain damage. Many of the connections within it had broken down, drastically changed from the condition it had been in when one of the builders scanned his brain back in the Montana. She passed the information back to the builder that was next behind her in the tube. Immediately the second builder set to work reconstructing the brain to the state it had been in when it was scanned before. She wasn't carrying all those memories with her, but it took only a few moments for the question to be passed down the tube to the glider waiting under the edge of the cliff. The questions was relayed by messenger to the city. Moments later a builder returned with the full and perfect memory of exactly how Jammer's brain had been before the accident. The second builder sent out her own tendrils and began the work of reconstruction. Because it was delicate work, requiring much intelligence on the spot, she passed a significant portion of herself along the tendrils, so that for a brief time she dwelt inside Jammer's head, overseeing the work where she could make instant decisions on a dozen subjects at once.

  In the meantime, the leader pressed on, trusting that the work of undoing the harm they caused would be carried on behind her. The tip of the probe reached into the mess hall, where Bud, One Night, and Catfish were asleep on tables, and Lindsey dozed lightly on a chair. The builder recognized her from her smell - the tiny flecks of skin that every human sheds, floating in the air, each fleck containing countless molecules that tagged her identity perfectly. Immediately the builder thrust out tendrils to Lindsey and to all the others sleeping in the room. Because they had to stretch across such a long area of gas, without the support of water, the tendrils were thicker than before - dozens of molecules across. But to human eyes they remained completely invisible. They entered all the sleepers through the nostrils, the ears, the eyes, and quickly scanned their brains. It was a habit now, though only a short time before they were exploring the human brain for the first time. Within moments, memories were being transferred back down the tube to the builders waiting high in the canyon, and they in turn carried them to the city deep in the abyss. At once the city began to analyze. Soon they would learn what had been happening in Deepcore from several different perspectives. But not soon enough.

  Lindsey stirred. The others felt nothing and remained asleep, but Lindsey had been touched before, and felt the surge of new thought within her mind, not as a dream, but as an event. She opened her eyes and saw it at once, a glassy tube of water suspended in the air, reaching through the door into the room.

  "Bud," she whispered, afraid to alarm it, but determined that this time she would not be the only witness. "Bud. Bud, get up."

  He began to awaken. She felt a terrible dread that he would look and see nothing, that she really was going mad. Then his eyes widened, his body stiffened, he rose up from the bed like a wakening lizard. Yes, he saw it, too.

  One Night heard the whispering, felt the movement, woke up. When she saw the tube, she reflexively tried to back away. There was nowhere to go.

  Bud also heard movement from the galley, where Monk must also be awake. That left only Catfish asleep. "Cat!" he said. He threw a pillow at him. "Cat!"

  Catfish woke up surly, wanting to go back to sleep. He tossed away the pillow, drew his cap down over his eyes. Then he realized what he had glimpsed through squinting, sleepy eyes. He jumped up, grabbed the first heavy object that came to hand. A potted plant sitting in the window well. He held it up like a weapon. He was ready to do battle.

  The builder that led the probe felt the fear in them, but this time did not remove it. The city had decided that a little fear was so natural to humans that to deprive them of it completely would deform them. The only message that she sent directly to their brains was a feeling of hesitancy, a desire to wait and watch. Since this desire was already present in them, it was a matter of reinforcing what was already there. Only Lindsey watched with no fear at all.

  So the builder decided to begin her attempt at open communication with her. Since humans did not understand that they were being spoken to when thoughts were put directly into their minds, they had to try another way. Language was still too strange and difficult for them to attempt it with confidence. But since they could sense light themselves, they thought a visual message might work. So the probe twisted and darted forward until it hovered in the air in front of Lindsey's face.

  This startled her, and now she was afraid, for a moment. "Bud -" she said. But then the probe hesitated in the air, its tip a foot or two from her. "No, it's OK, it's OK," she said. She touched him with a restraining hand.

  He obeyed her because he trusted her completely now. She was the one who had been proved right. If she said it was OK, then it was. "I think it likes you," he said.

  The builder felt Bud's anxiety ease along with Lindsey's. They were surprised at this. All she had done was touch him and say a few words, and yet his brain filled with calm as if she had put the thought directly in his head. This was a surprise. They hadn't thought humans capable of such a thing. How was it done, with no physical connection, brain to brain?

  No time to explore that - let the city do it as the memories reached them. The builder began the task assigned. Carefully it formed the growing tip of the probe into a mirror image of Lindsey's face. Not perfect - the folds and creases were softened because of the material the probe was made of, and the hairs were not even attempted. But it was her face, unmistakably. The builder scanned her thoughts to see what she made of it.

  My face, she thought. Which means they know me, or want to know me. They want me to see myself as they see me. Or maybe they want to see as if through my eyes, to understand how things look to me.

  She smiled.

  It smiled back at her.

  They want to wear my face, to be me. "It's trying to communicate," she said. And as she did, the builder filled her mind with certainty. Yes. That's right.

  But it was easier with her, because she had already received so much communication from the builders. Now for the man beside her, the one who figured so powerfully in her recent memories.

  Bud saw his own face take shape on the tip of the NTT probe. Lindsey laughed. "It's wonderful!" she said.

  He couldn't help being delighted. Catfish and One Night were even laughing - nervously, but laughing. "It's me," Bud said.

  Fearless again, Lindsey remembered touching the large one that came so near to her before. So she reached out a hand to touch the probe.

  "No, no, no," Bud warned her.

  "It's OK," she said. Trust me. "It's OK."

  He trusted her. She reached out, pressed a finger against the probe. It was cool but not cold, and it yielded as easily as if she had put her fingers into a basin of water. Not at all like the hard but frictionless surface of the big one outside. She brought her finger back to her mouth, tasted it. "Seawater," she said.

  But the builder was disappointed. These humans had no visual language beyond a few vague concepts. It was all speech - even their writing was a visualization of speech. They would have to find another way.

  Nevertheless, there still should be some communication. So the builder quickly surveyed the immediate questions in their minds and reordered their minds to hold the answers they wanted. Then she backed away, withdrawing from the room. On the way out, she passed near Monk, reached out tendrils into his mind. She sensed at once that he was different, that he knew things the rest of them didn't know. He knew how to kill, for one thing, and he had done it. But he was complicated, surprising - he took no pride from this, no pleasure.

  Monk also knew about the warhead that had been brought aboard Deepcore; and even though she detected in him no will to use it, she learned from him that the warhead had been armed. Far from trying to dismantle their weapons, the humans were preparing them for use.


  She ordered the probe to rush down the corridor to the place where Monk's mind had told her the warhead was hidden. The city had to know what was being done with the warhead, what they meant to use it for, how it worked. With Bud and Lindsey, Catfish and One Night running after her, she pushed the probe down the ladderway to the maintenance room where the warhead was kept.

  Her tendrils examined the weapon. It was still alive; the machinery was set up so it could explode. Why were the humans preparing to do this? If the builders could understand this one thing, then perhaps they could unlock the key to all the madness they had seen, perhaps they could comprehend humanity and find a way to survive on the same planet with them. She probed again into the minds of the people watching her, but none of them knew. In fact, they were afraid of the weapon themselves; they loathed it almost as much as the builders did even Monk had felt that way.

  Then why did they tolerate it? Fear of Coffey. A sense of duty and responsibility to their nation. Awe of the power of the thing. Reluctance to take the responsibility of acting against it themselves. In Lindsey's mind, a memory of being held by Schoenick, pinned, unable to move, as terrible to her as being suffocated. Many reasons in many combinations.