The Abyss

by Orson Scott Card

  There was so much of it that Bud gave up trying to make sense of the route they were taking, of the things he saw. Lindsey would understand this. Lindsey would figure out what all these structures are for, what each of these creatures or machines we pass are doing. All I can do is witness it, see it without understanding. That's enough for me right now. When they want me to understand, when I need to understand, they'll speak to me.

  Tunnels divided. They followed narrowed tubes, turning at startling speed, then abruptly moved out into main thoroughfares hundreds of feet across, crowded with NTIs of every description. Finally, though, they came to a smaller chamber where they settled on the floor. The NTI let go of his hand then, and floated back a few feet.

  Bud found that he missed having the NTI's hand in his. The flight had been exhilarating, but now his feet were on the ground again, and he was alone, touching no one. He wasn't afraid. But he felt solitary, weak, insufficient for whatever they meant to do with him. He was also physically weak, still exhausted; he didn't stand, but half lay, half sat on the floor of the room, straddling a recessed oval on the floor, whose purpose he couldn't begin to guess.

  A shimmering division appeared in the water, bisecting the chamber they were in, like an almost-invisible curtain. Then the one curtain became two, drawing apart, wider, wider - and between them there was no water. It was the parting of the Red Sea, only smoothly, as if the sea had been sliced by a laser beam. It passed over his head, his body, and beyond him; at the end, Bud found himself sitting in a short, shimmering hallway between two walls of water. Twenty thousand feet under the Caribbean Sea, he was dripping wet in a pocket of air.

  For a moment he didn't understand why they should do this. Then he did. If they wanted him to talk with them, then he needed to be breathing air. For a moment he worried that they might not know how to create a breathing mix that wouldn't kill him at this depth, at this pressure, but almost at once the fear subsided. Of course they knew. They would not be careless with his life.

  He reached up, uncoupled his helmet, and pulled it free. The breathing fluid splashed out. It hadn't occurred to him that it would be no easier to quit breathing fluid than it had been to start. He bent over, his body wracked by spasms as fluid exploded from his lungs. He thought, No wonder babies cry, when they have to give up the water of the womb and start breathing fire. Finally he lay gasping and coughing on the floor, dragging in deep, painful breaths of air. I've done this before, he thought, but I never want to do it again.

  In a short time, though, he recovered enough to sit up, to look around. Behind the shimmering curtain of water he could see the NTI who brought him being joined by others, all of the same general appearance. He couldn't tell them apart, except to count that there were seven of them; their inhumanness was so powerful that he couldn't have noticed any individual differences. If they had any.

  What were they waiting for? Perhaps for him to show that he could speak now. So he spoke. "Howdy." Then he realized that was too informal, these guys might be ambassadors or government people or something. So he tried again: "Uh, how're you guys doin'?"

  His voice echoed metallically in the room; he could hear a soft lapping of water from the walls. Then in the water wall before him there appeared a pattern of glowing horizontal lines, with colored dots appearing at random along each line. Then the patterns resolved themselves. They were the horizontal lines of a raster screen. He was watching a twenty-foot TV.

  "You watch our TV? Is that what you're trying to say? That you know what's been going on up there?"

  It was the solution they had finally come up with to the problem of how to talk to a human so he'd know that the builders were talking to him and he'd understand what they were saying. Humans used television to talk to each other, the builders could use the same television programs to communicate with Bud Brigman. When they could see in his mind that he understood them, they'd release the chemicals in his brain that gave him a feeling of certainty. It was the best combination of human and builder speech that they could think of.

  Recorded in the vast memory of the city were every frame of every television broadcast that their gliders had received as they passed back and forth between space and the sea. But it was current broadcasts they wanted Bud to see. They had to show him the action they had finally decided to take, so that he could go back and explain it to the rest of humanity. It was not enough to act - they had tried that before, when a builder destroyed a potentially deadly satellite, and it led to exactly the sort of trouble the builder had been hoping to prevent. Their actions had to be clearly identified as coming from the builders, not any group of humans. And their purpose had to be explained and understood. Since Bud and Lindsey had been at the heart of their decision, it seemed only right that he be the messenger to explain them to the humans at the surface of the world.

  What they were doing had a simple goal: to show humanity that the builders existed, that they had irresistible power, that if they wanted to, they could devastate and slaughter at will. It was important that the demonstration be worldwide, so the builders had carried the memory of all their decision-making to every other city of builders. Having received a complete memory of this city's experiences with the humans of Deepcore, they reacted as if they had all gone through the same process and reached the same decision. They couldn't bring all of humanity out to the ocean, to see their power in the place where they lived. So, together, they set out to take the ocean to the humans.

  A wave. A tsunami. Rising out of the ocean for no discernible cause, a huge, continuous wave surrounding every inhabited continent. The technology to produce and control the wave was simple enough for the builders, but the energy cost was enormous. They tapped the vast reserves of geothermal energy, drew enough heat from the ocean and the atmosphere to offset the greenhouse effect. They used far more energy to create this demonstration than all the energy released by human beings throughout human history all the woodfires, all the coal furnaces, all the oil and gas, all the nuclear reactors had not produced enough energy to duplicate what the builders could do with only a few minutes notice, acting together in perfect unity.

  They showed Bud the news reports. Baffled scientists being interviewed about the approaching wave. No, we don't know what caused it. We don't know how to stop it. But we do know what it will do. A half-mile-high wall of water striking every coastline in the world? It will utterly destroy everything in its path for miles and miles inland. No, there's no point in evacuating coastal areas if you're close enough to be threatened, you have no hope of getting away in time. Most people in the world live within the threatened area. It will be a far worse disaster than any plague or war; the whole fabric of human civilization will be unwoven in the aftermath.

  And interviews with common people, terrified as much by the impossibility of what was happening as by the physical danger of it. What could you count on in the world if the sea could suddenly rise up and attack the land for no reason? No pictures of the wave itself, not yet it was moving too fast for that, the news of it had come from radio reports from airplanes, or from ships that radioed in panic and then fell silent. But it was coming. It would be visible from the shore in a minute or two.

  Bud listened to the news. He realized at once what was causing the wave - "You're doing it! Right? That's what you're telling me. Yeah, you can control water. That's your technology. But why?"

  Yes, he knew the question. That's why they had brought him here, to tell him why.

  The huge television screen went blank, then came to life again. Not with current news, now, but with old broadcasts: a brilliant flash of light, and then the mushroom cloud rising. The same film, repeated again and again, faster and faster, until the whole thing merged into an unbroken white glare.

  Bud thought of the news reports they had been getting while the Explorer was still with them. The nuclear powers on the verge of war. "Hey, you don't know they're really going to do it. Where do you get off passing judgment on us, when you can't be
sure? How do you know?"

  The screen exploded with searing images of cruelty and killing. U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, Afghan children with limbs blown off by Russian toy-bombs, a car bomb in Belfast, street fighting in Beirut, corpses being bulldozed into mass graves at Auschwitz; a picture of humanity that sickened Bud; an indictment a condemnation.

  Bud understood what they were saying. Not that humanity was pure evil and deserved to die - quite the opposite. They were answering his specific question: How do you know that the superpowers are really going to launch a nuclear war? The answer: When has an act of war ever been so terrible, so monstrous, so self-defeating that no nation on earth was willing to do it? The NTIs knew that this time the threat of annihilation was real. The wave was designed to prevent it.

  Still, Bud refused to believe that it was right to destroy half of humanity like this, with only a few minutes warning, with no chance to realize their mistake, to change. On a cosmic scale perhaps it might be right to kill so many in order to keep humanity from killing everyone. But to carry out such an act would be monstrous in itself. Have you no compassion for the people you're about to kill?

  Their answer was to fill the screen again with the present broadcast. The wave was visible now from shore; television cameras on the beaches were showing its approach. It didn't look that large at first, until the reporters mentioned how far away it was. And as Bud watched, the wave grew and grew, to enormous heights and beyond. Tall as skyscrapers, then taller, nearing half a mile in height and the wave was still not at its peak, it was still growing as it neared the shore. And the sound of it, the roar, drowned out even the reporters' voices; only the screams of panicking people could be heard above it. Finally even that sound was overwhelmed by the sound of the onrushing wave. It was unbearable to watch this, to hear it -

  And then, suddenly, it was silent.

  Twenty-five hundred feet high, the wall of water had come to a halt. Held up by invisible, unguessable forces, it loomed all along the coastlines of the world, ready to come crashing down, ready to destroy - but for now, waiting. Waiting.

  The force that could create the wave was already terrifying to imagine. But the force that could stop the wave, keep it in place, build trillions of tons of water into a structure as stable as a stone pyramid - the world looked at the wave, dwarfing all the works of man, and were at once terrified and awed.

  The point was made. Their power had been shown. Most of humanity had witnessed it, in person or on television. They would not forget.

  The wave soundlessly subsided, its work done; the water was released gently on the seaward side, until the ocean returned to its normal level, and breakers of reasonable size once again rolled in to the undamaged shore. The ships that had reported the wave began to broadcast again; they had fallen silent because all the power on board had been damped, but now they had a story to tell, of a wave the size of a mountain that lifted them up, passed under them, and left them undamaged behind it.

  Bud looked at the builders, trying to understand. "Why? You could've done it. Why didn't you?"

  The screen went dark. Then letters began to appear on it, slowly printing out, as if someone was clumsily typing them.

  KNEW THIS WAS

  ONE WAY TICKET

  BUT YOU KNOW

  I HAD TO COME

  And then:

  LOVE YOU WIFE

  Bud didn't understand. How could the words he wrote to Lindsey be the reason why humanity was spared? He looked at them, puzzled, questioning. In answer, the builders bowed their heads before him, just for a moment. A gesture of respect to their teacher.

  The crew was still together in the control room. They had sealed off the rest of Deepcore, and were running the last of the tetramix into this room only. To conserve oxygen they were holding still, trying to stay at rest. They huddled under blankets to stay warm. Bud had accomplished his mission, but he would never come back. They grieved for him, but they knew now that he would likely precede them in death by only a few hours.

  Jammer put a blanket around Schoenick's shoulders - he was still tied, because they didn't know what he might do, but they had no desire to punish him. From time to time the ones who were most affected by the diminishing amount of oxygen in the mix would put a Drager mask over their faces and breathe deeply. Lindsey sat apart from the others, slumped in a chair.

  And then the UQC came to life. "Deepcore, do you read? This is Benthic Explorer, over." McBride's voice sounded like a heavenly choir to them. Somebody remembered they were there. The Explorer had come back for them.

  Catfish practically ripped the UQC mike off the wall. "Hell yes, we read. Good of you to join us. How's that storm going up there?"

  "Well, it's strange. It just kind of blew itself out all of a sudden. We're up here in a flat sea with no wind. But then a lot of weird things've been happening."

  Catfish wasn't terribly interested right now in the weird stuff that might have been going on topside. "Well, hell, son. You better get a line to us, we're in moderately poor shape down here."

  The next while was pretty busy, explaining to the Explorer exactly what had happened, how much damage they had sustained, what their resources were. The support staff on the Explorer had spent the storm jury-rigging a system to get a line down to Deepcore as soon as they found them if there was anything or anyone left to find. So there was hope again; they weren't going to run out of oxygen.

  There was another kind of hope, too, as McBride told them about the wave, how it came to the coastlines of the world, hung there, and withdrew. At once the crew of Deepcore guessed that the NTIs had something to do with it, and they explained to McBride what they all had seen the water tentacle that probed Deepcore, showing the same kind of astonishing control of water that, on a larger scale, produced the wave.

  There were other worries, too. Monk assured DeMarco that Coffey had been suffering from HPNS and was behaving irrationally, but it was clear that DeMarco was extremely upset about the loss of two of his men, and didn't necessarily believe all that he was told about the arming - and then disarming - of the warhead. But there was time enough to argue through all of that when they got air to breathe.

  A couple of hours after contact was restored, Catfish was on the hydrophone, talking through details of the Explorer's plan to get the crew of Deepcore back to the surface. It was going to take three weeks of decompression, of course, so they couldn't just send down a submersible and haul them up.

  "So how're you guys gonna evacuate us?" asked Catfish.

  "They're talking about flying in the DSRV from Norfolk," said McBride.

  "OK, OK, I understand, but how long's that gonna take?"

  McBride didn't know. While he was finding out, Catfish's attention was drawn to a commotion over by the Deep Suit monitor. Hippy had noticed something coming up on the screen. One Night was the first to dare to say out loud what it had to mean. "Hey! Hey! Look, it's Bud!"

  VIRGIL BRIGMAN

  BACK ON THE AIR

  "That's impossible," said Monk. Nobody could live this long without oxygen.

  "No it's not," said Lindsey. Nothing was impossible - she knew that now.

  McBride had come back on the UQC with his answer, but Catfish wasn't listening. "Six hours. Catfish? Do you hear? Deepcore, do you read?"

  Catfish finally realized that the box was chattering at him. "Wait a minute. We've got a message from Bud."

  They knew topside, of course, that the crew assumed Bud was dead. They also knew that he had gone down into the abyss where the NTIs lived, that he had reported seeing lights down there. If he was alive and had something to tell them, they wanted to know. "What's it say?"

  Lindsey took the mike, sat in front of the screen, and read Bud's message. She probably wasn't the best choice to give a clear, dispassionate reading - but since she was sure as hell going to read it out loud anyway, she might as well say it into the mike.

  HAVE SOME NEW

  FRIENDS DOWN HERE

  GUESS T
HEYVE BEEN

  HERE AWHILE

  THEYVE LEFT US

  ALONE BUT IT

  BOTHERS THEM

  TO SEE US

  HURTING EACH OTHER

  GETTING OUT OF

  HAND

  THEY SENT A

  MESSAGE

  HOPE YOU GOT IT

  Catfish laughed. "I'd say that's a big ten-four, jack."

  THEY WANT US TO

  GROW UP A BIT

  AND PUT AWAY

  CHILDISH THINGS

  OF COURSE ITS

  JUST A SUGGESTION

  Up in the Explorer, McBride turned to DeMarco. "Looks like you boys might be out of business." DeMarco didn't look happy about it, but any good military man knows when he's facing an irresistible force.

  Down in Deepcore, Bud's message was no sooner finished than the whole rig began to vibrate. They braced themselves, but they weren't so much frightened as annoyed. "What the hell is this," said Catfish. The last thing they needed was an earthquake or something, what with them perched on the edge of the cliff.

  It was Lindsey who got them moving. "One Night, get to sonar."

  When she got there, the noise in the passive sonar headphone nearly blew her out. The screens painted the picture pretty clearly. "Something's coming up the wall."

  "What is it?" asked Lindsey.

  One Night didn't know it didn't look like anything she'd ever seen before. "Whatever it is, it's major."

  A new message from Bud came on the screen.

  KEEP PANTYHOSE ON

  YOURE GONNA LOVE

  THIS

  So whatever it was, he knew about it, and it was going to be OK. The rumbling noise increased, and then a glow appeared from the viewpoint. They ran to look. Outside the viewport, hundreds, perhaps thousands of the NTIs were gathering. Not gliders, not porters, but the builders themselves, in their natural shape. This was the shallowest water in which they could survive, and they glowed brightly with the effort it required to maintain their structure and to do something else.