Lako's eyes were open, seemingly clear and focused, black pools staring at the ceiling. The Neri was breathing, his nostril and gill slits opening and closing. Bandicut's heart skipped. As he leaned forward, Lako's eyes shifted in small movements until they met Bandicut's. His mouth moved.
Bandicut shook his head, indicating he couldn't hear.
"He is asking, 'Are you the one?' Are you the one who saved his life?" Askelanda's voice was filled with intensity, and yet seemed expressionless.
Saved his life? Bandicut thought. Had it really worked, then?
"What shall I tell him?" There now seemed to be a twinkle of humor in Askelanda's eyes.
Bandicut blinked in astonishment. "You can say," he replied huskily, "that I had a lot of help. From the stones." He rubbed his wrists, then pointed to his temple. "From someone who lives inside me." And he turned and nodded to L'Kell, who had joined them. "And from L'Kell."
L'Kell's fingers moved in a graceful flutter. "I did nothing. I merely watched, and hoped."
Bandicut shook his head. "You helped, all right. I felt it, from within him."
Lako's eyes shifted, like luminous orbs in a face of scarred black rubber. His mouth was moving again, and this time he made an audible, hissing rasp. And Bandicut heard the words, "Thank you."
He stood motionless, eyes welling.
/// Say you're welcome. ///
"You're welcome," he whispered.
"I think," said Corono, standing on the other side of Lako, "that we should let him rest."
/// Do you think we could just . . . check? ///
At first he didn't know what the quarx meant. Then he nodded slowly. "Do you mind if I touch his arm again, for a moment?"
Corono gestured permission.
Lako was still very warm to the touch. But as Bandicut felt his senses flowing down into the Neri, he felt that the feverish, chaotic heat had changed into something different.
/// He's hot, but it's the heat of
accelerated healing. ///
/Good./ He started to remove his hand.
/// Wait. ///
He hesitated, but couldn't tell what the quarx was doing.
/// Yes. Take care, and be well.
Okay, John. ///
He lifted his hand. /Did you actually speak to Lako?/
/// Not in words.
But in thought. Feeling.
Emotion. ///
/And . . . how is he?/
/// He is in a haze of pain.
But he is aware, and knows that he is recovering.
He will not soon forget you, John. ///
/Us, you mean./
/// Us, ///
the quarx agreed.
"John!" Ik interrupted.
He turned with a start, and realized that Askelanda had been talking to him, and he hadn't heard a word.
"Do we want to go someplace comfortable, to rest? And talk?"
"Yes, of course." He sighed and touched Lako's arm again in farewell, then followed the others out of the room.
*
From a domed room at the top of a multilevel dwelling, Bandicut and Ik looked out into the sea. They watched three separate schools of fish sweeping one way and another through the city; they saw a large creature that looked like a jellyfish in the shape of a great curved, hanging curtain. Several Neri swimmers were moving around it, trying to herd it away from the settlement. A poisonous animal, dangerous to young Neri, L'Kell explained. It was interesting, but Bandicut was too tired to keep watching. He was still coping with two deaths and one rescue, and deep exhaustion that was more emotional than physical.
Askelanda—after thanking Bandicut with grave, soft-spoken words—sent word that more comfortable quarters should be prepared for the visitors in this larger habitat. "In the meantime," he said, "please make yourselves at home here. Are you hungry? Is there anything else we can do for you? If you have questions, perhaps . . ."
They had many questions. Too many to focus on. Askelanda spoke for a few minutes about those who had died, whose spirits had returned to the sea. They would be remembered in a service later; perhaps the visitors would like to observe.
Ik acknowledged graciously, then said, "Askelanda, we would like to know what has become of our companions. May I ask, will they be permitted to rejoin us?"
Askelanda conferred with one of his aides. "They are in conference with the obliq," he said after a moment. "They will be invited to join us when they are finished."
"The obliq?" Bandicut asked.
"The keeper . . . of our knowledge." Askelanda paused, as an expression of—what?—tension?—crossed his dusty face. He readjusted his stole, with a soft clinking of the bound shells. For a moment, he seemed even older than before. "I expect," he continued in a gravelly tone, "that the obliq is providing your companions with a great deal of useful information."
He suddenly gestured to his assistants and barked something, in response to which several large cushions were carried in. "Please—try to be comfortable. There is food coming shortly. In the meantime, I wish to tell you—"
Askelanda was interrupted by a sudden vibration in the floor. For a moment, he appeared unconcerned, but the vibration grew quickly in intensity—until the whole habitat was shaking. Bandicut exchanged worried looks with Ik. Earthquake? Attack?
The Neri muttered among themselves, and then one of them barked out a warning, pointing outside. Several of the smaller habitats were visibly moving in the disturbance, straining at their anchors. Clouds of silt were being agitated up from the sloping seafloor. And a greenish yellow light was radiating in great fan-shaped swaths through the undersea city.
And it was coming not from overhead, or from any of the structures, but from the darkness of the depths below.
Interlude
Julie Stone
IT WAS SOME time after the contact, after that lecherous Doctor Switzer was through examining her, and the exoarch leaders had debriefed her, that Julie Stone finally got a chance to lie down on her bunk and work it through in her head. Not that she understood it all, by any means; but at least she could go over the events in detail, and the words, and try to put them into some sort of perspective. She had made contact with an alien presence, or rather it had made contact with her. And though the physical details of the contact were a blur to her now, she knew that the translator had conveyed to her some terribly disturbing thoughts—only some of which she had shared in turn with her colleagues. There were other things she didn't dare speak of, not until she had thought them through.
Something out there which is trying to destroy your world . . .
She was virtually certain she had heard those words, though she could not now visualize the moment of receiving them. The thought was ominously reminiscent of what John Bandicut had related to her in his letter, explaining why he was doing those crazy things—stealing a spaceship from Triton Orbital and flying off on a suicide mission across the solar system. But John hadn't said anything about something trying to destroy the Earth; he'd just talked about a rogue comet. And maybe, just maybe, he had managed to save the Earth from it.
Maybe?
That was just it; no one knew for sure. The official position here at the MINEXFO camp was that Bandicut had gone crazy, probably as a result of that old neurolink injury, and killed himself. A few people—Georgia Patwell, Julie, maybe John's friend Krackey and a few others—believed what John said. There was no question that the ship had vanished from the immediate neighborhood in a way that nobody could explain. And how could John have faked that radio transmission from halfway across the solar system? And the propulsion flame—he'd said put a telescope on it. Someone had—not officially, of course, the officials were all too busy explaining why it wasn't possible—but someone up in Triton Orbital had gotten pictures, very strange pictures. And none of it made any sense unless you took some pretty peculiar technology into account. Like alien technology.
Earth-based observers had spotted the comet, too, just coming out
from behind the sun relative to the home planet. It could have been on a collision course with Earth—but they didn't have enough data to establish its orbit with much precision, and anyway, no one at that point could have predicted the effects from solar heating and subsequent vapor eruptions on the comet and its trajectory. No one saw the stolen spacecraft emerge from the glare of the sun, if it was there at all. But several telescopes caught the flash, the explosion, way in near Mercury's orbit. And no comet ever came out, though a cloud of fine dust and debris was observed.
Maybe saved the Earth?
Julie blinked and stared at the ceiling over her bunk. No maybe, not anymore. It told me, she thought. What John said was true, every word of it. He took the ship and collided with the comet. She ought to be happy, knowing that he hadn't died for nothing. That he was a hero. And she would have been, except . . . now the translator wanted her to do something, too. Something crazy, like what John had done?
Mission yet to fulfill . . . require your assistance . . .
And the clear sense that it wanted her to keep it to herself.
She rolled over and grabbed her pillow, and clutched it to her. And, as she thought about John, her tears began to flow once more.
Chapter 10
Breakaway!
THE NERI BEGAN shouting to each other. Their voices were a cacophony of rasps, too fast and confusing for Bandicut's stones to follow.
The quaking was growing in violence. In a matter of moments, this had gone from a curiosity to an emergency. Bandicut and Ik stayed out of the way, while Askelanda barked instructions to Neri who ran in and out of the room. Bandicut had visions of the dome around them shattering, but he told himself that if that happened, it wouldn't matter if he was close to the dome; he'd be just as dead either way. He stood at the edge of the dome, trying to see what was going on outside. The dome gave good horizontal and top visibility, but to see down at all, he really had to crane his neck. The light from below had brightened, almost to the point of illuminating the undersea city. It reminded him of a brightly lit stadium, seen far off through a dense fog.
"L'Kell!" Bandicut called to the young Neri leader, who had run in and out several times, and was now awaiting Askelanda's attention. "What is it? Are we under attack by the landers? Is it an earthquake?"
It seemed to cost L'Kell a great effort to shift his eyes and thoughts to Bandicut. "The landers? No. It is the—" kraafff "—the Monster, the Devourer—in the heart of the abyss—"
L'Kell's answer was interrupted by a sudden violent swaying of the habitat. Bandicut and Ik both staggered, Bandicut thumping into the dome. His heart nearly stopped as he imagined crashing through the dome, and pushed himself back from the clear material. What had just happened? He turned his head and saw a school of mottled silver fish streaming by the dome, moving downward at an angle. Something was odd about it, and it took him a moment to realize what: they were swimming upward, into the current, and still were being carried down into deeper water.
What the hell kind of bottom current would carry something downward with that much speed and power?
"It is what I spoke of before," L'Kell continued. "The Maw of the Abyss. We have never gone deep enough to see it. But we know it well, and hoped it would not awaken."
"Then, hrahh—" But Ik's question was interrupted by a sudden, bone-jarring CRUMP! that seemed to rock the entire structure.
"Haiii, kallah, Askelanda!" cried L'Kell, darting to the edge of the room to peer into the sea. His words were too quick for the stones to catch. But the reason for his outcry became apparent a moment later.
KREEEE-E-E-E-E-CHH—!
Bandicut fell back from a wrenching shriek so distorted by the water that he could not have guessed its source if he hadn't been staring right at it. Just upslope from them, a habitat twisted, tilted sickeningly, and tore free from the cluster that was holding it. The habitat spun, trailing bubbles, as it came loose; then it rose with seemingly impossible grace out of the larger structure. It ascended rapidly, vanishing into the mist of the sea above.
"John Bandicut!"
Ik's cry made him tear his gaze away. Most of the Neri had dashed from the room. Only L'Kell was left, and he was shouting down a passageway to someone. He turned to Ik and Bandicut. "I have to go. You can stay here. You should be safe."
"Hrahh—like hell!" Ik growled. "We will go, if we can help."
"Right. But where are we going?" Bandicut asked.
"To the subs," L'Kell said, waving for them to follow. "We must see what we can do."
"Lead on," Bandicut said.
They ran.
*
Antares had listened with alarm as the obliq Kailan described the mysterious peril at the bottom of the sea, in the abyssal trench that lay not far off from the site of the Neri city. The Neri did not know what the thing was, except that it had appeared in the midst of a great cataclysm generations ago. But whatever it was, it caused—at unpredictable intervals—both earthquakes and inexplicably powerful downcurrents of water. And not just seawater, of course, but anything loose in the water, such as Neri swimmers who had the bad luck to be caught in the surges. Through the years, a good number of Neri lives had been lost that way. The worst eruptions were always accompanied by a puzzling glow that somehow radiated upward from the deepest abyss.
"Why do you stay here, then, with your city so close to it?" Li-Jared had asked, with more logic than tact.
"Because our factories are down there—"
"In the abyss?" Li-Jared said, his electric-blue eyes wide with amazement.
"Not in the abyss itself, but on the ledge near the drop-off," Kailan said calmly, facing them where they were seated on the floor of her chambers. Her facial expression was dominated by her enormous eyes, which made her appear intensely curious. "Without the factories, we will die, say our leaders. Perhaps they are correct." She was silent a moment. "In recent times, the Maw has not been too active. It has been years since the last very bad eruption."
No sooner had Kailan spoken those words than the floor suddenly began to shake. Antares and Kailan looked around in alarm. Li-Jared sprang to his feet and began pacing nervously. "What's going on? What is it?" Antares caught him by the arm and calmed him. Following Kailan, they hurried back to one of the domed rooms from which they could see for themselves what was happening.
Just as they got to the windows, a piercing sound of tearing metal began to throb through the floor. It grew to a shriek, drowning out the background rumble. What they saw was dozens of habitats, mostly downslope from them, swaying on their moorings. But one, just a few bubbles over, and a little deeper, was twisting alarmingly on its mooring. For a moment it looked as if it were being pulled downward; then, with an awful ripping sound, the mooring let go and with a cascade of bubbles, the habitat floated up and away, and vanished.
Antares looked at Kailan in horror. "This is a bad one?" The obliq was staring silently, radiating alarm.
This was one of the bad ones.
Kailan turned and asked questions of one of the other Neri in a rapid-fire stutter. She listened impatiently to the frantic reply, then stood a moment, frozen in thought.
"Were there people in that bubble?" Antares asked.
Kailan glanced at her. "Yes. If they can get out before it breaches surface, they might survive. But the habitat—could—"
"What?"
Kailan's thoughts were obviously far ahead of Antares' question. She whirled and ran with surprising agility back to her chambers. "Elbeth! Instruments on—full overhead scan!"
Antares glanced at Li-Jared for only a moment before racing after her.
They swept into Kailan's second room. The lefthand wall was lined with consoles; three of them were glowing. They were slightly concave and shaped like fat crescents with blunt horns pointed down. Antares stared, caught by surprise. Even in the submarines, she had seen no indication of such electronic technology. All three instruments showed variations on a ghostly image that might have been the oc
ean outside, with some kind of light intensification. Several washed-out spots looked like habitats above them, just at the edge of view near the righthand horn of the center console.
Li-Jared jabbed a finger. "What's that?"
Antares looked harder, then saw it—a group of dark spots, moving into the brighter gradient, then fading. Kailan worked at the console, trying to improve the image. "Teams in pursuit. But I don't think they can catch it in time." Her fingers moved like a musician's along the bar-shaped controls. "Askelanda won't like this, but I wonder if we can do something from here."
She touched a round depression, and all three screens blinked and changed. The flanking screens switched to abstract images that were probably graphic representations. The center screen changed to something that still looked literal, but more like a long-range radar or sonar image, with icons that seemed to indicate moving bodies.
"What's that?" Antares murmured, nervous about interrupting.
"Same view, overhead, scanner composite," Kailan said. She seemed to be trying to center a circle on the screen over a large symbol, beside which text characters were changing rapidly.
"Is that the habitat?"
"Yes."
"It almost looks," said Li-Jared, "as if you are targeting the thing. Is this a—?" He caught himself, as though afraid to ask the question. But Antares felt the timbre of his fear and heard herself thinking the question: Is this a weapon?
Kailan called to Elbeth, "Raise Askelanda! And don't take no for an answer."
*
By the time they reached the hangar, all the other subs were gone. Ik and Bandicut scrambled down the conning tower hatch and got out of L'Kell's way as he sealed the vessel and took the controls. They submerged with surprising speed and accelerated away from the hangar, through the glowing city. Bandicut peered out the nose window and clutched for something to hold onto as L'Kell banked around a habitat cluster and then raised the nose and began ascending quickly. "Where are we going?" Bandicut asked. It was disconcerting to watch the yellowish-green aura of the settlement recede below; the city had come to represent more security than he had realized. "Are we going after the breakaway habitat?"
The Chaos Chronicles Page 75
