The Chaos Chronicles

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  "They're preparing that on the inside," the tech answered, without taking her eyes from her work.

  Bandicut peered through the sub's nose window, and saw Napoleon and two Neri techs crowded together in the cabin. He made his way around to the hatch and lowered himself into the sub. He had to crouch near the back of the cabin to watch them work. "It is good that you are here," said one of the techs. "Your robot did not appear to want us to attach the changer to it. But we must alter one of its electrical fittings."

  "Eh? Alter it how? What about that, Nappy?"

  The robot clicked. "I sensed they wanted to change part of my equipment, Captain. I was reluctant to approve, not knowing what other tasks you would have in mind."

  "Well, I have no idea what other jobs we will have. How drastic is this change?" Bandicut looked from Napoleon to the techs and back.

  "We must form a connector on its output point. We can restore it when we are finished with this job," the tech said. "But we will have trouble making a physical connection without doing this."

  Bandicut sighed and crossed his fingers. "Okay."

  The changer went onto Napoleon's side, where an I/O socket rested flush against his skin. When the tech pulled the changer away, it left behind a small, pod-shaped connector. The other tech stretched a cable from the sub's console and somehow snapped it into the pod. Then she touched several controls on the console. "Are you detecting a connection?" she asked, swinging her newtlike head around.

  Bandicut relayed the question.

  Napoleon clicked, several times. "A connection, yes. But I cannot verify compatibility. It may be difficult to establish a working interface with their circuitry."

  "Are you opening your internal bus to the console?"

  "Negativissimo, Captain."

  "Eh?"

  "I do not wish to risk my circuitry without evidence that I can actually manage the connection."

  Bandicut rubbed his chin. "Well, Nappy, I'm not sure we have much choice, if we want to help them with their factory."

  "I do want to help them. But John Bandicut—" Napoleon turned his robot eyes toward the human.

  "Yes?"

  "I would appreciate it if you did not call me 'Nappy.' My name is Napoleon."

  Bandicut stared at the robot. "I beg your pardon?"

  The robot rose a few inches on its metal legs, then settled back. "I just feel that it is somewhat undignified to be called 'Nappy.' I would prefer to be called Napoleon. Captain."

  "Captain?"

  "John Bandicut, I mean." The robot clicked thoughtfully. "Old habits are hard to break, aren't they?"

  "Yes," Bandicut said softly. "Yes, they are. Very well, Napoleon, I will do my best to remember."

  "I can ask no more. Now, then. I believe that I can set up a code filter to protect me from dangerous software commands. It's an adaptation of the condom protocol that the shadow-people gave me on Shipworld. But I'm concerned about the actual voltages and so forth."

  "But I thought—"

  "Possibly if I crosslink with Copernicus, we can combine our hardware to provide the necessary diagnostic elements."

  Bandicut shook his head. "I thought you had all sorts of electrical diagnostic tools. Don't you remember when you used to hop onto my rover, back on Triton, and tell me what was wrong?" He remembered it clearly, himself. It had been an annoyance, actually, when the first Charlie was attempting to account for Bandicut's seemingly bizarre actions by faking an electrical malfunction.

  "My memories of Triton are a little hazy, to be honest. But yes, John, I did have that stuff. I guess the shadow-people must have thought it was outmoded, or unnecessary. They seem to have removed or converted it. That may have been a mistake on their part." Napoleon fiddled with the connecting cable with a manipulator, tugging at it as though testing its strength, while the Neri techs looked on with alarm. "It's the first time I've ever found myself questioning the shadow-people's judgment. It's most unsettling."

  Bandicut grunted, shifting position in the little cockpit. "I guess if you're going to become sentient, you have to learn to expect this sort of thing—questioning other people's judgment from time to time. You'll get used to it."

  There was movement at the back of the cabin, and L'Kell appeared. "Are you ready for us to bring Copernicus down?"

  "I guess so. Are you ready, Napp—"

  "Sir?"

  "—oleon?" he said, catching himself. "Do you want to try linking Copernicus into the circuit?"

  "Whenever you're ready, Cap—John Bandicut."

  "Okay." Bandicut squirmed toward the hatch. "Let me get out of here and make room. Call me if you need help translating or something."

  *

  He watched from topside while several of the Neri lowered Copernicus into the sub. They had not yet worked out where he would be riding himself, but he was having trouble imagining how he could fit inside that sub, crammed together with two robots and L'Kell or another Neri pilot, for the duration of the repair mission. If claustrophobia didn't get him, muscle spasms would.

  /// Is it essential that you be with the robots? ///

  Charlie asked. She had been following the events with interest, learning all about his odd friendship with the robots.

  /Well, I think it would be pretty hard to pull this off without me there. For one thing, the robots don't speak Neri./

  /// The stones and I might be able

  to do something about that. ///

  /Oh? Well—that's an interesting thought. Still, I'm the only one around here who seems to know anything about nanotechnology. Not that I know so much./

  /// Do you know more than the robots? ///

  /Good question./

  /// Why don't we check? ///

  /Okay. But I can't teach them much, if they don't already know it./ He paced along the dock at the edge of the hangar, angling his gaze down into the green illuminated deeps. He was proposing to dive down there again in one of those tin cans. The thought made all the muscles in the back of his neck tighten in a spasmodic ripple. /Charlie, is there some reason you're trying to get me not to go? Do you have some insight I ought to know about?/

  /// I think I'm just feeling nervous.

  Concerned for your safety.

  And—I'm embarrassed to admit—mine. ///

  /You weren't scared during the last dive, were you?/

  /// Not during.

  But I had nightmares last night,

  while you were asleep. ///

  Bandicut was dumbfounded. Charlie—having nightmares? But then, he supposed, why not? It shouldn't be any harder to believe than anything else about the quarx's inhabiting his brain and his emotions and . . . being female. /Well,/ he said.

  /// I'm not trying to get out of it.

  If we have to go, we have to go. ///

  "John Bandicut," he heard, before he could answer. He blinked back into contact with the world outside his skin, and was surprised to see Antares approaching along the dock. She stood beside him, gazing at the silver-grey submersible that would be taking his robots, and perhaps him as well, back down to the edge of the abyss.

  "Hi," he said. "How'd you sleep?"

  "Well enough, I suppose," she answered, in a tone that he thought suggested a polite lie. "I came to see how you were doing in your preparations. Will you be leaving soon?"

  "I'm not sure," he admitted. "We're still working on hooking up the robots without blowing either their circuits or the sub's. If we can patch them into a working connection, then I hope they'll find a way to talk to the factory's control system. They're damn clever robots, you know."

  "Indeed they are," Antares said, with a clicking that sounded like a chuckle, but wasn't. "If anything went wrong, I would miss them." She turned to peer at Bandicut, and her almost Asian-looking eyes, gold circles around black pupils, caught his. "And I would miss you, too, human of Earth." Her nostrils trembled as she breathed. There was an enchanting combination of delicacy and strength in her features.

 
"Thank you," he murmured. "I don't think we're leaving right away, though. We'll need to learn all the Neri can tell us about the factory."

  "Of course," said Antares. She hesitated, then continued, "You know . . . even though we haven't known each other long, I have come to like and respect you, John Bandicut."

  He flushed. "Call me John."

  "John. You and your norgs. I hope . . . wish you to return safely. All of you."

  Bandicut nodded, and tried to get a fix on his own reaction. Every once in a while, the fact that she was both female and strikingly . . . beautiful wasn't perhaps the right word, but intensely interesting . . . caught hold of his brain down on some deep, primitive level. His breathing was somewhat erratic just now, and he self-consciously tried to even it out. "Thank you," he whispered.

  Antares looked pensively out over the water. "You know—in truth, I didn't rest too well last night." She turned her head to gaze at him.

  /// What's that mean—that look?

  Is she interested in you?

  As a . . . lover? ///

  /I—dunno, I—/

  "I felt lonely," Antares said, "being separated from you and the others." Bandicut was startled. Antares had slept in a separate room partly out of consideration to the Neri, among whom males and females appeared to lead somewhat segregated lives. But he'd also had the impression that it was Antares' wish. On her homeworld, she'd remarked, third-females were never permitted to lodge with males. I did so once, and it almost cost me my life, she'd said.

  "I guess everything feels different, here on an alien world," he said awkwardly.

  "Yes," she said. "Very different."

  "Ik and Li-Jared will be here. They can help look after you." He knew at once that it was the wrong thing to say. As if Antares couldn't take care of herself. "And—" he added hastily "—I hope you'll look after them, too. They're good, trustworthy companions." And in an attempt to sound a little less somber, added, "Even if Li-Jared is a bit excitable."

  "Yes," Antares said, and this time he was sure there was amusement in her voice.

  "Do you know yet what you'll be doing while we're gone?"

  "I'll be working with Kailan, to see what I can do to help them learn more about this Maw of the Abyss," Antares said, radiating a sparkle of excitement. He blinked. He had noticed in the last day that he was picking up her emotions more overtly than before. Was he just getting to know her better?

  /// The difference is in her, I think.

  She's letting her empathic abilities

  flow both ways. ///

  /Ah./

  "The obliq," she continued, "has a variety of instruments, some of which she does not know the use of. Askelanda has never believed them to be useful, but she thinks they are—if we can just learn their functions. In any case, we'll be probing the seafloor, to see what we can learn."

  "And do you—" Bandicut hesitated, not wanting to say, Do you know enough science to be helpful? His own experience with the Triton surveys probably qualified him more than anyone here to understand seafloor geology. And that wasn't saying much.

  Antares' eyes twinkled. "I will tell you and the others everything that I learn. Don't forget, Li-Jared was something of a scientist on his own world."

  Li-Jared, a scientist? Bandicut realized, with a start, that his time with his friends had been so filled with relentless urgency and confusion that he had never learned what Ik and Li-Jared had done for a living on their own worlds—or even if "earning a living" was a concept that would have made sense to them.

  "Some sort of mathematical theorist," Antares continued. "I don't understand it myself. But I'm depending on my knowing-stones' helping, in any case. They seem to understand much that I don't."

  Bandicut peered at the stones glowing in her throat. He realized suddenly that he was taking care not to stare at her chest, and he chuckled inwardly. As if he had any idea whether staring at her stones was any more acceptable to a Thespi third-female than staring at her four breasts!

  /// You do not stare at the breasts

  of the women on your own world? ///

  /Not if I know what's good for me./

  /// ??? ///

  /Let's just say I—try not to get caught at it./

  /// But your memories . . .

  there was someone named Julie,

  and she seemed to . . . ///

  /That was different./ His pulse fluttered. /There's a time and a place, and right now isn't the time—/

  "Is everything all right, John?" asked Antares.

  "Uh?" He'd lapsed into his moron-stare again, focusing inward. "Yes. Sorry. Talking to Charlie." He waved a hand at his head. "I've got a new Charlie, by the way. A female, this time. Charlene. Very interesting."

  "Indeed!"

  /// John, do you suppose she would be willing

  to join stones briefly?

  It might help me

  get to know her a little. ///

  Bandicut hesitated. /I don't know. I guess I could ask./

  /// Please. ///

  He cleared his throat. "Um—Antares? Charlie and I were wondering if you would like to . . . pool . . . that is, share knowledge. Join stones, I mean." At that moment, he had to flatten himself against the wall to let some Neri workers pass by on the dock, and it occurred to him that he could not have picked a more awkward time or place to ask such a question. "To understand each other better," he tried to explain.

  Antares' eyes narrowed, brightened. She made a sound that was both a click and a chuckle. She seemed troubled, amused, and receptive all at the same time. Finally she said, "Not just now, I think. But perhaps, at another time. I would like to know, not just you, but also your friend . . . Charlie . . . better. Would that be possible?"

  Bandicut nodded. He was saved from an awkward silence by L'Kell's reappearance beside them on the dock.

  "I think the robots would like you to come speak with them," L'Kell said. "I can't tell for sure."

  "Right. Okay." Bandicut touched Antares' arm. "Thanks for coming by. I'll see you before—"

  "Actually, I will be leaving soon to go join Kailan," Antares said. "Her habitat is—I don't know exactly, but somewhere upslope from here. I have to take a sub to get there. I don't know when I'll be back, so I'll say good-bye now." Her mouth crinkled, then she stretched out her arms.

  Bandicut gently embraced her. He smelled something like a blend of seaweed and balsam in her hair. "Bye. Let us know what you find out."

  "I will," she said with a hint of throatiness. "Take care down there and stay away from the Maw. Okay?"

  He smiled. "You can be sure of that," he said, and with a final squeeze of her hand, turned to walk out onto the deck of the little sub.

  *

  Inside the cramped cabin of the sub, Napoleon and Copernicus were now linked to each other, while Napoleon remained connected by cable to the console. Bandicut noticed flickering activity on the console. He squeezed in next to them and sat crosslegged beside the Neri tech. "How's it going here?"

  Napoleon answered. "We now have a working connection, Captain. We're exploring how the control system on the submarine works. We thought if we understood that, we would have a better chance of understanding the factory when we got there."

  "Plus," said Copernicus, "we thought it might be helpful to know how to pilot the sub, in case of emergency."

  "Makes sense," said Bandicut. "What else?"

  "Well," said Napoleon, "we were wondering if you would be willing—" The robot hesitated.

  "Willing—?"

  "To let us link with you—with Charlie, really."

  Bandicut rubbed his eyebrows in silence, thinking, didn't I just have this conversation? I liked my first idea better.

  /// It's okay with me, ///

  said the quarx.

  He sighed and answered, "Sure. No problem. Anything in particular you were after?"

  "Well," said Napoleon. "We just thought it might be helpful to know something of the Neri language. In case we n
eed to deal with them alone . . ."

  *

  Peering out the viewport, Antares felt a pang, as the Neri pilot steered the small sub away from Askelanda's habitat. Already she missed the company—all of them, but especially John Bandicut. John. She hadn't expected to feel this way, but she did; and she wondered at it. If she were still on Thespi Prime, it would be a very dangerous feeling. Not that it was wrong; but if it developed further, and led to personal intimacy . . . that way lay temptation, and possibly death, for a third-female. Her role in life was to facilitate, not to embrace, or to experience for her own.

  She had succumbed to temptation once, and would have died for it had it not been for the intervention of the Shipworld Masters and the stones. Ensendor. Just the memory of that name caused old fury to rise up in her. And some of the old desire, as well—even after the betrayal. The memory of Ensendor's testimony against her—on trial for her intimacy with him—was as clear as if it had happened yesterday. The immediacy of the memory was astounding. His words, damning her in the eyes of the council, while he walked away praised for his candor and honesty. His eyes, touching hers in a glancing flicker, with a hint of regret but no compassion, no grief, no shared responsibility. Even with all that clear in her mind, she still could feel the flush of the old desire.

  And what did all of that have to do with these disquieting feelings about John Bandicut, who was not even of her own world? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything.

  Antares narrowed her gaze through the portal of the little submarine. Glowing habitats moved slowly by, like ghosts in weightless space. A small school of silvery fish flashed through the sub's headlight, then a bulbous creature moving on pulsing jets of water. The bottom slope was flowered with a variety of pastel-colored lifeforms, feathery things, waving and drifting in the slow-moving currents. This gave way to a bed of long kelp, cultivated under artificial light. Ahead, finally, she saw the shape of the obliq's habitat, where Kailan would be waiting.

  The sight of Kailan's bubble only reminded her that far below, far out of view, lurked the Maw of the Abyss, the monster she was being asked to help identify and tame. How she would do this, she did not know. Would it be like the way Bandicut had taken on the boojum, with almost no real information—with nothing to go on but courage, hope, faith?