In answer, the Neri raised the sub's nose and began his ascent. There were glimmers of silver visible now—the surface dancing high overhead—and across the expanse, wide patches of darker shadow. "Those are the arrays," he said. "They're floating just below the surface."
"Why so irregular in shape?" Bandicut asked.
"I've been told," said S'Cali, "that it makes them less likely to be noticed from above, by making them look like vast arrays of floating weeds."
/Ah,/ Bandicut thought. /Sargasso. It's just like the Sargasso Sea./
/// ??? ///
/Look for it under "Atlantic Ocean," on Earth. It's a large, calm area where enormous clumps of seaweed float just below the surface. A big habitat for sea critters, I believe./
/// Ah. There. ///
The quarx had located an image from a nature holo seen a long time ago.
/That's it,/ he murmured, pleased that he still had the memory, and pleased that Char was able to find things in the library of his mind.
The closer they got to the surface, the more noticeable was the drop in air pressure. The last ten meters produced the greatest proportional change. Antares had some trouble equalizing her respiratory sinuses, but true to promise, the normalization and translator-stones together kept them from suffering from bends.
It was like looking up through a stained glass window, all in shades of blue and silver, with just the odd hint of yellow-gold. They cruised beneath the translucent solar panels, and S'Cali noted places in need of repair. He steered around the long cables that stretched down into the endless gloom from the arrays, leading to the seafloor and ultimately to the Neri settlements. The cables not only anchored the arrays, but also carried the power.
"Don't you lose a lot of sunlight, having them below the surface like that?" asked Bandicut.
"I suppose we do sacrifice light to the water," said S'Cali. "That's why they're so large. But having them subsurface protects them from wave action—and of course, from being seen."
When the survey was finished, S'Cali steered toward a small habitat bubble flanking one of the larger arrays. "If you've no objection, I believe we'll dock here for the night. It's one of the service habitats," he said. As they ascended, the water continued to brighten around them. It was Caribbean blue, dazzling to the eyes and heartbreakingly beautiful.
Once they were docked and secure, Antares and Bandicut followed S'Cali out through the airlock into the habitat. The Neri's first action, once outside, was to plug a power line into the sub. Where better to recharge? Bandicut thought. Right at the source.
Antares looked around, sniffing the musty air. There was no hangar pool, just a docking port for the sub's airlock. The habitat was mostly transparent, and spartanly furnished. "This is where the maintenance crews stay?" she asked.
"That's right. In earlier times, they used to make observations of the surface from here. And even—" S'Cali hesitated, struggling for the right words. Even in Neri, he was uncertain how to say it. "The holes in the night sky?"
"Astronomy?" Bandicut cried in delight. "They studied the stars in the sky?"
"Yes. That's it." S'Cali stretched the webs between his fingers. "I know little of it, myself."
"But how did they see the stars?" Bandicut asked.
The Neri gestured overhead. "There is a place, a hatch. The top section of the habitat can be adjusted to breach the surface."
Antares' eyes shone golden. "Can you—can we go—?"
The Neri's mouth opened in something like a smile. "Would you like to taste the air of our world? Follow me."
Chapter 27
Beneath the Ocean Sky
BANDICUT'S HEART NEARLY stopped as he stepped out under a vast, blue and white streaked sky. He squinted, shading his eyes against the brilliance of the sun. He felt himself grinning like a fool. It seemed like a hundred years since he had been above water; he felt a tremendous sense of release. A second later he realized that the sun was brilliant only by comparison with the world under the sea; it was actually at this moment hidden behind whorled streaks of cloud low on the horizon.
/// This is breathtaking!
I have never seen open space before.
Not through your eyes. ///
Antares stood beside him, gazing across the water. He felt her wonderment before he saw the expression on her face: the widening of her eyes, the irises a thin golden ring around the black pupils. She gasped long, slow breaths as she took in the view. "I had not known," she said at last, "just how closed in I felt. Not until I saw this." She pushed her hair back from her temples, peering around.
He murmured agreement. It was a featureless sea, nearly calm except for slowly undulating, peaceful-looking waves—with nothing in sight except the sea, the sky, and the gently rocking platform that surrounded the exit hatch of the still mostly submerged habitat.
He stepped out to the edge of the platform and peered over the low bumper that protected the edge. They were about a meter above the water's surface. Several Neri ladders were spaced around the edge; if they fell off, they'd be able to get back up. Peering down into the water, he could see the shadowy presence of the solar arrays contrasting with the blue of the clear depths. It didn't look that much like sargasso, he thought, but maybe it wouldn't be conspicuous from the air. Or maybe the landers didn't possess aircraft.
"The arrays move up and down, as needed," said S'Cali, from the hatch. "In high seas, or if the sensors detect something in the area, the array will drop to a deeper level. But it does take time to respond."
Bandicut turned, and had to look twice to spot S'Cali. The Neri's head was just visible below the lip of the hatch. "Are you coming out?" Bandicut asked.
"I . . . don't know if there's any need. Unless you require assistance . . ."
Struck by the tentativeness in S'Cali's voice, Bandicut moved closer. "No, that's all right." Antares put a hand on his arm, and he looked at her and felt a strong sense of, Don't. He peered at her questioningly.
/// I think she means,
leave poor S'Cali alone. ///
/Why "poor" S'Cali?/
/// A blind man could see it.
He's afraid of the open space. ///
Bandicut blinked, suddenly understanding. Of course. S'Cali lived under the sea, spent his whole life there. On an extraordinarily clear day he could see maybe a hundred meters. It must be terrifying to him to be under the openness of the sky. It was not the sea or the waves that frightened him; it was the sky.
"We're fine," Antares said softly toward the hatch. "Why don't you go on with whatever you need to do. We'll come down if we need anything."
"Good," said S'Cali, with obvious relief. He vanished below.
Bandicut looked at Antares. "He must feel the way Li-Jared feels underwater."
Antares hummed assent. "I wish we could bring Li-Jared up to see the surface. It would do him good, I think." She reflected for a moment. "And we must remember to thank S'Cali."
"Eh?"
"For bringing us here. Oh, he has his inspections to do—and yes, we're keeping an eye out for lander ships. But I have a feeling he brought us here as much for our benefit as his." She fell silent, and they stood awhile, soaking up the feel of the open sea. Suddenly she walked over to the hatch and called down, "S'Cali, is there anything in this water that would hurt us if we swam in it?"
Bandicut couldn't hear the answer, but Antares returned a moment later and said, "He says it should be safe. The pikarta don't usually come to the surface. I think I'd like to go for a swim." She peered down into the water. "Would it disturb you if I disrobed?"
He tried not to swallow his tongue. "Uh—no, I guess not."
/// Disturb? ///
/Shut up./
"Will you swim with me?" Antares asked, removing her slipperlike shoes. Before he could answer, she had done something to her pantsuit, and it opened down the front. She turned slightly as she shrugged it off over her shoulders, stepped out of it, folded it neatly, and stood nude in front
of him. At last he could see the ways in which she was like, and unlike, a human female. She indeed had four breasts—small and round, with what looked like largish nipples slightly above the center of each. Her body was covered with a fine, silky hair, and something that looked like pubic fur started as a point between her lower two breasts, widened and thickened over her stomach, and thinned again as it narrowed to another point between her legs. Her arms and legs were very humanlike, except that the curves of her muscles were just different enough to be noticeable.
Bandicut said nothing; he was busy trying not to stare. He began to fumble with the closure on his jumpsuit.
"Bandie, I didn't mean—I don't want to make you feel—"
"No, no—it's fine. Yes, of course I'll join you." He opened the front of his jumpsuit.
"It's all right if you look at me. I'm curious about you, too."
"Okay," he murmured as he stepped out of his own clothes. He stood self-consciously before her, thinking, It didn't feel like this when I gave Ik a look at the human form.
/// No, this is certainly very— ///
/Yes, it is./
Antares cocked her head, gazing at him. "You're not so different from a Thespi. So that must be your—what an interesting place for it. How do you—never mind, you can tell me later."
Bandicut blushed. "Shall we swim?" he said, turning toward the water.
"Yes, let's."
Antares stood beside him at the edge. "After you," he said—and watched with admiring interest as she stretched and dove gracefully into the clear water. He followed suit—grunting as the water smacked his unprotected groin—and shivered in the coolness, then sighed with pleasure as he surfaced and swam with brisk, strong strokes through the water.
Antares surfaced nearby, her wet hair pulling back from her head. Her lips parted in a Thespi smile, and her stones flickered in her throat, and Bandicut grinned at her. They swam back and forth for a while, then in circles around the platform. Finally, by silent agreement, they returned to the ladder, where they hung in the water for a few minutes, savoring the relaxation. "It'll be getting dark soon," Antares said. She began to climb up the ladder. He floated backward with lazy strokes, watching with interest as she emerged, water running off her back. He waited until she was standing back on the platform, then swam back and climbed out himself.
They stood shivering in the cool air. Without towels, it seemed smart to dry in the air first, then dress. The sun was very low in the sky, half hidden by clouds. But overhead, and to the east, the sky was clearing. Antares' skin glistened with seawater; her nipples seemed larger and more prominent as her breasts contracted with the cold. He could see now that the pubic fur over her stomach covered a depression about where a human's belly button would be.
/// Interesting. ///
/To you?/
/// And to you. ///
He said nothing. He was starting to feel dry, and apparently so was Antares, because she picked up her clothes and began to put them on. After they were both dressed, they stood together, gazing out over the water.
"Tell me what you're thinking, John," she said after a minute.
"Mm?" And he thought, Not on your life. Not yet. He cleared his throat. "Thinking . . . in what sense?"
She gazed earnestly at him. "In any sense. Bandie, so much has happened so quickly—and we've been thrown this way and that—and I've hardly had a chance to get to know my new friends. People I've come to care about very much, but don't really know. I don't mean just the Neri. I mean you."
He let out his breath softly, nodding.
/// How exactly does she mean this? ///
/I don't know. I'm not sure she knows herself. She's trying to sort things out./
/// Like you. ///
/Yeah. Like me./
"John?" Antares uttered a low hissing sound: laughter, or maybe a chuckle. "You seemed to go away there, for a minute."
"Ah. Sorry. My idiot face."
"Uuhhhl?"
He chuckled ruefully. "It happens when I'm talking to Charlie and I forget to keep up my outer appearance. I wish I didn't do that."
Antares gazed out over the empty sea, then back at him. "John, you asked me once if I wanted to join stones, so that we could know each other better. I think I would like to do that, if you still want to."
He felt something funny in the pit of his stomach, and then a smile taking over his lips. "I think," he said quietly, "that getting to know each other better would be a very good idea."
*
It was cool in the salt sea air, and there was no place very comfortable to sit, but neither of them wanted to leave the open air. Antares went below and found a couple of cushions, and they sat together with their backs to the hatch, facing the water. The chill and the physical discomfort were pushed out of his mind by a sudden spangle of color—sunset over the sea, orange and crimson peeking through the clouds, then a flash of green before it all faded to twilight. Overhead, a handful of stars were already pricking the sky. Bandicut felt his heart race at the sight of stars, and he wondered where in that sky his sun was, the sun of Earth.
Antares' hand touched his. Her lips were parted in a querying smile.
"Whenever you're ready," he murmured.
Antares opened the collar of her suit to expose the two stones glimmering white and deep ruby in her throat. "Bring our stones together? Is that what we do?"
He nodded and raised his hands, and she took them in hers and held them close to her throat. It was awkward, and they shifted around a little, trying to get comfortable. Finally he rested the edges of his hands on her shoulders, and she gently pulled his wrists close to her throat.
He could feel the stones beginning to join already, the aura of her personality welling up to brush against his—and in the back of his mind, but not too far back, the quarx watching the contact with extreme interest. And then the world seemed to recede around them, and he was aware of a current flowing from his stones to hers and back again, and her thoughts stretching out to meet his . . .
John Bandicut, human of Earth and Triton . . .
Antares . . .
Yes. Autumn Aurora (Red Sun) Alexandrovens, Thespi third-female . . .
This is not alien to you, this . . . joining. Is it like what you do on Thespi Prime?
Like, but different. There we joined with emotions only. But you and I . . . we can share thoughts and memories . . .
And even as she spoke in the silence of the stones, he began to feel her thoughts and memories lapping against his . . . and he knew she was already learning from his memories . . . of life on Triton and on Earth, of Julie, of his companion-for-life, the quarx . . .
And in turn he felt the memories of Thespi Prime opening to him. Thespi Prime. A place of very great beauty, a harsh beauty. A place of mountains and rugged forests in the region where she lived; and a harsh people in certain ways, a people of difficult and perilous customs. The images came quickly: her training as a third-female, a station in which she was skilled, joining others together in empathic contact. But it was a life ill-suited to her, a life of confines and restrictions, and tempered desires. He felt in a dizzying rush her time of succumbing to forbidden love, under laws in which she stood responsible but her lover did not; and he felt how close she had come to leaving that world through the gateway of death, imposed by the law. But then the stones came into her life—he could not quite glimpse how it happened, a vision of a beam of light flashing into her prison cell, glittering and swirling, dizzying her . . . and transporting her from this world to another . . . through transitional spaces, along a churning light directed by unseen hands. And if she didn't understand it either, she came in time to know that she had passed through a different kind of gateway, the star-spanner to Shipworld.
It was like a walk through a garden of images, this sharing; more open, more inclusive and intimate than the sharing with Ik had been. And it was not just Antares and John; he felt the quarx joining, as well—and caught glimpses of Charl
ie's previous lives that Bandicut had never seen before, worlds and peoples lost now in deep time . . .
And all the while, the stones hummed like living things, absorbing and exchanging knowledge and language, and he was dizzily aware that they would never now go back to the isolation that had divided them before. He knew now, they all knew . . . all three of them, so much more . . .
*
The night sky was full of stars over their heads as the joining slipped away. The first sound Bandicut heard was the lapping of water against the Neri habitat. The second sound was Antares' indrawn breath, and quiet sigh. She still held his wrists to her throat. "You, John Bandicut," she whispered, "are a very interesting . . . man."
Her eyes gleamed in the dark like starlight on gold.
He half-smiled. And since his hands were practically cradling her head anyway, he gently slipped his fingers into her hair and cradled her face in his hands, and he liked the feel of that, and sensed that she did, too. After a moment, he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. She sighed again, and he felt her curiosity and liking, and a certain puzzlement about what he was doing, and a certain unusual lack of . . . caution.
Very gently, he raised her chin, and brushed her lips with his, and held the kiss for a moment. He felt a shiver, a thrill; and also uncertainty, a reflex to shake the touch away because it was an alien touch. "Mm?" he murmured, thinking, why do I feel that way? And then he realized that it was not his feeling, it was hers. But her eyes caught and held his as he gazed into her face, and her hands pressed his against her cheeks.
And then he felt a shadow appear, slipping between them, an old barrier of caution and fear. Thespi third-females do not do this, he thought. Especially they do not do this with aliens, non-Thespi. Or perhaps it was not so much the alienness of him as simply the doing . . . of something forbidden.
"John Bandicut," she whispered fiercely, "I am pleased to know you, my friend." And with those words, she brought his hands away from her face, and held them clasped in hers, and then released them. And the moment was over.
He sighed softly, trying to hide his jangled emotions, and the straining physical arousal in his groin, and the unreasoning desire to bury himself in her hair, in her body . . .
The Chaos Chronicles Page 94
