by Jeff Carlson
"Shit!" Hunt said. "I told you--"
"We would have lost hull integrity if we'd stayed," Ben said. "Sacrificing an ice buster for the Lewis was a good call. It was the only call."
"Get it out of the way," Ribeiro said. "Troutman, does it have enough function to pull aside?"
"Yes, sir."
Firing cables into the chimney walls, catching itself, the ice buster slammed into their nose again. It whacked against their spine. Then it was behind them.
The Lewis continued to fall, jerking and shaking through the chimney and clogs of ice.
Ribeiro said, "All stations, report."
"Depth is six hundred meters, sir," DeBrun said. "No casualties. Significant damage to lock two. Moderate damage to our nose and tail."
"Mecha One, Five, Six and Nine are attached to the hull," Ash said.
"Seven and Ten are buttressing the ice above us. With luck, they'll hold the ceiling for a while," Troutman said. "I'll see if I can use the damaged ice buster to assist. I'm also getting some response from Mecha Eight, still below us."
"Our lead busters are one point five klicks below us," Ben said. "My sims look good. In another four hundred meters, the chimney is open. Troutman, if you can block everything above us, we'll be okay."
"Got it."
"What about the ice that's falling ahead of us?" DeBrun asked. "If the chimney's knocked apart--"
"There are fractures and warm spots we'll have to deal with," Ben said. "That's why the ice busters went first. They're reinforcing the walls or clearing blockages. The chimney will hold if we're careful."
"Hunt, that was a fine piece of navigation in a tight spot," Ribeiro said. "Metzler, your sims are excellent. Troutman and Sierzenga, the mecha were superb."
"Thank you, sir," Ash replied.
Vonnie blinked at Ribeiro's compliments. Was this how he sounded in private with the FNEE? In public, he'd been harsh with his soldiers and antagonistic with competitors like the ESA, although at times he'd treated her with oily grace by mentioning that she was beautiful.
Now he encouraged his team -- but she didn't want to like Ribeiro. She'd spent so long despising him.
Beside her, the sunfish wriggled as if marinating in vinegar. They couldn't imagine why Vonnie tolerated a near-savage male. That she heeded his orders was profane. In her position, they would have attacked, not necessarily to kill Ribeiro but to usurp his leadership.
They relied on her perceptions of the human dynamic. They believed her view of the mission, although they resisted when she demanded that they bury any thought of revolt. The exchange occurred swiftly and wordlessly.
We'll obey him, Vonnie signed.
We won't, they said.
Obey him. I do. You will.
"Troutman, altercast your links with the units near the surface," Ribeiro said. "I want maximum security protocols. We're going to cut communications with the surface. Before we do, give me a radar sweep up through the ice. I want another look before we're too far down. Also, our radar will inform Administrator Koebsch that we're alive."
"Sir, what about the PSSC?" DeBrun asked. "They'll detect our radar, too."
"Their missiles would have seeded the ice with nanotags. They've already recorded our escape. Troutman, send your radar sweep."
"Yes, sir. Still no sign of combat, sir. The Jyväskylä and the Dongfangzhixing have not engaged."
"Cut data/comm with the surface."
"Yes, sir."
Seconds later, the Lewis transitioned from jarring violence to a smoother ride. Suddenly their descent wasn't half as rough as it had been.
"We're out of danger," Ben said.
Harmeet hadn't spoken on the group feed since leaving camp. Now she gushed at them. "We made it! That was amazing! Everyone did so well!"
"I would have preferred less excitement," Dawson said. "We should have brought additional mecha. The Americans could have spared twenty more."
"Yeah, it was selfish of them to give us most of their supplies after putting everything they had into this sub," Ben said, laughing at Dawson. Ben sounded much more like himself and Vonnie laughed, too, wanting to connect with him -- but she said nothing as he traded sims with the people in the conn.
Everybody seemed to be holding their breath. They waited for another catastrophe. Nothing happened. Their mecha eased their descent by skidding along the chimney's walls, braking the Lewis, scraping the ice. Loose chunks and flecks wisped against the hull, a constant hailstorm. The sound was peaceful after the mayhem they'd endured.
Ten minutes passed.
"Colonel, I'm sorry, I need to get up," Vonnie said. Twice today she'd asked for his permission, and she hated it.
"Be quick."
She unstrapped herself and crossed the room, hunching to keep her balance when the sub whacked through an irregular bend in the chimney.
She entered one of the bathrooms. The shower and the toilet were unusable at this angle. These fixtures hadn't rotated like their chairs and bunks, but there were diapers available and she peed into one, then stuffed it in the trash.
She snorted when Tom prodded innocently at the door. She wasn't ready to be that open with the sunfish. She returned to her bunk and strapped in.
She had a question she didn't ask.
How are we going to get out??? It looks like we'll make it to the ocean, but we can't stay there forever and the chimney is shut. The PSSC dropped thousands of tons of ice around the top of it.
Our ice busters can carry us most of the way up... maybe excavate... but there will be cave-ins and God knows what kind of PSSC traps or mecha...
If we have to climb through the last kilometer in scout suits, we could be in for a long hike. The catacombs are gone. We might need days to find an open passage.
It was a problem for another time.
The crew settled into a rhythm. Their speed was now five kilometers an hour. They believed the frozen sky was twenty kilometers thick in this area. In approximately thirteen kilometers, their speed would slow to a crawl as the chimney filled with slush, then increase again after they passed into liquid water.
Ben pored over his sims, providing updates to Ribeiro and DeBrun. Their maps incorporated data/comm from the three ice busters ahead of them. Ash and Hunt shared piloting duties. Troutman monitored the GPs.
Vonnie was forgotten. She listened to her crewmates. She paid special attention when Ben or Ash spoke, but they concentrated on their work and she had nothing to contribute.
Another forty minutes went by.
Very soon, the sunfish would enter the next stage of their wake/sleep/wake cycle. They could go without rest, but missing sleep affected them negatively. She intended to leave before they grew hostile.
I can help Ash or Ben, she thought. A shower will feel good, and I'm hungry. I--
A light flashed on the hatch from decon one. Startled, the sunfish rustled against her. Hans coiled his arms, preparing to jump. Tom clacked his beak.
Vonnie glanced at the group feed to see who'd left their station. Who was coming?
If it's Wester, he's in for a fight.
14.
The hatch opened above Vonnie, where the wall had become the ceiling as the Lewis plummeted through the ice.
Harmeet appeared on her hands and knees. As she looked down at them, Hans relaxed. So did Vonnie. Tom closed his beak. The four sunfish cried their welcomes to Older Matriarch, and Harmeet waved timidly.
She'd dressed like Vonnie, t-shirt and shorts, barefoot. She was a short, dumpy shape without muscle definition in her arms or her butt.
Her voice was hoarse. She swallowed hard. "Hello, Von. Can you ask them not to--?"
Then the males were on her. They leaped up, a swarm of arms and beaks. At the same time, the Lewis caromed from the chimney wall with a boom.
Harmeet yelped. "Oh!"
Behind her was decon one. From there, the central corridor. Vonnie prayed the exit was sealed. She yelled, "Stop!"
Tom could have shot p
ast Harmeet into the next room. Instead, he prevented Harmeet from falling with an adept balancing act. He clung to the open hatch while cupping Harmeet's left shin and right knee. He supported her.
Hans wrapped himself around Tom and Harmeet. They were gentle with her -- as gentle as sunfish could be. They rummaged over her body, smelling her, tasting her.
Then they used themselves like a living rope or a swing, neatly lowering Harmeet to an available bunk.
Wide-eyed, she stammered, "We... I should..."
Above her, Tom hoisted himself into the open hatch and shrieked, gauging the shape of decon one before he withdrew. The hatch shut automatically. Vonnie exhaled. She hadn't been sure if Tom would stay or go.
Brigit and Angelica joined Harmeet. So did Tom and Hans, although Hans extended two arms to Vonnie, connecting them. To her credit, Harmeet tried not to show her revulsion. She craned her neck to keep them from touching her face, but she manufactured a smile and patted at the sunfish like a mom with rowdy children.
"Why didn't you say you were coming?" Vonnie asked.
"Ash said you'd tell me to stay out. I couldn't let you do this alone."
"They won't hurt you."
"They might. I've seen what they... Pain is a normal form of communication for them," Harmeet said.
She wasn't doing herself any favors. Tom chittered in dissatisfaction at the quaver in Harmeet's voice, so Vonnie said, "It was brave of you to come. And we'll leave soon. They'll need to sleep."
--Brave? Brave? Hans piped.
Vonnie saw another way to convince them of Older Matriarch's worth. Playing to Harmeet's expertise, she said, "I've been thinking about what's below us. Tell us what we'll find in the ocean."
"Nobody knows."
"You probably have the best guess. Here's what I think. The ice is full of niche environments. We may never find every little pocket world. There could be more beavers and ferrets on the equator or in the northern hemisphere. The ice has too many places to hide... but the ocean doesn't. There are no barriers, no dividers. It's a single body of water. What effect would that have on the proliferation of life?"
Harmeet rose to the task, earning a louder chirp from Hans. Angelica rustled against Brigit and Vonnie. They were intrigued by Older Matriarch's new self-assurance.
"You're oversimplifying," Harmeet said. "Are there different environments in Earth's oceans?"
"Yes, but our oceans are different sizes and depths. They have different temperatures, different weather. Even the salinity and mineral content varies. Our oceans are separated by our continents. None of that applies here. The Great Ocean is homogenous."
Harmeet smiled again, a real smile now. "Sometimes you don't sound like a pilot."
Vonnie grinned at her. "Ben said that, too. Why does everybody think I haven't been listening? I've picked up a few things from eggheads like you."
"I see," Harmeet said, but her smile faded. Her voice was gentle. "You've spoken with William."
"Dawson? So what?"
"Many of us share his hypothesis that the ocean is a gigantic dead zone."
"No. There's life down there. Cities, maybe. Every species that crawled into the ice, then evolved and diversified, must have come from the ocean."
Harmeet nodded. "Their progenitors, yes. In the distant past. But you seem to imagine the Great Ocean as a uniform body of water or a... a huge metropolis like Beijing."
"I know it's big. It's bigger than all of our biggest cities combined."
"Sweetheart, the Great Ocean has more volume than all of Earth's oceans combined. By itself, the ocean's sheer size allows for heterogeneous domains. That means it wasn't a single environment for any lifeform to exploit."
I know what 'heterogeneous' means, Vonnie thought. I just said 'homogeneous,' didn't I?
But she didn't argue. She gestured for Harmeet to go on. The sunfish were listening, too. They might not have grasped some of the concepts under discussion, but they learned as much from the women's body language as from their conversation.
Harmeet said, "No single species could have conquered the ocean. Look where we've explored along the southern pole. Our sims lack detail, but we're certain that the ocean floor swells up and down, creating shallows and deeps. There are mountain ranges. There are basins and trenches. Orbital stresses and volcanic activities cause these features to reform quickly. The quiet zone at this pole is a recent phenomenon. Even here, disruptions annihilated the sunfish empire."
"Isn't that my point? There are safe areas. The civilization will exist in them."
"Possibly. They would need to be mobile."
"Maybe they're swimmers, drifters. Maybe they build structures on the bottom where they can, but their entire civilization is nomadic. I can think of a hundred ways they could have adapted."
"There are other issues to consider. Storms. Tsunamis. Eruptions. Quakes."
"We have those on Earth."
"Everything is larger here. More violent."
"I believe O'Neal and Lam. O'Neal was positive there's life in the ocean, and Lam covered more territory than any of our probes. He learned something. He tried to tell me."
"Sweetheart, O'Neal was a dreamer and Lam was dysfunctional." Harmeet's voice was mild but firm. She was adamant. "Iron, salt, acidity... after so much time, the poisons have spread everywhere. This ocean is no longer conducive to life."
"That's what Dawson said. Space isn't conducive to life, either. But here we are."
Harmeet didn't answer.
"The sunfish are here, too."
Harmeet smiled once more, but there was sadness in it. "I love your fight, Von. It's your best quality. I just don't want you to be disappointed. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, maybe millions of years ago, the Great Ocean must have been a busy place. The fossil record should be considerable. As a science expedition, this mission will be fruitful. Unfortunately, I have to agree with William. The sunfish may be the last in a line of succession much like we're the last branch of humanity except for the apes. A few of their ancestors may still exist in the ice, but I don't believe we'll find much in the ocean. Bacteria. Weeds. Only a few extremely hardy lifeforms could have survived."
"How do you explain the radio broadcast?"
"It might have come from an automated relic of a long-lost empire like Peter said. More plausibly, William is correct. The ELF signal was transmitted through Europa by a spy sat."
"If that's true, why did the PSSC try to stop us? They probably reached the ocean yesterday. If they'd used all of their mecha to dig instead of attacking us, they would have gotten through the ice even sooner."
"Lam said the tribes were sabotaging their excavations. The PSSC delayed themselves by driving out the sunfish. Then they decided to weaken us. Aggression and greed are simple motives. Don't forget, Europa only matters to a lot of people as a fuel depot."
"Lam also said something about larger enemies. Deeper enemies. He wasn't talking about PSSC mecha."
"Maybe he was trying to tell us about the Low Clans. We may prove that they exist during the next few hours. At the very least, radar might show us where to return after we've worked out a new agreement with China."
"What agreement?"
"Sweetheart, wake up. O'Neal was enamored with the tribes' myths, and China may want to verify the condition of the Great Ocean, but their real goal has been to establish a new battlefront. They beat us on the ice. They beat us in space. They'll lose that advantage as more ships arrive, but now they're ahead of us in the ocean." Harmeet spread her hands like a teacher waiting for her pupils to formulate the obvious conclusion. "Don't you see what they've done? Missile batteries inside Europa will be an insurmountable weapon."
"Missiles inside Europa," Vonnie said, resisting the idea. "Why would they bother?"
"Wherever we land, wherever we go, they can disable our operations by detonating missiles in the nearest hot springs or volcanoes -- and if we move to solid areas, they can send diggers carrying warheads up beneath us.
The mere threat of geysers or quakes will scare Berlin. Nothing on the surface or in the catacombs will be safe. China may force us to buy deuterium from them or license our mining rights. That's why we constructed a sub in three days. Berlin sent us to counter the PSSC incursion, but we're too late. There are too few of us. China was pouring HKs and probes into the ocean before we even approached our chimney."
Vonnie shook her head. Your fatalism is showing, Harmeet, she thought, feeling despondent.
Harmeet made her feel like she was jinxed.
Too many turning points had gone wrong for Vonnie as far back as her relationship with her parents. Not even her love for Ben had been easy... and if making each other feel good wasn't painless, how could anything be?
I won't accept it. She refused to believe that any of the forces at work were too large to overcome. Nothing is inevitable. Harmeet is no better than Ash used to be.
People wrap themselves in religion or politics because they're lazy. They don't have the strength to stand on their own, then they despise their own shortcomings, so they cement themselves in their beliefs because admitting they were wrong feels like a bigger mistake. They stonewall.
Harmeet wants to think we're puppets led by our destinies. If that's true, all she has to worry about is her lab work.
Ash, Claudia, men like Ribeiro and Hunt, they pledged themselves to an agency or an army. They're good at their jobs and that's enough for them.
I've done it, too. Conformity, inclusion and prestige are the name of the game. The bureaucrats knuckle under to their higher-ups. They enable men like Dawson. They groom servants like Henri and Ash. They'll bear with troublemakers like Ben if he has talent they can't buy anywhere else. They even put up with me, but they won't promote Ben and the people at the top of the hierarchy have tried to diminish me with media campaigns and rumors.
Nearly everyone lets them get away with it.
People are sheep. Nobody wants to speak up. Most of our problems from situations as personal as a shitty boss keeping his job to major events like our world wars happen because people do what they're told. They'd rather suffer, they'd rather see everybody suffer, than stand out from the herd.
