by Jeff Carlson
I suppose that means there's something wrong with Alexis Vonderach. It's why I feel alone. It's why my few friends are so important to me.
It explains why I love the sunfish. They've been a new way for me to fit in, she realized as Brigit, Angelica, Tom and Hans buzzed. They'd sensed her conflict. They identified with her frustration and they celebrated her decision to challenge the submarine's leadership.
But just now, they were on the threshold of their next sleep cycle. If they didn't rest soon, fatigue poisons would dull their self-awareness. Tom and Hans would grow more belligerent. Brigit and Angelica would become less interested in harnessing the males.
Could she leverage them against Ribeiro?
"Colonel," she said, "I'm sure you've been monitoring this room."
"Affirmative."
"I realize that Harmeet is right. We're not here to look for a native civilization. Brasilia, Washington and Berlin sent us to do anything we can against the PSSC before it's game over, checkmate. Harmeet and Dawson were our disguise. Same for Ben. With them onboard, you could claim this was a scientific mission. Otherwise the PSSC would have blasted us."
Ribeiro said, "This is an allied vessel, and your astronauts aren't military, so you are free to speculate about our mission parameters with each other. Not with me. My orders are to enter the Great Ocean."
"Then what?"
"Then we will have new directives," DeBrun said. "They're sealed until we clear the chimney."
"You mean until we enter our new battlefront."
"Von, don't," Harmeet said as Ribeiro continued in a dire tone. "I can neither confirm or deny," he said. "Nor will Commander DeBrun."
"This is a crappy warship if that's the plan," Ben said. "I'm a lover, not a fi--"
"Enough," Ribeiro said. "Our AIs report an increasing level of agitation among the sunfish. You have your orders. This discussion is over."
Vonnie decided to play her hand. She wanted to give the matriarchs more power aboard the Lewis. She said, "Colonel, wait. The sunfish hate the PSSC as much as we do. Let's benefit from it."
"How?"
"Patch them into our sensor array."
"Negative."
"There are fifty gear blocks on our exterior. Limit one to passive sonar. If they can't scream, they can't give us away even if it's an accident. Let them listen. You know their hearing is exceptional."
"Negative."
"They might pinpoint targets that our AIs miss."
"Sir, I'd like to take her suggestion under advisement," DeBrun said.
"Noted," Ribeiro said. "Vonderach, calm them down. Johal, I'll remove you from hab one if there's the slightest threat to your well-being."
Vonnie knew his last words were for her, not Harmeet. Harmeet's safety was his pretext for ending more debate. At least she'd planted the thought in his head. The sunfish weren't baggage. They could be an asset.
"I'll do want I can, sir," Vonnie said as Brigit rasped the underside of one arm on her thigh.
--Loud Warrior wants you to be smaller, Brigit cried.
"It's part of how we cooperate. It's okay." Vonnie rubbed her hand on Brigit's topside with real fondness. "This would be a good time for you to sleep. Older Matriarch and I will watch over you," she said, glancing at Harmeet to see if her friend would agree.
--Older Matriarch stays with us? Brigit piped.
"Yes," Harmeet said.
"We'll watch over you," Vonnie promised, nodding her thanks to Harmeet. Step by step, their two species were developing closer bonds and better appreciation of each other.
Maybe the sunfish already knew humans too well.
--She is full of fear, and you are hungry, Angelica cried. --You cannot defend us for a full cycle. You cannot stay. You cannot show vigilance.
"Yes, we can." Vonnie wasn't going to eat in the filthy room, but she'd skipped meals in the past. She moved her hands to include Angelica and Tom, massaging their rough, scarred skin. She had seen sunfish lull each other. She spoke in sing-song. "You've eaten. You're warm and safe. We can provide more eels when you wake."
--Noises? Noises? Tom cried.
Outside, their mecha scraped over another deformity in the chimney wall. The Lewis shook.
"There will be more noise," Vonnie said. "This odyssey will take longer than a sleep cycle, but there's nothing outside except dead ice. You should rest."
Brigit stroked Angelica, too. Both of them huddled around Tom and Hans. --Sleep. Heal. Regroup, Brigit piped. --Young Matriarch guards us. Older Matriarch warms us.
Vonnie and Harmeet settled in. Allowing the sunfish to pile against them was uncomfortable and inconvenient, but it was a necessity. They watched their displays. They listened to the ice murmuring against the hull.
Another hour passed.
In the conn, Ribeiro, DeBrun and Hunt paged through minute-by-minute updates to their sims. There were catacombs beyond the chimney walls in this area, although the region was stable. The missiles and cave-ins near the surface hadn't affected the deep ice. They'd detected a chasm as large as a soccer stadium, three slow-moving rivers, a strand of rock islands -- and few indications of life.
Ben had fired only seventeen nanotags since entering the chimney. Each tag marked an interesting spot for future missions. Radar hinted at old dams among the rock islands, where tribes may have once built reservoirs. Neutrino pulse detected bacterial mats in the rivers. He'd also identified a single clump of fungi.
There were no living sunfish, no Top Clans, no Mid Clans.
Their depth was 12.4 klicks when Troutman reported that their vanguard of ice busters were carving a tunnel through a dense rime of slush where the chimney was almost completely blocked.
The busters were 1.7 klicks ahead. In fifteen minutes, the Lewis would join them. Below the slush was a near-solid layer of ice, slush again, then liquid water.
The busters fortified the sides of the tunnel as they drilled. Nevertheless, it was slumping shut, so it would need to be excavated again. DeBrun posted a countdown for Vonnie and Harmeet on one of the displays inside hab one. Their GPs would bring the Lewis to full stop before it nosed into the slush with its grinders and saws.
As they grew closer, Vonnie nudged Brigit, rousing her. The sunfish had slept for seventy minutes. They needed more, but Vonnie didn't want them to wake abruptly. Their reflex would be to lash out. They could maim Harmeet.
"We're going to stop," she said. "Our tools will make horrible sounds."
Angelica and Tom bumbled against her, confused. One of Angelica's arm tightened painfully on Vonnie's ankle. "Mm!" Harmeet cried, pressing her lips together. Hans had clenched around Harmeet's waist.
"Let her go!" Vonnie yelled. Slapping each sunfish, she said, "Wake up. We've reached an area where there's slush and ice. Our tools will make loud sounds as we dig."
--Digging? Digging? Tom piped. He seemed to be the first to regain consciousness.
Hans let go of Harmeet.
"I'm sorry," Vonnie said, but Harmeet summoned a firm look and shook her head.
"Don't apologize," Harmeet said. "This is who they are."
"Wait. Are they..." Vonnie drew her fingertips along the skin around Tom's amputated stump. Then she turned to Hans. Tom's hemorrhagic bruises were fading, and both males had fewer, smaller fungal infections among the stubby spikes on their topsides. In the dim light and the shadows, Vonnie hadn't seen the change until they untangled themselves from sleeping in a pile. "What was in those shots I gave them? I can't believe they healed so fast."
Harmeet offered her enigmatic smile. She seemed pleased and frightened, too. "This is who they are, Von. As a genesmith, I have to envy their metabolism and immune system."
Vonnie narrowed her eyes. That sounds like something Dawson would say, she thought. She wished she'd demanded more answers from her friend, but she hadn't wanted to disturb the sunfish while they slept.
She also didn't want to pursue the subject in front of them. They were improving. For now, that was
enough.
Tom and Hans responded to her thoughts by squirming against her. --Stronger! Stronger! they cried. --We can scout! We can fight!
The Lewis heaved as one of their GPs lost its grip on the ice, sliding through a wet, loose part of the chimney wall. Then it struck firm ice again. Its claws dug in, scratching and scraping.
"Two minutes," DeBrun said.
Brigit and Angelica were communicating in the matriarchs' private language. The intricate contact between the wriggling undersides of their arms did not escape the AIs, who wrote a transcript on the display: New wealth! New water! We will kill the Low Clans!
The sunfish couldn't see their own words, and Vonnie acted like she hadn't noticed. She acted like she was nervous about their upcoming maneuver. To Harmeet and the sunfish, she said, "Make sure you're lying flat. Check your straps. We could hit hard. You don't want whiplash."
They weren't at the Great Ocean yet. They'd encountered the icy shell of a broad lake. Over time, it had frozen and unfrozen, allowing gases and heat to percolate up through the chimney. The shell was multi-layered and uneven. After piercing it, they would descend another five to seven klicks before they reached the base of the frozen sky.
Long before then, the chimney would open into flooded branches like the root structure of a tree, offering more room for the Lewis, although this immense labyrinth would be cluttered with various substances. Their sims indicated blotches of sulfur and ammonia. They might encounter rafts of pumice or bands of rock dust. Possibly they'd find rotting organic slime or plankton or algae.
Other solids would be hazardous. They were prepared to meet broken-off rock islands, old spires of lava and the towering girth of fin mountains. Some of the mountains would contain magma chambers and cone or shield volcanoes. There would be hydrothermal vents.
They were approaching O'Neal's "middle zone." Angelica and Brigit believed they'd find lifeforms. That was good news, and, for Vonnie, maybe there was no bad news.
Anyone could have predicted that the sunfish wanted to fight the Low Clans. Even their treaties with their neighbors started with bloodshed. They had no concept of 'We come in peace'... but would the brawn of the Lewis and its mecha cause the Low Clans to yield?
Or would the Low Clans attack?
"One minute," DeBrun said as they approached the lake's shell. Not far ahead, their third buster churned after the other two, re-opening the tunnel. Radar showed a slouching pit of mush and churned ice.
"Hunt, Sierzenga, take your time," Ribeiro said. "Get us through safely. I expect the same degree of excellence in your piloting as when we were trapped."
"Thank you, Colonel," Hunt said.
"It wasn't us, sir," Ash chimed in. "The sub handles like a dream and our mecha are well-programmed."
What a suck up, Vonnie thought, although she wanted to give Ash the benefit of the doubt. She assumed Ash was playing nice with Ribeiro so he'd treat everyone better.
The sunfish clacked at her puckish mood.
The Lewis rattled. Outside, their mecha dragged on the chimney walls, slowing them. They stopped.
Meanwhile, the doppelgänger that had run ahead of the ice busters was waiting. Vonnie had forgotten it was down here. The doppelgänger neatly clamped itself to the Lewis's tail.
Their saws whined. They nosed into the heavy slush as their GPs clanked along their hull, taking positions beside the doppelgänger. Their grinders shrieked. The heating elements thrummed. The Lewis wobbled and shimmied with a hundred different vibrations.
Vonnie asked Harmeet, "If you don't think there's a civilization in the water, why did you come?"
Harmeet offered another melancholy smile. "I have a job to do. I hope we'll find everything you want."
"What about the sunfish on Io? If they didn't launch ships from the Great Ocean, they must have come from Ganymede or Callisto, maybe Titan or Enceladus," she added, referring to two of Saturn's moons. "Hell, their empire could have begun on Mars. We know there were glaciers and running water on Mars before its atmosphere boiled off. There are fossils of bacterial growths and other things we can't identify."
The sunfish stirred against her. Angelica prodded Tom and Hans. The males screeched.
--Where? Empire? Gone? Where?
They'd misinterpreted some of Vonnie's words. They thought she'd named distant areas of Europa, not other moons and planets. They were still learning about the solar system and astrophysics. More crucial to the sunfish, they preferred resources that they could touch, not pronouncements of lost riches or greatness. They wanted answers, but Vonnie had been instructed not to speak of Io in front of them.
Ribeiro said, "Watch yourself, Vonderach."
"Colonel, the matriarchs will be more cooperative if we let them participate."
"Your suggestion was noted."
"This is a new suggestion. We'll need time to rig an interface they can control. They need some time to practice."
"Metzler, you've calculated our progress?"
Ben said, "It'll be slow for at least an hour. Then we'll hit open water -- more open, I mean. We won't have room to spread out until we're in the ocean. The chimney widens but it's crammed with guck and rock. Our sims are good to two klicks in places, although we have blind spots at eight hundred meters. It's gonna be like swimming in a big pot of chili."
"Sir, we could use another set of ears," DeBrun said.
"Vonderach, stay where you are," Ribeiro said. "Our mecha can install a sonar station for the sunfish. Coordinate with Sierzenga. My first requirement is that it's equipped with a kill switch. Second, disable their gear block so it's passive only. They cannot be allowed to use active sonar."
"Yes, sir," Vonnie said. She agreed with keeping long-range sounds exclusively under human control. They didn't want the sunfish to scream their challenges into the dark.
"Von, I'll send a GP to your door," Ash said. "Give me five minutes to prep."
"Roger that. Bring them food, please." Vonnie explained what she and Ash were doing. The matriarchs lashed and the males snapped their beaks, pleased to be joined by a metal warrior. To them, the addition of a mecha in hab one was an affirmation of their importance.
--We are Ghost Clan Thirty! Hans cried.
Next, Vonnie turned to Harmeet. She'd gotten what she wanted from Ribeiro. She also wanted more from her friend.
"The evidence supports a technological civilization," she said. "I realize the ocean is poisonous, but a spacefaring civilization could protect itself. If they came from another moon, they might have colonies down there."
Harmeet studied Vonnie's defiant expression. Then she said, "Did William confide to you that he's become more favorable toward the sunfish?"
"Yes. He used those exact words."
"You should speak with him. William, are you on the group feed? I'd like--"
"Hold it," Ben said. "She doesn't need a lecture from him. I can tell you straight out that we're about to enter the most biologically diverse area on this moon. The least diverse are the niche ecologies in the ice. Some of them cover as much volume as a block of highrises. Maybe someday we'll find one as large as New York. Big deal. This area is the foundation. It supports the whole food chain. And below it? Another foundation. An older foundation."
"Ben," Vonnie said, but he was on a roll.
He was boasting. He was jealous of Harmeet's closeness to her, so he'd accused Dawson of giving lectures before delivering a lecture of his own. He said, "Something has kept the sunfish out of the Great Ocean. Maybe it's the Low Clans or predators. Maybe it's a foreign empire. It could be all three."
"Ben, you always interrupt," Vonnie said.
"No, I don't. People interrupt me. Ribeiro interrupted me a few minutes ago. You interrupted me when--"
"Don't be a pest." Vonnie looked at Harmeet, wanting her to finish her comments about Dawson. "What were you going to say?" Vonnie asked.
"Nothing. Ben made several valid points. Let's get ready for Ash's mecha," Harmeet said as their dis
play flashed with an alert. They heard the mecha above them. "You should explain what we're doing again. We don't want Tom or Hans to wreck the equipment."
"Right," Vonnie said.
Harmeet's caution was sensible, but her round face was a mask and the sunfish squirmed as if prying at a buried treat. Harmeet was often thoughtful. It was unlike her to be reticent.
The hatch opened. Tom screeched as the mecha squeezed through with a case of tools and hardware. It was also carrying bulbs of orange juice and a mesh bag of eels. Its feet rang on the ceiling, then the wall.
None of the sunfish jumped at the hatch. It closed.
Vonnie's gaze remained on Harmeet. Before the battle, after they rescued O'Neal, during the few days when most of them had basked in their accomplishments, Harmeet had been pensive. Vonnie recalled asking her if she was okay.
Whatever she's holding onto, it's bothered her for a while, but she kept it to herself. Did she tell Earth? Was she ordered not to say anything?
I don't know if I can handle another surprise.
15.
Eighty minutes later, they transitioned from the crackling base of the frozen sky into the middle zone, a poorly delineated region that might have been better described as the hectic, rolling surface of the Great Ocean.
In places, the water slapped at the ice. Waves swelled and receded. There were rushing currents, slow currents -- or no currents at all.
Some areas had quietly flooded.
Others were in the process of coming apart or freezing solid again, altering the currents, creating new waves and tides. The noise was deafening. The crunching ice and the busy ocean were never-ending riots.
As they plunged from the ice into a stretch of open water, the Lewis leveled out. The floor became the floor again. The work stations in the conn and the furniture in the hab rooms were realigned. They descended into the uppermost layers of the ocean like a gazelle at a drinking hole, skittish, ears pricked, poised and alert.
Vonnie's stomach gurgled. Her midriff felt empty and tight. She was thirsty. Her muscles had stiffened from lying on her crash couch. The stink in hab one was eye-searing. The sunfish had continued to soil the room -- and she was hardly aware of her hunger pangs.
