The Ambassador had a most odd expression on his face. Flammarion would have said it was embarrassment, had he been able to think of any reason for such a look. He said urgently to Milly, “Don’t turn off the monitor!”
“Of course I won’t.” She sniffed. “And don’t you try to teach me my business, Flammarion. I’ve been doing this for years, and I know how to read MacDougal. When he gets that pie-faced look something peculiar is on the way. Sit tight, keep quiet, and maybe you’ll learn something.”
* * *
“Something to eat? Something to drink?”
The Ambassador was over by the Star Chamber’s service machine, fiddling nervously with the controls.
“Nothing.” Chan sat with arms folded and knees together. “Cut the crap, MacDougal. You knew, didn’t you?”
“About the ending of the quarantine? I swear, it was a total surprise—”
“About the Geyser Swirl. I’d never heard of the place, but you had. I could see your face in the little monitor on my seat, and when they said that their expeditions hadn’t come back, you nodded.”
“I knew about their expeditions, but that wasn’t what had me worried. It was whatever I knew.” MacDougal moved to sit across from Chan. He had a gigantic drink in his left hand and placed another just as big on the table next to him. “Cheers.” He raised the glass he was holding and took a long draft. “God, I needed that. I had no idea they were going to talk about the Swirl, and when they did I was more afraid of what they might know than what they might tell us. Look, Dalton, you’ve not been off Earth for a long time. You know they closed all the remote Links so we can’t use them?”
“Of course I do. If it weren’t for that I wouldn’t be down on Earth. I’d be out where the action is — where it used to be, near the Perimeter.”
“Then you should have some idea how frustrating it has been for me; Ambassador to the Stellar Group, and I can’t even visit another star or a planet outside the solar system. It’s been twenty years. We keep on testing, living in hopes that we might find a Link open. Nothing. The Stellar Group has some sort of general Link inhibitor that closes down everything for human ships. Or it did. About seven months ago, we picked up a signal from a new Link. You can guess where.”
“In the Geyser Swirl.”
“Right. The Swirl is at the edge of Angel territory, and we knew next to nothing about it. As the Angel said, it just seems like an uninteresting clot of dust, a few lightyears across, with no Sol-type stars. Why put a Link there? The answer was, nobody did. So humans never felt a reason to go there when we had Link access. When we picked up the signs of a new Link, we thought the Angels must have opened it. We did our usual tests, expecting the usual “denied access” message. But we didn’t get that. The return signal said the Link was open to our ships.”
“So why didn’t you go there?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We did! We sent the Mood Indigo , a small exploration vessel with a crew of three, through an outward Link near the Vulcan Nexus with destination the Geyser Swirl Link.”
“And it never came back.”
“Exactly. Of course, it could not be an official expedition. We hired a highly competent and experienced private team, whose members realized that we would deny any connection if the Stellar Group ever found out what had happened and started asking questions. But that meant we couldn’t ask the Stellar Group for help if the Mood Indigo got into trouble. The ship is long overdue, and we assume that everyone on board is dead. So you see, there have actually been three test cases, the way that you wanted. And it’s worse than you think. If the Mood Indigo had problems, it was equipped with a recorder that should have fired back through the Link automatically. Even if the rest of the ship were destroyed, the recorder ought to come home. It didn’t. That means the ship must be a dead and derelict hulk, totally shattered. Somebody in the Geyser Swirl is catching Stellar Group ships and disintegrating them before they can return through the Link.”
“Marvelous. And you think I’m keen to charge off to the Swirl, after hearing all that? One of us is crazy.”
“You’ve had experience in other stellar systems. We would give you the toughest ship and the best crew that you could ask for. And it’s obvious that this time the other Stellar Group members will do everything they can to help.”
“Everything, except let us defend ourselves if some crazy alien comes screaming in to kill us. Then I guess we just lie down and roll over. Ambassador, it isn’t just no. It’s no way . Unless certain other conditions are met.”
“There’s more.” MacDougal gestured to the other glass. “Here. Drink that. You’re going to need it.”
“Why? What else didn’t you bother to tell me before the Star Chamber meeting?”
“Not a thing. I told you everything I knew then. But now that the meeting is over, I’ll tell you one other thing.” Dougal MacDougal leaned closer to Chan. “I’m an Ambassador. With only the two of us here, I’m willing to say I’m just an Ambassador. Lots of robes and uniforms and ceremonies, but I’m not one of the real power brokers in the solar system. Now, the Stellar Group is offering to end the quarantine . To open up the universe. Do you have any idea how much that means to groups like Unimine, or Foodlines, or Infotech?”
“I can guess.”
“I don’t think you can. The Stellar Group can’t stand violence, but some of the corporate boys seem to thrive on it. You tell them you won’t cooperate to end the quarantine. You tell them you want to go back to Earth. You’ll go back to Earth all right — without a Link, and without a rocket. You’ll do a solo reentry with or without a space suit and return home as a puff of dust.”
Chan reached out and picked up the glass from the table. He drank long and deep, then said, “Now you’re giving me the sort of logic I understand. I agree to go, or they skin me alive.”
“If they’re feeling in a kind mood. You’re going, then?”
“I still need to think about it.”
“Then you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”
“Or I’m smarter. There’s something else. You sat in the meeting. Let me tell you something you didn’t notice.”
“I watched everything.”
“But you didn’t catch this, or you’d have said something about it already. You tell me the other Stellar Group members will do everything they can to help. But I’m not sure of that. They sent two expeditions to the Geyser Swirl, right?”
“That’s what they told us.”
“And I feel sure they were telling the truth. But why? Why two expeditions?”
“Obviously, because the first one didn’t come back.”
“That’s obvious to you, and obvious to me. But you know the Pipe-Rillas and the Tinkers and the Angels. They’re not risk takers. It must have been hard work persuading one team of theirs to head into unknown territory like the Geyser Swirl. And then they persuaded a second one to go?”
“Apparently they did. They do not lie.”
“Think about that second ship. The Stellar Group members are born cowards. They wouldn’t go for the love of exploration, or for scientific curiosity.” Chan shook his head. “For that, they’d send unmanned probes. I don’t have proof of this, but I’ll tell you what I think. I think that the Stellar Group believes something enormously valuable may be hidden in the Geyser Swirl. So valuable, they were willing to send one expedition, and then another when that one didn’t come back. Think of it, a whole new Link — think where it might take you, think what you might find there.” Chan raised his glass and emptied it in one long swallow. “How keen are they to learn what happened in the Geyser Swirl? I don’t know. But we’ll get some idea — when we hear their response to my own conditions before I’ll say yes.”
3: ABOARD THE MOOD INDIGO
The Terran exploration ship Mood Indigo was not the dead, derelict hulk described by Dougal MacDougal. It carried a crew of three: owner and captain Friday Indigo, chief engineer and astrogator Bony Rombel
le, and general factotum Liddy Morse.
They were certainly alive; but what they were, more than anything, was confused. They had entered a Link near the Vulcan Nexus, so close to Sol that the sun’s flaming surface filled more than thirty degrees of the sky. Their destination was set as the Geyser Swirl. They expected to emerge in open space, at a location about as close to a star, planet or dust cloud as their departure Link was close to Sol. What should not happen — what the Link system should not permit to happen — was an arrival at a place where something was already there. The Link navigator would detect the presence of matter, and abort the transfer.
So much for theory.
Bony Rombelle stared out of the port at an expanse of cloudy green that faded off into the distance without discernible features. According to his instruments, the ship was in a weak gravity field and gently descending.
“Rombelle!” That was Friday Indigo’s harsh voice, crackling through from the cabin. “I show us clear of the Link exit. Report our location and status.”
Obviously, the captain was focused on the controls and not looking outside.
“All internal ship readings are normal, sir.” Bony peered again through the port, looking downward. “However, sir, we appear to be under water.”
“What! Liddy, keep an eye on things in here.” Friday Indigo popped out of the interior cabin. He was mousy-looking and short, something he tried to hide with exotic, expensive clothes and elevator heels. He stared at the port with bulging eyes, beneath eyebrows that ran straight across with no break. “My God. How did we get here?”
“I have no idea. But we’re descending, and I can’t see the bottom.” Bony glanced at his dials. “No problem so far, the hull can stand four or five atmospheres. We’re not a submarine, though. If we sink too deep …”
“We’ll be flattened. How about the drive?”
It sounded logical, but it made Bony shudder. His supposed training in science and engineering was mostly his own invention, but he knew he was smart and he did have a feel for what you could and could not do. Flying a spaceship underwater was definitely in the latter category.
“Not the fusion drive, sir, that’s right out. I could probably fix the auxiliary ion thrusters to work in water — if it is water — but not without going outside to make a few changes.”
“Then go outside. I assume you can?”
“Go outside, yes. And the suits will work there, no problem. It’s coming back in that’s the hard part. The airlock would be full of water, and we’d need to raise the air pressure high enough to force the water out.” Bony thought about it. “I believe we can do that, given time. But we don’t have time. If we keep going down at the rate we are, we have only a few more minutes before the hull collapses.”
Friday glared accusingly at Bony, as though the whole problem was the fault of his engineer. “Then hold tight. I’m going to start the drive, and the hell with it.”
He headed for the control cabin, leaving Bony with a familiar sensation. Out of the frying pan, into the — what? Bony had signed on with Friday and the Mood Indigo near the solar hotspot known as the Vulcan Nexus. He had done that to escape a difficult situation back in the solar system. Now he was facing a worse one.
He stared warily at the cloudy green beyond the port. What happened if you tried to light a fusion torch under water? Bony’s knowledge of nuclear physics was sketchy, but surely there was a good chance that you would initiate a fusion reaction within the water itself, annihilating everything in one giant explosion. Was it water out there? That seemed logical, but the Geyser Swirl was a very strange place and they didn’t have proof. Given a few minutes, Bony could take a sample from outside, make a few tests, and prove that it was water. But he did not have a few minutes.
Loud cursing came from the inner cabin. “Rombelle! Get your fat ass in here right now. The fusion drive doesn’t work!”
Thank God. Drowning, maybe, but no instant incineration. Bony stood up to walk the few steps through to the control cabin. Then he paused. Looking down, he could see that outside the port there was no longer a featureless cloud. Below the ship was a forest of spears, their points stretching upward. The Mood Indigo was dropping straight down onto them.
“Hold tight! We’re going to hit bottom.” Bony followed his own advice and grabbed for the back of a seat, but the warning was a little too late. Amidst a crystalline tinkling sound like fairy bells — it came from right outside and underneath the ship — they smacked into the seabed.
Bony held his breath and waited. This might be it , the end of everything. A space pinnace like the Mood Indigo was designed to withstand certain stresses encountered during travel in space. It was not intended to bear the forces that came from contact with an array of sharp, up-pointed spears, at some unknown depth in some unknown ocean.
The hull flexed and groaned like an old man in pain. The cabin floor trembled and tilted. The port next to Bony, normally flat, bowed in a little under the pressure. And, from the control cabin, the voice of Friday Indigo came again. “Rombelle! You fat-ass idiot, what are you playing at out there? I’ve lost sensor readouts. Get in here!”
Business as usual. If Friday was yelling, they must still be alive.
Bony took the few steps through to the inner cabin. He couldn’t say he hadn’t been warned. Never get involved in a venture with a man who inherited his money and didn’t earn any himself. He’ll assume he’s smarter than you are, just because he’s rich and you’re not, and he’ll expect you to bow down to his greatness because for all his life people have. Bony had known Indigo for less than a week, but the man fitted the rich-man model to perfection. Friday Indigo; descendant of one of the original heirs to the Yang diamond; only son of a Kuiper Belt developer who was killed by a Persephone tunnel cave-in; self-proclaimed entrepreneur, space expert, and daring explorer.
And a bombastic, domineering little turd who never did a day’s work in his life and blames other people for everything that ever goes wrong. Liddy, how can you share a bed with him?
Bony muttered that under his breath; then he popped his head into the control cabin. “Yes, Captain?”
Friday Indigo waved his hand at the display. “What have you done to those sensors?”
Bony glanced at the screen. “The ones you are pointing to are located at the rear of the ship. We came down tail-first, so I assume they were crushed when we hit the bottom of the sea.”
“Well, do whatever needs doing to get them working again. I can’t fly this ship when it’s blind.”
Or when you can see. You brought us here, wherever here is. “Yes, sir. It may take a while. First, I need to learn what the environment outside the ship is like.”
“What are you talking about, what it’s like . You can see it, can’t you?”
“I need to know how deep we are. What the external pressure is. What the seabed is made of. If it’s water out there, or something else.”
“Of course it’s water. What else could it be? Don’t waste time on pointless tests. And you, my girl.” Friday rounded on Liddy Morse. “Go with him, try to be useful for a change. Expand your repertoire, do something different from the usual.”
He patted her rump in a proprietary way. Liddy gave Friday Indigo a look which to Bony’s outraged eye combined equal parts of resignation and discomfort, but she followed Bony down a short ladder toward the rear part of the ship.
“And while you’re at it,” Friday called after them, “find out where we are.”
That’s right, Bony thought. Save the hardest question for last.
He moved downward carefully, measuring the pressure on his foot at each step. At the bottom he turned. “Try and estimate as you put your feet down, Liddy. How much would you say you weigh?”
He watched her descent and cursed his own cravings for food. Liddy was so slim and graceful, she made him feel as fat and clumsy as an elephant. She stepped easily all the way down and paused at the bottom for a moment to think.
“A
lot less than on Earth. I was only on Mars once, but I think I weigh less than there, too. Maybe half of that — about the same as on the Moon or Ganymede.”
“That’s my guess, too. About one-sixth of Earth gravity.”
“Does that tell you anything?”
“Nothing useful.” He grinned at her, and was delighted when Liddy smiled back. She was a different person when she was not around Friday Indigo. He wondered, not for the first time, how a delicate and sensitive young woman like her came to be on board a dangerous expedition to nowhere.
And, thinking of nowhere … “I have no idea where we are, but the low gravity may be the reason we are alive. Water pressure at depth is a lot less here, so the ship’s hull can stand the force. Let’s see what else we can find out.”
Time to show off in front of Liddy. And it wouldn’t be easy. Everything about the Mood Indigo , inside and out, had been designed for a vacuum environment. Bony had to make things work on the ocean bed.
He went to the tailmost port on the ship and took another look outside. The array of spears had shattered under the impact and lay in pieces beyond the hull. Visual inspection suggested fragile, crystalline structures. Just as well, or the hull of the Mood Indigo might have been damaged by them.
If the liquid outside was water, they couldn’t be too deep. Bony could make out no shadows, but he had a definite impression that he was seeing by light that streamed in from above.
Was it sunlight from some local star in the Geyser Swirl, diffusing down through the liquid and slowly being scattered and absorbed as it came to greater depths? Probably. But Friday Indigo would say, rightly, that guesswork was not proof. They needed to find a way to get outside and float up to the surface. But before that, they must have samples. Suppose it was acid out there, acid that was even now eating its way through the ship’s hull?
Bringing a sample into the Mood Indigo was much easier than taking a person out of it. The liquid, whatever it was, would have filled the little cylinders of the fusion drive normally exposed to open space. He could isolate one of those and retract it without leaving the ship.
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