“Are you suggesting that we ask your froth-men the way to the nearest land?”
“No, sir!” Bony wanted nothing to do with those floating assemblies of bubbles. “I noticed that when I was outside and high on the underwater slope, the light seemed a lot brighter. It makes me think we’re not perhaps all that deep, maybe as little as thirty meters. The buoyancy of the heavy water is greater than ordinary water, because of its greater density. We might be able to float the ship to the surface more easily than we think.”
“Not a bad idea.” Indigo smiled at Bony. “Good work, Rombelle. Of course, before we do anything with the ship we have to be sure what we’ll find up at the surface. Are you volunteering to go out again and take a look?”
Bony was proposing no such thing. He had seen enough of deep-sea diving in modified space-suits for one day.
Before he could reply, Liddy said, “Let me do it. I’m no use fixing things inside the ship, but I’m sure I can put on a suit as well as anyone and go up to the surface.”
“Do it soon,” Indigo said, “before we have to worry about it getting dark.” And, as Bony tried to hide his surprise, “Did you think I was doing nothing, while you two were playing your games with airlocks and romping around outside? I adapted one of our light-meters and I’ve been monitoring the ambient light level for the ship since the time we arrived. This planet has a twenty-nine-hour day, and we’re more than halfway through the cycle. That means we have maybe five more hours before darkness.”
“I’ll get ready right now,” said Liddy. Bony was still staring at Friday Indigo. He had written the man off completely, and now here came common sense and a talent for improvisation. Maybe you didn’t have to be an idiot just because you were rich.
Indigo was nodding at Liddy. “Carry on, as soon as you’re ready. Be sure to carry extra weights and inflate your suit extra hard when you go up. That way, when you bleed away the excess air you’ll sink straight back down to the ship. The trip up to the surface will be useful even if you can’t see land. We can go again after it gets dark and try for a fix on the stars. That will answer one other important question: where are we in the Geyser Swirl.”
More sound sense from Friday Indigo. But Bony recalled the shape that had flown over him as he stood on the seabed, a form like a great three-leaf clover. Was that at the surface, or above it? He found himself saying, against his better judgment, “There may be other things up there. Don’t you think I should go with Liddy, as a backup if things go wrong? And shouldn’t we take a line with us, so that we can pull ourselves back if we get into trouble? And if we attach an insulated wire, we can have continuous two-way communication with the ship even though the radios don’t work in water.”
Indigo laughed. “My God, that’s four ideas from you in one day. You’re less of a fool than you look.”
A dubious compliment, at best. But Indigo was continuing, “Now here’s an idea for you. You said you intended to see if the suit control thrustors would still work under water, but you didn’t do it when you were outside. So why don’t you try it now? You can cruise around a bit on the way up or on the way down. Maybe you’ll see your mysterious froth-men, and find out what they are up to.”
It was phrased as a cheerful invitation, but Bony was under no illusions. He had to go outside again and face the horrible bubble creatures.
He turned to Liddy. “I’ll come and help you to operate the airlock. Just give me a half a minute, then I’ll be with you.”
Bony’s urge to go to the bathroom had returned. This time he felt sure that it would not vanish by itself.
8: RECRUITING AT THE VULCAN NEXUS
Salamander Row sits on the sunward side of the Vulcan Nexus. Shielded by four hundred million square kilometers of solar collectors, there is no visible evidence on the Row that the flaming disk of the Sun’s photosphere lies less than two million kilometers away. Other than the Salamanders, the residents of the Row need never see the Sun and can remain oblivious of the solar presence.
The Salamanders themselves are a different matter. As monitors and custodians of the great array they ride their refrigerated spacecraft hair-raisingly close to the solar furnace, skimming low above vast hydrogen flares and across the Earth-sized whirlpools of sunspots. Occasionally a cooling unit fails. Vehicle recovery is performed — always — but never the bodies of the crew members. Those are burned, what remains of them, out in space by their Salamander brethren. On Salamander Row, by convention, the names of the dead are recorded but they are not talked about. The Salamanders refuse to admit the power of King Sun. Other residents of the Row often seem determined to deny his existence.
That is their privilege. It is, however, a privilege denied to the occasional visitor. Before an arriving ship can reach the Nexus and the Row, it must first drive inward until the eye of the Sun fills half the sky. Although the temperature inside the ship never rises past a comfort level, the psychological heat mounts by the minute.
Danny Casement had shed his jacket before they crossed the orbit of Mercury. Now he mopped at his wrinkled forehead, stared at the port where the photo-glass turned the solar disk to an opaque circle of dark gray, and wondered how many more minutes to Nexus rendezvous.
And he, believe it or not, had chosen this. Chan Dalton, worried about schedule, had offered him a choice: did he want Europa, or the Vulcan Nexus?
“You out of your mind?” Danny, packing the things he would need on the Hero’s Return and sending everything else to sealed storage, stared at Chan. “If you think I’m going to invite Deb Bisson on a trip with you as leader, you can think again. Anyone says your name to her, he’d better be ready to go home with teeth marks in his ass. You dumped her. You go to Europa.”
It made sense at the time. Chan would go to Europa, find Tully O’Toole, and face Deb; but there was a trade-off: Danny had to go to Salamander Row and look for the Bun.
The ship was smart enough to fly itself and the only other person on board was a woman. Expensively dressed, clearly a lady, striking in appearance although no longer young, Alice Tannenbaum was big-bosomed and strongly built. Casement prime choice, under normal circumstances. She had also shown interest in Danny. Almost as soon as they had introduced themselves, Alice was saying, “If you have never been to the Vulcan Nexus before, I would love to serve as your personal tour guide.” A little smile and a sideways glance. “The Nexus offers pastimes that most visitors never see.”
“Ah — er — well.” Danny did his own sideways glance, to where the occluded disk of the Sun loomed ever larger. Soon it would fill the whole port. “I — er — I — um.” After a few replies of that caliber, she apparently decided that she was dealing with a half-wit and retreated to the rear of the passenger cabin.
Well, maybe she was. If the known dangers of the Vulcan Nexus gave you fits, how would you manage the unknown ones of the Geyser Swirl? You wouldn’t, unless you took a better hold of yourself. And if she knew the Nexus, she might be able to save him some time.
Danny made a mighty effort, stood up from his seat, and wandered toward the back of the cabin. He smiled at his fellow passenger.
“I’m sorry I was rude a few minutes ago. This is quite an overwhelming experience, flying so close to the Sun.”
“That’s understandable. You’ll get used to it after a while.” She moved along the seat, making room for him. “Where are you from, Jack?”
He had assumed a false name and identity for this journey as a matter of course, without ever expecting it to come in useful. Danny, who for the moment was Jack Eckart and had better not forget it, made a more detailed inspection of Alice Tannenbaum. She had to be close to his age, but she was far better preserved. The skin of her face and hands was smooth and unlined. And she must be rich. Those epidermal rebuilders cost real money.
“I’d say that I’m from pretty much all over.” He sat down next to her. “Born out among the Saturnian moons, spent a while on Mars, a while on Earth, a while on Ganymede. If it hadn’
t been for the quarantine, I might be somewhere out among the stars by now.”
“That’s so exciting.” She turned as though to glance out of the port, but actually to display her profile, which she must know showed her to advantage. “You make me feel like I’ve been nowhere and done nothing. Never to Mars or Ceres, never to the Jovian moons. I wanted to, but my family wouldn’t allow it.”
“But you’ve been to the Vulcan Nexus before.”
“A hundred times. That’s different. Coming here is a family tradition. We were one of the Nexus first families, involved from day one.”
The Vulcan Nexus was a major supplier of power for the whole system, drinking in solar energy through the giant arrays and sending it out to destinations as far away as Persephone in tightly collimated microwave beams. Abundant energy — at a price. Anyone with a piece of the Vulcan Nexus revenue stream had money to throw away.
Danny was here to see if he could find the Bun, not to pursue personal business interests. But the urge to play the game a little was irresistible, particularly when the target was as tempting as Alice Tannenbaum. He justified his next words with the thought that he would need help if he was to explore the Nexus in a day or less. He said casually, “I suppose I’ve been a user of your service and never realized it. The past few years I’ve been on one of the Saturnian moons, and we have a big receiver for energy from the Vulcan Nexus.”
“Really.” She turned to stare at him with wide hazel eyes. “What were you doing out there, Jack?”
“My family’s business.” Danny glanced carefully around the cabin, though the nearest human other than Alice Tannenbaum was a million kilometers away. “I was on Hyperion, busy with diamond mining operations.”
He watched closely. Her reaction would decide what came next. Everyone in the system knew about Raxon Yang and his five-centuries-old discovery on Hyperion. Early explorers of the solar system had more or less ignored the lumpy, uneven hunk of rock that formed the seventh major satellite of Saturn. Old Yang, with nothing better to do, had landed on Hyperion and followed a surface fissure down and down and down. Seven kilometers below the surface he came to the upper face of the Yang diamond.
Even after the claim was filed, it took a while to learn exactly what he had. The Yang diamond had the shape of a forty-legged octopus. Its head, seven kilometers below the surface, was almost spherical and fourteen kilometers across. The legs ran out and down, each one half a kilometer wide and thirty to forty kilometers long.
Mining the Yang diamond had created the Vault of Hyperion, home to a polyglot melange of industries. Now no diamond was exported — because there was none left to export.
The first question was, did Alice Tannenbaum know that?
She did. She was frowning at Danny. “But Jack, I thought that the diamond was all—”
Danny was ahead of her. “Not the original one, of course. That’s long gone. But a few years ago we had seismic hints that there might be another one. We organized a private offering, formed a new stable of investors, and began prospecting. The exploration was very difficult. We were about ready to give up when a month ago we struck lucky. Actually, that’s why I’ve come to the Vulcan Nexus. We have been unable to reach one of our larger investors, and I’ve been sent to find him. If you are a regular visitor to the Nexus, maybe you’ve run across him. His name is Bonifant Rombelle. Some people know him as Senor Bonifant, others as Bunnyfat Ramble; but his close friends call him Bun or the Bun.”
“I never heard of him.” Alice’s face showed her utter lack of interest in hearing more about the lost investor. “You say you `struck lucky.’ Do you mean you found another Yang Diamond?”
“Oh, nothing nearly so big. The new one is smaller, and much deeper. On the other hand, this diamond seems wonderfully pure and without flaws. So yes, it’s a very significant find. It will make many people very rich.”
If Alice Tannenbaum owned part of the Vulcan Nexus power stream, she was already very rich. But one thing that Danny had learned, early in life, was this: people, no matter how much money they had, never felt that it was enough.
Sure enough, Alice was leaning toward him. “I suppose that your original private offering was fully subscribed.”
“It was indeed.”
“Oh, phooey. How long will it be before you know for sure the quality of the new stones?”
“Oh, we know that already. The new mine will be every bit as good as the original Yang diamond, possibly even better. As a matter of fact … excuse me for just a moment.”
Danny went forward, retrieved his jacket, and returned to Alice. He reached into one of the pockets and took out a black pouch. “A small sample, something I intended to leave with Bonifant Rombelle when I find him. But it will give you some idea …”
* * *
Twelve hours later, Danny was beginning to change his mind about a number of things. First, the Nexus itself was not a well-lit or a hot place. The collector array sucked in every last erg of solar power so that, nestled in behind and sheltered by it, Salamander Row was one of the coldest places of the system, as dark and chilly as interstellar space. Danny was comfortable with that. He didn’t find space at all terrifying. Second, this was, as Alice Tannenbaum had suggested, a place where with the right companion you could have a whooping good time. The residents of the Row didn’t seem to believe in moderation in anything. Finally, there were hints that Alice herself, in spite of her regal appearance, might be anything but a lady.
For one thing, she seemed to know every low-life pit stop in the five-kilometer sprawl of tunnels and chambers that made up Salamander Row, and she apparently had it in mind to dance in all of them before she considered sleeping. She had incredible energy, and when Danny pleaded fatigue and unfamiliarity with zero-gee dance technique she was quite ready to cavort alone, or with anyone else in the place. Danny was happy to go along with that. While Alice enjoyed herself he could have a quiet word with the regulars. There was no better way of making discreet enquiries about Bunnyfat Ramble.
On the other hand, with all his questions he was getting nowhere fast. No one had heard of the Bun, under that or any other of his preferred names. It wasn’t until the sixth port of call that Danny had even a sniff of something promising.
“I never heard of your friend.” The speaker was a tall black man with a face almost invisible behind a tangled beard. He was swaying on his feet and within minutes of final collapse. The cloud of secondhand intoxicants diffusing from him was enough to make Danny dizzy himself. The man stood frowning, as if making a mighty effort to think. At last he said, “D’you say he was good at making gadgets?”
“The best.”
“Then you ought to go find Fireside Elsie. I heard talk of a fancy data tap with a top gadgeteer involved. It came through Fireside Elsie, but I don’t think it was her game. If it was, you can be sure she didn’t do the work herself.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because she’s a bleeding Salamander, that’s why. No Sally would do gadgeting, it’s beneath them.”
“Can you tell me how to find her?”
“I could, but I’m not going to.” The man sat down suddenly. “I’m going to sit here and pass out. Get your friend Leaping Lizzy to take you. She’ll take you all right! Just look at her.”
Danny turned to find Alice beckoning him from the tiny dance area. Her face was aglow, the top fastening of her dress was undone, and her body swayed and undulated to some inaudible rhythm.
The things you did for your friends. I ought to have gone to Europa and let Chan come here . But Danny waved back to her and moved forward. As he crossed the threshold of the dance area the music and the thumping rhythm, focused on the dance floor and inaudible everywhere else, filled his ears.
If you could use the word music for such a cacophony. Danny’s tastes went back to a far earlier era of minuets and waltzes. He came up to Alice, was grabbed, swung around like a feather, and pulled close. He shouted into her ear, “Do you know how to fi
nd Fireside Elsie?”
“Now why would you be interested in a Sally woman?” Alice put her arms around his waist and squeezed him until he couldn’t breathe. “Looking for something hot. Too cool for you, am I?”
“The investor I was telling you about. Fireside Elsie may know him.”
“Phooey. You told me I could keep that diamond.”
“You can.” God, she was strong. It was Danny’s misfortune to find physical strength highly attractive in a woman. He struggled to take a breath and gasped, “But I need to talk to her.”
“Next stop but one you’ll see Fireside Elsie — provided you treat me nice, I’ll show you where. Come on, Jack, let yourself go. Have some fun.”
Her breasts pushed into his chest. Her perfume filled his nostrils. As Danny put his arms around her, he thought, What the hell, you only die once. It might as well be tonight.
* * *
An hour later that prospect no longer seemed so fanciful.
Danny had heard the usual rumors about the Salamanders. They were said to be Artefacts, a prize creation of the Needler lab run by the late Margrave of Fujitsu. The DNA mix in a Salamander was unknown. What was known was that they bred true, unlike any other Artefact, and the body of a dead Salamander was always burned to ashes. Self-immolation was the standard act for any Salamander threatened with capture and inspection.
Danny knew all this, and he had seen pictures; but the real thing was a different matter.
Alice had dropped him off at a dark and airless cavern with a casual, “Here you are. This is the Fireside. I’ll collect you in half an hour. Will that be enough time?”
“Should be. But what are you going to do?”
“Make sure we have a place to sleep.”
“I already made a reservation at the Crystal Gate.”
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