Waela had disconcerted him when they picked up the suits. In shipside style, there were no separate dressing rooms. She had moved right into the try-on area with him. That habit of bodily candor still bothered him. He always found it necessary to turn his back when dressing or undressing with a female companion. Waela, on the other hand, remained frankly direct.
"Raj, did you know that you have a funny-looking mole on your butt?"
Without thinking, he had turned his head toward her just in time to see her stepping into her suit - breasts and pubis exposed. There was just the slightest hesitation in her while she continued dressing, as though she spoke only to his eyes, saying: "Of course I'm a woman. You knew that."
He found himself intensely aware that she was a woman, and there was no denying the magnetic attraction she worked on him. There also was no denying that she knew this and was amused by it in an undefinably gentle way. This knowledge in her might even have contributed to her upset when he asked her to apply sexual pressure to the new team member.
She was right, too. It was cheating.
But what if Ship is cheating us?
Doubts - always doubts. He found himself in silent agreement with some of the things Oakes had said. On the other hand, he could not fault Waela's argument: "We don't help ourselves by cheating each other."
That open candor in her attracted him as much as the chemistry of her physical presence.
But I am the goad, the devil's advocate, the challenger. I am the knight among the pawns.
And he knew he did not have much time. Ship might hand him an impossible deadline at any moment. Or Oakes and his crew might make good on their unspoken threat to cut this project off at the pockets as soon as they dared.
There was no mistaking the latent anger in Waela - it betrayed itself in her stride (a bit too emphatic) and in the way she studied him now when she thought he was not looking. But she would get to Panille and ask all of the proper questions. That was the important thing.
Thomas still felt remnants of her anger as they stepped into the glaring light and bustle at the testing apron where the new sub was cradled. She was all business as she stared up at this creation which had emerged from Thomas' commands.
It was a fat metallic teardrop, slightly elongated, its LTA attachment eyelets extending along the top in a double ridge reminiscent of the backbone of an antediluvian Earthside monster. The principle was relatively simple. Most of the external sub was carrier for the plaz globe of the gondola at the core. Only the drive motors and fuel storage were made strong against the sea's pressures. The carrier had one more important function now visible to her eyes: Vertical lines of plaz-bubble lights extended up and down its sides - each bubble four centimeters in diameter. The trigger system to light them in sequence passed through a computer/sensor feedback program. What the sensor-eyes saw in the ocean depths, these lights could play back. The kelp's patterns would be its patterns, the kelp's rhythms its rhythms.
The chief of Construction Services, Hapat Lavu, came out to meet them at the edge of the lighted area. He was a slender, driving man, completely bald. His gray eyes missed few details of his work and, despite a biting and accusatory tongue which delivered reprimands with thin-lipped fury, he was one of the best-liked Colonists. The common assessment was, "You can depend on Hap."
Dependability gained high marks groundside, and Hap Lavu was fighting for his reputation. Of all the equipment from his shops, only the subs had failed to match Pandora's demands. Sixteen had been lost without a trace; there had been survivors from four, and the wreckage of three others had been located on the bottom. All had been crushed or otherwise disabled by giant strands of kelp.
Lavu's assessment was the opinion of many: "That damn stuff can think and it's a killer."
He had become an admirer of Thomas during their short association. Thomas had taken the accepted sub-components and reworked them into this new design. The only parts of the plan Lavu distrusted involved communications and pickup. He spoke to that as he greeted Thomas: "You should have something better than the rocketsonde. They fail, y'know."
"We'll stick with it," Thomas said.
He knew what worried Lavu. The ubiquitous 'lectrokelp not only clogged the seas, but their electrical activity jammed the communications channels - sonar to radar. Hylighter exhibited similar phenomena. Was there a relationship? There was no pattern to the jamming; it was random squirts of signal activity. Because of this, they depended on high power and line-of-sight relays waterside. Even then, a cloud of hylighters rising from the sea could block transmissions.
"You'll have to surface before you can communicate," Lavu said. "Now, if you'd let me adapt the anchor cable t...."
"Too many lines to the sub," Thomas said. "We could tangle in them."
"Then pray that y'can lift above interference for the relays to take your talk-talk."
Thomas nodded agreement. The plan was to anchor the LTA in a lagoon, slip down the anchor cable in a vertical dive and stay clear of the kelp barriers.
"We'll observe, play back their light patterns and seek any new coherent patterns in the lights or their electrical activity," he had said.
It was a workable plan. Several subs had survived exploratory dives by giving a wide berth to the kelp. It was when the subs went in to take specimens that violence occurred.
Workabl.... but with unavoidable weaknesses.
Their LTA would hang at the surface, tethered on its anchor-line and awaiting the sub's return from the depths. A plan to have another LTA with a lift-gondola anchored or standing by aloft had been scratched. The winds were too unpredictable and it was argued that two LTAs anchored in the same lagoon would pose dangerous maneuvering problems. The necessary size of such an LTA made them difficult to handle in tight quarters. The standard procedure at the hangar was to winch them down after grappling the downhaul hawser. Instead, their LTA bag had been triple-reinforced with compartmented cells.
These arguments went through Thomas' mind as he studied the new submersible.
Was it worth the risk? He felt that he was challenging Ship, but the stakes were the highest.
Will You let me die here, Ship?
No answer, but Ship had said that his destiny was his own now. That was a rule of this game.
If the kelp is sentient and we can make contact, the rewards will be enormous. Intelligent vegetable! Did it WorShip? It could be the key to Ship's demands.
Ship called the kelp intelligent and that could be another twist of this game. Should he doubt?
It occurred to Thomas then that if Ship were telling the truth, the kelp might be close to immortal. Except for specimens damaged by human intrusion, they had never seen dead kelp.
Did it live forever?
"Do y'still reject a standby LTA?" Lavu asked.
"How long could you hold one in sight of us?" Thomas asked.
"Depends on the weather, as y'well know."
There was resentment in Lavu's voice. He took it personally that so many of his creations had been destroyed, all of them equipped as best he knew for underwater survival. The answer, of course, was that Pandora's planet-wide sea contained perils beyond those they knew. Lavu felt that the entire project was now a challenge to him. He did not want to quit. It was more than a concern about hardware. Lavu wanted to go out as crew.
"How else can I learn what's needed if I don't go out m'self?"
"No," Thomas said.
All right, Ship. This will be the big throw of the dice.
Devil, why do you persist in such overly dramatic poses? This time, he expected the response and was ready for it.
Because they won't listen to me here unless I become bigger than life to them.
Life can never be bigger than itself.
Lavu patted the outer surface of the sub as Waela moved up beside him. She had been listening to the undertones in the conversation between Thomas and Lavu.
What drives Thomas? she wondered.
She had only
the barest details about him. Out of hyb and into command of this project. Ship's doing, he said.
Why?
"She's heavier than any of the others," Lavu said, thinking that the question in Waela's mind. "I defy any Pandoran monster to break it."
"Did you solve the problem of filling the LTA?" Thomas asked.
"You'll have to get your final inflation outside," Lavu said, "I've laid on extra perimeter guards because the skydoors'll be open longer'n I like."
"The sub itself?" Waela asked.
"We've rigged guide cables up through the doors. That's it."
Instinctively, Thomas glanced up at the iris closure of the skydoors.
"She'll be ready by oh-six hundred at the latest," Lavu said. "You'll have a full nightside of rest before going out. Who's to ride with y'?"
"Not you, Hap," Thomas said.
"Bu.... ."
"A new fellow named Panille is to go with us," Thomas said.
"So I've heard. Untrained. A poet? Is that the truth?"
"An expert in communication," Thomas said.
"Well, then, let's run the tank test," Lavu said. He turned and waved a hand signal at an aide.
"We'll ride it with you," Thomas said. "What pressure will you take it to?"
"Five hundred meters."
Thomas glanced at Waela. She gave the barest inclination of her head to indicate agreement, then returned her attention to the sub. It curved over her, more than three times her height at the thickest part of the teardrop near its bow. The outer carrier concealed all but the upper bubble of the plaz gondola within it. The induction propeller at the stern had been shielded in a complex baffle and screening system which reduced its effectiveness, but guarded it against kelp fouling.
Workers ran a ladder up the side of the hull now, cushioned it with a foam blanket to keep the exterior signal lights clean, and steadied it while Lavu mounted. He spoke as he climbed.
"We've installed the manual override to insure that no random signal opens your hatch. You'll have to undog it by hand every time y'open it."
No surprises there, Thomas thought. That had been Waela's idea. There were suspicions that the kelp could control signals in a wide scanning spectrum and that some of the lost subs had merely been opened underwater by scanner-activation of their hatch motors.
Waela scrambled up behind Lavu, leaving Thomas to follow. They were already inside when he reached the open hatch. He paused there to peer along this craft he would command. In a way, it was a small Voidship. The stabilizer fins were like solar panels. Exterior sensors for all of the cardinal directions were like a Voidship's hull eyes. And every known weak point had been multiple-reinforced.
Backup systems piled on backup systems.
He turned, found the top rung of the access ladder with a foot and stepped down into the gondola. It was red-lighted gloom there with Lavu and Waela already at their positions. Waela was bent over her console, checking her instruments, leaving the line of her left cheek visible to Thomas in the red light. How tender and beautiful that line was, he thought. Immediately, he suppressed a cynical laugh.
Well, my glands are still working.
***
Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, "Where is Abel, thy brother?" and he said, "I know not: am I my brother's keeper?" and He said, "What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood cries unto Me from the ground."
- Christian Book of the Dead, Shiprecords
"ANYTHING GOES here?" Legata asked.
She studied Sy Murdoch carefully as he thought about the question. He was taking too long to answer. She did not like this man, the pale eyes which defied everything around them. He kept the lab too bright, especially this late in the dayside. The young E-clones huddled against a far wall were obviously terrified of him.
"Well?"
"That takes a little thought," Murdoch said.
Legata pursed her lips. This was her second visit to Lab One in three diurns. She did not believe the reasons for this one. Oakes had pretended anger that she had not penetrated every element of the lab, but she had sensed the flaws in his performance. He was lying.
Why had Oakes sent her back here? Lewis was no longer out of contact. What did those two know that they had not shared with her? Legata felt anger at the frustrating unknowns.
Murdoch moved cautiously. Oakes had ordered Legata sent through the Scream Room, an "exploratory," but had warned: "She is frighteningly strong."
How strong? Stronger than me?
He did not see how she could be. Such a bouncy little thing.
"I asked you a simple question," Legata said, not bothering to conceal her anger.
"Interesting question, but not simple. Why do you ask it that way?"
"Because I've seen the lab reports to Morgan. You're doing some strange things here."
"Wel.... I would say that there are few limits here, but isn't that the basis for discovery?"
She replied with a cold stare, and he went on.
"There are few limits here, so long as Doctor Oakes has a complete holorecord of what we do."
"He has us on holo right now," she said.
"I know."
The way he said that made Legata's skin crawl. Murdoch carried his powerful body like a dancer. He lifted his chin and she saw a scar beneath his jaw that she had not noticed before. It mingled with creases as he lowered his chin. There was no telling his age. Given the possibility that he might be a clone, there was no telling his chronological age either.
Have to look into him, she noted to herself.
The things Lewis was having done her....
She glanced around the room once more. Something was not right. She saw the usual holo, com-console, sensors, but the place offended her directly, she was one who appreciated beauty. Not decoration, but beauty. The two huge flowers flanking the hatchwa.... she'd noticed them before. They were pink as tongues and their petals convoluted into one another like a line of mirrors.
Strange, she thought, they smell like sweat.
"Let's get on with it," she said.
"First, a formality requested by Doctor Oakes."
Murdoch swung a sensorscribe from a panel beside the lock. It appeared to be the standard identification reader of her shipside experience. She placed her hand on the flat plate to allow it to read her.
Stupid formality, everyone knew who she was.
A sudden tingling sensation shot up her arm from her palm and she realized that Murdoch had said something to her. What did he say?
"I'm sorr.... what?"
She felt weak and disoriented. Something....
She saw that the hatch was open and she had no memory of him opening it. What had he done to her?
Murdoch's hand was on her shoulder propelling her into the lock. As she passed through the hatchway she imagined that she heard a tiny voice pleading from the heart of one of the flowers: Feed me, feed me.
She heard the hatch seal behind her and realized that she was alone and the inner door was swinging ope.... slowl.... ponderous. What was all the red light? And those dim shapes movin.... ?
She walked toward the opening hatch.
So strange that Murdoch had not accompanied her. She peered at the shapes awash in the red glow beyond the inner hatch. Oh, yes - the new E-clones. Some of them she recognized from the lab reports. They were designed to match the synapse-quick demons of Pandora. There was a problem with breeding for speed, something she'd intended to investigate.
What was it she wanted to watch for?
A voice whispered in her ear: "I am Jessup. Come to me when you are through."
How did I get inside here?
Something was wrong with her time sense. She swallowed hard and felt the thickness of her dry tongue rasp against the roof of her mouth.
"Good and evil hang their uniforms at the door."
Did somebody say that or did I think it?
Oakes had said, "Anything goes on Pando
ra. Our every fancy is possible there."
That's why I asked Murdoc.... where is Murdoch? The gargoyle clones were all around her now and she tried to focus on them. Her eyes were not tracking. Someone grabbed her left arm. Painful.
"Let go of me, yo...."
She rippled her arm and heard the grunts of surprise. Peculiar things were happening to her sense of time and the awareness of her own flesh. Blood welled up on her arms and she had no memory of how it got there. And her body - it was naked. Her muscles corded reflexively and she crouched in defense.
What is happening to me?
More hands - rough hands. She responded in a slow-motion flex of power. And she distinctly heard someone screaming. How odd that no one responded to those screams!
***
Humans spend their lives in mazes. If they escape and cannot find another maze, they create one. What is this passion for testing?
- Kerro Panille, Questions from the Avata
RAJA THOMAS awoke in darkness and it was like that most recent time, awakening in hyb. He found himself disoriented in darkness, waiting for dangers he could not locate. Slowly, it came to him that he was in his groundside cubb.... night. He glanced at the luminous time display beside his pallet: two hours into the midnight watch.
What awakened me?
His cubby was eight levels under the Pandoran surface, a choice location cushioned from surface noises and perils by numerous color-coded passages, locks, hatches, slide-tubes and seemingly endless branchings. The Ship-trained found no difficulty recording mental maps of such layouts, the more remote the address the better. Thomas resented being buried in these depths. Too much travel time to places which demanded his attention.
Lab One.
He had gone to sleep while wondering about that restricted place. The source of so many odd rumors.
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