The Queen's Daemon (T'aafhal Legacy Book 2)

by Doug L. Hoffman

  “Because your normal armor is meant to be worn in space, not underwater,” replied Ahnah, a female bear who was a biologist on the science staff. She and Umky had a love-hate relationship that started the minute they both boarded the ship back at Farside Base.

  “So?”

  “She's right, Umky,” Jim Michaels interjected. “A space suit is designed to keep pressure in, not keep pressure out. And at the bottom of the bore-shaft there is pressure aplenty.”

  “You don't say,” rumbled the larger bear, attempting to stuff his hindquarters into the suit's stiff legs. “I thought we would be right at the surface.”

  “We are going to be underwater under the ice, and all that ice has weight. That adds to the pressure in the water below,” Jim explained, as he struggled with a suit of his own. “The local surface gravity is about 1.3 m/sec2, only 13 percent of Earth's, and the ice layer is around five kilometers thick.”

  The engineer paused for a second as he entered figures on his sleeve display. “That works out to about 6.6 x 106 Pascals of pressure, or roughly 65 Earth atmospheres, at the ice-liquid boundary.”

  “More than enough to crush most submarines back home,” observed Matt Jacobs.

  “Are you sure these suits are strong enough?” asked Will Krenshaw, a human microbiologist. He was accompanying the bears and Engineer Michaels to take samples of the water and ice below. There were a couple of similar moons in the solar system and a comparison of any microscopic lifeforms found here would be of great scientific interest.

  “Sure thing, Professor, plenty of safety margin. Just don't try drifting down to the bottom,” replied Jim, slipping into position. “Matt, Stevie, I'm in. Close me up please.”

  “Right on it, Jim,” said Jacobs.

  The two sailors moved to attach the suit's integrated helmet and back plate. Spurred on by Jim's success, Ahnah managed to wriggle her rear legs and bottom into her suit. Stretching her neck to look behind her she made a sort of woofing sound.

  “Does this suit make my ass look big?” asked Steve Hitch in a false contralto voice.

  Suit not withstanding, Ahnah whirled about and with a single paw swipe knocked Umky to the deck. The bigger male, stuck half in and half out of his suit, went sprawling.

  “Hey! What's the idea! I didn't say anything!”

  “You laughed, you mangy bruin!”

  “I did not!”

  “Well, you thought about laughing,” the incensed she-bear retorted. “Besides, monkey-boy over there jumped out of paw range.”

  Stevie held a hand over his mouth, trying to suppress his own laughter. His normal partner in crime, Jacobs, slugged him in the arm and admonished, “Quit messing with the bears, troublemaker.”

  “Come on, Matt. You gotta admit it was funny.”

  “Any funnier and it could have got you killed, or at least sent to sickbay.”

  That was when Chief Zackly entered the armory to see what the commotion was all about.

  “What the flying hell do yous scupper turds think yer doing?” the grizzled old sailor demanded. “Get yer shit together or I will turn ya upside down and spit in yer assholes! Do yous get me?”

  “Aye, aye, Chief,” the two sailors replied, busying themselves with helping Umky back up off the deck.

  “And you, Missy,” the Chief said, addressing Ahnah, “I don't care if you are on the science staff, do not go smacking things around in here.”

  “Yes, Chief,” the she-bear said, meekly.

  “Ya might damage some of the equipment, and that could delay the mission and piss-off the Captain.” The Chief gave the ursine scientist a hard look and then grinned, indicating that he wasn't that upset by the brief tussle.

  Ahnah gave the Chief a quick bearish smile, turned and slid the rest of the way into her pressure suit. A couple of engineer's mates moved to install her helmet section while Hitch and Jacobs assisted Umky.

  “Sorry I got you walloped, Bear2,” Hitch said in a lowered voice, calling the bear by his Marine squad nickname. Both Hitch and Jacobs were often detailed to work with the ship's Marines, primarily because they had as much combat experience as any on board.

  “No problem, primate. That would hardly qualify as foreplay on an amorous evening. She is quick though—I should have remembered that.”

  “Are you saying that you two are getting busy in the polar bear quarters when no one else is around?” asked Hitch.

  “Fat chance,” Umky snorted. “Since Doc white implanted a birth control gadget in Ahnah she's a lot less frisky than before. But her mood swings are a lot less manic too, so the dubious loss of a piece of tail is worth it. By the way, Stevie, polar bears like big butts.”

  “So why did she hit you?”

  “Because she knew that, coming from you, it was supposed to be an insult.”

  “Great job, Stevie,” said Jacobs, “now you've managed to piss-off every female on the ship, not just the human ones.”

  “Hey, I found it funny,” Umky chuckled. “Now stop chattering and seal me up. The others are almost ready to go outside.”

  Wellhead, Icy Moon

  Located fifty meters from the ship, the borehole was in a temporary building with an open roof. A floor had been constructed around the hole itself so the crew and equipment did not have to stand on the froze surface of the moon. The walls provided a convenient place to mount monitoring equipment and an undeserved sense of security. The reason for the open roof was about to be demonstrated.

  “I am recording some minor tremors, Chief Engineer,” reported Katrin “Kate” Hamm. Kate had been a crewmember on an Antarctic exploration ship at one time, and knew something about drilling core samples. While drilling through ice with a laser was much different from drilling through ocean floor sediment with hollow steel, any experience was better than none, or so the Chief Engineer reasoned.

  “Ja, we should be right at the ice-water boundary,” the Icelandic Chief Engineer replied. With next to no atmosphere there was no sound transmission but vibrations were passed through the five kilometers of solid ice beneath their feet and transferred to the platform floor.

  “We have penetration!” Kate shouted.

  “Everyone back!” yelled the Chief Engineer Baldursson, motioning to the other crewmembers assisting with the drilling operation. The vibration could now be felt without the need for instruments. As the drilling crew backed against the platform walls the cause of the tremors became clear.

  From the two and a half meter in diameter borehole emerged a column of water traveling at high speed. Through the open roof the gusher shot, kilometers into the inky black sky where it formed a massive plume of ice crystals.

  “Trigger the seals, Ms. Hamm,” shouted Baldursson.

  In response, Kate closed several relays on the control board next to her. Buried ten meters down the shaft a thick, circular plate of hull material rotated. The cap plate was constructed with alternating cutouts and solid sectors. As the solid sectors in the rotating plate aligned with open sectors in a similar plate immediately above it, the column of water stopped rushing from the hole.

  Even though it was capped quickly, everything and everyone in the platform building was coated with a layer of ice. The drilling crew moved their extremities, the synthetic muscles of their space armor shattering the coating of frozen H2O.

  “I did not expect it to be so... energetic,” Kate said.

  “Ja, remember that there was nothing but vacuum in the shaft and the water is under many atmospheres pressure, Ms. Hamm. That propelled it up the shaft with some urgency. Once the column of water began moving it built up considerable momentum, the result of which you see still dispersing in the sky above us.”

  Overhead the ice plume was clearly visible in the dim light of the white dwarf as it spread out and turned into falling snow. Meanwhile, outside of the building a procession had been making its way toward the wellhead when the eruption took place.

  * * * * *

  “What the hell was that!” exc
laimed Hitch. He and Jacobs accompanied the pressure suited bears and humans in case they needed assistance—the bulky pressure suits were not nearly as agile as normal space armor.

  “I'd say the drilling crew hit water, Stevie,” replied Jacobs.

  “Chief Engineer Baldursson, are you OK in there?” asked Michaels, leading the procession in his own pressure suit.

  “Ja, ja,” came the reply. “Just our first geyser. I told everyone it would be impressive.”

  “Being told isn't the same as seeing it, Sir. Are we clear to enter the enclosure?”

  “Ja, come on to the platform. We need a few minutes to ensure the heaters in the cap are working and that the drill head is heating water to keep the shaft from freezing shut.”

  “Roger that, we are almost to the platform.”

  “What's with this shaft freezing shut stuff?” asked Umky, standing back up on all fours. When the well blew both bears sat down on their haunches and marveled at the sight. “Nobody said anything about the hole freezing shut.”

  “It won't be a problem, Umky,” responded Dr. Krenshaw, the other pressure suited human. “The laser on the drill head will heat water at the bottom of the shaft, which will cause it to rise. That, along with heaters placed along the sides of the shaft, will circulate warm water and keep the well open.”

  “Why didn't you just cap it at the bottom?” asked Jacobs, who was a bit more technically inclined than his friend Hitch.

  “Because access is by a plate of selectively permeable T'aafhal hull material, modified to keep water on one side and vacuum on the other. Trouble is the pressure is so great at the bottom it would be almost impossible to push anything through the barrier.”

  “OK, that makes sense,” Jacobs replied. “So the barrier is up near the top.”

  “Yeah. The only real downside is that we will have to drift down five kilometers of shaft to reach the ocean below. I hope no one is claustrophobic.”

  “Bears are not nearly as neurotic as you humans,” sniffed Ahnah. Walking behind the she-bear, Umky shook his head but made no snide remark, perhaps remembering the wallop in the armory. One by one the four aquanauts and their handlers ascended the walled platform.

  Main Lounge, Peggy Sue

  “Hey there, you two,” called Belinda “Betty” White, the ship's doctor. Betty was nursing a cup of coffee, sitting at the table in front of the big eye shaped viewing port on the starboard side.

  “Hey there yourself,” replied Beth as she and the Captain claimed chairs across from the MD. Billy Ray glanced out of the viewing port just in time to see Arin Baldursson's geyser erupt.

  “Now would you look at that! There's something you don't see every day.”

  “Oh my,” exclaimed the Doctor.

  “It would appear that Arin has struck water,” observed Beth, “aren't you going to congratulate him, dear?”

  “I think I'll let him get things under control before distracting him with a call from the captain.”

  “Probably a good idea,” Beth allowed, gazing up at the plume. “Don't want to micromanage the crew—bad for the morale.”

  Billy Ray nodded absently, staring out the window. Jimmy Tosh, the chef and bartender, placed steaming mugs before the Captain and Beth—coffee black for him, Earl Gray tea for her. The officers' preferences were familiar enough for the Jamaican to bring their usual without waiting for an order. Looking up from the table Jimmy, too, was mesmerized by the scene outside the ship.

  “Now dat be sometin'. Dey was blowholes at places on de coast of Jamaica, but nothin' like dat.”

  As quickly as the geyser had started the flow was cut off, leaving a few sad remnants to fall back on to the wellhead enclosure. The party of aquanauts could be seen outside the building, also staring at the plume in awe.

  “You need anyting else, ladies? Captain?”

  “No, thank you Jimmy,” answered Beth for the others.

  “Jus' call out if you need a refill.” The Jamaican smiled a toothy smile and headed back for the curved mahogany bar that divided the lounge space from the dining area.

  “I see you are sending Ahnah and Umky down to work on the extraction system,” said Betty, noting the unmistakable forms of the two suited bears outside.

  “Yep. I figured that the bears, being semi-aquatic and strong, would be perfect to help deploy the filters at the bottom of the well.”

  “And it might also help their self-esteem, having them do a task they are better suited to than humans,” added Beth, looking sideways at her husband and raising her eyebrows.

  “Yep.” Billy Ray often adopted a cowboy drawl when at ease. Like many Texans, he figured if you don't have much to say, then you shouldn't say much.

  “That's thoughtful of you, Billy Ray,” Doc White said approvingly. Betty was one of the few people on board who referred to the Captain by his given name, a privilege conferred by the implicit doctor patient relationship. “Polar bears are generally solitary animals but they do socialize at times of the year. Plus, talking bears are temperamentally different from dumb bears, they miss social interaction with their own kind.”

  “I heartily agree, Betty. Both Billy Ray and I have decided we are lacking in two areas when it comes to the crew—we need more Marines and we need more bears on the next voyage.”

  “You got that right, sweetheart. Thank goodness we haven't gotten into a tussle on this trip.”

  “Speaking of this trip, we're pretty far away from home. I think some of the crew are showing definite signs of being homesick. When are we going to head back toward Earth?”

  “We are as far away from the solar system as any Earth ship has ever gone, Betty, almost a hundred light-years as the crow flies. I reckon that soon as we top off the deuterium tanks we'll head back toward more familiar space.”

  “As much as I love exploring the final frontier,” his wife added, “I'm longing to see old friends and familiar places again—even if home is carved out of lunar rock.”

  “That's why I love you, sweetheart. Yer such a homebody.” This last was delivered with a grin to show the Captain was speaking in jest.

  “But first we need to send people down five kilometers to a hidden ocean to harvest heavy water,” continued Beth, ignoring the homebody remark.

  Billy Ray smiled and began to recite:

  In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

  A stately pleasure-dome decree:

  Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

  Through caverns measureless to man

  Down to a sunless sea.

  “Come again, Captain?”

  “He's quoting Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Doctor, from a poem called Kubla Khan.”

  “When the Captain starts quoting poetry maybe it's past time we headed for home.” She fixed Billy Ray with a look of medical appraisal.

  “Soon enough, Betty, soon enough.” He replied with a faint smile. Between the gems and the alien devices, not to mention survey data on half a dozen habitable worlds, he figured the trip would pay for itself. Besides, there were a couple more systems he intended to visit on the way home, since Earth was too far to make in a single alter-space transit.

  Outside the aquanauts disappeared into the shelter as ice crystals from the geyser continued to rain down on the ship. Chief Engineer Baldursson's voice called from the Captain's collar pip.

  Wellhead, Icy Moon

  The Chief Engineer was pleased how things had gone so far with the refueling effort, but the more hazardous stage was about to begin. He called the ship.

  “Peggy Sue, Wellhead. We have completed the borehole and are ready to send personnel down to deploy the filtering gear.”

  “Roger that, Wellhead. Good job, Arin, let me know when the heavy water begins to flow.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  The members of the aquatic expedition were gathered around the borehole, peering down at the sealed cap ten meters below. Down the middle of the well ran a heavy cable, which carried power to the drill head at the bottom of the
shaft. From their vantage point the cap looked a long way down.

  “How are we supposed to descend to the cap?” asked Ahnah.

  “I'll show you,” said Jim, leaning over the hole and grasping the power cable. “You need to hit the cap barrier with a bit of momentum to help carry you through into the water below.”

  With that, he loosely grasped the cable with both hands and let himself slide down into the shaft. The others leaned over the edge of the hole and watched as he approached the cap. Even in the light gravity of the icy moon, Jim built up a respectable velocity falling the ten meters. He hit the cap and fell right through it, disappearing without a trace.

  “Now that just looked freaky,” said Hitch. “Glad I'm not going.”

  “Yeah, that T'aafhal hull material gives me the willies,” agreed Jacobs. “Too much like magic.”

  “Michaels, Wellhead,” called Baldursson over the comm circuit. “Are you OK?”

  “Wellhead, Michaels. Everything's copacetic,” came the reply. “Tell the others to come on in, the water's fine.”

  “Ja, the rest of you best be going, it is a long descent to the bottom of the shaft.”

  “Right,” rumbled Umky, grasping hold of the cable. “What's that you primates yell when you jump out of an airplane? Geranium!”

  Umky slid down the cable and disappeared, just like Michaels.

  “That's 'Geronimo', fur ball,” Hitch yelled after the now vanished bear. The smaller she-bear stepped up and grasped the cable.

  “I don't know, I sort of like 'geranium',” she said.

  Ahnah stepped off the edge and vanished down the well. Will Krenshaw, the last expedition member left on the platform, shook his head.

  “All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people,” he said, reaching for the cable. “Just make sure the damn hole doesn't freeze back shut.”

  The last of the aquanauts passed through the semi-permeable barrier without another word. The expedition was on their way to visit an ocean that had never seen the stars or sky, a world of crushing pressure and utter darkness.