A Darkling Sea (10 page)

“The Consensus has expressed a desire to help other worlds avoid our mistakes. We offer you our wisdom.”

“Oh, I get it—if you screw up your own planet enough, that gives you the right to go around telling other people how they should live.”

“It pleases me that you understand.”

Alicia was touching his other arm. “Robert, let it go.”

He looked at her, then back at Tizhos. “Right. Sorry. I probably need to get more sleep or something.”

There was a slight awkward silence. Then Alicia spoke up. “Tizhos, could I suggest a small change of plan? There’s something else I’d like to show you.”

“I do not feel fatigue yet.”

“Good. It’s about half a kilometer to the west. We’ll have the current with us coming back.”

As they swam, Rob managed to get up next to Alicia. He turned the hydrophone as low as possible for privacy. “What’s all this about?”

“Something I want Tizhos to see. I was planning to show you, but then they dropped in on us and I never got the chance. Maybe we can come back together.”

“But what is it?”

“You’ll see,” was all she would tell him.

The three of them crossed a section of flat silty bottom, then came to a little hummock of jumbled stones. Rob was no archaeologist, but this looked older than most of the other ruins. The stones were all rounded off, and silt filled in all the crevices.

“This side,” said Alicia. She led them around to the north side of the hill. “This is an old vent, and the flow is too irregular and cold for the Ilmatarans to use for agriculture. Now, let’s all hold hands, and then everyone turn off all your lights. Even the ones inside your helmets.”

Rob was in the middle, so he had to use his voice interface to get everything turned off; he didn’t want to risk letting go of Alicia in the darkness. When the lamp on Tizhos’s chest flicked off, the three of them were in complete blackness. For a moment Rob couldn’t even tell if his eyes were open or closed.

Then he saw something out of the corner of his eyes. A faint shine, like moonlight. As his eyes adjusted, the shine got brighter, and he could see that it was the rocks. There were swirls of pale light on the stones around the vent mouth, extending out across the bottom to where they were standing.

He began to notice colors. The vent itself was now glowing faintly green, and there were green streaks where the current was strongest. Around the green was a pale halo of orange, and tendrils of blue and yellow followed the paths of eddy currents across the old stones.

Now he could see more clearly. The swirls were made up of millions of tiny points. It was like looking at a galaxy. He began to lose his sense of scale. Now he could see slow waves of brightening moving across the swirls of color as the water temperature changed. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Tizhos was the first to turn her lights back on. The dim safety light on her backpack was like an arc lamp after the darkness. Rob reluctantly cued up his own lights and displays, and saw with some surprise that they had been watching the glow for nearly twenty minutes.

“I certainly did find that phenomenon interesting,” said Tizhos. “Although I expect your eyes could see it better than mine. Have you determined the cause?”

“Microorganism colonies. I think the colors relate to chemical concentrations in the water. The luminescence is just a byproduct of phosphorus metabolism. That’s not what’s important. Tizhos, nothing on Ilmatar has eyes. You and Rob and I are the only things in the entire universe that have seen this.”

There was another moment of silence while Rob and Tizhos digested that.

“Wow,” was all Rob could say.

“If we weren’t here, studying Ilmatar, nothing would ever have witnessed that. If we don’t make contact with the Ilmatarans, they’ll be like those little colonies, shining in the dark with nobody to see them.”

BROADTAIL’S expedition is proceeding well. He has a dozen pouches full of interesting finds: some small creatures he doesn’t recognize, a couple of plants new to him, some lovely old stone tools from a ruined settlement, and a piece of shell pierced with regular patterns of holes that he is convinced are old writing. He also has an entire reel of notes, including tentative translations of half a dozen old inscriptions. What he does not have is any trace of the strange creatures he’s looking for.

The team is camped at a ruin—yet another extinct vent, with the usual jumble of silted-up houses, scattered pipes, and domestic trash. There is a thick coating of silt over everything, and Broadtail is pleased to note that his theory correlating silt depth with the language of inscriptions and the style of artifacts seems to be holding.

His two helpers are working well. Sharphead is one of Longpincer’s employees, a coldwater hunter with lots of terrifying tales of dangerous creatures and bandits. Shortlegs is a small adult, still growing and barely able to read or tie knots. But she can lead a towfin, moor the beast downcurrent from camp, prepare simple meals for the group, and carry Broadtail’s spare note reels when he goes exploring.

Shortlegs bangs a stone to call them to eat. She has mixed a fresh egg from the towfin with some shredded jellyfrond and the last of the vent- cured roe. Sharphead is already eating when Broadtail swims up. They don’t follow any order of pre ce dence out here.

“Do you recall catching any?” says Shortlegs. “If there is any here I don’t taste it.”

Since it is Sharphead’s job to catch meat for them, he sensibly quiets down and eats.

“This is a small town,” says Broadtail. “But I remember you saying there is a larger one a few cables along?”

“Yes,” says Sharphead. “A huge city, or ruins anyway. Three or four old vents—one of them makes a little warm water.”

“Good hunting there?”

“Oh, yes! I remember catching a spinemouth there—twice your size, at least! I—”

“Excellent!” Broadtail cuts him off before another old hunting story can begin. “I plan to move there after sleeping. I hope to find many old things and take many notes, and you can hunt good food for all of us.”

“I think we must tell them now,” said Gishora when Tizhos returned to their room. After the long swim in the cold ocean, she was hungrier than she had ever been in her life. As fast as the foodmaker could produce balls of high- energy food, she gobbled them down. To speed up the process, she had turned off the textures, aromatics, and psychoactives, and just ate calories like a human.

“They appear likely to become angry,” she said between bites.

“I know that. I expect them to become angry no matter when we tell them.”

“Then perhaps we should do so at the last possible moment.”

“I don’t feel certain about the wisdom of that. Tizhos, you know a great deal about human psychology and cultures. Describe their attitudes about deception.”

“All their cultures condemn it, to a greater or lesser degree.”

“Now explain to me how the humans here may react, based on that.”

“I understand now! You feel that waiting may be perceived as deliberately misleading them, and that this may provoke unfavorable reactions. Very well, let us tell them as soon as possible.”

“After they have rested and eaten. Tell me if you ever served as a Guardian.”

“During my youth I worked as a forester.”

“We may face violence. Let me know if you feel ready for that.”

“I do,” she said, although in truth she did not.

WHEN they got back from their long swim with Tizhos, Rob and Alicia got out of their suits layer by layer and combined their hot water rations for a shower together. By the time they dressed and made their way to the dining room, most of the others had eaten already, so the two of them stir-fried a pan of whatever bits and scraps they could round up, and ate it over a huge mound of mashed potatoes.

“I’d kill for some butter to go with this,” said Rob. “Real butter and maybe some cream.”

“Don’t talk about things like that. Besides, don’t you like artificial grease?”

“I just wish it tasted like something. Hey, when the Sholen leave, let’s see if we can steal their foodmaker. It can make all kinds of stuff, not just synthetic fat and sugar.”

“That would be an interesting way to commit suicide.”

“How come? They eat regular food, right? It’s not like they’re based on chlorine or something.”

“Oh, true—their DNA is different, but that all gets broken down anyway in your GI tract. No, I was thinking about toxins and allergies. A lot of the flavorings we put in food are really poisons the plants make to defend themselves. We’ve evolved to tolerate some of them, but only from Earth plants.”

“Well, maybe we could just use it to make bland stuff. No poison flavors.”

“There’s also the chiral sugars issue, getting the right amino acids, vitamins . . .”

“Spoilsport,” he said. “I was just dreaming of having it make me a cheesecake. A real one, without a lot of weird fruit or chocolate. Or a big tender steak. Hey, maybe we could reprogram it! Have it make anything we want!”

“Do you know anything about programming Sholen equipment? Does anyone?”

“From what I’ve read their systems really aren’t much better than ours. A whole different technology path; they like to build very sophisticated single-purpose analog systems instead of just slapping digital processors into everything the way we do. We could slip into their room and take a look at it.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “When did this stop being just a joke?”

“When I thought about cheesecake,” he said. “I think I could probably kill someone for a cheesecake right now.”

“You need a distraction.” She put a hand on his thigh and squeezed gently. “Is this working?”

“Not yet. I’m still thinking of cheesecake.”

“How about this?”

“I’m wavering. Cheescake—sex. Sex—cheesecake. Tough call.”

“What if I do this?”

“Okay, now I’m officially distracted.”

But afterward, lying on her bunk, he couldn’t sleep. The idea of getting his hands on the Sholen foodmaker and fooling with it was just too appealing. It wasn’t really the food issue; he was just curious. He also had some vague idea about maybe learning how the thing worked and passing some technical tips back to researchers on Earth. Maybe even pick up a patent. Could you patent alien tech? Probably not.

Alicia was sound asleep. When they shared her bunk, she insisted on being between him and the wall. “I would rather be crushed than fall on the floor,” she explained. So it was simple enough for Rob to slip out of the bed, grope around for his clothes, and creep out into the hall.

He was halfway to the Sholen’s room when he realized he was being an idiot. They didn’t sleep! There was no way he could sneak in there; no matter how late it was the aliens would be wide awake. And during the day shifts when the Sholen were out of their room, Rob would be stuck tagging along with them, recording interviews. Alicia was right—it was a dumb idea all along.

Rob stopped off at the bathroom, mostly to have an excuse for getting up. Then he decided he was thirsty and headed for the dining room to see if there was any tomato juice. To his surprise the room was occupied. Dickie Graves, Josef Palashnik, Pierre Adler, and Simeon Fouchard were sitting around one of the tables drinking vodka Bloody Marys.

“Am I interrupting something? Sorry.”

“No, have a seat,” said Graves. “We were just talking about the Sholen problem. What’s your position?”

“My position? Uh—I mean, I wish they’d go away again so things can get back to normal. And I guess I hope they don’t make a big deal out of what happened to Henri.”

“Naturally. Of course, the only reason they’re here at all is that Sen’s being an utter doormat,” said Dickie. “They’ve got no right to be here, no right to come meddling in our affairs, and certainly no right to sit in judgement on us.”

“They came a long way. It would be rude to send them home again,” said Pierre.

“Well, it’s rude to drop in unannounced, too.”

“Also very expensive,” said Josef. “Do the math. For them to arrive so soon after we sent message drone—”

“Means they’re eavesdropping!” said Graves.

“Naturally, but that is unimportant. We also eavesdrop on their message traffic, or at least I hope we do. No, it is cost of getting a vehicle that big from Shalina orbit, through gimelspace, and then to Ilmatar insertion. You saw plot of their orbit after emergence—very high- energy trajectory, fantastic waste of propellant. Whole voyage must have been like that. This single mission must have used more fuel and boosters than Sholen space program in six months!”

“I wish we could afford missions like that,” said Fouchard. “I hate long voyages in space.”

“You miss the point. Scientific expeditions do not travel that way. Even diplomats do not. Only military missions look like that.”

Everyone thought about that for a moment.

“I still say Sen should’ve called their bluff,” said Dickie at last. “Tell them good day, terribly sorry, no tours without an appointment.”

“We must assume they have enough power to make us comply,” said Josef.

“How? Drop bombs on the surface? Bad luck on Castaverde and his team, but we’ve got four kilometers of water and ice for protection. And supposing the Sholen did go all out and blow us up—what does it get them? The Big Six stop pretending those black-budget interstellar military vehicles don’t exist, and it’s war.”

“Oh, surely not,” said Pierre. “The Sholen are a very peaceful species.”

“So peaceful they have blown their own civilization to bits every few centuries,” said Fouchard. “They are peaceful because the alternative is extinction.”

“I think they’re all bluff,” said Graves. “Look at the way they talk to each other—posturing and puffing out smells. This is the same thing writ large. Dominance displays—it’s how they think. If Sen had any balls, he’d stand up to them. They’d leave us alone quick enough.”

“They can cause trouble for us back on Earth, though,” said Pierre. “A lot of people still think of the Sholen as the wise space brothers. If they say we should leave Ilmatar, you’ll have demonstrations in Brussels and Washington demanding our return.”