A Darkling Sea (13 page)

“Do you think it’ll drive the Sholen away?”

Dickie nodded energetically. “Oh, yes—although not for the reason I thought originally. I was expecting them to give up and go home, but now I reckon Sen’s going to ask them to leave just to save his own dignity.”

Rob went back to his own quarters for the night. He thought about stopping to tell Alicia about the balloon gag, but decided against it. Let her find out from everyone else, and wonder if he’d done it himself. He got into bed and dozed off thinking of ways to top Dickie’s prank.

AFTER getting the balloon removed from their quarters, Gishora and Tizhos invited Vikram Sen inside. “We wish to discuss with you the lack of progress in evacuating the station,” said Gishora.

“I believe I have already explained several times to you that we have all agreed we are not leaving,” said the human.

“Yes, but you must understand that tendencies within the Consensus on our home world advocate much stricter controls on human activity beyond your home star system. Possibly even
within
your own system. Many aboard our ship belong to those factions. They constantly urge action. I cannot put them off forever.”

Vikram Sen shook his head from side to side. “I am very sorry to hear that. Perhaps you should go away and resolve your internal differences in privacy.”

“I fear we cannot,” said Gishora. “Tell me if you remain determined to resist.”

“We cannot prevent your people from doing what you want to do, but we will not help you in any way—unless you choose to leave. I am sure everyone would help you most energetically with that. No, Gishora, if you really wish to make us leave you must carry us bodily to the elevator.”

“Please explain to me why you choose this course of action,” said Gishora. “You cannot prevent us from removing you. Already a lander full of Guardians sits on the surface. I lack understanding of what you hope to accomplish.”

The human expelled air from his nostrils audibly. “We are protesting the use of force to compel our obedience. By refusing to cooperate we are demonstrating that physical force can only control our bodies. It cannot control our thoughts. You can physically remove me from this station, but you cannot make me agree with you. Do you see?”

“I see only a faction resisting consensus. You place your individual goals above the greater good.”

“If we are going to defer to the opinion of the majority, let me remind you that the Earth has a population of more than eight billion, while there are less than one billion Sholen on your homeworld. It would seem that your people are the willful minority,” said Dr. Sen mildly.

Gishora hesitated, his body posture communicating a certain unease. Tizhos jumped into the opening. “We have greater wisdom,” she said. “Sometimes a small group can show the larger community the proper course of action.”

Vikram Sen widened his mouth. “That is what we are attempting to do here. Now if you will excuse me, I would like to get some sleep.”

THAT same night, Rob suited up and swam out to the sub with Dickie and Josef to discuss matters in private. The sub was officially known as the Ilmatar Aquatic Rover, and had been built by a team of Russian and American engineers and hauled to Ilmatar in one piece.

Josef had taken advantage of his position as chief pilot and de facto captain of the sub to name it the
Mishka,
which was now proudly inscribed over the control station in big Cyrillic letters.

The
Mishka
was not a graceful ship—the main hull was a fat round-ended cylinder twenty meters long, with tiny viewports at the front, a hatch on the underside, and two impeller pods on each side. It could only putter along at five knots—but its nuclear-thermal generator was rated for a decade of use, and the sub could make its own oxygen out of seawater for life support. With enough food aboard, it could sail clear around Ilmatar.

The
Mishka
had another feature, which wasn’t mentioned in any of the press releases. The designers at Sevmash and Electric Boat had made her as stealthy as any front-line attack sub in Earth’s oceans. Her ungainly hull was shaped to avoid any flat surfaces, and was coated in rubbery anechoic material that was supposed to make it invisible to the Ilmatarans. Rob suspected it would work as well as Henri’s stealth suit.

He climbed in through the bottom hatch and took one of the seats behind the control station. Josef deliberately kept the internal temperature just above freezing so that passengers could stay suited up without boiling themselves.

“I think maybe we should quit for a while,” said Rob. “I get the feeling Dr. Sen knows what’s going on.”

“He is very wise man,” said Josef.

“Sen?” Dickie snorted. “He’s like a pappadum. All hollow inside. He isn’t capable of anything but bluster. I reckon this means the Sholen are worried and have been complaining to him. That’s a good sign for us. We need to increase the pressure now.”

“You think so?” asked Rob.

“Absolutely. A few more little ’safety lapses’ and they’ll suddenly discover an excuse to return to their ship.”

“Or strike back,” said Josef.

“Let them! That puts them in the wrong.”

“Dickie,” said Rob, “I want you to tone it down, okay? We don’t want to really hurt the Sholen.”

“We don’t? All right, we don’t, then. Don’t worry. I’ve got plenty of ideas that won’t harm one downy epithelial derivative on their heads. But no letting up now! Keep turning the crank!”

“What’s that?” asked Rob. The sonar imaging display over Josef’s shoulder came on, displaying six large targets about two hundred meters up, descending slowly in a neat hexagonal array.

Josef turned and squinted at the screen, then gave them an active ping. “Metal objects. I hear little motor noises, too—like thrusters.”

“What the bloody hell are they? Bombs?” For once Dickie Graves looked genuinely worried.

“Not bombs,” said Josef. “Pods. I have seen something similar to drop underwater commandos from planes. Pressurize pod in advance and drop from high altitude. The pod opens in deep water and troops can go to work without wasting time equalizing. Ours have sonar-damping exterior.”

A hundred meters up the six objects showed clearly on video as streamlined cylinders with fins, very much like oldfashioned bombs. “Are you sure those aren’t going to blow us to bits?” Rob asked.

“We find out.”

Just then the six pods came apart in a flurry of bubbles. When the video and sonar images cleared up, Rob could see abandoned casing sections dropping rather more rapidly to the sea bottom, and six Sholen in smartsuits making for the station with powerful tail strokes.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Dickie.

“I think the Sholen just decided to turn the crank,” said Rob.

BROADTAIL wakes to find himself being towed. There’s a rope around him just behind his headshield, and someone is pulling him along through cold water. He listens. Whoever’s pulling him is alone, and is having a hard time of it.

He pings. The person towing him is a large adult with no left pincer, a male by the taste of the water. He has a number of bundles and packages slung on his body, which explains why he’s struggling along so slowly. They’re about half a cable above a silty bottom.

“You’re awake!” The large male stops swimming and turns back toward Broadtail. “I remember thinking you a corpse. My name is Oneclaw 12 Schoolmaster.”

“I am called Broadtail.”

“No more than that? No good number? Or is your full name a secret? Do I rescue someone best left behind? A bandit? A fugitive?”

“An exile. I am Broadtail 38.”

“That is a good number, 38. It signifies ’Warm Water,’ of course, but it is also 2 times 19, or ’Child’ times ’Place.’ A good number for a teacher, though not as good as 82. But 38 is also 4 plus 34, ’Food’ plus ’Harvesting’; and it is ’Property’ plus ’The World’ signifying greatness and rulership; all in all a very good number. I congratulate your teachers.”

“Where am I? I do not remember.”

“I am not surprised. I do recall finding you, drifting and asleep in cold water. I remember being amazed to hear any life at all in you. Have some food.” Oneclaw gives Broadtail a bag full of pressed fronds. “As to where you are, you are about a hundred cables from my camp, and at least a thousand cables from anyplace worth visiting.”

While he eats, trying not to gobble the tough fronds too fast, Broadtail asks, “You are a schoolteacher?”

“Yes. I catch the hardy young of the cold expanses, break them, train them, and give them new lives in the vent towns. A hard life, but a noble one. Besides, my number suits me for it: 12 is 2 times 6, and I carve children like stones. It is also 2 plus 10, and I bind children with cords.”

Broadtail considers his options. He is far from any civilization, he has lost all the notes for Longpincer, and aside from the food he is devouring he is on the edge of starvation. He cannot bear to go back to Bitterwater alone and with nothing in his net. “Do you need another teacher?”

“I always need some extra pincers.” He waves his own single limb. “But you must be strong and swift to catch the young and subdue them. Can you do that?”

“I can.”

“And you must have knowledge to impart. Do you know anything worth teaching?”

“I am literate. I know geometry, quadratics, and logarithms. I know the dictionary, and I study ancient remains and writings. I know all the practical arts of the vent farmer. I am a member of the Bitterwater Company of scholars.”

The schoolmaster isn’t impressed by his affiliation. “How far do you know the dictionary?”

“Up to 4,000 or so, and a scattering of others.”

“Ah. Up among the plant names. Beyond that, there is a vast expanse of obscure tools, followed by some less-common stones, and then a series of recondite but intriguing concepts. If you study ancient writings I take it you are a scholar?”

“Of a sort, yes. I am the author of a book about old inscriptions.”

“Do you have it?”

“No. It is back in my old home, if it survives at all.”

“I see. Still, it is good to encounter an educated adult. A person in my profession does not meet many. Children who can barely speak and farmers who hoard talk like beads. I have a book of my own, if you are interested in looking at it—a new form of dictionary, in fact. I rearrange the words according to a more logical scheme, beginning with important ideas like existence and continuity rather than commonplace things like stone and food and death.”

Broadtail can feel his strength returning as his stomach fills. “I think I can swim now,” he says.

“Good. I have a lot of things to carry. I am returning from selling off a batch of apprentices, and I have a load of supplies. I have no helper now—I remember my last assistant leaving because of an argument about how to instruct the youngsters. I hope you are not the sort who thinks education should only cover practical matters. My pupils get the broadest possible training. I cannot teach them everything, of course, but I can at least give them a taste of things like mathematics, geology, navigation, history, and physics.”

“I am hired, then?”

“You are. You get food and shelter in my camp—we can take it in turns to go hunting—and a third of the profits from the sale of the pupils you help train. You also get trained yourself, by a master in the art of schoolteaching. But I warn you, this is not a job for the weak or the fearful. A school of hungry youngsters can rip an adult apart if he isn’t careful. We swim far, often on small rations. Sometimes you must fight the bigger children to keep the others obedient. And the waters here are dangerous— tricky currents, hungry hunters, and other things.”

That brings an echo of memory. “I remember a noise, a tapping or hammering sound.”

Oneclaw’s answer is hushed. “There are strange things in the waters here. A whole abandoned city lies not far from my camp. Sometimes there are strange sounds and flavors in the water. I have a theory about them, but I wish to wait until we reach the camp to tell you.”

They swim on, resting every few cables, until the camp is in echo range. Broadtail is a little disappointed at how small and shabby the place seems. Oneclaw has a crude little shelter built of uncut stone and gobs of silt, and there is a very rickety pen of netting and poles to hold the pupils. A couple of ragged catchnets on tall poles flutter empty in the current.

“Home again!” says Oneclaw. “I am greater than any vent- town landowner; my domains extend for hundreds of cables in every direction. Nobody ever challenges my boundary stones.”

The memory of Ridgeback keeps Broadtail from going along with the joke. “How many students do you normally keep?”

“I can manage three or four myself, but with help, possibly as many as ten. It depends on how many we catch, of course. There is a warm current about fifty cables from here where wild children school. I plan going out with you to net as many as we can. Start with twenty or so, since half of them usually die or get eaten by the others.”

BY the time Rob and the others reached the station and shed their suits, the Sholen coup was complete. Dr. Sen was speaking over the PA system. “In the interest of safety I must ask everyone to cooperate with the Sholen soldiers. Follow all their instructions. They have weapons and we do not. I am as distressed by this as everyone else, but we are in a fragile shelter at the bottom of an alien sea. Fighting would be suicide for all of us.”

“Cowardly bastard,” said Dickie Graves. “We can take them down right now if we move fast. We’ve got tools, knives—”

“No, Dickie,” said Josef. “Dr. Sen is correct. It would be madness.”

Graves looked almost ready to cry, but he nodded. “All right, then. For now.”

Rob went upstairs to look for Alicia. He found the six Sholen soldiers in the common room with Gishora, Tizhos, and Dr. Sen.

The troops were still suited up, and their outfits looked different from the other two—thicker and bulkier, with armor plates on vital spots and rigid fishbowl helmets instead of flexible hoods. The six of them didn’t leave much space in the common room for any humans.

They were definitely armed: all six had funny-looking snub- nosed rifles with three barrels big enough to shoot golf balls slung on their backs, and shovel-handled pistols in chest holsters. Two of them watched Rob as he stopped, hesitated, then hurried out through the doorway into Hab Two.

Alicia was in her room. “Are you all right?” both of them asked simultaneously when he came through the door. He held her for a long moment, then she helped him get out of his damp suit liner and into a slightly less damp coverall.

“All comfortable now?” she asked. “Because now I wish to scream at you.”

“I don’t think they sent in the soldiers just because of a couple of practical jokes.”

“How do you know? You keep expecting the Sholen to be reasonable! They are alien intelligences, Robert—they do not think as we do.”

“It seemed like a good idea,” he said, instantly aware of how lame it sounded.

“It was childish, and it accomplished nothing—except to anger the Sholen.”

He glared at her. “Well, I guess you’d better start packing, then. They’re going to stuff you into the elevator along with the rest of us. You’ll have to go back to the Marianas Trench now. Have fun.”

She swore at him in Italian and German as he turned to go. A bundle of his spare clothes hit him in the back of the head.