A Darkling Sea (24 page)

“Let us ask them again,” said Broadtail. Loudly, so that all the Company could hear, he tapped out a message to Builder 1. “Squatters construct shelter, yes?”

Some discussion among them in faint swishing noises and barks. Then Builder 1 replies. “No. Shelter build action Builders shelter. Two place shelter Builder two shelter. Squatters large grasp shelter. Squatters two shelter separate.”

“His words are sharp and strong,” says Broadtail. “The shelters are the work of his people. These others force them to leave. As I recall saying, a horrible crime.”

“What do these Squatters want?” demanded Longpincer. “Where do they plan to strike next?”

“I am unsure. Let me ask.” Broadtail taps another message to Builder 1. “Squatters grasping object?”

More discussion. Builder 1 eventually replies, “Squatters grasp Builders.”

“I believe the Squatters only wish to remove the Builders,” Broadtail explains to the Company.

“Let them,” says Sharpfrill. “It is not our quarrel.” The room echoes with murmurs of agreement.

“The Builders are here now,” says Broadtail quietly. “They are Longpincer’s guests. As are we all.”

That creates a long uncomfortable silence. Everyone waits for Longpincer to say something. He takes a little while to respond, and Broadtail realizes he is enjoying the attention. Lately Broadtail is making a bigger noise. It could be awkward: though this is Longpincer’s home, it is Broadtail who brings the Builders here into the house. Longpincer could disavow them. And who could blame him? They are not adults. Longpincer would be within his rights to kill and eat them.

Longpincer elevates himself on his legs so that his words are not distorted. “They are my guests,” he says clearly. “Within my boundaries they are under my protection. Their enemies are mine.” He quotes the way it is written in old laws. Saying it that way, Longpincer is reminding his other guests of their duty. By accepting his hospitality they make themselves his allies in battle. In any vent town the vote of the community replaces ancient codes, but Bitterwater is alone, surrounded by cold water. Longpincer must take such things seriously.

Broadtail translates for the Builders. “Builders may stay here. We adults fight any Squatters who try to take you.” He feels tremendous relief. With Longpincer’s consent the Builders can remain at Bitterwater. Broadtail can study them all the time and learn everything there is to know.

“HUMANS stand [unknown]. Ilmatarans stabbing motions [unknown] reaching out toward humans,” said Rob. “I think that means they’re offering to protect us.”

“No, but that’s what it sounds like. I think our broad-tailed friend talked the others into it.”

“But we have not asked them to do this—Robert, tell them it is not their fight.”

Rob tried. “Ilmataran folds pincers.”

“Ilmatarans make stabbing motions,” Broadtail replied. “Humans and Ilmatarans make stabbing motions.”

“Alicia, I think they’ve made up their minds.”

“Should we leave, then?”

“Sound like you hope we persuade you not to,” said Josef. “Stay.”

“Robert?”

“You’re the one who wants to gather more data, right? At least with them helping us maybe we can figure out how to survive longer. And we’ll be right in the middle of an Ilmataran community! So I take it we’re staying? I’ll tell him.”

He tapped out the message, then made himself as comfortable as he could in the low room while the Ilmatarans argued things out. With so many of them pinging and clicking together it sounded like some kind of bizarre concerto for harpsichord and castanets.

Broadtail was translating bits and pieces of the discussion into number code for Rob’s benefit, so that he understood at least vaguely what was happening. They were trying to decide where the humans could stay and how to protect them. Some of the Ilmatarans wanted to move them elsewhere. And then, quite suddenly, they all apparently came to an agreement because the pinging quieted down.

Broadtail tapped a new message to Rob. “Humans many food, yes?”

“No,” Rob replied. “Humans twenty food.”

This prompted one of the Ilmatarans to go to the doorway and make some loud noises. After a bit, a parade of others came in carrying bundles and jars of stuff that they set out on the floor in the center of the room.

“Eat,” Broadtail signaled.

“Oh, crud,” said Rob. “Alicia, how can we tell them we can’t eat their food?”

“Show them,” she said, and took out one of the emergency bars.

Rob spent some time going through his Ilmataran lexicon, and them tapped out “Human eat zero food.” He held up the food bar and unwrapped it. “Human eat object.”

This caused something of a commotion. Rob finally had to slip a bit of the food bar through the little self- sealing adaptive plastic port in the helmet faceplate. It was supposed to allow one to eat while outside the station—but in practice it always leaked. Icy water trickled down Rob’s neck, soaking his suit liner, but he got the morsel into his mouth. Its brief immersion in Ilmatar’s ocean gave it a flavor of over-salted egg, which wasn’t much worse than the way the bars normally tasted. The Ilmatarans crowded around, listening and feeling him as he chewed and swallowed.

Broadtail was brave enough to take a bit of the bar in his feeding tendrils. Watching him eat was almost as fascinating for Rob as his own performance had been for the Ilmatarans. The inner side of each tendril was ridged like a file, and Broadtail basically abraded his food, pulling the tendrils into his mouth to swallow what they scraped off.

“He’s eating it! Should I stop him?”

Alicia was busy calling up files on her helmet faceplate. “Yes! Tell him to stop! The sugars ought to be all right, but the fats and proteins may taste unpleasant or cause an allergic reaction.”

“Too late,” said Rob as Broadtail paused and expelled a cloud of food particles from his mouth.

“Not food,” said Broadtail after a moment.

“Builder food not Ilmataran food,” Rob tapped out.

That prompted a lot more discussion among the Ilmatarans, during which some of them apparently decided there was no sense letting all the stuff on the floor go to waste. They began stuffing themselves and passing things around. Since their sound organs were entirely separate from the feeding mouthparts, the Ilmatarans could chatter as much as they liked while eating.

“Take samples,” said Josef.

“Oh! Yes. Both of you help,” said Alicia, passing out some little sample baggies from her suit pocket.

“More data?” asked Rob as he scraped a little of what looked like caviar into a bag.

“Yes, and not just for research. There may be a few things here which we can eat.”

THINLEGS approaches Broadtail and Longpincer. “My dear colleagues. I find I must return to my own home. Longpincer, may I borrow the service of an apprentice to load my animal?”

“Of course you may,” says Longpincer. “But why must you leave now? So much is happening!”

Thinlegs reaches over with his pincers and taps on Longpincer’s shell, loud enough for Broadtail to hear. “That is why I must leave,” he spells out. “It is too much. I recall joining the Company as a diversion from the cares of managing my property. The discoveries and opinions of the members are interesting, and some of their ideas are profitable. As I say, it is a pleasant diversion. The Company are better conversationalists than my neighbors and apprentices, and you keep a good larder, Longpincer. But all that is happening now—it is simply too much! Beings from beyond the ice! Creatures capable of thinking and speaking like adults! Two varieties at war with each other! I fear that if I remain I must take a side in this fight and risk my life or my property.”

“I am sorry to hear it,” says Longpincer. “But I intend to welcome you again.”

“I am grateful. But I must go.”

Broadtail waits until Thinlegs is too far to hear them, then taps on Longpincer’s shell. “How many others are leaving?”

“I recall speaking with two—Narrowbody and Smoothshell.”

“I regret this is happening. Longpincer,” says Broadtail after a moment’s hesitation, “if the presence of the Builders creates difficulties, I can take them elsewhere. Perhaps hide them in a different set of ruins, or take them off to the shallows.”

“No. I am their host and I recall saying as much before the Company. This is the best place to keep them.”

“I must ask—can you afford this? Have you enough surplus for the Company and the Builders?”

“You need not worry. Even if my own jars are empty, I have beads to spend. Besides,” Longpincer’s tone shifts to amusement, “I remember you demonstrating these Builders cannot eat my food. Surely that is the best sort of guest to have?”

THE sub could sleep two people in only moderate discomfort, but adding a third meant that someone had to stretch out on top of the underside hatch. The unlucky sleeper always woke up cold, stiff, and with a pattern of little triangles pressed into his skin by the floor grid. When they were awake, Rob and Josef spent as much time outside as possible. Alicia used the cramped space as a lab.

On their second day at the Ilmataran settlement, Rob found Alicia hard at work inside the sub. He was quiet as she prepared another sample and slid the little test strip into the analyzer.

She straightened up and stretched. “In two days I have tested sixty-five Ilmataran foodstuffs. Seven have nutritional value for us, two contain no identifiable toxins or allergens, and one even seems to be palatable.”

For some values of palatable, I guess.”

“What is the old American saying? Pretend it is chicken?”

“More like rotten eggs.”

“That is just the sulfur. Everything here is rich in sulfur. It is the foundation of the ecology.”

“And that means half the things we’ve tested are full of sul furic acid and carbon sulfide.”

“The orange bacterial mats have only trace amounts. And we can get rid of the hydrogen sulfide you don’t like by cooking it. That would also break down the complex carbohydrates.”

“Mmm. Fried sulfur-reducing bacterial mats. When we get back to Earth we can start a chain of Ilmataran restaurants.”

“The usable carbohydrate content is about point one kilocalorie per gram. That is a bit less than lettuce. It will help keep us alive, Robert.”

“I know. Sorry. How many more samples today?”

“I am hoping to process another twenty. Our friend Broadtail has been a great help. His people have a very sophisticated classification system based on anatomy and physiology. It is essentially Linnean without the modern genetic component.”

“How does that help?”

“It means that I can eliminate entire phyla rather quickly.

For instance, we were able to determine that all the animals have tremendous concentrations of metals from the water in their tissues. Which is a shame, because I would like to find a source of protein we can use.”

“How about eggs?”

“They are too acidic. To be honest, the best things for us here are the products of decay. All of their energetic molecules are bad for us. But the sugars and starches they use for structural materials are all right.”

“We’re garbage eaters from space.”

“Essentially. I am gaining new respect for oxygen respiration. Speaking of which, how is your work?”

“Longpincer—he’s the guy who apparently runs this whole settlement—has given us a little outbuilding. Josef and I just spent the whole morning caulking it with silicone and reactor tape. Josef’s test-filling it with one of the spare APOS packs. If it’s really airtight, we can dismount the sub’s backup unit and fill the whole building with oxygen and argon.”

“How big is the building?”

“It’ll be snug. We had to leave the bottom part flooded, so the air space is about seven cubic meters. We can put a couple of hammocks in there and any equipment we want to keep dry.”

“What about heat?”

“Well—it’s chilly. It’s washed by outflow from the vent, but by the time it gets down the pipes it’s only about ten degrees C. Still, that’s better than the ambient seawater.”

“Ten is not so bad. I have gone camping in Normandy in worse weather.”

“That’s the spirit.” He was silent for a moment. “Is this really going to work?”

“I do not know. Food is the bottleneck. With enough calories we can survive despite the cold. The ’orange stuff’ is useful, but it isn’t concentrated enough. We will need to eat kilograms of it.”

ROB rejoined Josef outside to inspect the little outbuilding for leaks now that it was full of oxygen. The Ilmataran masonry work was really extraordinary, especially when you considered they had no metal tools to work the stone with. Underwater it was hard to swing a hammer, so most of their stone cutting had to be done by patient grinding instead of chipping and wedging.

The building was beehive-shaped, with the stones fitted together by abrading them into place. It reminded Rob of pictures he’d seen of Inca stonework in Peru. The seams were very tight, and Rob and Josef had used up four tubes of silicone sealant and a roll of reactor tape on the inside of the building. Now they hovered inches above the domed roof looking for suspicious bubbles.

After plugging another tube’s worth of leaks, both of them weresatisfied that the building was airtight. Josef maneuvered the sub over to their new home and the two of them spent half an hour getting the backup APOS system and spare argon tank moved inside. Since it was designed to run underwater anyway, Rob just put it on the floor below water level and taped the in and out hoses to the wall.

They waited for the machine to cycle the atmosphere in the building and get it to the right gas mix. Then Rob used more reactor tape to anchor the hammocks and a heater.

“Electrical work is exciting,” Josef commented, floating chest-deep in seawater while holding a cable from the sub’s powerplant.

“Tell me about it,” said Rob, wrapping another layer of reactor tape around a connection.

“I notice you are very fond of your tape.”

“Greatest stuff in the world. Superman’s duct tape.”