A Darkling Sea (25 page)

“When I was midshipman we would sometimes use it to tape people into bunks. One poor fellow got a strip attached to his face and lost eyebrows for a month.”

“Ouch. When I was in college all we ever did was go crawling through the steam tunnels. What time is it?”

“1622.”

“Damn. Another hour till dinner. I’m dying in here.”

“Will survive. Dinner will be emergency bars and orange stuff.”

“Makes surrender almost appealing, doesn’t it? Give up and get a decent meal. I hope Alicia can find a way to make the orange stuff taste better.”

“She is remarkable.”

“I know. I sure wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t.” Rob worked in silence for a moment. “What about you? I know you’ve got your guy back home so it’s not your hormones keeping you out here. You could be heading back to Earth and Misha—”

“Mishka.”

“Right. Why are you here?”

“Orders.”

Rob nearly dropped his flashlight. “No kidding?”

“Am still on active Navy duty, simply on loan to space agency.”

“Well, yeah, but the Russian Navy didn’t order you to hide out in the ocean of Ilmatar waging war on a bunch of aliens.”

Josef didn’t answer.

“They
did
?”

“Was given contingency plans,” said Josef at last.

“So you’ve got some kind of secret orders to fight the Sholen?”

“Yes. So did Dr. Sen and others—Fouchard, and Mario.”

“What about Dickie Graves?”

“Not to my knowledge. Like you, motivated by hormones, I think.”

“A l icia?”

“No. Just stubborn.”

“And it looks like you don’t know about my undercover identity as Batman, so I guess we’re even. What are these double-secret orders of yours?”

“Not very secret anymore. Resist any Sholen incursions at Terrestrial bases, using all appropriate means at my disposal.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I am to fight them, but try not to get killed, and not commit any serious atrocities.”

“Just minor ones.”

Josef shrugged, making himself bob up and down. “We are very far from Earth and our enemies are aliens.”

“You’re scaring me, Josef. So you knew something like this was going to happen?”

“Of course. You did not?”

“Well—right after I got picked to come here we had this big briefing about the Sholen and their whole hands-off-theuniverse thing. I just figured it was all talk. You know, like governments back home talking about preserving the Moon or whatever when what they really mean is they want a cut of the helium mining.”

“When someone threatens you, is best to take them seriously. My government—and yours, and most other UNICA members—have been making plans in case of Sholen attack for some time now. That is one reason we have such a large presence here: Ilmatar lies between Earth and Shalina.”

“Kind of drawing a line in the vacuum?”

“Likely. But also there was desire to see if humans and Sholen could cooperate in studying this world. Ilmatar is ideal place for that—neither humans nor Sholen can live here unaided, and existence of Ilmatarans makes it high priority for research.”

“So we’ve got plenty of incentive to work together here, and nobody’s going to start homesteading or playing Cortez.”

“Exactly. If we cannot cooperate on Ilmatar, then we cannot cooperate at all.”

“I guess we answered that question.”

“Yes. Now question becomes whether we allow the Sholen to deny us entire universe.”

“You think they really want that? Bottle us up inside the Solar System?”

“The logic of their ideology demands it—or even harsher limits. If they chase us off Ilmatar and other bodies with native life, nothing stops us building colonies on lifeless worlds, possibly terraforming some. Soon those worlds have their own interstellar vehicles, more and more as time passes. We have more people, too—which means in time we catch up to Sholen technology. Then pass them. Right now they are; that will not last. I have seen projections: human population off Earth is growing at about five percent per year. In a century, that’s a million people. Another century and humans off Earth outnumber Sholen. They must act now or never.”

“Damn. And Henri and I set it all off.” Rob slid into the water and put his weight on the hammock to test the tape. “Maybe we should give up before this turns into a real Earth vs. the Flying Saucers situation.”

“Robert, you are too harsh with yourself. What did you and Kerlerec do, exactly? You were found by Ilmatarans.”

“Because we fucked up. If Henri hadn’t—”

“Yes, he made foolish mistake. Robert, we cannot expect to avoid mistakes always. If one mistake destroys any chance to cooperate here, then Sholen are being unreasonable.”

Rob was fastening his helmet, and when he replied to Josef it was via the laser link. “I don’t know; this all sounds so abstract. So what if it’s justified? People have died! Isabel, Dickie, at least two Sholen.”

“If you wish to be practical, we can be practical: Sholen have killed humans and we must show them consequences to that behavior. If you wish to be idealistic, we can be idealistic: we are right and they are wrong.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“I am simple man,” said Josef.

BROADTAIL enjoys helping Builder 1 with its projects. Being at close quarters with the stranger gives him the chance to listen to it carefully. He remembers hearing Builder 1 using tools and marveling at how capable the stranger is with its little many-branched pincers.

The strangers are quite strong, too. Builder 1 can lift pipe segments and stones that would normally take a couple of apprentices with levers and pulleys to shift. Broadtail remembers Builder 1 explaining that it and the others come from a place where everything is heavier than here. Broadtail still doesn’t quite understand how that can be, but at least it explains why they are so strong.

All his conversations with Builders are like that. Some simple question or observation brings forth an answer that only opens up a vast store of new questions. Broadtail goes through reels of cord at a tremendous rate, mostly just noting things he plans to ask about in more detail.

When he hears things about the Squatters, he feels the same anger he remembers from his argument with Ridgeback. The Builders are
his
project, and learning from them is like discovering an entire vent complex ready for harvest—with a whole line of vents beyond it, all equally rich.

The Squatters plan to take away this harvest of discoveries? Broadtail is ready to fight them for it. He is ready to fight anyone who tries to steal the Builders from him.

FILLING the building used most of the sub’s argon reserve, and there wasn’t quite enough to fill all the way down to the door. Instead Rob and Josef rigged up a floor above the water level by simply piling up stones and then laying some stiff mats provided by Longpincer on top of them. The resulting floor was dangerously springy, but they could stand with their heads grazing the roof.

They moved the hammocks and other gear into their new quarters, which Rob dubbed the Dome, and then peeled off their suits for the first time in days.

“Wait,” said Rob to Alicia as she got ready to climb into her hammock. “I’ve got something for you.” He took a sealed plastic bag from the net filled with equipment hanging above the waterline. “Here, put it on.”

She looked at him quizzically and opened the bag. “It is—a suit liner?”

“A
dry
suit liner,” said Rob triumphantly.

“It is wonderful!” she said, pressing her face to the clean dry cloth and inhaling. “I hate to put it on and spoil it.”

“It won’t fit anybody else.”

She unzipped her own damp liner, wrinkling her nose at the mold patches. “I am very tired of being wet,” she said.

She stripped off her damp liner, wiped clean with four antibacterial wipes, and then very slowly Alicia got dressed. It was a sensual—but entirely nonsexual—reverse-striptease, and the expression on her face as she felt the clean fabric slide onto her limbs was like a painting of a saint touched by the Holy Spirit. “Thank you, my love,” she said at last.

“Where did you find it?” asked Josef.

“I cleaned it, actually. I used a mix of clean water from the dehumidifier and some Ilmatar seawater. To get it dry I put it in the sub cabin heat exchanger, and finally aired it out over the oxygen feed in here.”

“Robert, it must have taken you hours!” she said.

“Well, most of the time I was doing other stuff while I waited for it to dry out.”

“You are mad,” she said. “Wonderfully.”

He sniffed suspiciously. “Smells kind of like mushrooms,” he said.

“Taste it.”

“You’re sure it’s safe?”

“I have tasted it and I am not dead.”

“Yet.” He lifted the bowl to his mouth and took a tiny sip. “Kind of sour. Very salty.” He sipped some more. “Not too bad. What is it—more microbe soup?”

“Yes. A fermenting organism which breaks down the complex sugars in animal exoskeletons. It grows all through the garbage midden.”

“Yummy. What’s the calorie content like?”

“Very encouraging. I can filter it down to about one kilocalorie per three milliliters.”

“That’s great—drink a couple of liters and you can skip a food bar. Is there anything to worry about?”

“The sodium content is enormous, but that is true of everything here, and it has no usable protein. No vitamins, either, of course, but we have the supplements for that.”

“A ny tox i ns?”

“Nothing directly harmful. There is always the risk of an allergy, though I think if we cook it enough to break down any complex molecules we should be safe.”

“How
did
you cook this, anyway?”

“I taped the metal sample container to the wall, and put one of the immersion heaters into it. I am afraid boiling is the only way we can cook for now, except for the micro wave oven on the sub.”

“That’s pretty smart. Oh, by the way, I was wondering about something. We’ve been using the toilet on the sub, but it’s reaching its limit and we can’t dump it into the system at Hitode anymore. So either we discharge it off in the ocean somewhere, or we quit using it—and that means we’re going to be dumping our stuff in the ocean directly like we did at the Coquille. Is that safe? For the Ilmatarans, I mean. I don’t want to start some kind of space-cholera epidemic.”

“For ourselves it is entirely safe as long as you don’t dump it nearby. As for its effect on the Ilmatarans—hmm. The wastes themselves are harmless, and I’m sure the native organisms can break it all down in time. I am more concerned about our intestinal bacteria.”

“I remember there was some fuss about that before the first mission launched.”

“Yes, nobody wanted to unleash a plague on Ilmatar. Let me find the reference.” She tapped at her computer screen. “Here is the study: ’Risk is slight . . . Terrestrial bacteria fail to thrive in Ilmataran conditions . . .
not
immediately fatal, though . . . sample showed roughly fifty percent mortality after twenty- four hours . . . no cell division observed . . . I think we are safe, Robert. Our bacteria evolved to live inside a human body. It is very different out there.”

“Well, that’s good news. So how much of this stuff do you think we can collect?”

“It seemed to be fairly abundant. I think we can each have one meal of local food per day. That extends our stay by—”

“Two days. Maybe three. I’m also starting to worry about life support. We’re using the spare from the sub already, and we only have one spare suit. If any of them fail, we’ve got no backups. Another failure means somebody dies.”

“Surely the food problem will become critical first.”

“Well, probably. But the thing about air is, when you need it, you need it right now. You can put off eating for an hour or two even if you’re really hungry. You can’t put off breathing.”

She sighed. “You have a point, I suppose. But what can we do? Can you manufacture another APOS unit? Can we call Earth and have them ship us one?”

“I was thinking about salvage. Josef thinks they left monitors at Coq 2, but what about the other one? As far as I know it’s still there. Dickie didn’t mention them destroying it when they caught him. We can’t use it, and it might attract too much attention if we try to move it, but what about scavenging some parts?”

“Can you do it? I mean, do you have the tools and things?”

“I think so. Everything’s pretty modular. Swim in, pull the APOS packs and the nuke, swim out. I could do it in half an hour.”

“They will be listening for the sub. We will have to use the impeller. It is quieter.”

“We? I was gonna do it by myself. We don’t know that the place isn’t guarded.”

“Robert, do not be ridiculous. Even with an impeller you cannot manage two APOS packs and a power unit. And if something goes wrong you will be alone.”

Rob opened his mouth to answer, then closed it. He could see the argument unfolding before him, leading inevitably to Alicia getting her way. So he decided to save himself the effort. “Tell you what: you can come with me if you get in my sleeping bag right now. If you want—”

She cut him off. “You are trying to make some awful pun about Coquilles and penises, aren’t you? I will sleep with you if you promise not to speak it aloud.”

TIZHOS did her best, curling up next to the human with plenty of skin- on- skin contact. All his muscles felt tightly clenched, which didn’t seem right for a human in a relaxed state. She picked up a food ball and tried to feed it to him.

He jerked his head back, then shook it from side to side. “No, thank you,” he said.

Irona had instructed her to scent the air in their room with perfumes and pheromones to establish the mood. The two Sholen would certainly have an easier time bonding with the human if they themselves felt relaxed and affectionate. Tizhos had also created a platter of treats they could all share, and turned up the heat.

“I ask you to try the food,” said Irona. “You have no cause to worry—Tizhos has programmed our foodmaker to observe human dietary and culinary constraints.”

Tizhos tried to feed him again, and again Vikram Sen pulled back. Finally he took the ball from her hand with his own and nibbled it. “Your foodmaker is an impressive feat of technology, but as I told Tizhos earlier I am afraid I have nothing more to say to either of you right now.”

“You misunderstand our purpose. We do not wish to interrogate you. We merely want to renew our friendship with you.”

Tizhos handed Vikram Sen another food ball. He took it with his hand, had a bite, and put it down with the other.

Irona moved onto the cushions next to the human on the other side. He put his midlimb around Vikram Sen’s shoulders and Tizhos could feel the little human flinch.

“This does not seem to be going well,” she murmured to Irona. “He shows no sign of a favorable response.”

“We should try harder,” Irona said back to her, then switched to the human language. “Vikram Sen, please tell me why you exhibit such a lack of comfort. We wish only to make you content.”

“As I have said on a number of occasions, the only possible way you could make me happy would be to remove your soldiers and yourselves from this station and return the people you have taken. We cannot be friends until that happens.”

Tizhos handed the human an ethanol beverage and began lightly stroking his hair. If anything, his body seemed even more tense, but she persisted. References indicated that humans used such activities as a bonding ritual, in their strange, emotionless fashion. Vikram Sen sipped the drink and put it with the unfinished food balls.

“Let me feed you,” said Irona, holding a cube of delicately flavored gelatin before the human’s face.

“No, thank you,” said Vikram Sen, turning his head away.

Tizhos caught a shift in Irona’s scent. Was he becoming aroused? A good leader could establish a sexual bond with subordinates—but surely not with an
alien
? Apparently the scented air and psychoactives in the food could overcome that barrier. She felt a pang of worry. Irona’s hormones might get the better of his self- control. She could feel herself responding to the scents, and she knew that as leader Irona would experience a much stronger effect.

Irona rolled over, supporting himself above the human on four limbs. “Let me feed you,” he repeated, then placed the cube delicately between his own teeth.

The human struggled but Irona lowered his head. He pressed the gelatin against the human’s tightly closed lips, but Vikram Sen just turned his head aside and closed his eyes tightly. The food fell to the cushions and rolled onto the floor.

Irona kept his body pressed against Vikram Sen’s, moving from side to side in sensuous waves that turned the human’s struggles into a kind of caress. Tizhos felt almost dizzy from the powerful blend of pheromones in the air. Vikram Sen seemed more like a potential rival than an alien they wished to impress. With one small rational part of her mind she knew she should try to stop things before they got out of hand.

“Don’t resist your feelings,” said Irona. “We can love one another.” He began nuzzling the side of the human’s face.

But Vikram Sen’s responses did not match what the two Sholen had hoped for. Water flowed from his tightly closed eyes, he struggled and hit Irona ineffectually with his arms, and tried to raise his knee against the weight of the larger Sholen.

The skin glands on Irona’s underside sprinkled droplets of strong- smelling marker pheromone on the struggling human. Vikram Sen inhaled a couple of times, then shoved Irona’s head away and tumbled to the floor. He regurgitated the contents of his stomach, then got to his feet. His body trembled.

“Stay,” said Irona. “We have all eve ning.”

The human got the door open and shut it behind him. Tizhos could hear him shouting something in the hallway. It did not sound like words in any human language she understood.

“Tell me if you think we have succeeded in winning his loyalty,” said Irona. Without thinking the two of them began moving into a mating position.

“No,” said Tizhos after a long silence. “I do not think so.”

AS they approached Coq 1 Rob was cautious to the point of clinical paranoia. The two of them cut off their impellers two hundred meters from the shelter, and began moving along the bottom in short sprints from cover to cover. As much as possible, they pushed off from the ancient walls instead of kicking, because Rob was worried that the Sholen might use some of the captured acoustic analysis software to identify the sound of a swimming human.

When they were a hundred meters away they went completely dark, and paused for up to a minute between movements. It took them half an hour to approach to where they could see the Coquille clearly.

It was dark and silent. On passive sonar it was a hole in the ocean. The only noise was a very faint sussuration from the nuclear power unit as water convected through its cooling fins. Even damped down it was still about five degrees warmer than the ocean.

Rob tapped Alicia’s helmet and made a “stop” gesture with one hand, then pointed at himself and then at the shelter. She signed “okay.”

He braced himself against the broken stone pipe they were crouched next to and pushed off as hard as he could. He felt himself shooting through the water, slowing until he had to start kicking to cover the last couple of meters.

Rob’s extended fingers touched the side of the Coquille, and he felt his way to the lower edge, then pulled himself under it until he came to the entry hatch. It opened easily enough, and Rob switched on his helmet lamp. The sudden light was startlingly bright after minutes in total dark. The motes of silt floating before his face made him jerk his head back in surprise.

He risked a look around before climbing up the little ladder inside the hatch. The Coquille had acquired a coating of gray fuzz, growing in intricate six-branched patterns like moldy snowflakes.

Just before his head broke the surface in the hatchway, Rob paused. What if Isabel’s body was still inside? He felt a sudden queasiness. The image of Isabel Rondon, all bloated and purple like a deer on the side of the highway, flashed into his head and he couldn’t dismiss it. He realized he was breathing heavily.

I have to climb this ladder, he told himself. Very deliberately he moved his right hand up to the next rung and took hold. He forced himself to let go with his left and reach up to the top rung. His head moved from water to air, and he looked around the lower level of the Coquille.