A Darkling Sea (22 page)

They inched forward, stirring up little clouds of silt whenever they moved. Dickie was so focused on not being heard rather than staying unseen that Rob had to remind him the Sholen had eyes and cameras as well as hydrophones.

When the two of them were less than twenty meters from the station, there was no point in trying to stay concealed because all the external lights were on, turning the area around the station into a glaring white bubble in the darkness. The two men pushed off from the bottom and began kicking toward the dive entrance, trying to cover the distance before whatever person or software was watching the cameras could react.

Suddenly Rob’s sonar picked up a source outside the station. He squinted into the glare of the lights and thought he saw movement underneath the bulk of Hitode.

“Dickie—” was all he could say before a much louder voice nearly deafened him.

“STOP AND SURRENDER!”

Six Sholen- sized silhouettes emerged from their hiding place under the station.

“Crap,” said Graves. “Play along and get ready,” he said to Rob through the laser link.

“What?”

“Hello! We give up!” said Dickie over his own speaker. “We surrender!” He dropped to his knees on the sea bottom. Rob could see one hand near the pistol.

“Dickie, what are you doing?” Rob whispered over the link.

Graves casually touched the pistol. Evidently none of the Sholen recognized it as a weapon. He gripped it and put a finger on the trigger but didn’t raise his hand yet. The Sholen were only twenty meters away now. Rob could see they were carrying things in their upper arms. Weapons?

“Get your knife out, Freeman.” Graves raised the gun.

“No!” said Rob. Then the sound of the gun hammered his ears. One of the Sholen jerked and Rob could see a little fountain of bubbles and a cloud of blood. Graves fired again but apparently missed his next target. The Sholen had stopped and were all aiming the boxy devices they held in their upper arms.

Rob flung himself backward, kicking as hard as he could, trying to get away from Dickie. The gun went off again but Rob couldn’t see if anyone was hit. Then he heard several brief whooshing noises and looked back in time to see Dickie Graves silhouetted against the flash of an explosion. He was surrounded by a perfect halo of bubbles and pieces of him appeared to be coming off.

The blast hit Rob in the next instant. It was beyond just noise. The shockwave pulsed through his body, a tremendous feeling of pressure that for a second left him unable to breathe. Two more followed the first like heartbeats. Rob blacked out.

When he could think again, Rob was on the sea bottom, facedown in the mud. His helmet’s faceplate was half covered by a little pool of blood dripping from his nose. His whole body felt bruised, but none of his bones were broken. Despite a great desire to just stay there on the cold mud until he died, Rob got onto his hands and knees and then started kicking. He swam away from the light, struggling along as best he could.

He couldn’t hear anything but a skull-splitting ringing noise, and wondered if more of those little torpedoes were homing in on him. But the lights of Hitode got dimmer behind him as he swam and nothing happened. Either the Sholen were as deaf and dazed as he was, or they didn’t want to shoot an unarmed man.

The blood on his faceplate distorted the heads-up display, but he managed to find the rendezvous point where the sub was supposed to meet him. No point in tr y ing to be stealthy—he switched to his external speaker and yelled for help until Alicia came out and dragged him into the sub.

FOUR hours later Tizhos picked through the fragments on the dissecting table. The human tissue and entrails reeked of iron and methane. Tizhos wasn’t really interested in that. She’d seen a dead human before—shortly after contact the two civilizations had swapped nearly a dozen cadavers.

The suit was what Tizhos was searching for, in particular the computer. Normally the main memory was located in the chest plate just below the helmet mount, but the first of the little torpedoes had struck the human right in the chest, churning the computer components together with his lungs and ribs. That would reduce normal computers to so much scrap, but the humans on Ilmatar used ruggedized equipment. Their devices were a mass of chips embedded in heat- conducting ballistic resin. One could use them to hammer nails without damaging the electronics.

There! Tizhos cut away the ruined heart muscle. Behind it the computer nestled against the spine on a bed of crushed bone. It looked cracked, but she might be able to salvage some of the memory.

This human, Richard Graves, was a language expert. The files he’d left behind in Hitode’s system held a wealth of information on Ilmataran communication. Tizhos hoped to find an even better trove in the human’s personal computer. He had been out away from Hitode for more than a week; he might have new discoveries about the world and its inhabitants.

Oh, and of course Irona also wanted her to recover as much data as possible. Not the science material, though He was only interested in trivia like navigation coordinates and inertialcompass readings. Tizhos would give him that, just to keep him happy.

When she had all the information she needed, Tizhos went to her room to make herself attractive. She daubed color onto her genitalia and scented herself heavily. Normally Tizhos preferred to be honest in her attraction and subtle in her displays. This time she had to be blatant.

She found Irona in the little operations center off the common room, trying once again to squeeze some signal out of the hydrophone data. Tizhos took up a posture of sexual dominance and embraced him from behind.

He sounded like an eager subordinate.

“Not yet,” she told him. “I want you to do something first.” Irona looked at her then, and she could feel the sexual tension disappear. “You wish to make a
trade
?”

“A
concession
to help achieve consensus,” she told him. “Tell me what you want.”

“Only this: speak to them first. I have repaired one of the drones. Send it ahead of the capture expedition. Ask them to surrender.”

“It seems unwise to give them warning before our arrival.”

Tizhos held him closer and stroked the back of his neck. She could feel him tense up as he resisted bonding with her. “They have no place to go. I fear that coming upon them suddenly might cause them to lash out in panic. Again, I only ask that you speak first.”

Irona relaxed a little, and allowed himself a perfunctory nuzzle against Tizhos. “I agree. Send along the drone.”

BROADTAIL is worried. He remembers the Builders going off in their moving shelter. He doesn’t know where they are, or the reason for the move. He worries that perhaps they are afraid of the Bitterwater Company. Perhaps they think this is Longpincer’s property and they are trespassing.

During their absence he and the other scholars take the opportunity to examine the camp of the Builders without any interference. Broadtail even attempts to enter their shelter. There is a narrow passage at the bottom, and he must fold all his limbs in order to fit inside. The walls are perfectly smooth, except for a series of bars evidently for pulling one’s body along.

The top of the passage is covered; the lid is made of the same odd-tasting stone as the walls. There is a circular object attached to the lid. The whole thing is very warm to the touch; the heat is invigorating. Broadtail pulls and pushes without result, but when he twists the round object in the center of the lid it turns, and then he can lift the lid quite easily.

Within the shelter is emptiness. Like a huge bubble. Broadtail pokes one pincer into the titanic bubble, then his head. It is like being deaf. He quickly pulls back down into the water again. He tastes something odd, and runs his feelers over his pincer tip. The thin coating of slime and parasites growing on his shell is sloughing off. The surface of his shell itself is like something long- dead and scoured by scavengers. Whatever is inside that bubble is a poison deadlier than anything Broadtail recalls hearing about.

He lets himself drop down the passage into safer, cooler water. “Longpincer,” he calls out. “Tell everyone to stay out of this shelter. It is filled with some kind of poison.”

“A trap?” is Longpincer’s first question.

“I’m not sure. The inside is filled with a bubble, and whatever substance fills the bubble is some kind of strong poison. Feel my shell—the surface of my head is completely bare of slime. Like something in a hot vent.”

“Ah! The dead Builder!” Longpincer sounds pleased. “Yes, I remember my pincers and tools feeling odd after dissecting it! These creatures must excrete some kind of toxin for protection!”

Sharpfrill joins them. “I remember reading several accounts of vents which emit toxic flow,” he says. “Combine that with the heat of these Builder creatures and it seems more and more clear that they come from beneath the ground.”

“That is not what I remember Builder 1 saying,” says Broadtail.

“Misunderstandings are almost inevitable,” Sharpfrill points out. “Or—I do not wish to make accusations, but the idea must be spoken—the Builders deliberately deceive you.”

“We can ask them ourselves! Listen!”

All of them can now hear the buzzing, rushing noise of the moving shelter as it approaches.

The Bitterwater Company move away from the shelter to make room for the moving structure. It comes to rest in the usual spot and three Builders emerge. The Bitterwater scholars surge forward, clicking out questions, but the Builders don’t seem to be interested in communicating. They go into their shelter without stopping.

Broadtail wonders where Builder 3 is. He loiters about the moving shelter, hoping it will emerge. Builder 3 is by far the easiest to speak with. It even knows some real speech. He waits, and he waits. No Builder 3. Eventually Broadtail gets tired and goes off to rest. The missing Builder never appears.

When he wakes, Broadtail finds Builder 2 is outside, communicating with Sharpfrill and Longpincer. He swims over to the little group and waits for the alien creature to finish explaining something to Sharpfrill about what is beyond the ice.

He wants to ask if something is wrong, but he doubts the Builder would understand, so he tries a simpler question. “Where is Builder 3?”

“Shelter inside,” Builder 2 answers.

“No,” says Broadtail. “Two Builders are in the shelter, you are here. Where is Builder 3?”

Builder 2 pauses, then taps slowly. “Is Builder 3 this place here is not.”

“Where is Builder 3,” Broadtail repeats, then tries “What place is Builder 3?”

“Builder 3 immobile remains. Is Builder 3 cold still.” The creature is making odd noises inside its head as it taps. “Cold immobile stone Builder 3.”

“Dead,” Broadtail taps out, then drops to the sea bottom and lies there without moving, to demonstrate. “Dead,” he clicks in numbers. Then he jumps up and swims about. “Alive,” he clicks.

Builder 2 moves its head and taps out “Yes. Dead. Builder 3.”

“But how is the poor creature dead?” Longpincer asks Broadtail. “An accident?”

“Let me try to ask.” It takes Broadtail a long time to formulate the question, and he tries several different ways.

“Stay,” says Builder 2, and swims over to the shelter. Builder 1 emerges and the two return together. They communicate with each other somehow—Broadtail suspects there is more to it than just the gestures and faint murmurs he can perceive. Finally Builder 2 taps out a message. “Grasping I one word thing.”

What follows is a long and bewildering series of statements. Only Broadtail can stay and listen to the whole thing. Longpincer and Sharpfrill go off to eat and rest, which is a pity because Broadtail wishes he had someone to help him understand what the Builder is trying to say.

Builder 1 describes a creature, similar to Builders but larger and with more limbs. “An adult?” Broadtail asks, but Builder 1 says no, and makes it clear that these things have only six limbs, multibranched like a Builder’s.

It speaks of a large shelter containing many other Builders, several dozen cables away. Builder 3 becomes dead there, apparently because of the six-limbed things. Exactly how or why this happens, Builder 2 cannot make clear.

When Builder 2 finishes, Broadtail swims off in search of Longpincer.

“Ah, Broadtail! Excellent. We are just packing up to return to Bitterwater. Just enough food remains to get us there.”

“I think I must stay longer,” says Broadtail. “There is something I do not understand.”

“I plan to return with more food and some servants,” says Longpincer. “But now there is little to eat.”

“I suggest you and the others return to Bitterwater then. I plan to follow alone.”

“As you wish,” says Longpincer. “Though I warn you of great hunger if you stay. All the rocks for a cable in every direction are scoured clean.”

“I am well-fed thanks to your generosity. I don’t plan on starving. But I must speak with the Builders at length. May I keep another couple of reels for notes?”

“These Builders are a boon to the makers of cord, at least,” says Longpincer. “Yes, keep as many as you need.”

Broadtail finds a spot among some stones to rest. When he wakes the others are gone. A bundle of new reels and a package of cured fronds rests by his head. He stows it all in his harness and swims off in search of the Builders.

IRONA’S hunting expedition had to wait two days, so that three more Guardians could come down on the elevator. That way Irona could leave Tizhos and one Guardian behind to control the humans in Hitode.

On the appointed day Irona led half a dozen Guardians out in the direction of the last shelter. They all carried weapons. The drone swam ahead, linked by laser to a handheld computer carried by Irona. Tizhos watched the Guardians roll into the moon pool two at a time, with a feeling of dread.

Before the ripples of the last pair had died out, Tizhos went to see Vikram Sen. The Guardian accompanied her, on Irona’s orders. He had told her she needed protection while in charge of the station. She suspected the Guardian also had orders to tell Irona everything she did. Certainly he did not have the posture and scent of a subordinate. If she had the time, she could establish the proper sexual bond with him, but she had too many things to get done.