She had added, “Don’t expect reef ecology to have any Terrestrial equivalent. Given that the plants on land move, any mapping of aquatic vegetation will probably be a snapshot. And while we’re not positive about this, you’re going to be a lot better off if you begin your study assuming that the plants are intelligent. Hell, for all we know, everything is.”
“You’re joking,” Casey Stoner had cried.
Kalico had given the woman a thin-lidded appraisal. “What part of TriNA didn’t you get? It’s a three-strand molecule that processes data at three-to-the-third power. Cheng has isolated some of the microRNAs that TriNA uses to communicate, and he’s building a list of proteins the molecules produce and may use for shorthand. Not to mention that the molecules separate into strands of deoxyribonucleic acid that recombine with strands from other TriNA. They copy, compare, or whatever, then separate again and go back to their original molecule. Sort of like they’ve gone visiting to share notes. I tell you, it’s an intelligence at the molecular level that we’re just beginning to work out.”
Just as they were all shuffling off to bed, Michaela had buttonholed Kalico, a sober look in her eyes. “I want to thank you. You’ve probably saved us months, maybe a year or more of false starts. I know my people may have come off as obstinate, but for some of them, especially in the biological sciences, they’ve just had their entire paradigms upended.”
“Welcome to Donovan,” Kalico had replied laconically. “That happens here. A lot.”
Hailwood had steepled her fingers, hesitated, then said, “Don’t take this wrong. It’s a pleasant surprise to realize our Board Supervisor isn’t just some administrator who could care less as long as the boxes are checked off. Your understanding of the planet’s fundamental biology is impressive. Don’t think we don’t appreciate it.” Hailwood had smiled. “After tonight, I think my team and I are more energized than ever to meet and exceed your expectations.”
“Director, this is Donovan. Nothing here works the way you expect.”
The woman had nodded. “Isn’t that the truth?”
To Kalico’s surprise, she’d slept well in the single-occupancy berth they’d given her. Awakened refreshed and been pleasantly surprised when the biological experts had quizzed her hard all through breakfast. Obviously, they’d spent most of the night mulling over what she’d told them. But knowing intellectually was different than having the reflexes.
Of course, when The Corporation had chosen them, it had picked from the brightest cadre of up-and-coming young scientists available. All of them had been in their twenties, people with drive and ambition who wouldn’t mind dedicating a minimum of fourteen years of their lives to the two-year transit time, the requisite ten-year contract on Donovan, and another two-year transit back to Solar System. That they’d all re-upped spoke well for the prescience used by the selection committee back on Transluna.
Given Kalico’s choice of the day’s duties and assignments, she’d chosen to accompany the inaugural run out to one of the small islands fifty kilometers to the north. Shinwua had assured Hailwood that the seatruck was finally ready for a shakedown trip. The second unit would be kept in reserve on the Pod’s dock in case anything went wrong.
To Kalico’s way of thinking, that kind of forethought upped the Maritime Unit’s chances of success fourfold.
As the seatruck skimmed along a mere two meters above the wavetops, Kalico savored the sight of endless water. She’d missed having a vista that wasn’t through chain-link. And in the bush, vegetation created a constant visual barrier.
“What are those?” She pointed to the triangular shapes that had appeared on the horizon to the northeast.
“We call them seaskimmers,” Shinwua told her. “We haven’t managed a close look at one yet. Best we can tell, they’re like a living sailboat.”
As the seatruck closed the distance, the triangular sails shifted colors, patterns of orange, yellow, and dark blue scrolling across the sails. The seaskimmers reversed course in unison, tacking off to the east and away from the seatruck’s path.
Kalico said, “You saw that patterning? The different colors? That’s communication. Just like quetzals use on land. When you get the chance to watch these seaskimmers for long enough, you’ll be able to read what they’re saying, at least on an elementary level.”
Shinwua said, “I’ll take your word for it.”
Kalico asked, “Want to bet a couple rhodium bars?”
“What’s a rhodium bar?”
“Call it the most valuable metal on Donovan. A two-kilo bar would buy you the premium penthouse at Three Spires and let you live in whatever fashion you wished for the rest of your life. Oh, and your kid’s lives. A couple of bars? Well, I guess they wouldn’t buy you a seat on the Board, and maybe they wouldn’t buy you a Boardmember, but you could sure rent one for rest of his or her life.”
“And you’re betting two of these bars?” Yoshimura rose from his seat and came to stand just behind Kalico’s shoulder as he stared at the fleeing seaskimmers. The creatures were now flashing patterns of red, pink, blue, and violet as they caught all the wind they could to escape from the seatruck’s path.
“You my taker?” she asked.
Yoshimura raised his binoculars, studying the patterns on the sails as the seatruck passed to the seaskimmers’ right. “Not me. Like you said last night. This is not Earth.”
“So, if there’s all this intelligence,” Shinwua asked, “what does it do?”
“What do you mean, do?”
“Okay, granted, I’m a programmer and engineer. Humans are the only major intelligence on Earth, right? I mean, yeah, dolphins, ravens, and apes are pretty smart, and they make some stuff. Simple stuff. If even the molecules are smart here, what have they done with it?”
“I’m not following you,” Kalico replied.
“Hey, I don’t see buildings, spaceships, electronics, roads, farms, mines, or anything that I’d consider a sign of intelligence. So, if even the TriNA learns, what does it learn? Or does it just hang around thinking planet-shaking great thoughts? Some kind of solipsistic navel gazing dedicated to asking the eternal question of why? So the planet has figured out the purpose of existence, what good is it if you don’t do something with it?”
“Good question,” Kalico answered. “We’ve been asking ourselves the same thing over the last few years. We know the most about the quetzals. Used to think they were the apex predators. Now we’re dealing with mobbers, and finally, something big, furtive, and deadly that lurks in the treetops out west. Something smart enough to know it was going to be bombed from the air.”
“Wait,” Yoshimura said. “It knew it was going to be bombed? You’d tried to bomb it before?”
Kalico shook her head. “First time. Somehow the treetop terror figured out that we were baiting it from below while Dek circled above in an airplane. It was able to analyze our actions tactically, identify the airplane as a threat, and make the decision to tear off a tentacle in order to escape our trap. That, gentlemen, is a sobering cognitive ability.”
“And the quetzals? They do this too?” Shinwua asked.
“Not like that treetop terror. Here’s what we know: The quetzal lineage around Port Authority considers itself at war with humanity. We call this the Whitey lineage after the current leader. For the last thirty years, his lineage has been studying humanity, trying to figure out how to exterminate us. It has taken them that long to figure out how to coordinate a massed attack on PA. But quetzals pass information down through transfers of TriNA. Some learning may even be generational, although individuals are highly adaptive. One of the reasons it may have taken them this long is that we’ve killed a lot of quetzals. We were taking them out of the brain pool before they could share knowledge.”
“That doesn’t argue for intelligence,” Yoshimura noted.
“Rifles, drones, remote sensing, and explo
sives haven’t been in their cultural history until recently,” Kalico countered. “It took Rocket--a quetzal from another lineage who bonded with a little girl--for us to begin to understand quetzal intelligence. And through a couple of infected humans, we’re learning that quetzal lineages, like groups of people, have different agendas.”
“Go back to this infection,” Yoshimura said. “I’ve heard rumors, but nothing concrete. That somehow quetzal molecules are changing people. Like that Perez woman. That her infection was what made her so . . . what do I say? Alien?”
Kalico nodded. “Good word. Tal’s a test case, a battleground for competing lineages of quetzal TriNA. Fortunately, she’s a tough lady. Was able to come to terms with her unique circumstance. When we get to Kylee, the little girl? Well, she’s not so little now, and her history is tragic. Her quetzal, Rocket, was murdered, which turns out to have been a crippling blow in more ways than one. As a result, Kylee is wild, doesn’t trust humans. She’s bonded with another quetzal, named Flute. But she’ll never be a ‘normal’ human being.”
“So,” Shinwua asked, “What do the quetzals want?”
“We don’t know. And, to be frank, I’m not sure they do either. It’s like we’re all feeling our way forward in this.”
“And what lessons do we take away from this?” Yoshimura asked.
Kalico could see the white breakers ahead, and even as she watched, a thin strip of cream-colored sand could be made out against the horizon.
“Here’s your takeaway, Dr. Yoshimura: Whatever you find in the ocean, don’t think—even for an instant—that it’s simple. What we know about intelligence on Donovan is little more than a feeble candle flame in a universe of blackness. But it’s enough to scare the clap-trapping bejeezus out me.”
“The what?” Shinwua asked.
“Sorry. Old term.” But still just as true.
16
“How do you get this stuff off?” Sheena asked.
Felix looked up from the pad where he’d been reading. According to the cafeteria clock, the time was 11:05. He, Breez, Felicity, Tomaya, and Sheena were in what the adults called “school.” Or sometimes, just “class.” This had started for him and the two girls back on Ashanti.
There it had been in one of the dormitory rooms where the three of them had been made to sit at the low central table and study on their pads with half the adults crowded around. Given that there was nothing else to do, it had been a community process, to which Tomaya and then Breez had been added when each turned four. Along with the adults, Felix, Felicity, and Sheena had been expected to help Tomaya and Breez learn letters, numbers, adding and subtracting, and then reading. Seemed like Breez had taken to it a lot faster at her age than either Felix, Felicity, Sheena, or Tomaya had.
During the transition down from Ashanti, “school” had been a constant. What was different on the Pod was that no adults were lounging around adding bits of wisdom to the lesson. Sometimes, in the past, he and the girls had learned more from the conversations the adults got into about history and science and stories then they did from the pads.
“I said, how do you get this stuff off?” Sheena repeated, giving Felix a hard glare. She lifted her fingers, rubbed them together. “It’s like oil. But I can rub it, wash it with soap, scrub, and it’s just there. And it itches.”
“Told you.” Felix shot a glance at Felicity who looked puzzled. “You weren’t there.”
“What is it?” Breez asked.
“Algae,” Felix told her to cut Sheena off. “From the water.”
“Like, from hydroponics?”
“No, the real water,” he told her with all the arrogance he could muster. “Sheena and me, we caught some.”
“How?” Felicity demanded.
“With our fingers,” Sheena finally chimed in. “Now it won’t come off. Feels like oil.”
“Let me feel.” Breez reached out a hand, grabbed Sheena’s fingers, and rubbed them. “Like grease, huh? You know, like Tobi puts on moving parts.”
Breez would know that since her mother, Jaim Elvridge, was an engineer.
“I want to feel, too,” Tomaya got out of her chair and walked over to examine Felix’s fingers. As she rubbed them, his palms began to sweat; the prickling tingle ran from his hand up his arm to the shoulder. “Hey, easy. That feels funny.”
“Why’s your palm all wet?” Tomaya wanted to know, making a face as she studied her hand and then rubbed it, as if trying to get his sweat off. “It’s kind of slimy. Sort of like spit.” She flounced over and dropped with an overemphasized huff into her chair. Still, she kept rubbing her fingers together. “Doesn’t feel . . . what did you say? Tingly.”
“It will,” Sheena warned.
“Did your Mom try and wash it off?” Felicity asked.
“It’s fine,” Sheena told her.
But Tomaya caught the look that passed between Felix and Sheena. She said, “Oh, you did something you shouldn’t have?”
“Must have been bad,” Felicity said.
“How do you know?” Breez asked, bending back to her pad as she started rubbing her fingers on her jumper.
“’Cause they did,” Tomaya said craftily.
“Okay, smarty,” Felix challenged. “What did we do? Huh?”
“I don’t know,” Tomaya admitted, “but it was something.”
“Bet they went where they weren’t supposed to,” Felicity told them with self-assurance. “Got into stuff the grownups told them not to.”
“Did not,” Felix cried impulsively.
Sheena had scrunched her lips into a pout the way she did when she didn’t want any more questions. Felix knew she was pretending to read from her pad, but all the while she kept rubbing her fingers on the fabric of her smock.
Felicity grabbed at his hand, clamped on tight, and looked at his fingers. “They look shiny. Like they got plastic all over them. Your Mom seen that?”
“No. She’s been busy. It’ll go away. Like the time I got ink on my fingers and had to wear it off.”
Felicity was rubbing her index finger on Felix’s thumb and forefinger. “Feels slippery, all right. Is that why you kept dropping your cup this morning?”
“I don’t know.” He jerked his hand away. “Let go! It’s not your business anyway.”
Felicity sat back, a frown lining her forehead as she rubbed her fingers together.
17
As the seatruck approached the island’s white sand, Yoshimura said, “Slow us down, Shin. Let’s take our time closing on the beach. Maybe follow a course parallel to the littoral? Say one hundred meters out? Give me a chance to get the UUVs in the water and get a look at what’s under the waves?”
“You got it, Yosh.”
Kalico had to brace herself on the transparency as the seatruck settled into the water, rocking as it rode the rise and fall of the swells. Shinwua steered them parallel to the beach and lowered the two drones into the water.
The depth here averaged around seven meters, visibility excellent in the crystalline water. Not more than thirty centimeters under the surface, a collection of what they called “jellyfish” were expanding and contracting as they moved slowly forward. Like the terrestrial versions, some were nearly transparent, others came in all sizes and colors. Unlike the earthly versions, these scattered as the drones approached. Created a sort of tunnel along the drone’s path. As they did, all were changing color, turning to a remarkably uniform orange-red.
Shin immediately sent the second drone deep, dropping it down through the clear water to hover a meter above the bottom. As it descended, colorful, tube-shaped creatures shot this way and that, apparently propelled by jets of water blasted out through vents at their rear.
“Three-sided,” Kalico said in instant revelation. “It’s a pattern we see on land. Trilateral symmetry. And the basic Donovanian physiology, it comes from th
e tube shape being used as a means of propulsion. Like quetzals who suck in air and vent it out the back. But here, it’s water.”
“And perhaps for oxygen exchange,” Yoshimura said. “They must have some equivalent of gills inside.”
“That’s where quetzals, chamois, fastbreak, mobbers, and the rest have their lungs,” Kalico agreed. “Look at the way—”
“Um, guys?” Shin called, pointing to the monitor displaying the first drone’s transmission.
Kalico shifted her gaze, tried to figure out what she was seeing. The tunnel the jellyfish had made around the UUV was contracting, becoming more of an envelope that shrank down, closing in around the UUV until the camera was blotted out.
“What just happened?” Shin asked as he worked the joystick that controlled the drone. “I’ve got nothing here. Drone’s responding despite a deteriorating signal, but it’s lost maneuverability. Like something’s grabbed hold of it.”
“The jellyfish,” Kalico said thoughtfully. “They’ve swarmed the drone. My guess, Donovan being Donovan, they’re trying to eat it.”
“What?” Yoshimura asked.
“Bems, skewers, lots of Donovanian creatures use camouflage, then grab or spear their prey before engulfing it.” To Shin she said, “Do you have any way of defending your drone?”
“I can run an electrical discharge through the hull. It’s meant to discourage barnacles and such from attachment.”
“You might want to try it. Otherwise, unless the jellyfish get bored, they may never turn loose of your drone.”
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