"Then that's when you'll find out if you're a monster. Are you going back to the control room?"
"I don't think so. The Link transition is the job of the ship's computer. It's supposed to be close to omniscient, and close to infallible."
"So why are we here? What can humans do that it can't?"
"We can risk human lives. That's Dag Korin's job now; mine when we get through the link."
"Mine too, then. I'll wait here—if that's all right with you?" She waited, but there was no word, no nod of acceptance. Finally she went on, "I can tell you one thing right now. No matter what happens when we go through the Link, you haven't lured anybody here. Not Chrissie, not Tarb, not Danny, not anybody. Every member of the old team, they would rather be here than anywhere else in the universe."
Still he said nothing.
She added, "And so would I."
* * *
Link network transitions: every one the same, every one different.
Similarities:
* Before a transition can be initiated, coordinates must be provided. One hundred and sixty-eight decimal digits are needed, enough to specify origin and destination to within one meter anywhere in the universe. No exceptions are permitted.
* The matter density within the destination volume must be no greater than that of a thin gas; otherwise, Link transition will not be initiated. Link points on Earth's surface come very close to that limit.
* Adequate (which is to say, enormous) power must be available at the originating Link point. Travel to the stars will never be cheap. The power for a single interstellar trip eats up the savings of a lifetime. When a large mass is involved, such as that of the Hero's Return, no private groups can afford the expense. Such Link transitions are the prerogative of wealthy species governments.
Differences:
* Link entry positions are absolute, but Link entry velocities depend on mass. A small ship, such as the Mood Indigo, can enter a link with some latitude in velocity and emerge unscathed. A ship the size of the Hero's Return must hit the right entry velocity to within millimeters a second.
* Velocity error converts kinetic energy to heat energy upon Link emergence. Miss the entry speed by a few kilometers a second, and your ship will emerge red hot.
* There is no uniformity in Link destinations, and no warning given of their properties. A traveller must learn of any dangers—high temperature, intense gravity field—ahead of time.
* Small fluctuations, believed to be amplified quantum effects, add a random element to the direction of travel on emergence. In the worst possible case, the one-in-a-million shot that no one likes to talk about, emergence never takes place at all. In any event, a ship had better be prepared to make sudden course changes.
That encourages one other permitted variation: the prayers of the crew about to undergo transition can be anything you like. The contribution of prayer to Link transitions is not established—but almost everyone does it.
Zero hour was approaching for the Hero's Return. The entry point gaped open, a hole in the fabric of spacetime. In the final seconds before transition, every person on board fell silent. Men and women, young or old, believers or atheists, alone or together, outwardly nervous or outwardly confident, vanished into their private worlds.
The final second ticked away. Deb Bisson gripped Chan Dalton's hand, hard enough to bruise. He felt the pain, and welcomed it.
Time ran out. The great bulk of the Hero's Return, slowly, sluggishly, as if reluctantly, slid forward to enter the dark eye of the Link.
17: SAY HELLO TO AN ANGEL
Bony had known about Tinker Composites since he was a small child. He had studied the aliens, watched educational programs, asked a thousand (unanswered) questions of other humans, and read everything that he could lay his hands on. The Tinkers fascinated him. Pipe-Rillas fascinated him. All the Stellar Group aliens fascinated him. That was one reason he had been so eager to go to the stars, ever since he was a child in the basement warrens of Earth. And now . . .
As the inner hatch swung open and he took the first step forward into the ship's interior, Bony found that he was trembling.
His first thought—I hope Liddy can't see how nervous I am—vanished as a carpet of dark purple rose from the floor in front of him. He heard a whirring of many wings and flinched as a cloud of purple-black components, all apparently identical and each about as big as his finger, buzzed around his head.
As Liddy gasped and clutched Bony's arm, the Tinker components flew to the other side of the cabin and settled around a tall pole. Fluttering their wings in a blur of motion they hovered by the column, then grasped it with small claws on the front of shiny leather-like wings. Thin, whip-like antennas reached out and connected heads to neighboring tails. Each body possessed a ring of pale green eyes, all of which seemed to be staring at Bony. That lasted only a few seconds. Then a second wave with its own myriad of eyes was settling on top of the first, and a third over that. It was no longer possible to make out individual components, and Bony could see no way to count them. He knew that a Tinker Composite could form at many different sizes, but he did not know if this one was big or small.
The Composite was taking on a particular shape, a crude approximation to a human form. Within two minutes the main body was complete, a rough "head" above it, while "legs" extended outward and downward to make contact with and derive support from the cabin floor. To Bony's surprise—this was something he had not seen mentioned in the Tinker descriptions—many of the individual components remained unattached. Of the total in the cabin, only about four-fifths were connected to form a compact mass; the others stood tail-first on the cabin floor or hung singly from walls and ceiling.
The mass of the Tinker Composite began to form a funnel-like opening in its head-like extremity. From that aperture came a hollow wheezing moan. "Ohhh-ahhh-ggghh. Hharr-ehh-looo," it said. Then, in a crude approximation to solar speech, "Har-e-loo. Hal-lo."
Bony, feeling like a fool, said tentatively, "Hello." He was reassured when Liddy echoed him, "Hello," and added, "I am Liddy Morse."
She was still wearing the translator at her belt, although for Tinkers it should be unnecessary. That idea was confirmed when a whistling voice said, "Hello, Liddy Morse," and, after a pause, "You may call us, Eager Seeker."
Did you shake hands with a Tinker Composite? If so, with what? Bony said, "I am Bonifant Rombelle. You can call me Bony."
The other occupant of the cabin had been crouching in a corner, telescoping thin limbs and narrow body into a small space. Now the Pipe-Rilla unfolded, taller and taller, until she brushed against the four-meter cabin ceiling. Her rear legs were still partly bent.
"So it is true." The head bobbed in greeting. "Eager Seeker was right and I, Vow-of-Silence, was wrong. It is as the Sea-wanderers told us, there is a third ship."
"Sea-wanderers? Third ship?" Bony had so many questions he hardly knew where to begin. He opened his helmet. The air smelled of peppermint, overlain with a faint odor of ripe peaches, but it was perfectly breathable. He began to remove his suit.
"The natives of this planet," the Pipe-Rilla said. She and the Tinker Composite were watching with interest, as though the removal of Bony's suit represented some molting action unique to humans. "Sea-wanderers is what they call themselves, as you surely know."
"We didn't know. We have been calling this planet Limbo, and these natives, Limbics."
"Hm." Vow-of-Silence bent her head to one side. "Limbo. Not bad, not bad at all. I think we may adopt it also. But since you are here, you must have been talking to your Limbics."
"We have." Bony didn't want the aliens to think that humans were total fools, but honesty made him add, "We had trouble with the language at first."
"That is understandable. It is unusually high in liquid consonants." Vow-of-Silence tittered.
After an awkward moment—was it a joke, and was he supposed to laugh?—Bony went on, "In fact it was Liddy who made the language breakthrough."
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The Pipe-Rilla followed his gesture. Liddy was removing her suit also, and Vow-of-Silence stared at her breasts with enormous interest.
"Why, you are a human female. This is wonderful. I have never before met one. I would very much like the opportunity of extended conversation with you."
"Sure. Although this isn't the best time for it. We have more questions." Liddy glanced at Bony. "Right?"
"We sure do. And we have some answers, too, that you may find useful. This is not just a water-world. There's land here, too—and there may be great dangers."
The Pipe-Rilla leaned far forward, looking not into Bony's face but into Liddy's. "Would you please inform your mate, with as much respect as I am capable of offering, that we came to this world well before he did, have done more exploration, had more conversations with the natives, and may be well aware of what he seeks to inform us. We will exchange information gladly, but we suggest it may save time if we speak first."
"Exploration." Bony seized that one word. "But until we built the extension to your airlock, you could not leave your ship."
"Not true. Certain of us did leave it. Now, the rest of us choose not to leave it." Vow-of-Silence crouched low in front of the two humans, her vestigial forelimbs clasped across her narrow chest in a misleading gesture of supplication. The pleasant peppermint odor strengthened. "Listen, please, to our tale. The crew of this ship, the Finder, originally comprised myself and an extra-large Tinker Composite, Eager Seeker. We entered a Link point located in the Fomalhaut system and expected to arrive in the region of empty space within the Geyser Swirl. Instead, we found our ship under water. However, we learned from the Sea-wanderers here that there exists a nearby land mass. We decided to explore it."
Bony, wanting to ask how you explored a place when you couldn't leave the ship, bit his tongue.
Vow-of-Silence went on: "My colleague, Eager Seeker, detached a sizeable collective, to whom we gave a temporary name, Blessed Union. The components of Blessed Union would leave this ship and travel to the surface, from which they would fly to the land. They did not need a suit. The waters of—Limbo, you call it?—are high in oxygen, enough for individual Tinker components to survive without artificial assistance. Preparations for the journey were made with great care. Blessed Union would re-assemble when ashore, except when a few components were needed to fly ahead as scouts. Is this clear?"
Bony nodded. His self-image as smart savior of the Pipe-Rilla ship was steadily declining. It nose-dived when Vow-of-Silence continued, "We had been told that this could be a perilous undertaking. We had spoken extensively to the Sea-wanderers, and they said that death had come recently to many of their companions near the shore. However, we were confident. We did not believe that we were in danger, since we have ways unknown to the Sea-wanderers to protect ourselves against attack from native life-forms.
"The new collective of Blessed Union left, promising to return no later than nightfall. After components of the collective had departed we pumped the airlock dry, slowly and laboriously; and we waited. That was days ago. We are waiting still, though our time of hope is ending."
The Pipe-Rilla began to rock slowly up and down, half-extending her hind limbs. Finally Bony asked, "Do you think that Blessed Union has been killed?"
At the question, the Pipe-Rilla covered her eyes with her forelimbs. Bony wondered if he had committed some dreadful inter-species violation of protocol.
Finally Vow-of-Silence said, "This is a matter of some delicacy. It is possible, yes, that Blessed Union was destroyed. However, it is rather more likely that Blessed Union swarmed. You see"—the narrow head bowed low and the sibilant voice dropped in volume—"we knew at the outset that there was a risk. Eager Seeker was, by intention, an unusually abundant Composite. Once on land, the urge of Blessed Union to swarm and breed and form a second independent Composite may have been irresistible. This possibility is, of course, a matter of great potential embarrassment to Eager-Seeker. A Tinker never admits to such unsanctioned breeding. And still we do not know what lies ashore. The Sea-wanderers cannot tell us. Are you able to answer the question?"
"Not completely. But how do you talk to the Sea-wanderers, if you can't leave the ship?"
"Through the translator, of course, on the hull. Did you not see it?"
Bony hadn't. Among the thousand devices that festooned the outside of the Finder, it was easy to miss any particular one. But Bony also had the feeling that he had seen too little overall, and understood even less.
"We did go ashore," he said. "Once. But we found no sign of your companions. Of course, we were there for only a little while, and it would have been very easy to miss them."
He described his and Liddy's experience, including the brief glimpse of a great trifoliate flying vehicle. He offered his impression of what the land interior looked like. Finally he told of the foaming circle in the sea, a place that might form part of a Link entry point.
That grabbed the attention of his audience. Vow-of-Silence said at once, "Aha! Where was this anomaly located?"
"It's hard to describe in words. If only we had a map . . ."
"One moment." Vow-of-Silence picked up a flat plate and a marker and began to draw. She did it without looking, and her movements were so fast it seemed impossible for them to be accurate. In less than thirty seconds she was showing the result to Bony and Liddy. She said diffidently, "This is based on conversations with the Sea-wanderers and our own observations. It is, of course, no more than a tiny region of the whole of Limbo, but it represents our current knowledge. Here is where we are."
She touched the plate, where she had drawn a tiny but recognizable picture of the Finder. "And here is the shoreline. Now, where was the steaming circle in the water?"
"About here." Bony stabbed at the drawing with an index finger. "I think that's right. Liddy?"
She nodded. "I couldn't put it any closer. When we went ashore we travelled as far as here." She touched a point on the upper right of the plate, and Vow-of-Silence instantly added a notation there and a dotted line leading from the shore. Liddy nodded, frowned, and said, "But what's this?"
Bony had not noticed it when he examined the plate, but a small circle toward the top left contained another small and stylized drawing. He stared at it. His eyes were not acute enough to make out the fine detail.
"It looks like—" Liddy turned to Vow-of-Silence. "I've never seen one, but I've seen drawings of Angels that look like that."
"Of course." The narrow head bobbed. "When I said at the beginning of this meeting that there was a third ship, I was referring to your vessel. The second ship, the one that the Sea-wanderers told us about and which apparently arrived soon after we did, is an Angel ship. And there is—not surprisingly—an Angel on board."
* * *
The Angel ship sat about five kilometers away from the original position of the Mood Indigo, on a narrow part of the same off-shore shelf. Looking at the map drawn by Vow-of-Silence, Bony realized for the first time how lucky they had been. Only a couple of hundred yards seaward of where the Mood Indigo had landed, the map showed the seabed dropping off steeply to a region marked "Deep Water." Too deep, apparently, for the Sea-wanderers, and more than deep enough to cave in the hull of any ship unfortunate enough to descend there.
The Angel ship had been even luckier than the Mood Indigo. According to the drawing it sat on the very brink of the shelf, which was unusually narrow at that point. Twenty meters in one direction would plunge the ship into the abyss. Fifty meters the other way would bring it onto the rocky beach. Eager Seeker and Vow-of-Silence had been considering a visit to the Angel when Bony and Liddy arrived, but they were reluctant to leave the Finder while there was any chance at all that Blessed Union might return.
There had seemed no great urgency in a visit to the Angel ship. That idea changed as Vow-of-Silence was pointing out a river on the map, used in the past by the Sea-wanderers to penetrate a little way inland while remaining under water.
"Here is the farthest point of their progress." The Pipe-Rilla tapped it with a black claw. "They call it Bad Things Fork, and also Death Fork. Any Sea-wanderer who went beyond it never returned."
She was interrupted when a unit in the control desk of the Finder suddenly beeped for attention, and a bubbling voice that seemed to speak without consonants said, "It darkens. Violence comes in the above the world. We will feel it in the world. We go to seek safeness in down."
"The Sea-wanderers." Vow-of-Silence leaned across to the sound unit and said clearly, "We hear you, and we thank you for the warning."
Liddy added, "I hear them, but what do they mean?"
"It has happened before, probably before your arrival on this world." Vow-of-Silence bent to a remote viewer and called for a new display. "So far as these natives are concerned, the sea is the world. The atmosphere of the planet is the above-the-world. The Sea-wanderers can tell when a surface storm is on the way, and when that is the case they refuse to go near the shore. There are huge breakers, and strong currents. Look at the sky thirty kilometers west of here, and you will see what is coming our way."
If the ship could receive a distant view from above the surface, why had it not been able to learn the fate of the Tinkers who went ashore? Bony postponed the question. It was less important at the moment than what filled the display. The time was close to the middle of Limbo's day, but the blue sun's disk shone only intermittently. The clear sky had filled with clots and streaks of gray and black clouds, torn by wind and driving along furiously. The same force that propelled them across the sky lashed the sea surface into monstrous surges, broken at their peaks and flecked with white foam.
"Can it hurt us?" Liddy asked.
"Not us." Vow-of-Silence was reaching out at full length to pluck a set of linked tubes from a cabinet. "The Finder is safe at this depth and in this location. So is your ship, providing that it remains more than twenty meters down. I am sending a signal to it, warning of the storm. But the Angel ship will be in peril. It lies on the narrowest part of the shelf. When the storm arrives, shifts of sediment might send it over the edge into deep water. Waves could pick it up and smash it on the shore. The ship must be moved, or at the very least the Angel taken to safety. Let me see, three kilometers across the seabed, that would take . . ."
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