The Spheres of Heaven

by Charles Sheffield

  Inside the guarded enclosure he counted six buildings. From the outside each one was identical, a twenty-meter cylinder cut in two along its axis and placed flat side down on the ground. The buildings were windowless and featureless, and they shone a uniform dull yellow in the light of the lamps. Every one had a new and unfinished appearance, fitting with the idea that this was more like a temporary camp than a place for permanent living.

  Beyond the buildings lay a narrow airstrip. Evidence that it was an airstrip came from the sight of two tri-lobed winged vehicles, one sitting at each end. Friday saw them and thought, jackpot! Not just civilization, but technological civilization. Weapons and lamps suggested it, but aircraft like those were a final proof. He had never seen anything remotely like them. With those peculiar shapes it seemed improbable that they could ever leave the ground, but apparently they did. Alien technology was different. Alien technology could be the key to unimaginable personal wealth and power.

  He was so excited by the thought that he reached an entry point to the compound before he noticed that the sentry guard held a black cane in one pincer, exactly like the one that had knocked him out on the shore. He stopped in his tracks. Suddenly it felt less like first contact, more like he was being taken prisoner.

  "You go. We not go. You talk, she talk." The Indigoan who had brought him held a weapon in its pincer, too. Had the creature been holding it ever since they left the watery chamber? It was waving it now, urging him forward.

  "I'm willing to talk, more than willing. But who will I be talking to? Does your leader have a name?"

  "You go. You talk, and"—there was a pause, while the translation unit buzzed to itself—"you listen big little one—leader?—talk. You go."

  Clear as mud. But the black cane was pointing at his head, and if Friday recalled little after it was used before, he did have the strong and unpleasant memory of his brain seeming to spout gray matter out from the top of his head. It was not an experience that he wished to repeat.

  He allowed himself to be led through the gate and on into the compound. The sentry remained at his post, but at a high-pitched squeak from his companion, that the unit translated mysteriously as "Call high servers," three more Indigoans came scuttling out of one of the buildings. At the sight of Friday, a chorus of clucks and chirps came all at once. The unit at his belt was confused or overloaded. It produced only a squawk of its own. More weapons came out of side pouches.

  Think of it as an honor guard. And don't do or say anything that might annoy or be misinterpreted. They lined up, two on either side of him, and Friday walked cautiously forward. Maybe he didn't want these brutish creatures named for him after all. If they preferred to be called Malacostracans, which was what the translator kept offering, he wouldn't argue.

  They led him to a low arched doorway in the flat semi-circular end of one of the buildings, lined up outside, and urged him through with gestures of the black canes.

  He said to the Indigoan who had brought him from the shore, "What about you? Won't you be coming in, too, to help translate? We're beginning to understand each other."

  The Indigoan pointed with the black cane toward the doorway. The translator said, "To the big little, go. You, one, in. We stay."

  "Will the big little"—my God, they had him doing it now—"I hope that your leader sounds exactly the same as you do. Otherwise, the translator will have a hell of a time and may have to start from scratch."

  "You to the big little. Go now. Talk, listen."

  The black cane waved ominously, suggesting no room for discussion.

  "All right, I'm going. See? I'm on my way."

  Friday walked forward, down an unlighted ramp and away from the bright beams of the searchlights. At once he found himself splashing along in a foot of water. He paused to close the visor of his suit—for all he knew his next step would drop him in over his head—and realized as he did so that this building was even worse than the one where he had awakened. It not only had standing water, it had no lights at all.

  He stepped gingerly forward, stumbled on a down step, and almost fell.

  He stood still. "This is ridiculous. I know you gooks understand about lights, so why the hell don't you use them? It's black as a witch's ass in here."

  He was talking to himself, and he certainly didn't expect an answer. But the room lightened as orange-red tubes lit up all along the side walls. Trills and chirps came from in front of him, and the translator said, "Light is provided. Say what is enough."

  "That's fine." Friday glanced at the bright lighting on the walls and at the structures like huge easels that stood beneath them, but most of his attention was focused on the small table a few meters in front of him. It was low, no more than knee-high, only a third the size of the one on which he had awakened. That seemed appropriate, because the Indigoan who sprawled on top of it was also a miniature version of the ones outside. He realized that the table, like the one in the chamber near the shore, was designed to accommodate Indigoan body structure. Five pairs of walking legs draped over the side, while the flat lower body sat comfortably on the hard table beneath. The small body, unlike those of the other Indigoans, wore clothing. The blue-black carapace was dressed in a glittering wraparound of orange-red, while the double pairs of pincers emerged from mitten-like sheaths of the same color.

  It was a dumb question, but he had to ask it. He splashed forward until he was within a meter of the table. "Was it you who turned on the lights, and asked me what was enough?"

  Miniature eyestalks waved up at him, and the topmost mouth opened. The translator said, "Who but I? No one else is here."

  "I don't get it. I understand you, but the one who brought me here hardly made sense at all. I know that the translator improves as it hears more of a language, but it shouldn't be this fast."

  A pincer claw pointed to the unit at Friday's waist. "Is that the `translator'?"

  "Sure. Do you also have such things?"

  "We have . . . other ways. Better ways for translation, ways that do not allow mistakes. I think that we communicate, but I am not sure. As for understanding the one who brought you here, it cannot be expected."

  "Does it speak a different language?"

  "It speaks no language, no true language. It is not a leader. It is a lower, a Level Three."

  "You mean, a sort of moron?"

  "It is Level Three. A patroller, a guard, a worker."

  "I get it. I had the same sort of problem on my ship, workers who couldn't grasp the big picture. I'm a leader, too." He had missed with his earlier tries at first contact, but this looked like the right time for it. "Let me explain who I am, and why I am here. My name is Friday Indigo, and I have come to this world from another star system. I am the captain of a starship, the Mood Indigo, which is stranded near the shore not far from here. I am also the representative of all humans, and of all other intelligent species who are members of the Stellar Group. I would welcome the chance to compare your civilization with ours, and if possible to exchange elements of our technology."

  Even as he spoke, Friday wondered if he was being a trifle optimistic. The translator was working now—of course it hadn't worked when he was talking to a half-wit minion, how could it?—but he was throwing at it some pretty high-level concepts.

  For a few seconds he was afraid that he was right, and his speech had been too much for the translator. The little Indigoan in front of him—funny, when you saw a pint-sized one it looked like a cross between an Earth crab and a lobster—was waving its eyestalks in an excited way and whistling loudly. The translator whistled in sympathy, and finally said, "I question what was said to me. Repeat who you are, and what you are."

  "Sure. Let me try to keep it really simple. My name is Friday Indigo. I have come here from another star. I want to learn your technology, in exchange for giving you some of ours."

  It was hard to say it clearer than that, but the Indigoan leader seemed as agitated as ever.

  "You are not from this world?
You are not the dominant life-form and intelligence of this world?"

  "I'm dominant and intelligent, sure I am. But you got it right, I'm not from this world. I came here from a world that orbits another star." The oddity of the question finally got through to Friday. Why would somebody who was part of the dominant intelligent form of Limbo ask Friday if he was of the dominant form here? "Are you telling me that you're not the leading life-form here, yourself?"

  "Not from here, you are not from here. Where, if not from here?" The Indigoan was standing up, lifting itself from the table. It seemed awfully excited. "You will say all or die, as those died. You will say all, or you will join them."

  One pincer was now holding a small version of the familiar black cane, but that was not what gave Friday the chills. The cane was not pointing at him. It was directed toward the big wall panels that stood on each side of the room.

  He wondered why he had not noticed them as he came in, then realized that once the lights came on he had been totally focused on the Indigoan leader. If he had observed on entry what he saw now, he would have run back outside and taken his chances with the line of guards.

  On the easels hung four objects. They seemed oddly two-dimensional, but that was because they had been dried, carefully opened and dissected, and pinned flat.

  Friday was staring at the desiccated remains of four bubble people.

  21: REUNION

  Bony had been very young when the quarantine was imposed, and in his childhood he had absorbed the widespread human bias against other members of the Stellar Group. Pipe-Rillas were hopeless cowards. Tinkers were unstable. Angels were enormously intelligent, but they were also obstinate, complaining, and inscrutable. It was an outrage that such flawed and inferior beings should control access to the stars, while denying it by quarantine to superior humans.

  Perhaps; but when you were stranded on the seabed of an alien world with a major storm raging overhead, a limited air supply, and no idea what to do next, you became aware of other alien qualities.

  Vow-of-Silence was crouching in the silt-filled water with the Angel cradled in two of her fore-limbs and an amorphous mass of Tinkers heaped by her side. As Bony and Liddy came up to her, the Pipe-Rilla bobbed her head toward the humans and said, "There is a slight difficulty. Although the Finder is no more than two or three kilometers away, the storm has so filled the water around us with suspended sediments that earlier sea-markers are invisible. Also, night approaches. We do not know in which direction we should proceed to reach our ship. Do you?"

  For a coward the Pipe-Rilla sounded remarkably calm—much calmer than Bony felt. He looked at Liddy. She shrugged, and said to Vow-of-Silence, "I'm afraid we don't."

  Bony felt like an idiot—setting a beacon for your return path should be second nature to anyone who claimed technical competence. The Angel said, " `Full fathom five, thy Finder lies,' " which didn't seem to help at all.

  Vow-of-Silence said, "Very good. Eager Seeker, I'm sorry to trouble you. If you wouldn't mind?"

  Eager Seeker offered no reply, but the whole heap of the Tinker Composite disassembled, rose, and circled briefly like an underwater tornado. Then the components streaked away in all directions.

  Bony said, "What?" but Liddy's nudge saved him from making a bigger fool of himself. After a couple of minutes the Angel added, " `They also serve who only stand and wait.' " Five minutes later the Tinker components came streaming back. They merged to make a tall column, held there for maybe ten seconds, then reformed to create a horizontal line that snaked away into the murk.

  "Thank you, Eager Seeker." Vow-of-Silence gestured to Bony and Liddy with one of her fore-limbs. "After you."

  "How could the Tinker understand that?" Liddy asked Bony, as they followed the strung-out line of components. "I thought they had no intelligence unless they were formed into a Composite."

  She spoke softly, but Vow-of-Silence heard her. "Indeed they do not." The Pipe-Rilla with her Angel burden was close behind. As she moved to Bony's side, the individual components in the line of Tinkers behind her coalesced into a rough sphere.

  "My reply was formal politeness," Vow-of-Silence went on, "and no more than that. I will repeat our expression of gratitude when we reach the ship, and Eager Seeker is once more fully assembled into a higher consciousness."

  The Angel said nothing. The blue-green fronds were furled about the upper body, and to Bony's eye the resemblance to a large vegetable became complete.

  The little party trudged on across the seafloor as twilight edged toward night. Flickers of lightning, faint and far-off, picked out the guiding column of Tinkers. It seemed far more than three kilometers when the rococo outline of the toppled Finder at last appeared.

  Bony was too tired to do more than struggle aboard, remove his suit, and find a place to lie down on a cluttered floor that was actually a wall. After a few seconds Liddy came to curl up beside him. She snuggled close but said not a word. Bony was left to reflect that this was an adolescent's dream. He was spending the night with a woman who had been trained in the Leah Rainbow Academy for the Daughters of Gentlefolk, a woman who had been trained to please men in a hundred different ways. A woman, moreover, who seemed to like him and had told him that he was attractive.

  Bony sighed. If Liddy knew a hundred ways to delight, Life knew a thousand ways to disappoint. Nothing was going to happen tonight.

  He put a protective arm over her. In the few moments before he went to sleep he decided that human judgment was wrong. Pipe-Rillas were brave, not cowardly. Tinkers were not unstable, but steady and reliable. Only the Angels appeared to match their reputation. His final memory was of a synthesizer voice, grumbling from a dark corner: "Standing without the touch of soil, bare-rooted and bereft of light. `How are the mighty fallen!' "

  * * *

  Hunger woke Bony. He lay in darkness and could not recall when he had last eaten. His stomach was growling like a wild beast.

  He reached out and found Liddy gone. He opened his eyes, and the Angel's corner stood empty. Over to his right, the port showed the first faintest glint of dawn. Off to his left, toward the ship's bow, he saw a brighter light and heard the sound of voices.

  He rubbed tired eyes, stood up, and headed to the adjoining chamber. They were all there. The Angel stood directly beneath a glowing tube, its lower part in a container filled with dark liquid. Eager Seeker had assembled its components into a fat ring around the Angel's bulky middle section. As Bony came in, Liddy—wonderful mind-reader Liddy—handed him a white half-moon with a crumbly texture and said, "I don't know what it is, but it's not bad and it's supposed to be suited to a human digestion."

  Bony took a big bite, nodded his thanks, and joined the others in staring at the Pipe-Rilla. Vow-of-Silence was crouched by the main control desk of the Finder, and she was shaking her narrow head. "We have a status report on the condition of this ship, which is not good. We also have other surprising news. I have called for an oral summary." Vow-of-Silence bowed to Bony and Liddy. "Recognizing your limitations, it will be provided in your form of speech."

  In spite of the polite gesture the final comment was, at the very least, a dig at humans. Pipe-Rillas and Tinker Composites had no difficulty picking up in a few weeks everything from Swahili to Sioux, while less than a hundred human interpreters had mastered the alien languages. As for the native tongue of the tongueless Angels, even the Tinkers and Pipe-Rillas said it was next to impossible.

  Even so, Bony wondered if this was going to work. The onboard computer of the Finder was probably as good as the Pipe-Rillas could make, but in this area of technology nothing in the Stellar Group came close to human products. Sure enough, the voice that came from the cabin address system had a labored, mechanical quality, with odd breaks between words.

  THERE HAS BEEN A CONTINUED STEADY DETERIORATION IN THIS SHIP'S ENERGY SUPPLY AND STORAGE SYSTEMS. ONE STORAGE ELEMENT SUFFERED MAJOR DAMAGE UPON EMERGING FROM THE LINK INTO WATER, AND IT CANNOT BE USED. THE MINOR HULL FRACTUR
E EXPERIENCED AT THAT SAME TIME HAS BEEN COMPENSATED THROUGH THE USE OF A SEPARATING FIELD, BUT SUCH A FIELD REQUIRES A SUBSTANTIAL AND CONTINUOUS EXPENDITURE OF ENERGY. THAT ENERGY CANNOT BE REPLACED, NOR CAN REPAIRS BE MADE, UNTIL THE SHIP IS NO LONGER IMMERSED IN A DENSE SURROUNDING MEDIUM. TRANSFER OF THE SHIP TO ITS DESIGNED VACUUM ENVIRONMENT MUST OCCUR WITHIN THREE DAYS, OTHERWISE PRESENT LEVELS OF LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEMS CANNOT BE MAINTAINED.

  Bony wondered if "vacuum" really meant vacuum. Would it do to raise the Finder to the surface, or beach it? That sort of thing would not be easy, but it was an area suited to his own fix-up skills. Given a day or two and some cooperation he could certainly have raised the Mood Indigo using the auxiliary thrustors, and probably taken it to space. The Finder was much more of an unknown quantity, but he was willing to give it a shot if they would let him.

  The computer was not finished. THE ELECTROMAGNETIC COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM HAS NOT FUNCTIONED CORRECTLY SINCE IMMERSION. THE NEUTRINO COMMUNICATION SYSTEM WAS RESTORED TO SERVICE ELEVEN HOURS AGO, IN SO FAR AS SUCH A RESTORATION IS POSSIBLE WITHOUT A MAJOR OVERHAUL. CONTACT HAS BEEN MADE WITH TWO VESSELS: FIRST, THE MINISTER OF GRACE, WITH A CREW OF ANGELS AND OF SELLORAN REGISTRATION. HOWEVER, THIS CONTACT WAS LOST NINE HOURS AGO AND HAS NOT BEEN REGAINED.

  The Angel said gloomily, "The Minister of Grace, swept into the abyss by the force of the storm. `Thou art lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry.' "

  The computer ignored the Angel and went on, SECOND, THE HERO'S RETURN, WITH A CREW OF HUMANS AND WITH SOL REGISTRATION, REPORTS THAT IT IS NEWLY ARRIVED IN THIS VICINITY AND LIES ON THE SEABED ROUGHLY THREE KILOMETERS FROM OUR POSITION. WE CONTINUE TO EXCHANGE LOCATION AND IDENTIFICATION SIGNALS WITH THE COMPUTER OF THE HERO'S RETURN.

  Bony decided that the Finder's onboard computer was not just primitive, it was very dumb. He had never heard of a ship named the Hero's Return, but it sounded just like the sort of thing you would call a Class Five cruiser. Any decent computer ought to have that kind of information in its data banks—and it should be able to rank information in probable order of importance. This news should have set off every alarm bell in the ship, announcing that the new vessel had appeared. The computer on the Hero's Return, along with its crew, must be going crazy wondering why they had heard nothing in return but a bland I/D signal.