“What else is there to do? I cannot make love to you every hour of the day, and eventually we must surrender and let the Sholen take us away. This may be the only chance ever for anyone to study the Ilmatarans directly.”
The two of them were quiet for a time, watching the sleeping Ilmatarans.
“You really think we’re going to have to give up?”
“Robert, we have ninety- two food bars left. Unless you wish to starve to death, that means we cannot stay longer than six weeks.”
“I’m pretty sure I can get the food machine running again.”
“That will provide calories, but we will need protein and vitamins. The APOS units will not work forever, either. We will eventually run out of argon. And we forgot to bring extra pressure drugs, so once our little medical pack is empty we will have to worry about neuropathy. And—”
“Okay! I know, I know. If you know we’re going to have to give up, why are we out here?”
“I already told you. We can gather data. For six weeks.”
WHEN Broadtail wakes again most of the others are already busy. Three of the company are over with the creatures, showing off tools and examining some of their items. Longpincer and two others are gathered a little apart, conversing quietly. When Longpincer hears Broadtail moving about he calls him over.
“Speak with us, Broadtail!”
“Gladly! What are you discussing?”
“These creatures of yours.”
“Do you think they are truly intelligent, now that you can
touch and hear them?”
“Even if they are not, they are certainly strange enough to be an important discovery. I congratulate you.”
The praise stimulates Broadtail like a bag of stingers.
“There is a question we are all ignoring,” says Sharpfrill. “There is a flaw in your account of these creatures. If they truly come from beyond the ice, how do they pass through the ice into the ocean?”
“You doubt their story?” asks Broadtail.
“I merely suggest that we do not assume everything they say is correct. Even if there is no deliberate deception, they may not understand us perfectly, or may claim knowledge they do not really have,” says Sharpfrill.
“That is possible,” admits Broadtail.
AFTER two days of interacting with the Ilmatarans, the four of them ate food bars and made plans inside the Coquille.
“Six weeks,” said Rob. “Maybe as much as ten. Then the food runs out and we have to give up.”
“Impossible!” said Dickie. “We’re making breakthroughs every day with the Ilmatarans. We simply cannot let the Sholen pack us off back to Earth now.”
“Well, if the alternative is starving to death, what choice do we have?”
“Fight them. Drive the Sholen off Ilmatar.”
Rob was too boggled to say anything.
“Tactical plans,” said Josef. “How do you propose to retake Hitode?”
“I’ve got it all figured. We trick them. You take the submarine around to the north and make a very noisy approach, maybe even signaling by hydrophone. The Sholen send out a party to investigate. Then the three of us approach from the south, and as soon as they’re outside the station, we slip in through the moon pool.”
“That’s it?” Rob asked. “What if there are guards inside?”
“What if there are? I think I’ve demonstrated that a human can kill a Sholen in a fight.”
“You got lucky.”
“Luck is an illusion. I was willing to use deadly force when Gishora wasn’t.”
“And what about when they killed Isabel?”
“They had the advantage of numbers, and we all were handcuffed and unarmed. I don’t think the Sholen will stand up as well against enemies who are ready and able to fight back. Remember, it’s been ages since they’ve had a war among themselves. They don’t know how to do it anymore.”
“That’s not enough,” said Rob. “We don’t have any weapons but our knives. Unless they—”
“Pistol,” said Josef. He got up and went for his equipment case. Inside it, locked in a scratched, dented box with a flaking Russian Navy insignia on the cover, was an odd-looking doublebarreled pistol, like a black plastic derringer.
“Four-point-five-millimeter caseless four-shot Spetsnaz underwater pistol,” said Josef. “Each barrel holds two rounds, ignition is electrical. No reloading on this planet.”
“Why do you have a gun?” asked Alicia. Rob was too busy admiring the mechanism.
“Usual reasons,” Josef said with a shrug.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone about this before?” Dickie demanded.
“Told Dr. Sen when I arrived. He said keep hidden.”
“And you listened to him?” asked Graves.
“Sen is mission commander.”
“You could have used it! When the Sholen first arrived—”
“Four shots. Six Sholen. Also did not want to draw first blood.”
“This changes everything,” said Dickie. “That thing evens the odds.” Graves was as excited about the gun as Rob was, that much anyone could see.
“Dickie,” said Rob, “I’m not trying to start a fight here, but—I think you’re starting to enjoy this too much.”
Graves just laughed. “And you’re not?”
“Of course not! I’m—”
“You’re getting the chance to play the hero, Freeman. No more fetching and carrying for the scientists, no more scrubbing the mildew, and you’ve got a woman in your sleeping bag every night.” Rob started to interrupt but Dickie drowned him out. “Look at your damned coverall!” He thumped Rob’s chest. “The UNICA symbol’s as close to the Star Trek logo as they could get without paying a royalty! We’re all here because of all those old space adventure stories. But it wasn’t like that, was it? Just a lot of hard work and rules and bad food. Now, though— now you’re having a real outer-space adventure and you’re enjoying it just as much as I am.”
“It is not the adventure he means, Dickie, it is the killing,” said Alicia. “You are proud of stabbing Gishora.”
“Absolutely. He was a sanctimonious shit and I’m not a bit sorry he’s dead. We’re in a war now—you can’t go apologizing every time you win a fight.”
“Correct,” said Josef. “But only fools and madmen fight for thrills.”
“This has nothing to do with thrills. I’m talking about maybe winning this instead of just sitting here waiting for them to find us.”
“Okay,” said Rob, trying to drag things back on topic. “We’ll hit them again. But I want to make sure we have a goal—a realistic goal—and a plan. Something more concrete than just ’go shoot a couple of Sholen.’ That’s just murder for the sake of murder. No way are we doing that.”
“Do something to degrade their ability to fight,” said Josef.
“Exactly!” said Dickie. “I’ve been doing a bit of reading— T. E. Lawrence on guerrilla warfare. His Arabs used to strike at the Turkish railways and telegraph lines. Infrastructure attacks, we’d call it.”
“But we cannot attack Hitode itself,” said Alicia. “All of us depend on it to stay alive.”
“If we just creep about sabotaging hydrophones it won’t accomplish much,” said Dickie.
“They have guns,” said Josef. “Microtorp launchers for underwater. Also some kind of pistol.”
“All right, then,” said Dickie, “turn it around. They can’t go blowing things up inside Hitode, either. So that’s the logical place for us to attack.”
“You want to get inside?”
“That’s right. Storm the moon pool and get in. Maybe grab their suits, or sabotage them. That would be a pretty serious blow right there. No way to search for us if they can’t leave Hitode.”
Rob thought it was a terrible idea, but he didn’t have anything better to suggest. He did ask, “Can we do it? There are only three of us.”
“I’ve been thinking,” said Dickie. “What about the Ilmatarans?”
/> “What about them?”
“Would they be willing to help us?”
“Richard, you cannot involve them in our quarrel,” said Alicia.
“No, think about it! Native allies! There’s heaps of examples from history—French and British recruiting Indian tribes in America, T. E. Lawrence and the Arabs—”
“Will you cut it out about freaking Lawrence of Arabia? This isn’t Syria in 1915!” asked Rob angrily.
“Why shouldn’t we involve them?” Graves demanded. “You’ve already gone ahead and made contact. We’ve tossed out all the rules. High time, too.”
“We have not tossed out all the rules,” said Alicia. “We chose to stop obeying the contact restrictions, but that does not mean we can go completely wild.”
“The Sholen think so,” said Graves.
“Do they?” asked Rob. “Dickie, they could be unleashing a dozen different kinds of shit on us if they really thought we were out of control. Remember what happened to Lawrence’s Arab buddies a century or so later, when they started getting all jihad on everyone.”
“That was different,” said Graves, but he sounded uncertain.
“So is this whole situation, which is why trying to be Lawrence of fucking Arabia in an ocean full of aliens is completely stupid. We aren’t going to involve the Ilmatarans, period.”
“We aren’t?” asked Graves. “How can you stop me, Freeman? I’ve got all the language data, and I actually know something about alien communication. I don’t need your permission.”
Rob fumed silently for a moment, then brightened. “Okay, Mr. Language Genius, let’s hear it. Explain what you want to do in Ilmataran number code. You don’t have to tap it out, just give me the numbers.”
“Let me see,” muttered Graves, looking at his own handheld. “One three nine thirty-five.”
“ ‘Ilmataran swimming place not-moving’ is how my computer translates it. I wouldn’t know what that meant if you said it in English.”
“I think immobility includes the concept of death.”
“It is still nonsense,” said Alicia. “In both senses of the word. Would you follow an alien into battle if they were speaking words without meaning?”
Graves was silent for a moment. “All right,” he said at last. “You’ve made your point, both of you. Bugger. We’ll have to do this alone.”
TWENTY- EIGHT hours later, Rob and Dickie Graves swam toward Hitode Station from the south, pushing off from rock to rock in order to avoid making recognizable swimming noises. They kept a secure laser link open, and were using bags to capture the hydrogen bubbles from their APOS packs.
Somewhere far to the north, Josef and Alicia were creeping closer to the station in the sub, getting ready to make a lot of noise before running for the ruins. If everything went according to plan, the Sholen would go haring off in pursuit of the sub and give Rob and Dickie the chance to sneak into Hitode. Rob had synched up timers for everyone, and his was now counting down to the big moment.
From where he and Dickie were hunkered down in the silt, Hitode was visible only as a vague glow beyond a rocky rise ahead. This side had always been a blind spot (or maybe a deaf spot) for the hydrophones, so unless the Sholen had planted more microphones Rob and Dickie could get to the top of the rise before anyone picked up the sound of them swimming.
The counter reached zero. Nothing happened—the little microphones on their sonar units weren’t sensitive enough to pick up submarine engine noises more than a kilometer away. Hitode’s hydrophone net was.
Allow the Sholen a couple of minutes to notice the sound, five minutes to suit up, and another ten minutes to get clear of the station. Then we move, thought Rob. He looked over at Dickie, who had Josef’s underwater pistol clipped to his belt. Rob hoped they could manage the whole little coup by bluff, because Dickie seemed way too eager to pull that trigger.
TIZHOS heard the sound of hurrying Sholen and followed the noise to the dive room, where four Guardians stood still as their suits assembled themselves around their bodies. Irona was already there, holding a large metal box in his middle arms.
“Tell me why they don their suits in such a hurry,” said
Tizhos to Irona.
“The microphones outside detected the Terran submarine,” said Irona. “We prepare to pursue it.”
“The submarine? You know it for certain? Do the sound patterns match?”
“Perfectly. Now please stay out of the way, Tizhos, while the Guardians prepare.”
Tizhos took out her own computer and connected to the station network. After a bit of fiddling she was able to listen to the sound pickups from outside. There was the submarine’s signature, no question about it. What was it doing? She watched the projection of the sound source’s movements and felt puzzled. She pushed her way back to Irona, who was pulling on his own life- support device. “Irona, tell me what purpose the humans attempt to achieve.”
“I assume you mean with the submarine. I have no idea.
They appear to move back and forth just at the edge of detection. Now I must—”
“Irona, I believe the humans attempt to fool us.” He opened his helmet again. “Explain.”
“Nothing else can account for the motions of the submarine.
It looks like someone trying to attract our attention. Note also that the sound comes from just the extreme range of the hydrophones. The humans built those hydrophones; presumably they know very well how far they can hear. This seems like a trick to me.”
With visible reluctance, Irona agreed. “Tell me your idea of the purpose of this activity.”
“I can think of two possibilities. Either they wish to test how well we can make use of the hydrophones, by seeing how we react to this; or they wish to lure the Guardians away from the station. Either way I suggest remaining here as the best course of action. Deny them information and refuse to take the bait they offer.”
Irona considered, then gave off a burst of dominance pheromones. “No, Tizhos. I have a better plan.” He turned to the Guardians, now all suited up. “The humans may plan a trick.
All of you go out, and swim beneath the station supports to the north. Four of you remain hidden under the station; the other two swim noisily to the north no more than two hundred meters. Now: come take your weapons.”
Irona opened the metal box. Inside it Tizhos could see eight stubby, wide-mouthed guns. “Tell me what you have there,” she said.
“A weapon from the last war,” said Irona. “I requested three dozen made from old plans before we left Shalina. Once soldiers fought underwater using weapons like this. They contain four small autonomous vehicles, each of which carries an explosive charge. Direct hits, or even near misses, can kill.”
Each of the Guardians took a weapon from the box. They sat on the edge of the dive pool and checked out the weapons with obvious familiarity. The very fact that they seemed to know so much about them made Tizhos even more nervous. How long had Irona been preparing for a conflict?
“Irona, I question the wisdom of this. A human has died because of us. Handing out weapons only makes things worse.”
“You are mistaken. The humans resist because they still believe in the possibility of defeating us. Once they see we have them outmatched, they must give in. Now: we cannot wait any longer. Go!” he ordered.
The Guardians rolled into the pool one after another and sank out of sight.
“Here,” said Irona, handing Tizhos one of the weapons.
“Put on your suit and come outside. I may need your help.”
ROB and Dickie moved along the sea bottom toward Hitode, no longer swimming but crawling. So far, so good. There had been a bunch of chaotic echoes around the dive pool, then the sound of several swimmers moving off to the north. Now it was quiet around the station.
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 cam
eras 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.
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