A Darkling Sea

by James Cambias

  The swimming shelter maneuvers above the climbing house. Builder 1 connects a thick cable from the bottom of the swimming shelter to the top of the house, then moves around to the siphon devices on the sides of the climbing house that drive it upward.

  They are making a tremendous amount of noise, which worries Broadtail. If there are enemies about, they are surely aware of what is happening. Broadtail doesn’t remember fighting these Squatters, but Builder 1 and the other Builders seem very afraid of them. He wonders if he can overcome one in a fight. They are as big as an adult, and their thick limbs could be very strong.

  He catches a faint, sharp sound like the noise of Builder tools and risks a ping. The door on the bottom of the climbing house is open and a large creature is emerging. It is one of the Squatters! Broadtail summons as much anger as he can on behalf of the Builders. It is their climbing house and the Squatters are uninvited intruders. “Attack!” he calls to the others, and swims toward it.

  The creature has a hard object in one of its smaller limbs. Broadtail remembers Builder telling him about the swimmingbolt launchers, so he jabs at the limb with his spear, knocking it to one side just as something shoots out of it, faster than bubbles from a hot vent. The thing goes right past Broadtail and strikes Longpincer’s servant Crestback.

  There is a sudden very loud noise and Crestback breaks apart into little pieces of shell and meat.

  Half- deaf, Broadtail surges forward at the Squatter. It grabs his spear, shoving the head to one side and trying to push him back. Broadtail lets go of the spear and swims forward, pincers extended. It’s pointing the launcher at him. He grabs that limb with both pincers and clamps down. It’s soft, with a hard center, just like the limbs of the Builder he remembers dissecting.

  The Squatter hits him with its other limbs, and he can hear it take another hard tool from its harness. It sounds sharp. He squeezes the limb he’s holding until something cracks and hot blood flows into the water. The blood tastes very different from that of the Builders.

  He lets go of that limb just as the creature jabs him with the sharp tool. The point grates along his shell without piercing. Broadtail grapples with the Squatter again, clutching with legs and his left pincer, while feeling for the back of its head with the tip of his right. The thing is struggling hard now. It’s very strong. Its sharp tool pokes his shell again, making a small hole. He feels the hard covering on the thing’s head and gets the tip of his pincer under the back edge. The thing twists and struggles, trying to grab his pincer with one limb but Broadtail gets all his limbs around it.

  The outer covering is much tougher than what the Builders wear, but Broadtail is well-fed and angry and finally feels his pincer tip punch through. The water around him grows warm and he feels bubbles. The thing gives a last desperate twist of its body, snapping off one of Broadtail’s smaller limbs, but he’s got his big claw into it and drives it deeper into the hot flesh until he feels it grate on hard things. There’s a spot where two hard things inside the flesh join together. He forces the tip between them and the Squatter stops moving.

  ROB opened the hatch cautiously, ready to drop back into the water if he saw a Sholen. He pushed it open a few centimeters and looked through the crack. A human hand grabbed the edge and pulled it all the way open, and a moment later Alicia was tearing off Rob’s helmet and half dragging him into the elevator.

  “You are a madman! I love you!” she said between kisses. “How did you know I was here?”

  “I didn’t, I just hoped you were. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

  “I am well. The Sholen did not harm me. They have moved about half the people from Hitode up to the surface, and they have been bringing down soldiers.”

  “Is that Robert Freeman?” said Pierre. Rob finally managed to take his gaze away from Alicia’s face to survey the room. Pierre and Nadia were standing behind Alicia, both wearing the look of patronizing amusement that married people tend to give young couples.

  “How did you get past the guard?” asked Pierre.

  “We brought some allies. Ilmatarans,” said Rob. “While I was cutting the cable and hooking up the tow line, Broadtail— that’s the one Alicia and I made contact with first—he grabbed the Sholen as he was coming out of the hatch.”

  “Is he all right?” asked Alicia.

  “Broadtail’s fine. The Sholen’s dead and one of the ’tarans got shot.” Rob’s mouth twisted. “I bet Broadtail’s going to take the body back for dissection.”

  The elevator habitat began bobbing and pitching quite a bit as the sub got under way. Rob shut the hatch to keep water from sloshing in.

  IRONA took the news calmly. He came to see Tizhos in the laboratory and smelled almost serene.

  “The humans have cast aside all rules and are behaving like wild creatures. They have stolen the elevator capsule and cut the cable.”

  Tizhos felt a surge of irrational fear. Trapped! But it was followed almost immediately by the realization, more time to work! Irona continued. “I have a new project for you, Tizhos. I want you to give it your full attention. Ignore everything else.”

  “Tell me the nature of this project.” She tried not to sound annoyed.

  “I want you to make a complete study of all the human files on Ilmataran language. Create a translation protocol that we can use. I expect you want to do it anyway.”

  “That sounds as though you want to speak to the Ilmatarans.”

  “I do indeed desire that.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “Shirozha reported Ilmatarans helping in the attack on the elevator. The humans have made an alliance with some of them, or conscripted them. It hardly matters which. Since they have cut the elevator cable we must fight them with only the resources we have here.”

  “I know all that.”

  “With a supply line to the surface we could afford to wait them out. No longer. We must end this now. To accomplish that we need allies of our own. Natives who can speak with other natives and find where the humans lurk.”

  “I cannot believe you wish to make contact with the Ilmatarans! That goes against the entire purpose of this mission!”

  Irona’s scent turned dominating. “When we left Shalina the Consensus ordered us to prevent future contamination of this world by the humans. That remains the purpose of this mission.”

  “But you suggest causing contamination of our own!”

  “I see no alternative. We must choose between limited, controlled contact—which we can end as soon as we accomplish our mission—and unlimited, uncontrolled contamination by the humans. Indoctrinating them into human ideologies, distorting the natural evolution of their society, teaching them harmful practices.”

  Tizhos thought it over. Irona had a point. And more importantly—she would get the chance to study Ilmatarans! In person and close up! No matter what purpose Irona hoped to accomplish, Tizhos would see more of the Ilmatarans than any Sholen before or to come.

  “I will do all I can,” she said.

  THEY towed the elevator back to the Ilmataran settlement, taking a roundabout course and stopping several times to see if the Sholen were following. Rob had hoped it would take them a while to figure out what had happened, but according to Alicia the Sholen guard had reported the attack before going out to get killed.

  Pierre questioned the wisdom of camping at the Ilmataran settlement. “Wouldn’t it be better to pick a hidden spot? Make it harder for the Sholen to find us—and keep from involving the Ilmatarans in all this?”

  “The ’tarans are already involved. They chose to be. Broadtail and the others who helped with the elevator raid all volunteered. Anyway, it doesn’t make sense to disperse. We need their help to survive, even with the elevator’s life support and supplies.”

  A fleet of Ilmatarans rose from Longpincer’s vent farm to greet them as the submarine towed the elevator capsule to the settlement. Broadtail had them tie ropes to the capsule’s support skids, and then humans and Ilmatarans began the
complicated process of lowering it to the seafloor.

  Because the hatch was on the bottom of the elevator capsule they couldn’t just drop it anywhere. Unless it was properly level water would flood in every time they went in or out.

  Josef operated the sub, staying in touch with Rob via laser link. The elevator’s comm system was down, so Alicia had to hang on just outside the hatch, sticking her head inside to relay messages by shouting. Nadia worked the capsule’s buoyancy controls by hand, with only a depth gauge and Alicia’s eyeballs for guidance.

  Outside, four teams of Ilmatarans held the ropes and stood braced on the sea bottom, straining to keep the capsule centered above its intended resting place. Broadtail and Rob communicated by clicks, but there was an awful lag.

  Rob’s biggest worry was Alicia. Though the elevator’s skids allowed two meters of clearance below the access hatch, they were still pretty flimsy. He was terrified that one of the skids would give if they dropped the capsule too quickly, and Alicia would wind up crushed. When it was finally resting on the bottom, he realized he was holding his breath.

  BOSSING a team of Longpincer’s apprentices and tenants as they help the Builders gives Broadtail an odd mix of feelings—as if he is hungry and full at once. It is good to be in charge, or ganizing teams and telling them when to haul as if he is a landowner.

  But the work also reminds him of his old home, and the memories make him sad. Whenever he remembers Sandyslope he is startled by how much he still desires the place. If he concentrates he can remember the way the water tasted, the feel of the stones, and the chill of the currents.

  With a patch of clear ground he could trace the entire Steepslope pipe system, with all the valves, leaks, and uneven flow spots precisely marked. He can even remember what grows where, and the flavor of the different crops. His jellyfronds always get a sour edge from the sulfur in the stones, but that also makes his spine-beds taller and fatter than any others in Continuous Abundance.

  Not his spine-beds. Smoothpincer’s spine-beds. Broadtail wonders if they are even there anymore. He remembers Longfeeler suggesting putting in some fiber plants there, as even good- quality spines don’t fetch as many beads as rope does.

  Longpincer’s apprentices haul on the rope to keep the floating shelter in the right position as the Builders lower it. Broadtail goes over to inspect it before they tie off. Work is better than remembering his lost property.

  As he runs his eating-tendrils along the rope, making sure there is no slackness, Broadtail wonders if Builder 1 and the other strangers have any feelings as deep and unbreakable as the bond between an adult and his home. Certainly the strangers move about with little sign of grief for their lost shelter. Do they have homes in whatever faraway place they come from? Perhaps they do—in which case all their shelters in the ocean are like a traveler’s quarters.

  Broadtail intends to ask Builder 1 about this, although he is not certain the stranger knows enough words to understand the question.

  TIZHOS waited alone in the cold ocean more than a kilometer from the station. She had only her helmet spotlight to keep the darkness at bay. She tapped the control in her hand and the big portable hydrophone unit began blaring its message into the water.

  The humans had more sensitive hearing than any Sholen, and even they had been unable to duplicate the spoken language of the Ilmatarans. Tizhos hadn’t even bothered. Instead she had concentrated on creating a Sholen-to-Ilmataran lexicon based on the native beings’ written number code, using the Sholen-to-English dictionary and the captured notes.

  The method was horribly inelegant and cumbersome, and it required literate Ilmatarans to understand it. Tizhos had no way to know if all the inhabitants of the region even used the same number code to write with. If they didn’t, she might be broadcasting gibberish, or horrible insults.

  And if they weren’t literate at all, she was simply advertising her position to any hostile native or predator within hearing range. With the hydrophone cranked up to maximum volume that meant nearly five kilometers.

  Tizhos had her all-purpose tool in her lower left hand, set to knife mode, but she didn’t think it would do her much good if something like an Aenocampus or a band of Ilmatarans with spears decided to attack her.

  STRONGPINCER hears a sound. It’s a rhythmic tapping or clicking. He can’t quite figure out what is making it. It doesn’t quite sound like someone hitting something, or clicking pincers. He moves clear of the rocks where he is resting with his little band and listens.

  Numbers. It’s sounding out numbers. That means an adult, probably a towndweller. The noise is a long way off, which means it’s very loud. Why is someone making numbers so loudly?

  He remembers raiding the schoolmaster’s place, and listening to the old teacher telling the young ones about making words by tying knots in strings.

  “Smallbody!” he calls. “Come up here!”

  Smallbody scrambles up to the top of the rock.

  “What does that noise say?”

  Smallbody is silent, straining to hear. “It says ’Adults ocean approach food adults multiple food.’ ”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “ ‘Multiple food,’ you say? That sounds fine with me. Wake

  the others. Let’s go.”

  TIZHOS was about to give up and go back to the station when her sonar unit started clicking. She called up the visual display and saw a group of large creatures approaching swiftly. They were drawn up in a crescent formation, and held the alignment as they came. Ilmatarans.

  Her suit stank of fear, and the hand gripping her all-purpose tool ached from tension. But she resisted the urge to flee. Instead she touched the control unit and turned down the volume on the hydrophone. No sense in deafening her guests.

  THIS is utterly strange, Strongpincer thinks. No adults within hearing, or if there are, they are hiding. Just a large animal and some made objects sitting on the sea bottom making noise.

  Strongpincer halts his band when they’re about three bodylengths from the thing. The repeating message stops, there is a brief silence, then a different pattern of clicks.

  Smallbody translates. “ ‘Me and multiple adults are a group.’ ”

  “I remember you going to a school,” Strongpincer says to Smallbody. “Do you know what that thing is?”

  “No. I don’t even remember anyone telling me about anything like that. But it’s making numbers.”

  Strongpincer doesn’t like being puzzled. “Kill it, save the meat, take the stuff.” He starts forward, choosing where he will stab it.

  The numbers are replaced by a horrible noise, like the schoolmaster’s noisemaker but even louder. It is like being bashed in the head with a huge stone. Strongpincer clutches the sea bottom with his legs and flattens himself into the silt, not daring to move.

  The noise stops. When Strongpincer can hear again, he pings. The others are all hunkered down as well. The thing is still standing before them. It touches some of its objects and the number clicking begins again.

  “Smallbody,” Strongpincer pings. “What is it saying?”

  “ ‘Adults fold pincers.’ ”

  “Tell it we agree. Then ask it what it wants.”

  A long exchange of clicks and pings between Smallbody and the thing. Finally Smallbody says, “It’s hard to understand it, but I think it wants to hire us.”

  “Hire us?”

  “Yes, it says it has tools and rope and things for us if we do what it asks.”

  “What does it want us to do?”

  After some clicking, Smallbody answers, “It wants us to go to villages and talk to other adults.”

  Strongpincer feels himself grow calmer. “We can do that. Now let’s talk about the price.”

  TIZHOS led the Ilmatarans back to the station. It was not her idea. She was getting tired and cold, and her suit stank despite the pheromone filters. When she finally packed up her things to go, the Ilmatarans tagged along. At
Hitode they camped around the nuclear power unit’s heat exchanger, snatching up some of the small swimmers that lived in the warm outflow, and scraping microorganisms off the rocks nearby.

  She pulled off her suit and dried off, then went to talk with Irona. She would have preferred to eat and rest first, but she knew he would come and bother her if she didn’t report in.

  “As you requested, I avoided speaking of any scientific matters. They do not know where we come from. Interestingly, these Ilmatarans did not display much curiosity about that, either. They seemed more interested in getting as much food and as many tools as they could in exchange for helping.”

  Irona gave an approving gesture, but added, “Try to keep the number of tools small. Give them food or consumables. Leave as little trace of our presence as possible.”

  Tizhos tried to keep from taking an irritated posture. “I have identified some problems with doing that. They do not seem to enjoy what our foodmaker produces. Giving them food would require someone to catch native organisms.”

  “What about all these things the humans have stockpiled? They have hundreds of native creatures in jars or frozen.”

  “You would let the Ilmatarans eat those samples?”

  “I doubt we can afford the propellant to take them all back to Shalina. We will incinerate as much as possible.”

  For once Tizhos is glad that she reeks of Ilmataran seawater, because it’s all she can do to keep from flooding the room with hostile scents. She even feels a slight urge to bite Irona. But she controls her feelings and says only, “The humans treated those samples with preservatives. I do not believe the Ilmatarans can eat them anymore.”