Orcas were easily bored.
J.D. let herself sink, wishing she had never surfaced. She tried to shake off fright. Nothing could hurt her, for she was with powerful predators who had no enemies. They themselves had no malice; she trusted the orcas. They could injure her or kill her without effort or consequence. For that reason she found herself able to place herself in their power equally without effort or fear.
The divers, however, were more mysterious. Essentially human, they retained human motives, human rationalization.
What if this is a test? she thought. What if they plan to bring me out here and leave me, to see if I can make my way back to shore by myself? Lots of cultures won’t accept a new member without proof of the person’s competence.
The loss of the link gained a stronger and more sinister significance. With it, she could start from the center of the Pacific, if she liked, and navigate to any shore within a meter’s error. Without it, she was helpless and disoriented. Left alone in the fog, she might swim in circles as if she were walking in the desert.
She struck out swimming.
Zev appeared before her and guided her in a slightly different direction. This drained the last of her confidence, because she thought she had resumed swimming in her original direction.
J.D. spoke to Zev, awkwardly, with her arms and her body and vibrations from her throat, a sort of two-toned hum, telling him she was frightened and confused and tired. He encouraged her, and again she found herself surrounded by whale baby-talk. No explanations accompanied the encouragement, which quivered at the edge of impolite urgency.
J.D. swam on. She shivered, oblivious to another jolt from the metabolic enhancer.
The texture of the water changed. Abruptly the opaque depths turned translucent, transparent, as the sea bottom shelved toward land. Wavelets lapped softly at the precipitous rock sides of a tiny island.
The divers and the whales gathered in a sheltered cove. The shore rose gently to tide pools. J.D. stroked gratefully into shallow, warm water. She stood, waist-deep, and pushed her mask to the top of her head. Her legs trembled with fatigue. The lung stopped breathing for her and clung to her back.
Beyond the tide pools, fresh water bubbled from a hot spring. It spilled into the salt water, billowing steam. The hot spring raised the temperature of the shallowest part of the cove. Within the steam, the ghostly shapes of divers lounged and played. The whales remained in the deeper, colder water.
J.D. knew Zev well, and she had spent time with the younger divers, the adventurous adolescents of the family. She had met a few of the standoffish older divers, the adults. The youngest divers, children and babies, stayed close to a parent or to an auntie, whether diver or orca. Now here they all were, two dozen of them, newborns to mature adults, waiting for her.
Zev beckoned. J.D. followed.
“Mother,” Zev said, “this is my friend J.D.”
J.D. accepted the diver’s gesture to join her, and sank onto the rough rock in the warm water.
“My name is Lykos,” Zev’s mother said.
“I’m honored to meet you,” J.D. said.
Zev resembled his mother closely, beyond the genetically engineered changes, common to all divers, of body type, dark skin, and dark, large eyes. Lykos had a square, strong face and deepset eyes of a coppery brown. Her close-cropped curly hair was red-gold, her skin a deep mahogany. The other divers arrayed themselves around and behind her, watching J.D., content for the moment to let Lykos speak for them all. A few drifted with only their heads out of water: intense faces haloed by bright hair of any shade from white through gold and auburn.
“Zev told you of our discussion.”
J.D. glanced at Zev, wondering if he knew his mother knew he had spoken to J.D., and if she should admit it. He glanced at her sidelong, embarrassed, yet smiling.
“I could not keep it secret,” he said.
“This is a flaw in Zev’s character,” Lykos said. “However, he is working to improve himself.” She eased her criticism with a fond look.
“I didn’t tell her — ”
“I will tell her the rest,” Lykos said, interrupting. “J.D., what Zev told you is true. This family of divers and orcas invites you to join us. Have you considered?”
“Yes,” J.D. said. “And decided... But it frightens me. It would be...” She searched for words. Unable to think of anything strong enough, she ended up with a comment of complete inconsequentiality. “It will be a big change.”
“And it is illegal.”
“It is.”
“Does this trouble you?” Lykos asked.
“It does,” J.D. admitted. She had tried to persuade herself that no one would even notice, unless she went out of her way to make it public. Whether she could publish without declaring what she had done was another matter entirely. J.D. had never deliberately broken a law in her life, even an unnecessarily paternalistic one. She kept reminding herself that her action would affect no one but herself.
Lykos nodded, more to herself than to J.D. “Zev thought it might. He describes you as an honorable being.”
“That’s kind of him.”
“He is perceptive.”
J.D. felt the diver’s gaze like a physical touch. Behind her, the orcas hovered at the edge of the shallows. They, too, watched and listened.
“We are also honorable beings, I think,” Lykos said. “I must not permit you to accept without telling you everything that is involved.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before I speak, I must ask you to promise not to repeat what I say. To anyone.”
Her voice and her expression were serious. The other divers waited, listening, intent on J.D.’s reply. Even the orcas stopped spouting and ruffling the water with their flippers and flukes.
J.D. hesitated. She was not in the habit of breaking confidences. But Lykos was so serious.
“I promise,” she said. She sounded more confident than she felt. She had thought the decision was hers alone, but the divers could refuse to accept her if they thought she did not trust them, if she made it impossible for them to trust her.
“You are aware of... increasing tensions between human countries.”
“The permafrost,” J.D. said.
“I do not understand — ?”
“They used to call it the cold war — hostility, aggression, but no direct physical attack of armies. Now, there still isn’t any shooting war, but the hostility is so cold and so hard it never thaws. Permafrost.”
Lykos nodded. “I see. It is a good metaphor. But not, perhaps, eternal.”
“It’s better than the alternative.”
“There are two alternatives. The other is peace. You are correct, though, in that the most preferred alternative is the least likely. I think it is possible that the worst possibility may be provoked.”
A psychic chill replaced the comfortable warmth that had dispersed the physical chill of J.D.’s body. She waited in silence for Lykos to continue.
“We are in an unusual position with regard to your government,” Lykos said. “They do not approve of us, yet they permit us to cross freely over the boundary of their country; they have set aside a portion of wilderness within which no ordinary human may travel without our invitation and permission. They are willing to expend resources to maintain this prohibition. They have expended other resources on us.
“Now,” she said, “they claim us as their debtors, and demand repayment.”
“Repayment! What do they want?”
“They want us to spy.”
“But... what about the treaty?”
“They speak of setting it aside.”
“Can they do that?”
“Can they be prevented from doing it?”
“I... I don’t know.” J.D. thought: I guess I can’t blame the military for wanting help against the Mideast Sweep.
“We are much less detectable than mechanical devices,” Lykos said. “We are also more vulnerable. And... I think the de
mands would soon include other tasks than spying.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We do not wish to spy.”
“I don’t blame you. It’s terrifying! I wouldn’t...” She stopped. “But I would have to, wouldn’t I? That’s why you’re telling me this, isn’t it? So I’ll know what I’ll have to do if I accept your invitation.” She shivered. J.D. thought of herself as having less than the average amount of bravery, and doubted she would make much success of spying.
“We do not intend to comply with the demands. We will not comply. We do not believe in boundaries, or hostilities between intelligent beings. However, we must take the demands seriously. Your government rescind our right to live here, they may interfere with our research.” Lykos gestured around her, at the beautiful island and the sky and the water. “We have accepted the boundary of the wilderness, though we never learned to like it. We do think of this territory as our home. In order to resolve our problems, we must give it up. We will travel north to Canada. We will not be able to come back. That is what you must know.” She paused. “Soon the government will demand that we act — ”
Oh, no, J.D. thought. This is all my fault. It’s my publications that brought this on the divers! I described their abilities, their incredible stamina and speed, their knowledge of coastal geography...
“Lykos, stop it, please! Don’t tell me any more. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize — I shouldn’t have let you tell me this much.”
Lykos stopped. Zev splashed to J.D.’s side, distressed by her fear. He stroked her arm.
“J.D., what is wrong? It will be exciting!”
“Zev, I’m sorry... Lykos, I said I wouldn’t tell, and I’ll do my best not to — not to tell anything more about you! But it may be too late. If you resist, there’s no telling how our government will react, much less the Sweep. You’ll be fugitives, unprotected — you must have some idea of the power you’ll be opposing.”
“I think we have no choice, J.D. It is true that I cannot see all the implications of our plan. Your knowledge of the land world is one of the reasons — though not the only one — we asked you to join us.”
“I can’t,” J.D. said, her voice flat with pain and disappointment and guilt. “I thought I could, but I can’t. I’d be more of a danger to you than a help.”
“Yet you know the government will react unfavorably, perhaps even behave badly, if we act.”
“But that’s obvious,” J.D. said. “They wouldn’t have any choice.”
“It is not obvious to me. Nor is it obvious why the Mideast Sweep would have any interest in us at all.”
The chill that centered in J.D.’s spine, just behind her heart, had nothing to do with wind or water or waves. She had to stop talking with Lykos before she found out more things that could injure the divers if she were compelled to say what she knew. But they accepted her, and she admired them, and she wanted to warn them.
“If you said publicly your reasons for rebelling, the Mideast Sweep would see that you might be a threat against them. I don’t think it would matter that you’d chosen not to be. Maybe you’d change your mind, or maybe you’d be forced to act against them. You wouldn’t be safe in the open sea.”
Lykos placed her hand flat on the water, swimming webs spread, and thoughtfully watched her hand rise and fall, tilt and rock with the motion of the wavelets. J.D. blinked back sudden tears.
“We understood that we would not be safe if we agreed. No one suggested we would not be safe if we refused.”
“I wish I were wrong,” J.D. said. “But I don’t think I am.” She had watched the rising level of paranoia in her own country. She feared it. And she knew that in the Sweep, the third of the world that was closed and suspicious, the paranoia was even stronger.
One of the orcas spouted suddenly behind her. It articulated a train of clicks that she could both hear as sound and feel as vibration. The other divers nodded and murmured.
“You are correct,” one of the other divers said. “You have made an observation that is obvious only after it is made.”
“It is true,” Lykos said. “J.D., please join us. We have the facilities to support your change. You would be welcome with us, and you would be valuable. You might make our survival possible.”
J.D. shook her head. “I can’t.” Water splashed as she rose. “You don’t understand, this is all my fault.”
Lykos and Zev and the other divers gazed at her, bemused, not yet comprehending.
J.D. was afraid to remain, to see, inevitably, the change in the divers’ feelings about her. She was afraid to see the look of pain and betrayal in Zev’s face when he understood what she had done. And she was perversely angry at the divers for waiting until a crisis to offer their invitation.
She turned and plunged between two orcas, dragged her mask down over her eyes and nose, and hit the boundary between warm spring and frigid sea. She swam into the tide.
Soon she had left the small harbor behind. Every shadow of a ripple through the water startled her, though she knew that the divers would not force her to return against her will.
As she swam she tried to clear her faceplate. Only after she failed did she realize she was crying. She stopped swimming, let herself rise to the surface, and pulled off the mask. It was hard to tread water while she was crying. She struggled to get herself under control. Blinking away the tears, she ducked her face into the water and shook her head.
The droplets she flung away vanished into the fog that still lay flat on the glassy water.
She tried to link up with the web, but the interference remained. Scared, J.D. looked around, hoping rather than fearing to see one of the divers or one of the whales.
She remained alone.
She had failed to find her bearings while swimming with the divers. This time she could not afford to fail.
If she chose the right direction, she would eventually end up somewhere on the long north coast where her cabin lay. Choosing the right direction was the problem. If she got turned around, no other land lay within her range.
J.D. spat into her mask, swished it around with sea water, emptied it, and put it back on. The air of the artificial lung was the only warmth in the world.
She dove, but remained near the surface. If the fog cleared she wanted to know it immediately.
By the slant of the sea floor and the movement of the water relative to the fog, she chose a direction and set out swimming. Tiny jellyfish passed overhead, bobbing just beneath the interface of air and water.
J.D. swam, refusing to listen to the voice in her mind telling her she needed the web, clear sight, and the help of the divers to find her way anywhere.
Her muscles already ached from the long swim out, from the abuse by enhancer overdose. The lung tired, too, and its air grew cool and thin. She rose to the surface and side-stroked, saving the lung’s capacity in case she struck rough water. The darkness of deep water lay beneath her.
The current was a presence that surrounded her. Without a fixed point she could not tell its direction. It might be strong enough to sweep her completely past the island, no matter which direction she swam.
Her breath came in a sob. The metabolic enhancer reached its limit, like the artificial lung. Successive doses did nothing but shoot pain through her exhausted muscles.
When she thought she could not swim another stroke, when she had convinced herself that she was swimming in circles and would never find her way back, her link began faintly to respond. Though its connection was too feeble for any useful information, its return encouraged her to continue.
The link grew stronger.
All at once she burst from the fog into clear skies, clear sea. As if the fog defined the limits of the interference, the link returned full force. The north shore lay a hundred meters away. She recognized a headland a kilometer east of her cabin.
She was afraid she could not cover the distance without a rest, but she was also afraid to stop. She forced herself onward.
/>
She fetched up on the gravelly shore, gasping for breath like a drowning victim, and dragged herself beyond the waterline. If she passed out with the tide coming in, she might wake up in the sea again.
She never quite lost consciousness, though a long time passed before she wanted to move. Exposed to dry air, the artificial lung shrank against her back. All she could do was feel sorry for it.
Warm hands held and rubbed her cold fingers. A soft crooning noise, a double-noted hum, surrounded her.
Zev crouched beside her. He stopped humming, but kept hold of her hands. Even his swimming webs felt warm.
“J.D., J.D., I am sorry. We did not think, when we let you leave by yourself. We forgot about the interference and we forgot that you cannot hear the sea floor. We thought only that you wished to be left alone. Then I remembered! How did you find your way?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” J.D. said. She could barely speak. Her mouth was dry. This struck her as funny.
“Oh, you would make such a good diver,” he said.
J.D. freed her hands from his grasp, pushed herself to her feet, and wobbled back to the water. The idea of diving again nauseated her. She peeled off the lung and immersed it. Its unhealthy drying deep-red color bloomed to dark pink.
“Zev, would you do me a favor?”
“Yes.”
She looked at him askance. He agreed without hesitation or question, still trusting her despite everything.
“I’m going to walk home,” J.D. said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d put the lung in its place underneath the floating dock.”
“That is easy,” he said, sounding downcast. “Would you not like to swim? We could help you.” He gestured: offshore, several of the orcas circled, waiting. “They would even let you ride.”
“No. I wouldn’t like to swim. Tell them thank you.” The orcas did not enjoy letting human beings ride them.
Zev walked down the beach.
“Zev... goodbye.”
He faced her. “‘Goodbye’ means for a long time.”
“Yes.”
The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus Page 6