The Abyss

by Orson Scott Card

  He watched her crimping wires together, her fingers deft and sure, her arms stronger than they looked - everything about her stronger than she looked. He thought of how she came down here yesterday - was it even that long ago? - talking like they couldn't make it without her. Well, it was true. They couldn't have made it through this without her. And if Coffey could admit he was wrong, so could Bud. He put his hand on her shoulders.

  "Hey, Lins," he said. "I'm glad you're here."

  She laughed a little. "Well I'm not."

  But he knew she'd understood the apology and accepted it. That was enough. He left her to her work and headed back upstairs to the sub bay.

  Hippy and One Night were both there, concentrating on piloting their ROVs. They'd jury-rigged a decent setup. Monitors on top of a stack of other equipment, the control cables running down into the moonpool. Not as nice as doing it from the control room, but a lot better than not doing it at all.

  One Night heard him come in. Probably caught sight of his flashlight from the corner of her eye. "Found Cab Three," she said. "Deader than dogshit, boss." She showed him on the monitor.' A girder from the base of the drilling derrick was jammed right through its front dome. "Right through the brainpan."

  Bad news, but it could have been worse. One Night had got Flatbed back inside, still in one piece, and Cab One's damage was minor, certainly repairable. Two out of three was almost a victory.

  He went on to Hippy, looked over his shoulder at his monitor. "Where are you?" he asked.

  Hippy answered. "Quarters. Level one."

  Bud didn't have to ask what he was looking for. He watched as Little Geek rose up through the open central hatch in the living quarters, then pivoted in a circle to scan the flooded interior. It was a shambles.

  They came to a pair of shoes. Followed up the body. Lying there like he was asleep. Peaceful. Dead. "Aw, jeez," breathed Hippy. "That's Perry."

  Bud already knew it, but seeing it with his own eyes somehow made it final. "That's it, then," he said. "Finler, McWhirter, Dietz, and Perry." They deserved something from him. Something better than him standing there, naming them. They needed a memorial, a service, some kind of prayer. But all Bud could come up with was a single word. "Jesus."

  "Do we just leave him there?" asked Hippy.

  "Yeah, for now," said Bud. "Our first priority's to get something to breathe."

  As he stood there, looking at Perry's face in gentle repose, he felt a kind of relief. He couldn't understand why he felt that way. Until he realized that he'd been imagining this scene all his life, for years and years. Ever since he was a kid and Junior was lost. He'd seen his brother's body a hundred times, a thousand times in his mind - in dreams, but sometimes awake, too. Sometimes Junior looked like this. Relaxed. Almost as if death had tasted sweet. There were other dreams, not as nice. Dreams that made him wake up shouting, screaming, moaning when he was young. He had learned to control that response. Now he just woke up sweating, gasping for breath, remembering how it felt to have water in his lungs, still seeing Junior's face from the nightmare, twisted in the agonized rictus of death.

  It was such a relief to know it could look like this. That not everything had to be as ugly and terrible as possible. Not always, anyway.

  Out of the range of the lights, the builders watched; they reached in with their slender filaments, touched, tasted. They found the bodies of the dead long before the ROVs did, scanned and recorded their memories. The city had learned much since their contact with Jammer. They understood the memories they found, and now, with hundreds of dead - the men from the Montana, the Russians whose bodies sank far enough down before their brains were cold, and these men from Deepcore, they were building up a thorough picture of mankind.

  And they were horrified. How well they had named these creatures - most of them were filled with memories of planning and training to kill, memories of the fear of death, anger and terror and loneliness. At times the city almost despaired of finding any common ground with these creatures.

  There was Barnes, the sonarman from the Montana. In his last moments, he had not been lonely. He had gone back in his own memory to a place where he was happy, a place where he belonged. To people who were part of him. People in whose memory he would live on, so that death held more of grief than terror for him.

  Most of the men had memories of family, of course but their memories were ambiguous, muddy, and filled with conflict and rebellion. Their lives were focused around war, their most important associations were with their fellow soldiers. The builders had no way of knowing that most of these men were really still adolescents, only recently on their own, still celebrating their independence from their families, still in search of their identity. And the older men were career soldiers - good ones, but by necessity - and choice - they had opted to leave their families behind for months on end. It was not a balanced sample of humanity. But it was the only sample the builders had ever found.

  So the preponderance of evidence was that human beings loved war, lived for killing, a swarm of vicious worms swallowing each other, but reproducing faster than they could devour. The city could not imagine communicating with them.

  And yet they had to find a way, didn't they? Now that the builders could make sense of the humans' broadcasts and transmissions, they knew what both sides of the current troubles did not, could not know - that neither side would back down, that each was so terrified that the other meant to strike that both were planning to strike first, before their weapons could be destroyed. The world was days, hours away from the order for missiles to fly.

  The builders were in no immediate danger. On the bottom of the sea, there would be little direct damage. But the planet would die at the surface, and within a few years that death would lead to stagnation, then starvation at the bottom of the world. The builders would have to leave this world with their work unfinished. The plan was for each city to become an ark, rising out of the ocean to soar upward into space, flying off in search of other worlds where they could start the cycle again. But that was still a long time away. The only city that was ready for flight was this one, here in the Cayman Trench; and it was only ready because it had arrived here ready. It was the first, from which all the other cities had been founded. So if they had to leave, all they could do was gather together the memories of the other cities and then embark on its voyage as a single ark.

  A failure, because this world had given rise to no more arks than had arrived here. The only profit from their sojourn on Earth would be the memory of this mad species, which had somehow become intelligent without ever learning how to understand themselves.

  The worst of it, though, was this: The crisis that these humans faced was not entirely of their own making. Their weapons, their enmities had all existed before. But from their broadcasts and messages, the builders knew now how much of their fear and anger was caused by things the builders themselves had inadvertently done.

  We are not responsible for their nature, said the city. We didn't make their weapons.

  But they had those most terrible weapons for a long time, as they measure time through many wars, and yet they never used them once they saw how terrible they were. Until we destroyed their satellite.

  To save them from war, answered the city.

  Yes, but they didn't know it, they didn't understand us. And so they were terrified. And then we destroyed their submarine, killed their crew.

  It was an accident, an unattended glider; they didn't move out of the way.

  They didn't know us. They weren't prepared for us. We were the ones who caused the things that made them so afraid. And if they now use these weapons that they so long refrained from using, will it be their fault or our own?

  Partly ours.

  More than that. They were learning to control themselves. Out of fear of each other, true but it was serving them well enough. We did what each of them was too terrified to do. We provoked them. The fault is ours.

  And the city tasted the str
ange and bitter flavor of shame. How can we leave now, with this memory? Yet how can we undo what we've done? How can we explain to them the truth about what has been happening, when seeing one of us so terrifies them that they almost die?

  There's one who saw us and wasn't afraid.

  Then she's the one we'll try to speak to. Go to her and see if you can put your thoughts into her mind. See if she can understand.

  One Night found undamaged tanks on the far side of the rig. Lindsey suited up and took Catfish with her out into the water to make the connection. Little Geek came along with them, with Hippy in the sub bay at the controls.

  There was enough oxygen in those tanks to triple their life expectancy. That might be enough, if the Explorer got back in time.

  They walked along the bottom. "Cat, I want you to tie onto this manifold. Do you see it?"

  He looked up, saw it overhead.

  "I'm going to go around the other side and check out some tanks," said Lindsey.

  So he'd be on his own with this job. It meant she trusted him to do it right. Was this Lindsey Brigman? "Be careful, darlin'," Catfish warned her.

  The tank was too high for him to reach it by jumping - he was wearing too much gear to have much buoyancy. So Lindsey hooked her hands under his foot. He balanced, got ready. "One," she said. "Two, three." He pushed off with his other foot, and when he was high enough, she shoved him upward. A slow-motion boost.

  He caught onto the railing. "Geronimo," he said. "Thank you, Lindsey."

  She left him behind to do his job. Little Geek followed her.

  Bud was in the sub bay, inspecting electric cables and splicing the broken parts. He could hear through his headset what was going on, since he was hooked into her F-O line. Hearing the conversation between Lindsey and Cat, knowing she was on her own now, Bud reached down to the control box at his hip and switched his mike on so Lindsey could hear him. "How's it look?' he asked.

  What could Lindsey say? Building Deepcore had been her life for years, and it was trashed. On the other hand, it pleased her to see how well it had held up under some pretty extraordinary stress. And a lot of it was repairable. So she was almost jaunty in her answer. "Well, you guys really screwed up my rig. There's a lot of wreckage out here."

  Bud heard the tone of her voice, knew she was OK. He also worried that when she was in an eager mood like this, she sometimes moved too fast, didn't watch what was going on around her. On land all that led to was people with hurt feelings. Out there in the water, especially with unpredictable wreckage around, moving too fast could be deadly. Your hoses could hook on a snag; something could slip suddenly and you could get pinned. "Well, don't get fouled," he said. I sound like her mom. Be careful, don't get hurt, and make sure to be home by nine-thirty.

  She was busy so was he. He switched off his mike, so he could hear but was no longer transmitting to her.

  A few feet away, One Night was repairing some of the damage to Cab One. She reached toward him, indicating a wrench. "Give me that nine-sixteenths, will you?"

  He did.

  Seeing that his mike was off, she reminded him to go on with what they'd been talking about before. How he and Lindsey happened to get married. To One Night that was one of the supreme mysteries of the universe. It was obvious to her that they were the two most unlikely, impossible, absurd people ever to tie the connubial knot. "So there you were," she said.

  Bud went on with his story. "There we were, side by side, on the same ship, for two months. I'm toolpusher and we're testing this automated derrick of hers. We get back on the beach and we're living together."

  "Doesn't mean you had to marry her."

  How could he explain it to One Night? I was with her and it felt like I was more myself than I ever was when I was alone. I was proud to be with her, I was proud of what we were together. I liked us better than I liked myself. If he tried saying that to One Night, she wouldn't even believe it, she'd wonder why he was shitting her like that. So he smiled and told her the other reason - the practical reason, what you might even call the true reason, since it was the only one that Bud and Lindsey admitted to each other at the time. "We were due to go back out on the same ship. Six months of tests. If you were married you got a stateroom. Otherwise, it was bunks."

  She bought it. "OK, good reason. Will you come over here and tie this for me?"

  He looped the cable over a stanchion so it wouldn't slide back down into the water. Then he went over and lent her a hand.

  "Then what?" she asked.

  "It was all right for a while, you know. But then she got promoted to chief engineer on this thing, couple of years ago." It was the only time he'd ever seen Lindsey flat-out cry, the time she thought they'd decided to put somebody else on it. Her design, her rig, and they were going to let somebody else supervise the construction and testing. She needed to be project engineer like some women need to have babies. Exactly like that. And I wanted her to have it too, because she wanted it so bad and because we could be together. Instead it drove us apart.

  "She went front-office on you, man."

  That was how it looked to One Night, but Bud didn't believe it. Not like the suits, Lindsey was never like that. She didn't get too important for him, just too... distracted. Or no, she just found him too distracting. "Well," Bud said. "You know Lindsey, just too damn aggressive. She didn't leave me. She just left me behind."

  One Night stopped what she was doing and looked him in the eye. "Bud, let me tell you something. She ain't half as smart as she thinks she is." And she held his gaze till she was sure Bud got the message.

  He got it. One Night was telling him, She's dumb to lose you. One Night was saying, I know who you are, Bud Brigman, and you didn't blow it with Lindsey, she blew it with you.

  You just don't know, One Night. If I'd been smarter or tried harder or not so hard or done better somehow, I'd still have her with me. But I know what you're telling me, and I thank you for it.

  One Night had another idea in mind, though. She took Lindsey's air hose in both hands and made as if to kink it, which would cut off Lindsey's mix. Just a little favor she was willing to do for Bud.

  He reached out to stop her.

  A joke. That's all it was. One Night whooped and cackled. Boy, you're so screwed up in love with her your brain's in backward.

  A few yards away, Hippy started fiddling with the knobs on his monitor. He was getting some interference. Static. A weakening signal. That was ridiculous - Little Geek was on a tether, he should be getting absolutely clear signals.

  "Hey, Lindsey," Hippy said, "do you read me? Over."

  Outside Deepcore, Lindsey heard him, but his voice was breaking up as if he were getting farther away. Only distance shouldn't make any difference, and she wasn't moving anyway. "Yeah, Hippy, I read you." She was standing at the edge of the canyon, checking the valves on a rack of oxygen bottles, trying to find which ones should be hooked up and which were spent. Behind her there was a sheer drop to nothingness. But it didn't bother her till now, with Hippy's voice fading. She needed that connection. "What's the matter?" she said.

  Inside the rig, Hippy had lost visual contact completely. If Lindsey answered him, he didn't hear. "Lindsey, come back." Answer me.

  The lights inside the rig dimmed sharply. Bud's first thought was that the power supply had been damaged. But that couldn't be it - that wouldn't cause a sharp fade like this, and then hold steady. He remembered the power loss back on the Montana.

  When the outside lights dimmed, Lindsey began to get spooked. She wasn't getting anything from Hippy now, and the last thing she needed was to be stuck out here alone in the dark. If the lights went out, her chances of getting back in without getting snagged or trapped or just plain lost were pretty slim. "Catfish, do you read me?"

  Hippy and Bud weren't hearing anything, either, as they both called for Lindsey. Communications were dead.

  A hundred meters below the lip of the abyss, the builders hovered in the water. So far everything was w
orking well. They had waited until Lindsey was separated from all the others. Then they had moved closer, which damped the power in Deepcore; but they sent forth tendrils to draw away all the power from the communications systems. They would be alone with Lindsey, without distraction or interference.

  Now they sent new tendrils out to her, only a few molecules wide. They found the cracks in her suit at the neck, at every fastening - and, gathering and polymerizing the ambient water vapor in her suit, the tendrils grew until they had found their way through her ears, her nostrils, her mouth, her eyes, back into her brain. There they followed the pathways of her mind - touching every neuron and bridging every synapse. This was no project now for a single builder. A dozen of them were scanning her brain, and then, together, interpreting what they read there.

  She's afraid.

  They didn't want her to be afraid, to panic and hurt herself the way Jammer had. So now, in order to calm her, they made their first effort at direct communication.

  If they had been human, using human speech, they would have whispered to her, gently assuring her, a sort of lullaby: Don't be afraid, be at peace, be at peace. But they were not human. So their meaning came, not as words, but as molecules. Chemicals that they believed would communicate the feeling of peace to Lindsey.

  Lindsey was still hearing nothing. She tried to reach everybody, using her F-O, then her UQC. "Catfish, do you copy? Over." She felt herself starting to panic, heard the desperation in her own voice. "Bud, do you copy? Over."

  Then the power dimmed even further. It should have frightened her more. But instead, she felt somewhat calmer. "Catfish, I seem to be having a problem here. Over." And then she felt no need to call out anymore. What was she so worried about? Everything would be all right. She had no idea why she should feel that way, yet she did - she had complete confidence. She had nothing to fear. She was at peace.

  It's working, they said. She heard us.

  It was time for the next step. Something small. The porter that she had caught a glimpse of before. It would be somewhat familiar to her. It would also seem like a machine to her, with a firm, unfluctuating structure - from what they knew of humans now, and what they knew of Lindsey, they were quite sure she'd feel less threatened if she thought it was a machine. So the porter darted upward from the chasm. It saw her, and like a puppy recognizing its master, it quickly moved into place behind her.