The Frozen Sky

by Jeff Carlson

  What differentiated the few from the many was the bioelectric force in their brains, which spread through both hemispheres, unlike the unihemispheric activity among the majority of the tribe.

  “Tom is one of them,” Vonnie said.

  —In retrospect, that’s probably why he survived the amputation of his arm. He’s been able to outthink the savages and continually prove his worth.

  “Why would the smart ones let you listen while they were developing their strategies?” Ash said.

  —The sunfish do everything in the open. Sex. Defecation. Sleep. Murder. Mostly I believe that’s due to their group nature, but they can write or hold council in front of their weakest members because those individuals are deaf or insane. Any sunfish incapable of participating in higher logic may as well not be listening.

  Vonnie highlighted a quartet of single-brained sunfish in one sim. “This is interesting,” she said. “These four are trying to form their own council. They’re joined in the same way, but their arm movements aren’t as rapid, and they’re emitting less than thirty percent as many sonar calls.”

  —If you study their electroencephalographic activity, those are four of the most intelligent single-brained members of the tribe. They’re mimicking the others’ behavior even if they’re unable to comprehend why.

  “That’s awful,” Ash said. “It’s pathetic.”

  Vonnie shook her head. “They’re trying their best. They want to live like any of us.”

  Ash made a harsh, mocking sound. “Von, I want to prove they’re intelligent, too. That might keep us out of jail. But you’re never going to make me feel warm and fuzzy for these disgusting little freaks.”

  “Fine.” Vonnie spoke to Lam instead. “You think the smart ones influence the tribe.”

  —As much as possible, yes. I’m still trying to assess how thoroughly they’re undermined by the majority.

  “Let’s identify them. I want a file. Break down their movements and sonar calls, too. If we’re going to communicate with anyone, it’s them.”

  —Roger that. Shall I assign numbers or names?

  “The smart ones get names. We can use numbers for the rest until we have more time.”

  Lam opened a new file with images of three female sunfish, identifying them by EEG scans of their brain activity. He also used detailed radar exams of their bodies, their scars, and any tendencies they favored in their individual shapes and postures.

  —These are Annette, Brigit, and Charlotte. Annette is approximately fifteen Earth years. She’s one of the ranking females, although she’s physically debilitated due to age. Brigit and Charlotte are younger. I…

  Koebsch reappeared on Vonnie’s display, hurrying through Lam’s datastreams. He began to smile. “What are the sunfish writing?” he said.

  —Unknown. The samples are too small. It appears to be a mode of shorthand derived from the full body carvings. They may be counting their supplies or the new, combined size of the tribe.

  “Some of them are intelligent after all.”

  —Using both hemispheres, they may be smarter than the average human being.

  Koebsch paused at that. For an instant, his eyes were troubled. He said, “I’m forwarding your data to Berlin. Keep working. Let’s get all hands on deck. I’ve ordered Metzler and Johal back to your lander. Somebody wake up O’Neal. He’s the best linguist we’ve got now. Frerotte and Gravino are standing by to help with our mecha.”

  He didn’t mention Dawson, and Vonnie didn’t ask. “What about the FNEE? They’ll trace our signals to the colony.”

  “Yeah. Ribeiro asked for access to our grid, but I told him I need permission first.”

  “Can we jam their spy satellites?

  “Not without risking all of the promises and agreements we’ve made. I won’t do it, Von. They’ve already seen our rovers above Lam’s position.”

  “I gave the colony away,” she said.Damn it, she thought.

  52.

  Ash woke O’Neal as Metzler and Johal reached the air lock. They would enter the ready room in moments.

  Lam continued naming the sunfish and creating individual files while Vonnie watched them end their dance. Two of the intelligent females left the pack first, including Charlotte. Others noticed their separation and followed them, two here, a foursome there, until the entire group skittered up toward the funnel-like aperture in the rock. They bounced into the hole.

  Lam kept himself in the middle of the pack as O’Neal and Ash took seats on either side of Vonnie. “How the hell did…” O’Neal said, blinking at his display.

  “Lam, where are you going?” Vonnie said.

  —Too many in the group are hungry. The females ended their lessons before there was any fighting. Watch. We’re approaching the heart of the colony.

  “It’s warmer.”

  —As far as I can tell, there have been no geysers or magma eruptions in this region for decades, but the sunfish have tapped a network of gas vents which raise temperatures enough for liquid water to form around some of the rock islands.

  As the pack’s speed increased through the tunnel, their shrieks and cries brought answering calls from above. More sunfish were waiting.

  Vonnie heard Metzler and Johal emerge from the air lock. They clattered into the ready room, murmuring as they helped each other remove their pressure suits.

  “I’ve seen four retaining walls and a section that looks like it was cemented with feces and gravel,” Vonnie said to Lam. “Why would they invest so much effort in maintaining this gap if it leads to a dead-end? Why go there at all?”

  —Habit. Routine. Most of the sunfish probably don’t know why they make this trek every day. For the intelligent few, there’s real purpose. The dead-end is rich with years of biochem. It’s small and enclosed. The smell calms the agitated and the insane. They enjoy it. They become more receptive.

  “The intelligent females have addicted them to that dead-end,” O’Neal said.

  —Yes. There’s an element of sexual gratification in the lessons. Both males and females who perform well are more likely to be nursed to pubescence.

  “They control their endocrine glands so well?” Johal asked, striding through the hatch from the ready room.

  —There is a high failure rate. Many undesirables reach puberty on their own, then mate. In two days, I’ve seen four males neutered and one female spayed as Top Clan Two-Four merged with Top Clan Eight-Six.

  Metzler appeared behind Johal. He stopped at Vonnie’s chair and touched her shoulder. Without looking, she set her fingers on his hand.

  —The needs of the tribe changed with their consolidation. Their lives are one adjustment after another. They have their instincts and their traditions, but the best of them are always ready to improvise. They expect problems and surprises.

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” Vonnie said. “They might forgive us if we can make reparations. Food. Tools.”

  —Opening a dialogue may be easier than that.

  Lam’s pack swarmed into a larger space, leaving their tunnel for a low, tilting cavern. Most of the sunfish jumped to the ceiling and divided themselves into quartets. The intelligent females scuttled across the cavern floor, where they greeted more sunfish. Some of those sunfish held bits of metal.

  The cavern was thirty meters across, yet only three meters tall where Lam’s pack had emerged. Other sunfish shrieked in holes hidden in the ceiling. Water dripped from two seams in the rock. Farther away, ice bulged through a cave-in, welding boulders and dust into a frozen wave of rivulets.

  Closer, the tribe had erected a reservoir wall, protecting the tunnel down to their lesson place. Beneath the dripping water, the puddles were disturbed by eight splashing males.

  “Lam, run your X-ray over the deepest parts again, please,” Metzler said. “Are those eggs? The sunfish look like they’re incubating a mesh of small objects with their bodies.”

  —Incubating and harvesting, yes.

  The puddle floors were laden
with fibrous, round pouches. Dozens upon dozens of eggs crowded the black water.

  Inside each pouch, a yolk sac attached to the embryo nurtured it as it developed. At least half of the eggs held twins or triplets. As Lam examined the pools, the males prodded and tasted the pouches, especially those with multiple embryos. The eggs that were tasted four times were pushed into the shallow, frost-rimmed edges of the pools.

  The intelligent females bustled into the water, screeching. Vonnie thought they were protecting their eggs. She began to smile. But the females were correcting males’ choices. They shoved the males away from one batch and demonstrated how to reap another, older set of eggs.

  “They’re culling their young,” Metzler said.

  —The tribe has become too large to require a significant new generation. The more immediate need is balancing their food supply and adding to it.

  “Yuck,” Ash said as the females shrieked at Lam and the other sunfish gathered on the ceiling.

  They sprang down to the discarded eggs. Lam pretended to feast. He wrestled with his comrades and snapped at the eggs he won, coating his beak in pale goo, yet leaving the mashed eggs for others to eat.

  The stupid, savage sunfish didn’t notice his deception. One of the intelligent females grabbed him and rubbed curiously at his underside. Then she returned to feeding herself.

  Inside Lander 04, most of the ESA crew were silent, their faces set with awe and apprehension.

  “How long do the eggs take to develop?” Metzler asked.

  —Unknown. In comparison to human pregnancies, it’s a short duration. I estimate no more than two months. They hatch quickly, grow quickly, but mature slowly in regard to cognitive function and speech. Hence the growth and memorization lessons. Their young represent a constant drag on the average intelligence of the tribe.

  “Look, this is interesting,” Ash said, “but sims of them chewing up their babies won’t help. We need to prove they’re not psychotic killers.”

  The tribe finished eating. They nestled together to drowse as they digested the eggs.

  It was a restless slumber. They formed quartets, many of which overlaid each other for comfort or warmth, although their arms snarled and clenched as they settled in, tugging at their neighbors, causing each other to cry out. Lam imitated them, taking position near the top of their loose pile.

  Among the single-brained majority, his sensors recorded a phenomenon like automatic street lights winking off and on during a cloudy day on Earth. The electroencephalographic activity dimmed in their conscious hemispheres. Then similar readings began in the opposite halves of their brains.

  “They’re switching over,” Johal said. “I wonder if it affects their personalities.”

  —Unknown.

  The intelligent females and males were circumspect in creating foursomes exclusively of their own kind. They rejected the few savages who bumped and sniffed at them, sending those individuals to nap with other single-brained members of the tribe. Then two of each foursome of the intelligent sunfish remained fully awake as their partners drowsed.

  “You see what’s happening?” Metzler asked. “The gifted sunfish take turns guarding each other from their own tribe.”

  “No,” Johal said. “They’re protecting them from themselves.”

  Dreams came swiftly. The sleepers’ EEG readings spiked. One of the intelligent females tried to rise, screeching. Her comrades held her down. They soothed her with their arms and voices, forcing her to rest.

  “When they’re somnolent, the intelligent sunfish revert to a single hemisphere,” Johal said. “They’re no smarter than the others in this state.”

  “This is our chance,” O’Neal said. “Lam should approach the intelligent females who are awake and communicate with them alone. We don’t want a repeat of the group hostility in the lesson place.”

  “Lam, what do the sunfish think is happening with the mecha and our probes?” Vonnie asked. “Do they have any idea?”

  —Tom has held council with the other intelligent sunfish to discuss our probes and spies. They also know about your scout suit, which means they either crossed paths with you or absorbed the survivors from the tribes who did.

  “They might have better long-range communications than we think,” Metzler said.

  “What are you suggesting, messengers or sonar conduction through the rock?” O’Neal said.

  “Both. I’ve been analyzing our data from the blow-out, and I wonder if Tom’s group didn’t summon the larger sunfish as reinforcements. What if the two breeds work together in a crisis?”

  “I don’t buy it,” Ash said.

  “They might have a universal sign for truce like the way Lam delivered himself to Tom’s group or Tom’s group proposed a treaty with the new colony,” Metzler said. “Lam, what else can you tell us about their councils?”

  —Tom’s group conveyed a sense of the FNEE mecha to the new colony. There’s a combination of body shapes they use to describe what they heard, which was terrible strength. But they’re undecided if the FNEE mecha, our probes, spies, and Vonnie’s suit are related to each other. As far as they’re concerned, the probes may have been running from the FNEE mecha like the sunfish fled themselves. Their councils have speculated that the spies, the mecha, and Vonnie’s suit may be different species new to this region of the ice.

  “Then they’re not so smart after all,” Ash said.

  “In some ways, they’re more accepting than we are — less judgmental,” Vonnie said. “They’re used to meeting bizarre enemies. Remember the shell-eater NASA found. Where did it come from? The sunfish have experienced First Contact before.”

  “Our probes never did anything to scare them.”

  —Our probes’ conduct was incorrect. We always took the lower position.

  “What do you mean?”

  Lam opened a sim of Probe 112 in the catacombs with Tom, then another of 110 and 111 confronting the sunfish.

  —From the beginning, our worst mistake has been applying a human frame of reference to Europa. The sunfish look inward, not upward. Their social hierarchy is bottom-to-top instead of top-to-bottom like ours. Lower is safer, warmer, wetter, with greater prospects for oxygen and food. They regard the ocean as the center of everything while the frozen sky represents the lowest reaches of their universe, where existence ends.

  Vonnie’s heart roared in her ears as she stared at his sims. The ESA probes invariably stayed on the ground while the sunfish hopped to the walls or ceiling. During her own encounters, she’d knelt as close to the cavern floors as possible.

  Her cheeks flushed with shame, and she said, “Oh fuck. I was trying to show respect. I thought I was being careful.”

  —You were asserting dominance.

  53.

  Lam flooded their displays with hundreds of clips of sunfish interacting with each other.

  —Smaller, less intelligent sunfish defer to their strongest members by elevating themselves onto walls or ceilings except during work such as construction, incubating eggs, or attending growth and memorization lessons.

  O’Neal nodded. “They’ve maintained that dead-end because going down there is a privilege,” he said.

  —Yes.

  “What should I have done?” Vonnie blurted. “I couldn’t have held onto the ceiling every time I met them, but if I’d dug my gloves into the wall…”

  “Von,” Metzler said.

  “If I’d climbed higher…”

  “Vonnie, don’t. Any of us would have acted the same.”

  “I’m not sure I get it,” O’Neal said. “The top of any cave or fissure must be the better position strategically.”

  —In Earth gravity, yes, but the minimal gravity on Europa negates much of any tactical advantage.

  “How many times have we seen them pull the roof down on an enemy?”

  —They’re capable of shoving up the floor or driving chunks from a wall. Remember, the battles we’ve witnessed were waged against Vonnie’s suit o
r mecha.

  “They thought we were challenging them for their territory or their leadership,” Metzler said.

  —Yes.

  “But why are they using ‘Top Clan’ as part of their tribe names?” Vonnie said. “If up is bad and down is good…”

  —Our interpretation of ‘Top Clan’ was mistranslated. The proximity to the surface is accurate, but not the value. ‘Top’ isn’t a claim of superiority. It’s a name given to outcasts and refugees. There has been war inside Europa for nine thousand years. These are the losers.

  “Have you heard them talk about the larger breed? What do they call them?” O’Neal said.

  —The smaller sunfish refer to the larger breed as ‘Mid Clans.’

  “‘Mid,’ not ‘Low’?”

  —There appear to be other lifeforms beneath the Mid Clans, either more successful tribes or different creatures altogether. From the beginning, we’ve dealt with the worst of the sunfish. The Top Clans were founded by the undesirables who escaped being put to death or the unluckiest, least talented sunfish on hunting parties who lost their way.

  “Some of those hunters would have been cut off by geysers or quakes,” Metzler said. “Their survival indicates a high level of competence.”

  —Yes. Without a steady infusion of robust breeding pairs, the Top Clans might have devolved into a wholly primitive state. But the healthiest, most intelligent sunfish always fight to stay below.

  “We’ll have to get through the savages to reach the smart ones,” Johal said. “The carvings might have been left as warnings for barbarian sunfish to keep away.”

  “Warnings, or invitations to join,” O’Neal said. “Some of the carvings read like laws and philosophy, remember? If outsiders were able to learn and repeat those ideals, maybe they were allowed into the empire.”

  “We’ve seen a few clues that under specific circumstances, the sunfish help other tribes,” Metzler said. He glanced at Vonnie. “The balls of saliva and feces your team found at the top of the ice — those pellets were saturated with biochem like the females emit during their growth lessons. The empire might have seeded the ice with vaults. Maybe they did it for themselves after the volcanic upheaval decimated everything around them. Every vault was a life preserver to help devolving sunfish hold onto their fertility and their intelligence.”