Ocean Under the Ice

by Robert L. Forward

  ^But,^ argued Little White, ^Why did it leave vent bed and go toward geyser?^

  “What!” exclaimed both humans.

  *Yes!* shouted Little Red through their imps from inside the habitat. *We saw it! Holding on to heavy rock, moving slow, but toward geyser!*

  #We did not follow it far,# said Little Purple. #Current too strong for us. It did not come back.#

  ^Another coelashark, smaller, took over vent,^ finished Little White.

  Cinnamon and Deirdre continued to question the flouwen closely about the strange, apparently suicidal advance of the large coelashark towards the geyser, but learned nothing further. They sat together in the lounge, speculating.

  “Sounds like it deflated a swim bladder, that bubbling business,” suggested Cinnamon.

  “And then resorted to another means of locomotion,” puzzled Deirdre. “Slower, but safer — more controlled. Except that it persisted in heading towards danger!” The two fell silent as they tried to puzzle out the meaning of this strange behavior.

  Deirdre, still thinking, stretched long legs out to prop her boots up on the ledge under the large view port in the lounge. Through the window she could see a large storm in the distance, coming in from the leading pole. The Dragonfly would be grounded until it passed. Outside the window, forty meters below down on the ice, the Dragonfly had all its lights on. Arielle could be seen in the cockpit window, taking Joe through a preventive maintenance check list, while outside the airplane, Shirley and Richard were screwing hold-down anchors into the ice and tieing Dragonfly to them with strong duralloy cables.

  It felt good to Deirdre to be out of the confining exploration suit, and both she and Foxx were relaxing muscles weary with long tension. Katrina entered the lounge with her morning-shift coffee, and Cinnamon described to her the strange coelashark behavior. She, too found it inexplicable, and they had again fallen silent when George came up the passway and headed purposefully for the galley. He paused when he saw them, and looked at them oddly.

  “Well, Deirdre looks as tired as I feel, but I must admit, it’s a real pleasure to see people sitting and not saying anything!”

  “We’re not particularly gabby!” protested Katrina. “Usually,” she then qualified.

  “Didn’t mean to say you three talk all the time,” agreed George. “But the icerugs do! I never heard such a crew. It’s a perfectly good way to run a country — I was really impressed with their logic, and the discussions were all calm — but my God! they never shut up! Talk! Talk! Talk!”

  “What was it? A debate or something?” asked Cinnamon. “No,” said George, dropping into the reading chair by the viewport window. “It’s apparently just how they run things. Any little problem that arises is talked over until everyone agrees. Today, it was all about assigning some territory which became available when an icerug died. Everyone around the area had plenty to say, and they all listened to every word, and then others were brought in, and then the whole matter was put off for a time to allow everyone to think about it for a while!”

  “Well, but new territory, that sounds pretty important to me — proper to get full agreement on it,” argued Katrina.

  “Yes,” laughed George. “But it turned out this discussion has been going on for something like a hundred days, long before we got here! And they’re now just about almost ready to begin to think about maybe coming to a decision … anytime now!”

  Cinnamon chuckled, but her interest had been caught by the earlier fact.

  “The icerug died? How?” she asked curiously.

  “They mentioned that lightning had struck the node,” said George. “From the way they spoke of it, I gathered that it’s quite a rare occurrence, since they normally go down into their tunnels when a storm approaches. But they seem to accept death as inevitable, especially when a node becomes very old. Also there are other accidents that can happen.”

  “Like an icequake,” Deirdre reminded him.

  “Like an icequake,” George agreed. “There is also the possibility of starvation. A good part of the meeting was taken up by a report by an icerug that seems to be an ambassador of sorts, called a slender talker. It reported on the status of a community immediately to the north that is in dire straits. Their geyser failed some time ago, and the icerugs there are dying of malnutrition. What intrigued me is that there was no expression of sympathy or compassion in the discussion of the icerugs at the meeting — only a desire to keep the others at a distance. There was even a vague reference to the possibility that there might be what sounded to me like some sort of a conflict or war. They didn’t explain, or dwell on it long enough for me to get much idea of what they were talking about — just a word in passing, talking about things that happened long ago, or might possibly happen in the distant future … listen to me,” he said in disgust. “It’s catching, I’m becoming as talky as an icerug.”

  Cinnamon politely denied that, and asked if the icerugs had a hierarchy of any sort, or did everyone just speak in turn? George felt that the latter was the case, and began a description of the speeches. Deirdre quietly slipped from the lounge; she was ravenously hungry, and she knew the galley was well stocked with an assortment of seafood. Within a very short time she had put together a large and creamy seafood stew, thick with chunks of ‘ponics-fish fillets and tender bivalve meat from the clam-muscle tissue growth, Blue Oyster Culture. Cinnamon had cloned the tissue sample from a Pismo Beach clam, and had puzzled Nels with her choice for the name. He’d groaned, but accepted the pun when she played him some of the old songs of the Blue Oyster Cult, a 1980s rock group. The sauce was fragrant with fruity white wine from James’s chemical synthesizer and herbs from Cinnamon’s spice bed on Prometheus. It was the sort of dish best made for a group, and along with Deirdre’s fresh hot biscuits it was profoundly appreciated. Sam, in particular, enjoyed it.

  “You know, I never tasted seafood until I left the ranch when I was twenty-one, but when I did — never could get enough of it,” he said, helping himself to thirds.

  Arielle swallowed quickly, to say, “This not the real thing, Sam, you should have taste Canadian lobster! Not bad, though,” she added, reaching for another biscuit. Deirdre smiled to herself. As usual, there would be no leftovers to worry about. After such a hearty meal, sleep came even more quickly to the four explorers who had been out in their suits. They were asleep in their large bunks on Dragonfly long before the others had completed their routines. Shirley and Arielle, who had enjoyed the easy duty inside the Dragonfly, checked over the suits stored on Dragonfly with Joe and the suit imps, ensuring that every subsystem was checked, and that the suit fabric was intact and the glassy foil had not been pierced by a micrometeorite or scratched by a sharp rock. As always, Shirley took this particular task seriously. Richard’s suit was the final one to be examined, and as she spread it out for inspection, a faint aroma of sweat caught her nose.

  Arielle’s own nose wrinkled slightly: “Richard work hard today, I guess,” she commented. Shirley shrugged, but as she and the Christmas Branch restored the suit to its customary pristine condition, she became increasingly quiet. Then she yawned aloud, and said, “Well, that’s enough for me for today! See you in the morning, Arielle.”

  Arielle murmured something about waiting for her clothes to dry, but grinned wickedly as she watched the tall blonde walk casually up the corridor of the Dragonfly to the crew sleeping quarters and pull the privacy curtain open. Shirley turned to look back as she closed the curtain and caught the grin. She stared coolly, and quickly stepped within. Arielle snickered, and turned to check on the status of the microwave clothes dryer. She would wait until her pajamas were dry and hot before going to bed. Her thin body was always cold at the temperatures the rest of the crew found comfortable. The dryer finally chimed and she pulled out the pink bunny suit, complete with elastic cuffs and booties. It was warm and soft, and she clutched it close as she listened to the noises of the ship. She was waiting to hear Shirley start her shower, so she would know
it was safe to part the privacy curtain. Instead of the shower, however, she heard sleepily murmured half-objections from Richard, before the Sound-Bar door on his bunk closed down and shut them off.

  * * *

  At breakfast the next morning, Richard and Shirley behaved towards each other with careful friendliness, but even such a temporary liaison resulted in the heightened awareness of each other which periodically affected the humans. Their differences in appearance, their emotions, their own desires suddenly seemed to become noticeable again, after long days of dormancy.

  The passing storm was increasing in intensity, but during a lull, the four members of the crew who slept on Victoria put on their suits and joined the six on Dragonfly for a communal luncheon, leaving the flouwen and Josephine in charge of the lander. They hurried through blowing snow and rising winds as the cloud-darkened day grew pitch black with the arrival of the noontime eclipse. When they entered the airplane, they could hear the hull humming from the vibrations of the tie-down cables. Once they were all together inside, it was like being trapped in a snowstorm at a ski lodge during the holiday season — all the comforts one could want and no work to do.

  For David, of course, the reaction was to create a sono-video composition on the computer console; some of it wild and stormy, some of it calm and soothing.

  “I call it ‘Ice Storm’,” said David. “It’s based on the weather conditions outside. Let me play this first section for you.”

  Soon, a group gathered around David’s console to watch the computer-generated video scenes, while listening to the music through imp-earphones. The showpiece began with a stark scene of slick ice stretching to the horizon, reflecting a black star-studded sky. It wasn’t set on the inner pole of Zulu, since there was no Gargantua in the sky. The music which accompanied the slow panning motion over the stark landscape was equally stark, with eerie auroral choruses, staccato icy crackles, and tinkling stellar bells. A storm then loomed over the horizon, accompanied by deep threatening chords and shrieking banshee wails which grew louder and louder as the screen filled with images of driving snowflakes, first small, then larger and larger until a single snowflake image covered the whole screen as it rushed past the viewer at high speed. The snow turned into hail and the rattle of the striking ice pellets grew so loud that they drowned out the howling wind…. The screen turned black and the music stopped.

  “That’s all I’ve done so far,” said David. “Give me another hour or two and I’ll have the next part done.”

  Deirdre liked David’s show, but it had the unexpected effect of making someone who was normally cool almost cranky. Thus, when Sam’s hints for the prospects of some of Deirdre’s famous fresh hot waffles were accompanied by a warm and tender smile, Deirdre not only glared, she growled, and Sam retreated hastily.

  David’s exciting music reawakened in Thomas and Katrina the urge to dance; this was an exercise they both enjoyed on Prometheus, where there was plenty of room, and where the lack of gravity made it simple to carry out dramatic dance variations. They had Joe play some dance music through their imps and began dancing while the others tried to get out of their way. It was difficult to move freely in the confines of the Dragonfly, however, and they had to be content with a few brief jigs and polkas up and down the narrow corridor, trying to avoid bumping into the console chairs as they twirled between them. It was fun, for both of them, but only for a few minutes, and Katrina sighed, envious yet again of Arielle’s dainty grace. George sighed also; this forced day of rest already seemed long. He fervently hoped that the aroused tensions discernible around him would dissolve by the time of tomorrow’s excursions. And, gradually, in their own ways and times, they did. Cinnamon tuned out David’s complex and sometimes disturbing compositions by retiring behind the Sound-Bar door of one of the bunks to listen again to her own favorites through her imp earphones, humming, and Deirdre vented her rare upset in a satisfying argument with Richard on the wisdom of introducing new ideas, however innocuous, to the icerugs. By the dawn of the next Zulu day, the humans were physically rested and mentally restless; all were eagerly contemplating the morrow’s chances for discovery, but the storm was still raging outside.

  After dinner, the crew divided, with those assigned to Victoria following a safety line through the driving snow as they made their way back. The extra room in each vehicle felt luxurious, now, and the regular routines of study, report-writing, and analysis came as welcome and pleasant work. These were not people much accustomed to indolence.

  Finally, the storm ceased. A full Earth day had passed, nearly two Zuni days, and it was time for the second Barnard-assisted Zuni conjunction tide. Barnard’s nearly four meter tide would be in a different phase with respect to the eight meter conjunction tide, but the maximum tidal height should be well above eleven meters, as it was on the previous Zuni conjunction.

  Quickly they prepared to lift off again in the Dragonfly. Cinnamon replaced George on the Dragonfly crew, George having decided to visit the regional Convener and learn about the icerug’s form of government from that viewpoint.

  After dropping off the flouwen and Cinnamon at the entry point on Manannan Lake where Babble was waiting for them, and David and Deirdre at the entrance to the Grand Portal, Arielle flew the airplane to Pink-Orb’s territory, and used the VTOL fans to hover over the snow-drift-covered plum-carpeted area — but Pink-Orb was not in sight. Richard stepped out of the airlock onto the carpet, knowing that the Pink-Orb node, wherever it was underneath the acre of flesh, would instantly know he was there. The carpet, however, felt strangely flaccid under his feet.

  Richard waited, but instead of Pink-Orb’s node coming to him, he found himself being carried along the carpet by a plum wave, although much more slowly than before. The traveling wave took him down a tunnel, and after many turns, each turn carrying him deeper, he was deposited in a small room. Pink-Orb’s node was there, its eye dull and listless, its pedestal bloated, and its body node barely giving off enough light to see by.

  “I apologize for not coming to greet you,” said Pink-Orb in a deep-pitched, sickly growl. “But I could not.”

  “What’s the matter?” asked Richard, concerned.

  “I’m sick,” said Pink-Orb. “I guess I’m getting too old to handle even a single vermicyst. Now … I have been warned by the researchers at the Center for Literature Studies that you humans have a taboo about speaking of bodily waste functions. In fact, your formal language contains no word that actually describes the true purpose of the room where you go to carry out those functions. All the many words that you do use for that room are euphemisms. Since you and I are scientists, however, I presume I can safely ignore that taboo?” Pink-Orb paused, waiting for an objection from Richard, then continued on. “I have what you humans call diarrhea.”

  “Oh!” said Richard, smiling. “And this is your water closet.”

  “More like an outhouse in operation,” replied Pink-Orb. “For I must supply the water out of my own body.” A ripple passed through its bloated pedestal and the pedestal deflated as Richard heard a gush of water. “I am on top of a tunnel melted down through hundreds of meters of ice, which reaches down to the ocean under the ice,” continued Pink-Orb. “It is lined with that portion of my body which serves the function of extracting nutrients and essential bodily fluids, while disposing of wastes and excess water.”

  “Sort of like our gut,” said Richard.

  “Exactly,” said Pink-Orb. It gave another exhausted groan and Richard heard another flush of water.

  “I was going to suggest that you and I watch the upcoming geyser period together…” said Richard.

  “Some other time,” said Pink-Orb. “There will be some equally large tides in about forty-five days. We can watch then.”

  “I understand. I’ll return at that time,” said Richard. “Now how do I get out of here?” But before he could turn, a plum wave formed and carried him off up the sloping tunnel. Behind him he heard another groan, followed by the sou
nd of rushing water.

  The first of the geyser eruptions was starting as Richard came to the surface. After riding to the edge of Pink-Orb’s carpet and walking out onto the ice shelf, he set his feet firmly on the ice, turned on his position transponder so the commsats could record his exact latitude, longitude, and altitude to less than a centimeter as the ice under him rose and fell with the tide, and raised his sextant to catch the height of the top of the geyser.

  * * *

  Hurrying down the Grand Portal tunnel behind David, Deirdre passed an entrance to a large side chamber. She noticed a multitude of icerug threads leading into it and interpreted their meaning; a group of icerugs had gathered within. Curious, she took a quick look into the chamber and stopped, transfixed. One end of the large room was covered, from floor to ceiling, with a gleaming, glistening array of pipes of ice, all different lengths, solidly frozen together into a gigantic sheet. Her eyes wandered along the topmost edges of this amazing creation, where the end caps were carved into sparkling diamonds, and then down the swooping lengths to the base, where the notched “mouths” cut in the sides of the pipes were embellished with geometric carvings.

  Underneath the multiple bank of pipes, enclosing the foot of each pipe, was a billowing cushion made of the velvety carpet of an icerug, in the cyan shade of blue-green that Deirdre recognized as that of the icerug Silver-Rim, lifting and billowing and quivering as though it breathed. She was so intent on this marvel that she didn’t notice the throng of icerug nodes standing quietly around her on either side of the door, until the blue body-light of one of them caught her attention and she turned to see them. She then saw the node of Silver-Rim, standing quietly to one side of the organ, its eye concentrated on the stone plate it held in front of it. The cyan carpet inflated, then the portion of the carpet under the longest pipe twitched to let the air flow in.