His attempts had gone on for so long that Bridget’s teammates had lost interest in making fun of him. Over by the beach, he saw the ludicrous sight of Dinner and a couple of his teammates building a castle out of blue sand. The Breathers paid them no mind. Nor did they seem to care that O’Herlihy was wading at the edge of the lagoon, tramping around and picking up rocks. “He’s a collector,” Bridget explained.
“More for his head.” Jamie looked tiredly at the Baghu leader — and then behind him, at the heap of merchandise he’d manufactured. He’d gone through the routine a hundred times at least. Jamie would call up images on the menu isopanel. Something would catch the leader’s interest. Jamie would order up a sample and wait for it to be manufactured. Finally, he would take the item to the Baghu — who would sniff at it indifferently and then turn away.
Jamie’s pile of rejected junk was now almost as tall as he was. A trumpet. A brass ingot. A paper comic book. A surveillance bee. A wedge of Stilton cheese. A pink bow tie. A bowling ball. Cyclotron parts. A bottle of brandy. High-tech or low-tech, decorative or useful, the products failed to impress the Baghu leader, who had simply lost interest and waddled off. Bridget’s main use had been to stand between the creature and the lake, and nudge him back into the sale. The Breather didn’t seem to mind being detained; whatever duties he had scaring young children in their nightmares weren’t pulling him away.
“This is pointless,” Jamie finally said. “These things don’t even have anything to trade!”
“Wait.” Bridget walked up to him. “Hold out your hand. The one the Breather shook.”
Jamie rolled his eyes. “This is a waste of time,” he said, sticking his right hand out. Bridget turned it over and activated the sensor above her helmet’s faceplate. A line of light swept past Jamie’s hand.
“I was right,” she said, checking a reading. “On your glove — and on the Baghu. Gold dust.”
Jamie took his hand back. “What?” He eyed his glove. “I don’t see anything.”
“Microscopic, but it’s there,” Bridget said. “Maybe they do have something.”
Jamie calculated. Gold was useful and desirable, even now. They hadn’t been able to analyze the lake to any depth, but maybe the Breathers had something down there after all.
He tried to quiz the Baghu leader about it, but the thing simply hissed — a frightening sound that Jamie decided he never wanted to hear again, ever. “No deal?”
“We want first,” the Baghu boomed. “Then we will trade you the things.”
“The things.”
“The things under the water,” the alien said, its nozzle dripping ooze.
Jamie sighed. He turned back to look at the pile again. “What the hell do you guys want?”
Bridget walked back to the edge of the lagoon and kicked the liquid with her boot. “Why don’t you hit the randomizer?” she asked. “Surprise them with something.”
“I’ve been using it for an hour!” Disgusted, Jamie punched in the command again. Behind him, the fabricator returned to its work. Less than a minute later he heard the electronic chime in his helmet. Something fell from the slot and landed in the muck. Jamie didn’t even try to catch it.
It was a teddy bear. Brown and fuzzy, the bear was a protected design licensed from the holders of the Zazzy the Zoobear intellectual property. It had been seventy years since any bears walked the Earth outside captivity, but the Zazzy entertainments had driven a generation of kids to fall in love with things ursine. The previous generation, Jamie knew: Zazzy was as dated as the animals that inspired him, and Quaestor had picked up the license for next to nothing.
Deflated, Jamie kneeled down to pick it up. But before his gloved hand touched it, a greasy tentacle snaked up and snatched the stuffed animal away.
Jamie turned to see the Baghu leader holding the fuzzy aloft and contemplating. Other Breathers took notice, somehow, and tromped out onto the beach. Then the lead creature flipped the toy up into the air and enveloped it with his snout. The Baghu swallowed the bear whole.
“Okaaay…” Jamie said.
Bridget’s eyes widened with amusement. “Try another one!”
Another minute, another chime, another bear. Now the other Baghu pawed at the Zazzy® Brand Children’s Bear Product with their tentacles. A sort of slap-fight broke out between the Breathers, and by the time it ended the toy had become a meal for another appreciative alien.
“Teddy bears?”
Standing in the lagoon, O’Herlihy laughed. “Maybe they like the way they go down.”
All along the shoreline, Baghu beckoned, waving tentacles. More had appeared, and Jamie could barely see the surge team members through the crowd of aliens. “We will sell you the things under the water,” came the call. “We want. We want!”
Jamie tried to shut out the cacophony. Teddy bears! As if this place wasn’t weird enough. Jamie shook his head. “A sale’s a sale, I guess.” He looked to Bridget, still on the edge of the lagoon. “What now?”
“You’re the trader—”
“A desk-trader, as you love to remind me,” he said. “But you escort the traders all the time.”
Bridget shook her head. “Once you settle on a price, someone takes the deal back to the Dragon’s Depot. Falcone will send back Quaestor’s factors to set up on-site production. The bears are easy enough to make locally.”
“But what price?” He looked at the Baghu. “What’s under the water?”
The lead Breather stood silent, and the end of its nozzle pinched. “Don’t want to say,” it finally said.
“Great.” Jamie looked at Bridget. “Help?”
***
Standing at the edge of the lake, Bridget grew nervous. There were fifty or more flailing Breathers now, some half in the lagoon, others on the shore. Jamie’s random pick had put the walking stomachs into a consumer frenzy not seen since the Black Friday Riots on Earth brought out a military response a hundred years earlier.
“Chief?” O’Herlihy asked in her ear. She could barely see him over the aliens. The systems in her HardSHEL armor highlighted the locations of her other eight squad members up and down the shoreline; nobody was where they needed to be. She’d gotten complacent, been lulled into a false sense of security by the Baghu’s previously placid manner. Now, nobody was in position to protect Jamie, who was backing up farther from the beach, hemmed in against the fabricator.
Nearby, she could see Dinner trying to raise his rifle to protect the trader. The Breathers pushed and jostled right past, ignoring him.
“They don’t know what our weapons are,” she said.
“Shot in the air?” O’Herlihy asked, rattled.
“Hang on.” Anywhere else, she’d consider it — but gunfire usually had a way of ending sales calls. Turning toward the lagoon, she slid between bouncing Breathers and waded into the brine. Maybe the answer was simple: they’d help the primitive Baghu complete the sale. We will give you the things under the water!
It wasn’t really water, she saw as she tried her scanner again. Heavily laden with salts and chlorides at this level — and the body went much deeper than she’d imagined. Trovatelli had stayed aboard the depot to get the place running; Bridget could have used the Q/A’s skills here now. “Inconclusive,” she said. “Too murky.” She turned and called back toward the beach, and Jamie. “Maybe we could—”
Bridget felt a chain snap around her neck. Reaching with her free hand, she felt it was no chain but rather the sinewy tentacle of a Baghu pulling at her. Every Breather on the beach and in the brine turned on the armored bodyguards, bullwhip tendrils snaking around limbs, chests, and rifles.
“Hostile, hostile!” she called. The fifty had become a hundred now, a mass of Baghu splashing up from beneath. What the hell is happening?
***
Jamie backed up against the fabricator. “Yang!”
The Baghu kept pressing toward him. Jamie stuck his foot in the delivery slot of the fabricator and scrambled on top of the big
device. It rocked on its wheels, jostled by the pressure of the Breathers.
“We want,” the Baghu leader said. “We want!”
Jamie didn’t have the menu anymore; he’d dropped it. It was out there somewhere, pounded under the feet of the drooling stomachs. And out past them he couldn’t see a single member of Surge Sigma. He’d seen two of his bodyguards go down into the lake with the Breathers — the creatures had lifted Arbutus Dinner like he was a child’s toy.
“We want! We want!”
On his hands and knees atop a vending machine a hundred trillion kilometers from home, Jamie looked out over the sea of alien tentacles and tried to see Bridget — or any of the surge team members.
So much for my debut!
***
Another tentacle and then another wrapped around Bridget’s faceplate; she could see her companions being bound and hurried toward the lake. She heard a shot fire wildly as she fought to keep her balance. Her suit’s internal armature held, keeping her in place. But the mucky soil beneath her boots did not hold, and the four Breathers holding her pushed out toward the center of the lagoon.
“Extract the trader,” she called again to anyone who would listen.
Then they plunged, Bridget struggling all the way as the darkness devoured them.
Episode 3
Underwater Holdings
14
All through grad school, Jamie Sturm had been plagued by the same nightmare. He was huddled on top of a pedestal, trying to avoid the clawing fingernails of people down on the ground who were crawling all over each other to unseat him. Ashamed of having a subconscious so embarrassingly on the nose, he’d never mentioned the dream to his therapist. Financial industry work came in two flavors: paranoia and panic. He’d known what was ahead.
Or so he thought. As faceless and frightening as the people in his dreams were, at least they’d never had tentacles for arms and drooling nozzles for mouths. The Baghu’s slimy feelers slapped untiringly against the top edge of the fabricator. Twenty minutes had passed and the creatures’ enthusiasm was unabated. Hunched atop the big machine, Jamie kept his hand pressed on the panic button of his sales badge. He’d already called out on the emergency channel and activated his suit’s internal summons, but no one had seemed to notice.
“Welligan, where are you?” Jamie yelled again into his helmet mic.
Static.
The trader swore. He’d been abandoned. Was this Welligan’s revenge for Jamie ratting on him back at the depot? Or was the idiot simply incompetent? Jamie didn’t know. But he knew he hadn’t heard anything from Bridget or any of the troopers swept into the lagoon, either.
And they were supposed to be protecting him?
On his hands and knees, Jamie desperately looked around. He couldn’t see anything but the sea of tentacles; Baghu covered the entire beach. But he could still make out the lagoon, and he knew the landing site was back in the other direction. There weren’t as many Breathers on that side yet. Maybe he could make a jump for it without being eaten or carried off himself.
Yeah, that’s it, he thought. If the critters wanted the fabricator, maybe they’d ignore him. It was his only shot. He stood—
“Sturm!”
Jamie pulled back from the edge and yelled in response to the crackling voice over his headset. “Welligan! Dammit, man!”
“Sorry, friend. We’re a little busy,” Welligan said.
Jamie thought he could hear the sound of pulse blasts going off in the background of Hiro’s transmission. Well, at least someone’s shooting. “I need you to get busy over here, friend!”
“Can’t,” Welligan said. “But I’m sending somebody. Sigma Three out.”
“Wait! What?”
Nothing.
Jamie dropped again to his knees as a rumble shook the fabricator. Would the Baghu try to carry the machine into the lagoon, too, ignorantly assuming it was a box full of teddy bears? And what would happen to him then?
“Welligan!” he yelled again. “Yang!”
“Anyone!”
* * *
Bridget Yang looked at the time display projected on the inside of her faceplate. Thirty minutes. It felt like longer — and it was far too long to be helpless.
The Baghu who’d seized her had picked up speed as they plunged, carrying her down into the darkness of the alien lake. Her armor had registered the increased pressure and compensated; fortunately, the lagoon didn’t seem that deep. They’d touched bottom after a little over a minute. She’d felt the creatures driving their legs into the muck at the bottom, adhering to the lake bed floor.
She’d struggled during the first few minutes, but she’d found it a futile effort. The Breathers’ tentacles were wrapped around her in overlapping diagonal laces that tightened in response to any movement. It was like being stuck in a giant Chinese finger trap. Only eye movements, flexed fingertips, and spoken commands allowed her any control over her armor’s internal functions at all.
There was no way to call up for help. Traditional radio waves couldn’t penetrate the thick brine, and extremely low frequency communications of the kind used by submarines were a one-way affair from the land. Ginormous transmitters weren’t part of the typical security squaddie’s kit.
But the liquid proved a fine medium for ultrasound, and that was a capability her team’s armor had. Her system’s transducer raised her voice above the range where humans could hear and boomed her words straight through the Baghu tentacles surrounding her. If the act caused the Breathers any discomfort, she couldn’t tell — but anyone nearby with similar equipment would be able to hear and decipher. She was a baby with a very noisy kick.
It only took a few minutes for her to determine that her whole squad was similarly trapped in the immediate vicinity. Some were still straining against the Baghu. She’d ordered them to stop and lie limp. The liquid pressure wouldn’t crack the HardSHELs, but she didn’t want to chance a test between the aliens’ strength and their units’ servos. One buckled plate could burst a seam, inviting disaster.
No, they needed to think on the problem. And they certainly had the time. Her onboard fresherpak, a bladder loaded with nanoids that drew on the armor’s energy to mimic photosynthesis, would extend her suit’s oxygen for quite some time. Power was the real limiting factor — and another reason not to struggle.
“They’ve got to eat sometime,” Bridget said.
“So do we,” called back Lopez-Herrera, the squad medic.
Bridget knew as soon as she’d mentioned food that it was a silly idea. Her suit’s live datalink with the knowglobe was gone, but as a matter of course she and her team had downloaded everything known about the species to their personal systems. She’d reviewed it twice already — an impromptu study session at the bottom of an alien lake — and now she reviewed it again, searching the lines of text for anything helpful. Right now all she knew was that the Baghu could stay motionless down here indefinitely, absorbing whatever it was they ate through their trunks.
“Maybe we burn,” Dinner said, referring to their last-ditch defense used sometimes against the Spore. “That’d make them let go.”
“Then we’d be statues at the bottom of the lagoon,” Bridget countered. Besides, she wasn’t too sure how well the suits would handle the pressure afterward — or any retaliation by the Breathers.
More importantly, the act would likely kill their captors, and there were rules about that sort of thing. Lorraine’s report said that no Baghu had ever been seen to act in a hostile manner before. There was a first time for everything, and this was certainly it — but mindless Spores aside, Bridget didn’t cross trillions of miles to kill aliens.
If she could help it.
Bridget could hear O’Herlihy nonchalantly whistling a tune. Just like him. “Any ideas, Mike?”
“Just that old Phippsy must be laughing his ass off right now,” he said.
And despite their circumstances, Bridget laughed. Years earlier, O’Herlihy and a friend had “b
orrowed” power armor units and carried a portable restroom to the top of Mount Everest. It was an old prank, but what was new was the fact that Coach Phipps, a lecher who’d harassed students for years, was welded inside. That, and a lifetime of other rash acts of chivalry, had led to O’Herlihy’s unemployability outside Bridget’s team. “So how long did it take for them to rescue Phipps?” she asked.
“Long enough for him to put the box to its intended use a few times,” O’Herlihy answered.
“We may wind up with the opportunity ourselves. Just stay calm, everybody. We’ll come up with something. And don’t forget — Hiro’s still out there.”
A collective groan echoed over the ultrasound receiver. Bridget was half expecting that reaction, but she couldn’t be heard to join in. Her verbal head count had determined that Welligan’s troops weren’t in the soup with her. Would he have the sense to do what he was trained to do in this situation? She hoped so, but she wasn’t much more confident than her fellow prisoners.
She chewed on her lip. Think, woman. There’s got to be a way out!
* * *
“Hey, guys! Knock it off!” The volume on Jamie’s external speakers was set at maximum now, and he could easily hear his translated voice booming in the Baghu’s language. But if they could hear him over the din of their own gabble, he couldn’t tell. His interface with the knowglobe was still live, but there was nothing new to translate in the Baghu cacophony. Just the same “We trade, we trade, we trade.” That was it. Talking to the Breathers was as useless as trying to talk to his own crew.
All at once the aliens’ demeanor changed. Instead of waving their tentacles toward him, they windmilled their arms wildly. Squawks became shrieks, and the sea of Breathers around the fabricator heaved. A blaze of light cascaded across the aliens. Jamie looked up.
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