Sundiver

by David Brin

  LaRoque wore a loose shiny robe. Blue PurSmok drifted into the air from the pipe he puffed with earnest.

  Jacob tried to smile but with someone behind him stepping on his heel, it came out more like gritting his teeth.

  “Hello, LaRoque. Why are you going to Mercury? Wouldn’t your readers be more interested in stories about the Peruvian excavations or. . .”

  “Or similar dramatic evidence that our primitive ancestors were nurtured by ancient astronauts?” LaRoque interrupted. “Yes, Demwa, such evidence shall soon be so overwhelming that even the Skins and skeptics who sit on the Confederacy Council will see the error of their ways!”

  “I see you wear the Shirt yourself.” Jacob pointed to LaRoque’s silvery tunic.

  “I wear the robe of the Daniken Society on my last day on Earth, in honor of the older ones who gave us the power to go into space.” LaRoque shifted pipe and drink into one hand and with the other straightened the gold medallion and chain that hung from his neck.

  Jacob thought the effect was a bit theatrical for a grown man. The robe and jewelry seemed effeminate, in contrast to the Frenchman’s gruff manner. He had to admit, though, that it went well with the outrageous, affected accent.

  “Oh come on, LaRoque,” Jacob smiled. “Even you have to admit we got into space by ourselves, and we discovered the extraterrestrials, not they us.”

  “I admit nothing!” LaRoque answered hotly. “When we prove ourselves worthy of the Patrons who gave us our intelligence in the dim past, when they acknowledge us, then we’ll know how much they have covertly helped us all these years!”

  Jacob shrugged. There was nothing new in the Skin-Shirt controversy. One side insisted that man should be proud of his unique heritage as a self-evolved race, having won intelligence from Nature herself on the savannah and shoreline of East Africa. The other side held that homo sapiens—just as every other known race of sophonts—was part of a chain of genetic and cultural uplifting that stretched back to the fabled early days of the galaxy, the time of the Progenitors.

  Many, like Jacob, were studiously neutral in the conflict of views, but humanity, and humanity’s client races, awaited the outcome with interest. Archeology and Paleontology had become the great new hobbies since Contact.

  However, LaRoque’s arguments were so stale they could be used for croutons. And the headache was getting worse.

  “That’s very interesting, LaRoque,” he said as he began to edge past. “Perhaps we can discuss it some other time . . .” But LaRoque wasn’t finished yet.

  “Space is filled with Neanderthaler sentiment, you know. The men on our ships would prefer to wear animal skins and grunt like apes! They resent the Older Ones, and they actively snub sensible people who practice humility!”

  LaRoque made his point while jabbing in Jacob’s direction with the stem of his pipe. Jacob backed away, trying to stay polite but having difficulty.

  “Well, now I think that’s going a little too far, LaRoque. I mean you’re talking about astronauts! Emotional and political stability are prime criteria in their selection. . .”

  “Aha! What you do not know about the very things you just mentioned! You joke, no? I know a thing or two about ‘emotional and political stability’ of astronauts!

  “I’ll tell you about it sometime,” he continued. “Someday the whole story will come out, about the Confederacy’s plan to isolate a large part of humanity away from the elder races, and from their heritage in the stars! All the poor ‘unreliables’! But by then it will be too late to seal the leak!”

  LaRoque puffed and exhaled a cloud of blue PurSmok in Jacob’s direction. Jacob felt a wave of dizziness.

  “Yeah, LaRoque, whatever you say. You’ve got to tell me about it some time.” He backed away.

  LaRoque glowered on for a moment, then grinned and patted Jacob on the back as he edged his way to the door.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ll tell you all about it. But meanwhile, better you should lie down. You don’t look so good at all! Bye bye!” He slapped Jacob’s back once more then slipped back into the bar.

  Jacob walked to the nearest port and rested his head against the pane. It was cool and it helped to ease the throbbing in his forehead. When he opened his eyes to look out, the Earth was not in sight. . . only a great field of stars, shining unblinking against blackness. The brighter ones were surrounded by diffraction rays, which he could lengthen or shorten by squinting. Except for the brightness, the effect was no different than looking at the stars on a night in the desert. They didn’t twinkle, but they were the same stars.

  Jacob knew he should feel more. The stars when viewed from space should be more mysterious, more . . . “philosophical.” One of the things he could remember best about his adolescence was the asolopsistic roar of starry nights. It was nothing like the oceanic feeling he now got through hypnosis. It had been like half-remembered dreams of another life.

  He found Dr. Kepler, Bubbacub, and Fagin in the main lounge. Kepler invited him to join them.

  The group settled around a cluster of cushions near the view ports. Bubbacub carried with him a cup of something that looked and, from a chance whiff, smelled noxious. Fagin ambled slowly, twisting on his root-pods, carrying nothing.

  The row of ports that ran along the curved periphery of the ship was broken in the lounge by a large circular disc, like a giant round window, that touched floor and ceiling. The flat side protruded into the room about a foot. Whatever lay within was hidden behind a tightly fixed panel.

  “We are glad that you made it,” Bubbacub barked through his Vodor. He had sprawled on one of the cushions and, after saying this, dipped his snout into the cup he carried and ignored Jacob and the others. Jacob wondered if the Pil was trying to be sociable, or if he came by his charm naturally.

  Jacob thought of Bubbacub as “he” because he had no idea at all about Bubbacub’s true gender. Though Bubbacub wore no clothes, other than the Vodor and a small pouch, what Jacob could see of the alien’s anatomy only confused matters. He had learned, for instance, that the Pila were oviparous and did not suckle their young. But a row of what appeared to be teats lay like shirt buttons from throat to crotch. He couldn’t even guess at their purpose. The Datanet did not mention them. Jacob had ordered a more complete summary from the Library.

  Fagin and Kepler were talking about the history of Sunships. Fagin’s voice was muffled because his upper foliage and blowhole brushed against the soundproofing panels on the ceiling. (Jacob hoped that Kanten were not prone to claustrophobia. But then, what were talking vegetables afraid of anyway? Being nibbled on, he supposed. He wondered about the sexual mores of a race whose lovemaking required the intermediary of a sort of domesticated bumblebee.)

  “Then these magnificent improvisations,” Fagin said, “without benefit of the slightest help from outside, enabled you to convey packages of instruments into the very Photosphere! This is most impressive and I wonder that, in my years here, I never knew of this adventure of your period before Contact!”

  Kepler beamed. “You must understand that the bathysphere project was only . . . the beginning, long before my time. When laser propulsion for pre-Contact interstellar craft was developed, they were able to drop robot ships that could hover and, by the thermodynamics of using a high temperature laser, they could dump excess heat and cool the probe’s interior.”

  “Then you were only a short time away from sending men!”

  Kepler smiled ruefully. “Well, perhaps. Plans were made. But sending living beings to the Sun and back involved more than just heat and gravity. The worst obstacle was the turbulence!

  “It would have been great to see if we could have solved the problem, though.” Kepler’s eyes shone for a moment. “There were plans.”

  “But then the Vesarius found Tymbrimi ships in Cygnus,” Jacob said.

  “Yes. So we’ll never find out. The plans were drawn up when I was just a boy. Now they’re hopelessly obsolete. And it’s probably just as well.
. . . There would have been inescapable losses, even deaths, if we’d done it without stasis. . . . Control of timeflow is the key to Sundiver now, and I certainly wouldn’t complain about the results.”

  The scientist’s expression suddenly darkened. “That is, until now.”

  Kepler fell silent and stared at the carpet. Jacob watched him for a moment, then covered his mouth and coughed.

  “While we’re on the subject, I’ve noticed that there isn’t any mention of Sun Ghosts on the Datanet, or even in a special request from the Library . . . and I have a 1-AB permit. I was wondering if you could spare some of your reports on the subject, to study during the trip?”

  Kepler looked away from Jacob nervously.

  “We weren’t quite ready to let the data off Mercury yet, Mr. Demwa. There . . . are political considerations to this discovery that, uh, will delay your briefing until we get to the base. I’m sure that all of your questions will be answered there.” He looked so genuinely ashamed that Jacob decided to drop the matter for the moment. But this was not a good sign.

  “I might take a liberty in adding one piece of information,” Fagin said. “There has been another dive since our meeting, Jacob, and on that dive, we are told, only the first and more prosaic species of Solarian was observed. Not the second variety which has caused Dr. Kepler so much concern.”

  Jacob was still confused by the hurried explanations Kepler had given of the two types of Sun-creatures so far observed.

  “Now I take it that type was your herbivore?”

  “Not herbivore!” Kepler interjected. “A magnetovore. It feeds on magnetic field energy. That type is actually becoming rather well understood, however. . .”

  “I interrupt! In the most unctious wish that I be forgiven for the intrusion, I urge discretion. A stranger approaches.” Fagin’s upper branches rustled against the ceiling.

  Jacob turned to look at the doorway, a bit shocked that anything would bring Fagin to interrupt another’s sentence. Dismally he realized that this was still another sign that he had stepped into a politically tense situation, and he still knew none of the rules.

  I don’t hear anything, he thought. Then Pierre LaRoque stood at the door, a drink in his hand and his always florid face further flushed. The man’s initial smile broadened when he saw Fagin and Bubbacub. He entered and gave Jacob a jovial slap on the back, insisting that he be introduced right away.

  Jacob internalized a shrug.

  He performed the introductions slowly. LaRoque was impressed, and he bowed deeply to Bubbacub.

  “Ab-Kisa-ab-Soro-ab-Hul-ab-Puber! And two clients, what were they, Demwa? Jello and something? I’m honored to meet a sophont of the Soro line in person! I have studied the language of your ancestrals, whom we may someday show to be ours as well! The Soro tongue is so similar to Proto-Semitic, and Proto-Bantu also!”

  Bubbacub’s cilia bristled above his eyes. The Pil, through his Vodor, began to make voice with a complicated, alliterative, incomprehensible speech. Then the alien’s jaws made short, sharp snaps and a high pitched growling could be heard, half amplified by the Vodor. From behind Jacob, Fagin answered in a clicking and rumbling tongue. Bubbacub turned to face him, black eyes hot as he answered with a throaty growl, waving a stubby arm in a slash in LaRoque’s direction. The Kanten’s trilling reply sent a chill down Jacob’s back.

  Bubbacub swiveled and stamped out of the room without a further word to the humans.

  For a dumbfounded instant, LaRoque said nothing. Then, he looked at Jacob plaintively. “What is it I did, please?”

  Jacob sighed, “Maybe he doesn’t like being called a cousin of yours, LaRoque.” He turned to Kepler to change the subject. The scientist was staring at the door through which Bubbacub left/

  “Dr. Kepler, if you haven’t any specific data on board, perhaps you could lend me some basic solar physics texts and some background histories on Sun-diver itself?”

  “I’d be delighted to, Mr. Demwa.” Kepler nodded. “I’ll send them to you by dinner time.” His mind appeared to be elsewhere.

  “I too!” LaRoque cried. “I am an accredited journalist and I demand the background upon your infamous endeavor, Mr. Director!”

  After a moment’s startlement, Jacob shrugged. Have to hand it to LaRoque. Chutzhpa can be easily mistaken for resiliency.

  Kepler smiled, as if he had not heard. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The great conceit! This ‘Sundiver Project” of yours, which takes money that could go to the deserts of Earth for reclamation, or to a greater Library for our world!

  “The vanity of this project, to study what our betters understood perfectly before we were apes!”

  “Now see here, sir. The Confederacy bar funded this research . . .” Kepler reddened.

  “Research! Ree-search it is. You re-search for that which is already in the Libraries of the Galaxy, and shame us all by making humans out to be fools!”

  “LaRoque . . .” Jacob began, but the man wouldn’t shut up.

  “And what of your Confederacy! They stuff the Elders into reservations, like the old-time Indians of America! They keep access to the Branch Library out of the hands of the people! They allow continuation of this absurdity that all laugh at us for, this claim of spontaneous intelligence!” ‘

  Kepler backed away from LaRoque’s vehemence. The color drained out of his face and he stammered.

  “I. . . I don’t think. . .”

  “LaRoque! Come on, cut it out!”

  Jacob grabbed his shoulder and pulled him over to whisper urgently in his ear.

  “Come on man, you don’t want to shame us in front of the venerable Kanten Fagin, do you?”

  LaRoque’s eyes widened. Over Jacob’s shoulder Fagin’s upper foliage rustled audibly in agitation. Finally, LaRoque’s gaze dropped.

  The second embarrassment must have been enough for him. He mumbled an apology to the alien, and with a parting glare at Kepler, took his leave.

  “Thanks for the special effects, Fagin,” Jacob said after LaRoque was gone.

  He was answered by a whistle, short and low.

  5. REFRACTION

  At 40 million kilometers, the Sun was a chained hell. It boiled in black space, no longer the brilliant dot that the children of Earth took for granted and easily, unconsciously, avoided with their eyes. Across millions of miles it pulled. Compulsively, one felt a need to look, but the. need was dangerous.

  From the Bradbury, it had the apparent size of a nickel held a foot away from the eye. The specter was too bright to be endured undiminished. To “catch a glimpse” of this orb, as one sometimes did on Earth, would invite blindness. The Captain ordered the ship’s stasis screens polarized and the regular viewing ports sealed.

  The Lyot window was unshuttered in the lounge, so that passengers could examine the Lifegiver without injury.

  Jacob paused in front of the round window in a late night pilgrimage to the coffee machine, half awake from a fitful sleep in his tiny stateroom. For minutes he stared, blank faced, still only half conscious, until a lisping voice roused him.

  “Dish ish the way your shun looksh from the Aphelion of the orbit of Mercury, Jacob.”

  Culla sat at one of the card tables in the dimly lit lounge. Just behind the alien, above a row of vending machines, a wall clock read “04:30” in glowing numbers.

  Jacob’s sleepy voice was thick in his throat. “Have . . . um,. . . are we that close already?”

  Culla nodded. “Yeah.”

  The alien’s lip grinders were tucked away. His big folded lips pursed and let out a whistle each time he tried to pronounce an English long “s.” In the dim light his eyes reflected a red glow from the viewing window.

  “We have only two more days until we arrive,” the alien said. His arms were crossed on the table in front of him. The loose folds of his silver gown covered half of the surface.

  Jacob, swaying slightly, turned to glance back at the port. The solar orb wavered before his eyes. />
  “Are you all right?” the Pring asked anxiously. He started to rise.

  “No. No, please.” Jacob held up his hand. “I’m just groggy. Not ‘nuff sleep. Need coffee.”

  He shambled toward the vending machines, but halfway there he stopped, turned, and peered again at the image of the furnace-sun.

  “It’s red!” he grunted in surprise.

  “Shall I tell you why while you get your coffee?” Culla asked.

  “Yes. Please.” Jacob turned back to the dark row of food and beverage dispensers, looking for a coffee spout.

  “The Lyot window only allowsh in light in mono-chromatic form,” Culla said. “It ish made of many round platesh; some polarizersh and some light retardersh. They are rotated with reshpect to one another to finely tune which wavelength ish allowed through.

  “Itsh a most delicate and ingenioush device, although quite obsholete by Galactic standarsh . . . like one of the ‘Shwiss’ watchesh some humansh shtill wear in an age of electronicsh. When your people become adept with the Library such. . . Rube Goldbersh? . . . will be archaic.”

  Jacob bent forward to peer at the nearest machine. ,.

  It looked like a coffee machine. There was a transparent panel door, and behind that a little platform with a metal grill drain at the bottom. Now, if he pushed the right button, a disposable cup should drop onto the platform and then, from some mechanical artery would pour a stream of the bitter black beverage he wanted.

  As Culla’s voice droned on in his ears, Jacob made polite sounds. “Uh, huh. . . yes, I see.”

  At the far left, one of the buttons was lit with a green light. On impulse, he pressed it.

  He watched the machine blearily. Now! That was a buzz and a click! There’s the cup! Now . . . what the hell?

  A large yellow and green pill fell into the cup.

  Jacob lifted the panel arid took out the cup. A second later a stream of hot liquid spilled through the empty space where the cup had been, disappearing in the drain below.

  Dubiously, he glowered down at the pill. Whatever it was, it wasn’t coffee. He rubbed his eyes with his left wrist, one at a time. Then he sent an accusing glance at the button he’d pressed.