Sundiver

by David Brin

  The nearer toroids shone with the colors of an Earth spring. Only with distance did the colors fade. Pale green shimmered below their axes, where laser light scattered in the plasma.

  Around all of them sparkled a diffuse halo of white light.

  “Synchrotron radiation,” a crewman said. “Those babies must really be spinning! I’m picking up a big flux at l00KeV!”

  Four hundred meters across and more than 2,000 distant, the nearest toroid spun madly. Around its rim geometric shapes flew past like beads on a necklace, changing, so that deep blue diamonds became purple sinuous bands, circuiting a brilliant emerald ring, all within seconds.

  The Sunship captain stood by the Pilot Board, eyes darting from indicator to gauge and alert to every detail. To glance at her was to watch a softened version of the show outside the ship, for the fluxious, iridescent colors of the nearest toroid bathed her face and her white uniform and were thereby tamed and diffused for the second half of the trip to Jacob’s eye. First faintly, then more brightly as green and blue mixed with and drove out the pink, the colors sparkled each time she looked up and smiled.

  Suddenly, the blueness swelled as a burst of exuberance from the toroid coincided with an intricate display of patterns, like a weaving of ganglia around the ring-beast’s rim.

  The performance was peerless. Arteries erupted in green and twined with veins drawn in pulsing, chaste blue. These throbbed in counterpoint, then grew like gravid vines, peeling back to release clouds of tiny triangles—sprays of two dimensional pollen that scattered in a multitude of miniscule three-point collisions around the non-Euclidian body of the torus. At once the motif became isosceles, and the doughnut-rim became a cacophote of sides and angles.

  The display reached a peak of intensity, then receded. The rim patterns became less bright and the torus backed away, finding a place to spin among its fellows as the red started to return, pushing out greens and blues from the deck of the ship and from the faces of the watchers.

  “That was a greeting,” Helene deSilva said finally. “There are skeptics back on Earth who still think that the magnetovores are just some form of magnetic aberration. Let them come and see for themselves, then. We are witnessing life. Clearly the Creator accepts few limits to the range of his handiwork.”

  She touched the pilot’s shoulder lightly. His hands moved on his controls and the ship began to bank away.

  Jacob agreed with Helene, though her logic was unscientific. He had no doubts that the toroids were alive. The creature’s display, whether it was a greeting or simply a territorial response to the presence of the ship, had been a sign of something vital, if not sentient.

  The anachronistic reference to a supreme deity had sounded oddly fitting to the beauty of the moment.

  The Commandant spoke again into her microphone as the flare of magnetovores fell back and the deck turned.

  “Now we go hunting ghosts.

  “Remember, we aren’t really here to study the magnetovores but their predators. A constant watch is to be maintained by the crew for any sign of these elusive creatures. Since they have been sighted as often by accident as not, it would be appreciated if everyone helped. Please report anything extraordinary to me.

  DeSilva and Culla held a conference. The alien nodded slowly, an occasional flash of white between huge gums betraying his excitement. Finally, he set off around the curve of the central dome.

  DeSilva explained that she had sent Culla to the other side of the deck, flip-side, where normally only Instruments stood, to act as a lookout in case the laser beings should appear from the nadir, where the rim-mounted detectors could not reach them.

  “We’ve had a number of zenith sightings,” deSilva repeated. “And these have often been the most interesting cases, such as when we saw anthropomorphic shapes.”

  “And the shapes always disappeared before the ship could be turned?” Jacob asked.

  “Or the beasts would turn with us to stay overhead. It was infuriating! But that gave us the first clue that psi might be involved. After all, whatever their motives, how could they know about our way of placing instruments at the rim of a disc and follow our movements so precisely, without knowing what we intended to do?”

  Jacob frowned in thought. “But why not put a few cameras up here? Certainly it wouldn’t be much of a chore?”

  “No, not much of a chore,” deSilva agreed. “But the support and dive crews didn’t want to disturb the ship’s original symmetry. We would have to put another conduit through the deck to the main recording computer, and Culla assured us that this would eliminate whatever small ability we might have to maneuver in a stasis-failure . . . though that ability is probably negligible anyway. Witness what happened to poor Jeff.

  “Jeffrey’s ship, the small one you toured on Mercury, was designed from the start to carry recorders aimed at zenith and nadir. His was the only one with this modification. We’ll have to make do with the rim instruments, our eyes, and a few hand-held cameras.”

  “And the psi experiments,” Jacob pointed out.

  DeSilva nodded expressionlessly.

  “Yes, we are all hoping to make friendly contact, of course.”

  “Excuse me, Captain.”

  The pilot looked up from his instruments. He held a button speaker to his ear. “Culla says there’s a color difference at the upper north end of the herd. It might be a calving.”

  DeSilva nodded.

  “Okay. Proceed along a north tangent to the field flux. Rise with the herd as you make your way around and don’t get close enough to spook them.”

  The ship began to bank at a new angle. The Sun rose on the left until it became a wall that stretched up and ahead to infinity. A faint luminescence twisted away from them, down toward the photosphere below. The sparkling trail paralleled the alignment of the herd of toruses.

  That’s the path of superionization our Refrigerator Laser left when we were pointed that way,” deSilva said. “It must be a couple of hundred kilometers long.”

  “The laser is that strong?”

  “Well, we have to get rid of a lot of heat. And the whole idea is to heat up a small part of the Sun. Otherwise the refrigerator wouldn’t work. Incidentally, that’s another reason why we’re so careful not to let the herd get ahead of or behind us.”

  Jacob felt momentarily awed.

  “When will we be in sight of . . . what was it he said? A calving?”

  “Yes, a calving. We’re very lucky. We’ve only seen this twice before. The shepherds were there both tunes. They appear to assist whenever a torus gives birth. It’s a logical place to start looking for them.

  “As for when we get there, that depends on how violent things are between here and there, and how much time-compression we need to get there comfortably. It could be a day. If we’re lucky . . .” She glanced at the Pilot Board. “. . . we could be there in ten minutes.”

  A crewman stood nearby holding a chart, apparently waiting to see deSilva.

  “I’d better go and warn Bubbacub and Dr. Martine to get ready,” Jacob said.

  “Yes, that would be a good idea. I’ll make an announcement when I know how soon we’ll arrive.”

  As he walked away, Jacob had a strange feeling that her eyes were still on him. It lasted until he passed around the side of the central dome.

  Bubbacub and Martine took the news calmly. Jacob helped them pull their equipment boxes to a position near the Pilot Board.

  Bubbacub’s implements were incomprehensible, and astounding. Complex, shiny, and multifaceted, one of them took up half of the crate. Its curling spires and glassy windows hinted at mysteries.

  Bubbacub laid out two other devices. One was a bulbous helmet apparently designed to fit over the head of a Pil. The other looked like a chunk off of a nickel iron meteoroid, with a glassy end.

  “There is three ways to look at psi,” Bubbacub said through his Vodor. He motioned with a four-fingered hand for Jacob to sit. “One is that the psi is just very f
ine sens-or-y power, to pick out brain waves at long range and de-cinher them. That the thing I will see ab-out with this.” He pointed at the helmet.

  “And this large machine?” Jacob moved to look closer.

  “That sees if time and space are be-ing twisted here by the force of a soph-ont’s will. The thing is done; some-times. It sel-dom all-owed. The word is pi-ngrli. You have no word for it. Most, in-eluding hu-mans, do not need to know of it since it is rare.

  The Li-brar-y prov-ides these ka-ngrl,” he stroked the side of the machine once, “to each Branch, in case out-laws try to use pi-ngrli.”

  “It can counteract that force?”

  “Yes.”

  Jacob shook his head. It bothered him that there was a whole type of power to which man had no access. A deficiency in technology was one thing. It could be made up in time. But a qualitative lack made him feel vulnerable.

  “The Confederacy knows about this . . . ka-ka . . . ?”

  “Ka-ngrl. Yes. I have their leave to take it from Earth. If it is lost, it will be re-placed.”

  Jacob felt better then. The machine suddenly looked friendlier. “And this last item . . . ?” he began to move toward the lump of iron,

  “That is a P-is.” Bubbacub snatched it up and put it back in the trunk. He turned away from Jacob and began to fiddle with the brain-wave helmet.

  “He’s pretty sensitive about that thing,” Martine said when Jacob came near. “All I could get out of him was that it’s a relic from the Lethani, his race’s fifth high Ancestrals. It dates from just before they ‘passed over’ to another plane of reality.”

  The Perpetual Smile broadened. “Here, would you like to see ye olde alchemist’s tools?”

  Jacob laughed. “Well, our friend Pil has the Philosopher’s Stone. What miraculous devices have you for mixing effluvium, and exorcising highly caloric ghosts?”

  “Besides the normal run-of-the-mill psi detectors, such as they are, there’s not much. A brain-wave device, an inertial movement sensor that’s probably useless in a time-suppression field, a tachistoscopic 3-D camera and projector. . .”

  “May I see that?”

  “Sure, it’s at the far end of the trunk.”

  Jacob reached in and removed the heavy machine. He laid it on the deck and examined the recording and projecting heads.

  “You know,” he said softly. “It’s just possible . . .”

  “What is?” Martine asked.

  Jacob looked up at her. “This, plus the retinal pattern reader we used on Mercury, could make a perfect mental proclivities tester.”

  “You, mean one of those devices used to determine Probation status?”

  “Yes. If I had known this was available back at the base, we could have tested LaRoque then and there. We wouldn’t have had to maser Earth and go through layers of fallible bureaucracy for an answer that might have been tampered. We could have found out his violence index on the spot!”

  Martine sat still for a moment. Then she looked downward.

  “I don’t suppose it would have made any difference.”

  “But you were sure there was something wrong with the message from Earth!” Jacob said. “This could save LaRoque from two months in a brig if you were right. Hell, it’s possible he would have been with us right now. We’d be less unsure about the possible danger from the Ghosts, too!”

  “But his escape attempt on Mercury! You said he was violent!”

  “Panicky violence does not a Probationer make. What’s the matter with you anyway? I thought you were sure LaRoque was framed!”

  Martine sighed. She avoided meeting his eyes.

  “I’m afraid I was a little hysterical back at the base. Imagine, dreaming up a conspiracy, just to trap poor Peter!

  “It’s still hard to believe that he’s a Probationer, and maybe some mistake was made. But I no longer think it was done purposely. After all, who would want to saddle him with the blame for that poor little chimpanzee’s death?”

  Jacob stared for a moment, unsure what to make of her change of attitude. “Well,. . . the real murderer, for one,” he said softly.

  Immediately he regretted it

  “What are you talking about?” Martine whispered. She glanced quickly to both sides to be sure that no one was nearby. Both knew that Bubbacub, a few meters away, was deaf to whispered speech.

  “I’m talking about the fact that Helene deSilva, much as she probably dislikes LaRoque, thinks it’s unlikely the stunner could have damaged the stasis mechanism on Jeff’s ship. She thinks the crew botched up, but . ..”

  “Well then Peter will be released on insufficient evidence and he’ll have another book to write! We’ll find out the truth about the Solarians and everybody will be happy. Once good relations are established I’m sure it won’t matter much that they killed poor Jeff in a fit of pique. He’ll go down as a martyr to science and all this talk of murder can be ended once and for all. It’s so distasteful anyway.”

  Jacob was beginning to find the conversation with Martine distasteful as well. Why did she squirm so? It was impossible to follow a logical argument with her.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he shrugged.

  “Sure I’m right.” She patted his hand and then turned to the brain-wave apparatus. “Why don’t you go look for Fagin. I’m going to be busy here for a while and it’s possible he doesn’t know about the calving yet.”

  Jacob nodded once and got to his feet. As he crossed the gently quivering deck he wondered what strange things his suspicious other half was thinking. The blurt about a “real murderer” worried him.

  He met Fagin where the photosphere filled the sky in all directions, like a great wall. In front of the treelike Kanten, the filament in which they rode spiraled down and away into red dissipation. To the left and right and far below, spicule forests wriggled like effervescent rows of elephant grass.

  For a time they watched together in silence.

  As a waving tendril of ionized gas drifted past the ship, Jacob was reminded for the nth time of kelp floating in the tide.

  Suddenly he had an image. It made him smile. He imagined Makakai, wearing a waldo-suit of cermet and stasis, plunging and leaping among these towering fountains of swirling flame, and diving, in her shell of gravity, to play among the children of this, the greatest ocean.

  Do the Sun Ghosts while away the aeons as our cetaceans do? he wondered. By singing?

  Neither have machines (or any of the neurotic hurry that machines bring—including the sickness of ambition?), because neither have the means. Whales have no hands and cannot use fire. Sun Ghosts have no solid matter and too much fire

  Has it been a blessing for them or a curse?

  (Ask the humpback, as he moans in the stillness underwater. Probably, he won’t bother to answer, but someday he may add the question to his song.)

  “You’re just in time. I was about to call,” the Captain motioned ahead into the pink haze.

  A dozen or more of the toroids spun in front of them colorfully.

  This group was different. Instead of drifting passively they moved about, jostling for position around something deep in the middle of the crowd. One nearby torus, only a mile distant, moved aside and then Jacob could see the object of their attention.

  The magnetovore was larger than the others. Instead of the changing, multifaceted geometric shapes, dark and light bands alternated around its circuit, and it wobbled lazily while its surface rippled. Its neighbors milled about on all sides but at a distance, as if held back by some deterrent.

  DeSilva gave a command. The pilot touched a control and the ship turned, righting itself so the photosphere soon was beneath them once more. Jacob was relieved. Whatever the ship’s fields told him, having the Sun on his left made him feel sideways.

  The magnetovore Jacob thought of as “Big One” spun, apparently oblivious to its retinue. It moved sluggishly, with a pronounced wobble.

  The white halo that bathed every other torus flickered dim
ly around the edges of this one, like a dying-flame. The dark and light bands pulsed with an uneven undulation.

  Each pulse evoked a response in the surrounding crowd of toroids. Rim patterns sharpened starkly in bright blue diamonds and spirals as each magnetovore kept its own backbeat to Big One’s slowly strengthening rhythm.

  Suddenly, the nearest of the attendant toruses rushed toward the banded Big One, sending bright green flashes of light along its spinning path.

  From around the gravid torus, a score of brilliant blue dots flew up toward the intruder. They were in front of it in an instant, dancing, like shimmering drops of water on a hot skillet, next to its ponderous hulk. The bright dots began to push it back, nipping and teasing, it seemed, until it was almost below the ship.

  The ship turned under the pilot’s hand to present its edge to the nearest of the sparkling motes, only a kilometer away. Then, for the. first time, Jacob could clearly see the life forms that were called Sun Ghosts.

  It floated like a wraith, delicately, as if the chromospheric winds were a breeze to be taken with barely a flutter, as different from the firm, spinning, dervish-like toruses as a butterfly is from a whirling top.

  It looked like a jellyfish, or like a brilliantly blue bath towel flapping in the wind as it hung on a clothesline. Possibly it was more an octopus, with ephemeral appendages that flickered in and out of existence along its ragged edges. Sometimes it looked to Jacob like a patch of the surface of the sea itself, somehow skimmed up and moved here, maintained in its liquid, tidal movement by a miracle.

  The ghost rippled. It moved toward the Sunship, slowly, for a minute. Then it stopped.

  It’s looking at us too, Jacob thought.

  For a moment they regarded one another, the crew of water beings, in their ship, and the Ghost.

  Then the creature turned so that its flat surface was toward the Sunship. Suddenly, a flash of brilliant multicolored light washed the deck. The screens kept the glare bearable, but the pale red of the chromosphere was banished.