A Darkling Sea

Ten

Rob was in his hammock catching up on sleep when his computer started beeping urgently. The hydrophone was picking up a large group of moving sound sources approaching the Coquille.

“Alicia?”

“Down here,” she said from the little worktable. Always trying to fit in a little work, even though she was wearing down to a stick figure. “I see it, too. It doesn’t look like Sholen. Do you think it is our Ilmataran friend?”

“I hope so. Looks like he’s brought along at least a dozen others. This could be trouble. I’ll suit up and—”

“And what? Let me sit in here and listen to everything by drone? Don’t be absurd.”

The two of them suited up. The slimy, clammy feel of the thick neoprene made Rob shudder. It had been—how long?—since the suits had been properly cleaned, or even completely dry. It was like putting on a secondhand condom.

They emerged from beneath the shelter to find eleven Ilmatarans scuttling about the camp, poking the anechoic coating on the Coquille, tasting the outflow from the portable generator, feeling Alicia’s catch nets and chattering among themselves in a concert of creaks, clicks, and crackling sounds.

An individual approached them. It looked like the one they’d spoken with before, but Rob wasn’t sure. He stood still as it came close enough to touch him, then clicked out 38. That was the identifier the other had used. Rob looked through the little lexicon Dickie had put together and tapped once—“Ilmataran,” or at least that’s what he thought he was saying.

The alien turned and spoke to its companions. A couple of them came clattering forward and began running their feelers and feeding tendrils over Rob and Alicia’s suits. They chattered among themselves a bit, then the first one addressed Rob again: “49-91-16,” which worked out to “Ilmataran extend-pincers touch (human?).”

“I think it is asking if they can touch us,” said Alicia.

“It’s a little late to ask permission. Do you have any problem with letting them run their feelers over you?”

“Only if it will not make you jealous.”

“Okay, I guess.” Rob tapped one of his hanging tools with his screwdriver. A moment later all the Ilmatarans surged forward. Rob stepped back nervously, wondering if maybe he’d agreed to get dissected or something worse this time.

About half of the group began touching him all over, chattering together all the time. They felt the material of his suit, probed the neck joint where the helmet attached, and gently moved his arms and legs to see how the joints worked. One became interested in his backpack, and Rob could feel it gently tugging on his air hoses and feeling the bubbles emerging from the hydrogen vent. Alicia had her own little circle of admirers.

“I think we should ask them what to call body parts,” said Alicia. “It would be wonderful to learn what they know about their own physiology.”

So for an hour Alicia and Rob sat within a clump of Ilmatarans, touching body parts and recording the tap-codes for each. They spent a couple of hours with the Ilmatarans before the natives began nodding off. It was kind of comical. Rob would be demonstrating his fingers or the sampling tongs to one of them, and suddenly the Ilmataran would go silent and curl up into an armored ball for about half an hour.

The first one who’d found them hung on the longest, but when he finally needed a nap, Rob and Alicia were alone for a while.

“Maybe we should go inside,” he suggested.

“Not yet. I don’t know how long they will sleep like this. I should hate to waste time getting undressed and suited up again.”

“So, what do you think? Are we communicating?”

“A little bit. I think Graves is right—their eidophones are imitations of sonar echoes. Unfortunately, what they consider important elements of an echo are not what our sonar devices use for imaging. The computer can recognize some of their words but not interpret them.”

“So for now we’re stuck with tapping.”

“Yes. The first one—the one with the wide flukes—he is a good teacher.”

“You can tell them apart?”

“You cannot?”

“Not really. There’s the one with all the crap growing on him, and the really big one. The rest all kind of blur together.”

“The one with the encrustations also seems to be a high-status individual. I don’t know if you noticed, but the others initiate conversations with him almost twice as often as they do with each other.”

“How the hell did you have time to notice that?”

“I dug up some chimp-behavior software and modified it to track interactions. I think I can create a social model with some more observations.”

“Jesus. You never stop collecting data, do you?”

“What else is there to do? I cannot make love to you every hour of the day, and eventually we must surrender and let the Sholen take us away. This may be the only chance ever for anyone to study the Ilmatarans directly.”

The two of them were quiet for a time, watching the sleeping Ilmatarans.

“You really think we’re going to have to give up?”

“Robert, we have ninety-two food bars left. Unless you wish to starve to death, that means we cannot stay longer than six weeks.”

“I’m pretty sure I can get the food machine running again.”

“That will provide calories, but we will need protein and vitamins. The APOS units will not work forever, either. We will eventually run out of argon. And we forgot to bring extra pressure drugs, so once our little medical pack is empty we will have to worry about neuropathy. And—”

“Okay! I know, I know. If you know we’re going to have to give up, why are we out here?”

“I already told you. We can gather data. For six weeks.”

When Broadtail wakes again most of the others are already busy. Three of the company are over with the creatures, showing off tools and examining some of their items. Longpincer and two others are gathered a little apart, conversing quietly. When Longpincer hears Broadtail moving about he calls him over.

“Speak with us, Broadtail!”

“Gladly! What are you discussing?”

“These creatures of yours.”

“Do you think they are truly intelligent, now that you cantouch and hear them?”

“Even if they are not, they are certainly strange enough to be an important discovery. I congratulate you.”

The praise stimulates Broadtail like a bag of stingers.

“There is a question we are all ignoring,” says Sharpfrill. “There is a flaw in your account of these creatures. If they truly come from beyond the ice, how do they pass through the ice into the ocean?”

“You doubt their story?” asks Broadtail.

“I merely suggest that we do not assume everything they say is correct. Even if there is no deliberate deception, they may not understand us perfectly, or may claim knowledge they do not really have,” says Sharpfrill.

“That is possible,” admits Broadtail.

After two days of interacting with the Ilmatarans, the four of them ate food bars and made plans inside the Coquille.

“Six weeks,” said Rob. “Maybe as much as ten. Then the food runs out and we have to give up.”

“Impossible!” said Dickie. “We’re making breakthroughs every day with the Ilmatarans. We simply cannot let the Sholen pack us off back to Earth now.”

“Well, if the alternative is starving to death, what choice do we have?”

“Fight them. Drive the Sholen off Ilmatar.”

Rob was too boggled to say anything.

“Tactical plans,” said Josef. “How do you propose to retake Hitode?”

“I’ve got it all figured. We trick them. You take the submarine around to the north and make a very noisy approach, maybe even signaling by hydrophone. The Sholen send out a party to investigate. Then the three of us approach from the south, and as soon as they’re outside the station, we slip in through the moon pool.”

“That’s it?” Rob asked. “What if there are guards inside?”

“What if there are? I think I’ve demonstrated that a human can kill a Sholen in a fight.”

“You got lucky.”

“Luck is an illusion. I was willing to use deadly force when Gishora wasn’t.”

“And what about when they killed Isabel?”

“They had the advantage of numbers, and we all were handcuffed and unarmed. I don’t think the Sholen will stand up as well against enemies who are ready and able to fight back. Remember, it’s been ages since they’ve had a war among themselves. They don’t know how to do it anymore.”

“That’s not enough,” said Rob. “We don’t have any weapons but our knives. Unless they—”

“Pistol,” said Josef. He got up and went for his equipment case. Inside it, locked in a scratched, dented box with a flaking Russian Navy insignia on the cover, was an odd-looking doublebarreled pistol, like a black plastic derringer.

“Four-point-five-millimeter caseless four-shot Spetsnaz underwater pistol,” said Josef. “Each barrel holds two rounds, ignition is electrical. No reloading on this planet.”

“Why do you have a gun?” asked Alicia. Rob was too busy admiring the mechanism.

“Usual reasons,” Josef said with a shrug.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone about this before?” Dickie demanded.

“Told Dr. Sen when I arrived. He said keep hidden.”

“And you listened to him?” asked Graves.

“Sen is mission commander.”

“You could have used it! When the Sholen first arrived—”

“Four shots. Six Sholen. Also did not want to draw first blood.”

“This changes everything,” said Dickie. “That thing evens the odds.” Graves was as excited about the gun as Rob was, that much anyone could see.

“Dickie,” said Rob, “I’m not trying to start a fight here, but—I think you’re starting to enjoy this too much.”

Graves just laughed. “And you’re not?”

“Of course not! I’m—”

“You’re getting the chance to play the hero, Freeman. No more fetching and carrying for the scientists, no more scrubbing the mildew, and you’ve got a woman in your sleeping bag every night.” Rob started to interrupt but Dickie drowned him out. “Look at your damned coverall!” He thumped Rob’s chest. “The UNICA symbol’s as close to the Star Trek logo as they could get without paying a royalty! We’re all here because of all those old space adventure stories. But it wasn’t like that, was it? Just a lot of hard work and rules and bad food. Now, though—now you’re having a real outer-space adventure and you’re enjoying it just as much as I am.”

“It is not the adventure he means, Dickie, it is the killing,” said Alicia. “You are proud of stabbing Gishora.”

“Absolutely. He was a sanctimonious shit and I’m not a bit sorry he’s dead. We’re in a war now—you can’t go apologizing every time you win a fight.”

“Correct,” said Josef. “But only fools and madmen fight for thrills.”

“This has nothing to do with thrills. I’m talking about maybe winning this instead of just sitting here waiting for them to find us.”

“Okay,” said Rob, trying to drag things back on topic. “We’ll hit them again. But I want to make sure we have a goal—a realistic goal—and a plan. Something more concrete than just ‘go shoot a couple of Sholen.’ That’s just murder for the sake of murder. No way are we doing that.”

“Do something to degrade their ability to fight,” said Josef.

“Exactly!” said Dickie. “I’ve been doing a bit of reading—T. E. Lawrence on guerrilla warfare. His Arabs used to strike at the Turkish railways and telegraph lines. Infrastructure attacks, we’d call it.”

“But we cannot attack Hitode itself,” said Alicia. “All of us depend on it to stay alive.”

“If we just creep about sabotaging hydrophones it won’t accomplish much,” said Dickie.

“They have guns,” said Josef. “Microtorp launchers for underwater. Also some kind of pistol.”

“All right, then,” said Dickie, “turn it around. They can’t go blowing things up inside Hitode, either. So that’s the logical place for us to attack.”

“You want to get inside?”

“That’s right. Storm the moon pool and get in. Maybe grab their suits, or sabotage them. That would be a pretty serious blow right there. No way to search for us if they can’t leave Hitode.”

Rob thought it was a terrible idea, but he didn’t have anything better to suggest. He did ask, “Can we do it? There are only three of us.”

“I’ve been thinking,” said Dickie. “What about the Ilmatarans?”

“What about them?”

“Would they be willing to help us?”

“Richard, you cannot involve them in our quarrel,” said Alicia.

“No, think about it! Native allies! There’s heaps of examples from history—French and British recruiting Indian tribes in America, T. E. Lawrence and the Arabs—”

“Will you cut it out about freaking Lawrence of Arabia? This isn’t Syria in 1915!” asked Rob angrily.

“Why shouldn’t we involve them?” Graves demanded. “You’ve already gone ahead and made contact. We’ve tossed out all the rules. High time, too.”

“We have not tossed out all the rules,” said Alicia. “We chose to stop obeying the contact restrictions, but that does not mean we can go completely wild.”

“The Sholen think so,” said Graves.

“Do they?” asked Rob. “Dickie, they could be unleashing a dozen different kinds of shit on us if they really thought we were out of control. Remember what happened to Lawrence’s Arab buddies a century or so later, when they started getting all jihad on everyone.”

“That was different,” said Graves, but he sounded uncertain.

“So is this whole situation, which is why trying to be Lawrence of fucking Arabia in an ocean full of aliens is completely stupid. We aren’t going to involve the Ilmatarans, period.”

“We aren’t?” asked Graves. “How can you stop me, Freeman? I’ve got all the language data, and I actually know something about alien communication. I don’t need your permission.”

Rob fumed silently for a moment, then brightened. “Okay, Mr. Language Genius, let’s hear it. Explain what you want to do in Ilmataran number code. You don’t have to tap it out, just give me the numbers.”

“Let me see,” muttered Graves, looking at his own handheld. “One three nine thirty-five.”

“ ‘Ilmataran swimming place not-moving’ is how my computer translates it. I wouldn’t know what that meant if you said it in English.”

“I think immobility includes the concept of death.”

“It is still nonsense,” said Alicia. “In both senses of the word. Would you follow an alien into battle if they were speaking words without meaning?”

Graves was silent for a moment. “All right,” he said at last. “You’ve made your point, both of you. Bugger. We’ll have to do this alone.”

Twenty-eight hours later, Rob and Dickie Graves swam toward Hitode Station from the south, pushing off from rock to rock in order to avoid making recognizable swimming noises. They kept a secure laser link open, and were using bags to capture the hydrogen bubbles from their APOS packs.

Somewhere far to the north, Josef and Alicia were creeping closer to the station in the sub, getting ready to make a lot of noise before running for the ruins. If everything went according to plan, the Sholen would go haring off in pursuit of the sub and give Rob and Dickie the chance to sneak into Hitode. Rob had synched up timers for everyone, and his was now counting down to the big moment.

From where he and Dickie were hunkered down in the silt, Hitode was visible only as a vague glow beyond a rocky rise ahead. This side had always been a blind spot (or maybe a deaf spot) for the hydrophones, so unless the Sholen had planted more microphones Rob and Dickie could get to the top of the rise before anyone picked up the sound of them swimming.

The counter reached zero. Nothing happened—the little microphones on their sonar units weren’t sensitive enough to pick up submarine engine noises more than a kilometer away. Hitode’s hydrophone net was.

Allow the Sholen a couple of minutes to notice the sound, five minutes to suit up, and another ten minutes to get clear of the station. Then we move, thought Rob. He looked over at Dickie, who had Josef’s underwater pistol clipped to his belt. Rob hoped they could manage the whole little coup by bluff, because Dickie seemed way too eager to pull that trigger.

Tizhos heard the sound of hurrying Sholen and followed the noise to the dive room, where four Guardians stood still as their suits assembled themselves around their bodies. Irona was already there, holding a large metal box in his middle arms.“Tell me why they don their suits in such a hurry,” said

Tizhos to Irona.

“The microphones outside detected the Terran submarine,” said Irona. “We prepare to pursue it.”

“The submarine? You know it for certain? Do the sound patterns match?”

“Perfectly. Now please stay out of the way, Tizhos, while the Guardians prepare.”

Tizhos took out her own computer and connected to the station network. After a bit of fiddling she was able to listen to the sound pickups from outside. There was the submarine’s signature, no question about it. What was it doing? She watched the projection of the sound source’s movements and felt puzzled. She pushed her way back to Irona, who was pulling on his own life-support device. “Irona, tell me what purpose the humans attempt to achieve.”

“I assume you mean with the submarine. I have no idea.

They appear to move back and forth just at the edge of detection. Now I must—”

“Irona, I believe the humans attempt to fool us.” He opened his helmet again. “Explain.”

“Nothing else can account for the motions of the submarine.

It looks like someone trying to attract our attention. Note also that the sound comes from just the extreme range of the hydrophones. The humans built those hydrophones; presumably they know very well how far they can hear. This seems like a trick to me.”

With visible reluctance, Irona agreed. “Tell me your idea of the purpose of this activity.”

“I can think of two possibilities. Either they wish to test how well we can make use of the hydrophones, by seeing how we react to this; or they wish to lure the Guardians away from the station. Either way I suggest remaining here as the best course of action. Deny them information and refuse to take the bait they offer.”

Irona considered, then gave off a burst of dominance pheromones. “No, Tizhos. I have a better plan.” He turned to the Guardians, now all suited up. “The humans may plan a trick.

All of you go out, and swim beneath the station supports to the north. Four of you remain hidden under the station; the other two swim noisily to the north no more than two hundred meters. Now: come take your weapons.”

Irona opened the metal box. Inside it Tizhos could see eight stubby, wide-mouthed guns. “Tell me what you have there,” she said.

“A weapon from the last war,” said Irona. “I requested three dozen made from old plans before we left Shalina. Once soldiers fought underwater using weapons like this. They contain four small autonomous vehicles, each of which carries an explosive charge. Direct hits, or even near misses, can kill.”

Each of the Guardians took a weapon from the box. They sat on the edge of the dive pool and checked out the weapons with obvious familiarity. The very fact that they seemed to know so much about them made Tizhos even more nervous. How long had Irona been preparing for a conflict?

“Irona, I question the wisdom of this. A human has died because of us. Handing out weapons only makes things worse.”

“You are mistaken. The humans resist because they still believe in the possibility of defeating us. Once they see we have them outmatched, they must give in. Now: we cannot wait any longer. Go!” he ordered.

The Guardians rolled into the pool one after another and sank out of sight.

“Here,” said Irona, handing Tizhos one of the weapons.

“Put on your suit and come outside. I may need your help.”

Rob and Dickie moved along the sea bottom toward Hitode, no longer swimming but crawling. So far, so good. There had been a bunch of chaotic echoes around the dive pool, then the sound of several swimmers moving off to the north. Now it was quiet around the station.

They inched forward, stirring up little clouds of silt whenever they moved. Dickie was so focused on not being heard rather than staying unseen that Rob had to remind him the Sholen had eyes and cameras as well as hydrophones.

When the two of them were less than twenty meters from the station, there was no point in trying to stay concealed because all the external lights were on, turning the area around the station into a glaring white bubble in the darkness. The two men pushed off from the bottom and began kicking toward the dive entrance, trying to cover the distance before whatever person or software was watching the cameras could react.

Suddenly Rob’s sonar picked up a source outside the station. He squinted into the glare of the lights and thought he saw movement underneath the bulk of Hitode.

“Dickie—” was all he could say before a much louder voice nearly deafened him.

“STOP AND SURRENDER!”

Six Sholen-sized silhouettes emerged from their hiding place under the station.

“Crap,” said Graves. “Play along and get ready,” he said to Rob through the laser link.

“What?”

“Hello! We give up!” said Dickie over his own speaker. “We surrender!” He dropped to his knees on the sea bottom. Rob could see one hand near the pistol.

“Dickie, what are you doing?” Rob whispered over the link.

Graves casually touched the pistol. Evidently none of the Sholen recognized it as a weapon. He gripped it and put a finger on the trigger but didn’t raise his hand yet. The Sholen were only twenty meters away now. Rob could see they were carrying things in their upper arms. Weapons?

“Get your knife out, Freeman.” Graves raised the gun.

“No!” said Rob. Then the sound of the gun hammered his ears. One of the Sholen jerked and Rob could see a little fountain of bubbles and a cloud of blood. Graves fired again but apparently missed his next target. The Sholen had stopped and were all aiming the boxy devices they held in their upper arms.

Rob flung himself backward, kicking as hard as he could, trying to get away from Dickie. The gun went off again but Rob couldn’t see if anyone was hit. Then he heard several brief whooshing noises and looked back in time to see Dickie Graves silhouetted against the flash of an explosion. He was surrounded by a perfect halo of bubbles and pieces of him appeared to be coming off.

The blast hit Rob in the next instant. It was beyond just noise. The shockwave pulsed through his body, a tremendous feeling of pressure that for a second left him unable to breathe. Two more followed the first like heartbeats. Rob blacked out.

When he could think again, Rob was on the sea bottom, facedown in the mud. His helmet’s faceplate was half covered by a little pool of blood dripping from his nose. His whole body felt bruised, but none of his bones were broken. Despite a great desire to just stay there on the cold mud until he died, Rob got onto his hands and knees and then started kicking. He swam away from the light, struggling along as best he could.

He couldn’t hear anything but a skull-splitting ringing noise, and wondered if more of those little torpedoes were homing in on him. But the lights of Hitode got dimmer behind him as he swam and nothing happened. Either the Sholen were as deaf and dazed as he was, or they didn’t want to shoot an unarmed man.

The blood on his faceplate distorted the heads-up display, but he managed to find the rendezvous point where the sub was supposed to meet him. No point in tr y ing to be stealthy—he switched to his external speaker and yelled for help until Alicia came out and dragged him into the sub.

Four hours later Tizhos picked through the fragments on the dissecting table. The human tissue and entrails reeked of iron and methane. Tizhos wasn’t really interested in that. She’d seen a dead human before—shortly after contact the two civilizations had swapped nearly a dozen cadavers.

The suit was what Tizhos was searching for, in particular the computer. Normally the main memory was located in the chest plate just below the helmet mount, but the first of the little torpedoes had struck the human right in the chest, churning the computer components together with his lungs and ribs. That would reduce normal computers to so much scrap, but the humans on Ilmatar used ruggedized equipment. Their devices were a mass of chips embedded in heat-conducting ballistic resin. One could use them to hammer nails without damaging the electronics.

There! Tizhos cut away the ruined heart muscle. Behind it the computer nestled against the spine on a bed of crushed bone. It looked cracked, but she might be able to salvage some of the memory.

This human, Richard Graves, was a language expert. The files he’d left behind in Hitode’s system held a wealth of information on Ilmataran communication. Tizhos hoped to find an even better trove in the human’s personal computer. He had been out away from Hitode for more than a week; he might have new discoveries about the world and its inhabitants.

Oh, and of course Irona also wanted her to recover as much data as possible. Not the science material, though He was only interested in trivia like navigation coordinates and inertialcompass readings. Tizhos would give him that, just to keep him happy.

When she had all the information she needed, Tizhos went to her room to make herself attractive. She daubed color onto her genitalia and scented herself heavily. Normally Tizhos preferred to be honest in her attraction and subtle in her displays. This time she had to be blatant.

She found Irona in the little operations center off the common room, trying once again to squeeze some signal out of the hydrophone data. Tizhos took up a posture of sexual dominance and embraced him from behind.“I know the location of the remaining shelter,” she told him. “Excellent,” said Irona. “I will prepare the Guardians at once.”

He sounded like an eager subordinate.

“Not yet,” she told him. “I want you to do something first.” Irona looked at her then, and she could feel the sexual tension disappear. “You wish to make a trade?”

“A concession to help achieve consensus,” she told him. “Tell me what you want.”

“Only this: speak to them first. I have repaired one of the drones. Send it ahead of the capture expedition. Ask them to surrender.”

“It seems unwise to give them warning before our arrival.”

Tizhos held him closer and stroked the back of his neck. She could feel him tense up as he resisted bonding with her. “They have no place to go. I fear that coming upon them suddenly might cause them to lash out in panic. Again, I only ask that you speak first.”

Irona relaxed a little, and allowed himself a perfunctory nuzzle against Tizhos. “I agree. Send along the drone.”

Broadtail is worried. He remembers the Builders going off in their moving shelter. He doesn’t know where they are, or the reason for the move. He worries that perhaps they are afraid of the Bitterwater Company. Perhaps they think this is Longpincer’s property and they are trespassing.

During their absence he and the other scholars take the opportunity to examine the camp of the Builders without any interference. Broadtail even attempts to enter their shelter. There is a narrow passage at the bottom, and he must fold all his limbs in order to fit inside. The walls are perfectly smooth, except for a series of bars evidently for pulling one’s body along.

The top of the passage is covered; the lid is made of the same odd-tasting stone as the walls. There is a circular object attached to the lid. The whole thing is very warm to the touch; the heat is invigorating. Broadtail pulls and pushes without result, but when he twists the round object in the center of the lid it turns, and then he can lift the lid quite easily.

Within the shelter is emptiness. Like a huge bubble. Broadtail pokes one pincer into the titanic bubble, then his head. It is like being deaf. He quickly pulls back down into the water again. He tastes something odd, and runs his feelers over his pincer tip. The thin coating of slime and parasites growing on his shell is sloughing off. The surface of his shell itself is like something long-dead and scoured by scavengers. Whatever is inside that bubble is a poison deadlier than anything Broadtail recalls hearing about.

He lets himself drop down the passage into safer, cooler water. “Longpincer,” he calls out. “Tell everyone to stay out of this shelter. It is filled with some kind of poison.”

“A trap?” is Longpincer’s first question.

“I’m not sure. The inside is filled with a bubble, and whatever substance fills the bubble is some kind of strong poison. Feel my shell—the surface of my head is completely bare of slime. Like something in a hot vent.”

“Ah! The dead Builder!” Longpincer sounds pleased. “Yes, I remember my pincers and tools feeling odd after dissecting it! These creatures must excrete some kind of toxin for protection!”

Sharpfrill joins them. “I remember reading several accounts of vents which emit toxic flow,” he says. “Combine that with the heat of these Builder creatures and it seems more and more clear that they come from beneath the ground.”

“That is not what I remember Builder 1 saying,” says Broadtail.

“Misunderstandings are almost inevitable,” Sharpfrill points out. “Or—I do not wish to make accusations, but the idea must be spoken—the Builders deliberately deceive you.”

“We can ask them ourselves! Listen!”

All of them can now hear the buzzing, rushing noise of the moving shelter as it approaches.

The Bitterwater Company move away from the shelter to make room for the moving structure. It comes to rest in the usual spot and three Builders emerge. The Bitterwater scholars surge forward, clicking out questions, but the Builders don’t seem to be interested in communicating. They go into their shelter without stopping.

Broadtail wonders where Builder 3 is. He loiters about the moving shelter, hoping it will emerge. Builder 3 is by far the easiest to speak with. It even knows some real speech. He waits, and he waits. No Builder 3. Eventually Broadtail gets tired and goes off to rest. The missing Builder never appears.

When he wakes, Broadtail finds Builder 2 is outside, communicating with Sharpfrill and Longpincer. He swims over to the little group and waits for the alien creature to finish explaining something to Sharpfrill about what is beyond the ice.

He wants to ask if something is wrong, but he doubts the Builder would understand, so he tries a simpler question. “Where is Builder 3?”

“Shelter inside,” Builder 2 answers.

“No,” says Broadtail. “Two Builders are in the shelter, you are here. Where is Builder 3?”

Builder 2 pauses, then taps slowly. “Is Builder 3 this place here is not.”

“Where is Builder 3,” Broadtail repeats, then tries “What place is Builder 3?”

“Builder 3 immobile remains. Is Builder 3 cold still.” The creature is making odd noises inside its head as it taps. “Cold immobile stone Builder 3.”

“Dead,” Broadtail taps out, then drops to the sea bottom and lies there without moving, to demonstrate. “Dead,” he clicks in numbers. Then he jumps up and swims about. “Alive,” he clicks.

Builder 2 moves its head and taps out “Yes. Dead. Builder 3.”

“But how is the poor creature dead?” Longpincer asks Broadtail. “An accident?”

“Let me try to ask.” It takes Broadtail a long time to formulate the question, and he tries several different ways.

“Stay,” says Builder 2, and swims over to the shelter. Builder 1 emerges and the two return together. They communicate with each other somehow—Broadtail suspects there is more to it than just the gestures and faint murmurs he can perceive. Finally Builder 2 taps out a message. “Grasping I one word thing.”

What follows is a long and bewildering series of statements. Only Broadtail can stay and listen to the whole thing. Longpincer and Sharpfrill go off to eat and rest, which is a pity because Broadtail wishes he had someone to help him understand what the Builder is trying to say.

Builder 1 describes a creature, similar to Builders but larger and with more limbs. “An adult?” Broadtail asks, but Builder 1 says no, and makes it clear that these things have only six limbs, multibranched like a Builder’s.

It speaks of a large shelter containing many other Builders, several dozen cables away. Builder 3 becomes dead there, apparently because of the six-limbed things. Exactly how or why this happens, Builder 2 cannot make clear.

When Builder 2 finishes, Broadtail swims off in search of Longpincer.

“Ah, Broadtail! Excellent. We are just packing up to return to Bitterwater. Just enough food remains to get us there.”

“I think I must stay longer,” says Broadtail. “There is something I do not understand.”

“I plan to return with more food and some servants,” says Longpincer. “But now there is little to eat.”

“I suggest you and the others return to Bitterwater then. I plan to follow alone.”

“As you wish,” says Longpincer. “Though I warn you of great hunger if you stay. All the rocks for a cable in every direction are scoured clean.”

“I am well-fed thanks to your generosity. I don’t plan on starving. But I must speak with the Builders at length. May I keep another couple of reels for notes?”

“These Builders are a boon to the makers of cord, at least,” says Longpincer. “Yes, keep as many as you need.”

Broadtail finds a spot among some stones to rest. When he wakes the others are gone. A bundle of new reels and a package of cured fronds rests by his head. He stows it all in his harness and swims off in search of the Builders.

Irona’s hunting expedition had to wait two days, so that three more Guardians could come down on the elevator. That way Irona could leave Tizhos and one Guardian behind to control the humans in Hitode.

On the appointed day Irona led half a dozen Guardians out in the direction of the last shelter. They all carried weapons. The drone swam ahead, linked by laser to a handheld computer carried by Irona. Tizhos watched the Guardians roll into the moon pool two at a time, with a feeling of dread.

Before the ripples of the last pair had died out, Tizhos went to see Vikram Sen. The Guardian accompanied her, on Irona’s orders. He had told her she needed protection while in charge of the station. She suspected the Guardian also had orders to tell Irona everything she did. Certainly he did not have the posture and scent of a subordinate. If she had the time, she could establish the proper sexual bond with him, but she had too many things to get done.

Vikram Sen sat in his little cabin, reading. He said nothing when Tizhos came in. None of the humans spoke to her any more unless she asked them questions, and they often gave her false answers when she did.

“I would like you to record a message asking the Coquille group to surrender peacefully,” she said. “I fear violence may occur otherwise. I can call Irona back here if you agree.”

He pressed his lips together tightly for a moment before speaking. “May I suggest that your coming in here accompanied by an armed guard makes your statement about fearing violence seem rather absurd? And that perhaps you should have thought about the possibility of violence occurring when you arrived here with a warship full of soldiers and began removing us by force?”

“I did not make those decisions. And now I fear that events have gone out of anyone’s control. Two Sholen and two humans have died. I grieve for them, and wish to prevent additional deaths. I hope you wish that also.”

“No,” said Vikram Sen. “I am not going to help you. You Sholen came here prepared to use violence to accomplish your aims, and now you are unhappy because of the fiasco you yourselves have created. I will not absolve you.”

Tizhos left him without saying more. She felt more miserable than ever. She wanted to simply join Irona’s consensus, put aside all her doubts and savor the feeling of accep tance into the group.

But she could not make herself do it. She knew too many facts that contradicted the consensus. Others might be good at ignoring such things, but Tizhos always had a stubborn streak when it came to facts. She had entered science because it dealt with facts, and any consensus among scientists must respect external reality.For lack of anything better to do, she took the Guardian back to her quarters and had sex with him.

Rob was out with Alicia when their Ilmataran contact came up suddenly. It had a disconcerting habit of picking up conversations hours or days later as if no time at all had gone by. “Speech [containing?] not [human] six arms,” it said to them.“It wants to talk about the Sholen,” said Alicia.

“You’re getting good at this,” Rob told her. “Like Jane Goodall or something.”

“We have all of Dr. Graves’s notes. He was really a remarkable linguist.”

Rob didn’t argue. “Ask him what he wants to know.”

She did her best, and the Ilmataran replied “[Ilmataran] touch feeler not [human] six arms.”

“Oh! He wants to see one of the Sholen,” said Alicia. “Or touch one. Possibly taste.”

“Well that’s pretty much off the table,” said Rob.

“Not… necessarily,” said Alicia.

“They’ve got guns, remember? They shot Dickie!”

“But this Ilmataran is not a human. The Sholen are quite likely to ignore him.”

“Are you sure?” he demanded.

That silenced her for a moment, but then the Ilmataran scratched out a new message. “[Ilmataran] head grasping six arm not [human].”

“I didn’t get that one.”

Alicia skimmed through Graves’s notes. “Aha! Head grasping is a metaphor. We’ll call it understanding or knowledge. It wants to know about the Sholen. We must help it, Robert. It is only fair, after it has taught us so much.”

“So the contact rules are completely out the window now? I do see one problem: how are you going to get a Sholen for him to taste? Can’t just invite one of them over.”

“He can visit Hitode.”

“How? I mean, I’m sure he could swim that far, but how do you tell him where to go? They don’t use grid squares, and we don’t know how they even give directions.”

“Why not just take him there? He can hold onto the equipment racks on the sub. We can approach to just outside hydrophone range and send the Ilmataran in alone. In fact…” her tone changed. “He could give us a lot of useful information. The Sholen will never suspect a thing.”

In the end, Rob had to agree. He could possibly out-argue Alicia, but not Alicia and her Ilmataran buddy with the wide flukes. Eventually they decided that Alicia would accompany Josef and the Ilmataran while Rob stayed behind to look after the Coquille.

“And watch out for him, he’s a smooth talker,” he told Alicia as she opened the sub’s bottom hatch. “If you go running off with some Ilmataran pickup artist I’m not going to catch you on the rebound.”

“ ‘He’ is a scientist and a gentleman,” she said. “Unlike some people I might name. Good-bye, Robert.”

“Be careful.”

Broadtail tries to restrain his fear as he rides on the back of the moving shelter. It swims at great speed, never pausing for rest, as if it is driven by the flow of a vent. The thing comes to a stop and Builder 2 emerges. The two of them swim forward together, keeping close to the bottom and moving in sprints from stone to stone as if hunting. Eventually the Builder tells him “Swim there at long shelter,” and jabs one limb ahead. “I lie still lie here.”

So Broadtail goes forward alone, unsure of what waits before him. He begins to hear odd noises and then tastes odd flavors in the water. The temperature is higher than it ought to be. He stops and listens. Ahead is another odd silent space, which he recognizes as a Builder shelter. This one is a dozen times bigger than the one he remembers back at the ruins. Nearby is a hard object that hums and gives off a vigorous hot flow.

And now he hears things moving about. They are emerging from the shelter and swimming in his direction. He risks a ping. Seven of them, larger than Builders. They have tails, and swim with sideways strokes of their whole bodies—much more smoothly than the Builders.

Are they hunting him? He remembers Builder 2 saying that these creatures only fight Builders—but he doesn’t want to learn if that is correct. He scuttles along the bottom and hides to avoid pursuit, then swims back to Builder 2. They return to the moving shelter as quickly as possible. Broadtail and Builder 2 take turns pulling each other. Broadtail can swim faster, even towing a passenger, but Builder 2 has incredible stamina and takes over when Broadtail tires.

They reach the moving shelter, but Broadtail hears something in the distance. It sounds like the six-limbed creatures swimming, but with a steady hum overlaid on the sound. Almost like the things that push the moving shelter along. He wonders if he should tell the Builders. Then he wonders how. Finally he scrambles down to the belly of the shelter and bangs on the door. “The six-legged things are coming,” he taps.

“Josef, I think we are in trouble,” said Alicia. “Broadtail says things with six legs are approaching. I think he means Sholen.”

Josef muttered something in Russian. “Must have gotten impellers working. Time for evasive maneuvers.”

Alicia expected something fast and exciting, but in point of fact Josef’s maneuvers consisted of just a few turns and some long periods of sitting motionless, drifting with the current.

“Warm current here,” he said at one point. “Comes from rift. Edges have sharp change in salinity and density. Good for fooling sonar.”

They drifted with the current for a few moments, then dropped back down into colder water and settled among some rocks.

“Stay silent and listen,” he said, and flipped on the hydrophone. There was no sign of the Sholen.

“Do you think we lost them?”

“Maybe.” His impassive face suddenly looked worried. “Oh. Sholen will hunt for us a while, fail, and then go back to following our original course.”

“That will take them to the Coquille!” said Alicia. “They will find Robert! They could hurt him. We have to go, now!”

“No. Send a message.”

“How—” She caught his meaning then and practically leaped to the hatch. A little tapping brought an answering click. With Graves’s lexicon on her pad, she composed a message in number-taps. It was excruciatingly slow, like a nightmare in which horrible pursuers were chasing her and she had to accomplish some long delicate task before they caught her.

She finished tapping it out, then repeated the whole thing for good measure. The Ilmataran replied with a long series of taps.

“Oh, go on and stop chattering!” she said. Maybe Broadtail realized the urgency of the message, or maybe her tone of anxiety somehow carried through water and the communication barrier, because the Ilmataran swam off at top speed before she could finish translating his message.

While Alicia and Josef took Broadtail off to show him Hitode Station, Rob stayed behind to look after the Coquille. He was taking a well-deserved nap in his hammock when somebody started banging on the hatch down below. It wasn’t latched—why couldn’t Josef just open the damned thing? In the next second Rob’s mind followed a horrifying course of reasoning that convinced him that Alicia must be injured, Josef was carrying her, probably someone’s APOS was broken and they were buddy-breathing…

He jumped down to the main floor and opened the hatch. A single Ilmataran pincer broke the surface of the water, then quickly withdrew.

Rob banged on the edge of the hatchway with his screwdriver, warning the Ilmataran to stay outside. He got into his drysuit and rushed through the checkout procedure, then dropped into the water to talk face to face—or face to blank faceless head, in this case. The broad-tailed Ilmataran was there alone. No sign of the sub or Alicia and Josef.

“Many swim to you,” Broadtail tapped on Rob’s faceplate. “Many [humans]?”

“Six legs.”

“Crap,” Rob muttered inside his helmet. How did they know? Maybe they’d tracked him somehow? Maybe a drone had come across them by chance. It hardly mattered. The sub. Was it nearby? “Shelter swims to me?”

“Shelter swims eight [units].”

“[You] swim to swimming shelter. I swim—” Rob tried to think of a rendezvous point he could communicate to the Ilmataran. “Twenty [units] downcurrent.”

“I grasp sounds.”

With the Ilmataran going off to carry his message, Rob climbed back up into the Coquille and started grabbing everything he could carry. First-aid kit, spare argon, all the food (they were down to just sixty bars). Tools. Tape! He slid six rolls onto his forearms like bracelets. All his other loot he bundled into a plastic sheet and stuffed down the hatch.

His computer started flashing a warning onto his faceplate. The hydrophone outside was picking up motor sounds. A drone. The Sholen were scouting out the site before moving in.

Rob gave the Coquille’s computer some final commands and then dropped out after his bundle. His hydrophone could hear the drone now. He oriented himself to follow the current, then turned off all his external sound pickups and closed his eyes. After his last encounter he’d devoted an afternoon to creating countermeasures for the drones, and now he was going to find out how well they worked.

The Coquille’s external floods began flicking on and off, dazzling brightness to pitch darkness at a rate exactly timed to mess with the drone camera’s compensation interval. The shelter’s speakers also began blaring a random playlist of swimming noise samples and sonar pings, with fake Doppler shifts and intensity curves to mess with the drone’s sonar and hydrophones.

It wouldn’t work forever, but it might keep the drone from tracking him, and moving downcurrent would keep the Sholen from finding him with chemical sniffers.

Teach them to mess with the one guy who knew more about drones than anyone for thirty light-years in any direction.