A Darkling Sea

Fourteen

The scout gives her report to the assembled company. “I remember swimming as far as these stones on my patrol. I remember resting there and hearing this sound.” She imitates it: a steady chaotic churning noise superimposed on a heavy rhythmic swish-swish.

“I hear swimming adults and a towfin, but what is that other noise?” asks Longpincer.

“The Squatters,” says Broadtail. “They make paddling noises like the Builders, but with a tail beat.”

“Can we study how your Builders swim?” asks Raggedclaw.

“Certainly,” says Broadtail. “After the battle.”

“What battle?”

“The Squatters come here to fight,” Longpincer explains gently.

“What? Why?” Raggedclaw sounds highly irritated at the news.

“They wish to steal Broadtail’s Builders.”

“That is impossible! I still wish to learn how they can stand erect without a shell,” says Raggedclaw.

“Which is why we fight the Squatters,” says Longpincer.

“How many do you remember hearing?” Broadtail asks the scout, desperate to get the conversation back on course.

“Twenty-two adults and one large towfin, and maybe twelve of the alien swimmers.”

“The adults are bandits and wild children,” says Broadtail. “They carry spears and their own strong pincers, but little else.”

“My people all remember many fights with bandits,” says Longpincer. “Raiders are only brave if they are winning. Stand firm against them and they flee.”

There is a loud commotion of scrapes and thumps, and three of the Builders come into the room. Builder 2 raises a forelimb. “Greeting. Adults build fight reel.”

“Yes,” says Broadtail. “We know how to fight the bandits, but not the Squatters. Can you tell us what to expect?”

Builder confers with the other two before replying.

“Squatters carry”—a long pause and much Builder chatter—“spear tools stab adult one cable.”

“How is this possible?” asks Longpincer. “No creature, not even an alien, can carry a spear a cable long.”

“It is possible we are not understanding something,” says Broadtail. He asks Builder, “How can a spear be a cable?”

“Not spear. Push swim spear stab adult. Or swim spear loud sound.”

The remaining Bitterwater Company scholars listen in puzzlement. “Sounds like babble to me,” says Raggedclaw.

Broadtail asks Builder 2 to show them what it means. There follows a remarkable demonstration as the alien takes several items and uses its upper limbs to propel them through the water away from it. No adult has limbs that can do that, and all the company present think it is quite impressive.

“I think it means bolt-launchers!” says Broadtail. Longpincer orders several bolt-launchers brought and demonstrated for the Builders. They chatter excitedly, and Builder 2 says “Yes” several times.

“Well, if that’s all we have to worry about there is little danger,” says Longpincer. “Bolt-launchers may be a threat to soft-skinned beings like Builders or Squatters, but I know my shell is thick enough to stop one unless it is very close.”

But something is nagging at Broadtail’s thoughts. “I remember capturing the hanging shelter. The Squatter makes Crestback fly apart. I think that may be what the Builders mean.”

“Builder 2 may exaggerate.”

“Or not.” Broadtail clicks a question to Builder 2: “Launch bolt cable?”

“Cable, two cable,” it laboriously replies. “Bolt swim.”

“I think I understand,” says Broadtail to the Company. “The Squatter weapons have bolts which swim through the water—like the Builder moving shelter, only smaller. And then they burst apart like a thin-walled pipe. They may be very dangerous indeed.”

“I imagine having such a weapon,” says Longpincer. “In battle I stay far from my enemies and slay them with bolts, but they cannot stab me because they cannot reach me.”

They all think about that for a while. The Company members who are craftworkers are intrigued, imagining a town protecting itself against raiders with a handful of armed militia. Those who own remote properties like Longpincer imagine bandits capable of standing off and slaughtering defenders.

“We must fight them as though stalking swift prey,” says Holdhard. “Stay silent until they are close enough to grasp.”

Broadtail keeps up a running translation of the important remarks for the benefit of the aliens.

“Builder head silent,” Builder 1 points out. “Squatter head silent.”

Broadtail reminds the others. “The Squatters have the same silent sense as the Builders. They can find us without pinging. We must do more than remain still and quiet to surprise them.”

Rob and Broadtail were placed well forward, watching and listening for signs of the Sholen force. If the attackers were trying to be silent, they’d need lights to keep together and see where they were going. If they were staying dark, they’d need the occasional active sonar ping. Either way, one of the two scouts would notice.

It occurred to Rob that just a few days ago it would have been impossible for him to sit on the sea bottom in silence and total darkness this long without completely freaking. Now it almost felt restful. He had deliberately chosen an uncomfortable spot so that the hard stones pressing into his chest and thighs would help him keep awake.

He felt around for his spear. It was a two-meter piece of “wood” (more like biological fiberglass, really) from an Ilmataran “plant.” The tip was a leaf-shaped piece of carved obsidian, wickedly sharp. If everything went according to plan, at some point in the near future Rob was going to try to push that obsidian spearpoint into the vital organs of a Sholen or enemy Ilmataran.

Back before the ultimatum, or even during the first “camping trip” period in the Coquille, such a thought would have been completely absurd, like imagining himself biting off his own left thumb. Except for one or two inconclusive grade-school spats and an embarrassing drunken shoving match in college, Rob had never intentionally harmed another person.

Now he felt no reluctance at all. He’d been angry with the Sholen pretty much constantly since Gishora and Tizhos had first stepped out of the elevator. Now at least he could let it out. He was afraid for himself, of course, and for Alicia. Just about any injury here would be fatal, and she would certainly be in the thick of it, carrying the same kind of spear.

He held the spear loosely, just resting his hand on the shaft, ready to pick it up.

Something caught his attention. Out in the blackness he could see a faint spark. No, two sparks. Were they tiny and close up, or far away? He moved his head around, trying to get some parallax. The sparks stayed put. They looked like two stars now, faintly green.

He reached over to Broadtail and tapped from memory, “Adu lts come.”

The Ilmataran clicked softly in acknowledgement, and the two of them turned and began moving back to the defensive positions around the Bitterwater vent. Rob didn’t dare show a light, so he held onto a trailing line attached to Broadtail’s harness and did his best to keep up.

They followed a wide zigzag course, pausing occasionally for Broadtail to quietly ping out a warning to the fighters lying hidden on the seafloor. Nearly a quarter of Longpincer’s retainers were currently dispersed on the silty bottom about a hundred meters in front of the vent mound, buried under a thin layer of mud and old netting. The Ilmatarans were very good at masking their sonar signatures, but the humans had been hard-pressed to make sure they couldn’t be seen by Sholen eyes. How do you teach a blind being how not to be seen? Ultimately, the answer was just to cover them up and hope for the best.

The plan was for the camouflaged fighters to wait until the invaders were among them, then suddenly attack at close range. According to Broadtail, this was a well-known tactic mentioned in many of the Ilmataran classic books on warfare. They were gambling that neither the alien Sholen nor their semiliterate Ilmataran bandit allies had heard of the ploy.

Up ahead Rob could hear the faint constant rumble of the Bitterwater vent. There were tall nets rigged all around the heart of Longpincer’s holding. Again, standard tactics against barbarian raiders. They had to either try to get through the nets, in which case the defenders could move in with spears, or swim up over the barrier, exposing their thin-shelled undersides to bolts from below.

Broadtail clicked out a password and one of Longpincer’s apprentices untied a section of net to let them in. Rob left Broadtail and followed a guideline to where his drones were waiting. There were two of them still operational, and Rob had spent an afternoon converting them into weapons. There was nothing subtle about the armed drones: since he couldn’t come up with a decent explosive warhead, Rob had just attached the largest of Alicia’s dissecting knives to the front of each drone, just above its camera eye. Once the fighters outside the netting engaged the enemy, Rob was to pilot the two drones and attack as many of the Sholen as he could. A few ripped suits and damaged hoses would certainly hamper them.

He covered himself with camouflage netting—no sense in letting the Sholen see him—and warmed up the link to the drones. His poor robot fish were weeks overdue for maintenance, but they were performing superbly. In a little while they’d be scrap metal corroding in the silt of Ilmatar.

Josef and the sub were gone. It had taken a long argument but at last they’d convinced him that their most important remaining asset shouldn’t be anywhere near the battlefield. If the Sholen captured the last camp, it would be up to Josef to decide whether he should give up or fight on. Rob knew that Josef would never let the Mishka fall into enemy hands. He hoped Josef would find a way to scuttle the sub and then surrender, rather than going out like Captain Nemo.

Rob reached down and found his spear. It might still come to that. He sent Alicia a quick message over their local network.

“Here they come. I love you.”

Broadtail and Longpincer confer just inside the net barrier.

“You are certain?”

“Builder 1’s silent sense detects them. They approach.”

“All is ready here. I need only sound the signal.” Longpincer pats the signaling device. It resembles an ordinary snapper, but the stick in it is nearly as thick as one of Broadtail’s minor limbs. When it snaps, he imagines the sound carrying as far as Continuous Abundance.

“I suggest waiting until they reach the nets,” says Broadtail, and then immediately regrets it.

“I remember doing this many times before,” Longpincer points out. “Please do not lecture me like an apprentice on my own land.”

“I mean no offense.”

“Of course not. All of us are poised with pincers ready. Are you hungry? There is a pile of food back by the house flow channel. All must be full and strong to fight.”

“I am full.”

“Then let us listen.”

They wait in silence. Broadtail can hear the nets waving in the current, the rumble of the vent, and a persis tent hiss from a leaking flow conduit nearby. As he relaxes he picks up more distant sounds: one of Longpincer’s apprentices fidgeting as he waits near the net, the irritating high-pitched buzz Builders sometimes make, the faint clicking of scavengers crawling over Longpincer’s house, and, far away but all-pervasive, the creak of the ice above the world.

And now he hears the invaders. They are about three cables distant. The bandit adults ping one another carelessly. The devices of the Squatters make a steady hum. The Squatters themselves swim noisily. He remembers a truism: the weak are silent when the strong make noise. Well, that is true enough now. But there is another old saying; he remembers tying it into a reel when first learning to write: a noisy swimmer is soon silenced.

Though he knows the Bitterwater vent is Longpincer’s, Broadtail cannot rid himself of the feeling that he is the one defending his own property. The Builders are his discovery, and these Squatters and their bandit servants wish to take them away from him. He will not allow it. Broadtail takes up his spear and waits for something to stab with it.

Tizhos was miserable. The journey seemed to last forever: a two-day push through endless black water, sealed up in her suit with the smell of her own anger and fear, struggling to keep up with the Ilmatarans and Irona’s Guardians. Her suit’s foodmaker could never create enough broth to satisfy her, and the flavorings seemed particularly artificial today.

From time to time, Irona switched on the laser link to make leader-like noises. “The humans endanger this entire planet,” he said. “We must drive them away and leave it once again pure and undefiled! All our efforts lead to this moment. We cannot fail!”

Tizhos noted wryly that not even the Guardians cheered Irona’s harangues anymore. But neither did any of them question the consensus. Since Irona had selected all of them personally, they shared his devotion to the ideal of Tracelessness.

The war party moved past a jumble of ancient stones, rounded by the water but obviously carved by Ilmataran tools. It felt oddly comforting, Tizhos thought, to live in a world where somebody made everything, even the rocks. Back on Shalina so much effort went into erasing traces of the past, coaxing the planet into a carefully maintained imitation of wildness.

She looked back at the two great native animals being guided by their Ilmataran allies. They were beautiful creatures, shaped almost like aircraft, with rippling delta wings and a gaping mouth like a jet intake. One was towing a net filled with food for the Ilmataran troops, but the second had a mysterious payload that Irona refused to let Tizhos get close to.

According to the navigation display, they were only seven or eight hundred meters from the Ilmataran settlement where the humans were hiding. Irona called a halt as they reached a low ridge that gave some visual cover.

“Tizhos,” he said over the private link. “Tell the Ilmataran troops to get ready. When I give the order, have them move forward to attack the complex.”

“What about me? Where do you want me to go?”

“Stay close to me. I need you to translate for the Ilmatarans.”

“Irona, I believe we should give them one last chance to surrender. Perhaps when they see how many we have brought they will give up.”

“I consider the situation too far gone for that. The humans did not take the opportunity to surrender before. I do not believe they will do so now. It seems foolish to alert them to our presence.”

“So you actually intend to just plunge in and begin attacking?”

“Of course. All moral beings find fighting a terrible thing, yet we must do it to preserve this world. Now I want you to remain quiet, Tizhos.”

Tizhos could smell her suit flooding with aggression pheromones, and kept herself rigidly quiet and still until the air cleaners could scrub them away. Isolated from each other in their suits, both she and Irona were limited to sound communication only, forcing them to be as emotionless and hierarchical as humans.

Two of the Ilmataran teamsters guided the second towfin to a position on the other side of Irona and began untying their mysterious payload. Tizhos sidled over to get a look while Irona and the other Sholen Guardians were getting ready. The objects the creature had hauled all the way from Hitode were a pair of big streamlined cylinders with propellers and guidance fins at the back. Irona had kept them secret ever since they had come down from the surface with a supply drop.

Were they giant impellers? But they had no controls or handles. Camera drones? Perhaps the first camera drones in Shalina’s oceans had been that large; not even the humans used anything so bulky. Maybe they were some kind of long-range drone with lots of batteries on board. But why have them towed, then?

Then Tizhos realized what the things were. She called up the reference on her helmet computer to be sure. During the age of warfare, ships and submarines in Shalina’s oceans had used self-propelled explosive carriers that looked very much like these objects. They were torpedoes.

She searched frantically through her computer files, looking for anything about the effects of such weapons. She finally located something in, ironically enough, a description of human military technology. Tizhos did a little calculating, let out a noise of terror, and did the math again just to be sure. Her suit reeked of fear.

“Irona!” Tizhos scrambled across the sea bottom to where the other Sholen were gathered in a last-minute tactical conference. “Irona, I must make an objection! Those explosive devices—you must not use them!”

Irona activated the private link and Tizhos could hear irritation in his voice. “Do not broadcast every detail of our tactical plan. The humans have drones and, thanks to your carelessness, may have heard you.”

“Tell me the explosive power of these devices.”

“First explain why I should tell you anything. I lead this expedition.”

“Irona, I fear you do not understand the power of these weapons! The shock from an underwater explosion may kill or injure individuals up to a hundred meters away.”

“I understand that perfectly, Tizhos. I had them made and brought them for just that reason. Now please stop interfering.” Irona switched off the link and resumed his conversation with the others.

Tizhos was shaken. Was Irona willing to use torpedoes capable of sinking an oceangoing ship just to kill three humans? It seemed impossible. Didn’t he realize how many Ilmatarans would be killed?

And then Tizhos understood. Of course Irona knew how many of the natives would die. He had planned on it. They were in contact with the humans. Tainted and corrupted, in Irona’s mind. Infected with the knowledge of the universe beyond the ice. Irona wished to kill them all and return Ilmatar to its pristine innocence.

She had to stop this, right away. Tizhos turned and began hurrying back to the torpedoes. Perhaps she could disable them somehow. She covered perhaps ten meters before two of the Guardians grabbed her, pinning her limbs and bearing her down to the sea bottom. They pulled her arms and midlimbs behind her back and bound them with lengths of cord. She struggled and thrashed, but they were younger and stronger.

Irona turned Tizhos over and jammed the tip of a tool into her helmet speaker. Tizhos heard plastic snap. “I don’t want you distracting the natives or alerting the humans,” he told her. “You may wait here for the end of the battle. If I feel particularly generous afterward, perhaps I will bring you back to the station.”

Tizhos switched to laser link. “Who will communicate with the Ilmatarans if I stay here a prisoner?”

“I have all your notes. I can certainly tell them ‘forward’ when the time comes.”

Tizhos went to general broadcast. “Listen, all of you! Irona plans to use explosives against the native settlement. Dozens may die. You cannot allow—”

“Please do not humiliate yourself, Tizhos,” said Irona. “They all know and understand the operational plan. We have a consensus. All agree that we prefer the sacrifice of a few Ilmatarans to seeing this world ravaged by human exploiters or Ilmatarans copying human methods.”

“I do not agree! You do not have a consensus!” Tizhos struggled against her bonds, but the Guardians were trained in subduing and securing violent offenders. “You cannot just ignore my objections!”

“Tell me why I cannot,” said Irona.

“Irona, your plan seems—” Tizhos stopped and groped for the right word, finally choosing something archaic and absolute, the kind of moral judgment that had sent millions of Sholen to war in barbaric times. “It is wrong!”

For a moment, nobody said anything. The others were all startled at what Tizhos had said. Finally Irona spoke. “You have humiliated yourself enough, Tizhos. Stop talking. We must go now.” They switched to a secure link and swam off.

Tizhos struggled. She thrashed about. She tried to crawl toward the torpedoes. She screamed inside her helmet until her ears hurt. She tried to get someone—anyone—to answer her laser messages. Finally she lay helpless in the cold muck, her joints aching and the cable cutting into her limbs. Maybe her suit would tear and let her die.

Dr. Vikram Sen waited until the Sholen expedition were all on their way. That still left a pair of the Sholen soldiers in Hitode.

He went to the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea, drank it, then took the largest carving knife from the rack and went to the little Operations office that adjoined the common room. His hands were perfectly steady, he noticed.

One of the two Sholen was in Operations, watching the sonar imager for signs of the returning war party. Dr. Sen had read a text on Sholen anatomy, so he drove the knife into her neck just to the right of the spinal bone, sliding it between the bone and the neck muscle into the right nerve trunk.

She cried out, a sound like a crow’s call, and swung her left midlimb at him. The blow caught him in the side, and he could hear a rib break even before he felt it.

The Sholen tried to get up but fell. Her whole right side wasn’t working. Sen grabbed the chair and smashed it down on her, over and over, not caring what he hit. She tried to ward off the blows with her left arm and midlimb. The spindly aluminum tubing of the chair began to bend after he hit her a couple of times, but he didn’t care.

In desperation she used her one working leg to sweep Sen’s feet out from underneath him. They wrestled for the chair but eventually she got a grip on it with her left midlimb and yanked it away from him. He kicked her in the face, but she bit his foot, her carnivore teeth punching through his slippers and crunching on bone.

Sen kicked her in the eye with his other foot and scrambled free. There were more chairs in the common room. More knives in the kitchen.

The other Sholen soldier came through the entrance from Hab Two and saw what was happening. He drew his weapon from its chest holster and fired as Dr. Sen reached the knife rack. The bullet hit him in the shoulder, and Sen wondered idly if any major arteries were severed. He never felt the second shot, which drilled neatly into the back of his head.

Broadtail hears the bandits approach. There are about a dozen, all big and swimming strongly. They come straight on, advancing in a line with no attempt to hide, swimming about a body-length above the bottom.

Half a cable now; surely they must be among the hidden skirmishers by now. Can Longpincer hear them? Why doesn’t he sound the alarm? Broadtail shifts his spear in his grip.

The crack from Longpincer’s signal snapper startles him. The noise is so loud that it almost sounds as though his own shell is splitting. The echo lets him sense the entire battlefield very distinctly. There are fourteen of the bandits, advancing in a line with the ends slightly forward of the center. He doesn’t know if this is accident or good tactics on their part, but it is a classic formation. The defenders must either split up to fight the two pincers and thus risk being split down the middle by the center, or clump together and thus risk being outflanked.

Now the bottom behind and among the attackers erupts in a swirl of silt and pincers as the hidden fighters reveal themselves. The line dissolves into a series of small battles.

Broadtail recalls Longpincer telling the hidden fighters, “Strike quickly, then flee. Do not stay and become surrounded. If they disperse to pursue you, so much the better.”

Three of the five hidden fighters remember that advice. Broadtail hears spears crunching into shells as they stab up into unshielded bellies or between back plates from behind. There are sounds of distress and anger and the three swim up and then sprint for the netting with angry bandits behind them.

But two don’t get away in time. Roughtail is surrounded in open water by four of the bandits. They stab at him from all sides, pinging and clicking angrily. He fights one off, turns to face another, but the pincers keep jabbing in. His movements become random and weary. One of them grapples him from behind, bending back a pincer until there is an ugly crack and Roughtail cries out. Then all four are upon him, gripping, piercing, and cracking until he sinks to the bottom.

Shortfeeler is a little more fortunate. She hears a bandit above her and realizes she can’t swim free of them, so she drops back to the sea bottom and holds her spear up in challenge. With her underside protected and her legs solidly braced she is a hard target: the bandits must risk getting past the spearpoint to poke ineffectually at her shell.

Two of them stay with her, trying to get in under the spear and flip her over, but she gives ground, backing away and keeping the weapon between them and her. Finally one drops to the bottom and rushes in with pincers folded. She catches him dead-center in the headshield with her spear, and the force of the impact drives the point through his shell. The bandit gives a last cry as his resonator chamber is breached, leaving him deaf and mute.

But the spearpoint is caught, and while Shortfeeler tries to free it the second one drops on her back and gets a pincer into one of her shoulder joints. She breaks away and tries to swim for it, but the bandit is faster and catches her before she can reach the netting. With one pincer useless, Shortfeeler must drop her spear. They grapple, there is the crack of a shell splitting, and Shortfeeler stops moving. Horribly, she isn’t quite dead, and Broadtail hears her faint clicks and pings until the bandits reach the netting.

Rob couldn’t show any lights for fear of giving away his position to the Sholen, but he kept the passive sonar on and could at least get a vague impression of the battle. The crack of Longpincer’s signal device nearly burst his eardrums even with the automatic volume cutoff, and then he watched the image on his faceplate as blurry shapes emerged from the sea bottom and started mixing it up with the invaders.

After a bit Rob noticed something interesting: all the sonar images on the battlefield beyond the netting were very much alike. They all had the echo pattern of rigid, segmented objects—Ilmatarans with their armored shells. Where were the Sholen?

Time for one Robert J. Freeman to earn his pay. He activated Drone One and sent it swimming back toward the main thermal vent at the center of the settlement. He hoped the column of rising water could mask the sound of its little motor.

The drone stayed in the rising water column until it was two hundred meters above the sea bottom. Rob ordered it to circle wide around the battlefield to where the Ilmataran attackers had first come into view. Were the Sholen back there?

Yes. The drone’s camera picked up a constellation of pale yellow-green stars on the bottom, just past a low ridge. There were eight Sholen in suits, with safety lights glowing softly.“Gotcha!” Rob muttered.

Four of the Sholen were spread out in a line along the ridge, apparently hunkered down on the sea bottom. In the dim light Rob could see them holding weapons—the same microtorp guns they’d been carrying at the Coquille raid. It seemed weird to Rob that they were just hanging back and not doing anything, but then the drone’s hydrophone picked up the faint whoosh of the weapons. He checked his local sonar image: the Ilmataran attackers were about to reach the netting. He just had time to shout a warning before the explosions.

Broadtail is braced and ready to start jabbing his spear through the netting at the attackers when the world fills with noise. It is far louder than even Longpincer’s signal device. He can feel the sound with his entire body, and his head feels like it is shattering. After the painful pulse of sound there is silence. Is he deaf? He taps the front of his head and hears it very faintly, but that is all.

Something is holding his spear. He tugs on it and jerks it free. Probing with it reveals something soft in front of him. The netting has collapsed!

The attackers must be almost as deaf as he is, and Broadtail is getting used to fighting things he cannot hear. He turns his spear sideways and holds it forward, hoping one of them will brush against it. Slowly the world comes back into existence around him, although every sound is accompanied by a throb of pain.

A large adult is two body-lengths away, ahead and to Broadtail’s right. She is moving slowly with her pincers extended, feeling around. Evidently she hears him at almost the same moment, for suddenly she rushes forward.

Broadtail swings his spear, jabbing the butt end into the front of her head and stopping her charge long enough for him to reverse his weapon and brace himself.

She tries to shove the spearpoint out of the way with her pincers and rush in, but Broadtail scuttles sideways, keeping the point between them. He prods at her head, hoping to force her back, but she holds her ground and the spear grates along her shell. She bursts forward before Broadtail can get his spear back into place, and now she’s almost in pincer-reach.

The bandit raises her pincers and lunges at Broadtail, stabbing down onto his back, trying to find a weak spot in his shell. He folds his own pincers and pushes forward, getting his head underneath hers and then shoving. He feels a jolt of pain from near his tail flukes as one pincer strikes home, but it angers him more than it harms him. He slams against the bandit’s underside with all his strength and she loses her grip on the sea bottom.

The two of them are now curled around each other in a ball, rolling about the bottom. Broadtail feels the bandit’s powerful pincers getting a grip on his tail. Is she trying to crack him? She is, and he can feel the stress in his shell.

In desperation he probes her underside with his pincer tip, but her flailing legs keep him from finding a gap. The pressure on his back is almost unbearable Then the bandit gives a twitch and lets go. He feels her body settle to the bottom next to him. He tastes blood in the water.

A small adult drops down in front of him and pulls a spear out of the bandit’s back. He recognizes Holdhard by flavor. “Thank you,” he says.

Rob waited for his ears to stop ringing and risked a visual look around with his lamp. There were four big gaps in the netting where the volley of microtorps had hit the support poles. The ’tarans on both sides were staggering around looking disoriented. Hearing bangs that loud must have hit them like a flashbulb in the eyes. One of them was down and not moving; Rob couldn’t tell if it was one of Longpincer’s people or an attacker.

Time to put a stop to that! He launched Drone Two, once again using the water column above the vent for concealment. While it was on its way he switched his link back to Drone One, keeping station above the Sholen position.

Rob picked his target almost at random: one of the faint green glows among the line of Sholen soldiers. The third one from the left. He designated it, then sent the drone into a power-dive toward its target. The signal lag meant he was just an observer, watching a series of still images as the Sholen grew larger and more distinct. His intended victim must have heard the drone approach, because the final clear frame showed him turning, his face indistinct within his helmet, mouth open.

Then there was a hash of visual static with fragments of blurry images. Then the link went dead. Had the drone even hit its target? Maybe Drone Two could tell him. Rob switched links and steered his last weapon on a long curving course around to the north. Since he’d dropped One on them from above, he kept Two hugging the sea bottom. As the drone got closer to the Sholen position, Rob adopted a scoot-and-freeze pattern of movement, staying under cover and out of sight as much as possible.

Soon he was within a few tens of meters of the Sholen position. The drone camera could pick up several of their safety lights, and the passive sonar detected eight Sholen. The firing line of Sholen soldiers with microtorp guns were on the move, grouping into pairs with one facing toward Longpincer’s house and one guarding the firer’s back. Good; he’d accomplished something. He didn’t know if getting them moving was good or bad.

Time for a different kind of mischief. Maybe he could mess with their supplies or something? Or find whoever was in charge of the whole attack?

He moved the drone to a point about twenty meters behind the firing line. Sonar detected a pair of the big grazers Broadtail called “towfins” tethered by some rocks, with a single Ilmataran minding them. He didn’t dare bring the drone too close to any Ilmataran—they’d hear it coming long before even a computer-enhanced Sholen hydrophone would notice.

The camera detected a faint light just ahead of the two animals. Slowly and quietly, Rob guided the drone toward it. A long-exposure still image resolved a pair of big cylinders sitting on the sea bottom. The light was coming from an indicator panel on the side of one. Some kind of self-propelled cargo pods, Rob guessed. Which meant the Sholen had enough supplies to fight all day if they wanted to. There was no way he could damage something like that with a knife blade mounted on a camera drone. He moved on, looking for something he could hurt.

Another series of deafening blasts makes Broadtail want to curl into a ball. He clutches the rock he stands on, hoping his sense returns before a barbarian plunges a pincer into him.

Someone taps numbers on his tail. “Move back to the house.” It is Holdhard. She leads him by one feeler. Broadtail tastes the water and starts working his way up the gradient of warmth and minerals toward the main vent until he runs into one of the guidelines, then follows that.

He stumbles over a body that has a familiar flavor. It is Strongpincer, the bandit. Broadtail cannot imagine the bandit charging this far, so he suspects the blast of tossing the body past the front line.

Out of curiosity, he feels the dead bandit’s harness and finds the stone box. He tucks it into his own carrying pouch. “I remember refusing to pay you, and now it is free. You are a very bad trader,” he tells the corpse.

His hearing is starting to return and he listens. The netting is gone, and half a dozen bandits are swimming over the tangled wreckage. Time to get into a house. With solid stone at their back even a small group of scholars and apprentices can hold off any number of bandits. Broadtail wonders how they can withstand the exploding swimmer weapons.

Rob’s ears were still ringing from the second volley of microtorps when an Ilmataran tapped him on the helmet. Since it wasn’t trying to gut him with its pincers, he figured it must be one of the good guys. His lexicon translated the message as “Builder swim structure,” which sounded like an order to retreat. He banged an okay on his chestplate.

Inside the house he wouldn’t be able to maintain the link. Time for Drone Two to go out in glory.

He checked the drone’s sonar and noticed a big noise source nearby. It sounded like something splashing, or trying to swim very clumsily. On the camera he could make out a very streaky image of a Sholen thrashing about on the sea bottom. Huh? Rob moved the drone closer.

It was a Sholen, all right. Lying on the bottom, with its limbs held in a very weird position. The front two limb pairs were held against its back, and the rear pair were parallel to the tail. The Sholen was hog-tied. It was a prisoner.

Why the hell were the Sholen tying each other up in the middle of a battle? Was this part of their constant sex thing?

It would be really easy for the drone to stab this Sholen in the throat, just below the helmet ring, and let it drown on blood and seawater. Rob thought about that, then maneuvered the drone to a position behind the Sholen. If whoever was in command of this attack felt it necessary to tie someone up, it seemed obvious to Rob that cutting the cables binding him would be a good thing.

Tizhos felt something prodding at her hands. Some kind of native organism? She stopped wriggling. Maybe it would crawl around to where she could get a look at it. She felt the cable binding her upper arms snap. The creature had freed her? She reached for her multipurpose tool and cut the cables on her midlimbs and legs, then turned to look at her rescuer.

It was a drone. Human-built, with a crude blade affixed to its nose. Why had it freed her?

No time. Her speaker was broken, so she shouted as loudly as she could, hoping the sound would carry through her hood and the water, “Get everyone away from the house! Irona wishes to kill you all! He has torpedoes! Very large! Get away!”

Tizhos didn’t wait for an answer, even if the human controlling the drone had understood her at all. She scrambled across the sea bottom toward the two torpedoes. Her arm and midlimb joints were stiff and painful, and her suit’s medical system was completely out of painkillers. She called for a big dose of stimulants and some confidence-building pheromones to help her tough it out.

The torpedoes hadn’t moved. She tried to establish a link, but Irona had prudently locked her out of the command web. Well, if high-tech methods wouldn’t work, perhaps primitive methods would. Tizhos made her tool narrow and sharp, and began jabbing at the control panel of the torpedo. She smashed sensors, indicators—anything that looked vulnerable. The tough plastic resisted her blows, but she got the blade into a seam and pried with all her strength until she heard a satisfying snap. Behind the panel was a block of circuitry sealed in plastic. Tizhos began stabbing it, holding the tool in both midlimb hands and using her whole body to drive it. Her suit reeked of aggression, and she found it oddly pleasant.

She ripped out the fragments of circuitry and groped inside for anything else she could ruin. She slashed what seemed like a hydraulic line and saw a cloud of fluid leak into the ocean like blood.

Enough damage. Time to move on. She clambered over to the second torpedo and made ready to stab its controls. Suddenly it began making a loud hum, and rose up off the bottom.

Tizhos got on top of it, trying to weigh it down, but it surged forward, then rolled, slamming her into the silt. When she looked up again it was ten meters away, rising and accelerating. She struggled after it, but the machine moved smoothly away.

Half a minute later there was a flash and a concussion that tumbled Tizhos head over tail along the sea bottom for a dozen meters.

She steadied herself, waited for her suit’s sonar and inertial navigation systems to recover, and wondered what to do next. Irona had won the battle; that much seemed obvious. Even if any of the humans and their native allies had survived, the Guardians would be able to round them up without any difficulty.

Tizhos realized, rather vaguely, that she herself might not survive very long. Would Irona even bother to take her back to Shalina for treatment of her behavior? Or would they just stuff her body into the plasma furnace along with the dead humans and let her ashes discolor Ilmatar’s surface for a few centuries?

When a Guardian found her, Tizhos followed her to the shattered settlement where Irona and the others were searching through the rubble. The water was still full of sediment, so it was like walking in heavy fog.

The elevator capsule lay on its side, caved in and flooded. The front of the native house had collapsed. Tizhos saw at least four Ilmataran bodies left scattered by the blast. She couldn’t tell if they were some of Irona’s native allies or the ones helping the humans.

“You failed,” said Irona when he noticed Tizhos. “We need only gather up the human artifacts and any native rec ords here, then we return to the base and finish dismantling it.”

“I intend to bear witness to this crime,” said Tizhos. “I shall inform the Consensus what you have done here. Tell me if you will order your Guardians to murder me also; I desire to know.”

“I see no more need for violence here,” said Irona, and even without smelling him Tizhos could tell he was afraid. “This world seems safe now. After we take you back home for treatment, I plan to lead expeditions against all the other human bases and colonies. I hope we do not need to kill any others.”

Tizhos made no reply. She sat amid the rubble as the others continued their search. After a long swim from the base and a battle, the Guardians looked exhausted. Finally even Irona noticed and called a rest. “Two hours for rest and food, then we resume work.”

The Guardians gathered at the torpedo impact point, where the force of the blast had cleared away rubbish and left a nice open area. They dropped to the sea bottom and lay as limp as sleeping humans.

Irona came over to Tizhos and sat. “I want you to promise me you do not intend to run away. Otherwise I must tie your limbs again.”

“I have no place to run to,” she said. “I suggest you return to the base and allow the Guardians to rest and recover. You can bring a work party to clear away all the human artifacts later.”

“Scavengers may come before we can remove everything. I believe it best to get everything now.”

“Tell me what you plan to do with it all.”

“The incinerator on the surface can dispose of everything. After it reduces everything to ash, we will dismantle it and take away the pieces. No trace of any alien presence will remain on this world.”

“You could save the native rec ords. They have little mass, and would improve our knowledge of this civilization.”

“No,” said Irona. “They would only tempt you and others who think the same way. You would wish to learn more. Only probes at first, but then would come crewed missions. Where the explorers go, conquerors and exploiters always follow. We can only avoid moral fault by remaining at home, on our own world in our own communities.”

Tizhos couldn’t answer that; she could smell her own sadness and depression. The idea of returning to Shalina and living in a Consensus that thought the way Irona did made her want to die.

Perhaps she could accompany the human prisoners back to Earth. Assuming, of course, that Irona really intended to send them home.

“Tell me what will happen to the prisoners,” said Tizhos.

Irona didn’t reply. Tizhos looked at him and saw that Irona was staring at a swirl of dark material in the water. After a moment Tizhos realized that the dark stuff was coming from a hole in Irona’s suit, just below the helmet. There was some kind of pointed object studded with little barbs sticking out of the hole. As Tizhos watched, the tapered object slid back into the hole and then Irona fell over sideways in a cloud of blood and bubbles.

An Ilmataran was standing behind Irona, cleaning blood off one pincer with its feeding tendrils. Then it advanced on Tizhos.

“I surrender! I will not fight!” She bowed her head and held her front arms straight out from her body in the traditional pose of surrender, then realized that looked an awful lot like the Ilmataran threat posture. So she tucked in her arms and tried to curl into a ball.

The Ilmataran placed one sharp pincer-tip at the back of Tizhos’s neck and rattled off a loud series of clicks and pops. A moment later Tizhos heard someone banging tools together, and then a human was rolling her onto her back and peering into her helmet.

“Tizhos!” said Robert Freeman. “Are you okay?”

Tizhos indicated her broken speaker, then shouted inside her helmet. “I feel no injury!”

“Good. I was afraid Longpincer might have stabbed you. He’s pretty pissed off about his house.”

“The Ilmatarans escaped?”

“Most of them—about a dozen. Some of Longpincer’s apprentices and a couple of the scientists were still up on the battle line when the torpedo hit. The rest of us were swimming like hell in the other direction.”

“I apologize for not disabling both weapons.”

“What?”

“I apologize!”

“There’s no need. You saved our lives.”

“I could not permit Irona to kill you all.”

An Ilmataran came over to Robert Freeman carrying two microtorp guns. Robert Freeman took them, then tapped a reply on the Ilmataran’s shell. He examined the guns, clipped one to his utility harness, and held the other one ready to shoot. “Cool guns,” he said.

Tizhos looked over at the Guardians. Most of them were standing with arms extended while Ilmatarans and another human with a microtorp gun watched over them. Two of the Guardians lay on the sea bottom, with blood clouding the water around them.

“Tell me what you plan to do now,” said Tizhos.

“Now? Now we’re all going back to Hitode Station. I’m going to eat something that isn’t an emergency bar, and take a fucking shower. Broadtail’s coming with us. Longpincer and his people have to rebuild here.”

“I must join the other Sholen,” said Tizhos, getting up off the sea bottom.

“It’s okay. You’ve always been a pretty decent person; I trust you. Heck, you saved our lives when the rest of them were trying to kill us all.”

“That does not alter the fact that I belong with them. I disagreed with Irona and he treated me wrongly, but I will not join with you.”

“I guess I understand. Can you tell them we won’t hurt anyone as long as they cooperate? It’s a long way back to Hitode and if we start fighting nobody’s going to make it alive.”

“I will tell them. I do not desire any more killing.”

Twenty days later, Commander Jorge Hernandez floated in the command pod of the expedition support vehicle Marco Polo, looking over the shoulder of the sensor specialist at a display of the gas giant Ukko and its moons. “Anything?”

“Not that I can see. Optical’s clear, radio’s quiet, and there’s nothing on infrared. If there were Sholen here, I think they must be gone.”

Commander Hernandez didn’t want to admit it, but he was tremendously relieved. The Polo had deployed a whole constellation of sensor platforms, missiles, and laser mirrors, but everyone aboard knew that in an actual fight none of them would accomplish much more than using up some of the enemy’s munitions. It was precisely because the Marco Polo was not a military vehicle that UNIDA had agreed to send it to Ilmatar. All of Earth’s real combat-effective, purpose-built warcraft were scattered around Earth and Mars, waiting to meet a Sholen attack. The peacetime UNICA had changed hats and become the UN Interstellar Defense Agency, and explorers like Hernandez suddenly found themselves military officers.

Hernandez didn’t exactly relish being expendable, so the absence of any Sholen spacecraft was the best news he’d had in a while. If it was true, of course. They might be hiding somewhere, possibly behind Ilmatar or one of the other moons. They could even have some supertech way of fooling his sensors.

Still, better to find out now, before the braking burn, when he still had enough fuel to run for home. “Send a tightbeam to the surface station on Ilmatar. Tell them we’re here and ask for a sitrep.”

Moss sent the message for five minutes, then shook his head. “I’m not getting any response. Chances are the Sholen took everyone prisoner.”

“Or bombed the place flat. Keep trying until T minus ten minutes on the burn clock.”

“Wait a sec! I’m getting something. It sounds like Morse code. They must’ve lost their radio mast.” Moss called up a Morse code cheat sheet. “Here it comes: ‘Sho left two weeks ago, took sixteen, four dead, fixing damage.’ ”

“Ask them what happened! How did they drive off the Sholen? Do they need anything?”

“It says, ‘Sho captured base, Ilmatarans made them go, OK for now.’ Wait, there’s more: ‘Send all string cord etcetera on lander, Ilmats want to learn.’ ”

“Okay,” said Hernandez, utterly baffled. “Flight: go ahead with the braking burn as planned.” In a quieter voice he added, “I’m going down in the first lander. I want to hear the full story.”

“Adult swims grasping human on stone,” said Broadtail. He and Rob were floating in the nice warm outflow from the station reactor, watching a mixed team of humans and Ilmatarans load the sub’s power plant onto the cargo rack on top of the elevator. The elevator capsule was all pumped out and reattached to the cable, ready for a trip up to the surface.

“We can’t stay any longer,” said Rob. “It’s not safe here. The Sholen might come back, maybe with more spacecraft and troops.”

“Many adults stab Squatters.”

“Yeah, you guys kicked ass.” Rob wondered idly how his computer was going to translate that phrase. “But it’s not right to expose you to more risk because of us. We’re buttoning up the base, and when the trouble with the Sholen is over, we’ll send back an ambassador.”

“Human swims downward to house?”

“Sure. Later. We, uh, swim toward coming back.”

“Builder 1 swims downward?”

“No, not me. I can’t come back. I’ve spent enough time under high pressure already. Even with the drugs I’m at risk for nerve damage. The docs will veto that for sure.”

“Adult swims upward.”

“What?”

“Adult swims upward to house with many humans. Adult swims through ice. Adult swims past large spheres.”

“Broadtail, I don’t know if you can ever leave Ilmatar. There’s the whole pressure thing, and—”

“Adult grasps many reels. Adult grasps numbers. Adult holds tools. Adult swims past large spheres.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get into space someday. Maybe we could build you some kind of pressure tank to travel in. Lifting all that water’s going to be a bitch and a half, but we’ll figure something out.”

Broadtail reached into one of his belt pouches and handed something to Rob. It was a box made of stone, about as big as a baseball. He could feel a seam where the lid fit on it. “Is this for me? You want me to keep it or just look at it?”

“Adult places stone inside human house.”

“Aw, thank you, Broadtail. This is really nice. Did you make this?” Rob carefully lifted the lid off and looked inside. He was quiet for a long time, and when he spoke again he was trembling despite the warm water. “Where did you get this, Broadtail?”

A month later, the last lander rose from Ilmatar carrying two passengers, four tons of specimens and artifacts—and ten human and Sholen corpses, packed together in a single cargo pod.

Alicia still felt a little odd in the thin air on board. Even after an extra-slow ascent in the restored elevator capsule, she was still saturated with argon and trace gases. She could almost feel them oozing out of her body. Her sinuses were completely blocked and her face felt bloated.

The interior of the lander was wonderfully warm and dry. Alicia ran her hand sensuously over the clean fabric seat cover. She had already vowed to spend her first month back on Earth in Tunis, or maybe Las Vegas, baking herself in the desert sunlight all day and sleeping on clean sheets every night.

In the seat next to her, Robert sat silently, occasionally looking at the little carved stone box in his hands. He had been nearly comatose since they’d left Hitode. During the elevator ride she had been so tired and hungry herself that she hadn’t minded, especially with six people jammed into the elevator and no privacy. But it would be a very long trip home if Robert was going to be morose the whole way.

From the flight deck she could hear radio chatter and the occasional terse remark by the pilots. Through the window she could see the white surface of Ilmatar rolling past, marked with lines and faint blotches. A screen above her seat showed the expedition ship, surrounded by a halo of drones and shuttles.

At last Alicia could stand the silence no longer. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “You have been a living corpse ever since we left Hitode. Is something wrong? Traumatic stress?”

“Broadtail gave me this,” said Rob. “He got it from one of the bandits; where the bandit got it from is anyone’s guess but the surface erosion suggests it’s pretty damn old.”

“Why does that make you sad?”

“I’m not sad. I’m just—here. See for yourself.” He handed Alicia the little stone box. She opened it and looked at the object inside, nestled snugly in the little niche that had protected it—how long?

“Go ahead,” he said. “Look through it.”

She picked it up carefully by the edges and held it up to the light. It was scratched and chipped, but not yet opaque.

It was a lens.