The Spheres of Heaven

24: LIMBO PLANS

“What do we do now?”

Dag Korin had asked the question, but he acted as though he expected no answers. A couple of seconds later he stood up and said, “Well, we’ll all think better when we’ve had some rest. It’s been a long day, and I don’t know about you but I’m bushed.”

As he left the fire control chamber he unobtrusively gestured to Chan Dalton to follow. They walked through the dark interior of the Hero’s Return , listening to the wheeze of air pumps and the groans and creaks of the stressed hull.

“The computer says we’re in fair shape,” Korin said gruffly, “but it doesn’t sound that way to me. I want a more detailed analysis of the ship’s condition. Hear that, Gamma-D?”

WE WILL PROVIDE A COMPLETE REPORT TO YOU.

“Soon as you can. You see, Dalton, the Hero’s Return is a space cruiser, she was never built to sit at the bottom of some stinking ocean. My guess is that in a few days we’ll have to get this hulk off the seabed and out into vacuum, or we’ll be forced to abandon ship. And that raises some pretty interesting questions that I don’t want to talk about yet.”

The two men walked on in silence, past empty weapons chambers and massive drive engines, past the room housing the ship’s master computer, past deserted crew quarters. It was like a ghost ship. Neither spoke until they reached a door of bilious green and passed through into Dag Korin’s private quarters.

“Now we can really talk freely.” Korin glanced at Chan. “Know why we’re in here?”

“Computer?”

“Good man. I checked when I first came aboard. It’s the main reason I chose this for my quarters — the only place on the ship that to my certain knowledge has no computer sensor feeds. Safer than asking the computer not to listen, which I’ve never had any faith in. This place goes back to the time when the Hero’s Return was on active duty. You’d find one room like this on most military vessels, because in any army and any navy, there’s a few things better left off the record. Sit down. And instead of me telling you, you tell me. Where do we stand?”

The general loosened his collar, which Chan took to mean that the conversation would be informal.

“We’re in deep shit,” he said. “Bad trouble. Right?”

Dag Korin nodded. “I think so. Trouble how?”

“Well, we seem to be in some `parallel universe,’ whatever that means, with different physics. It’s a big shock, but that sort of thing doesn’t interest me nearly as much as it interests Elke Siry. I have more practical worries. Even if the ship were in good shape, we can’t live on the bottom of the sea forever.”

“If we could, we sure as hell wouldn’t want to.”

“So we have to get to the surface. But if we do, I can’t see the Hero’s Return being in any condition to stand a Link transfer back home.”

“That’s what my gut feeling tells me. We’re matching tracks so far. Go on.”

“So we have to find some other ship. But all the vessels that our different groups came in are either lost or worse off than this one.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I wouldn’t believe a computer. But I’ve known Bony Rombelle for a long time, and he’s the best gadget man I ever met. If he tells us the other ships are lost, or pieces of junk that can’t be fixed up, I believe him.”

“Then I’ll do the same — though when I was young I wouldn’t have let a man who dressed as sloppy as that out of the ship’s galley. What else?”

“The Link point. General, we didn’t build it, and it’s nothing like the ones we know. Throw in the different physical laws, and not even Bony can be expected to figure the transition protocol out from scratch.”

“Understood. So?”

“So if we’re going home, we have to locate and learn to talk to whoever built the Link.”

“Exactly my conclusion.” Korin glanced at Chan from under lowered brows. “And what we know about them already — unless there’s two different technological alien groups on Limbo, which is pretty unlikely — isn’t promising. In the only contact so far, they put two of our orbiters out of action for no reason except that we were making observations. So they have weapons. We don’t. And they’re either very nasty or very paranoid.”

“Or both. But it’s not completely true that we have no weapons. Deb Bisson always has a hundred personal killing tricks somewhere on her or in her.”

“All very well if she can get near enough. Not good if the enemy has real firepower and can blow you away at a thousand kilometers. But we’re getting close to what’s really on my mind. We have to find out more about the land-based aliens, and we can’t do it sitting here. This is where you earn your pay, Dalton. I want you to organize a shore party ASAP, and give us a land base ourselves.” Korin stared at Chan’s smile. “Suits your taste, doesn’t it?”

“It sure does. I don’t like to sit around in a metal can at the bottom of the sea. I didn’t come here for that. I’m used to doing things.”

“Good. So am I. So now let’s get down to the reason I wanted to come in here before we started to talk. You know the biggest obstacle in our way? No, it’s not the hostile aliens — though they’ll be bad enough. It’s the friendly aliens who worry me. The Tinkers and the Pipe-Rilla and that damned oversized vegetable Angel, they’re the ones who may make our job impossible. They say, no violence. But they don’t tell us how to manage without violence. What do you do when somebody tries to shoot your ass off? In my book, you shoot right back, and if they have an ass at all you blow it away. And we’re not allowed to. So here’s what we have to do.” In spite of his insistence that they could not be overheard, Korin leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. “The aliens are worried about me already, because I’m a General. I’m going to talk and act so they’ll worry about me a whole lot more. You and your team do the exact opposite. All sweetness and light and talk of peaceful tactics. That way, the Stellar Group aliens are going to keep a close eye on me, here in the ship, and you’ll be free to go and do whatever you have to ashore. Do you agree? Remember, once we’re outside this room we won’t be able to talk without being recorded.”

“I agree with most of it. But I have a couple of worries. First, what happens if the aliens insist on coming ashore?”

“Are they likely to?”

“They are if they think we’re going to meet other aliens. The Angel is supposed to be an unbelievable talent when it comes to languages. We have one of those talents ourselves, Tully O’Toole, unless his brain has been fried by Paradox. If it has, there’s still Tarbush Hanson. He can talk to animals, and our aliens may be close to that. But the Angel may say it wants to go with us, anyway. I don’t see how we can stop it.”

“I have an idea on that. I think the Angel is the only possible one to work with Elke on a high-priority project I have for her. If some other alien wants to go ashore, don’t try to stop it. Your people go, and when they’re ashore they split into two groups. What other problems?”

“It’s not so much a problem as a delay. I’m sure we can get ashore safely, because the Bun and Liddy Morse already did it. But we’ll need maps, at least local ones, of the coastline and land areas. You said we should leave as soon as possible, but I’d like to wait until the computer produces the maps that Elke Siry asked for.”

“Of course you’ll need maps. An army should never travel blind.”

“Not much of an army. Six of us — seven, if Liddy Morse comes along.”

“No. Not seven, and not six. I’m sorry, Dalton, I don’t mind Morse going, if you want her; but Rombelle stays here.”

“I need him ashore.”

“You’re not going ashore, either — at least, you’re not going with the first party.”

Chan stood up. “Don’t give me that bullshit. I have to lead the shore party. Don’t forget that I’m in charge now.”

“No. You would have been in charge if we had reached the Geyser Swirl, but we never did. Look, Dalton, I’m not making a power play. I’m minimizing risks. No one in his right mind sends half the total strength of an expedition on a first scouting party, and I’m agreeing on close to that. Four people go. Maybe an alien, too — we can’t control them. Pick who you like of your team, provided that it’s not you and not Rombelle. You both stay here. I’m taking your word for it that Rombelle is something special when it comes to equipment fix-up.”

“He is. That’s why the shore party needs him.”

“It’s also the reason he can’t go. Suppose there’s mechanical trouble with this ship? It looks and sounds worse every hour. How would you like the shore party to be stranded, with no Hero’s Return to come back to or to rely on for supplies?” Korin waited for Chan’s slow nod. “Then that’s the way it has to be. You’ll think we’re sending an army anyway, when you hear me talking to our crazy alien companions. I’m going to sound like rage and destruction for them. They’ll shit bricks — I mean, if any of them shits anything at all.”

After Dag Korin and Chan Dalton had left for the general’s private quarters, the remaining party broke into two groups.

Most of the members of the old team, plus Liddy, drifted off toward the rear of the ship in the direction that Dag Korin and Chan Dalton had taken. The Stellar Group aliens followed the slow-moving Angel toward the ship’s sunroom and garden. Remaining in the fire control room were only Tully O’Toole and Elke Siry.

“D’you mind if I stay? Or am I in your way?” Tully was hanging around, watching Elke and looking shaky and dejected.

“You’re not in my way unless you interfere with my work.” Elke was studying images taken by the two orbiters, selecting a few for display with increased detail. “You people really love Chan Dalton, don’t you?”

“I can’t speak for the rest, but he saved me from worse than death.” When Elke gave him a skeptical glance from the corner of one eye, he went on. “I’m talking about Paradox addiction. Do you know what that is?”

She lost interest in the displays and turned to face him.

“Not exactly. But I know something that can match it.” She pulled her high-necked white blouse all the way down to her right collarbone, to reveal ugly scar tissue in the shape of a fiery star.

“Slither!” In his astonishment Tully reached out to touch the blemish on her white skin, but she stiffened and jerked away. He sat back and shook his tousled head. “I can’t believe this. You and Slither. It’s so disgusting, and you’re so — so—”

“Pure and spotless and absolutely perfect?” Elke gave him a grim smile, revealing the prominent canines. “I suppose you’ve been reading about me in the ship’s files. You shouldn’t believe most of that. I wrote it myself. I decided what to put in — and what to leave out.”

“But Slither. How did you get hooked?”

“I was seventeen. That’s when I knew I was more intelligent than anyone in the universe. I confused that with understanding about life. I’d heard of the Slithers — we all had — but I knew they could never snare me. I was too smart for that. But I let one sit on my shoulder, and it felt wonderful …”

“And it had you. Where did it lodge?”

“Right above my liver. I guess I was lucky, in three cases out of ten it heads for the brain.”

“What saved you?”

“You mean who. General Korin served with my grandfather, out on the Perimeter. When my grandpa was dying, the General promised that when he came back to Sol he would look me up. I should have been easy to find, because I was a star researcher at the Trieste Institute for Advanced Study. And I was there — almost. General Korin tracked me down a kilometer or two away, in a Slither mating cellar. He confirmed who I was — I could still tell him my name — and he went away. He didn’t try to talk to me, didn’t ask what had happened. He came back the next day with three of his officers, bundled me up in a sheet, and shanghaied me away into space.”

Elke studied Tully’s gaunt features, then turned back to her work at the displays. “I didn’t think so at the time, but I guess I had things easy. I had the operation for Slither removal and the chemotherapy to end Slither sexual addiction. But I was on Helene, with round-the-clock nursing, not in another universe wondering if I was ever going home. But you’re improving, Tully. I see it every day. The worst is over.”

“I’d like to think you’re right, but I still dream each night. In my dream I’m sitting there with the little purple sphere in my fist, and I’m all set to touch it to my wrist. Deep inside I know that I mustn’t, that if I do it will start all over again. But I can’t stop my hand. It brings the Paradox globe closer and closer to my skin.”

“Ah, I have a dream like that.” Elke’s face took on an odd wistfulness. “I’m sitting alone, and the Slither is still inside me. It begins calling, `Go and bring me a mate. Bring us both ecstasy.’ It isn’t lying. When you and somebody else with a Slither have sex it’s too good to be true. So I start to stand up, and I’m on the way to the rendezvous point, and I have the promise of ecstasy squared. But I know it will soon lead to death.”

“That’s it! That’s it exactly. You mustn’t touch, but you want it so much. You’ve felt it, too.” Again Tully reached out toward Elke, again he pulled back when he saw her flinch.

He cursed his own lack of sensitivity. No wonder, after being a Slither slave — say something, anything. “So it was Dag Korin saved you. I’d never have guessed that.”

“Why else would I be here, on a ship lost at the end of the universe?” She would not look at him. She had focused her attention on the displays. “No, not lost in the universe. Lost in the multiverse, an infinite set of universes. I’m here for the same reason as you. You came because Chan Dalton wanted you to, I came because Dag Korin wanted me to. This turns out to be the most exciting thing that could happen to a scientist, but I didn’t know that when I agreed to come. Couldn’t you tell I was doing it for the General?”

Tully said nothing, and she looked away from the screens to stare at him. “What is it? What’s wrong now?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s a lie, Tully O’Toole. Your face usually looks white as something dredged from the seabed, and now it’s all pink. What did I say?”

“You said not a word. It’s what I thought.”

“So tell me what.”

“It’s so absurd. I thought that you were here because you were Dag Korin’s” — Tully screwed up his face — “well, this only proves what an ass I am. I thought you were Dag Korin’s mistress.”

“A woman could do worse than General Korin, a lot worse. But me, his mistress? That’s a laugh.” Elke gave a snort that sounded nothing like a laugh. “I couldn’t let him — or any man—”

Elke turned away and bent her blond head over the control board.

“I understand,” Tully said quickly. “After the Slither, any touch would be too much. But it’s all right now I know. Do you want me to go?”

“No, I’d rather that you stay. Two untouchables together. But I must keep on working.”

“Of course you must. Can I help? I once had a working brain, and a good pair of eyes.” Tully moved so that he could study the screen, being careful to keep well clear of Elke. “Do you know what you’re looking at?”

“I’m learning. This is the view from one of the orbiters, just before it stopped recording. The smooth dark area is the sea, and the Hero’s Return is about here.” She stabbed at the screen with a long, tapering index finger. “You can’t see us, of course, since we’re down deep. But the little blob you see beside the inlet is the Mood Indigo.”

“It’s not in the water. It’s on the shore.”

“I know. The storm might have carried it there.”

“Is it a wreck?”

“I don’t know. But the most interesting part of this picture isn’t in the sea area, except maybe for this one spot.” Her finger moved left, to indicate a small white circle. “According to the inertial guidance system on this ship — which I’m going to assume still works correctly, even if the laws of physics are all a bit different here — according to the guidance system, that’s where we first emerged into the Limbo ocean. So my thought is that the little disk is all that’s left of the Link transition point. It comes and goes, and it’s not there now. And don’t ask me how it can be part underwater, instead of in a vacuum or a thin atmosphere, because I have no idea.”

“And this thing?” Tully reached carefully over Elke’s arm to indicate another part of the scene. “Like part of a great big ring.”

“It is. The boundary is an exact circle when you make allowance for the look angle.” Elke ran a finger along the smooth arc. “This marks the edge of a zone of destruction. It only shows on the land and not at sea. Inside this region there’s nothing but blackened soil and dark gray rocks. Outside the burned part it’s a mixture of green and orange. I’m betting that this was originally all growing plants. Somebody sterilized the whole inner region, about seven hundred square kilometers. And guess what’s at the exact center of the black circle?”

“Tell me.”

“Better than that, I’ll show you.” Elke tapped at the board in front of her, and the picture on the display expanded, zooming in on one small area. “This is the highest magnification the image can take without losing detail. But it’s enough.”

Tully counted six drab buildings of muddy yellow, running along each side of a long and narrow stretch of white. At each end of the strip, facing each other, sat two tiny tri-lobed shapes.

“A settlement,” he said softly, “and funny-looking aircraft. I told you that the Bun was reliable. He said he saw one in the sky, and now we know he didn’t lie.”

“We do indeed.” Tully and Elke had been so absorbed in the image that the voice from behind made them jump.

“Aircraft, yes,” Dag Korin went on. He had entered the chamber silently and alone. “But I wouldn’t call that a settlement. See the boundary fence, with guard posts all along it? Throw in the scorched-earth perimeter for kilometers in each direction, and you have yourself a classic military camp. Our head-up-their-wazoo Stellar Groupies can preach peace all they like, but whoever made that encampment had war on their minds. This isn’t their home territory, either, or they wouldn’t blast everything for miles around them. And don’t be fooled by thinking this is all defenses. They may have only a few aircraft, but I’ll bet they have other weapons.”

“More than a few planes.” Tully had been leaning close to the screen as the General spoke, studying the enlarged picture. “Look over here, well outside the camp. It’s not easy to see them because they match the color of the ground. But isn’t that more aircraft?”

“Six, seven, eight.” The way that Dag Korin counted made each word sound like a curse. “Aye, and there’s another batch of the damned things, farther over. They’re camouflaged to match the background, but not very well. I’d have expected these alien buggers to do a better job, they’re careful enough about other things. Maybe there’s hope for us after all.”

Elke was working the keypad in front of her. “Well, if there is hope,” she said, “I’d credit our technology more than alien weaknesses. The orbiters had the best sensors that humans know how to build, and they could record signals at wavelengths all the way from ultraviolet to radar. Here’s what the ground would look like if the orbiters only sensed the range of wavelengths that human eyes can see.”

The picture as a whole remained the same — except that Tully, staring, could now see no details within the burned area. Buildings, boundary fence, airstrips, aircraft were gone. All had been swallowed up within the dark background.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Korin squinted at the image. “Bring it back the way it was, Elke. Ah, that’s better. We’re going to need a couple of printed copies of this, with compass settings marked.”

“No problem.” Elke did not move, leaving it to the ship’s computer to take the necessary action.

“Plus any other information we can deduce about what’s down there. For instance, what do you make of that?” Korin was pointing to a pair of oval shapes, close to one cluster of the triple-lobed aircraft but much larger than any. “Can you make those bigger?”

Elke shrugged her thin shoulders. “I can enlarge the picture, but you won’t get any more detail. We’re at the resolution limit of the orbiter’s sensors.”

“Pity.” Korin rubbed at his jaw. “Well, we’ll find out soon enough if I’m right.”

Tully didn’t think that Dag Korin had a high opinion of him. In fact, he had overheard himself referred to by the General, soon after his arrival on board the Hero’s Return , as `that long brain-dead streak of shivering misery.’ Well, Tully had improved a lot since then, and Korin’s favorite had also once been a Slither slave. He risked what might be a stupid question. “Sir, how do you know what those blobs might be? I can’t make out any detail on them at all.”

“No more can I, son, no more can I.” Korin took a couple of steps away, as though he had said all he was going to, then swung around and added sharply, “I imagine , you see. What my eyes won’t provide, I imagine with eighty years of war experience to guide me. And the more I look at that picture, the more a little voice inside me says, military expedition. Not a full-scale army, mind you, because the scale of operations is wrong for that. This is more like a scouting party, sent out to learn the lie of the land. Maybe sent to find out if Limbo is worth a bigger investment, or decide that the place is a dead loss and not worth another visit.

“Now, there’s a logic to a scouting expedition, one that I’d suspect is common to all times and all species. First, you need a base of operations. We see that on the image. You also need the aircraft or ground vehicles to make sorties away from base, and you need to have enough of them to stand some losses from accidents or hostile action. That’s what the aircraft are for. And there’s one other must-have. You may be able to live off the land to some extent, but you’ll need bigger transports — call them mother ships if you like — to bring you to your sphere of operations in the first place. Little scoutships won’t be enough for that, and they won’t be able to carry everything you need for weeks or months of operations. That’s what I think the two ovals are. They brought them here to Limbo, through a Link point of their making and under their control. And in our present situation, those mother ships represent our own best shot at a way to go home.”

Korin paused and frowned at the other two. “Now, that’s my thinking. It may be wrong, so feel free to poke holes in it. Ask questions.”

Elke said softly, “If you don’t mind, I’d rather ask about the other part of what you said earlier.”

“Other part.”

“You told us, `we’ll find out soon enough if I’m right.’ What made you say that?”

“No secret there. We can’t sit here until this ship rots around us. I’m organizing a shore party to explore the land—”

“That’s terrific! I’ve been analyzing data from the orbiters, and I’ve been wondering about a thousand other things—”

“ — but you won’t be part of the shore group, Elke.”

“What! I’m not an engineer. I don’t know how to keep things running on the ship. But ashore, I can—”

“No. You have other things to do, and they may be a lot more important than going ashore. You were the one who came up with the idea that we’re lost, not just somewhere in our own universe but somewhere in an infinity of universes. You’re our best shot — I’d say our only shot — at cracking the secrets of the multiverse. I want you focused on that, and the properties of the alien Link. I want to know about other universes that we might be able to reach — are they more or less similar to our own, could humans survive in them. I don’t want you distracted by thoughts of Limbo’s other life-forms, or war games, or shore parties. Understood?”

It was a few moments before Elke turned away and said softly, “Yes, sir. I’ll explore the multiverse, and the Link.”

Dag Korin nodded. Only Tully, sitting so that Elke had been forced to face him when she swiveled around, saw the look of secret joy — and wondered if this was exactly what Elke had wanted all along.