A Darkling Sea (19 page)

“If I remember, you and Gishora said the same before he died. We must assume all of them can and will resort to violence. From now on they must remain in their cabins except when eating. No more science, no more maintenance.”

“Tell me if you think the station can remain habitable without anyone to maintain it.”

“Of course it cannot. Which gives the humans a very good reason to leave.” He nuzzles her, then gives her flank a brisk pat. “Go inform the humans of the new rules. Make it clear to them that I will not tolerate disobedience. Tell them their little holiday with Gishora just ended.”

BROADTAIL is tired and hungry, and is far from Oneclaw’s school compound. He judges it safe to descend to the bottom. He senses another swimmer behind him and nearly turns to fight before remembering it is only Holdhard.

“Are you hungry?”

“Holdhard wants food.”

“You don’t have to use your whole name. We two are alone.”

“I want food.”

“Much better. You sound like a landowner. We search for food on the bottom and share what we find.” He began a gradual dive, aiming for a section of bottom that sounded like angular stone. Perhaps old ruins—a good place to forage. “Share?” She sounds suspicious.

“I give you part of what I find, and you give me part of what you find. Share.”

“Why?”

“Because we are both hungry.”

She is quiet as they drop a couple of cables, then asks, “Why

Broadtail feels his pincers ready for a stab before he carefully folds them. “Which of us is bigger?”

“You are.”

“If we fight over food, who wins?”

“You do,” she says very softly.

“Exactly. If we don’t share, we fight. I don’t want to fight. Sharing means we both get food and nobody gets hurt. We can rest and take turns listening for danger.”

More silence, and then: “Why don’t you want to fight? You’re bigger.”

He waits until they set down on the rocks. No swimmers or bottom- crawlers, but some of the stones have a good thick growth mat. He shows Holdhard how to scrape the growth, and savors the weak flavor for a bit before answering her. “Holdhard, when we fight we can’t do other things. We can’t build, or hunt, or even search for mats like this. When we share, we get more than when we fight. You and I can scour these rocks because we are not fighting. Do you remember visiting a vent settlement? Perhaps as a hatchling?”

“I remember—there are many little ones like me and we are eating wonderful food, but an adult drives us away.”

“Vent farms have all kinds of wonderful food, because the landowner and the apprentices work together and protect the farm against bandits. They build pipes and shelters, and are stronger than all but the biggest bandit gangs. They are rich because they can work instead of fighting. Do you understand?”

“Working makes food?”

“Exactly! Fighting only steals food, but working makes more.”

“You work? You make food?”

“I remember being a landowner and making much food. And I remember fighting, and losing all my wealth. Now I suggest eating and resting before talking.”

They eat until several stones are quite clean, then find separate niches for resting. As he feels himself drifting into unconsciousness, Broadtail briefly worries about Holdhard. Why is she still with him? Does she intend attacking him by surprise in order to steal his things and devour his corpse?

No, he decides. She is too clever for that. In effect, she is his apprentice. It is odd to have an apprentice with no land or flow rights. He has nothing for her to inherit, except what he knows. Very well, then, Holdhard can be his science apprentice. A curious idea, but it puts an end to his fretting and he sinks into sleep.

Broadtail wakes. Someone is tapping his shell. It is Holdhard. He tries to make sense of what she is tapping, then remembers she doesn’t know the dictionary. “What is it?”

“Food!” she says. “Come catch it!”

He follows her downcurrent to a spot where the two of them can hide amid rocks and mud. They listen, and he hears it: a large creature swimming. It must be nearly his own size. It sounds familiar.

Then Broadtail remembers, and his pincers stiffen as if he’s going into battle. This is one of the odd creatures! The sound it makes while swimming is unmistakable.

“Holdhard,” he says quietly. “That is not food. But we must follow it as quietly as we can.”

“It is not good to eat?”

“No. I remember tasting one—the flesh is awful. We do not eat them. However, I do want to learn about it. Come along.”

The two of them follow the four-limbed animal as it swims awkwardly downcurrent. It slows as it reaches a large object. The object is as big as a large house, but sounds like soft mud. It is difficult for Broadtail to get a good impression of its shape or what it is made of.

He can barely contain his excitement. So much to learn! He speaks quietly to Holdhard. “Do you wish to be my apprentice?”

“Yes,” she answers without hesitating.

“Good. Then we begin the task at once. We stay here and listen and take notes. We learn everything about these creatures.”

“What do we eat?”

“Eat? We have rocks to scour. This is more important than food. This is science!”

BROADTAIL listens to the creatures constantly, stopping to eat or rest only when his feelers are so tired he can no longer tie knots in his line to make notes. He cannot remember ever being so happy and excited. Not even his memories of becoming the master of the Sandyslope property can compare with this feeling.

Holdhard comes and goes. She listens with him for a time, then goes off to eat or rest. He shows her how he takes notes, and she is fascinated by how he knots the cord to represent words. But she lacks his patience and prefers not to go hungry. When she finds extra food she leaves him some.

The creatures’ behavior is complex. They have a shelter and seem to be using tools. They do not hunt, or gather food, but now and then go inside their structure and return with what sounds like solid material in what must be a stomach. To Broadtail this suggests that they have a food cache, which in turn implies a high degree of planning and forethought.

The creatures communicate. Of that Broadtail is certain. They call to one another often, although Broadtail finds it odd that the calls are only when there is some obstacle between the communicating pair. At close quarters they are silent. The calls are long and complex, with little or no repetition. They are not sending each other echo-patterns; it is more like long strings of simple tones.

Like a reel of knots, he thinks. They are writing with sound. He makes a note, but his feeding tendrils feel thick and clumsy and he falls asleep still holding the cord.

He wakes with a tremendous hunger. He eats a couple of floaters Holdhard leaves for him. The flesh is pulpy and unsatisfying, but better than nothing. He listens. No activity. Perhaps the creatures are resting. He goes over his last notes; he remembers being too tired to think clearly.

“Sound writing,” is what his last note says. He remembers his thoughts now.

And suddenly, as if his mind has molted and is kicking aside the old shell, he understands. The creatures are intelligent beings. Like adults! They build and plan and speak. They use tools, which they either make themselves or get from others. Which implies an entire society!

Broadtail is thinking so fast his tendrils can barely keep up. His notes are little more than place-markers for his ideas. Where do these things come from? Are there any rec ords of them? What do they eat? How does their anatomy compare with any—

He stops, and his excitement turns to fear. He remembers the captive specimen struggling and making noises during Longpincer’s dissection. Longpincer would not do that to an adult, or even a juvenile.

It is not murder, he thinks. He distinctly remembers capturing the creature near an unclaimed vent. A fair fight. And he remembers the dissection taking place in Longpincer’s house, on Longpincer’s property. All legal. That is reassuring. But dissecting a stranger is still a terrible blunder. They may hold grudges, or demand recompense. Broadtail hopes to persuade Longpincer to apologize to them.

He hears a sound from the shelter and listens. One of the creatures is emerging. A second follows. Sounds of hammering and digging.

What is proper behavior? Broadtail imagines several courses. He can pack up his reels and make for Longpincer’s house. Inform Longpincer and the other scholars—and incidentally establish his own claim to this new discovery.

Or he can go hunt for food, to keep himself from getting hungry as he continues his monitoring. After all, his notes are very rough. A complete monograph requires much more information about the creatures. Holdhard can help.

Or . . . he can approach them. Speak to them. Do they understand the speech of adults? He imagines them vindictive, dissecting him in revenge for the specimen at Longpincer’s, or to protect their property.

He remains undecided. His mind is like a stone held up by the flow of water from a pipe. When he does decide, it is a simple practical matter that determines his course: he has only one empty reel left. He expects it will take a netful of reels—a whole convoy’s cargo of reels!—to record all he wishes to know about the creatures. Getting more means telling Longpincer, and Broadtail discovers that he simply doesn’t want to share the creatures with anyone.

He must approach them. It is the most sensible course.

He rolls up his reel and stows it, then climbs out of the little den he has made among the rocks. Holdhard is sheltered nearby. “Remain here,” he says quietly. “Stay hidden. If you hear fighting, take my reel and flee.”

Broadtail swims toward the creatures’ shelter. He goes slowly and makes no attempt to be quiet. Half a cable away he starts pinging, both to announce himself and to learn as much about the camp as he can in case he must flee a hostile response.

ROB had almost finished getting the heat- exchanger set up when he heard a set of loud, regular sonar clicks. It sounded like a large animal. He flicked on the spotlight and had a look.

Fifty meters away was an Ilmataran, swimming slowly toward him. It was a good- sized adult, festooned with tools and bags of stuff. Its pincers were folded back along its sides. Rob didn’t know if that was a good sign or not.

He controlled his impulse to panic, to flee back to the Coquille—and his second impulse to pull out his utility knife. It didn’t look hostile, and it was alone.

Rob wished someone could tell him how to act. Henri would know what to do. It might be completely wrong, but at least he wouldn’t be standing there like a squirrel in the middle of a driveway watching a car bearing down on it.

Should he call Alicia? If things got ugly he didn’t want her out here. See what the alien wanted, first of all.

Rob took a deep breath, stood up, and turned on his speaker. “Hey!”

The Ilmataran halted in the water about ten meters away.

Well, at least it wasn’t tearing him apart. Yet. Rob took a step toward it. “Hey there, guy,” he said, in the same voice he used to talk to his roommate’s cat back on Earth.

The Ilmataran hovered there a while, then moved forward. Rob and the alien were about six meters apart now. He was closer to an Ilmataran than anyone but Henri had ever been. No stealth suit this time, either. He, Robert Freeman, was making contact with a new intelligent species.

What the hell was he supposed to do? Shake hands? Pat its head? All his training had been about
avoiding
contact, not how to do it. He turned on his helmet camera so that if he did screw up royally, at least posterity could see what not to do.

The alien made a complex sound, like a green twig snapping. Was it talking to him? According to Dickie Graves they communicated by sending each other sonar images.

Could he maybe use his sonar display to decipher the alien speech? The thought was so exciting that for a moment Rob forgot how nervous he was. It would be pretty damned awesome if Rob Freeman was the one who figured out how to communicate with a whole alien civilization.

He told his sonar software to bypass the signal pro cessor and feed the sound straight into the imaging system. That took a few minutes, during which the alien made some more sounds.

“Okay,” said Rob when he was done. “Try talking to me now.” He knew it couldn’t understand him, but maybe his response would encourage the alien.

It said something else, a long sound pattern like a distant volley of gunfire. Rob looked at his sonar display. Gibberish. A screen full of static. Evidently the Ilmatarans didn’t buy their sonar from the same supplier.

Oh, well. It had been a great scientific advance for about five minutes.

They spent half an hour there, standing a couple of meters apart, trying to talk to each other. Rob couldn’t get his sonar software to make sense of the alien’s sound images, and it was absurd to think it could understand English, no matter how loudly and slowly he spoke.

“I give up,” Rob said at last. “I know you want to talk to me, and I want to talk to you, but we just can’t. I’m sorry.”

Maybe the Ilmataran had reached the same conclusion, for it was silent for a good five minutes. Then it spoke again, but this time it sounded very different. It wasn’t making sonar echo- patterns, it was just making simple clicks. It sounded like a telegraph—click-click-click-click, pause,click-click-click-click- click-click-click, pause, more clicks.

Morse code? Numbers?

Rob took a screwdriver from his tool belt and began tapping it gently against the wrench. Start simple: one tap, pause, one tap, pause, two taps. One plus one equals two. Then he tried two taps, two taps, four taps. Was he getting through?

The alien surged forward until its head was almost touching Rob’s knee. He had to force himself not to flee, and one hand went to the utility knife on his thigh.

It clicked loudly once, then waited. For what? It clicked again. Rob tried tapping his tools together once.

It raised its head then, grabbing for his arm with one of its big praying-mantis pincers, and for a moment Rob thought sure he was going to wind up like Henri. But it put his hand to its head and clicked once.

Rob tapped the wrench once, then patted the Ilmataran’s head. “Okay, so does one click mean you, or your head, or touch me, or what?”

He tried an experiment. He took its pincer and very gently moved it to touch his own chest, then tapped once. But the creature didn’t respond.

BROADTAIL ponders. What is he to call this creature? There is certainly no number for it in any lexicon. He shall have to give it a name. Something simple. He taps out sixteen: two short scratches, four taps.

This results in silence. Does it not understand? Or is it offended? Broadtail certainly means no insult. The name Builder is appropriate: the creature builds things. Until he knows more about it, that seems the most accurate thing to call it.

Standing this close to the thing, Broadtail learns much about it. He hears a single heart pumping loudly within it. Sometimes it seems to beat more loudly than other times; possibly part of its digestive process? But the creature’s stomach is nearly empty. There is a constant series of clicks and buzzes coming from the back hump, and the creature releases bubbles into the water in a regular cycle that seems to be connected to the noise somehow. He has so many questions! It is extremely frustrating to be limited to simple words.

They are interrupted by a second creature that emerges from the structure. It is similar in size and body plan to Builder, though when Broadtail pings it he can discern some minor variation in its internal organs. Without more of them to study, Broadtail can’t tell which differences are significant and which are simply individual variation. It approaches noisily, then halts about four body-lengths away and calls out to the other one. They exchange calls and the second creature approaches slowly. Its heart is also beating very loudly. The two exchange more calls, then the creature he calls Builder guides Broadtail’s pincer to touch the second being’s body.

WHEN they finally went back inside the shelter, Rob and Alicia were both exhausted. They’d been up for about twenty hours, and neither had eaten since lunch. They tore into some food bars and each had a bowl of the food-bar soup.

Rob peeled off his damp suit liner and got into the slightly less clammy one he kept for sleeping, then the two of them cuddled up inside one sleeping bag in his hammock.

Neither one could sleep at first. They were both too excited. Alicia had to keep unzipping the bag to get her computer and make notes. “This is magnificent!” she kept saying.

“You handled it very well, Robert. We have established peaceful contact with the species.”

“Well, with one of them. We don’t know if he speaks for anyone else.”

“Do you think it came here looking for us, or was it an accident?”

“That’s a good question. He—”

“Why do you assume it is male?”

“I don’t know. There’s no real difference between the sexes anyway. I guess now that we’ve been introduced I feel kind of weird calling it ’it.’ Do you want me to start saying ’her’ instead?”

“No, but I will tease you without mercy if it does turn out to be female.”

“I’ll risk it. So what do we do tomorrow? More trying to learn the language?”

“Yes. I want to find some of Dr. Graves’s notes and try to develop a way to do real-time translations.”

The silences between statements were getting longer as they warmed up and began to relax. “I guess you want to handle that?” Rob asked her.

“I will need you as well. I am no communication expert, and you have spent more time speaking with the Ilmataran than anyone.”

Rob was about to ask if she thought the Ilmataran could really afford to rent an apartment in Houston without credit cards, but then he realized he was dreaming and let himself fall completely asleep.

BROADTAIL is trying yet again to communicate with the Builder creatures. It is maddeningly difficult—much more so than teaching children. Children can at least speak. This is like teaching the dictionary to someone born deaf. He remembers reading about a case like that at the Big Spring community. Yet the Builders can hear, he is certain of that. They just don’t hear speech.

When he places an object in their hands and taps out its number, the creatures can remember perfectly. But whenever Broadtail attempts to teach them something more complex, they just cannot grasp the meaning. The misunderstandings are almost comical. He remembers using his pincers to demonstrate “upcurrent” and “downcurrent,” only to have the Builders reply with the number for “pincer.” He can’t even say “yes” or “no” to them!

Broadtail can hear it also: a sound like water rushing through a pipe, and a chorus of loud hums, and the echo of something big moving through the water. It’s about ten cables away, closing in swiftly.

It’s so big and noisy Broadtail doesn’t need to ping it to get a clear idea of its form. It is shaped like an adult, but vastly larger—nearly the size of the shelter. Like the shelter, it sounds as if it is covered in soft mud. It moves toward them at a steady speed. Holdhard fidgets but does not leave. Broadtail remains where he is, waiting to learn how the Builders react to this new threat.

The two upright creatures do not hide. They have turned to face the thing and are waving their upper limbs. Broadtail cannot tell if that is a threat or a sign of panic. The thing slows and drops toward the sea bottom.

“I think that large creature is tame,” he says to Holdhard. “Much like a towfin or a scourer. Listen: it is slowing as it approaches. A hunter would speed up. If I am wrong, take my notes to Longpincer at the Bitterwater vent.”

The hums get deeper before stopping, and the thing comes to a halt just next to the shelter. Two more of the creatures emerge from beneath the thing. One is about the same size as Builder 1, the second is larger and carries more tools. The four Builders float together, then turn and move toward Broadtail. The huge beast remains absolutely still and quiet behind them.

The beast disturbs Broadtail. How can it eat? The water around the ruins is too cold to support such a large animal. Nor is there a stockpile of food for it.

Then he wonders: is it a beast at all? Now that it is not moving it is completely inert. He can hear no motion, not even the fidgeting of a tethered beast. It resembles a shelter more than any living thing. Within its shell he can hear nothing.

But it is a shelter that can move. How? The upright creatures do not push it as they swim; it would take a vast number of adults to shove something that big.