Текст книги "Over a Torrent Sea "

Автор книги: Christopher Bennett

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But Aili soon discerned that even Alos and Gasa were as much on edge as the rest of the squales. If anything, they seemed to find her presence comforting, for she was the one being they knew who wasn’t suffering from the general anxiety. When she asked them what was troubling the squales, their answer was confusing: the Song, they said, was out of tune. Or so she interpreted it. Alos and Gasa tried to explain the concept, but it was difficult for them to communicate some of the ideas they apparently took for granted.

So they took the matter to their respective pods’ dominant males, essentially the lead scientists. Aili dubbed the leader of the astronomy pod Melo, after Melora Pazlar, while the leader of the animal-management pod got the nickname Cham, after the ecologist Chamish. The two of them discussed the issue and decided to call in more specialists. Periodically, pods of squales would aggregate into temporary superpods of hundreds of members for feeding or mating purposes. When the combined contact pod (as Aili began to think of it) drifted near an area rich in piscoids and joined with other pods for the feeding frenzy, the members of the contact pod persuaded an elder hermaphrodite—apparently a spiritual leader of sorts—to break away from her pod for a time and give Aili some spiritual instruction.

According to Alos and Gasa, there was a fair amount of tension during the frenzy, with many in the other pods seeing the offworlders as a threat and wanting them dealt with aggressively. A couple of members of the defender pod had even defected to other pods, persuaded by their arguments. Some of those in Cham’s pod had come close, the young ones told her; since they were closely attuned to the animal life of Droplet, they were deeply troubled by the distress of their fellow creatures. Cham, being a stolid and conservative sort who disliked divergence from the proper order of things, had been unhappy with the idea of their defection, but could not really disagree with their reasons. But Melo and his astronomers had taken the offworlders’ side. Melo was elderly, but that had not made him hide-bound; if anything, a lifetime of studying a purely abstract science had made him something of a dreamer. He and his like-minded podmates were enthralled by the discovery of life from beyond the sky and had sung eloquently of the great insights they might be able to gain from them. This had brought around the potential defectors from Cham’s pod, and it had also persuaded the Matron, as Aili dubbed the spiritual leader, to come meet Aili and discuss squale beliefs with her.

“They believe in something called the Song of Life,” she explained to Riker once she’d sorted out the Matron’s lessons to her own satisfaction. As usual, he was seated at the shoreline of the floater, with her lying on her side in the shallows just beyond. “Everything is song to them. They sing to the world, and it sings back to them. The song and its reflections define the world, make it real, give it form and substance.”

“Echolocation,” Riker interpreted. “They perceive their world by sending out sonic pulses and listening to the echoes.”

She nodded. “To them, that’s just part of the greater Song. They sing to find food. They sing to find other squales to sing with, to mate with, to make new squales. They sing, and other species listen and obey.

“Even the universe is a song to them. As they see it, there’s the World Below, the World Between, and the World Above. That’s the hypersaline depths, the regular ocean, and the air. And they’re all overtones of a deeper fundamental, the core of the world.”

She smiled as she tried to recapture the beauty with which the Matron had sung it to her. The World Between was the physical realm, the world of waking; the World Above was the realm beyond the physical, the world of sleep. Squales would regularly visit the World Above through sleep, sustaining their spirits as the air sustained their bodies. In squale as in English, “spirit” was kin to “respiration.” However, no squale could remember one’s sojourn Above upon waking. At most, one remembered dreams, which were distorted reflections of the waking world, like the rippling reflections the surface of the sea cast back below. Like Selkies, they slept with only half the brain at a time, retaining enough awareness to respond to threats; so in their dream state they straddled the World Between and the World Above, just as they did when they swam at the surface.

But just as the motions of the surface told of the weather above, so the nature of one’s dreams bespoke the conditions in the World Above, providing spiritual guidance—with plenty of room for interpretation, of course. A large percentage of deep sound channel communication was devoted to oneirocriticism, as the meanings of squale dreams were debated back and forth. There was no dogma in squale beliefs; they enjoyed a good argument too much.

As for the World Below, that was the realm of death, where all living things sank eventually, inexorably. But they did not believe the spirit belonged there; its nature, when freed from the flesh, was to rise into the World Above, as gases escaped from a decaying body and bubbled upward as the body sank below.

“But the World Below is alive to them too, somehow,” she said. “It’s part of the Song, a deeper level than ours—theirs. Somehow it’s more…real. I guess because the Song is what creates reality, to them.”

“In the Beginning was the Word,” Riker said. “And the Word became flesh.”

“Sir?”

“The Bible, from Earth. The Gospel of Saint John. The term he actually used was Lógos—a pretty remarkable Ancient Greek word. It means not just a word, but the concept underlying it, the act of reasoning itself…maybe a few other things besides. In the beginning was Lógos, and Lógoswas the Creator, and the act of creation, of all things.”

Lavena smiled. She’d always been impressed by Rik er’s eclectic knowledge, the product of his insatiable curiosity. “Squale beliefs are a lot like that,” she agreed. “But there’s something more I’m still not getting. The squales…somehow they don’t see themselves as creating the Song, but participating in it. It comes from inside them, but outside them too. Maybe it’s more fundamentals and harmonics, the same thing having multiple layers.”

She smiled in recollection. “Even the way the Matron sang it to me was layered. She took me down to the ri’Hoyalina—the deep sound channel. The sea’s stabilized enough since the impact that the channel’s mostly working again. She let me listen in to the global dialogue, and made her song harmonize with its shifting melodies and echoes. I think she was using the channel’s ambience as an analogy for the Song. The greater melody that they’re all part of.”

Riker had perked up when she mentioned the long-range acoustic channel. “Did you listen for calls from Titanwhile you were there?” They had both concluded that the crew would use hydrophones in the DSC to listen for Lavena’s calls. On this world, with its sensor interference and vast stretches of empty ocean, the channel was the best way to search over large areas.

She nodded. “They even let me call out to them. But I think it was because they knew somehow I’d get no answer. As if Titan…” She couldn’t finish the thought.

“You were saying?” Riker prompted. “About the Song and why they’re agitated?”

“Yes, sir. What they’re telling me is that the asteroid strike…it’s disrupted the Song somehow. Not just their communication channel, but the deeper Song that emanates from the World Below. Its…timbre has been altered. Discord has been added. And that’s throwing the world out of joint.”

Riker furrowed his brow. “They think that’s why the Dropletian life is getting so agitated? That there’s some kind of annoying sound putting them on edge?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “At least, I don’t think so, sir. It’s more like the squales think of themselves and the other species as parts of the sound…as living notes that are being played wrong.”

He was silent for a while, absorbing her words. “But how could the asteroid strike be affecting them? Asteroids hit this planet all the time.” He fidgeted, shifting his weight. “Maybe they’re just on edge because we’re here. Something strange and alien comes to their world, and then an asteroid hits…it’s making them afraid of what might happen next. And so they imagine the Song is out of tune.”

“But that doesn’t explain the other animals reacting the same way.”

“Are they really? Or does it just seem that way to the squales who are already on the alert for trouble?”

“But the attacks—”

“Aili, you were attacked twice in your first week here.”

She conceded the point with a tilt of her head. “Hmm…I suppose the asteroid dust settling in the water is changing the salinity, affecting the circulation…shifting the nutrient balance. Even the DSC still has some areas that don’t have service restored yet, so to speak. So the normal cycles of the ocean are out of joint in a lot of ways. That could be what’s disorienting the animals, putting them on edge.” She leaned back and stretched, and Riker felt the need to look off at the horizon for a moment. “But try telling them that. Even some of the squales in Cham’s pod, and most of the defender squales, are still convinced we caused it all by coming here, that we threw off their Song with our discordant alienness. Some of them are genuinely curious to learn about us, especially the astronomers. But a lot of the pod members are studying us because they hope it will reveal what we’ve done to their world and what they can do to fix it. And it sounds like a lot of squales around the world agree that we’re the problem.”

“But it didn’t begin until the asteroid struck.”

“Which happened less than two weeks after we arrived. They don’t believe in coincidences. In music, everything’s interrelated.” She leaned forward again. “And remember, sir, they have aerial probe creatures bred for astronomical observation—and they’re better at it than we imagined. They were actually able to detect Titaninteracting with the asteroid before it hit.” She shook her head. “To many of the squales, that’s proof positive. I’m having a hard time changing their minds. I think Alos and Gasa believe me, but they’re just apprentices and they also want to trust their mentors.”

“You’re doing the best you can, Aili,” Riker told her with a gentle smile. “I have every confidence in you.”

“Thank you, sir.” His approval warmed her. Yawning, he rose, excused himself, and wandered up to the bed of mosses he’d made to take a nap—something he was doing a lot lately, with little else to occupy him.

But Aili occupied herself by enjoying the view as he walked away. His body really hadn’t changed that much in twenty-two years—not as slender as before, perhaps, but then neither was she, having developed a thicker layer of body fat for insulation once she’d gone fully aquatic. Yes, he was her captain, and he was married. But she’d been alone on this planet for days now and she had appetites that were going unslaked. So she saw no harm in indulging in a private fantasy now and then.

Besides, we may be here for a while,she found herself thinking. What ifTitan never comes back? What if Will and I have to live out our lives here?She contemplated him as he lay down to sleep. Would that really be so bad?

For him, maybe. She knew he’d miss his wife and daughter terribly, not to mention his career and his ship. But he was an adaptable man. And as for herself, Aili realized that there was little she would miss. Even confined by the squales, she felt more at home here, more free and vital, than she ever had in her life. She already thought of Alos and Gasa as friends, and she believed she could win the other squales over in time. They were dangerous when they had to be, but she felt they were a noble people, gregarious, inquisitive, wise, even quite beautiful. And all they knew of her was what she showed them here, with none of the stink she carried in the oceans of her homeworld. She could have a fresh start here, without having to seal herself inside a skintight prison surrounded by searing air. So she had to admit, although there were members of Titan’s crew she would miss, she would not be unhappy to live out her life on Droplet.

And if Will Riker had to live it out with me? Well, a girl has needs. And he would certainly need someone to comfort him.

She spent a pleasant hour imagining the details of that comfort. It was just a fantasy, of course. But Aili knew there was a chance it could become reality, and she could live with that.

TITAN

It was Eviku who finally figured out what was driving the life forms of Droplet to their increasingly erratic, aggressive behavior. “I realized that I felt a similar anxiety myself when I was on the planet,” he told Vale and the others gathered in the conference room. “At first I assumed it was because of my…well, my fears for the captain and Ensign Lavena. But then I realized that there was a direct correlation between how close I was to Droplet and how anxious I felt. And it struck me that Arkenites have something in common with Dropletian life forms.”

“Your magnetic sensitivity,” Vale realized, her eyes going to the black magnetic headdress he wore to maintain his equilibrium.

“Yes. We had assumed the Dropletian animals’ magnetic sense was used primarily for navigation. But what if it has some influence over their behavior as well?” He went to the viewscreen and pulled up a cross-section graphic of Droplet and its magnetic field. “According to our readings, the planetary magnetic field has been subtly altered since the impact. This is because the field has two sources. In addition to the core dynamo that creates the field, the hypersaline layer at the base of the ocean generates a saltwater dynamo effect that enhances and modulates the field. The interaction of the two dynamos creates an oscillation of sorts, a regular fluctuation like a, well, a sort of heartbeat for the planet.”

“Or a musical beat,” Ra-Havreii said. “From what we know of the squales, they perceive the world in very musical terms.”

Vale’s eyes widened. “So they could be constantly aware of this magnetic pulsing in their heads? Like a…a rhythm track for their lives?”

“More than just a rhythm,” Eviku said. “The way the field patterns fluctuate as the saltwater dynamo undergoes convection, thermal changes, and so forth produces modulations and variations on top of the basic rhythm.”

“Like modulations in pitch, variations in intensity and duration,” Ra-Havreii added, smiling now. “A perpetual song underlying their whole existence—a song without sound.”

And I get annoyed enough having a song stuck in my head for more than a day or two,Vale thought. But then, if she’d lived her whole life with a song in her head, she’d probably take it for granted.

“Incidentally,” Eviku went on, “we now think that’s why the squales have been so reluctant to come near our technology. It wasn’t just fear of the unknown; the EM fields emitted by our vessels and devices may have been causing them discomfort. Or perhaps simply drowning out the song.”

“I have a team working with Life Sciences on finding a way to damp their emissions,” Ra-Havreii said.

Eviku called up graphics of the field parameters in the wake of the impact event. “But the song appears to have changed recently. It’s all those exotic dissolved minerals and dust sinking down to the hypersaline layer. Minerals that still carry a substantial residual charge of energy from our attacks on the asteroid.”

“And not just the solar or kinetic energy these compounds usually absorb,” Pazlar elaborated. “Nadion energy from the phasers, gravitons from the tractor beams, thoron and subspace radiation from the quantum torpedoes, gamma, x-and m-rays from the antimatter blast. It’s a potent cocktail. And as more and more of those energized remnants descend into the dynamo layer, their exotic emissions disrupt the magnetic field.”

Vale frowned. “So…the planet is singing off-key?”

“In a sense,” Eviku said. “It creates a dissonance. Imagine if you had to listen to music whose pitch had been flattened and whose timbre was turned into a high-pitched whine. With periodic bursts of noise as pockets of asteroid debris discharge.”

Oh my God, they’re listening to bagpipes.“So the chaos down there…it’s our fault. If we’d just left well enough alone…” She exchanged a look with Keru.

But he would have none of it. He met her gaze evenly and asked, “So what can we do to fix it?”

Pazlar went on as Eviku resumed his seat. “First we need to evaluate the condition of the dynamo layer in more detail. Our scans from up here just don’t get enough resolution.”

Vale stared. “From up here? You mean we need to dive down there.” The Elaysian nodded. “Melora, the pressure’s over a hundred thousand atmospheres! We don’t have anything that can withstand that.”

“Don’t we?” Keru asked. “Remember that ocean in space Tuvok told us about, the one Voyagerencountered? As I recall, their Delta Flyerdove down a good six hundred kilometers. This ocean’s only ninety.”

“The pressure in the Monean ocean was relatively low,” Pazlar said, “or else most of it would’ve been allotropic ice like Droplet’s mantle. Its core generators gave off just enough gravity to hold the sphere together, not so much that the pressure would crush the generators themselves. The Moneans relied on artificial gravity in their ships and habitats.” She turned to Vale. “And even despite that, with pressures of onlya few thousand atmospheres, the Delta Flyer’s shields could barely withstand the pressure differential. And they had it easy. The kind of energies that are at play down inside Droplet could disrupt any shuttle’s shields and integrity systems.”

Vale threw her a glare. “So you’re telling me that the thing we have to do can’t be done.”

Pazlar’s brow ridges shot up defensively. “I’m working the problem, okay?”

Ra-Havreii leaned forward. “The key is differential. The external pressure is less of a problem if the internal pressure is as high as possible.”

“Right,” Pazlar said without meeting his eyes. “The higher the pressure we can achieve inside the craft, the less field energy we’ll need to counteract the rest. It’s the same principle that’s been used by deep-sea divers for centuries.”

“But wouldn’t the pressure eventually get high enough to crush their lungs, no matter how high the air pressure is?” Vale asked.

“There’s precedent from pre-force-field days—divers immersing themselves in an oxygenated fluid. It let them dive much deeper.”

“I’m sorry, no.” It was Doctor Onnta, representing medical in Ree’s absence. The Balosneean leaned forward and shook his golden-skinned, downy-feathered head. “That would only work up to a thousand atmospheres or so. At that point, humanoid enzymatic processes begin to break down. Increase that to tens of thousands of atmospheres, and cellular lysis occurs—the cell walls themselves burst under the pressure. None of us could survive that.”

Vale looked back to Pazlar. “Would a thousand atmospheres internally be enough?” she asked, knowing the answer.

“Not even close,” Pazlar confirmed.

“So if we get the internal pressure high enough to protect the diving vessel, anyone inside it would be turned to jelly.” She sighed. “Can we rig a remote probe?”

“Too much interference. We couldn’t control it or guarantee it would function at all.”

“So do we have anyoptions?”

The Elaysian paused before answering. “There’s one. I hesitate to bring it up because it’s not a sure thing, and it would put one of my people at risk.” Vale just waited until she went on. “But we do have one person aboard who evolved in a high-pressure environment.”

“I should clarify,”Se’al Cethente Qas said to its senior science officer and first officer, “that Syr’s surface pressure is less than two hundred standard atmospheres. You are speaking of a pressure nearly a thousand times greater.”

“But Syrath biology isn’t as affected by pressure as ours,” Melora Pazlar told it. “And even most humanoids can survive a pressure a thousand times normal, with sufficient preparations and time to acclimate.”

“Simulations show your life processes should not be critically affected by the pressures believed to exist in the upper range of the hypersaline layer,” Doctor Onnta said.

“Believed to exist?”Cethente replied. But it was more amused than alarmed. Pazlar and Onnta were right; unlike the fragile protein-based chemistry on which their bodies depended, Syrath anatomy was far more robust, based upon piezoelectric crystal “cells” in a liquid silicate solvent, with genetic information encoded structurally in chains of dislocation loops and electrically in stored potentials, rather than chemically in nucleic acids.

“I know we’re asking you to take a chance, Cethente,” Vale said. “And I know it’s somewhat outside your area of expertise. I could order you to do it; in fact, I probably will if I have to, because it’s the only way to fix this mess. But you deserve to have a chance to volunteer.”

The astrophysicist pondered the decision carefully. It was incapable of the fear that the humanoids probably assumed it was feeling. Syrath were hard to damage and nearly impossible to kill—permanently, anyway. It wasn’t something they revealed to other races without need, not wishing to earn their envy. They might not have been physically indestructible, but their neural information was encoded in the same ways as their genetic information and distributed just as widely through the body; indeed, they were both facets of the same thing. Any sizeable intact part of a Syrath’s body, even if “dead” for weeks, could regenerate in the proper growth medium into a new Syrath with the same basic personality template. True, many memories would be lost, even most if the surviving portion were small enough; but Syrath saw that as a way of getting a fresh start, sparing themselves the tedious sameness of immortality. So while they weren’t reckless with their lives, preferring to avoid the inconvenience of dying, the Syrath had simply never evolved the capacity for mortal fear.

Still, Cethente recognized there was cause for concern here. It could survive most anything, but if the diving vessel Ra-Havreii’s engineers were designing failed, Cethente could be trapped in the ocean depths forever. Its body might be crushed if it sank to where the pressures were sufficiently deep, or it might simply be buried slowly, encased in the hot allotropic ice of the planet’s mantle. Either way, Cethente would be risking a death far more permanent than any of its previous three—and probably far more prolonged and unpleasant, though it could only remember the two less severe ones.

Of course, there was an option, though it would come as something of a shock to the others. It only needed to have a portion of its physical structure survive and be returned home in stasis, and the essence of Se’al Cethente would survive in a new form, and with a new thirdname. It would lack most of its memories of Titanand its discoveries, which would be a grave loss; but at least part of Cethente would live on.

“Tell me, Doctor Onnta,”Cethente chimed before making its final decision, “how easy would it be for you to reattach my legs if I had them removed…?”

CHAPTER T

WELVE

DROPLET

It had begun to rain the day before, a matter of some discomfort for Riker, who had insufficient means to build a shelter. Aili felt somewhat guilty about being unaffected by the downpour, aside from being able to enjoy the soothing sound of the rainfall and a slightly less saline flavor to the water—though the rain brought a faint metallic tang all its own, for it was still precipitating asteroidal debris out of the atmosphere. Aili was also concerned that if the rain kept falling and diluting the water at the surface, Riker’s floater islet would lose some of its buoyancy and subside a little, leaving him more vulnerable to the high swells being kicked up by the growing wind—swells that often drenched much of the floater’s land surface despite the way it bobbed with them.

It would have been a matter of enough concern had Riker been at his peak, but he had been growing increasingly weak over the past few days. “It’s this mineral-poor ecosystem,” Riker had deduced once his weakness had become impossible to deny. “I’m not getting enough iron, calcium, you name it. And it didn’t help that I was injured, lost a lot of blood. The squales couldn’t give me enough of what I needed to recover, even with whatever miraculous biotech they used.”

Lavena looked skyward. “What about the asteroid dust in the rain?”

Riker threw an ironic glance toward the clouds. “That might help a bit, but it’s got too muchheavy metal to be good for me. Although the malnutrition will probably get me long before the metal poisoning does. Unless we get back to Titan.”

Aili felt guilty again. As natives of a pelagic world, Selkies had evolved to get by with a less mineral-rich diet than humans, so she was less affected than Riker. Still, she would suffer nutritional deficiencies as well if she had to stay here long enough.

But the immediate concern now was the weather, and she went to the squales to ask if anything could be done for Riker. As it happened, the squales already had plans to move them, because the weather problem was more severe than she had realized.

Riker’s eyes widened when she relayed the news. “The hurricane? Thehurricane?”

She nodded. “Spot, in all its glory. We’re drifting into its fringes.”

“Please tell me there’s a way to navigate this island,” he said. “Or have it towed.”

“Actually, you can say good-bye to the island, sir. We’re being relocated. I asked if they could arrange for better accommodations, but right now they’re pretty insistent about just getting us out of here.”

Riker looked around the tiny speck he inhabited with no trace of nostalgia in his eyes. “How do they plan to do that?”

But soon enough, the answer presented itself. An object of some sort became visible in the distance, drawing toward them as though being towed. Once it came close enough, it became evident that it was a flat, disklike creature with a tall stem of some sort rising from the center, almost like a raft of some kind. Cham, Gasa, and some of their podmates were accompanying it, towing it into range. Cham sang to her that it had been obtained from another pod—he called them “life-makers”—through some kind of trade she did not understand (and that Cham seemed less than happy with—or maybe he was just offended at having his talents wasted on shepherding such an unintelligent tool-creature). Aili swam out to investigate, singing thanks to them, and clambered onto it to test its stability. It held her weight easily. It was flexible and bouncy like a waterbed, and made of a soft membranous material. She could barely keep her footing, and hastily knelt on the surprisingly warm surface. She examined the vaguely translucent membrane visually and probed it with her hands, and realized she was sitting on a large inflated organism, reminiscent of one of the gas jellies that were common on this world, but with a tougher skin and no sign of any stings, at least on top.

Aili dove back into the water to replenish her oxygen and examine the creature’s underside. Indeed, there were no stings or tendrils, to her relief. There didn’t even seem to be any means of propulsion—just a keel-like protrusion along the bottom. But that mastlike growth on top made her wonder.

Riker was in no condition to tarry, so she helped him over to the raft. His grass thong, grown sodden and rotted from the rain, fell apart before he reached the raft, leaving him with no protection once he climbed onto it. Squeezing his eyes shut, trying to stay calm, Riker asked, “Now what?”

“I think it’s a sailboat,” Aili told him. “On Pacifica there are some jellies that have sails of sorts, letting them travel by wind. I think Earth has similar creatures.”

Gasa swam over to her and guided her around the sail-jelly, showing her a set of loops that she soon discerned were a harness, allowing her to ride the craft with her gill-crests mostly immersed but her head above water to speak to Riker. Once she was in place, another squale—one she didn’t recognize, perhaps a visitor from the “life-maker” pod—emitted a clear, precise sound. Immediately, the sail began to unfurl, and in moments it was pulled fully taut and catching the wind. The sail-jelly began to move under the wind’s impetus, and in moments another squale call came and the sail moved, adjusting its angle, altering the creature’s course. “The damn thing’s domesticated,” Riker murmured.

“More than that,” Aili said. “I think they designed it for us. I can’t figure why else it would have these loops for me.”

“In just a couple of days? How is that possible?”

Aili asked Gasa and the new visitor, but all they would tell her was, “Later.”But there was an overtone of uncer tainty, as though her young friends were unsure their elders would let the offworlders in on the secret.

So there was nothing to do but lie back and enjoy the ride. Riker sighed. “What is it with us and jellyfish vessels?” he wondered.

“It is threatening to become a trend,” Aili replied, chuckling.

But Riker couldn’t sustain good humor for long. Although the sail-jelly was tacking away from the hurricane, they were still being steadily rained on. Riker pressed himself against the jelly’s surface, getting what warmth he could from it, but he was shivering before long. After a moment’s deliberation, Aili climbed up onto the raft alongside him. “Sir…let me.” She lay down behind him and spooned her body against his, sharing her warmth.

“Ensign,” he replied through chattering teeth, “this is not appropriate.”

“Letting my captain freeze to death isn’t appropriate.”

“You’ll suffocate.”

“The rain will keep my gills wet. At least for a while.”

“No. Really, I can’t.”

“Please, Will,” she said, using his given name in an attempt to reassure him. “Just relax. It’s nothing to be afraid of.” She slid her arms around him, pressing herself closer to share her warmth. “We’ve been a lot more intimate than this before.”