Splendor's Truth by Dave Creek

Rescue seems such a clear example of a Good Deed—unless rescuer and rescuee can't agree on what it means!

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One

This could be my biggest mistake ever, Earth Unity Ambassador Chanda Kasmira thought as the starcraft Nivara II boosted from the planet Splendor. She sat to the right of the ship's captain, Trenton Bram. “Any more information about that craft?”

Bram said, “No word on whether it's Sobrenian.” The unknown vessel was still only a starlike image on the passive sensor viewscreen. Bram addressed his pilot, Ensign Liana Santos. “Got that stardrive microjump ready?”

“Yes, sir. It'll bring us within 100 K, parallel to the craft's path.”

“Transmit the settings to the Nigel Harding and the Falcon.” Those were the two Unity craft that accompanied the Nivara II. Bram had ordered the fourth, the Angra, to remain in planetary orbit to sound the alarm if needed.

“They have them,” Santos said.

“Initiate.”

On the forward viewscreen: a kaleidoscopic swirl of color as old-space (already existing, “natural” space) before them was annihilated and new-space formed behind them. This local distortion propelled them within minutes toward an area just over eight million K out from Splendor.

As natural space snapped back onto the viewscreen, Chanda looked past the images of the Harding and Falcon and got her first look at the unknown starcraft. She drew in a slow breath. “That's ... an incredible ship.” The holo before her was just beginning to read out the starcraft's vital stats: 3 K long,.7 across at its widest point, but “only” 1.5 K in height. Shields firmly in place, weaponry unknown, some shroud capability up and preventing Nivara II's sensors from registering more detail, and on and on, and none of it as compelling as the simple fact of the starcraft itself.

Its main fuselage was a long cylinder with what looked like giant engine nacelles slung beneath. Running closely along the top of the craft was a finlike projection, thick at the stern and narrowing to a point by the time it reached the bow. Its tip pointed forward, as an outstretched finger or a probing claw might. Bold strokes of yellow, maroon, and gold decorated the craft's hull.

Santos said, “We've matched trajectories. We're just over ninety-nine K removed from the craft. It's about twenty-seven light-minutes out from Splendor, coming in at just over eight thousand K per second.”

Chanda squinted to do the math. “If they don't change velocity, they'll reach the planet in about eighteen hours.”

Bram told Chanda, “Let's see if they'll talk to you.”

Chanda nodded, opened a link, and said, “This is Earth Unity Ambassador Chanda Kasmira, calling the unknown starcraft which has entered the Splendor system. Please identify yourselves and the nature of your mission.”

In return came audio clearly in the Sobrenian language, which Chanda's datalink dutifully translated for her: "... appears that I am always making an exception to not-in-person for you, Ambassador."

Chanda leaned forward. She realized who was speaking to her. Domerlan was a Sobrenian commander who usually insisted that all communications with him must be in person, and on his starcraft, the Melareon. By the time Domerlan's people had backed down from their plans to use Splendor as a weapons-testing site, Chanda had caused Domerlan to make several exceptions to his policy.

But what was happening now? This craft was clearly not the Melareon. It might not even be Sobrenian. “Captain Domerlan? May I ask what your intentions might be?”

“My intentions, Ambassador, are to heal from severe injuries, and to assist this hospital craft in finding a safe harbor.” As the Sobrenian spoke, Chanda recalled the time Domerlan had stood proudly before her aboard his ship. His torso was three times the thickness of a Human's and his skin was rough but unscaled. The Sobrenian's eyes swung independently in their sockets and his blunt snout's lips formed his words precisely.

Domerlan continued: “This craft's propulsion and life-support systems have suffered extreme damage. We cannot remain in space. Fortunately, I was aware of Splendor's suitability for an attempted landing.”

Chanda watched as Bram shook his head as if to say, Don't trust him. “Captain Domerlan,” Chanda asked, “What happened to the Melareon? How severe are your injuries, and is anyone else hurt? Was this the result of a natural disaster or an armed conflict? And is this craft of Sobrenian origin?”

Domerlan said, “You have ... many questions. The Melareon is destroyed. My injuries threaten my continued existence. While I remain alive and conscious, however, I command this hospital starcraft. We intend to land upon Splendor's surface.”

Chanda said, “I must ask you to pick an unpopulated area, Commander.”

“Cannot you anticipate my response, Ambassador? It will be the same as it was during my disruptor testing.”

“I'll get back with you,” she said, and cut the link. She looked at Captain Bram. “We've got less than eighteen hours.”

* * *

The Nivara II and its crew had examined the giant hospital starcraft bearing down on Splendor for nearly sixteen hours straight. Neither visual inspections nor detailed sensor sweeps had uncovered anything threatening about the craft. They did confirm the craft didn't have enough thruster power or gravitic energies left to keep from crashing into Splendor.

Chanda tapped her fingers absently on her chair arm. She called up a small holo of the planet—all blue waters, icy glare, and white clouds, with just a hint of a green band across the equatorial land areas. Most of Splendor's western hemisphere was taken up with the gigantic body of water Humans had named the Great Sea. It was beautiful, and easy to forget that the gas nebula from a ten-thousand-year-old supernova would wipe out all life on the planet in just over nine decades.

Bram stared at the rotating image. “We've looked at the hospital starcraft's trajectory. It's been adjusting slightly to make an aerobraking re-entry over the equator, in the same direction as Splendor's rotation.”

Chanda said, “Makes sense—reduce the relative speed of impact.”

“But the equator's less densely populated. Too warm for the highlanders, but perfectly suited for the valley dwellers.” The valley dwellers were one of two intelligent species on Splendor. They lived within volcanically heated valleys and were proficient in crafting metal tools and weapons. The other Splendorian species, the highlanders, traded furs for valley dweller tools.

Bram rubbed his dark beard and looked troubled. “What if a Sobrenian ground force comes pouring out of that ship after it lands?”

Chanda's brow furrowed. “You're not suggesting we just stand aside while that starcraft crashes into the planet?”

Bram said, “It may be the best thing for Splendor.”

“And if it's not Sobrenian? If it belongs to another species? What does that species think about Humanity then?”

Chanda saw Bram's gaze drop from the viewscreen to the Splendor holo and hold there. Chanda knew her best bet was not to say anything for a moment. Finally Bram nodded, apparently to himself. “Let's keep trying to get hold of Domerlan.”

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Two

Chanda was leaning forward at her bridge position next to Bram. She clenched her hands so tightly her wrists hurt. She forced them to relax as the comm sounded: “This is Commander Domerlan. We demand your assistance.”

Chanda said, “Captain Domerlan, we were concerned—”

“Ambassador Kasmira, I have been the subject of surgical procedures until moments ago. This craft requires constant updating and confirmation of its position, and assistance in maintaining a stable trajectory safely onto the surface. We will require food, shelter, and medical attention once on the surface.”

Chanda forced her voice to remain even: “Captain Domerlan, the discussion over here has been whether to provide any of the services you request at all. Your craft has not been forthcoming with information—”

“Sobrenians do not comply with the meaningless demands of presentients.”

Chanda thought, he isn't making this any easier. “Captain Domerlan, we'll try to keep this channel open throughout the landing sequence. Now shut the hell up.”

Bram's eyebrows raised in surprise, then furrowed with concern. “I thought you were a good ambassador.”

Chanda shrugged. Bram began coordinating with the Harding and Falcon captains on the best way to assist the hospital starcraft as it entered the Splendorian atmosphere and sought a safe landing site.

Bram said, “They're making atmospheric entry from Splendor's nightside. No horizon visible, unless someone on that starcraft has a different visual range from Humanity or Sobrenians. That means sensors have to detect the horizon to check the starcraft's attitude.” A frantic punching of controls, then Bram continued: “I can provide a continuous feed of our own sensor data.” He nodded toward Chanda. “Let our friend know that.”

Chanda spoke across the open channel to the hospital starcraft, but Domerlan didn't reply. “Maybe he's just pouting. If all goes well, though, where should it come down?”

“I've extrapolated from their current trajectory. It should whip around nightside, start across the Great Sea, then come back into dayside and ground itself on the western side of the main continent.”

Chanda's fingers deftly worked the holo controls to bring up an image of that area on a readout. “Pretty typical of Splendorian equatorial regions—not much nitrogen or phosphorus, so plant life's pretty sparse. Valley dweller habitations are pretty sparse, too. Too warm for any highlanders to be there at all. Captain, could we send one of our other starcraft ahead to do a quick sensor scan of the likely touchdown area?”

“I'll send the Harding,” Bram said, and passed the order on.

Chanda glanced toward the Nivara II's main viewscreen, as the Unity craft paced the hospital starcraft. Splendor's atmosphere was already visibly buffeting the other ship, and air friction was causing its shielding to glow. From the conn, Santos reported, “Temperatures topping out at 317 C.”

Chanda said, “It looks like they're staying pretty stable, within about.02 percent of their intended arc. They should be within about thirty minutes of touching down.”

Bram said, “Well into the atmosphere now.” A warning tone sounded from his station. “The hospital starcraft's off course—five percent—seven—I don't understand. Our sensor data's getting through, it should be able to compensate. Wait a minute... there's the problem. Two thrusters have given out, both on the starboard side. This ship isn't going down where we predicted.”

By the time the hospital starcraft burst onto Splendor's dayside, it was in trouble. The ship sliced through a thin layer of clouds toward a shoreline still over the horizon. As the Nivara II followed, Chanda called up a holodisplay showing the seas below. They'd seemed perfectly flat from orbit, as if molded to Splendor's surface, but now they'd acquired texture, as the waves rolling across the water's surface became more apparent. Chanda told Bram, “The western shoreline's still eighty K distant. How long until impact?”

Bram said, “Less than ten minutes. It's going to be a splashdown. Correction—not even that. The ocean surface is frozen there.”

The hospital starcraft's gravitics weren't up to the task of keeping it aloft. It lost speed rapidly, and threatened to tumble out of control from a height of less than five hundred meters. Chanda looked at the ocean again and saw what appeared to be an oily film on its surface—the beginnings, she knew, of sea ice forming. As the Nivara II neared the shoreline, the ice below turned gray as it grew thicker, then became opaque.

The three-kilometer-long craft managed to do a belly-flop onto the Great Sea's frozen surface. Chanda was amazed at how the ice seemed unwilling to part, even beneath the great ship's unbelievable mass. For a moment, the ship seemed suspended between sky and ice, then the ice bowed beneath the starcraft, and jagged cracks radiated outward with unexpected speed. Gigantic ice floes shot many meters into the air as the ice reluctantly parted. The Great Sea's waters rose up to the sides of the giant craft, in twin walls hundreds of meters high. A passing flock of flamebirds scattered. Just as those walls began their downward descent, an island-sized bowl of water formed beneath the starcraft, rising on all sides as if to embrace it.

That embrace became a final, fitful grasp as the bowl of water collapsed, taking the hospital starcraft and ice floes the size of houses down with it. Chanda asked Santos, “How deep is the ocean here?”

The ensign made a quick check, “The ocean floor's actually an undersea plateau. It doesn't drop off too steeply. Looks like about 2.5 kilometer.”

Bram said, “I guess we're a naval operation now. And us with maybe one seagoing craft between four Unity starcraft.”

Chanda watched as the swirling ocean waters began to calm. Within minutes you wouldn't be able to tell they'd been disturbed. Santos reported, “Near as I can tell, the ship's launching some kind of lifepods.”

Bram asked, “How many?”

“Looks like five altogether. About two or three life-forms within each lifepod. Sobrenian lifesigns. Not much of an evacuation.”

Chanda turned to Bram. “Can we mount a rescue effort?”

Bram said, “I can't risk taking this craft down low enough to get an enticement field locked on those pods. The winds are picking up. Inertials keep us from feeling their effects on the ship, but it's turbulence all the same. It's not the same thing as being out in space where we can match velocities.” Bram indicated Ensign Santos. “And as good a pilot as she is, hovering is difficult in a starcraft seventy meters long. We couldn't remain stable enough to get a good lock. And I can't remain station-keeping here forever, either. Gravitics use a lot of energy, and within about twenty minutes we're going to have to land or return to orbit.” The same exotic matter, or “anti-mass,” that allowed a starcraft to travel at superluminal speeds easily harnessed enough energy to power that craft's gravitics, life-support, and other systems under normal conditions.

Which these weren't. Gravitic and enticement fields used up energy resources rapidly. Waiting for a starcraft to regenerate those resources could take hours or even days.

Chanda asked, “What about a shuttle?”

“Ambassador, I'm responsible for your safety.”

“A responsibility you can delegate to one of your fine officers. Listen, I've had the most experience dealing with Sobrenians—”

“Meaning you've done it once.”

“—and so far this contact is diplomatic, not military. We can't take the chance of panicking beings who are already frightened and confused. I'm a frontier ambassador. Trust me.”

Soon Chanda was boarding one of the Nivara II's shuttles along with its pilot, Ensign Rico Durand. A hurried launch procedure, and within moments the shuttle hovered over the splashdown site. The Great Sea's waves were already buffeting two lifepods. As Chanda watched, a third broke the surface. She checked a sensor readout. No sign of the fourth or fifth pods. “What could have happened to them?” Chanda wondered out loud.

Ensign Durand said, “Pods meant for space might not be right for a water landing.”

“You're right. Protection against vacuum may not be effective against water pressure. Can we get an enticement field on that pod?”

“Not enough power to lift the pod itself. And if we tried to lift individuals, we could tear them apart.” Durand shrugged. “Then let's see who we can pick up manually.”

Within moments, Chanda could make out much more detail on the three lifepods. They were about nine meters across, a dark metallic green. Whoever might still be alive aboard them, the waves were giving them quite a ride. Chanda's stomach churned just watching the pods undulate upon the Great Sea's surface.

Durand said, “Ambassador, you can station yourself just outside the lock. I'll open the outer hatch and hope someone can jump inside, then we'll lift out of danger and open the inner hatch.”

Chanda said, “Sounds like a plan.” The shuttle was less than fifteen meters from the water's surface. Beings were emerging from two of the three pods. Definitely Sobrenian.

“Hold on,” Durand said. “Once I open the lock, the inertials go off.” That was standard; trying to bring life-forms aboard through an inertial field would be fatal to them. The lock's outer seal opened, and despite Durand's warning, Chanda wasn't at all prepared for the pounding the winds delivered to the shuttle. She grabbed the edge of the inner lock and fought to stay on her feet. The shuttle was designed to make gentle landings on planetary surfaces, or soft docks with larger craft.

The shuttle was about twelve meters from the ocean's surface now, moving to starboard, lock-first, toward the pods, so Chanda had an excellent view as the middle pod grew in her view through the hatchway. It rocked rhythmically in the ocean swells. Three Sobrenians stood atop the pod, holding onto it with all the strength they could muster. They wore the many-layered robes whose multicolored fabrics signified their various ranks.

Durand said, “Here goes!”

The shuttle hovered at the apex of the swells the pod was riding. Given a little timing and luck, the Sobrenians could hop aboard one at a time.

Which is just what one of them did. His heavily-muscled legs thrust him across the nearly one-meter gap between the pod and the shuttle, as his arms and legs flailed wildly. Sobrenian feet could grasp as efficiently as hands and the species seldom wore footwear, so the Sobrenian was able to grab the edge of the hatch in four places. Chanda tried to indicate to the Sobrenian though hand gestures that she would open the lock in just a moment, once the shuttle gained a little altitude and stabilized.

That's when the Sobrenian calmly pulled a hand weapon from under his robes. “Weapon!” Chanda shouted to Durand. The Sobrenian was aiming at the inner hatch's small window. “Splash the son-of-a-bitch!”

Durand reacted immediately, tilting the shuttle so its starboard side was oriented down. Chanda's body slammed against the inner hatchway, and she watched as the Sobrenian lost his footing and tumbled out of the hatch, arms and legs flailing, and fell from fifteen meters up into the Great Sea's roiling waters.

Chanda barely noticed when the lock's outer hatch slid shut and inertials resumed, barely noticed the angry gestures the remaining Sobrenians made from the pods below, or the shuttle quickly righting itself, or Durand's confirmation that the armed Sobrenian had not broken the water's surface again. Great job, Chanda. You go on a mercy mission and kill someone.

Bram was calling frantically on the datalink. “Ambassador! Are you and Durand all right?”

“We're fine. But Domerlan's missing a colleague.”

“Why'd he try to shoot you?”

“No idea.”

“Get the hell back here. I'm sending another shuttle with Lieutenant Tiernan and four marines aboard and stunners pointed at anyone we rescue. Any that don't like it, they can join their friend among the Splendorian fishes.”

Chanda said, “Between my peacemaking skills and Bram's charm, the planet's in good hands.”

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Three

Chanda stood once again on the Nivara II's bridge. Captain Bram had landed the Unity craft on a wide, flat stretch of beach on the main continent's western shoreline. Also there were Ensign Santos, who would coordinate the actual rescue effort, and Lieutenant Lewis Tiernan, the Nivara II's Security Officer. A small probe dropped into the ocean transmitted a holo-image of the wrecked hospital starcraft from the floor of the Great Sea.

The hospital starcraft had dredged a huge trench in the ocean floor. It lay partially submerged in mud and nearly obscured by clouds of water-borne dust. Its yellow, maroon, and gold coloration was blurred to an indistinct brown. Chanda was amazed that it looked completely intact; even the fin atop the structure seemed unscathed.

“I did some studying up just before I got here,” Chanda told the assembled group. “What we really need are ‘salvors.’ Those are seaborne Humans who seek and salvage ships from Earth's oceans, and sometimes those of other planets. They would know how to get down to that starcraft.”

Tiernan asked, “Could any of these salvors be available to come here?”

“I sent a priority message to Unity Headquarters. The nearest ones are back on Earth itself. That's two and a half weeks away.” Chanda shook her head. “Anyone down there would be long dead. But they did send along some suggestions.” Chanda stepped closer to the image of the sunken starcraft. “This craft isn't designed to be retrieved from water. See here on the stern, and several places on the sides—we've identified twelve hatches. A pretty small number when you consider how damned big this thing is. They appear to be manually operated, and they open outward. Anyone know the difficulty in getting those hatches open?”

Captain Bram said, “Water pressure.”

“That's right,” Chanda said. “All those hatches have many metric tons of water pressing down upon them. An individual can't go down and open them. You have to equalize the starcraft's interior pressure, or at least the pressure of a section or a room's pressure, with the outside environment.”

Ensign Santos said, “How do you do that?”

“Flood the compartment. Ocean craft have pumps that do just that, in emergencies. Starcraft, of course, do not.”

Bram asked, “How did those lifepods get out, then?”

“That'll be one of the first questions we ask if we establish contact with Domerlan again.”

Lieutenant Tiernan was looking closely at the holo-image, his fingers barely brushing his mouth. Then he pointed to an area at the hospital starcraft's stern, just to one side of one of the hatches. “What if we cut through the starcraft's hull? Just a tiny hole, enough to allow water in slowly? Equalize the pressure that way?”

Chanda said, “The water's under such pressure that any life-form the size of a Human or Sobrenian that was standing there would be cut in half.”

Santos said, “We could use enticement fields to force them open.”

“Except that this starcraft is under 2.5 kilometer of water. Our fields are designed to go through a vacuum or a relatively thin planetary atmosphere. They'll diffuse quickly trying to cut through water from the surface. We have one submersible craft. We're going to put a larger enticement field generator aboard it so we can work at close range. We'll have to hope it's enough.”

Bram said, “Here's another problem—energy resources.”

Chanda said, “It would actually be easier if the starcraft were in a deeper area. We could construct a power plant that would use the temperature differential between colder deep water and warmer surface waters to generate power. But these waters aren't deep enough, and we wouldn't have the time, anyway.”

Bram continued: “Our craft don't have enough energy to remain stationkeeping over a single spot for more than about half an hour at a time. I thought about having the Falcon place powersats into geosynchronous orbit. They could beam the energies we need directly to our starcraft or right onto the crash site.”

“Is there a problem with that?”

“How do you deliver the energy? Microwave beams would require collectors kilometers wide. We thought about lasers, but look at this.” Bram called up a picture from Splendorian orbit. A red dot marked the crash site. To the southwest of that area, Chanda could see a wide, dark, roiling storm front. Bram said, “The weather's just going to make things that much more difficult. The churning atmosphere diffuses the beam and makes it harder to keep on target. Meanwhile the storm winds increase the power requirements for stationkeeping. Diminishing returns.”

Santos leaned over her console to check a readout. She frowned. “Something else I've noticed. Something different about their shroud. A frequency shift, or something. It's keeping us from registering how many life-forms are aboard or what condition they're in.” She shook her head in disgust. “They're using energies that could help them survive longer down there. But they're passive energies—they won't prevent us from entering the starcraft.”

Chanda asked Bram, “I understand we've not learned anything substantive from the Sobrenians we lifted off those pods?”

Bram said, “They're not talking.”

“And no more contact with Domerlan?”

Bram said, “None.”

“We have to find out if this starcraft has more lifepods. And we have to find a way to keep open that hole in the ice the starcraft made.”

Bram said, “The submersible's aboard the Angra. It's an unarmed exploratory craft, the Galathea. I'm bringing Angra down from orbit and sending the Harding up to take its place.”

Lieutenant Tiernan said, “I don't suppose there's any sort of primitive tech either Splendorian species can help us with.”

Chanda said, “None. The valley dwellers have never developed even the simplest boats.”

Tiernan asked, “What about the highlanders?”

“Some of them fish in shallows, and that's about it. We're on our own.”

* * *

Chanda monitored the sensors on the Galathea's small command deck as it hovered over the three-K-wide hole the starcraft had punched into the ice covering the Great Sea. She sat behind Ensign Rico Durand, who was copiloting at Chanda's insistence. Irene Radford, a crewmember from the Galathea's mothership, the Angra, piloted. The Angra itself was stationkeeping about half a kilometer above.

In the equipment hold behind the command deck, a large enticement field generator taken from the Angra had been linked into the shuttle's systems. The hope was that Galathea could draw close enough to move a section of the downed craft or handle lifepods leaving the ship.

Also in the hold were four marines from the Nivara II, Lieutenant Tiernan among them, in case they happened upon more Sobrenians looking to make mischief.

“Look at the hole,” Chanda told her colleagues. “It's already closing up.” Chanda saw that the hole's jagged edges were close to healing; the roiling waters in the middle were growing still as ice crept across the gap. “Could it close up over us after we submerge?”

Ensign Radford said, “The ice surrounding the hole isn't even two meters thick, and we can break through that easily. The ice forming over the hole won't be more than a few centimeters thick by the time we come up.”

“Look toward the western horizon,” Chanda said. A dark wall of clouds kilometers wide was approaching.

“Then we'd best get to it,” Radford said. “Diving.” The Galathea crunched through the ice and slipped beneath the ocean waters, its inertials making the transition from sky to sea a smooth one. Chanda did a widescan lifesearch of the surrounding ocean. Microbes aplenty, of course. And the ever-present schools of wingfin, which explained the flamebirds they'd glimpsed earlier. They fed upon the wingfin.

And something else, that only registered at low levels. Chanda didn't understand the readings. The entire seafloor within sensor range registered with life-forms. No, check that—with a single life-form.

Except for several meters around the crashed hospital starcraft. “Ensigns Durand ... Radford ... what do you make of these readings?” She blipped them over to their readouts.

Radford said, “I'm usually pretty good at interpreting lifesigns. But I don't know what to make of these.”

Durand shook his head. “Not my area of expertise, I'm afraid.”

Chanda said, “Look how the lifesigns tail off the closer you get to the ship.”

Radford said, “When it crashed, it must have killed off part of ... whatever it is.”

Chanda looked toward the forward screen again. The waters had grown darker, the deeper Galathea descended. It actually made the ocean's depths seem less daunting. Chanda scanned toward the pathway the starcraft had dredged in the ocean floor. Barely the length of the craft itself, it was still a substantial trench.

And it was full of that unknown life-form. “This thing has already made its way back into the trench the starcraft dug when it crashed. It registers native Splendorian. It looks as if a single life-form is covering the entire ocean bottom, or at least to the horizon.”

Radford said, “I'm not surprised we haven't seen it before. The evacuation project has taken nearly all our time and resources.”

Chanda said, “I'm sending my readings up above. They can try to figure some of it out while we continue on.”

Ensign Durand said, “I've located a side hatch that seems to be clear of debris and undamaged.”

Radford was looking at the same image, which had been computer-sharpened to compensate for the poor visibility due to the murky waters. “I'd like to attach directly to that craft's hull. We're expending a lot of energy just withstanding cross-currents.”

Chanda watched as the submersible edged sideways toward the hospital starcraft. The initial touch was a gentle one, as a low tone resonated through the Galathea's hull. Smart-tech would guide the edges of the hatch as they molded into a tight seal with the craft's hatch.

Radford said, “Seal complete. Now, another little precaution—done. Pressor fields are surrounding the corridor, so water pressure won't degrade the seal.” Chanda moved toward the hatch between the command deck and the equipment hold. She told Radford, “I'll keep in touch by datalink if possible. But if you don't hear from us....”

Radford said, “Captain Bram already ordered me to wait as long as I could, and no longer.”

“Good luck to you,” Chanda said to Radford and Durand, and went through the hatch. Lieutenant Tiernan and his three marine colleagues were waiting on the other side. Andrea Bartow had close-cropped blonde hair and a muscular form. Catarina Avery seemed to be a meditation on browns—burnt-almond eyes, sandy hair, mahogany skin. Haj Kontos was stout and swarthy. They wore standard Unity blues, with hand disruptors hanging from their belts. Tiernan had a versa-pack slung over his shoulder. The pack's nanite-driven tech could alter into any number of useful devices with a quick manual adjustment or even a verbal command.

Chanda went to Tiernan. “Remember our top two priorities.”

Tiernan said, “Saving lives, then gathering information.” Tiernan looked toward the other three marines and pointed toward the primary hatch. They moved to stand in a semicircle around it. Tiernan said, “Beginning entry attempt,” and touched a control next to the hatch. Both inner and outer doors opened, revealing the short length of the submersible's embarkation corridor. Beyond was the hospital starcraft's smooth surface and its round hatch, which was only about a meter across and nearly flush with the hull. It stood about waist-height for Chanda.

Tiernan touched that hull. Chanda knew his personal sensors would take readings of the hatch's composition and any smart-tech within, and of the environment beyond it. “Near as I can tell, there's a Human-breathable atmosphere over there. And this area isn't flooded.”

“The hatch isn't very wide,” she said. “A tight squeeze for some of us.”

Tiernan said, “The designers might have assumed anyone coming through would be in a zero-g situation. I can't get a clear reading on the size of the area inside. No way to know until we get in there.” He unslung the versa-pack and held it before the hospital starcraft's hatch. A quick adjustment of settings, and he said, “The shrouds that act as sensor blocks are still up. Wasteful. And there's something ... some kind of phase shift or something that I don't understand. Either way, they won't have any effect on anything material, including ourselves. This should burn through within seconds.”

Tiernan was as good as his word, as the pack's nanotech altered itself into a disruptor that emitted a beam which precisely targeted the edges of the hospital starcraft's hatch. When it was cut all the way through, Bartow and Haj activated their lifesuits in full armor mode. Their bodies were now encased in silvery spacesuits, and their heads in clear helmets, allowing then to move forward to grasp the hatch without it burning them. She wondered, not for the first time, if she should consider having a lifesuit implanted. She'd always resisted by telling herself she wasn't really a spacer, and why should she go to the trouble? She endured the idea of medical nanites within her body, but something about having nanotech on permanent standby ready to snap into space armor at any moment was enough to give her the shakes.

Bartow and Haj grasped the hatch and removed it—

Revealing ... what looked like a starcraft corridor. It went back about nine or ten meters, then branched off in two directions. Its walls displayed a series of repeating patterns that mirrored the yellow, maroon, and gold strokes on the ship's exterior. Chanda couldn't tell whether they were intended to be instructive or simply decorative. The ceiling of the corridor glowed with a muted yellow light.

And the entire corridor was a little less than a meter wide.

Chanda sighed in frustration. “I'd imagined the four of you storming into the ship.”

Tiernan rubbed the back of his neck. “The ship's so big—it never occurred to me....”

Chanda nodded. “—That its inhabitants could be this small.”

Tiernan said, “Look at the floor.”

Chanda realized many tiny feet had trod upon that floor; it displayed all the scuff marks and lingering dirt that pre-nanotech cultures had to live with even on the cleanest, best-kept walking surfaces. “Recommendation, Lieutenant?”

“Forge onward, Ambassador. Otherwise we head back to the surface, and learn nothing. Certainly we don't have to worry about a horde of angry Sobrenians coming down the corridor after us.”

“How long will we have inside?”

Tiernan said, “The Angra's the limiting factor. It'll have to return to regenerate in less than half an hour.”

“Let's see how far we can get in about fifteen minutes, then start back here. Shall I take up the rear?”

“We'll make that Avery's job. I'll be right in front of you.”

Chanda took her place in front of Avery. “Let's go.”

Tiernan said, “Haj, then Bartow. Let's move.”

Haj and Bartow were still in full armor. Haj reached out his left hand to grasp the edge of the hatch and gasped when the hand was pulled down so hard that it nearly struck the corridor's floor. Haj said, “That's some grav. Over one and a half, I'd say.”

Chanda said, “That'll tire us quickly.”

Tiernan said, “Splendor's 1.3, and we've been training under that whenever we're down here. Besides, having grav implies working inertials. Makes it more likely we'll find survivors.”

Haj vaulted himself into the waist-high corridor and began to crawl down it. Bartow followed.

Chanda waited her turn as Tiernan, still unarmored, slung his versa-pack over his shoulder and eased himself into the narrow corridor. It wasn't easy when Chanda's turn came. She had to leverage her upper body into the hatch stiff-armed, then struggle to wriggle her legs into the narrow corridor. Avery helped out by grasping Chanda's ankles and giving a good push. “Thanks,” Chanda muttered.

About all she could see as she crawled forward on hands and knees were Tiernan's boots rhythmically gliding forward. She heard equipment rattling and the occasional grunt from someone ahead.

Haj must have made it to the intersection and gone right. Chanda couldn't see how far this new corridor stretched. They'd only been crawling for three minutes.

Chanda bumped her head against Tiernan's boots as he stopped short. She heard a chittering sound ahead, something wild and shrill and ... Chanda instinctively knew that sound represented hundreds, maybe even thousands of beings. Cold fingers walked up her spine and she wished she could stand upright and run. They might be facing an enemy unknown in power or number, and they were effectively immobile. Did the fly fear the spider in this manner? Or Humans about to be overrun by the collective species called the Jenregar?

Haj's voice came back: “The corridor's widening. Where all that noise is coming from. I've never seen beings like these.”

Despite her fears, Chanda wished she could rush ahead of the three marines ahead of her. “What kind of beings? Sobrenians?”

“No,” Haj said. “They're small. Close to the ground. Some of them are separate ... and others joined together.”

Chanda shook her head at Haj's minimalist description. “Can we move into that room? Do they look menacing?”

“They have round bodies. I'm poking my head out of the corridor now. They're looking at me. Two eyes ... no, maybe three, spaced around the edges. But, uh, no, ma'am, they don't look menacing.”

“Then can we move forward, please? This is where I might manage to be useful.”

Haj and Bartow, still armored, then Tiernan, crawled forward and moved into the widened part of the corridor. Chanda followed, with Avery right behind. Chanda's first impression was of a broad area just tall enough for the five of them to stand upright, and of new colors for this starcraft—the walls glowed a soft greenish-blue. Five of the now-familiar narrow corridors branched off on the far side of the area, about thirty meters distant.

And the place was filled with beings, perhaps thousands of them.

Haj was right. They were small and close to the ground. Each individual stood on four spiny legs resembling those of an Earthly starfish, and none of their roundish bodies topped out at over half a meter. They had no heads, but a total of four eyes, spaced equidistantly around the sides of their bodies, which seemed to average about.75 of a meter across.

The beings had a suckerlike organ on the side of each leg. Some of them had extended legs toward an adjacent being and joined themselves together.

The chittering sound came from those who remained individuals. Many of them were rubbing two spiny legs together. Presumably if you tried that trick while joined to another, you'd topple over. As it was, Chanda was impressed by these beings’ sense of balance—as many were rubbing legs across their bodies as were rubbing adjacent legs.

And virtually every one of them had at least two and sometimes three eyes trained upon the Humans. “Seems like we're the talk of the town,” Chanda said.

That was when every one of the beings not already joined together simultaneously scuttled closer, extended a leg, and joined with another. “Whoh,” Chanda said, and instinctively took a step backwards. Tiernan and his marines stood their ground. Their fingertips touched their disruptors but they did not draw them.

“Easy,” Tiernan said. “Risk protocols apply.” That last phrase, Chanda knew, summed up the most dangerous—and important—decision Tiernan could make. Essentially it meant to take the risk that the other guy might shoot first. Better for Humanity as a species, to be a conflict's first casualty than to precipitate such a conflict yourself. It was a policy that many in the military complained bitterly about, saying it ran counter to all their training and experience. But when the course of all future relations with an entire Galactic species was at stake....

Once joined, none of the beings moved again. And since they couldn't rub their legs together now, all had grown quiet.

Avery muttered, “What're they doing?”

Tiernan said, “Calm, please. Remain still. Their call.”

But nothing happened. All the thousands of beings before them remained still as stones, and just as quiet. After about a minute, Tiernan caught Chanda's eye. “Ambassador?”

“I have no idea what they're up to. Perhaps some sort of telepathic link, or they're somehow ... communing emotionally. They don't look big enough to be intelligent, by most of what we know about sentient life-forms.” Chanda checked the time. “We have about eleven minutes left.”

Tiernan said, “Within about six we'll have to start back to the Galathea. If that's what we want to do.”

Tiernan asked, “Ambassador, if we had a problem in here, what could the Galathea do about it?”

Chanda said, “A quick evacuation.”

“You see these beings, ambassador. Given their small size and their obvious quickness, could we outrun them in these corridors?”

“I suppose not.”

“Could we kill or disable the many thousands of beings present before we were overrun?”

“You mean do we have the ability? No. Never mind the morality of it. But the Galathea could go for reinforcements.”

“Reinforcements that it could fetch much more quickly if it were standing by on the beach. It can return in about three hours, if it gets back to the beach and doesn't expend any more power in that time.”

“Then I recommend we let the Galathea go, and we continue this contact.”

Bram's voice interrupted over Chanda's datalink. “Ambassador, are you certain about this?”

“We have Sobrenians here in danger, and I think we need to help them. Though they haven't appreciated it so far. I'm also standing here staring at several thousand eyes staring back at me. I have to wonder what the intelligences, if any, behind those eyes would make of this conversation. And I'm very aware that time is running out for us. I think the risk is justified.”

Bram's voice was sterner now: “Chanda, yes or no will do.”

Chanda took a deep breath. “We'll stay.”

“Good,” Bram said. “First of all, Galathea, lift.”

Chanda could hear Ensign Radford's reply over her datalink: “Lifting, Captain.”

“Thank you, Galathea. Lieutenant Tiernan, you know what to do.”

Tiernan took a quick step over to Chanda and a cylinder in his hand hissed against the side of her neck.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Four

Chanda grimaced and slapped her hand to her neck, but Tiernan's hand was gone. Chanda felt as if she could perceive the nanites she knew were coursing through every artery and vein, every organ in her body. Her temples pulsed with sudden pain and sweat popped out on her brow and stung her eyes. She felt feverish and her stomach and bowels threatened to rebel.

Her knees weakened and she remained standing only because Tiernan grabbed her arm and supported her. Her voice was a hoarse rasp: “I wish I believed in a god, Tiernan, so I could have it damn you.”

Tiernan said, “You can request a court-martial upon our return, Ambassador. If we get out of here alive. For now, just remember you can press your left middle finger into your palm, and your lifesuit will envelop you. If you're exposed to vacuum or immersed in water, it'll activate on its own.”

Chanda could only vaguely perceive Tiernan's features through a haze of tears. In the set of his jaw and the unforgiving steadiness of his gaze, she saw both the disdain the military mind often had for diplomats and politicians, and the determination that just might keep them alive.

Chanda pulled her arm from Tiernan's grasp. “Tell you what—you get us out of here alive, we'll forget about any court-martial.”

Tiernan's forehead furrowed and the edges of his mouth drew down. “Ambassador, Captain Bram insisted that you couldn't remain here without the implant. His words were, ‘now tell her she's a frontier ambassador with a lifesuit.'”

“Don't apologize for doing your duty, Lieutenant. Now, if you could give me a recommendation for our next action?”

Tiernan glanced at the thousands of joined beings before them. “I'd say our first priority is finding a way to communicate with them.”

Chanda shook her head. “I don't know how to do that.”

“Then Ambassador, we have to press on. See what else, and who else, we can find.”

“Domerlan's the key here. He's supposed to be in charge.”

Avery sniffed in reaction. “To hear him tell it.”

Chanda said, “Whether he is or not, it'll tell us something about what's going on here. Lieutenant Tiernan, what would you think of trying to move past these beings, so we can look for Domerlan?”

“I think it's an excellent idea. Haj—Bartow—you'll stay here. Remain armored. Guard our backs. Let us know if any of these beings follow us further into this craft. And remember the protocols.”

“Aye, sir,” both marines said simultaneously.

“Avery, you're with us. Ambassador, I'd suggest either corridor closest to the edge of this wide space here. That way we can skirt this group of beings.”

Chanda said, “I suppose you're leading the way.”

Tiernan said, “I wouldn't have it any other way,” and moved to the right, around the joined beings huddled in the center of the room. She stayed right on Tiernan's heels, aware the whole time of the many eyes tracking her, Tiernan, and Avery. None of the beings, however, made a move toward them, nor uttered any of those chittering sounds.

Tiernan reached the first corridor and made a half-salute to Haj and Bartow, then crawled into it. Chanda followed, Avery right behind. The yellow-maroon-gold color scheme had returned here, glowing in a pale luminescence from the very material of the corridor.

For the next several minutes they made their way down the corridor. Chanda's neck grew tired from holding it up constantly to see ahead. And even that seemed silly to bother with, because Tiernan's feet, knees, and elbows were the only view. Presumably the craft's natives could skitter quite efficiently down these corridors.

The passageway grew narrower. A great rumble roared down the pathway and Chanda felt her body sliding to one side. Then came a harsher movement, and her lifesuit activated, hardening against the buffeting her body was taking. She stopped cold. “What the hell was that?” Her voice sounded muffled inside the bubble helmet that had formed before her face. This was worse than the cramped corridor.

Over Chanda's datalink, she heard, “Captain Bram to Ambassador Kasmira.”

“Kasmira here.”

“Chanda, we're still getting data and pictures from the probe we've stationed next to that craft. Did it just move a little?”

“A little? Have you ever seen a dog grab a chew toy and shake it?”

“Chanda, it's that life-form that you saw at the sea bottom. It's moving. It's slow—took us awhile to notice what was happening. But it's enveloping that ship.”

“What, like some kind of creeping vine?”

“More like an amoeba trying to eat it. Only it's stretched pretty thin. It's barely halfway up one side of the ship and it's nearly transparent. And moving much more slowly.”

“Anything we can do to discourage it?”

“Galathea's gone, and it's unarmed anyway.”

Tiernan said, “This craft can't take much more of a pounding before parts of it start to break up. Especially since it's wasting power with shrouds and internal grav instead of working to hold itself together.”

Chanda said, “While we're stuck like hamsters in a tube.”

Tiernan said, “Let's keep moving. I think we're coming to another wide place in the road, so to speak.” Chanda looked past him and saw a crimson glow ahead. Soon she and Tiernan and Avery, all of them still encased in their lifesuits, stood in a room that looked to be exactly the same size as the one where Haj and Bartow were waiting with the linked beings.

Something was different here, though, and Chanda realized she could see outlines of various shapes on the walls. There—a perfect circle nearly a meter wide, about ankle-high. Next to that, another outline that was ... well, coffin-shaped was what came to mind first. Only it was a coffin for a giant about four meters tall. One difference in this room: on the other side was a single corridor, not the many branchings of the previous room.

Tiernan and Avery were also taking in their surroundings. Tiernan said, “I wonder what the hell this room is for.”

Avery pointed toward several of the varied shapes. “What if those come out of the walls?”

Chanda said, “Some sort of equipment storage. Or—” She stopped short, when the cold realization came to her.

Tiernan said, “Operating tables.”

Avery said, “This is a hospital starcraft, after all.”

That was when the energy bolt struck Avery.

* * *

Chanda gasped with surprise and jumped back from the blue fire that enveloped Avery's lifesuit and swept repeatedly around her body. Avery screamed, and Chanda saw that the heat had pierced Avery's lifesuit, set her hair afire, and was blistering her face.

Chanda did the only thing she could do and hit the deck. Tiernan fired his disruptor pistol toward the opposite corridor, where Chanda recognized the blunt snouts and multi-colored robes of Sobrenians as they scrambled out—five in all.

Tiernan's shots would have hit home on a couple of the Sobrenians, except that personal energy shields flashed into existence in the instant Tiernan's bolts struck. The lieutenant quit firing but didn't lower his weapon. He kept his focus on the Sobrenians, who didn't show immediate signs of firing again, but also kept their energy rifles at the ready.

Avery's screams faded as she slumped to the floor. The blue flame was dying out, leaving a woman still inside her spacesuit armor whose hair had burned away and whose face and neck were blackened and bleeding. Chanda could tell Avery's injuries were far beyond anything the nanodocs flowing through her bloodstream could repair.

“Ambassador,” Tiernan hissed, “try to go back. I'll distract them as much as I can.”

Then Haj's voice was urgent over the datalink. “Lieutenant—Ambassador. Should we....”

“No,” Tiernan said. “I'm sending the ambassador back. Your priority is to keep her safe until—”

Chanda said, “Until what? Someone rescues us?” She pointed toward the Sobrenians. “You've done your best. Now let me try to work this out. This is what I do.”

Tiernan lowered his disruptor. “Go ahead. If they haven't killed us yet....” He hooked his disruptor back onto his belt. A whispered command, and his versa-pack became a medkit. He knelt beside Avery. Chanda couldn't let herself think yet, Avery's body. It might not even quite be true.

Haj's voice came in again over the datalink: “Ambassador—Lieutenant—these beings ... they're coming apart.”

Tiernan said, “Not now.”

“Lieutenant, they're unhooking from each other and they're headed into the corridor. Should Bartow and I try to stop them?”

Chanda said, “What the hell else can happen?”

Tiernan was injecting a nanofluid mixture through the arm of Avery's suit. “It can't get much worse. I think I'd rather deal with them than the Sobrenians. Haj—Bartow—those beings should be here in less than a minute. Don't bother them, just follow as quickly as you can.”

Haj said, “They're already gone, sir. We're in the corridor after them, but they're a damn sight faster than we are.”

Tiernan said, “Do your best, marine.”

Chanda turned her attention to the five Sobrenians. All of them were aiming their weapons directly at her. They all wore the many-layered robes which were the usual dress of their species. Their torsos were, on average, about three times as wide as a Human's, and the tallest of them barely came to Chanda's shoulders. Their eyes swiveled independently within deep sockets, over blunt snouts.

Only one Sobrenian wore a high-ranking officer's robes. Two different colors, red and green, were laced through his robes’ primary color, which was a deep blue. The others’ robes only featured a single color running through the primary color.

Chanda eased forward, pressed her middle finger into her palm to drop her lifesuit, and stood before that officer with her hands open. She said, “I'm Earth Unity Ambassador Chanda Kasmira. Your commander, Domerlan, has spoken with me.”

The officer stepped forward and spoke. Chanda heard his translated speech over her datalink: “Commander Domerlan has spoken of you, as well.”

Chanda couldn't help but notice the officer did not return the courtesy of identifying himself. I'm a presentient. Damn all these Sobrenians and their superior attitudes.

Hold on, Chanda, you're supposed to be a diplomat. Be diplomatic. For Avery. For the other innocents who may be trapped on this starcraft.

That was when Chanda heard the rumbling from behind her, and the incessant clicking sounds.

Dozens upon dozens of the small beings skittered out of the narrow corridor and headed directly for Avery's still form. Tiernan grabbed hold of her while trying to push the beings away, but they were too quick, and too strong. In an instant, a dozen of them had linked together and crawled beneath Avery's body. They lifted her up and carried her across the room, as if they were some sort of organic gurney. The Sobrenians just stared, and Chanda wished she could tell whether they were concerned or amused.

Then she saw Tiernan's hand on his disruptor and she slapped it down. “Remember? This is a hospital starcraft.”

“What are they going to do to her?”

As the beings carried Avery toward the far wall, a large oval outline about waist-high for a Human extended outwards. Chanda touched Tiernan's arm. “C'mon.”

A metallic arm was pushing the oval shape outward. It had to be an operating table. For now, anyway, Chanda's mind pushed away the phrase autopsy table. It tilted over until it was ankle-high and horizontal. The beings slid Avery gently onto it, unlinked, and moved against the wall.

Avery's lifesuit deactivated. Her body was horribly burned and Chanda put her hand over her nose and mouth against the burned meat smell. She couldn't see the smallest patch of skin that wasn't blacked, blistered, or bleeding. Most of Avery's clothing had burned away.

At least she's unconscious, Chanda thought.

Now a different set of the beings moved forward. Chanda heard Tiernan gasp when two of them hopped onto the table and each extended a leg to rest on Avery's forehead. He muttered, “What are they going to do?”

Chanda said, “I think she has a better chance with them than ... anything we could manage. Was she responding to your treatment?”

Tiernan blinked twice. “I was past treatment. Hoping only for ... comfort.” Tiernan looked as if he'd had the breath knocked out of him. When Haj and Bartow arrived, though, his features hardened and he quietly issued orders. Both marines flanked the entrance they'd just used to enter the room, hands at their sides, impassive as suits of armor.

A voice over Chanda's datalink: “I said Domerlan has spoken of you.”

Chanda turned. The damn Sobrenian officer, with his troops right behind him, continuing the previous conversation as if nothing had happened. “You must excuse me,” she said. “I realize I'm only a Human, but Domerlan must have explained to you that we act as if our perceptions matter, as if we were sentient.”

She was thankful that for once both the Sobrenian's eyes remained centered on her. “Domerlan has indeed referred to this tendency. But the Buruden are treating that Human now. You may speak with me.”

“These beings are called the Buruden?”

The Sobrenian cocked one eye toward the operating table and Chanda looked that way. The Sobrenian said, “They'll save her if she's capable of being saved.” More of the Buruden had hopped up next to Avery. Their thin legs worked furiously. The Sobrenian said, “I am Sub-Commander Woradon.”

“Well, Sub-Commander, I'm here hoping to rescue everyone on this starcraft, no matter their species—Buruden, Sobrenian, anyone else. But if any Sobrenian fires upon any Human again without provocation, Earth Unity personnel will render no aid whatsoever to Sobrenians.”

That got both eyes trained on Chanda. “That could be a dangerous decision.”

“I realize it's probably unsound militarily, because it could supply the provocation I implied was the only excuse for Sobrenian violence. However, the result will be the same. You will die, and so will the other Sobrenians aboard.” Chanda tried to be clear-minded about Sobrenians, though she recognized her prejudices against them. As much as Humanity saw the species as violent and irrational, she knew Sobrenians considered themselves to be, as her Russian father might have said, “cultured.” This commander would be as distressed as Lieutenant Tiernan was about Ensign Avery if one of his troops were as severely injured.

“My troops are unaccustomed to dealing with presentients.”

Chanda said, “And when you say ‘dealing with,’ I presume that means in a manner other than simply telling them your demands and having them carried out.”

“My troops wished to reassert themselves as weapons carriers.”

“And that's why they shot Avery.” Chanda thought, try to make sense of Sobrenians. It did explain why the other Sobrenian took a shot at her even after the Nivara II's shuttle rescued him from the Great Sea.

Tiernan spoke up. “Ambassador ... it's Ensign Avery.” The Buruden surrounding Avery hopped to the floor and joined together again, this time in a semicircle around the table, as if awaiting Chanda and Tiernan's approval of what they'd done to the injured ensign who was lying naked on the operating table.

Chanda was more than willing to give that approval. Though Avery was still unconscious, the Buruden had worked miracles. The woman's skin was a bright red, as if she'd been out too long under a harsh sun, but showed no signs of burns. It was such an unexpected sight that Chanda instinctively reached out toward Avery's face, then hesitated. The woman seemed so fragile; her eyes were closed and her lips were slightly parted.

Chanda contented herself with pressing her fingers gently against Avery's cheek. The skin was a little too warm, as if she were recovering from a fever. Now that Chanda had actually touched Avery, she was struck by another strange thing: the woman smelled good. Her skin had a fresh, new quality to it, like a baby's.

She looked at the Buruden, and a great many eyes stared back. She said to Tiernan, “We owe them a great debt.”

Tiernan's eyes were slits and his skin was pale. “Is there anything Humans can do that other Galactic species can't do better?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“The Sobrenians have better weapons. The Buruden can save a woman I'd assumed was near death.”

“We're a young species, Lieutenant. What these beings do, they do well. The same as you.” Chanda watched as Tiernan pressed his lips together and stared at the floor. Chanda felt she was seeing a different man from the one she'd known these past couple of months.

That didn't frighten her—what did was, she couldn't tell how he was different.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Five

Woradon approached Chanda. “Ambassador, you've explained how presentients do not respond in the manner that Sobrenians see fit. Could I ask you, however, to respond in such a manner just one time? I wish to take you to see Domerlan.”

“Oh! That's why I'm here, Sub-Commander.”

“We will go now,” Woradon said, and started off toward the far entrance without looking back to see if Chanda was following. She told Tiernan, “You stay here with Avery. I'll take Bartow.”

“I'm in charge of your safety.”

“You're no less in charge of Avery's. I'll be fine. Domerlan knows me.”

Tiernan's eyes were haunted. “Bartow—you're with the ambassador.”

“Aye, sir,” Bartow said, and she fell in step behind Chanda. Sub-Commander Woradon and two of his troops were waiting beside the corridor entrance. Chanda didn't know enough about Sobrenian expressions to tell if he was being impatient. If so, too bad.

Woradon's two troops preceded him into the corridor, then he followed. Chanda wondered how the Sub-Commander enjoyed such crawling around. She couldn't help but notice as she and Bartow followed them, however, that Sobrenians were better equipped for it than Humans. They were shorter, and Chanda saw now why they typically went unshod—their feet and long toes were nearly a second set of hands when needed, making them decent quadrupeds. Chanda felt like a slug by comparison.

Soon Chanda was in another room, as wide as the operating room, but with even lower ceilings. Its walls were the same soft greenish-blue as the first room they'd encountered, but it was much darker. A pair of corridors branched off across the room, darker still.

A familiar voice in her datalink: “You have found Domerlan.”

Chanda peered into the darkness. The walls were lined with operating tables as the second room had been. Or would they be recovery beds here? Did the Buruden even make such distinctions? No matter—Domerlan was lying on one of those beds across the room. It was the only one extended outward from the wall.

Chanda looked at Woradon, who stood stiffly, as did the other two Sobrenians. Chanda motioned for Bartow to remain where she was, and went to Domerlan.

The last time she'd seen him in person, Domerlan was commander of the proud Sobrenian starcraft Melareon. He'd worn colorful robes of iridescent green with faint red and violet threads that proclaimed his rank.

Now Domerlan stared up from a bed, naked. His left eye socket was empty, the left side of his body was horribly scarred, and his left arm ended above the wrist.

Chanda looked down at him. “What happened to you? Are there any more Sobrenian casualties?”

“Only the dead. Too many. Twenty-two. Sixteen survive, including myself. Now all that's important is that you save them.”

“I have to know what's going on. You refused to talk with me after our initial conversations.”

“I spoke with you sufficiently, especially for not-in-person.”

“We're in a starcraft three kilometers long and I find you in the third room I encounter. You must have had your people bring you here to speak with me.”

Domerlan's one-eyed gaze left Chanda and stared toward the low ceiling. “The Buruden disabled the Melareon. Disabled! No opportunity to demonstrate our superior artistry. They boarded the Melareon, brought me and my crew to their craft, but did not understand that individuals could possess weapons. We rebelled, we tried to take over this craft. I was injured then. Will you help my crewmembers?”

“That's always been my intention, though I don't know why I should. One tried to shoot me, and another nearly killed one of my marines.”

“Regrettable, Ambassador. Their orders are otherwise now.”

“You'll issue orders—surrender your weapons and prepare for evacuation.”

Domerlan's body shook and he raised his remaining hand in a weak but defiant fist. “The weapons—never. Would you, in your misplaced pride, surrender your child?”

Chanda bit her lower lip to keep from entering into a useless litany—she didn't have children, the analogy was a false one—none of that mattered, given the central role of weaponry to Sobrenian culture. “How about this—you keep the weapons, but my marines remove their power sources.”

Domerlan's hand fell back to the bed. “Acceptable.” Domerlan's single eye swiveled to look at Chanda again. “You see my species as cruel and heartless toward all others. From a certain point of view, perhaps we could be perceived that way.”

“My experience with Sobrenians is limited, but consistent.” The floor shook, and Chanda grabbed the edge of Domerlan's bed. The shaking went on for nearly half a minute. Chanda said, “There's something you're not telling me.” A thin trickle of water flowed from the right-hand corridor of the two pathways that led into darkness. Chanda asked, “Is this ship still taking on water?”

Domerlan said, “The Buruden have repaired the major ruptures. Much of this craft, however, is flooded. You must help me negotiate with them.”

“Why haven't you taken over operation of the starcraft?”

“There is no need.”

“That tells me you can't. I'd say you need them to operate the ship.”

“I wish other Galactic species did not attempt to mimic sentience. There's no need for Sobrenians to operate Buruden equipment. I command.”

Chanda told Domerlan, “Soon you'll command a crushed ship and a dead crew. What did the Buruden do?”

“Much worse. I admit my shame only for the benefit of my people. They forced us into—a truce.”

“How?”

“You've seen how they link together to serve certain functions. The more individuals that link at a particular moment, the more intelligent that grouping is.”

Chanda said, “That explains it! I'd wondered how beings so small could be sentient.” Her thoughts flashed back to all those eyes regarding her as she walked past that joined grouping. “If you kill too many Buruden, there won't be enough to generate enough intelligence to operate the ship. So what do they want?”

Domerlan said, “Help me up. We must speak to all the Buruden.”

“How will I make them understand me?”

“They'll be able to communicate with you soon after they arrive. Sub-Commander Woradon will bring them.”

Woradon and the other troops entered the left-hand corridor. Domerlan said, “I wish to stand. You will help me.” With Chanda and Bartow grasping Domerlan's upper arms, the Sobrenian rose unsteadily from his bed. Chanda realized that water was starting to puddle all around them. The trickle from the one darkened corridor had become a constant stream.

Within moments, Woradon returned. As he crawled out of the corridor, he splashed into the shallow waters covering the floor. Then, for an instant, Chanda feared that the ship's structure had failed, and that a torrent of water was rushing into the room.

But this was a flood of beings, as Buruden by the dozens, the hundreds, poured outward.

* * *

Chanda instinctively stepped back as the small beings soon lined the floor all around. All their eyes appeared to be on Chanda as they linked together.

Which meant this was the most intelligent grouping of Buruden they'd yet encountered. She didn't know whether to be grateful or frightened. The two Sobrenian troops who had accompanied Woradon into the dark corridor emerged and stood by the entrances to both corridors.

The Buruden nearest Chanda reached up a leg not attached to the others. Domerlan said, “You must bend down. Let me go. I can stand with your marine holding me.”

“What's about to happen?”

“It is necessary. That is all you must know.”

Chanda shook her head in frustration. Just once she'd like a straight answer from Domerlan! All the same, she bent over. Four Buruden eyes peered into hers. The Buruden extended that unattached leg upward, behind Chanda's head.

A sharp pain lanced through Chanda's neck, behind her left ear. She flinched and stood upright, slapping her hand where the Buruden had stung her.

Where her datalink was implanted.

She looked down at the Buruden individual, and saw, at the very tip of one leg, her own blood staining one of the spines. “What the hell was that about?”

That individual detached from the other Buruden and two eyes on one side examined Chanda's blood. The stained limb rubbed against another as the Buruden balanced on the other two.

Within moments the bloody spine was pristine again. Chanda looked at Domerlan. Chanda thought he was standing straighter and not leaning as much against Bartow. She asked him, “Was that their way of taking a DNA sample?”

“Perhaps that as well, but the primary goal was to touch your datalink.” Domerlan paused while the craft rumbled and shook, then stilled. “The touch suffices. Your species—and my own—are unfortunate in having our datalinks implanted. An external link would not have required bodily invasion.”

Chanda felt behind her ear again. A thin stream of blood had dried against her neck.

Bartow spoke up. “The scary thing, Ambassador, is that the spine didn't activate your lifesuit.”

Chanda said, “They're more advanced than we are in some ways.”

Domerlan said, “I cannot understand a species that can make such an admission so easily.”

Chanda was about to forget she was an ambassador and give Domerlan what-for when a new, unfamiliar voice sounded through her datalink. At the same time she heard the Buruden chittering sound from behind her. “Your name is ... Ambassador?”

Chanda turned her back on Domerlan and faced the mass of Buruden before her. She looked down at the individual that had stung her and said, “No, ‘Ambassador’ is my title. It's what I do. My name is Chanda Kasmira. And is this who I think it is?”

The one Buruden worked two legs together, and Chanda heard, “You would call us the Buruden.”

“You are the beings who operate this hospital starcraft.”

“It's not precisely a hospital craft in the manner in which you use that term, but it's a close analogy. And we do operate it. We treated the Human the Sobrenians injured. We apologize for the pain we inflicted in examining your datalink. That action revealed the details of your language to us.”

“Do you have a name as an individual?”

“We know who we are.”

Chanda had to ask something else, because she found she was thinking of this individual as an “it,” and she wasn't comfortable with that. “Does your species have sexes—male, female, or another combination?”

“Apologies. Those are scientific concepts to us, not personal.”

OK, Chanda thought, “it” will have to serve. “Your craft is about to be destroyed. It's not built to withstand water pressure.”

“This craft should have been crushed long ago. We don't understand how it still survives.”

“Also,” Chanda said, “a life-form seems to be trying to envelop this craft.”

“A life-form? Are we certain we understand? You are not speaking of a—” And here Chanda's datalink failed her, offering her as best guesses either “plant” or “vegetable” as possible translations. Such categorizing of flora or fauna often broke down given different worlds’ varying biological histories.

Chanda said, “I'm speaking of a life-form with enough intelligence to decide to examine this craft.”

“It could be instinct.”

“Except that it would be obvious by now to that being that this starcraft is neither food nor a mating partner. I believe curiosity motivates it.” Chanda thought she detected a ripple going through the mass of Buruden before her. “Are there more lifepods aboard this craft?”

“There are, but only for beings the size of the Buruden. The Sobrenians also expended all our excess energies in opening an exterior hatch against the water pressure.”

Domerlan said, “My orders were to seize a craft that my troops would use to rescue the others of my species.”

Chanda decided she'd had enough, ambassador or not. Her left hand darted out and grabbed the undamaged right side of Domerlan's head and made him look at her. “Your people tried to kill me! They've tried to kill one of my marines and nearly succeeded.”

Domerlan's single eye regarded her with a deadly gaze. “You will let go of me.”

Chanda squeezed harder. “Make me.”

Bartow stepped back and Domerlan's remaining hand rose slowly from his side, but shook uncontrollably. He lowered the hand.

“Is this what the Buruden did? Stopped you cold?” Chanda glanced back at Woradon and the other two Sobrenians, who were still standing by impassively. “I notice your troops aren't trying to keep me from harming you. Are they looking at a change of leadership? Is Woradon waiting for you to die?”

“Sobrenians do not exchange power in such a manner. That is for lesser forms.”

Chanda let go of Domerlan's head. “These lesser forms are about to save your life.”

Chanda addressed the single Buruden who had tapped into her datalink—she thought of it as the species’ ambassador. “You said the Sobrenians used up all your excess energies. But what about the shrouds you've maintained?”

“We lowered them once our craft settled onto the ocean bottom.”

Chanda shook her head. “We've made sensor sweeps since then. They're still up.”

The Buruden ambassador's middle eye of the three looking at Chanda stayed focused on her, but their neighbors on either side turned back toward the mass of Buruden. They all chittered in a quick exchange that Chanda's datalink did not translate.

The Buruden ambassador said, “Ambassador Kasmira, our shrouds were dropped long ago. We've checked and confirmed this.”

All right, Chanda, set that aside for now. “Can you cancel the internal gravity?

“This is the minimum gravity we feel comfortable in. We cannot tolerate zero-g conditions, and even gravitation less than the craft's current levels makes us quite ill.”

Damn, Chanda thought. I can't get a single break. She asked, “Do these pods have any kind of internal grav?”

“They do not.” Chanda wasn't surprised. No known Galactic species had the capability to induce gravity in a mechanism that small.

The Buruden ambassador continued: “These pods are a last resort, given the illness that overtakes us in zero-g. And only eight of us can fit within each pod. That gives us only enough sentience to be as aware of our illness as an animal might be. Each of us receives the comfort of the others within the pod.”

“So we could use the energies spent maintaining gravity to eject the pods?”

More untranslated chittering, no doubt the ambassador consulting with the other Buruden. “Yes.”

“Will it take long to get to the pods?”

“Not if we transport you.”

Chanda traded glances with Bartow, who asked, “What does that entail?”

Just as Chanda was thinking Bartow shouldn't have asked, a group of about a dozen Buruden detached itself from the rest and, with amazing speed, darted over to Bartow. Several grabbed her feet and jerked them out from under her. Even as she yelped her surprise, the other Buruden gathered beneath her to bring her upper body gently down. Then they manipulated her around so Bartow was lying on her stomach atop their flat upper bodies.

Then, more quickly than Chanda could have imagined, the Buruden bolted into the right-hand corridor, from which a thin trickle of water still flowed.

Chanda's heart pounded and her eyes grew wide as the next set of Buruden advanced steadily toward her. “Oh, no,” she said. “Besides, there's Domerlan. He can hardly stand on his own.”

So the Buruden took Domerlan first. Chanda only delayed her own fate by ten or twelve seconds at most, before she found herself hurtling head first and face down through that darkened, wet corridor. For a full fifteen minutes, all Chanda perceived was the sound of dozens of tiny Buruden spine tips splashing through water, raising a misty spray that dampened her face. She couldn't rub that moisture away; the Buruden had too strong a hold on her arms.

Finally, she sensed the Buruden were slowing. She assumed another wider, taller area such as the operating room and recovery room was just ahead.

Her assumption was half right. The Buruden halted, placed Chanda face down on the floor, and skittered away. She took a deep breath, kept her eyes on the floor. Yellow-maroon-gold. Oddly comforting.

When she got her knees and elbows beneath her and made to stand, however, she bumped her head. Not hard enough to activate her lifesuit, but surprising all the same.

Chanda kept her head level and brought her gaze upward.

Except for the floor, the room was a deep blue, and honeycombed with corridors every few meters. It was just as wide as the previous rooms they'd encountered, but little taller than one of the corridors.

Domerlan was lying to Chanda's right, Bartow to her left. The Sobrenian guards were nowhere in sight. The Buruden had all joined together again, and their ambassador stood right in front of Chanda's face. Its stance was such that three eyes pondered her. She noticed that Buruden eyes blinked very slowly, and that their lids moved from side to side rather than up and down. Not nearly as bad as the Sobrenians.

Chanda asked the Buruden ambassador, “Is there no place where someone of my height can stand?”

“Not in the lifepod area. The earlier places you saw are often used for therapy, and when we treat life-forms of extreme height it is useful for them to be able to stand and walk about.”

“You didn't bring the other Sobrenians along?”

“We've discovered that fewer Sobrenians create more advantage.”

A proverb I'll live by from now on, Chanda thought. “Show me one of the lifepods.”

It was a ten-meter crawl to the thousands of dark blue pods at one end of the room. The Buruden parted before her.

Another low rumbling went through the starcraft, and with Chanda crawling on its deck, she could feel it to her bones. She looked at the first pod before her and multiplied her claustrophobia by at least a factor of ten. Coffinlike didn't begin to describe it. A child's coffin, perhaps, or a Sobrenian's. She relinquished any ideas of comfort or of taking any action once inside the pod. Fortunately, it would only be a few minutes at most before you got to the surface, assuming you weren't stuck beneath the new ice forming over the hole the starcraft had made.

The Buruden ambassador always held out at least one leg to maintain contact with the others. It said, “You are larger than the Sobrenians, and they could not fit themselves within.”

Chanda muttered, “I'm going to give it a shot.” She crawled over to the pod, which was the same deep blue as the surrounding room. She thought, It's actually hard to make the damn thing out against its surroundings.

The Buruden ambassador let go of its colleagues and skittered over to the pod entrance. A touch of a spine, and a hatch on one side opened so abruptly that if Chanda had blinked, she'd have sworn it disappeared. Wouldn't want that to close on my foot, she thought. She grabbed the edges of the hatch and pulled herself in head-first.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Six

Getting breasts and hips through the entrance was problematic, even though Chanda knew some Humans considered her figure “boyish.” She didn't even want to think about the bruises she was getting. The same deep blue dominated here in the pod, with the only light source being tiny readouts, nearly pinpoints, nearly at deck level. The pod had no ports or viewscreens.

Chanda bumped her head against the pod's far end, and her legs from the knees down were still outside. So, draw up the knees—damn, got to watch getting those shins past the hatchway—and pull the legs inside.

Certainly it had been difficult, but she'd squeezed herself in. Why couldn't the smaller Sobrenians fit?

Chanda's heart jumped when the hatch zoomed shut as her feet cleared the entryway. Entombed in this alien lifepod, she was utterly helpless.

The hatch opened and the Buruden ambassador peered in with a single eye. “We must apologize for alarming you,” it said. “The hatch is an automatic function when the pod realizes it's filled.” The ambassador showed her a small round panel to press to open the hatch herself.

Chanda skinned her shins again as she unfolded herself and stuck her legs through the hatchway. Bartow was there suddenly grabbing her ankles and pulling until they were both lying next to the pod again. “Watch it, marine, we're not popping a cork here.”

“Sorry, Ambassador. What's the plan?”

Chanda looked around and saw Domerlan, sitting propped up against a wall, glaring at her. She turned to the mass of Buruden and addressed their ambassador. “I'd like to get the Buruden into position as soon as we can. Your species is the most comfortable within the pods. Then we'll put the Sobrenians aboard, and—”

“You will not!” Domerlan's translated voice boomed over Chanda's datalink. To her amazement, the Sobrenian was crawling across the deck toward her. Chanda said, “You can't be so ashamed over losing a battle that—”

“It is not losing the battle that is the shame. The weapons are our shame. They were beautiful, and though the Buruden do not even hold weapons, they defeated ours. We gave proper challenge.”

The Buruden ambassador said, “They attacked our homeworld with no warning.”

Chanda found herself flush with anger. She asked the Buruden, “Did they use automated disruptor craft?”

All the Buruden chittered at once. “They did!” was the translation.

“Craft that arrived in a stardrive jump close to your planet?”

Again: “They did!”

Domerlan said, “Splendor lies between the Sobrenian and Buruden homeworlds.”

Chanda said, “That's why you picked Splendor for weapons testing.”

“It was convenient.”

“And you can go to hell.”

Domerlan glared at Chanda with his undamaged eye. “My people only believe in hell. Your curses cannot make things worse.”

“If that's so, Commander, why do you insist upon sending your crewmembers there prematurely? Wouldn't you want to prolong their lives?”

Domerlan sagged to the deck. “I can try to guide them to that conclusion.” The Sobrenian covered his burned and scarred head with his hands.

The deck rumbled beneath Chanda. The Buruden ambassador said, “We don't know how our starcraft has remained intact this long. We must leave.”

Chanda said, “Get yourselves into the pods. Ensign Bartow!”

The marine was at Chanda's shoulder. “Yes, Ambassador.”

“Talk to Lieutenant Tiernan. We're ... what do you call it? Bugging out?”

“That's an appropriate phrase, Ambassador.”

“Very good. You deal with gathering Humans together. I'll take care of the Sobrenians.”

Chanda went to Domerlan and placed a hand on his uninjured shoulder. The Sobrenian raised his head and glared at her. She asked, “Can you gather your people?”

“Some will come. Some will not. This Buruden starcraft defended itself well against the Melareon's attack. A hospital ship. Not even a warcraft. They pierced our shields and disabled our weaponry.”

A rumbling and chittering to Chanda's left, and the remaining Buruden were arriving. Chanda had always thought the individuals forming a hive-mind species would appear to be automatons, marching in ranks. Watching the Buruden right now, it was clear her impression was mistaken. They were detaching themselves from their fellow beings haphazardly, and scrambling aboard the many dozens of pods as if eager for window seats.

Domerlan's hands clawed at the hard smooth deck as he watched the Buruden gather. “They are a younger species than we are. And presentients, such as yourself, who do not act as they should. Then they tried to convince my crewmates, as individuals, that it was in our best interest to surrender. As individuals! The Buruden ignored my authority.”

Chanda said, “They're a collective species, Commander. If they haven't had that many first contacts, they may not understand that with individualistic species like Humans or Sobrenians, you approach the leader to accomplish something.”

“It is we Sobrenians who've had little dealings with other species. Perhaps we don't want to have more.”

“Commander, shouldn't your people live to take that message back to your homeworld?”

Domerlan's uninjured eye looked as if it were about to pop out of its socket. “That would be a convenience for Humanity, would it not? If Sobrenians simply left the stars to others?”

“I just want to save as many beings as I can, Domerlan. Please request your people to come to the pods.”

“They cannot fit inside with their weapons. The hatch will not close.”

“Would they rather die?”

Another rumbling, much stronger than before, and the ship's deck pitched enough that Chanda began to slide across it. Bartow grabbed Chanda's leg. The marine's other hand grasped the exterior of one of the pods.

Domerlan seemed to find reserves of strength and pulled himself against the downward slope of the deck to rest against the side of a lifepod filled with Buruden. He began to speak quietly, presumably over his datalink to the other Sobrenians aboard.

Chanda pulled herself next to Bartow and balanced herself against a lifepod. Domerlan came to Chanda and said, “I've told all Sobrenians aboard this ship to board these lifepods without their weapons. I'll remain aboard this craft and assume that shame upon myself.”

Chanda said, “Domerlan, no! Do you have some sort of messiah complex, that you'd sacrifice yourself for your people?”

The Sobrenian commander glared at Chanda. “Some words did not translate properly. How could a god sacrifice himself? He who is all-living? You are so presumptuous. You wish to express your culture, which you have told me values all life. Yet I cannot express my own culture, my own way of valuing Sobrenian life?”

Chanda didn't have a good answer for that. Instead, she watched as Sobrenians crawled out of the darkened corridors around the room. To her amazement, they began stacking their energy rifles in neat piles and entering individual lifepods—a much easier task for the smaller Sobrenians than a Human.

Chanda recognized Woradon when he arrived—he was one of many officers wearing deep blue robes with red and green laced through them, but his snout was slightly flatter than the norm, his eyes wider apart. Woradon made his way over to Chanda, Bartow, and Domerlan on all fours—when they had to be, Sobrenians were decent quadrupeds.

Chanda asked, “Are all the Sobrenians coming here?”

Woradon said, “Most. A few have decided as Domerlan has.”

Chanda wanted to plead with Woradon to convince the other Sobrenians that staying here and embracing a needless death was madness. But she knew better.

The other Sobrenians had gathered around the lifepods. Woradon went to them and barked orders. Movement to Chanda's right—Tiernan was backing out of a corridor, pulling Avery's still form into the room. Haj trailed behind, pushing Avery along. Chanda scrambled over to help.

Tiernan said, “This was tough going without the Buruden to help us. They just ran off.” Chanda was grateful, though, to see that the marine lieutenant was still in job mode, not complaining, just noting a fact.

Chanda said, “Let's get Avery into a lifepod. It's a tight squeeze. Then ourselves. We don't have much time.” Tiernan supervised as Haj and Bartow placed Avery into a pod, in the proper near-fetal position. “Chanda to Captain Bram.”

Over her datalink came the reply: “Bram here.”

“Get ready to receive us.”

Bram said, “Just be prepared to leave your pod when we tell you.”

“Will do.” Tiernan watched while Haj and Bartow squeezed themselves into lifepods. When they were done, Tiernan looked at her expectantly. “You know I'll wait right here until you're safely in a pod.”

Chanda had to give him that. Better to get this done than bother with the argument.

She made herself look over at Domerlan one last time. The Sobrenian didn't return the favor, just stared into infinity.

Chanda squeezed into the pod again and waited. Finally, dull noises resounded from somewhere deep within the starcraft. The grav lightened, from the 1.7G's the Buruden grav had produced to the lesser 1.3 Splendorian pull. She wondered if the Buruden were already urping.

A gigantic screeching noise, and Chanda guessed that previously unseen pod bay doors were opening, with the energies that had gone to maintaining internal grav now being employed in keeping the rush of water back.

Chanda's pod began to move, gently at first, then with violent intermittent shocks. Then a collision that shook both the pod's structure and Chanda's skull. After that, smooth sailing. How long would it take to rise up 2.5 kilometer by the buoyancy of the pod alone?

Bram's voice: “Chanda, out of the pod. Now.”

Chanda pressed the proper panel, and the pod's hatch opened. Sea spray soaked her. Thunder rumbled. The hatch wasn't designed for a sea rescue, and had opened right at water level. The pod began to fill with water, and Chanda scrambled feet first, as quickly as she could, out of the pod and into the water, breathtakingly cold beneath gray-to-black skies.

Winds tore at Chanda's face. Clear of the pod now, she pressed her left middle finger into her palm and her lifesuit activated. It was “soft armor” only, a translucent energy field that would protect her against the elements and keep her afloat.

She was bobbing on relatively calm seas, with the surrounding waves only centimeters high, like a pond with a stiff wind blowing across. Where was the ice?

“Chanda?” Bram's voice.

“I'm here. What's happening? Where are you?”

“Nivara II's about half a klick over your head. Don't bother looking up, we're in the clouds. You need to start swimming straight ahead of your position. We've widened the hole in the ice to make sure we take in as many lifepods as we can. The edge of the ice pack's not more than a quarter-K from you. Walk inland about half a kilometer, and the ice is thick enough we can land a shuttle.”

Start swimming, then. “Have you heard from anyone else?”

Tiernan's voice: “I'm here, Ambassador. I've hooked up with Haj. We're looking for Avery's lifepod.”

“Bartow here. I've found it. I'm near the edge of the ice. I'm pushing it that way. There's a bunch of Buruden at the edge of the ice forming a chain of beings that's grabbing onto the pod. They're pulling it up. Oh, hell, now they're pulling me up. I'm grateful for the help, but I think I'm more grateful I'm in soft armor. I'd hate to think what these Buruden would smell like or feel like if I were more exposed to them.”

Chanda guessed what the problem was. “You mean—”

“That's right, Ambassador. They weren't lying about how sick they get. They're covered in their own throw-up. And making more of it even as I watch.”

Within half an hour, Chanda was walking across the frozen seascape to where Tiernan, Haj, Bartow, and Avery's lifepod were waiting.

Along with nearly a thousand sick Buruden. Though they weren't a pretty sight, a number of them were more than eager to link together and carry the pod containing Catarina Avery.

Ten Sobrenians were also present, but seemed oddly subdued, and trailed silently behind the Humans and Buruden.

Another half-hour, and the Nivara II, Angra, and even the orbiting Harding were all sending shuttles to pick up the survivors. Angra's submersible, Galathea, also arrived, and that's where Chanda and the other Humans headed for pickup.

As Galathea lifted to take Chanda back to the Nivara II, she made a mental list of quite unadventurous things to do.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Seven

Aboard the Earth Unity starcraft Nivara II, Chanda savored a hot meal, hotter shower, and ten consecutive hours sleep.

List complete.

* * *

Chanda sat beneath clear Splendorian skies, on a rocky outcropping that overlooked both the wide expanse of frozen seascape before her and the still-beached Nivara II below. To the southwest, a volcano oozed lava. When the winds changed just right, Chanda found her eyes watering from the stench. Splendor's primary, Pinpoint, hovered at the horizon.

The orbiting Unity starcraft, Nigel Harding, had just notified Chanda of its latest sensor findings. One was expected. The other was a shock.

The first finding: the Great Sea's waters had finally crushed the Buruden hospital ship. Chanda looked toward the western horizon, her imagination taking her beyond it, and beneath the Great Sea's waters. At least Domerlan's sacrifice had saved other Sobrenian lives.

Chanda had to wonder whether the Sobrenian threat to Splendor could actually be over. Woradon was demanding safe return for himself and his people to the Sobrenian homeworld, and Chanda saw no legal reason to deny it, but what message would they take with them?

The Harding's other finding: a closer examination of sensor records from the submerged probe indicated the so-called carpet being covering the ocean floor had not been trying to crush the Buruden starcraft. Even the Buruden had wondered at the time how their ship was managing to hold together. That being had exerted its pressure outward, presumably to protect the craft for as long as it could. Fortunately for Chanda and the others, that had been after they'd made their escape.

It's at least as aware as a Saturnian floater flashing greetings at the crew of a deep-probe, Chanda thought, or a dolphin helping an injured swimmer back to shore.

The implication was clear: a third sentient Splendorian species.

The carpet being (they'd really have to come up with a better name for it!) had even mimicked the Buruden ship's shrouds as a function of its own central nervous system. That also explained why the being itself hadn't been detected earlier. More refined sensor sweeps now showed that particular being was hundreds of kilometers wide, and that dozens of them were scattered about Splendor's ocean bottom.

You sure as hell couldn't take such an entity off-planet. Difficult enough to find a new home for valley dwellers and highlanders, given their specific and narrow ecological niches, but this species!

Chanda sighed. She had a headache that was defeating even her personal medtech.

Boots ground against stone. Chanda looked up. Lieutenant Lewis Tiernan. “Ambassador.”

“Lieutenant.”

“May I sit next to you?”

“Feel free.” Chanda moved over and Tiernan sat, looking out at the frozen seascape. She wondered what was on the lieutenant's mind. Tiernan's features were hard, pinched, as if keeping harsh emotions in check. Pinpoint's final rays washed over his face, turning it blood-red.

Chanda asked, “How's Avery?”

Tiernan's eyes brightened at the mention of her name. “Back on duty tomorrow morning.”

“That's good,” Chanda said, and watched as Tiernan's features clouded over again.

“No reason I shouldn't get right to the point,” Tiernan said. “I've resigned from the Unity Marines. Just told Captain Bram.”

Chanda's eyebrows raised involuntarily. “Why?”

“The Unity has to deal with these aliens.” Chanda winced at the word never uttered in diplomatic circles. Tiernan continued: “I'm tired of it. Sobrenians thinking they can come here and do what they want. Buruden saving Avery. I told you back on that Buruden ship that I needed to finish the mission successfully. That's my way of fulfilling the responsibilities I'd taken then. I'm accepting a new set now.”

“What're you going to do?”

“Work to get Humanity off of Splendor.”

“You can't be serious.”

“You'll see how serious I am.” Tiernan stood. “Just fair warning, Ambassador. Good day.” Tiernan began climbing down the craggy outcropping.

Chanda's first instinct was to run after Tiernan, to try to convince him he'd chosen the wrong course, not just for Splendor but for himself. But she made herself sit right where she was. Negotiations just weren't recommended sometimes.

How much of a danger was Tiernan? Chanda was willing to do nearly anything to protect this world. Would that include violence against other Humans?

Maybe this is actually my biggest mistake ever, Chanda thought. I'm doing exactly what an ambassador can't allow herself to do—identifying with my posting, not thinking enough of the Unity.

A lot of factors to balance. Valley dwellers who want to end the evacuation effort. Highlanders influenced by those valley dwellers. Sobrenians, and their potential for violence. Buruden, a third sentient species, and possibly a renegade Human. Maybe too many factors. I have to remember that truth. Splendor's truth.

Pinpoint had already dropped below the western horizon and darkness swept toward Chanda. In the dim light, she made her way down the steep, rocky slope, step by step.