Michael Swanwick's Periodic Table of Science Fiction

Neptunium

(237)

The Oceans of Neptune

Deep in the heart of Neptune's hot oceans, it rains diamonds. Unlike on

Earth, there is no distinct boundary on that world between air and sea.

The atmosphere just gets thicker and denser until it's a slush of

superheated ices. In the far depths of the ocean the pressure is so great

that carbon atoms are squeezed out of the dissolved methane, crystallize,

and fall.

Summergarden, Claimjumper & Ting had mining stations in orbit around

Neptune. The mining was accomplished by dropping thermonuclear explosives

to the appropriate depths of the ocean and blasting great columns of

water into the atmosphere. Some of the diamonds thus recovered were

larger than a human heart. So there was a lot at stake when a religious

dispute arose with the locals, and they sent a promising junior

diplomat-metallurgist named Rennie Wong to straighten things out.

Your enterprise is false/sinful/wrong, her skimmer counterpart told Wong.

Skimmers were shaped something like kites and something like shallow boat

hulls, and the winds they rode were the strongest in the Solar System?up

to 1,200 miles per hour near the Great Dark Spot! The

core/depths/darkness is where our souls/bodies/selves go when we

fall/transcend/die. Because their thinking was so different from that of

humans, the translator had to offer multiple interpretations for key

concepts.

"I'm not sure I understand." Wong was in an extremely fast flying machine

that was, nevertheless, barely able to keep up with the skimmer, though

it was flying as slowly as it could. "You believe that when you die, your

souls descend to the center of the planet?"

No!/Never!/Hideous misunderstanding!

"Then explain it to me," Wong said gently. "I'm here to listen. I'll stay

as long as it takes." She was young in those days, idealistic and, as her

older self would several centuries later put it, "greener than an

Aldebaran's butt."

Hours later, just as Wong felt she finally had a grasp on the situation,

the Chief Demolitions Officer radioed down to her, "Heads up, Missy. Fire

in the hole."

"Hey! No! Stop!" she cried. "You can't do that."

"Sorry, little lady," the CDO drawled, "but we've got a schedule to make."

"You don't understand?this isn't a religious dispute! The skimmers don't

descend into the ocean when they die, they?"

Pillars of lased energy shot up from the ocean depths. One by one the

orbital facilities exploded. Still plummeting through the atmosphere, the

last nuclear device that would ever be dropped into Neptune ceased to be,

before it could destroy yet more of a civilization that, had they known

about it, human beings would never have guessed was more technologically

advanced than their own.

"?go there when they grow up."

An instant ago, there had been thousands of humans working in or above

Neptune. Now, Wong was the sole survivor.

Go away, the skimmer said. Don't come back. Its meaning could not have

been clearer.

Rennie Wong lifted the nose of her machine toward high orbit.

The experience left her feeling chastened, strangely exuberant, and

permanently convinced that all other people were idiots. It hardened her.

From that day onward, before accepting any assignment, she insisted on

full plenipotentiary powers.

The End