The Jesus Incident (Destination: Void #2)

The Jesus Incident (Destination: Void #2) Page 39

The family feeds its fledgling, and under the nest weaves twigs - Intelligence is a poor cousin to understanding.

- Kerro Panille, The Collected Poems

THE DULL crimson of instruments and telltales filled the sub's core gondola with red shadows and played firelight flickers off every movement of the three people strapped in their seats around the tight arc of controls.

Thomas, intensely aware of the crushing pressure of water around them, glanced up at the depth repeater. This was not completely like a Voidship, after all. Instead of empty space, he sensed the inward pressing of the Pandoran sea. All he had to do was look directly up through the transparent dome of the gondola where it protruded from the carrier-sub and he could see the diminishing circle of glowing light which was the surface of the lagoon.

As he moved his head, he glimpsed Waela engaged in the same reflexive check of the repeater. She appeared to be taking it well. No residual fugue from her bad experiences down here.

He looked then at Kerro Panille. This poet was not what he had expected - young, yes - barely past twenty according to the records - but there was something more mature in Panille's manner.

The poet had been quiet during the descent, not even asking the expected questions, but his eyes missed very little. The way he cocked his head at new sounds betrayed his alertness. There had been no time really to train him for this. Waela had set Panille to watching the monitors on their communications program to signal when it began accepting the firefly patterns of the kelp. She had reserved for herself the instruments which reported the status of their linkage to the anchor cable. The anchor had been dropped in the center of a lagoon and now the cable guided their descent. The LTA rode close to the sea surface overhead, tightly tethered to the cable.

"He's very sensitive to unconscious communication," she had told Thomas before Panille's arrival at the hangar.

Thomas did not ask how she knew this. She already had confirmed the failure of her attempt to seduce Panille.

"Was he too naive? Did he know what yo.... ?"

"Oh, he knew. But he has this thing about his body being his own. Rather refreshing in a man."

"Is h.... do you think he's really working for Oakes?"

"He's not the type."

Thomas had to agree. Panille displayed an almost childlike openness.

Since the abortive and (she had to admit it) rather amateurish attempt at seduction, Waela had felt restrained with Panille. But the poet showed no such inhibition. He had shipside candor and, she suspected, would be rather more apt than not to walk openly into some deadly Pandoran peril out of curiosity.

I like him, she thought. I really like him.

But he would have to be educated swiftly to the dangers here or he would not last long enough to write another poem.

Ship really did send him, then, Thomas thought. Is he supposed to keep watch on me?

Thomas had reserved for himself the visual observation of the kelp-free pocket through which they were descending. It was a column of clear water about four hundred meters in diameter, a Pandoran "lagoon." They had not yet descended into the dark regions where the kelp played its light show.

Panille had been fascinated by the name lagoon when he had heard it. Ship had displayed an Earthside lagoon for him once - palm trees, an outrigger with white sails. Would Pandora ever see such play upon its seas?

He found himself acutely aware of every sensory impression about this experience. It was the stuff of countless poems. There was the faint hiss of air being recycled, the smell of human bodies too close and exuding their unspoken fears. He liked the way the red light played off the ladder which ran up to the hatch.

When Thomas had used the word lagoon to describe their destination, Panille had said: "The persistence of atavism." The remark had provoked a startled glance from Thomas.

Waela marked their descent past eighty-five meters and called it out. She leaned close to the screen which displayed the lagoon's nearest wall of encaging kelp. The long strands angled down into darkness with an occasional black tentacle reaching out toward the sub. The external dive lights played green shadows on the pale kelp, revealing small dark extrusions, bubbles whose purpose remained undiscovered. Farther down, such bubbles played their bright patterns of light.

The water around the kelp strand and in the upper lagoon was aswarm with darting and slow-moving shapes, some with many eyes and some with none. Some were thin and worm-like, some fat and ponderous with long fleshy fins and toothless gaping jaws. None had ever been known to attack Shipmen and it was thought they lived in symbiosis with the kelp. Taking them for specimens aroused the kelp to violence and when they were removed from the sea, they melted so rapidly that mobile labs appeared to be the only way to examine them. But mobile labs did not survive long here.

Farther down, Waela knew, there would be fewer and fewer of these creatures. Then the sub would enter the zone of crawlers, things which moved along the kelp and across the sea floor. A few large swimmers there, but crawlers dominated.

On the flight out to the lagoon, Waela had kept herself busy, fearing that she might break down when the moment came to make another dive. It had helped to recall the strong construction of this sub, but the actual moment of the dive had loomed ahead, mingled with a return to dark memories of terror. Colony's last dive had been a disaster. The sub had been seventy meters long, studded with knives and cutters. It had cost Colony a terrible toll in lives to transport it across The Egg's undulating plains to the one area on the south coast where they could skid the sub into a wave-washed bay of kelp. She had been one of the nine on the crew, the only survivor.

For a time, they had thought sheer size and weight would bring them success. Water doors were opened remotely and stuffed with kelp specimens. But the kelp's cable-strands released themselves from the rocks on the seafloor and, tendrils waving, swept over the sub. There seemed no end to the attack. More and more kelp came at them, wrapping around the sub, overwhelming the cutters by weight of numbers, drawing them deeper and deeper while tendrils probed for any weak point. Leaves blinded their external sensors. Static crackled in their communications system. They were blind and dumb. Then water had jetted into the hull near a hatch, a stream so strong it cut the flesh in its path.

Thinking about those moments made Waela's breath come faster. She had been operating a cutter, her station a plaz bubble extruded from the hull. Leaves covered the bubble except for straining strands of kelp trying to crush the sub. Through the crashing static in her earphones, she had heard a crewmate describe the water jet cutting one of their companions in half. Abruptly, a warping of the hull and the explosive shift of pressure within the sub had blasted her bubble free. It shot out and clear of the blinding leaves, then upward as the kelp spread aside to permit her passage. She had never been able to explain that phenomenon. The kelp had opened a way to the surface for her!

Once into the glare of double-day side, she had forced open the hatch, dived clear to an undulant sea covered by broad fans of kelp leaves. She remembered touching the leaves, fearing them and needing them to support her; they were a pale green cushion which dampened the waves. Then she had felt a tingling all through her body. Her mind had been invaded by wild images of demons and humans locked in death struggles. She remembered screaming, swallowing salty water and screaming. Within seconds, the images overwhelmed her and she rolled across a kelp leaf unconscious.

An observation LTA had snatched her from the sea. She had spent many diurns recovering, awakening to acclaim because she had proved that the kelp not only was dangerous because of its physical abilities, but that its hallucinogenic capacity worked havoc when enough of it contacted enough of a Shipman's body in a liquid medium.

"Is something wrong, Waela?"

That was Panille staring at her, concerned by her introspection.

"No. We're leaving the active surface waters. We'll begin to see the lights soon."

"You've been down here before, they tell me."

"Yes."

"We'll be safe as long as we don't threaten the kelp," Thomas said. "You know that."

"Thanks."

"The records say that attempts to establish a shoreside harvester were defeated when the kelp actually came ashore to attack," Panille said.

"People and machines were snatched from the shore, yes," she said. "The people drowned and were thrown back. Machines just disappeared."

"Then why won't it attack us here?"

"It never has when we just come down and observe."

Saying this helped her restore a measure of calm. She returned to observation of sensors and telltales.

Panille peered over his shoulder at her screen, saw the angled strands of kelp, the fluting leaves and the curious bubble extrusions which reflected starbursts from the sub's dive lights. When he looked up past the ladder to the top hatch, he could see the luminous circle of the lagoon's surfac...receding moon populated by the darting shapes of the creatures who shared the sea with the kelp.

The lagoon was a place of magic and mystery with a beauty so profound he felt thankful to Ship just to have seen it. The kelp strands were pale gray-green cables, thicker than a Shipman's torso in places. They reached up from darkness into the distant mercuric pool of light overhead.

Light reaches for stars and, seeing the stars, fears to grasp them, floats in wonder. Oh, stars, you burn my mind.

The kelp aimed itself at Rega, the only sun in their sky at the moment. Alki would join Rega later. Even under clouds, the kelp aligned itself perpendicular to the passage of a sun. When two suns were present, this tropism adjusted to the radiation balance. It was a precise adjustment.

Panille thought about this, reviewing what he had learned from Ship. These were observations which perilous ventures into the sea had gleaned. Sparse information, and nowhere as intense as what he learned by being here. He knew some of the things he would see at the bottom: kelp tendrils wrapped around and through large rocks. Crawling creatures and burrowing ones. Slow currents, drifting sediments. Lagoons were ventilators, passages for exchange between surface and bottom waters. Near the surface, they provided light for creatures other than kelp.

The lagoons were cages.

"These lagoons are where the kelp engages in aquaculture," he said.

Thomas blinked. That was so close to his own surmise about how kelp fitted into the sea system that he wondered if Panille had been eavesdropping on his thoughts.

Is Ship talking to him even now?

Panille's words fascinated Waela. "You think the kelp follows a conscious pain?"

"Perhaps.

To Thomas, the poet's words pulled a veil from the kelp domain. He began to sense the sea in a different way. Here was rich living space free of Pandora's other dangerous demons. Was it right then to rid the sea of kelp? He knew it could be done - disrupt the ecosystem, break the internal chain of the kelp's own life. Was that the decision of Oakes and Lewis?

"The lights!" Panille said. "Ohhh, yes."

They had reached the dark zone where the sub's external sensors began to pick up the flickering lights. Jewels danced in the blackness beyond the range of the dive lights - tiny bursts of colo.... red, yellow, orange, green, purpl.... There appeared to be no pattern to them, just bursts of brilliance which dazzled the awareness.

"Bottom coming up," Waela said.

Panille, every sense alert, shot a glance at her screen. Yes - the bottom appeared to be moving while they remained stationary. Coming up.

Thomas adjusted the rate of descent - slower, slower. The sub came to rest with a slight jar which stirred sediment into a gray fog around them. When the fog settled, the screens showed a plastering of ripples out to the limits of their illumination. Bottom grazers moved through the ripples - inverted bowls with gulping lips all around the rim. At the extreme forward edge of illumination, the flukes of the sub's anchor dug into the sediment. The cable sagged back over them and out of light range. Off to the port side, they could glimpse black mounds of rock with kelp tendrils lacing over and through them. Dark shapes swam deep in the kelp jungle - more attendants of the sea's rulers.

Tiny crawlers already were working their way along the anchor and the cable. Panille knew that the anchor tackle had been made of native iron and steel - substances which would be etched away to lace in a few diurns. Only plaz and plasteel resisted the erosive powers in Pandora's seas.

This knowledge filled him with a sense of how fragile was their link to safety. He watched the jewel brilliants flickering in the gloom beyond the sub's dive lights. They seemed to speak to him: "We are here. We are here. We are her...."

To Thomas, the lights were like the play of a computer board. Watching holorecords of them had formed this association in his mind. He had proposed it to Waela during one of the sessions when she had been teaching him the ways of Pandora's deeps. "A computer could crunch far greater numbers, form so many more associations so much faster."

Out of this had been born his proposal: Record them, scan for patterns and play those patterns back to the kelp.

Waela had admired the elegant simplicity of it: Leap beyond the perilous collection and analysis of specimens, beyond the organic speculations. Strike directly for the communications patterns!

Say to the kelp: "We see you and know you are aware and intelligent. We, too, are aware. Teach us your speech."

As he watched the play of lights, Thomas wanted to say they were like Christmas lights twinkling in the dark. But he knew neither of his crew would understand.

Christmas!

The very thought made him feel ancient. Shipmen did not know Christmas. They played other religious games. Perhaps the only person in his universe who might understand Christmas was Hali Ekel. She had seen the Hill of Skulls.

What did the Hill of Skulls and the passion of Jesus have to do with these lights flickering in a sea?

Thomas stared at the screen in front of him. What was he supposed to see here?

Aquaculture?

Would Shipmen be forced to exterminate the kelp? Crucify it for their own survival?

Christmas and aquacultur....

The play of lights was hypnotic. He felt the silent wonder of watchfulness throughout the command gondola. A sense of revelatory awe crept over him. Here on the bottom was the record of Pandora's budget, all the transactions which the planet's life had made. This was more than the bourse, it was the deposit vault where Pandora's grand geochemical and biochemical circuit of exchange lay open to view.

What do you here, mighty kelp?

Was this what Ship wanted them to see?

He did not expect Ship to answer that question. Such an answer did not fit into the rules of this game. He was on his own down here.

Play the game, Devil.

The pressure of the water around their gondola filled his awareness. They remained here by the sufferance of the kelp. By the kelp's own tolerance could they survive. Others had come into this sea and survived by careful restraint. What might the kelp interpret as a threat? Those jeweled blinkings in the gloom took on a malevolent aspect to him then.

We trust too much.

In the silence of his fears, Panille's voice came as a jarring intrusion.

"We're beginning to get some pattern indicators."

Thomas shot a glance at the recording board to the left of his console. The load-sensors indicated preparation for playback. This would control the sub's exterior bubbles to replay any light patterns which the computer counted as repetitive and significant. Any such patterns would be played to the kelp.

"See! Now, we talk to you. What are we saying?"

That would catch its attention. But what would it do?

"The kelp's watching us," Panille said. "Can you feel it?"

Thomas found himself in silent agreement. The kelp around them was watching and waiting. He felt like the child of that faraway day at Moonbase when he had entered the creche school for the first time. There was a truth revealed here which most educators ignored: You could learn dangerous things.

"If it's watching us, where are its eyes?" Waela whispered.

Thomas thought this a nonsense question. The kelp could possess senses which Shipmen had never imagined. You might just as well ask about Ship's eyes. But he could not deny that sense of watchfulness around the sub. The presence which the kelp projected onto the intruders was an almost palpable thing.

The recorder buzzed beside him and he saw the green lights which signaled the shift to replay. Now, the extruded bubbles on the carrier surface were playing back something, he had no idea what. Exterior sensors revealed only a glow of many colors reflecting off particles in the water.

He could see no discernible change in the light play from the kelp.

"Ignoring us." That was Waela.

"Too soon to say," Panille objected. "What's the response time of the kelp? Or maybe we're not even speaking to it yet."

"Try the pattern display," Waela said.

Thomas nodded, punched for the prepared program. This had been the alternate approach. The small screen above the recorder board began to show what was being displayed on the sub's hull: first Pythagorean squares, then the counting of the sticks, the galactic spiral, the pebble gam....

No response from the kelp.

The dim shapes of swimmers among the kelp did not change their movements dramatically. All appeared to be the same.

Waela, studying her own screens, asked: "Am I mistaken or are the lights brighter?"

"A bit brighter perhaps," Thomas said.

"They are brighter," Panille said. "It seems to me that the water i.... murkier. I.... Look at the anchor cable!"

Thomas flicked to the view Panille's screen displayed, saw the sensors signaling the approach of some large object from above.

"The cable's gone slack," Waela said. "It's sinking!"

As she spoke, they all saw the first remnants of the LTA bag settling around them into the range of the dive lights - dull orange reflections from the fabric, black edges. It pulled a curtain over the bubble dome above them. This disturbed the creatures among the kelp and ignited a wild flickering in the kelp lights which vanished as the curtain settled around the sub.

"Lightning hit the bag," Waela said. "I...."

"Stand by to drop the carrier and blow all tanks," Thomas said. He reached for the controls, fighting to suppress panic.

"Wait!" Panille called. "Wait for all of the bag to settle. We could be trapped in it, but the sub can cut a way through it."

I should've thought of that, Thomas thought. The bag could trap us down here.