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"I do not know. Perhaps free it? Wait-" Wiseguy again asked the Beings, and Julia thought how odd
were these simple conversations.
Even a Being the size of the Earth could think across its entire body at the same speed that synapses
convey blips of thought across the human brain. Far larger Beings thought more slowly. One the size of
the distance of the Earth from the sun, an astronomical unit, could trickle a thought across itself in under
ten minutes. Since Beings of such a scale seldom confronted problems that demanded instant attention,
this had not been a problem in their evolution. Until now.
"They will be content to visit Incursor. Saving it comes later." Wiseguy itself seemed awed by the scale
of this idea. "They speak now of time scales greater than millennia, just to think over the matter."
Viktor asked, "And if we don't-can't!-help them get to Mars, then what?"
"Then they will not move the bow shock." Wiseguy spoke as though this were perfectly reasonable, a
disagreement between gentlemen. "The shock wall is now close enough to Pluto to drive the electrical
ecology there. To move it back will kill the life-forms there, the zand."
"Okay," Julia said. "So it can keep the shock there, save the zand. But no farther. Deal?"
Wiseguy took a long time to speak with the Beings. They all watched the microwave and radio spectral
screens anxiously. These spiked and roiled-plainly much was being said. Julia felt intensely how thin
and fragile a tendril they were here, poked far out into the deep darkness, dwelling in a place evolution
had never designed them for at all. And yet this realm was connected to Mars in a way they would never
have guessed, if they had not come here. All human history had been that way. Of the three types of
chimpanzee, the first two-ordinary chimp and bonobo-never left Africa. But the humans came from
those who did, always pressing against the far horizon.
Climb to a distant peak and look back and see the landscape anew.
Then Wiseguy said, "Deal."
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11
THE DEEP
Shanna looked across the table at Julia and thought, The deal with utter aliens was easier to strike than
this one will be. We humans know too much about each other. Chimp rivalries. Julia has made yet
another god' damn discovery, and now she'll lord it over me ... forever.
Viktor was working in the main cabin, and Shanna had asked for this little side cabin for just the two of
them. For weeks the crews of both ships had been tiptoeing around the clash between the two women,
but now Julia had asked Shanna to come over for a "powwow"-with no further explanation.
Shanna sipped her tea and watched Julia line up her pen and notebook in just the right, rigid order and
say, "We've got to act together on this."
"Seems to me you've been acting all on your own just fine," Shanna shot back. "Making big discoveries.
Co-opting Wiseguy's running time-nice work-around with Earthside on that, by the way, so I didn't hear
a word until I get orders to let High Flyer have 'as much time as it takes'-without saying what 'it' was."
She stopped; her words had come out in a torrent.
Julia nodded. Silence. Then: "I admit, I had advantages. But you, after all, are the daughter of Axelrod
the Great."
"I did take advantage of that out here," Shanna said sternly, "but only to hold my rank of captain."
"I know. But now maybe you should use it."
"Why?" Shanna looked guardedly at the calm woman across the narrow gray table and wondered if Julia
could be trusted. She would give this a few minutes, tops.
"Because neither ship can stay much longer. Your mission is already nominally over turnaround time.
ISA will start barking, if they haven't already. And we've expended more water than we thought we'd
need, so we're right at full 'on-site duration,' as they say in ISA-speak."
Shanna said, "I think we can stick it out a bit longer. Cut rations-"
"Can, maybe. Should, no. There's too much at stake."
Shanna looked at the wall screen behind Julia and thought. It showed one optical 'scope's view of Pluto
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hanging in darkness, its crescent fevered with an air now coppery with snaking light. Once, in what now
seemed to be the far past, she had puzzled from orbit over such filigrees. Now she knew that the Being
called Instigator was at work, driving huge planetary currents to unimaginable ends.
"I want to stay here, study the zand," she said. "You're a biologist, you-"
"You can't sustain yourselves without supplies."
"You transferred quite a few. We can hold here another half year-"
"And then go home. But at greater risk."
"You're starting to sound like Dad."
Julia bridled at this, her lips twisting. "Just the opposite, in the long run. I've dealt with him as much as
you have, and almost as long."
"He sees the zand as zoo exhibits." She did not try to keep the scorn from her voice.
"True-but we can use that."
"What?"
"Look." Julia spread her hands. "Face it, the zand are something biologists never met before: an artificial
species."
Reluctantly Shanna admitted, "Yes ... but..."
"We have to study the zand and the Beings together-because that's the fundamental system."
"So?" Shanna had come prepared for a fight, but this was a seminar.
"So we work toward a permanent station here. With you as head."
The idea dazzled, but she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Why are you being this way?"
To her credit Julia looked genuinely puzzled. Good acting, or had Shanna misunderstood the Queen of
Mars? "I'm trying to heal a breach," Julia said. "I propose that we agree to dislike and disagree with each
other. Fair enough. But we have to know that we must work together against a common enemy."
"What? The Beings?"
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"No, Earth."
Shanna tossed her hair in frustration and caught the look in Julia's eyes. "What is it?"
Stiffly: "I have always disliked women throwing their long hair about like that."
Shanna's eyes widened. "That's ... so..."
"Stupid, yes, I quite agree. Left over from school days in Adelaide, alas. But my hair won't work well at
length, so I suppose it has become an automatic reaction."
"Based on ... envy," Shanna said in disbelief.
"I suppose."
"All this time I envied you, Queen of Mars and all."
"Queen?" Julia laughed, not merrily. "Why not prisoner? I can't go back home to Earth ever again."
"Well, could've fooled me. That first meeting of ours-"
"Yes, awful. Dreadful cockup."
"Cock what?"
"Aussie slang." She grinned. "Nothing to do with cocks. Look-" Julia sat forward across the table, hands
clasped. "Whatever we think of each other, we must be allies. A few dozen of us out here, ten billion
back there-"
"Lousy odds."
"-but we have the biggest discovery in history. Axelrod wants Darksiders, thinking his Consortium
buddies can lift a lot of technology tricks from them."
"Yeah, just like for the zand, a 'profit center' to-"
"So let's give them to him."
"Huh?" Shanna sat back, shocked.
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"These aren't species out here, they're products."
Shanna flared, eyes widening. "They're living beings, intelligent." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]