“No!” said Rob. Then the sound of the gun hammered his ears. One of the Sholen jerked and Rob could see a little fountain of bubbles and a cloud of blood. Graves fired again but apparently missed his next target. The Sholen had stopped and were all aiming the boxy devices they held in their upper arms.
Rob flung himself backward, kicking as hard as he could, trying to get away from Dickie. The gun went off again but Rob couldn’t see if anyone was hit. Then he heard several brief whooshing noises and looked back in time to see Dickie Graves silhouetted against the flash of an explosion. He was surrounded by a perfect halo of bubbles and pieces of him appeared to be coming off.
The blast hit Rob in the next instant. It was beyond just noise. The shockwave pulsed through his body, a tremendous feeling of pressure that for a second left him unable to breathe. Two more followed the first like heartbeats. Rob blacked out.
When he could think again, Rob was on the sea bottom, facedown in the mud. His helmet’s faceplate was half covered by a little pool of blood dripping from his nose. His whole body felt bruised, but none of his bones were broken. Despite a great desire to just stay there on the cold mud until he died, Rob got onto his hands and knees and then started kicking. He swam away from the light, struggling along as best he could.
He couldn’t hear anything but a skull-splitting ringing noise, and wondered if more of those little torpedoes were homing in on him. But the lights of Hitode got dimmer behind him as he swam and nothing happened. Either the Sholen were as deaf and dazed as he was, or they didn’t want to shoot an unarmed man.
The blood on his faceplate distorted the heads-up display, but he managed to find the rendezvous point where the sub was supposed to meet him. No point in tr y ing to be stealthy—he switched to his external speaker and yelled for help until Alicia came out and dragged him into the sub.
Four hours later Tizhos picked through the fragments on the dissecting table. The human tissue and entrails reeked of iron and methane. Tizhos wasn’t really interested in that. She’d seen a dead human before—shortly after contact the two civilizations had swapped nearly a dozen cadavers.
The suit was what Tizhos was searching for, in particular the computer. Normally the main memory was located in the chest plate just below the helmet mount, but the first of the little torpedoes had struck the human right in the chest, churning the computer components together with his lungs and ribs. That would reduce normal computers to so much scrap, but the humans on Ilmatar used ruggedized equipment. Their devices were a mass of chips embedded in heat-conducting ballistic resin. One could use them to hammer nails without damaging the electronics.
There! Tizhos cut away the ruined heart muscle. Behind it the computer nestled against the spine on a bed of crushed bone. It looked cracked, but she might be able to salvage some of the memory.
This human, Richard Graves, was a language expert. The files he’d left behind in Hitode’s system held a wealth of information on Ilmataran communication. Tizhos hoped to find an even better trove in the human’s personal computer. He had been out away from Hitode for more than a week; he might have new discoveries about the world and its inhabitants.
Oh, and of course Irona also wanted her to recover as much data as possible. Not the science material, though He was only interested in trivia like navigation coordinates and inertialcompass readings. Tizhos would give him that, just to keep him happy.
When she had all the information she needed, Tizhos went to her room to make herself attractive. She daubed color onto her genitalia and scented herself heavily. Normally Tizhos preferred to be honest in her attraction and subtle in her displays. This time she had to be blatant.
She found Irona in the little operations center off the common room, trying once again to squeeze some signal out of the hydrophone data. Tizhos took up a posture of sexual dominance and embraced him from behind.“I know the location of the remaining shelter,” she told him. “Excellent,” said Irona. “I will prepare the Guardians at once.”
He sounded like an eager subordinate.
“Not yet,” she told him. “I want you to do something first.” Irona looked at her then, and she could feel the sexual tension disappear. “You wish to make a trade?”
“A concession to help achieve consensus,” she told him. “Tell me what you want.”
“Only this: speak to them first. I have repaired one of the drones. Send it ahead of the capture expedition. Ask them to surrender.”
“It seems unwise to give them warning before our arrival.”
Tizhos held him closer and stroked the back of his neck. She could feel him tense up as he resisted bonding with her. “They have no place to go. I fear that coming upon them suddenly might cause them to lash out in panic. Again, I only ask that you speak first.”
Irona relaxed a little, and allowed himself a perfunctory nuzzle against Tizhos. “I agree. Send along the drone.”
Broadtail is worried. He remembers the Builders going off in their moving shelter. He doesn’t know where they are, or the reason for the move. He worries that perhaps they are afraid of the Bitterwater Company. Perhaps they think this is Longpincer’s property and they are trespassing.
During their absence he and the other scholars take the opportunity to examine the camp of the Builders without any interference. Broadtail even attempts to enter their shelter. There is a narrow passage at the bottom, and he must fold all his limbs in order to fit inside. The walls are perfectly smooth, except for a series of bars evidently for pulling one’s body along.
The top of the passage is covered; the lid is made of the same odd-tasting stone as the walls. There is a circular object attached to the lid. The whole thing is very warm to the touch; the heat is invigorating. Broadtail pulls and pushes without result, but when he twists the round object in the center of the lid it turns, and then he can lift the lid quite easily.
Within the shelter is emptiness. Like a huge bubble. Broadtail pokes one pincer into the titanic bubble, then his head. It is like being deaf. He quickly pulls back down into the water again. He tastes something odd, and runs his feelers over his pincer tip. The thin coating of slime and parasites growing on his shell is sloughing off. The surface of his shell itself is like something long-dead and scoured by scavengers. Whatever is inside that bubble is a poison deadlier than anything Broadtail recalls hearing about.
He lets himself drop down the passage into safer, cooler water. “Longpincer,” he calls out. “Tell everyone to stay out of this shelter. It is filled with some kind of poison.”
“A trap?” is Longpincer’s first question.
“I’m not sure. The inside is filled with a bubble, and whatever substance fills the bubble is some kind of strong poison. Feel my shell—the surface of my head is completely bare of slime. Like something in a hot vent.”
“Ah! The dead Builder!” Longpincer sounds pleased. “Yes, I remember my pincers and tools feeling odd after dissecting it! These creatures must excrete some kind of toxin for protection!”
Sharpfrill joins them. “I remember reading several accounts of vents which emit toxic flow,” he says. “Combine that with the heat of these Builder creatures and it seems more and more clear that they come from beneath the ground.”
“That is not what I remember Builder 1 saying,” says Broadtail.
“Misunderstandings are almost inevitable,” Sharpfrill points out. “Or—I do not wish to make accusations, but the idea must be spoken—the Builders deliberately deceive you.”
“We can ask them ourselves! Listen!”
All of them can now hear the buzzing, rushing noise of the moving shelter as it approaches.