Wary of drones, the three of them left the sub a few hundred meters away and swam upcurrent to the settlement where Henri had been dissected.
Broadtail met them only a few dozen meters from the sub. He swam toward Rob like a torpedo and clasped him firmly in his pincers. “Ilmataran many food ping humans.”
“Right,” said Rob. He tapped out “Humans reaching for Ilmataran.”
“Ilmataran grasps limb. Humans swim.”
He led the three of them toward the settlement. Rob had glimpsed it before when the Ilmatarans had brought Henri here a prisoner, but he’d never really had a chance to look at the place.
The heart of the whole operation was the vent. It was capped by a low dome of fitted stone, representing God only knew how much Ilmataran labor. Neat covered channels of carefully cut stone radiated out from the dome, branching and rebranching like some kind of neolithic demonstration of fractal geometry. In a few places, where it was evidently important to keep up the pressure or span a chasm, they used pipes made of hollowed stone segments.
One of the oddities of Ilmatar that had puzzled the first human explorers was the absence of any large mineral deposits at the sea-bottom vents. Only at the oldest and smallest vents could drones photograph “chimneys” reminiscent of the ones on Earth and Europa. Solving the mystery took so long because the answer, paradoxically, was right in front of everyone: the Ilmatarans themselves. Very few of Ilmatar’s sea-bottom vents got the chance to build up ramparts of mineral deposits because any active vent was quickly occupied by Ilmatarans and channeled into a productive network of pipes and tunnels. Just like so much of Earth, the Ilmataran landscape was the product of intelligent brains and hands.
Atop the channels were tiny vent holes, each with its own plug of shell or bone. Around each hole were dozens of chemosynthesizing organisms, rooted on movable stones. The Ilmatarans planted their crops where the water temperature was right. Nearest the vent itself were the most impressive growths—like giant ostrich feathers two or three meters high, some of them splitting into twin plumes halfway up. Rob could also see what looked like long threads waving in the flow, flat stones supporting shaggy microorganism colonies, some things with broad spiky fans like palmetto leaves, fleshy cylinders that completely surrounded the outflow from a hole, masses of stuff like black macaroni, and long flat strands almost exactly like fronds of kelp.
But the chemosynthetic “plants” were just part of the amazing food factory powered by the vent. Above the crops, the water was cloudy where free-floating microorganisms fed on the warm chemical-rich water. Small swimmers darted in and out of the cloud, and larger swimmers pursued them. The Ilmatarans had nets set up to catch some of these. Traps made of bone and fiber were staked at intervals around the property to catch bottom-crawlers. Rob could also see beds of sessile organisms kind of like half-buried ammonites, and some larger swimmers tethered to stakes.
Downcurrent from the main vent complex were the buildings. They were not quite as neatly built as the vent cap dome. The walls were sloping piles of smaller stones, roofed by heavy slabs like prehistoric tombs. There were no windows. Each building was fed by a ventwater channel, so the walls supported a lush growth of weeds and microbial mats.
At the upcurrent edge of the working area was the garbage midden, with its own screen of nets to catch scavengers. Ilmatarans liked their garbage, and placed it where the tasty organic molecules would wash off it and enrich the farm. The garbage pile was huge, far bigger than the farm itself. Over time it had been shaped and tweaked to control the flow of current, bringing just enough to circulate the water, but not enough to wash away valuable nutrients from the vent.
The trash pile sprawled over a couple of square kilometers, heaped up at least ten meters above the seafloor. Rob felt his hair prickle a bit as he got another glimpse of the scale of Ilmataran history. How long would it take a single little village to build up a trash pile that size? Centuries? Millennia?
The place was quite busy. Half a dozen Ilmatarans were harvesting some of the crops growing on the pipe system, a couple of others were tending the drift nets and traps. By one of the main buildings a couple of young adults were mending nets, and another pair were twisting fibers into rope.
The sea bottom was crawling with scavengers. Half of them looked like juvenile Ilmatarans. As Rob passed the line of traps at the edge of the property, he saw that a majority of the animals in the traps were juveniles. It was with some relief that he saw an adult throwing them away when emptying the trap.
Broadtail stopped at the main house. “Humans moving toward Ilmataran structure,” he tapped out, and led them inside. The door was a very heavy affair made of rigid bone segments lashed with tough plant fiber. The outside surface was armored with overlapping plates of shell. It occurred to Rob that this wasn’t just a house, it was a fortress. Who did the Ilmatarans have to fight?
Inside Rob felt a pang of claustrophobia. The corridor was narrow and twisted randomly, and every surface was thick with weed and bacterial mats, making it very hard to see. His sonar gadget was nearly useless in the close quarters. All he could do was follow Broadtail and keep reminding himself that this wasn’t going to end the way Henri’s visit had.
Eventually they reached a large room, which Rob recognized. The video feed from Henri’s suit had shown it quite clearly as he’d been dissected. Rob trusted Broadtail, but he felt for the utility knife on his thigh just in case.
Tizhos met with Irona when he returned with the Guardians. His account of the raid—one could hardly call it a battle—made her more depressed than ever. “We sabotaged the temporary shelter, but they left aboard the submarine. It cannot support them for long. They must give up or die now,” he said.
“I worry about what may happen if they do die,” she said, not caring how she sounded.
“Other humans may wish to avoid death themselves. They may urge cooperation.”
“I fear we have destroyed any chance to achieve a consensus with the humans. During your mission against the last shelter I spoke with Vikram Sen. Even he now acts angry and uncooperative, when before he seemed willing to work with us.”
“It could cause problems if he works against us,” said Irona. “We must win his loyalty. Humans follow a hierarchy—if the leader supports us, the others will go along.”
“Tell me how you expect to win his loyalty.”
“I intend to establish a personal bond.”
Broadtail remembers feeling this anxious when presenting his work to the Bitterwater Company for the first time. Now, however, he is not worried about himself. Whatever happens, his status as discoverer of the Builders is secure. He can imagine scholars reading his work long after his death. Though he does not speak of it to others, Broadtail imagines Longpincer and the rest of the Company being known chiefly as “colleagues of the great Broadtail.” If the same thought occurs to them, nobody mentions it.
Holdhard is beside him, holding his note reels. They are his property, her inheritance as his apprentice. He wonders idly if she imagines him being known as “the teacher of the great Holdhard.”
Right now Broadtail is worried because he wishes this meeting to go well. The Builders need help and only the Bitterwater Company can provide it. Without that help, the steady flow of new learning from the Builders will cease. Broadtail does not wish for that to happen.
He listens. The chatter in the room quiets. He forces himself to feel confident and strong, and speaks. “Greetings. I’m sure you all can hear that three of the Builders are here at this meeting. Let me explain why. The Builders are here because of a horrible crime. They have enemies—other beings from beyond the ice but unlike them. These other beings I describe as Squatters.”