“I notice you are very fond of your tape.”
“Greatest stuff in the world. Superman’s duct tape.”
“When I was midshipman we would sometimes use it to tape people into bunks. One poor fellow got a strip attached to his face and lost eyebrows for a month.”
“Ouch. When I was in college all we ever did was go crawling through the steam tunnels. What time is it?”
“1622.”
“Damn. Another hour till dinner. I’m dying in here.”
“Will survive. Dinner will be emergency bars and orange stuff.”
“Makes surrender almost appealing, doesn’t it? Give up and get a decent meal. I hope Alicia can find a way to make the orange stuff taste better.”
“She is remarkable.”
“I know. I sure wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t.” Rob worked in silence for a moment. “What about you? I know you’ve got your guy back home so it’s not your hormones keeping you out here. You could be heading back to Earth and Misha—”
“Mishka.”
“Right. Why are you here?”
“Orders.”
Rob nearly dropped his flashlight. “No kidding?”
“Am still on active Navy duty, simply on loan to space agency.”
“Well, yeah, but the Russian Navy didn’t order you to hide out in the ocean of Ilmatar waging war on a bunch of aliens.”
Josef didn’t answer.
“They did?”
“Was given contingency plans,” said Josef at last.
“So you’ve got some kind of secret orders to fight the Sholen?”
“Yes. So did Dr. Sen and others—Fouchard, and Mario.”
“What about Dickie Graves?”
“Not to my knowledge. Like you, motivated by hormones, I think.”
“Alicia?”
“No. Just stubborn.”
“And it looks like you don’t know about my undercover identity as Batman, so I guess we’re even. What are these double-secret orders of yours?”
“Not very secret anymore. Resist any Sholen incursions at Terrestrial bases, using all appropriate means at my disposal.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I am to fight them, but try not to get killed, and not commit any serious atrocities.”
“Just minor ones.”
Josef shrugged, making himself bob up and down. “We are very far from Earth and our enemies are aliens.”
“You’re scaring me, Josef. So you knew something like this was going to happen?”
“Of course. You did not?”
“Well—right after I got picked to come here we had this big briefing about the Sholen and their whole hands-off-theuniverse thing. I just figured it was all talk. You know, like governments back home talking about preserving the Moon or whatever when what they really mean is they want a cut of the helium mining.”
“When someone threatens you, is best to take them seriously. My government—and yours, and most other UNICA members—have been making plans in case of Sholen attack for some time now. That is one reason we have such a large presence here: Ilmatar lies between Earth and Shalina.”
“Kind of drawing a line in the vacuum?”
“Likely. But also there was desire to see if humans and Sholen could cooperate in studying this world. Ilmatar is ideal place for that—neither humans nor Sholen can live here unaided, and existence of Ilmatarans makes it high priority for research.”
“So we’ve got plenty of incentive to work together here, and nobody’s going to start homesteading or playing Cortez.”
“Exactly. If we cannot cooperate on Ilmatar, then we cannot cooperate at all.”
“I guess we answered that question.”
“Yes. Now question becomes whether we allow the Sholen to deny us entire universe.”
“You think they really want that? Bottle us up inside the Solar System?”
“The logic of their ideology demands it—or even harsher limits. If they chase us off Ilmatar and other bodies with native life, nothing stops us building colonies on lifeless worlds, possibly terraforming some. Soon those worlds have their own interstellar vehicles, more and more as time passes. We have more people, too—which means in time we catch up to Sholen technology. Then pass them. Right now they are; that will not last. I have seen projections: human population off Earth is growing at about five percent per year. In a century, that’s a million people. Another century and humans off Earth outnumber Sholen. They must act now or never.”
“Damn. And Henri and I set it all off.” Rob slid into the water and put his weight on the hammock to test the tape. “Maybe we should give up before this turns into a real Earth vs. the Flying Saucers situation.”
“Robert, you are too harsh with yourself. What did you and Kerlerec do, exactly? You were found by Ilmatarans.”
“Because we fucked up. If Henri hadn’t—”
“Yes, he made foolish mistake. Robert, we cannot expect to avoid mistakes always. If one mistake destroys any chance to cooperate here, then Sholen are being unreasonable.”
Rob was fastening his helmet, and when he replied to Josef it was via the laser link. “I don’t know; this all sounds so abstract. So what if it’s justified? People have died! Isabel, Dickie, at least two Sholen.”
“If you wish to be practical, we can be practicaclass="underline" Sholen have killed humans and we must show them consequences to that behavior. If you wish to be idealistic, we can be idealistic: we are right and they are wrong.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“I am simple man,” said Josef.
Twelve
Broadtail enjoys helping Builder 1 with its projects. Being at close quarters with the stranger gives him the chance to listen to it carefully. He remembers hearing Builder 1 using tools and marveling at how capable the stranger is with its little many-branched pincers.
The strangers are quite strong, too. Builder 1 can lift pipe segments and stones that would normally take a couple of apprentices with levers and pulleys to shift. Broadtail remembers Builder 1 explaining that it and the others come from a place where everything is heavier than here. Broadtail still doesn’t quite understand how that can be, but at least it explains why they are so strong.
All his conversations with Builders are like that. Some simple question or observation brings forth an answer that only opens up a vast store of new questions. Broadtail goes through reels of cord at a tremendous rate, mostly just noting things he plans to ask about in more detail.
When he hears things about the Squatters, he feels the same anger he remembers from his argument with Ridgeback. The Builders are his project, and learning from them is like discovering an entire vent complex ready for harvest—with a whole line of vents beyond it, all equally rich.
The Squatters plan to take away this harvest of discoveries? Broadtail is ready to fight them for it. He is ready to fight anyone who tries to steal the Builders from him.
Filling the building used most of the sub’s argon reserve, and there wasn’t quite enough to fill all the way down to the door. Instead Rob and Josef rigged up a floor above the water level by simply piling up stones and then laying some stiff mats provided by Longpincer on top of them. The resulting floor was dangerously springy, but they could stand with their heads grazing the roof.
They moved the hammocks and other gear into their new quarters, which Rob dubbed the Dome, and then peeled off their suits for the first time in days.
“Wait,” said Rob to Alicia as she got ready to climb into her hammock. “I’ve got something for you.” He took a sealed plastic bag from the net filled with equipment hanging above the waterline. “Here, put it on.”
She looked at him quizzically and opened the bag. “It is—a suit liner?”