Charles Sheffield - The Spheres of Heaven

Carried them this way . By accident, or by intention? Bony did not care to find out which. He had enjoyed as much novelty as he could stand, and his stomach felt knotted with tension. He stooped, to provide as small a visible target as possible, turned, and started back toward the Mood Indigo. He told himself that there were multiple good reasons for going back. Liddy would be worrying about him. He wanted to see her. He was hungry and thirsty. His bladder was uncomfortably full, and although the suit would accommodate such things he preferred the ship’s facilities. Even the uncertain pleasures of Friday Indigo’s company seemed desirable, compared with that of the creatures — Limbo-ers? Limbics? — slithering toward him across the alien corn of the underwater valley.

Only one thing preserved the dignity of Bony’s retreat: it was physically impossible to run underwater.

As soon as the ship came into sight he turned to look back. He was glad to find that he left no telltale track of suspended seabed mud, nor could he see any sign of the bubble creatures.

Even so, the relief when he reached the protective bulk of the Mood Indigo and stood once more below the open airlock was considerable. He didn’t feel hungry any more, and the urge to pee had mysteriously vanished. He crouched, leaped, and was able to grab the edge of the hatch on the first try. His head came above the surface of the water, and with another upward heave he was sprawled on the bottom of the lock. He stood up and splashed through knee-deep water to the port on the inner hatch. As he had hoped, Liddy was there. He gave her a thumbs-up and started the process of pumping air that would clear the lock of water. The air pressure in the lock was only thirty percent higher than inside the ship, and the water level dropped as he watched.

He removed his helmet as the outer hatch closed. By the time that Liddy matched air pressures and opened the inner hatch he had his suit halfway off. She interfered with that by coming up behind and giving him a hug.

“I wondered where you’d gone. You disappeared completely.”

“I thought that since I was outside and the suit worked fine, I’d take a little look around.” Bony tried to be casual. “Where is Friday Indigo?”

“Sleeping, I guess. I haven’t heard a sound from up there.”

“Still? But he’s been asleep for—” Bony saw the clock. “That can’t be right. I was gone for hours.”

“Thirty-seven minutes, from the time you dropped out of the hatch to the time I saw you coming back. What did you find?”

“Lots of things.”

Before Bony could say more, a voice from overhead grumbled, “You sure make a hell of a lot of noise down there. Have we sprung a leak or something? I heard a pump.”

Friday Indigo came down the ladder. His dark hair was a tousled mess, but he seemed in a surprisingly good mood.

“An air pump,” Bony said. “I’ve been outside, and when I came back in I had to pump water out of the lock. Captain, I think we ought to try to make drive modifications, raise the ship off the bottom, and get out of here as soon as possible.”

“What’s the hurry all of a sudden?” Indigo wandered into the galley and came out carrying a can of juice. He gulped from it noisily. “We have air, we have food, and the ship isn’t about to cave in. I didn’t come all this way so we could turn right around and leave.”

Bony wondered if it was bravery or stupidity. Did Indigo have any idea of their situation? “I see several reasons to leave, sir. First, we have no idea where we are. As I understand the Link Network, it is impossible to make a Link to a place where matter is present. Even a Link into air requires special procedures. But we arrived in water .”

“All that proves is that you don’t understand the Link Network. Nor do I, and nor I suspect does anyone else. But I’m not in a sweat because of it. What else?”

“We’ve landed in a place like none I’ve ever heard of. The sea here isn’t ordinary water, it’s deuterium oxide — heavy water.”

Friday Indigo said to Liddy, “Remember I told him it was water?” And then to Bony, “So it’s heavy water. I’ve heard of that. How dangerous is it?”

“Not dangerous at all. I think. But it’s — well, unnatural for an ocean to be heavy water. In Earth’s oceans, heavy water is only one part in six thousand.”

“Precisely why we came. For strangeness.” Indigo tossed the empty can into a trash-squeeze and rubbed his hands together. “This is terrific. We’ve found a whole new world, one nobody has explored before. That information alone is enough to make this expedition famous. And when we get some idea of what sort of things might be here …”

“I already have some idea, sir.” Bony gestured toward a port. “Things I discovered when I was outside the ship.”

Friday Indigo stared at him. “You sound afraid. You’re not scared, are you?”

“No, sir.” But Bony had been.

“You don’t have to be frightened, you know. Not with Friday Indigo as your pilot.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.” Bony knew that Liddy’s eyes were on him, and he felt like a spineless groveler. He and Liddy had agreed that a ship with Indigo flying it was worse than a ship with no pilot at all. “Let me tell you what I saw, sir.”

He summarized his findings while he had been outside. When it was told, rather than experienced with elevated pulse rate and nervous stomach, everything sounded flat and unremarkable. When he came to his description of the bubble shapes, Friday Indigo went over to the port.

“Where?”

Bony came to his side and looked at the peaceful forest of green-gold pikes, with beyond them a seascape fading into blue-green haze.

“You can’t see them from here. They were over on the other side of that ridge.”

“Are you sure you didn’t imagine them?”

“Quite positive.” But he could see that even Liddy was a little skeptical. “They were there.”

“Good. Then tomorrow we’ll go and take a look at them.”

Bony had to swallow before he could speak. “Our weapons won’t work underwater. Suppose that they’re dangerous?”

“We’ll be in suits. That should be protection against anything like teeth or poison. Your bubble-men won’t have anything more than that.” Indigo saw Bony’s mouth twitch. “They won’t, man. Use your brain. If you’re worried about lasers or explosives or projectile weapons, forget it. These are sea-creatures. It’s a well-known fact that creatures who develop in water, even if they are intelligent creatures, will never discover fire and never be able to develop technology.”

Bony wanted to say, “It’s not a well-known fact, it’s a well-known theory .” But it wasn’t worth getting into an argument. Even though Indigo was wrong, the captain would ride right over him. Instead Bony said, “Don’t you think it’s less important to learn about the bubble-creatures than to get the Mood Indigo working again?”

“How? You were the one who insisted that the fusion drive could never operate underwater.”

“It won’t. But what reason do we have for thinking that Limbo—”

“That what?”

“Limbo. This planet. It’s the way I’ve been thinking of the place. We entered a Link entry point back in our solar system, and now we’re in the middle of nowhere. In limbo.”

“Nonsense. We know that we’re in the Geyser Swirl. If only we could get a look at the stars …”

“That’s my point, sir. We’re in water at the moment, but we have no reason to think that the whole of Limbo is ocean. There could be land just a few kilometers away. If we could move the Mood Indigo onto land, we could see the stars and we could use the fusion drive to get off the planet.”