Charles Sheffield - The Spheres of Heaven

Bony had known about Tinker Composites since he was a small child. He had studied the aliens, watched educational programs, asked a thousand (unanswered) questions of other humans, and read everything that he could lay his hands on. The Tinkers fascinated him. Pipe-Rillas fascinated him. All the Stellar Group aliens fascinated him. That was one reason he had been so eager to go to the stars, ever since he was a child in the basement warrens of Earth. And now …

As the inner hatch swung open and he took the first step forward into the ship’s interior, Bony found that he was trembling.

His first thought — I hope Liddy can’t see how nervous I am — vanished as a carpet of dark purple rose from the floor in front of him. He heard a whirring of many wings and flinched as a cloud of purple-black components, all apparently identical and each about as big as his finger, buzzed around his head.

As Liddy gasped and clutched Bony’s arm, the Tinker components flew to the other side of the cabin and settled around a tall pole. Fluttering their wings in a blur of motion they hovered by the column, then grasped it with small claws on the front of shiny leather-like wings. Thin, whip-like antennas reached out and connected heads to neighboring tails. Each body possessed a ring of pale green eyes, all of which seemed to be staring at Bony. That lasted only a few seconds. Then a second wave with its own myriad of eyes was settling on top of the first, and a third over that. It was no longer possible to make out individual components, and Bony could see no way to count them. He knew that a Tinker Composite could form at many different sizes, but he did not know if this one was big or small.

The Composite was taking on a particular shape, a crude approximation to a human form. Within two minutes the main body was complete, a rough “head” above it, while “legs” extended outward and downward to make contact with and derive support from the cabin floor. To Bony’s surprise — this was something he had not seen mentioned in the Tinker descriptions — many of the individual components remained unattached. Of the total in the cabin, only about four-fifths were connected to form a compact mass; the others stood tail-first on the cabin floor or hung singly from walls and ceiling.

The mass of the Tinker Composite began to form a funnel-like opening in its head-like extremity. From that aperture came a hollow wheezing moan. “Ohhh-ahhh-ggghh. Hharr-ehh-looo,” it said. Then, in a crude approximation to solar speech, “Har-e-loo. Hal-lo.”

Bony, feeling like a fool, said tentatively, “Hello.” He was reassured when Liddy echoed him, “Hello,” and added, “I am Liddy Morse.”

She was still wearing the translator at her belt, although for Tinkers it should be unnecessary. That idea was confirmed when a whistling voice said, “Hello, Liddy Morse,” and, after a pause, “You may call us, Eager Seeker.”

Did you shake hands with a Tinker Composite? If so, with what? Bony said, “I am Bonifant Rombelle. You can call me Bony.”

The other occupant of the cabin had been crouching in a corner, telescoping thin limbs and narrow body into a small space. Now the Pipe-Rilla unfolded, taller and taller, until she brushed against the four-meter cabin ceiling. Her rear legs were still partly bent.

“So it is true.” The head bobbed in greeting. “Eager Seeker was right and I, Vow-of-Silence, was wrong. It is as the Sea-wanderers told us, there is a third ship.”

“Sea-wanderers? Third ship?” Bony had so many questions he hardly knew where to begin. He opened his helmet. The air smelled of peppermint, overlain with a faint odor of ripe peaches, but it was perfectly breathable. He began to remove his suit.

“The natives of this planet,” the Pipe-Rilla said. She and the Tinker Composite were watching with interest, as though the removal of Bony’s suit represented some molting action unique to humans. “ Sea-wanderers is what they call themselves, as you surely know.”

“We didn’t know. We have been calling this planet Limbo, and these natives, Limbics.”

“Hm.” Vow-of-Silence bent her head to one side. “Limbo. Not bad, not bad at all. I think we may adopt it also. But since you are here, you must have been talking to your Limbics.”

“We have.” Bony didn’t want the aliens to think that humans were total fools, but honesty made him add, “We had trouble with the language at first.”

“That is understandable. It is unusually high in liquid consonants.” Vow-of-Silence tittered.

After an awkward moment — was it a joke, and was he supposed to laugh? — Bony went on, “In fact it was Liddy who made the language breakthrough.”

The Pipe-Rilla followed his gesture. Liddy was removing her suit also, and Vow-of-Silence stared at her breasts with enormous interest.

“Why, you are a human female. This is wonderful. I have never before met one. I would very much like the opportunity of extended conversation with you.”

“Sure. Although this isn’t the best time for it. We have more questions.” Liddy glanced at Bony. “Right?”

“We sure do. And we have some answers, too, that you may find useful. This is not just a water-world. There’s land here, too — and there may be great dangers.”

The Pipe-Rilla leaned far forward, looking not into Bony’s face but into Liddy’s. “Would you please inform your mate, with as much respect as I am capable of offering, that we came to this world well before he did, have done more exploration, had more conversations with the natives, and may be well aware of what he seeks to inform us. We will exchange information gladly, but we suggest it may save time if we speak first.”

“Exploration.” Bony seized that one word. “But until we built the extension to your airlock, you could not leave your ship.”

“Not true. Certain of us did leave it. Now, the rest of us choose not to leave it.” Vow-of-Silence crouched low in front of the two humans, her vestigial forelimbs clasped across her narrow chest in a misleading gesture of supplication. The pleasant peppermint odor strengthened. “Listen, please, to our tale. The crew of this ship, the Finder , originally comprised myself and an extra-large Tinker Composite, Eager Seeker. We entered a Link point located in the Fomalhaut system and expected to arrive in the region of empty space within the Geyser Swirl. Instead, we found our ship under water. However, we learned from the Sea-wanderers here that there exists a nearby land mass. We decided to explore it.”

Bony, wanting to ask how you explored a place when you couldn’t leave the ship, bit his tongue.

Vow-of-Silence went on: “My colleague, Eager Seeker, detached a sizeable collective, to whom we gave a temporary name, Blessed Union. The components of Blessed Union would leave this ship and travel to the surface, from which they would fly to the land. They did not need a suit. The waters of — Limbo, you call it? — are high in oxygen, enough for individual Tinker components to survive without artificial assistance. Preparations for the journey were made with great care. Blessed Union would re-assemble when ashore, except when a few components were needed to fly ahead as scouts. Is this clear?”

Bony nodded. His self-image as smart savior of the Pipe-Rilla ship was steadily declining. It nose-dived when Vow-of-Silence continued, “We had been told that this could be a perilous undertaking. We had spoken extensively to the Sea-wanderers, and they said that death had come recently to many of their companions near the shore. However, we were confident. We did not believe that we were in danger, since we have ways unknown to the Sea-wanderers to protect ourselves against attack from native life-forms.