Charles Sheffield - The Spheres of Heaven

The humans on board knew nothing about any of this, nor did they need to. Life support and life protection involves a million functions, most of them as essential, automatic and unnoticed as the flow of blood through a crew member’s arteries and veins.

The computer was also able to obtain readings from the air-breathing pinnace fixed to the outer hull. The little craft, as feared, had been fatally damaged in shedding the defensive shields, and would no longer fly. The computer began its countdown for the other requested action. Two unmanned orbiters were to be launched from the depths. Their mission: to monitor the surface and sky of the planet and return their findings to the ship. The General had placed no restriction on the timing of the action, except to say it should be done as soon as the storm eased sufficiently. He knew that the computer was better able than any human on board to decide appropriate values for “sufficiently.”

Three hours later, the Hero’s Return sprawled its cumbersome mass along the seabed, a little less than six hundred meters away from the Finder . The storm still raged, but on the seabed all was peaceful. Darkness was approaching, above and in the depths. The computer again checked the status of all onboard systems, then it switched to rest-period protocols.

The recreation center on the Hero’s Return had been designed on a large scale. Three hundred crew members could play there, with robot opponents if no humans were available, at everything from chess to table tennis to sumo wrestling.

The group around Chan Dalton had tucked itself away into one dimly lit corner. Business was over. The situation on the ship had been reviewed and reviewed again. Only one thing seemed clear: weather permitting, Chrissie Winger and Tarbush Hanson — to their delight and Danny Casement’s mild irritation — would take an air-breathing pinnace up and out at first light.

Danny’s half-hearted “I didn’t come all this way just to sit around” had been countered by Deb Bisson’s “All which way? We don’t know where we are yet — and we won’t, until someone can take a look at the star patterns.”

“It’s only a two-person craft, Danny,” Chrissie added. “Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of work for everyone once we get out of this steel can. We have a whole planet to explore. When we started out we didn’t know if humans could live anyplace in the Geyser Swirl.”

“The pinnace could hold three. They often do.”

Danny was standing up. Chrissie went across to him, looped one arm in his and the other in Tarbush Hanson’s, and led them toward the door. “Say it all again, Danny. Maybe you can talk the Tarb and me into your coming with us.”

When they were outside the recreation hall Danny Casement stopped and stared at Chrissie with suspicion. “Why do you want to talk out here? Chan and Deb need to hear anything we agree to. Do you really mean there’s a chance I can convince you?”

“Not in a million years. Sorry, Danny, but it will be just the Tarb and me in the pinnace.” Chrissie took his hand in hers. “You’re a big success with women, I know that. But sometimes I wonder how, because you can be as dense as Pipe-Rilla shielding.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t. Don’t feel too bad, though, because Tarb is no better.” Chrissie nodded her head toward the closed door of the recreation hall. “Back there, couldn’t you tell that Chan and Deb were just itching for us to leave? Couldn’t you see that things have changed between them?”

“She wasn’t trying to kill him, if that’s what you mean. But look, we had to discuss where we are and what comes next.”

“We finished with all that half an hour ago. Those two want to talk — but not about here and now. And not with us.”

Danny Casement and Tarbush Hanson stared at each other. Tarbush, who had said not a word for the past three hours, slowly nodded and spoke. “I think she’s right, man. They got serious catching up to do. Twenty years of it.”

Danny walked across the room to one of the observation ports that studded the side of the Hero’s Return . He stared out. The sea lacked the abyssal black of ocean depths, and an eye adjusted to the darkness could make out an occasional glint of phosphorescence.

“Twenty years,” he said at last. “I guess it really has been that long. It is going to take a while.”

Somewhere above them, far along the ship’s side, a glare of orange fire threw the sea and the seabed into sharp relief. The three at the port saw startled sea-creatures darting away and felt the plates of the Hero’s Return shudder beneath their feet. They heard a roar like a wounded sea-monster. In seconds the fiery light came from above, rapidly dimming. Within half a minute the darkness returned.

“Rocket launch,” Danny said into a new and uneasy silence. “One of the orbitals is on the way. It must be getting calmer up on the surface.” He turned away from the port. “You’re right, Tarb, catching up is going to take a while. Let’s hope they — and we — live long enough to see it happen.”

Friday Indigo could not move a muscle.

Not even eye muscles. He was lying on his left side on some kind of iron-hard table, low and sloping, and he could see only in one direction. Out-of-focus black objects moved jerkily in front of him against a dull gray background. He could not gauge their size, but the fuzzy outlines had the shape of the creatures who had gunned him down on the shore.

Gunned him down; paralyzed him; but not taken away the capacity to feel pain. He hurt . His head ached, a knife blade was in his left knee, and the side that he was lying on sent jolts of agony up and down his body each time he took a breath.

At least he could breathe. How was that possible, when no amount of effort would move arms, legs, and head a millimeter?

He could also hear. The clicking and chattering was still going on, louder than before and with new sounds added to it. Suddenly he realized that the extra noises were coming from the translation unit attached to his own belt.

He concentrated on that. It was gibberish, hoots and whistles and obscene gurgles. But then the occasional word started to emerge. “ Water. Bubble, burble, splutter, click. Air .” A sequence of fizzing sounds, like gas escaping from a bottle. “ Live — a-live — alive — alive .” And then, after a suite of musical buzzes from the unit, “ Mala-costra-cans. ”

The translator was a piece of junk, just like the other one. If ever he got back to the solar system he was going to saute the liver of the crooked swine who had sold it to him.

The unit babbled on. He had to stop listening, because suddenly his tongue and throat had a column of fire ants walking up and down on them.

He coughed, swallowed, and almost fainted with pain. A voice from the translation unit said, “ Malacostracans .” Then, “ Air — breath. Wake. It live. ”

“You rotten bastards.” He could speak! But what he had said wouldn’t do him much good, even if the translator did work. “Greetings, alien strangers.” Every word was agony. Keep it short. “I — Friday Indigo — captain of the Mood Indigo — come in friendship.”

The muscles that controlled the lenses of his eyes were coming back to life. His eyeballs were on fire, but he could focus. He counted half a dozen creatures over by the wall. There was some variation in size, but the basic body plan was constant: a broad, blue-black carapace, held close to horizontal; ten supporting legs, each one with a pouch attached to its upper end; at what he assumed was the front, two pairs of formidable front claws surrounded by mobile bristles like thin fingers; stalked eyes positioned high on the body, above a trio of fringed slits. ‘Ugly’ didn’t even begin to describe them.