James Cambias - A Darkling Sea

“Perhaps. But as you say, the name is only the surface.”

“A piercing jab! Very well. A number to go with that name. I propose 13. A difficult number for some, as it is prime and thus has no interesting factors, but 13 is appropriate for a fast one like her. And it is auspicious, since it combines Food and Property. Choose another.”

“The big sleepy one. I name him Broadbody.”

“Fitting. Broadbody 27, as it seems he likes to sleep in silt. It is 3 cubed, so I expect to make him swim and swim and swim. Also, 27 is 21 plus 6, as befits one with a body as heavy as stone. And it holds out the good thought of Warm Property in 18 plus 9. What about the little male?”

“Smallbody is the obvious choice.”

“Such a small fellow needs a good number to compensate. I propose 54: Wealth. It is 3 times 18, which means much warmth, and it combines Solidity and Abundance. There is hardly a better number, excepting always 94.”

“I name the last one Sharpclaw, because I remember getting a painful jab from her.”

“She needs a number to keep her from fighting too much. I suggest 39. Boundary stones prevent conflict.”

Broadtail doesn’t say much as they head back to the school compound. Herding the children keeps him and Oneclaw busy, and he doesn’t want to offend his new employer. But, privately, he is scornful of the old schoolmaster’s reverence for numbers.

To be sure, Oneclaw isn’t the only adult to become fascinated by the ordering of words in the dictionary. Some writers go so far as to use mathematics to guide their choice of words, or encode hidden meanings in books through spacing and numerical intervals. Others grope for secret messages in ancient texts, or assign prophetic meaning to numbers found in nature.

Broadtail is a skeptic. He knows that dictionaries are composed by adults, and that different communities use different systems of numbering words. He recalls studying ancient sites and trying to tease out the meaning of archaic writings and carvings. Speech is universal—even wild children speak—but writing is a made thing, and varies as much as ways of making nets or laying pipe.

About halfway back to Oneclaw’s school, he catches an odd flavor in the water and drops back from the group to taste it better. A very odd flavor indeed—something like rock oil and something like some of the mats that grow on rocks, but much more complex than either taste. What’s especially maddening is that he is sure he remembers tasting it before, but not when or where.

That reminds him of something, and he swims hard to catch up with Oneclaw.

“Everything all right?” asks Oneclaw.

“Fine. I remember you mentioning odd sounds and flavors in the water around here. There’s a funny taste just back there. Do you know what it is?”

“Ah, yes. The ruins upcurrent are home to many strange phenomena. I hear noises, sometimes sense things moving about. I have a theory about the cause.”

“I recall you saying something about that.”

“Yes. You are an educated adult, so I assume you know all about the shape of the world. In the center, rock giving off heat. Outside that, the oceans we know. And surrounding all is the infinite ice, cold and lighter than water. But is the rock beneath our legs really solid? We know there are vents and rifts, some quite deep. There must be channels for water to return to the vents. I believe that within the rock below us there are vast tunnels and chambers filled with hot, rich ventwater.”

“It is certainly plausible. I remember reading books of speculation along those lines.”

“As do I. But I do not recall encountering anywhere the idea that those caverns may be inhabited !”

“Inhabited? But how? Most vents are too hot to approach. Adults die in agony in a channel full of ventwater.”

“I don’t mean adults. At least, not adults precisely like ourselves. You know about animals, yes?”

“Yes, a great many kinds.”

“And they are different in different places—some suited to coldwater, some suited to the rocks around a vent, and so forth. Now imagine creatures—maybe even creatures like ourselves—who come from the boiling world underground.”

Broadtail ponders this. “They would be very hot themselves,” he says. And then it hits him like a bolt. “Oneclaw! I remember finding a strange creature near the Bitterwater vent—large and utterly unlike anything I remember touching before. And I remember the great heat of its body!”

He can hear Oneclaw’s hearts race with excitement. “Is this true? You really recall such a creature? You need not lie to humor me, Broadtail.”

“No, I remember it perfectly. The scholars of the Bitterwater Company all know about it.” Broadtail feels a surge of hope. He imagines returning to Longpincer in triumph, with valuable data about the odd creatures. “Promise me that once these children are sold, we spend time seeking these strange noises and flavors. It is of tremendous importance.”

“Of course. I am making a note of it.”

Two days after Dr. Sen recruited him, Rob was ready to leave Hitode Station. He couldn’t pack a bag or do anything obvious, but he did gather up a few essentials and tuck them into a waterproof pouch to bring along—his computer and one of the little people Alicia had made for him.

The last thing he collected before leaving was the drones. They were just too useful to leave behind. The teams going into hiding could use them to communicate, to keep an eye on the Sholen, and doubtless some things Rob hadn’t thought of. And for the same reason, it was a good idea to keep them away from the Sholen. Without drones they’d be limited to the area they could search themselves in suits. Swimming Sholen were a lot easier to spot and hide from than the drones.

He avoided the common room. There were always a couple of the Sholen soldiers there, and he didn’t like the way they sniffed the air whenever a human came in. Could they tell if he was nervous by the way he smelled? Dogs could do that, he remembered reading somewhere.

So Rob made his way through the labs and work areas on the lower level. Everything was a mess down there now. The human staff weren’t helping with the evacuation—but the scientists all hated the idea of leaving their precious specimens behind. They had worked out a bit of benign hypocrisy: all the important specimens were carefully packed up and labeled for shipment—so that if and when the Sholen finally did remove the whole base from Ilmatar, there would be at least a remote chance that someday the specimens could get to Earth.

To Rob’s surprise, the female Sholen envoy, Tizhos, was in the workshop when he got there. She had one of the fishshaped drones on the worktable, and was poking at its innards with some of the micro-scale tools.

“What’s up?” Rob asked her. He did still think of it as his workshop, and even though he was about to leave the station he didn’t like the idea of some alien messing the place up.

She looked up and her posture shifted—Rob couldn’t tell if it was the cramped room or some Sholen social thing. “I wish to understand the operation of these devices. They seem very cleverly made.”

“Yeah. We use them a lot. They’re pretty much off-the-shelf stuff. Plenty more just like them in Earth’s oceans, Europa, anyplace there’s liquid water.” He was careful not to mention that the primary users on Earth were navies. “Don’t you guys use them?”

“I believe past cultures on my world employed such devices. At present we prefer to employ tailored organisms, with technological implants as needed.”

“I think that some… organizations back on Earth tried that. People just think the idea of cyborg sharks is a little scary.”