Charles Sheffield - Transcendence

Tally was right. Too tart and astringent to be pleasant, but full of water. The juice trickled down her dry throat like nectar when she crunched a berry between her teeth. She did the same to a dozen more before she could force herself to stop and speak again. “I wasn’t thinking of food when I said we couldn’t stay here. I was thinking of Zardalu.”

The embodied computer did not reply, but he raised himself slowly from a sitting position, until he was able to look out toward the shore. “I see nothing. If any are close-by, they are still in the water.”

“Do you want to bet on their staying there? The air vent we came up is more than a mile from here and we don’t know of a nearer one. If the Zardalu came out of the sea farther along the shore, between us and the vent, it would be all over. We have to get back there.”

Tally was already pulling whole branches off the bushes. Darya began to do the same, eating more leaves and berries as she did so. Tally had the right idea. On the surface or under it, the two of them would still need nourishment. There might be bushes closer to the vent, but they could not take the risk. Collection had to be done now, even though it meant an added burden. She broke off branches until she had an armload. She would need the other arm free to help her over rough spots. She nodded to Tally. “Let’s go.”

The trip to the air-duct exit was surprisingly easy and quick — good light made all the difference over broken ground. And the light was more than good — it was blinding. Darya paused a few times to wipe sweat from her face and neck. Here was another reason why the surface might be intolerable. Genizee close to noon promised to be incredibly hot. She turned and went uphill, far enough to peer uneasily at the shore over the ragged line of plants. The water was calm. No towering forms of midnight blue rose to fill her with terror. Did the Zardalu keep fixed hours, for water and land living? She knew so little about them, or about this planet.

As they came close to the vent Darya noticed what she had not seen in the half-light of dawn: the whole region was covered with low bushes, similar to the ones whose branches they were carrying but with fruit of a slightly lighter shade of yellow. She broke off half-a-dozen more branches and added them to her load, popping berries into her mouth as she did so to quench her increasing thirst. These seemed a little sweeter, a little less inclined to fur her teeth and palate. Maybe the fruit was an acquired taste; or maybe these new berries were a fraction riper.

At the vent itself Darya hesitated. The aperture was dark and uninviting, heading off at a steep angle into the rocky ground. Its only virtue was its narrow width, barely enough for a human and far too small to admit an adult Zardalu. But it represented safety… if one were willing to accept an unconventional definition of that word.

“Come on, E.C. No point in hanging around.” She led the way, wondering what to do next. They did not want to be too far below-ground in case the ship came back. But they also had to reach a certain depth, to be sure that groping Zardalu tentacles could not pull them out.

What they really needed — the thought struck her as she took her first steps down — was a vent closer to the place where the Indulgence had rested. One of the only sure things in this whole mess was that anyone who came back for her would try to land at the same point where they had taken off.

“E.C., do you remember all the turns and twists we made on the way up?”

“Of course.”

“Then I want you to review the last few branch points before we came out on the surface, and see if any of the alternative paths that we didn’t take might lead to an exit duct closer to where the Indulgence lay.”

“I did that long ago. If the directions of the ducts at those branch points were to continue as we saw them, then a duct at an intersection before the final one would run to the surface about a hundred yards inland from where we watched the Indulgence take off. A little more than a mile from here.”

Darya swore to herself. People could say what they liked about how smart embodied computers were, but something fundamental was missing. E.C. Tally must have had that information hours before; it had not occurred to him that it was important enough to pass on at once to Darya.

Well, use the resources you have. Don’t waste time pining for ones denied to you. That was one of Hans Rebka’s prime rules. And E.C. Tally’s memory was, so far as Darya could tell, infallible. “Lead the way back to that intersection. Let’s see where it takes us.”

Tally nodded and went forward without a word. Darya followed, one arm full of laden branches, eating from them as they walked. The descent was far easier than their ascent. At this time of day the sun’s rays lay close to the line of the entrance, so that the glassy walls of the tunnel served as a light trap, funneling sunlight deep below-ground. Even a couple of hundred feet down, there was ample light to see by.

That was when they came to the first complication.

Tally paused and turned. “May I speak?”

But he did not need to. Darya saw the problem at once. The tunnel widened at that point to a substantial chamber, with one downward and three upward exits. Each would admit a human. But one of those upward corridors was more than wide enough for an adult Zardalu. If they went beyond this point and found no other exit, their one road back to the surface could be blocked.

“I think we have to take the risk,” Darya started to say. And then the second complication arrived. She felt a spasm across her middle, as though someone had taken her intestines and pulled them into a tight, stretching knot. She gasped. Her legs would not support her weight, and she slid forward to sit down suddenly and hard on the chamber floor.

“Tally!” she said, and then could not get out another word. A second cramp, harder than the first, twisted her innards. Sweat burst out onto her forehead. She hung her head forward and panted, widemouthed.

E.C. Tally came to her side and lifted her head. He raised her eyelid with his finger, then moved her lips back to peer at her gums.

“Tally,” she said again. It was the only sound she could make. The spasms inside her were great tidal waves of pain. As each one receded, it washed away more of her strength.

“Unfortunate,” Tally said quietly. She struggled to focus her eyes and see what he was doing. The embodied computer had picked up a branch of the bush that she had dropped and was examining it closely. “It is almost the same as the first one, but almost certainly a different species.” He squeezed a pale yellow berry in his fingers and touched it carefully to his tongue. After a moment he nodded. “I think so. Similar, but also different. A medium-strength emetic in this, plus an unfamiliar alkaloid. I do not believe that this is a fatal poison, but it would, I think, be a good idea if you were to vomit. Do you have any way of inducing yourself to do so?”

Darya was half-a-second ahead of him. Every berry that she had eaten came out in one awful, clenching spasm of her stomach and esophagus. And then, although the leaves and berries were surely all gone, her stomach did not know when to quit. She was racked by a continuing sequence of painful dry heaves, doubly unpleasant because there was nothing inside her for them to work on. She supported herself on the chamber floor with both hands and sat hunched in utter misery. Being so sick was bad enough. Being so stupid was even worse.

“May I speak?”

It was a few seconds before she could even nod, head down.

“You should not seek to continue at this time, even if you feel able to do so. And it is surely unnecessary. You can wait here, and I will proceed to explore the tunnel system. Upon my return, we can decide on the next best course of action. Do you agree?”