Starfish

  “Yes, we’ve spoken with a couple of—other experts about that.”

  “And?”

  “They don’t think the rift environment is, ‘sufficiently impoverished’ is the way they put it. Not sufficiently impoverished to function as a Ganzfeld.”

  “I see,” Scanlon felt part of his old self bristling. He smiled, ignoring it. “How do they explain my observations?”

  “Actually…” Rowan coughed. “They’re not completely convinced you did observe anything significant. Apparently there was some evidence that your report was dictated under conditions of—well, personal stress.”

  Scanlon carefully froze his smile into place. “Well. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.”

  Rowan said nothing.

  “Although the fact that the rift is a stressful environment shouldn’t come as news to any real expert,” Scanlon continued. “That was the whole point of the program, after all.”

  Rowan nodded. “I don’t disbelieve you, Doctor. I’m not really qualified to judge one way or the other.”

  True, he didn’t say.

  “And in any event,” Rowan added, “you were there. They weren’t.”

  Scanlon relaxed. Of course she’d put his opinion ahead of those other experts, whoever they were. He was the one she’d chosen to go down there, after all.

  “It’s not really important,” she said now, dismissing the subject. “Our immediate concern is the quarantine.”

  Mine as well as theirs. But of course he didn’t let that on. It wouldn’t be—professional—to seem too concerned about his own welfare right now. Besides, they were treating him fine in here. At least he knew what was going on.

  “—yet,” Rowan finished.

  Scanlon blinked. “What? Excuse me?”

  “I said, for obvious reasons we’ve decided not to recall the crew from Beebe just yet.”

  “I see. Well, you’re in luck. They don’t want to leave.”

  Rowan stepped closer to the membrane. Her eyes faded in the light. “You’re sure of this.”

  “Yes. The rift is their home, Ms. Rowan, in a way a layperson probably couldn’t understand. They’re more alive down there than they ever were on land.” He shrugged. “Besides, even if they wanted to leave, what could they do? They’re hardly going to swim all the way back to the mainland.”

  “They might, actually.”

  “What?”

  “It’s possible,” Rowan admitted. “Theoretically. And we—we caught one of them, leaving.”

  “What?”

  “Up in the euphotic zone. We had a sub stationed up there, just to—keep an eye on things. One of the rifters—Cracker, or—” A glowing thread wriggled across each eye. “Caraco, that’s it. Judy Caraco. She was heading straight for the surface. They figured she was making a break for it.”

  Scanlon shook his head. “Caraco does laps, Ms. Rowan. It was in my report.”

  “I know. Perhaps your report should have been more widely distributed. Although, her laps never took her that close to the surface before. I can see why they—” Rowan shook her head. “At any rate, they took her. A mistake, perhaps.” A faint smile. “Those happen, sometimes.”

  “I see,” Scanlon said.

  “So now we’re in something of a situation,” Rowan went on. “Maybe the Beebe crew thinks that Caraco was just another accidental casualty. Or maybe they’re getting suspicious. So do we let it lie, hope things blow over? Will they make a break if they think we’re covering something up? Will some go and some stay? Are they a group, or a collection of individuals?”

  She fell silent.

  “A lot of questions,” Scanlon said after a while.

  “Okay, then. Here’s just one. Would they obey a direct order to stay on the rift?”

  “They might stay on the rift,” Scanlon said. “But not because you ordered them to.”

  “We were thinking, maybe Lenie Clarke,” Rowan said. “According to your report she’s more or less the leader. And Lubin’s—Lubin was—the wild card. Now he’s out of the picture, perhaps Clarke could keep the others in line. If we can reach Clarke.”

  Scanlon shook his head. “Clarke’s not any sort of leader, not in the conventional sense. She adopts her own behaviors independently, and the others just—follow her lead. It’s not the usual authority-based system as you’d understand it.”

  “But if they follow her lead, as you say…”

  “I suppose,” Scanlon said slowly, “she’s the most likely to obey an order to stay on site, no matter how hellish the situation. She’s hooked on abusive relationships, after all.” He stopped.

  “You could always try telling them the truth,” he suggested.

  She nodded. “It’s a possibility, certainly. And how do you think they’d react?”

  Scanlon said nothing.

  “Would they trust us?” Rowan asked.

  Scanlon smiled. “Do they have any reason to?”

  “Perhaps not.” Rowan sighed. “But no matter what we tell them the issue’s the same. What will they do when they learn they’re stuck down there?”

  “Probably nothing. That’s where they want to be.”

  Rowan glanced at him curiously. “I’m surprised you’d say that, Doctor.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s no place I’d rather be than my own apartment. But the moment anyone put me under house arrest I’d want very much to leave it, and I’m not even slightly dysfunctional.”

  Scanlon let the last part slide. “That’s a point,” he admitted.

  “A very basic one,” she said. “I’m surprised someone with your background would miss it.”

  “I didn’t miss it. I just think other factors outweigh it.” On the outside, Scanlon smiled. “As you say, you’re not at all dysfunctional.”

  “No. Not yet, anyway.” Rowan’s eyes clouded with a sudden flurry of data. She stared into space for a moment or two, assessing. “Excuse me. Bit of trouble on another front.” She focused again on Scanlon. “Do you ever feel guilty, Yves?”

  He laughed, cut himself off. “Guilty? Why?”

  “About the project. About—what we did to them.”

  “They’re happier down there. Believe me. I know.”

  “Do you.”

  “Better than anyone, Ms. Rowan. You know that. That’s why you came to me today.”

  She didn’t speak.

  “Besides,” Scanlon said, “nobody drafted them. It was their own free choice.”

  “Yes,” Rowan agreed softly. “Was.”

  And extended her arm through the window.

  The isolation membrane coated her hand like liquid glass. It fit the contours of her fingers without a wrinkle, painted palm and wrist and forearm in a transparent sheath, pulled away just short of her elbow and stretched back to the windowpane.

  “Thanks for your time, Yves,” Rowan said.

  After a moment Scanlon shook the proffered hand. It felt like a condom, slightly lubricated. “You’re welcome,” he said. Rowan retracted her arm, turned away. The membrane smoothed behind her like a soap bubble.

  “But—” Scanlon said.

  She turned back. “Yes?”

  “Was that all you wanted?” he said.

  “For now.”

  “Ms. Rowan, if I may. There’s a lot about the people down there you don’t know. A lot. I’m the only one who can give it to you.”

  “I appreciate that, Y—”

  “The whole geothermal program hinges on them. I’m sure you see that.”

  She stepped back toward the membrane. “I do, Dr. Scanlon. Believe me. But I have a number of priorities right now. And in the meantime, I know where to find you.” Once more she turned away.

  Scanlon tried very hard to keep his voice level: “Ms. Rowan—”

  Something changed in her then, a subtle hardening of posture that would have gone unnoticed by most people. Scanlon saw it as she turned back to face him. A tiny pit opened in his stomach.

  He tri
ed to think of what to say.

  “Yes, Dr. Scanlon,” she said, her voice a bit too level.

  “I know you’re busy, Ms. Rowan, but—how much longer do I have to stay in here?”

  She softened fractionally. “Yves, we still don’t know. In a way it’s just another quarantine, but it’s taking longer to get a handle on this one. It’s from the bottom of the ocean, after all.”

  “What is it, exactly?”

  “I’m not a biologist.” She glanced at the floor for a moment, then met his eyes again. “But I can tell you this much: You don’t have to worry about keeling over dead. Even if you have this thing. It doesn’t really attack people.”

  “Then why—”

  “Apparently there are some—agricultural concerns. They’re more afraid of the effect it might have on certain plants.”

  He considered that. It made him feel a little better.

  “I really have to go now.” Rowan seemed to consider something for a moment, then added, “And no more dopplegängers. I promise. That was rude of me.”

  Turncoat

  She’d told the truth about the doppelgängers. She’d lied about everything else.

  After four days Scanlon left a message in Rowan’s cache. Two days later he left another. In the meantime he waited for the spirit which had thrust its finger up his ass to come back and tell him more about primordial biochemistry. It never did. By now even the other ghosts weren’t visiting very often, and they barely said a word when they did.

  Rowan didn’t return Scanlon’s calls. Patience melted into uncertainty. Uncertainty simmered into conviction. Conviction began to gently boil.

  Locked up in here for three fucking weeks and all she gives me is a ten-minute courtesy call. Ten lousy minutes of my-experts-say-you’re-wrong and it’s-such-a-basic-point-I-can’t-believe-you-missed-it and then she just walks away. She just fucking smiles and walks away.

  “Know what I should have done,” he growled at the teleop. It was the middle of the day but he didn’t care anymore. Nobody was listening, they’d deserted him in here. They’d probably forgotten all about him. “What I should have done is rip a hole in that fucking membrane when she was here. Let a little of whatever’s in here out to mix with the air in her lungs. Bet that’d inspire her to look for some answers!”

  He knew it was fantasy. The membrane was almost infinitely flexible, and just as tough. Even if he succeeded in cutting it, it would repair itself before any mere gas molecules could jump through. Still, it was satisfying to think about.

  Not satisfying enough. Scanlon picked up a chair and hurled it at the window. The membrane caught it like a form-fitting glove, enfolded it, let it fall almost to the floor on the other side. Then, slowly, the window tightened down to two dimensions. The chair toppled back into Scanlon’s cell, completely undamaged.

  And to think she’d had the fucking temerity to lecture him with that inane little homily about house arrest! As though she’d caught him in some sort of lie, when he’d suggested the vampires might stay put. As though she thought he was covering for them.

  Sure, he knew more about vampires than anyone. That didn’t mean he was one. That didn’t mean—

  We could have treated you better, Lubin had said, there at the last. We. As though he’d been speaking for all of them. As though, finally, they were accepting him. As though—

  But vampires were damaged goods, always had been. That was the whole point. How could Yves Scanlon qualify for membership in a club like that?

  He knew one thing, though. He’d rather be a vampire than one of these assholes up here. That was obvious now. Now that the pretenses were dropping away and they didn’t even bother talking to him anymore. They exploited him and then they shunned him; they used him just like they used the vampires. He’d always known that deep down, of course. But he’d tried to deny it, kept it stifled under years of accommodation and good intentions and misguided efforts to fit in.

  These people were the enemy. They’d always been the enemy.

  And they had him by the balls.

  He spun around and slammed his fist into the examination table. It didn’t even hurt. He continued until it did. Panting, knuckles raw and stinging, he looked around for something else to smash.

  The teleop woke up enough to hiss and spark when the chair bounced off its central trunk. One of the arms wiggled spastically for a moment. A faint smell of burnt insulation. Then nothing. Only slightly dented, the teleop slept on above a litter of broken paradigms.

  “Tip for the day,” Scanlon snarled at it. “Never trust a dryback.”

  HEAD CHEESE

  THEME AND VARIATION

  A tremor shivers through bedrock. The emerald grid fractures into a jagged spiderweb. Strands of laser light bounce haphazardly into the abyss.

  From somewhere within the carousel, a subtle discontent. Intensified cogitation. The displaced beams waver, begin realigning themselves.

  Lenie Clarke has seen and felt all of this before. This time she watches the prisms on the seabed, rotating and adjusting themselves like tiny radio-telescopes. One by one the disturbed beams lie back down, parallel, perpendicular, planar. Within seconds the grid is completely restored.

  Emotionless satisfaction. Cold alien thoughts nearby, reverting.

  And farther away, something else coming closer. Thin and hungry, like a faint reedy howl in Clarke’s mind.…

  “Ah, shit,” Brander buzzes, diving for the bottom.

  It streaks down from the darkness overhead, mindlessly single-minded, big as Clarke and Brander put together. Its eyes reflect the glow from the seabed. It slams into the top of the carousel, mouth open, bounces away with half its teeth broken.

  It has no thoughts, but Lenie Clarke can feel its emotions. They don’t change. Injury never seems to faze these monsters. Its next attack targets one of the lasers. It skids around the roof of the carousel and comes up from underneath, swallowing one of the beams. It rams the emitter, and thrashes.

  A sudden vicarious tingle shoots along Clarke’s spine. The creature sinks, twitching. Clarke feels it die before it touches bottom.

  “Jesus,” she says. “You sure the laser didn’t do that?”

  “No. Way too weak,” Brander tells her. “Didn’t you feel it? An electric shock?”

  She nods.

  “Hey,” Brander realizes. “You haven’t seen this before, have you?”

  “No. Alice told me about it, though.”

  “The lasers lure them in sometimes, when they wobble.”

  Clarke eyes the carcass. Neurons hiss faintly inside it. The body’s dead, but it can take hours for the cells to run down.

  She glances back at the machinery that killed them. “Lucky none of us touched that thing,” she buzzes.

  “I was keeping my distance anyway. Lubin said it wasn’t hot enough to be dangerous, but, well…”

  “I was tuned in to the gel when it happened,” she says. “I don’t think it—”

  “The gel never even notices. I don’t think it’s hooked into the defense system.” Brander looks up at the metal structure. “No, our head cheese has far too much on its mind to waste its time worrying about fish.”

  She looks at him. “You know what it is, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Well?”

  “I said I don’t know. Just got some ideas.”

  “Come on, Mike. If you’ve got ideas, it’s only because the rest of us have been out here taking notes for the past two weeks. Give.”

  He floats above her, looking down. “Okay,” he says at last. “Let me just dump what you got today and run it against the rest. Then, if it pans out…”

  “About time.” Clarke grabs her squid off the bottom and tweaks the throttle. “Good.”

  Brander shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Not at all.”

  * * *

  “Okay, then. Smart gels are especially suited for coping with rapid changes in topography, right?”
r />   Brander sits at the library. In front of him, one of the flatscreens cycles through a holding pattern. Behind, Clarke and Lubin and Nakata do the same.

  “So there are two ways for your topographic environment to change rapidly,” he continues. “One, you move quickly through complex surroundings. That’s why we’re getting gels in muckrakers and ATVs these days. Or you could sit still, and let your surroundings change.”

  He looks around. Nobody says anything. “Well?”

  “So it’s thinking about earthquakes,” Lubin remarks. “The GA told us that much.”

  Brander turns back to the console. “Not just any earthquake,” he says, a sudden edge in his voice. “The same earthquake. Over and over again.”

  He touches an icon on the screen. The display rearranges itself into a pair of axes, x and y. Emerald script glows adjacent to each line. Clarke leans forward: TIME, says the abscissa. ACTIVITY, says the ordinate.

  A line begins to crawl left to right across the display.

  “This is a mean composite plot of every time we ever watched that thing,” Brander explains. “I tried to pin some sort of units onto the y-axis, but of course all we can tune in is ‘now it’s thinking hard,’ or ‘now it’s slacking off.’ So you’ll have to settle for a relative scale. What you’re seeing now is just baseline activity.”

  The line shoots about a quarter of the way up the scale, flattens out.

  “Here it’s started thinking about something. I can’t correlate this to any real events like local tremors, it just seems to start on its own. An internally generated loop, I think.”

  “Simulation,” Lubin grunts.

  “So it’s thinking along like this for a while,” Brander continues, ignoring him, “and then, voilà…” Another jump, to halfway up the y-axis. The line holds its new altitude for a few pixels, slides into a gentle decline for a pixel or two, then jumps again. “So here it started thinking quite hard, starts to relax, then starts thinking even harder.” Another, smaller jump, another gradual decline. “Here it’s even more lost in thought, but it takes a nice long break afterward.” Sure enough, the decline continues uninterrupted for almost thirty seconds.