BANDICUT FOUGHT HIS way through the knot of Astari. He reached Li-Jared first. The Karellian was swinging his arms to shake off the landers who were trying to pull him back from Harding. Two of the Astari crew were crouched near Harding, turning him over onto his back. Harding hissed; he was conscious, but just barely. One of his crewmates poked at the stones that were flickering frantically in his neck.
"Can you help him?" Li-Jared cried, looking up at Bandicut.
"What happened? I thought he was all right!"
"I thought so too! The stones must have been holding him together!" The landers hissed suspiciously as Li-Jared waved toward the daughter-stones in Harding's neck. "But they couldn't keep it up. He needs help!"
/// Can you make contact—quickly? ///
Bandicut slipped between a pair of Astari and knelt close to Harding, who was blinking his eyes in a daze. Bandicut reached out a hand to touch him, to make the contact that Char needed—and felt a sudden, sharp, pincer-grip on his left shoulder, dragging him away. "OW! Damn it, wait! I'm trying to help him!" Bandicut struggled to pull free. He was tottering backward now, about to lose his balance, when another clawlike hand grabbed his right wrist, and someone jabbed at his stones, with a loud mutter. As he was pulled from the wheezing Harding, he shouted, "If you can speak—Harding—tell them to let me—"
"Yesss—yessss—you mussst—" gasped Harding, struggling to rise. He couldn't, quite, and no one moved to help him.
"What—" called a loud, hollow voice "—have you done to our friend?"
Bandicut turned his head, trying to see who had spoken. It was someone behind him. There—it was the Astari he had noticed earlier, in the dark clothing, moving through the knot of people. Was this in fact the leader?
"We're trying to help him!" Bandicut shouted. "He decompressed too fast!"
"Decompression," hissed another lander, "does not give our people—" ssss "—demonic fits—"
Demonic? Bandicut wasn't sure of the translators' rendering, but—
/// It was close enough.
They think something is wrong with you,
and with Harding coming back bearing stones.
Demonically wrong. ///
/But that's—/
/// Crazy, yes. But they don't know that. ///
Bandicut looked up, trying desperately to think of what he could say to convince them of his intentions. Harding was still struggling to sit up. "I might be able to heal him," Bandicut insisted. "If you'll let me try."
The dark-dressed Astari spoke again as the crowd parted to let him through. "What could you do that his own people cannot?"
Bandicut squinted, trying to meet the Astari's gaze. "Heal him with the help of the stones. We helped him before, when the pressure below was killing him. Will you at least let us try?"
"You helped him by giving him the eyes of a demon?" muttered one of the other Astari.
Bandicut shifted his gaze, trying to find the speaker."No! Please let me explain, while there's still—" But the voices rose in a clamor to overwhelm him. Bandicut looked at his friends in alarm. He guessed from Antares' face that she was concentrating on the crowd, trying to offer calming emotions, and failing.
Harding was coughing now. Flecks of purplish foam appeared at the corners of his mouth. His eyes looked as if they were going in and out of focus, and he was raspily trying to say something. "L-l-lissssten . . . t-to . . ." He wheezed and sank back.
"He will die if nothing is done!" Bandicut snapped. "Do you want to kill him? Because if—"
He was interrupted by a sudden shuddering in the deck under him. One of the landers lost his balance and fell. Those standing near the railing began to shout. "Explosions in the water!" "A quake!" "They're threatening us with their stones!"
/Damn. Not now!/ Bandicut managed to stumble toward the railing. There were Astari in the way, but he maneuvered past them to see the flashes beneath the surface of the water, like heat lightning in an upside-down sky. Dear God, he thought. Is this it? The big eruption?
The closest Astari confronted him angrily. "Why are you doing this?" "Do you control it?" "Do the amphibians?"
Bandicut hesitated. If the landers became convinced that the sea-people controlled these eruptions, the mission was already lost.
"—stealing parts of our ship to make this happen?"
"No. No! Listen to me! Look at what's happening out there! It comes from the bottom of the ocean, from the abyss! None of us can control that—not you, not the Neri, not any of us!" Bandicut waved his hands at L'Kell. "But his people might have a way to try to stop it!" He swung and pointed to Harding, helpless on the deck. "And he risked his life, to try to tell you to help the Neri—for your sake as well as theirs!"
The deck lurched, and the landers began to shout, "Help them?" "Why should we help them?"
A husky voice cried, barely audible through the clamor, "You—must—!" It was Harding, gasping.
Bandicut and Li-Jared, almost as one, broke through the crowd and knelt beside him. His stones were flickering weakly. Bandicut reached out to touch him.
/// That's it. Hold on if you can. ///
He felt Harding's presence. He felt pain. The struggle for breath. Failing of strength. Darkening of hope. Stones helpless to recompress the gas bubbles, Bandicut's stones trying to lend strength . . .
He was wrenched away with a grip that sent a blaze of pain through his shoulder.
/// Damn! ///
"Don't be fools!" he gasped. "Harding—try to hold on!" He wished for a frantic instant that his stones would turn him into a terrifying alien vision, as they had once before—or send out bolts of energy—but he knew that they didn't dare; their mission was to end conflict, not promote it. Even if at the cost of his friend's life.
He became aware of L'Kell calling, "Would it help, John Bandicut, if we took him back down to depth?"
He tried to think. "It might." If they took Harding back down to the Neri city, they might recompress the bubbles; he might recover there.
"No!" shouted a lander. "You took him once already! If he dies here, that's his right—"
"He came back here to help you!" Antares cried out. "Don't you understand? Don't you want to understand?"
Hearing Antares' voice crack with emotion, her words falteringly translated into Astari, Bandicut suddenly knew that they had lost. But he was stunned when one of the Astari shouted, "You want to take him back? We'll help you take your demon eyes back!" While two landers held Bandicut in a vice grip, two others picked Harding up like a sack of feed and carried him with a few swift strides to the railing. With a single glance back, they flung him out over the water.
"NO!" Bandicut bellowed. He tore free from the landers holding him and ran to the side of the ship. Leaning out, he saw Harding bobbing unconscious in the waves twenty or thirty feet below.
"Who told you to do that?" shouted the Astari leader.
"Let the amphibians have him back!" someone answered.
The cry was joined by others, and while the landers were shouting at each other, Harding slipped beneath the waves.
Bandicut acted without thinking, only dimly aware of L'Kell doing the same. He climbed up, then jumped from the railing—L'Kell airborne at his side—and crashed into the sea with a tremendous impact, and sank with a rush of bubbles. His shoulder blazed with pain as he kicked back to the surface, then treaded water, looking around for Harding. He gasped, choking as a wave hit him in the face; he caught half a breath and went under again, peering around in the alien salt sea, the water stinging his eyes. He caught sight of L'Kell struggling beneath the waves—the impact from the jump had hurt him, too—but L'Kell had a hand on a shadowy form. He had Harding, and was straining to bring him back up.
Bandicut kicked forward, lungs burning. Together, they broke the surface with Harding. Bandicut gasped for air, fighting to get Harding's head above water. L'Kell pushed up from below, and Bandicut kicked with all his strength. Something hit him in the head, stunning him. It took a couple of breaths to realize what it was—a line, thrown from the ship. He caught it in his right hand, and got his left arm around Harding and pulled him into a cross-chest carry. Then something else hit the water, a log-shaped float, and he managed to get that under his arm. L'Kell broke the surface, looked around, and dove back under to continue supporting them from beneath.
Soon there were Astari in the water, assisting, and the three of them were being pulled back to the ship.
*
Bandicut coughed, shivering, and bent over the still form of Harding. They were once more surrounded by landers, but this time at a more respectful distance. Bandicut's hand was on the Astari's chest, and Charlene was reaching out, searching . . . but there was no life left in his friend, except some residual energy in the daughter-stones. Even they seemed to have shut down.
/// I'm sorry, John, truly sorry.
He probably died when he hit the water. ///
/He knew he was going to die. I think he knew it, when we made that last contact./ With a sigh of exhaustion, Bandicut rocked back from the body of his friend. Such a short time together, but still a friend. Sharer of stones.
*We grieve.*
He was startled to hear the voice of the stones, but after that, they were silent. He looked up at L'Kell, who had shaken himself up pretty badly in the jump into the water. And Li-Jared, crouching in bewilderment and grief, Li-Jared whose daughter-stones were Harding's now, and who so obviously could not comprehend what had driven Harding's own people to kill him. "I'm sorry, Li-Jared," Bandicut whispered, touching the Karellian's arm.
Li-Jared looked startled by the touch. His eyes pulsed; the electric-blue, horizontal slit of his pupils widened for a moment, then contracted again. "So—" bwong "—mokin' stupid. So mokin' fokin' stupid."
"Yes," Bandicut said. He gazed at Harding's still face and wondered, was there still life in those stones? Some of Harding's life, or at least his knowledge?
/// Maybe. Maybe.
I would say that it's Li-Jared's move. ///
Li-Jared seemed to have the same thought. He reached out a wiry, black-fingered hand and almost touched the lightless stones in the dead Astari's neck. Almost. Whether it was out of concern for what the landers might think, or what their taboos about death might be, Bandicut couldn't tell. But Li-Jared stopped with his fingers poised a few centimeters above the dark stones.
"You . . . risked your lives trying to save this one."
Bandicut turned to face the Astari leader. "Yes," he said simply.
"Why?"
Bandicut straightened painfully, and rose to his feet. "Because he was our friend. And—because he was trying to bring an important message to you."
"What message?"
Bandicut suddenly felt weary to the depths of his bones. If they hadn't gotten the point yet . . . He cast a glance out over the water, and noted that the flashing from the Maw had subsided somewhat. "He was trying to make peace. Between your people and the Neri." Bandicut nodded in the direction of L'Kell, and S'Cali and Jontil, crouching close to L'Kell. "But your people didn't want to hear it, I guess."
"Neri," repeated the Astari. "Amphibs, we call them. We have known about them—a little, anyway. But your kind we have never seen before. Who are you? And your friends?"
"We are not," Bandicut said, "from your world." He drew a breath. "I am John Bandicut, human of a world called Earth." He introduced the others. By the time he was finished, he seemed to have caught the Astari leader's interest.
"And still you risked your life to save this one, Harding."
"I told you why."
"Yes. But you have not told us what you were planning to offer us, or ask of us. And what these stones have to do with it." The leader spoke as though it was now irrelevant to him how the other Astari had reacted to the stones. Having watched their passion and anger play itself out, would he now make a rational decision on their behalf?
"I will answer all of your questions if I can. But first, may I ask—how shall I address you? Are you the leader of this . . . ship?"
"You may call me Morado. I am the—" krrrll "—commander of the salvage operation."
"Morado," Bandicut said. "Well, then." He rubbed his wrist, thinking. "The stones allow those of us who are not of this world to survive in a place that is alien to us. And they allow us to talk to you. They are tools of negotiation."
"Yes? Negotiation?" Morado angled his head slightly. "And if I thought they were demon eyes, and ordered my people to take them out of your body and destroy them?"
Bandicut stared at him for a moment. "I would not recommend that," he said dryly.
Morado said nothing, but gestured to two of the Astari nearby. One of them grabbed Bandicut's left wrist; the other drew a blade nearly as long as Bandicut's forearm. Bandicut grunted, and tried to pull his arm away. The Astari's grip tightened. The knife-point gleamed as it poked at his wrist near the black stone.
/// Brace yourself. ///
A pulse of light shot from the stone, and with a whump, a forcefield flared out momentarily, hurling both landers back into the crowd. The concussion made Bandicut's ears ring. A smell of ozone lingered in the air.
Morado watched in stunned silence.
Bandicut stared coldly at the two Astari who had assaulted him, then turned slowly to Morado. "As I was saying," he began. He paused, seeing a movement out of the corner of his eye.
Li-Jared bent to scoop up two marble-sized balls of light, which were suddenly floating above Harding's body. "Here," Li-Jared said. "Perhaps you would like to inspect them." He handed them to Morado.
The Astari leader's eyes seemed to contract with suspicion, but he took the stones from Li-Jared. He held them carefully in what served for a palm of his hand, where they shrank slightly and glowed like illuminated gems. "How do they change like that?" he rasped.
Bandicut and Li-Jared looked at each other. "We don't really know," Bandicut said finally. "We did not make them, and we don't wholly control them. But they don't control us, either." He glanced down at Harding's body, with a pang of sadness. "They tried to save his life, right to the end." Bandicut sighed heavily, and felt a touch on his arm.
It was Antares, who stepped forward to Morado. "May I say something?" Her words were translated more clearly this time, perhaps because she was calmer.
Morado's ringed irises seemed to contract and expand for a moment as he studied her. He looked like a cartoonish nightmare of a fox, gazing at his prey. But Antares remained unfearful. "Were you also a friend of Harding?" Morado said finally.
"I did not know him as these two knew him—through the connection of the stones," Antares replied, "but I spoke with him, and listened to him, and yes, he was my friend. I know how uncertain you are of those stones that you hold. Uncertain whether to trust them or fear them."
Morado's head tipped slightly back, and his lips parted slightly. "And you wish to tell me to trust them?" he asked, raising the stones to eye level.
"No," said Antares, which seemed to startle him a little. "I wish to tell you that they are a very great treasure, and that Li-Jared's gift of them to Harding was a very great gift. And whether or not you trust them, you would be wise to respect them."
Morado glanced at Bandicut—perhaps thinking of the demonstration his stones had put on—then back at Harding's stones. But before he could answer Antares, there was another flash of light in the sea off the starboard side of the ship— then a rumble, vibrating through the deck. Morado's hands closed over the stones as he shouted, "Crew, to your stations! Secure for high seas! Communications, contact port and warn of possible—" hssssk "—crash-waves! Deck monitors, take this crewman's body below." He watched for a moment, then gestured to Antares and Bandicut and Li-Jared to step closer. When L'Kell joined them, he stared at the Neri for a moment, but did not ask him to leave. "What do the stones have to do with this?" he demanded.
Bandicut raised his voice to be heard over the noise of the crew. "Nothing!" He raised his hands helplessly, and finally gestured toward the undersea flashes. "Morado, we know these quakes and disruptions threaten your people on the coast. But they also threaten the Neri, even more. There is a thing down there that is causing it. But we hope, and Harding hoped, that a way can be found to stop it. That's why he risked his life hurrying to the surface!" Bandicut pointed to the stones that Morado held. "Those stones, and ours, might be able to help. But the Neri also require the help of your people. They need your cooperation. Materials. Machines."
"Materials. Machines," Morado repeated, his gaze flicking from one to another. "Can I use these stones to understand what you speak of?"
"I don't know if that's for us to say." Bandicut glanced at Li-Jared for affirmation.
"We cannot tell the stones whom to serve," Li-Jared said. "They decide that for themselves." His eyes dimmed for a moment, in thought. "I believe that they wish now to return to me."
"To you?" Morado said, in a voice that seemed to suggest disbelief.
"Yes. I am sorry."
Morado stared at the stones for a moment. "I do not think—" he began, and then hesitated and opened his hand to look at the stones again. "I sense that there is—" He thought a moment longer, and finally said, "It is a pity. However, perhaps I will trust Harding in this, and honor his wishes. What is it that you want exactly?" As he spoke, he held the stones out to Li-Jared. When the Karellian touched them, they seemed to brighten, flickering; and then a sudden wave of light enveloped Li-Jared's hands and arms, streaming up his chest. For an instant, they all stood watching in amazement.
The effect quickly subsided—but as Morado released the stones into the Karellian's hands, the wave of light suddenly reversed, and arced across to Morado's hands. He grunted harshly, but looked even more surprised when the two stones flew up and sank glowing into his neck.
*
Antares felt a flash of confusion, and then understood. The stones had been waiting to see if Morado would willingly give them up. Once he had passed that test, they went willingly to him. But the surprise of the transfer had shaken him; she could feel it. She focused, trying to reach out to the Astari leader.
This was a dangerous moment. If Morado felt threatened, he might turn on them. If the other Astari thought he was threatened—or worse, that his integrity was compromised—they might turn on him as they had on Harding. She focused her powers on just one thing: projecting calm, projecting fearlessness. Fearlessness and calm.
She felt the tension in Morado's thoughts and emotions as he struggled to cope with this new force in his body and his mind. He had to come quickly to some understanding or accommodation; he had to decide whether he was facing friends or foes. She could not sense his leaning; she guessed that he was teetering on the edge—infuriated by the intrusion into his privacy, the privacy of his own mind, and at the same time astonished by the newfound sense of power and knowledge, or the possibility of knowledge.
Fearlessness, she thought. Calm.
Something twinged in the Astari's emotional aura: a determination being made. A decision. Morado looked at her, looked at the others. "I . . . see . . ." he said, forcing his words. "I see. There is . . . much need. But you have given this to me, yes? These stones? They have so much . . . I cannot see it all, but I sense . . ." He blinked, and gave up trying to put it into words.
For a moment, there was only silence. Then Li-Jared said, "They are yours. To use, to keep. As long as they themselves approve." Li-Jared's words, too, seemed halting. Antares suddenly realized that he was also trying to assimilate something new. The wave of light that had enveloped him: had that been a massive contact between his stones and the stones that had shared Harding's thoughts?
The deck shook with a sharper rumble from below. Antares glanced out over the sea in alarm. The greenish light deep beneath the waves was growing in intensity. What was the Maw doing? What was happening on the seabed, and in the Neri city?
"We must get our divers up," Morado said suddenly, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace. "Our salvage operation—and your people—" he looked at L'Kell as he said that "—may be in danger." He called to an aide. "Find out what's happening below! And get a message off to port: Eruption worsening. Prepare for extremely high seas."
"I must contact our people," L'Kell said urgently, breaking out of the group into a sudden pacing walk. He held up his hands and spread his webbed fingers for emphasis. "They will almost certainly need our help, if this grows worse." He strode to the rail and gazed out worriedly over the sea, then strode back.
Morado gazed at him. "I understand," he said. "You may go whenever you wish." L'Kell made a clucking sound and waved S'Cali and Jontil toward the subs. "But wait a moment, please. You came to ask our cooperation."
L'Kell paused, turning his large Neri eyes upon the Astari. "Yes," he said.
Morado closed his eyes, opened them. "Ordinarily, I would have to seek—" haaa "—approval from my superiors ashore. But there is no time. I will try to help you, for now at least. Perhaps these—" he touched the stones in his neck "—may serve as payment for what you wish to remove from our ship."
Antares felt Bandicut's heart leap a little, and she let her own breath sigh out in hope.
"But I must know," Morado continued, "just what it is that you need for your effort. The stones have some understanding, but it is incomplete. It may be possible—if we survive this eruption—to supply some of the materials you need without having to destroy valuable machinery to extract them. But I must ask that you consider the safety of our people in your efforts to master this thing."
Morado turned to look out at the pulsating light in the sea. "But if you can find a way to subdue this terrible thing, then we might well find a way to work together, your people and mine."