A Darkling Sea (11 page)

“And are other ways to use force against us,” added Josef. “A vehicle that size could carry troops. Sholen could occupy base, or evacuate us by force.”

“Force only works if you’re willing to pull the trigger,” said Dickie. “They won’t go that far. All we have to do is refuse. If they want to start a fight, then poof, it’s war. And if they’re the ones who start it, then even the lunatic fringe back on Earth will turn against them.”

“All right, Dickie. You’ve said it a dozen different ways, but the fact is you’re not Dr. Sen, and neither are any of us. He’s not going to try to face them down. So why are we here?” asked Pierre.

“I think we ought to be making some contingency plans. Get ready in case the Sholen do make a move,” said Graves.

“Doesn’t that depend on what they can do to us?” asked Rob. “I mean, if they’ve got guns and bombs and stuff all we can really do is get ready to die.”

“Not necessarily. I’ve been thinking a lot about this. You can only kill an enemy you can find. We could wage asymmetrical warfare.”

“I do, but it disgusts me to say it. On Earth I would never eat chili at all. It is nothing but a ragout with too much pepper.”

“You want plain tofu instead?”

“I am almost hungry enough to say yes, but because we are in love I will eat your chili.”

Their long swim the previous day meant they were still ravenous, so they polished off the pot of chili, generously laced with synthetic oil and hydroponic tomatoes. They were still sitting together as the others began to drift into the common room.

When just about the entire complement of Hitode Station were having breakfast, Tizhos and Gishora came in. Gishora gave a kind of loud bark to get everyone’s attention.

“I wish to speak to all of you,” he said. “I consider the subject of great importance.”

Dr. Sen popped up from the table where he was breakfasting with Simeon Fouchard. “If it actually is of great importance then I think it would be a rather good idea to wait and announce it after all of us have finished eating our breakfasts and can give you our full attention.”

“I do not wish to wait any longer. Allow me to speak.”

Sen sat down and made a go-ahead gesture. “I certainly can’t stop you.”

Gishora stood on his two hind legs, raising his head to the ceiling. “My colleague and I have reached a conclusion. It appears to us that Henri Kerlerec died as a result of accident and carelessness. We do not believe anyone at this station intended to violate the contact agreements.”

Rob realized he was all tensed up, and gave a sigh as he relaxed. He wasn’t the only one, either.

“However,” Gishora continued, “we cannot avoid the conclusion that other errors and unauthorized contact attempts may occur in the future, as long as Hitode Station remains an active facility.”

Alicia’s face was white. “No,” she whispered.

“I discussed the matter with my colleagues here and in orbit, and we have reached consensus. We cannot allow you to remain. The risk of further contamination appears too great. We request that everyone here prepare to evacuate the station. Our spaceship can transport all of you to Earth, with fifty kilograms of mass per person for baggage. You may leave other items on the surface for future transport. We plan to return the dismantled station to your space agencies.”

Dr. Sen broke the silence before the crowd could erupt in protests. “This is—this is a most unexpected and, I must say, a most
unfortunate
proposal for you to make. I’m afraid it’s quite out of the question. I suggest you take the matter up with the UNICA council back on Earth. I’m certain they will consider the whole matter with great seriousness.”

“We have made a large number of similar requests in the past,” said Gishora. “I cannot believe this will produce a different result. As I said, we have reached consensus: you should leave at once, and then we can discuss a new set of acceptable protocols to prevent any more incidents like the death of Henri Kerlerec.”

Sen was on his feet again, standing in front of Gishora. To Rob he looked like a child arguing with a bear. “Before we give you an answer I would like the opportunity to discuss it privately with the rest of the station crew.”

“I do not understand what you need to discuss,” said Gishora. “Tell me if you understood my words.”

“Well, we—” began Sen, but Fouchard cut him off.

“Tell him no, Vikram! He has no right!”

Sen gave Simeon Fouchard a nod. “Dr. Fouchard is essentially correct. You don’t have any sort of authority to order us to leave.”

“The situation seems too important for any delay,” said Gishora. “To protect the inhabitants of Ilmatar you must leave now.”

“And what if we don’t want to go?” yelled Dickie Graves.

Gishora turned to face him. “Then we must remove you.”

For a moment the room was silent. Then half a dozen people started yelling at once. Sen said something quietly into Gishora’s ear and ushered the two of them out of the room. The shouting continued. Dr. Sen let the noise go on for a couple of minutes, then used a tray as a gavel to bang for quiet.

“I understand that you are all angered by this unreasonable request they have made of us. But we will not accomplish anything of substance by standing here and making a great deal of noise!”

“We’re not leaving!” said Graves, and Fouchard followed up by banging an open palm on the tabletop and shouting “Never!”

But Una Karlssen stood up with a completely horrified look on her face. “You’re all mad!” she said. “I don’t agree with the Sholen either, but this kind of macho posturing isn’t going to solve anything. Even if we don’t like it we have to do what they ask, and let the diplomats work it out later.”

“And what if they’re right?” said Antonio Diaz. “Maybe we should leave before something else happens.”

That prompted another round of shouting, and Dr. Sen had to use his tray gavel again. “Please!” he said. “Everyone deserves a completely fair hearing. But I do not wish to turn this into a philosophical discussion about the ethics of interstellar travel or the wisdom of the contact rules. We need to concentrate our attention on how we are going to respond to this ultimatum.”

“What choices do we have?” said Alicia.

“That is a very good question for us to consider,” said Sen. “Once we have determined what we
can
do, it will then be easier to decide what it is that we
should
do.”

“Kick their asses back to Shalina!” yelled Graves.

“For the sake of simplicity we will refer to that option as ’Active Resis tance’ for the time being, if you don’t have any objections,” said Dr. Sen. “Others?”

“This is madness! I think we have to do what they say,” said Una.

“Let us call that option ’cooperation,’ if the term is acceptable.”

“Collaboration is more like it,” said Graves.

“And your suggestion should be labeled ’Suicide,’ ” Una shouted back.

“Please! We are not going to accomplish much of anything if our discussion keeps breaking down into arguments and wrangling. Are there any other proposals that anyone would like to make?”

“What about passive resis tance?” asked Alicia. “It’s probably true they can force us to go, but we don’t have to help them clear the place out. We can’t fight, but we can peacefully refuse to leave.”

“
Satyagraha,
” said Dr. Sen. “We will refer to this option as ’passive opposition.’ Are there others?”

“Run away!” called Pierre Adler. A few people laughed, but he shook his head. “I’m serious. We’ve got a whole planet to hide on. They can’t make us leave if they can’t find us.”

“That is tactics, not strategy,” said Josef.

“I think Lieutenant Palashnik is correct,” said Dr. Sen. “Let us decide what we wish to accomplish and then discuss how to go about it.”

“What about Castaverde and the surface crew?” asked Pierre. “They deserve to be part of this.”

“I think that you are quite correct in pointing that out,” said Sen. “Before anyone makes any additional statements let us set up a link with the surface habitat.”

But even while Pierre was establishing the link and setting up a screen the debate went on.

“I want everyone to know that nothing is going to make me fight the Sholen,” said Una. “You can all go along with Dickie’s stupid idea, but I’m not going to be a part of it.”

“Can we at least agree that we will all abide by the decision of the entire group?” asked Dr. Sen.

“No!” Antonio broke in. “What if the majority is wrong?”

“What if
you’re
wrong?” someone shouted at him.

“This is not getting us anywhere,” said Dr. Sen. The wall screen went live, displaying the common room on the surface, and the crew there holding coffee cups. “Dr. Castaverde, what do your people think about this ultimatum the Sholen have given us?”

Rob was getting bored. He leaned over to whisper in Alicia’s ear. “I bet we could go away and have sex together and come back without anyone noticing.”

“Robert, this is important!”

“I know, but listening to Dickie and Una going back and forth with this did-not, did-too is really boring. Sex is more interesting.”

“Wait until we are finished.”

An hour of argument later, Rob’s patience was used up. He took advantage of a momentary silence after Antonio finished describing the moral hazard of any violent confrontation with the Sholen.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I know everyone thinks they have something really important to say, but I’m pretty sure everyone’s minds are already made up and nobody’s going to change their opinion. So why don’t we just go ahead and vote on what to do?”

“Rob moves that we end debate,” said Pierre. “All in favor?”

Nearly everyone raised a hand. Dr. Sen diplomatically abstained, and both Dickie and Una sat with arms crossed, glaring at each other.

“Motion carries!” said Pierre Adler. “Thank God.”

They voted. Dr. Sen handed out slips of scrap paper and asked everyone to fill in their choices, then collected them and announced the result with Pierre looking over his shoulder.

“Dr. Castaverde? Would you please tell me the votes from the surface facility group? Send it privately to me, please? Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “We have a total of six votes for opposing the Sholen with force. Seven abstentions, including my own. Five votes for full cooperation. Fourteen for passive resis tance. It would appear to me that the passive resis tance plan has won by a clear plurality. We will not cooperate with the Sholen in dismantling this station or closing down the operations here—but we will not engage in any sort of violence. I will inform our Sholen guests of what we have decided, but I want to make it very clear to everyone that I expect you all to abide by this decision we have made.”

TIZHOS began to notice an interesting change in the behavior of the humans, though at first she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. She returned to her room after reviewing some of the Terrans’ research findings, and discovered a pool of amber liquid on the floor. It had the distinctive odor of human liquid waste, along with various unfamiliar pheromones.

She first assumed it was the result of a failure in one of the station’s systems, and contacted Dr. Sen to inform him of the incident. Robert Freeman came out to check, and quickly determined there was nothing wrong. “The sanitary lines are all in the center of the hab cluster,” he said. “You’re a good six or eight meters away from the nearest plumbing. I don’t see how a leaky pipe could put stuff over here without getting anything in the other rooms or the landing outside.”

“Tell me how this substance got here, then.”

“Well,” the young human’s face turned pink. “It sure looks like somebody came in here and took a leak on the floor.”

“Explain the phrase ’took a leak.’ ”

“Urinated. Peed. Um, excreted liquid waste. Don’t you guys do that?”

“Not in the same way. Our bodies conserve water and expel all wastes in solid form.”

“Oh. Well, you know how we’ve got two systems? This is a mix of water and waste chemicals. Nitrogen compounds, mostly. Don’t worry, it’s pretty sterile.”

Tizhos was puzzled. On Shalina, the significance of the gesture would be obvious—marking someone else’s space as a form of challenge. But with humans it might simply be an error. “Tell me if this kind of accident happens frequently.”

“Uh, well, sometimes. Maybe someone was confused about which one was the toilet, or maybe they just couldn’t hold it.”

The next curious incident came later that same day, when Gishora and Tizhos were doing a follow-up interview with Simeon Fouchard. Tizhos brought along her bag containing personal items and her computer. But when she opened it to begin the session, she found everything inside wet. This time it wasn’t liquid waste, but a substance the Terrans identified as stain for microscope specimens. The stuff bonded to cellulose— which meant that the composite materials in the bag fabric and the case of Tizhos’s computer were now bright purple.

At mealtime the two Sholen took their accustomed places in the common room, but found that their seats were coated with adhesive. Peeling themselves off the seats required the use of solvents and was quite painful, not to mention undignified. And when they returned to the room they shared, all the cushions they had piled up for sleeping were gone—they eventually turned up floating in the moon pool in Hab One.

Twice they were informed of important messages, only to discover the source was an unattended terminal in one of the laboratories.

As the humans were finishing their active period and preparing for their nightly hibernation, Tizhos decided to mention her suspicions to Gishora.

“I suspect the humans of performing these acts deliberately.”

She had expected suspicion, possibly derision or denial, but not Gishora’s obvious amusement. “Certainly. That you took so long to realize it surprises me. One or more of the humans has decided to harass us.”

Tizhos really was surprised. “I do not understand why. It seems so unlike them.”

“Because they do not want us here. They do these things to make us wish to leave.”

Tizhos felt a rush of anger. The humans were challenging them! She willed herself to be calm, no easy feat under Gishora’s amused stare. For a moment anyway, Tizhos felt the strong half- sexual, half- childlike love of a subordinate for a leader.

“If someone deliberately harasses us, we should complain,” she said.

“Explain to me why. I doubt Vikram Sen knows of these things. If he does know, I am sure he wishes to end them. Complaining only weakens us.”

“Then we should find the person ourselves!”

“Not an easy task. Tell me if you volunteer for it.”

“Yes!” said Tizhos.