Existence (58 page)

Anyway, who could possibly claim that these aliens were “above” altercation or too mature to argue! To be frank, he had never seen such an inherently
testy
bunch. And that was before the recent news about rivalry
between
interstellar envoy-probes!

Could it all be a matter of misunderstood definitions? “Competition,” for example, might be translating wrong. Gerald decided to seek clarification.

“Please explain,” he asked. Took a deep breath. Then plunged on. “If you often wrangle as individuals, how is it that your home species and civilizations and planets never compete or quarrel with each other?”

The Buddha-being contemplated this, then answered slowly, with a mien that made Gerald think of a wise-old teacher, patiently answering the simpleminded query of a dimwitted child.

Our home species and civilizations and planets could not ever compete with one another. Because they never met.

TORALYZER

Okay, so now we’ve got a good prelimalysis of those recent worldwide microquakes. After sift-removing the background of natural tectonic activity and known sources of human-generated noise, what we’re left with is a dispersion of mysterious, compact detonations, nearly all of them occurring in a very narrow energy range.

Furthermore, although they at first seemed to be scattered all over the globe, we can now tell that these micro-quake events are limited mostly to certain types of geology! Mudflats, sedimentary layers, alluvial plains, glacial moraines, the Antarctic plateau … and of course, the ocean basins. Almost nothing is happening in the great continental cratons, or granitic mountain ranges, or anywhere near regions of fresh volcanism, like sea floor spreading centers.

Yes, the coincidence is getting hard to refute. These events occur in exactly the sorts of terrain where an object that fell from the sky might stand a chance of landing with less than vaporizing impact. Mostly either under water or in places that used to be oceans, long ago. Zones where any surviving remnants might have accumulated, or been embedded, across thousands or millions of years.

For those of you just checking in, this is Tor “Zep-girl” Povlov, serving as cogenter for a smartposse investigating whether these quakes might be related to
another
mystery phenomenon—eyewitness reports of sudden emissions of strange light, given off by stony or glassy objects in the last day or so.

Yes, I know we’re all trying hard to keep up with real-time developments, even as the whole world follows the conversation between astronaut Gerald Livingstone and the entities dwelling within the Havana Artifact. This could be the greatest test ever of our ability to usefully
divide attention
 … to keep doing effective investigation work while transfixed by a fast-breaking news story!

From the conversation in Washington, one thing has just become clear. The Artifact emissaries do not want humanity talking to “others.”

And, just as clearly, every word they’ve said makes us
eager
to hunt down and learn more about these different shining stones!

So we come to an obvious question. Might the glitters and glimmers that have been reported in Mecca, Hyderabad, and Stonehenge, in Taipei, La Paz, Goma, and Toulouse … might these be just the tip of the iceberg, indicating a truly vast number of “other” contact probes?

Might the recent spate of mysterious micro-tremors, deep underground and out of sight, be connected to all this? Could these outbursts be attempts by “other” artifacts to draw attention to themselves?

And why now, if they sat under mud or silt for millennia or eons?

Duh. Because they sense—somehow—that the Havana Artifact is hogging all the fun!

Why not earlier? Because till now it seemed better to wait! In performing these detonations or screaming glows, they may be expending whatever reserves they had been hoarding to get them across the ages! Using it up now, in order to have one last chance to—

*   *   *

Just a minute … just a minute. Did you see that? Did that fat alien representative just say what I think he said?

Zoom into the Artifact Conference. See the words of the Oldest Member on the big screen.

Our home species and civilizations and planets could not ever compete with one another. Because they never met.

What—on Earth or Heaven or the Mesh—could he mean by that?

44.

LAYERED REALITY

Outside the dome, miffed from losing at water polo, Noisy Stomach complained to his young comrade, Three-Tone, as they jetted away some distance from the Tribe. Three-Tone groused about the stupid referee, the stupid ball, the stupid captain of their team.…

# Foolish Yellowbelly, should have put me in!

# Let me score! I’d score more!

Noisy Stomach had already dismissed the game from his mind. A silly pastime. A legacy of the days when humans used to live inside the dome and made things interesting in so many ways, with flashing lights and strange sensations, always fussing over pregnant females, or else begging sperm donations from males. Better times.

Now?

For a while the Tribe once again had a tame human of their own, to remove parasites and handle the net and bear the brunt of jokes. Only, the elders had decided, it was time to give him back. For his health.

Noisy Stomach mourned.

# What about MY health?

# Who will pick my pecs and clean my sores?

# Should have kept him. He is ours!

They both breached to inhale, tasting in the moist, tropical air signs of a coming squall, maybe late this afternoon. That always freshened things. Rain pushed down some of the unpleasant tang of metal and plastic and man-feces, especially strong near shore.

Noisy Stomach felt a grumble of hunger resonate from his innards to the space around him—a trait that made him poor at stealth, forcing him to specialize in beating, rather than catching. He was about to resume griping—something that young males often did for pleasurable competition, as much as from resentment—when he noticed that Three-Tone had zoomed away, propelled by powerful fluke strokes, leaving a swirl of I-have-just-detected-something-interesting bubbles in his follow-me wake.

Gamely, Noisy Stomach gave chase, always willing to go poke at something interesting. But what could it be? While in hard pursuit of his friend, he concentrated on sampling the sea sounds with left and right swings of his sensitive jaw, trying to figure out what had sparked Three-Tone’s sudden burst of speed, racing to the north.

As usual, there was a lot of spurious noise—the pounding of surf on a nearby beach and waves crashing against a more distant reef. Of course, there were irksome human motor sounds, a grating fact of life, both day and night—with one or two of them evidently heading this way—or toward the habitat dome—at high speed.

Evidently, the Tribe was about to lose its pet. Ah well. None of that seemed to be what sparked the interest of Three-Tone.

Could this be about food? Or danger? A quick scan found nothing unusual amid the fish frequencies, where tightly bunched schools could be heard, swirling like cyclones, surrounded by hunters who made quick-flicking dashes … and prey thrashed, delightfully constrained by clamping jaws. His hunger deepened, almost in syncopated rhythm … but no, there was nothing on those channels to excite Three-Tone so.

Swimming hard to catch up with his friend, Noisy Stomach sought clues in lower, complex layers of textured sound. Strata that the older dolphins were always obsessing about, forever wispy, tentative, that wove through dreams. It was here that you often heard the great whales speak to each other, with moans and cries and songs that traversed all the way across whole ocean basins. Sometimes about food and mating, of course. But also conveying the sea’s own, slow gossip.

And, even lower still—nestled amid the groans of a creaking, quake-prone Earth—you could just make out the chittering, scrabbling commentary of the crabs, crawling and scooting and clambering everywhere, who snapped at anything unusual, combining to create a deep background susurration. A murky, clickety chatter that seemed to rise right out of the ubiquitous mud.

That was where Noisy Stomach finally heard it too. A patterning—wavering and nebulous, but persistent—of surprise.

# … starlight … flowing upward …

# … very strange, indeed …

That was how he interpreted the skittering-clattering scrabble-sound. Catching up with Three-Tone at last, he quickly matched swim-rhythms with his friend, kicking and then arching, to jet out of the water for air, then hurrying along again beneath the surface, in perfect synchrony. Apparently, they were heading toward only the nearest of many sites where bottom-dwellers were behaving this way.

At least three others lay within a day’s swim … and something told him that there were more, and more, even beyond the horizon.

They were streaking toward a site more than an hour away from the dome. It made Noisy Stomach start to worry. Would he miss the hunt? Only making it back to the Tribe in time to pick at fish skeletons, hanging in the net? Were they both risking hunger, on the basis of a CRAB RUMOR? Crabs, who were barely smarter than the rocks they hid under?

Though … if it were happening in so many places.… Indeed, even the whales seemed to have noticed, pausing in their painful, deep ponderings. Swiveling that slow curiosity of theirs.

Noisy Stomach knew they were getting close. For one thing, the excitement had spread to other sonic layers, shorter range and smarter. He could hear, just ahead, a squealfest of excited pinnipeds, for example, drawn from a nearby island rookery. Sea lions mostly, and monk seals. Then—rapid scans of subtle sonar that could only mean …

He pulled up short.

Dolphins. A whole pod of Tursiops, already arrived on the scene.

Strangers. Naturals—unaltered and almost certainly suspicious of the clan that Noisy Stomach belonged to. His small clan of cetaceans, tainted by the delicious agony of human meddling. Sometimes, other Tursiops were outright unfriendly toward members of the Tribe, snapping at the dolphins-who-had-changed.

But Three-Tone was plunging ahead, straight toward an island headland—a cliff face jutting out of the crashing sea. Not a safe place, even at the best of times. Yet, the sea lions and other dolphins were already gathered there, swooping about and chattering with excitement.

Noisy Stomach approached cautiously.

This time there appeared to be no overt hostility. A trio of attractive females—two of them in heat—gave him a look-over as he passed close. None of the males from their pod hovered nearby to guard them. That was queer enough, in its own right!

Though tempted to tarry, he kicked hard to hurry after Three-Tone, drawing toward a place where cetaceans and pinnipeds were swirling about each other nervously, darting up for air and then diving to poke away at something in the shallow muck.

It appeared to be no more than a jumble of rocks and debris from some fairly recent landslide—a collapse of the nearby cliff that must have happened in the last day or so. Dolphins were beak-poking at the detritus, moving small stones with their teeth or prying larger ones aside, as if burrowing for crustaceans to eat. Only they weren’t murmuring with tunes of eager hunting. Curiosity—that was the theme of the moment.

Noisy Stomach pulled up alongside Three-Tone, wary, in case they might have to defend themselves. This clan had females in heat. That, plus all this excitement …

Then he saw the glow. It came from just below a stone jumble, illuminating the underside of one dolphin’s rostrum. The native Tursiops responded by hurrying faster, as a couple of sea lions—and Three-Tone—joined in. Against his better judgment, Noisy Stomach got caught up in the moment, taking his own turns at beak-digging, at mouthing away pebbles and clumps of dirt …

… until all that remained in the way was a single big rock piled on top of the light source, too heavy and obstinate to move with their mouths. Several dolphins from the other tribe spewed rapid sonar clicks of frustration, as did Noisy Stomach, wishing he could intimidate the stone, or crumble it to bits, with blasts of sound from his brow.

# Move aside. Move aside now.

# Let us show. Show you how.

He swiveled, surprised that newcomers could have approached without him realizing. Especially members of his own kind. The only voices on Earth who spoke like that.

It was Old Yellowbelly, accompanied by Sweet Thing and Storm Bluffer and … almost the entire Tribe! They must have followed, drawn by the tumult.

Most of the natural dolphins edged backward, clicking nervously. Younger males darted about, blustering with harsh sonar beams that probed Noisy Stomach and his clan-mates deep enough to tell what they had for breakfast. Bravado that was clearly unbacked by real courage.

Sky-Biter approached. Between strong jaws he carried a slender pole, as long as he was. Noisy Stomach wondered—did the big bull haul that thing here, all the way from the dome? Or did Sky-Biter find it nearby, just now, amid the clutter of man-made debris that littered every patch of sea bottom?

Either way, several members of the Tribe immediately set to work. Yellowbelly took one pointy end of the rod and guided it toward a gap in the rocks, where the strange shine illuminated the approaching metal tip. When it was firmly planted under a large stone, Yellowbelly jetted away, to breathe at the surface. Suddenly, in acute need for air, Noisy Stomach followed. But he spumed and inhaled quickly, diving back down again to rejoin the others.

The natives were chattering louder than ever now, swimming nervous circles and prattling superstitiously about how weird and wrong this was. But Noisy Stomach proudly joined Three-Tone and half a dozen other members of his Tribe, seizing the rod along its length and pushing down.

The big rock budged, shifted to one side, then fell back into place. So they tried again from a different angle, and failed.