Vale of Stars (43 page)

“You will not touch me, Demon Angel.”

Sirra tapped out, “
Where are you taking me?”

“To your
[untranslatable utterance].”

Her own instincts gave her no insight as to the vix’ mysterious words. Sirra fought back frustration and asked,
“What will happen there?”
If she could get the vix to answer in pieces, her translator might be able to synthesize a meaning where her intuition failed.

“We will learn why you have come to us from Above. And we will cleanse ourselves of you.”

Sirra had heard enough. She did not need her translator to feel the hatred mixed with fear in the vix’ sounds. The word her computer had seemed unable to translate now burned in her mind as clearly as if the vix had spoken it in her language: she was going to her own exorcism.

The lance prodded her, none too gently, to swim forward. Sirra obeyed, keeping a worried eye on the tip of the vix’ lance (or at least on the sonar image of it). The prospect of attending a religious ceremony that none of her companions in the lab had seen almost dampened the terror she felt. She kept her hand close to her vixvox controller, but did not activate it.

There were no other vix in sonar range as her guardian guided her to a destination on the extreme edge of the shelf. When they arrived, the vix maneuvered itself into position, still guarding Sirra but settling on the shelf near a low outcropping that resembled a trumpet.

“
Remain still.”
The vix said and lowered its lance. It placed its head into the outcropping and sent a loud high-frequency blast through the trumpet. Sirra found herself impressed. The device was simple but somehow amplified the vix’ natural vocal ability, much like a megaphone. The guard raised his lance again and resumed his guardianship of Sirra.

Before long, other vix appeared on Sirra’ sonar. She could not be certain, but she thought she recognized one of them as Bishop. Her suit sonar could not identify the vix grouped together. Seven vix swam toward her, one of whom was being guarded by three other spearhelmed warriors.

“Wise One, I am sorry,”
the vix said. With this new data, Sirra’s computer identified him as Vogel.

“
You will be silent,
[Vogel]” Bishop said.

Sirra tapped back, “
What is happening?”

Bishop preempted Vogel’s answer.
“You are to be
[untranslatable utterance].
We will use the old ways. Spirits and demons cannot withstand the holy depths.”

Sirra scowled inside her suit mask. If Bishop intended to try to remove her suit to test her ability to survive, she would have to try her vixvox blast. She was not sure if all seven vix were inside the blast radius or even if the contrivance would work at all.

Sirra relaxed a tiny fraction when Bishop and the three unarmed vix floated away from her, toward the edge of the shelf. At the extreme edge, all three made a curious gesture, folding their fins inward and making themselves as small as possible for an instant before uncurling slowly to their full width. The gesture reminded Sirra of vix births she had seen.

The three vix launched themselves towards the crevasse, hovering in the upcurrent and sending sonar messages towards Sirra that her computer was unable to make any sense out of.

Sirra looked at Vogel and decided to risk a message.
“What are they doing?”

The guards did not answer or react in any way. Sirra concluded they were either transfixed by the macabre dance going on in the upcurrent by the three vix or did not care if she and Vogel spoke.

Vogel answered,
“A ritual. To ensure their communion with the Old Place.”

“Old Place?”

“You do not know of the Old Place?”

The humans’ translation equipment was not subtle enough to detect overtones such as incredulity, but Sirra was sure that Vogel had been shocked at her ignorance.

“Is the Old Place the same as the Above?”

This was evidently the wrong comment to make, for Vogel shrank away, and Sirra saw the four guards pivot towards her. One of them approached and menaced her with its lance.

“You will be silent, Celestial Demon!”

Sirra did not move. The vix kept his lance hovering centimeters from her chest for a long moment, then withdrew slightly. The tip of his spear did not move farther than a meter away from her. Sirra decided that further conversation with Vogel was out of the question.

She watched the three vix cavort in the upcurrent and glanced at her oxygen supply indicator. Thirty-one minutes. The trip back to the surface would take longer than forty minutes at this depth—Sirra shuddered slightly as she realized the return trip was now over nine minutes into the “grace period” of life support her suit supplied.

She returned her gaze to the three vix. What had Vogel meant, the Old Place? Evidently, the Old Place was connected with the surface in some way—the tabu Sirra had broken confirmed that. The three vix were trying to “commune” with the Old Place, Vogel had said. Perhaps it was not a place in the physical sense but a spirit world of some kind. If that was so, why had Vogel and the guards reacted with such intensity when she had suggested the Old Place was the surface?

Sirra shrugged. Even in this developing race, religion had reached a complexity that would take years for the humans to understand, if they could ever truly comprehend the spiritual lives of the natives.

One of the three vix who had been hovering in the upcurrent swam towards Sirra and spoke to her. Her translator caught some of the speech:
“Sacred Depths, we
[untranslatable]
ask you to
[here followed a long burst of untranslatable speech]
so that we may rid ourselves of this
[untranslatable].” Her computer identified the speaker as Bishop.

Bishop spoke again.
“You will come with me and enter the Depths.”

Sirra glanced down into the crevasse. Her sonar did not bounce back, indicating that the bottom was too distant to be detected; she knew from probe launchings that it was several kilometers deep. At the bottom was the volcanic vent that supplied the vix settlement with its increased oxygen. Surely, the vix could not survive the conditions down there. The pressure alone would be many times greater than it was here.

“We will go together?”
Sirra tapped.

“Yes. But only I will return. No Blessed Sinner from Above can survive the Depths.”

Sirra pondered this. Bishop was right—her deepsuit was already below the depth for which it was rated; she could not survive more than another few dozen meters. But how could Bishop himself survive?

A quick look back at the guards made her decision for her. If she used her vixvox now, she would not get them all—many were out of range. But if she dove with Bishop, she might be able to stun him and rise to the surface faster than the guards could catch her. And she would learn more about the ritual.

“I am ready,”
Sirra tapped. Her air supply read twenty-seven minutes.

She launched herself off the ledge and set her buoyancy to “slow sink.” Bishop circled her and dove below her. Sirra felt her competitive nature rising and resisted the impulse to show Bishop that she, too, could take the pressure.

Bishop was still visible on her sonar.
“Do you feel that, Angel-Demon?”

Sirra looked at her gauges. Her pressure indicator was hard against the redline. She did not feel anything, however, nor would she unless her suit ruptured. Then she would feel instantaneous, unbearable pressure, followed by oblivion. It would not be the comparatively slow death of suffocation that awaited her should she fail to return to the surface in twenty minutes at most.

“I feel nothing,”
she tapped to Bishop.

Bishop made an untranslatable sound and continued down. Sirra’s suit computer said, “Warning: you have descended below maximum depth. Ascend to the surface immediately.” Sirra took a deep breath and continued to dive, hoping her suit’s pressure indicator had the same safety margin as her oxygen gauge.

Bishop was still diving, but his rate of descent had slowed. Sirra was gaining on him, but he was still ten meters away.

“Most Holy of Places, Giver of wisdom and joy, blessed be your waters.”
There was an odd quality to his voice that caused Sirra’s translator trouble—her computer could no longer identify Bishop from his voice.
“I beg you to show me the wisdom to understand. Oh…”
and Bishop lapsed into another untranslatable speech.

Sirra’s depth indicator read 4,907, more than one hundred meters below maximum, but she needed to be closer to make sure Bishop got caught in the blast of her makeshift weapon. He was no longer sinking, so she lowered herself to him and moved her hand to the buttons on her armband.

She did not press them. Bishop was paying her no attention. She could easily shoot to the surface now, blasting the guards at the shelf as she went. Her oxygen supply read eleven minutes, plus her forty minutes grace period—she would just make it if she left now.

But Bishop’s behavior puzzled her. He was still making incoherent sounds to no one in particular. Sirra wondered why her computer could translate none of what he was saying. Was he speaking a different language? Why would the vix be bilingual?

She moved closer, carefully, and reached out a gloved hand to touch him. She made contact and was instantly flooded with a feeling of disorienting euphoria. The pressure, her dwindling oxygen supply, all her problems dissolved into the water as she shared in Bishop’s experience. Content was not enough of a word—he was
fulfilled
.

But what was he saying? Sirra shook off the feeling of euphoria and concentrated on his words. His thought processes were as confusing to her as his words were to her computer. He made no sense, and as Sirra “listened,” she could feel herself growing giddy.

She let go of Bishop and shook her head. The pressure was getting to him. She did not think as she grabbed his starboard fin tightly, then reset her buoyancy to maximum. Sirra kicked away, rising swiftly back to the shelf.

Bishop seemed to shake off the effects of the deep and said, “
Release me! Sentinels! Attack this abomination!”
Three of the four guards swam quickly towards her, lances rock-steady. The remaining guard stayed with Vogel.

Sirra let go of Bishop and depressed the buttons on her armband. She could not hear the sound, but Bishop and the three guards twitched spastically for a moment, then set up a hideous caterwauling of what she hoped was pain.

Sirra did not waste time to study the effects of her blast. She kicked up and kept kicking. She cleared the crevasse and reentered the vix town. She immediately tried to activate her suit radio, only to find her weapon had overtaxed not only her vixvox but her entire communications assembly. Her sonar “eyes” still functioned, but her ears and mouth had been disabled.

She continued towards the surface and noted that three armed vix were in pursuit. Either her blast had had only a temporary effect or three new vix guards had entered the chase. Whatever the case, they were closing in. Sirra kicked as powerfully as the deepsuit allowed, aided by the suit’s buoyancy. She rose through the town blindingly quick.

Her legs began to ache, then burn with effort. With several hundred meters to go she could see from her sonar that she would never reach the surface before the vix reached her. She turned to face them, preferring to meet her death than run from it.

The lead vix’ lance could not have been more than ten meters away from her when all three vix suddenly broke formation and veered off, turning swiftly in the water to retreat back to the crevasse. Sirra watched, dumbfounded, as the entire vix population reacted similarly, ducking into side caves and hiding behind kelp beds. In a matter of moments, the town appeared deserted.

Sirra did not hesitate to question her good fortune but turned again towards the surface. She cried out when her sonar registered six human swimmers and the station’s “waterbug,” a twin-prop vehicle the station personnel used for large specimen collection.

She waved to them, then pointed to her helmet at the earpiece. She gave a thumbs-down to indicate that her communications gear was out.

The operator of the waterbug unhooked and swam to Sirra, then touched his helmut to hers. “You owe me a night’s sleep, Sirra,” Fozzoli’s voice sounded faintly in her ears.

*   *   *

“I don’t know how you get used to all this,” Kiv said, gripping the railing and looking uneasily out to sea.

“Well, I don’t know how you can stay inside your office all day,” Khadre chided him. Her voice was still girlishly high, her hair still worn in a ponytail, though a touch of rasp and a lot of white had crept into them over the years. Her face was deeply wrinkled and a permanent chocolate color from years of sun exposure. Kiv could not imagine her dying.

“Someone has to push papers, Khadre.”

“Hmph.” Khadre tried to suppress a grimace. She was almost successful.

“You want to go below?” Kiv asked softly. Bone cancer was still painful, even through the nanoscreen, he knew.

Khadre shook her head. “Nope. Nothing down there to help me, Kiv.” She smiled and looked out to sea. “I’m glad you came, son.” She closed her eyes again, but this time she looked peaceful. “I’ll miss this.”

“What do you mean?”

Khadre opened her eyes and said, “I can’t stay out here any more. I’m just getting in the way.”

Kiv did not speak but looked at her expectantly.

“Oh, everyone here has been very accommodating. They treat me well and listen respectfully. But I’m out of my league, Kiv.”

“You are the one who discovered the vix. You are the founder of the whole movement.”

“I’m also fifty-two years old. I’m not as sharp as I used to be.” She tapped her temple.

Kiv did not answer. He knew the limitations of the antiagathic process as well as anyone else—his mother had been unusual to stave off early senescence for as long as she had. Her body might live another ten or twelve years, but her mind would slowly deteriorate despite science’s best efforts.