Vale of Stars (33 page)

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Yallia woke slowly. She opened her eyes to slits and winced at the bright midday sun through green clouds. Her eyes became accustomed to the light after a few seconds, and she could make out Khadre and Sirra looking at her intently.

“Grandonly!” Sirra said, her voice a combination of relief and fear. The girl started to move toward Yallia, but the swaying of the makeshift raft the three were on stopped her.

“Easy, sweetie,” Khadre said. She turned to Yallia. “Glad to see you’re back with us, Madame Prime.” Her voice was flat, emotionless.

“Where—” Yallia croaked, then caught herself. She swallowed and began again in a more forceful tone. “Report, please.”

Khadre sighed. “There’s not much to report. The skiff is destroyed. Sirra and I are not seriously hurt. You might have a concussion, you might not. I don’t really know.”

“How long have I been unconscious?”

“Not long. Maybe twenty minutes.”

Yallia absorbed those few facts, her still-foggy brain slow. “What about Viktur?”

Khadre glanced at Sirra, who had begun to cry again. “He’s dead,” Khadre said in the same monotone as before.

“Grandonly,” Sirra said through sobs, “he saved me! When that flying thing shot at us he…he…protected me. He put himself on top of me…and...and….” Sirra’s next few words were indecipherable.

Yallia forced herself to attend to urgent matters first. “Is the skiff completely destroyed? Nothing left?”

Khadre swept her eyes across the horizon where the scattered remains of the skiff still floated. “I haven’t really been able to find much, just some of the larger bits for us to rest on. I had Sirra to look after, and you, too. But now that you’re awake, I’d like to suggest something.”

“Go ahead.”

“The only device that is likely to still be intact is Nimmo. The drone submersible. We might be able to use that.”

“How?”

“If I can find it, I’ll be able to use it to get us motive power back towards the mainland. It’ll be slow—extremely slow—but perhaps we can paddle, too.”

“How far out do you think we are?”

“We found the creatures about one hundred and fifty kilometers out. We haven’t drifted far, if at all.”

“And we can get back using the sub?” Yallia did not try to hide her doubts.

“I agree, it isn’t much. But it’ll help. It’s all we’ve got.”

Yallia paused before answering. “You’re thinking we should have kept our beacon on.”

Khadre shook her head. “No, Madame Prime, I never—”

“You should be. I was wrong about that.”

“As you say, Madame Prime. I’m going to go look for the sub now.” Khadre rolled carefully off the debris that served as their raft and started swimming in increasingly wide circles around Sirra and Yallia. Yallia watched her go, thankful that the young scientist had proven tough despite her initial impression at the Grand Session. She could have easily fallen into uselessness from the attack and Viktur’s death, but she seemed to understand without explanation why the three of them must return to the mainland. Another flyer was certain to return to the site of the attack.

It was not long before Khadre returned with the submersible. Yallia could tell, however, that it had been a fruitless search when she saw the drone’s sculler—it had been almost completely sheared away from the main body. The sub would never move under its own power.

Khadre gave the sub’s other systems a halfhearted examination and found them in working order. Sonar was on, and had presumably been on since Viktur had lowered it into the water. The drone’s chemical camouflage was on as well. But the drone was useless to them now.

Sirra asked, “Nimmo is broken?”

Khadre said, “That’s right. We’ll just have to paddle our way back, Sirra.” She looked in the debris. “I’ll go find some boards we can use.”

“Khadre,” Yallia said. Khadre turned and waited. Yallia said softly, “We’ll need some way to attach Viktur’s body to our raft.”

Khadre glanced quickly at Sirra, who was listening with wide eyes. “Why?”

“He can still contribute to the Family.” Yallia said it quietly but with determination.

Khadre nodded slowly, and Yallia understood what she was thinking. Viktur’s genes belonged to everyone, and the Family had the right to clone him. Yallia was not being ghoulish, but practical. In her way, she was honoring the fallen scientist. Khadre was thinking that she could still have a child by him after all. Yallia slid into the water and swam to Viktur’s body.

Khadre’s search for paddles and rope turned up three more-or-less straight, lightweight boards and a bit of rigging. When she returned to the raft, Sirra was staring disconsolately into the water while Yallia appeared deep in thought.

“Here we go,” Khadre said. She put the boards on the raft and helped Yallia lash Viktur’s body to the side using the rigging. Yallia tried not to think about what she was doing. She had not known the man for long, but he had obviously been close to Khadre. She was surprised to find the young scientist had managed to attach Viktur’s body without crying.

“Which way do we go?” Yallia asked.

Khadre looked up, Yallia following her gaze. It was midmorning—the sun was moderately high in the sky. Khadre angled the raft slightly, checking the sky as she did so. The expression on her face did not give Yallia a great deal of confidence. 

“Grandonly?” Sirra’s voice called out. She was still looking at the water, but her face had a curious expression on it.

“What?”

“Look,” she said, pointing down.

Both women looked into the water and saw figures below them—three torpedo shapes swimming about perhaps five meters under the surface. All three wore the spear-helmets they had seen the farmer use on one of his livestock. The creatures circled below the humans in tight, interweaving patterns.

“What does this mean, Khadre?” Yallia asked, her eyes never leaving the creatures.

Khadre stared for a few moments before answering. “They’re armed but not attacking. Why, then, have they come up to the surface at all? And how?”

“Are they air-breathers, like Terrestrial dolphins or whales?”

Khadre shook her head slowly. “We discovered them about four kilometers below the surface with what appeared to be a farm. If they were air-breathers, they wouldn’t establish a settlement so far down. Or would they?” She looked away from the creatures and stared into the sky, obviously deep in thought.

“Let’s solve that later,” Yallia said, and when there was no answer from Khadre, she barked, “Khadre! Get your paddle and let’s go!”

Sirra spoke up then, in an odd little voice. “No, Grandonly. I want to watch the fish.”

Yallia ignored her and started paddling, inexpertly churning the water but making little progress.

Khadre dipped her paddle in the water and began rowing, then shouted, “Madame Prime! I need to retrieve Nimmo!”

“No. Remain in the raft. We’re going back.”

“I don’t think these creatures will hurt us. And Nimmo…Viktur and I spent a lot of time working with it.” She looked uncertainly at Yallia.

“All right. Get it. But hurry.”

Khadre slid off the raft and started towards the drone. Yallia continued to watch the creatures below. They had been swimming in their complex pattern immediately below the sub, and as Khadre closed in on it she called back to Yallia, “I think they’re attracted to the active sonar.”

“Khadre, get the sub and get back in the raft. You don’t know what those things will do to you.”

Khadre did not need prompting. She started back, towing Nimmo behind her.

“Can you shut off the sonar?” Yallia called.

“I want to see how far they’ll follow me.”

Despite the situation, Yallia accepted Khadre’s position. She had spoken without reverence for the first time in their brief relationship—she was curious and heedless of danger. Yallia could respect that, though she would prefer the scientist showed her courage some other time.

Khadre splashed back aboard the raft and seized her paddle. She and Yallia made slow progress through the debris field, while Sirra hung her head over the back and watched the pursuing animals.

“Sirra! Get back!” Yallia snapped.

“But, Grandonly, they’re curious.”

“They are dangerous,” Yallia corrected. 

“No, they’re not,” Sirra said with uncanny confidence.

Khadre glanced at her. “How do you know, Sirra?”

“Just look at them!” Sirra pointed. “The way they swim around and the way they talk to each other.”

Yallia almost dropped her paddle. “Talk to each other? Can you hear them?”

Sirra’s face pinched in puzzlement. “No, but they’re talking. You can tell.” She spread her hands slightly, as if unable to comprehend Khadre’s lack of understanding.

Yallia did not answer but continued to watch Sirra observe the sea creatures. The raft was moving at no better than a meter per second in the debris field, and the sea creatures had no trouble keeping pace. Sirra hung her head over the back of the raft and watched.

Yallia gasped suddenly as one of the creatures changed course and shot upwards, rising at an alarming rate.

“Sirra! Get back!” Khadre shouted as the creature’s lance emerged from the water. It missed Sirra by perhaps a meter and a half. The girl did not draw back but reached her hand into the water.

“Sirra!” Yallia had stopped rowing and reached behind her to grab the girl but lost her balance on the unsteady raft and fell into the sea. Khadre scrambled to the side of the raft to help Yallia back on while Sirra reached down and touched one of the creatures on its smooth back.

When the two touched, Sirra felt a piercing pain in her head, as if someone had stabbed her with micro-thin needles through the inner ear. She slapped her hands over her ears, trying to block the pain, but even as she did so the needles withdrew, and she was left with only the memory. It lasted perhaps a half second. When it was over, she looked at Khadre and knew instantly that she, too, had felt the sensation.

Yallia made her way back onto the raft, then lunged forward and grabbed Sirra by the shoulders, almost knocking both of them into the water as the raft tipped crazily. Khadre lifted Sirra’s arm out of the water, watching the creature just below the surface. Its lance was almost perpendicular to the raft now, bobbing gently with the creature’s motion. As they watched, other sea creatures swam to the one Sirra had touched and nudged it back down deeper. The intent was unmistakable—they wanted their fellow sea-creature to have no further contact with the strange organisms floating on the surface.

Khadre looked at Sirra. “Is she all right?”

“Seems so. Sirra? Are you okay?”

Sirra did not answer immediately. She looked at Yallia with a strange expression, as if she were trying to hear something just beyond audible range. “What? Oh, I’m fine.”

Yallia said, “We have to get out of here. If we can’t outdistance them, maybe we can discourage them from following. Perhaps if we beat at the surface of the water with the paddles, we—”

Khadre shook her head. “No. They’re following us because of Nimmo’s sonar, I think.” Khadre leaned towards the drone, her eyes darting back and forth between the drone’s manual switches and the depths to which the creatures had retreated, and turned off the submersible’s sonar.

The effect was not immediate, but after a few seconds, the creatures’ swim pattern changed.

“Ohhh,” Sirra said, her voice conveying pity. “They’re sad now.”

Yallia paid no attention to her but watched the creatures gradually sink lower and lower until they were no longer visible. “Let’s go,” she said, and grabbed her paddle.

She and Khadre rowed for what must have been well over three hours, until Khadre could no more. Viktur’s body was on the raft with them—Khadre had said she was afraid of predators and also that his body would produce drag. She had nothing to cover him with and so simply turned him over, face down on the deck.

Yallia was a machine. Every stroke was identical; every stroke brought her closer to shore. She and Khadre did not speak but saved their energy for their makeshift paddles. Khadre kept the raft pointed in the rough direction of land, as determined by the sun that had crawled to a position almost directly overhead. When Khadre felt she could no longer navigate by the sun, she called out to Yallia.

“All right, Madame Prime, I think we can take a rest.”

“I’m not tired,” Yallia shot back over her shoulder.

“I can’t navigate now. I have to wait a few hours.”

“Why can’t we just keep going the direction we are going in now?”

“Well, I….” was Khadre’s only answer.

“All right,” Yallia agreed, placing her paddle on the raft and arching her back. “We’ll rest here. But we get going again in an hour.” She dipped her hand into the seawater and took a few gulps. They had been drinking regularly, as the salt posed no special problem for them—indeed, it gave them a slight boost in energy as their bodies naturally metabolized the chlorine. They would not want for water, at least. Yallia turned back to Khadre when she had finished drinking. “How far do you estimate we are from shore?”

Khadre looked into the distance. “Tough to say. If we were making about three meters per second, we can cover a kilometer in about five minutes. We were out about two hundred kilometers.”

“So we are about thirteen more hours away from shore.” Yallia said calmly.

“Give or take. Of course, that’s not accounting for drift and fatigue.”

“Fatigue is not a factor,” Yallia said dismissively. “And I trust you will correct for drift.” Yallia looked into the distance, towards where the shore was, assuming Khadre’s navigation was right. “We need to get back as soon as possible. The Family must learn of this.”

“Of what? The sea cr—?” Khadre began, stopping at Yallia’s icy stare.

Yallia started to open her mouth to snap at the scientist but held her tongue. She reminded herself that Khadre was just that—a scientist. It meant nothing that the woman’s first thought was of the marine life.

Yallia saw that Khadre had correctly interpreted her expression. There was no need to speak. Khadre looked away, towards Sirra. Yallia followed her gaze thoughtfully. The girl had not helped paddle but had instead lain down on the raft and dragged her fingers in the wake. Neither Khadre nor Yallia had disturbed her.