Vale of Stars (53 page)

Sirra’s eyes went wide. “Share it?” 

“Of course. But she applied it to a religion. She created a religion out of nothing, Sirra, and a very successful one. I’m led to understand that fully fifteen percent of the population declares itself Shippies. That is the term used, yes?”

Sirra did not respond. Khadre’s words struck her almost tangibly, made all the worse by her cursed intuition telling her that
Khadre was right
.

Khadre knew it, too. “Tell me what you thought of at the survey site.”

Sirra opened her mouth once, then closed it again. When she opened it a second time, her lips stuck slightly, as if her body was trying to keep her silent. “Something told me to see Vogel. That he had the answers I….” she couldn’t say it, but she had to. If she did not, she would continue to poison herself in her hatred of her ha’lyaunt. She straightened and said, loudly, “…the answers I didn’t even know I was looking for. Vogel’s connected to the ruins somehow. All the vix are.”

Fozzoli gave up his charade of work to say, “You’re saying the vix caused the ruins? How?”

“I don’t know, domeit!” Sirra said, swinging around to face him. Her pent-up anger, stifled against Khadre, unable to unleash itself against Iede, found a target in Fozzoli. “That’s why we’re here, and that’s why you’re going to get your lazy ass working twice as fast on those domed systems!”

Her voice echoed through the lab, and Sirra glared at Fozzoli, hardly daring to look away from him.

The young man blinked once, then said, “My ‘lazy ass’ will certainly hurry up, Sirra, but if your equally reluctant posterior can find its way to a domed logic probe, I’d appreciate it.” He turned again to the computer, then said, in a quiet voice but one which Sirra could hear perfectly, “That’s it. I’m joining the Shippies after this. Just to piss you off.”

Khadre laughed gently at first, then louder, until Sirra’s blazing eyes crinkled slightly and the three scientists giggled like children who had farted in church.

Sirra watched Khadre surreptitiously as the two entered the dive pool. She had great respect for Khadre, but she could not forget that the scientist was
old
—fifty-three years old. Despite everything modern science could do, the human body was still subject to the ravages of such elemental forces as gravity and radiation. Khadre may still have eight, or even ten, years left to her, and Sirra was not going to let those years be taken away.

“How am I doing?” Khadre’s voice sounded in Sirra’s headphones. Sirra smiled ruefully and decided to play it straight.

“Just fine. Watch your suit pressure. And keep an eye on your blood color indicator. If it gets too green, then—”

“I think I can remember, Sirra,” Khadre said, her ordinarily soft voice buzzing with the faint hint of irritation. Sirra shut up.

“All right, you two, I’m lowering the tank,” Fozzoli said. Sirra watched as the specially prepared tank designed for bringing Vogel up to the lab was lowered into the water between Khadre and her. When it was submerged, Sirra unlatched the winch cable and said, “Got it. Keep an ear out for vix patrols, Foz. You see any large numbers of vix headed our way, you let us know.”

“Sure. So you can tell me that you can handle it. I know the drill,” Fozzoli said.

Sirra turned to Khadre. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go.” The two adjusted the buoyancy controls on their suits. Sirra matched the settings on the tank and hung on.

“The descent ought to take only a few minutes, if Vogel is still where I left him.”

“Why do you think he’ll be gone?”

Sirra snorted. “It’s been too long. Why would he stay there?”

“Because God told him to.”

Sirra was about to ask Khadre “what God?” when she understood the comment. “He doesn’t think I’m God.”

“No?”

“No. I thought I told you—he’s the one who has been using the most secular terms to describe me.”

“I see.” Khadre said, but her voice indicated otherwise.

“Look, domeit, I settled this with him. He asked me if I was God and I told him I wasn’t.”

“Oh, well then. That should clear it up for him.”

Sirra turned to look at Khadre, annoyed. “What’s the problem, Doctor? Do you disagree with my methods?”

“No, of course not. I just think for a brilliant scientist you have an amazing talent for missing the obvious.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me what I’m missing.”

“You are as much a God to Vogel as those in Ship are to Iede.”

Sirra did not answer immediately but stared across the top of the tank at Khadre. “That sounds awfully poetic, but I’m afraid it just isn’t true.”

“I see.”

Sirra bit off her reply and checked her proximity sonar. “We’re coming up on where Vogel ought to be. Stay sharp.”

The next few minutes were silent as the two watched their scopes and swung in lazy circles, scanning for the curious vix. Khadre was first to break the silence.

“I’ve got something at extreme range, bearing one-ten,” she said.

Sirra swung around and turned her passive sonar to maximum gain. “Yeah, could be. Do you think we can risk shouting?”

“You tell me. This is your neighborhood. Or should I say parish?”

“Are you enjoying this?” Sirra barked.

“Oh, yes. I’ve not felt this good in years.”

Sirra’s anger melted away at that. It was worth taking the old woman’s barbs if it meant she felt a little younger. She just wished there was some other way Khadre could recapture her youth without needling her about sensitive subjects.

“All right. Let’s head over there. Slowly—keep your sonar on max.”

The two changed the buoyancy of their suits and the tank to neutral and crept towards the source of the sonar emissions. It was slow going, as the tank encumbered their movements. Presently, they were close enough for their sonar to give a fuzzy image.

“It’s a vix, all right. It’s resting on that ledge. About nine meters down, thirty-nine…make it forty meters ahead.”

“Can you tell who it is?” Khadre asked.

“Not unless we get much closer or he talks to us. The sonar images aren’t clear enough to make out surface features. I think I’m going to have to call him. I just hope no other vix are around.” She activated her vixvox, but before speaking into it, said to Khadre, “If this doesn’t work and more vix start to appear, let go of the tank and get to the surface. Don’t wait—go.” She switched channels and said to the sleeping vix, “Vogel, wake up. It’s the Speaker.”

The creature stirred, kicking up a tiny patch of sand that Sirra’s sonar dutifully registered. He swung his head towards the two. Sirra’s earphones crackled to life.

“Speaker.”

“Yes, Vogel. I’m back.”

Vogel floated gently upwards, towards Sirra and Khadre.
“You did not forsake me.”

“Of course not,” Sirra typed, glad that the vixvox did not transmit sheepishness. She resisted the urge to look at Khadre, who was no doubt grinning at Vogel’s choice of words, or at the translation.

Vogel curled around Sirra, not touching her, but his intent was clearly friendly. He circled her two and a half times, then floated gently away, gracefully drifting towards Khadre.

“Speaker, whom did you bring? A
[untranslatable utterance]?
”

Khadre cocked her head and said, “What was that?”

“The computer can’t always translate.”

“But you can,” Khadre stated.

“Yes. Sometimes. If I….” She approached Vogel. “Vogel, I need to touch you again. You will not be hurt—it will be like last time.”

“I understand.”
Vogel hovered midwater. Sirra swam towards him and extended a gloved hand.

After a moment’s rapport, she said, in a dreamy voice, “He wonders if you are a…well, the best translation we’ve got is ‘holy warrior,’ come to protect me from Bishop.”

“From whom?”

“It’s a bit complicated. Let’s get him into the tank,” Sirra said, Vogel’s thoughts reminding her of the danger. “Vogel, has Bishop come back?” she typed, awkwardly, as she could only use one hand.

“I don’t know. I’ve been asleep for a while, I think. But while I was awake, I waited alone.”

Sirra chuckled. “Ever the scientist, eh, Vogel?” She sobered immediately at the thought of the task ahead. “Vogel, my…friend and I want to bring you somewhere.”

“
I remember. You spoke of Lifting me. I had worried that you had changed your mind. That I was…not blessed/damned enough.”

The strange double-meaning of his words almost stunned Sirra enough to remove her hand. Even in her tight rapport with him, she could still not decipher the ambivalence he showed for what he called “Lifting.”

“What’s he saying? My translator’s not getting much,” Khadre asked.

“He knows what we’re going to do, sort of,” Sirra answered. She did not have time to explain fully—despite Vogel’s report that Bishop had not been here, Sirra was still worried. “Vogel, can you see this box?” she said, tapping the outside of the tank.

“
Yes
.”

“We’re going to Lift you in it. Can you please swim inside?”

Vogel’s flank slid along her hand, and before she lost contact, Sirra could feel an emotion coming off him that was stronger than anything she had ever felt before. It was akin to the contradictory words he had used: blessed/damned.

Vogel was at once terrified and elated. He was not sure if he was going to heaven or hell, but his curiosity got the better of him. Sirra suspected that any other vix would have refused, preferring to suffer Sirra’s wrath than risk a journey to what could be the most horrific, evil place they conceived of. But Sirra had met a vix for whom scientific curiosity—the need to
know
—overrode religious fear.

Barely.

Vogel swam around the tank a few times, then said,
“Speaker, I do not wish to offend, but why must I enter this…Lifting box?”

“I can’t really explain it, Vogel. If you don’t go into the box and I try to Lift you…you may end up like Bishop. Or your father-by-action.”

“This box will prevent that?”

“Yes,” Sirra said. Again, she was glad the vixvox didn’t transmit half-truths.

Vogel still hesitated but gradually nosed his way into the tank. Sirra swam up to the lip and placed her hand on his nose. “I will not speak to you again for a short time. When I do, you will be in a…strange place. You must do your best to remain calm. All will be explained to you when you are Lifted.”

“
Yes, Speaker.”

Sirra started to close the tank and cycle it, but she stopped the process midway and returned to the lip. “Vogel?”

“Yes, Speaker?”

“Thank you for waiting for me.”

Vogel answered after a brief pause,
“You call me a scientist, but I still have faith. I knew you would return.”

The answer did not have the effect Sirra knew Vogel was hoping for. She started to tell him that she did not want him to exist on faith, but Khadre’s voice interrupted before she could say anything of substance.

“Let it go, Sirra. You don’t have to make atheists of the entire planet, humans and vix.”

Sirra frowned, her face hidden from Khadre, who floated behind and below her. Wordlessly, she cycled the tank and set its buoyancy to maximum.

“Let’s get back,” Sirra said, and the three floated rapidly upwards.

Fozzoli was ready when they reached the lab. He positioned the winch above the tank and, with Sirra’s and Khadre’s help, hoisted it out of the water and onto the waiting exam table. He deftly attached the oxygenator hoses to the appropriate ports and began the pump.

“How long has he been in there?” Fozzoli asked, studying the readouts carefully.

“About nineteen minutes,” Sirra said, climbing out of the diving pool.

“Eighteen minutes and forty-four seconds,” Khadre added, waiting her turn at the ladder.

“I don’t think he’ll be hurt by that. The tank pressure held, mostly. I don’t think he was in low oxygen for too long.”

 Sirra nodded inside her pressure suit and found the appropriate controls on the tank’s exterior to activate the vixvox. “Vogel? Can you hear me?”

The tank supplied a voice for Vogel. It was gentle, hesitant, and somehow sad. “
I hear you. Where am I? Is this…am I Lifted?”

“I still wish I knew what that really meant,” Fozzoli muttered.

Khadre had come up behind the two of them and said, “How is he?”

“I think he’s doing all right. Talk to him more, Sirra.”

“Vogel, you are with some other Speakers. You are where some of the Speakers live.”

The tank’s computer voice said, stridently and artificially, “untranslatable utterance.”

“Calm down, Vogel. You will be fine.”

“
May I see?”

Sirra exchanged a look with Fozzoli. “Can we?”

Fozzoli thought for a long moment, then shook his head. “I don’t know how. We can’t just open the tank up, and even if we could, his sonar wouldn’t work in the air. And we can’t show him a holo for the same reason.”

Sirra took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Vogel. Your…eyes aren’t able to see this.”

The voice did not change timbre, but Sirra could nevertheless imagine his disappointment. “
I understand, Speaker.”

“Vogel, I need you to tell me how you feel.”

“
I am limited in movement, and my senses tell me I am trapped, yet I can reason and think clearly. I am afraid, Speaker.”

“Don’t be. No harm will come to you.” Sirra paused, then asked, “Do you feel anything pressing on you? Squeezing you from the outside or inside?”

“
No
.”

Fozzoli nodded, his lower lip protruding. “That’s good. Pressure’s good. Domeit!” he said suddenly. He half-ran to a small cart and wheeled it over to the tank. “I should have been recording all of this!” He connected a contact microphone from the cart to the side of the tank and shook his head in anger.

“He’ll talk plenty, Foz,” Khadre said, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder. Then, to Sirra, she added, “Can you ask him about where he thinks he is?”