“Even in slow motion I can’t make much sense of it,” he admitted. Pointing to his screen, he continued, “I mean, that circle there has got to represent us. See, it’s attached to one of the beasts, just like we are.”
Deirdre nodded. She too had put the computer’s slowed imagery on the central screen of her console. “And those look like those shark things.”
Nodding back at her, Corvus said, “I think he’s telling those others about how we fought off the sharks when he was attacked.”
“Could be,” Deirdre said.
Dorn and Yeager were still watching the real-time displays.
“They’re jabbering away at one another,” Yeager said. “Looks like a fireworks display.”
“Perhaps we should try to get their attention,” Dorn suggested. “Show them that we can communicate.”
“How?” Yeager demanded.
“Show them where we come from,” said Dorn. “Draw pictures of the planet, then the solar system. Point out that we come from Earth—”
“That wouldn’t make any sense to them,” Corvus objected. “They have no idea that they exist in a planet, I betcha. All they know is this enormous ocean.”
Deirdre said, “We could at least show them that we come from outside the ocean.”
Still looking doubtful, Corvus replied, “And how are you going to do that, Dee?”
She smiled tightly at him. “Let me draw something. Maybe I can get a visual image across to them.”
Yeager tapped a finger against the mission time line display on Dorn’s console. “We’re due to pop another data capsule in half an hour. How do you think they’ll react to that?”
KATHERINE WESTFALL
She was in misery, her stomach bloated, gas expelling itself in loud, obscene outbursts.
Her comfortably furnished bedroom had become a prison cell. I can’t let anyone see me like this, Katherine Westfall told herself for the hundredth time that hour. I’m a prisoner, an exile, until this horror passes—if it ever does.
She had ripped off her clothes and now wore nothing but a floor-length dressing gown of pure silk, pale dawn pink, decorated with muted oriental scenes of graceful gardens and languid women in kimonos.
She broke wind again, and ground her teeth at the shamefulness of it. The stench. If I ever get the chance to destroy Archer …
The phone chimed.
“Who’s calling?” she asked. The data bar at the bottom of the screen spelled out DR. GRANT ARCHER.
Westfall went to the desk and sat primly on its cushioned little chair. “Answer,” she said, huddling close to the screen so that the phone’s camera could see little more than her face and shoulders.
Archer’s dead-serious face filled the screen, strangely boyish despite the fringe of iron-gray beard.
“I’ve reviewed the data from their capsule,” he said without preamble. “They’ve definitely established meaningful contact. The leviathans communicate visually; they produce pictures on their flanks.”
“Congratulations,” Westfall said acidly.
“I thought you’d like to know.”
“Thank you.”
For a moment Archer fell silent. Then, “Actually, I called to ask you a question.”
“Did you?”
“Why?” Archer’s expression became almost pleading. “Why did you want to stop the mission so badly that you were willing to kill those four people?”
“You scientists have killed lots of people,” she said, all the old anger and hatred simmering anew inside her.
“People have died in the pursuit of knowledge, that’s true,” Archer admitted. “But we’ve never set out to deliberately murder anyone.”
“Those missions into the ocean. How many have been killed on them?”
Archer’s expression hardened. “I was on one of those missions. We stopped sending people down there for more than twenty years.”
“But you’ve started again.”
“On a much safer vessel. There are risks, of course, but now we—”
“You murdered my sister!” Westfall blurted.
“Your sister?”
“Elaine O’Hara. She was my sister.”
“Lane is dead?” He looked shocked by the news.
“She’s dead. She never recovered from that death ride you sent her on.”
“But I didn’t send her,” Archer said. “I was one of the crew, I wasn’t in command.”
“You would have sent her if you were in charge. You would have killed her.”
Archer seemed confused, unsure. “I … I had no idea she was your sister. I thought the world of Lane … we … she and I … she was a truly lovely woman.”
“And now she’s dead. Thanks to your pursuit of knowledge.” Westfall put a venomous accent on her last three words.
For long moments Archer was silent. At last he lifted his chin a notch and said, “I think you need help, Mrs. Westfall. I hope you seek psychiatric therapy.”
She allowed herself a cold, thin smile. “The last refuge of a scoundrel,” she said. Then she clicked off the connection.
THE SYMMETRY
The new Eldest showed how troubled it was about the invading alien with a display of pulsating greens and yellows. Since time immemorial we have lived with the Symmetry, it signaled. This alien creature is outside the Symmetry. It cannot be anything but a threat to our way of life.
Leviathan flashed back, It has not harmed us in any way. It saved our replicant and us from the darters—
That in itself is a violation of the Symmetry, two of the Elders glared simultaneously.
But why must we allow the darters to feed on us? Leviathan demanded. Why must we always follow the old ways?
That is the Symmetry, all five Elders replied in unison. We must all accept the Symmetry. Without the Symmetry we will be lost.
Leviathan began to reply, but then saw that the alien was trying to speak to them. Look! Leviathan flashed. The alien is signaling!
The Elders went dark. Leviathan realized that all five of them edged slightly closer to the alien, which was flashing pictures slowly, painfully slowly.
Leviathan had plenty of time to inspect the alien’s images and think about what they meant. It showed itself, an unmistakable small round object, attached to Leviathan, surrounded by the Elders. Then a confused series of images flickered from its rounded hide, changing so slowly that Leviathan wondered if the alien thought the Elders were unintelligent, dim-witted.
The alien pictured its encounter with Leviathan during its budding, and the fight with the darters. This could be mere mimicry, Leviathan thought, repeating what I showed to the Elders earlier.
But then the alien’s pictures showed it rising above Leviathan and the darters, upwards into the cold abyss from which it had come. The pictures became strange, unintelligible. The alien seemed to be showing other
