Leviathan remembered its own encounter with a pack of darters back when it had gone off alone, away from the Kin. The ravening beasts had torn at Leviathan’s hide, ripping and slashing to get at the inner organs. If that strange alien creature hadn’t helped Leviathan, the darters would have won the struggle.
The aliens puzzled Leviathan. Who were they? Why had they intruded into the Symmetry? The Elders chose to ignore them, insisting that since they were not truly a part of the Symmetry they had no part to play in the life of the Kin. Leviathan thought otherwise.
Perhaps the aliens have come to destroy the Symmetry. Or perhaps—Leviathan goggled at the thought— perhaps they have come to
These were the thoughts that occupied Leviathan’s mind as it grazed placidly on the food sifting down from the cold abyss above.
But then a new sensation shuddered through Leviathan’s immense bulk. It felt different, strangely insistent. For some time Leviathan pondered over this odd, demanding, prickly feeling surging through its members. At last it realized what the sensation was: Leviathan was about to undergo a budding. It was time to swim away from the Kin and dissociate into its member parts, so that they could bud and then rejoin to form two leviathans where there had been only one before.
Leviathan realized that its budding would replace the number lost when the Eldest sacrificed itself. And it also realized that the darters would be out there waiting, when Leviathan was alone and terribly vulnerable.
GRANT ARCHER’S OFFICE
“All four of you?” Archer looked at them wide-eyed, startled.
Deirdre, Corvus, Yeager, and Dorn were sitting in a rough semicircle facing the station director, who was in his favorite recliner. But Archer snapped the chair straight up, suddenly intent with surprise.
“All four of us,” Max Yeager replied.
Shaking his head, Archer pointed at Corvus. “You, Andy, yes, of course. This whole mission is aimed at your trying to make meaningful contact with the leviathans. And Dorn, to pilot the ship. But Ms. Ambrose? And you, Max?”
Corvus spoke up. “Deirdre is much better at linking with the dolphins than I am, Dr. Archer. She’s a natural. Very empathic. If any of us has a chance at making a meaningful contact with the leviathans, it’s Dee.”
Archer turned his gaze toward Deirdre. “Are you willing to go on the mission?”
She lifted her chin a notch as she replied, “Yes, sir, I am. I’ve been in the immersion tank, so I know what that’s like. I don’t enjoy it, but I can put up with it.”
“And the surgery?” Archer asked.
“Surgery?” Deirdre and Yeager yelped in unison.
“They’ll have to implant a feeding port into your neck,” Archer explained. “You can’t eat normally in the perfluorocarbon, so you feed yourself through the port. It’s implanted in your neck, connected to one of your carotid arteries. Like an intravenous drip.”
“It’s removable,” Corvus added. “After the mission they can take it out.”
“Unless you’ll be going back in the near future,” Archer said.
“I didn’t know about that,” Deirdre said, glancing at Corvus.
“It’s minor surgery, really,” Archer reassured her. “I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
Deirdre nodded, a little uncertainly, but said, “It’s all right. I’ll go through with it.”
Archer smiled at her, then turned to Yeager. “Max, I don’t think we’ll have room for you in the ship. You know better than anyone how precious space is aboard
“I have to go,” Yeager said flatly.
“But to take you aboard I’d have to bump one of the scientists who’s been training for this mission for months. It’s bad enough to bounce a scooter to accommodate Ms. Ambrose: At least she has Dr. Corvus’s approval. But you…” Archer put up his hands, palms outward, in a
Yeager looked the station director squarely in the eye. “I know. I’m just an engineer. I’m just the man who designed that bird and made it work. Well, if anything goes wrong with any of her systems, who do you think would be better able to take care of it than I?”
“All the systems worked fine when
“But suppose something goes wrong?” Yeager challenged. “Down there in that ocean, cut off from communication with the station, what good would I be up here when the ship’s out of contact?”
“But the ship worked fine,” Archer repeated.
“Ever hear of Murphy’s Law?”
Archer bowed his head slightly as he muttered, “If anything can go wrong, it will.”
“So you’ll need somebody who can fix it, whatever it is,” said Yeager.
Archer puffed out a heartfelt sigh. “This is going to raise merry hell with the science staff. Johansen has his teams picked and ready to go.”
Corvus said, “Look, sir, if this mission goes well there’ll be others. The science staff will have plenty of opportunities.”
“And if it doesn’t go well?” Archer riposted.
“Then the scooters who had to stay behind will still be alive,” Corvus said, with a sidelong glance at Deirdre.
When handed a lemon, make lemonade. Grant Archer remembered his father telling him that time and again when he’d been a child, living in genteel poverty back in Oregon. His father, a soft-spoken Methodist minister who was liked but not respected by their neighbors, had offered that bit of advice to young Grant on many bitter occasions.
“When handed a lemon, make lemonade,” he repeated aloud to his wife. They were getting undressed, preparing for bed after a long day.
Marjorie gave him a puzzled look. “What brought that up?”
Sitting on the edge of the bed as he took off his softboots, Archer said, “Corvus and his Gang of Four. They all want to go on the mission.”
“Deirdre, too?”
“Yes. Even Max Yeager.”
Sitting beside him, Marjorie said, “But if you let them go, you’ll have to bump a couple of the scooters, won’t you?”
Archer nodded. “Yep.”
“How are you going to deal with that?”
With a grin that was almost sly, Archer tapped the tip of his wife’s nose and replied, “Make lemonade.”
She said, “You look positively happy about it.”
“I’m happy about my solution. I’m going to tell Johansen and the scientific staff that this mission is a full- system test. We’re sending four volunteers into the ocean as a final test of the ship.”
“They’ll see through that,” Marjorie objected. “They all know that Corvus is here to try his DBS system.”
Nodding, Archer said, “That’s right. The DBS experiment will be piggybacked on this test mission. That will be my official position.” His grin widened. “I might even get Westfall to bless the idea of proceeding so cautiously.”
Understanding blossomed on Marjorie’s face. “Then the scientists who don’t go on this mission can go on the next one.”
Archer said, “Right. Nobody gets bumped. We’re just adding a test mission to the schedule, for the sake of
