The Spheres of Heaven

often today I wouldn’t put money on it. I suppose we could all put space-suits on. But I doubt if it’s worth it. If they can break into the hull, the suits won’t hold them for a minute.”

Indigo nodded. “No suits, then. So what do we do?”

The same question again, and a very reasonable one. But Bony was out of ideas. He had been exhausted, even before he and Liddy arrived back aboard the ship. Now he felt giddy with fatigue, and his brain had already gone on strike. “I guess” — he looked apologetically at the other two — “I guess we wait.”

* * *

Seven minutes.

The sea-creatures steadily came closer. The tension in the cabin grew until it was thick enough to choke them. No one had anything to say.

Six and a half minutes.

Bony decided that seven minutes would hardly feel longer if you were being operated on without anesthetics by a sadistic torturer. Purely for something to do, he asked the ship’s computer what a planet would be like if it had the same gravity as Earth’s moon and was the size of Earth. It asked him a bunch of foolish questions about density distributions, none of which he could answer. He told it to make any default assumptions it liked, and stop bothering him.

The answer came quickly, but it was not very informative. If a world had the same size and internal mass distribution as the Earth, then if its surface gravity was equal to the Moon’s mean surface gravity, its average density would be 0.91.

Less than one. According to the computer, the average density was less than that of ordinary water. But the whole ocean of Limbo was salty heavy water, with a density fifteen percent more than ordinary water. There was no way that Limbo ought to possess an ocean at all. At that planetary density, all liquid water should have sunk below the surface.

Bony stared at the offending number. Nothing about Limbo made sense. The ridiculously low density. The heavy-water sea. The blue giant star, too young to allow life to develop on a planet around it. The Link access point, in water where no Link access could be. And if there were such a Link point, how had they been able to transfer to it when the ship’s automatic protection system forbade transfer with substantial matter present? Limbo simply became stranger and stranger with every passing hour.

But maybe it was about to get stranger yet. In the darkened cabin, Liddy said softly, “They’re here.”

It was not necessary to use the imaging sensors and the enhancers to know that. They could see light shining in through the ports. The ring of sensors on the Mood Indigo stood about four meters above the seabed, and they gave an excellent view of the scene below. Fourteen bubble-creatures, each with its light, had drifted to surround the ship in a rough circle. As Bony watched, one of them left the circle and floated in toward the base of the vessel, beyond the imaged area. A soft thump vibrated through the hull. It sounded more exploratory than violent, but Indigo said nervously, “They’re attacking the ship. What do we do now?”

“That doesn’t seem like an attack. No, don’t!” Bony spoke to Liddy, who was about to go over to the port. “Stay here, where we can see them with the image system and they can’t see us. I don’t think they have good night vision, because they’re carrying lights. But if you get close to the port they may see reflected light from your face. Keep your voice down, too. If they can’t see or hear us they may go away.”

“It’s back in the circle,” Indigo said. “The one who banged on the ship, I mean. They’re all there now. Uh-oh. What are they doing?”

The giant glowing pear-shapes were dimmer, and the scene provided by the ship’s imaging sensors was fading steadily to a uniform gray.

“I don’t know how they’re doing it, but the lights they’re carrying are going out.” Bony clicked the image sensitivity range to a different setting, and the scene outside again became visible, now in black and white. “Look at them. They seem to be settling down. I think the Limbics are going to sleep.”

“The who?” Friday Indigo stared. “Where the hell did you get that from?”

“We need a name for them, and they live on Limbo. I think they’re probably intelligent, seeing how they use portable lights to see at night.”

The creatures no longer stood above the seabed on their bubble strings of tentacles. Instead, the rounded end of the body had settled comfortably down onto the sea floor, where the array of pikes had been crumbled to dust by the arrival of the Mood Indigo. At the upper end of the body, the antennae with their green sphere eyes drooped down to sit on each side of the soap-bubble head. Each had placed its light neatly on the sea floor, with the wide end of the pear facing down.

The humans in the cabin sat in frozen silence, watching and waiting for what felt like forever.

At last Liddy said, in a whisper, “If they’re going to do nothing, why did they come?”

“I have no idea,” Bony replied just as softly. “But I suspect we’re not going to find out tonight. Maybe they think that we’re asleep. Animals without technology follow the same schedule as the sun.”

“Do you really believe they’ll stay quiet until morning?” Indigo had sagged slowly back in his chair as the immediate danger seemed less.

“It looks like it. They’re not moving.”

“Then I’m going.” Indigo came to his feet, quietly but with determination. “To my own cabin. No, Liddy” — she had been sitting with her head bowed, but lifted it as he stood up — “not tonight. It’s been a tough day. Tonight I need peace and quiet, not company. You stay here with Rombelle and keep watch. And you, Rombelle, none of your damned banging and hammering. You won’t wake me, because I’m putting a wave feedback unit on as soon as I get up there. But if those Limbic things of yours are asleep outside, let’s keep it that way.”

Indigo went across to the ladder, carrying with him the tiny portable light that now provided the only illumination for the cabin. In the final glimmer before Indigo and the light disappeared, Liddy glared — not at Indigo, but at Bony. As soon as the captain was on the upper level and out of hearing, she whispered, “Why do you let him treat you like that?”

“Who?”

Bony realized it was not a very intelligent question, given that Indigo was probably the only human male within a hundred lightyears. But before he could say more, Liddy burst out, “You’re much smarter than he is. You do all his work, and all his thinking.”

“Not so loud!”

Her voice had been rising in pitch, and when she spoke again it was shriller than ever. “Who explored the seabed outside the ship, and the surface of the water, and the land? Who may have found the Link? Not Friday Indigo. You did it all. But he treats you like dirt — and you let him, with never a word of complaint. He tells you he had a hard day, he needs to rest — when he hasn’t done a thing. And you don’t utter one peep.”

The injustice of it had Bony speechless — almost. “Me!” He heard his voice squeak with outrage. “You think he treats me badly? What about you? It burns me up, the way he talks to you. How do you feel when he says, `I brought you along for your body, not your brains’? How dare he say that? The nerve of the man!”

“What’s wrong with my body?”

“Nothing.” Bony wished there were enough light to see her facial expression. Was that anger, or insecurity? “I think your body is perfect.”

“So you’re agreeing with what he did. He didn’t buy me for my brains. He bought me for my body.”

“That might be true , but it doesn’t make it right . You have a beautiful face and body, but you have a brain , too, a good brain. You’re a person , Liddy. More than just a body, more than just a b-brain. A whole person!” He was stammering in his excitement, and his voice grew louder. “How can you let him treat you like a b-b- bimbo?”

“And how can you let him order you to keep watch while he sleeps? Don’t you need sleep, too? Does he think you’re a machine, and not a human being? Do you know the only reason I didn’t scream when he said that to you?”