The Spheres of Heaven

on the seabed would be safer there than anywhere on Limbo.

Unless …

Bony could imagine a worse possibility. Suppose that the new ship’s course was to the south or west? The coastal shelf ended a few kilometers in that direction. The cruiser might then be destined for a different fate: a descent into an unknown and unplumbed ocean. At sufficient depth and pressure, even the cruiser’s solid hull would collapse like an imploding soap bubble.

18: FRIDAY GOES IT ALONE

Friday Indigo had said not a word to anyone, but he knew exactly what he must do. It had been obvious as soon as he learned that other Stellar Group members were present on Limbo.

The Tinkers and Pipe-Rillas, damn their alien guts, had met the Limbics before he had. They had ruined his chances for first contact with a new intelligent species.

But you didn’t have to be a genius to draw a few other conclusions. First, no matter what that moron Rombelle might think, the Limbics were in a primitive, pre-technology stage of development. Second, the bubble- brain Limbics were marine creatures, who did not and could not occupy the land area of their planet. Third, on Rombelle and Liddy Morse’s visit to the surface they had seen a working flying machine. Fourth, the Stellar Group members were stuck at the bottom of the sea. They had not explored the land.

Put it all together, and the answer stared you in the face: another intelligent species existed on Limbo. Its members lived not in the sea, but on dry land. They possessed technology, advanced enough to build an aircraft, and the plane’s home base must be reasonably close since Rombelle had also reported seeing the shadow pass above him on his first excursion from the Mood Indigo . Finally, and most important, no one from the Stellar Group had been in touch with the land- dwellers . First contact with them would be a truly historic event — not a useless contact with some shapeless underwater objects who spoke in gobbledygook and were made of glop.

Hey, the presence of another Stellar Group ship on Limbo might even be a blessing. It meant that Friday could go off and look for the land-dwellers alone, without having to drag along the dead weight of Bony Rombelle and Liddy Morse. For the past few days he had regretted bringing them with him at all. Sure, the sex with Liddy was nice, but hardly worth the hassle of dealing with incompetents.

The Mood Indigo lifted easily from the seabed as Friday applied power to the auxiliary thrustors. Flying the ship underwater proved to be no harder than doing so in space — easier, in a way, because water resistance damped any slight over- or under-thrust. Friday raised the ship ten meters, then spent a few minutes trimming the balance and experimenting with lateral and vertical motion. As soon as he had the hang of it he would approach the shore. He was delighted to find that he could move the ship in any direction, at the same time rising or falling in the water exactly as he chose.

At first he headed due north, so that anyone watching would assume he was taking the ship back to its original position on the seabed. Only when he was kilometers away from the stranded Pipe-Rilla ship and could not see it using any of his instruments did he curve his course east, in the direction of the land.

He maintained a leisurely pace, not because he was worried or cautious but because he was savoring the moment. Let’s face it, you could win a hundred space-sailing regattas from the Vulcan Nexus to the Dry Tortugas, and what did it get you? A shelf of rinky-dink trophies and your name in tiny print in some never-looked-at record book. You could start out in life with all the money you were ever likely to need, triple or quadruple it, and still find twenty Indigo family members with more. So if you were Friday Indigo, the name of the game had to be fame, not wealth. A first contact like this would put your name up there with Timbers Rattigan, who came back with news of the Tinker civilization, or Marianna Slung, who discovered the Angels of Sellora. You would be somebody little kids were told about in reverent tones: Friday Indigo, first human to encounter the — the — the what?

He needed a good name. The bubble-brains could be the “Limbics.” That was a lousy name and anyway Bony Rombelle had chosen it. What to call the land-dwellers?

That was a no-brainer. Friday smiled. He was on his way for first contact with the Indigoans .

* * *

The Mood Indigo drifted steadily east, twenty meters below the surface. The ship’s sonar told Friday that the sea depth beneath him was slowly decreasing, just as he had expected. It was his intention to move the ship as close to the shore as possible. With luck that would lift the upper decks clear of the surface, allowing him to use the top airlock and wade ashore without needing a suit.

The first suggestion that things might not continue according to plan came from the sea-bottom sensors. Friday had set the auxiliary drive to a constant level of thrust, which ought to guarantee a steady rise or fall through the water. But the instruments in the control cabin insisted that the depth of water beneath the ship was changing in a cyclic way, increasing steadily by up to ten meters and then, half a minute later, decreasing by the same amount. Also — Friday ended his pleasant musing and became fully alert — the inertial positioning system insisted that although he had set the thrustors to take him due east, the direction of the Mood Indigo was in fact more like northeast.

Damn the instruments. Were they feeding him garbage? Had Rombelle somehow screwed them up, in his endless tinkering?

There was one easy way to find out, without depending on instruments: rise all the way to the surface, and take a look using the imaging sensors.

Friday fed more power to the thrustors. The result was immediate and disturbing. As the ship lifted higher it began to roll and pitch, rocking Friday from side to side at the controls. He swore, locked in the autopilot — God knows how well an autopilot developed for use in space would perform at sea — and called for a wraparound display from the bow imaging sensor.

Confusion. The seabed depth sonar was all over the place, and in any case there was no way to tell from its readings if the upper end of the Mood Indigo was above or below the surface. But the display ought to show one or the other, a view of air or a view of water. It provided neither. Friday saw a crazy patchwork pattern of bubbles and foam and dark streaks, plus an occasional glimpse of clouded sky. At the same moment he heard a sound. Something above his head was thumping on the highest part of the hull, loudly, imperatively, sending violent shivers through the whole ship.

The Mood Indigo was close to the surface — the bow must even be above it. That idea was confirmed when a flash of light filled the ship’s whole interior and the hull rang like a giant gong.

Goddamit, they’d been struck by lightning! The top of the ship was a natural target, projecting above the surface. This was not the smooth seas and calm water that he had expected, but the broken chaos of a howling storm. Those streaks and that foam were breaking waves, and the regular booming came from their ferocious impact on the ship.

Well, the hell with this. He’d had enough, and fortunately there was an easy solution. What went up would go down. Deep water was calm.

Friday cut the drive completely. At once the sky view dwindled in the imaging sensors and the ship’s roll became less pronounced. They were sinking. Another half-minute, and he and the Mood Indigo would enjoy the haven of the seabed.

Within seconds he learned that this plan would not work, either. The downward movement came to a jarring end. The bottom of the ship had hit the seabed. They had been approaching the shore for the past few minutes, and now they were in water too shallow for total submergence.

Friday cursed and threw everything into reverse — an act warned against in all the manuals. The whole vessel shuddered as the lateral thrustors switched polarity, urging the ship back the way it had come. For a moment it worked. The inertial positioning system showed them moving to open water; then a huge wave smashed into the exposed upper hull. The ship started to tilt. And tilt.

It was going over — all the way over. Friday managed one last desperate act, turning off the thrustors before