THE INFINITE SEA THE CHAOS CHRONICLES.

JEFFREY A. CARVER.

PRELUDE

JULIE STONE.

SHE AWOKE TO the sound of the ventilators in her s.p.a.ce- suit. Where am I? Julie thought. And then she remem- bered: She was in a cavern on Triton, and she'd just made contact with the alien artifact. But what had she--had she lost consciousness? Distant memories jangled in her mind.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a voice in her ear. The helmet comm: "Julie--can you hear me? Ron, I can't get a reading on her monitors, but I think she's alive."

Klm. Her supervisor.

Of course I'm alive. Why wouldn't I be?

"Her eyes are open!" Someone bending over her, hands shading her faceplate to cut the reflection. "She's breathing, I think. Julie, can you hear me?"

Can you hear me? The words drifted back, voices in her head: Mission yet to fulfill.., require your a.s.sistance, Julie Stone... a.s.sistance? What kind And as consciousness had slipped away, the voices simply moved farther inside...

.. John Bandicut sacrificed everything toprotect Earth... saved his homeworld . . . rogue comet...

"Julie!"

She started, flinching where she lay on her side, the hard casing of her suit digging into her shoulder and hip. "Yes. Yes! I'm okay; help me up."

The looming helmet moved away, and hands were lifting her by the arms, helping her to stand. And then she was on her feet,PRELUDE JULIE STONE.

ll SHE AWOKE TO the sound of the ventilators in her s.p.a.ce-suit.

Where am I? Julie thought. And then she remembered: She was in a cavern on Triton, and she'd just made contact with the alien artifact. But what had she--had she lost consciousness? Distant memories jangled in her mind.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a voice in her ear. The helmet comm : "Julie--can you hear me? Ron, I can't get a reading on her monitors, but I think she's alive."

Klm. Her supervisor.

Of course I'm alive. Why wouldn't I be?

"Her eyes are open!" Someone bending over her, hands shading her faceplate to cut the reflection. "She's breathing, I think. Julie, can you hear me?"

Can you hear me? The words drifted back, voices in her head: Mission yet to fulfill.., require.your a.s.sistance, Julie Stone... a.s.sistance? What kind of--?

And as consciousness had slipped away, the voices simply moved farther inside . ..

. . John Bandicut sacrificed everything toprotect Earth... saved his homeworld . . . rogue comet...

"Julie!"

She started, flinching where she lay on her side, the hard casing of her suit digging into her shoulder and hip. "Yes. Yes! I'm okay; help me up."

The looming helmet moved away, and hands were lifting her by the arms, helping her to stand. And then she was on her feet,8 , .

tottering, surrounded by a knot of her crewmates from exoar-chaeology.

Triton, yes. She was on Triton, in an underground cavern, bluish ice and a bit of rock, halogen lights shining off everything.

And it talked to me. The artifact talked to me. She struggled to remember...

. . stopped the immediate danger.., but may be other...

... other...

... other...

. . require your a.s.sistance...

What kind of danger--?

"What happened, Julie?" someone was asking.

She shook her head, the bits of memory unraveling and disappearing.

"Not sure. What did you see?"

She couldn't quite focus, didn't know who was talking. It was Kim's voice: "The object glowed. It appeared to be engaged in increased activity. You pa.s.sed out. The activity continued for about ten seconds, then returned to normal. That's when we got to you."

Increased activity? She remembered the appearance of the artifact: a collection of black and silver spheres, seeming to twirl and move through each other, all balanced like an inverted pyramid.

"Did you hear anything?"

Through the reflective faceplates, she couldn't see faces, but she Could sense the puzzlement in the voices. "We didn't hear anything,"

Klm answered. "What did you hear?"

She shook her head. "I don't know." She stepped forward through the knot of s.p.a.cesuited people--then, on a sudden urge, turned to look back at the object, the alien artifact. It had black and iridescent globes, not silver. The translator; that was what John Bandicut had called it. But she thought maybe it had said so, as well.

"Julie?" said Kim. "Can you tell us what happened?"

"I don't--" her voice caught, and she tried to recapture it. "I don't think so. Not just yet. I think I need some quiet to think about it." She turned to her right and was able finally to peer through the faceplate to see the eyes of her coworker. "Can we leave now?"

Kim's eyebrows arched "All right," he said. "Let's go, everyone!

Let's get Julie back to the rover!"

But as she followed Kim, trying to recapture the memories, the words and images could not be formed; thoughts and voices wereTHE INFINITE SEA * 9 whirling together like a storm in her mind, in her dreams, in her subconsciousness. So difficult to remember. Except for one phrase that kept recurring: .. something still out there which ia' trying to destroy your world...INTO AN LIEN SEA No'ACAZV./IK thought. He peered out of the golden bubble into a cerulean sea. Overhead, but receding with each heartbeat, was the rippling mirror of the ocean's surface.

Below lay the darkness of the ocean depths, into which they were sinking rapidly--trapped in the forcefield bubble that had swept them across uncounted light-years.

Li-Jared was making frantic bonging sounds. He was terrified of deep water, so this must have been his worst nightmare come true.

On Ik's other side the Human, John Bandicut, looked as if he had stopped breathing. He was staring down into the twilit depths, eyes bulging with fear and concentration. He was pointing to something, stuttering incomprehensibly.

It is happening again, Ik thought. Rakh.

John Bandicut turned around to look at all the others. "Do you see it?" he shouted. "Tell me I'm not crazy! Do you see it?"

Bwong-ng-ng-ng-ng-- "See what?" Li-Jared cried, lunging drunkenly from one side of the bubble to the other. "There's no bottom! All I see is water! We're all going to drown!"

But Ik saw now what Bandicut was yelling about. Lights. Below them, and very dim, but growing slowly. Ik bent down to peer through the bottom of the star-spanner bubble. The lights seemed to be globe-shaped. They looked.., artificial. Like an undersea city.

That was what Bandicut was trying to say. They were plummeting toward something, not just sinking to the bottom of an alien sea. Ik didn't know what it was, but he recognized the hand of the Shipworld Masters in it. Someone had aimed them in this direction, and had known there would be something waiting for them in theTHE INFINITE SEA * !1 depths of this sea. Ik found a slight trace of comfort in that knowledge.

Bandicut was trying to calm the terrified Karellian. "Li-Jared, there's something down there! Take a look for yourself]." With that, he plunged his head directly through the side of the bubble, ex-trtding himself into the water without disturbing the bubble at all.

"Hrah--he's right--I see it, too!" Ik said, finding his voice at last.

He drew a deep breath and followed Bandicut's example, sticking his head through the bubble wall. The bubble gave and stretched over his skin; he felt a sense of pressure and cold, but no water actually touched him. He held his breath and peered down.

He could see the lights more clearly now. They were definitely drawing closer. Was it really possible that they were bubbles of air?

He popped his head back out of the water to take a breath.

Bandicut was looking at him, in the deepening gloom. "My guess is we want to reach those things. Is there some way we can steer?"

A voice from behind Ik said, "Are we certain that we want to?"

Ik turned to the newest member of their party: Antares, the Thespi third-female, Bandicut's acquaintance. Ik barely knew her, but she had helped them all survive their recent battle with the boojum, back on Shipworld. "I'm not sure we have any choice," he said. "It would certainly seem that this place is our intended destination.''

The Thespi blinked, her golden eyes wide in the failing light.

"So it would seem," she said, stroking the gemlike stones in her throat.

"We're being carried off to one side," Bandicut said, peering outside again. "I think we're going to miss those structures. You don't suppose the star-spanner forgot to allow for currents, do you?"

Ik touched the side of his head, querying his voice-stones./Can you advise on the guidance of this travel unit?/ There was a short flurry of feedback sensation, before the voice-stones answered: *

Guidance negative. Wait for arrival.*

Bandicut's gaze had gone blank and unfocused. A moment later it returned to normal. "According to Charlie, my stones say we've been renormalized to this environment. Is that supposed to mean we can breathe water?"

"Hmm, I would not be eager to test such a supposition," Ik said.12 * .

He caught the eye of Li-Jared, who had stopped panting long enough to stare back at him, the bright blue slits across his eyes wide with fury and panic. "But according to my voice-stones, we cannot steer; we must wait for arrival."

"Arrival?" Antares muttered. "I thought we'd already arrived."

"Yes, well--" Ik rubbed his chest uncertainly. They were sliding farther and farther into the darkness of the depths. The surface was no longer visible, though a blue hue overhead pointed the way back to it. Below, the lights were pulling off to one side. Bandicut was right; they were going to miss them.

Ik felt himself instinctively trying to will the bubble back toward those globes. But it was no use. Soon the lights were level with them, far off to one side. Then they seemed to slide upward and away, as the sea continued darkening. Ik felt the air in the bubble growing thick and dense in his throat.

"Can we do nothing?" Antares murmured.

"Hold on! Look there!" said Bandicut, pointing the other way.

Below, and on the other side, more lights were coming into view. Ik tried to gauge the bubble's movement, and decided that there was at least a chance they would pa.s.s close to those lights.

And what would they find?

Ik sighed through his ears, touched his forehead, and began preparing himself for whatever world they were about to enter.

Something was moving in those globes of light.

Bandicut was almost certain of it. He strained to see more clearly. The globes were growing larger, but the haze of the water obscured his view. The array had the look of a sunken city; but he hardly dared believe it.

He wondered how much longer the air would last in the star-spanner bubble.

"/Not to worry.

If it can keep us alive halfway across the galaxy, it can probably give us a few minutes more underwater."/ The voice of the quarx in his head was laconic. The alien seemed almost relaxed about their sudden entry into this ocean. Perhaps, lacking a body of his own, he felt less sense of danger.

"/You think I'm too stupid to know danger?"/ Jarred by the remark, Bandicut said,/No... I don't think you'reTHE INFINITE SEA * 13- stupid./But this quarx was a very different individual from the last Charlie, whose death was still terribly immediate in his mind.

As the lights drew closer, growing in number, something resembling a landscape began to emerge from their illumination. The globes were gathered in cl.u.s.ters, and they were attached to or suspended from a steep submarine slope that was barely visible now, in shadowy outlines behind and beneath them. Only a few dim, scattered lights were visible in the darkness further below. If they failed to connect with this cl.u.s.ter, they might fall forever.

"Are we going to miss them?" Li-Jared asked, as though reading his mind.

No, Bandicut thought. Yes. He couldn't tell.

"Bandie John?" Antares' eyes caught his with sharp intensity.

Was she reading his fear? Feeling it? He hardly knew her. And yet he was unsurprised to sense her empathic awareness. It felt right, somehow.

Before he could answer, though, he felt a vibration under his feet. There was a sound, like a distant murmur. "What the--?"

"Hrahh, it feels like a quake," said Ik. "A distant quake. Do you feel the current, shifting sideways? We are going to miss those structures!" Ik's sculpted blue face looked skeletal in the undersea light, as he twisted around to look at them.

"I feel it," Antares said, her eyes glinting.