Corono said, "We'll have to wait.., see." He spoke with a sigh that sounded like the wheeze of a bellows. "But I think, perhaps ... we must watch the fever, but he seems to be stronger now.

Whatever you did, human Bandicut--" he paused "--I am hopeful.''

Bandicut nodded, and stared at Lako, at the obviously once- strong face struggling to survive. "Good," he whispered. "That's good." He turned away, rubbing his eyes, then his temples. He took several deep breaths. After a moment, he realized that everyone was watching him. "Is there something else?"

The Neri spoke quickly to one another.

"/Oh no--"/ He sighed soundlessly. /How can we say no, if there's some- one else--?/ "/But--"/ "Can you?" asked L'Kell. "There is another. He is in worse con- dition.''

Worse condition? Bandicut closed his eyes, dismayed. "We will try," he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"/This might be very hard on you; you 'ye been through a lot."/ The quarx fell silent as L'Kell beckoned Bandicut into the next curtained room. Another cot. Another dying Neri. Bandicut stood silent a moment, gazing down at the blistered face. "What is his name?" he whispered.

"Th.o.r.ek," said Corono, stepping to the other side of the cot,92 , .

touching the patient's forehead. Th.o.r.ek's eyes were three-quarters closed, and a hazy yellow. His breath was extremely shallow, his nostrils and gill openings barely moving.

"Th.o.r.ek," Bandicut murmured. He crouched close to the cot, trying not to draw back from the smell of illness, of decay. He was gratefully aware of Ik's presence close behind him.

"/ Let's go, then."/ He touched Th.o.r.ek's arm. It was cold and rubbery to the touch. He closed his eyes, and let the quarx take him over the boundary . . .

He felt at once a sense of quiet, of cold. Not the cold of ice; the cold of s.p.a.ce. The cold of dark, stony pa.s.sages.

Charlene moved silently through the inner landscape of this being, and found that it was not quite as dark or deserted as it had first appeared. There remained tiny veins of warmth streaking the cold, remnants of life trickling through a harsh land. Threads of nervous connection left when the main presence of awareness had fled, seeking escape. He couldn't help thinking of Charlie-Four, fleeing into darkness. Dying.

Don't think of that. Not now.

The quarx probed through the threads and began to track backward, searching for whatever life might still be found...

Amidst the ruins of mind and body, Charlie began to pick up scintillations of something. A consciousness? A soul? She called out softly. And felt it withdrawing. Witbdra wing? Charlie, should we-- The quarx was already in pursuit. Up the threads, following the spark ... toward something far in the distance, a center of presence.

It was like a spidery path to a floating city, high on the horizon, dim and remote. Was this like an image in the net, something he could use to focus his movement? Or was it a hallucination, a false, crazy hope?

What about the body, Charlie? It's failing fast. We might not have time -- Can't heal until we find a connection to the center. He can only heal himself.

I know, but--scary, this is scary. Is that what's up ahead?

Let's hope so.* THE INFINITE SEA *

93.

Again, it happened quickly. But differently.

There was a brightening on the horizon, and for an instant he felt a link, a ray of hope, a touch of Th.o.r.ek's presence and soul...

in terrible pain. But the pain was shimmering out of focus, changing.

I do not knowyou.., you are not the spirit of the sea.., do not need you...

Not in words, but in wordless thought. Then the connection faded, and the spot of brightness flared and went out. He blinked, stunned by a sense that the light had not gone dark, exactly, but rather had been drawn out of this existence through some portal he could not see. It had seemed eager rather than sorry to go.

And then darkness and a bone-piercing cold closed around him. He withdrew in silence, not speaking even to the quarx.

He gazed wearily at L'Kell, knowing he did not have to speak. L'Kell had sensed Th.o.r.ek's pa.s.sing. Behind L'Kell, Ik moved out of the way, making room for Askelanda. Bandicut turned, thinking, will he blame us--blame me--for Th.o.r.ek's death?

Askelanda stood beside L'Kell, gazing at Th.o.r.ek's body. He was muttering words, but Bandicut could not make them out. Words of anger? Mourning? Tribute? The elder Neri raised his eyes to look at Bandicut. "His spirit has returned to the sea."

"I could do nothing," Bandicut said. "He was too far gone." And, he thought silently, the manner of departure was very different from what I expected. Almost as if he welcomed death.

"He will be missed. But not all pa.s.sings are unhappy ones,"

Askelanda said, almost as if he'd read Bandicut's mind. His tone was not exactly rejoicing, but he seemed accepting of the event.

Bandicut's thoughts flickered to Charlie-Four, and he pulled them back with an effort. "Then you believe that there's life--"

"He swims now in new currents, new paths through the deep.

Many have gone before him, and many will follow." Askelanda spoke briefly to Corono, then turned back to Bandicut. "Will you come into the other room with me?"

Bandicut blinked, wondering if he was now intruding on the privacy of the dead. He glanced at Ik. The Hraachee'an was drumming his chest with his fingertips in puzzlement.94 , .

"Come," said Askelanda sharply, and strode back into the other room.

Bandicut sighed. After this draining effort with Th.o.r.ek, had Lako died, too? He followed Askelanda through the parted curtain, and found the Neri leader standing beside Lako's cot. No one was speaking.

d.a.m.n, Bandicut thought. He moved to Askelanda's side.

Lako's eyes were open, seemingly clear and focused, black pools staring at the ceiling. The Neri was breathing, his nostril and gill slits opening and closing. Bandicut's heart skipped. As he leaned forward, Lako's eyes shifted in small movements until they met Bandicut's. His mouth moved.

Bandicut shook his head, indicating he couldn't hear.

"He is asking, 'Are you the one?' Are you the one who saved his life?" Askelanda's voice was filled with intensity, and yet seemed expressionless.

Saved his life? Bandicut thought. Had it really worked, then?

"What shall I tell him?" There now seemed to be a twinkle of humor in Askelanda's eyes.

Bandicut blinked in astonishment. "You can say," he replied huskily, "that I had a lot of help. From the stones." He rubbed his wrists, then pointed to his temple. "From someone who lives inside me." And he turned and nodded to L'Kell, who had joined them.

"And from L'Kell.'

L'Kell's fingers moved in a graceful flutter. "I did nothing. I merely watched, and hoped."

Bandicut shook his head. "You helped, all right. I felt it, from within him."

Lako's eyes shifted, like luminous...o...b.. in a face of scarred black rubber. His mouth was moving again, and this time he made an audible, hissing rasp. And Bandicut heard the words, "Thank you."

He stood motionless, eyes welling.

"/Say you're welcome."/ "You're welcome," he whispered.

"I think," said Corono, standing on the other side of Lako, "that we should let him rest."

"/Do you think we could just.., check?"/ At first he didn't know what the quarx meant. Then he nod-*

THE INFINITE SEA * 95.

ded slowly. "Do you mind if I touch his arm again, for a moment?''

Corono gestured permission.

Lako was still very warm to the touch. But as Bandicut felt his senses flowing down into the Neri, he felt that the feverish, chaotic heat had changed into something different.

"/He'S hot, but it's the heat of accelerated healing."/ /Good./He started to remove his hand.

"/Wait."/ He hesitated, but couldn't tell what the quarx was doing.

"/Yes. Take care, and be well.

Okay, John."/ He lifted his hand./Did you actually speak to Lako?/ "/Not in words.

But in thought. Feeling.

Emotion."/ /And ... how is he?/ "/He is in a haze of pain.

But he is aware, and knows that he is recovering.

He will not soon forget you, John."/ /Us, you mean./ "/ g; "/ the quarx agreed.

"John!" Ik interrupted.

He turned with a start, and realized that Askelanda had been talking to him, and he hadn't heard a word.

"Do we want to go someplace comfortable, to rest? And talk?"

"Yes, of course." He sighed and touched Lako's arm again in farewell, then followed the others out of the room.

From a domed room at the top of a multilevel dwelling, Bandicut and Ik looked out into the sea. They watched three separate schools of fish sweeping one way and another through the city; they saw a large creature that looked like a jellyfish in the shape of a great curved, hanging curtain. Several Neri swimmers were moving around it, trying to herd it away from the settlement. A poisonous animal, dangerous to young Neri, L'Kell explained. It was interest-96 * .

lng, but Bandicut was too tired to keep watching. He was still coping with two deaths and one rescue, and deep exhaustion that was more emotional than physical.

Askelanda--after thanking Bandicut with grave, soft-spoken words--sent word that more comfortable quarters should be prepared for the visitors in this larger habitat. "In the meantime," he said, "please make yourselves at home here. Are you hungry? Is there anything else we can do for you? If you have questions, perhaps..."

They had many questions. Too many to focus on. Askelanda spoke for a few minutes about those who had died, whose spirits had returned to the sea. They would be remembered in a service later; perhaps the visitors would like to observe.

Ik acknowledged graciously, then said, "Askelanda, we would like to know what has become of our companions. May I ask, will they be permitted to rejoin us?"

Askelanda conferred with one of his aides. "They are in conference with the obliq, ' he said after a moment. "They will be in- vited to join us when they are finished."

"The obliq?' Bandicut asked.

"The keeper . .. of our knowledge." Askelanda paused, as an expression of--what?--tension?--crossed his dusty face. He readjusted his stole, with a soft clinking of the bound sh.e.l.ls. For a moment, he seemed even older than before. "I expect," he continued in a gravelly tone, "that the obliq is providing your companions with a great deal of useful information."

He suddenly' gestured to his a.s.sistants and barked something, in response to which several large cushions were carried in.

"Please--try to be comfortable. There is food coming shortly. In the meantime, I wish to tell you--"

Askelanda was interrupted by a sudden vibration in the floor.

For a moment, he appeared unconcerned, but the vibration grew quickly in intensity--until the whole habitat was shaking.

Bandicut exchanged worried looks with Ik. Earthquake? Attack?

The Neri muttered among themselves, and then one of them barked out a warning, pointing outside. Several of the smaller habitats were visibly moving in the disturbance, straining at their anchors.

Clouds of silt were being agitated up from the slopingTHE INFINITE SEA * 97 seafioor. And a greenish yellow light was radiating in great fan-shaped swaths through the undersea city.

And it was coming not from overhead, or from any of the structures, but from the darkness of the depths below.INTERLUDE JULIE STONE.

IT WAS SOME time after the contact, after that lecherous Doc- tot Switzer was through examining her, and the exoarch leaders had debriefed her, that Julie Stone finally got a chance to lie down on her bunk and work it through in her head. Not that she understood it all, by any means; but at least she could go over the events in detail, and the words, and try to put them into some sort of perspective. She had made contact with an alien presence, or rather it had made contact with her. And though the physical details of the contact were a blur to her now, she knew that the translator had conveyed to her some terribly disturbing thoughts--only some of which she had shared in turn with her colleagues. There were other things she didn't dare speak of, not until she had thought them through.

Something out there which ia' trying to destrqy your world...

She was virtually certain she had heard those words, though she could not now visualize the moment of receiving them. The thought was ominously reminiscent of what John Bandicut had related to her in his letter, explaining why he was doing those crazy things--stealing a s.p.a.ceship from Triton Orbital and flying off on a suicide mission across the solar system. But John hadn't said anything about something trying to destroy the Earth; he'd just talked about a rogue comet. And maybe, just maybe, he had managed to save the Earth from it.

Maybe?

That was just it; no one knew for sure. The official position here at the MINEXFO camp was that Bandicut had gone crazy, probably as a result of that old neurolink injury, and killed himself. A few, THE INFINITE SEA * 99 people--Georgia Patwell, Julie, maybe John's friend Krackey and a few others--believed what John said. There was no question that the ship had vanished from the immediate neighborhood in a way that n.o.body could explain. And how could John have faked that radio transmission from halfway across the solar system? And the propulsion flame--he'd said put a telescope on it. Someone had--not officially, of course, the officials were all too busy explaining why it wasn't possible--but someone up in Triton Orbital had gotten pictures, very strange pictures. And none of it made any sense unless you took some pretty peculiar technology into account. Like alien technology.

Earth-based observers had spotted the comet, too, just coming out from behind the sun relative to the home planet. It could have been on a collision course with Earth--but they didn't have enough data to establish its...o...b..t with much precision, and anyway, no one at that point could have predicted the effects from solar heating and subsequent vapor eruptions on the comet and its trajectory. No one saw the stolen s.p.a.cecraft emerge from the glare of the sun, if it was there at all. But several telescopes caught the flash, the explosion, way in near Mercury's...o...b..t. And no comet ever came out, though a cloud of fine dust and debris was observed.

Maybe saved the Earth?

Julie blinked and stared at the ceiling over her bunk. No maybe, not anymore. It told me, she thought. What John said was true, every word of it. He took the ship and collided with the comet. She ought to be happy, knowing that he hadn't died for nothing. That he was a hero. And she would have been, except ... now the translator wanted her to do something, too. Something crazy, like what John had done?

Mission yet roi%frill.., require your a.s.sistance...

And the clear sense that it wanted her to keep it to herself.

She rolled over and grabbed her pillow, and clutched it to her.