But perhaps, at another time. I would like to know, not just you, but also your friend ... Charlie ... better. Would that be possi- ble?''

Bandicut nodded. He was saved from an awkward silence by .,.

L'Kell's reappearance beside them on the dock.

"I think the robots would like you to come speak with them,"

L'Kell said. "I can't tell for sure."

"Right. Okay." Bandicut touched Antares' arm. "Thanks for com- ing by. I'll see you before--"

"Actually, I will be leaving soon to go join Kailan," Antares said.

"Her habitat is--I don't know exactly, but somewhere upslope from here. I have to take a sub to get there. I don't know when I'll !.

be back, so I'll say good-bye now." Her mouth crinkled, then she stretched out her arms.

Bandicut gently embraced her. He smelled something like a blend of seaweed and balsam in her hair. "Bye. Let us know what you find out."

"I will," she said with a hint of throatiness. "Take care down there i'

and stay away from the Maw. Okay?"

He smiled. "You can be sure of that," he said, and with a final squeeze of her hand, turned to walk out onto the deck of the little sub.

Inside the cramped cabin of the sub, Napoleon and Copernicus were now linked to each other, while Napoleon remained connected by cable to the console. Bandicut noticed flickering activityon the console. He squeezed in next to them and sat crosslegged beside the Neri tech. "How's it going here?"

Napoleon answered. "We now have a working connection, Captain.

We're exploring how the control system on the submarine works. We thought if we understood that, we would have a better chance of understanding the factory when we got there."

"Plus," said Copernicus, "we thought it might be helpful to know how to pilot the sub, in case of emergency."

"Makes sense," said Bandicut. "What else?"

"Well," said Napoleon, "we were wondering if you would be willing--" The robot hesitated.

"Willing--?"

"To let us link with you--with Charlie, really."*

THE INFINITE SEA 139.

Bandicut rubbed his eyebrows in silence, thinking, didn't I just have this conversation? I liked my first idea better.

"/It's okay with me,"/ said the quarx.

He sighed and answered, "Sure. No problem. Anything in particular you were after?"

"Well," said Napoleon. "We just thought it might be helpful to know something of the Neri language. In case we need to deal with them alone..."

Peering out the viewport, Antares felt a pang as the Neri pilot steered the small sub away from Askelanda's habitat. Already she missed the company--all of them, but especially John Bandicut.

John. She hadn't expected to feel this way, but she did; and she wondered at it. If she were still on Thespi Prime, it would be a very dangerous feeling. Not that it was wrong,, but if it developed further, and led to personal intimacy.., that way lay temptation, and possibly death, for a third-female. Her role in life was to facilitate, not to embrace, or to experience for her own.

She had succ.u.mbed to temptation once, and would have died for it had it not been for the intervention of the Shipworld Masters and the stones. Ensendor. Just the memory of that name caused old fury to rise up in her. And some of the old desire, as well--even after the betrayal. The memory of Ensendor's testimony against her--on trial for her intimacy with him--was as clear as if it had happened yesterday. The immediacy of the memory was astounding.

His words, d.a.m.ning her in the eyes of the council, while he walked away praised for his candor and honesty. His eyes, touching hers in a glancing flicker, with a hint of regret but no compa.s.sion, no grief, no shared responsibility. Even with all that clear in her mind, she still could feel the flush of the old desire.

And what did all of that have to do with these disquieting feelings about John Bandicut, who was not even of her own world?

Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything.

Antares narrowed her gaze through the portal of the little submarine.

Glowing habitats moved slowly by, like ghosts in weightless s.p.a.ce. A small school of silvery fish flashed through the sub's headlight, then a bulbous creature moving on pulsing jets of water.

The bottom slope was flowered with a variety of pastel-colored lifeforms, feathery things, waving and drifting in the slow-moving140 * .

currents. This gave way to a bed of long kelp, cultivated under artificial light. Ahead, finally, she saw the shape of the obliq's habitat, where Kailan would be waiting.

The sight of Kailan's bubble only reminded her that far below, far out of view, lurked the Maw of the Abyss, the monster she was being asked to help identify and tame. How she would do this, she did not know. Would it be like the way Bandicut had taken on the boojum, with almost no real information--with nothing to go on but courage, hope, faith?

She sighed. At least in this, she had something she could search for. Truth. Objective, physical truth.

If she could even recognize such a thing anymore.

As the small flotilla of subs dropped away from the undersea city, descending toward the factory, Bandicut felt sudden pangs of doubt.

Was he just offering the Neri false hope of repairing the facility? He wished he could have another private talk about it with the robots, but they were in the second sub.

"/What's the matter, John?"/ What was the matter was that he feared that this whole mission was just pride and wishful thinking on his part.

"/You don't seem overly proud to me."/ /No? Then why did I make it sound as if I knew all about nano-factories?

If that's even what these things are! h.e.l.l, I don't even know anything about human, much less Neri, nanos.h.i.t./ "/Maybe not, but you understand the general concept.

The translator-stones are pretty resourceful.

And from what you 'ye told me, the robots are, too."/ /Yeah. But none of us really knows what the kr'deekin' h.e.l.l we're doing here./ "/Have faith, Job n.

I'li check back with you later."/ Before he could answer, Charlene was gone--off in the stacks of his brain's library, whistling softly, seeing what else she could learn about John Bandicut and the Charlies that came before. She was a good student, this Charlie.

He couldn't help wishing that Ik and Li-Jared were here, evenTHE INFINITE SEA * 141 though they'd all agreed that it was the right decision. There wasn't much either of them could offer in the way of expertise, and they were probably more likely to be useful to the Neri city, making themselves available to Antares and Kailan, or anyone else who might need help. Plus, Li-Jared would probably have had a nervous breakdown if forced to travel in any direction except toward the surface. Didn't matter, though; he still missed them.

L'Kell, beside him in the c.o.c.kpit, seemed to sense his pensive mood. "We'll make a survey of the area first," he said. "There are several possible sites where I think we might find connections to the central controller. But we'll just have to see when we get there."

Bandicut nodded, as the last visible signs of the Neri city vanished astern. Only the foreboding darkness of the endlessly falling seafioor lay before them now, sprinkled sporadically with bottom-feeding animals, some finned but most on spidery legs. And somewhere far below, the Maw of the Abyss. They were going to work terrifyingly close to the drop-off, and the plan was simply to pretend it didn't exist. What else could they do? Half the terror came from not knowing what the devil the thing was. But he reminded himself that whatever unknown threat the Devourer posed, the threat of a nonfunctioning factory was a matter of clear physical need. The Neri had no way to replace damaged or aging subs and habitats, the solar arrays that fed them power were reportedly degrading, and their deep-sea farms could last only as long as the artificial light lasted.

"Tell me something," he said, trying to shake his mind loose from this train of thought. He glanced sideways at his friend.

"Ah-huh," said L'Kell, peering from one side port to the other, checking formation with the other subs.

"If we do get the factory going again, how will you bring the manufactured goods up to your city? How did you do it before?"

L'Kell murmured softly in thought. "We have two cargo subs left, which we use in our salvage operations. One of them is at the new site, the one where Lako and the others were poisoned. The other is not in working order."

"That doesn't sound good. Is it something Kailan's people can fix?"

"Well," said L'Kell, "that seems to depend on whether the sal-142 , *

vagers can find some equipment that can be modified by the chang- ers to fit their needs."

"Hm."

"It is said that there is a large cargo carrier trapped in one of the factory's loading docks--and that if we could get it free, then we ,.

would not only have the sub and all the machinery in its hold, but ,.

we could free the whole mechanism. I don't really believe that last '.

part, but we've never been able to prove the question one way or the other. n.o.body's been able to find the dock."

Bandicut grunted. It was amazing to him that the Neri had sur- vived as long as they had, with the factory mostly out of commis- sion for a generation of Neri. No large shipments had been received in L'Kell's lifetime, though products had been received from one of the smaller docks in more recent memory. But that last dock had stopped working when L'Kell was still a trainee sub pilot, and now its entrance was buried. The Neri really were living on borrowed time, as far as the factory was concerned. It was almost as if they had been waiting for someone to come along and help them fix it.

"And all this time, you've had no idea how to repair it--or even 4!!.

how it works?"

L'Kell, before answering, made several adjustments to the sub's att.i.tude and speed. "The factory was not built by us," he said, "but by our--" hrrullllBandicut's stones twinged with uncertainty. "Your ancestors?" he guessed.

L'Kell seemed at a loss.

"Those who came before you.., gave birth to your parents?"

"I understand the word. The problem is--well, according to the obliq, our ancestors were not exactly us. Not Neri. They were some- thing different--from which they made us--"

"Huh?"

"They took themselves, and made us... and we were different.

Changed. "L'Kell steered carefully over a ridge in the bottom slope.

"I do not believe that they lived in the sea."

Bandicut's mouth opened; it took a moment for words to come out. "Engineered?" he murmured. "You were engineered? Are the landers your ancestors? Or creators?"

L'Kell hissed. "Those creatures--killers--are no ancestors of ours!"

"Then what--?"*

THE INFINITE SEA * 143.

"Our ancestors," L'Kell said, with a snap on each word, "are dead."

And before Bandicut could think of a reply, the Neri was touching controls on his panel and sending them sharply downward, over a plunging drop-off into darkest night.CONTACT THE GREYISH-WHITE forms of the factory area emerged from the gloom like ghosts in a graveyard, or old bones stick- I.

ing out of the earth after a quake. Bandicut swallowed back a feeling of dread and tried to peer out with rational calm as the submersibles swept slowly over the area. He touched a comm control and spoke to the robots, in sub two. "Napoleon and Copernicus, start keeping a watch for anything that looks like a port where you could jack in. L'Kell says he's really not sure where they are, so if you have any ideas, let us know."

"Roger," said Napoleon. He was silent a moment, then, "Captain?''

"Yeah?"

"This stuff looks really, really old. As if no one's been here for a long time."

........ Yeah. But remember, it's partly because that quake covered everything in silt. I don't have to tell you about that, I guess."

"Yes. But Captain?"

"John."

"John? If it's been a really long time since the Neri actively controlled the facility.., how do we know that it will want to recognize their, well--"

"What?" Bandicut said. "Their authority?" He glanced at L'Kell, who rolled his eye slightly as if waiting to hear what would come next.

"Exactly," Napoleon said.

When L'Kell didn't volunteer an answer, Bandicut said, "Well, I*

THE INFINITE SEA * 145.

don't think you can a.s.sume that every control system is going to develop consciousness, the way you and Coppy have."

"Oh," said Napoleon.

There was no talk for a few moments. Then Copernicus announced, "Cap'n, I am reading substrate structures that could imply the presence of transmission wires and oplink cables. I believe there is a juncture of some sort approximately twenty meters ahead of US.'.

"Okay, Coppy. L'KelI?"