She stifled a sigh of exasperation.

"--since the evidence, as I understand it, is not wholly compelling, either way."

"I find the evidence quite compelling," said Julie.

"But you have, as you've indicated, a personal bias."

"I don't have a bias that would make the translator tell me that he destroyed the comet, do I?"224 * .

Macklin shrugged his shoulders. "In any case, you say that the translator told you that it wanted your a.s.sistance with some future activity. Is that correct?"

"Yes. And I can't really tell you more than that, because it didn't say more." Which, she suddenly realized, was not quite the truth.

She closed her eyes for a moment. Something out there which is trying to destroy your world. Had she really heard that, or was it just a lingering impression, or a dream? She felt a powerful reluctance to share it; too much ambiguity and uncertainty. Or was that just a rationalization? No, she thought--she wanted confirmation before she said something that inflammatory.

"You understand, Ms. Stone, that the object is not your personal property, nor under your personal protection." That was John Hornsby, representing the Interplanetary Science Board.

"Of course I understand," she said, bristling.

"Yes, well," said Takashi, of MINEXFO. "Since we have not yet established who will have permanent custody of the artifact, I suggest that we not get sidetracked on that issue." He did not actually look at Hornsby as he said that, but the tension between the two was evident.

Julie drummed her fingers on the table for a moment, trying not to seem stiff or defensive. "I have a suggestion, if you're interested."

"Of course," said Macklin, while Hornsby frowned.

"Two suggestions. One is you let me go back to the translator and try again. The other is--well, that you let the translator take the lead in communicating. It's been here for a million years already, and maybe it has its own ideas about who it wants to talk to and why."

"We keep coming back to that, don't we?" Macklin said. "It talked to you--and everyone wants to know why."

Julie flushed, wondering why she had to feel defensive about that. "I want to know, too. And if you'd let me try, maybe we'd get some answers."

Hornsby looked faintly ruffled. "That might, in time, be possible.

But we have a full schedule of physical studies planned, which is not something we can lightly interrupt. Also--with respect--" an insincere smile flickered on his face "--we cannot afford to have the object treating any one person as sole designated representative.

If you can understand that."

Julie said nothing, but thought, you might not have any choice in the matter.*

THE INFINITE SEA * 225.

"My own feeling," said Macklin, "is that we ought to just take the d.a.m.n thing to Earth and quit s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with it here. h.e.l.l of a lot more resources for studying it, back home."

Julie felt a sudden flicker of panic. If the translator were shipped to Earth, and she were left here on Triton...

"That might not be feasible right away," said Hornsby. "There are issues of safety, of course. And we need to make detailed in situ studies. Plus--" he glanced at Julie "--I rather expect that the exoarchaeology branch would like some time to examine the site.

Is that correct, Ms. Stone--if you can speak for your department?"

She nodded, her panic subsiding.

Takashi voiced his agreement, though no doubt for different reasons.

Triton MINEXFO's claim could lose much of its power once the artifact left Triton.

Macklin shrugged. "I guess, then, that that's all the questions we have for you right now, Ms. Stone. Thank you for your time. You may be excused ..."

Julie shook off the memory. She still felt guilty for what she hadn't said. And the questions weren't going to get any easier. A lot of people wanted access to the translator, for a variety of reasons. But the translator, she knew, would allow access to whom it wanted, when it wanted. She feared what could happen if an attempt were made to move it by force.

She restarted the holocam recording. "There's so much we don't know about the translator, Dakota--so much I look forward to learning--we all look forward to learning. This will be an exciting time. We may never get all of the answers. But we do know the one answer that counts--that John did his work well, his work of protecting the rest of us--you, me, everyone."

She hesitated, not daring to add the final thought: And I'm afraid that work is not yet over.DEADLY CHANGE ']rl IT WASN'T LONG before Bandicut noticed that the lander was 'I.

starting to look ill. His eyes were moving erratically and his breathing sounded labored.

/I.

wonder what--oh, mokin' A. Why didn't I think of it earlier?/ He reached out and touched the lander on the shoul- :.

der.

"/What do you-- oh, I think I see.

The air mixture is becoming toxic for him with the increasing pressure."/ /He doesn't have the benefit of our "normalization." We're going to kill him by taking him that deep./Since they'd begun their de- scent from the shipwreck, the internal pressure in the sub had been increasing to match the outside pressure. Bandicut had been so pre- occupied keeping his ears and sinuses equalized that he'd forgot-

ten.

the less obvious but far more critical issue: the need to adjust the balance of oxygen and other gases in the air as they went to greater depth.

"L'Kell!"

he called. When the Neri came back from the c.o.c.kpit, he explained the problem. "Can you delay pressurizing this com- partment any more and still get us to the city okay?"

L'Kell's great black eyes studied the lander for a moment. "I sup- pose so. But we can't keep him indefinitely at a different pressure.

I'll see what I can do for now, though."

Bandicut nodded, and kept his hand on the lander's arm. He felt the quarx trying to make contact. If she could even just calm him a little, that would be helpful.THE INFINITE SEA * 227 A few minutes later, L'Kell returned from speaking to the pilot.

"We can maintain this pressure without risk to the sub. But we'll have to use airlocks to enter the habitats. The pressure difference will be significant."

"Is there some way to give him a different gas mixture--if we could figure out what it should be? Or better yet--set up a chamber in the habitat where he could be kept at a lower pressure?" It was not just the immediate problem they had to consider; the deeper they took the lander, the harder it would be to return him to the surface later. Bandicut didn't know what the Neri's intentions were for the lander. He doubted they'd thought much about it. But returning the lander to his own people was very much Bandicut and Ik's hope.

The journey back down seemed much longer than the trip up.

Maybe he'd just forgotten. With the pressure stabilized in the cabin, he managed to doze off' for short stretches, sitting huddled on the floor of the cabin with Ik, the lander, and two Neri.

By the time they docked at the undersea city, the lander was breathing a little more easily--mostly from the calming influence of the quarx, Bandicut suspected. But he did not look well. His hands, brown and pebbly, with fingers shaped almost like pincers, were shaking. Bandicut glanced worriedly at Ik--who didn't look any too great himself, with dim eyes and a dull stare. In Ik's case, he hoped it was just exhaustion. The Hraachee'an had gone a long time without much rest, and that in addition to repeated rounds of healing--and oxygen starvation.

They were all in need of recuperation. But the lander ... he wished he could do something more for the lander.

"/If only we were able to transfer a daughter-stone.

A stone couldphysically intervene."/ /If only,/Bandicut murmured./If only.../ Li-Jared was restless at the instruments--more than restless. He couldn't sit still. They had been trying to pin down these readings to predict the next eruption of the Maw, and the longer they worked at it, the murkier it became. He paced around Kailan's lab in agitation.

His pacing didn't seem to bother the obliq or her a.s.sistant, El-beth.

Probably he was getting on Antares' nerves, but he couldn't228 * .

help it. He was sure she understood what he was feeling; she'd been emanating her own waves of frustration for a while now.

"So what do we know?" he muttered with a tw.a.n.g. And at the same time he voiced a plaintive inward query,/Can't you help with this at all?/But from the stones there was no answer; they seemed highly preoccupied. They hadn't been much help lately.

"We know, star friend," said Kailan, answering his question, "that our Maw's reach extends up from the abyss, and down through the depths of the world--and now, you suggest, it reaches perhaps even beyond! That is more than I knew before--so do not be discouraged.

And you have helped me understand three different instruments that were confounding me."

Li-Jared stopped pacing and shivered. He was cold, and hungry, and the feeling of being eternally damp was driving him crazy.

But he admired this Kailan and liked working with her. She was smart and determined, and for all the gaps in her scientific knowledge, he was stunned by how much she did grasp. And it was remarkable how closely some of the Neri instruments resembled equipment familiar to him from Home, and from Shipworld. Form followed function, he supposed. He had tried to explain the basic concepts of spatial distortion to Kailan--that the abyss thing didn't just shake the planet's crust open to draw water through, but rather, opened the very fabric of s.p.a.ce-time to create the channel. But knowledge and language barriers had made it difficult. He hadn't found an adequate way to explain how the Maw might be distorting s.p.a.ce-time in a far more dramatic fashion than just channeling water.

He strongly suspected that the Maw had drawn the star-spanner bubble in from the stars like an iron flake to a magnet. No doubt the star-spanner had intended to put them here, but the Maw had provided the perfect homing beacon. And that was why they had landed so amazingly close to the Neri city.

"Li-Jared, do you have any idea how far the thing's reach might extend?" Kailan asked, drawing him back to the present.

Bw.a.n.g. "No, Kailan--the instruments do not give that much information."

He shook his fingertips in frustration, thinking,/I'11 bet someone back on Shipworld knows, or has a pretty good idea, though--because they sent us here. Don't you have anything you can tell me?/THE INFINITE SEA * 229 The obliq studied his expression carefully, with those enormous eyes in a black rubber face. "I think I perceive some of what you are feeling," she murmured.

Li-Jared c.o.c.ked his head slightly, and felt his eye-slits tingle with electric fire, as myriad frustrations and hopes spun through his thoughts. Before he could answer, though, the silence was broken by Elbeth, who turned from a nearby comm unit. "A cargo sub has just returned from the salvage site with many sick and injured on board. Also Ik, John Bandicut, and a lander captive, in physical distress."

"Lander captive!" Li-Jared said excitedly. "Are they--"

"Who is in physical distress?" Antares cried. "Are Bandie and Ik all right?"

"I do not know. I do not know," said Elbeth. "I will try to find out. But they've reported a strange encounter with a--machine--on the salvage wreck, possibly involving a connection with the Maw!

They request that we come quickly."

"Yes? Yes?" Li-Jared said excitedly, his weariness and frustration evaporating. "What sort of encounter? They must be all right if they want to tell us about it quickly! What did they say? When did it occur?'

Elbeth made a helpless gesture. "I do not know. But the time?

Well, it had to have been hours ago."

"Ho?" Li-Jared raced to the console where he had been working, and urged Kailan to join him. "Can you bring back those readings from when we saw the fluctuation and the spike? Good, good.

Now, can you superimpose a map with the location of the salvage site?"

Kailan worked quickly at the console.

"There it is!" Li-Jared jabbed excitedly at the display. "The field bends, and that's where the fluctuation starts! Whatever they found, it is connected to the Maw!"

"Is that good or bad?" asked Antares. "Shouldn't we be getting over there right away?"

"Yes, absolutely! I don't know if it's good or bad. But I do know we need to see Ik and Bandie. A sub! Kailan, can you get us a sub?"

"Of course," said Kailan, pointing. Elbeth was already making the call. "We must all go, at once."230 * .

The lander was having difficulty again. Bandicut reached out and touched his arm one more time. Whatever benefit he and the quarx were providing, it seemed to last only as long as they maintained physical contact. There were too many physiologic'al forces trying to squeeze the life out of the lander for them to be able to just nudge his healing systems in the right directions. And Bandicut couldn't keep this up indefinitely./You know,/he murmured to the quarx, /if it isn't possible to split off new daughter-stones, it occurs to me, what if.../He hesitated. /Now, let me think about this for a second./ The quarx waited a few moments, then said, "/I didn't want to suggest it."/ /What do you mean? Why not? Never mind, I know why.

Still . . ./ He drew a deep breath, and said, /What if I were to let him use my stones for a while?/ Even as he said it, the thought made him shiver, thinking of all the ways that he depended upon his stones. He would feel helpless without them. But would he be, really? /Can I survive without them? What do the stones say?/ "/They... don't rule the idea out.

But they seem reluctant to commit to it."/ /Well, if they're reluctant--/ He could feel himself drawing away from the idea in relief. Then his eyes focused again on the lander, who would die if something wasn't done.

"/There are n'sks.

Your normalization offers some protection, against pressure and so on.

But there is another danger, not so much to you as to the lander."/ /Huh? What's that?/ "/Well, if their new host doesn't wish to give them up later, they might not be able to return without severe trauma."/ /Trauma to the lander--?/ "/Yes."/ /--or to the stones?/ "/Both.

A bond must be formed, and while they will not, THE INFINITE SEA * 231.

forget their bond to you, you will have to give up a certain authority."/ Authority? he thought. Then he remembered the time on Ship-world when he had commanded the stones to leave him, just to see if they would obey. But if they would do that, would they not return to him here?

"/I believe they will return, even if there is a conflict of will.

But if the lander resists and the bond is severed unwillingly, it could--"/ /Kill him?/Bandicut felt the quarx's affirmation, and his own fear and doubt as he looked back at the lander. The creature was trembling; its eyes looked unfocused. Had he saved this creature's life, only to watch him die--either right here and now, or later, if the stones had to leave by force? No, he thought--that's not good enough. There has to be a way./Could we transfer just one? Which stone does this sort of work?/ "/Mainly the black one.

But they can't really work separately."/ Bandicut swore silently./If I give them both up, I won't be able to communicate with the Neri. What the h.e.l.l good will I be to anyone then?/ "/I don't know.

I'll help as much as I can.

For what that's worth."/ Bandicut swallowed and thought, Charlie's help is worth quite a lot./Just tell them... I really, really want them to come back, okay?/ He turned to the Hraachee'an. "Ik," he murmured, "there's something I want to do. You're probably going to think I'm crazy..."

Crazy indeed, Ik thought, watching his friend. His own stones had refused to split for the lander, saying that it was not yet their time--and thus leaving it to Bandicut to take the chance. Ik felt a throbbing guilt, even though it was beyond his control. But here, in Bandicut, was a being who knew how to take the long view. Willing to risk his life, his future--his voice-stones--to save a being whom the Neri regarded as an enemy. Someone ought to compose a song about it someday, Ik thought. It was an act of corn-232 .

pa.s.sion. But it was more than that, he knew. It was a calculated gamble. Maybe not calculated consciously; but it was calculated somewhere in that human's soul--to do whatever it took to bring these two races together. Or at least get them to stop killing each other.

Ik approved of the goal. But he was terrified of the risk to his friend.