VI The Forests of the Sea
44 Spyball The North Island Marine Lab had been less than enthusiastic. ‘We still need a week to repair Calypso,’ the director said, ‘and we were lucky to find the sledge. It’s the only one on Thalassa, and we don’t want to risk it again.’ I know the symptoms, thought Science Officer Varley; even during the last days on Earth, there were still some lab directors who wanted to keep their beautiful equipment unsullied by actual use. ‘Unless Krakan Junior – or Senior – misbehaves again, I don’t see that there’s any risk. And haven’t the geologists promised that they’ll be quiet again for at least fifty years?’ ‘I’ve a small bet with them on that. But frankly – why do you think this is so important?’ What tunnel vision! Varley thought. Even if the man is a physical oceanographer, one would have expected him to have some interest in marine life. But perhaps I’ve misjudged him; he may be sounding me out … ‘We have a certain emotional interest in the subject since Dr. Lorenson was killed – luckily not permanently. But quite apart from that, we find the scorps fascinating. Anything we can discover about alien intelligence could be of vital importance someday. And to you even more than to us since they’re on your doorstep.’ ‘I can appreciate that. Perhaps it’s lucky we occupy such different ecological niches.’ For how long? the Science Officer thought. If Moses Kaldor is right … ‘Tell me just what a spyball does. The name’s certainly intriguing.’ ‘They were developed a couple of thousand years ago for security and espionage but had many other applications. Some weren’t much bigger than pinheads – the one we’ll use is the size of a football.’ Varley spread the drawings on the director’s table. ‘This one was designed especially for underwater use – I’m surprised you’re not familiar with it – the reference date is as early as 2045. We found complete specifications in Tech Memory, and fed them into the replicator. The first copy wouldn’t work – we still don’t know why – but No. 2 tests out fine. ‘Here are the acoustic generators – ten megahertz – so we’ve got millimetre resolution. Hardly video quality, of course, but good enough. ‘The signal-processor is quite intelligent. When the spyball’s switched on, it sends out a single pulse which builds up an acoustical hologram of everything within twenty or thirty metres. It transmits this information on a two-hundred-kilohertz narrow-band to the buoy floating topside, which radios it back to base. The first image takes ten seconds to build up; then the spyball pulses again. ‘If there’s no change in the picture, it sends a null signal. But if something happens, it transmits the new information so that an updated image can be generated. ‘What we get, then, is a snapshot every ten seconds, which is good enough for most purposes. Of course, if things happen quickly, there will be bad image smearing. But you can’t have everything; the system will work anywhere, in total darkness – it isn’t easy to spot – and it’s economical.’ The director was obviously interested and was doing his best to keep his enthusiasm from showing. ‘It’s a clever toy – may be useful for our work. Can you give us the specs – and a few more models?’ ‘The specs – certainly and we’ll check that they interface with your replicator so you can make as many copies as you like. The first working model – and maybe the next two or three – we want to dump on Scorpville. ‘And then well just wait and see what happens.’
45 Bait The image was grainy, and sometimes hard to interpret despite the false-colour coding which revealed details the eye could not otherwise detect. It was a flattened-out 360-degree panorama of seabed, with a distant view of kelp on the left, a few rock outcroppings at centre, and kelp again on the right. Though it looked like a still photograph, the changing numbers at the lower left-hand corner revealed the passage of time; and occasionally the scene changed with a sudden jerk when some movement altered the information pattern being transmitted. ‘As you’ll see,’ Commander Varley told the invited audience in the Terra Nova auditorium, ‘there were no scorps around when we arrived, but they may have heard – or felt – the bump when our, ah, package landed. Here’s the first investigator at one minute twenty seconds.’ Now the image was changing abruptly at every ten-second interval, and more scorps were appearing in each frame. ‘I’ll freeze this one,’ said the science officer, ‘so that you can study the details. See that scorp on the right? Look at his left claw – no less than five of those metal bands! And he seems to be in a position of authority – in the next frames the other scorps have moved out of his way – now he’s examining the mysterious pile of junk that’s just fallen out of his sky – this is a particularly good shot – see how he uses claws and mouth palps together – one set for power, the other for precision – now he’s pulling at the wire, but our little gift is too heavy to move – look at his attitude – I’ll swear he’s giving orders, though we haven’t detected any signal – maybe it’s subsonic – here comes another of the big fellows -‘ The scene shifted abruptly, tilting at a crazy angle. ‘Here we go; they’re dragging us along – and you were right, Dr. Kaldor – they’re heading for that cave in the rock pyramid -the package is too big to go inside -just the way we planned it, of course – this is the really interesting part -‘ A good deal of thought had gone into the present for the scorps. Although it consisted mostly of junk, that junk had been carefully selected. There were bars of steel, copper, aluminium, and lead; wooden planks; tubes and sheets of plastic; pieces of iron chain; a metal mirror – and several coils of copper wire of assorted gauges. The entire mass weighed over a hundred kilograms, and had been carefully fastened together so that it could only be moved as a single unit. The spyball nestled inconspicuously at one corner, attached by four separate short cables. The two big scorps were now attacking the pile of junk with determination and, it seemed, a definite plan. Their powerful claws quickly disposed of the wires holding it together, and they immediately discarded the pieces of wood and plastic; it was obvious that they were only interested in the metal. The mirror gave them pause. They held it up and stared at their reflections – invisible, of course, in the spyball’s acoustical image. ‘We rather expected them to attack – you can start a good fight by putting a mirror in a tank of fish. Perhaps they recognize themselves. That seems to indicate a fair level of intelligence.’ The scorps abandoned the mirror and began to drag the rest of the debris across the seabed. For the next frames, the views were hopelessly confused. When the image stabilized again, it showed a completely different scene. ‘We were in luck – things worked out exactly as we’d hoped. They’ve dragged the spyball into that guarded cave. But it isn’t the Queen Scorp’s throne room – if there is a Queen Scorp, which I very much doubt … Theories, anyone?’ There was silence for a long time while the audience studied the strange spectacle. Then someone remarked, ‘It’s a junk room!’ ‘But it must have a purpose -‘ ‘Look – that’s a ten-kilowatt outboard motor – someone must have dropped it!’ ‘Now we know who’s been stealing our anchor chains!’ ‘But why – it doesn’t make sense.’ ‘Obviously it does – to them.’ Moses Kaldor gave his attention-demanding cough, which seldom failed to work. ‘This is still only a theory,’ he began, ‘but more and more the facts seem to support it. You’ll notice that everything here is metal, carefully collected from a wide variety of sources … ‘Now, to an intelligent marine creature, metal would be very mysterious, something quite different from all the other natural products of the ocean. The scorps seem to be still in the Stone Age – and there’s no way they can get out of it as we land animals did on Earth. Without fire, they are trapped in a technological cul-de-sac. ‘I think we may be seeing a replay of something that happened long ago on our own world. Do you know where prehistoric man got his first supplies of iron? From space! ‘I don’t blame you for looking surprised. But pure iron never occurs in nature – it rusts too easily. Primitive man’s only source of supply was meteorites. No wonder they were worshipped; no wonder our ancestors believed in supernatural beings beyond the sky … ‘Is the same story happening here? I urge you to consider it seriously. We still don’t know the level of intelligence of the scorps. Perhaps they are collecting metals out of mere curiosity and fascination with their – shall I say magical? – properties. But will they discover how to use them, for anything more than decoration? How far can they progress – while they stay underwater? Will they stay there? ‘My friends, I think you should learn all you possibly can about the scorps. You may be sharing your planet with another intelligent race. Are you going to cooperate or fight? Even if they are not really intelligent, the scorps could be a deadly menace – or a useful tool. Perhaps you should cultivate them. By the way, look up the reference Cargo Cult in your History Banks … that’s C-A-R-G-O C-U-L-T. ‘I would love to know the next chapter in this story. Are there scorp philosophers, even now, gathering in the kelp forests – to consider what to do about us? ‘So please, repair the deep-space antenna so we can keep in touch! Magellan’s computer will be waiting for your report – as it watches over us on the road to Sagan 2.’