“I already have some idea, sir.” Bony gestured toward a port. “Things I discovered when I was outside the ship.”

Friday Indigo stared at him. “You sound afraid. You’re not scared, are you?”

“No, sir.” But Bony had been.

“You don’t have to be frightened, you know. Not with Friday Indigo as your pilot.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.” Bony knew that Liddy’s eyes were on him, and he felt like a spineless groveler. He and Liddy had agreed that a ship with Indigo flying it was worse than a ship with no pilot at all. “Let me tell you what I saw, sir.”

He summarized his findings while he had been outside. When it was told, rather than experienced with elevated pulse rate and nervous stomach, everything sounded flat and unremarkable. When he came to his description of the bubble shapes, Friday Indigo went over to the port.

“Where?”

Bony came to his side and looked at the peaceful forest of green-gold pikes, with beyond them a seascape fading into blue-green haze.

“You can’t see them from here. They were over on the other side of that ridge.”

“Are you sure you didn’t imagine them?”

“Quite positive.” But he could see that even Liddy was a little skeptical. “They were there.”

“Good. Then tomorrow we’ll go and take a look at them.”

Bony had to swallow before he could speak. “Our weapons won’t work underwater. Suppose that they’re dangerous?”

“We’ll be in suits. That should be protection against anything like teeth or poison. Your bubble-men won’t have anything more than that.” Indigo saw Bony’s mouth twitch. “They won’t, man. Use your brain. If you’re worried about lasers or explosives or projectile weapons, forget it. These are sea-creatures. It’s a well-known fact that creatures who develop in water, even if they are intelligent creatures, will never discover fire and never be able to develop technology.”

Bony wanted to say, “It’s not a well-known fact, it’s a well-known theory .” But it wasn’t worth getting into an argument. Even though Indigo was wrong, the captain would ride right over him. Instead Bony said, “Don’t you think it’s less important to learn about the bubble-creatures than to get the Mood Indigo working again?”

“How? You were the one who insisted that the fusion drive could never operate underwater.”

“It won’t. But what reason do we have for thinking that Limbo—”

“That what?”

“Limbo. This planet. It’s the way I’ve been thinking of the place. We entered a Link entry point back in our solar system, and now we’re in the middle of nowhere. In limbo.”

“Nonsense. We know that we’re in the Geyser Swirl. If only we could get a look at the stars …”

“That’s my point, sir. We’re in water at the moment, but we have no reason to think that the whole of Limbo is ocean. There could be land just a few kilometers away. If we could move the Mood Indigo onto land, we could see the stars and we could use the fusion drive to get off the planet.”

“Are you suggesting that we ask your froth-men the way to the nearest land?”

“No, sir!” Bony wanted nothing to do with those floating assemblies of bubbles. “I noticed that when I was outside and high on the underwater slope, the light seemed a lot brighter. It makes me think we’re not perhaps all that deep, maybe as little as thirty meters. The buoyancy of the heavy water is greater than ordinary water, because of its greater density. We might be able to float the ship to the surface more easily than we think.”

“Not a bad idea.” Indigo smiled at Bony. “Good work, Rombelle. Of course, before we do anything with the ship we have to be sure what we’ll find up at the surface. Are you volunteering to go out again and take a look?”

Bony was proposing no such thing. He had seen enough of deep-sea diving in modified space-suits for one day.

Before he could reply, Liddy said, “Let me do it. I’m no use fixing things inside the ship, but I’m sure I can put on a suit as well as anyone and go up to the surface.”

“Do it soon,” Indigo said, “before we have to worry about it getting dark.” And, as Bony tried to hide his surprise, “Did you think I was doing nothing, while you two were playing your games with airlocks and romping around outside? I adapted one of our light-meters and I’ve been monitoring the ambient light level for the ship since the time we arrived. This planet has a twenty-nine-hour day, and we’re more than halfway through the cycle. That means we have maybe five more hours before darkness.”

“I’ll get ready right now,” said Liddy. Bony was still staring at Friday Indigo. He had written the man off completely, and now here came common sense and a talent for improvisation. Maybe you didn’t have to be an idiot just because you were rich.

Indigo was nodding at Liddy. “Carry on, as soon as you’re ready. Be sure to carry extra weights and inflate your suit extra hard when you go up. That way, when you bleed away the excess air you’ll sink straight back down to the ship. The trip up to the surface will be useful even if you can’t see land. We can go again after it gets dark and try for a fix on the stars. That will answer one other important question: where are we in the Geyser Swirl.”

More sound sense from Friday Indigo. But Bony recalled the shape that had flown over him as he stood on the seabed, a form like a great three-leaf clover. Was that at the surface, or above it? He found himself saying, against his better judgment, “There may be other things up there. Don’t you think I should go with Liddy, as a backup if things go wrong? And shouldn’t we take a line with us, so that we can pull ourselves back if we get into trouble? And if we attach an insulated wire, we can have continuous two-way communication with the ship even though the radios don’t work in water.”

Indigo laughed. “My God, that’s four ideas from you in one day. You’re less of a fool than you look.”

A dubious compliment, at best. But Indigo was continuing, “Now here’s an idea for you. You said you intended to see if the suit control thrustors would still work under water, but you didn’t do it when you were outside. So why don’t you try it now? You can cruise around a bit on the way up or on the way down. Maybe you’ll see your mysterious froth-men, and find out what they are up to.”

It was phrased as a cheerful invitation, but Bony was under no illusions. He had to go outside again and face the horrible bubble creatures.

He turned to Liddy. “I’ll come and help you to operate the airlock. Just give me a half a minute, then I’ll be with you.”

Bony’s urge to go to the bathroom had returned. This time he felt sure that it would not vanish by itself.

8: RECRUITING AT THE VULCAN NEXUS

Salamander Row sits on the sunward side of the Vulcan Nexus. Shielded by four hundred million square kilometers of solar collectors, there is no visible evidence on the Row that the flaming disk of the Sun’s photosphere lies less than two million kilometers away. Other than the Salamanders, the residents of the Row need never see the Sun and can remain oblivious of the solar presence.

The Salamanders themselves are a different matter. As monitors and custodians of the great array they ride their refrigerated spacecraft hair-raisingly close to the solar furnace, skimming low above vast hydrogen flares and across the Earth-sized whirlpools of sunspots. Occasionally a cooling unit fails. Vehicle recovery is performed — always — but never the bodies of the crew members. Those are burned, what remains of them, out in space by their Salamander brethren. On Salamander Row, by convention, the names of the dead are recorded but they are not talked about. The Salamanders refuse to admit the power of King Sun. Other residents of the Row often seem determined to deny his existence.