Robert L. Forward - Rocheworld 3 - Ocean Under the Ice

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Rocheworld Series].pdb

PDB Name: Ocean Under the Ice [Book 3 of

Creator ID: REAd

PDB Type: TEXt

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Creation Date: 16-8-1973

Modification Date: 16-8-1973

Last Backup Date: 1-1-1970

Modification Number: 0

======================

Ocean Under the Ice [Book 3 of the Rocheworld Series]

by Robert L. Forward and Martha Dodson Forward

======================

Fictionwise

www.Fictionwise.com

Science Fiction

---------------------------------

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original

purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk,

network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international

---------------------------------

*ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS*

The authors wish to thank the following people, who helped us in

several technical areas: Julie Forward Fuller, Eve Forward, Brian Kirk, Vonda

McIntyre, Gerald David Nordley, and Vernor Vinge.

The "Christmas Bush" motile was jointly conceived by Hans P. Moravec

and Robert L. Forward, and drawn by Jef Poskanzer using a CAD system.

All final art was expertly prepared by that terrific team in Marina Del

Rey, California -- MultiGraphics.

--------

*PROLOGUE*

The wind was not blowing as hard now, but it still had enough force to

whistle as it widened the grotesque tunnels it had carved in the icy

promontory. The bulging mound of compacted snow loomed above the dark waters

below, themselves nearly frozen and greasy-looking with irregular sheets of

ice. The wind had created the huge lump it was now destroying; shaping and

scraping the surface with hard-frozen dust as abrasive as diamonds;

undercutting the exposed surfaces at the vulnerable base of the bulge. Finally

the critical point was passed. With a horrendous crack, the snowy mound

separated along a nearly vertical fissure, and splashed into the cold ocean

waters.

In the city, Silver-Rim heard the splash. The icerug had never seen an

iceberg form, but it was aware of what had caused the explosive sound. The

red-colored sunlight flooding down from the rising Sun-God onto Silver-Rim's

acre-sized carpet warmed and invigorated the icerug as its velvet textured

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cyan-colored body absorbed the weak red sunlight and turned the energy into

food.

On the opposite side of the sky from the Sun-God was the strange new

moon that had arrived from outer space many seasons ago. Almost as big as the

other moons, it was not a sphere, but a flat circle. And instead of orbiting

the Night-God like all the other moons, it wandered as it willed. Right now,

it seemed to be moving closer to Ice.

With its attention now directed outward, Silver-Rim noticed that it was

easy enough to move, this morning. Silver-Rim had been composing a new song,

so intently that it had paid no attention to the weather. Now it realized too

that the wind was not blowing ice-dust into its eye and that it was able to

stand upright on its pedestal without having to lean into the wind. An

unusually substantial meal of country-raised flesh added to the icerug's

sensation of comfort, and Silver-Rim noted that it was indeed a good day.

Silver-Rim glided across its carpet toward the massive stone Grand Portal that

led to the Great Meeting Hall; in the distance it could see Clear-Eye making

for the same entrance. Clear-Eye's carpet, a brilliant blue, was easy enough

to distinguish even at a great distance, and Silver-Rim's large orb was

unusually keen, even for an icerug. The two met at the entrance, glided side

by side down the glittering hall upon their parallel travel strands, and

entered the music room chatting companionably.

"Hear this, now, Clear-Eye, I've been working on this melody all

night." Silver-Rim flipped open its dressy cloak, and two of its four

tentacles reached for the long, narrow harp with the thick strings. The

tentacles stretched and shortened themselves as they plucked the strings, and

the deeply rumbling notes of the new melody sounded sweet to both of them.

--------

*CHAPTER 01 -- SAILING*

Six lightyears distant from the Sun, a spacecraft sailed through the

sparse "wind" of photons emanating from the red dwarf star Barnard. The most

visible portion of the spacecraft was its gigantic circular lightsail, a vast

expanse of highly reflective aluminum foil, three hundred kilometers across.

As the dim red photons from Barnard bounced off the reflective surface of the

sail, they each gave the sail a tiny push. Together, the pushes added up to a

significant light pressure force that was able to increase or decrease the

orbital speed of the lightsail around the red sun, allowing the spacecraft to

move either inward or outward through the Barnard planetary system so that its

human crew could visit the multitude of planets and moons that orbited around

the star. The crew called the spacecraft _Prometheus_ -- the bringer of light

-- for it had arrived at Barnard traveling on a beam of blue-green laser light

-- transmitted across the vast interstellar distance between Sol and Barnard

by a gigantic sun-pumped laser.

Almost lost in the vast expanse of the lightsail was the habitat that

held the exploration crew, a cylinder as big as an apartment building,

connected by tension lines to the rigging. On the hydroponics deck of the

habitat, Nels Larson -- lounging comfortably in his regeneration tank -- was

giving instructions to his hydroponics deck crew, Cinnamon Byrd, Deirdre

O'Connor, and Katrina Kauffmann. Cinnamon had just awakened from her sleep

shift and was sipping quietly from her breakfast drink-ball squeezer full of

hot pseudo-coffee. Around the circumference of her drink-ball was painted a

scene of white snow-capped Alaskan mountain peaks interspersed by valleys

filled with glowing blue-green glacier fields. Her personal robotic imp on her

shoulder, its multicolored laser lights twinkling among its multibranched

green-laser-illuminated metallic "twigs", was carefully plaiting a braid of

her dark straight hair below her left ear. When the motile finished braiding,

it curled up the two short braids around Cinnamon's ears and settled itself

down in a band across the top of her head like a set of twinkling earphones.

One tiny twig from the motile, tipped with a deep red laser, reached in behind

her ear. From there it could monitor her pulse and vital signs, and using

laser reflection spectroscopy, even measure the chemical constituents of the

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blood flowing through the capillaries just under her light reddish-brown skin.

Another twig curved down to one side of her mouth where its tip could pick up

her slightest whisper.

Deirdre's imp was in its usual place, in a six-pointed star holding up

a mass of dark curls sitting on top of her head. One of its secondary twigs

was extended down near her mouth, while another touched her ear. Deirdre's

shoulder, which was normally occupied by her pet, Foxx, was empty; but there

was a large lump in Deirdre's right breast pocket. She leaned against a

stanchion, a quiet, slender figure -- unobtrusive in a soft brown coverall and

gleaming brown pseudo-leather ankle boots. As she held her own hot coffee

close to her nose, her sleeves revealed the glint of gold, from the thin

torques which encircled her wrists. These, along with the strange flat stone

in one ear-lobe, Deirdre wore always, without thinking of them. She squeezed

the drink-ball expertly, to inhale the aroma without actually dispensing any

liquid.

Katrina stood nearer the regen tank, her dark-blue eyes warm with

compassion and interest. It was seldom the petite biologist was able to look

down into another person's face. Nels had been patiently sitting in the

strange fluid for some weeks, and planned to spend another eight or ten. It

had been the alien flouwen who had taught him how to activate the leg growth

genes in his DNA that had been blocked by a chemical accident to his pregnant

mother, and had devised the chemical solution that would fool the cells in his

leg stumps into thinking they were in a mother's womb. He hopefully expected

that the result would be a serviceable pair of human legs, rather than the

flippers he had been born with. He'd lived 40 years with the result of that

accident to his mother, and he regarded this experiment with scientific

interest as well as personal desire. If the regeneration process worked on

him, it would work on anyone, and the whole world would benefit for centuries

to come from the knowledge that had been gained from the flouwen. Now he spoke

to his hydroponics deck crew, enlisting their aid in making sure the small

buds from the flouwen were well cared for.

"With the 'Littles' on board, we now have three more mouths to feed,"

he said. "And with me stuck in this regen tank, it's going to be up to you

three to carry the full load."

A deep voice spoke from the laser-illuminated spider-shaped imp sitting

on Nels's right shoulder. It was the distinctive voice persona of the ship's

main computer, James. "I can assign a 'Christmas Branch' subset of the ship's

motile to hydroponics shift duty."

"That won't be necessary, James," said Katrina. "The three of us can

easily manage the lab. Besides, the Christmas Bush has a lot to do just now,

taking care of both Nels and John."

Cinnamon agreed. "John is a long way from recovering from that

lung-full of ammonia-water he got on Rocheworld, and a sub-branch has to be

inside his lungs at all times, keeping the air passages clear. You and your

motiles are busy enough, James. We humans should do our part in keeping the

ship running. We'll handle the hydroponics deck." Then, not really

appreciating that she was about to add to James's workload, since she and the

rest of the crew had been taking James and its ever-present imps for granted

for decades, Cinnamon finished her coffee, and tossing her drink-ball lightly

into the air, she whispered out of the side of her mouth to the imp on her

ear, "Done."

A one-sixth-sized segment of her personal imp detached itself from her

hairband. Its three bottom "feet" blurred as they vibrated into motion, flying

the butterfly-sized motile through the air to the squeezer, where the fuzzy

fingers of its three front "hands" caught the container in its leisurely

low-gee trajectory and pushed it off through the air toward the central shaft.

The imp hadn't gone far before it was met by a larger imp that had flown up

from the galley. The galley imp took the drink-ball back down to the kitchen

where it would be cleaned and stored until Cinnamon asked for another cup of

coffee.

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"I'm mostly concerned about the food supply for the three flouwen,"

insisted Nels. "I'd like you to check and see how all the flora and fauna are

doing in the flouwen habitat tank. Now that we have left Rocheworld, and can

no longer get flouwen food supplies from its surface, it's important that they

not only survive, but thrive, in order to give the flouwen adequate variety in

their diet. I want the three Littles happy with their meals."

"We'll check that first," reassured Cinnamon, reaching over to adjust

the collar on Nels's coverall. "Anything else before the Christmas Bush gets

you ready for your sleep shift?"

"I keep worrying about potential problems, but when I check them out on

my control console, I find that one of you has anticipated me and have taken

care of it."

"We intend to keep it that way," replied Deirdre. She heard a rustling

sound in the corridor and looked around.

The Christmas Bush had arrived, walking along the carpeted corridor

using two of its six main appendages as legs, the fine fibers at the tips of

its hexfurcated feet gripping the carpet securely. Two of its "hands" were

carrying some objects. It stopped near Nels's tank and rearranged appendages

until it was implanted firmly into the carpet on just one "leg", leaving four

"arms" and a bushed-out "head". In this configuration, with its multicolored

laser lights glittering from the green-illuminated branches, the meter-tall

robotic motile looked very much like a small artificial Christmas tree. This

Christmas tree, however, was bearing some most unusual gifts in its branches,

a bar of soap, a squeezer full of hot water, some washcloths and towels, and a

custom-fabricated bedpan. Although Nels weighed almost nothing in the low

acceleration environment of the lightsail propelled spacecraft, he still had a

significant mass and it took a full-sized Christmas Bush to hold his body in

the proper positions while it assisted Nels in taking care of the necessities

of bodily hygiene.

Cinnamon spoke up. "Although I mostly trained as an EMT, I've learned

to give a good sponge bath. If James could use the Christmas Bush elsewhere,

I'd be glad to take over."

Nels's pale skin suddenly flushed all over, the blond hairs on his arms

standing out in sharp contrast to the reddening skin underneath. The blush

extended up his forehead and under his long blond swept-back hair.

"Ah-ah..." he stammered in panic.

The smaller "twigs" on the bushed-out top portion of the Christmas Bush

vibrated into invisibility, moving the air around it and causing the voice of

James to emanate from the "head" region of the motile.

"Thank you for the offer. But I think it best that I handle it,"

replied James. One of the "hand" branches of the motile elongated by a factor

of three and reached up to pull a curtain around Nels sitting in his tank. As

the curtain drew closed, Deirdre turned and grinned wickedly at Cinnamon, who

winked but said nothing. The constant presence of their personal imps tended

to make all the humans just a little watchful of their speech, and these two

were more reserved than most.

Katrina, Deirdre, and Cinnamon now left Nels and bounced off down a

long corridor on the hydroponics deck in low gravity leaps, their feet

occasionally pushing against the looped carpet that lined the floors, walls,

ceilings, and shafts throughout _Prometheus_. After using the central shaft

stanchion to swing themselves around a corner into another corridor, they

brought themselves to a halt by planting their feet firmly into the carpet and

bending their knees in a controlled flexing motion that absorbed their energy

and momentum. They were now standing motionless before the thick clear window

of the large habitat tank that held the three flouwen. The wedge-shaped tank

reached from floor to ceiling along one whole wall of the corridor. It was two

meters high, six meters long, and varied from two meters wide near the central

shaft to six meters wide near the outer walls.

Placed in the middle of the corridor was an out-of-place sofa, dragged

up from the lounge area and put facing the tank window. There was a couple

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relaxing in the thick pile sofa, held in place in the low gravity by Velcro

"sticky-patches" on the back belt-line of their coveralls. The small black

woman with the trim razor-creased uniform was Space Marine Major General

Virginia Jones, Commander of the Barnard Star Expedition, while the large

older white man was her second in command, Colonel George Gudunov.

When Deirdre saw the two mission commanders there, she moved around

behind Cinnamon and remained quiet, letting Cinnamon greet them. Wakened by

the bounding trip down the corridor, Deirdre's familiar was back on her

shoulder, its bushy reddish-brown tail nearly indistinguishable from Deirdre's

locks. Foxx belonged to a once rare, but now prospering, squirrel-like

marsupial species that Deirdre had discovered in the forests of South America

and saved from extinction. Katrina and Deirdre moved close to the tank,

looking intently at the small, flat, light-brown creatures visible on the

plants in the rear.

"Look you, Katrina, that gingersnap species is doing almost too well.

It's the balance that's tricky, to keep the water clean, and with exactly the

right proportion of nutrients."

"Right," murmured Katrina. "I'll do a thorough analysis." She bounded

off to the lab, and Deirdre bent closer, to watch the little plants undulating

in the stream of hot "smoky water" loaded with hydrogen sulfide and minerals.

The artificial volcanic vents were modeled after the ones occurring naturally

on Rocheworld, and were carefully designed to sustain the plant life, which in

turn nourished small animals, much enjoyed as food by the flouwen. The

hot-water vent-field was blocked off from the cold water in the larger part of

the tank by a maze of clear floor-to-ceiling baffles, backed up by circulation

pumps operating through holes in the tank sides. Deirdre automatically checked

the thermometers: the liquid, ten percent ammonia by weight, was well below

freezing in the habitat, and boiling hot near the vents. All was well within

the little world; they would not yet need the supply of dried and frozen

flouwen food they had brought with them from Rocheworld.

George was eating his evening-shift dinner from his flip-lidded

free-fall tray, while General Jones was on her morning-shift coffee break,

enjoying a drink-ball squeezer of coffee and a croissant. Her drink-ball had

two stars and the words "THE BOSS" painted on it. The two commanders were

conversing quietly about crew rosters and science schedules, while keeping a

relaxed eye on the contents of the tank. Inside the tank the brightly colored

flouwen swam around and around in hypnotic swirling motions.

"That smells heavenly, Jinjur," said Cinnamon, inhaling the delicious

aroma of the freshly-baked algae-flour croissant. "The galley imp must have

let Arielle into the kitchen again."

She was putting another tray into the oven when I left," replied

Jinjur. "If you hurry, there may still be some left."

"Order one for me too," added George, flipping up one of the lids on

his tray to take a peek inside. "I've got a little algae-butter left in my

condiments compartment."

After whispering a command to her imp, Cinnamon moved across the carpet

to the tank window. She crooned a melodic greeting as her light-brown fingers

touched the cold glass.

"Good morning! Good morning! Isn't it a lovely morning! Good morning!

Good morning to you!..." Cinnamon's imp picked up her song and passed it by

digitally-coded laser beams to the central computer James, who translated the

words into flouwenese, shifted the tune down in pitch to the flouwen's middle

range, then passed it along as a sonar signal to the alien creatures in the

tank.

The flouwen swimming in the habitat tank were shaped like amorphous

blobs of living jelly, each as big as a very large human. Their bodies were

brightly colored, and shimmered internally like a liquid opal. Each of the

flouwen in the tank had been budded off from a "primary" body, which was still

back on Rocheworld, a gigantic multiton creature many meters across. A

normal-sized flouwen was too large and heavy to be accommodated on human

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vehicles, but three of the flouwen had budded off a portion of themselves in

order to go exploring with the humans. The buds still retained the personality

and memory of the primary body, although they were slightly diminished in

mental ability because of their smaller size. On their return to Rocheworld,

the buds would rejoin the primary body and pass on the knowledge they had

gained.

One of the buds, called Little Red by the humans, was a bright

flame-red color. His primary back on Rocheworld, Roaring*Hot*Vermillion, was

called Loud Red by the humans. The second was Little White, with a partially

transparent opalescent milky-white color. He had budded from the flouwen,

Clear^White^Whistle, given the name White Whistler by the humans because of

his white color and high pitched whistling tones when he spoke. The third was

Little Purple, with a deep grape-colored purple hue. The oldest of the three,

he was many thousands of years old. He had budded from

Strong#Lavender#Crackle, called Deep Purple by the humans.

Upon hearing Cinnamon's greeting song, Little Red undulated over to the

window and spread himself against the inside of the window. Through the thick

glass Cinnamon could hear a modulated roar that ended in a whistling chirp. A

sonar pickup inside the tank sensed the sounds and sent them to James, who

translated them from flouwenese into English, and passed them on to Cinnamon's

imp via coded laser beams transmitted from laser diodes hidden in the corners

of the corridor ceiling.

*Are we there yet!?!* came Little Red's query out of the "earphones" of

the small imp on Cinnamon's head. The tone, although not the volume, was

James's attempt at a reasonable imitation of what Little Red probably sounded

like to the two older flouwen. *I'm bored! I want to go explore!*

"We've only just started," replied Cinnamon. "Although Rocheworld is

close to Gargantua in this part of its elliptical orbit, it's going to take

weeks to transfer to an orbit around Gargantua, and a few more weeks before we

are ready to land on one of Gargantua's moons."

*Too long!* complained Little Red.

Just then, one of the galley imps rose up in the lift shaft at the end

of the corridor, levitated by the rapidly beating twigs on three of its

"feet". In one "hand" it was carrying Cinnamon's drink-ball, while the other

"hand" held four still-steaming croissants. As the imp passed the croissants

out, Deirdre quietly accepted one, broke off one end, and passed it up to

Foxx, who took it in tiny paws.

The squeaks and chirps coming from the tank increased in frequency and

intensity as Little Red used his sonar to scan the corridor outside the tank.

Although the bodies of the flouwen were sensitive to light, they had no eyes,

and so normally they did not use light as a method of looking at things.

Instead they used sound pulses generated and detected by their bodies to

"see". In the liquid environment of their home ocean, this was a superior

method of observing things. It didn't depend upon light from the dim and often

absent Barnard, so the flouwen could "see" in the dark depths as well as they

could near the surface.

With sonar, the flouwen didn't just look at the surface of an object,

for the sonar penetrated inside the object and gave the flouwen a

three-dimensional image of what they were seeing. Sonar travels best in water,

and a portion of Little Red's penetrating sound pulses bounced off the thick

glass. Of the part that penetrated into the glass, a large portion was

reflected by the glass-air interface, and only a small portion reached the air

in the corridor. In the air, the sound waves traveled five times slower than

they did in the water, and by the time they reflected from the soft, absorbing

clothing of the humans, and back through the air, and glass, and into the

water, there was little left. It was enough, however, for Little Red to "see"

that Cinnamon was eating something.

*You eat!* Little Red announced. *I eat too!* The red flouwen peeled

itself off the window, and forming itself into an efficient swimming shape,

undulated away to the maze of baffles in the far corner of the habitat tank.

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The infinitely flexible body of Little Red had little difficulty in

penetrating the maze, so it wasn't long before he had jumped an animal that

looked like an orange-red blob -- as structureless as a flouwen. The animal

screamed as it attempted to elude the red pseudopods that Little Red formed

one after another to trap it.

"I think I'll go now," said George, getting up as Little Red caught the

small creature. He handed his tray to the galley imp, peeled himself off the

sofa, and pushed down the corridor to the central shaft.

"Me too," said Jinjur, following him while still carrying her squeezer

of coffee.

Cinnamon averted her eyes and left too, as Little Red started to tear

his living and still screaming prey apart into little pieces. Each little part

continued to scream until its sounds were finally muffled by being absorbed

into Little Red's body. As Cinnamon made her way down the corridor, she raised

a hand and made a twisting motion next to one of the "earphones" on her imp

headband, as if turning up the volume on a audio set. In response to the

motion, James obliged her by playing a loud Sousa march.

Deirdre, however, trying to learn as much as she could about the

little-observed process, looked dispassionately into the tank and watched

carefully as Little Red devoured his meal. The orange-red "rogue" that Little

Red was eating was one of a dozen that she and Cinnamon had budded from a

larger rogue in their Rocheworld fauna breeding tanks, and placed into the

flouwen tank vent field. The bud had originally been the size of a small

sausage, and now it was as big as her forearm. The vent field must be

operating well if the rogue grew that much in the few weeks since they set up

the flouwen habitat tank.

It wasn't pleasant watching Little Red eat, but Deirdre knew that

Little Red was doing what he must to survive. Deirdre had once raised snakes,

including large pythons that required rabbits for their weekly meals. Deirdre

had perforce become an expert at killing rabbits. It was unfortunate that the

food animals that the flouwen ate could not be humanely killed before being

eaten, but that was the way life was built on Rocheworld. Like the flouwen,

the rogues and most of the other Rocheworld fauna could not be killed. Trying

to kill a flouwen or a rogue was like trying to kill a slime mold or an ant

colony. One could tear any of them apart into smaller and smaller pieces, but

each piece would be just as alive as the larger piece, until finally only the

individual cells were left.

Little Red had torn the rogue into bits which were small enough to

digest easily, and they were now dispersed as separate orange-red blobs inside

the large flame-red blob that formed Little Red's body. Deirdre watched

carefully as the orange-red blobs grew smaller and smaller until there was

only flame-red where orange-red had once been. Deirdre had watched the process

of assimilation under a microscope and knew what was happening as Little Red

digested the rogue.

On Earth, where humans, animals, and plants have distinctively

proteins, the humans must digest the animal and plant proteins down to simple

compounds like sugars and starches and amino acids, then build them back up

into human proteins. On Rocheworld, where all the animal lifeforms used the

same basic cell, the process of digestion didn't go as far as it did on Earth.

The basic Rocheworld cell was quite large compared to a human cell and had a

dumbbell-shaped body of clear jelly that varied from glassy to almost liquid

depending upon the water content. When enlarged with water, it was the size of

the body of a very small ant. The cells replicated by growing larger,

splitting in two, then forming a necked down portion. A group of these cells

would spontaneously collect together into a cross-linked blob, with necked

down portions interlocking with end knob portions. On the surface of each cell

was a complex pseudo-random pattern of grooves and indentations that operated

as a "template" for the genetic code of the organism. In the higher animals,

such as the flouwen, portions of these patterns were changeable and served as

the repository for the long term memory.

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Once a blob of cells had collected together, a liquid crystal layer

would form between the cells, with the large complex organic chemicals in the

liquid crystal layer being determined and ordered by the grooves and

indentations in the surface of the cells. The optical properties of the thin

layer of liquid crystal gave the flouwen and the other fauna their distinctive

bright colors. The liquid crystal layer acted as the coordinating nervous

system or "brain" of the collection of cells. Because all of their body cells

were involved in their thinking and memory processes, the flouwen were, in

essence, all brain. The genetic code information in the surface of the cells

was used to organize the liquid crystal "brain", while the liquid crystal

layer in turn could impress grooves and patterns onto the cells to store

memories. When Little Red was "digesting" the rogue, all its body was doing

was dissolving the orange-red liquid crystal layer of the rogue, and using its

own flame-red liquid crystal to change the genetic pattern on the surface of

the cells, which then became Little Red cells.

Now that the screams had stopped, Cinnamon returned. With her was the

ship's chief engineer, Shirley Everett and one of the expedition's

geoscientists, Richard Redwing. Both were well over six feet tall and well

muscled, like professional basketball players. Shirley's long, blond braid was

held in place behind her left ear by her imp, shaped into a crescent-shaped

hairclip, while Richard bore his imp on his shoulder, like all the men on the

ship. They came up behind Deirdre, close to the window.

Deirdre had been so absorbed in watching Little Red eat, that she

hadn't been paying attention to the other flouwen in the tank. Now, she

noticed Little White plastered up against the tank window -- and her left ear

was ringing as if it were being subjected to intense noise. She turned to look

at the arrival of the other humans, and the pressures in her ears changed. At

the same time, she also finally noticed that Foxx was emitting a continual

complaining chitter, and was fussing with her ears. Deirdre then realized that

while she had been staring into the habitat tank at Little Red, Little White

had been staring out of the tank at her -- scanning her body with high

frequency sonar pulses.

^There is something moving on your shoulder,^ said Little White. ^It is

not the Talking@Sticks that some humans have on their shoulders. It has stiff

sticks inside, but it is covered with soft flesh and a thick fuzzy surface --

like hair -- but it covers the whole body, not just the top of the head. I

have never seen such a thing before. What is it?^

"It's my pet, Foxx," replied Deirdre. "The fuzzy surface on it is

called fur -- it is dark red in color."

^Interesting,^ said Little White. ^I must 'look' it using light as well

as see it using sound.^

*Pet with red color?!?* exclaimed Little Red. *I must look it too!*

The two flouwen each formed a pseudopod with a large spheroid at the

end and held the spheroid between their body and the window. After a few

moments concentration, the color of the red and white spheroids slowly began

to fade, while the intensity of the color in the arm of the pseudopod grew.

The flouwen were withdrawing the strongly colored liquid crystal layer from

between the transparent cells that made up the spheroid. Finally, all the

liquid crystal was gone, leaving only a transparent sphere. Initially, the

sphere was nearly invisible, since the jelly in the cells was nearly saturated

with water molecules, but as the flouwen squeezed the water from the cells,

they became denser and more visible, changing shape as it did so.

Finally, it transformed into a large thick "magnifying glass" held on

the end of the colored pseudopod of each flouwen, like a monocle on a stick.

The light from the corridor passed through the curved lens of transparent

flouwen flesh, which focused it onto the surface of the flouwen body behind.

There, the light-sensitive flesh of the flouwen could detect the hue and

intensity patterns of the light. It was the primary of Little White -- White

Whistler -- which had discovered the concept of a light-focusing lens some

decades ago, before the arrival of the humans, and had taught the other

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Page 8

flouwen the technique of making an eye that could focus light images.

Deirdre took Foxx down off her shoulder and brought the animal up near

the tank window so the flouwen could look at it more clearly. While the

flouwen watched, she had Foxx go through a few actions; racing up one arm and

back down another, hanging from a finger with one hind foot, and jumping from

one hand to another. All the while Foxx chittered away excitedly.

*What does it say?* asked Little Red. *I do not understand its talk!*

"It can't talk," replied Deirdre. "It just makes noises."

*It can't talk!?! Then it must be good to eat!* pronounced Little Red.

"We don't eat pets!" said Deirdre firmly.

With that revelation, Little Red was disgusted. *Pet not good for

talking! Pet not good for food! Pet not good for anything! Pet DUMB!* The red

flouwen absorbed its transparent "eye" back into its body and undulated away.

Little White, however, was still interested.

^I would like to know more about this Foxx creature.^

"James has a large file on Foxx and the many other animals on Earth,"

Deirdre replied. "You can look at it on your taste-screen console."

The white flouwen kept one portion of his body near the window holding

the imaging lens so he could continue to look at Deirdre and her pet, while

the rest flowed across the habitat tank to one wall that contained what looked

like the screen of a computer console. It was specially built by the ship's

computer James for use by the flouwen. In addition to the usual touch-screen

and optical display, it had a "taste-screen" overlay embedded with

electrochemical sensors and transmitters that allowed the flouwen to interact

with the central computer using the chemical senses that they normally used

for transmitting information. Soon, one part of Little White was tasting the

information on Foxx coming from James through the taste-screen on the wall,

while another part of Little White was looking at the surface of Foxx using

light focused through the lens onto its surface, and still another part of

Little White was seeing the entire volume of Foxx using sonar pulses.

^Very interesting creature,^ Little White said finally. ^Especially the

tail. Do humans have tails?^

"No!" replied Deirdre.

^Why not?^ asked Little White in the typical blunt flouwen fashion.

Deirdre was saved from having to answer by an announcement from James. "There

is a call coming up from the laser link communicator that was set up in Agua

Dulce bay on Rocheworld. Deep Purple wishes to converse with Little Purple."

Little Purple went over to the wall console, and Little White pulled

away from the screen and let Little Purple take his place. The conversation

didn't take long and Little Purple soon returned.

#My primary called to say it is leaving Agua Dulce for a while. It is

going to return to the beaches on the Isles of Thought, there to rock up and

continue its thinking on ... # there was a pause as James tried to translate

the thought, #... advanced mathematics.#, the translation ended lamely.

"I am sorry," James apologized to the humans through their imps. "There

is no referent known in human mathematics to the phraseology which the two

flouwen used in discussing the topic. I am quite appalled at my inability to

translate."

"If you think _you're_ dumb, James, how do you think that makes _us_

feel?" said Richard with feeling.

Little Purple continued to talk. #When I was talking to my primary,

there was a delay between my question and answer, as if my primary were far

away in the water. Why is that?#

"That's because the laser light used to send messages back and forth to

Rocheworld takes time to travel," replied Shirley.

#Is that true?# replied Little Purple. #If so, light must move very

fast. When lightning strikes ocean, light always comes before sound.#

"The speed of sound in water is about fifteen hundred meters per

second, while the speed of light is three hundred million meters per second --

two hundred thousand times faster." Shirley waited while James and Little

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Page 9

Purple carried on a side conversation to make sure that Little Purple had

understood what the metric units meant in terms of distances and time

intervals which the flouwen used.

#That is very fast indeed,# Little Purple finally agreed.

"But the distance between planets is so large that even light takes a

long time to travel from one planet to another, or in this case between

Rocheworld and _Prometheus_. Which is why you noticed a time delay.

Incidentally..." she added. "...I don't really understand it, but I am told

that the speed of light is always the same to every observer, no matter how

fast they are moving."

^That is not logical,^ interjected Little White. ^When I calculated

mathematical logic for motion of Barnard and Gargantua and other lights in

sky, that system of logic says that if one object is moving at one velocity

and another object is moving toward it at another velocity, the relative

velocity is sum of velocities.^

"I would agree with you," replied Shirley. "But I am told that the

logic which applies to massive bodies does not apply to light or objects

moving close to the speed of light. If you are traveling at the speed of

light, and a light beam is sent at you traveling at the speed of light, you do

not see the light beam coming at you at nearly two times the speed of light --

just one times the speed of light. For things that move very rapidly, you need

to use a different system of logic. It's called relativity theory ... and

don't ask me to explain it."

#A different logic for things that move very rapidly...# murmured

Little Purple in thought. Soon the dark purple body was visibly growing

smaller as it expelled water and became more dense in order to increase its

rate of thinking. #... the speed of light is always the same to every

observer...# The thinking purple blob moved slowly off to one corner,

thickening and becoming more and more purple as it shrank in size. Finally it

settled to the floor of the habitat tank as a deep purple rock -- a thinking

rock.

Little Red spotted his good friend Richard. *Hey! Richard! This tank is

too small! Get me out of here!*

"Sure, little buddy!" Richard replied. "Let me check out your drysuit

and we'll go for a walk so you can stretch your legs."

There was a short pause while Little Red listened to the translation

coming through James. Suddenly, the flouwen emitted a high pitched scream of

laughter that continued on and on as the red cloud literally turned itself

inside out. The portion of Little Red nearest them pushed deep into the center

of the body and burst out the back end, dragging the rest of the body around

with it. It split into an opening flower and continued back around, shaping

the convoluting body into a ring of rotating red jelly twirling like a smoke

ring. Little White, joining in the merriment, also gave a scream of laughter,

and, forming itself into a snake-like shape, sinuously wove its way through

the opening in Little Red's body. After a number of rotations, the red smoke

ring collapsed and the screaming subsided as the alien took its normal blob

shape.

*Stretch my legs! Little Red _have_ no legs! Richard FUNNY!*

Richard gave a broad grin in response, then looked up at the corridor

ceiling to find the two-meter-diameter airlock door set in the ceiling between

some air conditioning vents. Standing on tip-toe in his Velcro-bottomed

slippers, he added his long reach to his 195-centimeter-long frame, grabbed

the airlock latch and pulled the door open. This airlock had once been used

for access upward from the hydroponics deck into the first of their landing

rockets, the Surface Lander and Ascent Module, SLAM I. Now, on the other side

of the outer airlock door was attached all that was left of the original

lander, the Ascent Propulsion Stage for SLAM I, that had returned the

exploration crew safely back from their first visit to Rocheworld, after the

nearly disastrous crash of their exploration airplane, _Dragonfly I_.

Shirley, with the aid of James and the Christmas Bush, had made

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K:eMuleIncomingDr.RobertL.Forward-OceanUndertheIce[Book3oftheRocheworldSeries].pdbPDBName:OceanUndertheIce[Book3ofCreatorID:REAdPDBType:TEXtVersion:0UniqueIDSeed:0CreationDate:16-8-1973ModificationDate:16-8-1973LastBackupDate:1-1-1970ModificationNumber:0======================OceanUndertheIce[Book...

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