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barked orders to them and the other crew, all in their work pods. A sour smell of tension crept into
Julia's nostrils, and the scent was not all her own.
"We're getting feed-through," Veronique called. "Something's putting big inductive voltages in the
whole damn plasma array."
Viktor blinked. "How far away is Proserpina?"
Veronique rapped out, "One thousand seventy-three klicks."
"What can put voltages all along a plasma conductor that long?" Veronique asked.
Nobody answered. The visible control display surged with red readings. "We're getting in deep here,"
Julia said softly.
Veronique cried, "Systems crash!"
Hiroshi leaped up. "I can't shut down the antenna systems at all. It's feeding back into us-"
A yellow arc cut through the space before them. They all bailed out of their couches and lay flat on the
deck as the snapping, curling discharge twisted in the air above. Viktor called, "Stay down! It's some
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high-voltage phenom-"
The crackling thing snarled around itself. Sparks hissed into the air. Coils flexed, spitting hard orange
light. When a coil approached the metal walls, it veered back, snaking into the open space. A smell like
burned carbon filled the air. The foot of it flared into blue-white, keeping contact with the wall terminals
where the antenna systems all fed. Julia watched it, keeping flat on her back.
Viktor said, "To break down air, the voltage is-"
"Megavolts," Veronique snapped. "Stay flat. Stick your head up, it'll draw current, fry you."
"They-it-is trying to kill us," Hiroshi said through clenched teeth.
The audio raged. Sparks snapped. Nobody moved. Then the discharge arched and twisted and abruptly
split. Yellow-green strands shaped into...
"Human shape!" Viktor said. "Making ... like us."
The shape was like a bad cartoon, never holding true for long. Elongated legs, wobbly head, arms that
flailed about in crimson disorder, hands jutting out, flailing, and then collapsing into sizzle and flicker.
Julia felt her heart thump. "They can see us! So they're sending us an echo, an image to-make some kind
of... communication?"
The figure wriggled and sputtered. Julia raised her right hand slightly into the singed air. A long
moment. Then slowly, agonizingly, the figure moved, too. It raised its left hand, mirror image. Wavered.
The hand flexed, and with a feeling of visible effort, shaped itself carefully into ... fingers. Thumb. The
skin of it was yellow-bright, surging like the surface of the sun in hot brilliance. Meanwhile, the body
faded into a pale ivory discharge, an electrical fog flickering on and off as if barely able to sustain the
sizzling voltage.
The Marsmat did something like this. Somehow they know we are visual animals. Maybe this is a
universal way to make contact. Get into the other's frame of perception...
Julia slowly flexed her fingers. The echoing fingers moved, too, suffused in a waxy, saffron-mellow
glow. It hovered in the air unsteadily, holding pattern, all energies focused on the shimmering, burnt-
yellow hand.
"Let's try-," Viktor began.
The arc snapped off. There was nothing in the air but a harsh, nose-stinging stench.
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Veronique was sobbing softly. Hiroshi jumped up and turned in all directions but could see nothing to
do. Somehow there was in the space an aching sense of vacancy.
Viktor patted Veronique on the shoulder, her mouth open and working but unable to say anything.
Hiroshi said, "They ... want to talk?"
"Talk?" Julia recalled what Viktor had said: This God might show up in person sometime. She laughed
with a high, nervous edge.
14
STICK-OUTS
They are truly tiny! Chill cried, awed.
Who? Crafter's tones were, as always, somber and of exceptionally long wavelength. The other Beings
had to strain to hear them.
Chill's voice wavered up the narrow spectrum. Long tones came from the blanket Chill had formed
around the solid, moving ships. It kept a gingerly distance from the spewing plasma plumes. The motes.
I slipped in-such small spaces!-and framed my eyes into receiving antennas. I saw them! Shaped so odd.
Not like a classical figure at all. Not elegant, like us. Is there such a thing as a chemical shape,
Instigator?
I have no idea, Instigator sent, deeply confused. Chemistry was the province of itself and of Crafter,
because they were the only ones who cared for such ugly, liquid matters. But a chemical shape? What
would masses driven by such blundering energies make themselves into? It strained the imagination.
Send describing images.
Five stick-outs from a rectangle-I can say picture no better. I saw four of these shapes.
A chorus of disgust, wonder, alarm. How did they change? Ring asked.
Chill's aurora surged with excited puzzlement. That is the oddity. They kept shape! Instead, one of them
moved one of its stick-outs.
Instigator was beginning to doubt all this. Chill might be merely having delusions, brought on by the
extremity of what it had attempted. Even with Crafter's help the task was probably impossible, after all.
How?
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They hold to shape, Chill answered. They could all see that he had unwrapped from the speeding mote,
careful not to diffuse into the plume of hard plasma that bloomed behind it. Sticks-outs upon stick-outs-
very strange. Then it moved. I moved to echo. It did, too!
Chemical intelligence? Forceful fumed redly. Nonsense.
Not! Mirk shot back. Chill has redeemed itself supremely. Has discovered more than even Instigator.
Forceful said, I will go into the thing. I do not like these motes. Crafter! Come-help me.
Crafter was silent.
Chill sent, alarmed, Do not!
Ring screamed, I can't go with you. She fearfully unlinked from Forceful.
Must. Forceful made its way toward the flaring, killing plume. Must.
15
THE VIOLENCE OF THE AMPERES
They were standing around, babbling in the way people have when tension is suddenly released, an
aroma rising from them, all nervous and quick-eyed and chattering. Primate patterns.
Then the alarm clanged again. Hair stood on end.
Julia dove for the floor. Veronique did, too, but she was the last to do so, and she paid for it.
The burnt-yellow discharge surged from the antenna board, snarling. The air bristled. A tendril shot
forth and caught Veronique as she fell. She crackled with the violence of the amperes that surged
through her. Julia watched as Veronique's mouth opened, a shrill shriek escaped-and then the mouth
locked open, frozen. Smoke fumed from her hair.
Veronique jerked, screamed. Her blue coverall sparked at the belt. She struck the deck, tiny fires arcing
from her fingers. Her hair burned away in a flash. She shuddered, twitched-was still.
A vagrant spark struck Hiroshi. He jerked, screamed. His jaw slammed shut, opened, yawned, slammed
down again. "Ahhh-!"
Again the electrical energy vanished.
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Seared silence. The acrid air stung their nostrils.
Viktor said bitterly, "They want to talk, do they?'
Hiroshi's breath whistled between broken teeth.
Julia sobbed beside Veronique's singed body.
16
TUBE WORM
Shanna flinched. The video feed was all too clear.
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