Lam’s pack swarmed into a larger space, leaving their tunnel for a low, tilting cavern. Most of the sunfish jumped to the ceiling and divided themselves into quartets. The intelligent females scuttled across the cavern floor, where they greeted more sunfish. Some of those sunfish held bits of metal.
The cavern was thirty meters across, yet only three meters tall where Lam’s pack had emerged. Other sunfish shrieked in holes hidden in the ceiling. Water dripped from two seams in the rock. Farther away, ice bulged through a cave-in, welding boulders and dust into a frozen wave of rivulets.
Closer, the tribe had erected a reservoir wall, protecting the tunnel down to their lesson place. Beneath the dripping water, the puddles were disturbed by eight splashing males.
“Lam, run your X-ray over the deepest parts again, please,” Metzler said. “Are those eggs? The sunfish look like they’re incubating a mesh of small objects with their bodies.”
—Incubating and harvesting, yes.
The puddle floors were laden with fibrous, round pouches. Dozens upon dozens of eggs crowded the black water.
Inside each pouch, a yolk sac attached to the embryo nurtured it as it developed. At least half of the eggs held twins or triplets. As Lam examined the pools, the males prodded and tasted the pouches, especially those with multiple embryos. The eggs that were tasted four times were pushed into the shallow, frost-rimmed edges of the pools.
The intelligent females bustled into the water, screeching. Vonnie thought they were protecting their eggs. She began to smile. But the females were correcting males’ choices. They shoved the males away from one batch and demonstrated how to reap another, older set of eggs.
“They’re culling their young,” Metzler said.
—The tribe has become too large to require a significant new generation. The more immediate need is balancing their food supply and adding to it.
“Yuck,” Ash said as the females shrieked at Lam and the other sunfish gathered on the ceiling.
They sprang down to the discarded eggs. Lam pretended to feast. He wrestled with his comrades and snapped at the eggs he won, coating his beak in pale goo, yet leaving the mashed eggs for others to eat.
The stupid, savage sunfish didn’t notice his deception. One of the intelligent females grabbed him and rubbed curiously at his underside. Then she returned to feeding herself.
Inside Lander 04, most of the ESA crew were silent, their faces set with awe and apprehension.
“How long do the eggs take to develop?” Metzler asked.
—Unknown. In comparison to human pregnancies, it’s a short duration. I estimate no more than two months. They hatch quickly, grow quickly, but mature slowly in regard to cognitive function and speech. Hence the growth and memorization lessons. Their young represent a constant drag on the average intelligence of the tribe.
“Look, this is interesting,” Ash said, “but sims of them chewing up their babies won’t help. We need to prove they’re not psychotic killers.”
The tribe finished eating. They nestled together to drowse as they digested the eggs.
It was a restless slumber. They formed quartets, many of which overlaid each other for comfort or warmth, although their arms snarled and clenched as they settled in, tugging at their neighbors, causing each other to cry out. Lam imitated them, taking position near the top of their loose pile.
Among the single-brained majority, his sensors recorded a phenomenon like automatic street lights winking off and on during a cloudy day on Earth. The electroencephalographic activity dimmed in their conscious hemispheres. Then similar readings began in the opposite halves of their brains.
“They’re switching over,” Johal said. “I wonder if it affects their personalities.”
—Unknown.
The intelligent females and males were circumspect in creating foursomes exclusively of their own kind. They rejected the few savages who bumped and sniffed at them, sending those individuals to nap with other single-brained members of the tribe. Then two of each foursome of the intelligent sunfish remained fully awake as their partners drowsed.
“You see what’s happening?” Metzler asked. “The gifted sunfish take turns guarding each other from their own tribe.”
“No,” Johal said. “They’re protecting them from themselves.”
Dreams came swiftly. The sleepers’ EEG readings spiked. One of the intelligent females tried to rise, screeching. Her comrades held her down. They soothed her with their arms and voices, forcing her to rest.
“When they’re somnolent, the intelligent sunfish revert to a single hemisphere,” Johal said. “They’re no smarter than the others in this state.”
“This is our chance,” O’Neal said. “Lam should approach the intelligent females who are awake and communicate with them alone. We don’t want a repeat of the group hostility in the lesson place.”
“Lam, what do the sunfish think is happening with the mecha and our probes?” Vonnie asked. “Do they have any idea?”
—Tom has held council with the other intelligent sunfish to discuss our probes and spies. They also know about your scout suit, which means they either crossed paths with you or absorbed the survivors from the tribes who did.
“They might have better long-range communications than we think,” Metzler said.
“What are you suggesting, messengers or sonar conduction through the rock?” O’Neal said.
“Both. I’ve been analyzing our data from the blow-out, and I wonder if Tom’s group didn’t summon the larger sunfish as reinforcements. What if the two breeds work together in a crisis?”
“I don’t buy it,” Ash said.
“They might have a universal sign for truce like the way Lam delivered himself to Tom’s group or Tom’s group proposed a treaty with the new colony,” Metzler said. “Lam, what else can you tell us about their councils?”
—Tom’s group conveyed a sense of the FNEE mecha to the new colony. There’s a combination of body shapes they use to describe what they heard, which was terrible strength. But they’re undecided if the FNEE mecha, our probes, spies, and Vonnie’s suit are related to each other. As far as they’re concerned, the probes may have been running from the FNEE mecha like the sunfish fled themselves. Their councils have speculated that the spies, the mecha, and Vonnie’s suit may be different species new to this region of the ice.
“Then they’re not so smart after all,” Ash said.
“In some ways, they’re more accepting than we are — less judgmental,” Vonnie said. “They’re used to meeting bizarre enemies. Remember the shell-eater NASA found. Where did it come from? The sunfish have experienced First Contact before.”
“Our probes never did anything to scare them.”
—Our probes’ conduct was incorrect. We always took the lower position.
“What do you mean?”
Lam opened a sim of Probe 112 in the catacombs with Tom, then another of 110 and 111 confronting the sunfish.
—From the beginning, our worst mistake has been applying a human frame of reference to Europa. The sunfish look inward, not upward. Their social hierarchy is bottom-to-top instead of top-to-bottom like ours. Lower is safer, warmer, wetter, with greater prospects for oxygen and food. They regard the ocean as the center of everything while the frozen sky represents the lowest reaches of their universe, where existence ends.
Vonnie’s heart roared in her ears as she stared at his sims. The ESA probes invariably stayed on the ground while the sunfish hopped to the walls or ceiling. During her own encounters, she’d knelt as close to the cavern floors as possible.