Being crowded into the gunmetal-gray passenger zone was bad enough. But with the alien, it was immeasurably worse. Fraq become more agitated as they descended. He opened his black suit, and his neck feathers ruffled with gray anxiety.

They sighted the black smoker after two hours. The crew said the smoky water was superheated to over 400°C. Hard to feel any difference in their narrow cabin, though, staring out at the bubbly black currents through the curved window shield. The stony field hundreds of meters wide rippled with superheated water coming through the ocean floor. The dingy currents were rich in dissolved minerals from deep in the Earth’s crust. Their craft descended through clouds of sulfides that loomed above the site. Brooding above this landscape were fogs that formed when the superhot water came in contact with the cold ocean above, making minerals precipitate. Below towered a black chimney-like structure around each turbulent vent. Sprays of mud came from ripe orange gouts at the smoker peak.

Fraq was withdrawn, not trying his Anglish at all. Natal spoke for him, from behind their seats, crowding the cabin. “He wants to know if this is truly the lowest spot in our oceans.”

“That’s what he wanted,” Rachel lied, though without technically doing so.

The translator eyed her. Getting to the truly deep sites, where the continental plates crunched and slid and pulled apart and lava erupted, was very difficult and dangerous. The Library would never take such a risk with a visiting alien, even if the alien wanted it. But the Earthers had their ways of bringing pressure to bear, underwater geysers be damned.

Fraq’s eyes danced, his chest heaved. Plainly he could barely breathe. Rasps of air escaped him and his nostrils flared. He rose from his specially molded chair and stared through the viewing port, mouth open. Rachel watched him, sensing that this sight carried some hidden meaning for him. Suddenly Fraq burst into a high, wracking burst of sound. The staccato bursts rang in the passenger chamber. Rachel blinked and wondered if the alien would become violent.

Natal leaned over and smiled. “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”

“That’s laughter?”

The woman shrugged, though Rachel could see she was also wary of the harsh, barking sound. What must it have been like for her, months of night-and-day contact with the alien, but never quite knowing what Fraq was up to? Not that anyone else had a clear idea, either. “Apparently it serves the same function that laughing does for us,” she said. “Releases unspoken tensions.”

Fraq began speaking in rapid-fire volleys. The sounds echoed and built, Ythri-speak in staccato. The translator frowned, and Rachel found it hard to breathe, to think. The cylinder hovered above the black smokers, and fizzing sounds came through the walls. Fraq gestured with his odd arms, fired off phrases, pointed out the viewport. Whirring currents rushed by and their hull resounded with whirring, clicking jolts as debris dinged into them.

The captain came on the speakers, his flat voice surrealistically bland. He pointed out bacteria growing in thick mats. These attracted crawling organisms that grazed slowly upon the dark-brown bacteria. Larger wriggling organisms appeared in the rich nutrient bath as they descended—snails, shrimp, crabs, tube worms, fish. A pink octopus leisurely groped in some prey from a rock fortress.