Startide Rising

14 ::: Dennie

Charles Dart pulled away from the polarization microscope and growled an oath. In a habit he had spent half his life trying to break, he absently laid his forearms over his head and tugged on his hairy ears. It was a simian contortion no one else aboard ship could easily duplicate. Had he noticed he was doing it, he would have quit instantly.

Of a crew of one hundred and fifty only eight aboard the Streaker even had arms… or external ears. One of these shared the drylab with him.

Commenting on Charles Dart's body behaviors did not occur to Dennie Sudman. She had long ceased to notice such things as his loose, rolling gait, his shrieking chimpanzee laughter, or the fur that nearly covered his body.

"What is it?" she asked. "Are you still having trouble with those core samples?"

Charlie nodded absently, staring at the screen. "Yeah."

His voice was low and scratchy. At his best, Charles Dart sounded like a man speaking with gravel in his throat. Sometimes, when he had something complicated to say, he unconsciously moved his hands in the sign language of his youth.

"I can't make any sense out of these isotope concentrations," he growled. "And there are minerals in all the wrong places… siderophiles without metals, complex crystals at a depth where there shouldn't be such complexity… Captain Creideiki's silly restrictions are crippling my work! I wish he'd let me do some seismic scans and deep radar." He swiveled about in his seat to look at Dennie earnestly, as if hoping she would concur.

Dennie's smile was broad under high cheekbones. Her almond eyes narrowed in amusement.

"Sure, Charlie. Why not? Here we are in a crippled ship, hidden under an ocean on a deadly world, with fleets from a dozen arrogant and powerful patron-lines fighting over the right to capture us, and you want to start setting off explosions and casting gravity beams around. Wonderful idea!

"Say! I've got an even better one! Why don't we just take out a large sign and wave it at the sky, something that says 'Yoohoo, beasties! Come and eat us!' Hmmm?"

Charlie cast a sidelong look at her, one of his rare, unhinged, lopsided grins. "Oh, they wouldn't have to be big gravity scans. And I'd only need a few teeny, tiny explosions for seismography. The ETs wouldn't notice those, you think?"

Dennie laughed. What Charlie wanted was to make the planet ring like a bell, so he could trace the patterns of seismic waves in the interior. Teeny tiny explosions, indeed! More likely detonations in the kiloton range! Sometimes Charlie seemed so single-minded a planetologist that it bothered Dennie. This time, however, he was obviously having some fun at his own expense.

He laughed as well, letting out brief whoops that echoed off the stark, white walls of the dry lab. He thumped the table beside him.

Grinning, Dennie filled a zip case with papers. "You know, Charlie, there are volcanoes going off all the time, a few degrees away from here. If you're lucky, one might start right near us."

Charlie looked hopeful. "Gee, you think so?"

"Sure. And if the ETs start bombing the planet to get at us, you'll have plenty of data from all the near misses. That is, if they don't bomb so hard as to make geophysical analyses of Kithrup moot. I envy you your potential silver lining. In the meantime, I intend to forget about it, and my own frustrating research, and go get some lunch. Coming?"

"Naw. Thanks, though. I brought my own. I think I'll stay and work for a while."

"Suit yourself. Still, you might try to see more of the ship, other than your quarters and this lab."

"I talk to Metz and Brookida all the time on screen. I don't need to wander around gawking at this Rube Goldberg contraption that can't even fly any more."

"And besides…" she prompted.

Charlie grinned. "And besides, I hate getting wet. I still think you humans should have worked on dogs second, after casting your spells on us Pan types. Dolphins are all right — some of my best friends are fins. But they were a funny bunch to try to make into a space-traveling race!"

He shook his head with an expression of sad wisdom. Obviously he thought the whole uplift process on Earth would have been better handled had his people been in charge.

"Well, they're superb space pilots, for one thing," Dennie suggested. "Look at how hot a star jockey Keepiru is."

"Yeah, and look at what a jerk-off that fin can be when he's not piloting. Honestly, Dennie, this trip has made me wonder if fins are really ready for spaceflight. Have you seen how some of 'em have been acting since we got into trouble? All the pressure is making some of 'em unravel, especially some of Metz's big Stenos."

"You're not being very charitable," Dennie chided. "Nobody ever expected this mission to be so stressful. I think most of the fen are doing marvelously. Look at how Creideiki slipped us away from that trap at Morgran."

Charlie shook his head. "I dunno. I still wish there were more men and chimps aboard."

One century, that's how much longer than dolphins chimps had been a recognized space-faring species. Dennie figured a million years from now they would still hold a patronizing attitude toward fins.

"Well, if you're not coming, I'm off," Dennie said. She took her notecase and touched the palm-plate by the door. "See you, Charlie."

The chimp called after her, before the door hissed shut behind her.

"Oh, by the way! If you run into Tkaat or Sah'ot, have em call me, eh? I'm thinking these subduction anomalies may be paleotechnic! An archaeologist may be interested!"

Dennie let the door close without answering. If she didn't acknowledge Charlie's request, she could feign ignorance later. There was no way she would go out of her way to speak to Sah'ot, whatever the significance of Charlie's find!

Avoiding that particular dolphin was already taking up too much of her time.

The dry sections of the starship Streaker were extensive, though they served only eight members of the crew. The one hundred and thirty dolphins — down by thirty-two since they had left Earth — could only visit the dry-wheel by riding a mechanical walker or "spider."

There were some rooms that should not be flooded with hyper-oxygenated water, nor be left to the gravity fluctuations of the central shaft when the ship was in space. There were stores that had to be kept dry, and machine shops that performed hot processing under gravity. And there were the living quarters for men and chimp.

Dennie stopped at an intersection. She looked down the hallway where most of the humans had their cabins and thought about knocking on the door two cabins down. If Tom Orley were in, this could be the time to ask his advice about a problem that was growing daily more irksome, the way to handle Sah'ot's unusual… "attentions."

There were few people better qualified to advise her on non-human behavior than Thomas Orley. His official title was Alien Technologies Consultant, but it was clear he was also out here as a psychologist, to help Dr. Metz and Dr. Baskin evaluate the performance of an integrated dolphin crew. He knew cetaceans, and might be able to tell her what Sah'ot wanted from her.

Tom would know what to do, but…

Her habitual indecision reasserted itself. There were plenty of reasons not to bother Tom right now, like the fact that he was spending every waking moment trying to find a way to save all of their lives. Of course, the same could be said of most of the crew, but experience and reputation suggested that Orley just might be able to come up with a way to get Streaker and her crew away from Kithrup before the ETs captured her.

Dennie sighed. Another reason to put it off was pure embarrassment. It wasn't easy for a young fem to ask personal advice of a mel as worldly as Thomas Orley. Particularly when the subject was how to cope with the advances of an amorous porpoise.

However kind Tom would be, he would also be forced to laugh — or obviously bite back laughter. The situation, Dennie admitted, would have to seem funny, to anyone but the object of the seduction.

Dennie quickened her pace up the gently curved corridor toward the lift. Why did I ever want to go into space, anyway? she asked herself. Sure, it was an opportunity to advance my career. And my personal life was in a shambles anyway, on Earth. But now where am I? My analysis of Kithrupan biology is getting nowhere. There are thousands of bug-eyed monsters circling over the planet slathering to come down and get me, and a horny dolphin's harassing me with suggestions that would make Catherine the Great blush.

It wasn't fair, of course, but when had life ever been fair?

Streaker had been built from a modified Snark hunterclass exploration vessel. Few Snarks were still in service. As Terrans became more comfortable with the refined technologies of the Library, they learned to combine the old and new — ancient Galactic designs and indigenous Terran technologies. This process had been in a particularly awkward phase when the Snarks were built.

The ship was a bulb-ended cylinder with jutting, crane-like reality flanges in five bands of five along her hull. In space the flanges anchored her to a protecting sphere of stasis. Now they served as landing legs as the wounded Streaker lay on her side in a muddy canyon, eighty meters below the surface of an alien sea.

Between the third and fourth rings of flanges, the hull bulged outward slightly for the dry-wheel. In free space the wheel rotated, providing a primitive form of artificial gravity. Humans and their clients had learned how to generate gravity fields, but almost every Earth ship still possessed a centrifugal wheel. Some saw it as a trademark, advertising what some friendly species had recommended Terrans keep quiet, that the three races of Sol were different from any others in space… the "orphans" of Earth.

Streaker's wheel held room for up to forty humans, though right now there were only seven and one chimpanzee. It also held recreation facilities for the dolphin crew, pools for leaping and splashing and sexual play during off-duty hours.

But on a planet's surface the wheel could not turn. Most of its rooms were tilted and inaccessible. And the great central bay of the ship was filled with water.

Dennie rode a lift up one of the spokes connecting the dry-wheel to the ship's rigid spine. The spine supported Streaker's open interior. Dennie stepped from the elevator into a hexagonal hallway with doors and access panels at all angles, until she reached the main bay lock, fifty meters forward of the wheel spokes.

In weightlessness she would have glided rather than walked down the long passage. Gravity made the corridor eerily unfamiliar.

In the bay-lock, a wall of transparent cabinets held spacesuits and diving gear. Dennie chose a bikini from her locker, and a facemask and flippers. Under "normal" circumstances she would have donned coveralls, a small jet belt, and possibly a pair of broad armwings. She could have leapt into the central bay and flown the humid air to any place she wanted, providing she was careful of the rotating spokes of the dry-wheel.

Now, of course, the spokes were still, and the central bay contained something more humid than air.

She quickly stripped and stepped into the swimsuit. Then she stopped in front of a mirror and tugged at the strings until the bikini was comfortable. Dennie knew she was attractively built. At least the mels she knew had told her so often enough. Still, slightly broad shoulders gave her an excuse for the self-reproach she always seemed to be looking for.

She tested the mirror with a smile. The image was instantly transformed. Strong white teeth brilliantly balanced her dark brown eyes.

She let it lapse. Dimples made her look younger, an effect to be avoided at all cost. She sighed and carefully pushed her jet black hair into a rubber diving cap.

Well, let's get this over with.

She checked the seals on her notecase and entered the lock. When she closed the inner hatch, fizzing saline water began flooding into the chamber from vents around the floor.

Dennie avoided looking down. She fumbled with her Batteau breather mask, making it snug over her face. The transparent membrane felt tough, but it passed air in and out freely as she took rapid, deep breaths. Numerous flexible plates around its rim would help pull enough air from supercharged oxywater. At the corners of her vision, the mask was equipped with small sonar displays, which were supposed to help make up for a human's substantial deafness underwater.

Warm bubbling wetness climbed her legs. Dennie readjusted her facemask several times. Her elbow pressed the notecase close against her side. When the fluid had almost reached her shoulders, she immersed her head and breathed hard with her eyes closed.

The mask worked. Of course, it always did. It felt like inhaling in a thick ocean mist, but there was enough air. A bit sheepish over her fearful little ritual, she stood up straight and waited for the water to rise over her head.

At last the door opened, and Dennie swam out into a large chamber where spiders, "walkers," and other dolphin gear lay neatly folded in recesses. Tucked into orderly shelves were racks of the small water jetpacks that the dolphins used to move about in the ship in weightlessness. The jets made amazing acrobatics possible in free fall, but on a planet, with most of the ship flooded, they were useless.

Usually one or two fen were in this outer dressing room, wriggling into or out of equipment. Puzzled by the emptiness, Dennie swam to the opening at the far end of the chamber and looked out into the central bay.

The great cylinder was only twenty meters across. The vista wasn't as impressive as the view from the hub of one of the space cities of Sol's asteroid belts. Still, whenever she entered the central bay, her first impression was one of vast and busy space. Long radial shafts stretched out from spine to cylinder wall, holding the ship rigid and carrying power to the stasis flanges. Between these columns were dolphin work areas, arrayed on supports of resilient mesh.

Dolphins, even the Tursiops amicus, didn't like being cooped up any more than they had to be. In space, the crew worked in the weightless openness of the central bay, jetting about in humid air. But Creideiki had to land his damaged ship in an ocean. And this meant he had also had to flood the ship in order to enable his workers to reach their instruments.

The bay shimmered with a barely suppressed effervescence. Here and there tiny streams of bubbles rose toward the curving ceiling. The waters of Kithrup were carefully filtered, solvents added, and oxygen forced in to make oxywater. Neo-dolphins had been gene-crafted to be able to breathe it, though they didn't enjoy it much.

Dennie looked around, puzzled. Where was everyone?

Motion caught her eye. Above the five-meter span of the central spine, two dolphins and two humans swam rapidly toward the ship's bow. "Hey!" she shouted. "Wait for me!"

The facemask was supposed to focus and amplify the sound of her voice, but to Dennie it sounded as if the water swallowed her words.

The fen stopped at once. In unison they swooped about toward her. The two humans swam on for a few moments, then paused and looked about, moving their arms slowly. When they caught sight of Dennie, one of them waved.

"Hurry up, honored biologissst!" A large, charcoal-gray dolphin in heavy work harness swooped past Dennie. The other one circled about impatiently.

Dennie swam as hard as she could. "What's going on? Is the space battle over? Has someone found us?"

A stocky black man grinned as she approached. The other human, a tall, stately, blonde woman, impatiently turned to go as soon as Dennie had caught up.

"Now, wouldn't we have heard alarms, then, if there'd been ETs cumin'?" The black man kidded her as they swam above the spine. Why Emerson D'Anite, with his dark coloration, chose at times to affect a burr was a secret which Dennie had yet to pry out of him.

She was relieved to hear they weren't under attack, but if the Galactics weren't coming to get them yet, what was all the fuss?

"The prospecting party!" The fate of the lost patrol had completely slipped her mind, so caught up had she been in her own problems. "Gillian, have they come back? Have Toshio and Hikahi returned?"

The older woman swam with a reaching, long-limbed grace that Dennie envied. Her low, alto voice somehow carried well through the water. Her expression was grim.

"Yes Dennie, they're back. But at least four of them are dead."

Dennie gasped. She had to make an effort to keep up. "Dead? How… ? Who… ?"

Gillian Baskin didn't slacken her pace. She answered over her shoulder. "We aren't sure how… When Brookida made it back, he mentioned Phip-pit and Ssassia… and told the rescue party they'd probably find others beached or killed."

"Brookida… ?"

Emerson jogged her with his elbow. "And where have you been? It was announced when he got in, hours ago. Mr. Orley took old Hannes and twenty crewfen to find Hikahi and the others."

"I… I must have been asleep at the time." Dennie contemplated slowly taking apart a certain chimpanzee. Why didn't Charlie tell me when I came in for work? It probably slipped his mind entirely. One of these days that chimp's monomania will cause somebody to strangle him!

Dr. Baskin had already pulled ahead with the two dolphins. She was almost as fast a swimmer as Tom Orley, and none of the other five humans aboard could keep up with her when she hurried.

Dennie turned to D'Anite. "Tell me about it!"

Emerson quickly summarized the story Brookida had told — of a killer weed, of a burning, falling star cruiser, and of the savage waves that followed its crash, setting off the desperate cycle of rescue fever.

Dennie was stunned by the story, especially young Toshio's role. That didn't sound like Toshio Iwashika at all. He had been the one person aboard Streaker who seemed younger and lonelier than she. She liked the middie, of course, and hoped he hadn't lost his life trying to be a hero.

Emerson then told her the most recent rumors — about an island rescue during a midnight storm, and aboriginal tool users.

This time Dennie stopped in midstroke. "Abos? You're sure? Native pre-sentients?" She tread water, staring at the black engineer.

They now were only ten meters from a great open hatch at the bow end of the central bay. Through it came a cacophony of high squeakings and chitterings.

Emerson shrugged. The action shook a coating of bubbles from his shoulders and the rim-plates of his facemask. "Dennie, why don't we go in and find out? So far all we have is gossip. They must be through decontamination by now"

From ahead there came a sudden, high-pitched whine of engines; then three white power sleds sped from the outlock hatch, single-file. They veered, one by one, around Dennie and D'Anite before either of them could move, leaving fizzing trails of supercritical bubbles in their wakes.

Strapped to the back of each, under a plastic shell, was an injured dolphin. Two of them had dreadful gashes in their flanks, crudely bandaged. Dennie blinked in surprise when she saw that one of them was Hikahi, Streakers third officer.

The ambulance sleds banked under the central spine and headed for an opening in the inner wall of the great cylinder. On the last sled, clutching a handrail, the dusky blonde who had accompanied them here allowed herself to be dragged along. With her free hand she pressed a diagnostic monitor to the flank of one of the wounded dolphins.

"No wonder Gillian was in such a hurry. It was stupid of me to slow her down."

"Oh, don't worry about it." Emerson held her arm. "The injuries didn't look like the kind you'd need a human surgeon for. Makanee and the autodocs can handle almost anything, you know"

"Still, there may be biochemical damage… poisons… I might be of use."

She turned to go, but the engineer's hand held her.

"You'll be called if it's anything Makanee or feMister Baskin can't handle. And I don't think you'll want to miss out on news that bears on your specialty."

Dennie looked after the ambulances, then nodded. Emerson was right. If she was needed, an intercom call would reach her anywhere, and a sled would arrive to fetch her faster than she could swim. They swam toward the buzzing of excited cetaceans in the outlock bay, and entered the forward chamber amid a swirl of swooping gray forms and a ferment of flying bubbles.

The forward outlock at Streakers bow was the ship's main link with the outside. The cylindrical wall was covered by storage cells, holding spiders, sleds, and other gear for crew who might leave the ship on errands. The bow had three great airlocks.

Port and starboard, the spacious chamber was taken up by the skiff and the longboat. The nose of each small spaceship almost touched the iris that would let it outside, into vacuum, air, or water, as needed.

The stern of the skiff stopped short of the rear bulkhead of the twenty-meter outlock, but the aft end of the larger longboat disappeared into a sleeve that extended into the maze of rooms and passages in Streakers thick cylindrical shell.

Overhead, a third berthing port lay empty. The captain's gig had been lost to a strange accident weeks before, along with ten crew members, at the region Creideiki had named the Shallow Cluster. Its loss, in the course of investigating the derelict fleet, was a topic seldom brought up in conversation.

Dennie gripped D'Anite's arm as another sled passed by more slowly than the white ambulances of sick bay. Sealed green bags were tied to its back. A bottle-like narrowness at one end of each, and a flat flaring at the other, revealed their contents.

There's no smaller bag, Dennie thought. Does that mean Toshio's alive then? Then she saw, by the decontamination lock, a young drysuited human in a crowd of dolphins.

"There's Toshio!" she cried, a little surprised at the intensity of her relief. She forced herself to speak in a calm tone. "Is that Keepiru next to him?" She pointed.

D'Anite nodded. "Yeah. They seem all right. By my count I guess that means Hist't hitched a sky-current. That's a rotten shame. We got along." Emerson's affected burr was completely gone as he mourned the loss of a friend.

He peered through the crowd. "Can you think of an official enough reason for us to shove in there? Most of the fen would get out of our way out of habit. But Creideiki's something else. He'll chew our asses off, patrons or no, if he thinks were hanging around useless and getting in the way."

Dennie had been thinking about just that. "Leave it to me." She led him into the jostling crowd, touching flipper and fluke to pry a passage through the press. Most of the fen moved to one side on catching a glimpse of the two humans.

Dennie looked about the squeaking, clicking mob. Shouldn't Tom Orley be here? she thought. He and Hannes and Tsh't were in on the rescue, weren't they? So why don't I see him anywhere? I've got to talk to him sometime soon!

Toshio looked like a very tired young man. Just out of decon, he slowly peeled off his drysuit as he spoke with Creideiki. Soon he floated naked but for a facemask. Dabs of synthetic skin coated his hands and throat and face. Keepiru drifted nearby. The exhausted dolphin wore a breather, probably under physician's orders.

Suddenly the spectators blocking Dennie's view began to spin about and dart away in all directions.

*… bands of idle gawkers -

cease their vain eavesdropping!

* Lest the nets of Iki find them -

for their lack of work and purpose!

The sudden cetacean dispersal buffeted Dennie and Emerson; in moments the crowd had thinned.

"Do not-t make me repeat myself!" Creideiki reiterated. His voice pursued the fleeing spacers. "All is done in here. Think clear thoughts and do your jobs!"

A dozen fen remained near the captain and Toshio: outlock personnel and the captain's aides. Creideiki turned to Toshio. "Go on then, little shark-biter, finish your story"

The boy blushed, nonplussed by the honorific. He forced his heavy eyelids open and tried to maintain a semblance of standard posture in the drifting current.

"Uh, I think that's about it, sir. I've told you everything Mr. Orley and Tsh't told me about their plans. If the ET wreck looks usable, they'll send a sled back with a report. If not, they'll return with whatever they've salvaged as quickly as possible."

Creideiki made small slow circles with his lower jaw. "A hazardousss gamble," he commented. "They'll not reach the hulk for a day, at least. More days, still, will pass without contact…"

Bubbles rose from his blowmouth.

"Very well, then. You shall rest, then join me for supper. I'm afraid your reward for saving Hikahi for us, and possibly all of our lives as well, shall be an interrogation the likes of which you might not even receive from our enemies."

Toshio smiled tiredly.

"I understand, sir. I'll happily let you wring me of information, just so long as I can eat first… and get dry for a while!"

"Done. Until then!" The captain nodded and turned to go.

Dennie was about to shout to Creideiki when someone else called out first.

"Captain, please! May I have a word?"

The voice was musical. The speaker was a large male dolphin with the mottled gray coloration of one of the Stenos sub-breeds. He wore a civilian harness, without the bulky racks or heavy manipulator arms carried by the regular crew.

Dennie felt a strong urge to hide behind Emerson D'Anite. She hadn't noticed Sah'ot in the crowd until he spoke.

"Before you go, sir," the dolphin fluted. His tone of voice was quite casual. "I must asssk you for permission to go to that island where Hikahi was stranded."

With a tail-flick Creideiki arched over bottom side up to regard the speaker. He addressed the fin skeptically. "Talker-to-races, this is not a fishbrew bar, this island, where poetry can buy back an error. Why venture now courage you never before displayed?"

Sah'ot lay still for a moment. In spite of her dislike of the civilian specialist, Dennie felt sympathy rise within her. Sah'ot's behavior at the derelict fleet, in refusing to go along with the doomed survey party, had not been admirable. He had acted like a prima-donna.

But he had been proven right. The captain's gig and ten fine crew members had been lost, along with Streakers former second in command.

All the sacrifice had gained them was a three-meter-long tube of some strange metal, thoroughly pitted by ages of micrometeorite impacts. It had been recovered personally by Thomas Orley. Gillian Baskin had taken over the sealed relic, and to Dennie's knowledge nobody else had seen it since. It hardly seemed worth the loss they had suffered.

"Captain," Sah'ot addressed Creideiki, "I believe that there is a matter that even Thomas Orley could not have had time to cover in detail. He has gone on to investigate the wrecked warship, but the island still does concern us."

No fair! Dennie had been ready to do this! It was to be an act of professionalism — of assertion, to speak out and demand…

"Honestly Captain," Sah'ot went on, "after our duty to escape this trap, and to serve the clan of Earth species, what is the most important responsibility that has fallen upon uss?"

Creideiki looked torn. He obviously wanted to chew Sah'ot's dorsal fin for baiting him like this. Also, obviously, Sah'ot had hit him with a double harpoon… mentioning the word "duty," and lacing it into a riddle. The captain thrashed his tail, giving out a low series of broad-band sonar clicks, like a watch ticking. His eyes were recessed and dark.

Dennie couldn't wait for the captain to figure the puzzle, or slap Sah'ot into a cell.

"The abos!" she shouted.

Creideiki turned and regarded her. Dennie blushed as she felt his field of analytic sound sweep over her. She knew the waves penetrated her very viscera, telling everything down to what she had had for breakfast. Creideiki frightened her. She felt very far from being patron to the powerful and involute mind behind that broad forehead.

The captain suddenly whirled about and swam to Toshio. "You still have those artifactsss that Thomas Orley selected, young hunter?"

"Yes, sir, I…"

"You will please lend them to Biologist Sudman and Race Speaker Sah'ot before you retire. When you've rested, collect them again, along with the specialists' recommendations. I will examine them myself during supper."

Toshio nodded. The captain flipped to face Dennie.

"Before I give permission, you must have a plan. You'll get little material assistance from me, and you will be recalled at any sign of danger. Can you accept these conditions?"

"Y yes… we'll need a monofilament cable to the ship, for a computer link, and…"

"Talk this over with Keepiru, before he rests. He must help you come up with something militarily acceptable."

"Keepiru? But I thought…" Dennie looked at the younger dolphin, and quickly bit back the tactlessness she had been about to utter. Silently wearing his breather, the pilot seemed unhappier than ever.

"I have my reasons, femsir. As a pilot, he is of little use while we are immobile. I can spare him from the work here, to be your field liaison… if I agree to your plan."

The captain's attention made Keepiru hunch slightly and look away. Toshio put a hand on Keepiru's sleek back. That, too, was a change. The two had never struck Dennie as fast friends before.

Creideiki's teeth shone in the bright lights of the bay.

"Is there more comment-t?"

Everyone was silent.

Creideiki thrashed his tail, then whistled the phrase of command termination. He arched and sped away with rapid, powerful strokes. His aides followed in his wake.

Keepiru watched until his captain passed out of sight. Then he addressed Dennie and Sah'ot.

* At your service, you will find me -

In my quarters, floating, breathing -

* After seeing Toshio resting… *

Toshio smiled when Dennie gave him a brief hug. Then he turned to swim away, arm over Keepiru's back, keeping to the fin's slow pace.

Just then one of the intrahull lift tubes opened and a blue and yellow shape bulleted out of the tube. A joyful racket filled the chamber as the ship's other midshipman speared past Keepiru and the boy, then zoomed around them in ever-tightening circles, chattering excitedly.

"Do you really think Toshio's going to get any sleep?" Emerson asked.

"Not if Akki makes him tell the entire story before he has supper with the captain." Dennie envied Akki and Toshio their fellowship, as constant and intense as any star. She watched the boy laughing as he fended off his friend until they disappeared into the tube.

"Well, sister," Emerson D'Anite grinned at Dennie. "It appears you have a science command. My congratulations."

"Nothing's decided yet," she answered. "Besides, Keepiru will be in charge."

"Keepiru will have military command. That part confuses me a bit. I don't know where Creideiki's aiming, assigning Keepiru that job after the way I hear he behaved out there. My guess is it's his way of getting the poor dollie out of his hai… hide."

Dennie had to agree, though she thought it a bit cruel.

She suddenly felt a smooth, flat touch on the inner part of her left thigh. She yelped and whirled around with her hand at her throat; then sighed when she saw that it was the neo-dolphin anthropologist, Sah'ot, who had slipped in his left pectoral fin to goose her. The Stenos gave her an uneven grin. His rough teeth shone brightly.

Dennie's heart pounded. "Shark-breath! Doggerel-rhymer! Go make love to an unwashed specimen bottle!" Her voice cracked.

Sah'ot reared back, his eyes momentarily white-rimmed in surprise. Apparently he hadn't expected Dennie to be so high-strung.

"Aw, Dennie," Sah'ot sighed. "I was jussst trying to thank you for interceding with Creideiki. Obviously your charms are more persuasive to him than any arguments I might raise. Sorry if I sstartled you."

Dennie sniffed at Sah'ot's double-edged apology. Still, her reaction might have been overdrawn. Her pulse slowly settled. "Oh… never mind. Just don't you sneak up on me like that!"

Without even turning around, she could feel Emerson D'Anite grinning behind his hand. Males, she thought. Do they ever grow up?

"Um, Dennie?" Sah'ot's voice crooned like a string trio. "There is one small matter we have to discuss, if we are going to be going on this expedition to the island together. Will you be churlish and let Creideiki choose the science commander on the basis of prejudice? Or will you give me a chance? Maybe we can wrestle for it-t-t?"

D'Anite started coughing. He turned the other way and cleared his throat.

Dennie blushed. "We'll let the captain decide what's best. Besides… I'm not sure both of us should go. Charlie told me his analysis of the planetary crust samples may be of interest to you… there are traces of paleotechnology in recent layers. You ought to go see him right away."

Sah'ot's eyelids narrowed. "That isss interesting. I'd thought this planet was fallow far longer than would allow paleotech-ch remnants."

But he dashed Dennie's hopes. "Alasss. Digging for long-toasted garbage of past Kithrupan civilizations cannot be half as important as making contact with pre-sentients and establishing a proper patron claim for you humans. We fins might have new client cousins before even neo-dogs are finished! Heaven help the poor creatures if the Tandu or Soro or similar ilk collect them!

"Besides," he soothed, "this is a chance for us to get to know each other better… and exchange professional information, of course."

Emerson D'Anite had to cough again.

"I've left the repairs for too long already, kids," he said. His burr was back in force. "I think I'll be gettin' on back to my engines, and let you two discuss your plans."

D'Anite's grin was barely suppressed. Dennie swore eventual revenge. "Emerson!" she hissed.

"Yes, lass?" He looked back at her innocently.

She glared, "Oh… I'll bet you haven't a drop of Celtic blood in your body!"

The dark engineer smiled at her. "Why, bairn, didn' ya know? All Scots are engineers, and all engineers are Scots." He waved and swam off before Dennie could think of a reply. Trapped, she cursed, by a cliche!

When D'Anite was out of earshot Sah'ot sidled close to Dennie. "Shall we start planning our expedition?" His blowmouth was near her ear.

Dennie started. Suddenly she noticed that everyone had gone. Dennie's heart beat faster, and her facemask seemed not to be giving her enough air.

"Not here we won't!" She spun away and began swimming. "Let's go to the wardroom. There are plotting boards… and airdomes! A man can breathe there!"

Sah'ot kept pace with her, uncomfortably close.

"Aw, Dennie…" he said, but he didn't press. Instead, he began to sing a low, atonal, hybrid melody in a complex and obscure dialect of Trinary.

Against her will, Dennie found herself drawn into the song. It was strange, and eerily beautiful, and it took her several minutes to realize that it was also dirty as hell.

15 ::: Stenos

Moki, Sreekah-pol, and Hakukka-jo spent their latest off-duty period as they had spent every one for weeks, complaining.

"He was down in my section again, t-today," Sreekah-pol griped, "sticking his jaw into everybody's work-k. Thinks he's ssso-o-o discreet, but he fills the sound-scape with his Keneenk-k echoes!"

Moki nodded. There wasn't any doubt who "he" was.

* Crying-Crooning

Talk, talk rhythms

* My group wags tails

To his Logic Logic! *

Hakukka-jo winced. Moki seldom spoke Anglic anymore, and his Trinary had a little too much Primal in it to be decent.

But Sreekah-pol obviously thought Moki's point valid. "All the Tursiopsss worship Creideiki. They imitate him and try to act like Keneenk-k adeptsss! Even half of our Stenos seem just as swallowed by his spell!"

"Well, if he can get-t us out of here alive, I will forgive even his nosy inspections," Hakkuka-jo suggested.

Moki tossed his head.

* Alive! Alive!

To deep, rich waters!

* Follow, Follow

A rough-toothed leader! *

"Will you make quiet-t-t?" Hakukka-jo swung about quickly to listen to the echoes in the rest area. A few crewfen were gathered by the food machines. They gave no sign of having heard. "Heed your scatter! You're already in trouble without clicking mutiny talk! I hear Doctor Metz has gone to Takkata-Jim to ask about you!"

Moki smirked defiantly. Sreekah-pol agreed with Moki's unspoken comment. "Metz won't do nothing," Sreekah said. "It'sss common knowledge half the Stenos aboard were chosen by him. We're his babiesss," Sreekah-pol crooned. "With Orley and Tsh't gone, and Hikahi in sick bay, the only's we gotta watch out for is the chief smartass himself,"

Hakkuka-jo looked about wildly. "You too? Look-k, will you be quiet? There comes K'tha-Jon!"

The other two turned the way he indicated. They saw a huge neo-fin swim out of a hull lift and head their way. Dolphins half his size got out of the giant's way quickly.

"So what-t-t? He is of us!" Sreekah-pol said uncertainly.

"He's also a bosun!" Hakkuka jo answered hotly.

"He hates Tursiopsss smartasses, too!" Moki cut in in Anglic.

"Maybe, but if so he keeps it to himself! He knows how humans feel about racism!"

Moki looked away. The dark mottled dolphin was like a lot of fins in holding the patron race in a sort of superstitious dread. He countered weakly in Trinary.

* Ask the black men -

The brown and yellow men

* Ask the whales -

About human racism! *

"That was a long time ago!" Hakkuka-jo snapped, somewhat shocked. "And humans had no patrons to guide them!"

"Jussst ssso…" Sreekah-pol said, but his agreement sounded unsure.

They all shut up as K'tha-Jon approached. Hakkuka-jo felt a recurring chill on contemplating the bosun.

K'tha-Jon was a giant, surpassing three meters in length with a girth that two men couldn't span with their arms. His bottle nose was blunt, and, unlike the other so-called Stenos aboard, his coloring was not mottled but deeply countershaded. Rumor had it K'tha-Jon was another of Dr. Metz's "special" cases.

The giant swam up nearby and exhaled a loud spurt of bubbles. His open jaws displayed a fearful array of rough teeth. The others almost unconsciously adapted a submissive posture, eyes averted, foodmouths closed.

"I hear there's been more fighting…" K'tha-Jon rumbled in deep Underwater Anglic. "Fortunately, I was able to bribe senior bosun S'thata with a rare sensie tape, and he agreed not to report it to the captain. I'll expect the cost of the tape to be covered by somebody, with interest-t…"

Moki seemed about to speak, but K'tha-Jon cut him off.

"No excuses! Your temper is a burden I can do without. S'thata would have been right to challenge you for biting him from behind like that-t!"

* Dare him! Dare him!

Tursiops coward!

* Dare him…

Moki barely blatted out the beginning before being slammed amidships by a blow from K'tha-Jon's mighty flukes.

He slewed several meters through the water before coming to rest, whistling in pain. K'tha-Jon came close and murmured softly.

"YOU are Tursiops! That is the name of our entire, Library-registered species! Tursiopsss amicusss… 'friendly bottlenose'! Ask Dr. Metz if you don't believe me! Embarrass the rest of uss aboard who have Stenos grafts in our genes — Vice-Captain Takkata-Jim and myself, for instance — by acting like an animal, and I will show you how to be a friendly bottlenose! I'll use your gutssss for hawsers!"

Mold trembled and turned away, jaw closed tightly.

K'tha-Jon swept the cowering fin with a contemptuous spray of sonar, then turned to regard the others. Hakkuka-jo and Sreekah-pol looked idly at the bright, decorative garibaldi and angel fish which were allowed to swim unmolested throughout the central bay. Hakkuka-jo whistled softly.

"Break is almost over," the bosun snapped. "Back to work-k. And save your hatred for your private time!" K'tha-Jon turned about and sped away, the turbulence from his flukes almost toppling the others.

Hakukka-jo watched him go, then whistled a long, low sigh.

That should do it, K'tha-Jon thought as he hurried off to duties in the cargo section. Moki, especially, would be quiet for a while. He had better be.

If there was anything he and Takkata-Jim did not need, it was a spate of racist innuendo and suspicion. Nothing would unite the humans in alienation like that sort of thing.

And catch the attention of Creideiki, too. Takkata-Jim insists we give the captain one more chance to come up with a plan to get us home alive.

All right, then, I can wait.

But what if he doesn't? What if he keeps asking for sacrifice from a crew that never volunteered to be heroes?

In that case, someone would have to be able to present the crew with an alternative to follow. Takkata-Jim was still reluctant, but that might not last.

If the time did come, they would need human support, and Moki's kind of interracial bullying could wreck the chances of that. K'tha-Jon intended to ride close herd on that Stenos, to keep him nice and docile.

Even if it was nice, from time to time, to chew the tail of some bloody, shore-hugging, sanctimonious, smartass Tursiops!

16 ::: Galactics

— Rejoice — crooned the fourth Brother of the Ebony Shadows. Rejoice that the fifth moon of the small dusty planet has been conquered! -

The Brothers of the Night had fought bitterly for this fulcrum of power, from which they would soon project irresistible might and sweep the skies of heretics and blasphemers. This moon would guarantee that the prize would be theirs, and theirs alone!

None of the other moons in the Kthsemenee system had the one attribute this one possessed: a core of almost one percent unobtainium. Already thirty of the Brothers' ships had landed, to begin construction of the Weapon.

The Library, as always, had been the key. Many cycles ago the fourth Brother of the Ebony Shadows had come across an obscure reference to a device once used in a war between two races now long extinct. It had taken him half of his lifespan to hunt down the details, for the Library was a labyrinth. But now would come his payment!

— Rejoice! — The cry resounded. It was a paean of triumph meant to be heard, and indeed a few of the other combatants began to notice that something curious was going on over in a corner of Kthsemenee's system. While the fiercest battles raged around the strategic gas-giant world, and Kithrup itself, some enemies had begun to send scouts this way to see what the Brothers of the Night were up to.

— Let them come and look! Can it matter? -

A ship of the Soro had been watching them for some time. Could it have divined their purpose?

— Never! The citation was too obscure! Our new weapon has sat unnoticed too long in the dusty archives. They will first understand when this moon begins to vibrate on the fifteenth probability band sending out waves of uncertainty that will tear their battle fleets apart! Then their shipboard Libraries will undoubtedly remember, but too late! -

The Brother of the Ebony Shadows watched from space as the resonator neared completion, watched as the grounded ships fed their combined energies to the resonator. From a thousand units out he could feel the wave build…

— What are they doing? What are the Progenitor-scorned Soro doing? -

instruments showed that the Brothers of the Night were not alone on the fifteenth band! From the Soro ship came a small tone, a variation of the beat emanating from the small moon. An echo.

The fifteenth band began to beat. It was impossible, but it resonated along with the Soro rhythm!

The Brothers on the ground tried to damp the runaway signal, but it was already too late! The small moon shook, and finally crumbled. Great shards of rock tumbled apart, crushing the little ships in their way.

— How could they have known? How could they… ? -

Then the Brother of the Ebony Shadows understood. Long ago, when he had begun his search for a new weapon, there had been a helpful Librarian… a Pilan. The Pilan had always been there with the useful suggestion, with the helpful reference. The Brother had thought nothing of it. Librarians were supposed to be helpful, and neutral, whatever their backgrounds.

— But the Pil are clients to the Soro — The Brother realized — Krat knew all along -

He gave the order sending his remaining forces into hiding. — This is only a setback. We shall yet be the ones to capture the Earthlings! -

Behind the fleeing remnants, the small moon continued to dissolve.

17 ::: Tom Orley

Hannes Suessi lay prone on the heavy work sled next to Thomas Orley. The gaunt, balding artificer gestured at the wreck before them.

"It's a Thennanin ship," the chief engineer said. "It's pretty badly crumpled, but there's no doubt. See? There are no objectivity anchors, only stasis projectors on the main flanges. The Thennanin are terrified of reality alteration. This ship was never designed to use a probability drive. Definitely, it's Thennanin, or a Thennanin client or ally."

The dolphins circled slowly nearby, taking turns at the airdomes underneath the sled, emitting excited sonar clicks as they eyed the gigantic crushed arrowhead below them.

"I think you're right, Hannes," Tom said. "It's a behemoth."

That the ship was still in one piece was amazing. In its Mach five meeting with the ocean, it had caromed off at least two small sub-surface islands — leaving substantial dents in them — and plowed a deep gouge in the ocean floor before

finally catching up against a furrow of pelagic mud, just before it would have smashed into a sheer scarp. The cliff face looked crumbly and precarious. Another substantial jolt would surely cause a collapse, burying the wreck completely.

Orley knew that it was the quality of the Thennanin stasis shields that had made such a performance possible. Even in dying, a Thennanin ship was reputed to be not worth putting out of its misery. In battle they were slow, unmaneuverable — and as hard to disable permanently as a cockroach.

It was difficult to assess the damage yet. Down here the illumination from the surface was blue-tinged and dim. The fen wouldn't turn on the arc lights they had strung up until Tsh't said it was safe. Fortunately, the wreck was in water shallow enough to visit, yet deep enough to shield them from spy eyes overhead.

A pink-bellied bottlenose dolphin swam up next to the sled. She worked her foodmouth in a thoughtful circular motion.

"It's really amazing, isn't it, Tom?" she asked. "It should be in a jillion piecesss."

This deep, there was an odd clarity to the fin's voice. Bursts of air from her blowmouth and sonar clicks joined in a complex manner to make speech an intricate juggling of bodily functions. To a landlubber human, a neo-dolphin speaking underwater sounded more like an avant-garde orchestra tuning up, than someone speaking a derivative of the English language.

"Do you think we can make any use of it-t?" The dolphin officer asked.

Orley looked again at the ship. There was a good chance that in the confusion of battle none of those contending over Kithrup had bothered to note where this sparrow had fallen. He already had a few tentative ideas, one or two of which might just be bold and unexpected — and idiotic-enough to work.

"Let's give it a look," he nodded. "I suggest we split into three teams. Team one heads for any center of emissions, particularly probability, psi, or neutrino radiation, and disables the source. They should also watch out for survivors, though that seems a bit unlikely."

Suessi snorted as he looked at the pounded wreck. Orley went on.

"Team two concentrates on harvesting. Hannes should lead that one, along with Ti-tcha. They'll look for monopoles and refined metals that Streaker might be able to use. With luck, they might find some replacements for those coils we need.

"With your permission, Tsh't, I'll take team three. I want to look over the structural integrity of that ship, and survey the topography of the surrounding area."

Tsh't did a jaw clap of agreement. "Your logic is good, Tom. That is what we'll do. I'll leave Lucky Kaa with the other sled, on alert. The ressst shall join their teams at once."

Orley grabbed Tsh't's dorsal fin as she was about to whistle the command. "Oh, we'd better go with breathers all around, hadn't we? Trinary may not be efficient, but I'd rather put off complex conversations in Anglic than have to risk everybody shuttling back and forth for air, and maybe someone getting hurt."

Tsh't grimaced, but gave the command. The party was composed of disciplined fen — the pick of Streaker's crew — so the gathering at the sled was occasion merely for low-pitched grousing and indignant bubbles as each dolphin was fitted with his wraparound hose of air.

Tom had heard of prototype breathers that would give a fin a streamlined air supply without hindering his speechmouth. If ever he found the time, he might try to rig some up himself. Speaking Trinary posed no real difficulty for him, but he knew from experience that the fen would have problems conveying technical information in anything but Anglic.

Old Hannes was already grumbling. He helped pass out the breathers with ill-disguised reluctance. The chief artificer was conversant in Trinary, of course, but he found the threelevel logic difficult. To cap things off he was a lousy poet. He obviously didn't look forward to trying to discuss technical matters in whistle rhyme.

They had their work cut out for them. Several of the picked petty officers and crew that had accompanied them on the rescue effort had gone back to the ship, escorting Toshio and Hikahi and the other victims of the stranding waves. Only a short score of fen remained in the party. Should anything dangerous come up they would have to take care of it themselves. No help from Streaker could arrive in time to do any good.

It would have been nice to have Gillian here, Tom mused. Not that inspecting alien cruisers was her area of expertise, but she knew fins, and could handle herself if things got sticky.

But she had work of her own aboard Streaker, trying to solve the puzzle of a billion-year-old mummy that should never have existed in the first place. And in an emergency she was the only other person aboard Streaker, barring, possibly Creideiki himself, who knew about the Niss machine, or its potential value if given access to the right data.

Tom smiled as he caught himself rationalizing again.

Okay, so there are good and logical reasons why the two of us can't be together right now. Take it for what it's worth. Do a good job here, and maybe you can be back to her in a few days.

There had never been any question, from the moment they had met as adolescents, that he and she would make a pair. He sometimes wondered if their planners had known in advance, in choosing gametes from selected married couples, that two of the growing zygotes would later fit together so perfectly — -down to the simple telempathy they sometimes shared.

Probably it was a happy accident. Human genetic planning was very limited, by law and custom. Accident or no, Tom was grateful. In his missions for the Terragens Council he had learned that the universe was dangerous and filled with disillusionment. Too few sophonts — even those equipped for it — ever got enough love.

As soon as the breathers had been distributed Tom used the sled's speaker to amplify his voice. "Now remember, everybody; though all Galactic technologies are based on the Library, that collection of wisdom is so huge that almost any type of machine might be inside that hull. Treat everything like it's booby-trapped until you've identified it and rendered it harmless.

"The first goal of Team One, after silencing the wreck, is to find the main battle computers. There may be a record of the initial stages of the fight above. That information might be invaluable to the captain.

"And would you all keep an eye out for the Library glyph? If you find that symbol anywhere, please note its location and pass word to me. I'd like to see what kind of micro-branch they were carrying."

He nodded to Tsh't. "Is that all right with you, Lieutenant?"

Streaker's fourth officer clapped jaw and nodded. Orley's politeness was appreciated, but she was likelier to bite off her own tail than overrule any suggestion he made. Streaker was the first large expedition ever commanded and operated by dolphins. It had been clear from the beginning that certain humans were along whose advice bore the patina of patronomy.

She called out in Trinary.

* Team One, with me -

To diffract above, listening

* Team Two, with Suessi -

To taste for treasure

* Team Three, with Orley -

To aid him scheming

* Drop nothing of Earth here -

To betray our visit

* Clean it up after -

If you must shit

* Think before acting -

In tropic-clear logic

* Now Streakers, with stillness -

Away! *

In precise order three formations peeled off, one group embellishing with a synchronized barrel roll as they passed Orley's sled. In obedience to Tsh't's orders, the only sound was the rapid clicking of cetacean sonar.

Orley rode the sled until he was within forty meters of the hulk. Then he patted Hannes on the back and rolled off to the side.

What a beautiful find the ship was! Orley used a hot-torch spectrograph to get a quick analysis of the metal at the edges of a gaping tear in the vessel's side. When he determined the ratios of various beta-decay products he whistled, causing the fen nearby to turn and look at him curiously. He had to make assumptions about the original alloy and the rate of exposure to neutrinos since the metal was forged, but reasonable guesses indicated that the ship had been fabricated at least thirty million years ago!

Tom shook his head. A fact like that made one realize how far Mankind had to go to catch up with the Galactics.

We like to think of the races using the Library as being in a rut, uncreative and unadaptable, Orley thought.

That appeared to be largely true. Very often the Galactic races seemed stodgy and unimaginative. But…

He looked at the dark, hulking battleship, and wondered.

Legend had it that the Progenitors had called for a perpetual search for knowledge before they departed for parts unknown, aeons ago. But, in practice, most species looked to the Library and only the Library for knowledge. Its store grew only slowly.

What was the point of researching what must have been discovered a thousand times over by those who came before?

It was simple, for instance, to choose advanced spaceship designs from Library archives and follow them blindly, understanding only a small fraction of what was built. Earth had a few such ships, and they were marvels.

The Terragens Council, which handled relations between the races of Earth and the Galactic community, once almost succumbed to that tempting logic. Many humans urged co-opting of Galactic models that older races had themselves co-opted from ancient designs. They cited the example of Japan, which in the nineteenth century had faced a similar problem — how to survive amongst nations immeasurably more powerful than itself. Meiji Japan had concentrated all its energy on learning to imitate its neighbors, and succeeded in becoming just like them, in the end.

The majority on the Terragens Council, including nearly all of the cetacean members, disagreed. They considered the Library a honey pot — tempting, and possibly nourishing, but also a terrible trap.

They feared the "Golden Age" syndrome… the temptation to "look backward" — to find wisdom in the oldest, dustiest texts, instead of the latest journal.

Except for a few races, such as the Kanten and Tymbrimi, the Galactic community as a whole seemed stuck in that kind of a mentality. The Library was their first and last recourse for every problem. The fact that the ancient records almost always contained something useful didn't make that approach any less repugnant to many of the wolflings of Earth, including Tom, Gillian, and their mentor, old Jacob Demwa.

Coming out of a tradition of bootstrap technology, Earth's leaders were convinced there were things to be gained from innovation, even this late in Galactic history. At least it felt better to believe that. To a wolfling race, pride was an important thing.

Orphans often have little else.

But here was evidence of the power of the Golden Age approach. Everything about this ship spoke silkily of refinement. Even in wreckage, it was beautifully simple in its construction, while indulgent and ornate in its embellishments. The eye saw no welds. Bracings and struts were always integral to some other purpose. Here one supported a stasis flange, while apparently also serving as a baffled radiator for excess probability. Orley thought he could detect other overlaps, subtleties that could only have come with aeons of slow improvement on an ancient design.

He was struck by a decadence in the pattern, an ostentation that he found arrogant and bizarre beyond mere alienness.

One of Tom's main assignments aboard Streaker had been evaluation of alien devices — particularly the military variety. This wasn't the best the Galactics had, yet it made him feel like an ancient New Guinea headhunter, proud of his new muzzle-loading musket, but painfully aware of the fact of machine guns.

He looked up. His team was gathering. He chinned his hydrophone switch.

"Everybody about done? All right, then. Subteam two, head off and see if that canyon goes all the way through the ridge. It'd cut twenty klicks of the route from here to Streaker."

He heard a whistle of assent from Karacha Jeff, leader of subteam two. Good. That fin was reliable.

"Be careful," he added as they swam off. Then he motioned for the others to follow him into the wreck through the seared, curled rent in its hull.

They entered darkened corridors of eerily familiar design. Everywhere were signs of the commonality of Galactic culture, superimposed with the idiosyncrasies of a peculiar alien race. The lighting panels were identical to those on ships of a hundred species but the spaces in between were garishly decorated with Thennanin hieroglyphs.

Orley eidetically examined it all. But always he looked out for one thing, a symbol that could be found everywhere in the Five Linked Galaxies — a rayed spiral.

They'll tell me when they find it, he reminded himself. The fins know I'm interested.

I do hope, though, they don't suspect just how badly I want to see that glyph.

18 ::: Gillian

"Aw, why should I? Huh? You aren't being very cooperative with me! All I want is to talk to Brookida for just a minute. It's not as if I was asking a lot!"

Gillian Baskin felt tired and irritable. The holo image of the chimpanzee planetologist Charles Dart glared out at her. It would be easy to become scathing and force Charlie to retreat. But then he would probably complain to Ignacio Metz, and Metz would lecture her about "bullying people just because they are clients."

Crap. Gillian wouldn't take from a human being what she had put up with from this self-important little neo-chimp!

She brushed aside a strand of dark blonde hair that had fallen over her eyes. "Charlie, for the last time, Brookida is sleeping. He has received your message, and will call you when Makanee says he's had enough rest. In the meantime, all I want from you is a listing of isotope abundances for the trans-ferric elements here on Kithrup. We've just finished more than four hours surgery on Satima, and we need that data to design a chelating sequence for her. I want to get every microgram of heavy metal out of her body as soon as possible.

"Now, if that's too much to ask, if you're too overworked studying little geological puzzles, I'll just call the captain or Takkata-Jim, and ask them to assign somebody to go down and help you!"

The chimp scientist grimaced. His lips curled back to display an array of large, yellowed, buck teeth. At the moment, in spite of the enlarged globe of his cranium, his outthrust jaw, and his opposable thumbs, he looked more like an angry ape than a sapient scientist.

"Oh, all right!" His hands fluttered and emotion made him stammer. "B-But this is important! Understand? I think Kithrup was inhabited by technological sophonts as recently as thirty thousand years ago! Yet the Galactic Migration Institutes had this planet posted as fallow and untouchable for the last hundred million!"

Gillian suppressed an urge to say, "So what?" There had been more defunct and forgotten species in the history of the Five Galaxies than even the Library could count.

Charlie must have read her expression. "It's illegal!" he shouted. His coarse voice cracked. "If it's true, the Institute of M-migration should be told! They might even be grateful enough to help get those crazy religious n-n-nuts overhead to let us alone!"

Gillian lifted an eyebrow in surprise. What was this? Charles Dart pondering implications beyond his own work? Even he, then, must think from time to time about survival. His argument about the laws of migration were naive, considering how often the codes were twisted and perverted by the more powerful clans. But he deserved some credit.

"OK. That's a good point Charlie," she nodded. "I'm having dinner with the captain later. I'll mention it to him then. I'll also ask Makanee if she'll let Brookida out a little early. Good enough?"

Charlie looked at her with suspicion. Then, unable to maintain so subtle and intermediate an expression for long, he let a broad grin spread.

"Good enough!" he rumbled. "And you'll have that fax in your hands within four minutes! I leave you in good health."

"Health," Gillian replied softly, as the holo faded.

She spent a long moment staring at the blank comm screen. With her elbows on the desk, her face settled down upon the palms of her hands.

Ifni! I should have been able to handle an angry chimp better than that. What's the matter with me?

Gillian gently rubbed her eyes. Well, I've been up for twenty-six hours, for one thing.

A long and unproductive argument about semantics with Tom's damned, sarcastic Niss machine hadn't helped at all, when all she had wanted from the thing was its assistance on a few obscure Library references. It knew she needed help to crack the mystery of Herbie, the ancient cadaver that lay under glass in her private lab. But it kept changing the subject, asking her opinion on various irrelevant issues such as human sexual mores. By the time the session was through, Gillian was ready to disassemble the nasty thing with her bare hands.

But Tom would probably disapprove, so she deferred.

She had been about to go to bed when the emergency call came from the outlock. Soon she was busy helping Makanee and the autodocs treat the survivors of the survey party. Worry about Hikahi and Satima drove all thought of sleep from her mind until that was done.

Now that they seemed to be out of danger, Gillian could no longer use adrenalin reaction to hold of that empty feeling that seeped in around the edges of a very rough day.

It's not a time to enjoy being alone, she thought. She lifted her head and looked at her own reflection in the blank comm screen. Her eyes were reddened. From overwork, certainly, but also from worry.

Gillian knew well enough how to cope, but coping was a sterile solution. Instinct demanded warmth, someone to hold close and satisfy that physical longing.

She wondered if Tom felt the same way at this moment. Oh, of course he did; with the crude telempathic link they sometimes shared, Gillian felt she knew him pretty well. They were of a type, the two of them.

Only sometimes it seemed to Gillian that the planners had been more successful with him than they had been with her. Everyone seemed to think of her as superbly competent, but they were all just a little bit in awe of Thomas Orley.

And at times like the present, when eidetic recall seemed more a curse than a blessing, Gillian wondered if she really was as neurosis-free as the manufacturer's warranty promised.

The fax printer on her desk extruded a hardcopy message. It was the isotope distribution profile promised by Charlie — a minute ahead of schedule, she noted. Gillian scanned the columns. Good. There was little variation from the millennia- old Library report on Kithrup. Not that she had expected any, but one always checked.

A brief appendix at the bottom warned that these profiles were only valid in the surface crust and upper asthenosphere regions, and were invalid any more than two kilometers below the surface.

Gillian smiled. Someday Charlie's compulsiveness might save them all.

She stepped from her office onto a parapet above a large open chamber. Water filled the central part of the room up to two meters below the parapet. Bulky machines stuck out above the water. The upper half of the chamber, including Gillian's office, was inaccessible to dolphins unless they came riding a walker or spider.

Gillian didn't bother with the folded facemask at her belt. She looked below, then dove, plunging between two rows of dark autodocs. The large, oblong glassite containers were silent and empty.

All the waterways of sick bay were shallow to allow open breathing and dry surgery. She swam with long, strong strokes, gripped the corner of one machine to make a turn, and passed through a stripdoor into the trauma unit.

She surfaced, open-mouthed, for air, bobbed for a moment, then swam over to a wall of thick leaded glass. Two bandaged dolphins floated in a heavily shielded gravity tank.

One occupant, connected to a maze of tubing, had the dull-eyed look of heavy sedation. The other whistled cheerfully as Gillian approached.

"I greet you, Life-Cleaner! Your potions scour my veins, but it's this taste of weightlessness which liftsss my spacer's heart. Thank you!"

"You're welcome Hikahi." Gillian treaded water easily, not bothering with the curb and rail near the gravity tank. "Just don't get too used to the comfort. I'm afraid Makanee and I are going to kick you out soon, as penalty for having such an iron constitution."

"As opposed to one of bismuth or c-c-cadmium?" Hikahi spluttered a razzberry-like chuckle.

Gillian laughed. "Indeed. And being healthy will be your tough luck. We'll have you out of here, breathing bubbles and standing on your tail for the captain in no time."

Hikahi gave her small neo-fin smile. "You're certain this isn't too risky, turning on thisss gravity tank? I wouldn't want Satima and me to be responsible for giving the show away."

"Relax, fem-fin." Gillian shook her head. "We triple-checked. The leak-detection buoys aren't picking up a thing. Enjoy it and don't worry.

"Oh, and I hear the captain may be sending a small team back to your island to examine those pre-sentients you found. I figured you'd be interested. It's a sign he's not worried about Galactics in the short term. The space battle may last a long time, and we might be able to hide indefinitely."

"An indefinite stay on Kithrup's not my idea of paradise!" Hikahi opened her mouth in a grin of irony. "If that's meant as cheery news, please warn me when your message is depressing!"

Gillian laughed. "I will. Now you get some sleep. Shall I turn down the light?"

"Yess, please. And Gillian, thanks for the news. I do think it's very important we do something about the abos. I hope the expedition is a success.

"Tell Creideiki I'll be back on duty before he can open a can of tuna."

"I will. Pleasant dreams, dear." Gillian touched the dimmer switch and the lights gradually faded. Hikahi blinked several times, apparently settling into a seaman's nap.

Gillian headed for the outer clinic, where Makanee would be dealing with a line of complaining crewfen at sick call. Gillian would show the physician Charlie's isotope profiles and then go back to her own lab to work for a while longer.

Sleep called to her, but she knew it would be a long time coming. In this mood that had come upon her she felt reluctant.

Logic was the blessing and the curse of her upbringing. She knew that Tom was where he was supposed to be — out pursuing ways to save them all. He knew it as well. His departure had been hasty and necessary, and there simply hadn't been time to seek her out to say good-bye.

Gillian was aware of all of these considerations. She repeated them to herself as she swam. But they only seemed to disconnect the larger from the smaller of her problems, and rob of poignant consolation the unattractiveness of her empty bed.

19 ::: Creideiki

"Keneenk is a study of relationships," he told his audience. "That part comes from our dolphin heritage. Keneenk is also a study of strict comparisons. This second part we learn from our human patrons. Keneenk is a synthesis of two world-views, much as we ourselves are."

About thirty neo-dolphins floated across from him, bubbles rising slowly from their blowmouths, intermittent unconscious sonar clicks their only sound.

Since there were no humans present, Creideiki did not have to use the crisp consonants and long vowels of standard Anglic. But, transcribed onto paper, his words would have pleased any English grammarian.

"Consider reflections from the surface of the ocean, where the air meets the water," he suggested to his pupils. "What do the reflections tell us?"

He saw puzzled expressions.

"Reflections from which side of the water, you wonder? Do I speak of the reflections felt from below the interface or from above?

"Moreover, do I mean reflections of sound, or of light?"

He turned to one of the attentive dolphins. "Wattaceti, imagine yourself one of our ancestors. Which combination would occur to you?"

The engine room tech blinked. "Sound images, Captain. A pre-sentient dolphin would have thought of sound reflections in the water, bouncing against the surface from below"

The tech sounded tired, but Wattaceti still attended these sessions, in a fervent desire for self-improvement. It was for the morale of fen like Wattaceti that the busy captain made time to continue them.

Creideiki nodded. "Quite right. Now, what would be the first type of reflection thought of by a human?"

"The image of light from above," the mess chief, S'tat, answered promptly.

"Most probably, though we all know that even some of the 'big-ears' can eventually learn to hear."

There was a general skree of laughter at the harmless little put-down of the patron race. The laughter was a measure of crew morale, and he weighed it as he might test the mass of a fuel cell by hefting it between his jaws.

Creideiki noticed for the first time that Takkata-Jim and K'tha-Jon had swum up to join the group. Creideiki quashed a momentary concern. Takkata-Jim would have signaled if something had come up. He seemed to be here simply to listen.

If this was a sign the vice-captain was ending his long, unexplained sulk, Creideiki was glad. He had kept Takkata-Jim aboard, instead of sending him out to accompany Orley and the rescue party, because he wanted to keep his exec under his scrutiny. He had reluctantly begun to think that the time might have come to make some changes in the chain of command.

He waited for the snickering to die down. "Consider, now. How are a human's thoughts about these reflections from the surface of the water similar to our own?"

The students assumed expressions of concentration. This would be the next-to-last problem. With so much repair work to oversee, Creideiki had been tempted to cancel the sessions altogether. But so many in the crew wanted desperately to learn Keneenk.

At the beginning of the voyage almost all the fen had participated in the lectures, games, and athletic competitions that helped stave off spaceflight ennui. But since the frightening episode at the Shallow Cluster, when a dozen crewfen had been lost exploring the terrifying derelict fleet, some had begun to detach themselves from the community of the ship, to associate with their own little groups. Some even began exhibiting a strange atavism — increasing difficulty with Anglic and the sort of concentrated thought needed by a spacer.

Creideiki had been forced to juggle schedules to find replacements. He had given Takkata-Jim the task of finding jobs for the reverted ones. The task seemed to suit the vice-captain. With the aid of bosun K'tha-Jon he seemed to have found useful work for even the worst stricken.

Creideiki carefully listened to the swish of flukes, the uncomfortable gurgling of gill-lungs, the rhythm of heartbeats. Takkata-Jim and K'tha-Jon floated quietly, apparently attentive. But Creideiki sensed in each of them an underlying tension.

Creideiki shivered. There had come a suddenly vivid mental image of the vice-captain's shrewd, sullen eye, and the bosun's great, sharp teeth. He suppressed it, chiding himself for having an overactive imagination. There was no logical reason to fear either of those two!

"We are contemplating reflections from an interface between air and water." He hurriedly resumed his lecture. "Both humans and dolphins envision a barrier when they consider such a surface. On the other side is a realm that is only faintly apparent until the barrier is crossed. Yet the modern human, with his tools, does not fear the water side, as he once did. The neo-fin, with his tools, can live and work in the air, and look down without discomfort.

"Consider how your own thoughts stretched out when I asked my original question. The idea of sound reflecting from below came to mind first. Our ancestors would have complacently stopped with that first generalization, but you did not stop there. You did not generalize without considering further alternatives. This is a common hallmark of planning creatures. For us it is a new thing."

The timer on Creideiki's harness chimed. It was growing late. Tired as he was, he still had a meeting to attend, and he wanted to stop at the bridge to find out if there had been any word from Orley.

"How does a cetacean, whose heritage, whose very brain is built on intuitive thinking, learn to analyze a complex problem, piece by piece? Sometimes the key to an answer is found in the way you formulate the question. I'll leave you all today with an exercise for your idle moments.

"Try to state the problem of reflections from the surface of water in Trinary… in a way that demands not a single answer, or a three-level opposition, but a plain listing of the reflections that are possible."

He saw several of the fen frown uncomfortably.

The captain smiled reassuringly. " I know it sounds difficult, and I will not ask you to recite today. But just to show you it can be done, accept the echo of this dream."

* A layer divides

sky-star — Sea-star

* What comes to us

At a narrow angle?

* The huntsqueaking starcatching octopus

Reflects!

* The night-calling, star following tern

Reflects!

* The star-twinkle in my lover's eye

Reflects!

* The sun, soundless, roaring showoff -

Reflects! *

Creideiki was adequately rewarded by the wide-eyed appreciation of his audience. As he turned to go, he noticed that even Takkata-Jim was shaking his head slowly, as if considering a thought that had never occurred to him before.

After the meeting broke up, K'tha-Jon persisted in his argument.

"You sssaw? You heard him, Takkata-Jim?"

"I saw and heard, Bosun. And, as usual, I was impressed. Creideiki is a geniusss. So what is it you wanted to point out to me?"

K'tha-Jon clapped his jaw, not the most polite gesture to make before a superior officer.

"He sayss nothing about the Galacticss! Nothing about the siege! Nothing at all about plans to get us away from here! Or, barring that, to fight-t!

"And meanwhile he ignores the growing split amongst the crew!"

Takkata-Jim let out a line of bubbles. "A split you have busily been encouraging, K'tha-Jon. No, don't bother protesting your innocence. You've been subtle, and I know you've been doing it to build a power base for me. So I look away.

"But don't be sure Creideiki will always be too busy to notice! When he does notice, K'tha-Jon, watch your tail! For I won't have known a thing about your little tricks!"

K'tha-Jon blew quiet bubbles, not bothering to reply.

"As for Creideiki's plans, we'll see. We'll see if he's willing to listen to Dr. Metz and myself, or if he persisssts in this dream of carting his secrets back to Earth unopened."

Takkata-Jim saw the giant Stenos was about to interrupt.

"Yesss, I know you think we should consider a third option, don't you? You'd like to see us head out and take on all the Galactics single-handed, wouldn't you, K'tha-Jon?"

The huge dolphin didn't answer, but his eyes gleamed back at the vice-captain.

Are you my Boswell, my Seaton, my Igor or my Iago? Takkata-Jim thought silently at the giant mutant. You serve me now, but in the long run, am I using you, or are you using

20 ::: Galactics

Battle screamed all around the flotilla of tiny Xappish warships.

"We have just lost the X'ktau and the X'klennu! That means almost a third of the Xappish armed might is gone!"

The elder Xappish lieutenant sighed. "So? Young one, tell me news, not things I already know."

"Our Xatinni patrons spend their clients like reaction gas, and commit their own forces miserly. Notice how they hang back, ready to flee if the battle gets too furious! Yet we they send into danger!"

"That is ever their way," the other agreed.

"But if the Xappish fleet is destroyed here, in this futile fray, who will protect our three tiny worlds, and enforce our rights?"

"Is that not what we have patrons for?" The older lieutenant knew he was being ironic. He adjusted the screens to resist a sudden psionic attack, without even changing his tone of voice.

His junior did not dignify the reply with a comment. He grumbled instead. "What did these Earthlings ever do to us, anyway? In what way do they threaten our patrons?"

A searing blast from a Tandu battle-cruiser just missed the left wing of the small Xappish scout. The junior lieutenant sent the ship into a wild evasive maneuver. The senior lieutenant replied to the question as if nothing at all had happened.

"I take it you don't believe the story that the Progenitors have returned?"

The other only snorted, while adjusting his torpedo sights.

"Aptly put. I, too, think this is merely part of a program to destroy the Earthlings. The senior patron races see the Terrans as a threat. They are wolflings, and therefore dangerous. They preach revolutionary uplift practices… more dangerous still. They are allies of the Tymbrimi, an insult beyond forbearance. And they proselytize — an unforgivable offense."

The scoutship shuddered as the torpedo leapt toward the Tandu destroyer. Their tiny craft accelerated mightily to get away.

"Well I think we should listen to the Earthlings," the junior lieutenant shouted. "If all the client races in the galaxy rebelled at once…"

"It has already happened," the elder interrupted. "Study the Library records. Six times in Galactic history. And twice successfully."

"No! What happened?"

"What do you think happened? The clients went on to become patrons of newer species, and treated them just the same as ever!"

"I do not believe it! I cannot believe it!"

The elder lieutenant sighed. "Look it up."

"I shall!"

But he never did. An undetected improbability mine lay across their path. The tiny scout departed the galaxy in a manner that was picturesque, if ultimately lethal.

21 ::: Dennie and Toshio

Dennie checked the charges one more time. It was dark and crowded in the close passage of the drill-tree root. Her helmet's beam cast stark shadows through the thick maze of rootlets.

She called upward. "Are you almost finished, Toshio?"

He was planting his explosives in the upper section, near the surface of the metal-mound.

"Yeah, Dennie. If you're done, go back down now. I'll join you in a minute."

She couldn't even see his flippered feet above her. His voice was distorted in the narrow, water-filled thicket. It was a relief to be allowed to leave.

She picked her way downward carefully, fighting back waves of claustrophobia. This was no job Dennie would ever have chosen. But it had to be done, and the two dolphins were by nature unqualified.

Halfway down, she snagged herself on a strand of creeper. It didn't let go when she tugged. Thrashing only entangled her further, and she vividly recalled Toshio's story of the killer weed. Panic almost closed in, but she forced herself to stop kicking, to take a deep breath and study the snare.

It was just a dead vine wrapped around one leg. The strand parted easily under her knife. She continued her descent more cautiously and escaped at last into the grotto beneath the metal-mound.

Keepiru and Sah'ot waited below. Hose-like breathers covered their blowmouths and wrapped around their torsos. The headlights of the two sleds diffracted through thousands of tiny threads that seemed to fill the chamber in a drifting fog. A dim light filtered into the grotto from the cave mouth through which they had entered.

* Echoes sounding, in this rock-cage

Will not be those of happy fishing *

Dennie looked at Sah'ot, unsure she had understood the poet's fancy Trinary.

"Oh! Yes. When Toshio sets the fuses, we'd better get outside. The explosion will reverberate in this chamber. I don't suppose that would be healthful."

Keepiru nodded in agreement. The expedition's military commander had been mostly silent all the way here from the ship.

Dennie looked around the underwater cavity. The coral-like, microscopic scavengers had built their castle on the rich silicate rocks of an ocean hillock. The structure had grown slowly, but when the mound finally breached the ocean surface toplife became possible. Among the vegetation which had sprouted was the drill-tree.

That plant somehow pierced the mound's metal core and penetrated to the organically useful layer beneath the island. Minerals were drawn up and deposited above. A cavity grew below, which would eventually accept the metal-mound into the crust again.

Something struck the ecologist in Dennie as odd about this arrangement. The tiny micro-branch Library aboard Streaker hadn't mentioned the metal-mounds at all, which was curious.

It was hard to believe the drill-tree could evolve into its niche in a gradual way, as most species did. For the tree to succeed was an all-or-nothing proposition, requiring great power and perseverance. How did it get that way? Dennie wondered.

And what happened to the mounds after they fell into the cavities the drill-trees prepared for them? She had seen some pits which had swallowed their mounds. Their depths were cloudy and obscure, and apparently far deeper than she would have expected.

She shone her beam on the bottom of the mound. The reflections were really quite startling. Dennie had expected something ragged and irregular, not a field of bright concave pits on the shining metal underside.

She swam to one of the larger depressions, bringing up her camera. Charlie Dart would like to get pictures and samples from this trip. She knew better than to expect thanks. More likely each tantalizing photo or rock would send him into exasperated sighs over her failure to follow up obvious leads.

Deep within one of the pits something moved, a twisting and slow turning. Dennie re-oriented her beam and peered closer. It was a root of some sort. She watched several of the tiny drifting threads fly within reach of the hanging tendril, to be caught and drawn within. She grabbed at a few for her sample bag.

"Let's go, Dennie!" She heard Toshio call. There was a thrumming sound as a sled moved just beneath her. "Come on! We've only got five minutes till they blow!"

"Okay, okay," she said. "Give me a minute." Professional curiosity momentarily overwhelmed other thoughts. Dennie could think of no reason why a living thing should burrow into the lightless underside of a mass of almost pure metal. She reached far into the pit and grabbed the twisting tendril root, then braced herself against the bulk of the mound and pulled hard.

At first the springy root was adamant, and seemed even to pull back. The possibility that she had trapped herself vividly occurred to Dennie.

The root tore free suddenly. Dennie glimpsed a shinyhard tip as she stuffed the specimen into a sample bag. She flipped and kicked away from metal surface.

Keepiru looked at her reproachfully as she grabbed the sled. He gunned the machine toward the cave entrance and out into the daylight, where Toshio and Sah'ot waited. Moments later a loud concussion sent booming echoes through the shallows.

They waited an hour, then re-entered the grotto.

The charges had shattered the drill-tree trunk where it pierced the bottom side of the metal-mound. The severed shaft canted at an angle below, continuing down into murky depths. Bits of debris still fell from the opening in the mound's bottom. The chamber below the island was thick with swirling shreds of vegetation.

They approached the opening cautiously. "I'd better check it out with a robot first," Toshio said. "There may be unstable chunks left in the shaft."

* I will do this — ladder runner

* Robots heed my — close nerve socket *

Toshio nodded. "Yeah, you're right. You do it, Keepiru." The pilot, with his direct machine-nerve interface, would be able to control the probe better than Toshio could. Of the humans aboard, only Emerson D'Anite and Thomas Orley had such cyborg links. It would be a long time before most humans could deal with the side effects of socket implantation as well as dolphins, who had needed the interface far more and had been bred for it.

Under Keepiru's direction, a small probe detached itself from the rear of the sled. It jetted of toward the hole and disappeared within.

Toshio had never expected to be sent right back out again with Keepiru — to a site where, in his opinion, neither of them had behaved particularly well. The importance of their mission, to serve and protect two important scientists, confused him even further. Why didn't Creideiki assign someone else? Someone more reliable?

Of course, the captain might have ordered all four of them out of the ship to get them out of his way. But that didn't seem to fit either.

Toshio decided not to try to pierce Creideiki's logic. Inscrutability seemed to be at the heart of it. Perhaps that was what it was to be a captain. Toshio only knew that he and Keepiru were both determined to do a good job on this mission.

As a midshipman he officially outranked Keepiru. But tradition made warrant officers and pilots masters of middies unless otherwise decided by higher authority. Toshio would be assisting Dennie and Sah'ot in their studies. On security matters, Keepiru was in charge.

Toshio was still surprised to find that others stopped and listened when he made suggestions; his opinions had been routinely solicited. That alone would take some getting used to.

The screen showed a picture sent back by the robot — a hollow cylindrical excavation through the foamy metal. Broken stumps were all that remained of the anchor bearings that had held the drill-tree shaft in place. Bits of debris drifted down past the camera as they watched.

As the robot rose, the light from above slowly grew brighter through a thin haze of bubbles.

"Think it's wide enough to pass a sled?" Toshio asked. Keepiru whistled that the passage looked navigable.

The robot surfaced into a pool several meters wide. Its camera panned the rim, transmitting images of blue sky and thick green foliage. The high trunk of the drill-tree had crashed into the forest. The slope of the pool made it hard to see the damage this had done, but Toshio was sure it hadn't fallen in the direction of the abo village.

They had worried that blasting a way to the interior of the island might panic the hunter-gatherers. They took the risk anyway, because routinely trying to scale the treacherous island walls in the open surf would have been dangerous, and a foolish exposure to Galactic spy satellites. The apparently random falling of a tree on an island would hardly be noted by anyone watching from above.

"Uh oh." Toshio pointed.

Dennie moved closer to look at the screen. "What is it, Tosh? Is there a problem?"

Keepiru stopped the camera as it was about to finish its scan. "There," Toshio said. "That jagged crop of coral is hanging over the pool. It looks about to fall."

"Well can you have the robot wedge something under to prevent it?"

"I don't know. What do you think, Keepiru?"

* Some scheme may work -

If fate buys it

* We'll make a gamble -

And simply try it

Keepiru eyed his twin screens and concentrated. Toshio knew the pilot was listening to a complex pattern of sound-images, transmitted over his neural link. Under Keepiru's command the robot moved to the edge of the pool. Its claw arms grabbed the spongy metal of the rim to pull forward. There was a small rain of pebbles as it brought its treads to bear.

"Watch out!" Toshio called.

The jagged rock tipped forward. The camera showed it tottering ominously. Dennie cringed back from the screen. Then the rock toppled over and crashed into the robot.

There followed a swirl of spinning images. Dennie continued watching the screen, but Toshio and Keepiru shifted their gaze to the bottom of the shaft. Suddenly a rain of objects fell from the gap, tumbling into the darkness below. The debris sparkled in the sled's beams as it dropped into the abyss.

After a long silence Keepiru spoke.

* The probe is down there — lungs unbreathing

* I was spared — the cutoff false-death

* It still whistles — stranded echoes *

Keepiru meant that the probe still sent him messages from whatever murky ledge had finally stopped it. Its tiny brain and transmitter hadn't been destroyed, and Keepiru had not suffered the jolt that a sudden cutoff could send to a connected nervous system.

But the robot's flotation tanks had been ruined. It was down there for good.

* That must be — the last obstruction

* I shall go then -

carefully,

testing -

* Dennie, take the sled — and watch me! *

Before Keepiru or Toshio could stop him, Sah'ot was off his sled and away. He fluked mightily and disappeared into the shaft. Keepiru and Toshio looked at each other, sharing a malign thought about crazy civilians.

At least, Toshio thought, he could have taken a camera with him! But then, if Sah'ot had waited, Toshio would have had a chance to insist on the dubious privilege of scouting the passage.

He looked at Dennie. She watched the robot probe screen, as if it might deliver some token about what was happening to Sah'ot. She had to be reminded, before she swam over and took control of the other sled.

Toshio had always thought of Dennie Sudman as one more adult scientist, friendly but enigmatic. Now he saw that she was not an awful lot more mature than he. And while she had the honor and status of a full professional, she lacked the eclecticism his officer training was giving him. She would never encounter the range of people, things, and situations he would, in the course of his career.

He looked again to the shaft entrance. Keepiru blew nervous bubbles. They would have to decide soon what to do if Sah'ot did not reappear.

Sah'ot was obviously a genetic experiment, in which the gene-crafters were pushing a set of traits toward a calculated optimum. If judged successful, the traits would be grafted back into the main pool of the neo-dolphin species. The process imitated, on a vastly quicker scale, the segregation and mixing that worked in nature.

Such experiments sometimes resulted in things not planned, though.

Toshio wasn't sure he trusted Sah'ot. The fin's obscurity wasn't like the inscrutability of Creideiki- — deep and thoughtful. It grated, like the dissembling of some humans he had known.

Also, there was this sexual game between Sah'ot and Dennie. Not that he was a prude. Such hobbies weren't exactly forbidden, but they had been known to cause problems.

Apparently Dennie wasn't even aware of the subtle ways in which she was encouraging Sah'ot. Toshio wondered if he had the nerve to tell her — or if it was any of his business.

Another tense minute passed. Then, just as Toshio was about to go himself, Sah'ot shot down out of the shaft and swooped toward them.

* The way is clear -

I'll lead you airward! *

Keepiru jetted his sled over to the dolphin anthropologist, and squawked something pitched so high that Toshio couldn't quite catch it, even with his Calafian sensitivity.

Sah'ot's mouth twisted and closed into a reluctant attitude of submission. Still, there was something defiant in his eye. He cast a look at Dennie, even as he rolled over to offer one of his ventral fins to Keepiru's mouth.

The pilot took a token nip, then turned back to the others.

* The way is clear -

I do believe him

* Now let us go -

and drop these breathers

* To talk like Earthmen -

about our work

* And to meet our future -

pilot brothers *

The sled moved under the drill-tree shaft, then rose in a cloud of bubbles. The others followed.

22 ::: Creideiki

The briefing had gone on far too long.

Creideiki regretted ever letting Charles Dart attend via holoscreen. The chimp planetologist would certainly have been less long-winded if he were here in the fizzing oxywater of the central bay, wet and wearing a facemask.

Dart lounged in his own laboratory, projecting his image to the conference area in Streaker's cylindrical bay. He seemed oblivious to the chafing of his listeners. Breathing oxywater in front of a console for two hours was highly uncomfortable to a neo-fin.

"Naturally, Captain," the chimp's scratchy baritone projected into the water. "When you chose to land us near a major tectonic boundary, I approved wholeheartedly. Nowhere else could I have had access to so much information in one spot. Still, I think I've made a convincing case for six or seven more sampling sites distributed about Kithrup, to verify some of the extremely interesting discoveries we've made here."

Creideiki was mildly surprised at the use of the first person plural. It was the first modest thing Charlie had said.

He glanced at Brookida, floating nearby. The metallurgist had been working with Charles Dart, his skills not currently required by the repair team. He had been largely silent for the last hour, letting the chimp pour out a tide of technical jargon which had left Creideiki dizzy.

What's the matter with Brookida? Does he think a captain under siege has nothing better to do?

Hikahi, recently released from sick bay, rolled over on her back, breathing the fizzing, oxygenated fluid and keeping one eye to the hologram of the chimpanzee.

She shouldn't do that, Creideiki thought. I'm having enough trouble concentrating as it is.

A lengthy, constricting meeting always did this to Creideiki. He felt a stirring of blood in and around his penile sheath. What he wanted to do was swim over to Hikahi and bite her softly in numerous places, up and down her flanks.

Kinky, yes, especially in public, but at least he was honest with himself.

"Planetologist Dart," he sighed. "I am trying very hard to understand what you claim to have discovered. The part about various crystalline and isotopic anomalies below the crust of Kithrup I think I follow. As for the subduction layer…"

"A subduction zone is a boundary of two crustal plates, where one slips below its neighbor," Charlie interrupted.

Creideiki wished he could let down his dignity to curse at the chimp. "I do know that much planetology, Dr. Dart." He spoke carefully. "And I'm glad our being near one of these plate boundaries has been useful to you. However, you mussst understand that our choice of a landing site was based on matters tactical. We want both the metals and the camouflage offered by the 'coral' mounds. We landed here in order to hide, and to repair our ship. With hostile cruisers overhead, I can't think of permitting expeditions to other parts of the globe. In fact, I must refuse your request for further drilling at this location. The risk is too great, now that the Galactics have arrived."

The chimp frowned. His hands began to flutter. Before he found the words, Creideiki cut him off:

"Besides, what does the ship's micro-branch say about Kithrup? Doesn't the Library contribute anything on these problems you face?"

"The Library!" Dart snorted. "That pack of lies! That friggin' morass of misinformation!" Charlie's voice dropped into a growl. "It has nothin' on the anomalies! It doesn't even mention the metal-mounds! The last survey was done over four hundred million years ago, when the planet was put on reserve status for the Karrank%…"

Charlie became so strangled around the extended glottal stop that he started to choke. He went bug-eyed and pounded himself on the chest, coughing.

Creideiki turned to Brookida. "Is this true? Is the Library so deficient in regard to this planet?"

"Yess-s," Brookida nodded slowly. "Four hundred epochs is a long time. When a planet is placed on reserve it's usually either to let it lie fallow while new species evolve to a level of pre-sentience ripe for uplift, or to provide a quiet place of decline for an ancient race that has entered senescence. Planets are placed off limits either to become nurseries or old age homes.

"Both seem to have occurred on Kithrup-p. We have discovered a ripe pre-sentient race which has apparently risen since the last Library update here. Also, the… Karrank-k%…" Brookida, too, had trouble with the name. "… were granted the planet as a peaceful place to die, which they apparently have done. There seem to be no Karrank%-%… anymore."

"But four hundred epochs without a re-survey?" It was difficult to imagine.

"Yes, a planet is usually re-licensed by the Institute of Migration long before that. Still, Kithrup is such a strange world… few species would choose to live here. Also, good access routes are scarce. This region of space is gravitationally very shallow. It'sss one reason we came here."

Charles Dart was still catching his breath. He drank from a tall glass of water. During the respite, Creideiki lay still, thinking. Despite Brookida's points, would Kithrup really have been left fallow for so long, in an overcrowded galaxy where every piece of real estate was desired?

The Institute of Migration was the only one of the loose Galactic bureaucracies whose power and influence rivaled even that of the Library Institute. By tradition, all patron-lines obeyed its codes of ecosphere management; to do otherwise courted galaxy-wide disaster. The potential of lesser species to one day become clients, then patrons in their own time, made for a powerful galaxy-wide ecological conservatism.

Most Galactics were willing to overlook humanity's pre-Contact record. The slaughter of the mammoth, the giant ground sloth, and the manatee were forgiven in light of Mankind's "orphan" status. The real blame was laid on Homo sapiens' supposed patron — the mysterious undiscovered race that all said must have left man's uplift half-unfinished, thousands of years ago.

Dolphins knew how close the cetaceans themselves had come to extinction at the hands of human beings, but they never mentioned it outside Earth. For well or ill, their fate was now linked to Mankind's.

Earth was humanity's until the race moved on or died out. Man's ten colony worlds were licensed for smaller periods, based on complex eco-management plans. The shortest lease was a mere six thousand years. At the end of that time, the colonists of Atlast had to depart, leaving the planet fallow once again.

"Four hundred million years," Creideiki mulled. "That seems an unusually long time with no re-survey of this world."

"I agree!" Charlie Dart shouted, now fully recovered from his fit.

"And what if I told you there's signs Kithrup was occupied by a machine civilization as recently as thirty thousand years ago? Without any entry in the Library at all?"

Hikahi rolled over closer. "You think-k these crustal anomalies of yours may be the garbage of an interloper civilization, Dr. Dart?"

"Yes!" he cried. "Exactly! Good guess!

"You all know many eco-sensitive races will only build major facilities along a planet's plate boundaries. That way, when the planet is later declared fallow, all traces of habitation will be sucked down into the mantle and disappear. Some think that's why there are no signs of previous occupancy on Earth."

Hikahi nodded. "And if some species settled here illegally… ?"

"They'd build at a plate boundary! The Library surveys planets at multi-epoch intervals. The evidence of the incursion would be sucked underground by then!" The chimp looked eagerly from the holo display.

Creideiki had trouble taking it all very seriously. Charlie made it sound like a whodunit! Only in this case the culprits were civilizations, the clues whole cities, and the rug under which the evidence was being swept was a planet's crust! It was the perfect crime! After all, the cop on the corner only swings by every few million years, and is late, at that.

Creideiki realized every metaphor he had just used was a human one. Well, that was to be expected. There were times, such as spacewarp-piloting, when cetacean analogies were more useful. But when thinking about the crazy politics of the Galactics, it helped to have watched a lot of old human movie thrillers, and read volumes of crazy human history.

Now Brookida and Dart were arguing some technical point… and all Creideiki could think of was the taste of the water near Hikahi. He badly wanted to ask her if the flavor meant what he thought it meant. Was it a perfume she had put on, or was it natural pheromone?

With some difficulty, he forced himself back to the subject at hand.

Charlie's and Brookida's discovery, under normal circumstances, would be exciting.

But this has no bearing on escape for my ship and crew, nor getting our data back to the Terragens Council. Even the mission I sent Keepiru and Toshio on, to help appraise the native pre-sentients, is more urgent than hunting arcane clues in ancient alien rocks.

"Excuse me, Captain. I'm sorry I'm late. I've been listening quietly for a while, though."

Creideiki turned to see Dr. Ignacio Metz drift up alongside. The gangling, gray-haired psychologist treaded water slowly, casually compensating for a small negative buoyancy. A slight pot belly distended the neat fit of his slick brown drysuit.

Brookida and Dart argued on, now about rates of heating by radioactives, gravity, and meteoritic impact. Hikahi, apparently, found it all fascinating.

"You're welcome even late, Dr. Metz. I'm glad you could make it."

Creideiki was amazed he hadn't heard the man approach. Metz normally made a racket you could hear halfway across the bay. He sometimes radiated a two kilohertz hum from his right ear. It was barely detectable now, but at times it was quite annoying. How could the man have worked with fins for so long and never had the problem corrected?

Now I'm beginning to sound like Charlie Dart! He chided himself. Don't be peevish, Creideiki!

He whistled a stanza which echoed only within his own skull.

* Those who live

All vibrate,

* All,

* And aid the world's

Singing *

"Captain, I actually came out here for another reason, but Dart's and Brookida's discovery may bear on what I have to say. Can we talk in private?"

Creideiki became expressionless. He had to get some rest and exercise soon. Overwork was wearing him down, and Streaker could ill-afford that.

But this human had to be treated carefully. Metz could not command him, aboard Streaker or anywhere, but he had power, power of a particularly potent kind. Creideiki knew that his own right of reproduction was guaranteed, no matter how this mission ended. Still Metz's evaluation would carry weight. Every dolphin aboard behaved as "sentiently" as he could around him. Even the captain.

Perhaps that's why I've put off a confrontation, Creideiki thought. Soon though, he would force Dr. Metz to answer some questions regarding certain members of Streaker's crew.

"Very well, Doctor," he answered. "Allow me a moment. I think I'm finished here."

Hikahi swam close at a nod from Creideiki. She grinned and flicked her pectorals at Metz.

"Hikahi, please finish up here for me. Don't let them go more than another ten minutes before summing up their proposalsss. I'll meet you in an hour in recreation pool 3-A to hear your recommendations."

She answered as he had addressed her, in rapid, highly inflected Underwater Anglic. "Aye aye, Captain. Will there be anything else?"

Damn! Creideiki knew Hikahi's sonar showed her everything about his sexual agitation. It was easy to tell with a male. He would have to do an explicit sonic scan of her innards to gain the same information about her, and that would not be polite.

Things must have been so much simpler in the old times!

Well, he would find out her frame of mind in an hour. One of the privileges of captaincy was to order a recreation pool cleared. There had better not be an emergency between now and then!

"No, nothing else for now, Hikahi. Carry on."

She saluted snappily with an arm of her harness.

Brookida and Charlie were still arguing as Creideiki turned back to Metz. "Will it be private enough if we take the long way to the bridge, Doctor? I'd like to check with Takkata-Jim before going on to other duties."

"That'll be fine, Captain. What I have to say won't take long."

Creideiki kept his face impassive. Was Metz smiling at something in particular? Was the man amused at something he had seen or heard?

"I am ssstill confused by the pattern of volcanoes up and down the three-thousand-kilometer zone where these two plates meet," Brookida said. He spoke slowly, partly for Charlie's benefit and partly because it was hard to argue in oxywater. There never seemed to be enough air.

"If you look at the sssurvey charts we made from orbit, you see that vulcanism is dispersed sparsely elsewhere on the planet. But here the volcanoes are very frequent, and all about the same small size."

Charlie shrugged. "I don't see how that relates at all, old man. I think it's just a great big coincidence."

"But isn't this also the only area where the metal-mounds are found?" Hikahi suggested suddenly. "I'm no expert, but a spacer learns to be suspicious of twin coincidences."

Charlie opened and closed his mouth, as if he were about to speak, then thought better of it. At last he said, "That's very good. Yes! Brookida, you think these coral critters may need some nutrient that only this one type of volcano provides?"

"Possssibly. Our exobiology expert is Dennie Sudman. She's now at one of the islands, investigating the aboriginals."

"She must get samples for us!" Charlie rubbed his hands together. "Do you think it'd be too much to ask her to take a side trip to a volcano? Not too far away, of course, after what Creideiki just said. Just a little, teeny one."

Hikahi let out a short whistling laugh. The fellow had chutzpah! Still, his enthusiasm was infectious, a wonderful distraction from worry. If only she could afford to hide away from the dangerous universe in abstractions, like Charlie Dart did.

"And a temperature probe!" Charlie cried. "Surely Dennie'd do that much for me, after all I've done for her!"

Creideiki cruised in a wide spiral around the swimming human, stretching his muscles as he arched and twisted.

By neural command he flexed his harness's major manipulators, like a human stretching his arms. "Very well, Doctor. What can I do for you?"

Metz swam a slow kick-stroke. He regarded Creideiki amiably. "Captain, I believe it's time to re-think our strategy a bit. Matters have changed since we came to Kithrup. We need a new approach."

"Could you be specific?"

"Certainly. As you recall, we fled from the transfer point at Morgran because we didn't wish to be crushed in a seven-way ambush. You were quick to realize that even if we surrendered to one party, this would only result in all sides ganging up on our captors, inevitably leading to our destruction. I was slow to understand your logic at the time. Now I applaud it. Of course, your tactical maneuvers were brilliant."

"Thank you, Dr. Metz. Of course, you leave out another reason for our flight. We are under orders from the Terragens Council to bring our data directly to them, without leaks along the way. Our capture would certainly be a 'leak,' wouldn't you say?"

"Certainly!" Metz agreed. "And so the situation remained when we fled to Kithrup, a move which I now consider inspired. To my way of thinking, it was just bad luck this hiding place didn't work as planned."

Creideiki refrained from pointing out that they were still concealed on this hiding place. Surrounded, but not yet in anyone's net. "Go on," he suggested.

"Well, so long as there was the possibility we could avoid capture altogether, your strategy of flight was good. However things have changed. The chance of escape is now next to nil. Kithrup remains useful as a refuge from the chaos of battle, but it can't hide us for long once there is a final victor overhead."

"You're suggesting we can't hope to avoid eventual capture?"

"Exactly. I think we should consider our priorities, and plan for unpleasant contingencies."

"What priorities do you consider important?" Creideiki already knew the answer to expect.

"Why, the survival of this ship and crew, of course! And the data for evaluating the performance of both! After all, what was our main purpose out here. Hmm?" Metz stopped swimming and treaded water, regarding Creideiki like a teacher quizzing a pupil.

Creideiki could list a half-dozen tasks that had been set for Streaker, from Library veracity checks, to establishing contact with potential allies, to Thomas Orley's military intelligence work.

Those tasks were important. But the primary purpose of this mission was to evaluate the performance of a dolphin-crewed and dolphin-commanded spacecraft. Streaker and her complement were the experiment.

But everything had changed since they had found the derelict fleet! He couldn't operate under the priorities he had been given at the beginning of the cruise. How could he explain that to a man like Metz?

Judgment, Creideiki mused, thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason… Sometimes he thought that the Bard must have been half dolphin, himself.

"I understand your point, Dr. Metz. But I don't see how it calls for a change in strategy. We still face destruction should we poke our beaks above the Kithrup's sea."

"Only if we do so before there's a winner overhead! Certainly, we shouldn't expose ourselves until the crossfire is over. However, we are in a position to negotiate, once there is a victor! And if we negotiate cleverly we may win success for this mission!"

Creideiki resumed his slow spiral, forcing the geneticist to swim again toward the bridge lock.

"Can you suggest what we might have to offer in negotiation, Dr. Metz?"

Metz smiled. "For one thing, we have the information Brookida and Charles Dart have literally dug up. The Institutes reward those who report ecological crimes. Most of the factions fighting over us are traditionalist conservatives of one stripe or another and would appreciate our discovery"

Creideiki refrained from expressing in razzberries his contempt for the man's naivete. "Go on, Doctor," he said levelly. "What-t else have we to offer?"

"Well, Captain, there's also the honor of our mission. Even if our captors decided to hold onto Streaker for a while, they'd certainly be sympathetic to our purpose. Teaching clients to use spaceships is one of the basic tasks of uplift. Surely they'd let us send a few men and fen home with our behavior-evaluation data, so progress toward future dolphin-crewed ships can continue. For them to do otherwise would be like a stranger interfering in the development of a child because of an argument with its parent!"

And how many human children were tortured and killed because of the sins of their parents, back in your own Dark Ages? Creideiki wanted to ask who would be the emissary to carry the uplift data back to Earth, while Streaker was held captive.

"Dr. Metz, I think you underestimate the fanaticism of those involved. But is there more?"

"Of course. I saved the most important for last." Metz touched Creideiki's flank for emphasis. "We must consider, Captain, giving the Galactics what they want."

Creideiki had expected it. "You think we should give them the location of the derelict fleet."

"Yes, and whatever souvenirs or data we picked up there."

Creideiki wore his poker face. How much does he know about Gillian's "Herbie," he wondered. Great Dreamer! But that cadaver's caused problems!

"You'll recall, Captain, the one brief message we got from Earth ordered us to go into hiding and keep our data secret, if possible! They also said we should use our own best judgment!

"Will our silence really delay the rediscovery of that Sargasso of lost ships for long, now that it's known to exist? No doubt half the patron-lines in the Five Galaxies have swarms of scouts out now, trying to duplicate our discovery. They already know to look in a poorly linked, dim globular cluster. It's only a matter of time until they stumble across the right gravitational tide pool, in the right cluster."

Creideiki thought that debatable. Galactics didn't often think like the Earthborn, and wouldn't conduct a search in the same way. Witness how long the fleet had lain undiscovered. Still, Metz was probably right in the long run.

"In that case, Doctor, why don't we simply broadcast the location to the Library? It'll be public knowledge, and no longer our affair. Surely this important discovery should be investigated by a licensed team from the Institutesss?" Creideiki was sarcastic, but he realized, as Metz smiled patronizingly, that the human took him seriously.

"You are being naive, Captain. The fanatics overhead care little about loose Galactic codes when they believe the millennium is at hand! If everyone knows where the derelict fleet is, the battleground will simply move out there! Those ancient ships will be destroyed in a crossfire, no matter how powerful that weird protective field that surrounds them. And the Galactics will still strive to capture us, in case we lied!"

They had arrived at the bridge lock. Creideiki paused there. "So it would be better if only one of the contesting groups got the data, and proceeded to investigate the fleet alone?"

"Yes! After all, what is that bunch of floating hulks to us? Just a dangerous place where we lost a scoutboat and a dozen fine crewfen. We're not ancestor-worshipers like those ET fanatics fighting over us, and we don't give a damn except intellectually whether the derelict fleet is a remnant from the days of Progenitors, or even the returning Progenitors themselves! It sure isn't worth dying over. If we've learned one thing in the last two hundred years, it's that a little clan of newcomers like us Earthfolk has got to duck out of the way when big boys like the Soro and Gubru get something up their snoots!"

Dr. Metz's silvery hair waved as he bobbed his head for emphasis. A fizzing halo of effervescence collected amongst the strands.

Creideiki didn't want to go back to respecting Ignacio Metz, but when the man became passionate enough to drop his stuffy facade, he became almost likable.

Unfortunately, Metz was fundamentally wrong.

Creideiki's harness clock chimed. Creideiki realized with a start how late it had become.

"You make an interesting argument, Doctor Metz. I don't have time to go into it any further, right now. But nothing will be decided until a full staff review by the ship's council. Does that sound fair?"

"Yes, I think so, although…"

"And, speaking of the battle over Kithrup, I must go now and see what Takkata-Jim has to say." He hadn't intended to spend so much time with Metz. He did not plan to miss his long-delayed exercise period.

Metz seemed unwilling to let go. "Ah. Your mention of Takkata-Jim reminds me of something else I wanted to bring up, Captain. I'm concerned about feelings of social isolation expressed by some of the crewfen who happen to come from various experimental sub-breeds. They complain of ostracism, and seem to be under discipline a disproportionate amount of the time."

"You're referring to some of the Stenos, I assume."

Metz looked uncomfortable. "A colloquial term that seems to have caught on, although all neo-fen are taxonomically Tursiops amicus…"

"I have my jaws on the situation, Dr. Metz," Creideiki no longer cared if he interrupted the mel. "Subtle group dynamics are involved, and I am applying what I believe are effective techniques to maintain crew solidarity."

Only about a dozen of the Stenos showed disaffection. Creideiki suspected an infection of stress atavism, a decay of sapiency under fear and pressure. The supposed expert, Dr. Metz, seemed to think the majority of Streaker's crew was practicing racial discrimination.

"Are you implying that Takkata-Jim is also having problems?" Creideiki asked.

"Certainly not! He's a most impressive officer. Mention of his name reminded me because…" Metz paused.

Because he's a Stenos, Creideiki finished for him silently. Shall I tell Metz that I'm considering moving Hikahi into the vice-captaincy? For all of Takkata-Jim's skill, his moody isolation is becoming a drag on crew morale. I cannot have that in my pod-second.

Creideiki sorely missed Lieutenant Yachapa-Jean, who had died back at the Shallow Cluster.

"Dr. Metz, since you bring up the subject, I have noticed discrepancies between the pre-launch psycho-biological profiles of certain members of the crew and their subsequent performance, even before we discovered the derelict fleet. I'm not a cetapsychologist, per se, but in certain cases I am convinced that the fen did not belong on this ship in the first place. Have you a comment?"

Metz's face was blank. "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about, Captain."

Creideiki's harness whirred as one arm snaked out to scratch an itch above his right eye. "I have little to go on, but soon I think I'll want to invoke command privilege and look over your notes. Strictly informally, of course. Please prepare them for…"

A chime interrupted Creideiki. It came from the comm link on his harness. "Yess, speak!" he commanded. He listened for a few moments to a buzzing voice on his neural tap.

"Hold everything," he replied. "I'll be right up. Creideiki out."

He focused a burst of sonar at the sensitive plate by the door lock. The hatch hummed open.

"That was the bridge," he told Metz. "A scout has returned with a report from Tsh't and Thomas Orley. I'm needed, but we will discuss these matters again, sssoon, Doctor."

With two powerful fluke strokes Creideiki was through the lock doors and on his way to the bridge.

Ignacio Metz watched the captain go.

Creideiki suspects, he thought. He suspects my special studies. I'll have to do something. But what?

These conditions of siege-pressure were providing fantastic data, especially on the dolphins Metz had inveigled into Streaker's complement. But now things were starting to come apart. Some of his subjects were showing stress symptoms he had never expected.

Now, in addition to worry about ET fanatics, he had to handle Creideiki's suspicions. It wouldn't be easy to put him off track. Metz appreciated genius when he saw it, especially in an uplifted dolphin.

If only he were one of mine, he thought of Creideiki. If only I could take credit for that one.

23 ::: Gillian

The ships lay in space like serried rows of scattered beads, dimly reflecting the faint glow of the Milky Way. The nearest stars were the dim reddish oldsters of a small globular cluster, patient and barren remnants from the first epoch of star formation — devoid of planets or metals.

Gillian contemplated the photograph, one of six that Streaker had innocently transmitted home from what had seemed an obscure and uninteresting gravitational tide pool, far off the beaten path.

An eerie, silent armada, unresponsive to their every query; the Earthlings hadn't known what to make of it. The fleet of ghost ships had no place in the ordered structure of the Five Galaxies.

How long had they gone unnoticed?

Gillian put the holo aside and picked up another. It showed a close-up of one of the giant derelict ships. Huge as a moon, pitted and ancient, it shimmered inside a faint lambence — a preservative field of unguessable properties. The aura had defied analysis. They could only tell that it was an intense probability field of unusual nature.

In attempting to dock with one ghost ship, at the outer reaches of the field, the crew of Streaker's gig somehow touched off a chain reaction. Brilliant lightning flashed between the ancient behemoth and the little scoutboat. Lieutenant Yachapa-Jean had reported that all the dolphins were experiencing intense visions and hallucinations. She tried to disengage, but in her disorientation she set off her stasis screens inside the strange field. The resultant explosion tore apart both the tiny Earthship and the giant derelict.

Gillian put down the photo and looked across the lab. Herbie still lay enmeshed in his web of stasis, a silhouette untold hundreds of million years — billions of years old.

After the disaster, Tom Orley had gone out all alone and brought the mysterious relic back in secret through one of Streaker's side locks.

A prize of great cost, Gillian thought as she contemplated the cadaver. We paid well for you, Herb. If only I could figure out what we bought.

Herb was an enigma worthy of concerted research by the great Institutes, not one solitary woman on a besieged starship far from home.

It was frustrating, but someone had to make this effort. Somebody had to try to understand why they had been turned into hunted animals. With Tom gone, and Creideiki busy keeping the ship and crew functioning, the task was hers. If she didn't do it, it wouldn't be done.

Slowly, she was learning a thing or two about Herbie… enough to confirm that the corpse was very old, that it had the skeletal structure of a planet-walker, and that the ship's micro-Library still claimed that nothing like it had ever existed.

She put her feet up onto the desk and pulled another photo from the stack. It clearly showed, through that shimmering probability field, a row of symbols etched into the side of a massive hull.

"Open Library," she pronounced. Of the four holo screens on her desk, the one at the far left — with the rayed spiral glyph above it — came alight.

"Sargasso file symbols reference search. Open and display changes."

A terse column of text displayed in response against the wall to Gillian's left. The listing was dismayingly brief.

"Sub-persona: Reference Librarian — query mode," she said. The outline remained projected against the wall. Alongside it a swirling pattern coalesced into the rayed spiral design. A low, calm voice intoned, "Reference Librarian mode, may I help you?"

"Is this all you've been able to come up with, regarding those symbols on the side of that derelict ship?"

"Affirmative," the voice was cool. The inflections were correct, but no attempt had been made to disguise the fact that it came from a minimal persona, a small corner of the shipboard Library program.

"I have searched my records for correlates with these symbols. You are well aware, of course, that I am a very small micro-branch, and that symbols are endlessly mutable in time. The outline gives all possible references I have found within the parameters you set."

Gillian looked at the short list. It was hard to believe. Though incredibly small compared with planetary or sector branches, the ship's Library contained the equivalent of all the books published on Earth until the late twenty-first century. Surely there had to be more correlates than this!

"Ifni!" she sighed. "Something has got half the fanatics in the galaxy stirred up. Maybe it's that picture of Herbie we sent back. Maybe its these symbols. Which was it?"

"I am not equipped to speculate," the program responded.

"The question was rhetorical, and not addressed to you anyway. I see you show a thirty percent correlation of five symbols with religious glyphs of the Abdicator' Alliance. Give me an overview of the Abdicators."

The voice shifted tone. "Cultural summary mode…"

"Abdicator is a term chosen from Anglic to represent one of the major philosophical groupings in Galactic society.

"The Abdicator belief dates from the fabled Tarseuh episode of the fifteenth aeon, approximately six hundred million years ago, a particularly violent time, when the Galactic Institutes barely survived the ambitions of three powerful patron lines (reference numbers 97AcF109t, 97AcG136t and 97AcG986s).

"Two of these species were amongst the most potent and aggressive military powers in the history of the five linked galaxies. The third species was responsible for the introduction of several new techniques of spacecraft design, including the now standard…"

The Library waxed into a highly technical discussion of hardware and manufacturing methods. Though interesting, it seemed hardly relevant. With her toe she touched the "skim" button on her console, and the narration leaped ahead…

"… The conquerors assumed an appellation which might be translated as 'the Lions.' They managed to seize most of the transfer points and centers of power, and all the great Libraries. For twenty million years their grip appeared unassailable. The Lions engaged in unregulated population expansion and colonization, resulting in extinction of eight out of ten pre-client races in the Five Galaxies at the time.

"The Tarseuh helped bring about an end of this tyranny by summoning intervention by six ancient species previously thought to be extinct. These six joined forces with the Tarseuh in a successful counterattack by Galactic culture. Afterward, when the Institutes were re-established, the Tarseuh accompanied the mysterious defenders to an obscure oblivion…"

Gillian interrupted the flow of words.

"Where did the six species that helped the rebels come from? Did you say they had been extinct?"

The monitor voice returned. "According to records of the time, they had been thought extinct. Do you want reference numbers?"

"No. Proceed."

"Today most sophonts believe the six were racial remnants not yet finished stepping off into a later stage of evolution. Thus the six might not have been extinct per se, but merely grown almost unrecognizable. They were still capable of taking an interest in mundane affairs when matters became sufficiently severe. Do you wish me to refer you to articles on the natural passing modes of species?"

"No. Proceed. What do the Abdicators say took place?"

"Abdicators believe that there are certain ethereal races which deign to take physical form, from time to time, disguised in a seemingly normal pattern of uplift. These 'Great Ghosts' are raised up as pre-clients, pass through indenture, and go on to become leading seniors, without ever revealing their true nature. In emergencies, however, these super-species can quickly intervene directly in the affairs of mortals.

"The Progenitors are said to be the earliest, most aloof, and most powerful of these Great Ghosts.

"Naturally, this is profoundly different from the common Progenitor legend, that the Eldest departed the Home Galaxy long ago, promising to return some day…"

"Stop!" The Library fell silent at once. Gillian frowned as she thought about the phrase "Naturally, this is profoundly different…

Bull! The Abdicator belief was just a variant of the same basic dogma, differing only slightly from other millennial legends of the "return" of the Progenitors. The controversy reminded her of old-time religious conflicts on Earth, when adherents had performed frantic exegesis over the nature of trinity, or the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin.

This particular frenzy over minor points of doctrine would be almost funny if the battle weren't going on right now, a few thousand kilometers overhead.

She jotted a reminder to try a cross-reference to the Hindu belief in the avatars of deities. The similarity to Abdicator tenets made her wonder why the Library hadn't made the connection, at least as an analogy.

Enough is enough.

"Niss!" she called.

The screen on the far right came alight. An abstract pattern of sparkling motes erupted into a sharply limited zone just above the screen.

"As you know, Gillian Baskin, it is preferable that the Library not know of my existence aboard this ship. I have taken the liberty of screening it so that it cannot observe our conversation. You wish to ask me something?"

"I certainly do. Were you listening to that report just now?"

"I listen to everything this ship's micro-branch does. It is my primary function here. Didn't Thomas Orley ever explain that to you?"

Gillian restrained herself. Her foot was too close to the offending screen. She put it on the floor to remove temptation. "Niss," she asked evenly, "why does the micro-branch Library talk gibberish?"

The Tymbrimi machine sighed anthropomorphically. "Dr. Baskin, virtually every oxygen-breathing race but Mankind has been weaned on a semantic which evolved down scores of patron-client links, all influenced by the Library. The languages of Earth are strange and chaotic by Galactic standards. The problems of converting Galactic archives into your unconventional syntax are enormous."

"I know all that! The ETs wanted us to all learn Galactic Seven at the time of Contact. We told them to take the idea and stick it."

"Graphically put. Instead, humanity applied immense resources to convert Earth's branch Library to use colloquial Anglic, hiring Kanten, Tymbrimi, and others as consultants. But still there are problems, are there not?"

Gillian rubbed her eyes. This was getting them nowhere. Why did Tom imagine this sarcastic machine was useful? Whenever she wanted to get a simple answer, it only asked questions.

"The language problem has been their excuse for over two centuries!" she said. "How much longer will they use it? Since Contact we've been studying language as it hasn't been studied in millions of years! We've tackled the intricacies of 'wolfling' tongues like Anglic, English, Japanese, and taught dolphins and chimps to speak. We've even made some progress communicating with those strange creatures, the Solarians of Earth's sun!

"Yet the Library Institute still tells us it's our language that's at fault for all of these lousy correlations, these clumsily translated records! Hell, Tom and I can each speak four or five Galactic tongues. It's not the language difference that's the trouble. There's something queer about the data we've been given!"

The Niss hummed silently for a time. The sparkling motes coalesced and separated like two immiscible fluid merging and falling apart into droplets.

"Dr. Baskin, haven't you just described the major reason for ships such as this one, which roam space hunting discrepancies in the Library's records? And the very purpose of my existence, to attempt to catch the Library in a lie, to try to: find out if the most powerful patron races, as you would say: 'stack the deck' against younger sophonts such as Men and Tymbrimi?"

"Then why don't you help me?" Gillian's heart raced She gripped the edge of the desk, and she realized suddenly that the frustration had come close to overcoming her.

"Why am I so fascinated with the human way of looking at things, Dr. Baskin?" the Niss asked. Its voice turned almost sympathetic. "My Tymbrimi masters are unusually crafty. Their adaptability keeps them alive in a dangerous galaxy. Yet they, too, are trapped in the Galactic mode of thinking. You Earthlings, from a fresh perspective, may see what they do not.

"The range of behaviors and beliefs among oxygen-breathers is vast, yet the experience of Man is virtually unique. Carefully uplifted client races never suffer through the errors made by your pre-Contact human nations. These errors have made you different."

That was true enough, Gillian knew. Blatant idiocies had been tried by early men and women — foolishness that would never have been considered by species aware of the laws of nature. Desperate superstitions had bred during the savage centuries. Styles of government, intrigues, philosophies were tested with abandon. It was almost as if Orphan Earth had been a planetary laboratory, upon which a series of senseless and bizarre experiments were tried.

Illogical and shameful as they seemed in retrospect, those experiences enriched modern Man. Few races had made so many mistakes in so short a time, or tried so many tentative solutions to hopeless problems.

Earthling artists were sought out by many jaded ETs, and paid well to spin tales no Galactic would imagine. The Tymbrimi particularly liked human fantasy novels, with lots of dragons, ogres and magic — the more the better. They thought them terrifyingly grotesque and vivid.

"I am not discouraged when you grow frustrated with the Library," the Niss said. "I am glad. I learn from your frustration! You question things that all Galactic society takes for granted.

"Only secondarily am I here to help you, Mrs. Orley. Primarily, I am here to observe how you suffer."

Gillian blinked. The machine's use of an ancient honorific had to have had a purpose — as did its blatant attempt to make her angry. She sat still and monitored a flux of conflicting emotions.

"This is getting nowhere," she spat. "And it's making me crazy. I feel all cooped up."

The Niss sparkled without commenting. Gillian watched the motes spin and dance.

"You're suggesting we let it sit for a while, aren't you?" she said at last.

"Perhaps. Both Tymbrimi and Humans possess preconscious selves. Perhaps we should both let these matters lie in the dark for a time, and let our hidden parts mull things over."

Gillian nodded. "I'm going to ask Creideiki to send me to Hikahi's island. The abos are important. After escape itself, I'd guess they're the most important thing:"

"A normal, moral view from the Galactic standpoint, and therefore of little interest to me." The Niss sounded bored already. The dazzling display coalesced into dark patterns of spinning lines. They whirled and converged, fell together into a tiny point, and disappeared.

Gillian imagined she heard a faint pop as the Niss departed.

When she reached Creideiki on the comm line the captain blinked at her.

"Gillian, is your psi working overtime? I was just calling you!…

She sat up. "Have you heard from Tom?"

"Yesss. He's fine. He's asked me to send you on an errand. Can you come down here right away?"

"I'm on my way Creideiki."

She locked the door to her lab and hurried toward the bridge.

24 ::: Galactics

Beie Chohooan could only rumble in amazement at the magnitude of the battle. How had the fanatics managed to gather such strength in so short a time?

Beie's little Synthian scout ship cruised down the ancient, rocky jet stream left by a long-dead comet. The Kthsemenee system was ablaze with bright flashes. Her screens showed the battle fleets as they merged into swirling knots all around her, scratching and killing and separating again. Alliances formed and dissolved whenever the parties seemed to sense an advantage. In violation of the codes of the Institute for Civilized Warfare, no quarter was being given.

Beie was an experienced spy for the Synthian Enclave, but she had never seen anything like this.

"I was an observer at Paklatuthl, when the clients of the J'81ek broke their indenture on the battlefield. I saw the Obeyor Alliance meet the Abdicators in ritual war. But never have I seen such mindless slaughter! Have they no pride? No appreciation of the art of war?"

Even as she watched, Beie saw the strongest of the alliances fall apart in a fiery betrayal, as one flank fell upon the other.

Beie snorted in disgust. "Faithless fanatics," she muttered.

There was a chitter from the shelf to her left. A row of small pink eyes looked down upon her.

"Which of you said that!" She glared at the little tarsier-like wazoon, each staring out the entrance hatch of its own little spy-globe. The eyes blinked back at her. The wazoon chittered in amusement, but none of them answered her directly.

Beie sniffed. "Well, you're right, of course. The fanatics have quick reactions on their side. They do not stop and consider, but dive right in, while we moderates must ponder before we act."

Especially the ever-cautious Synthians, she thought. Earthlings are supposed to be our allies, yet timidly we talk and consider, we protest to the impotent Institutes, and send expendable scouts to spy upon the fanatics.

The wazoon chattered a warning.

"I know!" she snapped. "Don't you think I know my business? So there's a watcher probe up ahead. One of you go take care of it and don't bother me! Can't you see I'm busy?"

The eyes blinked at her. One pair vanished as the wazoon scuttled into its tiny ship and closed the hatch. In a moment a small shudder passed through the scout as the probe departed.

Luck to you, small wazoon, faithful client, she thought.

Feigning nonchalance, she watched as the tiny probe danced up ahead amongst the planetoidal debris, sneaking toward the watcher probe that lay in Beie's path.

One expendable scout, she thought bitterly. The Tymbrimi are fighting for their lives. Earth is besieged, half her colonies taken, and still we Synthians wait and watch, watch and wait, sending only me and my team to observe.

A small flame burned suddenly, casting stark shadows through the asteroid field. The wazoon let out a low groan of mourning, stopping quickly when Beie looked their way.

"Do not hide your feelings from me, my brave wazoon," she murmured. "You are clients and brave warriors, not slaves. Mourn your colleague, who died so well for us."

She thought about her own cool, careful people, amongst whom she always felt a stranger.

"Feel!" she insisted, surprised by her own vehemence. "There is no shame in caring, my little wazoon. In this you may be greater than your patron race, when you are grown up and on your own!"

Beie piloted closer to the water world, where the battle raged, feeling more akin to her little client-comrades than to her own ever-cautious race.

25 ::: Thomas Orley

Thomas Orley looked down upon his treasure: a thing he had sought for twelve years. It appeared to be intact, the first of its kind ever to fall into human hands.

Only twice had micro-branch Libraries designed for other races been captured by human crews, from ships defeated in skirmishes over the last two hundred years. In each case the repositories were damaged. Attempts to study them were informative, but one mistake or another always caused the semi-intelligent machines to self-destruct.

This was the first ever recovered intact from a warship of a powerful Galactic patron race. And it was the first taken since certain Tymbrimi had joined in this clandestine research.

The unit was a beige box, about three meters by two by one, with simple optical access ports. Halfway along one side was the rayed spiral symbol of the Library.

It was lashed to a cargo sled along with other booty, including three probability coils, undamaged and irreplaceable. Hannes Suessi would ride back to Streaker, protecting those as a mother hen her eggs. Only when he saw them safely in Emerson D'Anite's hands would he turn around to come back here.

Tom wrote routing instructions on a waxboard. With any luck, the crew back at Streaker would turn the micro-branch unit over to Creideiki or Gillian without undue attention. He adhered the shipping slip so that it covered the Library glyph.

Not that his interest in a captured micro-branch was particularly secret. The crew here had helped him pry it from the Thennanin ship. But the fewer who knew the details the better. Especially if they should ever be captured. If his instructions were followed, the unit would be plugged into the comm in his own cabin, to outward appearances a normal communications screen.

He imagined the Niss would be impressed. Tom wished he could be there when the Tymbrimi machine found out what it suddenly had access to. The smug thing would probably be speechless for half a day.

He hoped it wouldn't be too stunned. He wanted something from it right away.

Suessi was already asleep, tethered to his precious salvage. Tom made sure the instructions were well secured. Then he swam up toward the sheer outcrop of rock overlooking the wrecked alien starship.

Neo-fen swarmed over the hulk, making detailed measurements from without and within. At word from Creideiki charges would be set off beginning a process that would leave the giant battleship's core a reamed and empty cavity.

By now the scout they had sent back should have reached Streaker with his initial report, and a sled should already be returning down the new shortcut they had found, bringing a monofilament intercom line from home. It ought to meet the salvage sled about halfway.

All this assumed "home" was still there. Tom guessed the battle still raged above Kithrup. Space war was a slow thing, especially as practiced by the long-viewed Galactics. They might still be at it in a year or two, though he doubted it. That much time would allow reinforcements to arrive and produce a war of attrition. It was unlikely the fanatic alliances would let things come to that pass.

In any event, Streaker's crew had to act as if the war were about to end any day now. So long as confusion reigned above, they still had a chance.

Tom went over his plan again, and came to the same conclusion. He had no other choice.

There were three conceivable ways they might escape the trap they were in — rescue, negotiation, and trickery.

Rescue was a nice image. But Earth herself didn't have the strength to come and deliver them. Together with her allies she could barely match one of the pseudo-religious factions in the battle over Kithrup.

The Galactic Institutes might intervene. What law there was demanded that Streaker report directly to them. Problem was, the Institutes had little power of their own. Like the feeble versions of world government Earth had almost died of in the Twentieth Century, they relied on mass opinion and volunteer levies. The majority "moderates" might finally decide that Streaker's discovery should be shared by all, but Tom figured it would take years for the necessary alliances to form.

Negotiation seemed as faint a hope as rescue. In any event, Creideiki had Gillian and Hikahi and Metz to help him if it ever came to negotiations with a victor in the space battle. They didn't need Tom for that.

That left clever schemes and subtle deceptions… finding a way to thwart the enemy when rescue and negotiation fail.

That's my job, he thought.

The ocean was deeper and darker here than in the region only fifty kilometers to the east, where strings of metal-mounds grew in the hilly shallows along the edges of a thin crustal plate. In the area where Hikahi's party had been rescued, the water was metal-enriched by a chain of semiactive volcanoes.

There were no true metal-mounds in this area, and the long-dead volcanic islands were worn down to the water's surface.

When he looked away from the crumpled Thennanin wreck, and the trail of havoc it had left before coming to rest, Tom found the scenery restful, its beauty calming. Drifting, dark-yellow fronds of danglevine, waving like corn silk from the surface, reminded him of the color of Gillian's hair.

Orley hummed to himself a melody that few other human beings could attempt. Small gene-crafted sinuses reverberated under his skull, sending a low refrain into the water around him.

* In sleep, your caring

Touches me,

* Where, waking, I let it not

* In distance, I will

Call to you,

* And touch you as you sleep *

Of course Gillian couldn't actually hear his gift poem. His own psi powers were quite modest. Still, she might pick up a hint. Other things she had done had surprised him more.

The dolphin escort had gathered at the sled. Suessi had awakened and was checking his lashings with Lieutenant Tsh't.

Tom launched himself from his aerie toward the group. Tsh't saw him and took a quick breath from an airdome before swimming up to meet him halfway.

"I wish you would reconsider doing thisss," she implored when they met. "I'll be frank. Your presence is good for morale. If you were lossst it would be a blow."

Tom smiled and put a hand on her flank. He had already come to terms with his poor chances of returning.

"I don't see any other way, Tsh't. All the other parts of my plan can be handled by others, but I'm the only one who can bait the hook. You know that.

"Besides," he grinned, "Creideiki will have one more chance to call me back if he doesn't like the plan. I asked that he send Gillian to meet me at Hikahi's island, with the glider and the supplies I need. If she tells me his answer is no, I'll be back at the ship before you."

Tsh't looked away. "I doubt he'll sssay no," she whistled low and almost inaudibly.

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

Evasively, Tsh't answered in Trinary.

* Creideiki leads us -

Is our master

* Yet we imagine -

Secret orders *

Tom sighed. There it was again, the suspicion that Earth would never let the first dolphin-commanded vessel go out without disguised human supervision. Naturally, most of the rumors centered around himself. It was bothersome, because Creideiki was an excellent captain. Also, it detracted from one of the purposes of the mission, to make a demonstration that would boost neo-fin self-confidence for a generation.

* Then in my leaving -

Learn a lesson,

* Aboard Streaker -

Is your captain. *

Tsh't must have been running low on the breath she had taken at the sled's airdome. Bubbles leaked from her blowmouth. Still she looked back at him resignedly and spoke in Anglic.

"All right-t. After Suessi leaves, we'll get you on your way. We'll continue working here until we get ordersss from Creideiki."

"Good." Tom nodded. "And you still approve of the rest of the plan?"

Tsh't turned away, her eyes recessed.

* Keneenk and logic

Join to sing

* Its tune

* The plan is all between

Us and

* Our doom

* We'll all do our part

Tom reached over and hugged her. "I know we can count on you, you sweet old fish-catcher. I'm not worried at all. Now let's say good-bye to Hannes, so I can be on my way. I don't want Jill to get to the island before me."

He dove toward the sled. But Tsh't remained behind for a moment. Although the air in her lungs was growing stale, she lay still, watching him swim away.

Her sonar clicks swept over him as he descended. She caressed him with her hearing, and sang a quiet requiem.

* They cast their nets to catch us -

Those of Iki,

* Yet you are there -

To cut the nets.

* Good Walker;

Always,

* You cut the nets -

* Though they'll take

In payment

Your life…

26 ::: Creideiki

The most formal Anglic, spoken carefully by a neo-dolphin, would be difficult for a human raised only in Man-English to understand. The syntax and many root words were the same. But a pre-spaceflight Londoner would have found the sounds as strange as the voices that spoke them.

The dolphin's modified blowhole provided whistles, squawks, vowels and a few consonants. Sonar clicks and many other sounds came from complex resonant cavities inside the skull.

In speech, these separate contributions were sometimes in phase and sometimes not. Even at the best of times, there were stretched sibilants, stuttered t's, and groaned vowels. Speech was an art.

Trinary was for relaxation, for imagery and personal matters. It replaced and greatly expanded on Primal Dolphin. But Anglic linked the neo-dolphin to the world of cause and effect.

Anglic was a language of compromise between the vocal abilities of two races — between the hands-and-fire world of Men and the drifting legends of the Whale Dream. Speaking it, a dolphin could equal most humans in analytic thought, consider past and future, make schemes, use tools, and fight wars.

Some thoughtful humans wondered if giving the cetacean Anglic had really been much of a favor, after all.

Two neo-dolphins alone together might speak Anglic for concentration, but not care if the sounds resembled English words. They would drift into frequencies beyond human hearing, and consonants would virtually disappear.

Keneenk allowed this. It was the semantics that counted. If the grammar, the two-level logic, the time-orientation were Anglic, pragmatic results were all that mattered.

When Creideiki took Hikahi's report, he purposely spoke a very relaxed form of fin-Anglic. By example he wanted to say that what went on here was private.

He listened to her while he took the kinks out of his body, diving and racing back and forth across the exercise pool. Hikahi recited her report on the planetology meeting, enjoying the sweet smell of real air in her main lungs. Occasionally, she paused and sped alongside him for a stretch before continuing.

Right now her words sounded nothing like human speech, but a very good voicewriter could have translated them.

"He feels very strongly about it, Captain. In fact, Charlie suggests that we should leave a small study team here with the longboat even if Streaker tries to escape. Even Brookida is tempted by the idea. I was a bit stunned."

Creideiki passed in front of her. He burst out a quick question.

"And what would they do if we left them behind, and we were then captured?" He dove back underwater and sped on toward the far wall.

"Charlie thinks he and a detached team could be declared noncombatants, and the Sudman-Sah'ot group out on the island, as well. He says there are precedents. That way, whether we get away or not, part of the mission is preserved."

The exercise room was in Streakers centrifugal ring, ten degrees up the side of the wheel. The walls were canted and Creideiki had to watch out for shallows in the pool's port side. A cluster of balls, rings, and complex toys floated to starboard.

Creideiki swam quickly under a cluster of balls and shot out of the water. He spun as he sailed through the air and landed on his back with a splash. He did a flip underwater, then rose up above the surface on his churning tail. Breathing heavily, he regarded Hikahi with one eye.

"I've considered the idea already," he said. "We could leave Metz and his records, too. Getting him off our tails would be worth thirty herring and an anchovy dessert."

He settled back down into the water. "Too bad the solution is immoral and impractical."

Hikahi looked puzzled, trying to figure his meaning.

Creideiki felt much better. The frustration which had built to a peak when he listened to Tom Orley's message had now abated. He could put aside, for a while, the depression he felt when he agreed to the man's plan.

All that remained was to get the formal advice of the ship's council. He prayed they'd come up with a better idea, though he doubted they would.

"Think," he asked his lieutenant. "Declaring noncombatants might work if we are killed or captured, but what if we escape, and draw our ET friends chasing after us?"

Hikahi's jaw dropped open slightly — a borrowed human mannerism. "Of course. I hear it. Kthsemenee is so very isolated. There are only a few routes in and out. The longboat probably couldn't make it back to civilization all alone."

"Which would mean?"

"They would become castaways, on a deadly planet, with minimal medical facilities. Forgive my lack of foresight."

She turned slightly, presenting her left ventral fin. It was a civilized version of an ancient gesture of submission, such as a human student's sheepish bowed head to his teacher.

With luck, Hikahi would someday command ships greater than Streaker by orders of magnitude. The captain and teacher within him was pleased with her combination of modesty and cleverness. But another part of him had more immediate goals for her.

"Well, we'll take their idea under advisement. In case we have to adopt the plan quickly, see to stocking the longboat.

"But put a guard on it, too."

They both knew that it was a bad sign, when security precautions had to be taken within, as well as without.

A brightly striped rubber ring floated past them. Creideiki felt an urge to chase it… as he wanted to push Hikahi into a corner and nuzzle her until… He shook himself.

"As for further tectonic research," he said. "That's out of the question. Gillian Baskin has left for your island, to take supplies to Thomas Orley and to help Dennie Sudman study the aboriginals. When she returns, she can bring back rock samples for Charlie. That'll have to satisfy him.

"The rest of us will be very busy as soon as Suessi gets back here with those spare parts."

"Suessi's sure he found what we need at the wreck?"

"Fairly certain."

"This new plan means we'll have to move Streaker. Turning on our engines may give us away. But I guess there's no choice. I'll get started on a plan to move the ship."

Creideiki realized that this was getting him nowhere. A few hours remained, at most, until Suessi arrived, and here he was talking to Hikahi in Anglic… forcing her by example to think rigidly and carefully! No wonder he was getting no hint, no body language, no suggestion that an advance might be welcomed or rejected.

He answered her in Trinary.

* We'll only move her -

Below water

* To the crashed ship -

Empty, waiting

* Soon, while battles -

Still wrack the blackness

* Filling space -

With squid-like racket

* At a time when -

Orley, Net-bane,

* Far away, does

Make

Distraction

* Far away, does

Truth

Decipher

* Drawing sharks -

To make us safer *

Hikahi stared at him. This was the first time she had heard about that part of Orley's plan. Like many of the females aboard, Hikahi had a platonic passion for Thomas Orley.

I should have broken the news more gently, or, better yet, waited until later!

Her eyes blinked, once, twice, then closed. She sank slowly, and from her forehead melon came a faint keening.

Creideiki envied humans their enfolding arms. He dropped alongside her to touch her with the tip of his bottle-shaped rostrum.

* Do not grieve for -

Strong-eyed flyer

* Orley's song shall -

By whales be sung

Hikahi replied sadly.

* I, Hikahi -

Honor Orley

* Honor captain -

Honor crewmates

* Deeds are done, still -

For one I suffer -

For Jill Baskin -

Dear Life-Cleaner

* For her loss -

And body sorrow *

Shamed, Creideiki felt an enclosing shroud of melancholy fall around him. He shut his own eyes and the waters echoed back to him a shared sadness.

For a long time they lay side by side, rising to breathe, then settling once more below.

Creideiki's thoughts were far away when he finally felt Hikahi drift away. But then she was back, rubbing gently against his side, and then nibbling tenderly with sharp, small teeth.

Almost against his will, at first, Creideiki felt his enthusiasm begin to return. He rolled over to his side and let out a long sigh of bubbles as her nuzzling became more provocative.

The water began to taste happier then, as Hikahi crooned a familiar song, taken from one of the oldest of Primal signals. It seemed to say, amongst other things, "Life goes on."

27 ::: The Island

The night was quiet.

Kithrup's many small moons stirred low tides against the metal cliffs a hundred meters away. The ever-present winds, driven without brake across the planet ocean, tugged at the trees and ruled the foliage.

Still, compared to what they had known for months, the silence was heavy. There were none of the ubiquitous machine sounds which had followed them everywhere from Earth, the unceasing whirrs and clicks of mechanical function, or the occasional smoking crackle of failure.

The squeaking, groaning drone of dolphin conversation was gone, too. Even Keepiru and Sah'ot were absent. At night the two dolphins accompanied the Kithrup aboriginals in their nocturnal sea hunt.

The surface of the metal-mound was almost too quiet. The few sounds seemed to carry forever. The sea, the distant rumble of a faraway volcano…

There was a gentle moan in the night, followed by a very quiet gasping cry.

"They're at it again," Dennie sighed, not particularly caring if Toshio heard her.

The sounds came from the clearing at the southern point of the island. The third and fourth humans on the island had tried to find their privacy as far from the abo village and the tunnel pool as possible. Dennie wished they could have gone even farther away.

There was laughter, faint but clear.

"I've never heard anything like it," she sighed.

Toshio blushed and fed another stick to the fire. The couple in the next clearing deserved their privacy. He considered pointing this out to Dennie.

"I swear, they're like minks!" Dennie said, intending to sound sardonic and mock-envious. But it came out just a little bitter.

Toshio noticed. Against his better judgment, he said, "Dennie, we all know that humans are among the sexual athletes of the galaxy, though some of our clients give us a run for it."

Toshio poked a stick into the fire. That had been a pretty brash thing to say. He felt a trifle emboldened by the night, and the desire to break the tension by the fire.

"What do you mean by that?" Dennie looked at him sharply.

Toshio played with the stick. "We-ell, there's a line in an old play,… 'Why, your dolphin was not lustier!' Shakespeare wasn't the first to compare the two horniest of the brainy mammals; y'know I don't suppose anyone's come up with a scale to measure it, but I'd have to wonder if it weren't a prerequisite for intelligence.

"Of course, that's only one of the possibilities. If you take what the Galactics say about uplift into account…"

He rambled on, slowly drawing away from incitement, noticing how Dennie came this close to blowing her cool, before she turned and looked away.

He'd done it! He had played a round and won it! It was a minor victory in a game he had wondered if he would ever get to play.

The art of teasing had always been a one-sided affair to Toshio, and he'd always had the short end. To get the best of an attractive older woman by dint of clever conversation and character insight was a coup.

He didn't think he was being cruel, though a genteel cruelty did seem to be part of the game. All he knew for certain was that this was one way to get Dennie Sudman to treat him less like a child. If some of the easy mutual liking they'd had before had to suffer for it, that was too bad.

Much as he didn't care for Sah'ot, Toshio was glad the fin had provided the lever he needed to pry a chink in Dennie's armor.

He was about to try out another bon mot when Dennie cut in.

"I'm sorry, Tosh. I'd love to hear the rest, but I'm going to bed. We've a busy day tomorrow, launching Tom's glider, showing Gillian the Kiqui, and experimenting with that damned robot for Charlie. I suggest you get some sleep too."

She turned to wrap herself in her sleeping bag at the far end of the camp, near the watch-wards.

"Yeah," Toshio said, perhaps a bit too heartily. "I'll do that in a bit, Dennie. Good night. Pleasant dreams."

She was silent, with her back to the tiny glow from the fire. Toshio couldn't tell if she was asleep or awake.

I wish we humans were better at psi, he thought. They say telepathy has its drawbacks, but it would sure be nice to know what's going on in another person's head sometimes.

It'd take away a lot of the anxiety if I knew what she was thinking… even if I found out she just thought I was a nervy kid.

He looked up at the patchy sky overhead. Through long ragged openings in the clouds he could see stars.

In two places, there were nebiculae in the sky that hadn't been there the night before, signs of a battle still raging. The tiny false nebulae glowed in every visible color, and probably in other bands than light.

Toshio let a fistful of metallo-silicate dirt sift through his fingers onto the coals. Falling sparkles of metal winked at him like incandescent confetti, like winking stars.

He dusted off his hands and turned to crawl into his own sleeping roll. He lay there, eyes closed, reluctant to watch the stars, or to dissect the pros and cons of his behavior.

Instead, he listened to the wind-and-surf sounds of the night. They were rhythmic and calming, like a lullaby, like the seas of home.

Except once in a while he thought he could pick up, on the edge of hearing, sighs and soft laughter coming from the south. They were sounds of complex happiness that filled him with a sad longing.

"They're at it again," he sighed to himself. "I swear, I've never heard of anything like it."

The humid air kept their perspiration slick upon them. Gillian licked a moustache of tear-like salt off her upper lip. The same way, Tom cleaned some of the sheen off her breasts. The wetness of his mouth cooled on her aureoles and nipples when he took his mouth away.

She gasped and grabbed the wavy hair at the back of his head, where his slightly balding vanity feared no tugging. He responded with mock biting that sent shivers to her calves, thighs, and lower back.

Gillian locked her heel behind his knee and levered her pelvis up against his. Her breath whistled softly as he lifted his head and met her eyes.

"I thought what I was doing was afterplay," he whispered a little hoarsely. He made a show of wiping his forehead. "You should warn me when I cross over the line, and start promising what I can't deliver." He took her hand and kissed its palm and the inside of her wrist.

Gillian ran her fingers along his cheek, to touch, feather light, his jaw, throat and shoulder. She took sparse clumps of chest hair and pulled playfully.

She purred — not like a housecat, but with the feral rumble of a leopardess. "Whenever you're ready, love. I can wait. You may be the illegitimate son of a fecund test-tube, but I know you better than your planners ever did. You have resources they never imagined."

Tom was about to say that, planners or no planners, he was the quite legitimate son of May and Bruce Orley of Minnesota State, Confederacy of Earth… but then he noticed the slight liquid welling in her eyes. Her words were rough, light and teasing, but her grip on his chest hair only tightened as she looked up at his face, eyes roaming, as if she were memorizing every feature.

Tom felt suddenly confused. He wanted to be close to Gillian on their last night together. How could they be any closer than they were right now? His body pressed against hers, and her warm breath filled his nostrils. He looked away, feeling somehow he was letting her down.

Then he felt it, a tender stroking that seemed to strive against a locked and heavy feeling inside his own head. It was a soft pressure that would not go away. He realized that the thing fighting it was himself.

I'm leaving tomorrow, he thought.

They had argued over who would be the one to go, and he had won. But it was bitter to have to go.

He closed his eyes. I've cut her off from me! I may never come back, and I've cut myself off from the deepest part of me.

Suddenly Tom felt very strange and small, as if he were stranded in a dangerous place, the sole barrier between his loved ones and terrible foes, not a superhero but only a man, outnumbered and about to gamble all he had. As if he were himself.

He opened his eyes as he felt a touch on his face.

He pressed his cheek against her hand. There were still tears in her eyes, but also the beginnings of a smile.

"Silly boy," she said. "You can never leave me. Haven't you realized that by now? I'll be with you, and you'll come back to me."

He shook his head in wonder.

"Jill, I…" He started to speak, but his mouth was stopped as she pulled him down to kiss him hungrily. Her lips were hot and tender upon his, crosswise. The fingers of her right hand did inciteful things.

Still and all, it was the heady, sweet smell of her that made him realize that she had been right about him, once again.