Startide Rising

46 ::: Sah'ot

It was evening, and the Kiqui were leaving for their hunting grounds. Sah'ot heard them squeaking excitedly as they gathered in a clearing west of the toppled drill-tree. The hunters passed not far from the pool on their way to a rock chimney on the southern slope of the island, chittering and puffing their lung sacks in pomp.

Sah'ot listened until the abos were gone. Then he sank a meter below the surface and blew depressed bubbles. Nothing was going right.

Dennie had changed, and he didn't like it. Instead of her usual delightful skittishness, she virtually ignored him. She had listened to two of his best limericks and answered seriously, completely missing the delicious double entendres.

In spite of the importance of her studies of the Kiqui, Takkata-Jim had ordered her also to analyze the drill-tree system for Charles Dart. Twice she had gone into the water to collect samples from below the metal-mound. She had ignored Sah'ot's nuzzling advances or, even more disturbing, petted him absently in return.

Sah'ot realized that, for all of his previous efforts to break her down, he hadn't really wanted her to change. At least, not this way.

He drifted unhappily until a tether attached to one of the sleds brought him up short. His new assignment kept him linked to this electrical obscenity, chafed and cramped in a tiny pool while his real work was out in the open sea with the pre-sentients!

When Gillian and Keepiru left, he had assumed their absence would free him to do pretty much what he wanted. Hah! No sooner had the pilot and the human physician left, than did Toshio — Toshio, of all persons — step in and assume command.

I should have been able to talk rings around him. How in the Five Galaxies did the boy manage to get the upper hand?

It was hard to remember how. But here he was, stuck monitoring a damned robot for a pompous, egocentric chimpanzee who cared only about rocks! The dumb little robot didn't even have a brain one could TALK to! You don't have conversations with microprocessors. You tell them what to do, then helplessly watch the disaster when they take you literally!

His harness gave of a chime. It was time to check on the probe. Sah'ot clucked a sarcastic response.

* Yes indoody,

Lord and master!

* Metal moron,

And disaster!

* Beep again,

I'll work faster!

Sah'ot brought his left eye even with the sled's screen. He sent a pulse-code to the robot, and a stream of data returned.

The 'bot had finally digested the most recent rock sample. He ordered the probe's small memory emptied into the sled's data banks. Toshio had run him through the drill until Sah'ot could control the 'bot almost unconsciously.

He made it anchor one end of a monofilament line to the rough rock, then lower itself another fifty meters.

The old explanation for the hole beneath the metal-mound had been discarded. The drill-tree couldn't have needed to dig a tunnel a kilometer deep in search of nutrients. It shouldn't have been able to pierce the crust that far. The mass of the drill root was clearly too great to have been rotated by the modest tree that once stood atop the mound.

The amount of material excavated wouldn't fit atop ten metal-mounds. It was found as sediment all around the high ridge on which the mound sat.

To Sah'ot these mysteries weren't enticing. They only proved once again that the universe was weird, and that maybe humans and dolphins and chimps ought to wait a while before challenging its deeper puzzles.

The robot finished its descent. Sah'ot made it reach out and seize the cavity wall with diamond-tipped claws, then retract its tether from above.

Down in stages it would go. For this little machine there would be no rising. Sah'ot felt that way himself, sometimes, especially since coming to Kithrup. He didn't really expect ever to leave this deadly world.

Fortunately, the probe's sampling routine was fairly automatic once triggered. Even Charles Dart should have little excuse to complain. Unless…

Sah'ot cursed. There it was again — the static that had plagued the probe since it had passed the half-kilometer mark. Toshio and Keepiru had worked on it, and couldn't find the problem.

The crackling was unlike any static Sah'ot had ever heard… not that he was an expert on static. It had a syncopation of sorts, not all that unpleasant to listen to, actually. Sah'ot had heard that some people liked to listen to white noise. Certainly nothing was more undemanding.

The clock on his harness ticked away. Sah'ot listened to the static, and thought about perversities, about love and loneliness.

[Scanner's note: Again, a mono-spaced font like Courrier is required to see the following 6 lines laid out properly. Other future passages like this will not be marked with a note like this.]

* I swim -

circles — like the others

And learn * -

sadly — I am

Sightlessly * -

Sighing — alone

Slowly Sah'ot realized he had adopted the rhythm of the "noise" below. He shook his head. But when he listened again it was still there.

A song. It was a song!

Sah'ot concentrated. It was like trying to follow all parts of a six-part fugue at the same time. The patterns interleaved with an incredible complexity.

No wonder they had all thought it noise! Even he had barely caught on!

His harness timer chimed, but Sah'ot didn't notice. He was too busy listening to the planet sing to him.

47 ::: Streaker

Moki and Haoke had both volunteered for guard duty, but for different reasons.

Both enjoyed getting out of the ship for a change. And neither dolphin particularly minded having to stay plugged in to a sled for hours at a stretch in the dark, silent waters outside the ship.

But beyond that they differed. Haoke was there because he felt it was a necessary job. Moki, on the other hand, hoped guard duty would give him a chance to kill something.

"I wissshh Takkata-Jim sent me after Akki, instead of K'tha-Jon," Moki rasped. "I could've tracked the smartasss just as well."

Moki's sled rested about twenty yards from Haoke's, on the high underwater bluff overlooking the ship. Arc lamps still shone on Streaker's hull, but the area was deserted now off-limits to all but those few cleared by the vice-captain.

Moki looked at Haoke through the flexible bubble-dome of his sled. Haoke was silent, as usual. He had ignored Moki's comment completely.

Arrogant spawn of a stink-squid! Haoke was another Tursiops smart-aleck, like Creideiki and that stuck up little midshipfin, Akki.

Moki made a small sound-sculpture in his mind. It was an image of ramming and tearing. Once, he had put Creideiki in the role of the victim. The captain who had so often caught him goldbricking, and embarrassed him by correcting his Anglic grammar, had finally got his just deserts. Moki was glad, but now he needed another fantasy target. It was no fun to imagine ripping into nobody in particular.

The Calafian, Akki, served well when it was discovered that the young middie had betrayed the vice-captain. Moki had hoped to be the one sent after Akki, but Takkata-Jim had ordered K'tha-Jon out instead, explaining that the purpose was to bring Akki back for discipline, not to commit murder.

The giant had seemed oblivious to such nice distinctions when he departed equipped with a powerful laser rifle. Perhaps Takkata-Jim had less than perfect control over K'tha-Jon, and had sent him away for his own safety. From the gleam in K'tha-Jon's eye, Moki did not envy the Calafian when the youth was found.

Let K'tha-Jon have Akki! One small pleasure lost didn't take away much from Moki's overall joy.

It was good to be BIG, for a change! On his off-duty time, everybody got out of Moki's way, as if he was a pod leader! Already he had his eye on one or two of those sexy little females in Makanee's sick bay. Some of the younger males looked good, too… Moki wasn't particular.

They would all come around soon enough, when they saw the way the current pulled. He briefly resisted an urge, but couldn't help himself. He let out a short skirr of triumph in a forbidden form.

# Glory! is, is,

Glory!

# Biting is and Glory!

Females submit!

# A new bull is! is! #

He saw Haoke react at last. The other guard jerked slightly and raised his head to regard Moki. He was silent, though, as Moki met his eye defiantly. Moki sent a focused beam of sonar directly at Haoke, to show he was listening to him, too!

Arrogant stink-squid! Haoke would get his, too, after Takkata-Jim had locked his jaws on the situation. And the men of Earth would never disapprove, because Big-Human Metz was at Takkata-Jim's side, agreeing with everything!

Moki let out another squeal of Primal, tasting the forbidden primitiveness with delight. It pulled at something deep inside him. Each taste brought on further hunger for it.

Let Haoke click in disgust! Moki dared even the Galactics to come and try to interfere with him and his new captain!

Haoke bore Moki's bestial squawking stoically. But it reminded him that he had joined up with a gang of cretins and misfits.

Unfortunately, the cretins and misfits were right, and the brightest of Streakers crew were caught up in a disastrous misadventure.

Haoke was desperately sad over the crippling of Creideiki. The captain had obviously been among the best the breed could produce. But the accident had made possible a quiet and perfectly legal change in policy, and he couldn't regret that. Takkata-Jim at least recognized the foolishness of pursuing the desperate Trojan Seahorse scheme.

Even if Streaker could be moved silently to the Thennanin wreck, and if Tsh't's crew had miraculously set things up so Streaker could wear the hulk as a gigantic disguise-and actually take off under those conditions — what would that win them?

Even if Thomas Orley had reported that Thennanin were still in the battle in space, there remained the question of fooling those Thennanin into coming to rescue a supposed lost battleship, and escorting it to the rear. A dubious chance.

The question was moot. Orley was obviously dead. There had been no word for days, and now the gamble had turned into a desperate wish.

Why not just give the thrice-damned Galactics what they want! Why this romantic nonsense of saving the data for the Terragens Council. What do we care about a bunch of dangerous long-lost hulks, anyway? It's obviously no business of ours if the Galactics want to fight over the derelict fleet. Even the Kithrup aboriginals weren't worth dying for.

It all seemed plain to Haoke. It was also apparent to Takkata-Jim, whose intelligence Haoke respected.

But if it was so obvious, why did people like Creideiki and Orley and Hikahi disagree?

Quandaries like this were the sort of thing that had kept Haoke a SubSec in the engine room instead of trying for non-com or officer, as his test scores had indicated.

Moki blatted another boast-phrase in Primal. It was even louder, this time. The Stenos was trying to get a rise out of him.

Haoke sighed. Many of the crew, had begun behaving that way, not quite as bad as Moki, but bad enough. And it wasn't just Stenos, either. Some of the Stenos were behaving better than some Tursiops. As morale dissolved, so did the motivation to maintain Keneenk, to keep up the daily fight against the animal side that always wanted out. One would hardly have been able to predict, weeks ago, who later turned out to be the most susceptible.

Of course, all the best crewfen were away, with Suessi and Hikahi.

Fortunately, Haoke thought. He dwelt on the irony of good going to bad, and right coming out of wrong. At least Takkata-Jim seemed to understand how he felt, and didn't hold it against him. The vice-captain had taken Haoke's support with gratitude.

He could hear Moki's tail thrash, but, before the angry little Stenos could voice another taunt, both of their sled speakers came to life.

"Haoke and Moki? CommSec Fin Heurka-Pete calling… Ack-cknowledge!"

The call was from the ship's comm and detection operator. The fact that the jobs had been combined showed just how bad things were.

"Roger, Haoke here. Moki's indisposed at the moment. What'sss up?"

He heard Moki choke a protest. But it was clear the fin would be a while reformatting his mind for Anglic.

"We have a sonic bogey to the east-t, Haoke… sounds like a sled. If hostile, destroy. If it's someone from the island, they must be turned back-ck. If they refuse, shoot to disable the sled!"

"Understood. Haoke and Moki on our way."

"All right, gabby," he told the speech-tied Moki. Haoke gave his partner a long, narrow grin. "Let'sss check it out. And watch that trigger! We're only enforcing a quarantine. We don't shoot at crewmates unless we absolutely have to!"

With a neural impulse he turned his sled motor on. Without looking back, he lifted off from the muddy rise, then accelerated slowly to the east.

Moki watched Haoke head out before turning his sled to follow.

# Tempted, tempted… tempted, Moki, is, is

# Temptation, delicious is — is — is! #

The sleds dropped, one after another, into the gloom. On a passive sonar screen they were small, blurry dots that drifted slowly past the shadow of the seamount, then disappeared behind it.

Keepiru opened his harness's right claw and dropped the portable listening unit. It tumbled down to the soft ooze. He turned to Gillian.

* Done and gone

They chase our shadows

* They'll not like -

To catch false prey! *

Gillian had expected guards. Several kilometers back they had left the sled on delayed automatic, and swam off to the north and west. By the time the sled started up again, they had circled to a few hundred yards west of the outlock.

Gillian touched Keepiru's flank. The sensitive hide trembled under her hand. "You remember the plan, Keepiru?"

* Need you ask? *

Gillian raised an eyebrow in surprise. A triple upsweep trill and a wavering interrogative click? That was an unusually brief and straightforward reply for Trinary. Keepiru was capable of more subtlety than she had thought.

"Of course not, dear bow-wave rider. I apologize. I'll do my part, and I'll not worry for a moment about you doing yours."

Keepiru looked at her as if wishing he didn't have to wear a breather. As if he wanted to speak to her in her native language. Gillian felt some of this in a gentle telempathic touch.

She hugged his smooth gray torso. "You take care, Keepiru. Remember that you're admired and loved. Very much so."

The pilot tossed his head.

* To swimming — or

Battle

* To warning — or

Rescue

* To earning — your

Trust

They dropped over the edge of the bluff and swam quickly for the ship's outer lock.

48 ::: Takkata-Jim

It was impossible to rest.

Takkata-Jim envied humans the total unconsciousness they called sleep. When a man lay down for the night, his awareness of the world disappeared, and the nerves to his muscles deactivated. If he did dream, he usually didn't have to participate physically.

Even a neo-dolphin couldn't just turn himself off that way. One or the other hemisphere of the brain was always on sentry duty to control his breathing. Sleep, for a fin, was both a milder and a far more serious thing.

He knocked about the captain's stateroom, wishing he could go back to his own, smaller cabin. But symbolism was important to the crew he had inherited. His followers needed more than the logic of legality to confirm his command. They needed to see him as the New Bull. And that meant living in the style of the former herd leader.

He took a long breath at the surface and emitted clicks to illuminate the room in sound-images.

Creideiki certainly had eclectic tastes. Ifni knew what sorts of things the former captain had owned which couldn't stand wetness, and had therefore been stowed away before Streaker landed on Kithrup. The collection that remained was striking.

Works by artists of a dozen sentient races lay sealed behind glass cases. Sound-stroke photos of strange worlds and weird, aberrant stars adorned the walls.

Creideiki's music system was impressive. He had recordings by the thousands, songs and eerie… things that made Takkata-Jim's spine crawl when he played them. The collection of whale ballads was valuable, and a large fraction appeared to have been collected personally.

By the desk comm, there was a photo of Creideiki with the officers of the James Cook. Captain Helene Alvarez herself had signed it. The famous explorer had her arm over her dolphin exec's broad, smooth back as she and Creideiki mugged for the camera.

Takkata-Jim had served on important ships-cargo vessels supplying the Atlast and Calafia colonies — but he had never been on missions like those of the legendary Cook. He had never seen such sights, nor heard such sounds.

Until the Shallow Cluster… until they found dead ships the size of moons…

He thrashed his tail in frustration. His flukes struck the ceiling painfully. His breath came heavily.

It didn't matter. Nothing that he had done would matter if he succeeded! If he got Streaker away from Kithrup with her crew alive! If he did that, he would have a photo of his own. And the arm on his back would be that of the President of the Confederacy of Earth.

A shimmering collection of tiny motes began to collect to his right. The sparkles coalesced into a holographic image, a few inches from his eye.

"Yess, what is it!" he snapped.

An agitated dolphin, harness arms flexing and unflexing, nodded nervously. It was the ship's purser, Suppeh.

"Sssir! Sssomething strange has happened. We weren't sssure we should wake you, but-t-t…"

Takkata-Jim found the fin's Underwater Anglic almost indecipherable. Suppeh's upper register warbled uncontrollably.

"Calm down and talk slowly!" he commanded sharply. The fin flinched, but made an effort to obey.

"I… I was in the outlock-k. I heard someone say there was an alert-t. Heurka-pete sent Haoke and Mold after sled-sounds…"

"Why wasn't I informed?"

Suppeh recoiled in dismay. For a moment he appeared too frightened to speak. Takkata-Jim sighed and kept his voice calm. "Never mind. Not your fault. Go on."

Visibly relieved, Suppeh continued. "A f-few minutes later, the light on the personnel outlock-k came on. Wattaceti went over, and I p-p-paid no heed. But when Life-Cleaner and Wormhole-Pilot entered…"

Takkata-Jim spumed. Only dire need to hear Suppeh's story without delay prevented him from crashing about the room in frustration!

. . tried to stop them, as you ordered, but-t Wattaceti and Hiss-kaa were doing back flipsss of joy, and dashed about fetching for them both-th!"

"Where are they now?" Takkata-Jim demanded.

"Bassskin entered the main bay, with Wattaceti. Hiss-kaa is off, spreading rumorsss throughout the ship. Keepiru took a sled and breathers and is gone!"

"Gone where?"

"Back-k-k out-t-t!" Suppeh wailed. His command of Anglic was rapidly dissolving. Takkata-Jim took advantage of what composure the purser had left.

"Have Heurka-pete awaken Doctor Metz. Have Metz meet me at sick bay with three guards. You are to go to the dry-wheel dressing room, with Sawtoot, and let-t no one enter! Understood?"

Suppeh nodded vigorously, and his image vanished.

Takkata-Jim prayed that Heurka-pete would have the sense to recall Moki and Haoke and send them after Keepiru. Together, between Haoke's brains and Moki's feral ruthlessness, they might be able to cut the pilot off before he reached the Thennanin wreck.

Why isn't K'tha-Jon back yet? I chose him to go after that middie in order to get him out of the ship for a while. I was afraid he was becoming dangerous even to me. I wanted some time to organize without him around. But now the Baskin woman's returned sooner than I expected. Maybe I should have kept K'tha-Jon around. The giant's talents might be useful about now.

Takkata-Jim whistled the door open and swam out into the hall. He faced a confrontation he had hoped to put off for at least another forty hours, if not indefinitely.

Should I have seen to Creideiki before this? It would have been easy… a power failure in his gravity tank, a switched catheter… Metz would not approve, but there was already much of which Metz did not know. Much that Takkata-Jim wished he didn't know.

He swam hard for the intrahull lift.

Maybe I won't need K'tha-Jon in order to deal with Gillian Baskin, he thought. After all, what can one human female do?

49 ::: The Psi-Bomb

The mound of partly dried weeds formed a dome on the sea of vines. Tom had propped up a low roof using salvaged bits of strutting from his sledge, making a rude cave. He sat in the entrance, waiting in the pre-dawn dimness, and munched on one of his scarce foodbars.

His wounds were cleaned as well as possible, and coated with hardening dabs of medicinal foam. With food in his stomach and some of the pain put down, he almost felt human again.

He examined his small osmotic still. The upper part, a clear bag with a filtered spout at one end, held a thick layer of saltwater and sludge. Below the filter, one of his canteens sat almost filled.

Tom looked at his watch. Only five minutes remained. There was no time to dip for another load of scummy water to feed the still. He wouldn't even be able to clean the filters before the bomb went off.

He picked up the canteen, screwed its cap tight, and slipped it into a thigh pouch. He popped the filter out of its frame and shook most of the sludge out before folding it tightly and tucking it under his belt. The filter probably didn't take out all the dissolved metal salts in the water. It hadn't been designed with Kithrup in mind. Nonetheless, the little package was probably his most valuable possession.

Three minutes, the glowing numbers on his watch told him.

Tom looked up at the sky. There was a vague brightening in the east, and the stars were starting to fade. It would be a clear morning, and therefore bitterly cold. He shivered and zipped the wetsuit tight. He pulled in his knees.

One minute.

When it came it would be like the loudest sound he had ever heard. Like the brightest light. There would be no keeping it out.

He wanted to cover his ears and eyes, as if against a real explosion. Instead, he stared at a point on the horizon and counted, pacing each breath. Deliberately he let himself slide into a trance.

" . . seven… eight… nine… ten…" A lightness filled his chest. The feeling spread outward, numbing and soothing.

Light from the few stars in the west diffracted spiderweb rays through his barely separated eyelashes as he awaited a soundless explosion.

"Sah'ot, I said I'm ready to take over now!"

Sah'ot squirmed and looked up at Toshio. "Just-t another few minutess, OK? I'm listening to ssssomething!"

Toshio frowned. This was not what he had expected from Sah'ot! He had come to relieve the dolphin linguist early because Sah'ot hated working with the robot probe!

"What's going on, Tosh?"

Dennie sat up in her sleeping bag, rubbing her eyes and peering in the pre-dawn dark.

"I don't know, Dennie. I offered to take over the robot, so Sah'ot wouldn't have to deal with Charlie when he calls. But he refuses to let go."

Dennie shrugged. "Then I'd say that's his business. What do you care, anyway?"

Toshio felt a sharp answer rise to his lips, but he kept them locked and turned away. He would ignore Dennie until she awakened fully and decided to behave civilly.

Dennie had surprised him after Gillian and Keepiru left, by taking his new command without complaint. For the last two days, she hadn't seemed much interested in anything but her microscopes and samples, ignoring even Sah'ot's desultory sexual innuendo, and answering questions in monosyllables.

Toshio knelt by the comm unit attached by cable to Sah'ot's sled. He tapped out a query on the monitor and frowned at the result.

"Sah'ot!" he said severely. "Get over here!"

"In a ssssec…" The dolphin sounded distracted.

Toshio pursed his lips.

* NOW, you will to HERE

Ingather

* Or shortly cease ALL

Listening further! *

He heard Dennie gasp behind him. She probably didn't understand the Trinary burst in detail, but she got the basic idea. Toshio felt justified. This was a test. He wasn't able to be as subtle as Gillian Baskin, but he had to get obedience or he would be useless as an officer.

Sah'ot stared up at him, blinking dazedly. Then the fin sighed and moved over to the side of the pool.

"Sah'ot, you haven't taken any geological readings in four hours! Yet in that time you've dropped the probe two hundred meters! What's got into you!"

The Stenos rolled from side to side uncertainly. Finally, he spoke softly. "I'm get-tting a sssong…

The last word faded before Toshio could be sure of it. He looked at the neo-fin civilian, unable to believe his ears. "You're getting a what?"

"A ssssong… ?"

Toshio lifted his hands and dropped them to his sides. He's finally cracked, he thought. First Dennie, now Sah'ot. I've been left in charge of two mental cases!

He sensed Dennie approach the pool. "Listen, Sah'ot," Toshio said. "Dr. Dart will be calling soon. What do you think he's going to say when…"

"I'll take care of Charlie when he calls," Dennie said quietly.

"You?" Dennie had spent the last forty hours cursing over the drill-tree problem she had been assigned, at Takkata-Jim's order and Charles Dart's request. It had almost completely superseded her work with the Kiqui. Toshio couldn't imagine her wanting to talk with the chimpanzee.

"Yes, me. What I have to tell him may make him forget all about the robot, so you just lay off Sah'ot. If he says he heard singing, well, maybe he's heard singing."

Toshio stared at her, then shrugged. Fine. My job is to protect these two, not to correct their scientific blunders. I just hope Gillian straightens things out back at the ship so I can report what's going on here.

Dennie knelt down by the water to talk to Sah'ot. She spoke slowly and earnestly, patient with the Anglic slowness he suffered after his long seance with the robot.

Dennie wanted to dive to look at the core of the metal-mound. Sah'ot agreed to accompany her if she would wait until he had transcribed some more of his "music." Dennie assented, apparently completely unafraid of going into the water with Sah'ot.

Toshio sat down and waited for the inevitable buzz of the comm line from the ship. People were changing overnight, and he hadn't the slightest idea why!

His eyes felt scratchy. Toshio rubbed them, but that didn't seem to help.

He blinked and tried to look at Dennie and Sah'ot. The difficulty he was having focusing only seemed to be getting worse. A haziness began to spread between himself and the pool. Suddenly he felt a sense of dread expectancy. Pulsing, it seemed to migrate from the back of his head to a place between his shoulder blades.

He brought his hands to his ears. "Dennie? Sah'ot? Do you… ?" He shouted the last words, but could barely hear his own voice.

The others looked up at him. Dennie rose and took a step toward him, concern on her face.

Then her eyes opened in wide surprise. Toshio saw a blur of movement at the edges of his field of view. Then there were Kiqui in the forest, charging them through the bushes!

Toshio tried to draw his needler, knowing it was already too late. The aboriginals were already upon them, waving their short arms and screaming in tiny, high-pitched voices. Three plowed into him and two toppled Dennie. He struggled and fell beneath them fighting to keep their slashing claws away from his face while the grating noise erupted in his brain.

Then, in an instant, the Kiqui were gone!

Amidst the grinding roar in his head, Toshio forced himself to turn over and look up.

Dennie tossed back and forth across the ground moaning, clutching at her ears. Toshio feared she had been wounded by Kiqui claws, but when she rolled his way he saw only shallow cuts.

With both shaking hands, he drew his needier. The few Kiqui in sight weren't heading this way, but squealing as they rushed the pool and dove in.

It's not their doing, he realized dimly.

He recognized the "sound" of a thousand fingernails scraping across a blackboard.

A psi attack! We have to hide! Water might cushion the assault. We should dive in, like the abos did!

His head roared as he crawled toward the pool. Then he stopped.

I can't drag Dennie in there, and we can't put on our breathing gear while shaking like this!

He reversed direction until he reached a pool-side tree. He sat up, with his back against the bole. He tried to concentrate, in spite of the crashing in his brain.

Remember what Mr. Orley taught you, middie! Think about your mind, and go within. SEE the enemy's illusions… listen lightly to his lies… use the Yin and the Yang… the twin salvations… logic to pierce Mara's veil… and faith to sustain…

Dennie moaned and rolled in the dust a few meters away. Toshio laid the needler on his lap, to have it ready when the enemy came. He called to Dennie, shouting over the screaming noise.

"Dennie! Listen to your heartbeat! Listen to each breath! They're real sounds! This isn't!"

He saw her turn slightly toward his voice, agony in her eyes as she pressed white bloodless hands over her ears. The shrieking intensified.

"Count your heartbeats, Dennie! They're… they're like the ocean, like the surf! Dennie!" He shouted. "Have you ever heard any sound that can overcome the surf? Can… can anything or anybody scream loud enough to keep the tide from laughing back?"

She stared at him, trying. He could see her inhaling deeply, mouthing slowly as she counted.

"Yes! Count, Dennie! Breaths and heartbeats! Is there any sound the tide of your heartbeat can't laugh at?"

She locked onto his eyes, as he anchored himself to hers.

Slowly, as the howling within his head reached its crescendo, Toshio saw her nod faintly and give a faint grateful smile.

Sah'ot felt it too. And even as the psychic wave rolled over him, the pool was suddenly afroth with panicky Kiqui. Sah'ot was inundated by a babel of noise from all around and within. It was worse than being blinded by a searchlight.

He wanted to dive away from the cacophony. Biting back panic, he forced himself to lie still.

He tried to separate the noise into parts, the human contribution first. Dennie and Toshio seemed in worse shape than he. Perhaps they were more sensitive to the assault. There would be no help from them!

The Kiqui were in terror, squawling as they crashed into the pool.

:?: Flee! Flight…

from the sad great things

:?: Somebody Help

the great sad hurt things!

Out of the mouths of babes… When he concentrated on it, the "psi attack" did feel a bit like a call for help. It hurt like the hell of the deeps, but he faced it and tried to pin it down.

He thought he was making progress-certainly he was coping — when still another voice joined in, this one over his neural link! The song from below, that he had spent all night unable to decipher, had awakened. From the bowels of Kithrup it bellowed. Its simplicity commanded understanding.

+ WHO CALLS? -

— WHO DARES BOTHER +

Sah'ot moaned as he tore the robot link free. Three screaming noises, all at different levels of mind, were quite enough. Any more and he would go insane!

Buoult of the Thennanin was afraid, though an officer in the service of the Great Ghosts thought nothing of death or of living enemies.

The shuttle cycled through the lock of his flagship, Quegsfire. The giant doors, comfortingly massive and enduring, swung shut behind them. The shuttle pilot plotted a course to the Tandu flagship.

Tandu.

Buoult flexed his ridge crest as a display of confidence. He would lose heat from the sail of nerves and blood vessels in the frigid atmosphere of the Tandu ship, but it was absolutely necessary to maintain appearances.

It might have been slightly less distasteful to make an alliance with the Soro instead. At least the Soro were more Thennaninoid than the arthropod Tandu, and lived at a decent temperature. Also, the Soro's clients were interesting folk, the sort Buoult's people might have liked to uplift themselves.

Better for them if we had, he thought. For we are kind patrons.

If the leathern Soro were meddlesome and callous, the spindly Tandu were horrifying beings. Their clients were weird creatures that set off twitches at the base of Buoult's tail when he thought of them.

Buoult grimaced in disgust. Politics made for strange gene transfers. The Soro were now strongest among the survivors. The Thennanin were weakest of the major powers. Although the Tandu philosophy was the most repulsive of those in opposition to the Abdicator Creed, they were now all that stood in the way of a Soro triumph. The Thennanin must ally with them, for now.

Should the Tandu seem about to prevail, there would be another chance to switch sides. It had happened a number of times already, and would happen again.

Buoult steeled himself for the meeting ahead. He was determined not to let show any of his dread of stepping aboard a Tandu ship!

The Tandu didn't seem to care what chances they took with their crazy, poorly understood probability drive. The insane reality manipulations of their Episiarch clients often let them move about more quickly than their opponents. But sometimes the resulting alterations of spacetime swallowed whole groups of ships, impartially snatching the Tandu and their enemies from the universe forever! It was madness!

Just let them not use their perverted drives while I am aboard, Buoult's organs-of-prayer subvocalized. Let us make our battle plans and be done.

The Tandu ships came into sight, crazy, stilt-like structures that disdained armor for wild speed and power.

Of course even these unusual ships were mere variations of ancient Library designs. The Tandu were daring, but they did not add to their crimes the gaucherie of originality

Earthlings were in many ways more unconventional than the Tandu. Their sloppy gimmickry was a vulgar habit that came from a poor upbringing.

Buoult wondered what the "dolphins" were doing right now. Pity the poor creatures if the Tandu, or even the Soro got hold of them! Even these primitive sea mammals, clients of a coarse and hairy wolfling race, deserved to be protected, if possible.

Of course there were priorities. They mustn't be allowed to hoard the data they held!

Buoult noticed that his finger-claws had unsheathed in his agitation. He pulled them back and cultivated serenity as the shuttle drew near the Tandu squadron.

Buoult's musing was split by a sudden chill that made his crest tremble… a disturbance on a psi band.

"Operator!" he snapped. "Contact the flagship! See if they verify that call!"

"Immediately, General-Protector!"

Buoult controlled his excitement. The psychic energies he felt could be a ruse. Still, they felt right. They bore the image of Krondorsfire, which none of them had hoped to see again!

Determination filled him. In the negotiations ahead, he would ask one more favor. The Tandu must provide one added cooperation in exchange for the help of the Thennanin.

"Confirmed, sir. It is battleship Krondorsfire," the pilot said, his voice raspy with emotion. Buoult's crest stood erect in acknowledgment. He stared ahead at the looming metal mantis shapes, steeling himself for the confrontation, the negotiations, and the waiting.

Beie Chohooan was listening to whale songs — rare and expensive copies which had cost her a month's pay some time ago — when her detectors picked up the beacon. Reluctantly, she put down her headphones and noted the direction and intensity. There were so many signals… bombs and blasts and traps. It was one of the little wazoon that pointed out to her that this particular beacon emanated from the waterworld itself.

Beie groomed her whiskers and considered.

"I believe this will change things, my pretty little ones. Shall we leave this belt of unborn rubble in space and move in a bit closer to the action? Is it time to let the Earthlings know that someone is out here who is a friend?"

The wazoon chittered back that policy was her business. According to union rules, they were spies, not strategists.

Beie approved of their sarcasm. It was very tasty.

"Very well," she said. "Let us try to move closer."

Hikahi hurriedly queried the skiffs battle computer.

"It's a psi weapon of some sort," she announced via hydrophone to the crew working in the alien wreck. Her Anglic was calm and precise, accentuated with the cool overtones of Keneenk. "I detect no other signs of attack, so I believe we're feeling a fringe of the space-battle. We've felt othersss before, if not this intense.

"We're deep underwater, partly shielded from psi-waves. Grit your teeth, Streakers. Try to ignore it. Go about your duties in tropic-clear logic."

She switched off the speakers. Hikahi knew Tsh't was even now moving among the workers out there, joking and keeping morale high.

The psi-noise was like a nagging itch, but an itch with a weird rhythm. It pulsed as if in some code she couldn't quite get her jaws around.

She looked at Hannes Suessi, who sat on a wall rail nearby, looking very tired. He had been about to turn in for a few hours' sleep, but the psionic assault apparently affected him even worse than it did the dolphins. He had compared it to fingernails scratching on a blackboard.

"I can think of two possibilities, Hikahi. One would be very good news. The other's about as bad as could be."

She nodded her sleek head. "We've repeatedly rechecked our circuitsss, sent three couriers back with messages, and yet there's only silence from the ship. I must assume the worst."

"That Streakers been taken," Suess! closed his eyes.

"Yess. This psi havoc comes from somewhere on the surface of the planet. The Galactics may even now be fighting over her — or — what's left of her."

Hikahi decided. "I'm returning to Streaker in this boat. I'll delay until you've sealed quarters for the work-crew inside the hulk. You need power from the skiff to recharge the Thennanin accumulators."

Suessi nodded. Hikahi was clearly anxious to depart as soon as possible. "I'll go outside and help, then."

"You just got off duty. I cannot permit it."

Suessi shook his head. "Look, Hikahi, when we've got that refuge inside the battleship set up, we can pump in filtered fizzywater for the fen and they'll be able to rest properly. The wreck is well shielded from this psychic screeching, too. And most important, I'll have a room of my own, one that's dry, without a crowd of squeaking, practical-joking children goosing me from behind whenever I turn the other way!" His eyes were gently ironic.

Hikahi's jaw made a gentle curve. "Wait a minute, then, Maker of Wonderful Toys. I'll come out and join you. Work will distract usss from the scratching of ET fingernails."

The Soro, Krat, felt no grating tremors. Her ship was girded against psychic annoyances. She first learned of the disturbance from her staff: She took the data scroll from the Pila Cullalberra with mild interest.

They had detected many such signals in the course of the battle. But none yet had emanated from the planet. Only a few skirmishes had taken the war down to Kithrup itself.

Normally she would have simply ordered a homing torpedo dispatched and forgotten the matter. The expected Tandu-Thennanin alliance against the Soro was forming up near the gas-giant world, and she had plans to make. But something about this signal intrigued her.

"Determine the exact origin of this signal on a planetary map," she told the Pila. "Include locations of all known landfalls by enemy ships."

"There would be doz-ens by now, and the pos-itions very vague," the Pil statistician barked. Its voice was high and sharp. Its mouth popped open for each syllable, and hairy cilia waved above its small, black eyes.

Krat did not dignify it with a look. "When the Soro intervened to end Pilan indenture to the Kisa," she hissed, "it was not to make you Grand Elders. Am I to be questioned, like a human who pampers his chimpanzee?"

Cullalberra shivered and bowed quickly. The stocky Pila scuttled away to its data center.

Krat purred happily. Yes, the Pila were so close to perfect. Arrogant and domineering with their own clients and neighbors, they scurried to serve the Soro's every whim. How wonderful it was to be a Grand Elder!

She owed the humans something, at that. In a few centuries they had almost replaced the Tymbrimi as the bogeymen to use on recalcitrant clients. They symbolized all that was wrong with Uplift Liberalism. When Terra was finally humbled, and humans were "adopted" into a proper client status, some other bad example would have to serve instead.

Krat opened a private communication line. The display lit up with the image of the Soro Pritil, the young commander of one of the ships in her flotilla.

"Yes, fleet-mother," Pritil bowed slowly and shallowly. "I listen."

Krat's tongues flickered at the young female's insolence. "Ship number sixteen was slow in the last skirmish, Pritil."

"One opinion." Pritil examined her mating claw. She cleaned it in front of the screen, an indelicacy designed to show indifference.

Younger females seldom understood that a real insult should be subtle and require time for the victim to discover it. Krat decided she would teach Pritil this lesson.

"You need a rest for repairs. In the next battle, ship number sixteen would be next to useless. There is, however, a way in which she might win honor, and perhaps the prey, as well."

Pritil looked up, her interest piqued.

"Yes, fleet-mother?"

"We have picked up a call that pretends to be one thing, perhaps an enemy pleading for succor. I suspect it may be something else."

The flavor of intrigue obviously tempted Pritil. " I choose to listen, group-mother."

Krat sighed at the predictability. She knew the younger captains secretly believed all of the legends about Krat's hunches. She had known Pritil would come around.

You have much yet to learn, she thought, before you will pull me down and take my place, Pritil. Many learning scars shall have to mar that young hide first. I will enjoy teaching you until that day, my daughter.

Gillian and Makanee looked up as Takkata-Jim and Dr. Ignacio Metz entered sick bay, accompanied by three stocky, war-harnessed, hard-faced Stenos.

Wattaceti squealed an indecipherable indignation and moved to interpose himself. Makanee's assistants chittered behind the ship's surgeon.

Gillian met Makanee's eye. It had come, the confrontation. Now they would see if Makanee was only imagining things. Gillian still held out a hope that Takkata-Jim and Metz had compelling reasons for their actions, and that Creideiki's injury was truly an accident.

Makanee had already made up her mind. Akki, the young midshipfin from Calafia, had still not returned. The doctor glared at Takkata-Jim as she would look at a tiger shark. The expression on the male dolphin's face did little to belie the image.

Gillian had a secret weapon, but she had sworn never to use it except in the direst emergency. Let them act first, she thought. Let them show their cards before we pull that last ace of trumps.

The first stages might be a little dangerous. She had only had time to make a brief call to the Niss machine from her office before hurrying to sick bay. Her position here might be difficult if she had miscalculated the degree of atavism loose on Streaker. Maybe she should have kept Keepiru by her side.

"Dr. Baskin!" Ignacio Metz didn't swim very close before grabbing a wall rail and letting an armed Stenos pass before him. "It's good to see you again, but why didn't you announce yourself?"

"A grosss violation of security rules, Doctor," Takkata-Jim added.

So that's the way of it, Gillian thought. And they might try to make that stick long enough to get me into a cell.

"Why I came for the ship's council meeting, gentlefin and -mel. I got a message from Dr. Makanee calling me back for it. Sorry if your bridge crew fouled up my reply. I hear they're mostly new and inexperienced up there."

Takkata-Jim frowned. It was even possible she had sent such a call, which had been lost in the confusion on the bridge.

"Makanee's message was also against orderss! And your return was contrary to my specific instructions."

Gillian put on an expression of bewilderment. "Wasn't she simply passing on your call for a ship's council? The rules are clear. You must call a meeting within twenty-four hours of the death or disability of the captain."

"Preparations were underway! But in an emergency the acting-captain can dispense with the advice of the council. When faced with clear disobedience of orders, I am within rightsss to…"

Gillian tensed herself. Her preparations would do no good if Takkata-Jim were irrational. She might have to make a break by vaulting over the row of autodocs to the parapet above. Her office would be steps away.

"… to order that-t you be detained for a hearing to be held at some time after the emergency."

Gillian took in the stances of the guard-fen. Would they really be willing to harm a human being? She read their expressions and decided they just might be.

Her mouth felt dry, but she didn't let it show. "You misread your legal status, Lieutenant," she replied carefully. "I think very few of the fen aboard would be surprised to learn that…"

The words stopped in her throat. Gillian felt a chill in her spine as the air itself seemed to waver and throb around her. Then, as she grabbed a rail for support, a deep, growling sound began to emanate from inside her head.

The others stared at her, confused by her behavior. Then they began to feel it too.

Takkata-Jim whirled and shouted, "Psi weapon! Makanee, give me a link to the bridge! We are under attack-k!"

The dolphin physician moved aside, amazed by Takkata-Jim's quickness as he rushed past. Gillian pressed her hands over her ears and saw Metz doing the same as the grating noise grew louder. The security guards were in disarray, fluting disconsolately with boat-like pupils wide in fear.

Should I make my break now? Gillian tried to think. But if this is an attack we'll have to drop our quarrels and join forces.

" . . incompetentsss!" Takkata-Jim shouted at the comm. "What do you mean 'only a thousand miles away'? Pinpoint it-t!… Why won't the active sensors work?"

"Wait!" Gillian cried. She clapped her hands together. Through a haze of building emotion she started to laugh. Takkata-Jim continued to bark rapidly at the bridge crew, but everyone else turned to look at her in surprise.

Gillian laughed. She slapped the water, pounded on the nearest autodoc, grabbed Wattaceti around the dolphin's quivering flank. Even Takkata-Jim stopped then, captivated by her apparently psychotic fit of joy. He stared, oblivious to frantic twitters from the bridge.

"Tom!" She cried out loud. "I told you you couldn't die! Dammit, I love you, you son of a… Oh, if I had gone I would have been home by now!"

The fins stared at her, eyes opening still wider as they began to realize what she was talking about.

She laughed, tears running down her face.

"Tom," she said softly. "I told you you couldn't die!" And blindly she hugged close whatever was nearest to her.

Sounds came to Creideiki as he drifted in weightlessness.

It was like listening to Beethoven, or like trying actually to understand a humpback whale.

Somebody had left the audio link on in case he made any more sounds. No one had considered that the circuit went both ways. Words penetrated the gravity tank from the outer room.

They were tantalizing, like those ghosts of meaning in a great symphony — hinting that the composer had caught a glimpse of something notes could only vaguely convey and words could never even approach.

Takkata-Jim spluttered and mumbled. The threatening tone was clear. So was the cautious clarity of Gillian Baskin's voice. If only he could understand the words! But Anglic was lost to him.

Creideiki knew his ship was in peril, and there was nothing he could do to help. The old gods weren't through with him and would not let him move. They had much more to show him before he was ready to serve their purposes.

He had become resigned to periodic episodes of terror — like diving to do battle with a great octopus, then rising for a rest before going back down to the chaos once again. When they came to pull him DOWN he would once more be caught in the maelstrom of idea-glyphs, of throbbing dreams which hammered away at his engineer's mind with insistent impressions of otherness.

The assault never would have been possible without the destruction of his speech centers. Creideiki grieved over the loss of words. He listened to the talk-sounds from the outer world, concentrating as hard as he could on the eerie, musical familiarity.

It wasn't all gone, he decided after a while. He could recognize a few words, here and there. Simple ones, mostly the names of objects or people, or simple actions associated with them.

That much his distant ancestors could do.

But he couldn't remember the words more than three or four deep, so it was impossible to follow a conversation. He might laboriously decipher a sentence, only to forget it completely when he worked on the next one. It was agonizingly difficult, and at last he made himself cease the vain effort.

That's not the way, he concluded.

Instead, he should try for the gestalt, he told himself. Use the tricks the old gods had been using on him. Encompass. Absorb…like trying to feel what Beethoven felt by submerging into the mystery of the Violin Concerto.

Murmuring sounds of angry sophonts squawked from the speaker. The noises bounced around the chamber and scattered like bitter droplets. After the terrible beauty of DOWN, he felt repelled. He forced himself to listen, to seek a way — some humble way to help Streaker and his crew.

Need swelled within him as he concentrated. He sought a center, a focus in the chaotic sounds.

* Rancor

Turbid

In the rip-tide

* Ignoring

Sharks!

Internecine struggle…

*Inviting

Sharks!

Foolish opportunism…

Against his will, he felt himself begin to click aloud. He tried to stop, knowing where it would lead, but the clicks emerged involuntarily from his brow, soon joined by a series of low moans.

The sounds of the argument in sick bay drifted away as his own soft singing wove a thicker and thicker web around him. The humming, crackling echoes caused the walls to fade as a new reality took shape all around. A dark presence slowly grew next to him.

Without words, he told it to go away.

: No : We Are Back : You Have More To Learn :

For all I know, you're a delirium of mine! None of you ever make a sound of your own! You always speak in reflections from my own sonar!

: Have Your Echoes Ever Been So Complex? :

Who knows what my unconscious could do? In my memory are more strange sounds than any other living cetacean has heard! I've been where living clouds whistled to tame hurricanes! I've heard the doom-booms of black holes and listened to the songs of stars!

: All The More Reason You Are The One We Want : The One We Need :

I am needed here!

: Indeed.

Come,

Creideiki. :

The old god, K-K-Kph-kree, moved closer. Its sonically translucent form glistened. Its sharp teeth flashed. Figment or not, the great thing began to move, carrying him along, as before, helpless to resist.

: DOWN :

Then, just as resignation washed over Creideiki, he heard a sound. Miraculously, it wasn't one of his own making, diffracted against the insane dream. It came from somewhere else, powerful and urgent!

: Pay No Heed : Come :

Creideiki's mind leaped after it as if it were a school of mullet, even as the noise swelled to deafening volume.

: You Are Sensitized : You Have Psi You Had Not Known Before : You Know Not Yet Its Use : Relinquish Quick Rewards : Come The Hard Way… :

Creideiki laughed, and opened himself to the noise from the outside. It crashed in, dissolving the shining blackness of the old god into sonic specks that shimmered and then slowly disappeared.

: That Way Is Gone For You :

: Creideiki… :

Then the great-browed god was gone. Creideiki laughed at his release from the cruel illusion, grateful for the new sound that had freed him.

But the noise kept growing. Victory went to panic as it swelled and became a pressure within his head, pushing against the walls of his skull, hammering urgently to get out. The world became a whirling groaning alien cry for help.

Creideiki let out a warbling whistle of despair as he tried to ride the crashing tide.

50 ::: Streaker

The waves of pseudo-sound were fading at last.

"Creideiki!" Makanee cried and swam to the captain's tank. The others turned also, just noticing the injured dolphin's distress.

"What's the matter with him?" Gillian swam up next to Makanee. She could see the captain struggle feebly, giving off a slowly diminishing series of low. moans.

"I don't know. No one was watching him as the psi-bomb hit its peak! Just now I saw he was disturbed."

The large, dark gray form within the tank seemed calmer now. The muscles along Creideiki's back twitched. slowly, as he let out a low, warbling cry.

Ignacio Metz swam up alongside Gillian.

"Ah, Gillian…" he began, "I want you to know that I'm very glad Tom is alive, although this tardiness bodes poorly. I'd still stake my life that this Trojan Seahorse plan of his is ill conceived."

"We'll have to discuss that at ship's council, then, won't we, Dr. Metz?" she said coolly.

Metz cleared his throat. "I'm not sure the acting captain will permit…" He subsided under her gaze and looked away.

She glanced at Takkata-Jim. If he did anything rash, it could be the last straw that broke Streaker's morale. Gillian had to convince Takkata-Jim that he would lose if he contested with her. And he had to be offered a way out, or there might still be civil war aboard the ship.

Takkata-Jim looked back at her with a mixture of pure hostility and calculation. She saw the sound-sensitive tip of his jaw swing toward each of the fen in turn, gauging their reaction. The news that Thomas Orley still lived would go through the ship like a clarion. Already one of the armed Stenos guards, presumably carefully picked by the vicecaptain, looked mutinously jubilant and chattered hopefully with Wattaceti.

I've got to act fast, Gillian realized. He's desperate.

She swam toward Takkata-Jim, smiling. He backed away, a loyal Stenos glaring at her from his side.

Gillian spoke softly, so the others could not hear.

"Don't even think it, Takkata-Jim. The fen aboard this ship have Tom Orley fresh on their minds now. If you thought you could harm me before this, even you know better now."

Takkata-Jim's eyes widened, and Gillian knew she had struck on target, capitalizing on the legend of her psi ability. "Besides, I'm going to stick close to Ignacio Metz. He's gullible, but if he witnesses me being harmed, you'll lose him. You need a token man, don't you? Without at least one, even your Stenos will melt away."

Takkata-Jim clapped his jaw loudly.

"Don't try to bully me! I don't have to harm you. I am the legal authority on this ship. I can have you confined to quartersss!"

Gillian looked at her fingernails. "Are you so sure?"

"You would incite the crew to disobey the legal ship's master?" Takkata-Jim sounded genuinely shocked. He must know that many, perhaps most of the Tursiops would follow her, whatever the law said. But that would be mutiny, and tear the crew apart.

"I have the law on my side!" he hissed.

Gillian sighed. The hand must be played out, for all the damage this would do if the dolphins of Earth found out. She whispered the two words she had not wanted to utter.

"Secret orders," she said.

Takkata-Jim stared at her, then let out a keening cry. He stood on his tail and did a back flip while his guard blinked in confusion. Gillian turned and saw Metz and Wattaceti staring at them.

"I don't believe you!" Takkata-Jim spluttered, spraying water in all directions. "On Earth we were promisssed! Streaker is our ship!"

Gillian shrugged. "Ask your bridge crew if the battle controls work," she offered. "Have someone try to leave through the outlock. Try to open the door to the armory"

Takkata-Jim whirled and sped to a comm screen at the far end of the room. His guard stared at Gillian momentarily, then followed. His look conveyed a sense of betrayal.

Not all of the crew would feel that way, Gillian knew. Most would probably be delighted. But deep inside an implication would settle. One of the main purposes of Streakers mission, to build in the neo-fen a sense of independence and self-confidence, had been compromised.

Did I have any other choice? Is there anything else I might have tried first?

She shook her head, wishing Tom were here. Tom might have settled everything with one sarcastic little ditty in Trinary that put everybody to shame.

Oh, Tom, she thought. I should have gone instead of you.

"Gillian!"

Makanee's flukes pounded the water and her harness whirred. With one metal arm she pointed up at the wounded dolphin floating in the gravity tank.

Creideiki was looking back at her!

"Joshua H. Bar — but you said his cortex was fried!" Metz stared.

An expression of profound concentration bore down on Creideiki's features. He breathed heavily, then gave voice to a desperate cry.

"Out!:"

"It'sss not possible!" Makanee sighed. "His ssspeech centers…"

Creideiki frowned in effort.

* Out :

Creideiki!

* Swim :

Creideiki!

It was Trinary baby talk, but with a queer tone to it. And the dark eyes burned with intelligence. Gillian's telempathic sense throbbed.

"Out!:" He whirled about in the tank and slammed his powerful flukes against the window with a loud boom. He repeated the Anglic word. The falling tone-slope was like a phrase in Primal.

"Out-t-t!: "

"Help him out-t!" Makanee commanded her assistants. "Gently! Quickly!"

Takkata-Jim was heading back from his comm screen at high speed, wrath on his face. But he stopped abruptly at the gravity tank, and stared at the bright eye of the captain.

It was the last straw.

He rolled back and forth, as if unable to decide on appropriate body language. Takkata-Jim turned to Gillian.

"What I've done was in, what I believed to be the best interest of the ship, crew, and mission. I could make a very good case on Earth."

Gillian shrugged. "Let's hope you get the chance."

Takkata-Jim laughed dryly. "Very well, we'll hold this charade ship'sss council. I'll call it for one hour from now. But let me warn you, don't push too far, Dr. Baskin. I have powers ssstill. We must find a compromise. Try to pillory me and you will divide the ship.

"And then I will fight-t-t you" he added, low.

Gillian nodded. She had achieved what she had to. Even if Takkata-Jim had done the worst things Makanee suspected of him, there was no proof, and it was a matter of compromise or lose the ship to civil war. The first officer had to be offered an out. "I'll remember, Takkata-Jim. In one hour, then. I'll be there."

Takkata-Jim swirled about to leave, followed by his two loyal security guards.

Gillian saw Ignacio Metz staring after the dolphin lieutenant. "You lost control, didn't you?" she asked dryly as she swam past him.

The geneticist's head jerked. "What, Gillian? What do you mean?" But his face betrayed him. Like many others, Metz tended to overestimate her psychic powers. Now he must be wondering if she had read his mind.

"Never mind," Gillian's smile was narrow. "Let's go and witness this miracle."

She swam to where Makanee waited anxiously for the emerging Creideiki. Metz looked after her uncertainly, before following.

51 ::: Thomas Orley

With trembling hands, he pulled vines away from the cave entrance. He crept out of his shelter and blinked at the hazy morning.

A thick layer of low clouds had gathered. There were no alien ships, yet, and that was just as well. He had feared they would arrive while he was helpless, struggling against the effects of the psi-bomb.

It hadn't been fun. In the first few minutes the psychic blasts had beaten away at his hypnotic defenses, cresting over them and drenching his brain in alien howling. For two hours — it had felt like eternity — he had wrestled with crazy images, pulsing, nerve-evoked lights and sounds. Tom still shook with reaction.

I sure hope there are still Thennanin out there, and that they fall for it. It had better have been worth it.

According to Gillian, the Niss machine had been confident it had found the right codes in the Library taken from the Thennanin wreck. If there were still Thennanin in the system, they should try to answer. The bomb must have been detectable for millions of miles in all directions.

He dragged a handful of muck out of the gap in the weeds and flung it aside. Scummy sea water welled up almost to the surface of the hole. Another gap probably lay only a few meters beyond the next hummock

— the weedscape flexed and breathed incessantly — but Tom wanted a water entrance near at hand.

He scooped away the slime as best he could, then wiped his hands and settled down to scan the sky from his shelter. On his lap he arranged his remaining psi-bombs.

Fortunately, these wouldn't pack the wallop of the Thennanin distress call. They were simply pre-recorded message casts, designed to carry a brief code a few thousand kilometers.

He had only recovered three of the message globes from the glider wreck, so he could only broadcast a narrow range of facts. Depending on which bomb he set off; Gillian and Creideiki would know what kind of aliens had come to investigate the distress call.

Of course, something might happen that didn't fit into any of the scenarios they had discussed. Then he would have to decide whether to broadcast an ambiguous message or do nothing and wait.

Maybe it would have been better to bring a radio, he thought. But a warship in the vicinity could pinpoint a radio transmission almost instantly, and blast his position before he spoke a few words. A message bomb could do its work in a second or so, and would be much harder to locate.

Tom thought about Streaker. It seemed like forever since he had last been there. Everything desirable was there — food, sleep, hot showers, his woman.

He smiled at the way the priorities had come out in his thoughts. Ah, well, Jill would understand.

Streaker might have to abandon him, if his experiment led to a brief chance to blast away from Kithrup. It would not be a dishonorable way to die.

He wasn't afraid of dying, only of having not done all he could, and not properly spitting in the eye of death when it came for him. That final gesture was important.

Another image came to him, far more unpleasant — Streaker already captured, the space battle already over, all of his efforts useless.

Tom shuddered. It was better to imagine a sacrifice being for something.

A stiff breeze kept the clouds moving. They merged and separated in thick, wet drifts. Tom shaded his eyes against the glare to the east. About a radian south of the haze shrouded morning sun, he thought he saw motion in the sky. He huddled deeper into his makeshift cave.

Out of one of the eastern cloud-drifts, a dark object slowly descended. Swirling vapor momentarily obscured its shape and size as it hung high above the sea of weeds.

A faint drumming sound reached Tom. He squinted from his hiding place, wishing for his lost binoculars. Then the mists parted briefly, and he saw the hovering spaceship clearly. It looked like some monstrous dragonfly, sharply tapered and wickedly dangerous.

Few races delved so deeply into the Library for weird designs as did the idiosyncratic, ruthless Tandu. Wild protrusions extended from the narrow hull in all directions, a Tandu hallmark.

At one end, however, a blunt, wedge-shaped appendage clashed with the overall impression of careless, cruel delicacy. It didn't seem to fit into the overall design.

Before he could get a better view, the clouds came together, concealing the floating cruiser from sight. The faint hum of powerful engines grew slowly louder, however.

Tom scratched at an itchy five-day growth of beard. The Tandu were bad news. If they were the only ones to show themselves, he would have to set off message bomb number three, to tell Streaker to lock up and get ready for a death-fight.

This was an enemy with whom Mankind had never been able to negotiate. In skirmishes on the Galactic marshes, Terran ships had seldom conquered Tandu vessels, even with the odds in their favor. And, when there were no witnesses around, the Tandu loved to pick fights. Standing orders were to avoid them at all costs, until such time as Tymbrimi advisors could teach human crews the rare knack of beating these masters of the sneak-and-strike.

If the Tandu were the only ones to appear, it also meant be had likely seen his last sunrise. For in setting off a message bomb he'd almost certainly give away his position. The Tandu had clients who could psi-sniff even a thought, if they once caught the mental scent.

Tell you what, Ifni, he thought. You send someone else into this confrontation. I won't insist it be Thennanin. A Jophur fighting-planetoid will suffice. Mix things up here and I promise to say five sutras, ten Hail Marys, and Kiddush when I get home. Okay? I'll even dump some credits in a slot machine, if you like.

He envisioned a Tymbrimi-Human-Synthian battle fleet erupting out of the clouds, blasting the Tandu to fragments and sweeping the sky clear of fanatics. It was a lovely image, although he could think of a dozen reasons why it wasn't likely. For one thing, the Synthians, friendly as they were, wouldn't intervene unless it was a sure thing. The Tymbrimi, for that matter, would probably help Earth defend herself, but wouldn't stick their lovely humanoid necks too far out for a bunch of lost wolflings.

Okay Ifni, you lady of luck and chance. He fingered bomb number three. I'll settle for a single, beat-up, old Thennanin cruiser.

Infinity gave him no immediate answer. He hadn't expected one.

The thrumming seemed to pass right over his head. His hackles rose as the ship's strong-field region swept the area. Its shields screeched at his modest psi sense.

Then the crawling rumble began slowly to recede to his left. Tom looked to the west. The ragged clouds separated just long enough to display the Tandu cruiser — a light destroyer, he now saw, and not really a battleship — only a couple of miles away.

As he watched, the blunt appendage detached from the mother ship and began to drift slowly to the south. Tom frowned. That thing didn't look like the Tandu scout ships he was familiar with. It was a totally different design, stout and stolid, like…

The haze came together again, frustratingly, covering the two ships. Their muttering growl covered the muted grumblings of the nearby volcano.

Suddenly three brilliant streams of green light speared down from the clouds where Tom had last seen the Tandu ship, to hit the sea with flashing incandescence. There came a peal of supersonic thunder.

First he thought the Tandu were blasting the surface below. But a crackling bright explosion in the clouds showed that the destroyer itself was at the receiving end. Something high above the cloud deck was shooting at the Tandu!

He was too busy snatching up his gear to waste time in exultation. He kept his head averted, and so was spared blindness as the destroyer began firing actinic beams of antimatter at its assailant. Waves of heat scorched the back of his head and his left arm, as he stuffed the psi-bombs under his waistband and snapped his breather mask over his head.

The beams of annihilation made streaks of solar heat across the sky. He grabbed up his pack and dove into the hole he had earlier cleared in the thickly woven weeds.

The thunder suddenly muted as he splashed into a jungle of dangling vines. Straight shafts of flickering battlelight speared into the gloom through gaps in the weed.

Tom found he was automatically holding his breath. That didn't make much sense. The breather mask would not allow much oxygen to escape, but it would pass carbon dioxide. He started inhaling and exhaling as he grabbed a strong root for an anchor.

He found he was laboring for breath. With all the vegetation around him, he had expected the oxygen content to be high. But the tiny indicator on the rim of his mask told him that the opposite was true. The water was depleted compared to the normally rich brine of Kithrup's sea. The waving gill fins of the mask were picking up only a third as much oxygen as he would need to maintain himself, even if he stayed perfectly still.

In just a few minutes he would start to get dizzy. Not long thereafter he would pass out.

The battle roar penetrated the weed cover in a series of dull detonations. Shafts of brilliance shot into the gloom through openings in the leafy roof, one right in front of Orley. Even indirectly, the light hurt his eyes. He saw fronds just above the waterline, which had recently survived ashfall from a volcano, curl from the heat, turn brown, and fall away.

So much for the rest of my supplies, he thought.

So much for coming up for air.

He wrapped his legs around the thick root as he shrugged out of his backpack. He started rummaging through the satchel, looking for something to improvise. In the sharp shadows he negotiated the contents mostly by touch.

The inertial tracker Gillian had given him, a pouch of food bars, two canteens of "fresh" water, explosive slivers for his needier, a tool kit.

The air meter was turning an ominous orange. Tom wedged the pack between his knees and tore open the tool kit. He seized a small roll of eight-gauge rubber tubing. Purple blobs flickered on the edge of his field of vision as he used his sheath knife to cut a length of narrow hose.

He crammed one end through the mask's chow-lock. The seal held, but the contents of the tube sprayed at his mouth, making him gag and cough.

There was no time for finesse. He shimmied up the root to a point within reach of the hole in the weeds.

Tom pinched the tube below the other end, but bitter, oily water streamed from the tube as he straightened the coil. He averted his face, but swallowed a little anyway. It tasted foul.

The mask's demon-lock would purge the fluid, if too much didn't flood in.

Tom reached out and pushed the tube above the surface of the narrow pool, where the battle flashes sent shafts of light into the depths. He sucked hard at the hose, spitting out slime and a sharp metallic tang, desperately trying to clear it.

One of the searing blasts flashed, scalding his fingers below the waterline. He fought the instinct to shout or pull away from the pain. He felt consciousness begin to slip, and with it the will to hold his left hand into the searing heat.

He drew hard and at last was rewarded with a thin stream of dank air. Tom sucked frantically at the line. The hot, steamy air tasted of smoke, but it nourished. He exhaled into the mask, trusting it to hold the hard-won oxygen.

The aching in his lungs subsided and the agony of his hand took the fore. Just as he thought he couldn't hold it out there any more, the burning heat from above subsided, fading to a dull flickering glow in the sky.

A few meters away was another gap in the weeds, where he might be able to prop the tube between two thick roots without exposing himself. Tom took a few more breaths, then pinched the tube shut. But before he could prepare any further, a sharp blue light suddenly filled the water, brighter than ever, casting stark, blinding shadows everywhere. There was a tremendous detonation, then the sea began tossing him about like a rag doll.

Something huge had struck the ocean and set it bucking. His anchor root came free of its mooring, and he fell into a maelstrom of flailing vines.

The swell tore the backpack from him. He grabbed after it and caught the end of one strap, but something struck him in the back of the head, knocking him dizzy. The pack was snatched away into the noise and flashing shadows.

Tom curled into a ball, his forearms holding the rim of his mask against the whipping vines.

His first thought, on coming around, was a vague surprise that he was still breathing.

He thought the battle-storm was still going on, until he realized that the shaking he felt was his own body. The roar in his ears, was only a roar in his ears.

His throbbing left arm was draped over a thick horizontal stump. Scummy green water came up to his chin, lapping against the finned facemask. His lungs ached and the air was stale.

He brought up his trembling right hand, and pulled the mask down to hang around his neck. The filters had kept out the ozone stench, but he inhaled deeply, gratefully.

At the last moment he must have chosen immolation over suffocation and struck out for the surface. Fortunately, the battle ended just before he arrived.

Tom resisted the temptation to rub his itching eyes; the slime on his hands would do them no good. Tears welled, at a biofeedback command, flushing most of the binding mucus away.

He looked up when he could see again.

To the north the volcano fumed on as ever. The cloud cover had parted somewhat, revealing numerous twisted banners of multi-colored smoke. All around Tom, small crawling things were climbing out from the singed weeds, resuming their normal business of eating or being eaten. There were no longer battleships in the sky, blazing away at each other with beams of nova heat.

For the first time, Tom was glad of the monotonous topography of the carpet of vines. He hardly had to rise in the water to see several columns of smoke pouring from slowly settling wrecks.

As he watched, one faraway metal derelict exploded. The sound arrived seconds later in a series of muted coughs and pops, punctuated unsynchronously by bright flashes. The dim shape sank lower. Tom averted his eyes from the final detonation. When he looked back he could detect nothing but clouds of steam and a faint hissing sound that fell away into silence.

Elsewhere lay other floating fragments. Tom turned a slow circle, somewhat in awe of the destruction. There was more than enough wreckage for a mid-sized skirmish.

He laughed at the irony, although it made his abused lungs hurt. The Galactics had all come to investigate a counterfeit mayday signal, and they had brought their death feuds along to what should have been a mission of mercy. Now they were dead while he still lived. This didn't feel like the random capriciousness of Ifni. It was too like the mysterious, wry work of God himself.

Does this mean I'm all alone again? he wondered. That would be rich. So much fireworks, and one humble human the only survivor?

Not for long, perhaps. The battle had caused him to lose almost all of the supplies he had struggled so hard to recover. Tom frowned suddenly. The message bombs! He clutched at his waist, and the world seemed to drop away. Only one of the globes remained! The others must have popped out in the struggle below the clinging vines.

When his right hand stopped shaking, he carefully reached under his waistband and drew out the psi-bomb, his very last link with Streaker… with Gillian.

It was the verifier… the one that he was to set off if he thought the Trojan Seahorse should fly. Now he would have to decide whether to set off this one, or none at all. Yes or No were all he could say.

I only wish I knew whose ships those were that fired on the Tandu.

Tucking the bomb away, he resumed his slow turn. One wreck on the northwest horizon looked like a partially crushed eggshell. Smoke still rose from it, but the burning seemed to have stopped. There were no explosions, and it seemed not to be sinking any lower.

All right, Tom thought. That will do as a goal. It looks intact enough to have possibilities. It may have salvageable gear and food. Certainly it's shelter, if it's not too radioactive.

It seemed only five kilometers away, or so, though looks could be deceiving. A destination would give him something to do, at least. He needed more information. The wreck might tell him what he needed to know.

He pondered whether to try to go "by land," trusting his weary legs to negotiate the weedscape, or to attempt the journey underwater, swimming from airhole to airhole, daring the unknown creatures off the deep.

He suddenly heard a warbling whine behind him, turned, and saw a small spacecraft, about a kilometer away, heading slowly northward, wavering bare meters above the ocean. Its shimmering shields flickered. Its drives heaved and faltered.

Tom pulled up his mask and prepared to dive, but the tiny ship wasn't coming his way. It was passing to the west of him, sparks shooting from its stubby stasis flanges. Ugly black streaks stained its hull, and one patch had blistered and boiled away.

Tom caught his breath as it passed. He had never seen a model like this before. But he could think of several races whose style would be compatible with the design.

The scout dipped as its dying drives coughed. The high whine of the gravity generator began to fall.

The boat's crew obviously knew it was done for. It banked to change course for the island. Tom held his breath, unable to help sympathizing with the desperate alien pilot. The boat sputtered along just above the weeds, then passed out of sight behind the mountain's shoulder.

The faint "crump" of its landing carried over the whistling of the tradewinds.

Tom waited. After a few seconds the boat's stasis field released with a loud concussion. Glowing debris flew out over the sea. The fragments quenched in water or burned slowly into the weeds.

He doubted anyone could have gotten away in time.

Tom changed goals. His long-range destination was still the eggshell ship floating a few miles away. But first he wanted to sift through the wreckage of that scout boat. Maybe there would be evidence there to make his decision easier. Maybe there would be food.

He tried to crawl up onto the weeds, but found it too difficult. He was still shaking.

All right, then. We'll go under the sea. It's probably all moot anyway.

I might as well enjoy the scenery.

52 ::: Akki

The son of a blood-gorged lamprey just wouldn't let go! Akki was exhausted. The metallic tang of the water mixed with the taste of bile from his fore-stomach as he swam hard to the southeast. He wanted desperately to rest, but he knew he couldn't afford to let his pursuer cut away at his lead.

Now and then he caught sight of K'tha-Jon, about two kilometers behind him and closing the gap. The giant, darkly countershaded dolphin seemed tireless. His breath condensed in high vertical spouts, like small rockets of fog, as he plowed ahead through the water.

Akki's breath was ragged, and he felt weak with hunger. He cursed in Anglic and found it unsatisfying. Playing over a resonating, obscene phrase in Primal Dolphin helped a little.

He should have been able to outdistance K'tha-Jon, at least over a short stretch. But something in the water was affecting the hydrodynamic properties of his skin. Some substance was causing an allergic reaction. His normally smooth and pliant hide was scratchy and bumpy. He felt like he was plowing through syrup instead of water. Akki wondered why no one else had reported this. Did it only affect dolphins from Calafia?

It was one more unfairness in a series that stretched back to the moment he had left the ship.

Escaping K'tha-Jon hadn't been as easy as he expected. Heading southeast, he should have been able to veer right or left to reach help, either Hikahi and the crew at the Thennanin wreck, or at Toshio's island. But every time he tried to change course, K'tha-Jon moved to cut the corner. Akki couldn't afford to lose any more of his lead.

A wave of focused sonar swept over him from behind. He wanted to curl up into a ball every time it happened. It wasn't natural for a dolphin to flee another for so long. In the deep past a youngster who angered an older male-by trying to copulate with a female in the old bull's harem, for instance might get thumped or raked. But only rarely was a grudge held. Akki had to stifle an urge to stop and try to reason with K'tha-Jon.

What good would that do? The giant was obviously mad.

His speed advantage was lost to this mysterious skin itch. Diving to get around K'tha-Jon was also out of the question. The Stenos bredanensis were pelagic dolphins. K'tha-Jon could probably out dive anyone in the Streaker's crew.

When next he glanced back, K'tha-Jon had closed to within about a kilometer. Akki warbled a sigh and redoubled his efforts.

A line of green-topped mounds lay near the horizon, perhaps four or five kilometers away. He had to hold on long enough to reach them!

Moki drove the sled at top speed to the south, blasting its sonar ahead like a bugle.

"… calling Haoke, calling Moki. This is Heurkah-Pete. Come in. Verify p-please!"

Moki tossed his head in irritation. The ship was trying to reach him again. Moki clicked the sled's transmitter on and tried to talk clearly.

"Yesss! What-t-t you want-t!"

There was a pause, then, "Moki, let me talk to Haoke."

Moki barely concealed a laugh. "Haoke… dead! K-k-killed by intruder! I'm ch-chasing now. T-t-tell Takkata-Jim I'll get-t 'em!"

Moki's Anglic was almost indecipherable, yet he didn't dare use Trinary. He might slip into Primal in public, and he wasn't ready for that yet.

There was a long silence on the sonar-speak line. Moki hoped that now they'd leave him alone.

When he and Haoke had found the Baskin woman's empty sled, drifting slowly westward at low power, something had finally snapped within him. He had then entered a confused but exalted state, a blur of action, like a violent dream.

Perhaps they were ambushed, or perhaps he merely imagined it. But when it was over Haoke was dead and he, Moki, had no regrets.

After that his sonar had picked up an object heading south. Another sled. Without another thought he had given chase.

The sonar-speak crackled. "Heurkah again, Moki. You're getting out of saser range, and we still can't use radiosss. You are now given two ordersss. First — relay a sonar-speak message to K'tha-Jon, ordering him back-k! His mission is cancelled!

"Number two — after that, turn around yoursself! That'sss a direct order!"

The lights and dots meant little to Moki anymore. What mattered were the patterns of sound that the sled's sensors sent him. The expanded hearing sense gave him a god-like feeling, as if he were one of the Great Dreamers himself. He imagined himself a huge catodon, a sperm whale, lord of the deep hunting prey that fled at any hint of his approach.

Not far to the south was the muffled sound of a sled, the one he had been chasing for some time. He could tell that he was catching up to it.

Much farther away, and to the left, were two tiny rhythmic signals, sounds of rapid cetacean swimming. That had to be K'tha-Jon and the upstart Calafian.

Moki would dearly love to steal K'tha-Jon's prey from him, but that could wait. The first-enemy was dead ahead.

"Moki, did you copy me? Answer! You have your ordersss! You must…"

Moki clapped his jaws in disgust. He shut off the sonarspeak in the middle of Heurkah-pete's complaint. It was getting hard to understand the stuck-up little petty officer anyway. He had never been much of a Stenos, always studying Keneenk with the Tursiops, and trying to "better himself."

Moki decided he would look the fellow up after he had finished taking care of his enemies outside the ship.

54 ::: Keepiru

Keepiru knew he was being followed. He had expected that someone might be sent after him to keep him from reaching Hikahi.

But his pursuer was some sort of idiot. He could tell from the distant whine of the engines that the fin's sled was being driven well beyond its rated speed. What did the fellow hope to accomplish? Keepiru had a long enough head start to make it within sonar-speak range of the Thennanin wreck before his pursuer caught up. He only had to push his sled's throttle slightly into the red.

The fin behind him was spraying sonar noise all over the place, as if he wanted to announce to all and sundry that he was coming.

With all his screeching, the imbecile was making it hard for Keepiru to piece together what was going on to the southeast. Keepiru concentrated and tried to block out the noise from behind.

Two dolphins, it seemed, one almost out of breath, the other powerful and still vigorous, were swimming furiously toward a bank of sonar shadows fifty kilometers away.

What was going on? Who was chasing whom?

He listened so hard that Keepiru suddenly had to veer to avoid colliding with a high seamount. He passed on the west side, banking hard to sweep past by meters. The mountain's bulk momentarily cast him into silence.

* Ware shoals

Child of Tursiops!

He trilled a lesson-rhyme, then switched to Trinary Haiku.

* Echoes of the shore

Are like drifting feathers

Dropped by pelicans!

Keepiru chided himself. Dolphins were supposed to be hot pilots it was what had won them their first starship berths over a century before and he was known far and wide as one of the best. So why were forty knots underwater harder to handle than fifty times light speed down a wormhole?

His thrumming sled left the shadow of the seamount and came into open water. East of southeast came a faint image-gestalt of racing cetaceans, once again.

Keepiru concentrated. Yes, the one in pursuit was a Stenos, a big one. It used a strange pattern of search sonar.

The one in front…

…It has to be Akki, he thought. The kid is in trouble. Bad trouble.

He was almost deafened as a blast of sound from the sled behind him caught him directly in a focused beam. He chattered a curse-glyph and shook his head to clear it.

He almost turned around to take care of the self-sucking turd swallower behind him but he knew his duty lay ahead.

Keepiru was tormented by a choice. Strictly speaking, his duty was to get a message to Hikahi. Yet it went against everything inside him to abandon the middie. It sounded like the youngster was exhausted. His pursuer was clearly catching up.

But if he swung to the east he would give his own pursuer a chance to catch up…

But he might also distract K'tha-Jon, force him to turn around.

It didn't become a Terragens officer. It didn't reflect Keneenk. But he couldn't decide logically.

He wished some distant, great-great-grandchild of his were here now, a fully mature and logical dolphin who could tell his crude, half-animal ancestor what to do.

Keepiru sighed. What makes me think they'll let me have great-grandchildren, anyway?

He chose to be true to himself. He banked the sled to the left and pulled the engine throttle one more notch into the red."

55 ::: Charles Dart

One of the two Earthlings in the room — the human — rummaged through dresser drawers and distractedly tossed things into an open valise on the bed. He listened while the chimpanzee talked.

"… the probe is down below two kilometers. The radioactivity's rising fast, and the temperature gradient, too. I'm not sure the probe will last more'n another few hundred meters, yet the shaft keeps going!

"Anyway I'm now positive that there's been garbage dumping by a technological race, and recently! Like hundreds of years ago!"

"That's very interesting, Dr. Dart. Really, it is." Ignacio Metz tried not to show his exasperation. One had to be patient with chimps, especially Charles Dart. Still, it was hard to pack while the chimp ran on and on, perched on a chair in his stateroom.

Dart went on obliviously. "If anything made me appreciate Toshio, as inefficient as that boy is, it's having to work with that lousy dolphin linguist Sah'ot! Still, I was gettin' good data until Tom Orley's damned bomb went off and Sah'ot started hollering stuff about 'voices' from below! Crazy bloody fin…"

Metz sorted his belongings. Now where is my blue land-suit? Oh yes, it's already packed. Let's see. Duplicates of all my notes are already loaded aboard the boat. What else is there?

"… I said, Dr. Metz!"

"Hmmm?" He looked up quickly. "I'm sorry, Dr. Dart. It's all these sudden changes and all. I'm sure you understand. What were you saying?"

Dart groaned in exasperation. "I said I want to go with you! To you this trip may be a form of exile, but to me it'd be an escape! I've got to get out to where my work is!" He pounded the wall and showed two rows of large, yellowed teeth.

Metz thought for a moment, shaking his head. Exile? Perhaps Takkata-Jim looked at it that way. Certainly he and Gillian were like oil and water. She was determined to set in motion Orley's and Creideiki's Trojan Seahorse plan. Takkata-Jim was just as adamant resisting it.

Metz agreed with Takkata-Jim, and had been surprised when the lieutenant meekly resigned his acting-captaincy at the ship's council meeting, appointing Gillian in command until Hikahi could be recalled. That meant the Seahorse scheme would go forward after all. Streaker was to begin her underwater move in a few hours.

If the ruse was really to be tried, Metz was just as happy to be gone from the ship. The longboat was spacious, and comfortable enough. In it, he and his notes would be safe. The records of his special experiments would get to Earth eventually, even when… if Streaker was destroyed trying to escape.

Besides, now he could join Dennie Sudman in examining the Kiqui. Metz was more than a little eager to get a look at the pre-sentients.

"You'll have to talk to Gillian about coming with us, Charlie," he shook his head. "She's letting us take your new robot with us to the island. You may have to settle for that."

"But you and Takkata-Jim promised that if I cooperated, if I kept quiet to Toshio earlier, and was willing to give you my proxy on the council…"

The chimp lapsed when he saw the expression on Metz's face. Charlie's lips pressed close together and he got up to his feet.

"Thanks for nuthin'!" he growled as he went for the door.

"Now, Charlie…"

Dart marched out into the hall. The shutting door cut off Metz's last words.

The chimp walked along the sloping corridor, head bowed in determination.

"I gotta get out there!" He grumbled. "There's gotta be a way!"

56 ::: Sah'ot

When Gillian called to ask that he talk to Creideiki, his first thought had been to rebel over the workload.

"I know, I know," her tiny simulacrum had agreed, "but you're the only one I can spare who has the qualifications. Let's rephrase that. You are the only one for the job. Creideiki is clearly aware and alert, but he can't talk! We need someone to help him communicate through parts of his brain that weren't damaged. You're our expert."

Sah'ot had never really liked Creideiki. And the type of injury the captain had suffered made Sah'ot feel queasy. Still, the challenge appealed to his vanity.

"What about Charlesss Dart? He's been driving Toshio and me until our flukes droop, and he has top priority on this line."

In the small holo image Gillian looked very tired. "Not any more he doesn't. We're sending out a new probe with Takkata-Jim and Metz, one he'll be able to control himself by commlink. Until then, his project takes last place. Last place. Is that understood?"

Sah'ot clapped his jaw loudly in assent. It felt good to hear decisive leadership again. The fact that the voice was that of a human he respected helped, too.

"This bit-t about Metz and Takkata-Jim…"

"I've filled in Toshio." Gillian said. "He'll brief you when the chance comes. He is in absolute charge now. You're to obey him with alacrity. Is that clear?"

Gillian never lost her vocabulary under pressure. Sah'ot liked that. "Yesss. Eminently. Now, about these resonances I'm getting from the planet's crust. What shall I do? They are, to my knowledge, totally unprecedented! Can you ssspare someone to do a Library search for me?"

Gillian frowned. "You say resonances of apparent intelligent origin are coming from deep in Kithrup's crust?"

"Exactly."

Gillian rolled her eyes. "Ifni! To explore this world in peace and quiet would demand a decade of work by a dozen survey ships!" She shook her head. "No. My quick guess is that some formation of probability-sensitive rock below the surface is resonating with emanations from the battle overhead. In any event, it comes after the other priorities: security, the Kiqui, and talking to Creideiki. You've got a mouthful to deal with already."

Sah'ot stifled a protest. Complaining would only get Gillian to order him explicitly away from the probe. She hadn't yet, so it would be best to stay quiet.

"Now think about your options," Gillian reminded him. "If Streaker makes a break for it, we'll try to get the skiff out to pick up Tom and whoever wants to join us from the island. You can choose to come along, or stay with Metz and Takkata-Jim and wait it out in the longboat. Inform Toshio of your decision."

"I undersstand. I'll think about it." Somehow the issue seemed less urgent than it would have a few days ago. The sounds from below were having an effect on him.

"If I stay, I still wish you all the best of luck," he added.

"You too, mel-fin." Gillian smiled. "You're a strange duck, but if I get home, I'm going to recommend you get lots of grandchildren." Her image vanished as she broke the connection.

Sah'ot stared at the blank screen. The compliment, wholly unexpected, left him momentarily stunned. Then a few Kiqui who were foraging nearby were surprised to see a large dolphin rise up onto his tail and dance about the small pool.

* To be noticed by -

A humpback

* To be credited

At last

For being me *

57 ::: Dennie and Toshio

"I'm afraid."

Almost without a thought, Toshio put his arm around Dennie's shoulder. He gave her a reassuring squeeze. "What for? There's nothing to be scared of."

Dennie looked up from the pounding breakers to see if be was serious. Then she realized she was being teased. She stuck out her tongue at him.

Toshio inhaled deeply and was content. It wasn't clear to him where his new semi-relationship with Dennie was going. It wasn't physical, for one thing. They had slept together last night, but fully clothed. Toshio had thought it would be frustrating, and it was, sort of. But not as much as he had expected.

It would work out, one way or another. Right now Dennie needed someone to be nearby. It was satisfying just filling that need.

Maybe, when all this was over, she would go back to thinking of him as a boy, four years her junior. Somehow he doubted it. She was touching him more now, rather than less, holding his arm and punching him in mock anger, even as shivers from the psi-bomb episode faded.

"When are they supposed to get here with the longboat?" She looked back over the ocean once more. "Late tomorrow, sometime," he answered.

"Takkata-Jim and Metz wanted to negotiate with the ETs. What's to stop them if they decide to ignore orders and try anyway?"

"Gillian's giving them only enough power to get here. They have a regenerator, so they'll be able to charge up for space-travel in a month or so, but by then Streaker'd be gone one way or another."

Dennie shivered slightly.

Toshio cursed his awkward tongue. "Takkata-Jim won't have a radio. I'm to guard ours until the skiff comes to pick us up. Besides, what could he offer the Galactics? He won't have any of the charts marking the derelict fleet.

"My guess is he and Metz will wait until everybody leaves, then scuttle off to Earth with Metz's tapes and a hold full of gripes."

Dennie looked up at the first stars of the long Kithrup twilight. "Are you going back?" she asked.

"Streaker's my ship. Thank God, Creideiki is still alive. But even if he's not skipper any more, I owe it to him to keep on, as one of his officers should."

Dennie glanced up at him briefly, then nodded and looked back out at the sea.

She's thinking we haven't a chance, Toshio realized. And maybe we don't. Wearing a Thennanin battlewagon as a disguise, we'll have all the maneuverability of a Calafian mud-gleaner. And even fooling the Galactics might not be so good an idea. They want to capture Streaker, but they won't hold back their fire if they see a defeated enemy climbing back up for another round. There still have to be Thennanin around, if the scheme is to work.

But we can't just sit here waiting, can we? If we do, the Galactics will learn that they can push Earthlings around. We just can't afford to let anyone profit from chasing one of our survey ships.

Dennie seemed worried. Toshio changed the subject. "How's your report coming?"

"Oh, all right, I guess. It's clear the Kiqui are fully pre-sentient. They've been fallow a very long time. In fact, some Darwinist heretics might think they were just getting ripe to bootstrap themselves. They show some signs."

Some iconoclast humans still pushed the idea that a pre-sentient race could make the leap to spacefaring intelligence by evolution alone, without the intervention of a patron. Most Galactics thought the idea absurd and strange, but the failure to find humanity's missing benefactor had gained the theory a few adherents.

"What about the metal-mound?" Toshio asked about Dennie's other research, begun at Charlie Dart's behest when the chimp had been given top priority, but pursued now out of interest.

Dennie shrugged. "Oh, the mound's alive. The professional biologist in me would give her left arm to be able to stay a year on this island, with full laboratory equipment to study it!

"The metal-eating pseudo-coral, the drill-tree, the living core of the island, are all symbiots. In effect, they're organs in one giant entity! If I could only write it up at home I'd be famous… if anyone believed me."

"They'll believe you," Toshio assured her. "And you'll be famous."

He motioned that they should start heading back to camp. They only had a little time after second supper to walk and talk. Now that he was in command, he had to make sure that timetables were kept.

Dennie held his arm as they turned to return to the encampment. Over the rushing rustle of the wind through the foliage came the intermittent squeaks of the natives, rousing from their siesta to prepare for the evening hunt.

They walked in silence along the narrow trail.

58 ::: Galactics

Krat licked slowly at her mating claw, studiously ignoring the creatures who scurried to clean up the bloody mess in the corner.

There would be trouble over this. The Pilan High Council would protest.

Of course she was within her rights, as grand admiral, to deal with any member of the fleet as she saw fit. But that did not traditionally cover the skewering of a senior Librarian simply because he was the bearer of bad news.

I am getting old, she realized. And the daughter I had hoped would soon be strong enough to pull me down is now dead. Who now will do me the honors, before I grow erratic and become a hazard to the clan?

The small, furry body was hauled away, and a sturdy Paha mopped up the bloody mess. The other Pila looked at her.

Let them stare. When we capture the Earthlings it won't matter. I shall be famous, and this incident will be ignored by all, especially the Pila.

If we are the first ones to approach the Progenitors with an offering, the Law won't matter any more. The Pila will not simply be our adult liege-clients. They will be ours again, to meddle with, to redesign, to shape once more.

"Back to work! All!" She snapped her mating claw. The twang sent the bridge crew scuttling off to their stations, some to repair the smoking damage from a near miss in the most recent battle with the Tandu.

Think now, Soro mother. Can you spare ships to send once more to the planet? To that hellish volcano where every fleet has already sent a party to fight and die?

There weren't supposed to be any Gubru left here! But a battered Gubru scout had shown up at the place where the distress call came from. It had gone to smoky ruin along with a Tandu destroyer, Pritil's ship number sixteen, and two other vessels even her battle computers could not identify. Perhaps one was a surviving spearship of the Brothers of the Night which had hidden on one of Kithrup's moons.

Meanwhile, out here, the "final" battle with the Tandu's unholy alliance had turned into a bloody draw. The Soro still had a slim advantage, so the remaining Thennanin stayed by their Tandu allies.

Should she risk all in the next encounter? For the Tandu to win would be horrible. They would, if they gained the Power, destroy so many beautiful species that the Soro might someday own.

If it came down to a choice, she guessed the Thennanin would switch sides one more time.

"Strategy section!" she snapped.

"Fleet-Mother?" A Paha warrior approached, but stopped just out of arm-reach. It eyed her cautiously.

Given a chance, she would breed respect into the Paha genes so deeply nothing would ever eradicate it.

The Paha stepped back involuntarily as her claw stretched. "Find out which ships are now most expendable. Organize them into a small squadron. We're going to investigate the planet again:"

The Paha saluted and returned to its station quickly. Krat settled deeper into the vletoor cushion.

We shall need a distraction, she thought. Perhaps another expedition to that volcano would make the Thennanin nervous and let the Tandu think we know something.

Of course, she reminded herself, the Tandu themselves may know what we do not.

59 ::: Creideiki

Far Away

They Call

The Giants,

The Spirits of OCEAN,

The Leviathans

Creideiki begins to understand — does, does, begin -

The old gods are part figment, part racial memory, part ghost… and part something else… something an engineer could never have allowed his ears to hear, or eyes to see…

Far Away

They Call

Leviathans…

Not yet. Not yet, not. Creideiki has a duty to perform yet, does have a duty.

No more, no more an engineer — but Creideiki remains a spacer. Not useless, Creideiki will do what he can, can do, can do to help.

Can do to help save his crew, his ship…

She wanted to rub her eyes, but the facemask was in the way. Too much remained to be done.

The fins came and went, swooping by her wherever she traveled in the ship, almost toppling her in their hurry to report and then be off again, carrying out orders.

I hope Hikahi gets back soon. I'm not doing badly, I guess, but I'm no starship officer. She has the training to rule a crew.

Hikahi doesn't even know she's captain, Gillian thought. Much as I pray they get the line open soon, I'll hate having to break that news to her.

She wrote a brief message to Emerson D'Anite, and the last courier dashed off for the engine room. Wattaceti kept pace alongside her as she turned to swim into the outlook.

There were two small crowds of dolphins in the bay, one at the forward sally hatch and the other clustered about the longboat.

The bow of the small spaceship almost touched the iris of one of the outer hatches. Its stern disappeared into a metal sheath beyond the rear end of the outlock.

When the longboat is gone this place'll look pretty empty, she thought.

A fin in the party at the lock saw her and sped toward Gillian. He halted abruptly before her and hovered in the water at attention.

"Flankers and scoutsss are ready to depart when you give the word, Gillian."

"Thank you, Zaa'pht. It will be soon. Is there still no word from the line-repair party, or from Keepiru?"

"No, ssssir. The courier you sent to follow Keepiru should be near the wreck shortly, though."

It was frustrating. Takkata-Jim had severed the link to the Thennanin wreck, and now it seemed impossible to find the break. For once she cursed the fact that monofilaments could be hidden so well.

For all they knew, some terrible disaster might have struck the work party, at the very site she was planning on moving Streaker to.

At least the detectors indicated the space battle was still going on, almost as fierce as ever.

But what was keeping Tom? He was supposed to set off a message bomb when ETs showed up to investigate his ruse. But since the faked distress call there had been nothing.

In addition to everything else, the damned Niss machine wanted to talk to her. It had not set off the hidden alarm in her office to indicate that it was an emergency, but every time she used a comm unit she heard a faint click that signaled the thing's desire to talk.

It was enough to make a fem just want to climb into bed and stay there.

A sudden commotion broke out near the lock. The wall speaker let out a brief, sloppy squeal of Trinary, followed by a longer report in loose, high-pitched Anglic.

"Sssir!" Zaa'pht turned excitedly. "They report…"

"I heard." She nodded. "The line's been repaired. Congratulate the repair team for me, and get them inside for a couple of hours' rest. Then please ask Heurkah-pete to contact Hikahi right away. He's to ascertain her situation and tell her we begin moving the ship at 2100 hours unless she objects. I'll be calling her shortly."

"Aye, sssir!" Zaa'pht whirled and sped off.

Wattaceti watched her silently, waiting.

"All right," she said. "Let's see Takkata-Jim and Metz off. You've made certain the crew has offloaded everything that wasn't on our checklist, and inspected everything the exiles took aboard?"

"Yesss. They haven't even got a flaregun. No radio and no more fuel than the minimum needed to reach the island."

Gillian had gone on her own inspection of the boat a few hours back, while Metz and Takkata-Jim were still packing. She had taken a few additional precautions that nobody else knew about.

"Who's going with them?"

"Three volunteers, all of them 'strange' Stenos. All males. We searched them down to their penile sheathsss. They're clean. They're all in the longboat now, ready to go."

Gillian nodded. "Then, for better or worse, let's get them out of here so we can get on with other things."

Mentally she had already begun rehearsing what she had to tell Hikahi.

61 ::: Hikahi Suessi

"Remember," she told Tsh't and Suessi, "maintain radio silence at all cossst. And try to keep those crazy fen in the wreck from eating up all the supplies in the first few days, hmmm?"

Tsh't signaled assent with a jaw clap, although her eyes were heavy with reservation. Suessi said, "Are you sure you won't let one of us come with you?"

"I'm sure. If I encounter disaster I want no more lives lost. If I find survivors, I might need every bit of room. In any event, the skiff runs itself, essentially. All I have to do is watch it."

"You can't fight while piloting," Hannes pointed out.

"If I had a gunner along I might be tempted to fight. This way I have to run away. If Streaker is dead or captured, I must be able to return the skiff to you here, or you'll all be doomed."

Suessi frowned, but found he had to agree with her reasoning. He was thankful Hikahi had stayed as long as she had, letting them use the skiffs power to finish preparing a habitat inside the wreck.

We're all worried about Streaker and the captain, he thought. But Hikahi must be in agony.

"All right, then. Good-bye and good luck, Hikahi. May Ifni's boss watch over you."

"The sssame to both of you," Hikahi took Suessi's hand gently between her jaws, then did the same with Tsh't's left pectoral fin.

Tsh't and Suessi left through the skiffs small airlock. They backed their sled toward the yawning opening in the sunken alien battleship.

A low whine spread from the skiff as power came on. The sound echoed back to them from the mammoth sea-cliff that towered over the crash site.

The tiny space vessel began to move slowly eastward, picking up speed underwater. Hikahi had chosen a roundabout route, taking her far out before swinging back in an arc to Streaker's hiding place. This would keep her out of touch for as long as a couple of days, but it would also mean that her point of origin could not be traced, if an enemy lay in wait where Streaker had been.

They watched until the boat disappeared into the gloom. Long after Suessi ceased hearing anything. Tsh't waved her jaw slowly back and forth, following the diminishing sound.

Two hours later, as Hannes was lying down for his first nap in his new dry-quarters, the makeshift intercom by his pallet squawked.

Not more bad news. He sighed.

Lying in the darkness with one arm over his eyes, he touched the comm. "What?" he said simply.

It was Lucky Kaa, the young electronics tech and junior pilot. His voice fizzed with excitement. "Sir! Tsh't says you should come quickly! It'sss the ship!"

Suessi rolled over onto one elbow.

"Streaker?"

"Yesss! The line just re-opened! They want to talk to Hikahi right away!"

All of the strength went out of Suessi's arms. He slumped back and groaned. Oh, frabjous day! By now she's well out of sonar-speak range!

It's at times like these that I wish I could talk dolphin jabber like Tom Orley can. Maybe in Trinary I could express something properly ironic and vulgar about the way the universe works.

62 ::: Exiles

The longboat slid smoothly through the port and out into the twilight blue of Kithrup's ocean.

"You're going the wrong way," Ignacio Metz said, after the iris had closed behind them. Instead of turning east, the boat spiraled upward.

"Just a small detour, Dr. Metz," Takkata-Jim soothed. "Sneekah-jo, tell Streaker I'm adjusting the trim."

The dolphin on the co-pilot's ramp began whistling to his counterpart on the ship. The sonar-speak squawked back angrily. Streaker also had noticed the change in course.

Metz's seat was above and behind Takkata-Jim's. The water level came up to his waist. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Jusst getting used to the controls…"

"Well, watch out! You're headed straight for the detection buoys!"

Metz watched, amazed, as the craft sped toward the crew of dolphins dismantling the listening devices. The workfen scattered out of the way, cursing shrilly as the boat crashed into the tethered bouys. Metal smithereens clattered along its prow and fell into the blackness.

Takkata-Jim seemed oblivious. He calmly turned the small ship around and piloted it at a sedate pace eastward, toward their island destination.

The sonar-speak squawked. Dr. Metz blushed. Good fin-persons shouldn't use language like that!

"Tell them it was an accident-t," Takkata-Jim told his co-pilot. "The trim was out of line, but now we've got it under control. We're proceeding underwater to the island, as ordered."

The longboat drove down a narrow canyon, leaving the brightly lit subsea vale and Streaker behind it.

"Accident, my hairy uncle Fred's scrotum!"

The words were followed by a sniggering laugh from the back of the control room. "You know, I kinda figured you wouldn't leave without destroying the incriminatin' evidence first, Takkata-Jim."

Dr. Metz struggled with his straps to turn around. He stared. "Charles Dart! What are you doing here?"

Perched on a shelf in a storage locker — whose door was now open — a spacesuited chimpanzee grinned back at him. "Why, exercisin a teeny tiny bit of initiative, Dr. Metz! Now you be sure and note that in your records. I wanna be given credit for it." He broke into a shrieking giggle, amplified by his suit speaker.

Takkata-Jim twisted about on his ramp to regard the chimp for a moment. He snorted and turned back to his piloting.

Charlie visibly screwed up his nerve to slide out of the cabinet into the water, even though none of it could touch him through the spacesuit. He floundered in the liquid up to his helmet-ring.

"But how… ?" Metz started to ask.

Charlie hefted a large, heavy waterproof sack from the locker to a man-seat next to Metz. "I used deductive reasoning," he said as he climbed up. "I figured Gillian's boys'd only be watching out for misbehavin' by a few grumbling Stenos. So, thought I, why not get to the longboat by a route they wouldn't even think of watching?"

Metz's eyes widened. "The sleeve! You crawled into one of the sealed maintenance ways that the builders used on Earth, and made your way to the boat's access panels, down by the thrust motors…"

"Righto!" Charlie beamed as he buckled his seatbelt.

"You probably had to remove some plates in the sleeve wall, using a jack-pry. No dolphin could manage such a thing in an enclosed space, so they didn't think of it."

"No, they didn't."

Metz looked Charlie up and down. "You passed pretty close to the thrusters. Did you get cooked?"

"Hmmm. My suit rad-meter says raw to medium rare." Charlie mocked blowing on his fingertips.

Metz grinned. "I shall, indeed, take note of this rare display of ingenuity, Dr. Dart! And welcome aboard. I'll be too busy anyway, inspecting the Kiqui, to take proper care of that robot of yours. Now you can do it right."

Dart nodded eagerly. "That's why I'm here."

"Excellent. Perhaps we can have a few games of chess, as well."

"I'd like that."

They sat back and watched as the ocean ridges passed by. Every few minutes one would look at the other, and would burst out laughing. The Stenos were silent.

"What's in the sack?" Metz pointed to the large satchel on Dart's lap.

Charlie shrugged. "Personal effects, instruments. Only the barest, most minuscule, most Spartan necessities."

Metz nodded and settled back again. It would, indeed, be nice to have the chimpanzee along on the trip. Dolphins were fine people, of course. But Mankind's older client race had always struck him as better conversationalists. And dolphins didn't play chess worth a damn.

It was an hour later that Metz recalled Charlie's first words, on announcing his presence aboard. Just what did the chimp mean when he accused Takkata-Jim of "destroying evidence"? That was a very strange thing to say.

He put the question to Dart. "Ask the lieutenant," Charlie suggested. "He seemed to know what I meant. We're not exactly on speaking terms," he grumbled.

Metz nodded earnestly. "I will ask him. As soon as we get settled on the island, I will certainly do that."

63 ::: Tom Orley

In the tangled shadows below the weed carpet, he made his way cautiously from airhole to airhole. The facemask helped him stretch a deep breath a long way, especially when he got near the island and had to search for an opening to the shore.

Tom finally crawled out onto land just as the orange sun Kthsemenee slipped behind a large bank of clouds to the west. The long Kithrup day would last for a while yet, but he missed the direct warming of the sun's rays. Evaporation-chill made him shiver as he pulled himself through a gap in the weeds, and up the rocky shoreline. He climbed on his hands and knees to a hummock a few meters above the sea, and sat back heavily against the rough basalt. Then he pulled the breathing mask down around his neck.

The island seemed to rock slowly, as if it were a cork bobbing in the sea. It would take a while to grow used to solid ground again — just long enough, he realized ironically, for him to finish what he had to do here and get back into the water again.

He pulled clumps of green slime from his shoulders, and shivered as the damp slowly evaporated.

Hunger. Ah, there was that, too.

It took his mind off the damp and chill, at least. He thought about pulling out his last foodbar, but decided it could wait. It was all within a thousand kilometers that he could eat, barring what he might find in alien wreckage.

Smoke still rose where the small ET scout had crashed, just over the shoulder of the mountain. The thin stream climbed to merge high above with sooty drifts from the volcano's crater. Once in a while, Tom heard the mountain itself growl.

Okay. Let's move.

He gathered his feet beneath him and pushed off.

The world wavered about him unsteadily. Still, he was pleasantly surprised to find himself standing without too much trouble.

Maybe Jill's right, he thought. Maybe I have reserves I'd never touched before.

He turned to his right, took a step, and almost tripped. He recovered, then stumbled along the rocky slope, thankful for his webbed gloves when it came to climbing over jagged rocks, serrated like chipped flint. One step after another, he drew near the source of the smoke.

Topping a small rise, he came into view of the wreck.

The scout had broken into three pieces. The stern section lay submerged, only its torn front end protruding from the charred weeds in the shallows. Tom checked the radiation meter at the rim of his facemask. He could stand the dose for a few days, if necessary.

The forward half of the wreck had split longitudinally, spilling the contents of the cockpit along a stony strand. Loose banners of fine wire wafted above metal bulkheads which had been pulled and twisted apart like taffy.

He thought about drawing his needier, but decided it would be better to have both hands free in case he fell.

Looks easy enough, Tom thought. I just go down and inspect the damned thing. One step at a time.

He moved carefully down the slope, and made it without catastrophe.

There wasn't much left.

Tom poked through the scattered small pieces, recognizing bits of various machines. But nothing told him what he wanted to know.

And there was no food.

Large bent sheets of metal lay everywhere. Tom approached one that seemed to have cooled off, and tried to lift it. It was too heavy to budge more than a few inches before he had to let it drop.

Tom panted with his hands on his knees for a moment, breathing heavily.

A few meters away was a great pile of driftwood. He went over and pulled out a few of the thicker stumps of dried seaweed. They were tough, but too springy to use as pry-bars. Tom scratched his stubble and thought. He looked at the sea, covered all the way to the horizon with vile, slimy vines. Finally he started gathering dried vines together into two piles.

After dark he sat by a driftwood fire, weaving tough strands of vine into a pair of large flat fans, somewhat like tennis rackets with loops on one side. He wasn't sure they would work as desired, but tomorrow he would find out.

He sang softly in Trinary, to distract himself from his hunger. The whistled nursery rhyme echoed softly from the nearby cliffside.

* Hands and fire?

Hands and fire!

* Use them, use them

To leap higher!

* Dreams and song?

Dreams and song!

* Use them, use them

To leap-long! *

Tom stopped suddenly, and cocked his head. After a silent moment he slid his needier out of its holster.

Had he heard a sound? Or was it his imagination?

He rolled quietly out of the firelight and crouched in the shadows. He looked into the darkness, and like a dolphin, tried to listen to the shape of things. In a stalker's crouch, from cover to cover, he made a slow circuit of the wreckage strewn beach.

"Barkeemkleph Annatan P'Klenno. V'hoominph?"

Tom dove behind a hull-shard and rolled over. Breathing open-mouthed to keep silent, he listened.

"V'hoomin Kent'thoon ph?"

The voice resonated, as if from a metal cavity… from under one of the large pieces of wreckage? A survivor? Who would have imagined?

Tom called out. "Birkech'kleph. V'human ides'k. V'Thennan' kleph ph?"

He waited. When the voice in the darkness answered, Tom was up and running.

"idatess. V'Thennan'kleeph…"

He dove once again and fetched up against another shard of metal. He crawled on his elbows and took a quick look around the side of the bulkhead.

And aimed his weapon directly into the eyes of a large, reptiloid face, only a meter away. The face grimaced in the dim starlight.

He had only met Thennanin once, and studied them at the school on Cathrhennlin for one week. The creature was half-squashed under a massive, warped metal plate. Tom could guess its expression was one of agony. The scout's arms and back had been broken under the piece of hull.

"V'hoomin t'barrchit pa…"

Tom adjusted to the dialect the other spoke. The Thennanin used a version of Galactic Six.

"… would not kill you, human, had I even the means. I wish only to persuade you to talk to me and distract me for a time."

Tom holstered the needier and moved to sit cross-legged in front of the pilot. It would only be polite to listen to the creature — and be ready to put him out of his misery if he asked the favor.

"I grieve that I am unable to succor you," Tom answered in Galactic Six. "Though you are an enemy I have never been one to call Thennanin wholly evil."

The creature grimaced again. His ridge-crest bumped intermittently against the metal roof and he winced each time.

"Nor do we think of hooman'vlech as totally without promise, though recalcitrant, wild, and irreverent."

Tom bowed, accepting as whole the partial compliment.

"I am prepared to do the service of termination, should you wish it," he offered.

"You are kind, but that is not our way. I will wait as my pain balances my life. The Great Ghosts shall judge me brave."

Tom lowered his gaze. "May they judge you brave."

The Thennanin breathed raggedly, eyes closed. Tom's hand drifted to his waistband. He touched the bulge that was the message bomb. Are they still waiting, back at Streaker? He wondered. What will Creideiki decide to do if he doesn't hear from me?

I must know what's been happening in the battle above Kithrup.

"For conversation and distraction," he offered, "shall we exchange questions?"

The Thennanin opened his eyes. They actually seemed to hold a hint of gratitude. "Nice. A nice idea. As elder, I shall begin. I will ask simple questions, so as not to strain you."

Tom shrugged. Almost three hundred years we've had the Library. We have had six thousand years of intricate civilization. And still nobody believes humans could be anything but ignorant savages.

"Why did you not, from Morgran, flee to a safer haven?" the scout asked. "Earth could not protect you, nor even those scoundrel Tymbrimi who lead you into evil ways. But the Abdicators are strong. You would have found safety with us. Why did you not come into our arms?"

He made it all sound so simple! If only it were so. If only there had been a truly powerful alignment to flee to, one that would not have charged, in return, more than Streaker's crew or Earth could afford to pay. How to tell the Thennanin that his Abdicators were only slightly less unpalatable than most of the other fanatics.

"It is our policy never to surrender to bullying threats," Tom said. "Never. Our history tells us the value of this tradition, more than those brought up on the Library annals could imagine. Our discovery will be given only to the Galactic Institutes, and only by our Terragens Council leaders themselves."

At mention of Streaker's "discovery" the Thennanin's face showed unmistakable interest. But he waited his turn, allowing Tom the next question.

"Are the Thennanin victorious overhead?" Tom asked anxiously. "I saw Tandu. Who prevails in the sky?"

Air whistled through the pilot's breathing vents. "The Glorious fail. The killer Tandu thrive, and Soro pagans abound. We harass where we can, but the Glorious have failed. Heretics shall gain the prize."

It was a bit of a tactless way to put it, with one of the "prizes" sitting in front of him. Tom cursed softly. What was he going to do? Some of the Thennanin survived, but could he tell Creideiki to go ahead and take off on that basis?

Should they try a ruse which, even if successful, would gain them allies too weak to do any good?

The Thennanin breathed raggedly.

Although it was not his turn, Tom asked the next question.

"Are you cold? I will move my fire here. Also, there is work I must do, as we talk. Forgive this junior patron if I offend."

The Thennanin looked at him with purple, cat-irised eyes. "Politely spoken. We are told you humans are without manners. Perhaps you are merely unlearned, yet well-meaning…"

The scout wheezed and blew sand grains from his breathing slits, while Tom quickly moved his camp. By the flickering flame-light, the Thennanin sighed. "It is appropriate that, trapped and dying on a primitive world, I shall be warmed by the crafty fire-making skills of a wolfling. I shall ask you to tell a death-bound being about your discovery. No secrets, just a story…a story about the miracle of the Great Return…"

Tom drew forth a memory, one that still gave him chills.

"Consider ships," he began. "Think of starships — ancient, pitted, and great as moons…"

When he awakened next to the warm coals of his fire, the dawn was barely breaking, casting long dim shadows along the beach.

Tom felt much better. His stomach had become resigned to a fast, and sleep had done him a lot of good. He was still weak, but he felt ready to try a dash for the next possible haven.

He got up, brushed off the multi-colored sand, and peered to the north. Yes the floating derelict was still there. Hope on the horizon.

To his left, under the massive bulkhead, the Thennanin scout breathed softly, slowly dying. It had fallen asleep listening to Tom's story of the Shallow Cluster, of the shining giant ships, and the mysterious symbols on their sides. Tom doubted the creature would ever reawaken.

He was about to turn and pick up the shoes he had woven the night before, when he frowned and peered under a shading hand toward the eastern horizon.

If only the binoculars had been saved!

He squinted, and at last he made out a line of shadows moving slowly against the brightening horizon, spindly-legged figures, and one smaller, shambling thing. A column of tiny silhouettes moved slowly northward.

Tom shivered. They were headed toward the eggshell wreck. Unless he acted quickly, they would cut him off from his only chance at survival.

And he could tell already that they were Tandu.