Startide Rising

76 ::: Galactics

Beie Chohooan cursed the parsimony of her superiors.

If the Synthian High Command had sent a mothership to observe the battle of the fanatics, she might have been able to approach the war zone in a flitter — a vessel too small to be detected. As it was, she had been compelled to use a starship large enough to travel through transfer points and hyperspace, too small to defend itself adequately, and too large to sneak past the combatants.

She almost fired upon the tiny globe that nosed around the asteroid that sheltered her ship. Just in time she recognized the little wazoon-piloted probe. She pressed a stud to open a docking port, but the wazoon hung back, sending a frantic series of tight laser pulses.

Your position discovered, it flashed. Enemy missiles closing…

Beie uttered her vilest damnations. Every time she almost got close enough to 'cast a message through the jamming to the Earthlings, she had to flee from some random, paranoid tentacle of battle.

Come in quickly and dock! She tapped out a command to the wazoon. Too many of the loyal little clients had died for her already.

Negative. Flee, Beie. Wazoo-two will distract…

Beie snarled at the disobedience. The three wazoon who remained on the shelf to her left cringed and blinked their large eyes at her.

The scout globe sped off into the night.

Beie closed the port and fired up her engines. Carefully, she weaved her way through the lanes between chunks of primordial stone, away from the area of danger.

Too late, she thought as she glanced at the threat board. The missiles were closing too fast.

A sudden glare from behind told of the fate of the little wazoon. Beie's whiskered upper lip curled as she contemplated a suitable way to get even with the fanatics, if she ever got a chance.

Then the missiles arrived, and she was suddenly too busy even for nasty, pleasant thoughts.

She blasted two missiles to vapor with her particle gun. Two others fired back; their beams were barely refracted by her shields.

Ah, Earthlings, she contemplated. You'll not even know I was ever here. For all you know, you have been forsaken by all the universe.

But don't let that stop you, wolflings. Fight on! Snarl at your pursuers! And when all your weapons fail, bite them!

Beie destroyed four more missiles before one managed to explode close by, sending her broken ship spinning, burning, into the dusty Galactic dark.

The night blew wet with scattered blustery sheets of rain. The glossy broadleaf plants waved uncertainly under contrary gusts from a wind that seemed unable to decide on a direction. The dripping foliage glistened when two of Kithrup's nearby tiny moons shone briefly through the clouds.

At the far southern end of the island, a crude thatch covering allowed rain to seep through in slow trickles. It dripped onto the finely pitted hull of a small spaceship. The water formed small meniscus pools atop the gently curving metal surface, then ran off in little rivulets. The tappity-tap of the heavy raindrops hitting the thatch was joined by a steady patter as streams of runoff poured onto the smashed mud and vegetation beneath the cylindrical flying machine.

The trickles sluiced over the stubby stasis flanges. They sent jagged trails over the forward viewports, dark and clear in the intermittent moonlight.

Trails penetrated the narrow cracks around the aft airlock, using the straight channels to pour dribbling streams out onto the muddy ground.

There came a tiny mechanical hiss, barely louder than the rainfall. The cracks around the airlock widened almost imperceptibly. Neighboring streams merged to fill the new crevices. A pool began to form in a dirt basin below the hatch.

The doorway cracked open a little farther. More streams merged to pour in, as if seeking to enter the ship. All at once a gurgling stream poured from the bottom of the crack. The flow became a gushing waterfall that splashed into a puddle below. Then, just as abruptly, the torrent subsided.

The armored hatch slid open with a muted sigh. The rain sent a flurry of slanting droplets pelting into the opening.

A dark, helmeted figure stood in the threshold, ignoring the onslaught. It turned to look left and right, then stepped out and splashed in the puddle. The hatch shut again with a whine and a small click.

The figure bent into the wind, searching in the darkness for a trail.

Dennie sat up suddenly at the sound of wet footsteps. With her hand at her breast she whispered.

"Toshio?"

The tent's fly was pushed aside and the flap zipped open. For a moment a dark shape loomed. Then a quiet voice whispered. "Yeah, it's me."

Dennie's rapid pulse subsided. "I was afraid it was somebody else."

"Who'd you expect, Dennie? Charlie Dart? Come out of his tent to ravish you? Or, better yet, one of the Kiqui?" He teased her gently, but could not hide the tension in his voice.

He shrugged out of his drysuit and helmet which he hung on a peg by the opening. In his underwear, Toshio crawled over to his own sleeping bag and slid in.

"Where have you been?"

"Nowhere. Go back to sleep, Dennie."

The rain pattered on the fly in an uneven tattoo. She remained sitting up, looking at him in the faint light from the opening. She could see little more than the whites of his eyes, staring straight up at nothing.

"Please Tosh, tell me. When I woke up and you weren't in your sleeping bag…" Her voice trailed off as he turned to look back at her. The difference that had grown in Toshio Iwashika the last week or so was never more manifest than in his narrowed expression, than in this slitted intensity in his eyes.

She heard him sigh finally. "All right, Dennie. I was just over at the longboat. I snuck inside and had a look around."

Dennie's pulse sped again. She started to speak, stopped, then finally said, "Wasn't that dangerous? I mean there's no telling how Takkata-Jim might react! Especially if he really is a traitor."

Toshio shrugged. "There was something I had to find out."

"But how could you get in and out without being caught?"

Toshio rolled over onto one elbow. She saw a brief flash of white as he smiled slightly. "A middie sometimes knows things even the engineering officers never find out, Dennie. Especially when it comes to hiding places aboard ship. When off-duty time comes, there's always a pilot or a lieutenant around thinking up homework for idle hands and fins… always just a little more astrogation or protocol to study, for instance. Akki and I used to grab sack time in the hold of the longboat. We learned how to open the locks without it flashing on the control room."

Dennie shook her head. "I'm glad you didn't tell me you were going, after all. I would have died of worry"

Toshio frowned. Now Dennie was beginning to sound like his mother again. Dennie still wasn't happy about having to leave while he stayed behind. Toshio hoped she wouldn't take this opportunity to bring up the subject again.

She lay down and faced him, using her arm as a pillow. She thought for a moment, then whispered. "What did you find out?"

Toshio closed his eyes. "You might as well know," he said. "I'll want you to tell Gillian in case I can't get through to her in the morning. I found out what Takkata-Jim is doing with those bombs he took from Charlie.

"He's converting them to fuel for the longboat."

Dennie blinked. "But… but what can we do about it?"

"I don't know! I'm not even sure we have to do anything about it. After all, in a couple weeks his accumulators would be recharged enough to lift him off anyway. Maybe Gillian doesn't care.

"On the other hand, it might be darned important. I still haven't figured it all out yet. I may have to do something pretty drastic."

He had seen the partially dismantled bombs through the thick window of the security door to the longboat's specimen lab. Getting to them would be considerably more difficult than simply sneaking back aboard.

"Whatever happens," he tried to reassure her, "I'm sure it will all be all right. You just make certain your notes are all packed properly in the morning. That data on the Kiqui is the second most important thing to come out of this crazy odyssey, and it's got to get back. Okay?"

"Sure, Tosh."

He let gravity pull him over onto his back. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly to feign sleep.

"Toshio?"

The young man sighed. "Yes, Denn…"

"Um, it's about Sah'ot. He's only leaving to escort me. Otherwise I think you'd have a mutiny on your hands."

"I know. He wants to stay and listen to those underground 'voices' of his." Toshio rubbed his eyes, wondering why Dennie was keeping him awake with all this. He already had listened to Sah'ot's importunities.

"Don't shrug them off like that, Tosh. He says Creideiki listened to them, too, and that he had to cut the channel to break the captain out of a listening trance, the sounds were so fascinating."

"The captain is a brain-damaged cripple." The words were bitter. "And Sah'ot is an egocentric, unstable…"

"I used to think so too," Dennie interrupted. "He used to scare me until I learned he was really quite sweet and harmless. But even if we could suppose the two fen were having hallucinations, there's the stuff I've been finding out about the metal-mounds."

"Mmmph," Toshio commented sleepily. "What is it? More about the metal-mounds being alive?"

Dennie winced a little at his mild disparagement. "Yes, and the weird eco-niche of the drill-trees. Toshio, I did an analysis on my pocketcomp, and there's only one possible solution! The drill-tree shafts are part of the life cycle of one organism — an organism that lives part of its life cycle above the surface as a superficially simple coral colony, and later falls into the pit prepared for it…"

"All that clever adaptation and energy expended to dig a grave for itself?" Toshio cut in.

"No! Not a grave! A channel! The metal-mound is only the beginning of this creature's life cycle… the larval stage. Its destiny as an adult form lies below, below the shallow crust of the planet, where convective veins of magma can provide all the energy a metallo-organic life form might ever need!"

Toshio tried earnestly to pay attention, but his thoughts kept drifting — to bombs, to traitors, to worry over Akki, his missing comrade, and to a man somewhere far to the north, who deserved to have someone waiting for him if — when he finally returned to his island launching point.

"… only thing wrong is there's no way I see that such a life form could have evolved! There's no sign of intermediate forms, no mention of any possible precursors in the old Library records on Kithrup… and this is certainly unique enough a life form to merit mention!"

"Mmm-hmmm."

Dennie looked over at Toshio. His arm was over his eyes and he breathed slowly as if drifting off into slumber. But she saw a fine vein on his temple pulse rapidly, and his other fist clenched at even intervals.

She lay there watching him in the dimness. She wanted to shake him and make him listen to her!

Why am I pestering him like this. She suddenly asked herself. Sure, the stuff's important, but it's all intellectual, and Toshio's got our corner of the world on his shoulders. He's so young, yet he's carrying a fighting man's load now.

How do I feel about that?

A queasy stomach told her. I'm pestering him because I want attention.

I want his attention she corrected. In my clumsy way I've been trying to give him opportunities to…

Nervously, she faced her own foolishness.

If I, the older one, can get my signals this crossed, I can hardly expect him to figure out the cues, she realized at last.

Her hand reached out. It stopped just short of the glossy black hair that lay in long, wet strands over his temples. Trembling, she looked again at her feelings, and saw only fear of rejection holding her back.

As if on a will of its own, her hand moved to touch the soft stubble on Toshio's cheek. The youth started and turned to look at her, wide-eyed.

"Toshio," she swallowed. "I'm cold."

78 ::: Tom Orley

When there came a moment of relative calm, Tom made a mental note. Remind me next time, he told himself, not to go around kicking hornets' nests.

He sucked on one end of the makeshift breathing tube. The other end protruded from the surface of a tiny opening in the weedscape. Fortunately, he didn't have to pull in quite so much air this time, to supplement what his mask provided. There was more dissolved oxygen in this area.

Battle beams sizzled overhead again, and weak cries carried to him from the miniature war going on above. Twice, the water trembled from nearby explosions.

At least this time I don't have to worry about being baked by the near misses, he consoled himself. All these stragglers have are hand weapons.

Tom smiled at that irony. All they had were hand weapons.

He had picked off two of the Tandu in that first ambush, before they could snap up their particle guns to fire back.

More importantly, he managed to wing the shaggy Episiarch before diving head-first into a hole in the weeds.

He had cut it close. One near-miss had left second degree burns on the sole of his bare left foot. In that last instant he glimpsed the Episiarch rearing in outrage, a nimbus of unreality coruscating like a fiery halo around its head. Tom thought he momentarily saw stars through that wavering brilliance.

The Tandu flailed to stay upon their wildly bucking causeway. That probably was what spoiled their much vaunted aim, and accounted for his still being alive.

As he had expected, the Tandu's vengeance hunt had led them westward. He popped up, from time to time, to keep their interest keen with brief enfilades of needles.

Then, as he swam between openings in the weedscape, the battle seemed to take off without him. He heard sounds of combat and knew his pursuers had come into contact with another party of ET stragglers.

Tom had left then, underwater, in search of other mischief to do.

The battle noise drifted away from his present position. From his brief glimpse an hour ago, this particular skirmish seemed to involve a half-dozen Gubru and three battered, balloon-tired rover machines of some type. Tom hadn't been able to tell if they were robots or crewed, but they had seemed unable to adapt to the tricky surface, for all of their firepower.

He listened for a minute, then coiled his tube and put it away in his waistband. He rose quietly to the surface of the tiny pool and risked lifting his eyes to the level of the interwoven loops of weed.

In his mosquito raids, he had moved toward the eggshell wreck. Now he saw that it was only a few hundred meters away. Two smoking ruins told of the fate of the wheeled machines. As he watched, first one, then the other slowly sank out of sight. Three slime-covered Gubru, apparently the last of their party, struggled over the morass toward the floating ship. Their feathers were plastered against their slender, hawk-beaked bodies. They looked desperately unhappy.

Tom rose up and saw flashes of more fighting to the south.

Three hours before, a small Soro scoutship had come diving in, strafing all in sight, until a delta-winged Tandu atmospheric fighter swooped out of the clouds to intercept it. They blasted away at each other, harassed by small arms fire from below, until they finally collided in a fiery explosion, falling to the sea in a tangled heap.

About an hour later the story repeated itself. This time the participants were a lumbering Pthaca rescue-tender and a battered spearship of the Brothers of the Night. Their wreckage joined the smoky ruins which slowly subsided in every direction.

No food, no place to hide, and the only race of fanatics I really want to see is the one not represented out here in this dribble-dribble charnel house.

The message bomb pressed under his waistband. Again, he wished he knew whether or not to use it.

Gillian has to be worried by now, he thought. Thank God, at least she's safe.

And the battle's still going on. That means there's still time. We've still got a chance.

Yes. And dolphins like to go for long walks along the beach.

Ah, well. Let's see if there's some more trouble I can cause.

79 ::: Galactics

The Soro, Krat, cursed at the strategy schematic. Her clients took the precaution of backing away while she vented her anger by tearing great rips out of the vletoor cushion.

Four ships lost! To only one by the Tandu! The recent battle had been a disaster!

And meanwhile, the sideshow down at the planet's surface was bleeding away her small support craft in ones and twos!

It seemed that tiny remnants of all of the defeated fleets, stragglers that had hidden out on moons or planetoids, must have decided the Earthlings were hiding near that volcano down in Kithrup's mid-northern latitudes. Why did they think that?

Because surely nobody would be fighting over nothing at all, would they? The skirmish had a momentum all its own by now. Who would have thought that the defeated alliances would have hidden away so much firepower for one last desperate attempt at the prize?

Krat's mating claw flexed in wrath. She couldn't afford to ignore the possibility that they were right. What if the distress call had, indeed, emanated from the Earthlings' ship? No doubt this was some sort of fiendish human distraction, but she could not risk the chance that the fugitives actually were there.

"Have the Thennanin called yet?" she snapped.

A Pil from the communications section bowed quickly and answered. "Not yet, Fleet-Mother, though they have pulled away from their Tandu allies. We expect to hear from Buoult soon:'

Krat nodded curtly. "Let me know the very instant!" The Pil assented hurriedly and backed away.

Krat went back to considering her options. Finally, it came down to deciding which damaged and nearly useless vessel she could spare from the coming battle for one more foray to the planet's surface.

Briefly, she toyed with the idea of sending a Thennanin ship once the upcoming alliance against the now-pre-eminent Tandu was consummated. But then she decided that would be unwise. Best to keep the priggish, sanctimonious Thennanin up here where she could keep her eyes on them. She would choose one of her own small cripples to go.

Krat contemplated a mental image of the Earthlings — dough-skinned, spindly, shaggy-maned humans, who were sneakiness embodied-and their weird, squawking, handless dolphin clients.

When they are finally mine, she thought, I will make them regret the trouble they are causing me.

We've arrived.

For the last four hours I've been the matriarch of a madhouse. Thank heaven for Hannes and Tsh't and Lucky Kaa and all the beautiful, competent fen we've missed for so long. I hadn't realized until we arrived just how many of the best had been sent ahead to prepare our new home.

There was an ecstatic reunion. Fen dashed about bumping each other and making a racket that I kept telling myself the Galactics couldn't really hear… The only real pall came when we thought about the absent members of our crew, the

six missing fen, including Hikahi, Akki, and Keepiru. And Tom, of course.

It wasn't until later that we discovered that Creideiki was missing, also.

After a brief celebration, we got to work. Lucky Kaa took the helm, almost as sure and steady as Keepiru would have been, and piloted Streaker along a set of guide rails into the cavity in the Thennanin wreck. Giant clamps came down and girdled Streaker, almost making her part of the outer shell. It's a snug fit. Techs immediately started integrating the sensors and tuning the impedances of the stasis flanges. The thrusters are already aligned. Carefully disguised weapons ports have been opened, in case we have to fight.

What an undertaking! I never would have thought it possible. I can't believe the Galactics will expect anything like this. Tom's imagination is astounding.

If only we would hear his signal…

I've asked Toshio to send Dennie and Sah'ot here by sled. If they take a direct route at top speed they should arrive in a little over a day. It'll take that long, at least, to finish setting up here.

It really is vital we get Dennie's notes and plasma samples. If Hikahi reports in, I'll ask her to stop at the island for the Kiqui emissaries. Second only to our need to escape with our data is our duty to the little amphibians, to save them from indenture to some crazy race of Galactic patrons.

Toshio chose to stay to keep an eye on Takkata-Jim and Metz, and to meet Tom, should he show up. I think he added that last part knowing it would make it impossible for me to refuse… Of course, I knew he'd make the offer. I was counting on it.

It only makes me feel worse, using him to keep Takkata-Jim in check. Even if our ex-vice-captain disappoints me, and behaves himself, I don't know how Toshio's to get back here in time, especially if we have to take off in a hurry.

I'm learning what they mean by the agony of command.

I had to pretend shocked surprise when Toshio told me about the mini-bombs Charlie Dart stole out of the armory. Toshio offered to try to get them back from Takkata-Jim, but I've forbidden it. I told him we'd take our chances.

I couldn't take him into my confidence. Toshio is a bright young man, but he has no poker face.

I think I have things timed right. If only I were certain.

The damned Niss is calling me again. This time I'll go see what it wants.

Oh, Tom. Would you, if you were here, have misplaced an entire ship's captain? How can I forgive myself for letting Creideiki go out there alone?

He seemed to be doing so well, though. What in Ifni's crap-shoot went wrong?

81 ::: Charles Dart

Early in the morning, he was at his console at the water's edge, happily conversing with his new robot. It was already down a kilometer, planting tiny detectors in the drill-tree shaft wall along the way.

Charles Dart mumbled cheerfully. In a few hours he would have it down as deep as the old one, the next-to-worthless probe he had abandoned. Then, after a few more tests to verify his theories about local crustal formations, he could start finding out about bigger questions, like what Kithrup the planet was like.

Nobody, but nobody, could stop him now!

He remembered the years he had spent in California, in Chile, in Italy, studying earthquakes as they happened, working with some of the greatest minds in geophysical science. It had been exciting. Still, after a few years he had begun to realize that something was wrong.

He had been admitted into all the right professional societies, his papers were greeted with both high praise and occasional vehement rejection — both reactions far preferred by any decent scientist over yawns. There was no lack of prestigious job offers. But there came a time when he suddenly wondered where the students were.

Why didn't graduate students seek him out as an advisor? He saw his colleagues besieged by eager applicants for research assistantships, yet, in spite of his list of publications, his widely known and controversial theories, only

the second-raters came to him, the students searching more for grant support than a mentor. None of the bright young mels and fems sought him out as an academic patron.

Of course, there had been a couple of minor cases in which his temper had gotten the better of him, and one or two of his students had departed acrimoniously, but that couldn't account for the doldrums in the pedagogical side of his career, could it?

Slowly, he came to think that it must be something else. Something… racial.

Dart had always held himself aloof from the uplift obsession of many chimps-either the fastidious respectfulness of the majority toward humans, or the sulking resentfulness of a small but vocal minority. A couple of years ago he began paying attention however. Soon he had a theory. The students were avoiding him because he was a chimpanzee!

It had stunned him. For three solid months he dropped everything to study the problem. He read the protocols governing humanity's patronhood over his race, and grew outraged over the ultimate authority Mankind held over his species-until, that is, he read about uplift practice in the galaxy at large. Then he learned that no other patron gave a four-hundred-year-old client race seats on its high councils, as Mankind did.

Charles Dart was confused. But then he thought about that word "gave."

He read about humanity's age-old racial struggles. Had it really been less than half a millennium since humans contrived gigantic, fatuous lies about each other simply because of pigment shades, and killed millions because they believed their own lies?

He learned a new word, "tokenism," and felt a burning shame. That was when he volunteered for a deep space mission, determined not to return without proof of his academic prowess — his skill as a scientist on a par with any human!

Alas that he had been assigned to Streaker, a ship filled with squeaking dolphins, and water. To top it off; that smugpot Ignacio Metz immediately started treating him like another of his unfinished experimental half-breeds!

He'd learned to live with that. He cosied up with Metz. He would bear anything until the results from Kithrup were announced.

Then they'll stand up as Charles Dart enters rooms! The bright young human students will come to him. They'll all see that he, at least, was no token!

Charlie's deep thoughts were interrupted by sounds from the forest nearby. He hurriedly slapped the cover plate over a set of controls in a lower corner of his console. He was taking no chances with anyone finding out about the secret part of his experiment.

Dennie Sudman and Toshio Iwashika emerged from the village trail, talking in low voices, carrying small bundles. Charlie busied himself with detailed commands to the robot, but cast a surreptitious eye toward the humans, wondering if they suspected anything.

But no. They were too much into each other, touching, caressing, murmuring. Charlie snorted under his breath at the human preoccupation with sex, day in, day out; but he grinned and waved when they glanced his way.

They don't suspect a thing, he congratulated himself, as they waved back, then turned to their own concerns. How lucky for me they're in love.

"I still want to stay. What if Gillian's wrong? What if Takkata-Jim finishes converting the bombs early?"

Toshio shrugged. " I still have something he needs." He glanced down at the second of two sleds in the pool, the one that had belonged to Tom Orley. "Takkata-Jim won't take off without it."

"Exactly!" Dennie was emphatic. "He'd need that radio, or the ETs would blast him to bits before he could negotiate. But you'll be all alone! That fin is dangerous!"

"That's just one of many reasons I'm sending you away right now"

"Is this the big, macho mel talking?" Dennie tried sarcasm, but was unable to put much bite into it.

"No." Toshio shook his head. "This is your military commander talking. And that's that. Now let's get these last samples loaded. I'll escort you and Sah'ot a few miles before we say good-bye."

He bent over to pick up one of the parcels, but before he touched it he felt a hand in the small of his back. A sharp push threw him of balance, flailing.

"Denneee!" He caught a glimpse of her, grinning devilishly. At the last moment his left hand darted out and caught hers. Her laughter turned into a shriek as he dragged her after him into the water.

They came up, spluttering, between the sleds. Dennie cried out in triumph as she grabbed the top of his head with both hands and dunked him. Then she leapt half out of the water as something goosed her from behind.

"Toshio!" she accused.

"That wasn't me." He caught his breath and backed out of arms' reach. "It must have been your other lover."

"My… Oh, no! Sah'ot!" Dennie whirled around searching and kicking, then whooped as something got her from behind again. "Do you scrotum-brained males ever think of anything else?"

A mottled gray dolphin's head broached the surface nearby. The breather wrapped over his blowmouth only muted his chattering laughter slightly.

* Long before humans

Rowed out on logs -

* We made an invention

* Care to

Manage a try -

* At

Menage a trois? *

He leered, and Toshio had to laugh as Dennie blushed. That only set her splashing water at him until he swam over and pinned her arms against one of the sleds. To stop her imprecations he kissed her.

Her lips bore the desperate tang of Kithrup as she kissed him back. Sah'ot sidled up alongside them, and nibbled their legs softly with jagged, sharp teeth.

"You know we're not supposed to expose ourselves to this stuff if we can help it," Toshio told her as they held each other. "You shouldn't have done that."

Dennie shook her head, then buried her face in his shoulder to hide it.

"Who are we fooling, Tosh?" she mumbled. "Why worry about slow metal poisoning? We'll be dead long before our gums start to turn blue."

"Aw, Dennie. That's nuts…" He tried to find words to comfort her, but found that all he could do was hold her close as the dolphin wrapped himself around them both.

A comm buzzed. Sah'ot went over to switch on the unit on Orley's sled. It was the one connected by monofilament cable to Streakers old position.

He listened to a brief burst of primitive clicks, then squawked quickly in reply. He rose high in the water, popping his breather loose.

"It's for you, Toshio!"

Toshio didn't bother asking if it was important. Over that line it had to be. Gently, he disengaged from Dennie. "You finish packing. I'll be back right away to help."

She nodded, rubbing her eyes.

"Stay with her for a while, will you, Sah'ot?" he asked as he swam over to the comm unit. The Stenos shook his head.

"I would gladly, Toshio. It'sss my turn to amuse the lady, anyway. Unfortunately, you need me here to translate."

Toshio looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"It is the captain," Sah'ot informed him. "Creideiki wants to talk to both of usss. Then he wants us to help him get in touch with the techno-inhabitants of this world."

"Creideiki? Calling here? But Gillian said he was missing!" Toshio's brow furrowed as Sah'ot's sentence sunk in.

"Techno… He wants to talk to the Kiqui?"

Sah'ot grinned.

"No, sir; they hardly qualify fearless military leader. Our captain wants to talk with my 'voices.' He wants to talk to those who dwell below"

82 ::: Tom Orley

The Brother of Twelve Shadows piped softly. His pleasure spread through the waters around him, below the carpet of weeds. He swam away from the site of the ambush, the faint thrashing sounds of the victims dying down behind him. The darkness beneath the weeds didn't bother him. Never would absence of light displease a Brother of the Night.

"Brother of the Dim Gloom," he hissed. "Do you rejoice as I do?"

From somewhere to his left, amongst the dangling sea vines, came a joyful reply.

"I rejoice, Senior Brother. That group of Paha warriors shall never again kneel before perverted Soro females. Thank the ancient warlords."

"We shall thank them in person," Brother of Twelve Shadows answered, "when we learn the location of their returning fleet from the half-sentient Earthers. For now, thank our long-deceased Nighthunter patrons, who made us such formidable fighters."

"I thank their spirits, Senior Brother."

They swam on, separated by the three score body lengths demanded by underwater skirmish doctrine. The pattern was inconvenient with all these weeds about, and the water echoed strangely, but doctrine was doctrine, as unquestionable as instinct.

Senior Brother listened until the last weak struggles of the drowning Paha ceased. Now he and his fellow would swim toward one of the floating wrecks, where more victims surely awaited.

It was like picking fruits from a tree. Even powerful warriors such as the Tandu were reduced to floundering dolts on this carpet of noxious weeds, but not the Brothers of the Night! Adaptable, mutable, they swam below, wreaking havoc where it could be wrought.

His gill-slits pulsed, sucking the metal-tangy water through. The Brother of Twelve Shadows detected a patch of slightly higher oxygen content and took a slight detour to pass through it. Keeping to doctrine was important, surely, but here, underwater, what could harm them?

There was suddenly a flurry of crashing sounds to his left, a brief cry, and then silence.

"Lesser Brother, what was that disturbance?" he called in the direction his surviving partner had been. But speech carried poorly underwater. He waited with growing anxiety.

"Brother of the Dim Gloom!"

He dove beneath a cluster of hanging tendrils, holding a flechette gun in each of his four tool-hands.

What, down here, could have overcome so formidable a fighter as his lesser brother? Surely none of the patrons or clients he knew of could do such a thing. A robot should have caused his metal detectors to go off.

It suddenly occurred to him that the half-sentient "dolphins" they sought might be dangerous in the water.

But no. Dolphins were air-breathers. And they were large. He swept the area around him and heard no reflections.

The Eldest Brother — who commanded the remnants of their flotilla from a cave on a small moon — had concluded that the Earthlings were not here in this northern sea, but he had sent a small vessel to harass and observe. The two brothers in the water were all that had survived. Everything they had seen suggested the quarry wasn't here.

The Brother of Twelve Shadows quickly skirted the edge of an open pool. Had his younger brother strayed into the open and been blasted by a walker above?

He swam toward a faint sound, weapons ready.

In the darkness he sensed a bulky body up ahead. He chirped out, and concentrated on the complex echoes.

The returning sounds showed only one large creature in the vicinity, still and silent.

He swam forward and took hold of it, and mourned. Water pulsed through his gill-slits and he cried out.

"I am going to avenge you, Brother!

"I am going to slay all in this sea who think!

"I am going to bring darkness upon all who hope!

"I am going to…"

There came a loud splash. He let out a small "urk" sound as something heavy fell from above onto his right side and wrapped long legs and arms around him.

As the Brother of Twelve Shadows struggled, he realized in stupefaction that his enemy was a human! A half-sentient, frail-skinned, wolfling human!

"Before you do all those other things, there's one thing you'll do first," the voice rasped in Galactic Ten, just behind his hearing organs.

The Brother wailed. Something fiery sharp pierced his throat near the dorsal nerve-chord.

He heard his enemy say, almost sympathetically, "You are going to die."

83 ::: Gillian

"All I can tell you, Gillian Baskin, is that he knew how to find me. He came here aboard a 'walker,' and spoke to me from the hallway."

"Creideiki was here? Tom and I figured he'd deduce we had a private high-level computer, but the location should have been impossible…"

"I was not terribly surprised, Dr. Baskin," the Niss machine interrupted, covering the impoliteness with a soothing pattern of abstract images. "The captain clearly knows his ship. I had expected him to guess my location."

Gillian sat by the door and shook her head. "I should have come when you first signaled for me. I might have been able to stop him from leaving."

"It is not your fault," the machine answered with uncharacteristic sensitivity. "I would have made the request more demanding if I thought the situation urgent."

"Oh sure," Gillian was sarcastic. "It's not urgent when a valuable fleet officer succumbs to pressure atavism and subsequently gets lost out in a deadly alien wilderness!"

The patterns danced. "You are mistaken. Captain Creideiki has not fallen prey to reversion schizophrenia."

"How would you know?" Gillian said hotly. "Over a third of the crew of this vessel have shown signs since the ambush at Morgran, including all but a few of the Stenos-grafted fen. How can you say Creideiki hasn't reverted after all he's suffered? How can he practice Keneenk when he can't even talk!"

The Niss answered calmly. "He came here seeking specific information. He knew I had access not only to Streaker's micro-branch Library, but the more complete one taken from the Thennanin wreck. He could not tell me what it was he wanted to know, but we found a way to get across the speech barrier."

"How?" Gillian was fascinated in spite of her anger and guilt.

"By pictograms, visual and sound pictures of alternate choices which I presented to him quite rapidly. He made quick yes or no sounds to tell when I was getting — as you humans say — hotter or colder. Before long he was leading me, making associations I had not even begun to consider."

"Like what?"

The light-motes sparkled. "Like the way many of the mysteries regarding this unique world seem to come together, the strangely long time this planet has lain fallow since its last tenants became degenerate and settled here to die, the unnatural ecological niche of the so-called drill-tree mounds, Sah'ot's strange 'voices from the depths'…"

"Dolphins of Sah'ot's temperament are always hearing 'voices." Gillian sighed. "And don't forget he's another of those experimental Stenos. I'm sure some of them were passed into this crew without the normal stress tests."

After a short pause, the machine answered matter-of-factly.

"There is evidence, Dr. Baskin. Apparently Dr. Ignacio Metz is a representative of an impatient faction at the Center for Uplift…"

Gillian stood up. "Uplift! Dammit! I know what Metz did! You think I'm blind? I've lost several dear friends and irreplaceable crewmates because of his crazy scheme. Oh, he 'hot-tested' his sports, all right. And some of the new models failed under pressure!

"But all that's finished! What does uplift have to do with voices from below, or drill-tree mounds, or the history of Kithrup, or our friendly cadaver Herbie, for that matter? What does any of it have to do with rescuing our lost people and getting away from here!"

Her heart raced, and Gillian found that her fists were clenched.

"Doctor Baskin," the Niss replied smoothly. "That was exactly what I asked your Captain Creideiki. When he put the pieces together for me I, too, realized that uplift is not an irrelevant question here. It is the only question. Here at Kithrup all that is good and evil about this several-billion-year-old system is represented. It is almost as if the very basis of Galactic society has been placed on trial."

Gillian blinked at the abstract images.

"How ironic," the disembodied voice went on, "that the question rests with you humans, the first sophont race in aeons to claim 'evolved' intelligence.

"Your discovery in the so-called Shallow Cluster may result in a war that fills the Five Galaxies, or it may fade away like so many other chimerical crises. But what is done here on Kithrup will become a legend. All of the elements are there.

"And legends have a tendency to affect events long after wars are forgotten."

Gillian stared at the hologram for a long moment. Then she shook her head.

"Will you please tell me what the bloody damn hell you are talking about?"

84 ::: Hikahi/Keepiru

"We mussst hurry!" the pilot insisted.

Keepiru lay strapped to a porta-doc. Catheters and tubes ran from the webbing that kept him suspended above the water's surface. The sound of the skiffs engines filled the tiny chamber.

"You must relax," Hikahi soothed. "The autopilot is in charge now. We're going as fast as we can underwater. We should be there very soon."

Hikahi was still somewhat numbed by the news about Creideiki, and shaken by Takkata-Jim's treachery. But over it all she could not bring herself to accept Keepiru's frantic urgency. He was obviously driven by his devotion to Gillian Baskin, and wanted to return to her aid instantly, if possible. Hikahi looked at things from another perspective. She knew Gillian probably already had things well under control back at the ship. Compared with the disasters she had been fantasizing the last few days, the news was almost buoyant. Even Creideiki's injury could not suppress Hikahi's relief that Streaker survived intact.

Her harness whined. With one waldo-hand she touched a control to give Keepiru a mild soporific.

"Now I want you to sssleep " she told him. "You must regain your strength. Consider that an order, if, as you say, I am now acting captain."

Keepiru's eye began to recess; the lids drooped together slowly. "I'm shorry, sir. I… I guessss I'm not much-ch more logical than Moki. I'm alwaysss causssing t-trouble…"

His speech slurred as the drug took hold. Hikahi swam almost underneath the drowsy pilot and sighed a brief, soft lullaby.

* Dream, defender -

Dream of those who love you

And bless your courage -

"You're saying these… Karrank%… were the last sophonts to have a license to the planet Kithrup, a hundred million years ago?"

"Correct," the Niss machine replied. "They were savagely abused by their patrons, mutated far beyond the degree allowed by the codes. According to the Thennanin battleship's Library, it caused quite a scandal at the rime. In compensation, the Karrank% were released from their indenture as clients and granted a world suited to their needs, one with low potential for developing pre-sentience. Water worlds make good retirement homes for that reason. Few pre-sophonts ever arise on such planets. The Kiqui seem to be an exception."

Gillian paced the sloping ceiling of the lopsided room. An occasional clanking, transmitted by the metal walls, told of the final fittings being made to secure Streaker into the Trojan Seahorse.

"You aren't saying the Kiqui have anything to do with these ancient…"

"No. They appear to be a genuine find, and a major reason why you should endeavor to escape this trap and return to Earth with what you have learned."

Gillian smiled ironically. "Thanks. We'll do our best.

"So, what was done to the Karr… the Karrank%," she did her best with the double glottal stop, "to make them want to hide away on Kithrup, never to associate with Galactic culture again?"

The Niss explained. "In their pre-sentient form, they were mole-like creatures on a metal-rich world like this one. They had carbon-oxygen metabolisms, such as yours, but they were excellent diggers."

"Let me guess. They were bred as miners, to extract ores on metal-poor worlds. It would be cheaper to import and breed Karrank% miners than to ship large quantities of metals across interstellar space."

"A very good guess, Dr. Baskin. The client-Karrank% were indeed transformed into miners, and in the process converted to a metabolism extracting energy directly from radioactives. Their patrons thought it would help serve as an incentive."

Gillian whistled. "Such a drastic shift in their structure couldn't have been very successful! Ifni, they must have suffered!"

"It was a perversion," the Niss agreed. "When it was discovered, the Karrank% were freed and offered recompense. But after a few millennia trying to adapt to standard starfaring life, they chose to retire to Kithrup. This planet was ceded them for the duration of their race. No one expected them to survive for long.

"Instead of dying out, however, they seem to have continued to modify themselves, on their own. They appear to have adopted a life style unique in known space."

Gillian brought together the threads of the earlier part of the conversation, and made an inference. Her eyes widened. "You mean to tell me the metal-mounds…?"

"Are larvae of an intelligent life form which dwells in the crust of this planet. Yes. I might have surmised this from the latest data sent by Dr. Dennie Sudman, but Creideiki had leapt to the conclusion before we had even heard from her. That is why he came to see me, to get confirmation of his hypothesis."

"Sah'ot's voices," Gillian whispered. "They're Karrank%!"

"An acceptable tentative deduction," the Niss approved. "It would have been the discovery of the century, were it not for the other things you've already turned up on this expedition. I believe you humans have an old expression in English — 'It doesn't rain but it pours — it's quaint, but apropos.' "

Gillian wasn't listening. "The bombs!" She slapped her forehead.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I let Charlie Dart steal some low-yield bombs from our armory. I knew Takkata-Jim would confiscate them and begin transforming them into fuel. It was part of a plan I had cooked up. But…"

"You assumed Takkata-Jim would confiscate all of the bombs?"

"Yes! I was going to call him and tip him off if he overlooked them, but he was quite efficient and discovered them right away. I had to lie to Toshio about it, but that couldn't be helped."

"If all went according to plan, I do not see the problem."

"The problem is that Takkata-Jim may not have seized all of the bombs! It never occurred to me that Charlie could harm living sophonts if he still had one! Now, though… I've got to get in touch with Toshio, at once!"

"Can it wait a few minutes? Takkata-Jim probably was thorough, and there is another matter I wish to discuss with you."

"No! You don't understand. Toshio's about to sabotage his comm set! It's part of my plan! If there's even a chance Charlie's got a bomb we have to find out quickly!"

The holo patterns were agitated.

"I'll make the connection at once," the Niss announced. "It will take me a few moments to worm through Streakers comm system without being detected. Stand by."

Gillian paced the sloping floor, hoping they would be in time.

86 ::: Toshio

Toshio finished the re-wiring, slapped the cover over the transmitter on Thomas Orley's sled, and spread a light smear of mud on the plate to make it seem long unopened.

Then he unhitched the monofilament line from the unit, tied a small red marker ribbon to the end, and let the almost invisible fiber drift down into the depths.

Now he was out of touch with Streaker. It made him feel more alone than ever — even lonelier than when Dennie and Sah'ot had departed early in the morning.

He hoped Takkata-Jim would follow orders and wait here until Streaker left. If he did, Gillian would call down as they blasted away, and warn him of the modifications that had been made to the longboat and this transmitter.

But what if Takkata-Jim were, indeed, a traitor? What if he took off early?

Charles Dart would probably be aboard then, as well as Ignacio Metz, three Stenos, and perhaps three or four Kiqui. Toshio wished none of them harm. It was an agonizing choice.

He looked up and saw Charles Dart happily muttering to himself as he played with his new robot.

Toshio shook his head, glad that the chimp, at least, was happy.

He slid into the water and swam over to his own sled. He had jettisoned its tiny radio an hour ago. He strapped himself in and turned on the motors.

He still had to make one more splice below the island. The old robot, the damaged probe Charles Dart had abandoned down near the bottom of the drill-tree shaft, had one last customer. Creideiki, hanging around Streaker's old site, still wanted to talk to Sah'ot's "voices." Toshio figured he owed the captain the favor, even if it did feel like he was humoring a delusion.

As the sled sank, Toshio thought about the rest of his job here… the things he might have to do before he could leave.

Let Tom Orley be waiting for me when I come back up, he wished fervently. That would solve everything. Let Mr. Orley be finished with his job up in the north, and land up there while I'm below.

Toshio smiled ironically And while you're at it, Ifni, why not throw in a giant fleet of good guys to clear the skies of baddies, hmmmm?

He descended down the narrow shaft, into the gloom.

"Drat! Triple hell! The line's dead. Toshio's already cut it."

"Don't be overly alarmed." The Niss spoke reassuringly. "It is quite likely that Takkata-Jim confiscated all of the bombs. Did not Midshipman Iwashika report that he saw several being dismantled for fuel, as you expected?"

"Yes, and I told him not to worry about it. But it never occurred to me to ask him to count them. I was caught up in the minutiae of moving the ship, and I didn't think Charlie would do any real harm even if, by some chance, he managed to keep one!"

"Now, of course, we know better."

Gillian looked up, wondering if the Tymbrimi machine was being tactful or obliquely sarcastic.

"Well," she said, "what's done is done. Whatever happens can't affect us here. I just hope we don't add a crime against a sentient race to our dubious record on this voyage."

She sighed. "Now, will you tell me again how all this is going to become some sort of legend?"

88 ::: Toshio

The connection was made. Now Creideiki could listen to the underground sounds to his heart's content. Toshio let the monofilament drop into the mud. He emptied ballast, and the sled rose in a spiral toward the drill-tree shaft.

When he surfaced, Toshio knew at once that something had changed. The second sled, the one belonging to Tom Orley, had been dragged up the steep embankment and lay on the sward to the south of the pool. Wires dangled from an open section in the control panel.

Charles Dart squatted by the water's edge. The chimp leaned forward with his finger to his lips.

Toshio cut the motors and loosened his straps. He sat up and looked about the clearing, but saw only the waving forest fronds.

Charlie said in A guttural whisper, " I think Takkata-Jim and Metz are planning to take off soon, Toshio, with or without me." Dart looked confused, as if dazed by the foolishness of the idea.

Toshio kept his expression guarded. "What makes you think that, Dr. Dart?"

"As soon as you went down, two of Takkata-Jim's Stenos came to take that sled's radio. Also, when you were below, they tested the engines. They sounded kinda ragged at first, but they're working on 'em now. I think now they don't even care if you report back anymore."

Toshio heard a soft growling sound to the south — a low whine that rose and fell unevenly.

A rustle of movement to the north caught his eye. He saw Ignacio Metz hurrying southward down the forest trail, carrying bundles of records. Behind him trooped four sturdy Kiqui volunteers from the village. Their air-sacks were puffed up proudly, but they obviously did not like approaching the rough engine noises. They carried crude bundles in front of them.

From the foliage, several dozen pairs of wide eyes watched the procession nervously.

Toshio listened to the sound of the engines, and wondered how much time was left. Takkata-Jim had finished recycling the bombs sooner than expected. Perhaps they had underestimated the dolphin lieutenant. How much else had he jury-rigged to make the longboat serviceable ahead of schedule?

Should I try to delay their takeoff? If I stay any longer it's unlikely I'd ever reach Streaker in tine.

"What about you, Dr. Dart? Are you ready to finish up and hop aboard when Takkata-Jim calls?"

Dart glanced to his console. He shook his head. "I need another six hours," he grumbled. "Maybe we've got a common interest in delaying th' longboat takin' off. You got any ideas?"

Toshio considered.

Well, this is it, isn't it? This is where you decide. Leave now, if you plan to go at all.

Toshio exhaled deeply. Ah, well.

"If I think of a way to delay them for a while, Dr. Dart, will you help me? It may be a little risky."

Dart shrugged. 'All I'm doin' right now is waiting for my 'bot to dig into the crust to bury a… an instrument. I'm free until then. What do I have to do?"

Toshio unhooked the monofilament feeder coil from his sled and cut the free end. "Well, for starters I think we'll need someone to climb some trees."

Charlie grimaced. "Stereotypes," he muttered to himself. 'Allatime gettin' trapped by stereotypes."

89 ::: Gillian

She shook her head slowly. Maybe it was her tiredness, but she couldn't understand more than a fraction of the Niss machine's explanation. Every time she tried to get it to simplify some subtle point of Galactic tradition, it insisted on bringing in examples that only muddied things further.

She felt like a Cro-Magnon trying to understand the intrigues in the court of Louis XIV. The Niss seemed to be saying that Streakers discoveries would have consequences that reached beyond the immediate crisis over the derelict fleet. But the subtleties eluded her.

"Dr. Baskin." The machine tried again. "Every epoch has its turning point. Sometimes it occurs on the battlefield. Sometimes it takes the form of a technological advance. On occasion, the pivotal event is philosophical and so obscure that the species in existence at the time are hardly aware that anything has changed before their world-view is turned topsy-turvy around them.

"But often, very often, these upheavals are preceded by a legend. I know of no other Anglic word to use for it… a story whose images will stand out in the minds of almost all sophonts… a true story of prodigious deeds and powerful archetypal symbols, which presages the change to come."

"You're saying we may become one of these legends?"

"That is what I am saying."

Gillian could not remember ever feeling so small. She couldn't lift the weight of what the Niss was implying. Her duty to Earth and the lives of one hundred and fifty friends and crewmates were burdens enough.

"Archetype symbols, you say…"

"What could be more symbolic, Dr. Baskin, than Streaker and her discoveries? Just one, the derelict fleet, has turned the Five Galaxies upside down. Now add the fact that the discovery was made by the newest of all client races, whose patrons are wolflings, claiming no patrons at all. Here on Kithrup, where no pre-sentient life was supposed to be able to arise, they find a ripe pre-sentient race and take great risks to protect the innocents from a Galactic civilization grown rigid and calcified…"

"Now just a…"

"Now add the Karrank%. In all of the recent epochs, no sapient race has been treated so foully, so abused by the system which was supposed to protect them.

"So what were the chances that this ship would happen to flee to the very planet that was their last refuge? Can you not see the overlying images, Dr. Baskin? From the Progenitors down to the very newest race, what one sees is a powerful sermon about the Uplift System.

"Whatever the outcome of your attempt to escape Kithrup, whether you succeed or fail, the stars cannot help but make a great song of your adventure. This song, I believe, will change more than you can imagine." The voice of Niss finished, with a hushed, almost reverent tone. It's implication was left spinning in the silence.

Gillian stood on the sloping ceiling of the dark, lopsided room, blinking in the sparkling light cast by the swirling motes. The silence hung. Finally, she shook her head.

"Another damned Tymbrimi practical joke," she sighed. "A goddamn shaggy dog story. You've been pulling my leg."

The motes spun silently for a long moment. "Would it make you feel any better if I said I were, Dr. Baskin? And would it change what you have to do one bit if I said I weren't?"

She shrugged. "I guess not. At least you pulled me back from my own troubles for a little while. I feel a bit lightheaded from all that philosophical crap, and maybe even ready to get some sleep."

"I am always ready to be of service."

Gillian smirked. "Sure you are." She climbed up on a packing crate to reach the door-plate but before opening the door she looked back up at the machine.

"Tell me one thing, Niss. Did you give Creideiki any of this bullshit you were feeding me just now?"

"Not in Anglic words, no. But we did cover most of the same themes."

"And he believed you?"

"Yes. I believe he did. Frankly, I was a bit surprised. It was almost as if he had heard it all before, from another source."

That explained part of the mystery of the captain's disappearance, then. And there was nothing that could be done about it now.

"Assuming he did believe you, just what does Creideiki think he's going to accomplish out there?"

The motes spun for a few seconds.

"I suppose, Dr. Baskin, he is first off looking for allies. On an entirely different level, I think he is out there trying to add a few choice stanzas to the legend."

90 ::: Creideiki

They moaned. They had always been in pain. For aeons life had hurt them.

:Listen:

He called out in the language of the ancient gods, coaxing the Karrank% to answer him.

:Listen: You Deep, Hidden Ones — You Sad, Abused Ones : I Call From The Outside : I Crave an Audience :

The doleful singing paused. He felt a hint of irritation. It came in both sound and psi, a shrug to shake a bothersome flea away.

The song of lamentation resumed.

Creideiki kept at it, pushing, probing. He floated at the relay link Streaker had left behind, breathing from his sled's airdome, trying to get the attention of the ancient misanthropes, using the electrical buzz of a distant robot to amplify his faint message.

: I Call From The Outside : Seeking Aid : Your Ancient Tormentors Are Our Enemies Too :

That stretched the truth slightly, but not in essence. He hurried on, sculpting sound images as he felt their attention finally swing his way.

: We Are Your Brothers : Will You Help Us? :

The growling drone suddenly erupted. The psi portion felt angry and alien. The part that was sound grated like static. Without his apprenticeship in the Sea of Dreams, Creideiki felt certain he would have found it unfathomable.

+ DO NOT BOTHER US -

— DO NOT STAY ! WE +

+ HAVE NO BROTHERS -

— WE REJECT +

+ THE UNIVERSE -

— GO AWAY! +

Creideiki's head rang with the powerful dismissal. Still, the potency of the psi was encouraging.

What Streakers crew had needed all along was an ally, any ally. They had to have some help, at least a distraction, if Thomas Orley's clever plan of deception and disguise stood a chance of success. As alien and bitter as these underground creatures were, they had once been starfarers. Perhaps they would take some satisfaction in helping other victims of Galactic civilization.

He persisted.

: Look! : Listen! : Your World Is Surrounded By Gene-Meddlers : They Seek Us : And Small Ones Who Share This Planet With You : They Wish To Warp Us : As They Did You : They Will Invade Your Private Agony :

He crafted a sonic image of great fleets of ships, embellished with gaping jaws. He painted over them an impression of malicious intent.

His picture was shattered by a thundering response.

+ WE ARE NOT INVOLVED! -

Creideiki shook his head and concentrated.

: They May Seek You Out, As Well :

+ THEY HAVE NO USE FOR US! -

— IT IS YOU THEY SEEK! +

+ NOT US! -

The reply dazed him. Creideiki only had strength for one more question. He tried to ask what the Karrank% would do if they were attacked.

Before he finished, he was answered by a gnashing that could not be parsed even in the sense-glyphs of the ancient gods. It was more a roar of defiance than anything decipherable. Then, in an instant, the sound and mental echoes cut off. He was left there, drifting with his head ringing from their anger.

He had done his best. Now what?

With nothing better to do, he closed his eyes and meditated. He clicked out sonar spirals and wove the echoes of the surrounding ridges into patterns. His disappointment subsided as he sensed Nukapai take shape alongside him, her body a complex matting of his own sounds and those of the sea. She seemed to rub along his side and Creideiki thought he could almost feel her. He felt a brief sexual thrill.

: Not Nice People : she commented.

Creideiki smiled sadly.

: No, Not Nice : But They Hurt : I Would Not Bother Such Hermits But For The Need :

He sighed.

: The World-Song Seems To Say They Will Not Help :

Nukapai grinned at his pessimism. She changed tempo and whistled softly in an amused tone.

* Go below

And hear tomorrow's weather

* Go below

Prescience, prescience… *

Creideiki concentrated to understand her. Why did she speak Trinary, a language almost as difficult for him now as Anglic? There was another speech, subtle and powerful, that they could share now. Why did she remind him of his disability?

He shook his head, confused. Nukapai was a figment of his own mind… or at least she was limited to whatever sounds his own voice could create. So how was it she could talk in Trinary at all?

There were mysteries still. The deeper he went the more mysteries there seemed to be.

* Go below

Deep night-diver

* Go below

Prescience, prescience — *

He repeated the message to himself. Did she mean that something could be read from the future? That something inevitable was fated to bring the Karrank% out of their isolation?

He was still trying to puzzle out the riddle when he heard the sound of engines. Creideiki listened for a few moments. But he didn't need to turn on the sled's hydrophones to recognize the pattern of those motors.

Cautiously, tentatively, a tiny spacecraft nosed into the canyon. Sonar swept slowly from one end to another. A searchlight took in the scars in the sea-bed that the departing Streaker had left behind. They scanned bits and pieces of abandoned equipment, and finally came to rest on the little boxy relay, and his sled.

Creideiki blinked in the bright beam. He opened his jaws wide in a smile of greeting. But his voice froze. For the first time in several days he felt bashful, unable to speak for fear of choking over even the simplest words and seeming a fool.

The ship's speakers amplified a single happy sigh, elegantly simple.

* Creideiki! *

With a warm pleasure he recognized that voice. He turned on the sled's motors and cast loose from the relay. As he sped toward the skiff's opening hatch he called out careful words in Anglic, one at a time.

"Hikahi… Nice… to hear… your… voice… again…"

91 ::: Tom Orley

Fog swirled over the sea of weeds. That was good, up to a point. It made stealth easier. But it also made it hard to look for traps.

Tom searched carefully as he crawled across the last stretch of weeds before the open end of the wrecked cruiser. This patch couldn't be taken underwater, and he didn't doubt those who had taken shelter within the hulk had set upward.

He found the device only a few meters from the gaping opening. Thin wires were strung from one small hump of vines to the next. Tom inspected the arrangement, then carefully dug below the tripwire and slithered underneath. When he was clear, he scrambled quietly to the edge of the floating ship and rested against the pitted hull.

The weed beasties had taken cover during the fighting. They were out again, now that almost all of the combatants were dead. Their frog-like croaks refracted eerily in the noisome vapor. Distantly, Tom heard the rumble of the volcano. His empty stomach growled. It sounded loud enough to rouse the Progenitors.

He checked his weapon. The needler had only a few shots left. He had better be right about the number of ETs that had taken shelter aboard this vessel.

I'd better be right about a number of things, he reminded himself. I've staked a lot on there being food here, as well as the information I need.

He closed his eyes in brief meditation, then turned to crouch below the opening. He peeked one eye just past the ragged edge.

Three bird-like Gubru huddled around a motley array of equipment on the smoke-stained, canted deck. A tiny, inadequate heater held the attention of two, who warmed slenderboned arms over it. The third sat before a battered portable console and squeaked in Galactic Four, a language popular among many avian species.

"No sign of humans or their clients," the creature peeped. "We have lost our deep-search equipment, so we cannot be certain. But we find no sign of Earthlings. We cannot achieve anything more. Come for us!"

The radio sputtered. "Impossible to come out of hiding. Impossible to squander last resources at this time. You must maintain. You must lie low. You must wait."

"Wait? We shelter in a hull whose food supply is radioactive. We shelter in a hull whose equipment is ruined. Yet this hull we shelter in is the best still afloat! You must come for us!"

Tom cursed silently at the news. So much for eating.

The radio operator maintained its protests. The other two Gubru listened shifting their weight impatiently. One of them stamped its clawed feet and turned around suddenly as if to interrupt the radio operator. Its gaze swept past the gap in the hull. Before Tom could duck back, the creature's eyes went wide. It began to point.

"A human! Quickly…"

Tom shot it in the thorax. Without bothering to watch it fall, he dove through the opening and rolled behind a tilted console. He scuttled to the other end and snapped off two quick shots just as the second standing Gubru tried to fire. A thin flame spat out of a small handgun, searing the already scarred ceiling as the alien shrieked and toppled backward.

The Galactic at the radio stared at Tom. It glanced at the radio beside it.

"Don't even think it," Tom squawked in heavily accented Galactic Four. The alien's crest riffled in surprise. It lowered its hands and kept still.

Tom rose carefully, never drawing bead away from the surviving Gubru. "Drop your weapons belt and stand away from the transmitter. Slowly., Remember, we humans are wolflings. We are feral, carnivorous, and extremely fast! Do not make me eat you." He grinned his broadest grin to display a maximum of teeth.

The creature shuddered and moved to obey. Tom reinforced obedience with a growl. Sometimes a reputation as a primitive had its uses.

"All right," he said as the alien moved to where he gestured, by the gaping hole. Tom kept his gun trained and sat by the radio. The receiver gave out excited twitters.

He recognized the model, thank Ifni, and switched it off: "Were you transmitting when your friend here spotted me?" he asked his captive. He wondered if the commander of the hidden Gubru forces had heard the word "human."

The Galactic's comb fluttered. Its answer was so irrelevant that Tom momentarily wondered if he had totally misphrased the question.

"You must surrender pride," it chanted, puffing its feathers. "All young ones must surrender pride. Pride leads to error. Hubris leads to error. Only orthodoxy can save. We can save…"

"That's enough!" Tom snapped.

"… save you from heretics. Lead us to the returning Progenitors. Lead us to the ancient masters. Lead us to the rule-givers. Lead us to them. They expect to return to the Paradise they decreed when they long ago departed. They expect Paradise and would be helpless before such as the Soro or the Tandu or the Thennanin or…"

"Thennanin! That's what I want to know! Are the Thennanin still fighting? Are they powers in the battle?" Tom swayed with the intensity of his need to know.

" . . or the Dark Brothers. They will need protection until they are made to understand what terrible things are being done in their name, orthodoxies broken, heresies abounding. Lead us to them, help us cleanse the universe. Your rewards will be great. Your modifications small. Your indenture short…"

"Stop it!" Tom felt the strain and exhaustion of the last few days rise in a boiling rage. Next to the Soro and Tandu, the Gubru had been among humanity's worst persecutors. He had had all he was about to take from this one.

"Stop it and answer my questions!" He fired at the floor near the alien's feet. It hopped in surprise, wide-eyed. Tom fired twice more. The first time the Gubru danced away from a ricochet. The second time it winced as the needler misfired and jammed.

The Galactic peered at him, then squawked joyfully. It spread its feathered arms wide and unsheathed long talons.

For the first time it said something direct and intelligible. "Now you shall talk, impertinent, half-formed, masterless upstart!"

It charged, screaming.

Tom dove to one side as the shrieking avian screeched past him. Slowed by hunger and exhaustion, he couldn't prevent one razor-sharp claw from passing through his wetsuit and ripping his side along one rib. He gasped and stumbled against a blood-stained wall as the Gubru turned around to renew the attack.

Neither of them even considered the handguns that lay on the floor. Depleted and slippery, the weapons weren't worth the gamble to stoop to retrieve them.

"Where are the dolphinnnns?" the Gubru squawked as it danced back and forth. "Tell me or I shall teach you respect for your elders the hard way."

Tom nodded. "Learn to swim, bird-brain, and I'll take you to them."

The Gubru's talons spread again. It shrieked and charged.

Tom summoned his reserves. He leapt into the air and met the creature's throat with a savage kick. The shriek was cut off abruptly, and he felt its vertebrae snap as it went down, sliding along the damp deck to fetch up at the wall in a heap.

Tom landed stumbling beside it. His eyes swam. Breathing heavily with hands on his knees, he looked down at his enemy.

"I told… told you we were… wolflings," he muttered.

When he could, he walked unsteadily to the ragged tear in the side of the ship and leaned on the curled and blackened lower edge, staring out at the drifting fog.

All he had left were his mask, his freshwater still, his clothes, and… oh yes, the nearly worthless hand weapons of the Gubru.

And the message-bomb, of course. The weight pressed against his midriff.

I've put off a decision long enough, he decided. While the battle lasted he could pretend he was searching for answers. Maybe he had been procrastinating, though.

I wanted to be sure. I wanted to know the trick had a maximum chance of working. For that to happen there had to be Thennanin.

I met that scout. The Gubru mentioned Thennanin. Do I have to see their fleet to guess there are still some in the battle above?

He realized there was another reason he had been putting the decision off.

Once I set it off, Creideiki and Gillian are gone. There's no way they'll be able to stop for me. I was to get back to the ship on my own, if at all.

While fighting on the weeds, he had kept hoping to find a working vessel. Anything that could fly him home. But there were only wrecks.

He sat down heavily with his back to the cool metal and drew out the message-bomb.

Do I set it off.

The Seahorse was his plan. Why was he out here, far from Gillian and home, but to find out if it would work?

Across the blood-smeared deck of the alien cruiser, his gaze fell on the Gubru radio.

You know, he told himself, there is one more thing I can do. Even if it means I'll be putting myself right in the middle of a bull's-eye, at least it'll give Jill and the others all I know.

And maybe it'll accomplish more than that.

Tom summoned the strength to stand up one more time. Ah, well, he thought as he staggered to his feet. There's no food anyway. I might as well go out in style.