by David Brin
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!
53 ::: Moki
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.
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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.