Startide Rising

by David Brin

  Calls Silently :

  Gillian didn't breathe as she listened to Creideiki's last note fall away. Her spine was chilled.

  "'Bye, Gillian," Hikahi said. "You do what you have to. We'll be back as quick-kly as we can. But don't wait for usss."

  "Hikahi!" Gillian reached for the comm link, but the carrier wave cut off before she could say another word.

  95 ::: Toshio

  "Both airlocks are bolted from the inside," Toshio panted when he returned to the hiding place. "Looks like we try it your way."

  Charles Dart nodded, and led him to the impulse thrusters at the stern of the small spacecraft.

  Twice they had hidden themselves by climbing tall trees as the patrolling Stenos passed below. It seemed not to occur to the mad fen to look above for their quarry. But Toshio knew they'd be deadly if they ever caught him and Charlie in the open.

  Charlie removed the rear cover to the maintenance bay between the engines. "I got in by crawling between the feedlines, over there, until I reached the access plate in that bulkhead." He pointed. Toshio peered into the maze of pipes.

  He looked back at Dart, amazed. "No wonder nobody expected a stowaway. Is this how you got into the armory, as well? By climbing through ducts where no human could fit?"

  The planetologist nodded. "I guess you can't go in with me. That means I gotta get the little critters out by myself, right?"

  Toshio nodded. "I think they're in the aft hold. Here's the voder."

  He handed over the translator. It looked like a large medallion hanging from a neck-chain. All neo-chimps knew about voders, since they generally had trouble talking until the age of three. Charlie slipped it over his head. He started to climb into the small opening, but stopped and looked sidelong at the middie.

  "Say Toshio. Imagine this was one of those 20th-century `zoo' ships, and those are a bunch of pre-sentient chimps in the hold of a clipper ship

  -- or whatever they used back then -- on their way from Africa to some laboratory or circus. Would you have snuck in to rescue them?"

  Toshio shrugged. "I don't honestly know, Charlie. I'd like to think I would've. But I really don't know what I'd've done."

  The neo-chimp met the human's eyes for a long instant, then he grunted. "Okay, you guard the rear."

  He took a boost from Toshio and squirmed into the mechanical maze. Toshio squatted beneath the thruster tubes and listened to the forest. While Charlie struggled to get the inner access plate off, he made what felt like a terrible racket. Then it stopped.

  Toshio slid into the forest to make a cautious circuit of the immediate area.

  From crashing sounds up in the direction of the Kiqui village, he guessed the Stenos were amusing themselves with a destructive spree. He hoped none of the little natives had come back yet to witness, or worse, be caught in the violence.

  He returned to the longboat and looked at his watch. Seventeen minutes until the bomb went off. They were cutting it close.

  He reached into the maintenance area and spent a few minutes twiddling with some of the valves, spoiling their settings. Of course, Takkata-Jim didn't need the thrusters at all. If he was, indeed, refueled, he could take off on gravities. Leaving the access panel loose would decrease the boat's aerodynamic stability, but even that effect would be slight. Longboats like these were built rugged.

  He stopped and listened. The rampage through the forest was heading this way again. The fen were on their way back.

  "Hurry up, Charlie!" He fingered the grip of his holstered needler, not certain he could aim well enough to hit the vulnerable patches where the dolphins were unprotected by the metal-sided spiders.

  "Come on!"

  There came a series of small, wet, slapping sounds from within the cavity. Intermittent squeaks echoed from the narrow confines, and then he saw a pair of widely splayed, green-finned hands.

  They were followed by the head of a rather distressed looking Kiqui. The aboriginal scuttled through the inner panel and crept through the maze of pipes until it leapt into Toshio's arms.

  Toshio had to peel the frightened creature loose and put it down in order to reach for the next one. The little Kiqui were making a fearful racket, squeaking dolefully.

  Finally all four were out. Toshio peered inside and saw Charles Dart trying to replace the inner panel.

  "Never mind that!" Toshio hissed.

  "I gotta! Takkata-Jim'll notice the change in air pressure on his panel! It's only luck he hasn't yet!"

  "Come on! They're ..." He heard the whine of waldo motors and crushed vegetation. "They're here! I'm going to draw them away from you. Good luck, Charlie!"

  "Wait!"

  Toshio crawled a few meters into the shrubbery so they would not guess where he came from. Then, from a crouch start, he ran.

  # There! There!

  # Whaler!

  # Iki-netman!

  # Tuna follower!

  # There! Kill! There! #

  The Stenos squawked from very close nearby. Toshio dove behind an oli-nut tree as bolts of blue death sizzled overhead. The Kiqui screamed and scattered into the forest.

  Toshio rolled to his feet and ran, trying to keep the tree between him and his pursuers.

  He heard sounds to the left and right as the fen moved quickly to surround him. His drysuit slowed him down as he tried to reach the shore cliffs before the circle was closed.

  96 ::: Tom Orley

  He spent a while listening to the radio, but, although he recognized a few species-types in the voices, so much of the traffic was inter-computer that there was little to be learned that way.

  All right, he told himself. Let's work out the proper phrasing. This had better be good.

  97 ::: The Skiff

  Dennie stumbled over the words she had so carefully prepared. She tried to rephrase her arguments, but Hikahi stopped her.

  "Dr. Sudman. You needn't persissst! Our next stop is the island anyway. We'll pick up Toshio if he hasn't left already. And perhaps we'll deal with Takkata-Jim, as well. We'll be on our way as soon as Creideiki finishes."

  Dennie exhaled all of her remaining tension. It was out of her hands, then. The professionals would take care of things. She might as well relax.

  "How long. . ?"

  Hikahi tossed her head. "Creideiki doesn't expect to do any better this time than lassst. It shouldn't take long. Why don't you and Sah'ot go and rest in the meantime?"

  Dennie nodded and turned to find some space to stretch out in the tiny hold.

  Sah'ot swam alongside.

  "Say, Dennie, as long as we're going to try to relax, want to trade backrubs?"

  Dennie laughed. "Sure, Sah'ot. Just don't get carried away, okay?"

  Creideiki tried to reason with them one more time.

  : We Are Desperate : As You Once Were : We Offer Hope To Little Unfinished Ones On This Very World : Hope To Grow Unbent :

  : Our Enemies Will Harm You, As Well, In Time :

  : Help Us :

  The static pulsed and throbbed in response. It carried a partly psychic feeling of closedness, of pressure and molten heat. It was a claustrophilic song, in praise of rough hard stone and flowing metal.

  + CEASE -

  - PEACE +

  + RELEASE!! -

  - ISOLATION +

  Silence fell suddenly with a squeal of tortured machinery. The old robot which had so long hung two kilometers down the narrow drill-tree shaft had been destroyed.

  Creideiki clicked a familiar phrase in Trinary.

  * It is, that is -- *

  He was tempted to enter the Dream again. But there was, on this level of reality, no time for such things.

  This level of reality was where duty lay, for the moment. Later, perhaps. Later he would visit Nukapai again. Perhaps she would show him the untellable things that she heard through the vague avenues of prescience.

  He headed back to the airlock of the tiny spaceship. Hikahi, seeing him approach, started warming up the engines.

 
98 ::: Tom Orley

  " ... a small group of dolphins spotted a few hundred paktaars north of this location! They were moving north quite rapidly. They may have come this way to see what all the fighting was about. Hurry! Now is the time to strike!"

  Tom clicked off the receiver. His head hurt from the concentration it took to speak Galactic Ten rapidly. Not that he expected the Brothers of the Night to believe his was the voice of one of their missing scouts. That didn't matter to his plan. All he wanted to do was stir up their interest before the final jab.

  He switched frequency and pursed his lips in preparation to speaking Galactic Twelve.

  Actually, this was fun! It distracted him from his exhaustion and hunger and satisfied his aesthetic sense, even if it did mean everyone and his client would be down here shortly, all looking for him.

  " . . Paha warriors! Paha-ab-Kleppko -ab-puber ab-Soro ab-Hul! Inform the Soro fleet-mistress we have news!"

  Tom chuckled as he thought of a pun that could only be phrased in Galactic Twelve and which, nevertheless, he was sure the Soro would never get.

  99 ::: Gillian

  Something was making the fleets shift all of a sudden. Small squadrons raveled off the battered fleets and joined tiny groups from Kithrup's moons, all heading toward the planet. As they merged, the groups swirled about and tiny explosions took the place of individual lights.

  What in the world was going on? Whatever it was, Gillian felt a glimmer of opportunity.

  "Dr. Bassskin! Gillian!" Tsh't's voice came over the commspeaker. "We're getting radio traffic from the planet's surface again. It'sss from a single transmitter, but it keeps putting out stuff in different Galactic languages! Yet I ssswear they all sound like one voice!"

  She leaned forward and touched a switch. "I'm on my way up, Tsh't. Please call half of the off-duty shift to stations. We'll let the others rest a while longer." She switched off the unit.

  Oh, Tom, she thought as she hurried out the door. Why this? Couldn't you have come up with anything more elegant? Anything less desperate?

  Of course he couldn't, she chided herself as she ran down the hallway. Come on, Jill. The least you can do is not be a nag.

  In moments she was on the bridge, listening for herself.

  100 ::: Toshio

  Cornered, Toshio couldn't even climb a tree. They were too close, and would be on him the instant they heard him move.

  He could hear them as they spiraled closer, tightening the noose. Toshio clutched his needler and decided he had better attack first, before they were close enough to support each other. It would be a small handgun against armored machines and high-powered lasers, and he was no marksman like Tom Orley. In fact, he had never fired at a sentient being before. But it beat waiting here.

  He crouched and began to crawl to his right, toward the shoreline. He tried not to snap any twigs, but a minute after leaving his hiding place he flushed some small animal, which fled noisily through the bushes.

  Immediately he heard the noise of approaching mechanicals. Toshio slithered quickly under a thick bush, only to emerge facing the broad footpad of a spider.

  # Gotcha! Gotcha! #

  There was a squeal of triumph. He looked up to meet the mad eye of Sreekah-pol. The fin leered as he commanded the spider to lift its leg.

  Toshio rolled aside as the foot crashed down where his head had been. He reversed direction, avoiding a kick. The mechanical reared back, bringing both front legs into play. Toshio saw no place to turn. He fired his small pistol against the armored belly of the machine, and tiny needles ricocheted harmlessly into the forest.

  The triumphant whistle was pure Primal.

  # Gotcha! #

  Then the island began to shake.

  The ground heaved up and down. Toshio was jounced right and left and his head hit the loam rhythmically. The spider teetered, then crashed backward into the forest.

  The shaking accelerated. Toshio somehow rolled over onto his stomach. he fought the oscillations to rise to his knees.

  There was a crunching sound as two spider-riders stumbled into the clearing. One crashed past Toshio in panic. The other, though, saw him and squawked in wrath.

  Toshio tried to hold out his needler, but the island's trembling began to turn into a list. It became a race between him and the mad dolphin to see who could aim and fire first.

  Then both of them were staggered by a scream that echoed within their heads.

  + BAD! -

  - BAD ONES! +

  + LEAVE -

  - US +

  + ALONE! -

  It was a roar of rejection that made Toshio moan and grab at his temples. The needler slipped out of his grasp and fell to the rapidly tilting ground.

  The dolphin whistled shrilly as its spider collapsed in convulsions. It wailed in a foxhole lamentation.

  # Sorry! Sorry!

  # Patron forgive!

  # Forgive! #

  Toshio stumbled forward. "Forgiven," he managed to say as he hurried past. He couldn't deal with the fin's schizoid conversion. "Come this way if you can!" he called back, as he tried to make it to the shore. The noise in his head was like an earthquake. Somehow Toshio managed to stay on his feet and stumble through the forest.

  When he reached the edge of the mound the sea was a froth below. Toshio looked right and left and saw no place that looked any better.

  At that moment, a scream of engines pealed forth. He looked back to see a tornado of broken vegetation fly up from a spot only a hundred meters away. The gun-metal gray longboat rose above the rapidly tilting forest. It was surrounded by a glowing nimbus of ionization. Toshio's hackles rose as the island was swept by the throbbing antigravity field. The boat turned slowly and seemed to hesitate. Then, with a thunderclap, it speared into the eastern sky.

  Toshio crouched as the boom whipped at him, tugging at his clothes.

  There was no time to delay. Either Charles Dart had got away or he hadn't. Toshio pulled his mask up over his face, held it with one hand, and leapt.

  "Ifni's boss ..." he prayed. And he fell into the stormy waters.

  101 ::: Galactics

  Above the planet small flotillas of battered warships paused suddenly in their multi-sided butchery.

  They had left hiding places on Kithrup's tiny moons, gambling all on the chance that the strange radio broadcasts from the planet's northern hemisphere were, indeed, of human origin. On their way down to Kithrup, the tiny alliances sniped at each other with their waning strength, until a sudden wave of psychic noise hit the entire motley ensemble. It rose from the planet with a power none could have expected, overwhelming psi-shields and striking the crews temporarily motionless.

  The ships continued to plunge toward the planet, but their living crews blinked limply, unable to fire their weapons or guide their vessels.

  If it had been a weapon, the psychic shout would have cleansed half of the ships of their crews. As it was, the mental scream of anger and rejection reverberated within their brains, driving a few of the least flexible completely mad.

  For long moments the cruisers drifted out of formation, uncontrolled, downward into the upper fringes of the atmosphere.

  Finally, the psi-scream began to fade. The grating anger growled and diminished, leaving burning after-images as the numb crews slowly came to their senses.

  The Xatinni and their clients, having drifted away from the others, looked about and discovered that they had lost their appetite for further fighting. They decided to accept the pointed invitation to depart. Their four ragged ships left Kthsemenee's system as quickly as their laboring engines could manage.

  The J'8lek were slow coming around. After succumbing to the numbing mind-scream, they drifted in amongst the ships of the Brothers of the Night. The Brothers awakened sooner, and used the J'8lek for target practice.

  Sophisticated autopilots brought two Jophur warships to land on the slope of a steaming mountain, far to the south of their original destination. Automatic weapons kept wa
tch for enemies while the Jophur struggled with their confusion. Finally, as the stunning psychic noise subsided, the crews began to revive and retake control of their grounded ships.

  The Jophur were almost ready to lift off again, and head north to rejoin the fray, when the entire top of their mountain blew away in a column of superheated steam.

  102 ::: Streaker

  Gillian stared, slack jawed, until the grating "sounds" finally began to fade. She swallowed. Her ears popped, and she shook her head to clear away the numb feeling. Then she saw that the dolphins were staring at her.

  "That was awful!" she stated. "Is everybody all right?"

  Tsh't looked relieved. "We're all fine, Gillian. We detected an extremely powerful psi-explosion a few moments ago. It easily pierced our shields, and seems to have dazed you for a few minutes. But except for some momentary discomfort, we hardly felt it!"

  Gillian rubbed her temples. "It must be my esper sensitivity that made me susceptible. Let's just hope the Eatees don't follow that attack up with another even closer ...." She stopped. Tsh't was shaking her head.

  "Gillian, I don't think it was the Eatees. Or if it was, they weren't aiming for us. Instruments indicate that that burst came from very close nearby, and was almost perfectly tuned not to be received by cetaceans! Your brain is similar to ours, so you only felt it a little. Suessi reports hardly feeling a thing.

  "But I imagine some of the Galactics had a rough t-time weathering that psi-storm!"