by David Brin
“Yes, but our odds were better this way. Ponder the young men you know, Sara. Imagine how they would have behaved.”
She pictured her brothers, growing up in this narrow oasis. Lark would have been sober and reliable. But Dwer, at fifteen, was very different than he became at twenty.
“And yet, I see you aren’t all women.…”
The senior rider grinned. “Nor are we celibates. From time to time we bring in mature males — often chief scouts, sages, or explosers — men who already know our secret, and are of an age to be calm, sensible companions … yet still retain vigor in their step.”
Fallon laughed to cover brief embarrassment. “My step is no longer my best feature.”
Foruni squeezed his arm. “You’ll do for a while yet.”
Sara nodded. “An urrish-sounding solution.” Sometimes a group of young urs, lacking the means to support individual husbands, would share one, passing him from pouch to pouch.
The senior rider nodded, expressing subtleties of irony with languid motions of her neck. “After many generations, we may have become more than a bit urrish ourselves.”
Sara glanced toward Kurt the Exploser, sitting on a smooth rock studying carefully guarded texts, with both Jomah and Prity lounging nearby.
“Then you sent the expedition to fetch Kurt because you want another—”
“Ifni, no! Kurt is much too old for such duties, and when we do bring in new partners it is with quiet discretion. Hasn’t Kurt explained to you what this is all about? His role in the present crisis? The reason why we gambled so much to fetch you all?”
When Sara shook her head, Foruni’s nostrils flared and she hissed like an urrish auntie, perplexed by foolish juniors.
“Well, that’s his affair. All I know is that we must escort you the rest of the way as soon as possible. You’ll rest with us tonight, my niece. But alas, family reminiscence must wait till the emergency passes … or once it overwhelms us all.”
Sara nodded, resigned to more hard riding.
“From here … can we see—?”
Fallon nodded, a gentle smile on his creased features.
“I’ll show you, Sara. It’s not far.”
She took his arm as Foruni bade them return soon for a feast. Already Sara’s nose filled with scents from the cook-fire. But soon her thoughts were on the path as they crossed narrow, miraculous meadows, then scniblands where simlas grazed, and beyond to a steepening pass wedged between two hills. Sunlight was fading rapidly, and soon the smallest moon, Passen, could be seen gleaming near the far west horizon.
She heard music before they crested the pass. The familiar sound of Emerson’s dulcimer, pinging softly ahead. Sara was loath to interrupt, yet the glow drew her — a shimmering lambency rising from Jijo, filling a vista beyond the sheltered oasis.
The layered terrain seemed transformed in pearly moonlight. Gone were the garish colors, yet there remained an extravagant effect on the imagination. It took an effort of will in order not to go gliding across the slopes, believing in false oceans and battlements, in ghost cities and starscapes, in myriad phantom worlds that her pattern-gleaning brain crafted out of opal rays and shadows.
Fallon took Sara’s elbow, turning her toward Emerson.
The starman stood on a rocky eminence with the dulcimer propped before him, beating its forty-six strings. The melody was eerie. The rhythm orderly, yet impossible to constrain, like a mathematical series that refused to converge.
Emerson’s silhouette was framed by flickering fire as he played for nature’s maelstrom.
This fire was no imagining — no artifact of an easily fooled eye. It rippled and twisted in the far distance, rimming the broad curves of a mighty peak that reared halfway up the sky.
Fresh lava.
Jijo’s hot blood.
The planet’s nectar of renewal, melted and reforged.
Hammering taut strings, the Stranger played for Mount Guenn, serenading the volcano while it repaid him with a halo of purifying flame.
PART FIVE
A PROPOSAL FOR A USEFUL TOOL/STRATEGY BASED ON OUR EXPERIENCE ON JIJO
IT HAS BEEN NEARLY A MILLENNIUM SINCE A LARGE OUTBREAK OF TRAEKINESS WAS FOUND.
These flare-ups used to be frequent embarrassments, where stacks of hapless rings were found languishing without even a single master torus to guide them. But no word of such an occurrence has come within the memory of living wax.
The reaction of our Polkjhy ship to this discovery on Jijo was disgusted loathing.
HOWEVER, LET US NOW PAUSE and consider how the Great Jophur League might learn/benefit from this experiment. Never before have cousin rings dwelled in such intimacy with other races. Although polluted/contaminated, these traeki have also acquired waxy expertise about urs, hoon, and qheuen sapient life-forms — as well as human wolflings and g’Kek vermin.
MOREOVER, the very traits that we Jophur find repellent in traeki-natural rings — their lack of focus, self, or ambition — appear to enable them to achieve empathy with unitary beings! The other five races of Jijo trust these ring stacks. They confide secrets, share confidences, delegate some traekis with medical tasks and even powers of life continuation/cessation.
IMAGINE THIS POSSIBILITY. SUPPOSE WE ATTEMPT A RUSE.
INTENTIONALLY, we might create new traeki and arrange for them to “escape” the loving embrace of our noble clan. Genuinely believing they are in flight from “oppressive” master rings, these stacks would be induced to seek shelter among some of the races we call enemies.
Next suppose that, using this knack of vacuous empathy, they make friendships among our foes. As generations pass, they become trusted comrades.
At which point we arrange for agents to snatch — to harvest — some of these rogue traeki, converting them to Jophur exactly as we did when Asx was transformed into Ewasx, by applying the needed master rings.
Would this not give us quick expertise about our foes?
GRANTED, this Ewasx experiment has not been a complete success. The old traeki, Asx, managed to melt many waxy memories before completion of metamorphosis. The resulting partial amnesia has proved inconvenient.
Yet, this does not detract from the value of the scheme — to plant empathic spies in our enemies’ midst. Spies who are believable because they think they are true friends! Nevertheless, with the boon of master rings, we can reclaim lost brethren wherever and whenever we find them.
Streakers
Makanee
THERE WERE TWO KINDS OF PUPILS IN THE WIDE, wet classroom.
One group signified hope — the other, despair.
One was illegal — the other, hapless.
The first type was innocent and eager.
The second had already seen and heard far too much.
# good fish …
# goodfish, goodfish …
# good-good FISH! #
Dr. Makanee never used to hear Primal Delphin spoken aboard the Streaker. Not when the keeneenk master, Creideiki, used to hold the crew rock steady by his unwavering example.
Nowadays, alas, one commonly picked up snatches of old-speech — the simple, emotive squealing used by unaltered Tursiops in Earth’s ancient seas. As ship physician, even Makanee sometimes found herself grunting a snatch phrase, when frustrations crowded in from all sides … and when no one was listening.
Makanee gazed across a broad chamber, half-filled with water, as students jostled near a big tank at the spinward end, avid to be fed. There were almost thirty neo-dolphins, plus a dozen six-armed, monkeylike figures, scrambling up the shelf-lined walls, or else diving to swim agilely with webbed hands. Just half the original group of Kiqui survived since they were snatched hastily from far-off Kithrup, but the remaining contingent seemed healthy and glad to frolic with their dolphin friends.
I’m still not sure we did the right thing, taking them along. Neo-dolphins are much too young to take on the responsibilities of patronhood.
A pair of teachers tried bringing orde
r to the unruly mob. Makanee saw the younger instructor — her former head nurse, Peepoe—use a whirring harness arm to snatch living snacks from the tank and toss them to the waiting crowd of pupils. The one who uttered the Primal burst — a middle-aged dolphin with listless eyes — smacked his jaw around a blue thing with writhing tendrils that looked nothing like a fish. Still, the fin crooned happily while he munched.
# Goodfish … good-good-good! #
Makanee had known poor Jecajeca before Streaker launched from Earth — a former astrophotographer who loved his cameras and the glittering black of space. Now Jecajeca was another casualty of Streaker’s long retreat, fleeing ever farther from the warm oceans they called home.
This voyage was supposed to last six months, not two and a half years, with no end in sight. A young client race shouldn’t confront the challenges we have, almost alone.
Taken in that light, it seemed a wonder just a quarter of the crew had fallen to devolution psychosis.
Give it time, Makanee. You may yet travel that road yourself.
• • •
“Yes, they are tasty, Jecajeca,” Peepoe crooned, turning the reverted dolphin’s outburst into a lesson. “Can you tell me, in Anglic, where this new variety of ‘fish’ comes from?”
Eager grunts and squeaks came from the brighter half of the class, those with a future. But Peepoe stroked the older dolphin with sonar encouragement, and soon Jecajeca’s glazed eye cleared a bit. To please her, he concentrated.
“F-f-rom outside … Good s-s-sun … good wat-t-ter …”
Other students offered raspberry cheers, rewarding this short climb back toward what he once had been. But it was a slippery hill. Nor was there much a doctor could do. The cause lay in no organic fault.
Reversion is the ultimate sanctuary from worry.
Makanee approved of the decision of Lieutenant Tsh’t and Gillian Baskin, not to release the journal of Alvin the Hoon to the crew at large.
If there’s one thing the crew don’t need right now, it’s to hear of a religion preaching that it’s okay to devolve.
Peepoe finished feeding the reverted adults, while her partner took care of the children and Kiqui. On spying Makanee, she did an agile flip and swam across the chamber in two powerful fluke strokes, resurfacing amid a burst of spray.
“Yesss, Doctor? You want to see me?”
Who wouldn’t want to see Peepoe? Her skin shone with youthful luster, and her good spirits never flagged, not even when the crew had to flee Kithrup, abandoning so many friends.
“We need a qualified nurse for a mission. A long one, I’m afraid.”
Ratcheting clicks spread from Peepoe’s brow as she pondered.
“Kaa’s outpost. Is someone hurt-t?”
“I’m not sure. It may be food poisoning … or else kingree fever.”
Peepoe’s worried expression eased. “In that case, can’t Kaa take care of it himself? I have duties here.”
“Olachan can handle things while you are away.”
Peepoe shook her head, a human gesture by now so ingrained that even reverted fins used it. “There must be two teachers. We can’t mix the children and Kiqui with the hapless ones too much.”
Just five dolphin infants had been born to crew members so far, despite a growing number of signatures on the irksome Breeding Petition. But those five youngsters deserved careful guidance. And that counted double for the Kiqui — presentients who appeared ripe for uplift by some lucky Galactic clan who won the right to adopt them. That laid a heavy moral burden on the Streaker crew.
“I’ll keep a personal eye on the Kiqui … and we’ll free the kids’ parents from duty on a rotating basis, to join the crèche as teachers’ aidesss. That’s the best I can do, Peepoe.”
The younger dolphin acquiesced, but grumbled. “This’ll turn out to be a wild tuna chase. Knowing Kaa, he prob’ly forgot to clean the water filters.”
Everyone knew the pilot had a long-standing yearning for Peepoe. Dolphins could sonar-scan each other’s innards, so there was no concealing simple, persistent passions.
Poor Kaa. No wonder he lost his nickname.
“There is a second reason you’re going,” Makanee revealed in a low voice.
“I thought so. Does it have to do with gravitic signals and depth bombsss?”
“This hideout is jeopardized,” Makanee affirmed. “Gillian and Tsh’t plan to move Streaker soon.”
“You want me to help find another refuge? By scanning more of these huge junk piles, along the way?” Peepoe blew a sigh. “What else? Shall I compose a symphony, invent a star drive, and dicker treaties with the natives while I’m at it?”
Makanee chuttered. “By all accounts, the sunlit sea above is the most pleasant we’ve encountered since departing Calafia. Everyone will envy you.”
When Peepoe snorted dubiously, Makanee added in Trinary—
Legends told by whales
Call one trait admirable—
Adaptability!
This time, Peepoe laughed appreciatively. It was the sort of thing Captain Creideiki might have said, if he were still around.
Back in sick bay, Makanee finished treating her last patient and closed shop for the day. There had been the usual psychosomatic ailments, and inevitable accidental injuries from working outside in armored suits, bending and welding metal under a mountainous heap of discarded ships. At least the number of digestive complaints had gone down since teams with nets began harvesting native food. Jijo’s upper sea teemed with life, much of it wholesome, if properly supplemented. Tsh’t had even been preparing to allow liberty parties outside … before sensors picked up starships entering orbit.
Was it pursuit? More angry fleets chasing Streaker for her secrets? No one should have been able to trace Gillian’s sneaky path by a nearby supergiant whose sooty winds had disabled the robot guards of the Migration Institute.
But the idea wasn’t as original as we hoped. Others came earlier, including a rogue band of humans. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised if it occurs to our pursuers, as well.
Makanee’s chronometer beeped a reminder. The ship’s council — two dolphins, two humans, and a mad computer — was meeting once more to ponder how to thwart an implacable universe.
There was a sixth member who silently attended, offering fresh mixtures of opportunity and disaster at every turn. Without that member’s contributions, Streaker would have died or been captured long ago.
Or else, without her, we’d all be safe at home.
Either way, there was no escaping her participation.
Ifni, capricious goddess of chance.
Hannes
IT WAS HARD TO GET ANYTHING DONE. DR. BASKIN kept stripping away members of his engine-room gang, assigning them other tasks.
He groused. “It’s too soon to give up on Streaker, I tell you!”
“I’m not giving her up quite yet,” Gillian answered. “But with that carbonite coating weighing the hull down—”
“We’ve been able to analyze the stuff, at last. It seems the stellar wind blowing off Izmunuti wasn’t just atomic or molecular carbon, but a kind of star soot made up of tubes, coils, spheres, and such.”
Gillian nodded, as if she had expected this.
“Buckyballs. Or in GalTwo—” Pursed lips let out a clicking trill that meant container home for individual atoms. “I did some research in the captured Library cube. It seems an interlaced mesh of these microshapes can become superconducting, carrying away vast amounts of heat. You’re not going to peel it off easily with any of the tools we have.”
“There could be advantages to such stuff.”
“The Library says just a few clans have managed to synthesize the material. But what good is it, if it makes the hull heavy and seals our weapons ports so we can’t fight?”
Suessi argued that her alternative was hardly any better. True, a great heap of ancient starships surrounded them, and they had reactivated the engines of a few. But that was a far cry from f
inding a fit replacement for the Snark-class survey craft that had served this crew so well.
These are ships the Buyur didn’t think worth taking with them, when they evacuated this system!
Above all, how were dolphins supposed to operate a starship that had been built back when humans were learning to chip tools out of flint? Streaker was a marvel of clever compromises, redesigned so beings lacking legs or arms could move about and get their jobs done — either striding in six-legged walker units, or by swimming through broad flooded chambers.
Dolphins are crackerjack pilots and specialists. Someday lots of Galactic clans may hire one or two at a time, offering them special facilities as pampered professionals. But few races will ever want a ship like Streaker, with all the hassles involved.
Gillian was insistent.
“We’ve adapted before. Surely some of these old ships have designs we might use.”
Before the meeting broke up, he offered one last objection.
“You know, all this fiddling with other engines, as well as our own, may let a trace signal slip out, even through all the water above us.”
“I know, Hannes.” Her eyes were grim. “But speed is crucial now. Our pursuers already know roughly where we are. They may be otherwise occupied for the moment, but they’ll be coming soon. We must prepare to move Streaker to another hiding place, or else evacuate to a different ship altogether.”
So, with resignation, Suessi juggled staff assignments, stopped work on the hull, and augmented teams sent out to alien wrecks — a task that was both hazardous and fascinating at the same time. Many of the abandoned derelicts seemed more valuable than ships impoverished Earth had purchased through used vessel traders. Under other circumstances, this Midden pile might have been a terrific find.
“Under other circumstances,” he muttered. “We’d never have come here in the first place.”
Sooners
Emerson
WHAT A WONDERFUL PLACE!