by David Brin
Hikahi hurriedly queried the skiffs battle computer.
"It's a psi weapon of some sort," she announced via hydrophone to the crew working in the alien wreck. Her Anglic was calm and precise, accentuated with the cool overtones of Keneenk. "I detect no other signs of attack, so I believe we're feeling a fringe of the space-battle. We've felt othersss before, if not this intense.
"We're deep underwater, partly shielded from psi-waves. Grit your teeth, Streakers. Try to ignore it. Go about your duties in tropic-clear logic."
She switched off the speakers. Hikahi knew Tsh't was even now moving among the workers out there, joking and keeping morale high.
The psi-noise was like a nagging itch, but an itch with a weird rhythm. It pulsed as if in some code she couldn't quite get her jaws around.
She looked at Hannes Suessi, who sat on a wall rail nearby, looking very tired. He had been about to turn in for a few hours' sleep, but the psionic assault apparently affected him even worse than it did the dolphins. He had compared it to fingernails scratching on a blackboard.
"I can think of two possibilities, Hikahi. One would be very good news. The other's about as bad as could be."
She nodded her sleek head. "We've repeatedly rechecked our circuitsss, sent three couriers back with messages, and yet there's only silence from the ship. I must assume the worst."
"That Streakers been taken," Suess! closed his eyes.
"Yess. This psi havoc comes from somewhere on the surface of the planet. The Galactics may even now be fighting over her -- or -- what's left of her."
Hikahi decided. "I'm returning to Streaker in this boat. I'll delay until you've sealed quarters for the work-crew inside the hulk. You need power from the skiff to recharge the Thennanin accumulators."
Suessi nodded. Hikahi was clearly anxious to depart as soon as possible. "I'll go outside and help, then."
"You just got off duty. I cannot permit it."
Suessi shook his head. "Look, Hikahi, when we've got that refuge inside the battleship set up, we can pump in filtered fizzywater for the fen and they'll be able to rest properly. The wreck is well shielded from this psychic screeching, too. And most important, I'll have a room of my own, one that's dry, without a crowd of squeaking, practical-joking children goosing me from behind whenever I turn the other way!" His eyes were gently ironic.
Hikahi's jaw made a gentle curve. "Wait a minute, then, Maker of Wonderful Toys. I'll come out and join you. Work will distract usss from the scratching of ET fingernails."
The Soro, Krat, felt no grating tremors. Her ship was girded against psychic annoyances. She first learned of the disturbance from her staff: She took the data scroll from the Pila Cullalberra with mild interest.
They had detected many such signals in the course of the battle. But none yet had emanated from the planet. Only a few skirmishes had taken the war down to Kithrup itself.
Normally she would have simply ordered a homing torpedo dispatched and forgotten the matter. The expected Tandu-Thennanin alliance against the Soro was forming up near the gas-giant world, and she had plans to make. But something about this signal intrigued her.
"Determine the exact origin of this signal on a planetary map," she told the Pila. "Include locations of all known landfalls by enemy ships."
"There would be doz-ens by now, and the pos-itions very vague," the Pil statistician barked. Its voice was high and sharp. Its mouth popped open for each syllable, and hairy cilia waved above its small, black eyes.
Krat did not dignify it with a look. "When the Soro intervened to end Pilan indenture to the Kisa," she hissed, "it was not to make you Grand Elders. Am I to be questioned, like a human who pampers his chimpanzee?"
Cullalberra shivered and bowed quickly. The stocky Pila scuttled away to its data center.
Krat purred happily. Yes, the Pila were so close to perfect. Arrogant and domineering with their own clients and neighbors, they scurried to serve the Soro's every whim. How wonderful it was to be a Grand Elder!
She owed the humans something, at that. In a few centuries they had almost replaced the Tymbrimi as the bogeymen to use on recalcitrant clients. They symbolized all that was wrong with Uplift Liberalism. When Terra was finally humbled, and humans were "adopted" into a proper client status, some other bad example would have to serve instead.
Krat opened a private communication line. The display lit up with the image of the Soro Pritil, the young commander of one of the ships in her flotilla.
"Yes, fleet-mother," Pritil bowed slowly and shallowly. "I listen."
Krat's tongues flickered at the young female's insolence. "Ship number sixteen was slow in the last skirmish, Pritil."
"One opinion." Pritil examined her mating claw. She cleaned it in front of the screen, an indelicacy designed to show indifference.
Younger females seldom understood that a real insult should be subtle and require time for the victim to discover it. Krat decided she would teach Pritil this lesson.
"You need a rest for repairs. In the next battle, ship number sixteen would be next to useless. There is, however, a way in which she might win honor, and perhaps the prey, as well."
Pritil looked up, her interest piqued.
"Yes, fleet-mother?"
"We have picked up a call that pretends to be one thing, perhaps an enemy pleading for succor. I suspect it may be something else."
The flavor of intrigue obviously tempted Pritil. " I choose to listen, group-mother."
Krat sighed at the predictability. She knew the younger captains secretly believed all of the legends about Krat's hunches. She had known Pritil would come around.
You have much yet to learn, she thought, before you will pull me down and take my place, Pritil. Many learning scars shall have to mar that young hide first. I will enjoy teaching you until that day, my daughter.
Gillian and Makanee looked up as Takkata-Jim and Dr. Ignacio Metz entered sick bay, accompanied by three stocky, war-harnessed, hard-faced Stenos.
Wattaceti squealed an indecipherable indignation and moved to interpose himself. Makanee's assistants chittered behind the ship's surgeon.
Gillian met Makanee's eye. It had come, the confrontation. Now they would see if Makanee was only imagining things. Gillian still held out a hope that Takkata-Jim and Metz had compelling reasons for their actions, and that Creideiki's injury was truly an accident.
Makanee had already made up her mind. Akki, the young midshipfin from Calafia, had still not returned. The doctor glared at Takkata-Jim as she would look at a tiger shark. The expression on the male dolphin's face did little to belie the image.
Gillian had a secret weapon, but she had sworn never to use it except in the direst emergency. Let them act first, she thought. Let them show their cards before we pull that last ace of trumps.
The first stages might be a little dangerous. She had only had time to make a brief call to the Niss machine from her office before hurrying to sick bay. Her position here might be difficult if she had miscalculated the degree of atavism loose on Streaker. Maybe she should have kept Keepiru by her side.
"Dr. Baskin!" Ignacio Metz didn't swim very close before grabbing a wall rail and letting an armed Stenos pass before him. "It's good to see you again, but why didn't you announce yourself?"
"A grosss violation of security rules, Doctor," Takkata-Jim added.
So that's the way of it, Gillian thought. And they might try to make that stick long enough to get me into a cell.
"Why I came for the ship's council meeting, gentlefin and -mel. I got a message from Dr. Makanee calling me back for it. Sorry if your bridge crew fouled up my reply. I hear they're mostly new and inexperienced up there."
Takkata-Jim frowned. It was even possible she had sent such a call, which had been lost in the confusion on the bridge.
"Makanee's message was also against orderss! And your return was contrary to my specific instructions."
Gillian put on an expression of bewilderment. "Wasn't she simply
passing on your call for a ship's council? The rules are clear. You must call a meeting within twenty-four hours of the death or disability of the captain."
"Preparations were underway! But in an emergency the acting-captain can dispense with the advice of the council. When faced with clear disobedience of orders, I am within rightsss to ..."
Gillian tensed herself. Her preparations would do no good if Takkata-Jim were irrational. She might have to make a break by vaulting over the row of autodocs to the parapet above. Her office would be steps away.
" ... to order that-t you be detained for a hearing to be held at some time after the emergency."
Gillian took in the stances of the guard-fen. Would they really be willing to harm a human being? She read their expressions and decided they just might be.
Her mouth felt dry, but she didn't let it show. "You misread your legal status, Lieutenant," she replied carefully. "I think very few of the fen aboard would be surprised to learn that ..."
The words stopped in her throat. Gillian felt a chill in her spine as the air itself seemed to waver and throb around her. Then, as she grabbed a rail for support, a deep, growling sound began to emanate from inside her head.
The others stared at her, confused by her behavior. Then they began to feel it too.
Takkata-Jim whirled and shouted, "Psi weapon! Makanee, give me a link to the bridge! We are under attack-k!"
The dolphin physician moved aside, amazed by Takkata-Jim's quickness as he rushed past. Gillian pressed her hands over her ears and saw Metz doing the same as the grating noise grew louder. The security guards were in disarray, fluting disconsolately with boat-like pupils wide in fear.
Should I make my break now? Gillian tried to think. But if this is an attack we'll have to drop our quarrels and join forces.
" . . incompetentsss!" Takkata-Jim shouted at the comm. "What do you mean `only a thousand miles away'? Pinpoint it-t! ... Why won't the active sensors work?"
"Wait!" Gillian cried. She clapped her hands together. Through a haze of building emotion she started to laugh. Takkata-Jim continued to bark rapidly at the bridge crew, but everyone else turned to look at her in surprise.
Gillian laughed. She slapped the water, pounded on the nearest autodoc, grabbed Wattaceti around the dolphin's quivering flank. Even Takkata-Jim stopped then, captivated by her apparently psychotic fit of joy. He stared, oblivious to frantic twitters from the bridge.
"Tom!" She cried out loud. "I told you you couldn't die! Dammit, I love you, you son of a ... Oh, if I had gone I would have been home by now!"
The fins stared at her, eyes opening still wider as they began to realize what she was talking about.
She laughed, tears running down her face.
"Tom," she said softly. "I told you you couldn't die!" And blindly she hugged close whatever was nearest to her.
Sounds came to Creideiki as he drifted in weightlessness.
It was like listening to Beethoven, or like trying actually to understand a humpback whale.
Somebody had left the audio link on in case he made any more sounds. No one had considered that the circuit went both ways. Words penetrated the gravity tank from the outer room.
They were tantalizing, like those ghosts of meaning in a great symphony -- hinting that the composer had caught a glimpse of something notes could only vaguely convey and words could never even approach.
Takkata-Jim spluttered and mumbled. The threatening tone was clear. So was the cautious clarity of Gillian Baskin's voice. If only he could understand the words! But Anglic was lost to him.
Creideiki knew his ship was in peril, and there was nothing he could do to help. The old gods weren't through with him and would not let him move. They had much more to show him before he was ready to serve their purposes.
He had become resigned to periodic episodes of terror -- like diving to do battle with a great octopus, then rising for a rest before going back down to the chaos once again. When they came to pull him DOWN he would once more be caught in the maelstrom of idea-glyphs, of throbbing dreams which hammered away at his engineer's mind with insistent impressions of otherness.
The assault never would have been possible without the destruction of his speech centers. Creideiki grieved over the loss of words. He listened to the talk-sounds from the outer world, concentrating as hard as he could on the eerie, musical familiarity.
It wasn't all gone, he decided after a while. He could recognize a few words, here and there. Simple ones, mostly the names of objects or people, or simple actions associated with them.
That much his distant ancestors could do.
But he couldn't remember the words more than three or four deep, so it was impossible to follow a conversation. He might laboriously decipher a sentence, only to forget it completely when he worked on the next one. It was agonizingly difficult, and at last he made himself cease the vain effort.
That's not the way, he concluded.
Instead, he should try for the gestalt, he told himself. Use the tricks the old gods had been using on him. Encompass. Absorb ...like trying to feel what Beethoven felt by submerging into the mystery of the Violin Concerto.
Murmuring sounds of angry sophonts squawked from the speaker. The noises bounced around the chamber and scattered like bitter droplets. After the terrible beauty of DOWN, he felt repelled. He forced himself to listen, to seek a way -- some humble way to help Streaker and his crew.
Need swelled within him as he concentrated. He sought a center, a focus in the chaotic sounds.
* Rancor
Turbid
In the rip-tide
* Ignoring
Sharks!
Internecine struggle ...
*Inviting
Sharks!
Foolish opportunism ...
Against his will, he felt himself begin to click aloud. He tried to stop, knowing where it would lead, but the clicks emerged involuntarily from his brow, soon joined by a series of low moans.
The sounds of the argument in sick bay drifted away as his own soft singing wove a thicker and thicker web around him. The humming, crackling echoes caused the walls to fade as a new reality took shape all around. A dark presence slowly grew next to him.
Without words, he told it to go away.
: No : We Are Back : You Have More To Learn :
For all I know, you're a delirium of mine! None of you ever make a sound of your own! You always speak in reflections from my own sonar!
: Have Your Echoes Ever Been So Complex? :
Who knows what my unconscious could do? In my memory are more strange sounds than any other living cetacean has heard! I've been where living clouds whistled to tame hurricanes! I've heard the doom-booms of black holes and listened to the songs of stars!
: All The More Reason You Are The One We Want : The One We Need :
I am needed here!
: Indeed.
Come,
Creideiki. :
The old god, K-K-Kph-kree, moved closer. Its sonically translucent form glistened. Its sharp teeth flashed. Figment or not, the great thing began to move, carrying him along, as before, helpless to resist.
: DOWN :
Then, just as resignation washed over Creideiki, he heard a sound. Miraculously, it wasn't one of his own making, diffracted against the insane dream. It came from somewhere else, powerful and urgent!
: Pay No Heed : Come :
Creideiki's mind leaped after it as if it were a school of mullet, even as the noise swelled to deafening volume.
: You Are Sensitized : You Have Psi You Had Not Known Before : You Know Not Yet Its Use : Relinquish Quick Rewards : Come The Hard Way ... :
Creideiki laughed, and opened himself to the noise from the outside. It crashed in, dissolving the shining blackness of the old god into sonic specks that shimmered and then slowly disappeared.
: That Way Is Gone For You :
: Creideiki ... :
Then the great-browed god was gone. Creideiki laughed
at his release from the cruel illusion, grateful for the new sound that had freed him.
But the noise kept growing. Victory went to panic as it swelled and became a pressure within his head, pushing against the walls of his skull, hammering urgently to get out. The world became a whirling groaning alien cry for help.
Creideiki let out a warbling whistle of despair as he tried to ride the crashing tide.
50 ::: Streaker
The waves of pseudo-sound were fading at last.
"Creideiki!" Makanee cried and swam to the captain's tank. The others turned also, just noticing the injured dolphin's distress.
"What's the matter with him?" Gillian swam up next to Makanee. She could see the captain struggle feebly, giving off a slowly diminishing series of low. moans.
"I don't know. No one was watching him as the psi-bomb hit its peak! Just now I saw he was disturbed."
The large, dark gray form within the tank seemed calmer now. The muscles along Creideiki's back twitched. slowly, as he let out a low, warbling cry.
Ignacio Metz swam up alongside Gillian.
"Ah, Gillian ..." he began, "I want you to know that I'm very glad Tom is alive, although this tardiness bodes poorly. I'd still stake my life that this Trojan Seahorse plan of his is ill conceived."
"We'll have to discuss that at ship's council, then, won't we, Dr. Metz?" she said coolly.
Metz cleared his throat. "I'm not sure the acting captain will permit ..." He subsided under her gaze and looked away.
She glanced at Takkata-Jim. If he did anything rash, it could be the last straw that broke Streaker's morale. Gillian had to convince Takkata-Jim that he would lose if he contested with her. And he had to be offered a way out, or there might still be civil war aboard the ship.
Takkata-Jim looked back at her with a mixture of pure hostility and calculation. She saw the sound-sensitive tip of his jaw swing toward each of the fen in turn, gauging their reaction. The news that Thomas Orley still lived would go through the ship like a clarion. Already one of the armed Stenos guards, presumably carefully picked by the vicecaptain, looked mutinously jubilant and chattered hopefully with Wattaceti.