Startide Rising u-2

by David Brin

  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.

&
nbsp; 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.

  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.

  "I gotta get out there!" He grumbled. "There's gotta be a way!"

  56 ::: Sah'ot

  When Gillian called to ask that he talk to Creideiki, his first thought had been to rebel over the workload.

  "I know, I know," her tiny simulacrum had agreed, "but you're the only one I can spare who has the qualifications. Let's rephrase that. You are the only one for the job. Creideiki is clearly aware and alert, but he can't talk! We need someone to help him communicate through parts of his brain that weren't damaged. You're our expert."

  Sah'ot had never really liked Creideiki. And the type of injury the captain had suffered made Sah'ot feel queasy. Still, the challenge appealed to his vanity.

  "What about Charlesss Dart? He's been driving Toshio and me until our flukes droop, and he has top priority on this line."

  In the small holo image Gillian looked very tired. "Not any more he doesn't. We're sending out a new probe with Takkata-Jim and Metz, one he'll be able to control himself by commlink. Until then, his project takes last place. Last place. Is that understood?"

  Sah'ot clapped his jaw loudly in assent. It felt good to hear decisive leadership again. The fact that the voice was that of a human he respected helped, too.

  "This bit-t about Metz and Takkata-Jim…"

  "I've filled in Toshio." Gillian said. "He'll brief you when the chance comes. He is in absolute charge now. You're to obey him with alacrity. Is that clear?"

  Gillian never lost her vocabulary under pressure. Sah'ot liked that. "Yesss. Eminently. Now, about these resonances I'm getting from the planet's crust. What shall I do? They are, to my knowledge, totally unprecedented! Can you ssspare someone to do a Library search for me?"

  Gillian frowned. "You say resonances of apparent intelligent origin are coming from deep in Kithrup's crust?"

  "Exactly."

  Gillian rolled her eyes. "Ifni! To explore this world in peace and quiet would demand a decade of work by a dozen survey ships!" She shook her head. "No. My quick guess is that some formation of probability-sensitive rock below the surface is resonating with emanations from the battle overhead. In any event,
it comes after the other priorities: security, the Kiqui, and talking to Creideiki. You've got a mouthful to deal with already."

  Sah'ot stifled a protest. Complaining would only get Gillian to order him explicitly away from the probe. She hadn't yet, so it would be best to stay quiet.

  "Now think about your options," Gillian reminded him. "If Streaker makes a break for it, we'll try to get the skiff out to pick up Tom and whoever wants to join us from the island. You can choose to come along, or stay with Metz and Takkata-Jim and wait it out in the longboat. Inform Toshio of your decision."

  "I undersstand. I'll think about it." Somehow the issue seemed less urgent than it would have a few days ago. The sounds from below were having an effect on him.

  "If I stay, I still wish you all the best of luck," he added.

  "You too, mel-fin." Gillian smiled. "You're a strange duck, but if I get home, I'm going to recommend you get lots of grandchildren." Her image vanished as she broke the connection.

  Sah'ot stared at the blank screen. The compliment, wholly unexpected, left him momentarily stunned. Then a few Kiqui who were foraging nearby were surprised to see a large dolphin rise up onto his tail and dance about the small pool.

  * To be noticed by -

  A humpback

  * To be credited

  At last

  For being me *

  57 ::: Dennie and Toshio

  "I'm afraid."

  Almost without a thought, Toshio put his arm around Dennie's shoulder. He gave her a reassuring squeeze. "What for? There's nothing to be scared of."

  Dennie looked up from the pounding breakers to see if be was serious. Then she realized she was being teased. She stuck out her tongue at him.