by David Brin
But what if he had a reason? And what if he found a way?
Toshio almost bumped into a tree in his worried concentration. He looked up and corrected his path.
I'll just have to make sure, he decided. Tonight I'll have to find out if he can cause trouble.
Tonight.
The tribe's adults squatted around a circle in a clearing in the center of the village. Ignacio Metz and Dennie Sudman sat to one side. The Nest-Mother squatted across from them, her bright green-and-red-striped puffer sacks fully inflated. The elders on either side of her billowed and chuffed like a chain of gaily painted balloons in the forest-filtered sunshine.
Toshio stopped at the edge of the village clearing. The sunshine filtered through the trees, revealing a conclave of races.
The Kiqui Nest-Mother chattered, waving her paws in a queer up-and-down pattern that Dennie had said connoted happy emphasis. If the oldest female had been angry, her gestures would have been crosswise. It was a blissfully simple expression pattern. The rest of the tribe repeated her sounds, sometimes anticipating her in a rising and falling chant of consensus.
Ignacio Metz nodded excitedly, cupping one hand over an earphone as he listened to the translation computer. When the chant died down he spoke a few words into a microphone. A long series of high-pitched repetitive squeaks came out of the machine's speaker.
Dennie's expression was one of relief. She had dreaded the uplift specialist's first meeting with the Kiqui. But Metz had not, apparently, muffed her long and careful negotiations with the pre-sentients. The meeting seemed to be coming to a satisfactory conclusion.
Dennie caught sight of Toshio, and smiled brilliantly. Without ceremony she stood up and left the circle. She hurried over to where he waited at the edge of the village clearing.
"How's it going?" he asked.
"Wonderfully! It turns out he's read every word I sent back! He understands their pack protocol, their physical manifestations of sex and age, and he thought my behavioral analysis was 'exemplary'! Exemplary!"
Toshio smiled, sharing her pleasure.
"He's talking about getting me an appointment as a fellow at the Uplift Center! Can you imagine that?" Dennie couldn't help bouncing up and down excitedly.
"What about the treaty?"
"Oh they're ready any time. If Hikahi makes it here in the skiff we'll take a dozen Kiqui back to Streaker with us. Otherwise a few will go back to Earth with Metz in the longboat. It's all settled."
Toshio looked back at the happy villagers and tried not to show his misgivings.
Of course, it was for the good of the Kiqui as a species. They would fare far better under the patronage of Mankind than under almost any other starfaring race. And Earth geneticists had to have living beings to examine before any sort of adoption claim could be made.
Every attempt would be made to keep the first group of aboriginals healthy. Half of Dennie's job had been to analyze their bodily requirements, including needed trace elements. But it was still unlikely any of the first group would survive. Even if they did, Toshio doubted the Kiqui had a notion of the strangeness they were about to embark upon.
They're not sentients yet, he reminded himself. By Galactic law they're still animals. And, unlike anyone else in the Five Galaxies, we'll at least try to explain to their limited understanding, and ask permission.
But he remembered a stormy night, with driving rain and flashing lightning, when the little amphibians had huddled around him and an injured dolphin who was his friend, keeping them warm and warding off despair with their company.
He turned away from the sun-washed clearing.
"Then there's nothing keeping you here any longer?" He asked Dennie.
She shook her head. "I'd rather stay a while longer, of course. Now that I'm finished with the Kiqui I can really work on the problem of the metal-mound. That's why I was so grouchy a couple of days ago. Besides being so tired trying to do two major jobs, I was also frustrated. But now we're a step closer to solving that problem. And did you know the core of the metal-mound is still alive? It's…"
Toshio had to interrupt to stop the flow of words. "Dennie! Stop it for a minute, please. Answer my question. Are you ready to leave now?"
Dennie blinked. She changed tracks, frowning. "Is it Streaker? Has something gone wrong?"
"They began the move a few hours ago. I want you to gather all of your notes and samples and secure them to your sled. You and Sah'ot are leaving in the morning."
She looked at him, his words slowly sinking in. "You mean you, me, and Sah'ot, don't you?"
"No. I'm staying for another day. I have to."
"But why?"
"Look, Dennie, I can't talk about it now. Just do as I ask, please."
As he turned to walk back toward the drill-tree pool she grabbed his arm. Holding on, she was forced to follow.
"But we were going to go together! If you have things to do here, I'll wait for you!"
He walked along without answering. He couldn't think of anything to say. It was bitter to win her respect and affection at last, only to lose her within hours.
If this is what being grown up means, they can have it, he thought. It sucks.
As they approached the pool, sounds of loud argument came from that direction. Toshio hurried. Dennie trotted alongside until they burst into the clearing.
Charles Dart screamed and clutched at a slender cylinder that was gripped at the other end by the manipulator arm of Takkata-Jim's spider. Charlie strained against the pull of the waldo-machine. Takkata-Jim grinned open-mouthed.
The tug of war lasted for a few seconds as the neochimp's powerful muscles strained, then the cylinder popped out of his hands. He fell back to the dust and barely stopped before rolling into the pool. He hopped up and shrieked his anger.
Toshio saw three other Stenos-controlled spiders trooping off toward the longboat. Each carried another of the thin cylinders. Toshio stopped in his tracks when he got a good look at the one Takkata-Jim had taken. His eyes went wide.
"There is no longer any danger," Takkata-Jim told him. His voice carried insouciance. "I have conflssscated these. They'll be kept safe aboard my boat, and there will be no harm."
"They're mine, you thief!" Charles Dart hopped angrily, and his hands fluttered. "You criminal!" he growled. "You think I don't know you tried to m-murder Creideiki? We all know you did! You wrecked the buoys to destroy the evidence! And n-now you steal the tools of m-my trade!"
"Which you stole from Streakers armory, no doubt. Or do you wish to call Dr. Baskin for confirmation that they truly are yoursss?"
Dart growled and showed an impressive display of teeth. He whirled away from the neo-dolphin and sat down in the dust in front of a complex diving robot, freshly unpacked on the verge of the pool.
Takkata-Jim's spider started to turn, but the fin noticed Toshio looking at him. For just a moment, Takkata-Jim's cool reserve broke under the youth's fierce gaze. He looked away, and then back at Toshio.
"Don't-t believe everything you hear, boy-human," he said. "Much I have done, and will do, and I'm convinced I am right. But it wasss not I who hurt Creideiki."
"Did you destroy the buoys?" Toshio could sense Dennie standing close behind him, watching the large dolphin silently over his shoulder.
"Yesss. But it was not I who ssset the trap. Like King Henry with Beckett-t, I only found out about it after. Tell this, on Earth, if by some strange chance you should escape and I don't. Another took the initiative."
"Who did it, then?" Toshio's fists were tight balls.
A long sigh escaped Takkata-Jim's blowmouth.
"Our Dr. Metz wrung from the Survey Board berths for some who shouldn't have been on this voyage. He was impatient. A few of his Stenos had… unusual family trees."
"The Stenos…"
"A few Stenos! I am not one of Metz's experiments! I am a starship officer. I earned my place!" The dolphin's voice was defiant.
"When the pressure built to the brea
king point, some of them turned to me. I thought I could control them. But there was one who turned out to be more than even I could manage. Tell them if you get home, Toshio Iwashika. Tell them on Earth that it'sss possible to turn a dolphin into a monster. They should be warned."
Takkata-Jim gave him one long, intent look, then his spider turned away and followed his crew back to the longboat.
"He's a liar!" Dennie whispered after he had gone. "He sounds so reasonable and logical, but I shiver when I listen to him!"
Toshio watched the spider disappear down the trail.
"No," he said. "He is ambitious, and maybe crazy too. He's probably a traitor, as well. But for some reason I think everything he said was explicitly true. Maybe a surface honesty is what he clings to now, for pride's sake."
He turned, shaking his head. "Not that that makes him any less dangerous."
He approached Charles Dart, who looked up with a friendly smile. Toshio squatted near the chimp planetologist.
"Dr. Dart, how big were they?"
"Were what, Toshio? Say! Have you seen this new robot? I made it up special. It can dive to the base of the shaft, then dig laterally to those big magma tunnels we detected…"
"How big were they, Charlie?" Toshio demanded. He was tense, and ready to throttle the chimpanzee. "Tell me!"
Dart glanced briefly, guiltily, at Toshio, then looked down at the pool wistfully.
"Only about a kiloton each," he sighed. "Hardly big enough to set off decent crust waves, really." He looked up with large, innocent brown eyes. "They were really only teeny little A-bombs, honest!"
70 ::: Hikahi
The need to run quietly kept her speed to little more than it might have been with a sled. It was frustrating.
Cut off from contact with anyone for more than a day Hikahi studied the seascape around her to avoid thinking about the possible fate of Creideiki and Streaker. She would find out what had happened sooner or later. Until then worry would only wear her out.
The morning light filtered down to the canyon bottoms as she swung east and then northward. Clots of dangle-weed drifted overhead, and copper-backed fish darted briefly alongside, until the driving skiff left them behind.
Once she caught sight of something long and sinuous that quickly slithered into a sea-cave as she approached. There was no time to stop and explore, but she did take the monster's picture as she passed.
What will I do if I find Streaker destroyed? The thought came unwanted.
I'll go back to the Thennanin wreck as an intermediate step. They'd need me there. But I'd be commander, then. And hiding at the bottom of the ocean wouldn't be a long term solution. Not on this deadly world.
Can I bring myself to negotiate a surrender?
If she did, she wouldn't let the Galactics take her personally. She was one of the few who, with the right notes, could plot an accurate course back to the derelict fleet.
Maybe I'd see the crew safely interned and then make a break for it in the skiff, she thought. Not that the skiff could ever make it all the way home, even if it could run a Galactic blockade. But someone had to try to get word back to Earth. Perhaps there would be a way to punish the fanatics… make their behavior so costly to then that they'd think twice before bullying Earthlings again.
Hikahi knew she was dreaming. In a few thousand years humans and their clients might have that kind of power, maybe.
Hikahi listened. There was a sound…
She turned up the gain on the ship's hydrophones. Filters removed the background growl of the engines and the tide. She heard the soft scurrying sounds of the ocean creatures.
"Computer! Filter for cetacean output!"
The patterns of sound changed. The sea became quiet. Still, there was a trace of something.
"Increase gain!" The noise level rose. Above the static hiss she heard the faint but distinguishable cries of swimming dolphins! They were desperate sounds of combat.
Was she picking up the echoes of straggling survivors of a disaster? What to do? She wanted to rush to the aid of the distressed fen. But who was pursuing them?
"Machine soundsss!" She commanded. But the detector winked a red light, indicating that there were none within range. So, the dolphins were sledless.
If she attempted a rescue, she risked the only hope of the crew back at the Seahorse. Should she make a detour around the refugees, and hurry toward Streaker as planned? It was an agonizing choice.
Hikahi cut her speed to run still quieter, and sent the skiff due north, toward the dim cries.
71 ::: Charles Dart
He waited until everyone had left before he unscrewed the back of the new robot and checked its contents. Yes, it was still there. Safely concealed. Ah, well, he thought. I'd hoped to repeat the experiment. But one bomb should be enough.
72 ::: Streaker
FROM THE JOURNAL OF GILLIAN BASKIN
We're on our way. Everyone aboard seems relieved to be moving at last.
Streaker lifted off the ocean floor late last night, impellers barely ticking over. I was on the bridge, monitoring reports by the fen outside, and watching the strain gauges until we were sure Streaker was okay. In fact, she sounded positively eager to be off.
Emerson and the crew in the engine room should be proud of the job they've done, though, of course, it's the coils Tom and Tsh't found, that made it possible. Streaker hums like a starship once again.
Our course is due south. We dropped a monofilament relay behind to keep us in touch with the party on the island, and left a message for Hikahi when she shows up.
I hope she hurries. Being a commander is more complicated than I'd ever imagined. I have to make sure everything is done in the right order and correctly, and all as unobtrusively as possible, without making the fen feel "the old lady" is hovering over them. It makes me wish I had some of the military training Tom got while I was away in medical school.
Less than thirty hours and we'll reach the Thennanin shell. Suessi says they'll be ready for us. Meanwhile, we have scouts out, and Wattaceti paces us overhead in a detection sled. His instruments show very little leakage, so we should be safe for now.
I'd give a year's wages for Hikahi or Tsh't, or even Keepiru right now. I'd never understood, before, why a captain treasures a good executive officer so much.
Speaking of captains. Ours is a wonder.
Creideiki seemed to be in a daze for a long time, after getting out of sick bay. But his long conversation with Sah'ot appears to have roused him. I don't know what Sah'ot did, but I would never have believed a person so severely damaged as Creideiki could be so vigorous, or make himself so useful.
When we lifted off he asked to be allowed to supervise the scouts and flankers. I was desperate for a reliable fin to put in charge out there, and thought that having him visible could help morale. Even the Stenos were excited to have him about. Their last bitterness over my "coup" — and Takkata-Jim's exile — seem to have dissipated.
Creideiki is limited to the simplest calls in Trinary, but that seems to be enough. He's out there now, zipping about in his sled, keeping things orderly by pointing, nudging, and setting an example. In only a few hours Tsh't should rendezvous with the scouts we sent ahead, and then Creideiki can come back aboard.
There's a tiny light on my comm that's been flashing since I returned. It's that crazy Tymbrimi Niss machine. I've been keeping the damned thing waiting.
Tom wouldn't approve, I guess. But a fem has only so much strength, and I've got to take a nap. If the matter were urgent it would have broken in and spoken by now.
Oh, Tom, we could use your endurance now. Are you on your way back? Is your little glider even now winging home to Toshio's island?
Who am I fooling? Since the first psi-bomb we've detected nothing, only noise from the space battle, some of it indicating fighting over his last known position. He's set off none of the message globes. So either he's decided not to send an ambiguous message or worse…
Without word from
Tom, how can we decide what to do, once we enter the Seahorse? Do we take off and try our luck, or hide within the hulk as long as we can?
It will be Hikahi's decision when the time comes.
Gillian closed the journal and applied her thumbprint to the fail-safe self-destruct. She got up and turned off the light.
On her way out of the lab, she passed the stasis-bier of the ancient cadaver they had reclaimed at such cost from the Shallow Cluster. Herbie just lay there grinning under a tiny spotlight, an ancient enigma. A mystery.
A troublemaker.
Battered, battle-scarred, Streaker moved slowly along the valley floor, her engines turning over with gentle, suppressed power. A dark, foamy mist rose below her where impellers kicked up the surface ooze.
The nubby cylinder slid over gloomy black rills and abysses, skirting the edges of seamounts and valley walls. Tiny sleds paced alongside, guiding the ship by sonar-speak.
Creideiki watched his ship in motion once again. He listened to the clipped reports of the scouts and sentries, and the replies of the bridge staff. He couldn't follow the messages in detail; the sophisticated technical argot was as out of reach to him as last year's wine. But he could sense the under-meaning; the crew had things well in hand.
Streaker couldn't really shine in this light, dim and blue, fifty meters down, but he could listen — his own sonar clicked softly in accompaniment as he savored the deep rumble of her engines, and he imagined he could be with her when she flew again.
: Never Again Creideiki : You Shall Never Fly With Her Again :
The spectre, K-K-Kph-kree, came into being gradually alongside him, a ghostly figure of silver and sonic shadows. The presence of the god did not surprise, or even bother Creideiki. He had been expecting It to come. It swam lazily, easily keeping pace alongside the sled.
: You Escaped Us : Yet Now You Purposely Sculpt Me Out Of Song : Because Of The Old Voices You Heard? : The Voices From Below? :