Solbidyum Wars Saga 6: Defeat of the Tottalax (23 page)

Kala looked at Jenira a second and her eyes flooded with tears, and she grabbed Jenira and hugged her.

“You are a good friend and protector, Jenira.  I don’t know what I would do without you.”  Then she turned to me, “All right, Tibby.  I see what you are saying, but can we at least consider looking into ways to protect the twins better in the future?”

“We can look into it, but let’s not become obsessive about it.  I want our kids to grow up as normal as possible, not sheltered and pampered.  As soon as they are old enough, we will start having them trained in personal defense and safety tactics.  In the meantime, I think it might be of benefit for you to talk with Dr. Hughes about the event today.”

“Oh now you want ME to go to talk to Dr. Hughes!  What about you?  You’ve been skipping out on all your sessions with him ever since we got back from Desolation,” Kala said in a mocking tone; however, behind her smile I could also see her serious concerns.

“I’ll make a deal with you.  You go see Dr. Hughes, and I promise I will go see him also.  How is that?”

“It’s a deal,” Kala said, and kissed me.

The following day when I checked in with Kerabac on the NEW ORLEANS, I asked him where they housed Tot while they went about modifying a section of the ship for his habitat.

“You’re not going to believe where we put him, Tibby; actually, it was his idea.  Come, I’ll show you," he said as he led me to my own office aboard the
NEW ORLEANS
.  When we entered the office and I looked into the giant aquarium that occupied the entire end of one wall, I saw Tot slowly swimming around and looking at all the fish in the tank.

“You put him in my fish tank!”  I exclaimed.

“Only temporarily,” Kerabac replied, “once his quarters are finished, he will move over there.  He said he wants a similar tank in his own suite, but he also wants a portion that isn’t submerged, though he says it will need misters creating a 98% humidity and an air temperature between 20C to 23C.  Apparently, those are the conditions of his home world.”

“Tell me, what do you think about him?  I’m assuming you’ve talked with him by now?”

“I’ve spoken with him briefly.  It’s difficult for me to judge.  Usually, I take the tone of a person's voice and their physical gestures when speaking into account.  With Tot there is no tone to take into consideration, and his physical reactions are harder to read than A’Lappe’s.  However, he has been straight forth in answering any questions I have asked him, and so far he appears to be very honest in dealing with us.”

“Has he made any requests that I should be concerned about?”  I asked.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” Kerabac said slowly, “the only real request he’s made is to see if we can have the food replicator in his eventual compartment equipped with certain seafood dishes.  Our current synthesizers don’t have those selections, but it’s merely adding some new software to the unit to make them available.  I’ve already ordered the chips from Irribis and should have them in a few hours.  Is that what you wanted to know?”

“Ah, not exactly,” I replied, “has he made any requests to see, or have access to any of the more sensitive areas of the ship?”

“No, not at all.  A’Lappe and I took him on a tour of the ship, or most of it anyway.  We took him through the engineering section and showed him the hangar bay and the quarters areas.  A’Lappe insisted on showing him the lab, but to be honest, if I read him correctly, he showed little interest in the things we showed him.  What he did seem most interested in was your aquarium and the hydroponics gardens.  Oh, and he was fascinated with Regata and Chanina. It was the first he had seen either of their races before.  I have the feeling you don’t trust him?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, “he saved Lunnie and A’Lappe and I owe him for that.  However, that is no reason for me to accept him without reservation.  It bothers me somewhat that we can’t read him with the loyalty screening equipment.  If he should turn out to be a spy for the Tottalax, we could have a huge problem on our hands.  On the other hand, I don’t want to make him feel like we don’t trust him, either.  He could be what we need to defeat the Tottalax.”

The planet Irribis is just slightly larger than my home world of Earth, and its gravity is 1.1 times that of Earth.  The intelligent aquatic species all live in relative close proximity of the islands on the planet, and the surface dwellers use boats and submersibles to travel and conduct business.  There is a lot of subsea mining in some regions on the planet, but due to concerns about sediments being stirred up, none of the mining operations are allowed within 500 kilometers of any of the islands.  Irribis has no continents.  There are several thousand islands, the largest is about 180,000 km
2 
with mountains going to an elevation of 1.2 km above sea level, and the islands are of all sizes.  Some islands are quite flat and others hilly, some sandy and others rocky.  Most of the islands with higher elevations are of a rocky make-up and of volcanic origin.

The smaller and flatter sandy islands usually are made up of sands deposited on top of coral-like reef buildups of some aquatic life forms that have long since died.  Vegetation on the islands consists mostly of plants brought in from other worlds.  The only two native land plants on Irribis are a grass-like plant that grows to about one half meter in height, and a taller reed-like plant that can grow to nearly 2 meters in height.  The taller plant grows in shallow waters in small inlets and bays around the islands.  The planet had no native land dwelling animals before its discovery by the Federation, as none of the animal life forms on the planet ever evolved to leave the seas.  Irribis also has its share of predatory creatures.  Several are more like Earth's sharks, only with crocodile like snouts and teeth; others are schools of fish of about 300 mm length that are more like piranhas on Earth.

Irribis was one of several planets that had intelligent aquatic life forms.  The level of intelligence and technology of those races aren’t up to standards of the Federation, but two of the worlds had unified governments, were at peace and offered Federation colonists the opportunity to set up colonies on the land, for which they had no use, and they were willing to establish trade agreements.

Irribis actually had three separate aquatic intelligent life forms.  Two were similar to cephalopods of Earth with soft pliable bodies and tentacles.  The other was a large fish-type creature that subsisted on plankton and krill like creatures in the sea.  These three intelligent species coexist in the seas of Irribis and get along well with each other and the land dwelling citizens who moved to Irribis and established settlements there.  All three species communicate using clicks, and grunts, and some weird grinding sound that I find fascinating, as I can’t imagine how they produce the sound.  Each species has its own language, but they also have a common language used by the three for communication.  Translation devices are necessary for surface dwelling beings to communicate with them, because neither species is capable of producing the sounds needed for the others language.

Two days after Shydak’s attack, I met with Halfredies and Admiral Wabussie in my study on the
NEW ORLEANS
to discuss what information we had on the Brotherhood activities on Irribis. Normally, I would have asked to meet them on the
DUSTEN,
but I had specific reasons for meeting on my yacht on this occasion.  After we had been seated and Piesew had served foccee and departed, I started by asking Halfredies, “So, what information do you have about a Brotherhood base here on Irribis?”

“I’ve been able to find uncover Brotherhood operatives here on Irribis and discovered five different ports where they are receiving and shipping supplies,” he answered as he activated a vid screen that was located behind a painting on the wall.  The picture retreated upwards into the wall revealing a screen that displayed a map of one of the five ocean areas that made-up Irribis.  If you draw 800 km diameter circles from these ports, using the ports as the centers of the circles, you will note they all overlap in this one region.  We suspect the Brotherhood base is somewhere in this overlapping area.”

“What is the water depth there?” I asked?

“About 800 meters,” he replied.

“So it’s below the habitation level of the intelligent species of the planet.”

“Under normal circumstances, the uhangi are able to go to 900 meters but seldom go below 500 meters.”

“Which species is the uhangi?”  I asked.

Halfredies brought up an image on the screen of one of the cephalopod creatures that had a bullet shaped outer shell and its tentacles extended from the other open end, “This is an Uhangi.”

“Have you tried to communicate with the Uhangi to see if they have any information that could help us locate any Brotherhood base?” I asked.

“It’s not all that easy to communicate with them.  While they are sentient and do communicate, their thought patterns are different from ours, as is their use of language.  You can communicate with them, but it’s difficult, and you can’t be sure you always understand what they mean.  Either it’s because of the translator, or the strange meanings of their words that we can’t properly translate.”

“So you’ve tried to communicate with them about this?”  I asked again.

“No, not so far.”  Halfredies replied.  “We’ve had to move on this rather quickly, and trying to set up a conversation with one of the native Irribians usually takes a bit of time.  They don’t have homes and addresses like land dwellers, and they don’t have any technology of their own.”

“By the stars, how does the Federation do any business with them?”  I asked as the implications began to hit me.

“It’s all very strange.  The Irribians for the most part, aren’t interested in much the Federation has to offer outside of music.  They are very fond of music and will trade anything for new pieces of music.  The cephalopods are huge fans of classical music while the Zenandu like jazz and music with lots of base rhythms.”

“The Zenandu?  Those are the fish-like creatures?”  I asked.

“Yes, they are large and sometimes swim in small groups of a dozen or less, but quite often can be found swimming alone anywhere on the planet.  If you find one and communicate with him today, you may never find, or communicate with him again as they are constantly moving about.  The Uhangi, on the other hand, usually establish a territory and stay pretty much within that one area, though occasionally while in their male form, they may move great distances to find a mate,” Halfredies said.

“Wait a minute, you’re saying these Uhangi change their gender?”  I asked in astonishment.

“Yes sir.  They're oviparous and start out their lives as females, but half way through their life cycle, their gender changes and they become males.”

“And this other species of cephalopods, do they also change gender?”  I asked.

“I believe so,” Halfredies answered.

“Are these creatures oviparous or viviparous?” I asked, my curiosity now leading me away from the topic at hand.

“Ah, I know the Zenandu are oviparous because, one problem they face is other non-intelligent fishes often follow after them when they spawn, and eat their eggs.  I’ve heard that the Uhangi produce their young live, but I can’t verify that.  The Robalas are even more secretive and rarely seen; only about a dozen have ever been known to communicate with any of the surface-dwelling races.  We know very little about them at all.”

“The Robalas?  I’m assuming that is the other race of cephalopods?”  I asked.

“Yes, both races of cephalopods are very secretive about their reproductive information.”

“So from what you are telling me, our best bet would be to find an Uhangi to talk with because we have a greater chance of finding him or her again if we need to?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” Halfredies replied, “A Zenandu will be the easiest to find as they are swimming all about the shallows of the islands, the Uhangi and Robalas are masters of camouflage and hide on the sea bottom.  They are also fewer in number.  It could take several days just to locate one and possibly even more days before finding one willing to communicate with you.”

“I see,” I said feeling somewhat dejected, “however, you say that these Uhangi like classical music?”

“Yes sir.”

What if we take a small submersible to an area where we suspect an Uhangi might be and start playing classical music?  Do you think that would attract them to come to us?”  I asked.

“It might.  I don’t know.  It would be worth a try, I guess.”

“Admiral, you’re mighty quiet over there,” I said to Wabussie, “what are your thoughts?”

“I’ve just been absorbing all of this,” he said, “all of this is new to me also.  I’m as ignorant of the Irribians as you are.  However, I do have some information that you need to know of the Brotherhood operations here.  The intelligence we have obtained from their computers captured at Windsor indicate they have been shipping a lot of armaments to this sector, and it’s reasonable to assume it’s coming here on Irribis.  They also have sent a few ships with cloaking abilities to this sector and none of them have been recalled.  We aren’t picking them up on long range sensors so if they’re here they must be hidden, and since our sensors don’t penetrate water, it’s a fair guess they are hiding those ships underwater.”

“That would also explain the presence of Shydak on this planet.  He said he’d learned of our presence on Irribis from the news.  However, the news didn’t come out until we were already at the performance.  That means that Shydak had to be in the immediate vicinity for some other reason. It would also explain why he didn’t have a squad of goons with him, he didn’t have time to get them assembled, he had to act immediately and alone.  It all makes sense now.”