Startide Rising (11 page)

And the dead lay at my feet
.”

C
harles Dart pulled away from the polarization microscope and growled an oath. In a habit he had spent half his life trying to break, he absently laid his forearms over his head and tugged on his hairy ears. It was a simian contortion no one else aboard ship could easily duplicate. Had he noticed he was doing it, he would have quit instantly.

Of a crew of one hundred and fifty only eight aboard the Streaker even had arms … or external ears. One of these shared the drylab with him.

Commenting on Charles Dart’s body behaviors did not occur to Dennie Sudman. She had long ceased to notice such things as his loose, rolling gait, his shrieking chimpanzee laughter, or the fur that nearly covered his body.

“What is it?” she asked. “Are you still having trouble with those core samples?”

Charlie nodded absently, staring at the screen. “Yeah.”

His voice was low and scratchy. At his best, Charles Dart sounded like a man speaking with gravel in his throat. Sometimes, when he had something complicated to say, he unconsciously moved his hands in the sign language of his youth.

“I can’t make any sense out of these isotope concentrations,” he growled. “And there are minerals in all the wrong places … siderophiles without metals, complex crystals at a depth where there shouldn’t be such complexity … Captain Creideiki’s silly restrictions are crippling my work! I wish he’d let me do some seismic scans and deep radar.“ He swiveled about in his seat to look at Dennie earnestly, as if hoping she would concur.

Dennie’s smile was broad under high cheekbones. Her almond eyes narrowed in amusement.

“Sure, Charlie. Why not? Here we are in a crippled ship, hidden under an ocean on a deadly world, with fleets from a dozen arrogant and powerful patron-lines fighting over the right to capture us, and you want to start setting off explosions and casting gravity beams around. Wonderful idea!

“Say! I’ve got an even better one! Why don’t we just take out a large sign and wave it at the sky, something that says ‘Yoohoo, beasties! Come and eat us!’ Hmmm?”

Charlie cast a sidelong look at her, one of his rare, unhinged, lopsided grins. “Oh, they wouldn’t have to be big gravity scans. And I’d only need a few teeny, tiny explosions for seismography. The ETs wouldn’t notice those, you think?”

Dennie laughed. What Charlie wanted was to make the planet ring like a bell, so he could trace the patterns of seismic waves in the interior. Teeny tiny explosions, indeed! More likely detonations in the kiloton range! Sometimes Charlie seemed so single-minded a planetologist that it bothered Dennie. This time, however, he was obviously having some fun at his own expense.

He laughed as well, letting out brief whoops that echoed off the stark, white walls of the dry lab. He thumped the table beside him.

Grinning, Dennie filled a zip case with papers. “You know, Charlie, there are volcanoes going off all the time, a few degrees away from here. If you’re lucky, one might start right near us.”

Charlie looked hopeful. “Gee, you think so?”

“Sure. And if the ETs start bombing the planet to get at us, you’ll have plenty of data from all the near misses. That is, if they don’t bomb so hard as to make geophysical analyses of Kithrup moot. I envy you your potential silver lining. In the meantime, I intend to forget about it, and my own frustrating research, and go get some lunch. Coming?”

“Naw. Thanks, though. I brought my own. I think I’ll stay and work for a while.”

“Suit yourself. Still, you might try to see more of the ship, other than your quarters and this lab.”

“I talk to Metz and Brookida all the time on screen. I don’t need to wander around gawking at this Rube Goldberg contraption that can’t even fly any more.”

“And besides…” she prompted.

Charlie grinned. “And besides, I hate getting wet. I still think you humans should have worked on dogs second, after casting your spells on us Pan types. Dolphins are all right—some of my best friends are fins. But they were a funny bunch to try to make into a space-traveling race!”

He shook his head with an expression of sad wisdom. Obviously he thought the whole uplift process on Earth would have been better handled had his people been in charge.

“Well, they’re superb space pilots, for one thing,” Dennie suggested. “Look at how hot a star jockey Keepiru is.”

“Yeah, and look at what a jerk-off that fin can be when he’s not piloting. Honestly, Dennie, this trip has made me wonder if fins are really ready for spaceflight. Have you seen how some of ‘em have been acting since we got into trouble? All the pressure is making some of ‘em unravel, especially some of Metz’s big Stenos.”

“You’re not being very charitable,” Dennie chided. “Nobody ever expected this mission to be so stressful. I think most of the fen are doing marvelously. Look at how Creideiki slipped us away from that trap at Morgran.”

Charlie shook his head. “I dunno. I still wish there were more men and chimps aboard.”

One century, that’s how much longer than dolphins chimps had been a recognized space-faring species. Dennie figured a million years from now they would still hold a patronizing attitude toward fins.

“Well, if you’re not coming, I’m off,” Dennie said. She took her notecase and touched the palm-plate by the door. “See you, Charlie.”

The chimp called after her, before the door hissed shut behind her.

“Oh, by the way! If you run into Tkaat or Sah’ot, have em call me, eh? I’m thinking these subduction anomalies may be paleotechnic! An archaeologist may be interested!”

Dennie let the door close without answering. If she didn’t acknowledge Charlie’s request, she could feign ignorance later. There was no way she would go out of her way to speak to Sah’ot, whatever the significance of Charlie’s find!

Avoiding that particular dolphin was already taking up too much of her time.

The dry sections of the starship Streaker were extensive, though they served only eight members of the crew. The one hundred and thirty dolphins—down by thirty-two since they had left Earth—could only visit the dry-wheel by riding a mechanical walker or “spider.”

There were some rooms that should not be flooded with hyper-oxygenated water, nor be left to the gravity fluctuations of the central shaft when the ship was in space. There were stores that had to be kept dry, and machine shops that performed hot processing under gravity. And there were the living quarters for men and chimp.

Dennie stopped at an intersection. She looked down the hallway where most of the humans had their cabins and thought about knocking on the door two cabins down. If Tom Orley were in, this could be the time to ask his advice about a problem that was growing daily more irksome, the way to handle Sah’ot’s unusual … “attentions.”

There were few people better qualified to advise her on non-human behavior than Thomas Orley. His official title was Alien Technologies Consultant, but it was clear he was also out here as a psychologist, to help Dr. Metz and Dr. Baskin evaluate the performance of an integrated dolphin crew. He knew cetaceans, and might be able to tell her what Sah’ot wanted from her.

Tom would know what to do, but …

Her habitual indecision reasserted itself. There were plenty of reasons not to bother Tom right now, like the fact that he was spending every waking moment trying to find a way to save all of their lives. Of course, the same could be said of most of the crew, but experience and reputation suggested that Orley just might be able to come up with a way to get Streaker and her crew away from Kithrup before the ETs captured her.

Dennie sighed. Another reason to put it off was pure embarrassment. It wasn’t easy for a young fem to ask personal advice of a mel as worldly as Thomas Orley. Particularly when the subject was how to cope with the advances of an amorous porpoise.

However kind Tom would be, he would also be forced to laugh—or obviously bite back laughter. The situation, Dennie admitted, would have to seem funny, to anyone but the object of the seduction.

Dennie quickened her pace up the gently curved corridor toward the lift. Why did I ever want to go into space, anyway? she asked herself. Sure, it was an opportunity to advance my career. And my personal life was in a shambles anyway, on Earth. But now where am I? My analysis of Kithrupan biology is getting nowhere. There are thousands of bug-eyed monsters circling over the planet slathering to come down and get me, and a horny dolphin’s harassing me with suggestions that would make Catherine the Great blush.

It wasn’t fair, of course, but when had life ever been fair?

Streaker had been built from a modified Snark hunterclass exploration vessel. Few Snarks were still in service. As Terrans became more comfortable with the refined technologies of the Library, they learned to combine the old and new—ancient Galactic designs and indigenous Terran technologies. This process had been in a particularly awkward phase when the Snarks were built.

The ship was a bulb-ended cylinder with jutting, crane-like reality flanges in five bands of five along her hull. In space the flanges anchored her to a protecting sphere of stasis. Now they served as landing legs as the wounded Streaker lay on her side in a muddy canyon, eighty meters below the surface of an alien sea.

Between the third and fourth rings of flanges, the hull bulged outward slightly for the dry-wheel. In free space the wheel rotated, providing a primitive form of artificial gravity. Humans and their clients had learned how to generate gravity fields, but almost every Earth ship still possessed a centrifugal wheel. Some saw it as a trademark, advertising what some friendly species had recommended Terrans keep quiet, that the three races of Sol were different from any others in space … the “orphans” of Earth.

Streaker’s wheel held room for up to forty humans, though right now there were only seven and one chimpanzee. It also held recreation facilities for the dolphin crew, pools for leaping and splashing and sexual play during off-duty hours.

But on a planet’s surface the wheel could not turn. Most of its rooms were tilted and inaccessible. And the great central bay of the ship was filled with water.

Dennie rode a lift up one of the spokes connecting the dry-wheel to the ship’s rigid spine. The spine supported Streaker’s open interior. Dennie stepped from the elevator into a hexagonal hallway with doors and access panels at all angles, until she reached the main bay lock, fifty meters forward of the wheel spokes.

In weightlessness she would have glided rather than walked down the long passage. Gravity made the corridor eerily unfamiliar.

In the bay-lock, a wall of transparent cabinets held spacesuits and diving gear. Dennie chose a bikini from her locker, and a facemask and flippers. Under “normal” circumstances she would have donned coveralls, a small jet belt, and possibly a pair of broad armwings. She could have leapt into the central bay and flown the humid air to any place she wanted, providing she was careful of the rotating spokes of the dry-wheel.

Now, of course, the spokes were still, and the central bay contained something more humid than air.

She quickly stripped and stepped into the swimsuit. Then she stopped in front of a mirror and tugged at the strings until the bikini was comfortable. Dennie knew she was attractively built. At least the mels she knew had told her so often enough. Still, slightly broad shoulders gave her an excuse for the self-reproach she always seemed to be looking for.

She tested the mirror with a smile. The image was instantly transformed. Strong white teeth brilliantly balanced her dark brown eyes.

She let it lapse. Dimples made her look younger, an effect to be avoided at all cost. She sighed and carefully pushed her jet black hair into a rubber diving cap.

Well, let’s get this over with.

She checked the seals on her notecase and entered the lock. When she closed the inner hatch, fizzing saline water began flooding into the chamber from vents around the floor.

Dennie avoided looking down. She fumbled with her Batteau breather mask, making it snug over her face. The transparent membrane felt tough, but it passed air in and out freely as she took rapid, deep breaths. Numerous flexible plates around its rim would help pull enough air from supercharged oxywater. At the corners of her vision, the mask was equipped with small sonar displays, which were supposed to help make up for a human’s substantial deafness underwater.

Warm bubbling wetness climbed her legs. Dennie readjusted her facemask several times. Her elbow pressed the notecase close against her side. When the fluid had almost reached her shoulders, she immersed her head and breathed hard with her eyes closed.

The mask worked. Of course, it always did. It felt like inhaling in a thick ocean mist, but there was enough air. A bit sheepish over her fearful little ritual, she stood up straight and waited for the water to rise over her head.

At last the door opened, and Dennie swam out into a large chamber where spiders, “walkers,” and other dolphin gear lay neatly folded in recesses. Tucked into orderly shelves were racks of the small water jetpacks that the dolphins used to move about in the ship in weightlessness. The jets made amazing acrobatics possible in free fall, but on a planet, with most of the ship flooded, they were useless.

Usually one or two fen were in this outer dressing room, wriggling into or out of equipment. Puzzled by the emptiness, Dennie swam to the opening at the far end of the chamber and looked out into the central bay.

The great cylinder was only twenty meters across. The vista wasn’t as impressive as the view from the hub of one of the space cities of Sol’s asteroid belts. Still, whenever she entered the central bay, her first impression was one of vast and busy space. Long radial shafts stretched out from spine to cylinder wall, holding the ship rigid and carrying power to the stasis flanges. Between these columns were dolphin work areas, arrayed on supports of resilient mesh.

Dolphins, even the Tursiops amicus, didn’t like being cooped up any more than they had to be. In space, the crew worked in the weightless openness of the central bay, jetting about in humid air. But Creideiki had to land his damaged ship in an ocean. And this meant he had also had to flood the ship in order to enable his workers to reach their instruments.