Startide Rising (39 page)

He motioned that they should start heading back to camp. They only had a little time after second supper to walk and talk. Now that he was in command, he had to make sure that timetables were kept.

Dennie held his arm as they turned to return to the encampment. Over the rushing rustle of the wind through the foliage came the intermittent squeaks of the natives, rousing from their siesta to prepare for the evening hunt.

They walked in silence along the narrow trail.

K
rat licked slowly at her mating claw, studiously ignoring the creatures who scurried to clean up the bloody mess in the corner.

There would be trouble over this. The Pilan High Council would protest.

Of course she was within her rights, as grand admiral, to deal with any member of the fleet as she saw fit. But that did not traditionally cover the skewering of a senior Librarian simply because he was the bearer of bad news.

I am getting old, she realized. And the daughter I had hoped would soon be strong enough to pull me down is now dead. Who now will do me the honors, before I grow erratic and become a hazard to the clan?

The small, furry body was hauled away, and a sturdy Paha mopped up the bloody mess. The other Pila looked at her.

Let them stare. When we capture the Earthlings it won’t matter. I shall be famous, and this incident will be ignored by all, especially the Pila.

If we are the first ones to approach the Progenitors with an offering, the Law won’t matter any more. The Pila will not simply be our adult liege-clients. They will be ours again, to meddle with, to redesign, to shape once more.

“Back to work! All!” She snapped her mating claw. The twang sent the bridge crew scuttling off to their stations, some to repair the smoking damage from a near miss in the most recent battle with the Tandu.

Think now, Soro mother. Can you spare ships to send once more to the planet? To that hellish volcano where every fleet has already sent a party to fight and die?

There weren’t supposed to be any Gubru left here! But a battered Gubru scout had shown up at the place where the distress call came from. It had gone to smoky ruin along with a Tandu destroyer, Pritil’s ship number sixteen, and two other vessels even her battle computers could not identify. Perhaps one was a surviving spearship of the Brothers of the Night which had hidden on one of Kithrup’s moons.

Meanwhile, out here, the “final” battle with the Tandu’s unholy alliance had turned into a bloody draw. The Soro still had a slim advantage, so the remaining Thennanin stayed by their Tandu allies.

Should she risk all in the next encounter? For the Tandu to win would be horrible. They would, if they gained the Power, destroy so many beautiful species that the Soro might someday own.

If it came down to a choice, she guessed the Thennanin would switch sides one more time.

“Strategy section!” she snapped.

“Fleet-Mother?” A Paha warrior approached, but stopped just out of arm-reach. It eyed her cautiously.

Given a chance, she would breed respect into the Paha genes so deeply nothing would ever eradicate it.

The Paha stepped back involuntarily as her claw stretched. “Find out which ships are now most expendable. Organize them into a small squadron. We’re going to investigate the planet again:”

The Paha saluted and returned to its station quickly. Krat settled deeper into the vletoor cushion.

We shall need a distraction, she thought. Perhaps another expedition to that volcano would make the Thennanin nervous and let the Tandu think we know something.

Of course, she reminded herself, the Tandu themselves may know what we do not.

F
ar Away

They Call

The Giants,

The Spirits of OCEAN,

The Leviathans

Creideiki begins to understand—does, does, begin—

The old gods are part figment, part racial memory, part ghost … and part something else … something an engineer could never have allowed his ears to hear, or eyes to see …

Far Away

They Call

Leviathans …

Not yet. Not yet, not. Creideiki has a duty to perform yet, does have a duty.

No more, no more an engineer—but Creideiki remains a spacer. Not useless, Creideiki will do what he can, can do, can do to help.

Can do to help save his crew, his ship …

S
he wanted to rub her eyes, but the facemask was in the way. Too much remained to be done.

The fins came and went, swooping by her wherever she traveled in the ship, almost toppling her in their hurry to report and then be off again, carrying out orders.

I hope Hikahi gets back soon. I’m not doing badly, I guess, but I’m no starship officer. She has the training to rule a crew.

Hikahi doesn’t even know she’s captain, Gillian thought. Much as I pray they get the line open soon, I’ll hate having to break that news to her.

She wrote a brief message to Emerson D’Anite, and the last courier dashed off for the engine room. Wattaceti kept pace alongside her as she turned to swim into the outlook.

There were two small crowds of dolphins in the bay, one at the forward sally hatch and the other clustered about the longboat.

The bow of the small spaceship almost touched the iris of one of the outer hatches. Its stern disappeared into a metal sheath beyond the rear end of the outlock.

When the longboat is gone this place’ll look pretty empty, she thought.

A fin in the party at the lock saw her and sped toward Gillian. He halted abruptly before her and hovered in the water at attention.

“Flankers and scoutsss are ready to depart when you give the word, Gillian.”

“Thank you, Zaa’pht. It will be soon. Is there still no word from the line-repair party, or from Keepiru?”

“No, ssssir. The courier you sent to follow Keepiru should be near the wreck shortly, though.”

It was frustrating. Takkata-Jim had severed the link to the Thennanin wreck, and now it seemed impossible to find the break. For once she cursed the fact that monofilaments could be hidden so well.

For all they knew, some terrible disaster might have struck the work party, at the very site she was planning on moving Streaker to.

At least the detectors indicated the space battle was still going on, almost as fierce as ever.

But what was keeping Tom? He was supposed to set off a message bomb when ETs showed up to investigate his ruse. But since the faked distress call there had been nothing.

In addition to everything else, the damned Niss machine wanted to talk to her. It had not set off the hidden alarm in her office to indicate that it was an emergency, but every time she used a comm unit she heard a faint click that signaled the thing’s desire to talk.

It was enough to make a fem just want to climb into bed and stay there.

A sudden commotion broke out near the lock. The wall speaker let out a brief, sloppy squeal of Trinary, followed by a longer report in loose, high-pitched Anglic.

“Sssir!” Zaa’pht turned excitedly. “They report…”

“I heard.” She nodded. “The line’s been repaired. Congratulate the repair team for me, and get them inside for a couple of hours’ rest. Then please ask Heurkah-pete to contact Hikahi right away. He’s to ascertain her situation and tell her we begin moving the ship at 2100 hours unless she objects. I’ll be calling her shortly.”

“Aye, sssir!” Zaa’pht whirled and sped off.

Wattaceti watched her silently, waiting.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s see Takkata-Jim and Metz off. You’ve made certain the crew has offloaded everything that wasn’t on our checklist, and inspected everything the exiles took aboard?”

“Yesss. They haven’t even got a flaregun. No radio and no more fuel than the minimum needed to reach the island.”

Gillian had gone on her own inspection of the boat a few hours back, while Metz and Takkata-Jim were still packing. She had taken a few additional precautions that nobody else knew about.

“Who’s going with them?”

“Three volunteers, all of them ‘strange’ Stenos. All males. We searched them down to their penile sheathsss. They’re clean. They’re all in the longboat now, ready to go.”

Gillian nodded. “Then, for better or worse, let’s get them out of here so we can get on with other things.”

Mentally she had already begun rehearsing what she had to tell Hikahi.

R
emember,” she told Tsh’t and Suessi, “maintain radio silence at all cossst. And try to keep those crazy fen in the wreck from eating up all the supplies in the first few days, hmmm?”

Tsh’t signaled assent with a jaw clap, although her eyes were heavy with reservation. Suessi said, “Are you sure you won’t let one of us come with you?”

“I’m sure. If I encounter disaster I want no more lives lost. If I find survivors, I might need every bit of room. In any event, the skiff runs itself, essentially. All I have to do is watch it.”

“You can’t fight while piloting,” Hannes pointed out.

“If I had a gunner along I might be tempted to fight. This way I have to run away. If Streaker is dead or captured, I must be able to return the skiff to you here, or you’ll all be doomed.”

Suessi frowned, but found he had to agree with her reasoning. He was thankful Hikahi had stayed as long as she had, letting them use the skiff’s power to finish preparing a habitat inside the wreck.

We’re all worried about Streaker and the captain, he thought. But Hikahi must be in agony.

“All right, then. Good-bye and good luck, Hikahi. May Ifni’s boss watch over you.”

“The sssame to both of you,” Hikahi took Suessi’s hand gently between her jaws, then did the same with Tsh’t’s left pectoral fin.

Tsh’t and Suessi left through the skiff’s small airlock. They backed their sled toward the yawning opening in the sunken alien battleship.

A low whine spread from the skiff as power came on. The sound echoed back to them from the mammoth sea-cliff that towered over the crash site.

The tiny space vessel began to move slowly eastward, picking up speed underwater. Hikahi had chosen a roundabout route, taking her far out before swinging back in an arc to Streaker’s hiding place. This would keep her out of touch for as long as a couple of days, but it would also mean that her point of origin could not be traced, if an enemy lay in wait where Streaker had been.

They watched until the boat disappeared into the gloom. Long after Suessi ceased hearing anything. Tsh’t waved her jaw slowly back and forth, following the diminishing sound.

Two hours later, as Hannes was lying down for his first nap in his new dry-quarters, the makeshift intercom by his pallet squawked.

Not more bad news. He sighed.

Lying in the darkness with one arm over his eyes, he touched the comm. “What?” he said simply.

It was Lucky Kaa, the young electronics tech and junior pilot. His voice fizzed with excitement. “Sir! Tsh’t says you should come quickly! It’sss the ship!”

Suessi rolled over onto one elbow.

“Streaker?”

“Yesss! The line just re-opened! They want to talk to Hikahi right away!”

All of the strength went out of Suessi’s arms. He slumped back and groaned. Oh, frabjous day! By now she’s well out of sonar-speak range!

It’s at times like these that I wish I could talk dolphin jabber like Tom Orley can. Maybe in Trinary I could express something properly ironic and vulgar about the way the universe works.

T
he longboat slid smoothly through the port and out into the twilight blue of Kithrup’s ocean.

“You’re going the wrong way,” Ignacio Metz said, after the iris had closed behind them. Instead of turning east, the boat spiraled upward.

“Just a small detour, Dr. Metz,” Takkata-Jim soothed. “Sneekah-jo, tell Streaker I’m adjusting the trim.”

The dolphin on the co-pilot’s ramp began whistling to his counterpart on the ship. The sonar-speak squawked back angrily. Streaker also had noticed the change in course.

Metz’s seat was above and behind Takkata-Jim’s. The water level came up to his waist. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Jusst getting used to the controls…”

“Well, watch out! You’re headed straight for the detection buoys!”

Metz watched, amazed, as the craft sped toward the crew of dolphins dismantling the listening devices. The workfen scattered out of the way, cursing shrilly as the boat crashed into the tethered buoys. Metal smithereens clattered along its prow and fell into the blackness.

Takkata-Jim seemed oblivious. He calmly turned the small ship around and piloted it at a sedate pace eastward, toward their island destination.

The sonar-speak squawked. Dr. Metz blushed. Good fin-persons shouldn’t use language like that!

“Tell them it was an accident-t,” Takkata-Jim told his co-pilot. “The trim was out of line, but now we’ve got it under control. We’re proceeding underwater to the island, as ordered.”

The longboat drove down a narrow canyon, leaving the brightly lit subsea vale and Streaker behind it.

“Accident, my hairy uncle Fred’s scrotum!”

The words were followed by a sniggering laugh from the back of the control room. “You know, I kinda figured you wouldn’t leave without destroying the incriminatin’ evidence first, Takkata-Jim.”

Dr. Metz struggled with his straps to turn around. He stared. “Charles Dart! What are you doing here?”

Perched on a shelf in a storage locker—whose door was now open—a spacesuited chimpanzee grinned back at him. “Why, exercisin’ a teeny tiny bit of initiative, Dr. Metz! Now you be sure and note that in your records. I wanna be given credit for it.” He broke into a shrieking giggle, amplified by his suit speaker.

Takkata-Jim twisted about on his ramp to regard the chimp for a moment. He snorted and turned back to his piloting.