Uplift - Infinity's Shore Part 21

Peepoe's worried expression eased. "In that case, can't Kaa take care of it himself? I have duties here."

"Olachan can handle things while you are away."

Peepoe shook her head, a human gesture by now so ingrained that even reverted fins used it. "There must be two teachers. We can't mix the children and Kiqui with the hapless ones too much."

Just five dolphin infants had been born to crew members so far, despite a growing number of signatures on the irksome Breeding Pet.i.tion. But those five youngsters deserved careful guidance. And that counted double for the Kiqui-presentients who appeared ripe for uplift by some lucky Galactic clan who won the right to adopt them. That laid a heavy moral burden on the Streaker crew.

"I'll keep a personal eye on the Kiqui . . . and we'll free the kids' parents from duty on a rotating basis, to join the creche as teachers' aidesss. That's the best I can do, Peepoe."

The younger dolphin acquiesced, but grumbled. "This'll turn out to be a wild tuna chase. Knowing Kaa, he prob'ly forgot to clean the water filters."

Everyone knew the pilot had a long-standing yearning for Peepoe. Dolphins could sonar-scan each other's innards, so there was no concealing simple, persistent pa.s.sions.

Poor Kaa. No wonder he lost his nickname.

"There is a second reason you're going," Makanee revealed in a low voice.

"I thought so. Does it have to do with gravitic signals and depth bombsss?"

"This hideout is jeopardized," Makanee affirmed. "Gillian and Tsh't plan to move Streaker soon."

"You want me to help find another refuge? By scanning more of these huge junk piles, along the way?" Peepoe blew a sigh. "What else? Shall I compose a symphony, invent a star drive, and d.i.c.ker treaties with the natives while I'm at it?"

Makanee chuttered. "By all accounts, the sunlit sea above is the most pleasant we've encountered since departing Calafia. Everyone will envy you."

When Peepoe snorted dubiously, Makanee added in Trinary- Legends told by whales Call one trait admirable- Adaptability! *

This time, Peepoe laughed appreciatively. It was the sort of thing Captain Creideiki might have said, if he were still around.

Back in sick bay, Makanee finished treating her last patient and closed shop for the day. There had been the usual psychosomatic ailments, and inevitable accidental injuries from working outside in armored suits, bending and welding metal under a mountainous heap of discarded ships. At least the number of digestive complaints had gone down since teams with nets began harvesting native food. Jijo's upper sea teemed with life, much of it wholesome, if properly supplemented. Tsh't had even been preparing to allow liberty parties outside . . . before sensors picked up starships entering orbit.

Was it pursuit? More angry fleets chasing Streaker for her secrets? No .one should have been able to trace Gillian's sneaky path by a nearby supergiant whose sooty winds had disabled the robot guards of the Migration Inst.i.tute.

But the idea wasn't as original as we hoped. Others came earlier, including a rogue band of humans. I guess we shouldn't be surprised if it occurs to our pursuers, as well.

Makanee's chronometer beeped a reminder. The ship's council-two dolphins, two humans, and a mad computer-was meeting once more to ponder how to thwart an implacable universe.

There was a sixth member who silently attended, offering fresh mixtures of opportunity and disaster at every turn. Without that member's contributions, Streaker would have died or been captured long ago.

Or else, without her, we'd all be safe at home.

Either way, there was no escaping her partic.i.p.ation.

Ifni, capricious G.o.ddess of chance.

Hannes IT WAS HARD TO GET ANYTHING DONE. DR. BASKIN kept stripping away members of his engine-room gang, a.s.signing them other tasks.

He groused. "It's too soon to give up on Streaker, I tell you!"

"I'm not giving her up quite yet," Gillian answered. "But with that carbonite coating weighing the hull down-"

"We've been able to a.n.a.lyze the stuff, at last. It seems the stellar wind blowing off Izmunuti wasn't just atomic or molecular carbon, but a ftind of star soot made up of tubes, coils, spheres, and such."

Gillian nodded, as if she had expected this.

"Buckyb.a.l.l.s. Or in GalTwo-" Pursed lips let out a clicking trill that meant container home for individual atoms. "I did some research in the captured Library cube. It seems an interlaced mesh of these microshapes can become superconducting, carrying away vast amounts of heat. You're not going to peel it off easily with any of the tools we have."

"There could be advantages to such stuff."

"The Library says just a few clans have managed to synthesize the material. But what good is it, if it makes the hull heavy and seals our weapons ports so we can't fight?"

Suessi argued that her alternative was hardly any better. True, a great heap of ancient starships surrounded them, and they had reactivated the engines of a few. But that was a far cry from finding a fit replacement for the Snark-cla.s.s survey craft that had served this crew so well.

These are ships the Buyur didn 't think worth taking with them, when they evacuated this system!

Above all, how were dolphins supposed to operate a starship that had been built back when humans were learning to chip tools out of flint? Streaker was a marvel of clever compromises, redesigned so beings lacking legs or arms could move about and get their jobs done-either striding in six-legged walker units, or by swimming through broad flooded chambers.

Dolphins are crackerjack pilots and specialists. Someday lots of Galactic clans may hire one or two at a time, offering them special facilities as pampered professionals. But few races will ever want a ship like Streaker, with all the ha.s.sles involved.

Gillian was insistent.

"We've adapted before. Surely some of these old ships have designs we might use."

Before the meeting broke up, he offered one last objection.

"You know, all this fiddling with other engines, as well as our own, may let a trace signal slip out, even through all the water above us."

"I know, Hannes." Her eyes were grim. "But speed is crucial now. Our pursuers already know roughly where we are. They may be otherwise occupied for the moment, but they'll be coming soon. We must prepare to move Streaker to another hiding place, or else evacuate to a different ship altogether."

So, with resignation, Suessi juggled staff a.s.signments, stopped work on the hull, and augmented teams sent out to alien wrecks-a task that was both hazardous and fascinating at the same time. Many of the abandoned derelicts seemed more valuable than ships impoverished Earth had purchased through used vessel traders. Under other circ.u.mstances, this Midden pile might have been a terrific find.

"Under other circ.u.mstances," he muttered. "We'd never have come here in the first place."

Sooners Emerson WHAT A WONDERFUL PLACE!.

Ever since glorious sunset, he had serenaded the stars and the growling volcano . . . then a crescent of sparkling reflections on the face of the largest moon. Dead cities, abandoned in vacuum long ago.

Now Emerson turns east toward a new day. Immersed in warm fatigue, standing on heights protecting the narrow meadows of Xi, he confronts the raucous invasion of dawn.

Alone.

Even the horse-riding women keep inside their shelters at daybreak, a time when glancing beams from the swollen sun sweep all the colors abandoned by night, pushing them ahead like an overwhelming tide. A wave of speckled light. Bitter-sharp, like shards of broken gla.s.s.

His former self might have found it too painful to endure-that logical engineer who always knew what was real, and how to cla.s.sify it. The clever Emerson, so good at fixing broken things. That one might have quailed before the onslaught. A befuddling tempest of hurtful rays.

But now that seems as nothing compared with his other agonies, since crashing on this world. In contrast to having part of his brain ripped out, for instance, the light storm could hardly even be called irritating. It feels more like the claws of fifty mewling kittens, setting his callused skin a-p.r.i.c.kle with countless pinpoint scratches.

Emerson spreads his arms wide, opening himself to the enchanted land, whose colors slice through roadblocks in his mind, incinerating barriers, releasing from numb imprisonment a spasm of pent-up images.

Banded canyons shimmer under layer after l.u.s.trous layer of strange images. Explosions in s.p.a.ce. Half-drowned worlds where bulbous islets glimmer like metal mushrooms. A house made of ice that stretches all the way around a glowing red star, turning the sun's wan glow into a hearth's tamed fire.

These and countless other sights waver before him. Each clamors for attention, pretending to be a sincere reflection of the past. But most images are illusions, he knows.

A phalanx of armored damsels brandishes whips of forked lightning against fire-breathing dragons, whose wounds bleed rainbows across the desert floor. Though intrigued, he dismisses such scenes, collaborating with his rewq to edit out the irrelevant, the fantastic, the easy.

What does that leave?

A lot, it seems.

From one nearby lava field, crystal particles reflect tart sunbursts that his eye makes out as vast, distant explosions. All sense of scale vanishes as mighty ships die in furious battle before him. Squadrons rip each other. Fleet formations are scythed by moving folds of tortured s.p.a.ce.

True.'

He knows this to be a real memory. Unforgettable. Too exquisitely horrible to let go, this side of death.

So why was it lost?

Emerson labors to fashion words, using their rare power to lock the recollection back where it belongs.

I . . . saw ... this . . . happen.

I . . . was . . . there.

He-turns for more. Over in that direction, amid a simple boulder field, lay a galactic spiral, seen from above the swirling wheel. Viewed from a shallow place where few spatial tides ever churn. Mysteries lay in that place, undisturbed by waves of time.

Until someone finally came along, with more curiosity than sense, intruding on the tomblike stillness.

Someone . . . ?

He chooses a better word.

. . . We . . .

Then, a better word, yet.

. . . Streaker!

A slight turn and he sees her, traced among the stony layers of a nearby mesa. A slender caterpillar shape, 'studded by the spiky f.l.a.n.g.es meant to anchor a ship to this universe ... a universe hostile to everything Streaker stood for. He stares nostalgically at the vessel. Scarred and patched, often by his own hand, the hull's beauty could only be seen by those who loved her.

. . . loved her . . .

Words have power to shift the mind. He scans the horizon, this time for a human face. One he adored, without hope of anything but friendship in return. But her image isn't found in the dazzling landscape.

Emerson sighs. For now, it is enough to sort through his rediscoveries. A single correlation proves especially useful. If it hurts, then it must be a real memory.

What could that fact mean?

The question, all by itself, seems to make his skull crack with pain!

Could that be the intent? To prevent him from remembering?

Stabbing sensations a.s.sail him. That question is worse! It must never be asked!

Emerson clutches his head as the point is driven home with hammerlike blows.

Never, ever, ever . . .

Rocking back, he lets out a howl. He bays like a wounded animal, sending ululations over rocky outcrops. The sound plummets like a stunned bird . . . then catches itself just short of crashing.

In a steep, swooping turn, it comes streaking back . . . as laughter'.

Emerson bellows.

He roars contempt.

He brays rebellious joy.

Through streaming tears, he asks the question and glories in the answer, knowing at last that he is no coward. His amnesia is no hysterical retreat. No quailing from traumas of the past.

What happened to his mind was no accident.

Hot lead seems to pour down his spine as programmed inhibitions fight back. Emerson's heart pounds, threatening to burst his chest. Yet he scarcely notices, facing the truth head-on, with a kind of brutal elation.

Somebody . . . did . . . this. . . .

Before him, looming from the fractured mesa, comes an image of cold eyes. Pale and milky. Mysterious, ancient, deceitful. It might have been terrifying-to someone with anything left to lose.

Somebody . . . did . . . this ... to ... me!

With fists clenched and cheeks awash, Emerson sees the colors melt as his eyes fill with liquid pain. But that does not matter anymore.

Not what he sees.

Only what he knows.

The Stranger casts a single cry, merging with the timeless hills.

A shout of defiance.

THEY SHOW COURAGE. You were right about that, My rings. We Jophur had not expected anyone to approach so soon after the Polkjhy slashed an area of twenty korech around our landing site. But now a delegation comes, waving a pale banner.

At first, the symbolism confuses our Polkjhy communications staff. But this stack's very own a.s.sociation rings relay the appropriate memory of a human tradition-that of using a white flag to signify truce.

WE INFORM THE CAPTAIN LEADER. That exalted stack appears pleased with our service. My rings, you are indeed well informed about vermin! These worthless-seeming toruses, left over from the former Asx, hold waxy expertise about human ways that could prove useful to the Obeyer Alliance, if a prophesied time of change truly has come upon the Five Galaxies.

The Great Library proved frustratingly spa.r.s.e regarding the small clan from Earth. How ironic then, that we should find proficient knowledge in such a rude, benighted world as this Jijo. Knowledge that may help our goal of extinguishing the wolflings at long last.

What? You quiver at the prospect?