Uplift - Startide Rising Part 31

His thrumming sled left the shadow of the seamount and came into open water. East of southeast came a faint image-gestalt of racing cetaceans, once again.

Keepiru concentrated. Yes, the one in pursuit was a Stenos, a big one. It used a strange pattern of search sonar.

The one in front ...

...It has to be Akki, he thought. The kid is in trouble. Bad trouble.

He was almost deafened as a blast of sound from the sled behind him caught him directly in a focused beam. He chattered a curse-glyph and shook his head to clear it.

He almost turned around to take care of the self-sucking t.u.r.d swallower behind him but he knew his duty lay ahead.

Keepiru was tormented by a choice. Strictly speaking, his duty was to get a message to Hikahi. Yet it went against everything inside him to abandon the middie. It sounded like the youngster was exhausted. His pursuer was clearly catching up.

But if he swung to the east he would give his own pursuer a chance to catch up ...

But he might also distract K'tha-Jon, force him to turn around.

It didn't become a Terragens officer. It didn't reflect Keneenk. But he couldn't decide logically.

He wished some distant, great-great-grandchild of his were here now, a fully mature and logical dolphin who could tell his crude, half-animal ancestor what to do.

Keepiru sighed. What makes me think they'll let me have great-grandchildren, anyway?

He chose to be true to himself. He banked the sled to the left and pulled the engine throttle one more notch into the red."

55 ::: Charles Dart One of the two Earthlings in the room-the human -- rummaged through dresser drawers and distractedly tossed things into an open valise on the bed. He listened while the chimpanzee talked.

" ... the probe is down below two kilometers. The radioactivity's rising fast, and the temperature gradient, too. I'm not sure the probe will last more'n another few hundred meters, yet the shaft keeps going!

'Anyway I'm now positive that there's been garbage dumping by a technological race, and recently! Like hundreds of years ago!"

"That's very interesting, Dr. Dart. Really, it is." Ignacio Metz tried not to show his exasperation. One had to be patient with chimps, especially Charles Dart. Still, it was hard to pack while the chimp ran on and on, perched on a chair in his stateroom.

Dart went on obliviously. "If anything made me appreciate Toshio, as inefficient as that boy is, it's having to work with that lousy dolphin linguist Sah'ot! Still, I was gettin' good data until Tom Orley's d.a.m.ned bomb went off and Sah'ot started hollering stuff about 'voices' from below! Crazy b.l.o.o.d.y fin ...."

Metz sorted his belongings. Now where is my blue land-suit? Oh yes, it's already packed. Let's see. Duplicates of all my notes are already loaded aboard the boat. What else is there?

" ... I said, Dr. Metz!"

"Hmmm?" He looked up quickly. "I'm sorry, Dr. Dart. It's all these sudden changes and all. I'm sure you understand. What were you saying?"

Dart groaned in exasperation. "I said I want to go with you! To you this trip may be a form of exile, but to me it'd be an escape! I've got to get out to where my work is!" He pounded the wall and showed two rows of large, yellowed teeth.

Metz thought for a moment, shaking his head. Exile? Perhaps Takkata-Jim looked at it that way. Certainly he and Gillian were like oil and water. She was determined to set in motion Orley's and Creideiki's Trojan Seahorse plan. Takkata-Jim was just as adamant resisting it.

Metz agreed with Takkata-Jim, and had been surprised when the lieutenant meekly resigned his acting-captaincy at the ship's council meeting, appointing Gillian in command until Hikahi could be recalled. That meant the Seahorse scheme would go forward after all. Streaker was to begin her underwater move in a few hours.

If the ruse was really to be tried, Metz was just as happy to be gone from the ship. The longboat was s.p.a.cious, and comfortable enough. In it, he and his notes would be safe. The records of his special experiments would get to Earth eventually, even when ... if Streaker was destroyed trying to escape.

Besides, now he could join Dennie Sudman in examining the Kiqui. Metz was more than a little eager to get a look at the pre-sentients.

"You'll have to talk to Gillian about coming with us, Charlie," he shook his head. "She's letting us take your new robot with us to the island. You may have to settle for that."

"But you and Takkata-Jim promised that if I cooperated, if I kept quiet to Toshio earlier, and was willing to give you my proxy on the council ..."

The chimp lapsed when he saw the expression on Metz's face. Charlie's lips pressed close together and he got up to his feet.

"Thanks for nuthin'!" he growled as he went for the door.

"Now, Charlie ..."

Dart marched out into the hall. The shutting door cut off Metz's last words.

The chimp walked along the sloping corridor, head bowed in determination.

"I gotta get out there!" He grumbled. "There's gotta be a way!"

56 ::: Sah'ot .

When Gillian called to ask that he talk to Creideiki, his first thought had been to rebel over the workload.

"I know, I know," her tiny simulacrum had agreed, "but you're the only one I can spare who has the qualifications. Let's rephrase that. You are the only one for the job. Creideiki is clearly aware and alert, but he can't talk! We need someone to help him communicate through parts of his brain that weren't damaged. You're our expert."

Sah'ot had never really liked Creideiki. And the type of injury the captain had suffered made Sah'ot feel queasy. Still, the challenge appealed to his vanity.

"What about Charlesss Dart? He's been driving Toshio and me until our flukes droop, and he has top priority on this line."

In the small holo image Gillian looked very tired. "Not any more he doesn't. We're sending out a new probe with Takkata-Jim and Metz, one he'll be able to control himself by commlink. Until then, his project takes last place. Last place. Is that understood?"

Sah'ot clapped his jaw loudly in a.s.sent. It felt good to hear decisive leadership again. The fact that the voice was that of a human he respected helped, too.

"This bit-t about Metz and Takkata-Jim ..."

"I've filled in Toshio." Gillian said. "He'll brief you when the chance comes. He is in absolute charge now. You're to obey him with alacrity. Is that clear?"

Gillian never lost her vocabulary under pressure. Sah'ot liked that. "Yesss. Eminently. Now, about these resonances I'm getting from the planet's crust. What shall I do? They are, to my knowledge, totally unprecedented! Can you ssspare someone to do a Library search for me?"

Gillian frowned. "You say resonances of apparent intelligent origin are coming from deep in Kithrup's crust?"

"Exactly."

Gillian rolled her eyes. "Ifni! To explore this world in peace and quiet would demand a decade of work by a dozen survey ships!" She shook her head. "No. My quick guess is that some formation of probability-sensitive rock below the surface is resonating with emanations from the battle overhead. In any event, it comes after the other priorities: security, the Kiqui, and talking to Creideiki. You've got a mouthful to deal with already."

Sah'ot stifled a protest. Complaining would only get Gillian to order him explicitly away from the probe. She hadn't yet, so it would be best to stay quiet.

"Now think about your options," Gillian reminded him. "If Streaker makes a break for it, we'll try to get the skiff out to pick up Tom and whoever wants to join us from the island. You can choose to come along, or stay with Metz and Takkata-Jim and wait it out in the longboat. Inform Toshio of your decision."

"I undersstand. I'll think about it." Somehow the issue seemed less urgent than it would have a few days ago. The sounds from below were having an effect on him.

"If I stay, I still wish you all the best of luck," he added.

"You too, mel-fin." Gillian smiled. "You're a strange duck, but if I get home, I'm going to recommend you get lots of grandchildren." Her image vanished as she broke the connection.

Sah'ot stared at the blank screen. The compliment, wholly unexpected, left him momentarily stunned. Then a few Kiqui who were foraging nearby were surprised to see a large dolphin rise up onto his tail and dance about the small pool.

To be noticed by- A humpback To be credited At last For being me *

57 ::: Dennie and Toshio "I'm afraid."

Almost without a thought, Toshio put his arm around Dennie's shoulder. He gave her a rea.s.suring squeeze. "What for? There's nothing to be scared of."

Dennie looked up from the pounding breakers to see if be was serious. Then she realized she was being teased. She stuck out her tongue at him.

Toshio inhaled deeply and was content. It wasn't clear to him where his new semi-relationship with Dennie was going. It wasn't physical, for one thing. They had slept together last night, but fully clothed. Toshio had thought it would be frustrating, and it was, sort of. But not as much as he had expected.

It would work out, one way or another. Right now Dennie needed someone to be nearby. It was satisfying just filling that need.

Maybe, when all this was over, she would go back to thinking of him as a boy, four years her junior. Somehow he doubted it. She was touching him more now, rather than less, holding his arm and punching him in mock anger, even as shivers from the psi-bomb episode faded.

"When are they supposed to get here with the longboat?" She looked back over the ocean once more. "Late tomorrow, sometime," he answered.

"Takkata-Jim and Metz wanted to negotiate with the ETs. What's to stop them if they decide to ignore orders and try anyway?"

"Gillian's giving them only enough power to get here. They have a regenerator, so they'll be able to charge up for s.p.a.ce-travel in a month or so, but by then Streaker'd be gone one way or another."

Dennie shivered slightly.

Toshio cursed his awkward tongue. "Takkata-Jim won't have a radio. I'm to guard ours until the skiff comes to pick us up. Besides, what could he offer the Galactics? He won't have any of the charts marking the derelict fleet.

"My guess is he and Metz will wait until everybody leaves, then scuttle off to Earth with Metz's tapes and a hold full of gripes."

Dennie looked up at the first stars of the long Kithrup twilight. "Are you going back?" she asked.

"Streaker's my ship. Thank G.o.d, Creideiki is still alive. But even if he's not skipper any more, I owe it to him to keep on, as one of his officers should."

Dennie glanced up at him briefly, then nodded and looked back out at the sea.

She's thinking we haven't a chance, Toshio realized. And maybe we don't. Wearing a Thennanin battlewagon as a disguise, we'll have all the maneuverability of a Calafian mud-gleaner. And even fooling the Galactics might not be so good an idea. They want to capture Streaker, but they won't hold back their fire if they see a defeated enemy climbing back up for another round. There still have to be Thennanin around, if the scheme is to work.

But we can't just sit here waiting, can we? If we do, the Galactics will learn that they can push Earthlings around. We just can't afford to let anyone profit from chasing one of our survey ships.

Dennie seemed worried. Toshio changed the subject. "How's your report coming?"

"Oh, all right, I guess. It's clear the Kiqui are fully pre-sentient. They've been fallow a very long time. In fact, some Darwinist heretics might think they were just getting ripe to bootstrap themselves. They show some signs."

Some iconoclast humans still pushed the idea that a pre-sentient race could make the leap to s.p.a.cefaring intelligence by evolution alone, without the intervention of a patron. Most Galactics thought the idea absurd and strange, but the failure to find humanity's missing benefactor had gained the theory a few adherents.

"What about the metal-mound?" Toshio asked about Dennie's other research, begun at Charlie Dart's behest when the chimp had been given top priority, but pursued now out of interest.

Dennie shrugged. "Oh, the mound's alive. The professional biologist in me would give her left arm to be able to stay a year on this island, with full laboratory equipment to study it!

"The metal-eating pseudo-coral, the drill-tree, the living core of the island, are all symbiots. In effect, they're organs in one giant ent.i.ty! If I could only write it up at home I'd be famous ... if anyone believed me."

"They'll believe you," Toshio a.s.sured her. 'And you'll be famous."

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.

58 ::: Galactics Krat licked slowly at her mating claw, studiously ignoring the creatures who scurried to clean up the b.l.o.o.d.y 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 st.u.r.dy Paha mopped up the b.l.o.o.d.y 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 tw.a.n.g 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 h.e.l.lish 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 b.l.o.o.d.y draw. The Soro still had a slim advantage, so the remaining Thennanin stayed by their Tandu allies.