Uplift - Startide Rising Part 36

"He's a liar!" Dennie whispered after he had gone. "He sounds so reasonable and logical, but I shiver when I listen to him!"

Toshio watched the spider disappear down the trail.

"No," he said. "He is ambitious, and maybe crazy too. He's probably a traitor, as well. But for some reason I think everything he said was explicitly true. Maybe a surface honesty is what he clings to now, for pride's sake."

He turned, shaking his head. "Not that that makes him any less dangerous."

He approached Charles Dart, who looked up with a friendly smile. Toshio squatted near the chimp planetologist.

"Dr. Dart, how big were they?"

"Were what, Toshio? Say! Have you seen this new robot? I made it up special. It can dive to the base of the shaft, then dig laterally to those big magma tunnels we detected ..."

"How big were they, Charlie?" Toshio demanded. He was tense, and ready to throttle the chimpanzee. "Tell me!"

Dart glanced briefly, guiltily, at Toshio, then looked down at the pool wistfully.

"Only about a kiloton each," he sighed. "Hardly big enough to set off decent crust waves, really." He looked up with large, innocent brown eyes. "They were really only teeny little A-bombs, honest!"

70 ::: Hikahi The need to run quietly kept her speed to little more than it might have been with a sled. It was frustrating.

Cut off from contact with anyone for more than a day Hikahi studied the seascape around her to avoid thinking about the possible fate of Creideiki and Streaker. She would find out what had happened sooner or later. Until then worry would only wear her out.

The morning light filtered down to the canyon bottoms as she swung east and then northward. Clots of dangle-weed drifted overhead, and copper-backed fish darted briefly alongside, until the driving skiff left them behind.

Once she caught sight of something long and sinuous that quickly slithered into a sea-cave as she approached. There was no time to stop and explore, but she did take the monster's picture as she pa.s.sed.

What will I do if I find Streaker destroyed? The thought came unwanted.

I'll go back to the Thennanin wreck as an intermediate step. They'd need me there. But I'd be commander, then. And hiding at the bottom of the ocean wouldn't be a long term solution. Not on this deadly world.

Can I bring myself to negotiate a surrender?

If she did, she wouldn't let the Galactics take her personally. She was one of the few who, with the right notes, could plot an accurate course back to the derelict fleet.

Maybe I'd see the crew safely interned and then make a break for it in the skiff, she thought. Not that the skiff could ever make it all the way home, even if it could run a Galactic blockade. But someone had to try to get word back to Earth. Perhaps there would be a way to punish the fanatics ... make their behavior so costly to then that they'd think twice before bullying Earthlings again.

Hikahi knew she was dreaming. In a few thousand years humans and their clients might have that kind of power, maybe.

Hikahi listened. There was a sound ...

She turned up the gain on the ship's hydrophones. Filters removed the background growl of the engines and the tide. She heard the soft scurrying sounds of the ocean creatures.

"Computer! Filter for cetacean output!"

The patterns of sound changed. The sea became quiet. Still, there was a trace of something.

"Increase gain!" The noise level rose. Above the static hiss she heard the faint but distinguishable cries of swimming dolphins! They were desperate sounds of combat.

Was she picking up the echoes of straggling survivors of a disaster? What to do? She wanted to rush to the aid of the distressed fen. But who was pursuing them?

"Machine soundsss!" She commanded. But the detector winked a red light, indicating that there were none within range. So, the dolphins were sledless.

If she attempted a rescue, she risked the only hope of the crew back at the Seahorse. Should she make a detour around the refugees, and hurry toward Streaker as planned? It was an agonizing choice.

Hikahi cut her speed to run still quieter, and sent the skiff due north, toward the dim cries.

71 ::: Charles Dart He waited until everyone had left before he unscrewed the back of the new robot and checked its contents. Yes, it was still there. Safely concealed. Ah, well, he thought. I'd hoped to repeat the experiment. But one bomb should be enough.

72 ::: Streaker FROM THE JOURNAL OF GILLIAN BASKIN.

We're on our way. Everyone aboard seems relieved to be moving at last.

Streaker lifted off the ocean floor late last night, impellers barely ticking over. I was on the bridge, monitoring reports by the fen outside, and watching the strain gauges until we were sure Streaker was okay. In fact, she sounded positively eager to be off.

Emerson and the crew in the engine room should be proud of the job they've done, though, of course, it's the coils Tom and Tsh't found, that made it possible. Streaker hums like a starship once again.

Our course is due south. We dropped a monofilament relay behind to keep us in touch with the party on the island, and left a message for Hikahi when she shows up.

I hope she hurries. Being a commander is more complicated than I'd ever imagined. I have to make sure everything is done in the right order and correctly, and all as un.o.btrusively as possible, without making the fen feel "the old lady" is hovering over them. It makes me wish I had some of the military training Tom got while I was away in medical school.

Less than thirty hours and we'll reach the Thennanin sh.e.l.l. Suessi says they'll be ready for us. Meanwhile, we have scouts out, and Wattaceti paces us overhead in a detection sled. His instruments show very little leakage, so we should be safe for now.

I'd give a year's wages for Hikahi or Tsh't, or even Keepiru right now. I'd never understood, before, why a captain treasures a good executive officer so much.

Speaking of captains. Ours is a wonder.

Creideiki seemed to be in a daze for a long time, after getting out of sick bay. But his long conversation with Sah'ot appears to have roused him. I don't know what Sah'ot did, but I would never have believed a person so severely damaged as Creideiki could be so vigorous, or make himself so useful.

When we lifted off he asked to be allowed to supervise the scouts and flankers. I was desperate for a reliable fin to put in charge out there, and thought that having him visible could help morale. Even the Stenos were excited to have him about. Their last bitterness over my "coup"-and Takkata-Jim's exile-seem to have dissipated.

Creideiki is limited to the simplest calls in Trinary, but that seems to be enough. He's out there now, zipping about in his sled, keeping things orderly by pointing, nudging, and setting an example. In only a few hours Tsh't should rendezvous with the scouts we sent ahead, and then Creideiki can come back aboard.

There's a tiny light on my comm that's been flashing since I returned. It's that crazy Tymbrimi Niss machine. I've been keeping the d.a.m.ned thing waiting.

Tom wouldn't approve, I guess. But a fem has only so much strength, and I've got to take a nap. If the matter were urgent it would have broken in and spoken by now.

Oh, Tom, we could use your endurance now. Are you on your way back? Is your little glider even now winging home to Toshio's island?

Who am I fooling? Since the first psi-bomb we've detected nothing, only noise from the s.p.a.ce battle, some of it indicating fighting over his last known position. He's set off none of the message globes. So either he's decided not to send an ambiguous message or worse....

Without word from Tom, how can we decide what to do, once we enter the Seahorse? Do we take off and try our luck, or hide within the hulk as long as we can?

It will be Hikahi's decision when the time comes.

Gillian closed the journal and applied her thumbprint to the fail-safe self-destruct. She got up and turned off the light.

On her way out of the lab, she pa.s.sed the stasis-bier of the ancient cadaver they had reclaimed at such cost from the Shallow Cl.u.s.ter. Herbie just lay there grinning under a tiny spotlight, an ancient enigma. A mystery.

A troublemaker.

Battered, battle-scarred, Streaker moved slowly along the valley floor, her engines turning over with gentle, suppressed power. A dark, foamy mist rose below her where impellers kicked up the surface ooze.

The nubby cylinder slid over gloomy black rills and abysses, skirting the edges of seamounts and valley walls. Tiny sleds paced alongside, guiding the ship by sonar-speak.

Creideiki watched his ship in motion once again. He listened to the clipped reports of the scouts and sentries, and the replies of the bridge staff. He couldn't follow the messages in detail; the sophisticated technical argot was as out of reach to him as last year's wine. But he could sense the under-meaning; the crew had things well in hand.

Streaker couldn't really shine in this light, dim and blue, fifty meters down, but he could listen-his own sonar clicked softly in accompaniment as he savored the deep rumble of her engines, and he imagined he could be with her when she flew again.

: Never Again Creideiki : You Shall Never Fly With Her Again : The spectre, K-K-Kph-kree, came into being gradually alongside him, a ghostly figure of silver and sonic shadows. The presence of the G.o.d did not surprise, or even bother Creideiki. He had been expecting It to come. It swam lazily, easily keeping pace alongside the sled.

: You Escaped Us : Yet Now You Purposely Sculpt Me Out Of Song : Because Of The Old Voices You Heard? : The Voices From Below? : : Yes : Creideiki thought not in Anglic or Trinary, but in the new language he had been learning.

: There is ancient anger within this world : I have heard its song : The dream-G.o.d's great brow sparkled starlight. Its small jaw opened. Teeth shone.

: And What Do You Plan To Do? : Creideiki sensed that It already knew the answer.

: My Duty : He replied in Its own speech.

: What Else Can I Ever Do? : From the depths of the Whale Dream, It sighed approval.

Creideiki turned up the gain on his hydrophones. There were faraway excited echoes from up ahead-joyous sounds of greeting.

Creideiki looked at his sled's sonar display. At the far edge of its range was a small cl.u.s.ter of dots coming inward. They joined the specks that were Streaker's scouts. The first group had to be Tsh't's party from the Seahorse.

Making sure no one was nearby to take note, he turned his sled aside into a small side canyon. He slipped behind the shadows of a rock outcrop and turned off his engine. He waited then, watching Streaker pa.s.s below his aerie, until she vanished, along with the last of her flankers, around a curve in the long canyon.

"Good-bye ..." He concentrated on the Anglic words, one at a time. "Good-bye ... and ... good luck ..."

When it was safe, he turned on his sled and rose out of the little niche. He swung about and headed northward, toward the place they had left twenty hours before.

: You Can Come Along If You Like : he told the G.o.d-part figment of his mind, part something else. The ghostly figure answered in un-words made up from Creideiki's own sonar sounds.

: I Accompany You : I Would Not Miss This For The Song of the World :

PART SEVEN.

The Food Chain

"Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea."

"Why, as men do aland -- the great ones eat up the little ones."

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

King Richard the Second

73 ::: Akki.

It was a scream that curdled his marrow. Only a monster could make a sound like that. He fled it almost as hard as he fled the creature that voiced it.

By noontime Akki realized it was nearly over.

His exhaustion showed in a laboring heart and heavy breathing, but also in a painful sloughing of the outer layers of his skin. His allergic reaction to the water seemed to be aggravated by fatigue. It had grown worse as he frantically dodged in and out amongst tiny islets. His once-smooth, dynamically supple hide was now a rough ma.s.s of sores. His mind felt little more agile than his body.

Several times he had escaped traps that should have left him meat. Once he had fled a sonar reflection almost into K'tha-Jon's jaws. The giant had grinned and flourished his laser rifle as Akki turned away frantically. It hadn't been by speed or cleverness that Akki escaped. He realized that his enemy was just toying with him.

He had hoped to flee northward, toward Toshio's island, but now he was all turned around, and north was lost to him. Perhaps if he could wait until sunset ...

No. I won't last that long. It's time to end it.

The chilling hunt-scream pealed out again. The ululation seemed to coagulate the water around him.

A large part of Akki's fatigue had come from the involuntary terror that cry sent through him. What devil was it, that chased him?

A little while ago he thought he had distantly heard another cry. It sounded like a Tursiops search call. But he was probably imagining things. Whatever was going on back at Streaker, they couldn't have spared anyone to look for him. Even if they had, how could anyone ever find him in this wide ocean?

He had done Streaker one service, in distracting the monster K'tha-Jon, in leading him away from where he could do worse harm.

I hope Gillian and Hikahi got back and straightened things out, he thought. I'm sure they did.

He took quiet breaths in the shadow of a rock cleft. K'tha-Jon knew where he was, of course. It was only a matter of time until he grew bored with the chase and came to collect his prey.

I'm fading, Akki thought. I've got to finish this while there's a chance to win something from it-even if it's just the honor of choosing my own time to die.