Uplift - Startide Rising Part 43

With a warm pleasure he recognized that voice. He turned on the sled's motors and cast loose from the relay. As he sped toward the skiff's opening hatch he called out careful words in Anglic, one at a time.

"Hikahi ... Nice ... to hear ... your ... voice ... again ..."

91 ::: Tom Orley Fog swirled over the sea of weeds. That was good, up to a point. It made stealth easier. But it also made it hard to look for traps.

Tom searched carefully as he crawled across the last stretch of weeds before the open end of the wrecked cruiser. This patch couldn't be taken underwater, and he didn't doubt those who had taken shelter within the hulk had set upward.

He found the device only a few meters from the gaping opening. Thin wires were strung from one small hump of vines to the next. Tom inspected the arrangement, then carefully dug below the tripwire and slithered underneath. When he was clear, he scrambled quietly to the edge of the floating ship and rested against the pitted hull.

The weed beasties had taken cover during the fighting. They were out again, now that almost all of the combatants were dead. Their frog-like croaks refracted eerily in the noisome vapor. Distantly, Tom heard the rumble of the volcano. His empty stomach growled. It sounded loud enough to rouse the Progenitors.

He checked his weapon. The needler had only a few shots left. He had better be right about the number of ETs that had taken shelter aboard this vessel.

I'd better be right about a number of things, he reminded himself. I've staked a lot on there being food here, as well as the information I need.

He closed his eyes in brief meditation, then turned to crouch below the opening. He peeked one eye just past the ragged edge.

Three bird-like Gubru huddled around a motley array of equipment on the smoke-stained, canted deck. A tiny, inadequate heater held the attention of two, who warmed slenderboned arms over it. The third sat before a battered portable console and squeaked in Galactic Four, a language popular among many avian species.

"No sign of humans or their clients," the creature peeped. "We have lost our deep-search equipment, so we cannot be certain. But we find no sign of Earthlings. We cannot achieve anything more. Come for us!"

The radio sputtered. "Impossible to come out of hiding. Impossible to squander last resources at this time. You must maintain. You must lie low. You must wait."

"Wait? We shelter in a hull whose food supply is radioactive. We shelter in a hull whose equipment is ruined. Yet this hull we shelter in is the best still afloat! You must come for us!"

Tom cursed silently at the news. So much for eating.

The radio operator maintained its protests. The other two Gubru listened shifting their weight impatiently. One of them stamped its clawed feet and turned around suddenly as if to interrupt the radio operator. Its gaze swept past the gap in the hull. Before Tom could duck back, the creature's eyes went wide. It began to point.

"A human! Quickly ..."

Tom shot it in the thorax. Without bothering to watch it fall, he dove through the opening and rolled behind a tilted console. He scuttled to the other end and snapped off two quick shots just as the second standing Gubru tried to fire. A thin flame spat out of a small handgun, searing the already scarred ceiling as the alien shrieked and toppled backward.

The Galactic at the radio stared at Tom. It glanced at the radio beside it.

"Don't even think it," Tom squawked in heavily accented Galactic Four. The alien's crest riffled in surprise. It lowered its hands and kept still.

Tom rose carefully, never drawing bead away from the surviving Gubru. "Drop your weapons belt and stand away from the transmitter. Slowly., Remember, we humans are wolflings. We are feral, carnivorous, and extremely fast! Do not make me eat you." He grinned his broadest grin to display a maximum of teeth.

The creature shuddered and moved to obey. Tom reinforced obedience with a growl. Sometimes a reputation as a primitive had its uses.

'All right," he said as the alien moved to where he gestured, by the gaping hole. Tom kept his gun trained and sat by the radio. The receiver gave out excited twitters.

He recognized the model, thank Ifni, and switched it off: "Were you transmitting when your friend here spotted me?" he asked his captive. He wondered if the commander of the hidden Gubru forces had heard the word "human."

The Galactic's comb fluttered. Its answer was so irrelevant that Tom momentarily wondered if he had totally misphrased the question.

"You must surrender pride," it chanted, puffing its feathers. "All young ones must surrender pride. Pride leads to error. Hubris leads to error. Only orthodoxy can save. We can save ..."

"That's enough!" Tom snapped.

" ... save you from heretics. Lead us to the returning Progenitors. Lead us to the ancient masters. Lead us to the rule-givers. Lead us to them. They expect to return to the Paradise they decreed when they long ago departed. They expect Paradise and would be helpless before such as the Soro or the Tandu or the Thennanin or ..."

"Thennanin! That's what I want to know! Are the Thennanin still fighting? Are they powers in the battle?" Tom swayed with the intensity of his need to know.

" . . or the Dark Brothers. They will need protection until they are made to understand what terrible things are being done in their name, orthodoxies broken, heresies abounding. Lead us to them, help us cleanse the universe. Your rewards will be great. Your modifications small. Your indenture short ..."

"Stop it!" Tom felt the strain and exhaustion of the last few days rise in a boiling rage. Next to the Soro and Tandu, the Gubru had been among humanity's worst persecutors. He had had all he was about to take from this one.

"Stop it and answer my questions!" He fired at the floor near the alien's feet. It hopped in surprise, wide-eyed. Tom fired twice more. The first time the Gubru danced away from a ricochet. The second time it winced as the needler misfired and jammed.

The Galactic peered at him, then squawked joyfully. It spread its feathered arms wide and unsheathed long talons.

For the first time it said something direct and intelligible. "Now you shall talk, impertinent, half-formed, masterless upstart!"

It charged, screaming.

Tom dove to one side as the shrieking avian screeched past him. Slowed by hunger and exhaustion, he couldn't prevent one razor-sharp claw from pa.s.sing through his wetsuit and ripping his side along one rib. He gasped and stumbled against a blood-stained wall as the Gubru turned around to renew the attack.

Neither of them even considered the handguns that lay on the floor. Depleted and slippery, the weapons weren't worth the gamble to stoop to retrieve them.

"Where are the dolphinnnns?" the Gubru squawked as it danced back and forth. "Tell me or I shall teach you respect for your elders the hard way."

Tom nodded. "Learn to swim, bird-brain, and I'll take you to them."

The Gubru's talons spread again. It shrieked and charged.

Tom summoned his reserves. He leapt into the air and met the creature's throat with a savage kick. The shriek was cut off abruptly, and he felt its vertebrae snap as it went down, sliding along the damp deck to fetch up at the wall in a heap.

Tom landed stumbling beside it. His eyes swam. Breathing heavily with hands on his knees, he looked down at his enemy.

"I told ... told you we were ... wolflings," he muttered.

When he could, he walked unsteadily to the ragged tear in the side of the ship and leaned on the curled and blackened lower edge, staring out at the drifting fog.

All he had left were his mask, his freshwater still, his clothes, and ... oh yes, the nearly worthless hand weapons of the Gubru.

And the message-bomb, of course. The weight pressed against his midriff.

I've put off a decision long enough, he decided. While the battle lasted he could pretend he was searching for answers. Maybe he had been procrastinating, though.

I wanted to be sure. I wanted to know the trick had a maximum chance of working. For that to happen there had to be Thennanin.

I met that scout. The Gubru mentioned Thennanin. Do I have to see their fleet to guess there are still some in the battle above?

He realized there was another reason he had been putting the decision off.

Once I set it off, Creideiki and Gillian are gone. There's no way they'll be able to stop for me. I was to get back to the ship on my own, if at all.

While fighting on the weeds, he had kept hoping to find a working vessel. Anything that could fly him home. But there were only wrecks.

He sat down heavily with his back to the cool metal and drew out the message-bomb.

Do I set it off.

The Seahorse was his plan. Why was he out here, far from Gillian and home, but to find out if it would work?

Across the blood-smeared deck of the alien cruiser, his gaze fell on the Gubru radio.

You know, he told himself, there is one more thing I can do. Even if it means I'll be putting myself right in the middle of a bull's-eye, at least it'll give Jill and the others all I know.

And maybe it'll accomplish more than that.

Tom summoned the strength to stand up one more time. Ah, well, he thought as he staggered to his feet. There's no food anyway. I might as well go out in style.

PART NINE.

Ascent

"Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar When I put out to sea."

A. TENNYSON.

92 ::: Dennie & Sah'ot.

"It'sss the longer way, Dennie. Are you sure we shouldn't just cut southwest?"

Sah'ot swam alongside the sled, keeping pace fairly easily. Every few strokes he glided smoothly to the surface to blow, then rejoined his companion without breaking stride.

"I know it would be faster, Sah'ot." Dennie answered without looking up from her sonar display. She was careful to skirt far from any metal-mounds. It was in this area that the killer-weed grew. Toshio's story about his encounter with the deadly plant had terrified her, and she was determined to give the unfamiliar mounds a wide berth.

"Then why are we returning to Streaker's old site before heading sssouth?"

"For several reasons," Dennie answered. "First of all, we know this part of the route, having been over it before. And the path from the old site to the Seahorse is straight south, so there's less chance of getting lost."

Sah'ot snickered, unconvinced. 'And?"

'And this way we'll stand a chance of finding Hikahi. My guess is she may be nosing around the old site about now"

"Did Gillian ask you to look for her?"

"Yeah," Dennie lied. Actually, she had her own reasons for wanting to find Hikahi.

Dennie was afraid of what Toshio intended to do. It was possible that he meant to delay leaving the island until Streaker's preparations were finished and it was too late for Takkata-Jim to interfere. Of course, by then it would be too late for him to rejoin the ship via sled.

In that case the skiff would be Toshio's only chance. She had to find Hikahi before Gillian did. Gillian might decide to send the skiff after Tom Orley instead of Toshio.

She knew she wasn't thinking things out, and felt a little guilty about her decision. But if she could lie to one dolphin, she could lie to another.

93 ::: Takkata-Jim & Metz The former vice-captain tossed his head and gnashed his teeth as he contemplated the latest sabotage.

"I will string their entrails from the foressst branches!" he hissed. The heavy waldo-arms of his armored spider whined.

Ignacio Metz stared up at the thin, almost invisible wires that formed a tight tracery over the longboat, holding it to the ground. He blinked, trying to follow the trail of fibers into the forest.

Metz shook his head. "Are you sure you're not overreacting, vice-captain? It seems to me the boy was only trying to make sure we didn't take off before we agreed to.

Takkata-Jim whirled to glare down on the human. "And have you sssuddenly changed your mind, Doctor Metz? Do you now think we should let the lunatic woman who now controls Streaker send our crewmates out to certain death?"

"N-no, of course not!" Metz shrank back from the dolphin officer's rancor. "We should persevere, I agree. We must try to make our offer of compromise to the Galactics, but ..."

"But what?"

Metz shrugged uncertainly. "I just don't think you should blame Toshio for doing his job ...."

Takkata-Jim's jaws clapped together like a gunshot, and he caused the spider to advance upon Metz, stopping less than a meter from the nervous man.

"You think! You THINK! Of all comedies, that one topsss all! You, who had the arrogance to suppose his wisdom exceeded the councils of Earth-who brought pet monsters amongst an already fragile crew-who deceived himself into thinking all was well, and ignored danger signs when his wisdom was needed by his desperate clients-yes, Ignacio Metz. Tell me how you think-k!" Takkata-Jim snorted in derision.

"B-but we ... you and I agreed on nearly everything! My gene-graft Stenos were your most loyal supporters! They're the only ones who stood by you!"

"Your Stenos were not Stenos! They were benighted, erratic creatures who did not belong on thisss mission! I used them as I've used you. But don't cla.s.s me with your monsters, Metz!"

Stunned, Metz sagged back against the hull of the longboat.

From nearby came the sounds of returning machines. With a withering glance, Takkata-Jim warned the human to be silent. Sreekah-pol's spider pushed through the foliage.

"The fibersss lead to the p-pool," the fin announced. His Anglic was almost too high-pitched for Metz to follow. "They go below and wrap around the drill-tree sh-shaft-t."