by David Brin
“That-t’s fine,” she replied. “And the tytlal?”
Karkaett tossed his sleek gray head. “You mean the one that talks? Isolated in a cabin, as you instructed. Alvin’s pet is just a noor, of course. I assume you didn’t mean to lock her up, t-too.”
Actually, Tsh’t wasn’t sure she grasped the difference between a noor and a tytlal. Was it simply the ability to talk? What if they all could, but were good at keeping it secret? Tytlal were legendary for one trait — going to any length for a joke.
“I’ll see the human prisoners now,” she told the guard.
Karkaett transmitted a signal to open the door. Following rules, he accompanied her inside, weapons trained on the captives.
Both men lay on cots with medical packs strapped to their arms. Already they seemed much improved over their condition in the swamp, where, coughing and desperate for breath, they had clutched a reed bank, struggling to keep their heads above water. The younger one looked even more grubby and half-starved than Rety — a slightly built young man with wiry muscles, black hair, and a puckered scar above one eye. Jass, Rety had identified him — a sooner cousin, and far from her favorite person.
The other man was much larger. His uniform could still be recognized beneath the caked filth. Steely gray eyes drilled Tsh’t the moment she entered.
“How did you follow us to Jijo?”
That was what Gillian would surely ask the Danik voyager. It was the question Tsh’t feared most.
Calm down, she urged herself. The Rothen only know that someone sent a message from the Fractal System. They can’t know who.
Anyway, would they confide in their Danik servants? This poor fellow is probably just as bewildered as we are.
Yet Kunn’s steady gaze seemed to hold the same rock-solid faith she once saw in the Missionary … the disciple who long ago brought a shining message-of-truth to the small dolphin community of Bimini-Under, back when Tsh’t was still a child gliding in her mother’s slipstream wake.
“Humans are beloved patrons of the neo-dolphin race, it’s true,” the proselytizer explained, during one secret meeting, in a cave where scuba-diving tourists never ventured. “Yet, just a few centuries ago, primitive men in boats hunted cetaceans to the verge of extinction. They may act better today, but who can deny their new maturity is fragile, untested? Without meaning disloyalty, many neo-fins feel discomfort, wondering if there might not be something or somebody greater and wiser than humankind. Someone the entire clan can turn to, in dangerous times.”
“You mean God?” one of the attending dolphins asked. And the Missionary responded with a nod.
“In essence, yes. All the ancient legends about divine beings who intervene in Earth’s affairs … all the great teachers and prophets … can be shown to have their basis in one simple truth.
“Terra is not just an isolated forlorn world — home to bizarre wolflings and their crude clients. Rather, it is part of a wonderful experiment. Something I have come from afar to tell you about.
“We have been watched over for a very long time. Lovingly guarded throughout our long time of dreaming. But soon, quite soon, it will be time to waken.”
Kaa
MOPOL’S FEVER SHOWED NO SIGN OF RETURNING. In fact, he seemed quite high in spirits when he left the next morning, swimming east with Zhaki, resuming their reconnaissance of Wuphon Port.
“You see? All he needed was a stern talking-to,” Peepoe explained with evident pride. “Mopol just had to be reminded of his duty.”
Kaa sensed the implied rebuke in her words, but chose to ignore it.
“You have a persuasive bedside manner,” he replied. “No doubt they teach it in medical school.”
In fact, he was quite sure that Mopol’s recovery had little to do with Peepoe’s lecture. The half-stenos male had agreed too readily with everything the young nurse said, tossing his mottled gray head and chittering “Yessss!” repeatedly.
He and Zhaki are up to something, Kaa thought, as he watched the two swim off toward the coastal hoon settlement.
“I need to be heading back to the ship soon,” Peepoe said, causing Kaa to dip his narrow jaw.
“But I thought you’d stay a few days. You agreed to come see the volcano.”
Her expression seemed wary. “I don’t know.… When I left, there was talk of shifting Streaker to another hiding place. Searchers were getting too damned c-close.”
Not that moving the ship a few kilometers would make much difference, if Galactic fleets already had her pinned. Even hiding under a great pile of discarded starcraft would not help, once pursuers had the site narrowed down close enough to use chemical sniffers. Earthling DNA would lure them, like male moths to a female’s pheromones.
Kaa shrugged by twisting his flukes.
“Brookida will be disappointed. He was so looking forward to showing off his collection of dross from all six sooner races.”
Peepoe stared at Kaa, scanning him with penetrating sound till she found the wryness within.
Her blowhole sputtered laughter.
“Oh, all right. Let’s see this mountain of yours. Anyway, I’ve been aching for a swim.”
As usual, the water felt terrific. A little saltier than Earth sea, but with a fine mineral flavor and a gentle ionic oiliness that helped it glide over your skin. The air’s rich oxygen level made it seem as if you could keep going well past the horizon.
It was a far friendlier ocean than on Kithrup or Oakka, where the oceans tasted poisonously foul. Friendlier, that is, unless you counted the groaning sounds that occasionally drifted from the Midden, as if a tribe of mad whales lived down there, singing ballads without rhyme or reason.
According to Alvin’s Journal, their chief source on Jijo, some natives believed that ancient beings lived beyond the continental shelf, fierce and dangerous. Such hints prompted Gillian Baskin to order the spying continued.
So long as Streaker doesn’t need a pilot, I might as well play secret agent. Anyway, it’s a job Peepoe might respect.
Beyond all that, Kaa relearned how fine it was to cruise in tandem with another strong swimmer, jetting along on powerful fluke strokes, building momentum each time you plunged, then soaring through each upper arc, like flying. The true peak of exhilaration could never be achieved alone. Two or more dolphins must move in unison, each surf-riding the other’s wake. When done right, surface tension nearly vanished and the planet merged seamlessly, from core to rock, from sea to sky.
And then … to bitter-clear vacuum?
A modern poet might make that extrapolation, but it never occurred to natural cetaceans — not even species whose eyesight could make out stars — not until humans stopped hunting and started teaching.
They changed us. Showed us the universe beyond sun, moon, and tides. They even turned some of us into pilots. Wormhole divers. I guess that makes up for their ancestors’ crimes.
Still, some things never change. Like the semierotic stroke of whitecaps against flesh, or the spume of hot breath meeting air. The raw, earthy pleasure of this outing offered much that he felt lacking aboard Streaker.
It also made a terrific opening to courtship.
Assuming she thinks the same way I do.
Assuming I can start winning her esteem.
They were approaching shore. He could tell by the echoes of rock-churned surf up ahead. A mist-shrouded mountain could be glimpsed from the top of each forward leap. Soon they would reach the hidden cave where his spy equipment lay. Then Kaa must go back to dealing with Peepoe in awkward, inadequate words.
I wish this could just go on without end, he thought.
A brief touch of sonar, and he knew Peepoe felt the same. She, too, yearned for this moment of primitive release to last.
Kaa’s sonic sense picked out a school of pseudo-tunny, darting through nearby shoals, tempting after a pallid breakfast of synthi flesh. The tunny weren’t quite in their path — it would mean a detour. Still, Kaa squirted a burst of Trinary.
In summer sunlight,
Fish attract like edible
Singularities!
Kaa felt proud of the haiku — impulsive, yet punning as it mixed both space-and planet-bound images. Of course, free foraging was still not officially sanctioned. He awaited Peepoe’s rejection.
Passing an abyss, or bright reef,
Or black hole — what sustains us?
Our navigator!
Her agreement filled Kaa’s pounding heart, offering a basis for hope.
Peepoe’s strong, rhythmic strokes easily kept pace alongside as he angled toward a vigorous early lunch.
Sooners
Lark
I ’VE BEEN ABOARD A FLYING MACHINE BEFORE, HE told himself. I’m no simple nature child, astonished by doors, metal panels, and artificial light.
This place should not terrify me.
The walls aren’t about to close in.
His body wasn’t convinced. His heart raced and he could not rest. Lark kept experiencing a disturbing impression that the little room was getting smaller.
He knew it must be an illusion. Neither Ling nor Rann showed outward concern over being crushed in a diminishing space. They were used to hard gray surfaces, but the metal enclosure seemed harsh to one who grew up scampering along the branch-top skyways of a garu forest. The floor plates brought a distant vibration, rhythmic and incessant.
Lark suddenly realized what it reminded him of — the machinery of his father’s paper mill — the grinders and pulping hammers — designed to crush scrap cloth into a fine white slurry. That pounding noise used to drive him away into the wilderness, on long journeys seeking living things to study.
“Welcome to a starship, sooner,” Rann mumbled, nursing both a headache and a grudge after their fight in the lake. “How do you like it?”
All three human prisoners still wore their damp underwear, having been stripped of their tools and wet suits. For some reason, the Jophur let them keep their rewq symbionts, though Rann had torn his off, leaving red welts at his temples where the crumpled creature had had no time to withdraw its feeding suckers.
At least no one had been injured during the swift capture, when a swarm of tapered cone beings swept down from the mammoth ship, each Jophur riding its own platform of shimmering metal. Suspensor fields pressed the lake, surrounding the human swimmers between disklike watery depressions. Hovering robots crackled with restrained energy — one even dived beneath the surface to cut off escape — crowding the captives toward one of the antigravity sleds, and then to prison.
To Lark’s surprise, they were put in the same cell. By accounts from Earth’s dark ages, it used to be standard practice to separate prisoners, to break their spirits. Then he realized.
If Jophur are like traeki, they can’t quite grasp the notion of being alone. A solitary traeki would be happy arguing among its rings till the Progenitors came home.
“They are probably at a loss, trawling through their database for information about Earthlings,” Ling explained.
“Till recently, there wasn’t much available.”
“But it’s been three hundred years since contact!”
“That may seem long to us, Lark. But Earth was minor news for most of that time — a back-page sensation. By now the first detailed Institute studies of our homeworld have barely made it through the sector-branch Library, on Tanith.”
“Then why not …” He sought a word she had used several times. “Why not upload Earthling books. Our encyclopedias, medical texts, self-analyses … the knowledge we spent thousands of years accumulating about ourselves?”
She lifted her eyes. “Wolfling superstitions. Even we Daniks are taught to think that way.” She glanced at Rann. “It took your thesis, Lark — the one you wrote with Uthen — to convince me things might be different.”
Though flushed at the compliment, Lark reined in his imagination. He tried not to let his eyes drop to her nearly bare figure. Skimpy underclothes would not hide his physical arousal. Besides, this was hardly the time.
“I still find their attitude hard to credit. The Galactics would rather wait centuries for a formal report on us?”
“Oh, I’m sure the great powers — like the Soro and Jophur — got access to early drafts. And they’ve urgently sought more data since the Streaker crisis began. Their strategic agencies almost certainly kidnapped and dissected some humans, for instance. But they could hardly update every star cruiser with illicit data. That would risk contaminating the onboard Libraiy cubes. I’d have to guess this crew has been improvising — not a skill much encouraged in Galactic society.”
“But humans are known for it. Is that why your ship came to Jijo? Improvising an opportunity?”
Ling nodded, rubbing her bare shoulders. “Our Rothen lor …” She paused, then chose another phrasing. “The Inner Circle received a message. A time-drop capsule, tuned for pickup by anyone with a Rothen cognition wave.”
“Who sent it?”
“Apparently, a secret believer living among the crew of the dolphin ship. Or one desperate enough to break from Terragens orders, and summon help from a higher source.”
“A believer …” Lark mused. “In the Danik faith, you mean. But Daniks teach that humans are the secret recipients of Rothen patronhood.”
“And by tradition, that means a dolphin crew could also call on Rothen help, in case of dire need … which those poor creatures surely face.”
“Like running to your grandparents, if your own folks can’t handle a problem. Hrm.”
Lark had already picked up parts of the story. How the first dolphin-crewed starship set forth on a survey mission, assigned to check the accuracy of the small planetary branch Earth had received from the Library Institute. Most civilized clans simply accepted the massive volumes of information stored by past generations, especially concerning far corners of space, where little profit could be gained by exploration.
It was supposed to be routine. A shakedown cruise. But then, somewhere off the beaten track, Earthship Streaker confronted something unexpected — a discovery that made the great alliances crazy. Clues to a time of transition, perhaps, when ancient verities of the known galaxies might abruptly change.
“It is said that when this happens, just one race in ten shall make the passage to a new age,” the hoonish High Sage, Phwhoondau, had explained one night by a camp-fire, just after the fall of Dooden Mesa, drawing on his deep readings of the Biblos Archive. “Those bent on surviving into the next long phase of stability would naturally want to learn as much as possible. Hr-r-r-rm. Yes, even a sooner can understand why this Earthling ship found itself in trouble.”
“A dolphin Danik.” Lark marveled. “So this … believer sent a secret message to the Rothen.…”
“To is the wrong word. You might better use at. In fact, nothing in Anglic adequately describes the skewed logic of communicating by time drop.” Ling kept running her fingers through her hair. It had grown since the Battle of the Glade, and was still tangled from their long dive under the lake.
“But yes, the message from the dolphin believer explained where the Streaker ship was — in one of the hydrogen-ice habitat zones where many older races huddle close to stellar tides, after retiring from active Galactic affairs.
“More important — it hinted where the Earthship commander next planned to flee.” Ling shook her head. “It turned out to be a clever version of the Sooner Path. A difficult passage, uncomfortably close to fiery Izmunuti. No wonder you Six were left undetected for so long.”
“Hr-rm,” Lark umbled contemplatively. “Unlike our ancestors, you let yourselves be followed.”
This drew a reaction from Rann, sullenly holding his aching head in the opposite corner of the cell.
“Fool. We did no such thing!” the tall Danik muttered sourly. “Are you saying we cannot easily repeat any feat accomplished by a gaggle of cowardly sooners?”
“Putting insults aside, I agree,” Ling said. “It seems unlikely we were follow
ed. That is, not the first time our ship came to Jijo.”
“What do you mean?” Lark asked.
“When our comrades left us — four humans and two Rothen, with the job of doing a bioassay on Jijo — I thought the others were going to cruise nearby space, in case the dolphin ship was hiding on some nearby planetoid. But that was not their aim at all.
“Their real intent was to go find a buyer.”
Lark frowned in puzzlement. “A Buyur? But aren’t they extinct? You mean the Rothen wanted to hire one as a guide, to come back to Jijo and—”
“No … a buyer!” Ling laughed, though it was not a happy sound. “You were right about the Rothen, Lark. They live by bartering unusual or illicit information, often using human Daniks as agents or intermediaries. It was an exciting way of life … till you made me realize how we’ve been used.” Ling’s expression turned dark. Then she shook her head.
“In this case, they must have realized Jijo was worth a fortune to the right customer. There are lifeforms on this planet whose development seems ahead of schedule, rapidly approaching presapience. And there are the Six Races. Surely someone would pay to know about such a major infestation of criminal sooners … no offense.”
“None taken. And of course, the clue to the dolphin ship was worth plenty. So …” He blew an airy sigh through his nostrils, like a disgusted urs. “Your masters decided to sell us all.”
Ling nodded, but her eyes bored into Rann. “Our patrons sold us all.”
The big Danik did not meet her gaze. He pressed both hands against his temples, emitting a low moan that seemed half from pain and half disgust at her treason. He turned toward the wall, but did not touch the oily surface.
“After all we’ve seen, you still think the Rothen are patrons of humanity?” Lark asked.
Ling shrugged her shoulders. “I cannot easily dismiss the evidence I was shown while growing up — evidence dating back thousands of years. Anyway, it might explain our bloody, treacherous history. The Rothen lords claim it’s because our dark souls kept drifting from the Path. But maybe we are exactly what they uplifted us to be. Raised to be shiils for a gang of thieves.”
