Startide Rising u-2

by David Brin

  "Do not hide your feelings from me, my brave wazoon," she murmured. "You are clients and brave warriors, not slaves. Mourn your colleague, who died so well for us."

  She thought about her own cool, careful people, amongst whom she always felt a stranger.

  "Feel!" she insisted, surprised by her own vehemence. "There is no shame in caring, my little wazoon. In this you may be greater than your patron race, when you are grown up and on your own!"

  Beie piloted closer to the water world, where the battle raged, feeling more akin to her little client-comrades than to her own ever-cautious race.

  25 ::: Thomas Orley

  Thomas Orley looked down upon his treasure: a thing he had sought for twelve years. It appeared to be intact, the first of its kind ever to fall into human hands.

  Only twice had micro-branch Libraries designed for other races been captured by human crews, from ships defeated in skirmishes over the last two hundred years. In each case the repositories were damaged. Attempts to study them were informative, but one mistake or another always caused the semi-intelligent machines to self-destruct.

  This was the first ever recovered intact from a warship of a powerful Galactic patron race. And it was the first taken since certain Tymbrimi had joined in this clandestine research.

  The unit was a beige box, about three meters by two by one, with simple optical access ports. Halfway along one side was the rayed spiral symbol of the Library.

  It was lashed to a cargo sled along with other booty, including three probability coils, undamaged and irreplaceable. Hannes Suessi would ride back to Streaker, protecting those as a mother hen her eggs. Only when he saw them safely in Emerson D'Anite's hands would he turn around to come back here.

  Tom wrote routing instructions on a waxboard. With any luck, the crew back at Streaker would turn the micro-branch unit over to Creideiki or Gillian without undue attention. He adhered the shipping slip so that it covered the Library glyph.

  Not that his interest in a captured micro-branch was particularly secret. The crew here had helped him pry it from the Thennanin ship. But the fewer who knew the details the better. Especially if they should ever be captured. If his instructions were followed, the unit would be plugged into the comm in his own cabin, to outward appearances a normal communications screen.

  He imagined the Niss would be impressed. Tom wished he could be there when the Tymbrimi machine found out what it suddenly had access to. The smug thing would probably be speechless for half a day.

  He hoped it wouldn't be too stunned. He wanted something from it right away.

  Suessi was already asleep, tethered to his precious salvage. Tom made sure the instructions were well secured. Then he swam up toward the sheer outcrop of rock overlooking the wrecked alien starship.

  Neo-fen swarmed over the hulk, making detailed measurements from without and within. At word from Creideiki charges would be set off beginning a process that would leave the giant battleship's core a reamed and empty cavity.

  By now the scout they had sent back should have reached Streaker with his initial report, and a sled should already be returning down the new shortcut they had found, bringing a monofilament intercom line from home. It ought to meet the salvage sled about halfway.

  All this assumed "home" was still there. Tom guessed the battle still raged above Kithrup. Space war was a slow thing, especially as practiced by the long-viewed Galactics. They might still be at it in a year or two, though he doubted it. That much time would allow reinforcements to arrive and produce a war of attrition. It was unlikely the fanatic alliances would let things come to that pass.

  In any event, Streaker's crew had to act as if the war were about to end any day now. So long as confusion reigned above, they still had a chance.

  Tom went over his plan again, and came to the same conclusion. He had no other choice.

  There were three conceivable ways they might escape the trap they were in — rescue, negotiation, and trickery.

  Rescue was a nice image. But Earth herself didn't have the strength to come and deliver them. Together with her allies she could barely match one of the pseudo-religious factions in the battle over Kithrup.

  The Galactic Institutes might intervene. What law there was demanded that Streaker report directly to them. Problem was, the Institutes had little power of their own. Like the feeble versions of world government Earth had almost died of in the Twentieth Century, they relied on mass opinion and volunteer levies. The majority "moderates" might finally decide that Streaker's discovery should be shared by all, but Tom figured it would take years for the necessary alliances to form.

  Negotiation seemed as faint a hope as rescue. In any event, Creideiki had Gillian and Hikahi and Metz to help him if it ever came to negotiations with a victor in the space battle. They didn't need Tom for that.

  That left clever schemes and subtle deceptions… finding a way to thwart the enemy when rescue and negotiation fail.

  That's my job, he thought.

  The ocean was deeper and darker here than in the region only fifty kilometers to the east, where strings of metal-mounds grew in the hilly shallows along the edges of a thin crustal plate. In the area where Hikahi's party had been rescued, the water was metal-enriched by a chain of semiactive volcanoes.

  There were no true metal-mounds in this area, and the long-dead volcanic islands were worn down to the water's surface.

  When he looked away from the crumpled Thennanin wreck, and the trail of havoc it had left before coming to rest, Tom found the scenery restful, its beauty calming. Drifting, dark-yellow fronds of danglevine, waving like corn silk from the surface, reminded him of the color of Gillian's hair.

  Orley hummed to himself a melody that few other human beings could attempt. Small gene-crafted sinuses reverberated under his skull, sending a low refrain into the water around him.

  * In sleep, your caring

  Touches me,

  * Where, waking, I let it not

  * In distance, I will

  Call to you,

  * And touch you as you sleep *

  Of course Gillian couldn't actually hear his gift poem. His own psi powers were quite modest. Still, she might pick up a hint. Other things she had done had surprised him more.

  The dolphin escort had gathered at the sled. Suessi had awakened and was checking his lashings with Lieutenant Tsh't.

  Tom launched himself from his aerie toward the group. Tsh't saw him and took a quick breath from an airdome before swimming up to meet him halfway.

  "I wish you would reconsider doing thisss," she implored when they met. "I'll be frank. Your presence is good for morale. If you were lossst it would be a blow."

  Tom smiled and put a hand on her flank. He had already come to terms with his poor chances of returning.

  "I don't see any other way, Tsh't. All the other parts of my plan can be handled by others, but I'm the only one who can bait the hook. You know that.

  "Besides," he grinned, "Creideiki will have one more chance to call me back if he doesn't like the plan. I asked that he send Gillian to meet me at Hikahi's island, with the glider and the supplies I need. If she tells me his answer is no, I'll be back at the ship before you."

  Tsh't looked away. "I doubt he'll sssay no," she whistled low and almost inaudibly.

  "Hmm? What do you mean?"

  Evasively, Tsh't answered in Trinary.

  * Creideiki leads us -

  Is our master

  * Yet we imagine -

  Secret orders *

  Tom sighed. There it was again, the suspicion that Earth would never let the first dolphin-commanded vessel go out without disguised human supervision. Naturally, most of the rumors centered around himself. It was bothersome, because Creideiki was an excellent captain. Also, it detracted from one of the purposes of the mission, to make a demonstration that would boost neo-fin self-confidence for a generation.

  * Then in my leaving -

  Learn a lesson,

  * Abo
ard Streaker -

  Is your captain. *

  Tsh't must have been running low on the breath she had taken at the sled's airdome. Bubbles leaked from her blowmouth. Still she looked back at him resignedly and spoke in Anglic.

  "All right-t. After Suessi leaves, we'll get you on your way. We'll continue working here until we get ordersss from Creideiki."

  "Good." Tom nodded. "And you still approve of the rest of the plan?"

  Tsh't turned away, her eyes recessed.

  * Keneenk and logic

  Join to sing

  * Its tune

  * The plan is all between

  Us and

  * Our doom

  * We'll all do our part

  Tom reached over and hugged her. "I know we can count on you, you sweet old fish-catcher. I'm not worried at all. Now let's say good-bye to Hannes, so I can be on my way. I don't want Jill to get to the island before me."

  He dove toward the sled. But Tsh't remained behind for a moment. Although the air in her lungs was growing stale, she lay still, watching him swim away.

  Her sonar clicks swept over him as he descended. She caressed him with her hearing, and sang a quiet requiem.

  * They cast their nets to catch us -

  Those of Iki,

  * Yet you are there -

  To cut the nets.

  * Good Walker;

  Always,

  * You cut the nets -

  * Though they'll take

  In payment

  Your life…

  26 ::: Creideiki

  The most formal Anglic, spoken carefully by a neo-dolphin, would be difficult for a human raised only in Man-English to understand. The syntax and many root words were the same. But a pre-spaceflight Londoner would have found the sounds as strange as the voices that spoke them.

  The dolphin's modified blowhole provided whistles, squawks, vowels and a few consonants. Sonar clicks and many other sounds came from complex resonant cavities inside the skull.

  In speech, these separate contributions were sometimes in phase and sometimes not. Even at the best of times, there were stretched sibilants, stuttered t's, and groaned vowels. Speech was an art.

  Trinary was for relaxation, for imagery and personal matters. It replaced and greatly expanded on Primal Dolphin. But Anglic linked the neo-dolphin to the world of cause and effect.

  Anglic was a language of compromise between the vocal abilities of two races — between the hands-and-fire world of Men and the drifting legends of the Whale Dream. Speaking it, a dolphin could equal most humans in analytic thought, consider past and future, make schemes, use tools, and fight wars.

  Some thoughtful humans wondered if giving the cetacean Anglic had really been much of a favor, after all.

  Two neo-dolphins alone together might speak Anglic for concentration, but not care if the sounds resembled English words. They would drift into frequencies beyond human hearing, and consonants would virtually disappear.

  Keneenk allowed this. It was the semantics that counted. If the grammar, the two-level logic, the time-orientation were Anglic, pragmatic results were all that mattered.

  When Creideiki took Hikahi's report, he purposely spoke a very relaxed form of fin-Anglic. By example he wanted to say that what went on here was private.

  He listened to her while he took the kinks out of his body, diving and racing back and forth across the exercise pool. Hikahi recited her report on the planetology meeting, enjoying the sweet smell of real air in her main lungs. Occasionally, she paused and sped alongside him for a stretch before continuing.

  Right now her words sounded nothing like human speech, but a very good voicewriter could have translated them.

  "He feels very strongly about it, Captain. In fact, Charlie suggests that we should leave a small study team here with the longboat even if Streaker tries to escape. Even Brookida is tempted by the idea. I was a bit stunned."

  Creideiki passed in front of her. He burst out a quick question.

  "And what would they do if we left them behind, and we were then captured?" He dove back underwater and sped on toward the far wall.

  "Charlie thinks he and a detached team could be declared noncombatants, and the Sudman-Sah'ot group out on the island, as well. He says there are precedents. That way, whether we get away or not, part of the mission is preserved."

  The exercise room was in Streakers centrifugal ring, ten degrees up the side of the wheel. The walls were canted and Creideiki had to watch out for shallows in the pool's port side. A cluster of balls, rings, and complex toys floated to starboard.

  Creideiki swam quickly under a cluster of balls and shot out of the water. He spun as he sailed through the air and landed on his back with a splash. He did a flip underwater, then rose up above the surface on his churning tail. Breathing heavily, he regarded Hikahi with one eye.

  "I've considered the idea already," he said. "We could leave Metz and his records, too. Getting him off our tails would be worth thirty herring and an anchovy dessert."

  He settled back down into the water. "Too bad the solution is immoral and impractical."

  Hikahi looked puzzled, trying to figure his meaning.

  Creideiki felt much better. The frustration which had built to a peak when he listened to Tom Orley's message had now abated. He could put aside, for a while, the depression he felt when he agreed to the man's plan.

  All that remained was to get the formal advice of the ship's council. He prayed they'd come up with a better idea, though he doubted they would.

  "Think," he asked his lieutenant. "Declaring noncombatants might work if we are killed or captured, but what if we escape, and draw our ET friends chasing after us?"

  Hikahi's jaw dropped open slightly — a borrowed human mannerism. "Of course. I hear it. Kthsemenee is so very isolated. There are only a few routes in and out. The longboat probably couldn't make it back to civilization all alone."

  "Which would mean?"

  "They would become castaways, on a deadly planet, with minimal medical facilities. Forgive my lack of foresight."

  She turned slightly, presenting her left ventral fin. It was a civilized version of an ancient gesture of submission, such as a human student's sheepish bowed head to his teacher.

  With luck, Hikahi would someday command ships greater than Streaker by orders of magnitude. The captain and teacher within him was pleased with her combination of modesty and cleverness. But another part of him had more immediate goals for her.

  "Well, we'll take their idea under advisement. In case we have to adopt the plan quickly, see to stocking the longboat.

  "But put a guard on it, too."

  They both knew that it was a bad sign, when security precautions had to be taken within, as well as without.

  A brightly striped rubber ring floated past them. Creideiki felt an urge to chase it… as he wanted to push Hikahi into a corner and nuzzle her until… He shook himself.

  "As for further tectonic research," he said. "That's out of the question. Gillian Baskin has left for your island, to take supplies to Thomas Orley and to help Dennie Sudman study the aboriginals. When she returns, she can bring back rock samples for Charlie. That'll have to satisfy him.

  "The rest of us will be very busy as soon as Suessi gets back here with those spare parts."

  "Suessi's sure he found what we need at the wreck?"

  "Fairly certain."

  "This new plan means we'll have to move Streaker. Turning on our engines may give us away. But I guess there's no choice. I'll get started on a plan to move the ship."

  Creideiki realized that this was getting him nowhere. A few hours remained, at most, until Suessi arrived, and here he was talking to Hikahi in Anglic… forcing her by example to think rigidly and carefully! No wonder he was getting no hint, no body language, no suggestion that an advance might be welcomed or rejected.

  He answered her in Trinary.

  * We'll only move her -

  Below water

  * To t
he crashed ship -

  Empty, waiting

  * Soon, while battles -

  Still wrack the blackness

  * Filling space -

  With squid-like racket

  * At a time when -

  Orley, Net-bane,

  * Far away, does

  Make

  Distraction

  * Far away, does

  Truth

  Decipher

  * Drawing sharks -

  To make us safer *

  Hikahi stared at him. This was the first time she had heard about that part of Orley's plan. Like many of the females aboard, Hikahi had a platonic passion for Thomas Orley.

  I should have broken the news more gently, or, better yet, waited until later!

  Her eyes blinked, once, twice, then closed. She sank slowly, and from her forehead melon came a faint keening.

  Creideiki envied humans their enfolding arms. He dropped alongside her to touch her with the tip of his bottle-shaped rostrum.

  * Do not grieve for -

  Strong-eyed flyer

  * Orley's song shall -

  By whales be sung

  Hikahi replied sadly.

  * I, Hikahi -

  Honor Orley

  * Honor captain -

  Honor crewmates

  * Deeds are done, still -

  For one I suffer -

  For Jill Baskin -

  Dear Life-Cleaner

  * For her loss -

  And body sorrow *

  Shamed, Creideiki felt an enclosing shroud of melancholy fall around him. He shut his own eyes and the waters echoed back to him a shared sadness.

  For a long time they lay side by side, rising to breathe, then settling once more below.

  Creideiki's thoughts were far away when he finally felt Hikahi drift away. But then she was back, rubbing gently against his side, and then nibbling tenderly with sharp, small teeth.

  Almost against his will, at first, Creideiki felt his enthusiasm begin to return. He rolled over to his side and let out a long sigh of bubbles as her nuzzling became more provocative.