Infinity's Shore (59 page)

The two seemed to find nothing odd about chatting with Alvin and Huck, though, as if wheeled beings and Anglicspeaking hoons were as common as froth on a wave. Common enough for Rety and Huck to bicker like siblings.

“Sure I led Kunn out this way. But only so's I could find
out where the bird machine came from!” Rety stroked a miniature urs, whose long neck coiled contentedly around her wrist. “And my plan worked, didn't it? I found you!”

Huck reacted with a rolling twist of all four eyestalks, a clear expression of doubt and disdain. “Yes, though it meant revealing the Earthship's position, enabling your
Danik
pilot to target its site from the air.”

“So? What's yer point?”

From the door, Tsh't saw the male human glance at the big adolescent hoon. Dwer and Alvin had just met, but they exchanged commiserating grins. Perhaps they would compare notes later, how each managed life with such a “dynamic” companion.

Tsh't found all the varied voices too complicated.
It feels like a menagerie aboard this tub.

The argument raged on while Tsh't exited the bridge. Perhaps recordings would prove useful when Gillian and the Niss computer analyzed every word. Preparations were also under way to interrogate the Jophur survivors using techniques found in the Thennanin Library cube—sophisticated data from a clan that had been fighting Jophur since before Solomon built his temple.

Tsh't approved … so far.

But Gillian will also want to question Kunn. And she knows her own kind too well to be fooled.

The
Hikahi
was a makeshift vessel, built out of parts salvaged from ancient hulks lining the bottom of the Rift. Tsh't passed down corridors of varied substance, linked by coarsely welded plates, until she reached the cell where two human prisoners were held. Unfortunately, the guard on duty turned out to be Karkaett, a disciple of former Captain Creideiki's
keeneenk
mental training program. Tsh't couldn't hope to send Karkaett off on some errand and have him simply forget. Any slip in regulations would be remembered.

“The doughnuts are sedated,” the guard reported. “Also, we z-zapped the damaged Rothen battle drone and put it in a freezer. Hannes and I can check its memory store later.”

“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

M
OPOL'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.

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.

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.

Lark