Infinity's Shore (92 page)

Gillian Baskin knelt on the quay nearby, her raincoat glistening. Distant lightning flashes periodically lit up the bay, revealing that the
Hikahi
had already closed her clamshell doors, preparing to depart.

“Besides,” Gillian added. “You are our chief pilot. Who could be as well qualified?”

Gratifying words, but in fact
Streaker used
to have a better pilot, by far.

“Keepiru ought to've stayed with the crew, back on Kithrup-p. I should have been the one who went on the skiff with Creideiki.”

The woman shrugged. “Things happen, Kaa. I have confidence in your ability to get us off this world in one piece.”

And after that?
He chuttered a doubt-filled raspberry. Everyone knew this would be little more than a suicide venture. The odds had also seemed bad on Kithrup, but at least there the eatee battle fleets chasing
Streaker
had been distracted, battling each other. Fleeing through that maelstrom of combat and confusion, it proved possible to fool their pursuers by wearing a disguise—the hollowed-out shell of a Thennanin dreadnought. All that ploy took was lots of skill … and
luck.

Here in Jijo space there was no sheltering complexity. No concealing jumble of warfare to sneak through. Just
one pursuer—giant and deadly—sought one bedraggled prey.

For the moment,
Streaker
was safe in Jijo's sea, but what chance would she have once she tried to leave?

“You don't have to worry about Peepoe,” Gillian said, reading the heart of his reluctance. “Makanee has some solid fins with her. Many are Peepoe's friends. They'll scan relentlessly till they find Zhaki and Mopol, and make them let her go.

“Anyway,” the blond woman went on, “isn't Peepoe better off here? Won't you use your skill to keep her safe?”

Kaa eyed Gillian's silhouette, knowing the Terragens agent would use any means to get the job done. If that meant appealing to Kaa's sense of honor … or even chivalry … Gillian Baskin was not too proud.

“Then you admit it-t,” he said.

“Admit what?”

“That we're heading out as bait, nothing elsssse. Our aim is to sacrifice ourselves.”

The human on the quay was silent for several seconds, then lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

“It seems worthwhile, don't you think?”

Kaa pondered. At least she was being honest—a decent way for a captain to behave with her pilot.

A whole world, seven or eight sapient races, some near extinction, and a unique culture. Can you see giving up your life for all that?

“I guesss so,” he murmured, after a pause.

Gillian had won. Kaa would abandon his heart on Jijo, and fly out to meet death with open eyes.

Then he recalled.
She
had made exactly the same choice, long ago. A decision that still must haunt her sleep, though it could have gone no other way.

Yet it surprised Kaa when Gillian slipped off the stone quay, entering the water next to him, and threw her arms around his head. Shivers followed her hands as she stroked him gratefully.

“You make me proud,” she said. “The crew will be glad, and not
just
because we have the best pilot in this whole galaxy.”

Kaa's flustered confusion expressed itself in a sonar interrogative,
casting puzzled echoes through the colonnade of a nearby pier. Gillian wove her Trinary reply through that filtered reverberation, binding his perplexity, braiding a sound fabric whose texture seemed almost like a melody.

Rety

T
HE DOLPHIN ENGINEER SHOUTED AT HER FROM the airlock of the salvaged dross ship.

“C-come on, Rety! We gotta leave now, t-to make the rendezvous!”

Chuchki had reason to be agitated. His walker unit whined and jittered, reacting to nervous signals sent down his neural tap. It was cramped in the airlock, which also held the speed sled to carry them from this ghost ship back to
Streaker.
Providing all went according to plan.

Only I ain't part of the plan anymore
, Rety thought.

Stepping in front of Chuchki, with the sill of the hatch between them, she removed the tunic they had given her, as an honorary member of the crew. At first the gesture had pleased Rety—till she saw the Terrans were just another band of losers.

Rety tossed the garment in the airlock.

“Tell Dr. Baskin an' the others thanks, but I'll be makin' my own way from here on. Good luck. Now scram.”

Chuchki stared at first, unable to move or speak. Then servos whirred. The walker started to move.

“Hit the button, yee!” Rety shouted over her left shoulder.

Back in the control room, her little “husband” pressed a lever triggering the airlock's emergency cycle. The inner hatch slid shut, severing Chuchki's wail of protest. Soon, a
row of purple lights showed the small chamber filling with water as the outer door opened.

A few duras later, she heard engine noise—the now-familiar growl of the speed sled that had brought the two of them here—ebbing with distance as the machine fled. She ordered the outer door closed and locked against the possibility that Chuchki might try something “heroic.” Some still thought of her as a child, and many dolphins also had a mystical attachment to their human patrons.

But I'll be just fine. A lot better off than those fools, in fact.

Several low, squat hallways led away from the lock, but only one was lit by a string of glow bulbs. Following this trail, she made her way back toward the control room, sometimes lingering to stroke a panel or gaze into a chamber filled with mysterious machines. For the last few days she had looked over this salvaged starship—once a Buyur packet boat, according to Chuchki. Though a mess, it was one of the “best” recovered derelicts, capable of life support as well as full engine maneuvering, owing its remarkable state to the Midden's chill, sterile waters. Durable Galactic machines might lie there unchanged forever, or until Jijo sucked them underground.

It's mine now
, she mused, surveying her prize.
I've got my own starship.

Of course it was still a hunk of dross. All odds were against her getting anywhere in this moving scrap pile.

But the odds always had been against her, ever since she was born into that filthy tribe of savages, so proud of their sickly ignorance. And especially since she realized she'd rather be whipped for speaking up than be a slave to some bully with rotting teeth and the mind of a beast.

Rety had suffered some disappointments lately. But now she saw what each of the setbacks had in common. They all came about because of trusting others—first the sages of the Commons, then the Rothens, and finally a ragtag band of helpless Earthlings.

But all that was in the past. Now she was back doing what she did best—relying on herself.

The control room spanned roughly thirty paces in width, featuring about a dozen wide instrument consoles. All
were dark, except one jury-rigged station festooned with cables and makeshift bypass connections. Lights blazed across that panel. On the floor nearby, a portable holosim display revealed a staticky map of the ancient vessel's surroundings, a dart-shaped glow threading its way through a maze of ridges at the bottom of the great ocean.

Most of the decoy ships cruised with simple autopilots, but a few moved more flexibly, crewed by volunteer teams, making adjustments to the swarm pattern planned by the Niss Machine. In this effort, Rety's intelligence and agile hands had been helpful to Chuchki, making up for her lack of education. She felt justified in having earned her starship.

“
hi captain!
”

Her sole companion pranced on the instrument console, each footstep barely missing a glowing lever or switch. The little urrish male greeted her with a shrill ululation.

“we did it! like pirates of the plains! like in legends of the battle aunties! now we free no more noor beasts no more yuckity ship full of water-loving fish!”

Rety laughed. Whenever loneliness beckoned, there was always yee to cheer her up.

“so where to now, captain?” the diminutive creature asked. “shake free of Jijo? head someplace good and sunny, for a change?”

She nodded.

“That's the idea. Only we gotta be patient a little while longer.”

First
Streaker
must collect Chuchki and other scattered workers. Rety had an impression that the Earthlings were waiting for events to happen onshore. But after hearing the Jophur ultimatum she knew—Gillian Baskin would soon be forced to act.

I helped them
, she rationalized.
An' I won't interfere with their plan … much.

But in the long run, none o' that'll matter. Everybody knows they're gonna get roasted when they try to get away Or else the Jophur'll catch 'em, like a ligger snatchin' up a gallaiter faun.

Nobody can blame me for tryin' to find my own way out of a trap like that.

And if someone
did
cast blame her way?

Rety laughed at the thought.

In that case, they can try to outfart a traeki, for all I care. This ship is mine, and there's nothin' anybody can do about it!

She was getting away from Jijo—one way or another.

Dwer

T
HE NIGHT SKY CRACKLED.

At random intervals his hair abruptly stood on end.

Static electricity snapped the balloon's canopy with a basso boom, while pale blue glows moved up and down the rope cables, dancing like frantic imps. Once, a flickering ball of greenish white followed him across the sky for more than a midura, mimicking each rise, fall, or sway in the wind. He could not tell if it was an arrowflight away, or several leagues. The specter only vanished when a rain squall passed between, but Dwer kept checking nervously, in case it returned.