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It was a
fine voyage until the sea-monsters appeared.

The misty predawn run to the north of Avelar Island started simply enough. Captain Orvan conned the
Eliset
through the foggy morning water of the straits, leaving behind a wake of green phosphorescence in the plankton-rich sea. The big cargo freighter plowed through the mild chop, then turned northward with the current. As the sun rose through orange- and green-washed clouds, the ship cut across a gentle easterly and followed the homing signal of a nav beacon toward Gambru Shelf.

The freighter ran heavy with her mixed cargo of machined parts, drums of sealant, tanks of processed oxygen. The
Eliset
was no racehorse, like the speedy but cargo-light hydroplanes that carried passengers and small goods on this run. She worked her way steadily through the buoyant waters of R'debh, in the traditional way that seagoing vessels have for countless millennia.

The attack came two hours out from Gambru Shelf, over the deep submerged canyons that channeled the warm-water current along this route. The sun was just high enough in the east to blind the Captain in the deckhouse. He turned his head from the green-yellow rays. The helmsman, eyes forward, squinted one eye half shut and never glanced to that side. Only Feron, the Mate, fetching another cup of osk from the dispenser, glimpsed something out of the ordinary through the sun-streaked glass. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes against the glare, then dropped her mug crashing to the floor.

"Helm hard a-port!" she shouted over her shoulder. "Helm hard a-port!"

The helmsman's trained reflexes obeyed the command before the Captain could question it. The yoke grip spun to the left, and the
Eliset
wallowed with reluctant inertia as rudders and repulsors nudged her downwind.

Orvan jumped from the Captain's chair. "What is it?"

Feron shook her head, mouth agape, and simply pointed.

To starboard, now toward the aft quarter as the ship slowly turned, three large shapes could be seen heading directly toward the
Eliset.
Only portions of them surmounted the waves, enough to show broad, flattened heads and bodies of a stunning length, each easily as long as the freighter. They moved so powerfully their wakes were clearly visible. They were less than 100 meters away and closing rapidly.

Captain Orvan stood paralyzed in amazement and disbelief. The oceans of R'debh harbored no large life-forms. What they were seeing was impossible.

The impossible was upon them in a moment. Before the ship could turn fully away, the alien creatures crashed mightily into the side of the freighter. Striking close together, nearly in unison, the tremendous power of their impact stove in the plating and spun metal alloy of the ship's side. Crew throughout the ship were thrown to the deck as the
Eliset
lurched noticeably sideways. Compartments began to flood below the waterline, and bulkheads jarred out of alignment failed to seal.

The creatures circled about to ram again.

The
Eliset
sank after the second attack, barely leaving time for one lifeboat to be launched. The few bedraggled crew who clung aboard choked out whispered prayers when the monstrous sea-beasts neared their boat. Then the creatures moved away and slipped beneath the waves.

"By the Sea Father," one sailor breathed. "What are they?"

No one had an answer.

Out of sight, many meters below the surface, the water-breather Edesz and his companions laughed in celebration of their success. Silver bubbles burst free from their mouths and floated toward the surface.

"Not so hard after all, was it?" body-signed Frevin.

"They're even stronger than we thought," Edesz concurred, signing back.

Overhead and to one side a single small oblong marred the light-refracting wavetops. Edesz looked toward the sole lifeboat that drifted on the surface, and gave an elaborate shrug.

"The loss of life, more than just the shipping, will drive our point home," he remarked.

Nela signed agreement, the gill slits on her neck flaring in excitement. "For independence," she said.

"For independence," the others echoed. Independence from surface traders and air-breathing industry magnates. Independence, so that water-breathers could come into their own on the planet they dominated in population.

It was an offensive that was long overdue, and the means of their liberation was approaching now. Edesz tapped the sonic receiver, a streamlined cup attached to his left ear, and pointed toward the deep canyons. He and his friends floated at fifteen meters depth and stared downwards, still astonished by the brute size of the three cetacean-like creatures that rose to meet them.

The slab-browned leviathans were guided by their handlers. Master Swimmer Sharptooth released his beast's fin and swam closer to the humans. "Our friends wish to feed, now," he whistled and clicked into the waters. "It is necessary, to reward them for their work."

"We understand," the terrorist replied. "Let them." He glanced about through mote-filled depths and asked, "Where are the others?"

There were eight borgbeasts in all, and one handler for each. They were to rendezvous after this trial run in the busy Gambru shipping lanes.

"Feeding already," Master Sharptooth whistled in reply. "Have found a school of fish."

"Go then," Edesz signed. "We'll meet you back at the dome when you're done. Good hunting."

Master Sharptooth whistled orders to his fellows. Handlers and beasts sank back into the depths, heading toward the apaku their hungry companions had already located.

In the deep,
distant waters of the equatorial belt, in a canyon charted by satellite but never visited by man, something stirred in the dark waters. Something ghost-like and large, barely visible, sensed more than seen.

The ghost-ray beseeched sometimes as the Sea Father, subject of rumor and myth, came awake. He listened without ears, sensing on a half-materialized membrane that served him as skin the distant vibrations of sound, borne faithfully for long days through the ocean waters.

Here was a sound like none he had ever heard. Like none that should be there. For long ages none had challenged his supremacy in these waters.

The ghost-ray listened to the long drawn-out wails, the booming bass notes of alien life. Large life.

For one day, then two, sound waves washed over the creature's deep grotto. Time did not mean to the ghost-ray what it meant to humans, and thus he had infinite patience. On the third day the sound changed, bearing with it not only the alien whistles, but a clamor and cry of distress wafted like pheromones upon the current.

The Sea Father could not feel a sense of threat from physical things that could not touch him. An alien presence alone was not enough to make him emerge from his lair. The scent of distress, though, close-tied to those clicks and wails, was something else. Curiosity stirred awake in the creature, and he contemplated whether or not to investigate.

Time runs differently for the phase-shifted. The ghost-ray considered.

In the human world, days passed by.

Shiran Devin entered
the Comax Shipping office without knocking. He glanced at Lish, looked unhappily around the room, and slumped frowning in a chair.

"Devin." The Holdout's recognition carried with it a note of surprise. When he failed to respond, the woman abandoned her desk and came around to take a neighboring chair.

Her clanmate looked much the worse for wear, ground down nearly to the comportment of a common spacer. "Did they get rough with you?" she asked.

"Only the usual Bug tactics," he replied. "Tell the same story five times, then three more on truth juice."

Lish's lips thinned into a tight line.

"Don't worry, Domna." The Captain used the honorific with bitterness. "I didn't tell them anything. I didn't really know anything to tell, now, did I? You were pretty careful about that."

"Oh, Devin," Lish began. "It's not like you think—"

"Save it for Obray. We're both Shirani. Clanmates; once shipmates. I didn't think you'd set me up."

Lish turned from the accusation in his eyes.

"Tell me this: was your offer to do business with me legitimate, or was that part of the lure, too?"

The silence stretched between them before she spoke. "If you really want to know what's going on, I'll tell you. If you only want an excuse to recriminate, you can leave."

Devin spoke tiredly. "I'm not leaving. I acted in good faith, and it got me into a pile of shit with the authorities. I never heard of this Karuu fellow before he hired me, and it nearly lost me my pilot's license. I covered for you and I don't even know what for. I think you owe me an explanation."

The Holdout considered his demand. "You're not going to like it."

Devin's lips turned down. "I already don't. At least I'll understand it if you talk."

She sighed, carelines deepening around eyes and mouth. "I admit I sort of used you, Devin," she regarded him seriously, "but that's not what I started out to do. I really am looking for a shipping partner, like I offered. I saw your name on the for-hire roster on the Net, and I remembered you'd gone independent, too."

Devin waved a hand dismissively. The fact that he still did not own his own ship rankled. Stupidly, it was the prospect of gaining a ship of his own that had lured him to Selmun III.

"I was also working a little sleight of hand with ship records," she continued. "Karuu made it to the top by setting up and taking down smaller Holdouts along the way. I think I was next. So when I had a really big run coming in, I wanted some insurance, so he couldn't finger me and grab my cargo. That's his pattern."

Understanding began to dawn on the ship's Captain. "By Juro's brass balls. And you hired me to pilot that mess for you." Anger flared in Devin's blue eyes. "Thanks a lot, shipmate."

"Devin, look. It was my chance to make a fortune. Millions. Really."

He ignored the stress in her voice. "On borgbeasts? The same happy swimmers that are starting to sink ocean shipping?"

Lish blinked, surprised.

"On the news this morning. One ship down, and credit taken by some group called the Gambru League. Security put out a flash, warning seafarers about alien life-forms in Selmun III waters. Sounds like they sat on the knowledge a little too long to do those sailors any good."

Lish's brow creased.

"What?" demanded Devin. "Nothing to say? No explanation? Innocent people killed because of what you smuggled onplanet, Lish. How can you do work like this?"

"You know there's not much logic to import laws. There's demand. I supply. That's all." She frowned. "It's not like you refused to move the cargo. I figured that 'quick and discreet' clause would warn you off if you weren't interested."

Devin sat silent. She was right about that much. Like most cargo spacers, Devin supplied demand, and didn't always think far past that criterion himself.

"I hope all this was worth your while." He motioned vaguely over his shoulder with his thumb, toward the street where hired Skiffjammers patrolled Lairdome 7. "Looks like you've bought a lot of trouble."

A shadow passed over the Holdout's face. "If you can't help me out, Devin, I'm probably not buying a whole lot of anything."

"What does that mean?"

She told him, then, of the payment arrangements for the borg-beasts, and how she could no longer collect. "I'm overextended," she concluded grimly, "and time's running out."

Devin cocked his head and studied his kinswoman. This was not the optimistic, ambitious Lish he remembered. Her trouble was big, alright, for it to weigh on her so. Old habits of concern for one's clanmate came to the fore, and his tone softened. "How overextended is that?" he asked.

"A couple million," she said softly.

His eyes widened. Scratch helping her out of his personal savings.

"Millions?" he breathed.

"Loans from the Scripman, due in a month. Well—six weeks now, that's all that's left." She referred not to a Selmun month, but to the bureaucratic standard set by Imperial fiat. Intentionally blind to any planet's natural cycle, calendar increments of twenty-five hours a day, ten days a week, ten weeks a month, made for convenient accounting across several hundred diverse sectors.

She seemed to leave something hanging. "What else?" he prompted.

"Short payment to the netrunner who finished the delivery for me," Lish conceded. "He's a dangerous one to shortchange. There's not much cash left, either. I've got enough to pay the derevin another two weeks. After that, my protection's gone." She gave a sick laugh. "I may not be alive for the Scripman to kill for his money when it comes due."

"What about your smuggling runs?" he asked. "The hot drops?"

"No one's getting through to do ocean drops these days. Security's too tight right now, unless ..." The Holdout spoke again, tentatively. "I don't suppose you'd want to do some runs for me...?"

"Runs?"

"Offplanet, onplanet. You're a great pilot, Devin, better than the others who work for me. You could beat system patrols." She warmed to the topic. "If I move cargo, I might be able to pay off some of this debt, buy some time—"